Nationwide signal issue reported on 6th December

[Thames99]

This morning's Sun has linked yesterday's problems to staff working from home (one of this paper's obsessions)

Train meltdown that hit networks traced to base where staff work just 2 days

A FAULT at a Network Rail base where staff are at their desks just two days a week triggered a meltdown on more than a dozen train networks yesterday morning. Hundreds of packed services were axed …

www.thesun.co.uk

The GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communications-Railway) network is a digital radio network that works in areas where analogue radio signals are poor.

It was installed across Britain between 2007 and 2014 for £1.86billion, including building 2,500 new masts.

But it was brought to a crashing halt when a tiny network card, a piece of computer hardware installed overnight during repair work, failed. It was fixed by 1pm after a replacement was put in.

Network Rail was last night urged to “seriously reconsider” its policy of allowing radio engineers to work from home.

Not sure if there is any truth at all in that being a factor in resolving the problem yesterday.

 

[sor]

Not sure if there is any truth at all in that being a factor in resolving the problem yesterday.

Got as far as "The GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communications-Railway) network is a digital radio network that works in areas where analogue radio signals are poor." before remembering that the Sun is probably not the most accurate journal of record.

I'm sure the quoted Tory MP knows a lot about network engineering and testing and what can and can't be done on site.

 

[jon0844]

This morning's Sun has linked yesterday's problems to staff working from home (one of this paper's obsessions)

Train meltdown that hit networks traced to base where staff work just 2 days

A FAULT at a Network Rail base where staff are at their desks just two days a week triggered a meltdown on more than a dozen train networks yesterday morning. Hundreds of packed services were axed …

www.thesun.co.uk

Not sure if there is any truth at all in that being a factor in resolving the problem yesterday.

I am not going to click on the link, but if they're just going on about staff working from home - are they even trying hard enough these days? Surely they also need to identify if the staff were black or female, to get the USA 'DEI hire' narrative in there also? At the very least find out where they were born, in case it was abroad.

 

[gshock]

My GSM-R went into meltdown yesterday morning at 0434 am leaving depot.

It was doing all kinds of stuff. It wouldn't register my trip, when I keyed out and back in it wasn't booting up at proper speed. When I pressed the button to talk to the signaller it wouldn't immediately contact them.. when it dialled I got interrupted by a message saying that a more important call had been prioritised (I forget the wording).

When I finally spoke the signaller confirmed that it was down nationally, and that so long as it said GB next to GSM-R then it would operate an emergency group call should there be one made, and that my headcode was correctly registered to the departing signal.

Obviously times this x everybody.. the ripple / domino effect would affect slots and times hugely.

 

[duffield]

It affected some BBC journalists getting into the London office, so it gets reported on as a major incident. If it was only affecting Northern, or it started after the morning rush hour, it probably wouldn't even have got a mention, other than a quick entry on the odd local page.

It's exactly the same with the weather. Gales / storms / snow knock out half the country - no mention. 10 flakes of snow inside the M25 and it's headline news.

I'll have to strongly disagree with that "no mention". Right now, and for about the last 12 hours, the BBC news channel has been devoting about 50% of its coverage to storm Darragh, which is not noticeably affecting the area inside the M25. Constant reports from Wales and the Bristol area from reporters on the ground.

 

[Efini92]

I joined afterwards, I've only used gsm-r. Was that similar?

Ah fair enough. Yeah there was a mass registration problem. But we were allowed to go providing the gsmr showed gsmr-gb in the corner.
This was rather contradictory to the training course, where we were told the signal would not clear if we didn’t input the headcode.

 

[flitwickbeds]

I'll have to strongly disagree with that "no mention". Right now, and for about the last 12 hours, the BBC news channel has been devoting about 50% of its coverage to storm Darragh, which is not noticeably affecting the area inside the M25. Constant reports from Wales and the Bristol area from reporters on the ground.

And, under the new model for BBC News on the telly, everyone from Beirut to Brisbane, Washington to Seoul, and Kyiv to Delhi, has also been fed every single update about Storm Darragh.

As I'm at risk of receiving a forum warning or ban for being so off topic, this is the last time I will post on BBC News on this thread!

 

[Annetts key]

This morning's Sun has linked yesterday's problems to staff working from home (one of this paper's obsessions)

And I suppose that comic book of a "newspaper" also reported that the technician replaced the malfunctioning card while working from home...

 

[dk1]

Wasnt a big deal. Unable able to deregister or register but signaller totally happy as long as GB showing. Went Norwich to Liverpool Street as 1P03 (was 1P29) then Cambridge as 5J61 instead of 1K83 No delays incurred.

 

[infobleep]

At the risk of taking it further off topic, BBC News has someone able to do every function 24/7. The new structure is that the main newsroom operations change locations multiple times a day. Salford does the morning, London does the afternoon/early evening, Washington does a large chunk of the UK night, and Singapore does a little bit in the very early hours UK time.

So it's not so much lack of staff necessarily, but lack of people with specialist knowledge (and potentially interest/understanding of importance) of a UK-specific story.

As an example, an American editor working in the Washington newsroom, watching live feeds of some big waves in Aberystwyth, would have to choose how to prioritise that while also dealing with the assassination of a healthcare executive in New York, the aftermath of South Korea's recent political issues, rebels advancing on Syria's capital, and whether or not TikTok will be banned in the USA.

A couple of hours later that decision will rest with someone in the Singapore bureau, and a few hours after that the focus shifts to Breakfast, a much more domestic-focused outlook, from Salford, where some of the biggest international stories which might have been the headline for the last 8 hours, suddenly gets relegated to a 20 second mention at 20-past the hour.

We also need to remember that the (domestic) News Channel and the (international) World News, as well as the News website which used to operate separate domestic and international versions, are now one channel and one website since the last round of budget cuts. That means that the needs of the (advertiser-funded) international viewers who don't even know who Gregg Wallace is, has to be balanced with the needs of the (licence fee funded) domestic audience who would prioritise Storm Darragh over Damascus.

The Unions did warn that the merger of the two news channels wasn't going to work very well for precisely this reason.

That is fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to explain this.

 

[Harpo]

It affected some BBC journalists getting into the London office, so it gets reported on as a major incident.

It's exactly the same with the weather. Gales / storms / snow knock out half the country - no mention. 10 flakes of snow inside the M25 and it's headline news.

Absolutely agree. The joke about the ‘Pontlottyn Man Lost At Sea’ headline when the Titanic sank, is replicated daily by the BBC desperately seeking a London Village angle.

I laughed out very loud at this picture and caption (bottom of post) under BBC’s ‘Storm Darragh In Pictures’ a storm that caused major damage in Wales while ‘Westminster and other parts of southern England have seen plenty of grey skies and rain’.

In pictures: Storm Darragh causes disruption across the UK

The 90mph winds leaves cars and houses crushed by trees, roads flooded, and thousands without power.

www.bbc.co.uk

So yes, some trains delayed in London. And grey skies in Westminster!

 

[Recessio]

This morning's Sun has linked yesterday's problems to staff working from home (one of this paper's obsessions)

Train meltdown that hit networks traced to base where staff work just 2 days

A FAULT at a Network Rail base where staff are at their desks just two days a week triggered a meltdown on more than a dozen train networks yesterday morning. Hundreds of packed services were axed …

www.thesun.co.uk

Not sure if there is any truth at all in that being a factor in resolving the problem yesterday.

I don't see how working from home would have affected this. Presumably if the network card was faulty a replacement would have to be sourced and delivered to site, which surely is unaffected by whether someone organises this from home or from the office? Seems to be typical push by some types for more office working

 

[jayah]

I don't see how working from home would have affected this. Presumably if the network card was faulty a replacement would have to be sourced and delivered to site, which surely is unaffected by whether someone organises this from home or from the office? Seems to be typical push by some types for more office working

They allude to the Air Traffic Control incident. That was exacerbated by the person the issue was escalated being unable to get their password to work. That would still be a show stopper in the office.

In this example there seems to be precisely zero attribution to remote working.