TOPS

[Stoke West]

On 23/11/2023 at 15:57, Rivercider said:

Might that have been an ATI office at Stoke Gifford?

I have a copy of the TOPS implementation team survey into the prospective site for TOPS offices in Bristol. West Depot was looked at for a Bristol West office, but never implemented, though there was an ATI office there, Harry Berry one of the clerks became a shift leader in Bristol TOPS. The former Bristol East signal box had apparently been thought of for the other Bristol (East)  TOPS office, but in the event Bristol TOPS was located in the Bristol Panel Signal Box building.

 

Avonmouth Royal Edward Yard had a TOPS office until yard closure in 1977 or early 1978, two of the TOPS clerks transferred to Bristol, and the Portacabin was relocated to Hallen Marsh for the use of the shunters.

 

cheers  

Just getting a bit of old age memory or lack of and being an enthusiast on the outside taking an interest . There were no three letter wagon codes at that time anyway , to input into a system . Even the new air braked vans and opens  were just branded COV AB , OPEN AB etc .

[iands]

A film was commissioned from British Transport Films by the BRB Signal and Telecommunications Department around 1973-74 about TOPS, called Bits, Bytes and Bauds. It is of the time. From memory there was not a lot of detail in the film regarding the wagon codes etc., focuses more on the the equipment and how it all connected together, but there were shots of staff in TOPS offices making wagon enquiries, using/creating punch cards etc.

 

I think the ownership of British Transport Films has since passed to the British Film Institute. Can't find one on Youtube etc., but a copy will be out there somewhere.

 

In the meantime, if anyone is interested, I purchased a copy of an ATI manual a couple of years ago from ebay, copy attached.

ATI Manual.pdf

[4630]

24 minutes ago, iands said:

A film was commissioned from British Transport Films by the BRB Signal and Telecommunications Department around 1973-74 about TOPS, called Bits, Bytes and Bauds.

A copy of Bits, Bytes and Bauds, together with other useful information about TOPS, is available here;

 

http://www.samhallas.co.uk/railway/bbb.htm

 

Scroll down the page to ‘direct link’

 

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by 4630

[iands]

10 minutes ago, 4630 said:

A copy of Bits, Bytes and Bauds, together with other useful information about TOPS, is available here;

 

http://www.samhallas.co.uk/railway/bbb.htm

Thanks @4630, I should have gone to Sam's website first. I knew Sam from BR days. 

[4630]

It’s an interesting short film.

 

It really reinforces how ‘cutting edge’ BR’s use of technology was in this part of its operations at that time, to improve efficiency. 
 

 

[Neil Urquhart]

On 22/11/2023 at 13:50, Oldddudders said:

I am ashamed to say I had very little involvement with TOPS, even though in 1976/7 the patch I worked on had a TOPS office - Hither Green. Quite simply the thing ran like clockwork (sorry) with the yard supervisor and a couple of clerks, and other areas of management were much more demanding, including a shed-full of carriage cleaners, being egged on by militant drivers with an eye to Sectional Council roles.

 

But I distinctly recall packs of punch-cards being used and run through readers, and Ventek was a name from that time. I had a schoolmate who had worked for IBM in the late '60s, and when I told him some of the kit he was astonished, since it had been obsolete then. ISTR being told that IBM had to restart manufacture of old kit when BR was setting up.

 

Another useless snippet - a couple of years, and jobs, later, my assistant was married to a lady who was a programmer at BRB, and I'm sure he said she wrote in TOPSTRAN, which was presumably a dialect of FORTRAN.  

I am not sure if TOPSTRAN was based on FORTRAN, my undestanding is that TOPSTRAN is a set of macros (commands) based on IBM assembler (the very specialised instructions used to move data about within the IBM mainframe).  Given that IBM had involvement in FORTAN it's probable that they used the naiming convention for their TOPS language as well, there may have also been some similarities in the style of language as well. As far as I am aware TOPSTRAN was unique to TOPS itself.  I'm not sure what they currently do for developers, but I suspect someone somewhere has been paid a lot of money to pickup TOPSTRAN to be able to deal with any ongoing maintainance.

 

Neil

[Neil Urquhart]

On 22/11/2023 at 15:17, The Stationmaster said:

I think a crucial difference between CPC was that CPC was based ona count of the number of wagons at a location whereas TOPS was based on the individual wagon number (which could be seen as a direct consequence of SP needing a system to replace manual processes involving car/wagon numbers).  CPC was effectively out of use by the time I went to work in South Wales in 1971 and the first TOPS installation didn't appear there until early 1974.  In user acceptance terms a minor battle which TOPS had to fight in south wales was the impression which had been left by teh shortcomings of CPC although any yards already using ATI could see that benefit widening as the principal was extended to all arriving trains and even local trip freights.

 

On the WR there were two TOPS trial sites - the first was at Exeter commissioned in 1973 and using standard IBM terminal equipment and punched cards.  Radyr, the second WR trial site, commissioned in early 1974 used Ventek terminals and much smaller punched cards (about a quarter of the size of an IBM card so I was told).  I understand that Radyr was the first BR site to commission with Ventek terminals although I think there might have been one on another Region commissioning at about the same time.  

 

The Ventek terminals replaced the IBM kit as the principal local terminal fit  as they required less room particularly for the card files - one for every location, one for every siding in amarshalling yard withe cards filed in the order they stood in the siding.  Cards were originally very much at the heart of teh system at local level beause they were used to produce  all the various reports locally which required a paper output such as Train lists and Shunt Lists

 

Another technical innovation at Radyr was the use of (wet print) facsimile machines working over several miles in order reduce telephone reporting - very important for busy colliery locations.  One fascinating technical aside emerged from these as it was found that BT telephone lines were incapable of matching anything approaching the baud rate that could be achieved on BR internal lines or was needed by these particular fax machines - even to a Shunter's cabin at a colliery up in the Welsh Valleys.

 

It is probably worth reembering a that smething which facilitated teh introduction of Y TOPS with masses of data passioing over teh BR network was teh advanced state of the BR telecoms network which already undergoing major upgrades by the early 1970s

s.

 

It is probably worth reembering a that smething which facilitated teh introduction of Y TOPS with masses of data passioing over teh BR network was teh advanced state of the BR telecoms network which already undergoing major upgrades by the early 1970s

 

Thanks, that's very useful, I'm doing a bit of digging around to find out more about CPC. IN summary it seems to have been a system for managing traffic flows rather than planning  and tracking individual wagon movements.  I've jsut obtained aload of electronic copies of BTC reports and jornals, I'm hoping that there will be something within that lot!

 

Yours,

 

Neil

[Neil Urquhart]

On 23/11/2023 at 14:20, Rivercider said:

Hi Neil.

I came to TOPS a few years after it was first introduced. I joined BR in 1977 in the civil engineers and used TOPS for wagon enquiries.

Initially the terminal down the corridor was shared with another department, and worse than that it had a shared line with another terminal I think in another building. We had to press a button to 'poll' the machine, if the other terminal was in use we had to wait, when the bell rang we had about 30 seconds to get an enquiry in, then we had use of the terminal.

In 1978 I transferred to Bristol TOPS office. We had 4 terminals, 2 terminals on line. The 2 terminals off line  where we used the cards to produce shunt lists and train lists. By 1978 we were using the smaller punch cards though I was told the office originally used the larger punch cards. Within a couple of years TOPS started to go cardless, the Bristol office was the last in the West of England Division to go cardless, possibly in late 1980.

By 1978 TOPS had been accepted by most outdoor staff, though there were some problems when we had outages and staff had to wait for lists. We were helped as some of the local supervisors who worked in the Bristol yards also covered shifts as Area Freight Assistant in the TOPS office, so they could see our problems, and be useful to us when they were working outside in the yard.

 

Bristol TOPS Office in 1980. Cards are still in use at this date. The rack on the wall had the trainlist  header cards as I recall.

There were 4 terminals, the two nearest the camera were the two on line machines operating at 200 Baud I think.

The nearest Y1 machine was the one that received the incoming train consists. The machine by the window, and another out of sight to the left were the off line machines we used to produce the yard shunt lists and train lists.

Out of sight to the right was a block of 7 tables, three on the far side of the room occupied by the Area Freight Assistant and two freight clerks. The nearest 3 tables had the wooden card racks that represented the different yard files, the chair on the right is facing those desks. By the window was the desk with the yard file for Bristol Kingsland Road the busiest yard and one where a full yard file was kept, ie each pack of cards represented an individual siding.

24/5/80

 

cheers

 

 

 

Hi ,

That's fantastic, it's the sort of detail that I'm looking for, the photos are very atmospheric as well.  Something I'm interested in is how easily staff accepted TOPS and trusted it?  Was there resistance to TOPS when it first appeared, did long-serving employees see the benefits and take to the system?

 

Yours,

 

Neil

[Neil Urquhart]

16 hours ago, 4630 said:

It’s an interesting short film.

 

It really reinforces how ‘cutting edge’ BR’s use of technology was in this part of its operations at that time, to improve efficiency. 
 

 

BR was very advanced in terms of comms and computing, technologies such as telex and facsimile transmissions were adopted on the railways well before other industries. 

[C126]

17 hours ago, iands said:

...

 

In the meantime, if anyone is interested, I purchased a copy of an ATI manual a couple of years ago from ebay, copy attached.

ATI Manual.pdf 8.49 MB · 4 downloads

 

This is just wonderful.  "Telex format" - a much loved phrase of mine.  On cursory reading the system bares a resemblance to my trade's coding system, Ma.R.C.

 

Thanks for posting.

[Hippel]

2 hours ago, Neil Urquhart said:

Hi ,

That's fantastic, it's the sort of detail that I'm looking for, the photos are very atmospheric as well.  Something I'm interested in is how easily staff accepted TOPS and trusted it?  Was there resistance to TOPS when it first appeared, did long-serving employees see the benefits and take to the system?

 

Yours,

 

Neil

Hi, I was in Warrington TOPS '82 to '88, and certainly with the highly disciplined yard files for Arpley and Walton Old Junction, whenever TOPS went down, the yard staff would realise what a boon TOPS was because it meant them having to manually calculate train lists.

Paul

[Hippel]

Here's some photos of the inside of the Warrington TOPS office.

 

First photo is looking North west. Second image looks North east, and shows two workstations and a NEFAX machine. Photo three is what we called the 'yard file', as that reflected what went on in the yard, with the hatchway being where the yard supervisor was. Communication with Walton Old Junction was by phone or MUFAX machine the table to the left of the chair.

 

The fourth picture shows the Y1 machine where all the unsolicited reports came off. All these show the older style of entry machine, a combined keyboard and screen. Later on they where swapped out for separate screens and keyboards, as seen in the last picture behind Tiddles, the office cat.

[Hippel]

In picture two above, notice that the window frames to the right of the corner are unpainted. That's the result of a brake van trying to enter the office, so I was told!

 

Paul

[iands]

6 minutes ago, Hippel said:

.... as seen in the last picture behind Tiddles, the office cat.

Tiddles? Surely should have been called 'TOPSCAT'!

[Cwmtwrch]

6 hours ago, Neil Urquhart said:

IN summary it seems to have been a system for managing traffic flows rather than planning  and tracking individual wagon movements.

The unit was the wagon type, rather than the individual wagon, so it looked at how many of each type were where, or in which train, and whether loaded or empty.

[DavidB-AU]

Here's a great film about the system in use in 1978. It used to be on Youtube but is now available from BFI for free.

 

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-using-tops-1978-online

[Oldddudders]

6 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

Here's a great film about the system in use in 1978. It used to be on Youtube but is now available from BFI for free.

 

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-using-tops-1978-online

Or not ,if you live where I do, sadly. But I think this is the one about a consignment of lighting equipment that needs to be re-directed in mid-journey`? The lady concerned, whose name I forget, was secretary to the GM at Waterloo in the mid-80s, while the bright young man, Colin Hall, was, I think, BR's man in New York at one stage. He and I had been trainees in 1973, he as a graduate, I as a staff entrant. 

[kevinlms]

On 28/11/2023 at 01:06, Hippel said:

Hi, I was in Warrington TOPS '82 to '88, and certainly with the highly disciplined yard files for Arpley and Walton Old Junction, whenever TOPS went down, the yard staff would realise what a boon TOPS was because it meant them having to manually calculate train lists.

Paul

That happens to most shops these days, because the tills/card facilities stop working when the power fails. The last thing a business wants is customers crashing about in the dark! So get asked to leave.

 

Only big supermarkets etc, can afford proper back up facilities, but primarily registers & reduced lighting. Although the local large supermarket has had to toss out ALL the contents of fridges and freezers, because the power outage was long enough, for them to go above the designated temperature. Not worth the risk. Hate to think what those contents must be worth!

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Or not ,if you live where I do, sadly.

Nor for me and like David I live in Australia. I suspect he may have an account.

[Neil Urquhart]

If anyone is interested,  the official BR report on TOPS is here https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=4923 it makes interesting reading.

 

Neil 

[Neil Urquhart]

In finding out more about CPC I've ended up digging through issues of British Transport Review. One of the more interesting things that I have learned is that in 1964, BR had around 40 computers in use. That's a phenomenal figure for the time. The same article that mentions this also points out that just about all of this usage was at regional level and not country wide. As far as I can make out most this usage was for store keeping and accounts.

 

Who will be the first to add an OO gauge model of a mainframe (complete with blinking lights) to the interior of a railway office?  

 

Neil U.

 

[rodent279]

4 minutes ago, Neil Urquhart said:

 

Who will be the first to add an OO gauge model of a mainframe (complete with blinking lights) to the interior of a railway office?  

I suspect you could probably fit all the functionality of the early TOPS systems into a single chip that would fit inside a 4mm scale p-way hut!

[jamie92208]

A very interesting read.  I wasn't a railwayman but was a policeman in South Leeds from 75 to 79.  The TOPS office at Hunslet was one of my tea spits and I remember the cards very well.  At the time I ran a trainspotters club in my village and on the last night shift before a trip out the yard staff would print me off a list of what Locos were on the depots we were due to visit.  I remember one of the guys telling of working the weekend that TOPS. was introduced there.  They had to go round Stourton wagon works and record all the wagons on site.  I seem to remember that there were many anomalies and wagons that didn't exist,   Years later I learned to use TOPS  in the National Power control centre at Ferrybridge.  Again I used it to track down Locos that I needed to see.  It was running on a Windows terminal using some sort of emulator.  

 

The thing  that amazed me then in the 1990's was that the front end system was almost identical to the Police National Computer (PNC), that is another very old system that is still running at the heart of modern peripherals and feeding many other systems.  It dates from the same era..  I believe that programmers for both systems have to be specially trained so that they can write acceptable code. 

 

If you are interested I have a a copy of Maury Klein monumental history of the Union Pacific Railroad,  this includes a lot of detail of the origins of TOPS on the SP.  The whole US system for tracking vehicles, known as UMLER is based on TOPS dating from the early to mid 60's.  There is a major constraint in the system that Loco numbers can only have 4 numerals plus letters to identify the owner.  No one imagined then that a single railroad would have a need for 5 figure numbers.  UP gets round this by having a separate set of Owner letters for their shunters of UPY. for yard. 

 

Jamie

[caradoc]

On 27/11/2023 at 14:39, Hippel said:

Here's some photos of the inside of the Warrington TOPS office.

 

Those photos remind very much of Mossend TOPS office, where I spent a two-year hiatus from my Control career, 1987-89. 

 

There had also at one time been another TOPS office not far away at Dalzell, dealing with the local steelworks traffic, whereas Mossend handled more general freight. The number of offices set up when TOPS started was astonishing!

 

[rodent279]

Something troubles me slightly.

 

We're told that TOPS, contrary to popular belief, had no 5 digit limit on loco numbers, and that Western and Hymek 4 digit numbers were entered in TOPS as they were.

 

We're also told that TOPS couldn't handle loco classes starting at 0, hence there was no 40000 for example,  D200 becoming 40122.

 

How then did TOPS handle D1000 & D7000?

Edited December 1, 2023 by rodent279