Minor updates and code changes occur every day. Only significant or noteworthy updates are shown here. Updates shown with a gold background are (or were at the time) only available to Advanced HOPS members.

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Time Date	System Updates
Update 1004 8 August 2023	ORR SMS GUIDANCE HOPS Workshop makes a re-appearance to discuss the ORR's recent new guidance on Safety Management Systems on minor and heritage railways, where we will be joined by ORR's Simon Barber, HM Principal Inspector of Railways. The new guidance can be downloaded here: https://www.orr.gov.uk/about/who-we-work-with/railway-networks/minor-heritage-railways This workshop will be conducted via MS Teams (not the normal Facebook Live), to enable all participants the opportunity to ask questions or make comments during the workshop. Meeting link: https://teams.live.com/meet/9449094336787?p=8fP0yUmwCwaGkYBZ --- HOPS has a great many tools to assist in the management of volunteer and employed staff at heritage and volunteer organisations. Previous HOPS Workshops are available to view on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeritageOps/videos/ and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRu_xPovYjpBegbwS-89jUg EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO JOIN IN. We will respond to comments and queries raised during the meeting. The meeting will start at 7pm and last approximately 90 minutes.
Update 943 20 December 2022	The first batch of work relating to timetables has been merged this evening. Editing Facilities: The facilities for editing base timetable trains and daily trains has been improved. (As a reminder, 'base timetables' are the templates, similar to base rosters. Daily timetables are the version applicable to a particular day, to which daily amendments etc are made.) Calling points on Daily Trains: It is now possible to time calling points on daily trains (on base timetables and daily timetables). [If you have already imported trains from a base timetable into daily trains then only the headlines will have imported, as until now that was as far as development had got. If you wish me to try to copy the calling point times from the base rosters onto your existing daily trains please let me know and I will try to do so. In future, when you import trains the calling times will be imported too.] As previously, the calling times of Base Timetable trains are calculated automatically by application of the sectional running times, braking and accelerating times, recovery allowances and dwell times. Once imported into a daily timetable, this is no longer the case, and the times at individual stations can be edited directly. Note there is no validation on this at this stage to ensure you actually allow enough section time for the train! Validation may come in future, but I'm imagining that the base timetables will be perfected before importing into daily timetables and there hopefully won't be too much call for laborious editing of 'normal' trains in daily timetables. Public Times vs working times: There is a new concept of 'public times', so that a distinction can be made between working times and public times, or a train call not shown in the public timetable even though it calls for an operational or pathing purpose. In Base Timetables there are 'pick up' and 'set down' boxes to tick. It is also possible to specify a number of minutes earlier or later for the public time. The number of minutes entered will be subtracted or added from the working time. There are no half-minutes in public times. Arrival times are rounded up and departure times are rounded down. Once inserted into the daily timetable, the times can be edited directly (same as the working times). There are no pick up or set down tick boxes - the presence of a public arrival time will be taken as a 'set down', and the presence of a public departure time will be taken as a 'picks up'. There is SOME validation, for example a train can't have a public calling time if the train is shown to 'pass' in the working times. But not every single permutation has been dealt with, so check the output that you get and tinker if necessary! At the bottom of the saving forms there are two buttons: 'Save & Review' and 'Save & Finish'. 'Save & Review' updates the values on the page and enables a visual check of the results and/or boxes that are dependent on other settings to appear/disappear. Eg the public time +/- boxes don't appear if the 'pick up'/'set down' boxes aren't ticked, so doing a 'Save & Review' will make them appear. When this is written into New HOPS the form might update as-you-type, but I'm not clever enough for that! 'Save & Finish' returns to the previous page. A reminder of some other (unchanged) functionality: - A train imported from the base timetable to the daily timetable is 'WTT'. - A train that is entered directly into the daily timetable before the trains are published is 'LTP' (long term plan). - A WTT train in the daily timetable that is amended before the trains are published is a 'VAR' (variation). - A train that is inserted into the daily timetable after is it published is 'STP' (short term plan). Once the trains are published they cannot be deleted, they can only be 'CAN' (cancelled). This is because other parts of the system (eg group bookings) may already be using them. These definitions are broadly the same as the main line practice, adjusted for a heritage railway context. CAN trains appear in the publications in red. LTP, STP and VAR trains appear in blue. This is to draw staffs' attention to the fact they are different to the WTT. Several new timetable-related pages have been added to the Daily Operations page (ie clicking on a date in the calendar): - train list - working timetable - public timetable - station working books - signal box movements lists Some of these will be created on the base timetables as well in a future stage. I hope all that is useful. Please let me know if you find anything not working correctly (highly likely!)
Update 887 11 August 2022	WORKING AT HEIGHT For a number of reasons there has been a huge increase in enquiries and work relating to Working at Height recently. As a result, to best support our railways: - There will be an additional emergency HOPS workshop on Tuesday 23 August at 7pm via Facebook live. Workshops are ideal for representatives of all heritage railways to share best practice and learn from others. [This workshop is in addition to the advertise programme] https://www.facebook.com/events/589438842735190 - A Safety Circular will be circulated shortly with some key points that all railways should observe. - Some other HOPS resources relating to working at height will be released shortly. In preparation for the workshop, railways are as always invited to submit any Working at Height safety, management or risk assessment material that they would be happy for us to incorporate into the best-practice material. (Thank you very much to railways that routinely do this!)