please empty your brain below
You need to be careful referring to things which aren't Portakabins as Portakabins (particularly if you're calling them ugly) lest their legal department get shirty with you.

martin | 04.07.23 - 7:10 a.m. | #

Coincidentally, the level crossing across the High Street in the city of Lincoln was also made pedestrians-only a few years ago. This is a rather busier crossing (eight passenger trains and several freight trains an hour, and hundreds of pedestrians).

Before pedestrianisation it was the main A15 road, as well as carrying at least a dozen bus routes.

timbo | 04.07.23 - 7:20 a.m. | #

Don’t forget to press like and subscribe!

Dan | 04.07.23 - 7:27 a.m. | #

For anyone who wanted to experience going through the crossing in a car, there some Google Street View from 2012.

Chris | 04.07.23 - 7:30 a.m. | #

Smart semis?!

Closing that drive-through has made that area a rat-run should an unwary car nose down the narrow streets thronged with parked cars either side. God forbid you meet a bus as then those reversing skills will be put to the test!

Jayne | 04.07.23 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Free trial at Knobtretch signed up for! Cheers DG!

Tom | 04.07.23 - 7:46 a.m. | #

Railtrack could close the crossing because it was only a right of way for pedestrians, vehicle access was permissive. The crossing keeper's hours are still those that were the times the crossing was open for vehicles - the crossing keeper had a bigger job then, swinging the road gates after he'd opened the footgates.

Also this is right outside my house...

Steve | 04.07.23 - 8:05 a.m. | #

I do hope YouTubers have the ability to chop out the advert bits of their videos after a certain amount of time - as while the core piece may well remain of interest to future rail geeks, the rather jarring inline 'sponsors' are likely to be long gone.

David | 04.07.23 - 9:14 a.m. | #

There's actually at least 9 public footpath level crossings in London as the Southall to Brentford freight line has 2, rather than just the one shown on the map. Admittedly they are only about 300m apart but that should still count as 2, hence bringing the total to at least 9.

Akenners | 04.07.23 - 9:18 a.m. | #

The Warren Farm crossing on that freight line is officially a private level crossing (officially).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.07.23 - 9:25 a.m. | #

Annoyingly I took out a Knobtrench subscription last week and missed out on the 15%.

Scott | Homepage | 04.07.23 - 9:32 a.m. | #

A great piece of classic quirky bloggery - the whopping advert went right over my head, so was ignored. I would just suggest a hyphen for "old-school" though, to avoid visions of incessant pupil crocodiles streaming across the line.

cau1khead | 04.07.23 - 9:51 a.m. | #

Interesting, never knew the Warren Farm crossing was private,there's no signage there to suggest that it is private, so essentially the locals and their dogs use it as any old footpath crossing

Akenners | 04.07.23 - 9:57 a.m. | #

There's a slightly more modern variant on this in Wareham, with everything controlled from a hut, pedestrian traffic lights and gates with electrically operated locks. In that instance the crossing can only be used during (quite long thanks to much local pressure) staffed hours.

It's interesting how there's a very different view of pedestrian safety for busy roads; only motorways have a consistent approach with no level crossings.

Andrew S | 04.07.23 - 10:43 a.m. | #

As always you'd like to thank your donors on Ko-fi and Patreon and here on youtube. We are the knob to your trench and you'll see us all again soon. Cheerio.

daveid76 | 04.07.23 - 10:55 a.m. | #

I don't want my cookies split into separate packets, they are much easier to eat if they are all in one packet.

greatkingrat | 04.07.23 - 11:01 a.m. | #

So many people are taking out Knobtrench subscriptions the site has crashed and won't load for me! Hope I don't miss out on being one of the lucky 100!

TomH | 04.07.23 - 11:49 a.m. | #

May I suggest that the sitter in the hut may sometimes be female?

Malcolm of Kent | 04.07.23 - 12:02 p.m. | #

My first thought: "gis a job" .. I could happily do that all day
A subsequent thought: uncertain of the specific target of your sledgehammer satire, but can think of many examples.

Frank F | 04.07.23 - 12:34 p.m. | #

I think YouTube removed the ability of creators to re-edit and re-upload videos without losing all the existing views a while ago.

The sponsors go through in waves, it was gold - at the moment it's powdered vegetables.

Still Anon | 04.07.23 - 1:45 p.m. | #

You can suggest it Malcolm but they're not.

Orange Staffer | 04.07.23 - 2:05 p.m. | #

This reminded me of the novel "There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job" by Kikuko Tsumura. One of the jobs in the book also involves a lot of time spent sitting in a hut.

Alan | 04.07.23 - 2:06 p.m. | #

For some reason, my November 2011 photos of Lincoln Road Level Crossing have all had 40+ viewings on Flickr today - and it is still only 3pm.

Julian | 04.07.23 - 2:53 p.m. | #

Wow, in 5 paragraphs I'm being taken back to nostalgic level crossings and levered gates and in the next some tech company with dodgy graphics is spouting modern-day gobbledy-gook at me!

I need a sit down - preferably in a nice quiet portacabin, with an endless supply of novels!

Cornish Cockney | 04.07.23 - 2:54 p.m. | #

Perfect ad creation: scary — a dangerous and previously unsuspected threat to daily life; solvable — a gizmo so incomprehensible it must work; urgent — a time-limited, irresistible, financial benefit. Copywriter in a previous life, dg, or just the target of too much marketing bumph?

Labourer | 04.07.23 - 6:49 p.m. | #

I've walked down that road many times and as its a reasonably busy area, i am always slightly cautious crossing the line, even though the risk is very low given its a long straight line and the trains arent going very quickly as they approach / leave the end station.

I've never seen the man in the hut - must be because a train wasnt coming at the right times, though i wonder if the normal occupant is off, whether they call up a replacement.

Matt | 04.07.23 - 7:07 p.m. | #

I enjoyed that. Further enhanced by the comments too

Feeling kind of sorry for the man or men who has to close the gates 4 times an hour (between the hours of 6am and 6pm); it sounds like easy money but it's probably tedious and thankless equally

Entertained | 04.07.23 - 7:37 p.m. | #

There's a recent RAIB report of a near miss at Farnbrough North, where there is also a man in a hut overseeing a pedestrian only crossing. It turned out that the man in that hut didn't have all the information needed to do that safely, nor did the way the gate locked prevent people continuing to cross when they should not have done.

At para 109 of the report, it is asserted that Wareham is the only other example of such an arrangement on the national rail network. Enfield clearly wasn't on the list that somebody somewhere keeps of such things.

Marek | 05.07.23 - 1:13 a.m. | #











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