https://www.fane.co.uk/michael-portillo


First in the west (well, almost!) - Oxford, 29th October 2026. to Fareham, 16th March 2027.  Via Truro, Malvern and Salisbury.

 

I don't object to it predicting ... just wonder at the algorithm.  "DI" at Melksham and I expect Didcot and Dilton Marsh to be top suggestions - and Diss and Dingwall to be further down.  I do NOT recall what else was offered yesterday - I seem to recollect having to put the "L" in before I notices Dilton Marsh.

For long station names ... I REALLY don't want to have to spell the whole thing out, or perhaps to a point of uniqueness.  Having travelled to   Kolobrzeg and Zgogzelec in recent weeks, no way I would even get them right.

 
Friday 7 August:

1P06 0516 Worcester Shrub Hill to London Paddington – lost 63 minutes between Honeybourne & Moreton-in-Marsh
1P10 0523 Hereford to London Paddington – diverted via Swindon
1W11 0553 London Paddington to Great Malvern - cancelled between Oxford and Great Malvern due to unknown cause (ZW)
1P12 0643 Worcester Shrub Hill to London Paddington – departed WOS 37 minutes late
2E80 0700 Worcester Shrub Hill to Didcot Parkway – cancelled due to late arrival of an inbound service (YI)
1P14 0713 Great Malvern to London Paddington - cancelled between Reading and London Paddington due to the train operator's request (TB). Departed GMV 99 minutes late
1P18 0856 Great Malvern to London Paddington - cancelled between Great Malvern and Oxford due to unknown cause (ZW)

 

It is the emergency services that are asking us NOT to use w3w....and if you can access w3w to obtain their 3 words, you can just as easily access Google Maps & retrieve the live location link?

 
<pedant (or dim)>6m x 3m?</pedant>

 

Call me old fashioned (or a technophobe) if you wish, but don't IT systems that present you with a list of alternatives as soon as you type in 2,3 or 4 characters cause more problems than if they could be programmed so that they only did so once you finished typing if there were possible alternatives for the station you'd typed in (eg, Green Park Reading or Reading West for Reading)?

 
There's a whole bunch of issues with what3words and they often get tangled up.

I think at its core it's a decent enough idea, for the reasons Electric train has cited - it's easy to remember and communicate, and accurate enough for most purposes.

There are genuine technical problems with it, chiefly that the inventors didn't do a good enough job of removing 'soundalike' words. I suspect these are probably fixable - basically, you quietly stop offering those 3m x 3m squares which have soundalike words. That means you go down to 6m x 6m accuracy at that spot, which is still probably good enough.

But the real problem is that it's privately owned and copyrighted. Imagine a situation where your address was "11 High Street, Frogtown", but the only way for anyone to find out where that actually was involved paying money to Address Corporation, Inc. That's what3words. Their lawyers repeatedly threaten anyone who attempts to provide an alternative way of working out what3words addresses.

The address algorithm itself was invented and settled back in 2013. The entire work of their company since then has been marketing it. They have spent an eight-figure sum on this and barely recouped anything: w3w's losses are astronomical. The only plausible way forward for the company is to be bought by someone big - Amazon, Google, one of the major couriers - but so far they're not biting.

Up until now their PR strategy has involved giving free access to emergency services and the like, because it's generated lots of good free publicity. But there's no guarantee this will continue. Tying your location to what3words is making a bet that the next owner of the company won't start charging. That's not a bet I'd make.

 
Have they not heard of UPS units ?
Such units provide back up power, usually from batteries, without any perceptible break.
Run time is typically a few minutes, with a diesel generator for longer failures, the run time is then only limited by fuel supplies.

I also fail to see why it took so long to change from one DNO supply to an alternative DNO  supply. I would expect changeover within a few seconds.

 

piled.cuddling.throat for example. 

 
I must admit on reflection that an early low-tech version of something like w3w would have made my life somewhat easier 30 or so years ago.  I had to get packages delivered by road to London Underground stations, and certainly in those days quite a few stations had no post code or building number, or even any real presence at street level, just one or more staircases down from the pavement and possibly a decoy former entrance where lifts had been replaced by escalators in a different location.

 
The below BBC article talks about studies to reopen a disused line using VLR in the Ironbridge and Telford area.  The suggestion of a possible 2030 opening date though does seem ambitious.
Here's the link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yd9eg2xgeo

 
Continuing today......

BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwy0d0wgy4xt
Train delays latest: Passengers facing disruption for second day after power outage - BBC News

 

Prioritisation (at the least) is not a problem unique to Scotrail.   Using our local GWR TVM, start typing in a station name and the first offerings are not necessarily the local ones, nor the ones that most tickets are sold to from the station at which the TVM is located.

 

2013, it really took off and used by the blue light services during the pandemic.


What 3 Words is not just a UK specific locator, also it is simpler than the 2 letter and 8 digit grid ref system and a lot less prone to errors over radio / mobile phone. 

When I was at work we needed to list access points and electrical substations on the railway for use when dealing with the blue light services, the options where
ELR - very railway specific that no one outside the industry recognises
Post Code - not all railway access points / equipment locations have a post code, are near an address with a post code or the nearest post code is on the oposite side of the railway which by road could be 10 miles away!
Grid ref - These are used but even the 2 letter 6 digit are prone to errors
Lat/long - Not practical
What 3 Words - after post codes this was the first choice by the blue light services, even if you are out by a few squares it far simpler and more reliable than G/R

 
Can be useful for summoning the emergency services.
I can remember when I was working a not insignificant fire at a factory. The person calling the FB gave what she believed to be the post code and the fire tenders turned up at the sorting office in the nearby city.

 
**I assume they have checked this is true**

Within yesterday's Green Signals podcast it was highlighted that when using the App to search for stations the default list of 10 locations includes places such as Wickford & Wickham Market but not Wick.

Common sense should surely dictate that Scottish destinations are prioritised?

 
Didn't the latest GWR app have similar hiccups?

 

Another 'Industry Leader' with a degree in 'The Statement Of The Bleeding Obvious'.

Also 'Lessons Must Be Learnt' would have taken up less space.

 
I do not know the specifics of what back up power systems failed to operate correctly when the local DNO supply was interrupted at this Regional Control Centre (ROC).

These ROC's normally have 2 independent supplies from the DNO, (in much the same way as a hospital).  There are automatic change over panel / load transfer switches, these can take between 2 to 10 seconds to change over. Also there diesel generators which take up to 30 seconds to come on load.

The time delays are to cover for brown outs (A brownout is a drop in electrical voltage. Lights dim and devices keep running on less power. Power companies use them on purpose to stop a total blackout. Bad weather or high demand can also cause them by accident).  There are UPS's to cover for the time for the back-ups to come on line, because of the electrical load at these ROC and the fact there are backups the UPS's are sized to hold the full load for 2 to 5 minute's the UPS's are also used in normal service to condition the power supplies to the signalling systems.

(This from my limited knowledge of signalling systems)  Railway signalling systems are designed to fail safe, in the event of an unstable power supply the signalling system will revert to Danger.  Outlining Interlockings rely on data links back to the ROC whilst there are automatic signals there are many that rely on "talking" to the ROC if the comms is lost the local interlocking will go to danger, it is possible that many of these interlockings required a site visit by a signalling tech to reset them.
Also any local to the ROC track side signalling systems that are feed from the ROC, and by local this could be a large area going out several miles, the electric equipment for points, track circuits and axel counters have a "crowbar device" in there internal power supplies, these crowbars operate and short circuit blowing the integral power supply fuses when the power supply goes unstable which is quite common during a brownout, this will place the signals at danger (Red) or they go dark, a train driver regards a dark signal as danger (Red) signal.

From my working life dealing with a number of large signalling centres covering the SE Railway area what happened at Manchester is the worst nightmare for the NR Route power and signalling Engineers; it is something that the systems have their single points of failure identified and where possible designed out where this is not possible / practical to do process to manage the risk are in place and the systems are maintained and tested for such events.

But at the end of the day these are large complex systems with a number of single points of failure.

The NR Route and NR HQ will have already been working on what the root cause of yesterdays failure was, and in my previous roll at NR I would have been on a number of conference calls today and next week looking at the lessons learnt and putting action plans in place with the maintainers to inspect and test similar systems in my former area

 
Some stats - sharing an answer I posted to a question asked of me on Facebook

 

I remember seeing them - nearly twenty years ago! 

 
So ... The Melksham Carnival was a jolly evening for us to dress up, walk around the streets of Melksham, and remind people of the public transport services they have in our town.  Enjoyed and it felt good - but was it effective in reaching people and helping get more bums on seats?   How does one measure such things?

Certainly, as I observe public transport around "here", I see it busier than I can recall in the past. 

In the middle of the day yesterday, I had a little outing from home to Westbury Leigh, walk through the Melksham Town Centre, train to Dilton Marsh. 

The 272 that passed me as I walked to the station wan't quite full and standing but it wasn't far off.  The 69 as I returned though the town a couple of hours later had a sprinkling of people on board and for that service, that's good.  The Town Bus, and also the 47 that passed us under the bridge at Dilton Marsh Station, looked to be carrying fresh air (and on infrequent very local buses the can be a problem.

The 11:31 from Melksham to Westbury picked up 13 people and dropped off 6, leaving with 50 on board - [56/19] in the old measuring system of [[journeys to/from/through][journeys with Melksham end point]]. The return train that called at 14:34 carried 36 into Melksham, dropped off 10, picked up 7 - [43/17].  Neither of those is what I would expect to be busy trains, and in both cases the connector on to/from Dilton Marsh was quieter.

But ... I have no evidence there as to whether or not the carnival walk brought any of those particular passengers - all goes into the melting pot, and the best we can do is work with a feeling that every little bit helps.  Certainly a long way from the days I could go down to the station and watch the bunny rabbits hopping around.

 
Profound words, beautifully put with great insight!

"We've got to really understand what's gone wrong here, because clearly something has and we've got to make sure we investigate that thoroughly to understand why things haven't restored as we would have expected," said Chris Wright, Route Director NW at Network Rail.

 

I changed trains at both of those on Tuesday.  Some 80+ years later it's kinda hard to work out the relative age of all the bits and pieces.  Pictures are from earlier visits - both changes the other day were "pass though"s with no thought to photograph / rather to get me and Lisa onto the ongoing train/RRB

 
A few years ago I had great sympathy for the young people of areas like Cornwall and Devon and I still have.

Being unable to buy homes in the small hamlets and towns where they grew up.
As far as I am concerned the blame lies with their parents and grand parents who took the big bucks from those in more affluent areas of the country.
Who just visit  Devon and Cornwall for a few week ends a year   

 

Lulu and Lightning ... not necessarily in that order - it was a pleasure.  We didn't actually find the 'spare' one: there was a loose greyhound out on the roads in Melksham, apparently. 

 
I was born in Devonport (Alexandra Maternity Home - good luck finding that one these days! ) and grew up in Plymstock, a suburb of Plymouth.

There, I attended Plymstock School, then a 'Comprehensive', but which was still run along the lines of it having been, I seem to remember, a Grammar School.  There were some 2,000 pupils at that time.

I have many fond memories of that school, and don't recall any impression that I was being offered an 'inferior' education. Indeed, I still recall my geography teacher, Keith Stoyle, who inspired me with my continuing love of Ordnance Survey maps, and Mr Rogerson, who inspired me with my love of woodwork - just for example.

Chris from Plymstock. 

 
Having used OS grid references since I was a 10 year old Cub I've mostly regraded w3w as a solution looking for a problem. It's unnecessarily precise for most purposes and can't be adjusted; my front door and garden gate don't need different references to find my house, with another again if you're on the road instead of the pavement! OS can do 1km squares for a rough area, or 100m for greater accuracy by which stage you should generally be able to find the thing you're looking for.  Then there's Google Maps.  Both can be generated by phones just as easily as w3w and don't end up giving you words that you have to spell out.
w3w is perhaps the Trainline of mapping.  Not actually bad, but got where it has by good marketing and so coming to the attention of people who hadn't realised there was any other way of doing it.

 
Please accept my apologies for introducing an element of levity to this topic.