Heart of the Network - a quiz for you to try.

[transportphoto]

Forum user [m=grahame]7359[/m] sent us a PM not too long ago asking for our support for the quiz that he has put together as part of his role as the Community Rail Officer for the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership.

"The TransWilts Community Rail Partnership (TWCRP) is a group of like-minded organisations seeking to make better use of the TransWilts railway line.The partnership aims to achieve positive, sustainable and imaginative development of the TransWilts railway in ways which also benefit the places it serves, including enhancement of services to meet the current and future travel requirements of those places."

The quiz can be found here, and we hope you like it: http://www.wellho.net/network/.

Each time you take the test you will be presented with fifteen different images, all are within the British Isles and were reached by public transport. All you need to do is identify where those images were taken.

I'm sure Graham will appreciate any feedback that you may have, as such we'll leave this thread open for a couple of weeks, remaining 'sticky' at the top of Quizzes and Games.

Good luck and enjoy!

TP

 

[Techniquest]

That 15 I had were interesting, a couple I guessed but I was chuffed to get 13 out of 15!

I'd challenge the name "heart of the network" though, Fishguard Harbour and Harwich International cannot surely be classed as the heart of any rail network! Having Bray (on the DART in Dublin, when was that part of the British Isles?!) just made it somewhat a ridiculous name.

An interesting challenge which I found tested me more than expected. Ipswich needs spelling correctly when it comes up as an option mind

 

[pdeaves]

It's quite a fun quiz. However, when you say 'You got 14 right out of 15
You answered 1 incorrectly', it's a bit disconcerting scrolling through the answers and finding none wrong!

 

[Crossover]

"Keithley" on image "pdest65.jpg" should be spelt Keighley (unless I am missing something!)

Photo "pdest22.jpg" has half the sign showing and the guesses available may be better suited ones ending purely in what the end is showing as most of them can be ruled out immediately

Generally quite a good and fun quiz though

It's quite a fun quiz. However, when you say 'You got 14 right out of 15
You answered 1 incorrectly', it's a bit disconcerting scrolling through the answers and finding none wrong!

There will probably be one wrong somewhere, but the layout of the answer page is a bit confusing. Maybe some colour coding where one guessed correctly wouldn't go amiss to distinguish better from the incorrect guesses

 

[A Challenge]

I liked it, though am similarly confused by the name. Pleased to have got 10/15 though!

 

[Crossover]

pdest88.jpg has Welwyn spelt wrong too

pdest83.jpg - no idea where Altringham is!

 

[Cowley]

12 out of 15 the first time and 11 out of 15 the second. Quite enjoyable though.

 

[grahame]

I will take a look though the comments above and correct my spellings!

The "Heart of the network" name from promotion work I'm doing to help build passenger numbers on the Swindon to Westbury line. The line, I contend, is at the heart of the network, and the quiz asks you to identify places in the British Isles that you can travel to on rails from there.

If anyone is in Waterloo station tomorrow ... stop by and see us at "Community Rail in the City" on the concourse!

 

[Techniquest]

Travel by rails to Bray? Only if you ignore the Irish Sea in the way and count ferry journeys! In which case you need to add some from Northern Ireland, and why don't we add worldwide railways to this quiz too, since you can go all the way to the eastern coast of China by rail? Quite, if the Irish Sea is not a barrier to a place you can reach by rail, then maybe we should make it anywhere in the world!

I would also contend the Heart of Wessex route being the heart of the network. TransWilts is not a network, no matter how you try to define it. I would define the network as England Wales and Scotland, and Bristol to Weymouth via Westbury is certainly not the heart of any of that!

 

[grahame]

Spellings corrected ... also double checked what I said in the blurb at the top of the quiz which is "All are within the British Isles and were reached by public transpire". Yeah, there's the odd sign around but I am not altering the quiz beyond corrections to spellings while it's running. And I agree a better presentation of the answers should be sought. Many thanks for all the inputs and for trying it ...

 

[backontrack]

Bodmin Road (Parkway) and Monpelier (Montpelier) need correcting, though the first is optional

11/15 for me.

 

[backontrack]

Spellings corrected ... also double checked what I said in the blurb at the top of the quiz which is "All are within the British Isles and were reached by public transpire". Yeah, there's the odd sign around but I am not altering the quiz beyond corrections to spellings while it's running. And I agree a better presentation of the answers should be sought. Many thanks for all the inputs and for trying it ...

Travel by rails to Bray? Only if you ignore the Irish Sea in the way and count ferry journeys! In which case you need to add some from Northern Ireland, and why don't we add worldwide railways to this quiz too, since you can go all the way to the eastern coast of China by rail? Quite, if the Irish Sea is not a barrier to a place you can reach by rail, then maybe we should make it anywhere in the world!

Now that is nitpicking...I'd contend that I can be in the UK in Northern Ireland and get into the Republic without leaving the same landmass.
Don't worry, I'd keep the Ireland stuff in.

I'd also say that the 'heart of the network' stuff is clearly metaphorical. It's obviously not actually going to be around Trowbridge if the lines go all the way to Wick. And I'd argue that the layman could probably make that distinction too.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

I had 7 out of 15 first, and then 8 out of 15 the second and third times.

Distinctly average, I think!!

 

[grahame]

I have corrected Montpelier and made Bodmin consistently into the current name "Bodmin Parkway".

In the nearly-six days the quiz has been running, around 450 sets of questions have been requested as a result of transportphoto's post on this board, and answers have been submitted for marking for about 200 of those. The most common scores are 10 and 11, with just seven people getting all fifteen pictures they were offered correct. I don't know which questions have been the easiest and hardest ... that would be interesting! Nor do I have any idea whether people who had second and third goes got better.

I hugely appreciate the feedback, thanks, and in turn I'll feedback further after another seven days (or sooner if there's something more to answer / yet ANOTHER smelling mistake)

Various journeys this week has allowed me to collect more pictures for future use ... checking carefully, there is no name board on this one, but I expect it's very easy for members to work out. Wednesday was "Community Rail in the City" day, and the launch of ACoRP's Scenic Rail Britain website at https://www.scenicrailbritain.com .

 

[Crossover]

I have had probably about 20 or 30 goes to try and get 15, which I managed once. A little bit of a cheat as most were duplicate photos by then.

 

[pdeaves]

Is photo http://www.wellho.net/pix/pdest74.jpg really Kingswear? I can't match it to anything I know or any online views of the station.

 

[r37]

Is photo http://www.wellho.net/pix/pdest74.jpg really Kingswear? I can't match it to anything I know or any online views of the station.

I think it is Kingswear. If you look at the top left of this image (not my photo by the way), you can see the canopy, the supporting pillars and the benches look the same. Also see the points in the centre of my image, which are on the extreme right of the image on the quiz.

 

[pdeaves]

Ah, what on the right looks to me like an approaching train is actually the buffer stop, so it's looking the opposite way to what I thought!

 

[grahame]

Yes, picture 74 really IS Kingswear.

Bit of a tricky one though - not somewhere that 153s go very often.

 

[pdeaves]

Photo http://www.wellho.net/pix/pdestd6.jpg features GWR's Head of Stations!

 

[r37]

Ah, what on the right looks to me like an approaching train is actually the buffer stop, so it's looking the opposite way to what I thought!

That confused me a little bit as well. I had to look at it for quite a while to make sure!

 

[EbbwJunction1]

I've just had two more goes .... seven in the first one and nine in the second; "Could do better" is the teacher's report!

 

[grahame]

I've just had two more goes .... seven in the first one and nine in the second; "Could do better" is the teacher's report!

But then I'm not giving much away if I say that there's limited South Wales content ... I didn't design this to be like those quizzes that everyone gets massively good scores in. 9 ain't shabby!

 

[EbbwJunction1]

But then I'm not giving much away if I say that there's limited South Wales content ... I didn't design this to be like those quizzes that everyone gets massively good scores in. 9 ain't shabby!

Tow more goes ... 8 and 10, so I'm getting consistent!

I agree about the small amount of Welsh content .... but, yes, I did get Newport correct!!

 

[grahame]

I'm sure Graham will appreciate any feedback that you may have, as such we'll leave this thread open for a couple of weeks, remaining 'sticky' at the top of Quizzes and Games.

Here we are two weeks later!

777 different sets of pictures have been requested, of which 315 were completed (or almost) and submitted for marking from 145 unique hosts (in other words, a lot of people had multiple goes!). The median time taken from requesting a set of pictures to submitting them for marking was just over 2 minutes, and the average score was just under 11 correct. Quiz remains open at http://www.wellho.net/network .

Numerous typos of mine in spelling place names came to light ... together with one out of 170 images that I had moved up the line (i.e. got wrong myself!). Looks like everyone enjoying it though and it raised a few discussions.

Thank you to the team here for starting the thread, and thank you to the members who've read, taken part, commented back.

Was it a success? Thoughts welcome. I'll be travelling around again this summer. The heart of my network is in Melksham, Wiltshire right in the middle of the GWR network, but I expect I'll be raning far and wide in my regular day job - I won't say to where just yet. So I should be in a position by the end of the year to put together another quiz with another couple of hundred pictures ... something for members to do in that quiet period between 6 p.m. on 24th December and 8 a.m. on 27th when there's little rail travel opportunity!

 

[transportphoto]

Glad the feedback you've had has been positive Graham. We'll leave the thread open to allow any further comments people may wish to share