On Nov 23, 8:06*am, MIG wrote:
On good form today with reports of South Eastern services suspended
between Shepherds Bush and Milton Keynes.

If you will indulge me, I will rewind a bit back to the beginning. In
a building there is a Control room. On a Sunday night the Network Rail
duty manager and his team of train running controllers and
infrastructure controllers take duty alongside the TOC duty manager
and Controllers, which may include fleet staff, will include area
controllers (with different names across the industry) and will also
include a Customer Information controller/manager as well as CIS
operators and CCTV, but the latter staff may be located separately, it
depends on the TOC.

Once on duty the mundane jobs are done. It is a night shift so will
include balancing stock for the morning peak (TOC) , creating the
previous days log for distribution (TOC/NR) and monitoring of
possessions (NR, but TOCs obviously showing an interest). As it is
autumn there is the RHTT’s to monitor (again NR with TOC
watchfulness). Take a way’s may be delivered and certainly plenty of
tea and coffee will be consumed.

At an unspecified time (we will use 05.00) a call will come in to say
that there has been a failure of the signalling equipment has occurred
at Dingily Dell and the information flow will start through the
office. Obviously this could be a unit failure a line side fire, wires
down, Ice on the 3rd rail, possession over running – you get the
point. So, at the moment the extent of the problem will not be
immediately apparent so there will be deployment of resources, on call
management to site if need be or advised at least. So to get back to
the original topic a message will – if relevant at this time – be sent
to staff pagers (a bit old fashioned now) more likely staff
Blackberries will be emailed, stations receive faxes, or direct
massages on read only Tyrell(*) terminals, normal emails and there
are other methods of receiving. Public facing recipients will be the
TOC’s website, NRES and a number of designated recipients and as
Dingily Dell is a South East location the information will go to
London Traffic Link and a smattering of local radio stations.
Customers / passengers who have chosen to receive alerts may at this
stage also receive a text or email alert, but that really depends on
how much information is initially known at this stage.
Now once the extent of the problem unravels (sometimes it is obvious,
other times it needs time to assess) it may be necessary for a
telephone conference between site on staff and representatives from
the Control (at all levels) with senior management staff also if
required.

So we now learn that the Dingily Dell incident is now going to be a
bit of a biggie, with very restrictive signalling available. A train
plan is hatched. The Network Rail infrastructure controller is
allocating resources to go to site and fix the problem; the NR train
running controller is liaising with signallers and inputting schedules
or cancelling schedules and of course liaising with the TOCs
controllers. The TOC Controller is sorting out the train crews and in
turn liaising with the fleet controller (he/she may be in the Control
or the depot, it depends on which control you are in) as to what units
should stay tucked up in the depot and the most important link in the
chain is that the information controller / manager will now update the
information already sent out with a more informed update and details
of the service plan. All of the original recipients of the first
message will receive this information in the form of an “updated
“message. Individual trains will then be shown as cancelled, delayed
or altered and each of these alterations will also go to the same
recipients with clever stuff now being done with text alerts filtering
out the unwanted bits so that those who receive text alerts get the
right information. The CIS will now be updated. Live departure boards
will also be updated, either by the information input by the Customer
Information Controller / Manager on his Tyrell terminal or by input
into CIS. Some systems allow the CIS to be updated by Tyrell cutting
out a link in the chain and also illuminating any differences, such as
reasons being manually input differently.

Thus the man at Dingily Dell local radio receives an updated message
at 06.00 advising that TOC “A” (local trains) is affected by the
signalling problem, as well as a message from TOC “B” (Inter city) who
are located in a different control room but have sent out a very
similar message. TOC “C” only run a few trains so have been told to
stay away altogether please, so the junior reporter working at Dingily
Dell radio pulls off all of these messages and gives them to Tim, nice
but dim, who is on the breakfast show. Tim tells all of the morning
commuters the tale of woe.
Now if you move the dial over a bit (press a preset button etc) a
larger commercial radio station has a traffic report coming up. The
traffic news is being read by an independent organisation who has
received the same information from the different TOCs. Prior to
reading out the local news that affects the whole of London; the
reporter has just finished a slot on Birmingham’s commercial radio and
prior to that, Manchester. In between these broadcasts they are
getting updates from the highways agency and many other TOC’s and LUL.
They will be back in half an hour with another update.

So now you turn on the BBC news on the TV and after the local weather
the traffic will be read by the newsreader from a script prepared by
information gleaned from Traffic Link (mentioned earlier and quite
probably the same source for the commercial radio show). Turn over
again (in my opinion at your peril, but that is my opinion only) and
you will find the ITV version of breakfast news. They will advise you
of the same problems having got the information in the same way.

(*) Tyrell is a system used by MOST railway control offices to
disseminate information and is provided / hosted by Nexus Alpha (I
will leave the sci-fi buffs to work out the connection). It has been
mentioned a few times on here before and their website is at
http://www.nexusalpha.com/

I appreciate that the chain can become broken, but hope this helps
explain why it can be broken. I would not say that I spend all of my
spare time monitoring the airwaves and TV for inaccuracies, but when I
see them or hear them, if I can, I will go via the most direct route I
can to get things corrected. When not at work this can be via a radio
station direct or via email to other outlets including NRES (whose
staff is very good and very well informed).

I hope this is of some interest

Richard

I think the statements that spooked the markets came from a forthright
and particularly well-informed senior manager of QANTAS.


Didn't help I agree although whether he was as well informed as he thought
he was is another matter.

On 2010\11\23 14:55, Offramp wrote:
On Nov 23, 12:58 pm, Basil wrote:

Why? IME BBC News contains an average of one and a half errors per
sentence, so I don't know why you expect the travel news to be any better.

I only make it one per sentence; perhaps I should listen more closely.
I think BBS Radio 4 is excellent, The TV News from the BBS is truly
illiterate - the whole Society is run by analphabets, as I pointed out
earlier - but on the radio there are still some well-educated
individuals.

Analphabets? BBC News seems to be full of people who have English
degrees but can't change a fuse.

In message
amogles wrote:

On 23 Nov., 13:00, Graeme wrote:


And that's what the broadcasters generally have to work from.

However, if information is cryptic and unclear, the least they can do
is grab the phone and clarify.

And just who do they phone? And when?


But because the people who parrot the information don't actually
understand it, they don't notice how potentially confusing or
misleading it can be.

And it all gives an insight into how meticulous and trustworthy these
folks will be in their other reporting.


You mean you believe what you read in the papers?

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail
Photo galleries at http://graeme-wall.fotopic.net/

In message
Offramp wrote:

On Nov 23, 12:58*pm, Basil Jet wrote:

Why? IME BBC News contains an average of one and a half errors per
sentence, so I don't know why you expect the travel news to be any better.

I only make it one per sentence; perhaps I should listen more closely.
I think BBS Radio 4 is excellent, The TV News from the BBS is truly
illiterate - the whole Society is run by analphabets, as I pointed out
earlier - but on the radio there are still some well-educated
individuals.

What is this society you apparently listen to? Can't say I've ever come
across it.

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail
Photo galleries at http://graeme-wall.fotopic.net/

Mizter T wrote:

"Chris Tolley" (ukonline really) wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

"Chris Tolley" (ukonline really) wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

"Chris Tolley" (ukonline really) wrote:

MIG wrote:

The newsreaders just keep on dumbly reading it out every half hour.
You'd think that the London travel newsroom would have some vague
idea about transport in London.

Would you? Why? Do you think it is a requirement for people who
mention
London in the things they read out to be Londoners?

Except that's not what MIG said.

What isn't? I'm asking questions which are clearly about what MIG said.

He didn't mention anything about Londoners, let alone any requirement to
be
one.

I know. I can't see what your problem is with what I asked. Did you miss
the question mark between the "Why" and the "Do", thus misreading the
question?


Why did you introduce the Londoners concept? The way you worded your
question implied that that's what MIG either said or thinks (a little akin
to 'How often do you beat you wife?', though hardly of the same league).

For exactly the same reason that I speculated about what was causing you
the difficulty in my question above. To me that and the question posed
to MIG are functionally and structurally equivalent. As I said, I can't
see why you seized on it, especially as you took my second question in
your stride. I suppose that in both cases, they are just me confiding
the impression that has been created for me by the thing that I am
asking about.

FWIW, I'd certainly think - indeed expect - that a "London travel newsroom
would have some vague idea about transport in London" - I'm not sure that's
so contentious a point. His preceding sentence about "newsreaders [who] just
keep on dumbly reading it out" does complicate his point a bit, as we've
discussed.

That was the whole of it for me. I read what MIG wrote as suggesting the
final responsibility for accuracy of the broadcast news lay with the
newsreaders.

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9683620.html
(A class 101 set led by 50315 about to leave Stratford-upon-Avon, 1982)

"Graham Harrison" wrote:
I think the statements that spooked the markets came from a forthright
and particularly well-informed senior manager of QANTAS.


Didn't help I agree although whether he was as well informed as he thought
he was is another matter.


Well, at the start, he called it right. The as the story unfolded, he
called it right. The eventual solution? He called that right too.

From the beginning to the end (today's announcement of a limited
return to traffic) he called it right.

He was either particularly well-informed or spectacularly lucky.
Personally, I don't think luck came into it.

Perhaps you felt he came across as a little arrogant, but I think it
was the mark of a man who knew his subject inside out and wasn't
afraid to speak his mind. So he upset a few people at RR? Strikes me
that they needed a kick up the backside.

But I'm not a Little Englander who objects when someone well-informed
from a former British colony fearlessly speaks their mind ... I
admired him for what he did in defence of his employer, the
international airline with the best reputation for safety of any in
the world.

On Nov 23, 3:21*pm, Fat richard wrote:
On Nov 23, 8:06*am, MIG wrote:

On good form today with reports of South Eastern services suspended
between Shepherds Bush and Milton Keynes.

If you will indulge me, I will rewind a bit back to the beginning.

snip interesting explanation of how the chain becomes broken just to
stop this being too long

I was in a hurry, but to put it into context ...

I was listening to a news report (TV in fact) and I heard "Major
disruption ... South Eastern ..."

I was already cursing before I cottoned on that this was, in fact, a
story about disruption on the WCML (or perhaps that's not a story any
more).

I was not taking the PIS out of them getting the TOC wrong, because
I'm all in favour of not even advertising the TOC.

And I'm not criticising those in the chain that got broken. I am
critisicing people in a local newsroom who seem to have bugger all to
do except read out sixty seconds of the same script every half hour
and don't seem to give a sh*t that the script is nonsense with respect
to a local area that they are supposed to know about.

This time, I think they started getting the TOC right after an hour
and a half, but still didn't bill it as a story about the WCML.

On Nov 23, 12:48*pm, "Mizter T" wrote:
[Sorry, ineptly managed to post this reply before I'd finished it - here's
the whole thing]

"Chris Tolley" (ukonline really) wrote:





Mizter T wrote:

"Chris Tolley" (ukonline really) wrote:

MIG wrote:

The newsreaders just keep on dumbly reading it out every half hour.
You'd think that the London travel newsroom would have some vague
idea about transport in London.

Would you? Why? Do you think it is a requirement for people who mention
London in the things they read out to be Londoners?

Except that's not what MIG said.

What isn't? I'm asking questions which are clearly about what MIG said.

He didn't mention anything about Londoners, let alone any requirement to be
one.



I don't think it's unreasonable that BBC *London* should strive for
accuracy when it comes to reporting London travel news.

All right, same question to you then, but unpacked. The implication
behind your (and MIG's) comment seems to be that staff whose job it is
to *read* the news ("newsreaders" above) on Radio Xtown should have some
intrinsic knowledge about Xtown so that they can correct the news in
real time if it is not correct on their script. Why should this be so,m
and how should it be achieved?

Well, in relation to MIG's comments it'd be useful if he unpacked them too -
it's unclear whether he's actually trying to suggest that corrections to a
script should be made on the fly, which does seems like a bit of a potential
recipe for disaster (that said, I think just that does occur a little in
these days of rolling news - one of the benefits of having journalists as
opposed to mere newsreaders doing the job).

However the bracketed comments in my earlier reply were actually quite
relevant - the travel news reports on BBC London radio are read out by a
member of the travel team who is actually involved in compiling said
reports, they are not just a newsreader (though again, see above - many of
those reading the news on television these days are 'proper' journalists,
not just readers of scripts). Therefore they may actually have been
responsible for compiling the report themselves, or else one of their
colleagues may have done so - so one could argue that they should be able to
spot mistakes and correct them in later broadcasts.

I hardly ever watch breakfast television (too preoccupied coming to terms
with consciousness!), but racking my brains I do now seem to recall that on
the local London inserts on the Beeb they do use (or at least have used)
members of their London travel team to present the travel segment - so again
whilst correcting something on the fly is going to be a bit of a stretch,
they could get it right next time round. Also, if there are other members of
the travel staff around who were able to monitor the output (whether on
radio or tv), then again corrections could be made.



Should newsreaders be employed on the basis of what they know, or the
quality of their vocal projection? My view is that presenters on radio
should be employed on the basis of their ability to speak so as not to
be misunderstood by listeners. Anything else (e.g. unscripted banter
e.g. Eddie Mair, interesting regional accents e.g. Ian MacMillan, or the
propensity to dissolve in fits of giggles e.g. Brian Johnston, are all
bonuses.)

See all my comments above about the decline of 'pure' newsreaders - BBC
television news now has its programmes presented by journalists not
newsreaders (see the case of Moira Stuart); Eddie Mair on PM is a
journalist; the various presenters on Radio 5 are generally journalists, at
least w.r.t. the news orientated output (not necessarily saying some of them
are any good though!); and I think on BBC London local radio and television
the presenters are often journalists too (FWIW, 'BBC London' is a so-called
'tri-media' operation - tv, radio, online).

That said newsreaders of the more traditional mould do live on in radio at
least, e.g. on Radio 4 - and they're not just script readers either as they
partake in the process of compiling the script - indeed some of them have
come from a journalistic background (and arguably they are by their nature
journalists - cue debate on the definition of journalism!)





(MIG doesn't however state which outlet this was - i.e. whether it was
BBC
London radio, or the local London inserts on BBC Breakfast television
programme - I never watch the latter so don't know how it's presented,
but
the former are read out on air by members of BBC London's travel team who
are also involved in compiling the information - they also 'tweet' here
http://twitter.com/bbctravelalert - my impression is that they're
fairly
on the ball, TBH.)

If you *know* the BBC is broadcasting something that is inaccurate, then
wouldn't it be constructive for you to contact them directly to correct
it? Complaining about it here won't achieve anything.

Plus, I don't think the inaccuracy that prompted MIG's post was really
all
that heinous either!

Me neither.


Coming back into this rather late, I wasn't particularly interested in
taking the PIS out of them getting the TOC wrong, and I certainly
didn't have time to be phoning the BBC or looking up the London news
email address (it was TV news, by the way).

Getting the TOC wrong is not so terrible, given that I don't think
TOCs are worth mentioning anyway.

In this case, I heard "Major discruption ... South Eastern ..." and
began to curse before cottoning on that this was a story about
disruption on the WCML.

Is there no human being in a London newsroom capable of recognising
that it was a WCML problem and that a more significant bunch of
services were affected than those from Shepherds Bush, which ought to
have got first billing?

On Nov 23, 6:06*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:06:38 -0800 (PST), MIG

wrote:
On good form today with reports of South Eastern services suspended
between Shepherds Bush and Milton Keynes.

Their willingness to repeat nonsense for bulletin after bulletin is
often less obviously workable out than that one, like the time that
they kept announcing that services on the "Lewisham line" were being
diverted, when they meant that services between Dartford and Lewisham
via Bexleyheath were being diverted via Sidcup (rather important for
punters to know that they were NOT going via Bexleyheath, but WERE
going via Lewisham).

They do this sort of thing over and over. *The newsreaders just keep
on dumbly reading it out every half hour. *You'd think that the London
travel newsroom would have some vague idea about transport in London.

While I understand the point you make I think you have unrealistic
expectations. I think, but am happy to be corrected, that the BBC simply
gets a feed from the respective websites for NR and TfL plus whatever is
reported for roads. The terminology that they use is just about
identical to whatever is shown on digital teletext which usually aligns
with web info. *If the source info is poorly described in terms of
location, impact and expected duration then that will simply be
repeated.

I don't think television news broadcasters are expected to add anything
to "official" information. I would imagine their response to you would
be - "we get the info from an official source. Surely it is their
responsibility to provide accurate and coherent info to the public?
They *do* *know* what is going on on their railway or road don't they?"

Not ideal I accept but would you really want artistic licence sprinkled
on top of your morning transport information?

--
Paul C

No, but maybe someone in the newsroom on seeing that the bulletin was
nonsense might have made the odd phone call or something to find out
what was really happening.

Or if they really can't even do that, why bother at all?