Nothing stops the Chief...

While the big one WW II was raging, Spain had already finished their war with Hitler's help and had moved on to other things.

As I post this it is 6:48.

How did you post that post thirty minutes from now?

ETA: Dammit your post time was 30 minutes ahead just a second ago! It said 7:23. WTF?

Maybe Drumpf's right about re-visiting fascism.

http://cellar.org/img/648.jpg

You lost a whole hour eatin' breakfast!

ETA: Spring Forward is March 10

See, that shit makes my head hurt.

In 1953 most people wore hats, spoke proper and didn't eat peas with a knife.

They also looked worn out and old before their time which isn't surprising as the country was still struggling in the wake of WWII.

From that year is 'London to Brighton in Four Minutes'....

Very nice!

To my eyes, one modernish thing jumped off the screen as I watched this.

http://cellar.org/img/gillsans1.jpg

It's the FONT used here. The font is Gill Sans, the predecessor to Helvetica.

It will not appear "modern" at all to Brits, because British Rail adopted it really early in history. It was used in the 30s for things that wanted to look modern, and became the standard British Railways font in 1948. But its predecessor was developed by a man named Johnson for the London Underground in the 1910s.

Since it's for railway signage, it's also seen in the film here:

http://cellar.org/img/gillsans2.jpg

And this conductor has a box of it on his right:

http://cellar.org/img/gillsans3.jpg

When the world found Helvetica (1957), and wanted to become modern, that became THE font for transport signage, and in some places, it still is:

http://cellar.org/img/helvetica1.jpg

Most signage uses different variants on Helvetica now; the font has been endlessly refined for different things. We computer users are most familiar with its little cousin Arial. There is a good chance you are reading this sentence in Arial.

Today I Learned about railway fonts.

me too as well along with the potential for dating stuff by font which seems obvious in retrospect but apparently wasn't

i think i broke my engrish

Remember when Dan Rather was fired from CBS News, for rolling with the story that W. Bush was AWOL from his National Guard duty? It was proven out as a hoax because computer typography geeks could see, immediately, that the supposedly-typewritten memo was a fake. Set in a modern proportional font, with modern kerning, in a style not available in 1973. (But which was the default fonts setting in MS Word at the time.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killia...ts_controversy

Our 2004 thread on the matter

Yeah. That's right!

So did I! I also learned that Gill Sans was designed by the sculptor Eric Gill.

A quick search of eBay indicates that there is a market for original British Railways signage.

This one is priced at £1600 or about $2068. :eek:

Attachment 66486

eBay

Pennsylvania Rail Road big mofo...

Attachment 66521

Cadbury locomotives come in two flavors...

Attachment 66522