'Railway 200' events and commemorations 2025

[whole diary]

[Ralph Ayres]

“What better way to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the railways with a record attempt.”

Am I being too negative to suggest things like getting the railway running reliably the rest of the time and making sure trains are long enough for the number of people using them?  Certainly the real critics (I'm thinking of the "HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) is an extravagance as it's just shaving 15 minutes off the London-Birmingham time" brigade) will not be impressed by a one-off publicity exercise when there is still much to criticise. 

[grahame]

Bookings opened today for the big event .... and were suspended soon after with "Bad Gateway" errors.   As an educated guess, someone had not put a sufficient number of worker systems behind the receptionist .... wouldn't make that mistake with the Coffee Shop

[grahame]

Certainly the real critics (I'm thinking of the "HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) is an extravagance as it's just shaving 15 minutes off the London-Birmingham time" brigade) will not be impressed by a one-off publicity exercise when there is still much to criticise. 

You are correct - but then those who are principled anti will always look for things to criticise ... and it is not an [either/or] between one of publicity and getting the base system right - both can and should be done in parallel.