What happened to those phone-assistance call-boxes maintained by the Automobile Association (and the Royal Automobile Club)? Perhaps you don’t remember them.
Almost all were replaced by the personal (mobile) telephone. These sentry-type street-side kiosks were made memorable by the 1963 children’s television drama Dr Who, in which the main character’s “magic wardrobe” looks like the heavy-duty police equivalent. That idea was allegedly inspired in the producer’s mind by every morning driving past Met Police box F11, outside the new BBC TV Centre, on Wood Lane, west London. In truth, I don’t rightly know. It’s usually a gap of no more than about 3 m. There must be a prescribed legal maximum: similar to a mini roundabout being limited to 12 m diameter.
The one at Bournville station [picture above] certainly strikes me as confusingly big. (It's large here so that the signal covers sight-lines of lorries emerging from the green factory gate on the left, latterly disused). A quick web-search revealed the law is silent on this point, but professional opinion's here. |
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