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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

I had a free Saturday after some boring Friday sales meeting/presentation in London maybe a decade ago. Decided to take a field trip to Bletchley Park instead of wandering aimlessly in London. I just loved the whole experience (including the train trip and the walk from the Bletchley train station) so much. I want to do it again, so I hope it will be able to keep going.

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Unfortunately since then the managers got rid of all the volunteers who had intimate knowledge of the computer science: https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/28/bletchley_park_sacks_...

I was very lucky that I got to meet Tony Sale a couple of times before he passed away, back in probably 2008 or thereabouts and he demonstrated the Colossus that he had rebuilt to me, which was a tremendous experience (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Sale).

While you do have to know what you are looking for, and walk the long way around from the larger Bletchley Park site, the National Museum of Computing is still (as of last year) there with volunteers showing off the workings of a bunch of rebuilt computers including the Colossus. I can't recommend a visit, with a guided tour, enough. And you might as well visit Bletchley itself while you are there, which is a different experience, but still worth while.

This is one of those articles that says a lot without saying anything. Why do these two museums not like each other?

Tony Sale is someone I really wish I got to meet before he died. The WW2 stuff is interesting enough, but he also spent a lot of time running around London chasing and bugging communists with Peter Wright. He would've been working only a few rungs under an alleged soviet mole, which isn't something every get's to do.

I live just over the fence of Bletchley park. 3 minutes away from train station, been commuting to London daily few years ago. For anyone who is thinking that train ride from London is enjoying - it's not. London Northwestern Railway trains are filthy and you're always choose to stand for those 45 minutes, which usually becomes 70-80 minutes, because of "signalling problems". You get off at Bletchley station, which is old, really old, never been refreshed and looks like it will fall apart any minute. It's never cleaned too. There's no such thing as cleaning service in Bletchley station. You finally get out of it, walk over the street (no atmosphere or feeling that anything happened here), walk for 3.5 minutes and you're in Bletchley park, which is nice to see.

Sounds like an excellent way to start and end 5 days a week of your life for many years

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