Oral history interview with Glynn Waite conducted and recorded by Bob Gwynne on 22 September 2017 at the National Railway Museum. Duration: 2 hours 9 minutes 25 seconds. [Start of interview, 00:00:00] Joining British Rail 1960, Trains Office Derby, diagramming, train staff planning, special trains; [00:04:30] area covered, freight timetable, Derby to Barnt Green, Hornsbridge at Chesterfield; Birmingham, freight traffic analysis, wagon surveys; changes, introduction of diesels working ‘out and home’; [00:09:00] line occupation surveys; diagramming journeys and staff; [00:10:30] different jobs before being involved with TOPS; TOPS at Cardiff, start with Ebbw Vale cutover, TOPS in South Wales; [00:16:43] problem with Cardiff Tidal/East Maws works; use of Ventek terminals, issues, wagon surveys, [00:20:49] missing wagons, ‘Cripple roads’, loading wagon data into TOPS; [00:24:32] TOPS survey staff, cutover process, working hours; [00:29:25] impact of TOPS on Area Managers, attempts at economies, TOPS helping reduce amount of wagons and introduce air braked wagons; [00:35:26] TOPS and locomotive maintenance on Western Region; [00:42:39]economies, elimination of consignment notes, survey, traffic flow introduction of numbers for clients, economies on clerks and paper; [00:47:47] goods offices rationalisation, reduction in sidings, new methods of working enabling savings; [00:49:30] job at Speedlink 1984-1990; [00:50:21] TOPS moving into privatisation, non geographic allocation of reporting offices; [00:54:40] planning redundancy but kept on to work out how to affect the move away from geographic location; [00:57:36] TOPS 2000 introduction, link with privatisation; division within privatised freight network, change to Windows operating system; [01:02:23] TOPS 2000 implementation, TOPS offices for BR mainline; TOPS responsibility area (TRA), capacity limits and rationalisation, Worcester TOPS office closure, further rationalisation; [01:07:08] reason for TOPS office locations, marshalling yards, reasons for rationalisation and TOPS staff redeployment; [01:11:47] TOPS clerks, recruitment and grades; [01:14:40] Freightliner, coal/cement, links to TOPS; difference between TRUST and TOPS; [01:17:01] TRUST and LARTA, geolocated train departures; how to put in a new location [01:21:50] locations for companies; wagon load, marshalling yards, train loads rather than individual wagons; [01:25:07] merry-go-round system (MGR), automation, including wagon numbers and weights, MGR wagons kept in trains; Toton, only two roads on down-side, wagon weight limitation at some collieries, MGR wagons revolution; [01:30:17] TOPS 2000, more people understand the system, area managers and shunters can input TOPS; TOPS direct (Eric Straw), Wolverhampton Steel Terminal, training on using TOPS, including Masboro Control; [01:35:10] EWS move; cut over Swansea Borough, Newport 1974, returned 20 years later to cutover to shunters; removal of Rowntrees traffic, closure of Dringhouses yard, closing yards, Parkeston; reflection on railways during time of career, sectorisation hierarchy, Bury St Edmonds example, Peterborough-Grantham, division of payments in pre-privatisation era; [01:43:04] sectorisation process, new thinking, cost of running railway has increased, GNER causes wage inflation with drivers, causing train cancellations elsewhere;[01:49:02] career overview, lodging at Railway Hostel, Loco hostels, redundancy, WR change, traffic analysis, Rowsley, Derby, Crewe, Nantwich, Bridgend, Sheffield, TOPS implementation, Speedlink, RFD, Manchester, Islington; EWS attempts to replace TOPS; Freightliner poached Glynn from EWS with traffic; [02:01:20] work as a consultant sorting out new freight flows, sectorisation, end of Speedlink, lack of knowledge; Michael Portillo, every freight flow had to make 8.5% return on assets; [02:06:50], privatisation, increasing distance of freight flows [02:09:25] [end of interview]

This interview was recorded by Bob Gwynne (then Associate Curator at the National Railway Museum), as part of his joint research with Dr Jonathan Aylen of Alliance Manchester Business School, to understand the history of computerisation on British Railways and their efforts to collect memories of people involved in the implementation of TOPS on British Railways.

TOPS was a computer system implemented by British Railways from August 1973 onwards to control its freight traffic. It provided information on all train movements and all rail vehicles in real time and underpins how the rail system works. It is still in operation today.

TOPS allowed British Rail to keep tabs on its rolling stock across the whole rail network. TOPS was developed in the USA through a collaboration between IBM and Southern Pacific. The British Railways version of TOPS was noteworthy for pioneering multiplexing for computer communication across a national network. The software used was TOPSTRANS, essentially a set of IBM Macros which would call forth the appropriate sub-routines and activate drives.

As with many automation systems, TOPS forced the introduction of new management processes and shaped the way the railway operated. For the first time, there was a systematic inventory of railway assets with a consistent numbering system. It was not just an automation system but a step towards modern management of railways in the UK.