Railway Conversations with Doc Frank
Railway Conversations with Doc Frank
Latest Episodes
#114 – Why a Year Late on Brownfield CBTC Is a Good Result, with Mike Palmer
A brownfield CBTC project that lands a year late is a good result. Not a consolation prize. That is what the record actually looks like once you take the press releases out of it.Mike Palmer spent 29 years at London Underground, finishin...
#113 – Why ETCS Is a Change Program, Not a Tech Project, with Cara Cohen
Fit the locomotives, commission the trackside, write the rules, and ETCS can still stumble on the day a driver decides the old way was better. The technology is the measurable part of an ETCS introduction. The people are the program.My g...
#112 – Why More Review Comments Make Railways Less Safe, with Andy Petrie
Twenty people comment on a document. Nineteen of them have no expertise in it. Every comment has to be answered, and the two that mattered get lost in the noise. Andy Petrie has spent thirty years watching this happen and has stopped being poli...
#111 — Fitting ETCS to a Freight Railway, with Craig Evans
Freight is where the ETCS business case really gets tested. Many freight locomotives were built long before anyone drew a European Train Control System (ETCS) fitment design, and there is no factory fit to fall back on. So the fair question is ...
#110 — Why Digital Signalling Never Got Cheaper, with Andy Harrison
Twenty years ago the promise was simple. Digital train control would get cheaper, and ETCS and CBTC would become the default for every new scheme. Neither happened. Costs keep rising, and the system knowledge keeps migrating into the supply bas...
