please empty your brain below

I think I can guess what the answer to that question will be...
DG i'm disappointed in you. You have committed the cardinal spelling/typing error I see all the time in the Civil service. Exactly what is a project manger? I know most PMs are so young they need cribs but really!

dg writes: That's the third error I've had pointed out this morning. The Major would never have taken me on.
Was one of them 'electro-magnetic' for 'electro-pneumatic' in the Major's report?

dg writes: No, that's a fourth error, thanks.

But fabulous post, I could read this sort of thing every day :-)
Lovely post.

I am struggling to believe it is only about 400m between Mile End and Bow Rd platforms. Looking closely, bearing in mind the drawing is diagrammatic, we don't really know where the platform starter at Mile End is located.

The diagram suggests it is beyond the platform and I suspect it may be a good 300' beyond the end of the station platform at Mile End. The track is straight and there would be no overriding necessity to put it exactly at the end of the platform where (in modern parlance) you could easily get a spad.
The official distance between Mile End and Bow Road stations is 550m... but that'll be front of platform to front of platform. Add the length of a train onto the 400m in the diagram, and the totals come (fairly) close.

The total westbound distance on the signalling diagram is 1892 feet, or 577m, which is a much better match.
I guess we'll need to wait for tomorrow's instalment!
I can see myself taking a walk between Bow Road and Mile End tomorrow.
Am slightly disappointed that the plans use the standard spelling of the word 'shown', rather than the charming 'shewn', which seems to have been the morm in railway contexts at that time.
I'm glad you expanded on the Major's valediction, because I thought he was stating that he too, had approved the new works!!

I guess one would expect a Major Pringle have a rather crisp manner about him! *sorry*
Am slightly disappointed Jonathan misspelled the word 'norm'
"a gentleman called Major Pringle, because that's how civil service employment worked in those days"

It was not a general (pun not intended) practice for the Civil Service to recruit from the military, but from its founding in 1840 right up until the 1960s Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate drew its personnel from the officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers. The last Chief Inspector with a military background, Major Rose, retired as recently as 1988.

Major Pringle worked on construction of railways in east Africa and India, before joining HMRI in 1900. He was appointed as head of His Majesty's Railways Inspectorate in 1916, by which time he had been promoted to Colonel.
The paper seems to be in excellent condition, given that its 110-year-old material.
Can confirm that this area was resignalled in 1958. If you'd like to check it yourself, look at the signal numbers under the colour lights on the platform - they don't match anymore!
I think the oldest signalling still in use on the Underground is at Edgware Road, which was last resignalled in 1926 (some reports say it was decommissioned recently, but I understand they have jumped the gun as the press release only reported the replacement as having been given the go-ahead)

The 1926 resignalling by the Metropolitan Railway was designed to accommodate a new relief line between Kilburn and Edgware road, and the platform destination displays were thus made capable of displaying exotic destinations like Watford and Quainton Road. [a photo I found on Wikipedia]

Once the Met and LER were both incorporated into London Transport, a less ambitious relief plan was formulated, using the Bakerloo Line and missing out Edgware Road altogether.
Great to know that my local signalling is only 59 years old and not 111, thanks.
Um, I suspect that is Major *J* W Pringle, formerly an officer of the Royal Engineers before he became an inspecting officer for the Board of Trade, and later Colonel Sir John Wallace Pringle, CB.

dg writes: Sorry, the Major's handwritten Js look exactly the same as his Is.
As a train lover and a mechanical drafter by vocation, thank you for the superb visual porn today. I miss the days of hand drawn plans. Precise lines and block lettering. Its a lost art.
It will not be until mid-late 2019 that Edgware Road (OP) Signal Cabin is relieved of duties.

In terms of the physical signals on the ground, engineers have found remnants of documents listing the date of manufacture for signals in Harrow-on-the-Hill area dated 1941-45.

This is certainly one of the oldest operational signals on London Underground that has been officially documented although signals at Liverpool St (Sub-surface) and Farringdon (LU) may even predate this. Signal OD2 at Liverpool St has a "S" indication dating from the days of slam door trains so may even predate Harrow's veterans.
Slam door trains still ran into the long gone bay platform at Liverpool Street for another twenty years. They were hauled by electric locomotives until displaced by A stock units in 1961/2










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