Windows for Railways, or, The Blue Screen of Delay

[major_clanger]

The scene: a Virgin Pendolino en route from Liverpool to London, on which grahamsleight and I are returning from an SFF liaison meeting at Liverpool University. We've just pulled into Stafford, but after about ten minutes it becomes clear that we're not pulling out. Eventually, the conductor comes on the PA to explain the problem:

"We apologise for the delay but we are having a problem with the train's computer and will have to do a complete restart. Please note that the lights, internal doors and toilets will be out of action whilst we do this."

Sure enough, it goes dark (well, a bit dimmer) and all the little this-train-is-working noises fade away. A couple of minutes later the lights and noise return... but five minutes on and we're still looking out the window at Stafford.

"Somebody's probably looking at a screen," I note to grahamsleight, "saying something like 'cannot find flush_toilet.dll.'"

Eventually we trundle off, some twenty minutes late (which, now that we're stuck behind slower services, grows to thirty-five minutes by the time we reach Euston). But there is one last, apologetic, announcement.

"We regret that due to the problem earlier the kitchen is out of action so there will be no further food service."

Evidently it was coffee_pot.dll that was missing instead.

Comments

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

They used to frequently have to "reboot" the Class 458 'Juniper' trains that run on the Reading-Waterloo line. Except with those they were prompted to do so because the parts that the computer was failing to control were the external doors and the brakes.