Plenty more room on top!
QUESTION Did a doubledecker train run from London to Southend in the Fifties?
Double-Decker trains did not run to Southend in the Fifties, nor at any other time, but they did run through South-east london, on the Dartford loop line.
My secondary school had a good view of this line, and one always came past at around 2.25pm every day.
However, the two double-decker trains on this line were the only ones ever built in the uk, as an attempt to increase the passenger capacity of a standard railway coach without making it any taller.
The height could not be rased as there were too many low bridges.
These trains were designed by o.V.S. bulleid, of Southern railway, an engineer known for innovation.
The class 4DD trains managed to squeeze 12 standard compartments into a normal length carriage where usually there were nine.
Six of the 12 were at platform level, the others started halfway up the coach side and fitted in between the lower compartments in zig-zag style, linked by small staircases.
They did succeed in raising capacity, but were cramped and badly ventilated and usually ran late because of the large numbers of people getting on and off and negotiating small staircases. Despite this, they ran from 1949 to 1971, and some carriages survive at heritage railways.
They could not have run to Southend, because they are powered by the Southern region’s standard 750v Dc third-rail system, whereas all Southend’s railways were steam-hauled until the early Sixties.
There were other strange trains that ran to Southend. up to World War II, trains went from ealing broadway to Southend central. An electric engine ran through the District line tunnels to barking, then a steam engine was hitched up.
because these trains were probably the only ones with toilets to run through underground tunnels, the retentive toilet had to be invented for them.
Richard Brown, Westcliff on Sea, Essex.
QUESTION At what height can you see the curvature of the Earth?
IT’S possible to see this effect from sea level as ships disappear over the horizon. To see it directly (i.e. to see the horizon as an arc, rather than a straight line) usually requires an altitude of 60,000 ft.
This question has been studied by David knight lynch, a Ph.D. in astronomy from the university of Texas.
He reported the findings of his colleague, the high-altitude physicist David Gutierrez, flying in a Martin b-57 canberra bomber assigned to the Air Weather Service.
He noted that as his plane ascended, the curvature of the horizon became obvious only at 60,000 ft.
concorde passengers at that altitude routinely marvelled at the curvature.
While not normally visible on commercial flights at 35,000ft, it may be possible, in ideal conditions, providing the field of view is wide and the atmosphere cloud-free.
A. M. Fowler, Leicester.
QUESTION What is known of Chu Chin Chow, a very long-running show in the 1900s?
FURTHER to earlier answers, as a boy, I stayed with my grandparents near Scarborough for the school holidays.
I vividly recall the colours, spectacle and music of a performance of chu chin chow on a floating stage in Peasholm Park. It was about 1949-50, after wartime austerity, and as a ten-year-old, it made a big impression on me.
The following year, my grandmother took me to Peasholm Park again, to see The Desert Song, starring a dashing John Hanson, with turban and sword.
Sadly we had to evacuate the theatre as the stage started to sink.