Here's a photo I found on the net of some typical warning notices on the entrance to an enclosed British sub-station:


There's one unusual thing about the top sign though -- You'll have to look very closely!

The unusual voltage, 414V ?

The toll free emergency number?

I agree C-H on the voltage. Maybe it was late Friday afternoon at the transformer plant and they left some turns off the secondary? ;-)

Doesn't look that unusual to me, it comes from my electricity supply region!
The emergency phone number is correct.
I noticed the 11kV/414V label on a number of substations round here, I've just assumed that the 414V was a misprint at the engravers.
Next time I get a chance I'll ask one of the engineers.
The single phase voltages I measure on a day to day basis (while loop/rcd testing) are usually just above 240V, sometimes closer to 250V & within normal tolerances.

David, you raise an interesting point. With increasingly automated, high-speed processes in our hands, (like label making) it is much easier for humans to make many more mistakes in very little time.

Paul,
Is that 0800 number a toll-free one?.
The reason I ask this, is because we use the same numbering system over here, for toll-free calls.

Yes, it was the 414V label I had in mind. Every nominal voltage label I've seen here before says 415V. If you work it out, the exact conversion is 240 * SQRT(3) = 415.69V.

I suppose that eventually we'll start seeing labels adapted to the new Euro-voltage of 230V, so I wonder whether they'll say 400V or 398V ?

Trumpy,
Yes, the 0800 code here indicates toll free. There are other toll-free codes as well, such as 0808, just as America added 888 etc. to their original 800 code.

I've seen plenty of new installations here with 230V/400V labling however, there are still installations with 220V/380V lables too.

I've even seen gear here, such as traffic light boxes with "Warning 240V" stuck on them! Obviously originally intended for the UK market and most definitely on a 220V/230V supply.

Why do some old meters in the UK say 230V?

They're all marked 220V here, other than very recent ones.

That reminds me of the temporary lights (for road works) I came upon in Ireland once. I was quite surprised when the red-&-amber phase came on instead of them just going straight from red to green like normal Irish lights, so I assume they were using British equipment.

(It was somewhere up around Leitrim or Cavan, so maybe the local repair crew decided to make a quick dash over the border to "borrow" some lights! )

They possibly date back to before the early 1970s and the standardization at a nominal 240V.

Prior to that, the actual declared nominal voltage could vary from one district to another: 220, 230, 240 and 250V were the most common, with correponding 3ph levels of 380, 400, 415, and 440V (the last is actually 433V, but was usually quoted as 440).

Some old districts in the larger towns still had 3-wire DC into the 1960s, so the voltage between "outers" would have been 440 to 500V.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-08-2003).]

Talking of perculiarities - why do British traffic [stop] lights go red,red+yellow,green? I have only come across two other places that do and I assumed they bought British equipment viz: Argentina and Iceland.

I believe that German lights have the red-&-amber phase as well, but as I've never been there I can't confirm that. France follows the normal American & Irish convention of going straight from red to green, as does Jersey in the Channel Islands (not that they have that many lights!).

I've never seen the point of the red+amber phase. Some say it acts as a "get ready to go" signal, but as it's only on for a couple of seconds why not just go straight to green? If it takes someone a couple of seconds to get into gear with a manual transmission, they'll still pull away at the same time anyway.

Other British light peculiarities (from an American perspective):

* We have green filter arrows for left and right turns at some junctions, but no amber or red arrows. When a green arrow is coming on alongside a normal red light, it just pops on (no red+amber first). Go figure...

* We don't have flashing red lights, except at rail crossings (and a few to stop traffic at fire station exits etc.).

* Lights aren't switched to flashing amber/flashing red at night as in some U.S. cities. Flashing amber is used only at pedestrian crossings. We have some traffic lights located in the middle of a straight road rather than at an intersection which are operated solely by someone pressing a button to cross the street. These don't have the red+amber phase -- Their sequence is green, amber, red, flashing amber, green. You're allowed to proceed on the flashing amber so long as the pedestrians have cleared the crossing. (Strangely enough, you're not allowed to run them over on green either.... )

* Turns on red aren't allowed anywhere. I've found many Brits who seem to find it difficult to grasp this American concept.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-09-2003).]

Ireland's traffic light system's a little different to the UK.

The sequence is Amber before Red and then straight to green.

Some pedestrian crossings have a different sequence:

Amber before red going to flashing amber for about 10-15 seconds and then green.
You may proceed if there are no pedestrians during the flashing amber phase.

Green fly lights are used like in the UK

Flashing amber fly lights (filter signals) are used quite a lot allowing you to filter out into to traffic. They have the same meaning as a Yeild (Give way) sign.

Red fly lights don't exsist.

If lights are switched off, due to a fault or perhaps during the night (happens in some places) they go into a flashing sequence.

One side will flash amber and the other will flash red.

Flashing amber = Yeild Sign
Flashing red = stop sign.

Generally if police directions are being used, e.g. after a really big match/concert they'll use flashing amber on all police directed junctions.

They've also started installing count downs on busy pedestrian crossings.
i.e. while the "red man" is on a display over the light counts down the number of seconds left before it will go green. The idea being to prevent people from dodging across as they know it's only a few seconds to green.

Dual carriage way signs around Cork anyway seem to display "Red Signal ahead" or "Signals changing" before lights change about 800m ahead of junctions. Quite useful.

As for that temp. light it's quite possible it was hired in Northern Ireland or that the contractor was from N.I. I've seen UK signs used on sites here, particularly near the boarders. It's actually quite illegal.
e.g. "Men at work 500 yards ahead" and the triangle with what looks like a man holding a really heavy umbrella

Austria has some more peculiarities. Before our lights go amber they flash green for a short period, which means "hurry up". Then they go amber, then red, then red+amber and green again. All our neighbouring countries have the red+amber as far as I know. I guess it's supposed to say "hey guys, attention, it's goona be green any second!" and I think it's useful.
Flashing amber means "no light, watch out and make sure you know what you're doing". That's either where there's no traffic light at all or when a light is switched off at night. Tramways sometimes have their own lights, simply with horizontal and vertical bars. Vertical means "Go" and horizontal is "Stop".

What type of bulbs do they use for the traffic lights? So much flashing of amber or green must spoil them much quicker. Does any body know how often they change those bulbs? And.... do the change the amber ones (and the green, in Austria) more often?

Just wondering aloud.

I've no idea concerning the types of light bulbs. I'm pretty sure newer traffic lights use LEDs.
Out-of-order tarffic lights are a pretty rare sight here so I guess the bulbs aren't that short-lived.
Traffic lights on less frequented crossings are simply switched to flashing amber after 11 or 12 PM. The Germans sometimes simply switch them off completely I think.

I always thought traffic traffic lights were pretty much maintenance free apart from changing the bulbs, but in May the maintenance people and a lot of other workers in Sweden went on strike. Pretty soon there was a number of traffic lights on flashing amber to indicate 'out of order'.

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 07-09-2003).]

Excellent description!


I much prefer the American-style yellow diamond warning signs. It seems to me that they're much more visible. (In fact I find that American road signs in general are much more logical and consistent than Britain/Europe.) Any idea how the yellow diamonds came to be used in Ireland, and since when?

(More British signs and general road rules can be seen here for anyone who's interested in this sort of thing.)

The flashing green in Austria sounds very curious -- Never heard of that one. I've seen flashing amber arrows in some French towns, and some even have an adjacent flashing pedestrian crossing sign as an extra warning to yield to pedestrians when turning.

I'm not sure what bulbs are used here, but don't many U.S. municipalities use 130V bulbs in traffic lights for longer life?

We've started getting LED-based lights in Britain in some places. I've seen a few of them on my travels, and they're really quite noticeable for the way they "snap" instantly from one light to another without the usual warm-up/cool-down of an incandescent lamp.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-09-2003).]

Some British "red circle" signs seem like they were designed by backwards morons.

To wit:

This British traffic sign is supposed to mean "NO BICYCLES"

However, I thought when I first saw it that it meant "Bike Route".

You'd think they would have gone through the extra effort of putting the RED SLASH across the bike so that it is clear to EVERYONE in the world!!!



Likewise this sign is supposed to mean "NO BUSES WITH OVER 8 PASSENGER SEATS". I thought it was a "BUS STOP" sign at first glance!!!

There's a reason why the no-smoking sign and a lot of other "NO" signs have a red slash through them. Because it's universally understood as a prohobition or restriction.

I like the design of this one better. This one is also used here in the USA:



The no U-Turn sign.

(P.S. Here in Noo Yawk, we sometimes use the slang term "U-ie" for a U-Turn. It's pronounced "youie" or "youey")

Hmm....

Should I be keeping a lookout to see if a Ford is limping around on the road?

What about a sign that also says Chevrolet or better yet....a Jaguar???



[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 07-09-2003).]

Four-wheeled+ versus two-wheeled interaction may have subtle regional variations.

Sven,

You've hit on one of the major inconsistencies of British/European signage. No left/right/U-turn signs show the symbol crossed through with a slash, but other prohibition signs don't. Crazy! Britain started adopting these Continental-style signs in the mid-1960s.

(By the way, whereas U.S. versions of no xx-turn signs are on a square white background, ours are actually circular signs.)

Oh yes... And here's the sign for a cycle route:



Clear as mud now?

In Ireland the red circle signs never mean prohibited, infact the exact opposite! If something's in a red circle it means that it's a regulatory sign and must be obeyed.. e.g. an arrow pointing left in a red circle = keep left. These are gradually being replaced by the standard European white on blue signs to prevent confusion!

Prohibited = Red circle with a line crossed through it.

No Entry (Unique to IRL as far as I know but very logical)


Straight ahead only (one way system):



Normal Yeild sign:


Here's a Yeild sign in an Irish speaking area on the west coast:


These also appear everywhere:


Our guy looks less like he's working with an umbrella:



This one is VERY obvious: (At docks/rivers/quays)

There are also special orange diamonds for Roadworks




Some more uniquely irish examples:



And our VERY confusing direction signs, found at all rural intersections and can have up to 30 finger posts pointing towards every village (classified as a place having more than one house)


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 07-10-2003).]

I thought the background to some of those signs looked familiar -- I guess we've been visiting the same websites!

I've always found the signs in Ireland quite curious: A unique mixture of British/European and American, with a few home-grown signs thrown in for good measure. (That's the way it appears to an outsider, anyway.) The keep-left sign at Irish roundabouts is one which has always struck me as odd-looking:



Have they finished changing all the direction signs to kilometers yet? Last time I was there you had to check carefully to see if a marker was in miles or km.




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-11-2003).]

Paul,

Well, no not really, all new signs post-1970s are in KM and have KM written on them. There is supposed to be a change of speed limits to KMPH at some stage too which would actually involve moving away from the standard EU circular speed limit signs to something that looks substantially different to avoid confusion between MPH and KMPH

At the moment in very rural areas you'll still find the odd sign in miles on a cast iron fingerpost sign with the old road numbering system too!

The current road numbering system has 3 categories:

R- Regional route (3-digit number) e.g. R-604
N- National Primary / Secondary Route N-17
and M- Motorway M-7

The old system had T- Trunk
and L- Link

I think I saw a couple of the old T and L route signs when I was there: Most confusing as the numbers bear no resemblance to the new N/R system!

Nothing whatever to do with electrical matters now, but it doesn't hurt to go off at a tangent every now and then:

British roads are classified as A (primary) and B (secondary) routes. Some of the largest A-roads are classed as trunk routes and have a T suffix, e.g. A12(T). There is actually a very complex scheme as to how the roads were originally numbered, although to most people it appears to be quite random. Motorways (expressways) are designated with M numbers and blue signs.

French roads have N (National) and D (Department) numbers, the latter being the equivalent of our counties. Expressways have A numbers (Autoroute).

Austrian roads have a pretty simple numbering scheme. County roads aren't numbered at all IIRC, Federal Roads (roads connecting larger towns) have B numbers (for Bundesstrasze, meaning they are competence of the government, not the county) like B1 (from Vienna to Salzburg) or B221. Then we got the "Schnellstraszen", something between Federal roads and Expressways, having an S number and a speed limit of 120 km/h as opposed to 100 on anything below. They can look like full expressways with blue signs and everything, but sometimes also like simple small roads, only with blue signs and overtaking prohibited (double white line between the directions). Then we got expressways, 130 km/h speed limit and A number (Autobahn), like A1 (West expressway, Vienna to Salzburg) or A2 (South expressway, to Styria, Carynthia and eventually the Italian border).