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It sounds like this could be all done remotely, with cameras, and one worker physically present at each station, plus a roving maintenance team. If we can fly

It sounds like this could be all done remotely, with cameras, and one worker physically present at each station, plus a roving maintenance team. If we can fly drones through the deserts of Arabia why can't we drive trains remotely through the suburbs of Croydon?

jermaustin1 5y ago
Losing contact with your UAV is a lot less risky than losing contact with a runaway train.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Depends on where and how the UAV goes down.
vidarh 5y ago
I don't know if you suggested Croydon because you've seen me mention living there, or if you picked it at random or because it's one of the main locations with trains heading for Victoria, but Croydon is one of the highest trafficked parts of the UK rail network, with an interconnected set of some of the most complex junctions in the country, and a large rail depot that is hard to secure because of its sheer size... It's if anything one of the worst places in the entire UK to start such a project. The problem with what you suggest is that a ten minutes delay at East Croydon during rush hour, if you're lucky and a problem happens near a station, can easily lead to rush hour traffic from large parts of the South Coast to both London Victoria and London Bridge piling up with effects lasting for an hour or more. It's a horrible chokepoint. There are plans to fix that [1], but those plans also involve multi-year projects. In fact the planning has been going on for years at this point. A similar issue is a problem for the London Underground - while there are fewer complex junctions, the margins are far tighter. A train that's stuck on the station for a couple of minutes can have knock on effects over a larger area. All of this is solvable, but the costs involved in various improvements to mitigate them means it'd take a very long time before those investments would start paying off. [1] https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/sussex/upgrading-the-brighton-main-line/unblocking-the-croydon-bottleneck/ https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes...

jermaustin1 5y ago

Losing contact with your UAV is a lot less risky than losing contact with a runaway train.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Depends on where and how the UAV goes down.

vidarh 5y ago

I don't know if you suggested Croydon because you've seen me mention living there, or if you picked it at random or because it's one of the main locations with trains heading for Victoria, but Croydon is one of the highest trafficked parts of the UK rail network, with an interconnected set of some of the most complex junctions in the country, and a large rail depot that is hard to secure because of its sheer size... It's if anything one of the worst places in the entire UK to start such a project. The problem with what you suggest is that a ten minutes delay at East Croydon during rush hour, if you're lucky and a problem happens near a station, can easily lead to rush hour traffic from large parts of the South Coast to both London Victoria and London Bridge piling up with effects lasting for an hour or more. It's a horrible chokepoint. There are plans to fix that [1], but those plans also involve multi-year projects. In fact the planning has been going on for years at this point. A similar issue is a problem for the London Underground - while there are fewer complex junctions, the margins are far tighter. A train that's stuck on the station for a couple of minutes can have knock on effects over a larger area. All of this is solvable, but the costs involved in various improvements to mitigate them means it'd take a very long time before those investments would start paying off. [1] https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/sussex/upgrading-the-brighton-main-line/unblocking-the-croydon-bottleneck/ https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes...