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Lutz   30/03/2016 at 23:17

It is welcomed, or at least hoped, that NR has been able to get hold of someone that recognises the significantly faster tempo of the digital railway compared with that of the rails and sleepers business. Perhaps a downside is that this new chap is just more of the same being a former colleague of Sir Peter. I hope NR looks a abroad for future recruits into senior positions so as to really shake-up sleepy hollow.

Sonning Cutting   31/03/2016 at 10:55

Whoever develops "the digital Railway2 has to remember the basic laws of physics still apply. Its easy to develop on a metro system where all trains have the same performance and stopping pattern but the majority of national lines are for mixed traffic use. I'm not sure the residents of Reading for example would want their present HST service slowed down and to stop at more intermediate stations to provide more overall capacity. Be careful what you wish for!

Jerry Alderson   03/04/2016 at 14:22

I chatted briefly to David Waboso in (I think) 2002 at a Rail Passengers Council meeting in London. He had been doing a presentation about GSM-R, essentially an extension of second-generation mobile telephony using a 'circuit switched' approach, which has limitted capacity because each connection is continuously open. I asked him why the railway was going to be using out-of-date technology as the basis of its communication rather than packed-switched (2.5G, 3G , 4G and 5G), especially as it would limit capacity. He asked me if I worked in the railway and I said no, I workd in IT/telecommunications. So he told be to keep my nose out of his business and don't offer advice to his industry. The communication capacity issues encountered in Denmark have shown than GSM-R cannot properly cope in places of extremely dense vehicle movements. I hope 14 years of experience has changed him for the better.