Editing TOPS (section)

{{short description|Railway rolling stock management system}}
{{about|the railway stock management system}}
{{Refimprove|date= March 2008}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2017}}
{{globalize|article|United Kingdom|date=May 2020}}
[[File:483004 Shanklin 1.JPG|right|thumb|An example of converted [[London Underground 1938 Stock|1938 Tube Stock]] on the [[Island Line, Isle of Wight|Island Line]], [[Isle of Wight]]. Under TOPS, this train and other examples of the same type are designated as [[British Rail Class 483]].]]
'''Total Operations Processing System''' ('''TOPS''') is a computer system for managing railway [[locomotive]]s and [[rolling stock]], known for many years of use in the [[United Kingdom]]. 

TOPS was originally developed between the [[Southern Pacific Transportation Company|Southern Pacific Railroad]] (SP), [[Stanford University]] and [[IBM]] as a replacement for paper-based systems for managing rail [[logistics]]. A jointly-owned consultancy company, ''TOPS On-Line Inc.'', was established in 1960 with the goal of implementing TOPS, as well as selling it to third parties. Development was protracted, requiring around 660 [[man-hour|man-year]]s of effort to produce a releasable build. During mid-1968, the first phase of the system was introduced on the SP, and quickly proved its advantages over the traditional methods practiced prior to its availability.<ref name="railroads">{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of North American Railroads |date=2007 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=9780253027993 |page=329 |access-date=22 November 2019|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bhywDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA329 }}</ref>

In addition to SP, TOPS was widely adopted throughout [[North America]] and beyond. While it was at one point in widespread use across many of the United States railroads, the system has been perhaps most prominently used in the [[United Kingdom]]. During 1971, the country's nationalised rail operation, [[British Rail]] (BR), opted to procure and integrate TOPS into its operations. The acquisition of an existing system rather than develop an indigenous programme was reasoned to be both cheaper and quicker to implement; it was noted, however, that TOPS was not capable of performing all desired functions. Since its implementation during the mid 1970s, both BR and its successors have continued to operate the system. SP itself has developed a newer system called the ''Terminal Information Processing System'' (TIPS), which replaced TOPS entirely during 1980.<ref name="railroads"/>