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How has lockdown affected this site?

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MotCO

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I've been taking more of an interest in the General Knowledge Quiz, but note that my postings there are not included in my number of messages posted. Are quiz postings excluded from the stats Yorkie provided?
 
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Mikey C

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Last on the tube 5th March, last on a train 29th February, though as I went to up Huddersfield that day from London, at least it was a good run!
 

yorkie

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I've been taking more of an interest in the General Knowledge Quiz, but note that my postings there are not included in my number of messages posted. Are quiz postings excluded from the stats Yorkie provided?
They are excluded from individuals' post counts
 

Mogster

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I came here without any particular interest in rail, just as a commuter wanting more information about my services. This site is very good for that sort of info, especially if you’re the sort of person that likes to know how things work and are the way they are.

I suspect quite a few people probably do the same. I have noticed a few names from the Southport-Wigan-Manchester threads disappearing from the board as people aren’t using public transport they are probably gradually posting less.
 

yorkie

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I came here without any particular interest in rail, just as a commuter wanting more information about my services. This site is very good for that sort of info...
That's good to hear :)

Yes when I created this site, I was already aware of the WNXX forum catering for the requirements of spotters, bashers and photographers, but I wanted this site to be different and cater for other purposes :)

However, problems occur when some spotters don't like the fact this forum isn't geared up for them, but don't want to use sites that are! Instead they want this forum to change its rules to suit their requirements. Some of them don't like being told we are not going to change to suit them, and I can get some pretty nasty reactions.

But in my opinion it is not possible to please everyone; I think the two forums compliment each other and give people a good choice. Other niche forums exist for those who are into modelling (RM Web), preservation (National Preservation) and more.

Perhaps the most surprising thing for me is that we appear to have the most popular bus forum, even overtaking the dedicated Tangy Tango Bus Forum!
 

yorkie

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The average number of posts per day has continued to fall in May, however the average number of members active in any given day has risen to around 3,000. This is back to where we were in September 2019.

We currently have around 350 fewer members logging onto the forum on an average day compared to the figures we had during January and February.

Most visitors are non-member "guests" and I'm not sure how affected their numbers are, but my guess would be a much greater reduction in guests than members.
 

yorkie

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Well, we didn't do badly at all!

We're now up to an average of 3,500 members active per day. The graph shows a big dip which has now recovered; we are not just up to the level we were before lockdown but have now exceeded it.

stats jun18-jul20.jpg
 

Cowley

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Hmm. We seem to have had a second spike.
@Mojo - We may need to commission some forum face masks..? :)
 

talldave

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Given our lead time on things like that, the pandemic would already be over.
Don't speak too soon, this is going to drag on and on. Every case of flu this winter will be claimed to be Covid and every incidence of respiratory infection from mask wearing will be described as Covid.

The last time I went on a train was back in early March, in the good old days before Covid killed my job. I don't see me getting on a train again this year.
 

Journeyman

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Interesting stuff on here. I like this site because it appeals to both my professional and personal interests in railways, and there's a knowledgeable bunch of people on here who always have a huge range of ideas and information to share.

Hardly surprising that the posting dropped, given that I've just gone four months without using any form of public transport at all, by far the longest period of my life without it - my mum didn't drive when I was little, and I'm reliably informed that I took my first train ride at the age of three weeks!

Took my first train ride since mid-March last week, although only from Edinburgh Park to Linlithgow. Up until March, I was regularly travelling from Edinburgh to Kent for work, so stopping that very suddenly came as bit of a shock to the system.
 

PaulMc7

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Feel like I've been on here a lot more during lockdown tbh despite the fact I was still unemployed before then. It's been refreshing to see a lot of what people have thought about lockdown and how the government have tackled it.
 

adc82140

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I've spent a lot of time on the Covid sub forum, and a lot less on the others recently.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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I'm expecting the Covid sub-forum to become the main one, as it's the only show in town really.
Either that or it gets merged into the rest of the forum as the "new normal".

I was reading this yesterday:

Informing DfT of the move, and the fact that some other services may not be fully restored, Northern‘s Regional Director Chris Jackson explained that ‘it will not be possible for us to restore service levels to pre-Coivd levels for some time due to the number of colleagues who are classified as vulnerable; the amount of training still to be completed on both our new trains and the Class 769 fleet, and the natural attrition of staff.’

A general pause in staff recruitment and training from the start of lockdown, with unions having insisted that social distancing requirements preclude multiple occupancy in many train cabs, means there is a significant backlog in training at a number of TOCs. Jackson’s letter said ‘like other operators, we paused all training where social distancing could not be maintained from the start of the pandemic. This has affected our training pipeline for drivers in particular, and we are currently working with our trade union colleagues at a local level and national level to risk assess how we can safely switch this training back on.’

Concerns about the same situation affecting signalboxes have been allayed after RMT agreed to work with Network Rail in ‘an unusually close and co-operative way’ to ensure all boxes and routes have been able to remain open. As well as accepting different rostering, training and overtime allocation processes, a mutual agreement to ‘flex’ some previous agreements have allowed a number of retired signallers to come back, train and work as required.

Which demonstrates how Covid is completely dominating the operation of the railway.
It also occurred to me that if these rules applied in the aviation industry, no commercial planes would fly, being unable to cope with 2 people in the cockpit.
 

ainsworth74

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I'm expecting the Covid sub-forum to become the main one, as it's the only show in town really.
Either that or it gets merged into the rest of the forum as the "new normal".

That is something that we're keeping under review as we go along and whilst we're not proposing any changes currently we are certainly thinking about.

Of course the day that we're looking forward to is when we can tell you that we're closing down the whole section!
 

MikeWM

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I've just passed my 1000th post, it seems. I appear to have posted more in the last three months than in the preceding 10 years :-/
 

talldave

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My favourite section has always been Disputes & Prosecutions because it provided a good education at a time when I was using innovative paper ticket choices - I used Gatwick Express for some time and then moved to HS1! Sadly, since moving to SE London, life has become one of Oyster boredom. (However, for some unknown reason my brain always reads "Disputes & Prostitution" as the title!!).

The Covid section is interesting because the IQ of posters is higher than on mainstream social media. Any attempt at rational debate on Twitter rapidly ends in "You're killing people", [BLOCK].

The whole Covid mess is dehumanising - it's telling when the person serving in the post office comments on how nice it is to see someone's face. At least on here we can communicate "as normal".
 

Baxenden Bank

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Well, we didn't do badly at all!

We're now up to an average of 3,500 members active per day. The graph shows a big dip which has now recovered; we are not just up to the level we were before lockdown but have now exceeded it.

View attachment 81379
If only the economy was showing the same improvement. Time for a coup perhaps, security services watch out for that future forum visit to Westminster!
 

nlogax

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From the non-rail perspective I was quite the fan of this sub-forum when it first started, maybe because it was the alternative to the Brexit thread which truly wound me up over the months and years.

Now I'm kind of bored of Covid in general and the surrounding angst which seems to be projected in the media. I wear a mask when required, I go shopping, I go to the pub, I use trains, I get on with my life..it's just background noise until we either get a vaccine or more readily accept a slightly heightened level of risk with C19 floating about like other unpleasant but mostly survivable diseases.
 

Jozhua

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Well today's incident certainly seems to be increasing traffic on the forum. Although ,unfortunately, it is more bad news for the railways.
 

PaulMc7

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1280 people viewing the forum on today's train disaster when I was on it earlier and 780 just now when I checked. Horrible to read about things like what happened today

Overall I feel like I've commented on fewer threads of late but more on the ones I have commented on. The number of posts I've made has occurred more quickly too mainly because I've had more disagreeing of my points than normal too but I'm okay with that when it's not completely shooting down what I say
 

A Challenge

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The highest I saw on the Stonehaven thread was 2,060 (739 members and 1,321 guests)
 

brad465

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The highest I saw on the Stonehaven thread was 2,060 (739 members and 1,321 guests)
One of the moderators quoted about 2,200 in a post at one point that I believe was around the peak; I don't know what the record is for most simultaneous viewings for one thread but would not be surprised if that was it.
 
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