Document holder

Seen a wooden engraved tube with brass ends marked carriage works 1938. Seems to be a document holder. Any ideas.

 

Probably a tube to hold working drawings of a carriage or parts of a carriage.
In the days before photocopying or printers, a drawing would be completed on doped linen by a skilled and time served draughtsman and this kept safe in a plans chest or tube. Each drawing was given a number and this recorded in a drawings gazetteer so that a drawing could be easily and quickly retrieved if needed.
This would be kept as a master and any subsequent drawings needed, traced from this by Tracers (usually apprentices or women).
Later on "Dyeline" technology was developed whereby UV light was passed through the original drawing onto light sensitive copy paper. This copy was then "developed" by being exposed to ammonia, the areas where light was unable to pass through the original drawing (lines) turning black.
Now of course everything is produced on computer and printed off as needed.
When I carried out work placement at the research centre in Derby in 1983, Graphics computers were just starting to be phased in. The cost was such that only one or two draughtspersons were qualified to use the computer because of the cost of running said machines.
In 1989 I worked for a steel company and we still used Dyeline machines every day. If you had told draughtspersons then that computers would be able to draw 3D images, rotate, invert etc. and indeed print in 3D to produce prototypes you would have been laughed at.

 

Should have asked what length is the tube? That would give some clues.

 

Any chance you can post a picky?

 

As part of my Electrical Engineering apprenticeship with the National Coal Board I did my 4 weeks stint in the drawing office. I was actually allowed to design a couple of things, a replacement mine cage and a set of loco shed doors. Simple jobs but within my capabilities having studied engineering drawing to O level standard.

Our process was slightly different. The draughtsmen (this was 70s so pre PC) worked on paper as it was readily corrected. The final paper copy was then passed to the tracers, yes they were all women, who used indian ink to trace the drawing onto the doped linen. It was this tracing which was used as the master


They say good tools will last a lifetime. When I was 14 I purchased a high quality set of drawing instruments for my O level studies, I am still using the same instruments today.

 

In 1990 when I started on BR track renewals at Aire St in Leeds we still did relay drawings by hand on 10mm squared paper.
Using Drawing boards and T squares and scale curves etc
Once approved then they were sent upstairs to be copied on the dyeline printer or if the porters were busy we took it up and printed it ourselves.
Computer design only really started in our office in about 1993.
We used to have a plan chest about 4ft square sectioned off into 3" x 3" square tubes as a Drawing store
Each 3 x 3 tube had a Numbered cover referenced to the drawing register.
Once a Track relay project was completed and everything signed back to the local Pway, then the drawings were consigned to Archive in the basement.

 

Which Area were you in then? I was North Yorkshire, based at Allerton Bywater. We only had one tracer - Mrs Peach (never known by her christian name) so only drawings that were going to be used regularly were traced. Most drawings were done on translucent paper so could be put through the dyeline machine. UV light and ammonia to fix it. I hope that you did a full set of calcs for that cage!
PS, I've still got my drawing instruments from my O level Engineering Drawing days. Can't remember when I last used them, though.

 

Staffordshire Area, the HQ was at Berry Hill between Hanley and Longton. If I remember corectly there were 6 or so tracers. Mostly young women and rather attractive. One lunchtime the most attractive of them asked if I would drive her up to Hanley as she wanted to book a holiday with a travel agent and it would take longer than her allocated lunch. She was not worried about her reputation as being with me she would not get a rollicking and I was safe as apprentices were on the general books not those of the drawing office.

Both jobs required calculation of the weights from first principles. e.g. cubic volume of steel for side sheets less cubic volume of drillings x kilos per cubic meter of typical steel sheet. Mind I did cheat a little in basing my design on a similar cage at another colliery

It is a long story how this soft southerner ended up working for the NCB. I had gained my HND by 21 so became an engineering trainee at Chatterly Whitfield and Victoria collieries. I sat the mines and quarries exam at 22 and was issued with Electrical Engineers Certificate for Mines of Coal number 4447. On my 23rd birthday I was summoned to the managers office at CW. He wished me happy birthday and reminded me you can take charge of a colliery at 23. I was handed a wadge of authorisations, e.g. walking a roadway with a haulage in motion, testing shot firing apparatus etc. Having signed the last one the manager said "well done, thee is on nights next week". So this soft southerner found himself in charge of 6 to 8 electricians who had been training ME.I only ever had one problem. A geordy had failed to successfuly repair a schearer stop chain two nights previously. I set the men onto various jobs and told the geordy I would come down with him to see if we could solve the problem. He retorted he was not going down to that job again. "That is the job I am detailing you to". He repeated he was not going to that job in front of the other electricians. It left me no choice than to say "you have two choices down to the district with me or down the lane." I gave him two chances to reconsider and he refused so I sent him home with a shifts pay docked. I never had any trouble after that at least not from the men.

We had a deputy engineer, my boss, who was a time served man who could not leave the tools alone. One day I was called to the face where a shearer had failed in cut on a 200yd face. I crawled up the face to see if the electrician needed a hand. He had already tested the cable so it was not that so we had to get the cover off . I was clearing dust out of the holes the bolts were recessed in when a voice came over the face phone. Dave Scott must come to the phone the deputy engineer wants him. I knew it was a cross exam of had we done this had we done that. As we were stuck in the middle of the face it meant a crawl of 100yds just to be asked silly questions. I told the chap who manned the face and surface phones to tell JW we were busy. He came back with JW insists. I forgot the face phone could be heard by all and yelled "Oh tell him b******s. The chap on the phone to the surface, who was an oldish Polish gent simply said " He says to tell you b******S and put the phone down. With a new rectifier block the shearer was up and running within 10 minutes. I expected a rollocking when I got back to the office but never got one.

 

All you've put brings back many memories. Life in the NCB was like that. Responsibility given at an early age to those that could. My MQB Mechanical Engineers Certificate is 4019, a fact proudly engraved on the brain. A proper qualification, these are, to stand in any court of law. However, all this is not Railwayana. We need a Mining Thread so we can mine some coal!

 

When I worked in drawing offices in anger as it were, draughting had progressed to drawing on draughting paper, a bit like really thick grease proof paper or an alternative was a plastic draughting film, smooth on one side and rough on the other. The advantage of these is that pencil was very easily erased and if ink was used this could be scratched of with a scalpel or abraded away using grass fibre pens. We even had "Electric" erasers which were like drills but you put a abrasive rubber cylinder in the holder switched on and let the rotating rubber do the hard bit.
Remember the erasing foil guides, French curves and yes I still have my Staedtler draughting set. Oh and remember those Rotring pens that always got clogged up.
The office resounded to the sound of people shaking theirs to get ink flowing and then swearing as ink flew everywhere!!!!!

In W H Smiths at the moment is one of those occasional magazines that comes out. Called "King Coal" I think, a very good read and a must for anyone with a passing interest in the coal industry.
Interesting fact that it is estimated that there is over 1.2 billion tonnes of coal still under Britain and we import the stuff.
Please don't talk to me about economics of imported vs home mined coal when I see so many communities devastated by the closure of their mine in the name of "Economics" as I drive around the country.