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Vintage rail freight system showcases 50-year-old innovation | Computer Weekly

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Vintage rail freight system showcases 50-year-old innovation | Computer Weekly


Fifty years ago, three IBM System 370 mainframes powered a pioneering scheduling system run by the UK’s national rail operator, British Rail. Called Total Operations Processing System (Tops), when it went live on 27 October 1975, the system revolutionised the control of all rail freight operations across Britain online and in real time.

It used British Rail’s own telephone network and, along with a pair of IBM System 370/168 and a System 370/158 mainframe, Ventek minicomputers with built-in punchcard machines were installed at every area freight terminal. 

In an article published in its 30 October 1973 magazine issue, Computer Weekly described the system as: “One of the most extensive and comprehensive freight management systems in the world.”

Online Tops keeps the freight train rolling (page 1)

Commenting on the 50th anniversary, Jonathan Aylen, a Tops specialist at the University of Manchester, said: “Tops covered the whole of the UK, every freight wagon and loco, every train movement and every cargo all monitored by a central computer system at Marylebone in London. The control headquarters was described as ‘space age’ for its day.” 

Marylebone housed 32 IBM 3330/33301 Control Data Drives, providing a whooping 3.2Mbytes of storage. 

The Computer Weekly article reported that Tops divided the country into 152 Tops Responsibility Areas (TRAs), each with a Ventek 9200 minicomputer system. Describing how the system operated, the Computer Weekly article noted: “The basis for Tops in the field is the punch card, one card for one wagon. As traffic is moved from one TRA to another, new cards showing the changed status are produced. The receiving officer at an Area Freight Centre (AFC) checks the cards against wagons and feeds this information into the system to update the database.”

As Aylen noted in The convergence of computing and telecommunications: Cold War to coal trains paper he co-authored in 2024, the network British Rail used was state of the art for the time, using co-axial cables for the main trunk line links, with 4Mhz analogue transmission (equivalent to 960 telephone channels). Local links were carried on 12 channel frequency division multiplex systems on balanced copper cable pairs. These gave a high-quality speech path of 4Khz channels to every major station, office complex and freight yard in the country.

But it also stretched overseas. Computer Weekly reported that Ventek minicomputers were also deployed in France at Dunkirk, and there was a Telex link in Zeebruggee, Belgium. Data from the freight centres was fed into the Marylebone computer room via a data network which spanned 400km.

Online Tops keeps the freight train rolling (page 2)

“Today we take computer control of business operations for granted. But fifty years ago, it was a revolution to know what was happening right across the business in real time, especially a system which saw up to 3,000 freight train movements daily,” Aylen said. 

Tops highlighted the actual demand for wagons, which meant that many were surplus and sold for scrap, therefore reducing maintenance costs and helping to pay for the overall system.

Bob Gwynne, rail expert, said: “This had one major unforeseen consequence: one scrapyard in South Wales concentrated on quick and easy wagon disposal. Difficult steam locos were set aside for later. This breathing space led to 213 steam locomotives being acquired for preservation, approximately two-thirds of the total steam locomotives preserved today.

“So, an unintended effect of Tops was the birth of the heritage railways as a nationwide tourism product, rather than the handful of locations that pre-date 1975.”

Online Tops keeps the freight train rolling (page 3)

Many thanks to The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) for providing scans of the original Computer Weekly article. The full Computer Weekly archive dating back to September 1966 is held at TNMOC.



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Our Favorite Affordable Air Purifier Is Temporarily Even Cheaper

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Our Favorite Affordable Air Purifier Is Temporarily Even Cheaper


Tired of the stale, fetid air looming over your apartment like a cloud? Check out the Coway Airmega Mighty, an already wallet-friendly home air purifier that’s even cheaper right now as part of the Amazon Big Spring Sale. It’s currently marked down to just $154, a $76 discount from its typical price, but you’ll want to move quickly if you’re interested, as the deal is only available for a limited time.

Coway

Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH

Despite its low price tag and squat stature, the Airmega Mighty is capable of cleaning a substantial amount of space. At full bore, it can handle a 361-square-foot space, although you’ll get the best performance, and save your ears, if you’re closer to a 200-square-foot room. If you don’t want it running constantly, there are built-in timers to automatically shut off after 1, 4, or 8 hours, or you can use Eco Mode, which will run until the Might doesn’t sense any dirty air for half an hour.

That’s right, the Airmega Mighty has a built-in air quality sensor, and it reflects the current state of the air quality using a colored light with three levels. It uses those readings to automatically adjust the fan speed and timing settings on the fly, as well as giving you a peak into how bad the air you’re breathing right now is for you. While it lacks integration with smart home setups like Google Home, it makes up for it by handling all of its own business without Wi-Fi or extra apps on your phone.

While the Coway Airmega Mighty is available in three colors, only the black and silver model is currently discounted, so you’ll have to pay full price if it doesn’t match your living room’s color scheme. We’ve put in the work testing every air purifier we could get our hands on, so make sure to check out the full guide if you’re trying to clean up your space. The Coway is discounted as part of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and we’ve got the best deals from products we’ve tested gathered in one place if you want to save some bucks.



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In a Big Reversal, Zohran Mamdani Tells NYC Agencies to Use TikTok

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In a Big Reversal, Zohran Mamdani Tells NYC Agencies to Use TikTok


New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, who rode a social media-fueled campaign to Gracie Mansion, is reversing an Eric Adams–era directive barring TikTok from government-owned devices. Local agencies will now be able to post about their projects on the app, though with new guardrails to protect city networks.

“The Mamdani administration is committed to using every tool in our toolbox to communicate with New Yorkers,” says the email to agencies, obtained by WIRED. “At a moment when people are turning to city government for information about free services, emergency situations, upcoming events, and more, we want to open up new avenues of communication with the public and help deliver the information New Yorkers need.”

In August 2023, then-mayor Adams barred the use of TikTok on government devices, joining the ranks of other state and federal agencies that at the time deemed the app a major security risk. Adams spokesperson Jonah Allon said then that the city’s Cyber Command office had decided that TikTok, which was owned by the Chinese-based company ByteDance, “posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks and directed its removal from city-owned devices.”

The directive resulted in a number of popular city-run accounts shutting down, including accounts for the NYC Departments of Sanitation and Parks and Recreation. As of Tuesday morning, the accounts’ bios read, “This account was operated by NYC until August 2023. It’s no longer monitored.”

Now, these TikTok accounts will be allowed to reopen with a few new rules aimed at protecting the security of NYC’s networks and devices while allowing agencies to communicate with citizens on the popular app. In order to use TikTok, agencies will be required to use separate, government-issued devices for the app that “cannot contain sensitive or restricted data, and they cannot be used for email, internal systems, or privileged access,” according to the email to agencies. Agencies will designate specific staff from media and press offices to run the TikTok accounts with city government emails, not personal ones.

“In a fragmented media landscape, more and more people—especially younger people—are looking beyond the four corners of their television screen to stay informed,” Mamdani said in a statement to WIRED. “Our responsibility is simple: Meet people where they are. That means stepping outside our comfort zones and communicating in ways that reflect how New Yorkers actually live, work, and connect.”

Mamdani’s rule reversal comes after his November election that relied heavily on social media to conduct voter outreach. Mamdani leveraged TikTok to recruit volunteers and amplify his policy platform. Over his first few months in office, Mamdani has continued to leverage social media platforms, publishing a variety of public-service announcements related to city-run programs.

Ahead of dangerous winter weather in January, Mamdani published a video to the official @nycmayor account on Instagram asking New Yorkers to sign up for the city’s free emergency communications program, NotifyNYC. The program netted more than 32,000 new subscribers in the four days after the video was released, according to stats provided by Mamdani’s office. Last year, New York City Emergency Management ran a $240,000 advertising round for NotifyNYC, acquiring around 48,000 new subscribers. Mamdani also created a handful of videos asking New Yorkers to join a Department of Sanitation snow-shoveling program. Around 5,000 people signed up, tripling the number previously enrolled in the program.

The situation has also changed for the app. In January 2026, TikTok finalized a deal with the Trump administration to form a new US-based version of the company run by American investors, including Oracle. The consortium of American investors staved off a nationwide ban of the app.





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The $1 Million Aston Martin Valhalla Makes You Drive Better Than You Thought Possible

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The  Million Aston Martin Valhalla Makes You Drive Better Than You Thought Possible


Yes, it’s a supercar, but it’s also sold very much as a track and road car, one that accommodates a passenger, all of which means road trips and weekend-away stays are very much possible. Well, they would be if there were anywhere at all to store luggage. Lamborghini managed to find some luggage space in its Revuelto design, so there’s no excuse here, really.

The design department otherwise has had a field day. Top-mounted exhausts, dihedral doors, and even an F1-style roof snorkel to accompany that air-braking rear wing deliver an exterior that is nothing short of arresting. Somehow, none of this looks garish or out of place on the Valhalla in person. Everything has a purpose, and nothing seems to scream as flexing or showing off. There’s a cohesion to the Valhalla aesthetic that others might not manage.

Inside, it is much more comfortable than you would imagine. The one-piece carbon-fiber seats look like they are going to be tricky, but on my two-hour road drive, they were supportive and, yes, comfortable. Visibility is surprisingly good, but a camera system is required for the rear view mirror because there’s no rear window. The rest of the interior is minimal, but the steering wheel is excellent (which, as Jony Ive will tell you, is no mean feat) and neatly signals some motorsport cool.

Photograph: Jeremy White

The one gripe for the interior is the dash and center screens, which are clear and responsive, and offer up the usual smartphone mirroring options, but they aren’t luxurious. We’re seeing a lot more effort these days with screen design from Ferrari’s new Luce as well as BMW in the iX3 and i3, but here, Aston has decidedly functional, off-the-shelf-looking displays. If I were parting with a million dollars, I might want more consideration here.

Odin’s Beard

On the road and track is where the Valhalla excels. Impressive doesn’t come close, and, despite the delays, the patience shown by Aston has clearly paid dividends. The ride is superb, as well as being ridiculously quick. The chassis is exceptionally agile, making the car feel alert and light. There are enormous reserves of grip to match the formidable braking and acceleration, and as a result, this is a car that flatters you; it effortlessly seduces you into driving much harder and better than you think you can, all while giving you levels of confidence you wouldn’t think possible.

I’ve driven the Lamborghini Revuelto, and yes, it’s exciting, but also there’s a part of you that is wary—the part that knows that if you don’t keep your wits about you 100 percent of the time, things will go bad very quickly. The Valhalla offers up all of that fun and excitement, but almost none of the trepidation. It is gratifying and intuitive to drive. Anyone can fully enjoy this car, not merely those used to track days. Some will say the engine note is not as full-throated as might be expected in such a car, but others will be having so much fun they won’t care. Nor should they.



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