#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 whether you can retrofit an entire freight fleet without it turning into a nightmare.

Recorded during his time leading ERTMS operations at Freightliner, this conversation has Craig Evans explain how one of Britain's largest freight operators is fitting ETCS across more than 185 locomotives and getting 700 drivers ready for it.

Craig's answer is that it is hard work but far from unmanageable. Four locomotive types, not forty. One consistent onboard equipment set across every UK freight operator. A learning curve where the tenth fitment is quick even if the first one has you scratching your head. He walks through the East Coast Digital Programme, Britain's largest ETCS deployment, and the collaboration behind it, with freight operators, passenger operators, the infrastructure manager and even the unions pulling the same way. We get into the first full-cab ETCS freight simulators in the UK, and the human side of the change, right down to the veteran driver who did not want ETCS until he saw what it does.

If you find it useful, share it with a colleague wrestling with the same questions.

For the best way to truly understand ETCS, CBTC and high capacity signalling, all vendor neutral, visit www.docfranktraining.com. 

Transcript

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Railway Conversations with Doc Frank. Hello and welcome to another episode of this podcast. I'm Doc Frank, your host, and my guest today is Craig Evans from Ipswich in England. Craig is an operational specialist for ERTMS, the European Rail Traffic Management System, working for the freight and logistics company Freightliner. This conversation is about Freightliner and Craig's role in the UK rail industry and specifically in the East Coast Digital programmeme, which introduces ETCS to the East Coast Main Line, one of the busiest lines in the UK. We also discuss project delivery structures that support collaboration, the challenges of locomotive fit-outs and driver training, and much more. Please enjoy this episode. Craig, welcome to the show. Hi Frank, thanks for having me. Appreciate the invitation to come and join your podcast. I came across your profile on LinkedIn and was quite intrigued by it. It read ERTMS operations specialist, if I'm not mistaken. So ERTMS, for those who don't know, is the European Rail Traffic Management System. Maybe you can start a little bit with your career history and what brought you onto the topic of ERTMS and ETCS. Yeah, sure. So I joined the rail industry at the tender age of 18, back in 2006, and started off in a few different operational, frontline operational roles as a train guard and then as a mainline train driver. In 2017, I moved into a driver training and simulator manager role, in which I was heavily involved in a new trains project. So for anyone who knows in the UK, Greater Anglia completely replaced all of their rolling stock with brand new rolling stock, Alstom and Stadler units. So I was really fortunate that I was involved in a lot of the project work for that. During my time in that role, I also undertook a rail operations degree with the Chartered Institution of Rail Operators, Glasgow Caledonian University. A lot of that degree was centred around digital rail and the introduction of ERTMS, and that sort of caught my appetite, really, for digital rail, even though we didn't have that project specifically for the operator I worked with. And my dissertation for that degree was actually a hypothetical scenario of how we would introduce ERTMS to us as a business, which is quite interesting that now I've moved into a role with Freightliner about three years ago as an ERTMS specialist, where I'm actually doing that in itself. So my role is very much around integrating ETCS into the business, developing training materials, introducing simulators, as well as working with lots of the other operators in the UK within user design working groups to fine tune the principles for ETCS. Interesting, so you basically started your role as an ETCS specialist based on your theoretical studies at university, is that kind of correct? Yes, pretty much. Within the UK, it's quite a niche subject to have any sort of significant experience in. We're very much learning as we go along in the UK with the application of ETCS, obviously with the support of the experience of people who were involved in the Cambrian line that was trialled back in 2019, as well as those who's been involved in the European side of it for quite some time. Yeah, yeah. OK, so how did you come to Freightliner? Did they look for an ETCS specialist and you thought, well, that would be interesting because I could get more involved into ETCS than I could in my previous company? Or how did it come about that you joined them? No, I was working for Greater Anglia, who's a train operating company. And like I just said, we were it was a really exciting time for a few years in terms of introducing the rolling stock and supporting simulator delivery. So not only did every single traction fleet get replaced, we also replaced our simulators with four brand new simulators as well. So design and the driver package and things like that as well. But as that project started to die down and the business became back to business as usual because I've got the appetite for project work. But for me personally, it was it was a case of, right, what's next? What else can I get my hands into? And the role at Freightliner, I saw advertised at just the perfect time. And when I had in there ERTMS, it was exactly what I wanted to go for at the time. Yeah. OK, so so tell us a little bit about Freightliner, what kind of company it is. Some of the listeners may not be that familiar with the structure of the UK rail market, which arguably is a little bit more complicated or maybe quite a little bit more complicated than what it was previously in the good old British rail days. So what kind of company is Freightliner and how does it fit into that structure, that fabric of the UK rail industry? Yeah, so you're right, within the UK, the commercial structure is quite complex with with with the government in terms of the DfT, the infrastructure manager being Network Rail and then multiple private companies, both within the freight operating companies and train operating companies as well. And Freightliner themselves, we are a rail freight company, one of the largest in the UK. We're actually part of the wider Genesee and Wyoming group. So we've also got a presence within Europe as well, Poland, Holland and parts of Germany. In terms of Freightliner business, we essentially have two different business models. So the intermodal side of the business is logistics container operations. So we deliver containers and move containers throughout the whole of the UK and have a presence in all of the major UK ports. The second side of Freightliner is the heavy haul rail freight side of the business. So we move everything from coal to cement, aggregate, spoil. And even more recently, we're currently delivering parts of the HS2 wall tunnel sections into into that area for the build. Interesting. So so you mentioned train operating companies such as Greater Anglia, that was your previous employer, and then freight operating companies such as Freightliner. So the difference, they are basically the same thing only that train operating companies are doing passenger transport, whereas freight operating companies are doing freight transport. You also have something in the UK called ROSCO, rolling stock companies. So for the listeners who don't know what they are doing, they are basically leasing companies for rolling stock, for locomotives, for trains. With regards to the introduction of ETCS, one thing that's obviously very important is the amount of rolling stock that needs to be fitted. So the number I mean, if you talk freight operations, you're probably talking locomotives rather than entire trains like power cars or passenger trains or so. So roughly just to get an idea of the fleet size, how many locomotives does Freightliner have approximately and how many different types have you got? Because that's also important because every type of locomotive needs its own installation design. And that's often where the big costs come in for ETCS fitment. So we have in total just over 185 locomotives across the business. The core of our traction fleet is the class 66 locomotives. We then have the class 59s, which are very, very similar to the 66s, but they're lower geared to be able to pull more heavier trains. And then we have class 70s and the class 90s, which are electric locomotives. So we only have four different types of locomotives, but not far off 200 in total. OK, yeah, but but only four fleets. That's that's probably a good thing, because the efforts, the one time effort for the installation design is kind of it's not it's not too bad. Yeah, I mean, four designs for nearly 200 locomotives. That that's a pretty that's a pretty favourable situation, I think. Talking about installation designs, did you realised any differences between different locomotives within one class? Say if you have I just pick a number out of thin air, like like 60 60 locomotives of class 66, can you really have one installation design which will fit all of them or will you? OK, OK, that that's where the depth is in the detail. Yes, absolutely. I mean, the class 66 is the perfect example because I think in total from an engineering perspective, there's there's over 40 different variations of a class 66. Now, from a driver's perspective, they're very, very similar. There is one particular type of class 66 that Freightliner don't operate what's called the Euro spec, which is more of a wraparound cab. So from from fitting to the cab that has its own challenges. But for us, the vast majority of our 66s from a driver's perspective are very, very similar. So what the driver will see and how they operate will be pretty standard and pretty consistent. But for the engineering aspects of of our team, that's a completely different kettle of fish because there's numerous different fitment designs to cater for where certain equipment will be fitted within the clean air and the engine room and the underframe and how they're able to to move some of the cabling and wires from one end of the loco to the other. Every different 66 is very, very different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For background for the listeners, the reason why I'm picking so much on that whole fitment thing is that a big issue with ETCS are fitment costs specifically for the onboard. And and it's not just the ETCS equipment itself which drives the cost up. It's predominantly the installation design. Yeah. So so just for argument's sake, the the installation design for locomotive class is probably, I would think, between five and 10 times the cost of the. Equipment itself, at least from from my previous experience in Europe, and and if you have to do this again for several times for the same locomotive class, because the the locomotives inside one class are different, then it can get very expensive very quickly. So that all of a sudden you've got an average of like three or four times the the normal cost of just the ETCS equipment just because of all this installation design work and and retrofitment of ETCS, which will be the standard for your locomotives because they are all already existing. There's nothing that you can do with factory fitment. The cost of retrofitment is much higher anyhow compared to a factory fitment where you can basically design ETCS in while you're building the locomotive or while you're building the train. Absolutely, and one of the positive aspects of the project in the UK is that all of the freight vehicles will have a consistent approach in terms of the actual equipment that's being fitted to it. So Siemens Mobility are supplying the onboard equipment. So whether it's a class 66 that Freightliner have or a class 66 or a class 90 or a class 59 or any other type of vehicle that another freight operator uses in the UK, the type of DMI, the equipment within the cab, the EVC, the balise antennas and what have you that's fitted to the vehicle is all consistent as well. So in terms of scales of economy, we're quite consistent there. And in addition to that, in terms of the fitment, I think we're going to find it's going to be quite a slow burnout initially as the vehicle starts to begin to be fitted. The analogy that I like to use when I speak to some of our drivers in terms of timeframes is I try to think of is if you've gone to IKEA and purchased 50 of the same cabinets, you might look at the first one that you're about to build with your scratching your head, looking at the instructions, making sure you've got all the parts that you need. And that may take you 45 minutes. Then your second, your third, your fourth. And by the time you're on your 21st, 22nd, 23rd, you've built up that concrete experience of putting these vehicles together and installing the equipment. And hopefully we'll see that as an accelerated process as time comes. I'm just smiling ear to ear because I think a lot of people in Europe would be very happy if ETCS installation was as simple as putting IKEA furniture together. Oh, dear. Yeah, so Freightliner is currently involved or you are involved. So I guess that your company Freightliner will be involved as well in the latest and greatest ETCS project in Great Britain, which is the East Coast Digital programmeme. That's the official title for fitting ETCS on parts of the East Coast Main Line, which is one of the busiest lines in the UK, starting south in London and then going up along the East Coast, as the name says, towards Scotland, towards I believe Edinburgh. So what's what's your role on that specific project representing Freightliner? So it's very much around the support and integration and implementation of that into us as a business from aspects of supporting the creation, development of driver training materials, introduction of simulation into the business as well. Also, as part of this project, we've just opened two brand new state-of-the-art driver training academies. So we've got one in the south and one in the north of the UK. And as much as what I do internally within Freightliner as well, what we have within the East Coast Digital programmeme is very much a user led and collaborative approach. So a lot of my time is also spent working with the other operators, both passenger and train operators, to help support the UK application of ETCS. So aspects of the user design working groups, defining how we may use possessions, for example, to defining some of the rules and standards at the same time. Yeah, how how repeatable is all that? Like if you say you work together with with other freight operators, also with train operating companies, you are involved in the whole topic of driver training and specifications for driver training and driver simulators and so on. Would every company have their own simulator or is there anything more centralised? Is there some, for example, there's a national test facility for ETCS. Is there also something like a national training facility or a national, I don't know, a driver simulator facility? Or is it more that you say, hey, we we have this fantastic ETCS driver simulator at Freightliner, which is not 100 percent utilised. So other freight operating companies are free to basically come against a fee, obviously, so that you can create some business out of that. Is something like this happening or is it basically just laying some kind of a common groundwork and then every company is venturing out by themselves, creating their own testing training facilities, training programmes and what have you? So what's quite unique with Freightliner that prior to the ETCS project, a lot of the training was done where it was required. Essentially, we didn't have centralised or dedicated training facilities. So as part of this project, we've been able to build a larger driver training team, bring in simulation into the business as well, as well as opening two dedicated facilities. So we've been quite fortunate from the project that we've been able to accelerate what we do internally as a business. In terms of what all of the operators are doing, it's like what you say. It's very much an independent approach. So each operator is going out and procuring their own simulation, their own training teams, et cetera. But what we've also said to the programme is, again, to encourage this collaborative approach, whereby some of the smaller freight operators and some of maybe the on-track machine operators and track maintenance operators as well, whereby they would like to use our facilities to deliver training, that's open to the programme. We're very much got an open doors policy and allow anyone really within the programme to use our facilities. Good. Well, yeah, that's probably very helpful for the industry, because especially when the fleet sizes get very small, I mean, with nearly 200 locomotives, you have probably one of the bigger fleets in the UK and maybe some companies that have like, as you said, maintenance machines, they may have like, I don't know, somewhere between 10 and 20 vehicles and 12 different types or something like that. So for them, it becomes really, really difficult from a purely commercial perspective to afford, well, the ETCS installation and equipment in the first place, but then also everything which comes around us with regards to staff training and what have you. Whereby the actual driver training materials that drivers will receive, again, it's a very central approach in terms of the creation and development of training materials. So I'm part of the freight training working group. So every freight operator is represented at this group. And together, we've created the materials that we're going to deliver as part of our NTC programme, as part of our Level 2 programme as well. We've defined all the simulated scenarios that's required, which is all the outputs of a risk-based training needs analysis that we've undertaken. So in terms of a consistent approach to training, the materials that's being developed will be delivered to all the operators in which they can then finalise and fine-tune how they wish. But what that means is that whether you're a driver or a DB cargo and some of the other competitors that we have within the UK, the training that they would have received is consistent across the board. I've had another podcast guest from the UK very recently, and he was praising the delivery concept for the East Coast Digital programmeme, saying it was a very innovative programme, definitely a clear improvement from the setup of previous projects, including previous ETCS projects in Great Britain. So what can you say about that programme and the strengths of it compared to maybe other project delivery setups that you've seen previously in England? So the East Coast Digital programmeme, who are managing the introduction on the East Coast mainline, have developed and certainly encouraged a culture of collaboration and a user-led approach. What makes the UK very, very difficult and complex is the structure and the multiple organisations that's involved from, like I say, the government to the infrastructure manager in Network Rail, multiple private freight operating companies, multiple train operating companies. We also have open access operators, on-track machine and maintenance, heritage and charter, so even as part of the ETCS project in the UK, steam trains and heritage trains are going to be fitted with ETCS. All of these different organisations have vested interests in how this should operate and also the commercial aspects of that as well. It's important to know that the implementation of ETCS needs to satisfy all those different parties, and that makes it very challenging and is in a minefield in itself. But one of the strengths of the East Coast Digital programmeme is the fact that we do all work together. It is a collaborative approach. It's got to be a user-led approach. I was recently at an event in London a few months ago in which one of the senior sponsors from East Coast Digital programmeme, he often will stand up and tell everyone in the room, no one else is coming. This is us. This is up to us now. We're not going to rest on our laurels. We need to make this work. We need to work together. That really resonates with me as well, because the only way we can make this a success is if we all work together. In terms of the UK, it has been quite a slow approach of ETCS in the past. We had the Cambrian line, which was the pilot line, which went into commission in 2011, I believe. Very much of a simplified railway, single line with passing loops. But that proved that we can operate ETCS in the UK. Then it seemed to go quite quiet for a while. Certainly within the last three, four years, we've now seen rapid acceleration with the progress. So there's the Great Western 0 to 12 section that goes to Heathrow Airport, implementation of ETCS there. The Thameslink core that runs from St Pancras to London Bridge, and also from Moorgate into the Northern City line. That's now in ETCS Level 2. So the Cambrian line was the trial line. The pockets of deployments that we've seen in the last few years are very much so that the pathfinders, fine-tuning what we're doing in the UK with the East Coast Main Line as part of the ECDP project being the first really national deployment that we're going to see in the UK. And if we can get the East Coast Digital programmeme correct, if we can get the East Coast main line correct with all those different stakeholders involved, then there's no reason why we can't deploy ETCS anywhere else in the UK, because that's what's set in the template and that's what's set in the blueprint within the UK. Yeah, it, yeah, that aligns very much with what I normally say. I mean, as much as I can understand to pick a pilot project like Cambrian, which was pretty much at the periphery of the British rail network, a very simplified line, not even a continuous radio connectivity, things like that. So back at the time I looked at Cambrian and I thought, how representative is this really for upcoming ETCS projects in the UK? And the answer was probably not too much, but going now for something serious like the East Coast Main Line, which, as I said, is one of the key rail arteries in all of Great Britain, that's really a bold move. And you're right, if they get this right, then there are very little reasons why it couldn't work elsewhere. Yeah. And it should work elsewhere. And hopefully it can also be used as a facilitator almost, or as a role model for other projects. Yeah. You mentioned a recent acceleration with ETCS in the UK. Why do you think is this? Why was there such a very slow and at times seemingly non-existing progress with ETCS introductions? And now all of a sudden it's taking off. What has changed in your view? In my view, I think it's the approach of the East Coast Digital programmeme by enabling a partnership of all the stakeholders involved. Everyone has a seat at the table. Everyone has a fair opinion. But I think also probably the introduction of new fleets as well. So from a passenger operator, if you look at the Thameslink core, as well as the Great Western section to Heathrow, brand new rolling stock that's fitted with ETCS, factory fitted, shall we say, and those slightly older vehicles that maybe are not quite simple retrofitment. So I think that's allowed those pockets of ETCS to really start to gather some pace. With the East Coast Main Line, like you say, it's quite challenging retrofitting ETCS to much older vehicles. Some of our Class 66s are very, very early 90s. Class 90s are late 80s vehicles. We even have one Class 47, which is from a 1960s vehicle, which is scheduled currently still to be fitted with ETCS, which is quite impressive. And I think as those design reviews and the fitment designs now start to come together and we've gone from preliminary to final fitment design, we're in a place now where the operators and the programme itself is now ready to fit their vehicles. If this conversation makes you wanting to go deeper, I run what I believe is the most comprehensive portfolio of online training courses in advanced railway signalling, CBTC, ETCS, high-capacity signalling and more. You find them all at my own training platform docfranktraining.com. That's docfranktraining.com. And everything is right there waiting for you, but now back to the show. My hypothesis, not just for Great Britain, but generally for ETCS in Europe was that what was missing for a long time was a really compelling business case for ETCS. So the commercial incentive and also the operational incentive to introduce ETCS was just not there. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've been involved in the very, very early parts of the ETCS planning in the UK. So I had some meetings as early as 2001, something like that. And, and at the time it was already clear that nobody in Great Britain would have an interest in ETCS Level 1 simply because it wouldn't give any operational benefits that justify the business case. Now, from a safety perspective you did roll out TPWS at the time in the UK and that was done relatively quickly and relatively was a relative good coverage all across Great Britain. And by doing that, you eliminated safety issues to a degree that ETCS wouldn't really have a business case in itself from a safety perspective. Yeah. So if you have an existing system for automatic train protection, which is the same functionality that ETCS offers you on a safety basis by saying, ah, well, ETCS will be a little bit safer than the old ATP system. That's not how you can build a business case. So you really need to get something else. And if I look at a Thameslink, for example, I think a huge boost there was the integration of ATO automatic train operation over ETCS and the fact that they wanted to increase the capacity, the, the line throughput on Thameslink. And they thought with ETCS Level 2 and ATO, that would be possible. So, so that was the driver there, which they could have never achieved with conventional signalling, at least I believe they couldn't. And, um, and now with East Coast, I think there's also a business case in that the existing signalling was due for replacement anyway, or big parts of it was due for replacement anyway. You mentioned, uh, the procurement of new, uh, trains. So lots of greater parts of the train fleets are being replaced, which makes the whole ETCS installation easier and more cost efficient. So it just a much better timing now for the East Coast Main Line specifically, then it would have been like, I don't know, 10 years ago. Yeah. Where people would still have said they are, but we, we still have, uh, existing asset life in our existing signalling and stuff like that. And, and I can see it in other countries as well, Germany, for example, um, that had for many, many years, a reputation of dragging their heels on ETCS. They are now running at, at fast speed towards ETCS because they now have a business model where ETCS in combination with a new generation of interlockings in combination with ATO really gives them the operational boost, the capacity increase, all these kinds of things where you say, well, okay, now we've got a concept that really makes commercial sense for us. Yeah. And that's, that's what really drives forward the introduction of ETCS. And, and I, I dare say that probably has been an issue all across Europe. I think, um, I think where we've seen the buy-in now within the UK is we've seen it successfully introduced across Europe. We've seen it successfully introduced, um, in parts of Australia and the Middle East as well, um, with, with, with deployments and implementation there. Um, I think what's quite unique within the UK now is that everyone wants it. It's, if you talk about the government and the department for transport, they want this system introduced. If you talk to the freight operators, they want this system introduced. The passenger operators, they want it introduced. Even when we reach out and we speak to our drivers and our, and our union representatives, they want this system introduced. And that includes from the infrastructure manager and the signalling side of things as well. Um, and you very rarely get that in any huge, massive projects. So in the UK, when everyone wants, everyone sees the benefits from a safety perspective, performance, capacity, you see that all this ties in together to, to make our railways more safer, to make, enable our trains to run closer, safely closer together to, to improve capacity and performance. That's where we're really going to see those, those gains and benefits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. That's, that's a pretty rare occasion that really all of the stakeholders are pulling in the right direction, especially if you include the unions. Yeah. Because, because normally there's, there's always someone who finds a hair in a soup and says, ah, no, I don't really like that. I only like it specifically at my conditions or something like that. And that may make things very, um, yeah, very, very difficult. Yeah. So, so that, that's certainly a good development. Yeah. Yeah. We work, we work very closely with our driver representation. Um, so, um, we, we have six monthly engagement sessions and workshops, um, with our, with our, our, our business council. We, we were supported as part of our simulator developments with, with union representation as well. Um, every single fitment design survey that's undertaken where we have to carry out human factors analysis is, um, they're there also to, to support that work stream. So I think when, when you communicate, you keep those channels communications open and have that strong relationship that it's only going to benefit the programme as a whole. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Um, with regards to business transformation for an organisation like Freightliner, I mean, I, I understand, or everybody will understand, uh, the impact on train drivers. Yeah. I mean, if, if you have, uh, freight trains with locomotives, then the drivers obviously need to understand and get familiarised and trained for that new system, which sits on board of the locomotives, which is ETCS. Um, are there any other, uh, aspects of business transformation for your business where you're saying it's not just affecting the train drivers, train drivers, maybe the most obvious, uh, target audience for any change programme, but there are also other parts of the organisation that will be impacted by ETCS. Yeah. So for train drivers itself, we, we have just over 700 drivers in total. Um, now not all of those drivers will drive in Level 2. Um, but because of the way that our business is set up, um, and the way that all of our locos traverse across the breadth of the UK, every single driver will be slightly impacted. Even if they just drive a vehicle and Level NTC that they're impacted because the change in vehicle design and what they need to do as part of their Start of Mission process and preparation procedures. Um, the second largest, uh, and it's probably just parallel to drivers really is the maintainers and engineers within ourselves as a business. So we maintain our own vehicles. Um, and when you talk about quite old diesel electric vehicles, and we're now introducing, um, technical components around ETCS, it's a bit of a change in shift of what they currently do as part of their maintenance procedures. So all of our maintainers, um, also need to be trained up and become proficient with their abilities to maintain the equipment. Um, and then further reaching, you've got roles as such are parts of our planning team, our controllers, our rostering teams. There's this, we identify essentially that every single role within us as a business will be slightly impacted some more than others, but everyone really will be impacted to some degree because what we need to ensure is where we first start to get ETCS vehicles fitted and put placed into revenue earning service. We need to ensure that the roster clerks are rostering a trained driver onto the correct vehicle. We need to ensure that the planners are placing the vehicles onto the correct routes. Um, even within terminal operations, um, uh, our terminal and ground staff teams need to ensure and understand that, um, the way vehicles move conventionally now is going to be slightly different to what you do in an ETCS railway. So every single role is slightly different. And, um, again, it's very much of a user- centralised process within the programme where, um, learning needs analysis has been undertaken on all these different types of roles to identify the change in the impact. And then that allows us to, to drive forward what type of, whether they need competently based training or briefing or workshops and to, to upskill themselves. Yeah. Yeah. So at the end of the day, that's classic change management where you look through the entire business, you identify the roles that will be impacted in some shape or form, even if it's just a little bit, and then you identify what needs to be done to prepare them for the jobs. And I would guess that, uh, you, you rather tell them a little bit more than a little bit less, including a little bit background. I mean, from, uh, say from a, from a planning perspective, when you say, um, locomotives, uh, need to be fitted in order to operate on ETCS-fitted routes. I mean, you could basically tell your plan as well. There's a locomotive type A and there's a locomotive type B, and then you have lines type A and lines type B and B always have to fit B and that's that. So, but I mean, that's, that's almost like a black box approach, but I could imagine that it also makes sense to explain them to them a little bit more, what type B is, what that ETCS is, what it does, um, why it is different, why it's not everywhere in the UK, uh, where in the UK it is and, um, what it means for the locomotive. So, so just a little bit more, uh, background understanding, which in the past, they may have never needed because, uh, sophisticated signalling technology such as ETCS, that that's the first time that something like this comes on the locomotives. I mean, it's, it's not the first time ever that you have signalling equipment on the locomotives. You could argue that a system like TPWS is also somewhat a signalling functionality that sits on the locomotive. But, but I think with ETCS that really, uh, takes another level of, of sophistication of the stuff that you have on your locos. And, uh, and, and my hypothesis has always been that people in railway organisations that had never anything to do with signalling now all of a sudden will need some degree of exposure to signalling in order to do a proper job in the, in the future. And, and I think that's a big, that's a big change. It's a big change for rail organisations across the board. And I'm, I'm curious what your views is on that. No, absolutely. It's, it's, it's driving an awareness campaign, um, to enable people to have an understanding of, of, of what this is, how it impacts not just themselves, but also the business in itself as well. Um, I mean, if we talk about the vehicle fitment cadence, um, and how important the role of a, of a planner and roster and controller is, um, because as we first start to get fitted vehicles, come out to the workshops, get to the ETCS, obviously we'll drive a small pool of drivers to enable, to drive those first number of vehicles. Um, now when we have a small pool of drivers and a small pool of vehicles, it's probably quite simple for us as a, as a business to keep those captive. Um, yeah, if you think of the analogy of keeping them in a cage or most, so they're not going where they don't need to go, but as we get more and more vehicles and we need to train more and more drivers and more and more maintainers, it becomes a challenge of, of one, if you train too early and too quick and don't have enough vehicles, it drives a requirement for lots of refresher training. And generally you want to keep refresher training as a minimum because people start to, to lose interest if they have refresher after refresher after refresher. Um, or the second aspect, the other side of the coin is if you don't train early enough and you don't train quick enough, you then have maybe too many vehicles and not enough resources. And that's obviously a business impact as well. So it's a very fine balance of being able to do that. And, and we believe that as we get to around 18, 19, 20 vehicles, keep trying to keep these vehicles captive on certain routes and certain flows of traffic, there does get to a point where for us as a business, we just cannot do that anymore. And we do need to then open the doors of this cage and let the ETCS beasts out there really. Um, and by that point, it's important that we've, we've got a strategic plan to enable that we've got enough drivers in certain locations who are going to see experience these vehicles, um, fully trained up and ready. Um, I'd like to change gears a little bit. You talked about driver training facilities, and you also talked about simulators, uh, looking at your CV, it looks very, very clear cut. You, you started as a conductor, then you became a train driver, then you became a trainer for trained drivers. And, um, and now you're involved with training facilities with, uh, driver simulators and, and then also with the wider, uh, introduction of new technologies to the business, which will impact drivers. Um, I understand that you have been to a conference recently presenting about your, uh, driver simulator. Um, tell me a little bit about this. So what's, what's special about your simulator? And then obviously you must have done something, right? If a general conference about simulation technologies accepts you as a, as a presenter. So we have, um, we're quite proud to say within Freightliner that we have the first full cab ETCS designed, um, freight simulators in the UK. Um, we've got quite a blended approach to our simulation, which made our simulation project quite challenging. So we have a number of what we call desktop ultra simulators. So they're simulators that are based within a classroom, and you can go from a driver learning, an aspect of theory, talk and chalk on a presentation to being able to turn around, move seats and be straight onto a, a desktop compact simulator within, within moments, putting into practice what they've just learned from a theory aspects. Um, then we also have two full cab class 66 simulators designed specifically around the introduction of ETCS. Um, it's a full scale replica of our class 66 locomotives. Um, we're really proud of our simulation journey because with that, so with my previous employer, um, I was involved with simulation as a trainee driver. I experienced and was involved in simulation as a qualified driver where I was, you know, I was assessed and maintained competence. Um, then as a training manager, I use simulation to help define what our training strategies were, what the scenarios we used, and you was using them to assess and train qualified drivers as well as newly qualified trainee drivers as well. Um, so my experience with simulation has really helped me be able to, to, to lead the simulator project that we've had within the UK. Um, we procured simulators from a company called Corys, a worldwide rail simulator, um, provider, um, they're based in France, but they provide simulators all over the globe. Um, and we really worked quite well in a, in a dynamic approach to, to fine tune how we wanted our simulation to be. Um, we had a specific set of requirements that we needed to meet and, um, what made it quite challenging as well is that we were procuring simulators based on the class 66 design of ETCS prior to the point of having a final design of what class 66 cab looked like. Um, so as a, as, as, as, as a sort of response to that, we, we agreed quite early days with, with our simulator supplier that we need to have a really fluid and flexible working relationship. We carried out multiple design reviews. Um, we, we had that buffer of development where we can make corrections and changes as required. Um, and then, yeah, it was an honour to be invited by them to prevent at. Simtech conference in Grenoble back in October last year, um, to talk about how we worked collaboratively together, what our needs and requirements were. Excellent. Excellent. Well, it sounds like a really good initiative and one that you can be, um, quite proud of. Um, there was another thing that I found, I think in one of your posts on your LinkedIn profile, not entirely sure that, um, you and your team or your company was nominated and one of the finalists of Digital Rail Team of the Year last year in Great Britain. So how did this work and, and what makes a team, uh, a candidate for digital rate team of the year? Yeah, again, something that we're very proud of as a team to be nominated and be finalists for that specific, um, uh, award. Um, I think our ethos within the Freightliner ERTMS project team is that we're very pragmatic. We're very forward thinking. Um, we, we don't sit on our hands and wait for things to happen. We're very much engaging with the industry, um, collaborate, collaborating with all different parts of the programme as well. Um, there's aspects of, for example, um, Siemens who are providing the onboard equipment to our vehicles. We opened up our, our facilities and our simulators to enable them to use our simulators to provide technical train the trainer training to a lot of the trainers and instructors who are going to be delivering ETCS training. So, um, and it's just aspects of that, for example, that that's made us, um, or just been having some recognition within the industry as well. And we're also proud to say that we won the, um, Most Outstanding Team Award, um, at the East Coast Digital Programme's internal award ceremony last year as well. So, um, you know, we're doing a fantastic job. We've got a very, very good programme manager. Um, we've gone from a team of seven individuals from when I first started nearly three years ago to a team of over 20 individuals. Um, that's a team of, of operational specialists, driver trainers, maintenance specialists, lead engineers, um, to learning and development specialists as well. And business change integration managers at the same time. So we're quite a diverse and wide team. So I, I guess one of the aspects that you will need to have for such a nomination is, uh, a proactive approach. You did mention that you're not sitting on your hands. Um, I, I think when you, when you look around in these, um, initiatives of introducing new technologies that you will see a few stakeholders that, that are really embracing the whole thing and going forward, being positive about it, being optimistic about it, uh, collaborating left, right, and centre. And then you see others which are a bit more, um, sit back a little bit more and, and maybe are a bit more skeptical, like, okay, well, I've, I've seen previous technology introductions, which, um, didn't really were that successful. And, uh, yeah, we're talking about collaboration again. So let's see how this pans out this time, because we heard it before 25 times and it wasn't that collaborative. So, so, so I, I guess a, a positive embracing approach is always required, not just to get some team awards, but I think generally to have a better chance, uh, just more momentum to, to get a more successful outcome. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Um, we, we, we have a strategy within, within ourselves as a business, um, from an internal and an external communications and engagement. Um, so we, we have a, uh, an assistant business change manager named Cara Cohen, who, um, has a very definitive idea of what she wants to do from, from an engagement perspective, um, either internally within the business to communicate, let the business know what's going on from frontline operations all the way through to, to, to the board of directors, um, as well as externally, you can go on things like LinkedIn. Um, you can see all the positive news that we're putting out there and the milestones and the stepping stones of what we have within the programme. Um, Freightliner also have a dedicated ERTMS website as well. Um, so from there we're, we're publishing news and stories as a meet the team function and people have the ability to log into there and, and ask questions that go directly through to the team as well. Um, and then from a training perspective, we were also the first of the freight operators to begin what's known as the foundation module. So it's the first level of training that, that drivers will receive. Um, we started that April last year, um, we've completed about 80% of our drivers now. And we've got some fantastic feedback from that. It's not competency based. It's a one day workshop. It's a dip your toe in the water, talking about ETCS, talking about what the fitment of others vehicles are going to look like. We discussed the benefits all from around a driver's perspective. And, um, whether you're a driver who's been driving two years or a driver has been driving 42 years, the feedback that we're getting is exactly the same. And the main ambition and outcome of that specific training is to alleviate fears to address some of the misconceptions. Um, because people hear about in-cab signalling and sometimes you can get the wrong idea about it takes the skill away from a driver or the driver's not even driving it themselves. We address those misconceptions to talk about what the programme looks like for them. Um, and it's, it's been really good. For example, um, I delivered a foundation course to a team of, of our drivers last week. And there's one particular driver who's been driving nearly 40 years and he retires in two years. And at the start of the day, it was very much sitting back in the chairs and this doesn't really affect me too much because I'm going in a couple of years. And by the end of the session, he came up to me on a one-to-one and said, um, he goes, I feel a little bit dejected. I feel a little bit sad because he saw the positives of it. He, you know, he, I'd sold him what ETCS looks like from a train driver's perspective, from the safety capacity performance perspective. And, um, and he said, it was just a shame that he's going to retire before he really sees it integrated more in the UK because it's, it's the biggest shift. It's the biggest shift we've seen in the UK within the railway from going from, um, steam vehicles to diesel and electric. I think that was a huge shift many years ago. And I think the introduction of ETCS is now that, that, that next step. It's, I, I agree. I, I think the introduction of these advanced signalling technologies is arguably the biggest step change for a very long time. Um, for, for some people possibly the biggest change in their entire careers. Like for example, if you have applications and I believe East Coast is one of those where you want to apply ETCS Level 2 without signals, the removal of lineside signals is from a signalling perspective, arguably the biggest change since the introduction of signals in the first place. And when was that? Yeah, that's way more than a hundred years ago. So that means if people have careers of 20, 30, 40 years, this is the first change of this kind in, inside their careers. I was just smiling. I think your, your senior train driver may have to postpone his retirement just to get the luxury of operating trains on the ETCS for a while. Yeah. Craig, thank you very much for your time. I'm conscious that you have to be elsewhere as well. Really appreciate with, with all your busyness with the East Coast Digital programmeme that you took the time telling us a little bit about the, the, the challenges and also the benefits of introducing ETCS. You mentioned the change manager of your business, Cara Cohen. I do have plans to have her on the show as well. We talked about this the other day, so that's probably something that's going to happen in, I don't know, two or three months from now. But I, I'm really impressed by the proactive approach that Freightliner has to this whole ETCS introduction, which is a major, major topic for the industry, not just in great Britain, but worldwide. And I'm definitely interested to keep hearing how things keep developing with Freightliner. So it may well be that in a few months time, I invite you back for an update. And I could imagine you are up for that. Absolutely. Yeah. We'd love to speak to you again and talk about where we are in the next few months and how we progress over the next few years as well. Excellent. Thanks very much again for your time, Craig, and all the best for the introduction of ETCS to your company and to your train drivers. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, Frank. Thanks for having me. Hi, it's Doc Frank again. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you like the content, then the best way you make sure that you don't miss out on any of the future episodes, just subscribe to the channel. 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