Railway Conversations with Doc Frank Doc Frank

The podcast returns to the popular topic of high speed rail by Doc Frank chatting with Michael Byng from England. Michael is a quantity surveyor, is other words cost estimator, who came to fame by producing the cost estimate for the notorious High Speed 2 project in England during the Oakervee project review. Of course we talk about that project, what went wrong and how things could improve, but also about sensible suggestions for the high speed rail aspirations in Australia.Show notes:1)&nbs...

Doc Frank chats with Carina O'Brien from Melbourne in Australia. She is not only the Head of Strategy of a large multinational railway systems supplier, but has also initiated the Working Mumma project which includes a podcast and various other resources to support working parents.Expect to learn important insights on how to balance career, family and passion projects, where to find support as a working parent, how diversity can help tackling the resource shortage in the railway industry, way...

This episode features some of the pre-talk with the guest interviewed in episode 69, Charles Page from Sydney in Australia. It includes important insights regarding the winning or losing of tender bids and effects on those involved, and it also addresses changes to the workplace structure post Covid.Show notes:1) One of the ETCS events of the year will be the creation of the online training version of the well-proven ETCS Kickstarter training. Having helped more than 200 p...

Doc Frank chats with Charles Page from Sydney in Australia, until his recent first attempt of retirement the grey eminence of railway strategy in Siemens Mobility and past president of the IRSE. In a very deep conversation Charles opened up about his esteemed career of 44 years, issues with contemporary project delivery, the best countries to work in, dos and don’ts of company takeovers, the threat of Chinese exports, the reinvention of the IRSE, how employers can stop senior workers from che...

This is the rest of the long-form conversation between Doc Frank and Bill Whitmore from Tel Aviv, Israel. With a view on the upcoming rollout of Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) for Tel Aviv’s three-line greenfield metro network, we discuss different options for the provision of interoperable CBTC, lock-in risks with a CBTC supplier, pros and cons of segregated versus interconnected metro lines, tricks for CBTC procurement to minimise the risk of future price hikes, and much more.Ple...

This is the first part of a longer conversation between Doc Frank and Bill Whitmore who currently lives in Tel Aviv, Israel and works on the inception of a brand-new three-line metro network. The focus of this conversation is the planned rollout of Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) on this greenfield metro network, including the need for a CBTC supply strategy, whether CBTC and rolling stock should come from the same supplier, how to ensure the selected CBTC product is proven but not ...