andrewcolebourne
IMG_2506-30031
Photographed from a northbound train, a modern zero mile marker in Newcastle station.
The Network Rail infrastructure in Britain is measured in miles and chains (1 mile = 80 chains) from various points. There isn't a single point because distances by different routes can conflict and in any case the complexity of the network would make that difficult. That much I knew but curious about what boundary this is I searched the internet and found this excellent website;
www.railwaycodes.org.uk/index.shtml
So now I know the proper terminology for this marker is an Engineer's Line Reference (ELR) boundary marker. Each segment of line has an ELR and in this case the boundary is between two East Coast Main Line (ECM) segments - ECM6 Newcastle West to Newcastle Station and ECM7 Newcastle Station to the Scottish Border.
This illustrates two things. First that line segments can vary in length considerably and second that mileages don't necessarily start a zero at one of their boundaries.
ECM6 is only 11 chains long and covers mileages 80.05 - 80.16 from the previous zero point of ECM5 at York (though actual mileages are 79.74 to 80.09 because of a track realignment since the mileages were calculated).
ECM7 covers 69 miles 67 chains to the border and terminates at the end of ECM8, in which segment mileages are from Edinburgh Waverley - so the mileages count down as you head north from the border.
What I do find odd is that the ELR segment it refers to does not appear on the sign. Presumably the orientation of the sign indicates the boundary point (so it "points" to zero and the mileage increases in the opposite direction). Structure plates (such as those on bridges) carry both the ELR and the mileage.
Maps with detailed information can be purchased from Track Maps: www.trackmaps.co.uk/
IMG_2506-30031
Photographed from a northbound train, a modern zero mile marker in Newcastle station.
The Network Rail infrastructure in Britain is measured in miles and chains (1 mile = 80 chains) from various points. There isn't a single point because distances by different routes can conflict and in any case the complexity of the network would make that difficult. That much I knew but curious about what boundary this is I searched the internet and found this excellent website;
www.railwaycodes.org.uk/index.shtml
So now I know the proper terminology for this marker is an Engineer's Line Reference (ELR) boundary marker. Each segment of line has an ELR and in this case the boundary is between two East Coast Main Line (ECM) segments - ECM6 Newcastle West to Newcastle Station and ECM7 Newcastle Station to the Scottish Border.
This illustrates two things. First that line segments can vary in length considerably and second that mileages don't necessarily start a zero at one of their boundaries.
ECM6 is only 11 chains long and covers mileages 80.05 - 80.16 from the previous zero point of ECM5 at York (though actual mileages are 79.74 to 80.09 because of a track realignment since the mileages were calculated).
ECM7 covers 69 miles 67 chains to the border and terminates at the end of ECM8, in which segment mileages are from Edinburgh Waverley - so the mileages count down as you head north from the border.
What I do find odd is that the ELR segment it refers to does not appear on the sign. Presumably the orientation of the sign indicates the boundary point (so it "points" to zero and the mileage increases in the opposite direction). Structure plates (such as those on bridges) carry both the ELR and the mileage.
Maps with detailed information can be purchased from Track Maps: www.trackmaps.co.uk/