Christopher Meredith

I've said it before and I'll say it again... WE HAVE A CHOICE - >>> wait around for a "Long Term Strategy for Rail" to materialise, OR >>> muck on and make the most of the tools we already have! WHY? 1. RTS already exists! 2. RTS is being refreshed for 2024 (& every 5 years) 3. RTS is a key pillar of a future overarching rail long-term strategy anyway! WATCH THIS SPACE for 5 RTS launches during 2024. Click the link to learn more!

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Check out this 👉 (https://lnkd.in/e5sPR8_k) fantastic post from RPD Ltd (Rail Professional Development) featuring my latest cohort of trainee drivers! Here's a sneak peek of them in action, practicing hand signals.🚦 😁 #ProfessionalDevelopment #RailIndustry #HandsOnTraining

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Sometimes it's useful to step back and see the wider picture. For rail, the impact of the pandemic has been immense. This stark challenge can be seen clearly in DfT's Rail Factsheet 2023. Since 22/23, rail has made progress towards being more financially sustainable but the challenge remains for the industry to come together to deliver a better service for customers, adjust to the changing market and grow revenue. Source: DfT's Rail Factsheet 2023. TOC = Train Operating Company

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A great start to the week this week as I visited the University of Birmingham to deliver a lecture to the MSc students studying Railway Systems Engineering and Integration. I'm lucky enough to visit twice a year (I also deliver the lecture to the Rail Safety and Control Systems MSc students, a cohort I was part of until recently!) and it's always a valuable experience. First off, it takes me out of my comfort zone. As with many people, I am not a fan of public speaking, and the RSEI cohort usually has about 40 or 50 people in the room. It's the kind of situation I usually hope I wake up from... But it's so important to do things that are a bit uncomfortable, and the great staff always make it as welcoming as they can (particularly the fab Zena Green) so at the end I get a real sense of achievement from having done it. Then there are the students. I lecture on the processes needed for planning and designing a new alignment and, while I present from a UK context, the diversity of the students there means that I learn as much from them in terms of their experiences; differences in legislative and planning processes, different cultural norms that impact the processes and decision making, and so on. And there are always some great questions. Some of them I can tackle easily, some of them need some thought, and some of them I have to answer honestly "I don't know... but now I want to find out the answer!" Finally it's about giving back. I was fortunate enough to learn from some great speakers while I was studying, and benefit from their expertise. The thought that I can walk in their footsteps and share my knowledge with future cohorts is both humbling and gratifying. Any day where you can teach someone something, and learn something from them, is a good day. Here's to plenty more good days.

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The London branch of the Safety and Reliability Society are hosting a talk this evening on the Santiago rail crash. Learning from and remembering the victims and survivors of rail accidents is a powerful way to improve how we work today. So why not come and hear about the accident, the court case, and what caused the accident. More detail in the link below https://lnkd.in/eZ2-g9EC

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On Friday the DfT ordered a review into the conditions at Euston station. While this appears an interim measure to alleviate the recent overcrowding incidents, it follows a statement from Louise Haigh who suggested they were working on a "permanent solution” for the station. Network Rail has in response released a 5-point plan to improve the station, covering: 1. Reviewing passenger information provision and circulation, including a shutdown and review of the use of overhead advertising boards 2. A review on how passengers are invited to, and board services, especially during disruption 3. Creating more concourse space and alleviating pinch-points, which will include more, and upgraded, toilet provision 4. Unifying station operation during disruption to ensure a holistic approach is taken for the benefit of all passengers 5. Driving up the reliability of both the infrastructure and train services to reduce disruptive events being experienced at the station As part of this, the £60m advertising board, which is the largest advertising display in Europe, has been switched off with immediate effect. In her statement, Louise Haigh said: “For too long, Euston station simply hasn’t been good enough for passengers. That’s why I’ve tasked Network Rail with coming up with a clear plan to immediately improve conditions for passengers. This includes a shutdown of the advertising boards from today to review their use. We know Euston needs a permanent solution and are working hard to agree this – but these immediate steps will help to alleviate some of the issues the station has been facing.” What are your thoughts on this? Will the plan proposed by NR have the desired impact? Let us know below👇

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Without action to create more capacity for trains between the North West and West Midlands, the 'M6 corridor' will collapse within a decade as demand for rail services exceeds supply. That was the warning from a new report today, coming nearly a year on from Rishi Sunak's decisions to axe the new HS2 rail line from Birmingham to Manchester that would have created just that capacity. But this morning Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, his West Midlands counterpart and a coalition of private firms put forward a solution: a new 50-mile railway that's slower than HS2 but crucially much cheaper. The project led by former HS2 Ltd chairman Sir David Higgins described an alternative new line between Lichfield, Staffordshire and High Legh, Cheshire, connecting with the proposed east-west Northern Powerhouse Rail, as a “golden opportunity”. ​It stated that despite services being slower than if HS2 were built in full, journeys between London and Manchester would be only 15 minutes longer than under initial plans for the high-speed railway, which would still be 30 minutes quicker than today. Read the report here: https://lnkd.in/ey4-5bBi The consortium found the new line has the potential to deliver “roughly 85% of the benefits of HS2 Phase 2” at 60-75% of the cost, though an actual estimate was not forthcoming. How will it be paid for? Rather than central government taking on the multi-billion pound cost of the project an alternative is proposed, splitting the cost (and risk) between Whitehall, regional government and private investors. The hope is that big firms could meet some of the upfront cost of building the line in return for being able to benefit from the massive economic boost it would generate in towns and cities. Mr Burnham said today: “The report is clear: if we fail to put in place a plan soon to fix rail capacity and connectivity between the North and the Midlands, the already-congested West Coast Main Line and M6 will become major barriers to economic growth in the UK. “But there is good news for the Government. The report concludes that we do not have to revive HS2 to unlock those benefits.​" ​The suggested funding model is conveniently timed just a few days after a report commissioned by the Labour party - and also written with the help of consultants Arup - recommended using new public-private partnerships to pay for major infrastructure projects. And it comes on the day the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) of Civil Engineers ​p​ublishes a new report called ​'The cancellation of HS2 Northern’s leg – learning lessons​'.​ Read that here: https://lnkd.in/eH-6DuNs But does the Government back the idea? The Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom told me: “We are currently reviewing the position we have inherited on HS2, and will set out next steps in due course." 

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HS2 Milestone - job seekers helped into work! More than 4,500 previously unemployed individuals have now found employment through high-speed rail projects, HS2. According to the latest figures from HS2 Ltd, 246 people who were out of work joined the project between April and June 2024, bringing the total number of formerly unemployed workers on HS2 to an impressive 4,504. In total, HS2 is now supporting over 31,000 jobs across the country, with construction pushing forward between London and the West Midlands. These figures include apprenticeships, graduate roles, and opportunities for those who have returned to the workforce after a period of unemployment. Despite ongoing criticism surrounding the project’s cost and impact, these numbers highlight the tangible benefits HS2 is bringing to the UK economy, both in terms of job creation and skills development. Notably, HS2 is also exceeding diversity targets. Of the 31,000 jobs supported by the project, 38% are held by women, with 33% in director-level positions. Additionally, 29% of the workforce comes from ethnic minority backgrounds—well above the project's corporate target of 23%. These efforts, led by Board ED&I member Joanna Davinson, showcase HS2's commitment to fostering an inclusive and representative workforce. At Matchtech, we are always looking for collaborative efforts to increase ED&I across the industries we serve. With that in mind, how do you see the evolving narrative around HS2 shaping not only the future of transport infrastructure, but also its wider impact on employment and diversity in the UK workforce? #HS2 #railindustry #EDI #jobseeker #railimprovement #railfuture

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As the end of my first week draws to a close, I reflect on many aspects based on my initial observations, subconsciously calling upon previous experiences, mentally benchmarking, recalling best practices, standards and envisioning optimisation opportunities. I visited a number of areas within the Anglia route such as the signalling control centre, core distribution units, Electrical Control Room, colleagues within the outer regions of our network fulfilling critical service operations and my team within the Railway Operating Centre at Romford (the heartbeat of the route). My thoughts draw towards why I felt such a strong sense of comfort when I typically expected a feeling of early unsettlement having just joined the organisation…..eagerness to know the vast areas within my remit and business, trying to capture and visualise some of the challenges I may face. I felt a strong level of sterdiness. It was meeting, experiencing and realising how Anglia route delivers such an intensity of service / performance, balanced with the challenges of meeting the high demand of infrastructure maintenance and operational response to failures….. IT WAS THE TEAM….the people who make it happen. I witnessed high levels of dedication, passion, competence and ability before me. This is the foundation to a successful organisation, sometimes unsung as we draw our attention to all the day to day challenges. I look forward to working with such a diverse committed team, setting new strategies together as we continue to modernise and optimise our delivery to meet the ever evolving transport dynamics and ultimately continue to give our Customers a safe, reliable railway. We embark on a journey within a new 5 year program (control period 7) which will see significant continued investment in people, assets, infrastructure, business performance enhancement projects and crucially meeting our vision for sustainability towards our customer base with the growing economic demand. I look forward to the future with strong foundations set…. World class service starts with World class people.

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Yesterday saw TfW and Network Rail Control teams take their first tentative joint steps into the Integrated Train Service Recovery programme being led by Jon Fenn, Saf Akram and Hannah Cox. Other competing priorities in early 2023 meant we had to delay the start of the initiative here in Wales. Aimed at improving the process and efficiency in which we recover train services (using 3 core pillars of disruption, resource and competency management) in a collaborative and joined up approach between all TOCs and Network Rail regions affected from disruption. All of which is designed to ultimately improve the experience of our customers and improve performance. Much to work through over the coming 12 months - both from a technical perspective on our processes and procedures but also from developing the non-technical side of our teams skillsets in order to facilitate an effective rollout of ITSR principals. No doubt it’ll need us to challenge the status quo to really keep pushing the boundaries on our current levels of performance. Thanks to everyone’s efforts so far in the workshops and no doubt there’ll be updates to come from the core working group (Stephen Thomas, Steve Ballard, Amy Harries and Jonathan Goode) as we begin to work through upcoming deep dive and gap analysis stages. In other 197 developments, the team have supported the TfW Ops Readiness team with recent 6-car route proving trips (picture below) towards Carmarthen and West Wales for safe operation at short stations and longer formations for passenegr services. We might even see further testing soon of CL.196 and CL.197 compatibility to determine as suitable and safe speed which trains can be recovered on the Shrewsbury to Birmingham corridor!

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This article is a great case study on RIA's campaigning work on behalf of rail suppliers. In this case rolling stock and electrification suppliers. By way of an update to the article, I am pleased to say that we are making good progress on the one of the key recommendations of our most recent report 👇 "to empower a cross industry group to further develop and test the RIA strategy and confirm the minimum additional electrification to deliver net zero for passengers and freight by 2050." This article is a great case study on RIA's campaigning work on behalf of rail suppliers. In this case rolling stock and electrification suppliers. By way of an update to the article, I am pleased to say that we are making good progress on the one of the key recommendations of our most recent report 👇 "to empower a cross industry group to further develop and test the RIA strategy and confirm the minimum additional electrification to deliver net zero for passengers and freight by 2050." https://lnkd.in/e2P8ie5c …see more A lower cost, higher performing net zero railway riagb.org.uk

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https://lnkd.in/e7xN8SgP Laudable, but we need north-south rail capacity and east-west rail more too. That means rebuilding/new builds to inform more orbital links for West Midlands and East Midlands and connections thereof. E.g. #Oxford-#Leicester could be direct if the missing piece of railway between #Northampton and Market Harborough (MH) is rebuilt and an east-north direct running curve put in for #Birmingham-#Rugby/DIRFT-Leicester (more options/capacity) and vice versa. Likewise a study to look at a new rail link between the Rugby area with the Leicester/Leicester-Nuneaton lines could serve developments like Magna Park, never existed in Great Central days and also bring the #Lutterworth area back onto the rail network. Otherwise we have some freight by rail, but lion's share on the roads and with more development, congestion and gridlock alongside loss of land for other uses beit housing, leisure, conservation and food-farming, is lost and we're poorer too. Who will blink first, have power to call in such sprawls and ensure the rail network can deliver 90% freight by rail unfolding, not a mere 10% if lucky! #Knighton-#Burton rail link could serve for diversionary north-south feright to create more capacity through Leicester. #networkrail #dft #rail #railways #transport #environment #links #newlines #people #modalshift #modalchoice

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Yet another incredibly important day of joint Network Rail train planner, Route access planning and delivery alongside TOC train and possession planners training at Chinnor. These established joint planning community owned courses enable each of these teams to understand how their decisions impact on other functions, the constraints within which they work, and their organisations objectives. All part of an industry coming together to make optimised whole-system engineering and possession delivery decisions.

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Not the transport news we have come to expect from Eruope that in mmay areas is improving non-auto related transport. The length of motorways in Europe grew 60% between 1995 and 2020 while railways shrank 6.5%. For every €1 governments spent building railways, they spent €1.6 building roads.

I often get the question about some low cost entry level training that can introduce people to the world of high capacity signalling, covering the two most popular mainstream technologies for that purpose, CBTC and ETCS. The answer is my introductory online training "High Capacity Signalling in a Nutshell". It is ideal for time-constrained professionals as it can be consumed in less than two hours, allowing you to boost your education on this trendy topic over a weekend, including repeat watching if you so wish. Right now this training is available for an additional 24% off when applying the coupon code BF24 at checkout. And the best of this is that the training comes with my industry-leading Q&A support during and for at least 12 months after you taking the course. What is there not to like? You find this training, and lots of other interesting courses which are also 24% off via the same coupon code BF24 on https://lnkd.in/gNJn2B28. But only until 30 November, so make sure you do not sit this out for too long. #railway #signalling #highcapacity #training #onlinetraining #blackfriday #special #docfrankrailservices

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My Sunday afternoon! I spent this afternoon judging and scoring the Intelligent Transport Systems UK early careers essay competition entries. The hopeful writers have the opportunity to win £500 and a mentoring session with a leading industry figure! There were 3 key themes: 1) Safety assured 🛑 - What role will technology play in delivering a safe transport network? 2) Technology as the glue 📱 - how can technology lead to better integration of transport? 3) The data revolution 👩‍💻 - how will the better use of data transform transport and logistics? So what did I notice? Well firstly, there were some excellent submissions. Early careers folk covered in detail elements of transport tech such as MaaS, CAVs, Data, Cameras, Accessibility & Inclusion and the clear need for stakeholder collaboration. About 80% of the essays incorporated usage of AI in some format, where the opportunities are stark particularly in real-time AI applications and processing power...but it's not just all about hyping technologies. The writers also had an acknowledgement of how important it is to understand how WE as people and humans will interact with such technologies and implementations. The grasp on this across all submissions was really impressive. The logistical world was the focus of only one submission, but after reading it I was baffled by the sheer figures and impact that can be made in that side of our industry. We so often focus on passengers and people movement, and logistics gets left behind. This is a critical piece of the jigsaw. What do I think was missing? Some challenges of implementing technologies were covered, but these often focussed on accessibility and inclusion, data privacy, stakeholder management, cybersecurity and user acceptance. What was missing seemed to be some of the challenges I experience in delivery (and others do too) - such as dedicated and sustained funding for these technologies (or appropriate opex models and revenue streams), clear ownership and responsibilities, industry and organisational readiness for these innovations (almost cultural this one!) and the difficulty scaling to realise even more significant benefits. There's also something around making sense of all the data that wasn't covered in much detail. Conclusion? Reading the essays gave me an awesome view of where thoughts are in the industry, and I feel we are in good hands with some truly phenomenal thought pieces in there. I come away feeling hopeful, but also aware of the scale of the challenges we are tackling. The one truth no one can argue is, we will need all these diverse minds at the table! May the best essay win! Good luck to everyone who submitted #volunteering #ITSUK #earlycareers #essays #judgementday #ITS #IntelligentTransport #FutureMobility #IntelligentMobility #SmartTechnologies #AI #MaaS #CAVs #Data #Peoplepower

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With the clock change fast approaching, why have we never standardised an approach to time within the UK Rail Industry? I've seen examples where notes are added within a diagram to highlight its not a 13 hour shift. I've seen pay issues where the system shows 10 hours but they worked 11. All were resolved manually Could we learn any lessons from Aviation and the way they handle different time zones? #clockchange #railway #railindustry #aviation #time #process #continiousimprovement

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Connecting Communities in action at Taunton. Throughput my transport career being a keen eyed observer is critical to understanding transport patterns first hand that often gets lost in a plehora of data. I understand the benefit of figures to help give a qualified argument for a business case or to augment a service within the funding envelope, but to strengthen it with real live date, ie people moving is also vital. So, I have been at Taunton at 08.00 for the last two mornings to observe the arrival of three trains, one from Penzance, London and Cardiff and the interaction between them and other onward connections. The first thing I notice was the sheer volume of students alighting from the train from Cardiff and filling the stairwell, which then dispersed to both exits, with a large volume heading towards the bus stops near the multi storey car park where several Mini Buses where waiting to take them onto the Sixth Form College (Huish) whilst some headed to Taunton School and the rest walked into town. Whilst on the station there was a quick connection between the arrival from Penzance and the local train toward Cardiff, this slick interchange came about as both trains where either side of the island was platform. In normal operation throughout the day this doesn’t occur and passengers have to navigate stairs or the lifts to interchange. It’s not possible to do this with every train but understanding the key trains that interconnect could we make it easier for those rail users? Having taken the local train to Bridgwater, I observe another group of students (about 40) alight and are heading to Bridgwater and Taunton College, some from Taunton and some from further afield like Tiverton and Exeter that have interchanged at Taunton. The college is just one off the end of the platform (50m) but is not accessible so a 1km walk is required via a rather unattractive route known locally as Piggy Lane. The College and former district council of Sedgemoor could see the value in improving the linkage and work has been ongoing to see the shorter link established. This will have a major impact on access to education via rail and all parties have a part to play in making this happen, as connecting communities (in this case students and staff) to work and education is vital for growth. The Bridgwater College link and the Bridgwater Bus Interchange are important to this connectivity and prosperity. Let’s make it happen!

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Will Chancellor Rt Hon Rachel Reeves act on the Railway Industry Association's plea to increase investment in the UK's railway network? Darren Caplan has called upon the Chancellor to provide a pipeline of investment for railway infrastructure projects, in order to boost economic growth📈 In his letter, he describes this pipeline as resulting in more jobs and lower costs, as well as boosting social value for communities across the UK. He also asks for a decision to be made on whether tunnelling between Euston and Old Oak Common will be completed on HS2 (High Speed Two) Ltd, in order to provide the necessary infrastructure for future North/South connectivity. Do you think that the Chancellor will address the RIA's requests in the governments budget announcement? #rail #railindustry #budget #budgetannouncement #hs2 https://lnkd.in/ewriEjBB

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