Rail Exec Club review – Mark Carne on the digital railway

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Addressing guests at the first Rail Exec Club event of the year, Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne spoke about his ambitions to bring forward the creation of the UK’s digital railway.

To create the capacity and reliability Britain’s main line rail network needs, Network Rail hopes to accelerate the implementation of ERTMS signalling and the advent of digital train control.

Mark Carne said Network Rail needed to “grasp the opportunity of digital train control” much faster than the current plan. “We need to have a far more aggressive approach to this,” He added. “This is a complete opportunity to transform our railway.”

The industry gathered at London’s Drapers’ Hall on March 5 to discuss progress being made in expanding the railway and plans to take that forward faster still. As well as Mark Carne, speakers included MTR’s Jeremy Long and Jon Shaw, Bombardier’s head of engineering.

Jeremy Long, chief executive officer of MTR’s European business, revealed plans to start running TfL Rail-branded services this May between Liverpool Street and Shenfield. New Class 345 Crossrail trains – built in Britain – will be introduced in May 2017 and will start running through the tunnels a year later.

Jon Shaw from Bombardier Transportation, which is building Crossrail’s 345 Aventra fleet at Litchurch Lane in Derby, praised the comeback of the UK’s home-based train building industry.

Jon has been working on trials of the IPEMU – the Independently Powered adapted Electrostar 379013 on the Manningtree branch. Jon pointed out battery-operated devices were popular in Essex and the train had proved a great success.

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