Steve Fitzgerald wrote:
In message , John Salmon
writes

As a matter of interest, where did 'IG' come from? In my view, its
derivation is the least obvious of all the postcodes. I can work out
all the other slightly obscure ones e.g. SP=Salisbury Plain,
DG=Dumfries & Galloway etc., but the only suggestion I've ever heard
for IG is Ilford & Gants Hill, which seems unlikely.

I always understood it was linked to Ingatestone as being in the
middle (roughly) of the area.

Ingatestone is in the CM area, and the RM area is (mostly) between CM and
IG.

I've always thought IG meant "Ilford and barkinG". I have no evidence for
that.

MIG wrote:
On Dec 9, 3:30 pm, Steve Fitzgerald ] wrote:
In message , John Salmon
writes

As a matter of interest, where did 'IG' come from? In my view, its
derivation is the least obvious of all the postcodes. I can work out
all the other slightly obscure ones e.g. SP=Salisbury Plain,
DG=Dumfries & Galloway etc., but the only suggestion I've ever heard
for IG is Ilford & Gants Hill, which seems unlikely.

I always understood it was linked to Ingatestone as being in the
middle (roughly) of the area.

Surely Ingatestone postcodes are CM and are separated from IG by RM in
between?

Yeah, Ingatestone can't have an IG postcode, it's in Essex!

In message , John Salmon
writes

As a matter of interest, where did 'IG' come from? In my view, its
derivation is the least obvious of all the postcodes. I can work out
all the other slightly obscure ones e.g. SP=Salisbury Plain,
DG=Dumfries & Galloway etc., but the only suggestion I've ever heard
for IG is Ilford & Gants Hill, which seems unlikely.

I suspect that IG reflects the names of the first two post towns within
the postcode - Ilford (IG1 to IG6) and Chigwell (IG7).

Much the same happens with SM, where the first two post towns within the
postcode are Sutton (SM1 to SM3) and Morden (SM4).

Presumably IL was avoided because OCR equipment couldn't be relied upon
to read the letters accurately, especially when hand written.
--
Paul Terry

On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 15:13:52 -0800 (PST), MIG
wrote:

On Dec 8, 10:31*pm, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote:
MIG wrote:
Maybe it's one of those self-definition things that they have on equal
opportunities questionnaires. *People in Ilford feel themselves to be
Essex people and face the same prejudices and barriers in life as
Essex people. *Or something like that.

A sweeping statement - have you told that to the people lobbying for the
postcode to be changed to E20 so that businesses there don't appear to be
outside London?

Nah, that's Walford. I was parodying a "self-definition" idea that I
don't go along with. Most distinctions between people aren't worth
making. Knowing who runs the local government might be worth noting.
Therefore Ilford is in London and that's the end of it.

It's in both London and Essex.

In message , John Salmon
writes

As a matter of interest, where did 'IG' come from? In my view, its
derivation is the least obvious of all the postcodes. I can work out
all the other slightly obscure ones e.g. SP=Salisbury Plain,
DG=Dumfries & Galloway etc., but the only suggestion I've ever heard
for IG is Ilford & Gants Hill, which seems unlikely.

I suspect that IG reflects the names of the first two post towns
within the postcode - Ilford (IG1 to IG6) and Chigwell (IG7).

Much the same happens with SM, where the first two post towns within
the postcode are Sutton (SM1 to SM3) and Morden (SM4).

Presumably IL was avoided because OCR equipment couldn't be relied
upon to read the letters accurately, especially when hand written.

Many of the 2-letter codes were in use before postcodes for labelling
mailbags, and generally these were reused for postcodes, probably
because the sorting office staff knew them by heart. As a student in
the 60s I worked on the Christmas post in Edinburgh, and the incoming
bags were marked EH. Outgoing codes that I remember include AB, IV and
DD, but I think Glasgow was GW although it became just G for postcodes.

I think postcodes were introduced long before anyone had any idea of
OCRing them. For a time, at the primary sort a series of blue
fluorescent dots were printed on the envelope and latterly dot-matrix
barcodes. Both of these were done by real people eyeballing the printed
or written postcodes, though OCR is certainly used now.

Peter

--
Peter Campbell Smith ~ London ~ pjcs00 (a) gmail.com

In article , Peter Masson
writes
The earlier plan was for dual voltage trains, to extend on the third rail
beyond Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet. But since that was dropped Crossrail will be
25 kV OHLE only.

Nevertheless, a source tells me the trains will be dual-voltage because
it's cheap to add and it provides for a common design with other uses.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On Dec 10, 3:44*am, "Clive D. W. Feather" cl...@on-the-
train.demon.co.uk wrote:
In article , Peter Masson
writes

The earlier plan was for dual voltage trains, to extend on the third rail
beyond Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet. But since that was dropped Crossrail will be
25 kV OHLE only.

Nevertheless, a source tells me the trains will be dual-voltage because
it's cheap to add and it provides for a common design with other uses.

Thanks for posting Clive. That is very interesting information. Do
we know what the "fixed" formations will be?

Adrian

On 10 Dec, 15:39, 1506 wrote:
Thanks for posting Clive. *That is very interesting information. *Do
we know what the "fixed" formations will be?

10 car peak, 5 car off-peak. When they rebuild the stations on the
GWML the fast line platforms (for use during engineering work) have
been designed for 5 car trains only (and there are a few other
examples like this), so I don't think they can have fixed formation 10
car units.

U