Took the opportunity to travel to York for a guided tour of a preserved cold war bunker used for the collation of nuclear bomb data for outposts before passing the information to HQ.

The post was staffed by Royal Observer Corps volunteers, during operation, 60 staff per rotation of 3 were required, (180 in total).

General visit images are below:

The bunker is semi submerged design.

Small portable generator used to charge batteries.

Radiation Geiger Counter connected to external probe.

Blast Power Indicator used to determine the strength in kilo or mega tons based on the reading.

AWDREY – (Atomic Weapons Detection Recognition and Estimation of Yield), this uses accurate timing between the two flashes the nuclear bomb would emit.

Electromagnet Pulse cabinet housing the telephone system, this was a later addition to the bunker, shortly after which the ROC in its entirety was shut down.

Random Images

I’ve included them as I think they are interesting 🙂

Drayton pressure gauge, scale using Imperial measurement as the bunker was built in 1960, also the two tilt switches are made of glass containing Mercury.

This type of switch was very common in the day, when the switch is tilted, the mercury runs down to bridge the contact points in the glass phials.

ARCTON was a refrigerant gas manufactured by ICI at Rocksavage Works, unfortunately it was found to deplete the earths ozone layer and in the late 1980s a substitute was developed and ARCTO was phased out.