New Electric Train Rebooted

[whole diary]

[CJB666]

New GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Electrostar failed at Slough last night, blocking the up relief platform. Left on time from Maidenhead. Stalled at Slough for 20 mins. Solution - driver closed down all of the systems. Likely lowered the pantograph too. All lights went out. CSI display went blank. Wifi cut off.  Rebooted everything. And after about 5 mins the systems came back up - and all was well. Done this thousands of times with a computer - but for a train...!!!

[grahame]

Perhaps this explains why 3 buttons are provided "Ctrl", "Alt" and "Del" in the cabs? 

[stuving]

New GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Electrostar failed at Slough last night, blocking the up relief platform. Left on time from Maidenhead. Stalled at Slough for 20 mins. Solution - driver closed down all of the systems. Likely lowered the pantograph too. All lights went out. CSI display went blank. Wifi cut off.  Rebooted everything. And after about 5 mins the systems came back up - and all was well. Done this thousands of times with a computer - but for a train...!!!

Nothing new - I remember much the same happening with a 458 when they were new (so about 2000), trying to leave Reading. The guard made several announcements, starting with "the driver is having trouble getting the brakes to release" through "these are new trains with a computer that controls them, he's going to reset the computer" to "the brakes still won't release, he's going to turn all the power off and on". Having had the doors open/close sequence several times already, this time of course all the lights went out, then on, lots of bleeping from the doors; but the train did manage to set off.

But that was when trains with brains (however puny) were new, and I've not seen it since. Drivers collectively learn (through new guidance and training content), and the train can evolve too (through updates, naturally) to be less confusing and remove dead-end paths from the control logic. We hope.

[Tim]

In the very early years of the Voyagers, I was on a train which came to a halt in the countryside.  After we had waited a few minutes, the Guard (or possibly Driver) made an announcement to apologise for the delay which was due to "the train crashing".  A few minutes later, I saw the driver in Hi Vis walking along the ballast from one cab to the other carrying a stack of ring binders.  A few minutes later we were told that the computer had needed resetting and that all was now well and given an apology for "any alarm my pervious announcement may have give customers".