Under the six-month contract Siemens will take the project to Stage 3 (option selection) of Network Rail's Governance for Railway Investment Projects (Grip) process. The project will cover interlocking areas commissioned by Siemens for the Reading Station Area Redevelopment, Swindon, and Berks & Hants resignalling schemes.
Siemens is already working with NR under the infrastructure manager's ETCS framework contract and has successfully demonstrated Britain's first on-track radio block centre to radio block centre (RBC to RBC) handover between two suppliers. Siemens has also developed a full simulation of an ETCS Level 2 overlay running a representative timetable on the final Reading layout under the control of Siemens Trackguard Futur RBC and Westlock interlockings.
