The Steam Ban around York

Shouldn't they be called "Heresy" for their contribution to music..

Still it was nice to see Myleene Class giving tax and spend Miliband a bollocking this week.

 

on WCRC usually the driver is also traction inspector and vice versa.

 

Good god no, that's not what I said. Developing software needs the business represented in the room with developers, service designers and researchers. But we're probably experiencing different bits of 'IT' - I'm more at the 'software development for the web' end where you seem to be more at the 'string and tin' end. There are elements of ITIL that are relevant to development but much of it would kill continuous deployment and improvement.

Horses for courses I guess.

Simon

 

I was originally a long haired hairy developer living in San Francisco/San jose corridor during the dot com boom in the 1990s.. time has aged me, i graduated out of coding in the early 2000s and moved up / around the world... allegedly.

Unlike many in the business world, I'll always respect a techie and their opinion... in the world of sorcery, sales are wizards but the magic wand always comes from the back room.

String and Tin.. - i prefer strategy and design, but you don't mind If I steal that one do you

In Railway terms, where do I think IT currently is:
IT has passed the great era of innovation, and survived a few crashes, come up with standards and robust designs, gone global, but has yet to master the long boilered era of 4-6-0/4-6-2/Garratt era with heavy trains at heavy speeds.... so somewhere in the late 1890s. Brunel may no longer be with us, but GJ Churchward hasnt yet arrived, Stanier is still an office boy, so for now weve got William Dean to make do, City of Truro exists but isn't famous. The need for speed, integration, customer comforts and "cool" is all understood even if the delivery can be a bit interesting and bespoke. Despite inventing the railway, Germany and the US seem to be getting a bit clever in their designs over ours...

When weve truly converged the Phone/Wallet/Laptop/Handheld/Passport into a single wallet sized entity that we don't need to hold in order to use.. then the 1930s grand era begins, google hasn't yet built The Great Bear, nor even a 4-6-0 yet, but some exist elsewhere even if the full potential isn't known.

but that's another topic.

 

She may be a class piece of arse but her surname is Klass.

 

Yes Al but don't you think the NR response was out of all proportion to the incident?

 

Not really. This is where the history comes in, as it was one in a line of incidents stretching back to at least 2008, and the reputational damage this will have done to the company in question. The Committee may not have taken this into consideration in coming to their decision, as they were arbitrating on a point of documentation and understanding of rules, but the history element might well have informed NR's approach. In many respects, I've sympathised with NR's position from the beginning, but without knowing the full facts, I was unable to form an opinion on WCRC's position, as all there was to go on was a blustery press release in August.

 

Spoken like a guy who doesn't have have to suffer the "improvement" when its thrown over the fence to deployment teams, customers and service managers.


Oh forgot to mention, I was a service manager - ITIL accredited.

 

ROTFL - I've been in the string and tin arena for 25 years and have lost count of the times grenades have been lobbed over the wall at us - then had the blame for the failure put on our 'inadequate' infrastructure

 

If your development teams are 'throwing stuff over the fence' at anyone you've got problems already! But I'm guessing you're not doing TDD or continuous improvement, and haven't moved to a devops model…?

Simon

 

Is this prolonged exchange really relevant?

 

Sorry, I'll shut up now.

Simon

 

Sounds like an IT finance manager speaking

 

Yes - as it happens it really is. An open rail policy is very much like IT. The Permanent Way, its capacity, its maintenance, its upgrading, its rules and policies and the fact its not a revenue earner but a fixed cost is exactly like an IT infrastructure. The TOCs are IT dependent businesses, the stuff with wheels are its applications, and there is customers at the end of it.

Given that, the idea and discussion of applying IT type principals (ITIL) is a valid one, especially as the WCR/NR dispute has real parallels in IT dependent business.

 

The rulebook has recently changed with regard to the operation of trains with locos at each end and it is now permissible for the trailing loco to assist in normal circumstances. Ironically this seems to be of most benefit to WCRC and would seem to have been done to allow them to continue with a practice that had been done for some time before the rulebook change.

Could I also comment on the dual role that WC drivers are rumoured to be able to fulfill. No matter what attributes are bestowed upon these fine men it is my belief that they are either there in the role of driver or TI - in my opinion it is not possible to drive and supervise yourself and others at the same time..

 

Sorry, not got the time to read through the whole report etc. Did oil firing get a mention anywhere?

I just wondered if NR took the opportunity to introduce the subject. Got to raise it's head at some stage at that level in the fire risk debate, IMHO. May already have done of course.

 

No - not a sniff.