We went to the highest mainline station in the UK and probably the most remote. It is 12 miles from the nearest road. The scenery on the edge of Rannoch Moor was amazing. And then I spotted these scales...
I have found pictures of similar on the Internet but I can't find an explanation of how it works. It is clearly a balance bar and must work by the Principle of Moments. The pivot must be somewhere at the top of the main column. One side has a fixed weight near the pivot and the other side has a movable weight for balancing. My main problem is how the luggage based on the flat plate gets to be measured. My guess is that it must connect up the column to the balance bar but very close to the pivot on the side of the fixed mass. If it connected close to the pivot, its moment would be small so could be balanced by a smaller mass further away. More research needed.
