Abbreviations, acronyms and initialisations used in the Coffee Shop forum

[whole diary]

[grahame]

More than happy to have the additions and corrections - thank you. This is one area that it's worth getting accurate, and I'm sure many of you realise that vey often my fingers type quicker than my brain can smell ...

[Ollie]

Sorry another:

Headcode - AKA^▸ (also known as) a train reporting number. Helps identify a particular train. And helps signaller know whether it should get priority. Wikipedia has a good article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headcode

[grahame]

Added, thanks, Ollie ... but with a proviso. I was brought up on the Southern Electric part  of BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)), where headcodes were not the train reporting numbers but rather the route numbers - goodness, I can still recall from my youth, standing on Petts Wood station and waiting for the London trains:

12 Orpington - Charing Cross
13 Orpington - Cannon Street
16 Sevenoaks - Charing Cross
17 Sevenoaks - Cannon Street
70 Orpington - Victoria
71 Orpington - Holborn Viaduct
73 Orpington - Holborn Viaduct via the Catford Loop

Then there were 4, 5, 18 and 90 ... and 22 and 33 on the Hastings line, those last two numbers allocated to that service when it went from steam to Diesel Electric - they had been left out of earlier numbering systems since each train had - prior to that point - carried one set of metal cut out digits, so double numbers (same digit twice) had been impossible ...

P.S. Updates now at

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html

to give it a permanent URL and to avoid this thread getting very long on each page. Over 250 terms / acronyms / abbreviations!

[TerminalJunkie]

Perhaps you should add TAT - The Acronym Thread to your list

[John R]

And would also indicate the nature of the train:-
91 Bournemouth Fast (only stop Soton Central)
92 Bournemouth Semi-fast (3 or 4 additional stops)
93 Bournemouth slow (all stops after Woking)

The rattling REPs are still a fond memory. Travelled at 90mph but felt like they were doing 150mph as they shook you to bits. 

[swlines]

Are you sure they weren't actually doing 150mph? 

[John R]

I recall I timed them at up to 100mph. It was in the days when a bit of enthusiastic above speed running wasn't so tightly monitored as these days. 

[Phil]

Is there perhaps somewhere else these photos could be hosted?

I believe they still provide a valuable service for newcomers and it should be really easy to replace all the "redex" placeholders (that I and many others are seeing) now they've been taken offline by PhotoBucket by moving the pictures to another gallery, perhaps even hosted here at firstgreatwestern.info?

Cl142


Cl143


Cl150


Cl153


Cl158


Cl159


HST^▸ (High Speed Train)


220/221


Cl180


Cl47


Cl67


Thats all I can find!

[devon_metro]

Err. All of the photos work on my end and I have no removed any of the photos myself. Photobucket went down i would presume.

Contact me if you wish to use any of the photos.

[Phil]

Ah, right - cheers for that. I expect it was temporarily down. I know Photobucket can be pretty flakey.

[grahame]

I have added "QR^▸ (QR Code - Quick Response code)" as in "QR Codes" to our Acronyms and Abbreviations page so that you can find out what it stands for  .

Many of our members are known by their initials or some other abbreviation too.   Should we add them to the Acronymn and Abbreviation page?  If you are known here by an abbreviation or acronym and would like to be listed, please post up a one liner telling the team how you would like your description to appear and - subject to editorial content and a majority of votes in favour of adding such data, we'll add you to the page.

[Phil]

I say "no".

If people would like their abbreviations to be more widely known, it's up to them to include them in their signature blocks. I think it's an unnecessary extra Admin / Moderation overhead to expect us to update a table.

Happy as ever to go along with the majority opinion though.

[Chris from Nailsea]

I agree with Phil - I think we'd soon find ourselves getting bogged down in the 'Acronyms, Abbreviations and Initializations' page if we try to put too many items in there.

CfN 

(Chris from Nailsea)

[JayMac]

I'd say no as well.

bnm.

[Brucey]

I've voted yes.  For newbies, seeing something like "I agree with CfN's suggestion" or "I think BNM has given incorrect information about a fare"* could prove fairly confusing, especially when these are the codes for Clifton Down and Burnham Bucks (respectively).  A separate list of regular poster acronyms (so the main list doesn't become cluttered) could be useful.  I can think of maybe 10-15 members who should be included, so there won't be a huge amount of work involved.

BB

* = Obviously, this will never be posted on the forum