On Nov 23, 10:47*pm, Arthur Figgis
wrote:

On 23/11/2010 10:52, George wrote:

In fairness that was a fairly minor error although it is sloppy and
unprofessional, the best one I heard (can't remember which radio
station) was a report of delays on the Hammersmith Line and also
delays on the City Line, they hadn't realised the H&C is one line

I've seen that in "official" material at least once.

TfL official? Or a bit removed from that - e.g. Bombardier official,
or Westinghouse (or whoever) official, or Network Rail official or
whatever?

On Nov 23, 10:52*pm, Arthur Figgis
wrote:

On 23/11/2010 13:35, Graham Harrison wrote:

This is true. Let's face it when some of us were younger we just headed
off and hoped. On the other hand we are where we are. Look at what
happened to Rolls Royce recently, the Trent on the Qantas Airbus blows.
RR put their head down to identify the problem and say nothing in the
meantime. What happens? Armchair experts and "the markets" all panic and
the share price drops. That's just an example of how we all react these
days. Bottom line seems to be that these days we assume no news is BAD
news.

And it often is.

Is it? (Not a cryptic question - but I'm probably just being dense and
missing your nuanced point.)


I suspect much of the public sees Qantas and Airbus, not Rolls Royce.
And when the public thinks "Rolls Royce", most them aren't thinking of
aeroplanes but of a totally unrelated company.

Was it ever any different? Didn't someone famous make his fortune
gambling on the result of Waterloo; he had no more information than
anyone else, but knew people thought he might have?

On Nov 23, 11:13*pm, Mizter T wrote:
On Nov 23, 11:06*pm, MIG wrote:





On Nov 23, 10:55*pm, Mizter T wrote:

On Nov 23, 10:46*pm, MIG wrote:

On Nov 23, 10:40*pm, Arthur Figgis
wrote:

On 23/11/2010 09:04, Chris Tolley 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?

Could be interesting for the shipping forecast...

I'd expect whoever organises the shipping forecast to know something
about shipping and weather, and I'd expect whoever organises London
travel news to know something about London and travel.

Well, not any more I wouldn't.

Blimey, I really think you're making a mountain out of a molehill
about this, I really do.

Really? *I just made a comment in what, in my haste, I saw as a
particular context, and came back to find fifty-odd responses, mainly
inferring a different context, so I've explained it a bit better.

In other words, much of this mountain didn't need to be piled on my
molehill.

OK, fair comment - though I was really (over)reacting to your specific
comment above, the "not any more I wouldn't", though I see in turn it
was itself a response to others comments.

I only added that to avoid the "oh ho no you shouldn't" comments that
might have followed.

(You will see that I did
take up Chris Tolley on his comments - though actually it might have
been better to leave you to answer his questions.) This is all getting
kinda jumbled up so I'll step away from it now!

I think you addressed them well enough, tar.

On 23/11/2010 23:15, Mizter T wrote:

On Nov 23, 10:47 pm, Arthur
wrote:

On 23/11/2010 10:52, George wrote:

In fairness that was a fairly minor error although it is sloppy and
unprofessional, the best one I heard (can't remember which radio
station) was a report of delays on the Hammersmith Line and also
delays on the City Line, they hadn't realised the H&C is one line

I've seen that in "official" material at least once.

TfL official? Or a bit removed from that - e.g. Bombardier official,
or Westinghouse (or whoever) official, or Network Rail official or
whatever?

I would guess some combination of National Rail Enquiries, Southern and
FCC. A while ago I was contemplating a sign at East Croydon. I ran
thought it a few times, mentally crossing out the multiple negatives,
then suddently realised whoever wrote it probably hadn't actually
designed it as a complex but still coherent logical puzzle...

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 23/11/2010 23:17, Mizter T wrote:

On Nov 23, 10:52 pm, Arthur
wrote:

On 23/11/2010 13:35, Graham Harrison wrote:

This is true. Let's face it when some of us were younger we just headed
off and hoped. On the other hand we are where we are. Look at what
happened to Rolls Royce recently, the Trent on the Qantas Airbus blows.
RR put their head down to identify the problem and say nothing in the
meantime. What happens? Armchair experts and "the markets" all panic and
the share price drops. That's just an example of how we all react these
days. Bottom line seems to be that these days we assume no news is BAD
news.

And it often is.

Is it? (Not a cryptic question - but I'm probably just being dense and
missing your nuanced point.)

How often does someone announce bad news if they don't have to?

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On Nov 23, 11:00*pm, Arthur Figgis
wrote:

On 23/11/2010 13:23, Mizter T wrote:

I think they're well aware of the reach of their signal, particularly
w.r.t. travel news (for general news it's not unreasonable to expect
that listeners would turn to their local, home counties station

Do the BBC ever do much general news which is heavily slanted towards
things of interest in the home counties?

Er, pass. My point was just that BBC London radio [1] might regard
their travel news remit as running a bit wider than the patch they
focus on for news editorial purposes, because of RDS, because people
travelling in and out of the metropolis are likely to be interested
etc. That said, BBC London is a so-called 'tri-media' operation (tv,
radio, online) - and the area covered by the respective television and
radio signals will be a bit different (and analogue and digital will
themselves be a bit different) - whether BBC London do have specific
policies as to what they cover and where and whether this differs
between outlets I don't know, though rumour has it the BBC London
website can be even be reached from Middlesbrough.

On Nov 23, 10:31*pm, MIG wrote:

On Nov 23, 7:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:10:12 -0800 (PST), MIG
wrote:

On Nov 23, 6:06*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

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

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.

They only relay what they are told. *I would be surprised if the people
in the newsroom had any real clue what TOC ran where or in this case
that two TOCs run over a stretch of line in West London and that one of
the services could be affected by a problem at Watford. *There might be
some BBC employees who know because they use the service to Shepherds
Bush but I suspect their ability to inform the newsroom is rather
limited.

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

There will be many occasions when the information is perfectly fine
because the source info is fine. Therefore people will find the info
helpful. That's probably sufficient reason. I recognise that the real
world situation changes faster than the telly can but I am grateful that
I can see something on the telly as I get ready to head out rather than
having to switch my PC on and wait for it to warm up, get connected to
the net etc etc and then have to switch it all off again.

In this case I was only listening to the TV because I was making
myself late by trying to get my PC to do something it was having a
problem with ... but didn't affect my ability to post through Google.
It should really have been off by then.

I nearly didn't listen after the "major disruption ... South Eastern"
part of the report. *If I'd been using the WCML today I might have
been peeved that the real problem wasn't highlighted.

OK, well put like that your gripe does make more sense -
(a) your ears pricked up a little on hearing "major disruption ...
South Eastern" - when of course we know that SE had nowt to do with
it, and
(b) there was wider disruption on the WCML, of which the disruption to
Southern services from the WLL up to MKC was only a part (just how
disruptive was this disruption at Watford Junction?).


Perhaps I should go and get a job in a travel newsroom - I didn't
immediately (on first reading) spot that Southeastern had been
erroneously substituted for Southern, nor did I think laterally and
ponder that disruption to the Southern WLL services was a likely
indicator of wider problems on the WCML. I think I'll be off to watch
Sky News where I can feel 'less than totally bright' in good company
(well, plentiful company at least)!

On Nov 24, 12:00*am, Mizter T wrote:
[snip]
(b) there was wider disruption on the WCML, of which the disruption to
Southern services from the WLL up to MKC was only a part (just how
disruptive was this disruption at Watford Junction?).
[snip]

Answering my own question (inadvertently I must admit - I was looking
on the LM website for something else!) - from the front page of London
Midland's site:

---quote---
This is an important announcement

Thank you for your patience during this morning's disruption

If you were caught up in the disruption around Watford Junction today,
please accept our sincere apologies.

A maintenance train damaged the track at an important junction south
of the station which prevented any trains from accessing the St Albans
Abbey line. In addition, the incident blocked two of the 4 lines
between Watford and Euston, which was further complicated by a
signalling problem at Wembley.

While Network Rail worked to reopen the lines, both Virgin Trains and
ourselves ran a special timetable with fewer trains until
approximately 0830 to reduce congestion. We also ran buses on the St
Albans line until 0930.

Once again, please accept our apologies if your journey was disrupted.
If you were delayed by more than 30 minutes, remember you can claim
compensation under the Delay Repay scheme.

For the latest updates during disruption visit nationalrail.co.uk/
disruption or if you use Twitter, follow us @londonmidland.
---/quote---

On Nov 24, 12:00*am, Mizter T wrote:
On Nov 23, 10:31*pm, MIG wrote:





On Nov 23, 7:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:10:12 -0800 (PST), MIG
wrote:

On Nov 23, 6:06*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

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

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.

They only relay what they are told. *I would be surprised if the people
in the newsroom had any real clue what TOC ran where or in this case
that two TOCs run over a stretch of line in West London and that one of
the services could be affected by a problem at Watford. *There might be
some BBC employees who know because they use the service to Shepherds
Bush but I suspect their ability to inform the newsroom is rather
limited.

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

There will be many occasions when the information is perfectly fine
because the source info is fine. Therefore people will find the info
helpful. That's probably sufficient reason. I recognise that the real
world situation changes faster than the telly can but I am grateful that
I can see something on the telly as I get ready to head out rather than
having to switch my PC on and wait for it to warm up, get connected to
the net etc etc and then have to switch it all off again.

In this case I was only listening to the TV because I was making
myself late by trying to get my PC to do something it was having a
problem with ... but didn't affect my ability to post through Google.
It should really have been off by then.

I nearly didn't listen after the "major disruption ... South Eastern"
part of the report. *If I'd been using the WCML today I might have
been peeved that the real problem wasn't highlighted.

OK, well put like that your gripe does make more sense -
(a) your ears pricked up a little on hearing "major disruption ...
South Eastern" - when of course we know that SE had nowt to do with
it, and
(b) there was wider disruption on the WCML, of which the disruption to
Southern services from the WLL up to MKC was only a part (just how
disruptive was this disruption at Watford Junction?).

Bah. The cleared disruptions have gone now, but I recall seeing on
NRE this afternoon the usual list of affected routes (Birmingham,
Nuneaton etc).

Not going that way, I can't be sure how bad/long it was. Is Neil
Williams on holiday?


Perhaps I should go and get a job in a travel newsroom - I didn't
immediately (on first reading) spot that Southeastern had been
erroneously substituted for Southern, nor did I think laterally and
ponder that disruption to the Southern WLL services was a likely
indicator of wider problems on the WCML. I think I'll be off to watch
Sky News where I can feel 'less than totally bright' in good company
(well, plentiful company at least)!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

In message
MIG wrote:

On Nov 23, 10:40*pm, Arthur Figgis
wrote:
On 23/11/2010 09:04, Chris Tolley 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?

Could be interesting for the shipping forecast...

I'd expect whoever organises the shipping forecast to know something
about shipping and weather,

As far as the broadcast is concerned you don't have to know about either. It
is a set formula that hasn't been changed in 70 years or more.[1] The hard
bit is actually reading it! The organisation is done by the Met Office. By
analogy it is not unreasonable for the BBC to expect whover supplies the rail
information to apply the same dilligence to their reports.

[1] Apart from adding a couple more sea areas about 30 years ago.

--
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/