It was my first year at secondary school, which was 1970-71. Latest it could have been was early summer 71, and they showed us the local computer terminals they were using. Maybe they had a test/demo version running?
My first year at secondary school level in Salisbury was also 1970-1971.
I agree that Westbury had some form of computer wagon control working by early 1972 which means almost certain to have been a 1971 install.
I well remember the early 1972 re-launch of the much increased Mendips stone traffic which occurred when major stone flows for M2/M23/M25 construction started to Merstham, Gatwick, and Fareham as well as more to Botley.
My memory tells me at least the HTV and MCO wagons then used were already under some kind of computer control. I had always assumed it was TOPS.
Seen through Salisbury, three D800s (814 825 829) had been reinstated early 1972, nameplateless, as well as the other 10 that survived the 10/71 holocaust were routinely deployed on this work.
From some time 03/1972 onwards, we started to see 5-7 D800s a day on stone, after a gap of almost no D800s at all since they ceased Waterloo Exeter weekend 2-3/10/71. This start up was some time between the 02/72 spring school term half term (when there were minimal stone trains) and the 04/72 Easter school break.
This early 1972 lot of trains, and here were as many as 8-10 a day - ran as 6Z-- reporting numbers; they got 6O-- and 6V-- in the May 1972 WTT.
D800s worked HTVs as class 6.
D1000s worked MCO as class 8.
The HTV and MCO wagons were marshalled into sets with the 4 digit set number stencilled on the side of each wagon. The MCO sets ran with a stencilled brake van at each end; gradually the vans gave way to fitted heads, about 3-4 MCV displaced the same numer of MCO at each end as well as the van. I am pretty sure those wagon set numbers were computer data related as they had no 8 or 9 in the number range from what I saw which suggests they were octal numbers.
They needed 8-10 trains a day as HTV were 21 t coal hoppers but overall is low capacity per wagon, and increasing train length beyond D800 brake capacity.
Like I said above,my memory tells me at least the HTV and MCO wagons were under some kind of computer control and I had always assumed it was TOPS.
There is no reason why Exeter office could not have been responsible for Westbury. If May 1972 TOPS
open is correct, they almost certain were trialling before then, a pilot like this they'd have been doing so in 1971. Which aligns with the earlier post.
Not co-locating a TOPS office at a traffic centre or traffic source was done in the early days of TOPS implementation. Again, Salisbury for example, which was a traffic source, had no TOPS office, and never did while the concept of separate TOPS offcies existed. The local office was actually at Romsey station, which itself generated no freight traffic at all even then.
Further, there was a BR developed computer system that existed before TOPS. Around about 1966 or so there is a Learned Society (I.Mech.E.(Loco) or possibly I.Loco.E.) paper refering to this. A copy of said paper is (well certainly was to 1982) resident in the University of Warwick library stacks, and, one of the BR personnel who had worked on that was later one of the engineering teaching staff during my degree time there.
I can't comment on what is or is not at Kew, but will say that any record that is missing from there will lead to incorrect assumptions by readers.
But I am sure at least 03/72 Westbury stone traffic wagons were under computer control, be it TOPS or something else.