Heard on the radio this morning that the railways are going to start using bar codes on the sides of locos instead of numbers.  They reckon that as everyone now has a mobile phone it will be better for loco spotters as not only will they able to point their phone at the loco and capture the number but the app will then provide them with all the loco info they'll ever need including where it's come from and where it's going etc.

Oh, the wonders of modern technology and it must be true as it was on Radio 4 this morning.   

LOL

D'you get 5p off a litre of diesel when you cleared a class?

I'm sure I read in Rail Magazine about 20 years ago a similar wheeze. They has a 56 (56033 I seem to recall) with a barcode slapped on the side. The premise was that each signal would have a barcode reader to accurately track the progress of the train.

Rumours of complaints from lineside residents of a loud bleep and occasional automated requests for Club Card insertion* were no doubt urban legends put around by the press. That said, the printed receipt at the end of the journey proved useful for timekeeping purposes!


*Other loyalty cards are available!

And today's date is? ;O)))

Gerry

Does that tie in with the new Platform announcements, the ones that go "Platform number 7 please!!" 

Regards

Neal.

  All the above

Quote from: Claude Dreyfus on April 01, 2013, 11:33:34 AMI'm sure I read in Rail Magazine about 20 years ago a similar wheeze. They has a 56 (56033 I seem to recall) with a barcode slapped on the side. The premise was that each signal would have a barcode reader to accurately track the progress of the train.

Barcodes were applied to all AC locos during the 1990s
However this was for maintenance tracking purposes

Not a barcode, a radio frequency tag to identify the loco if the Panchex system detected a defective pantograph.  There was talk of using a machine vision system to read the numbers instead, but it came to nothing. 

They tried a primitive form of barcode in the States in the Seventies, but I think it failed because they usually got too dirty to read. 

Barcoding on wagons has been used for hump shunting as well along with RFID and the like.

Best April fool I saw this year was

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9964767/Iain-Duncan-Smith-I-could-live-on-53-per-week.html

And the EU has passed a law, requiring all dogs to be walked on the left side of their owner. This may ease the unemployment figures, as many new dog trainers are required (to train the owners).

Quote from: Kipper on April 01, 2013, 08:08:09 PM
And the EU has passed a law, requiring all dogs to be walked on the left side of their owner. This may ease the unemployment figures, as many new dog trainers are required (to train the owners).

now that I can believe, it's totally in line with all the rest of the drivel that comes from them