Early BR computers memories and history

[Rivercider]

On 15/12/2021 at 17:12, The Stationmaster said:

One of the more widespread use of telex/teleprinter machines was for the ATI (Advanced Traffic Information) system introduced in the mid 1960s which meant machines were required in places such as marshalling yard Inspector's offices.  The system was quite a good one but unlike TOPS it had no built in checks so could transmit rubbish if the input details were incorrect.

 

Inoutline yard A would send someone along a train to take wagon label details using a small tape recorder type machine am nd the telex/teleprinter operator would then prepare a punched tape using the information from the tape recorder (not all yards had anything as sophisticated as a tape recorder so it was a pencil and paper job for the lesser places.  The tape would then be fed into the machine which transmitted the train formation details to other yards where the train was booked to call along its line of route.  

 

at the receiving yards the machine would simply print out the details line by line each successive line corresponding to one wagon (rather like a TOPS Train List which enabled shunts to be planned before the train arrived which would usually save time.  An intermediate yard where the formation changed would then either send a revised list or, in some cases, simply send a message indicating what changes it had made to the formation.  The system worked quite well from what I saw of it when working in a marshalling yard in 1967 although you could get occasional errors in vehicle numbers although generally the route codes, in particular, tended to be accurate.  At Margam hump yard I understand that the ATI message was used to cut another punch tape which could work the points etc as the train was being humped.

 

The system remained in use on some parts of the WR until the arrival of TOP{S in 1974/75.

 

The senior TOPS clerk in Bristol TOPS when I started was Harry who had been in TOPS from the start and previously worked as an ATI clerk at Bristol West Depot. He told us a few tales from his ATI days. One shunter when using the tape recorder to take details of a departing train would talk to the wagons or make up stories as he went along. 'Now then little trucks, where are you off to' etc. On another occasion one of the shunters left the tape recorder on the buffer beam of the last wagon by mistake. It successfully made the journey to Avonmouth Royal Edward Yard without falling off and was sent back OK.

 

cheers  

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, Rivercider said:

The senior TOPS clerk in Bristol TOPS when I started was Harry who had been in TOPS from the start and previously worked as an ATI clerk at Bristol West Depot. He told us a few tales from his ATI days. One shunter when using the tape recorder to take details of a departing train would talk to the wagons or make up stories as he went along. 'Now then little trucks, where are you off to' etc. On another occasion one of the shunters left the tape recorder on the buffer beam of the last wagon by mistake. It successfully made the journey to Avonmouth Royal Edward Yard without falling off and was sent back OK.

 

cheers  

There was a railman at Leith Docks who talked to the wagons. He'd say things like "where did you come from? You're not supposed to be here", "nice to see you back again" and so on.

Edited December 24, 2021 by St Enodoc
from not form...

[acg5324]

Whilst not that early, they were still very primative…..mid 1980s saw Viewdata terminals installed at second rank stations. Basically a dial up tv and keyboard that looked like Prestel, Ceefax etc. These were used to reserve car ferry places via Sealink STARS and BR seat and sleeper reservations via CRS.

Bigger stations had a direct computer link attached to a Videcom Apollo CRT terminal, again mainly for seats reservations etc and TOPS.

 

Early 1990s I was working for BR Business Systems and we would often talk staff through changing the settings on the Apollo terminals. There was a set of DIP switches inside the casing that needed to be altered if the terminal had been a TOPS one and was now being used for CRS. if the staff were willing we would tell them how to get the casing off a live terminal, change the settings and replace etc………just don’t touch anything else! Wouldn’t happen today.

Edited December 26, 2021 by acg5324

[Wheatley]

CRS was great. As well as seat reservations you could send messages ('XUM') between stations or to all stations, and you could set up information pages on a sort of prehistoric Internet. You were supposed to show things like opening hours,  directions to the bus station, hospital, taxi rank etc  but most stations had a jokes page and Passenger of the Week page. Several had story pages or a diary, and Ashley at Chippenham wrote a comprehensive and very funny history of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on their pages. We had a pub crawl on the Barnsley pages guiding readers around the various pubs near stations between Barnsley and Huddersfield, but then we got carried away and started running a dating agency on it where station staff could send in dating profiles for themselves or colleagues they wanted married off. Unfortunately one of us accidentally XUMed all stations with some particularly ribald comment meant for one individual, relating in a visit from our SM.

 

"I don't know what Matching Mates is, and I don't want to know, but if I get any more snotty memos from CRS User Control you'll all be carriage cleaning. Stop it ."

 

You could also set it up as a TOPS terminal if you knew how, and tie it up for hours running a query for the whereabouts of every Class 37 in the country in advance of a weekend bashing/spotting session.  

[Wheatley]

PBM (Parcels Business Machine) was less great. It used three letter codes for stations, but not the same ones as CRS so Barnsley was BNY on one and BSY on the other. Endless fun with multifunction clerks who spent most of their time on CRS and sent the occasional parcel. As explained by our Chief Clerk to a trainee:

 

"Run the arrivals list every morning, that tells you what's due. If someone comes in for a parcel and it's on the list but not here then ring Sheffield because odds on its there. If its not on the list then it's been misdirected so start by ringing Barnetby then Barnes, Barking, Barnstaple, Barnham ..."

[Mike Storey]

On 25/12/2021 at 11:42, Wheatley said:

CRS was great. As well as seat reservations you could send messages ('XUM') between stations or to all stations, and you could set up information pages on a sort of prehistoric Internet. You were supposed to show things like opening hours,  directions to the bus station, hospital, taxi rank etc  but most stations had a jokes page and Passenger of the Week page. Several had story pages or a diary, and Ashley at Chippenham wrote a comprehensive and very funny history of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on their pages. We had a pub crawl on the Barnsley pages guiding readers around the various pubs near stations between Barnsley and Huddersfield, but then we got carried away and started running a dating agency on it where station staff could send in dating profiles for themselves or colleagues they wanted married off. Unfortunately one of us accidentally XUMed all stations with some particularly ribald comment meant for one individual, relating in a visit from our SM.

 

"I don't know what Matching Mates is, and I don't want to know, but if I get any more snotty memos from CRS User Control you'll all be carriage cleaning. Stop it ."

 

You could also set it up as a TOPS terminal if you knew how, and tie it up for hours running a query for the whereabouts of every Class 37 in the country in advance of a weekend bashing/spotting session.  

 

I feel like I have missed out!!! At Cannon Street and then Charing Cross Travel Centres, we just used CRS for .... seat reservations! I never knew it could do all that too.

[acg5324]

I met my wife through CRS, she worked for ICEC User Control and I was at BR Business Systems HQ dealing with CRS. When I moved to the South Central TOC Control I got CRS added to our PCs on the pretext that we could rebook passengers delayed enroute, but meant I could book seats for the office….and of course my wife to be and I sent XME messages to each other.

[MyRule1]

With four pages of replies and over 4,000 views I would like to send New Years Greetings and thanks to everyone who has added information here. There must be much more to be told about early BR computing so keep the stories coming.

 

[acg5324]

The station help pages on CRS could be a laugh. Many had a local attractions page…for local attractions read PUB!

I think we had that at Brighton along with directions to the pier, Pavillion, football ground etc.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, acg5324 said:

I met my wife through CRS, she worked for ICEC User Control and I was at BR Business Systems HQ dealing with CRS. When I moved to the South Central TOC Control I got CRS added to our PCs on the pretext that we could rebook passengers delayed enroute, but meant I could book seats for the office….and of course my wife to be and I sent XME messages to each other.

And look where that landed you!

 

6 hours ago, acg5324 said:

The station help pages on CRS could be a laugh. Many had a local attractions page…for local attractions read PUB!

I think we had that at Brighton along with directions to the pier, Pavillion, football ground etc.

Surely for the Goldstone you needed to get off at Hove actually.

[acg5324]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

And look where that landed you!

 

Surely for the Goldstone you needed to get off at Hove actually.

…….25 years later…….still going strong.

I think that’s what the page would have said as I did load of them. …..something like you don’t want to be in Brighton you need the next stop Hove! Starting to sound like the Harry Enfield character.

Edited December 31, 2021 by acg5324

[5BarVT]

8 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Hove actually.

Pronunciation, please: “Hove aectually”!

Paul.

[SED Freightman]

TOPS also had a facility for sending free format messages between terminals - the ZZ message.  In the mid 1980's I used to send a 'ZZ' message to various SED locations each afternoon detailing any amendments or alterations to the following days coal programme.  You could enter any number of destination TOPS terminals (eg. Y188730 = Hoo Jn) just as email addresses are used currently, only in those days email was unheard of.  In addition to TOPS terminals, the Freight Section at Waterloo received a separate computer terminal in about 1985/6 which gave access to Lotus Notes and Multimate, only one member of the office (Roy Draper) was trained to use it primarily for the production of BR29973 forms and TOPS tag tables.

[The Stationmaster]

A lot of us used Multimate for our 29973 forms but I think some on the Western must have been produced on Wang WP at one time as that was what we had when we moved to Swindon in 1985.  But by the time I took over freight long term planning in 1989 we had moved onto PCs using Multimate.   We were using the Wang system for notices from 1985 onwards  and I suspect Tag Tables might also have been done on it but when I took over the short term freight planning c.1987 on the Western all we were doing on it, apart from WP, was notices because the long term planning kept the 29973 work.

[SP Steve]

On the freight side of using computers, the following appeared in the May 1973 edition of "Railway Magazine":

 

COMPUTER TIMETABLES FOR POWER STATION COAL

 

MERRY-GO-ROUND trains between Yorkshire collieries and the impressive concentration of power stations in that county at Ferrybridge, Eggborough and Drax work to a series of precision timetables produced with the aid of British Railways ICL "1904A" computer at Crewe. During the week ended February 2, a total of 197,800 tons of coal was moved in 228 special trains from thirteen collieries to these three power stations. Timetable details are complicated by the fact that the quantities of coal supplied and the collieries from which it comes change from week to week. Additionally, some collieries have no bunker facilities and must load coal direct into the wagons, requiring the train to be at the colliery at precisely the right time.

 

Every Thursday afternoon, the CEGB notifies BR of the tonnages of coal required by each power station during the following week, and names the collieries from which it is to be moved.  Before close of work on the same day, the necessary timetables together with details of turns of duty to be worked by the train crews, have been worked out, duplicated and distributed.

On receipt of the weekly details of coal tonnages and collieries at Leeds, the information is transferred to a punched tape. Week by week, various collieries will not have coal available at certain hours; different numbers of empty wagons have to be collected from various points; train-crew meal breaks and changeover points have to be considered;  power stations cannot accept deliveries at certain times of day. All these, and other variables must be put on the punched tape, which is transmitted to Crewe and fed into the computer. This is already programmed with basic timetable information, which it retains permanently.

 

The computer breaks the work into sections, and works out timetables of each one, which is punched onto paper tape for transmission back to Leeds, where it is automatically printed ready for duplication and distribution. The whole job takes about four hours, or a little more than one minute to produce a complete timetable for each train.

 

Some of the diagrams call for intensive use of the locomotives concerned: for example during the week of January 22-26, the locomotive of train K89 was on shed for only 3 hr. 32 min. out of 24 hours. Details of this diagram are shown below:

 

                                                                Arr          Dep

Knottingly MPD                                     ----         09:48

Gascoigne Wood                                  09:04     09:20

Kellingley Colliery                                 09:40     10:58

Eggborough Power Station                 11:10     12:05

Prince of Wales Colliery                      12:27     13:38

Knottingley                                           13:50     13:52

Eggborough Power Station                14:08     15:03

Kellingley Colliery                                15:14     16:47

Eggborough Power Station                16:59     17:54

Acton Hall Colliery                              18:22     20:00

Ferrybridge SB                                    20:20     20:22

Ferrybridge Power Station                 20:36     21:22

Kellingley Colliery                               21:36     22:54

Eggborough Power Station               23:06     00:01

Hexthorpe Colliery                             00:54     01:27

Ferrybridge Power Station                02:52     03:38

Knottingley                                         03:50     04:12

Gascoigne Wood                                04:26     05:00

Knottingley MPD                                05:16