What Happens to Overnight Trains when the Clocks Change?

[Colin_McLeod]

On 29/10/2023 at 14:38, Wickham Green too said:

I think we managed to survive the New Millennium OK !

Despite the scaremongering. 😉

[icn]

On 03/11/2023 at 09:39, Colin_McLeod said:

Despite the scaremongering. 😉

Or perhaps thanks to it. Trouble is with preventative measures is many think they were useless because they actually achieved what they set out to achieve.

[caradoc]

On 02/11/2023 at 21:57, roythebus1 said:

Staff never lost and hour's pay or gained an hour's pay as they were still only doing 8 hours or whatever the rostered duty was.

 

On 03/11/2023 at 07:56, Jeremy Cumberland said:

It depends what the duty is.

 

Indeed; Signallers, and also for example Controllers, work an extra hour in Autumn and an hour less in Spring; It never worked out for me that the first was balanced out by the second! Also, if Saturday nights are covered by 12-hour shifts, Autumn necessitated a 13-hour turn. 

 

[roythebus1]

Yes of course, traincrew area a different breed.

[Michael Hodgson]

Different employers in different industries handle these things in different ways.  Some firms work on the basis that you get paid for a standard shift even though you do an hour less, but when you have to do a longer shift you get paid the rate for that extra hour, so you're not out of pocket either way.

 

I suppose it depends on how good the unions are, or whether the managment is sufficiently enlightened to take the line that it makes for better staff relations and it only costs them 1 hour on the annual payroll (and only for those on night shift) - which is insignificant compared to what a company with poor industrial relations typically loses through bogus sickies etc.

 

[melmerby]

On 04/11/2023 at 12:04, icn said:

Or perhaps thanks to it. Trouble is with preventative measures is many think they were useless because they actually achieved what they set out to achieve.

Many of the problems were supposed to be with a common real time clock chip in computer systems that could only cover years between 00-99, so 1999 would roll over to 1900

However any computer software designer worth their metal would've compensated for that, the majority AFAIK had done.

My BBC Master computer had the very same chip and guess what? 1999 was followed by 2000, thanks to the OS recognising it couldn't be 1900.

 

[Wickham Green too]

10 hours ago, melmerby said:

... 1999 would roll over to 1900 ...

A bit like my camera - it'll happily number images 1 to 999 ..... and then start at No.1 again !

[2E Sub Shed]

10 hours ago, melmerby said:

However any computer software designer worth their metal would've compensated for that, the majority AFAIK had done

Well I spent part of 1998 taking a reference system of a mobile phone network, through midnight 31st December 1999 and several other key dates post 2000 to prove it would not fall over.  Also some staff got paid an outrageous standby allowance for 31st December 1999 / 1st January 2000 

[stewartingram]

For the Millenium Bug night, I got paid a £1000 bonus on top of a normal 8hr night shift rate. I didn't start at 10pm as I should have; I had to drive from Cambs to Bedford and got there at 11.50. Watched the fireworks on TV (whilst monitoring (cough) the comms systems of the Fire Service). Just gone midnight they broke out the champagne in the Control Room (I didn't partake. I'd left by 00:20 and drove home.

Hardest night shift ever! And we had done ALL the checks on ALL the equipment weeks before with no failures, but as a contract firm to the Fire Service it was support as a goodwill gesture.

Edited November 7, 2023 by stewartingram

[wombatofludham]

Perhaps railways should issue special working instructions stating that at 2am BST they should stop, seek authority to reverse half an hour (minus turnround time and time needed to get movement authority) and then continue forward on their way, hitting the same spot at 2am GMT.  Simple, really.

A bit like how the National Trust move Stonehenge back an hour in the autumn by moving the stones.

[Pete the Elaner]

On 04/11/2023 at 12:04, icn said:

Or perhaps thanks to it. Trouble is with preventative measures is many think they were useless because they actually achieved what they set out to achieve.

 

Exactly.

It was standard practise to use a 2 digit date format to identify the year & many systems would have mistaken 2000 for 1972.

Many programs had to be re-written with a 4 digit year format. In house programs needed manually reviewing & bought applications needed to be checked for compliancy, which in many cases meant updating them.

 

The hoax was that things like microwaves & toasters would just stop working.

[Wickham Green too]

10 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

... A bit like how the National Trust move Stonehenge back an hour in the autumn by moving the stones.

The whole thing's on a dirty great turntable. 🙄

[Fishoutofwater]

12 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

National Trust move Stonehenge back an hour in the autumn

Stonehenge itself is managed by English heritage, so must surely be their responsibility to rotate it by the necessary 15 degrees to align correctly. National Trust own the surrounding land.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

It's all automated now of course, but it was a terrible job back in the 1840s when the railways came and Wiltshire moved over to "London time". Stonehenge is 1° 49' 34" West of Greenwich, and so it needed to be adjusted by a little over 7 minutes. Imagine having to dig out and move all those stones by hand. At least they thought then that they'd only have to do it once and that would be it. The introduction pf daylight saving in 1916 was rather a shock, but Stonehenge managed to secure a special exemption because it would take people away from essential war work. The first change after the war, on 30th March 1919, was trumpeted as a valuable job creation scheme at a time of high unemployment.

[johnofwessex]

It wasnt until the 1950's that the stones were stood up again

[Nick C]

3 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

The hoax was that things like microwaves & toasters would just stop working.

I can't see why anyone would have fallen for that - after all, it would imply that the toasters worked properly beforehand...

 

My microwave clock has read 0:00 for years now, still works just as well for heating food though...

[MarkC]

On 29/10/2023 at 15:27, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

On the world's largest continent, the Chinese have shown the way. Doesn't matter where you are, it's always and only Beiijng time. That's the way to do it!

ISTR that the USSR did similar - everything was on Moscow time...

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 minutes ago, MarkC said:

ISTR that the USSR did similar - everything was on Moscow time...

I can well believe it, the Bolshevik capacity for bad decisions was unlimited. Do you have a reliable reference?

[MarkC]

50 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

I can well believe it, the Bolshevik capacity for bad decisions was unlimited. Do you have a reliable reference?

Only personal recollections from having the misfortune to call at USSR ports in the early 1980s, I'm afraid

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

2 minutes ago, MarkC said:

...the misfortune to call at USSR ports...

Ah, my sole visit was five days at Sheremetvo airport, not very informative in this matter...

 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

30 minutes ago, MarkC said:

Only personal recollections from having the misfortune to call at USSR ports in the early 1980s, I'm afraid

So when did they call "Time comrades please!" in the Vladivostok pubs? 

[MarkC]

3 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

So when did they call "Time comrades please!" in the Vladivostok pubs? 

Ah, now we scumbag seamen were often restricted to visiting the <Friendship Clubs>, where one was initially subjected to a lecture on the virtues of the Soviet system, but after that, cheap booze was available until, as I vaguely recall, the last person's tonsils were awash... At that point, time was of no real consequence... *hic* 😏