No crossed lines at King's Cross
 

On 09/02/2013 23:11, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Sat, 9 Feb 2013 16:39:09 +0000, (A.Lee) wrote:

wrote:

On 09/02/2013 14:11, Mizter T wrote:

When there was some concern about them potentially catching fire, IIRC.
Not something LU takes any chances about these days (quite rightly).

Please explain.

Vending machines are strictly controlled on LU (TfL?), by having to meet
strict rules on flammability and control of any fires.
I used to supply (well, not me, but the Co. I worked for) various
equipment for LU, all of these had extra fire proof material compared to
our normal stuff, as well as extra sfatey features inside - e.g. faster
breaking CBs and a fire extinguisher if a fire did occur.

Maybe the chocolate machine suppliers couldnt meet these rules?

There are also the elements which have killed off unattended vending
machines in general - vandalism and theft.


The few times that I purchased any sweets from them, I found that they
would dispense more than one of what I bought. I wonder if that was a
factor?

No crossed lines at King's Cross
 

On Sun, 10 Feb 2013 01:00:03 +0000, "
wrote:

On 09/02/2013 23:11, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Sat, 9 Feb 2013 16:39:09 +0000, (A.Lee) wrote:

wrote:

On 09/02/2013 14:11, Mizter T wrote:

When there was some concern about them potentially catching fire, IIRC.
Not something LU takes any chances about these days (quite rightly).

Please explain.

Vending machines are strictly controlled on LU (TfL?), by having to meet
strict rules on flammability and control of any fires.
I used to supply (well, not me, but the Co. I worked for) various
equipment for LU, all of these had extra fire proof material compared to
our normal stuff, as well as extra sfatey features inside - e.g. faster
breaking CBs and a fire extinguisher if a fire did occur.

Maybe the chocolate machine suppliers couldnt meet these rules?

There are also the elements which have killed off unattended vending
machines in general - vandalism and theft.


The few times that I purchased any sweets from them, I found that they
would dispense more than one of what I bought. I wonder if that was a
factor?

You must have come along just after I got damn all out of them. :-(

No crossed lines at King's Cross
 

In message , at 15:16:34 on Sat, 9 Feb 2013,
Mizter T remarked:
On a related note, are there any subterranean payphones (i.e. deep
platform level) on the London Underground network still in existence?
If not, when did the last one go?

I think they may have been removed when Rabbit covered the LUL network
(in the early 90's). Not that it lasted long, but it did work while it
lasted.

Nope, there were BT payphones around on the LU network far more
recently than that (Rabbit ceased service in December 1993).

My Rabbit gear was swapped for an Orange phone [which I still have
stored somewhere] when the latter launched in April 1994.

Whereabouts were the BT phones? I can't picture them at all. The
concourse at Baker St is the sort of place I might have looked, but not
down on the tube platforms.
--
Roland Perry

No crossed lines at King's Cross
 

In article ,
(Charles Ellson) wrote:

On Sun, 10 Feb 2013 01:00:03 +0000, "
wrote:

On 09/02/2013 23:11, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Sat, 9 Feb 2013 16:39:09 +0000, (A.Lee) wrote:

wrote:

On 09/02/2013 14:11, Mizter T wrote:

When there was some concern about them potentially catching fire,
IIRC. Not something LU takes any chances about these days (quite
rightly).

Please explain.

Vending machines are strictly controlled on LU (TfL?), by having to
meet strict rules on flammability and control of any fires.
I used to supply (well, not me, but the Co. I worked for) various
equipment for LU, all of these had extra fire proof material compared
to our normal stuff, as well as extra sfatey features inside - e.g.
faster breaking CBs and a fire extinguisher if a fire did occur.

Maybe the chocolate machine suppliers couldnt meet these rules?

There are also the elements which have killed off unattended vending
machines in general - vandalism and theft.


The few times that I purchased any sweets from them, I found that they
would dispense more than one of what I bought. I wonder if that was a
factor?

You must have come along just after I got damn all out of them. :-(

You and me both! They kept diddling me so I gave up using them.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

No crossed lines at King's Cross
 

wrote in message ...
On 09/02/2013 13:27, Mizter T wrote:
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/6538.aspx
says...

---quote---
Telephones

There are no public telephones at the station.

The nearest ones are over the road in the entrance to King's Cross St
Pancras Underground.
---/quote---


I appreciate that public payphones are rather 20th century, but I'm
still a tad surprised by this.

On a related note, are there any subterranean payphones (i.e. deep
platform level) on the London Underground network still in existence? If
not, when did the last one go?

(And apologies for the slightly laboured subject line!)

When did the Cadbury vending machines also go?

Definitely there in 1998 give or take a year either side. I remember being
very annoyed when one (Paddington, circle line towards Liverpool Street)
gave me a packet of mints rather than dairy milk.

I was rather hard up at the time (studying) and couldn't spare the cash to
try again!

To return to the subject - the phones on platform 1 at Paddington were a
nightmare - if there was a train in, you couldn't actually hear anything! I
used to shout my time of arrival down the phone and hope for the best -
invariably someone seemed to meet me!

James

Station machines [was: No crossed lines at King's Cross]
 

"Offramp" wrote in message
...
When did the last Payne's Poppets machine go?

Deviating and changing the thread name, when was the machine at Liverpool
Street with which you could make metal name plates removed?

Its case was a huge metal casting, and one swung a massive pointer round a
clock face-type dial to the appropriate letter or symbol and thumped
something to impress the chosen item onto a strip of white metal.

At the end of the process, it emerged with conveniently rounded ends that
had pinholes in so that you could easily nail it to ... something.

I hade several of these strips for many years but they seem to have all been
lost in my last house move.

--
Brian
"Fight like the Devil, die like a gentleman."

Station machines [was: No crossed lines at King's Cross]
 

On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:39:46 -0000, "Brian Watson"
wrote:


"Offramp" wrote in message
...
When did the last Payne's Poppets machine go?

Deviating and changing the thread name, when was the machine at Liverpool
Street with which you could make metal name plates removed?

Its case was a huge metal casting, and one swung a massive pointer round a
clock face-type dial to the appropriate letter or symbol and thumped
something to impress the chosen item onto a strip of white metal.

At the end of the process, it emerged with conveniently rounded ends that
had pinholes in so that you could easily nail it to ... something.

I hade several of these strips for many years but they seem to have all been
lost in my last house move.

There's still one of those machines (or was a few years ago) at the
NRM in York.

--
Frank

No crossed lines at King's Cross
 

When did the Cadbury vending machines also go?

When there was some concern about them potentially catching fire, IIRC.
Not something LU takes any chances about these days (quite rightly).

I am not sure that is correct. The Cadburys machines were installed
long after the fire regulations applied to LU stations. The machines
would have had to have been compliant or else have approved waivers
based on a risk assessment.

I believe the Cadburys contract was terminated as part of a move to
reduce clutter on stations and platforms. I think the LU MD decided
that stations looked very cluttered and messy and that a preponderance
of machines also caused congestion on the busiest / narrowest
platforms. It also added cost to station refurbs and mods with
machines having to be removed and then reinstalled thus incurring
extra cost. Happy to be corrected but I'm sure that was the line I
heard at the time.



I believe (from vague and fading memory...) sometime around Jul/Aug/Sep
2007 ...

I think that several factors came together at that time, IIRC one of the
servicing Contractors went bust, profitability was marginal, grief was
high, there were security concerns (because of recent events) over
platform "clutter" and LU was attempting to smarten things up a bit
before the Olympics ...

Cadbury (who had held the Master Contract since 2001) threw in the towel ...

Chris

Station machines [was: No crossed lines at King's Cross]
 

On 11/02/2013 08:22, Frank Erskine wrote:
On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:39:46 -0000, "Brian Watson"
wrote:


"Offramp" wrote in message
...
When did the last Payne's Poppets machine go?

Deviating and changing the thread name, when was the machine at Liverpool
Street with which you could make metal name plates removed?

Its case was a huge metal casting, and one swung a massive pointer round a
clock face-type dial to the appropriate letter or symbol and thumped
something to impress the chosen item onto a strip of white metal.

There's still one of those machines (or was a few years ago) at the
NRM in York.

I've found a reference to it from a couple of years ago.

If you have a few thousand knocking about you could get your own.

http://www.gcrauctions.com/sale127/lot118.html
--
Phil Cook

No crossed lines at King's Cross
 

Mizter T wrote in :


On 09/02/2013 14:02, wrote:

On 09/02/2013 13:27, Mizter T wrote:
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/6538.aspx
says...

---quote---
Telephones

There are no public telephones at the station.

The nearest ones are over the road in the entrance to King's Cross
St Pancras Underground.
---/quote---


I appreciate that public payphones are rather 20th century, but I'm
still a tad surprised by this.

On a related note, are there any subterranean payphones (i.e. deep
platform level) on the London Underground network still in
existence? If not, when did the last one go?

(And apologies for the slightly laboured subject line!)

When did the Cadbury vending machines also go?

When there was some concern about them potentially catching fire,
IIRC. Not something LU takes any chances about these days (quite
rightly).

I believe one of them actually did catch fire, or at least started to
emit smoke, whereupon they were all summarily and rapidly removed.

Peter

--
|| Peter CS ~ Epsom ~ UK | pjcs02 [at] gmail.com |