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FEATURE
DfT
Educating the Government
T
he two buzz words in vogue are ‘Digital Railway’ and ‘Innovation’. Both appear ad nauseam, and one has to question what they actually mean and whether the people who quote them actually understand what is being promoted.
It seems that the Department for Transport (DfT) has the same problem and a refreshingly frank hour-long teleconference session took place recently, in which the Minister for Rail – Chris Heaton-Harris – acted as chairman, with a panel of experts responding to his questions to try and explain precisely what these words mean. Some responses were not quite what was expected, but, if this event succeeded in determining some of the terminology, it was very worthwhile.
East Coast main line (ECML) where £350 million is already committed to ERTMS introduction. Of the other two areas, the GE route aligns with a proposal put forward by Alstom back in 2017 which viewed London-Norwich as an ideal candidate for ETCS introduction. However, we shall have to wait and see what is proposed, but, if lineside signals are to be abolished, then all trains running in those areas must be fitted.
New spending The session began with the Minister announcing that £1.2 million was to be made available for feasibility studies into three more areas of ERTMS / ETCS implementation. These are: 1. parts of the West Coast main line (WCML) in the Warrington / Wigan area; 2. the Midland main line (MML); 3. the Great Eastern Anglia area including Norwich to Peterborough. Of these, the MML makes most sense, as the Thameslink Class 700 trains that operate to Bedford are already using ETCS in the central London core, so they could remain in that mode as they exit towards Bedford. This also applies to Thameslink trains that run to Peterborough and Cambridge over the
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
CLIVE KESSELL
A broad array of panelists To assist the understanding, a team of experts was assembled to answer the Minister’s questions, with 150 or so guests listening in. The experts were: » Rob Morris is managing director of Siemens Mobility’s signalling operation in the UK and one of the suppliers of ETCS systems – the fourth generation of signalling technology that the company, with its origins going back to Westinghouse and Invensys, has been
