Digital Railway
Our work
- GSM-R: the railway’s mobile communication system
- Our regions
- Digital Railway
- Long-term planning
- Looking after the railway
- Asset management
- Asset Protection and Optimisation
- Bridges, tunnels and viaducts
- Delays explained
- Earthworks: cutting slopes and embankments
- Level crossings
- Our fleet: machines and vehicles
- Planned works
- Litter and fly-tipping
- Responding to weather impacts on the railway
- Signalling
- Track
- Vegetation management
- Our routes
- Anglia route
- About the Anglia route
- Improving the railway in Anglia
- Keeping our communities safe in Anglia
- East Coast route
- East Midlands route
- North & East route
- West Coast South route
- North West route
- Central route
- Kent route
- South East upgrade
- Hither Green station Access for All improvements
- Peckham Rye station upgrade
- Shortlands station Access for All improvements
- Blackheath Tunnel Upgrade
- Hungerford Railway Bridge Refurbishment
- Lewisham resignalling
- Landslip prevention works at Chislet
- Upgrading the sea defences at Folkestone Warren
- Renewing the lifts at Sevenoaks station
- Petts Wood station footbridge refurbishment
- Hastings to Tunbridge Wells, and Hastings to Bexhill line closure
- Bexley station subway
- Dartford Junction: Line closure between Dartford and Gravesend
- South East upgrade
- Sussex route
- Network Rail High Speed
- Scotland route
- Wales route
- Wessex route
- Wessex railway upgrade plan
- Heart of Wessex line upgrades
- Feltham and Wokingham re-signalling programme
- Portsmouth Direct Upgrade
- Wessex Access for All schemes
- Improving London Waterloo station
- West of England line improvements
- Island Line Improvements
- North Downs Line signalling upgrade
- Portsmouth and Portcreek area improvement work
- Staines to Windsor improvement work
- Barnes to Feltham via Hounslow Upgrades
- Berrylands Station Upgrade
- London Waterloo and Clapham Junction line closures
- Reading improvement works
- Bournemouth to Dorchester South Line Renewals
- New Malden to Twickenham Renewals
- Western route
- South West Rail Resilience Programme
- Oxfordshire Connect
- Tackley Level Crossing
- Bristol Rail Regeneration
- Dartmoor Line
- MetroWest rail upgrades
- Old Oak Common lineside logistics compound
- Devizes Gateway feasibility study
- HS2 Old Oak Common Station
- Mid Cornwall Metro
- The Portishead Line
- Gloucester signal box upgrade
- Langport bridge
- Frome Railway Bridge
- Autumn drainage work in Somerset
- Anglia route
- Train operating companies
- Living by the railway
- Railway Upgrade Plan
Modernising Britain’s railway to benefit passengers and support economic growth.
Since the mid-1990s the number of passengers using Britain’s railway has doubled. At peak times on the busiest parts of the network, Britain’s railway is full.
New capacity is urgently required to meet the continued rise in demand which will mean there will be an extra one billion journeys by the mid-2030s. Conventional ways of providing this capacity by building new railway infrastructure would be hugely disruptive, very high cost and probably unachievable.
The adoption of digital technologies, along with targeted conventional interventions, is a cost-effective way of releasing significant additional capacity on the existing network, as has been proven on London Underground.
What’s the Digital Railway programme?
The rail industry’s plan to transform the rail network for passengers, business and freight operators by deploying modern signalling and train control technology to increase capacity, reduce delays, enhance safety and drive down costs.
Digital train technology
The following short video explains how replacing traditional lineside train signals with modern technology will increase capacity, improve performance and enhance safety.