{"id":102934,"date":"2026-10-07T02:00:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T06:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=102934"},"modified":"2026-06-08T13:21:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T17:21:20","slug":"why-do-british-trains-still-rely-on-century-old-levers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/why-do-british-trains-still-rely-on-century-old-levers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do British trains still rely on century-old levers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/omYfLDlt-MA?si=V5zyVPNXzXDcdcT7\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Tom Scott<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 8 Jun 2026<\/p>\n<p>At National Rail&#8217;s Manchester classroom, I learn why it&#8217;s very rare for trains to collide &#8230; and try out signalling for real.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcf0 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER with good stuff from the rest of the internet: https:\/\/www.tomscott.com\/newsletter\/<br \/>\n\u2753 LATERAL, free weekly podcast: https:\/\/lateralcast.com\/    \/ lateralcast<br \/>\n\u2795 TOM SCOTT PLUS:    \/ tomscottplus<br \/>\n\ud83d\udc65 THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES:    \/ techdif  <\/p>\n<p>Written and presented by Tom Scott<\/p>\n<p>Producers<br \/>\nfor Penny4 https:\/\/penny4.co.uk\/<br \/>\nCambria Bailey-Jones<br \/>\nGuy Larsen<\/p>\n<p>Studio Associate Producer<br \/>\nHeloise Lowenthal<\/p>\n<p>Studio Director of Photography<br \/>\nJamie MacLeod<\/p>\n<p>Studio Gaffer<br \/>\nFrank Hammond<\/p>\n<p>Head of Post<br \/>\nfor Breadbox Studios https:\/\/www.breadboxstudios.co.uk\/<br \/>\nMandy Celine<\/p>\n<p>Associate Post Producer<br \/>\nIsla McTear<\/p>\n<p>Senior Editor<br \/>\nJamie MacLeod<\/p>\n<p>Assistant Editor<br \/>\nAlex \u201cJ\u2019Rassic\u201d Bate<\/p>\n<p>Sound Supervisor<br \/>\nDan Pugsley<\/p>\n<p>Sound Assistant<br \/>\nMaggy Apodaca<\/p>\n<p>Subtitles by So Speedy https:\/\/www.sospeedy.co.uk\/<\/p>\n<p>With thanks to the Historic County Borders Project https:\/\/www.county-borders.co.uk\/<\/p>\n<p>Map data \u00a9 OpenStreetMap contributors https:\/\/osm.org\/copyright<\/p>\n<p>Select imagery\/video supplied by Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Executive Producer<br \/>\nTom Scott<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Pad 26 Limited MMXXVI<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Scott Published 8 Jun 2026 At National Rail&#8217;s Manchester classroom, I learn why it&#8217;s very rare for trains to collide &#8230; and try out signalling for real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,7,237,15],"tags":[816],"class_list":["post-102934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-history","category-railways","category-technology","tag-manchester"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-qMe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102935,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102934\/revisions\/102935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}