Y2K Bug hits Norway's Trains

[petercook2705@my-deja.com]

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1571274%255E1702,00.html



07.00 (AEDT) THE Y2K computer glitch hit Norway's national railroad
company a year later than expected.

The bug was discovered when none of the company's new 16 airport
express trains or 13 high-speed, long-distance Signatur trains would
start early in the morning of December 31.

The computers on board the trains apparently did not recognise the
date, something not anticipated by experts who checked the systems
thoroughly last year in anticipation of problems feared worldwide when
the clocks rolled to January 1, 2000, a spokesman said.

"We didn't think of trying out the date 31/12/00," said Ronny Solberg
of Adtranz, the German producer of the new trains.

Sunday's problem was quickly solved on a temporary basis by resetting
the computers to December 1, 2000, and the trains started upon ignition.

"Now we have one month to find out what went wrong, so we can fix the
problem for good," Solberg was quoted as saying by the daily newspaper,
Dagbladet.

The older trains that still make up most of the NSB state railroad's
fleet were not affected.

The problem had little impact on train traffic as the airport express
trains were quickly put back on schedule, and some older trains were
used on the two long-distance routes affected by the glitch. All trains
were running as usual by today, according to the Norwegian news agency,
NTB.


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