A Norwegian rail network did not function on Sunday because the
trains’ on-board computers could not recognise the date 31st
December 2000. The problem was attributed to the Millennium Bug
which most had expected would only cause such problems at the same
time last year, when many computers were expected to interpret the
year 2000 as 1900.
The bug was discovered when none of the national rail company’s
16 modern airport express trains or 13 long-distance Signatur
trains would not start on Sunday. The computers did not recognise
the date 31/12/00.
The company’s temporary solution was to simply reset the
computers to 01/12/00 which enabled the trains to start. This gives
the company one month to find out why the computers did not
recognise the new date and to fix the problem. The delay caused by
the error had little impact on train traffic.
The international cost of preparation for the Millennium Bug in
the late 1990s ran into the billions of pounds. Few incidents were
reported in January last year.
