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The European Rail Traffic Management System, currently being trialled on the Cambrian line in Wales, is due to be rolled out onto the Great Western next and eventually onto the whole Intercity network. Katie Silvester finds out how it’s going
In October 2010, the very first passenger service to be controlled by the European Rail Traffic Management System ran on Arriva Trains Wales’ Cambrian line. The advanced signalling system
– which, as the name suggests, is designed to be compatible across the European continent and beyond – will bring about the biggest revolution in signalling since the railways began. Instead of lineside
signals, the signals are inside the driver’s cab and could eventually increase capacity at bottlenecks by allowing a greater frequency of trains than could safely be accommodated using conventional signalling. The Cambrian line is being used as a
pilot scheme. The route was chosen because its self-contained layout made it ideal for experimentation – and it needed resignalling as the old system was becoming life-expired. ERTMS has replaced the radio electronic
token block system. ‘There’s now one of the most advanced signalling systems in the world operating on a fairly rural route,’ says Jim Morgan, Network Rail’s sponsor for the ETRMS programme. But, he adds, even when ERTMS has
been fitted to most major lines over the next couple of decades, it won’t find its way onto all rural routes. ‘It’s not worth resignalling manually signalled routes, where you’ve got an awful lot of not very well-utilised infrastructure out there. You wouldn’t ever want to fit a pacer with ERTMS, I don’t think.’ But back to the Cambrian line. ‘It’s going
very well – we’re pleased with the way the rolling stock, the drivers and the signallers have taken to it.’ One unforeseen problem on the
coastal route, however, involved the sun
A driver gets to grips with a driver machine interface in a Class 97 locomotive
PAGE 24 AUGUST 2011
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