The Netherlands has committed to roll out ERTMS over the course of 10-20 years. The reason for this timeframe is that ERTMS L1 is basically identical to ATB-NG, so a quick implementation isn't needed.
Fun fact, A heritage mainline steamlocomotive (operated by the SSN) was retrofitted with an additional to ATB-NG, ERTMS system as a testbed for ERTMS by Siemens and Thales. The severe operating conditions for the electronics on a steamlocomotive makes it a perfect R&D project. The irony might be that the heritage fleet of locomotives/DMU/EMU's certified for the mainline may be the first to be totaly converted to ERTMS before the commercial fleet.
@@obelic71 Maybe not so fun for the Belgian heritage. Because at the SNCB they just don't even bother and prohibit steam train operation based on security issues. Simply because someone asked the wrong question at the wrong time, from what I heard...
From Poland here, installment of ETCS here is slow and painful. Only a few sections have this system fully operational at the moment. On top of that, only around 10% of our rolling stock is equipped with onboard equipment, as we're still using many locomotives and multiple units that either remember Cold War times, or were simply not equipped with such during their production or modernization. The installation of ETCS is slow, because the previous board of PKP PLK wasn't super competent. I live in Siedlce, which is placed directly on path of planned ETCS Corridor F spanning from Aachen, Germany to the Belarusian border. From what I could find, I think the contract for installation of ETCS level 2 on railroads from Kunowice to Terespol was signed in July 2018, but only in September 2024 I finally witnessed the Eurobalises being installed, around the station at least. The good news, is that I've heard the new board considering a wide installment of ETCS Level 1 Limited Supervision on majority of the network. After all, we're using a system that doesn't even prevent SPAD situations at all (it's called SHP btw, not KHP, as shown in the video).
to be honest I have seen SHP being mentioned as KHP in some sources. ETCS interoperability due to vendor implementations is a bad joke. There are two lines meeting in a station, each equipped with modules from different vendors. Because noone was able to get them to talk to each other - there is VHF falback still in use.
The adaption of ETCS in Germany comes late due to the fact that it already has large parts of the system equipped with PZB and LZB. The later system developed for high speed and high capacity. Early specifications of ERMTS would have reduced capacity and capabilities. The assessment was, that only Baseline 2 and higher would be an improvement over LZB
Several errors on the map at 0:55 . Portugal is EBICAB 700(Convel), not Spain. Spain has ASFA/LZB which you put in France, France has TVM/KVB shown in Switzerland, Switzerland has the Signum/ZUB shown in Portugal. And that's the only cycle of errors I dared to look at, but there could be more!!!
You are right. Somehow we missed it since we took that animation from this video 🙄 th-cam.com/video/iaJ0Q4a7F9s/w-d-xo.htmlsi=OJ6pDumI8WazWSD5 We should have checked that this. Thanks for the comment.
I regret to report that the the systems reported for Italy are outdated. Today almost all the lines are equipped with SCMT (Sistema Controllo Marcia Treno - Train Moving Contro System) as ATP; this could be the simplest ERTMS maybe. Secondary lines have the simpler SCC (Sistema Controllo Condotta - Driving Control System) while pure HS lines ETRMS 2 I suppose
An area the industry needs to understand is how ERTMS can replace the existing sytems without huge cost and delays along with how rolling stock replacement/ retrofit can be managed.
@@bogdanscripcariu6501 and yet, the chart shows Romania as having basically the same amount of railway track converted to ETCS as a much more affluent country, like Germany. there must be another problem hindering adoption, apart from the "a lot of money" argument
Thank you for the video covering this important topic! I learnt a lot and was surprised at how diverse the railway electric grid is. Germany is being quite slow at ETCS deployment. Germany isn't even deploying ETCS fully on new renovations (like Hamburg-Berlin)
Yeah. We should also include 25 kV 50Hz in the animation. But, still an idea was to show all interoperability constraints. We hope that we managed to achieve that.
ETCS is already an oligopoly amoung very few large competitors, pursuing as many vendor lock-in as possible. In my country (Switzerland) Siemens has git the vendor lock-in key. Therefore it can dictate prices. Therefore only about 100 km can enjoy ETCS L2 FS equipment. As far as the EU don't have the power to enforce true competition, rip-off price levels and the ATP kakophony will persist. Imagine, a truck-driver would need the have a driver's license for every country in Europe, because all countries have different signalling systems and languages.
Countries like Germany or Austria are said to have pretty decent national system and are in no rush to replace it. Meanwhile Czech Republic uses a very limited system and ETCS is expected to deliver higher level of safety and - in the long term - trains wont have to be equipped with the national system. All new rolling stock in EU seems to be equipped with ETCS. Once most of the old rolling stock is phased out, even countries with good national system may switch to ETCS.
@@flopunkt3665 There are plans for electrification between Czechia and Bavaria. I am pretty confident Germany actually borders with multiple countries (and ETSC works even on non-electrified routes)
while the video is interesting, I feel like the need to overly simply the operations of the signalling system for the sake of ELI5ing using generic terms like "components" and "system" did more harm than good when it came to explaining how the actual system works and differentiates itself from others.
Might be the most hated thing in Norway at this moment, given it was the fault of full train stop in the entire country for all of the 26th of December
And one of these suppliers developed this for a project in the UK and its software development was linked to another contract in Asia. As a consequesnce the common code was updated for the asian client and the UK project was impacted negatively. Centralised systems might seem a good idea until geography and finance creates risk. As such each country should have its own IP and its own data centre
@@hoholu4650 Switzerland left the conventional signals in operation after the introduction of ETCS L2 on its mainline Bern-Olten for a while as a backup. All those signals have been removed, and a couple other lines have been converted to ETCS L2. The Gotthard and the Lötschberg base tunnels have been designed to operate without any conventional signal system from the start..... I'd say yes, it IS reliable
While that's true, the specific Norwegian implementation was at fault, not the system itself. Norway took major shortcuts in its implementation causing major issues.
I can understand why countries adopt "the wait and see "strategy, as what it seems like these systems are over complicated. IT could have been so simple. But to many interests involved, and a lot of different companys + there is no standardization of the equipment, having all kinds of different levels and baselines makes everything unneccesary complicated and expensive..
Your videos are mega interesting (like the information in them), but at the same moment they are really dry somehow cause of intonation lack in your voice. Just monatonic. Thanks for the effort you make, a great channel
Ok is the Baseline 4 advanced and robust enough to become the global *driverless* train control standard? "Idiot index" seems quite high still, lots of expensive/complex equipment and complex installation procedures... Curious how many pages is the documentation that describes the protocol for GSM-R comms :D And how much redundancy is there in systems used today vs what would be desired for safe autonomous operation.
It would be really good an informative video about the Russian railway signalling system and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) one. I could't find any video on TH-cam... So you could be the first to do it - many views and profit, since a lot of people don't have TH-cam Premium and have to watch ads. 🤓
You illustrated this video with probably stock footage of Russian, or ex-CIS railways which probably will never get ERTMS as e have our own standard. You added impossible signal configurations to it, which really triggers me as a Russian railfan. On top of that, I don't fancy ERTMS as well, as I think our KLUB standard is better. With signals via rail frequencies, not balises (or silly GSM-R/GPS). Balises are totally foreign to us and I pray it remains that way.
I did some of the security testing work for ETCS; if you want to know anything about some of the lowish level design I might be able to answer some of your questions.
I'm struck by the comments about 5G vs LTE vs ?? From a software perspective, depending upon the accidental properties of the particular packet infrastructure is either 19th century engineering or extreme boondoggle. No wonder these systems are so expensive. Am I missing something?
Why does it cost the best part of a million pounds for the installation of ERTMS in a train, in an equipment cupboard the size of a toilet. Why is interoperability required for systems which are pretty much self contained?
In the case on the 🇬🇧 it is simply a way not to reinvent the wheel. There is no national radio-based signalling system, so operators decided to simply buy 🇪🇺 solutions.
Often times it is a never done before conversion. So you have a lot of engineering and testing for the first locomotive to equip mit ERMTS . You need to installl antennas and sensors as well as displays for the driver. Lots of cables to connect the devices in a train that was never designed to have such a system. The upgrade process get's cheaper and faster once you have figured out how to do it. Interoperability can be very difficult when you have a legacy systemy and the new system installed on the line
@pirazel7858 As far as I can make out, no great amount of computing power is needed, and the kind of display needed is modest. I can understand that interfacing to the train's braking and power control system could be tricky but a million pounds a train sounds excessive.and possibly not even worth it. These kind of on train costs also suggest that all the kit should be placed in a special vehicle called a locomotive
Thanks for the breakdown! Could you help me with something unrelated: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How can I transfer them to Binance?
It is not that simple. The creation of different standards is not only by governments. Railways in England have different standards from the 1800s when government was not involved at all. Today you have Apple with its lightning standard which was forced to use usb-c because of government regulations.
@@bearants Ah yes, because Apple changing a feature in future products is very much the same as having to retrofit thousands of kilometers of existing railway lines.
@anordinaryguy3952 the railways have put in their own upgrades while govt goes nowhere. you are trying to change the subject away from the reality, so disingenuous. im not wasting any more time on you.
The Netherlands has committed to roll out ERTMS over the course of 10-20 years. The reason for this timeframe is that ERTMS L1 is basically identical to ATB-NG, so a quick implementation isn't needed.
Fun fact, A heritage mainline steamlocomotive (operated by the SSN) was retrofitted with an additional to ATB-NG, ERTMS system as a testbed for ERTMS by Siemens and Thales.
The severe operating conditions for the electronics on a steamlocomotive makes it a perfect R&D project.
The irony might be that the heritage fleet of locomotives/DMU/EMU's certified for the mainline may be the first to be totaly converted to ERTMS before the commercial fleet.
@@obelic71nice work 🫡💪🏻
@@obelic71 Maybe not so fun for the Belgian heritage. Because at the SNCB they just don't even bother and prohibit steam train operation based on security issues. Simply because someone asked the wrong question at the wrong time, from what I heard...
From Poland here, installment of ETCS here is slow and painful. Only a few sections have this system fully operational at the moment. On top of that, only around 10% of our rolling stock is equipped with onboard equipment, as we're still using many locomotives and multiple units that either remember Cold War times, or were simply not equipped with such during their production or modernization.
The installation of ETCS is slow, because the previous board of PKP PLK wasn't super competent. I live in Siedlce, which is placed directly on path of planned ETCS Corridor F spanning from Aachen, Germany to the Belarusian border. From what I could find, I think the contract for installation of ETCS level 2 on railroads from Kunowice to Terespol was signed in July 2018, but only in September 2024 I finally witnessed the Eurobalises being installed, around the station at least.
The good news, is that I've heard the new board considering a wide installment of ETCS Level 1 Limited Supervision on majority of the network. After all, we're using a system that doesn't even prevent SPAD situations at all (it's called SHP btw, not KHP, as shown in the video).
to be honest I have seen SHP being mentioned as KHP in some sources. ETCS interoperability due to vendor implementations is a bad joke. There are two lines meeting in a station, each equipped with modules from different vendors. Because noone was able to get them to talk to each other - there is VHF falback still in use.
@@michawisniewski4654 I see. Thanks for the info
It's hard to believe that Poland is so slow to install ETCS when military equipment is often transported by rail.
@@ettoreatalan8303 well, things are not always as easy as they seem to be...
@@JaNieWie A belligerent adversary can be a major driving force.
The adaption of ETCS in Germany comes late due to the fact that it already has large parts of the system equipped with PZB and LZB. The later system developed for high speed and high capacity. Early specifications of ERMTS would have reduced capacity and capabilities. The assessment was, that only Baseline 2 and higher would be an improvement over LZB
Several errors on the map at 0:55 . Portugal is EBICAB 700(Convel), not Spain. Spain has ASFA/LZB which you put in France, France has TVM/KVB shown in Switzerland, Switzerland has the Signum/ZUB shown in Portugal. And that's the only cycle of errors I dared to look at, but there could be more!!!
You are right. Somehow we missed it since we took that animation from this video 🙄 th-cam.com/video/iaJ0Q4a7F9s/w-d-xo.htmlsi=OJ6pDumI8WazWSD5
We should have checked that this. Thanks for the comment.
Germany and Austria are also not using Indusi anymore (that's from the 1960s or so). They use PZB and LZB.
I regret to report that the the systems reported for Italy are outdated. Today almost all the lines are equipped with SCMT (Sistema Controllo Marcia Treno - Train Moving Contro System) as ATP; this could be the simplest ERTMS maybe. Secondary lines have the simpler SCC (Sistema Controllo Condotta - Driving Control System) while pure HS lines ETRMS 2 I suppose
An area the industry needs to understand is how ERTMS can replace the existing sytems without huge cost and delays along with how rolling stock replacement/ retrofit can be managed.
This is truly a mammoth task.
not really, every track and signaling station has to be replaced with 50 to 80 years, and then it is simply replaced with ETCS. Just takes a long time
@@MineRickStar This change requires a lot of money. Some countries don't have it...
@@bogdanscripcariu6501 Those who want, can... 20:17
@@bogdanscripcariu6501 and yet, the chart shows Romania as having basically the same amount of railway track converted to ETCS as a much more affluent country, like Germany. there must be another problem hindering adoption, apart from the "a lot of money" argument
@@bogdanscripcariu6501 If needed, EU will spend a lot on financial support.
Loved the topic, i would like to see more in-depth videos on european rail standardization and Interoperability
Very interesting topic, thanks for bringing it up 😉
Thank you for the video covering this important topic! I learnt a lot and was surprised at how diverse the railway electric grid is.
Germany is being quite slow at ETCS deployment. Germany isn't even deploying ETCS fully on new renovations (like Hamburg-Berlin)
Mostly due to a shortage of companies capable of doing the planning and engineering of such upgrades
Spain, at least on all modern HSR lines have 25kV 50Hz AC.
That's the EU standard. All HSR lines are required to either already run on 25KV or move to it soon.
@therealdutchidiot of course. The map shown in the video didn't reflect that, since Spain was shown as a country only using 3kV
@@therealdutchidiot I think Germany will stay with 15kV 16.66Hz.
Yeah. We should also include 25 kV 50Hz in the animation. But, still an idea was to show all interoperability constraints. We hope that we managed to achieve that.
@@therealdutchidiot It's completely unrealistic, that Germany will change to that. "soo" is total nonsense.
ETCS is already an oligopoly amoung very few large competitors, pursuing as many vendor lock-in as possible. In my country (Switzerland) Siemens has git the vendor lock-in key. Therefore it can dictate prices. Therefore only about 100 km can enjoy ETCS L2 FS equipment. As far as the EU don't have the power to enforce true competition, rip-off price levels and the ATP kakophony will persist. Imagine, a truck-driver would need the have a driver's license for every country in Europe, because all countries have different signalling systems and languages.
Countries like Germany or Austria are said to have pretty decent national system and are in no rush to replace it. Meanwhile Czech Republic uses a very limited system and ETCS is expected to deliver higher level of safety and - in the long term - trains wont have to be equipped with the national system.
All new rolling stock in EU seems to be equipped with ETCS. Once most of the old rolling stock is phased out, even countries with good national system may switch to ETCS.
Germany and Austria are never in a rush to introduce new things.
Germany has only one electrified border crossing with the Czech Republic.
@@flopunkt3665 There are plans for electrification between Czechia and Bavaria.
I am pretty confident Germany actually borders with multiple countries (and ETSC works even on non-electrified routes)
Both Austria and Germany have Implementation plans, and actively equipping on new and modernized lines
@@flopunkt3665 So what?
while the video is interesting, I feel like the need to overly simply the operations of the signalling system for the sake of ELI5ing using generic terms like "components" and "system" did more harm than good when it came to explaining how the actual system works and differentiates itself from others.
Polish ATP is SHP/CA not KHP
And then at 1:54 you showed a diffrent Wrong ATP system wtf
I believe you still haven't made a video about Hungary, there aren't many other countries left in Europe.
Enabling bigger and more complicated signalling breakdowns!
Might be the most hated thing in Norway at this moment, given it was the fault of full train stop in the entire country for all of the 26th of December
And one of these suppliers developed this for a project in the UK and its software development was linked to another contract in Asia. As a consequesnce the common code was updated for the asian client and the UK project was impacted negatively. Centralised systems might seem a good idea until geography and finance creates risk. As such each country should have its own IP and its own data centre
seems like there are big troubles ahead of us in Czechia, from 1st January ETCS L2 will be mandatory on main lines, how reliable is it?
@@hoholu4650 Switzerland left the conventional signals in operation after the introduction of ETCS L2 on its mainline Bern-Olten for a while as a backup. All those signals have been removed, and a couple other lines have been converted to ETCS L2. The Gotthard and the Lötschberg base tunnels have been designed to operate without any conventional signal system from the start..... I'd say yes, it IS reliable
While that's true, the specific Norwegian implementation was at fault, not the system itself. Norway took major shortcuts in its implementation causing major issues.
@@therealdutchidiot can you be more specific? what shortcuts did they take?
I can understand why countries adopt "the wait and see "strategy, as what it seems like these systems are over complicated. IT could have been so simple. But to many interests involved, and a lot of different companys + there is no standardization of the equipment, having all kinds of different levels and baselines makes everything unneccesary complicated and expensive..
Yup, in CZ we'll have 600 km+ ETCS-only ATP lines from Jan'25 ...
Your videos are mega interesting (like the information in them), but at the same moment they are really dry somehow cause of intonation lack in your voice. Just monatonic. Thanks for the effort you make, a great channel
ETCS is important, it simply takes too long.
Ok is the Baseline 4 advanced and robust enough to become the global *driverless* train control standard?
"Idiot index" seems quite high still, lots of expensive/complex equipment and complex installation procedures... Curious how many pages is the documentation that describes the protocol for GSM-R comms :D And how much redundancy is there in systems used today vs what would be desired for safe autonomous operation.
You haven't said anything about bulgaria in regard with etcs and ertms. Bulgaria also has, etcs level 2 on some routes.
Switzerland uses Signum and ZUB by the way, not KVB and TVM ;D
It would be really good an informative video about the Russian railway signalling system and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) one. I could't find any video on TH-cam... So you could be the first to do it - many views and profit, since a lot of people don't have TH-cam Premium and have to watch ads. 🤓
You illustrated this video with probably stock footage of Russian, or ex-CIS railways which probably will never get ERTMS as e have our own standard. You added impossible signal configurations to it, which really triggers me as a Russian railfan. On top of that, I don't fancy ERTMS as well, as I think our KLUB standard is better. With signals via rail frequencies, not balises (or silly GSM-R/GPS). Balises are totally foreign to us and I pray it remains that way.
Ironic that you use Russia/CIS signalling in thumbnail, system which probably will never support ERTMS or any other foreign system.
I did some of the security testing work for ETCS; if you want to know anything about some of the lowish level design I might be able to answer some of your questions.
Meanwhile on the DLR ...
Thx
I'm struck by the comments about 5G vs LTE vs ?? From a software perspective, depending upon the accidental properties of the particular packet infrastructure is either 19th century engineering or extreme boondoggle. No wonder these systems are so expensive. Am I missing something?
Will the US can’t even build a subway line 5 miles! Without cost overruns! Let alone this kind of system! Because they say it costs to much!😂😂
Why does it cost the best part of a million pounds for the installation of ERTMS in a train, in an equipment cupboard the size of a toilet.
Why is interoperability required for systems which are pretty much self contained?
In the case on the 🇬🇧 it is simply a way not to reinvent the wheel. There is no national radio-based signalling system, so operators decided to simply buy 🇪🇺 solutions.
Often times it is a never done before conversion. So you have a lot of engineering and testing for the first locomotive to equip mit ERMTS . You need to installl antennas and sensors as well as displays for the driver. Lots of cables to connect the devices in a train that was never designed to have such a system. The upgrade process get's cheaper and faster once you have figured out how to do it.
Interoperability can be very difficult when you have a legacy systemy and the new system installed on the line
@pirazel7858
As far as I can make out, no great amount of computing power is needed, and the kind of display needed is modest. I can understand that interfacing to the train's braking and power control system could be tricky but a million pounds a train sounds excessive.and possibly not even worth it.
These kind of on train costs also suggest that all the kit should be placed in a special vehicle called a locomotive
Dreadful voice over (sing song).
Thanks for the breakdown! Could you help me with something unrelated: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How can I transfer them to Binance?
nice. a study in the unmitigated incompetence of government and why they should not be allowed to lead the development of any technology.
It is not that simple.
The creation of different standards is not only by governments. Railways in England have different standards from the 1800s when government was not involved at all. Today you have Apple with its lightning standard which was forced to use usb-c because of government regulations.
@@DeeZedEx what private organization has taken decades to plan and implement a signaling system? did apple take decades to implement lightning cables?
@@bearants comparing cable to rail signalling shows how clueless you are
@@bearants Ah yes, because Apple changing a feature in future products is very much the same as having to retrofit thousands of kilometers of existing railway lines.
@anordinaryguy3952 the railways have put in their own upgrades while govt goes nowhere. you are trying to change the subject away from the reality, so disingenuous. im not wasting any more time on you.