UK: DB Cargo UK recently took a Class 66 diesel locomotive to Govia Thameslink Railway’s Hornsey depot, so the freight operator could learn more about the passenger operator’s approach to rolling out ETCS.
The companies have been working together for months to share their knowledge, as GTR trains already use ETCS on the Thameslink Core from St Pancras to London Bridge.
‘We’re learning a phenomenal amount about the implementation of ETCS’, said GTR’s Head of ERTMS Oliver Turner. ’We want the community of operators in the programme to benefit from this, to save them time, cost and effort.’
GTR has given DB Cargo ‘an insight into the direction we should be going in and areas to avoid’, said Casper Carr, Assistant Business Change Manager at the fright company. ‘If we work in silos, no lessons are learned and no one benefits. Whether it’s a freight operating company, a train operating company, on track machinery, heritage or charter, we are all in this together.’
