The Bristol Railway Archive

Sometimes you stumble accross stuff on the internet and you say gosh, well this is another. It is the current WTT for the whole country!
Go here:-

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browseDire ... es\Working Timetable (WTT)&dir=%5cTimetables%5cWorking%20Timetable%20(WTT)%5cMay%202012%20-%20December%202012

You are now able to view/download all current WTT's for both passenger and freight services. PA to PF covers our patch. In the age old tradition since the 1948 Wtt I have of the BR Western Region, it still states, private and not for publication, but they have. It is facinating. Enjoy while you can guys.

I'm not too sure that the freight WTT has actually been uploaded though.

The National Sectional Appendix, which can be found at http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/10563.aspx is also very useful.

The freight WTTs are there as well! Strange really as these could possibly constitute a security issue. I wonder whether Network Rail's IT people have forgotten to restrict permissions for access to these pages. If so, let's peruse them while we still can!
An interesting comparison with WTTs of yore (e.g. the 1960's) is the much larger proportion of 'Q' paths (runs as required) present day. It must make crew and loco rostering a bit of a nightmare!

buxton4472 wrote: Strange really as these could possibly constitute a security issue. I wonder whether Network Rail's IT people have forgotten to restrict permissions for access to these pages.

There is an old saying: "just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you"

Security issue? How? I can't see why giving the public access to WTTs is any more of a security issue than the isuing of public timetables, which after all tell you (almost) the same thing.

I'm pretty sure that if Al Qaeda or somebody thought it was a good idea to blow up a train, their first thoughts wouldn't be "Damn - thwarted!" if they couldn't get their mits on a WTT

If they were publicising the workings of the Royal Train that might be a different matter, but then it wasn't ever publicised even in my day (unless you happened to know what was significant about train reporting number 1X01 )

I must admit, when I was looking at the GWR main line service between London and Bristol, I was suprised to find out how irregular the "regular service" is.

Without wading through reams of workings, are the nuclear flask trains in there? Heaven forbid one could get hi-jacked by terrorists and Network Rail then get the blame at the subsequent inquiry for allowing this info into the public domain.

the green mile wrote:Without wading through reams of workings, are the nuclear flask trains in there? Heaven forbid one could get hi-jacked by terrorists and Network Rail then get the blame at the subsequent inquiry for allowing this info into the public domain.

I've spent most of my working life turning other peoples "vision" into practical courses of action to move projects forward, so I tend to think in terms of practicalities.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that a terrorist group has found out that a flask working is taking place. Finding it in a WTT would of course be easier than doing any other research, but, if they really wanted to get their hands on one, it wouldn't take a great deal of wit or imagination on their part to find out about its movements without looking it up in the WTT.

So, one way or another, they know the train's timings. What are they going to do next? Bugger about with the signals as at Cheddington in 1963? More likely to be spotted these days than back then. Derail the train perhaps? Well that would certainly stop it, but then comes the difficult bit.

Let's assume that, one way or another, they've stopped it. What are they going to do now? Nick it? How? A JCB wouldn't move it and, even if it did, I supsect that they might be spotted. People trying to move a nuclear flask in a JCB bucket might stand out a little in a crowd

Blow it up on site, perhaps? They'd need a lot more explosive than Blaster Bates used to carry on his motor bike And besides, these things are rather sturdily built - I seem to recall a Peak being wrecked at speed back in the 1980s just to demonstrate just how robust those flasks are.

OK, a lot of that was facetious I accept, but the point I am trying to make is that a "security issue" might not be as much of a "security issue" when you stop and think about the practicalities.

Totally agree Robin and I was being facetious as well. However, imagine the furore on the front pages of the tabloids. They certainly wouldn't let the facts get in the way of a great headline.

the green mile wrote:Totally agree Robin and I was being facetious as well. However, imagine the furore on the front pages of the tabloids. They certainly wouldn't let the facts get in the way of a great headline.

Drifting seriously off-topic I'm afraid

The reason I "bit" in the way I did is that there are certain things that seem to be accepted without question, and are usually invoked to stop people doing things that other people don't want them to do, rather than have any inherent danger in themselves.

"Its security, innit?"

That's why we've got bloody great gates at the end of Downing Street now, whilst in the past you could walk up there and have a chat with the copper on the door. I would imagine that if any terrorist group wanted to bump off a Prime Minister they wouldn't attempt to do it by ringing the doorbell of 10 Downing Street.

Likewise "dirty bombs." I'll hazard a guess that if you asked the right people in Iran or Pakistan nicely they might be able to find what you wanted, without going to the bother of hijacking a flask movement. It's not like a plane - you can't say to the driver "Take me to Tehran!"

"Its Health & Safety, innit?"

A term used since 1974, usually by Councils or Insurance companies, to stop people doing something that it doesn't matter whether they do it or not, or as an excuse to increase charges. And the compensation culture doesn't help.

Once upon a time, when you went base over apex over a raised paving stone you cursed yourself for not seeing it coming. Now you think: "Who can I sue?"

I walked into Morrisson's some time ago to get just one item, so I attempted to walk straight to the aisle it was in, by going through the self-service checkout area. I was stopped by an employee, who told me I couldn't come in this way, but had to go through the normal entrance. When I asked why that was, you can guess what he said, can't you...

You see, its apparently perfectly safe to come out of the shop that way with bags of shopping, but dangerous if you try to walk through the other way empty-handed

"Its child protection, innit?"

That's why my bus driving ex-Green Park fireman friend, who works for two companies part time on "school runs" had to have two CRB checks done, one for each company. Apparently him just paying for one wasn't enough - for the bloke who drives the bus, with an assistant on board who actually does the looking after the disabled kids he's shunting around.


And tabloids? Tomorrow's chip paper. Oh - wait - they stopped that as well, didn't they. Health & Safety again.....

Classic stuff! You should write a book on it - but then maybe you would need to be a H&S professional for it to be taken seriously. I wouldn't mind betting you're a Dilbert and Dogbert fan like me. I actually found their management handbooks to be quite useful in the workplace if only to state the bleedin' obvious.

The question therefore is posed - why did WTTs always carry the cautionary 'PRIVATE and NOT FOR PUBLICATION' phrase especially since back in the 1950s/60s for example, terrorism or wanton acts of vandalism were much less a threat to the operation of a railway. I would suggest the need for restricted publication of such information nowadays is greater than it was then.
I was using the words 'security issue' in their broadest context - nothing to do with Al Quaeeda or any other terrorist group but more likely the local perverted nutcase who, rather than wreak human carnage by derailing a passenger train, could use the info in a freight WTT to cause major disruption and damage with the derailment of a train of loaded oil tanks at 75 mph in the wee small hours when passenger trains no longer run anyway and when he would be least detectable. This assumes of course that the said train of oil tanks is not running in a 'Q' path on a day when it is not running (that doesn't make sense I know but you get the gist).

OK - back to railway related matters (well, mainly )

buxton4472 wrote:The question therefore is posed - why did WTTs always carry the cautionary 'PRIVATE and NOT FOR PUBLICATION' phrase especially since back in the 1950s/60s for example, terrorism or wanton acts of vandalism were much less a threat to the operation of a railway. I would suggest the need for restricted publication of such information nowadays is greater than it was then.

I don't think that terrorism, wanton acts of vandalism or anything else of that nature was in the minds of those who decided to print 'PRIVATE and NOT FOR PUBLICATION' in big friendly letters on the front of WTTs. I think it had more to do with one or both of the following:

1. The "secrecy culture" which has been endemic in the UK for centuries, and has ony recently been dented (not abolished) by FOI legislation. Do you remember, for example, the Official Secrets Act, where you could have been banged up for "leaking" information on the number of knives and forks in the Prime Minister's dinner service?

When I joined North Wiltshire District Council in 1980, Chief Officers meetings were confidential to themselves alone. Not even the second tier management got to see the minutes of those meetings, let alone us down on the coal face. That was how things were and, to an extent, still are - the railway is no different. "Don't tell 'em anything that they don't really need to know"

2. To perhaps over egg the pudding, the WTT is a record of what actually happens, rather than the work of fiction that is a public timetable. If the public timetable says a given train departs at 1009, and the WTT says 1011 1/2 (pity you can't express fractions very well on here ), then the railway doesn't want or need passengers who turn up precisely at the WTT departure time to have a valid complaint if they miss the train.

Sometimes the public timetable contains information that is far from the truth, but for reasons best known to themselves the railway like to keep it quiet. For example, once upon a time there was a 2100 mail train from BTM to Eastleigh, returning 0150MX (the outgoing train not running on Sundays), calling at Salisbury, Westbury and Bath. On Monday mornings, the 0205 newspaper train from Paddington was shown in the WTT as conveying passengers from Bath to Bristol (in place of the Eastleigh mail that wasn't running) but this was also shown in the WTT as "not advertised." I never could quite understand why the railway ran a passenger service on a Monday morning but never told anybody about it ....

True story. When I was on nights as ASM's clerk in the summer of 1979, we had the enquiry office phone put through to us. It was about 0115 and the phone rang - bloke on the other end said "Whats the time of the first train to Cardiff?" I said "0600." He then adopted a "nudge nudge wink wink" tone and said "Come on - you've got a milk train or a mail train going before that, haven't you?" I said "yes - 0105, you've just miissed it"

buxton4472 wrote: I was using the words 'security issue' in their broadest context - nothing to do with Al Quaeeda or any other terrorist group but more likely the local perverted nutcase who, rather than wreak human carnage by derailing a passenger train, could use the info in a freight WTT to cause major disruption and damage with the derailment of a train of loaded oil tanks at 75 mph in the wee small hours when passenger trains no longer run anyway and when he would be least detectable. This assumes of course that the said train of oil tanks is not running in a 'Q' path on a day when it is not running (that doesn't make sense I know but you get the gist).

Do you know whether this has ever happened? I'm not aware that it has but, even if it had, you would not be looking at an opportunist, but someone who had planned this course of action.

Lets pretend that I am the local perverted nutcase of which you speak (Oi! - stop thinking that - I said "pretend" ). I would do my research - lineside. I would observe that this oil tank train was coming through 3 days a week at about 0230, and I would go away and plot my next course of action. If I was that way inclined, I certainly wouldn't need to see a WTT to do it.

The trouble with scenarios like the one you describe is that it is exactly the sort of thing that civil servants and others have been dreaming up for countless generations to make sure that whatever it is they want kept private, stays kept private, for no other reason than they simply want it that way.

One could think of any number of far-fetched scenarios. There's a petrol station near me - somebody might break in at the dead of night and blow us all up. What's the solution? I know - close all petrol stations....

You see where I'm coming from?

the green mile wrote: Classic stuff! You should write a book on it

What, another one to get to the top of the "worst sellers" listings?

http://www.br-steam-allocations.co.uk/e ... e-books%22

the green mile wrote:I wouldn't mind betting you're a Dilbert and Dogbert fan like me. I actually found their management handbooks to be quite useful in the workplace if only to state the bleedin' obvious.

To be honest, I'd never heard of Dilbert and Dogbert until you posted. However, after a Google search or two I see what you mean

WTTs might be confidential, but all freight movements are readily available in Freightmaster both in book and on line formats. Nuclear flask workings are shown - Bridgwater and Berkeley.

Talking of stupid and incompetent 'Elf'n'Sefty signs

Had the WTT been sold to the general public as a timetable, there would have been chaos. Imagine trying to fathom out the difference between a class 1 and a class 5. In my experience the average Joe Public has trouble understanding the 24 hour clock.

I was actually assaulted one night by a couple who were trying to get their young kids home from Bristol to Gloucester. The gobby female insisted that they had checked on the internet and there were trains leaving every half hour via Cheltenham, i.e. 1030,1100,1130 etc. Unfortunately, at 2230 they didn't like the answer they got and when I refused to give them a taxi at the Company's expense I ended up on the deck courtesy of her trained gorilla.

Sadly, a sign of the times when people don't get their own way on demand and an everyday occupational hazard for front line rail staff. A completely different approach might have got a more sympathetic response as young kids were involved. I've no idea what time they actually got away from the BTP office. Thank goodness for CCTV!