In message , at
20:26:17 on Thu, 23 Aug 2018, Ding Bat
remarked:
ATO (Automated Train Operation) on Thameslink

Three buttons sit on the driver's panel of Thameslink's Class 700 trains.
After a brief stop

Interesting that they have to stop. Perhaps that's why the timing for
that leg of the journey is so relaxed. Ironic that "speeding up" the
trains necessitates stopping them!

in a new tunnel between Kings Cross and St Pancras,
the driver of the 09:46 from Peterborough to Horsham presses the middle
yellow button and the train starts to drive itself.

The journey was the first on the UK's mainline rail network to use an
automated driving mode and sets the scene for thousands of partly
automated journeys in 2019.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tham...tfl-city-govia

I note: The new tunnel is between Finsbury Park and St Pancras, not
between Kings Cross and St Pancras

I'm prepared to give them that, because no-one will have heard of Belle
Isle, and it's far closer to Kings Cross than Finsbury Park, and in
effect part of the KGX extended station throat, south of the NLL.

I do think they need to carefully consider the date for 24tph though,
which they probably want us to forget was originally December 20*18*.

Earlier this year, before "meltdown Monday" the train companies were
already saying that the 24tph would need to be phased in (rather than
delivered in one go in Dec18), with additional steps in May19 and Dec19.

*Then* came the meltdown, and later the agreement to scrap all of the
December 2018 timetable change. Thus those pre-meltdown plans to have
three phases in Dec18/May19/Dec19 would need to be *reduced* back to two
phases, which sounds a bit, err, courageous.

Meanwhile, there's the Kings Cross Throat project in "Spring" 2020,
which would go a lot better if the final Cambridge trains weren't still
using the station, and is needed for LNER to be able to deliver improved
services in Dec20. However, they could arrange for at least both the
Cambridge stoppers to have been switched to through-running (along with
one Brighton train) by Dec19. Then add the second [new] Brighton train
later.
--
Roland Perry