British Rail Moving Forward with Sat-Nav/GPS

de1orean writes "The BBC is reporting that after a successful limited trial using GPS satellite navigation to improve train safety and efficiency, British Rail is committed to instituting sat-nav throughout the system. It may be in operation as early as 2008."

First impression

[Dancin_Santa]

It's a train. It's not like these things can wander all over the place.

Maybe if they were able to get them to run on time like they do in Japan and Fascist Italy, they could tell where the trains were by just looking at the clock.

British Rail?

[sulli]

They renationalised and didn't tell anyone?

"putting intelligence on trains"

[ABeowulfCluster]

So, they're implying the conductor is dumber than a GPS unit?

So.... why do trains need GPS?

[1_interest_1]

Is it that hard to follow the track?

A British Rail Joke..

[TechyImmigrant]

This joke did the rounds during the first US-Iraq war and shortly after a big train accident..

What is the difference between British Rail and a Scud missile?

British Rail kills people.

lol

[mpower1]

and they say canadians are dumb, at least we dont get lost following rail tracks

Re:In the US trucking industry, GPS is common.

[Moderatbastard]

Here in the US, trucking companies use GPS and satcom to create greater efficiencies than would otherwise be possible. http://www.power-trak.com/ BTW, I have no involvement with trucking

If you did, you'd know that trucks don't run on rails, but trains do.

It could be useful in Italy...

[Federico2]

In few days GPS-enabled trains could create a map of the entire rail system.
Train drivers will be happy... no more asking directions!

"British Rail"?

[jb.hl.com]

We've not had "British Rail" for some time. For you USians who may be a little confused, here's a little history.

Before the 50s, the railways were all in lots of groups of competing companies. The government then nationalised these companies (OMG SOCIALISM!!!1) as, well, you can't really run a railway for profit and even if you could it's a son of a bitch to do so without killing hundreds of people. This new confederacy was British Rail, and had that pointy double arrow logo some of you may have seen.

In the 60s, the government axed all of the loss making lines in an attempt to make a profit. This involved axing all of the lines to small rural communities, and it made the railway much less attractive to people and made the car a de facto requirement.

In the 80s, Margaret Thatcher grew weary of nationalised industry, and while sitting on her stylised throne of evil ordered that the railways be privatised, which took effect in 1997, just when the new government was coming in. Clever that.

So now we're stuck with a bunch of fucking idiots who can't run trains on time and have to rely on satellites to do so. As I once heard someone describe, it's fairly simple to run a decent train service; you have a train, you have a track, the former rides on the latter. The problem is that we have lots of people trying to make money off it, which just won't work.

Re:In the US trucking industry, GPS is common.

[Anonymous Coward]

It amazed me that the Americans thought Janet Jacksons nipple was such a big deal. Does this make us even?