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The Rail industry still seems to be stuck firmly in the past
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11. The accident on 23 February occurred near Grayrigg at the
crossover known as Lambrigg on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) -
between Oxenholme and Tebay, 24 miles 20 chains from Lancaster. The
crossover is locally operated by a ground frame, driven by point
motors. The ground frame can only be operated by a person on site once
its control has been released by the signaller at Carlisle Signal Box
What modern industry uses chains as a measure of distance? Haven't the
rail industry woken up to metrication?
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Have you thought that, when constructed, miles and chains were standard
measures, or that if we did convert them all to metric, we'd be talking
about 39.026592 km? - not quite as easy to measure or remember.
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Here in Spain they still use imperial measurements wherever the
developed world wants them to, ie; monitors and telly's are in inches.
Also, any distance relating to the sea or the coast is in miles. Oh, and
the weight loss programs tell you how many pounds you're going to lose.
Spain went metric in 1871, so you've got a while to go yet.
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Oh now that's just perverse. In France and Belgium a pound gets you
500g, ir more often a demi-livre is used for a 250g piece of butter,
cheese, etc.
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Indeed no. The names of many units are mostly of latin origin, as are
many of the measures themselves.
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Channel 4 news this evening was pretty tough going (as in sad) I
thought.
Just how do you record a visual inspection was carried out correctly?
Andrew j
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Does it matter or is it simply a way for the ignorant to criticise that
they know nothing about?
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See my comment about mixing units
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185/55-17. That's about as mixed as you can get.
Should I be proud that I remembered a chain is a tenth of a furlong?
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Only if you remembered how many square chains in an acre (tho' the
derivations easy enough as any fule no there's 640 acres in a square mile).
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And isn't a system using chains, cables, furlongs, fathoms etc FAR more
interesting than meteres and parts thereof?
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Just think, if the inch had been defined as 2.54545454... cm rather
than 2.54 (exactly) the furlong-per-fortnight would be 1 cm/min (exactly).
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and it would appear you need to learn something regarding correct
formatting for a sig separator as well.
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My industry uses a strange mix of imperial and metric, for instance,
I'll have to order 15 metres of 3/8" copper tube with sufficient 2
metre lengths of 3/8" wall lagging to suit.
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It's the same on the continent. Although domestic piping diameter is
quoted as 12mm or 14mm, fittings are invariably marked as 1/2".
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Last time I did some plumbing I had the choice (in copper pipe) of 15,
18 or 22mm. It turned out most of the plumbing around here uses 18mm for
cold water. Of course I didn't know any of this until after I'd cut the
old pipes out and bought loads of 15mm pipe and fittings. Assumptions -
terrible things. Reducers however, are good things.
Plastic piping of course, is measured in inches (pulgadas).
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Pint of beer?
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What's modern about the drinking public
What's worse is that the same report mixes old imperial units and
metric measures, This is a recipe for the accidents that they are
telling the public they are trying to prevent.
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Don't be a dick. If anything's clear from the information so far released,
it's that the crash wasn't caused by some unfortunate becoming confused
about how far it was from the signal box.
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That's very true - but I think an industry that thinks Miles and
Chains is an appropriate measurement system isn't trying to mend it's
ways just repeating it's past failures. God knows it's had enough of
our money chucked at it over the last few years in an attempt to turn
it into something useful.
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How can the use of imperial measurements be called a past failure?
If I were you I'd be more worried about the mixture of metric and
imperial systems on the rolling stock.
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Aviation measures altitude in feet, speed in knots, fuel in pounds, litres,
US or Imperial gallons, distance in miles, separation from cloud in
kilometres and crash risk in ragheads.
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An industry that began a century and a half ago. For the same reason,
aviation uses feet and pounds, shipping and aviation use nautical
miles and knots and oil uses barrels.
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I thought that was because it's a minute of latitude so useful for
nav?
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Doesn't explain why you would still use knots for speed.
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You don't. You use knots for rope.
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It remains a convenient measure, not least because for much of the
earth's surface, the approximation that 1 nM = 1 degree of arc is not
too far off, so it's easier to roughly judge distances on a chart.
When I learnt (marine) navigation, we had to do it all long-hand,
working through some horrendously complication 3-d trig calculations,
all done from tables. These calculations are based on the degree of
arc (corrected for latitude) and so come out with nM by default, as it
were. To use Km, Statute miles or any other measure would need an
additional factor to be applied.
So basically, it ain't broke...
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Hardly *that* useful, as the distance gets smaller as you near the
poles.
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Guess again.
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"The nautical mile was historically defined as a minute of arc along a
meridian of the Earth. It can therefore be used for approximate
measures on a meridian as change of latitude on a nautical chart.
According to WGS84, radius of curvature in a meridian plane is 6 356
752.3 metres at the poles and 6 378 137 metres at the Equator. By the
definition of geodetic latitude, length of the minute of arc depends
on the radius of curvature; distance to the angle (1 minute, in this
case), not to the Earth's centre. This length equals to approx.
1849.12 metres at the poles and 1855.34 metres at the Equator."
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As I recall from my studies, aviation in much of the world seems
to use kg, litres and metres, except perhaps in the USA and
apparently in the UK.
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The world uses feet: one `flight level' is one hundred feet.
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Ah. I didn't realize that. The documents I've
read were in metric. Looking at the flight training
guides in Canada though, it's all in feet and knots.
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I teach in kilograms, metres and knots. Students have to know how to
convert knots to metres per second. When they come to design an
aircraft, they have to work in feet for altitude, gallons for fuel
cost and pounds for fuel weight. I usually also set a couple of
exercises in using old NASA data and converting slug pounds per
fortnight to decent units.
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Ooo Slugs, now there is a unit of measure not seem often these days.
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Not quite in the same league was the VAX/VMS sysgen unit the
uFortnight (about 1.2 seconds)
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I'll raise you lakhs and crores (x-posted to the Sheddi, as they have
some odd measurements there).
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No wonder rockets and planes keep crashing or blowing up
due to conversion mistakes if they have to work with such
archaic, incomprehensible units!
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I don't use them myself, but students should know such things exist
and what to do if they see one.
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Which causes interesting mishaps in Canada when units are mixed
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Do you rant about horse racing taking place over furlongs?
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Or still being able to bet in guineas?
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