Anyone who says rail doesn't innovate, doesn't know what they are talking about.

GWR raises concerns with Transport for Wales' Bristol plans TfW wants to start operating a service linking West Wales with Bristol Temple Meads.

I wonder how this will work when GBR runs the TOCs, and a devolved gov's operator is in conflict with GBR, and potentially ORR's role is weakened. www.railmagazine.com/news/gwr-rai...

A roller coaster of - oh my train is cancelled - oh I can get on the slightly earlier faster train as they have lifted restrictions.

Looking at Strava data to map how people cross the railway and what might need to be swapped to a footbridge - is my new favourite way to pretend I am working, whilst delving too deep into a topic.

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I'm presenting my findings to the Union of European Railway Engineer Associations this Thursday - draw some conclusions from across Europe on how the UK can improve. Link to register for the event here (2/2): events.teams.microsoft.com/event/31e389...

UK rail product acceptance takes too long, costs too much & prevents innovation. An anecdote or a fact - it is actually quite hard to separate feelings from facts in this topic. For 6 months, I worked for the Office of Rail and Road, benchmarking the UK against European best practice (1/2)

Heading to Swindon - looking super today.

Hello - 10 days holiday and no social media. Still drying out from the last 4 in Wales.

Just been told by Serco that the price for accessing PADSnet is going up by 800% this year. Price gouging on a safety-critical requirement is bonkers, which is why NR worked to make standards access free in recent years. We can't put safety-critical info behind a paywall (2/2)

For Network Rail infrastructure, to check whether a product has gone through the acceptance process, you need to check PADSnet (Parts & Drawing System), managed by Serco. I've long suspected that a few companies don't check before buying products, as it is behind a paywall (1/2)

Would be an expensive installation - I think these are £3k each from recollection

Ah - if we went for every combination of voltage, wire sizes, materials, number of wires tensions, system height (distance between contact and catenary wire), maximum space between structures, max length of wires - in the UK. I think there would be 171,000 cards.... but yes would be boring.

Some people collect Pokémon cards. If you collected UK railway electrification section insulators - this would be equivalent of the rarest card. A DC section insulator for two contact wires. Like collecting rare Pokémon cards - this would be an expensive hobby

Whilst the UK fights over every new pylon that might eventually reduce our electricity bill. Saudi has converted this pylon into an art exhibition and it looks gorgeous.

UK national railway becomes world's first to test quantum navigation The world-first quantum rail test in Britain could replace GPS and deliver accurate train positioning in tunnetunnelsls and dense networks.

Having done train borne surveying that goes rapidly awry in tunnels as soon as the GPS signal is lost - I think quantum positioning is a real use case for quantum tech.
interestingengineering.com/innovation/u...

This spring tensioning equipment is very common elsewhere in the UK, but a bespoke version is needed for the slightly unique Nexus system. The test ones are from Barcelona, but future ones will be made by the manufacturer in Sheffield. (2/2).

Tyne and Wear Metro (Nexus) has a climate resilience issue (or several) - it can have lots of delays every hot summer day due to electrification equipment designed in the 70's. My team has been Barcelona this week with Nexus testing the equipment that will stop this (1/2)

I spent yesterday evening trying to explain why increased tension in conductors results in less strucutres in rail electrification. I think this is the best I can do.

Short-circuit testing - in electrification, it is the 100% most exciting thing we ever see or do.

HS2’s latest challenge? Cutting the speed of its trains to save money Every extra 1mph of top speed increases the troubled rail line’s costs by £1 billion. And now it emerges the plan was to ship the trains to China for testing

I think the Times are a year late to this story about reducing speed to save money. What really costs money, is constant meddling since the start of HS2.
www.thetimes.com/business/com...

As the UK Government weighs up whether it can afford rail electrification, the Indian Government is celebrating how much it has saved by electrifying & how it has created a resilient, affordable system that has avoided oil shocks.

Stuck at Beeston... as train after train is cancelled - did get at least to see a new train whizzing in the other direction.

Current GBR act won't change any of these things, as it allows for ministers to make vast changes on a whim. Can't agree more with these comments (3/3).

Reform has been on-going for 8 years. Boom & bust in the industry hasn't changed. Track & train strategy not published by DfT yet (2/3).

Darren (RIAs CEO) at Rail Industry's Innovation conference: Pause in Midland Mainline set a worrying message to the supply chain. Cancellation cost £400m in locoal economic benefits (1/3)

It was the right one... but panic I was on the wrong coach did cross my mind.

Catching the conference coach to Newport's conference centre... am the only passenger. Starting to wonder if I caught the right coach.

Heading to Newport for @railindustry's Innovation Conference. Last year everyone had robot dogs (mainly purely as eye candy), wondering what this year's trend will be.

Car park firm NCP collapses with nearly 700 jobs at risk The car park operator says demand for parking has not recovered to pre-Covid levels, as its administrators look to sell the business.

I am just chucking this out there: NCP has not collapsed due to Covid as they claimed. They collapsed as they were bought out by Macquarie Group, who saddled them with huge debt, who then palmed them off on the next vulture hedge fund to pick what was left
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Something a little different yesterday motorsport marshall training.... I've not done fire training in 25 years since London Underground was a blast from the past.