A 1953 report outlines a British Railways Southern Region trial using microfilm to store and retrieve maintenance information at Chart Leacon Repair Shops and Inspection Shed, Ashford, Kent. The trial includes Reader/Printer machinery and multiple Mercury Readers for use across repair shops and inspection depots. Have a read of the report, as it appeared in 1953!
WORKSHOP RECORDS ON FILM
Trial of microfilm system at Chart Leacon
BRITISH RAILWAYS SOUTHERN REGION has begun a full scale trial of adapting a mass of vital rolling stock information at Chart Leacon Repair Shops & Inspection Shed, Ashford, Kent, to 16 mm. roll microfilm.
Photo: British Railways Southern Region
Object of the trial is to provide a fast and completely updated retrieval system for the extraction of maintenance information, ultimately replacing existing fitters’ manuals, suppliers’ handbooks, and stores catalogues. Use of microfilm will improve file integrity as well as reducing considerably the amount of space required for storage. Already, 50,000 pages of information have been condensed into eleven 10 in. x 4 in. twin-reel cassettes, each carrying a maximum of 200 ft. of diazo duplicate film. No less than 99 volumes of stores catalogues, each on average 2 in. thick, are now accommodated on six of these cassettes.
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Chart Leacon is provided with a 16 mm. Reader/Printer machine and three Mercury Readers for display of the information on film. The Reader/Printer (from which a print of the page displayed can be obtained at the touch of a button) is in the supervisor’s office, and the three Mercury Readers at strategic positions in the repair shops and inspection shed.
Deployment of Mercury Readers across the region
A fourth Mercury Reader is being allocated four weeks at a time to the 14 other repair shops and inspection depots throughout the Southern Region. These are at Bournemouth; Brighton; Clapham Junction; Durnsford Road, Wimbledon; Eastleigh; Fratton; Gillingham; Hither Green; Orpington; Ramsgate; St. Leonards; Selhurst; Slade Green; Stewarts Lane.
Microfilm production and project oversight
The microfilm Readers and Reader/Printer have been supplied by CAPS Microfilm Limited, of London NW9, and the actual microfilm of instruction manuals, catalogues and so on has been carried out by Microfilm Reprographics Limited, of London EC1. The project is under the control of the Southern Region C.M.&E.E.
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