Google Street View circa 1939

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ChrisGreaves
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Google Street View circa 1939

Post by ChrisGreaves »

We are quite used to seeing the shadow of the Google Street View camera on the road, and occasionally, a reflection of the Google Street View car in a store window.
Now for the first time, you can see the entire car taken in position from a distance of about twenty yards as the Street View pictures are being taken,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPhkZSWxt_I
Scoot ahead to the 0m59s mark for the first image. It crops up pretty regularly after that.
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BobH
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

Post by BobH »

Questions, questions, questions . . .

First, what does 'RAC' stand for? (Royal Autoways Commission?) . . . and 'AI?'
What was the make of the car? Looked a bit like a '36 Chevy.

One wonders how many of the old structures remain and are still in use.

One also wonders why just after mid way one had a sudden urge for a strong cheese (4min50).
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

Post by GeoffW »

RAC would be the Royal Automobile Club, the English equivalent of the AAA in the US or CAA in Canada.

Australia has state based organisations, so RACV in Victoria, RACQ in Queensland, NRMA in NSW.

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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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In the UK the 'other' large motoring organisation is the Automobile Association, always abbreviated as AA (and not to be confused with Alcoholics Anonymous - 'initialism reuse').
Previously independent and impartial, both the RAC and the AA were sold off to private equity firms, and so their status has been diminished.
The RAC was founded in 1897, the AA in 1905.

Also note in the video a number of instances of the three-lane road, with a central 'overtaking lane' which could be used by vehicles going in either direction. Because of the carnage which resulted from frequent head-on collisions on fast stretches of road, these no longer exist except with double-white lines preventing one direction of traffic using the middle lane and the other direction using two of the lanes, one for overtaking. These swap over every mile or two on major roads, to give everyone an equal chance of overtaking safely. Even these are (thankfully) becoming rarer, with dual carriageways being preferred, with two lanes going in each direction.

The other thing I noticed were the telephone poles, often double vertical poles with a significant number of horizontal bars, with each porcelain insulator carrying one wire. Things are done differently, now!
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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John Gray wrote:
15 Sep 2020, 07:59
...the three-lane road, with a central 'overtaking lane' which could be used by vehicles going in either direction...
Ah yes, those were the days. The white knuckle thrill of shaving a few seconds off your journey time as you hopped past cars travelling that bit more slowly than you.

Ken

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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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BobH wrote:
14 Sep 2020, 23:46
Questions, questions, questions . . .
That's what the rest of the crowd is here for, Bob; so that you and I can ask questions!
. . . and 'AI’?
Are you winding me up? AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, something you and I demonstrate every day of our lives (grin).
I think that you saw a roadway sign that said "A1", and I think (but am waiting for a Brit to correct me) that since the movie was filmed (in the USA it would have been shot) on The Great North Road, that that would be synonymous with "The A1"
What was the make of the car? Looked a bit like a '36 Chevy.
I don’t know, but given that this was the UK in 1939 I’d put money on it being a “Wolseley”, or a “Autovia”, “Batten”, or a “Coventry-Victor”. Google back in those days would have had enough floated capital for a “Raymond Mays V8”, which, as you might gather from its moniker, came with an organic cocktail bar for passengers. A “baby Austin” it was not.
One wonders how many of the old structures remain and are still in use.
One does not wonder, because for one thing, one is not “One”, and you guys got rid of your king, so hands off our Queen.
More to the point, since this one is blessed with AI, it can reason that the number of old structures (using “old” to mean “old relative to 1939”) are in place today (eighty-one years later) is “at least one and almost certainly less than the number shown in the film clips”. That is, we can be rationally sure that at least one of those buildings has been torn down to flatten a curve on the New Improved A1.
If on the other hand by “structures” you mean “men with hand carts full of grass clippings waiting for the lights to change” then almost alll of them (see “another 20 years of life left” ) are long gone.
One also wonders why just after mid way one had a sudden urge for a strong cheese (4min50).
Perhaps a carry-over from the Briese waving the flag at 4m30s? (Note in passing at 4m40s the downhill car appears to be completing its passing of the parked Google car, so our idiot appears to have parked the car on the roadway, right over the brow of a hill.) I didn’t have a hankering for cheese as much as an urge to go back and listen to episode 67 of History of English Podcast.

As always, HYH
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Chris
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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GeoffW wrote:
14 Sep 2020, 23:55
RAC would be the Royal Automobile Club, the English equivalent of the AAA in the US or CAA in Canada.Australia has state based organisations, so RACV in Victoria, RACQ in Queensland, NRMA in NSW.
UK also had (still has?) the AA and from my superficial readings of English Fiction, RAC/AA officers (they weren't "mechanics") wore uniforms and stood at strategic points (rather like tow-trucks on the shoulders of highway 401 in Toronto). When these uniformed officers identified your "AA" or "RAC" badge on the front of the car, they snapped to attention and saluted. What a boring day they must have had.

There is a pool of literature circulating rumours about the AA and offers from The Readers Digest, but I hesitate to verify the rumours in case my name gets onto a RD mailing list.
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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John Gray wrote:
15 Sep 2020, 07:59
... the three-lane road, with a central 'overtaking lane' which could be used by vehicles going in either direction.
I noticed this in my tour of Newfoundland in 2017. Especially on the Trans-Canada Highway (which stretches from one side of Newfoundland to the other side of Newfoundland, if a triangular island can be said to have two sides), and on account of the height of the mountains, basically transition immediately after the narrow bridge at the foot of each valley.
In caricature (trying to compromise "car" and "stricture"), the TCH is three lanes all the way, except at the foot of the steep valleys where it diminishes to two lanes and the guard rails turn into wooden bridge rails.
Use your imagination (grin)
The other thing I noticed were the telephone poles, often double vertical poles with a significant number of horizontal bars, with each porcelain insulator carrying one wire.
This caught my eye, too. The hours I spent painting straightened chunks of fencing wire gloss black, doing the cross bars, gluing pin-heads onto the cross-bars, delicately painting the glued heads gloss white, then carefully pushing the poles into the canite while trying not to dislodge the 16.5mm OO-track bed. Lord! the hourse I spent ...
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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I (being but one)1 find it interesting that road markers and town limit signs were erected or had erection attributed to the automobile club. I don't know of that ever happening in the US, but I was not yet born in 1939 (but almost).

Yes, the telephone/telegraph poles with multiple crossbars were quite interesting. I can remember poles with double crosstrees but don't recall having seen one with so many stacked above the other.

(1)In the US the noun 'one' is used to mean one's own self. I was unaware that it was reserved for use by the Queen.2 I thought that, since Victoria's time, the pronoun used was 'we.'
(2)Is it proper to capitaliz(s)e the word 'Queen' in such usage. One presumes so as it refers to the monarch not just any queen. Pedants, please ??????
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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Queen:

Queen.jpg
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Best wishes,
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

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WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU!
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

Post by John Gray »

BobH wrote:
15 Sep 2020, 20:06
I find it interesting that road markers and town limit signs were erected or had erection attributed to the automobile club.
There is some road-sign history in this web-page.
I certainly hadn't heard of the "8th (Cyclist) Battalion of the Essex Regiment" in the First World War.
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

Post by ChrisGreaves »

BobH wrote:
15 Sep 2020, 20:06
(2)Is it proper to capitaliz(s)e the word 'Queen' in such usage. One presumes so as it refers to the monarch not just any queen. Pedants, please ??????
Peasants, Bob, PEASANTS!

And I respond.

It makes economic sense to capitalize the Queen, because Britain/The UK/England/The British Isles/The American and Japanese Airlines have been raking in capital on account of the monarchy for many years now.
In fact, If Elizabeth Windsor could work out how to do it, she would have knighted herself(3) twenty years ago.
(I once calculated that 0.01% of You Tube ad revenue was generated by people clicking on videos of yobbos trying to make a guardsman blink, but that might have been an Excel Rounding Error)
Cheers :uk:
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(3)Perhaps it is the risk of de-capitalizing herself that forbids this opportunity.
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Re: Google Street View circa 1939

Post by ChrisGreaves »

John Gray wrote:
16 Sep 2020, 09:33
There is some road-sign history in this web-page.
GREAT reading! Thanks John.

Only in England "Motor cars were initially classed as 'locomotives' (under the Locomotives on Highways Acts 1865) ... This law was repealed in 1897, with the Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, ...".

Where else in the world could one find an act of parliament titled Locomotives on Highways Act for a nation that, with few exceptions, fenced and railed every mile (of 20,000) to inhibit access to any vehicular traffic, pedestrian or otherwise.
I grant you that many miles of US and European rail have railed and unrailed vehicles sharing space, but England?
I certainly hadn't heard of the "8th (Cyclist) Battalion of the Essex Regiment" in the First World War.
This war continues to surprise me. Last week i read "Trenching at Gallipoli ". Being an Aussie of course I have had an interest in Gallipoli. To my surprise the book is an autobiographical account of John Gallishaw's time at Gallipoli in The Newfoundland Regiment. I had no idea that the Newfies were represented there ...

Of course that rubber stamp I had made years ago swung into action, and within seconds the library book was a "DISCARD" :laugh: :rofl:
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Chris
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