Website for Mike Horne author and researcher

Research Work Books Rail Index Other Stuff Mike's Blog

What is on this site...

On this site you will find a few published (but little known) works that that haven't seen the light of day in formal print. These may or may not have been updated, so please just take them 'as is'.

You will also find some articles or books that have been started but remain incomplete; again, to be taken 'as is'. There is also some information about various books of mine, plus additions and corrections.

Please regard all this very much as 'Work in Progress'; it is all liable to frequent adjustment and updating.

You are welcome to view the documents and provided you acknowledge the source you may use the information in accordance with normal copyright conditions. The documents themselves may not be printed or downloaded.

What's new?

I have added some blocks below to advise of specific updates I make. There will usually be the last five on display. I hope this is helpful. I have now added another block (in yellow) indicating what is new on my blog.

Webitems

Updated 18 January
Significant updates made to technical research paper on LT/Tfl rail and road automatic fare collection (about 10% more added and various adjustments made). Still work in progress though. Further major update 20 January.

Updated 4 January
Increasingly frustrated by failures of drama production teams to get detail right for 20th century day-to-day stuff, I was minded to set out some examples of things that annoyed me because they were avoidable. Naturally the list grew. See under 'Other Stuff'.

Updated 22 December
With reference to adding a batch of pages relating to District Railway history, pages now added relating to the Roman wall at Tower Hill and the Great Wheel at Earls Court.

Updated 1 December
Following publication of Volume 1 of my history of the Metropolitan District Railway I am putting some webspace aside in which I am adding new or enlarged material that comes to light (and has already done so) since it went to press. This is visible from the research pages of the navigation. The first page lists District Railway directors.

Updated 30 September
At last! Something new. A completely revised and enlarged history of Automatic Fare Collection on the Underground, London Buses and includes Oyster and contactless.

Blogitems

Mike Horne's Blog Updated 29 December
Following publication of the latest London Underground diagram I discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of the latest innovation — the showing of interchanging involving a walk between station of under ten minutes, and about the hesitant history this has. That leads to some further observations about whether the 9-inch by 3-inch format, now overwhelmed by clutter, might not have reached the end of its life in this form and how some of it needs rethinking. It is not the 'icon' it was.

Mike Horne's Blog Updated 23 December
I have slightly revised my blog entry for 26 January 2013 about Gladstone's final railway journey (following his death) connected with his lying in state at Westminster and bringing his body to Westminster station by train. It was necessary to sort out which of two quite different locomotives actually drew the train.

Updated 21 December
Various minor changes made to my May 2013 blog item about escalators and inclined walkways. Links updated and two images added (including one of the inclined walkway at the Earls Court exhibition).

Mike Horne's Blog Updated 9 December
I have finally got around to publishing Part 5 of my blog about the story of the National Railway Museum at York. This one forms a review not just of the NRM but of two other transport museums, as a kind of compare and contrast. Nothing for a year then three come at once.

Mike Horne's Blog Updated 1-20 October
Parts 2, 3 and 4 of my blog series on the National Railway Museum (York) are now available. Part 2 describes the establishment of the new British Transport Museums at Clapham and Swindon (the latter, like York, railways-only). Part 3 describes how after they opened factors conspired to close Clapham and York and establish a new National Railway Museum, and the painful route by which this conclusion was reached. Part 4 describes the fuss made when York was selected for an NRM and its planning and opening.

What's the photo?

It is the roof of the new part of King's Cross station. I quite like it. Let's face it, it has to be better than the squalid 1970's concourse area...

Related resources?

There is the inevitable blog, which I try and keep topical but it get refreshed in fits and starts. It may be found here: Mike Horne Blog; this will open a new web page, or at least a new tab. Items currently topical, as well as the archive, are listed on my 'other stuff' pages. I can also be found at @machorne.

Many files are in pdf format...

So you will need a pdf reader. If you do not have a pdf reader on your computer, you will need Acrobat (or another PDF) Reader in order to view them. You can download a free reader from Adobe. When reading the files use Page Up and Page Down for navigation.

I am aware that some Firefox users may have a problem with accurately resolving images in pdf files owing to a bug with Firefox's dedicated pdf viewer. It is to be hoped this will be fixed shortly. Firefox can be configured to open pdfs using Adobe reader if the bug becomes intolerable, but it isn't something that relates particularly to pdfs from this site.

Contact the Author

If you have any queries about this site, or any observations about its contents, or can help with any information, then the author will be delighted to hear from you. To reduce the risk of receiving spam, please click on the button below; this will bring up a 'Contact Me' form that is configured to send me an email, and I will respond in due course. (I will of course let you have my email address in the response in the event that you wish to send me something not convenient to pass across by means of the form.)

Why Metadyne?

The metadyne is an intriguing type of electrical machine, akin to a rotating amplifier, and is particularly suited to heavy duty operation where constant voltage input needs to be converted into a constant current (but adjustable) output. The contrived name comes from the greek 'dynamis', meaning power. The machine had was found to be useful for certain types of drive mechanism, including gun turrets and cranes, and to a lesser extent, traction; under this name it was developed in the 1930s and 40s by Metropolitan Vickers and was a development of the earlier Amplidyne machine developed in America.

Whilst there are all kinds of stories I could offer you as to why it is relevant to this site, actually I was after a fairly ambiguous name and just liked it!