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Time Date	System Updates
Update 955 19 January 2023	We apologise for the interruption to HOPS services this afternoon. The HOPS database locked itself up at 3.16 this afternoon upon detecting corrupted data. This is an intentional protection method to avoid further data loss or corruption, eg users continuing to use the system in the belief their work is being saved when it might not be. Staff at HOPS's offices and outposts were immediately aware of the problem and all technical resources were diverted to attending to this issue straight away. In a situation like this we are conscious of the need to balance time spent investigating the issue with a view to fixing it against the need to restore services. We spent an initial 30 minutes attempting to deal with the issue, but at 3.50, after 30 minutes where no success was achieved, we abandoned that approach and decided to restore from the hourly backups in order to get services up and running again. It is possible that further time spent on the database could have yielded results, but it would be impossible to predict how long that would take and the system would be down throughout that time. HOPS takes backups of the data every hour for just such a failure as this, and the 1500 (GMT) backup, which was the most recent before the failure, was selected for restoration. This process, and the availability of backups in general, was tested very recently (on Christmas Day 2022) as part of our routine checks and assurance that disaster recovery processes are appropriate and working correctly. You can read more about HOPS's backup processes here: https://www.hops.org.uk/terms.php?t=b Once the 3pm backup was obtained and restored, some small tests and checks were carried out to ensure everything was ok, services started to become available again from 4.30pm, and were restored to all users by 4.45pm. Updates were posted on HOPS Facebook and HOPS Twitter throughout the incident, as is our standard practice in times of service disruption. https://www.facebook.com/HeritageOps https://www.twitter.com/HeritageOps Thank you to everyone who kept up to date with progress via those channels. I am pleased to say that the backup regime saved the day and limited the amount of work that was lost to only 16 minutes, however I am sorry for the fact of this incident occurring in the first place, and that 16 minutes of work was lost. It is safe to re-enter data that was entered during that time. If critical data has been lost that can't be re-obtained to be re-entered, please contact us as we MAY be able to obtain it from the original database. There is no risk of data having been 'leaked' or 'hacked' or any unauthorised access. HOPS was offline for approximately 70 minutes. Uptime for the last 12 months is 99.9857 % We have not yet established the original cause of the issue, but have preserved what evidence we can to potentially enable us to still do so. Some evidence will have been lost when we turned our attention to restoring from backups. We will give some attention to the original cause after a period to allow the dust to settle. Thank you to everyone for your patience, and thank you to HOPS staff who worked hard throughout to resume normal service. I'm sorry again for the inconvenience to all users this afternoon, and we thank you for the messages of support that we have received in the last couple of hours. If there are any queries or issues please contact us via the normal channels. Thank you.
Update 865 4 May 2022	HOPS FREE SMS Virtual Workshops No 25, via Facebook Live screencast, on the subject of the the DfT's proposed changes to signage at private crossings. We are delighted to say we will be joined by Dominic Beglin, chair of the minor railways section of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers for this workshop. The consultation can be downloaded here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1067720/improving-signage-at-private-level-crossings.pdf (Note this is a change to the previously advertised topic for this workshop, which will be re-scheduled for a future date) https://www.hops.org.uk/workshops This workshop concentrates on the development of safety management systems in the context of a heritage railway. Following an excellent suggestion after the first workshop, we invite all participants who wish to to sent in their current SMS overall document to HOPS HQ. This will enable us to read all of them before the Workshop and combine all the best practices. Thank you for this great idea which will help make the workshop even more widely-considered and demonstrate inclusion of input from a wider range of railways! All content will be anonymised before inclusion, so please don't be concerned that you're exposing yourself or your company to liability. --- HOPS has been involved in writing, reviewing or updating Safety Management Systems on a number of railways and is often asked for help on the subject, so we have arranged to continue our successful live online workshops programme in 2021 with the series of SMS Best Practice workshops. The Workshops take place at six-week intervals at 7pm on Tuesday nights. They are live discussion videos, freely available to everyone to attend and ask questions live which we will try our best to answer as we go along based on our experience of SMSs and the management in general of heritage and main line railways. The videos will also be available to watch again later on YouTube. While all railways are different, there are many opportunities for overlap in SMS wording and a majority of overlapping SMS principles that can be applied. The six-week interval between workshops gives time in between each session for the local review and, where railways wish to, adaptation of the output to suit their local needs, before moving on to the next subject. Whatever the strength of your current SMS, it is always good to review it, and good to be able to demonstrate you've reviewed it and engaged with the peer-reviewed best practice. So please do join in the HOPS workshops, share your knowledge, and see what you can learn from other organisations too! --- 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 via the comments section during the live video. The video will start at 7pm and last approximately 90 minutes. https://www.facebook.com/events/4872208979571955/

Time Date

System Updates

Update 955
19 January 2023

We apologise for the interruption to HOPS services this afternoon.

The HOPS database locked itself up at 3.16 this afternoon upon detecting corrupted data. This is an intentional protection method to avoid further data loss or corruption, eg users continuing to use the system in the belief their work is being saved when it might not be.

Staff at HOPS's offices and outposts were immediately aware of the problem and all technical resources were diverted to attending to this issue straight away.

In a situation like this we are conscious of the need to balance time spent investigating the issue with a view to fixing it against the need to restore services. We spent an initial 30 minutes attempting to deal with the issue, but at 3.50, after 30 minutes where no success was achieved, we abandoned that approach and decided to restore from the hourly backups in order to get services up and running again. It is possible that further time spent on the database could have yielded results, but it would be impossible to predict how long that would take and the system would be down throughout that time.

HOPS takes backups of the data every hour for just such a failure as this, and the 1500 (GMT) backup, which was the most recent before the failure, was selected for restoration. This process, and the availability of backups in general, was tested very recently (on Christmas Day 2022) as part of our routine checks and assurance that disaster recovery processes are appropriate and working correctly.

You can read more about HOPS's backup processes here: https://www.hops.org.uk/terms.php?t=b

Once the 3pm backup was obtained and restored, some small tests and checks were carried out to ensure everything was ok, services started to become available again from 4.30pm, and were restored to all users by 4.45pm.

Updates were posted on HOPS Facebook and HOPS Twitter throughout the incident, as is our standard practice in times of service disruption.

https://www.facebook.com/HeritageOps

https://www.twitter.com/HeritageOps

Thank you to everyone who kept up to date with progress via those channels.

I am pleased to say that the backup regime saved the day and limited the amount of work that was lost to only 16 minutes, however I am sorry for the fact of this incident occurring in the first place, and that 16 minutes of work was lost.

It is safe to re-enter data that was entered during that time. If critical data has been lost that can't be re-obtained to be re-entered, please contact us as we MAY be able to obtain it from the original database.

There is no risk of data having been 'leaked' or 'hacked' or any unauthorised access.

HOPS was offline for approximately 70 minutes. Uptime for the last 12 months is 99.9857 %

We have not yet established the original cause of the issue, but have preserved what evidence we can to potentially enable us to still do so. Some evidence will have been lost when we turned our attention to restoring from backups. We will give some attention to the original cause after a period to allow the dust to settle.

Thank you to everyone for your patience, and thank you to HOPS staff who worked hard throughout to resume normal service. I'm sorry again for the inconvenience to all users this afternoon, and we thank you for the messages of support that we have received in the last couple of hours.

If there are any queries or issues please contact us via the normal channels. Thank you.

Update 865
4 May 2022

HOPS FREE SMS Virtual Workshops No 25, via Facebook Live screencast, on the subject of the the DfT's proposed changes to signage at private crossings.

We are delighted to say we will be joined by Dominic Beglin, chair of the minor railways section of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers for this workshop.

The consultation can be downloaded here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1067720/improving-signage-at-private-level-crossings.pdf

(Note this is a change to the previously advertised topic for this workshop, which will be re-scheduled for a future date)

https://www.hops.org.uk/workshops

This workshop concentrates on the development of safety management systems in the context of a heritage railway.

Following an excellent suggestion after the first workshop, we invite all participants who wish to to sent in their current SMS overall document to HOPS HQ. This will enable us to read all of them before the Workshop and combine all the best practices. Thank you for this great idea which will help make the workshop even more widely-considered and demonstrate inclusion of input from a wider range of railways!

All content will be anonymised before inclusion, so please don't be concerned that you're exposing yourself or your company to liability.

---

HOPS has been involved in writing, reviewing or updating Safety Management Systems on a number of railways and is often asked for help on the subject, so we have arranged to continue our successful live online workshops programme in 2021 with the series of SMS Best Practice workshops.

The Workshops take place at six-week intervals at 7pm on Tuesday nights. They are live discussion videos, freely available to everyone to attend and ask questions live which we will try our best to answer as we go along based on our experience of SMSs and the management in general of heritage and main line railways. The videos will also be available to watch again later on YouTube.

While all railways are different, there are many opportunities for overlap in SMS wording and a majority of overlapping SMS principles that can be applied.

The six-week interval between workshops gives time in between each session for the local review and, where railways wish to, adaptation of the output to suit their local needs, before moving on to the next subject.

Whatever the strength of your current SMS, it is always good to review it, and good to be able to demonstrate you've reviewed it and engaged with the peer-reviewed best practice. So please do join in the HOPS workshops, share your knowledge, and see what you can learn from other organisations too!

---

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 via the comments section during the live video.

The video will start at 7pm and last approximately 90 minutes.

https://www.facebook.com/events/4872208979571955/

Generated at 09:30:16, 11 July 2025