Great Western Coffee Shop

 :o

I am a new member of the forum, and with the greatest of respect to posters who are far more knowledgeable than me, might it be possible to reduce the amount of jargon/acronyms in posts?

Some posts make little sense to folks outside the rail industry or with other specialist knowledge.

I'm just an IT professional, and that industry is bad enough for that sort of thing - but this forum, very good though it is, is worse!

rgds to all
Rob

Although there is an Acronyms/Abbreviations page I can see your point of view to an extent.  Whilst I can follow the jist of most posts the one thing I do stumble over are the three letter codes for stations.  Some are quite obvious but a fair few can be more obscure and I keep having to leave a thread to look one up.

How about this format?

  e.g.  PLYmouth in the first reference to the station and then just PLY thereafter etc...sorry etcetera :-)

That's an idea although some will look a bit strange where the three letters are not adjacent to each other in the full name.  I am getting used to a lot of them now. Although I still think Bristol Temple Meads should be BTM to match BPW for Bristol Parkway.

.....ok anything to stop me working  ;D

FarNborough North (FNN)
ReaDingG (RDG)
NaiLSea and backwell (NLS)
NewBurY (NBY)
GaTWick airport
NewBurY
WeStBury (WSB)
WarMiNster (WMN)
ColNE (ANE)
SeVern Beach (SVB)
ShalFoRd (SFR)

It's up to some other sad person to continue my list!! lol!

IT  ;) :D  :)

So easy to do, isn't it. 

Ideally, full wording should be provided with the first time something is mentions in my humble opinion (IMHO), with the acronym bracketed thereafter.   Then, IMHO, you should be able to reuse the acronym as the post / thread continues.

I'm awful with jargon.  Just a quick search through my previous posts will present plenty of SVR, CDR, BRI and 1072s without any explanation!

On the other hand, you'll see that I can become equally as confused: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=9632.msg100426#msg100426

I can write my posts in Java if you prefer...  8)

Unfortunately, this doesn't work for every station.  E.g. Bedford is BDM (unless you refer to it as Bedford Midland).  Fortunately, however, I cannot think of any such examples in the FGW area.

WOS e WOF fling on about? :D

explains why barnstaple and poole are often frowned upon  ;D

"rgds"?

It only gets worse - the codes on signal posts are not the same as the TLA for the Station where the controlling SignalBox resides.

I use 'Rail Planner Live' on my smartphone - a handy feature is that the Station names and the 3 letter codes are listed together.

If it is a station you can always look it up using the online timetable.

Just an example... picked at random, nothing personal!

The easiest option is for FGW to use a TPWS fitted 08 or 09 to operate the draw back moves to / from Paddington which reduces the daily requirement for 57/6 from three to two. The other loco then becomes a 'Thunderbird' at some strategic point or is available as maintainance cover at OOC.

rgds to all (regards to all) :D

Rob

Quite agree, very sensible

Rob

I'm just a passenger who loathed trains but one day wondered what the barrels are at the track side....what DMLOS could possibly mean...
I now know that TPWS things are toast racks and to understand what a Thunderbird' is you have to watch children's TV (International Rescue) - The Thunderbirds are named
57301 Scott Tracy
57302 Virgil Tracy
57303 Alan Tracy
57304 Gordon Tracy
57305 John Tracy
57306 Jeff Tracy
57307 Lady Penelope
57308 Tin Tin
57309 Brains
57310 Kyrano
57311 Parker
57312 The Hood
57313 Tracey Island
 

Some stuff is harder understand or remember because I live in Cornwall...OOC is Old Oak Common.
Lots of the Loco numbers don't mean much as I never see them - won't be seeing 'Donkeys' any more as Class 142 'Pacers' are  being replaced with Class 150's.

I used to wonder why signals are always at red when passing...why the Driver of the St Ives branch gets given a piece of tree branch when he does a trip from Penzance.

My days out are now much more interesting and I regularly talk to Station staff & Drivers asking them about stuff I don't know yet.

 

Are you the bloke with lots of pens in his anorak pocket, sandals and a camera tripod?

imho used to confuse me... what would be do without google eh?

iltuogysdts :-)