> [...]
> A Network Rail spokeswoman said 10m (32.8ft) of signal cabling was
> stolen from near Tile Hill station, near Coventry, during Wednesday
> evening leading to 84 trains being affected by delays and a small number
> cancelled.
> [...]
> "There are hundreds of thousands of miles of railway. We can't be
> everywhere," she said.
>

I've said this before but will say it again.

In this day and age there shouldn’t be thousand of miles of expensive
copper cable alongside the railway.

BT will confidently tell you that the most expensive parts of their
networks are the copper cable from the exchanges to your house.

So much so, that in many areas they won’t cable your house at all
preferring local wireless loops instead.

For their trunk networks they’ve switched to fibre, microwave and
satellite years ago.

There really has to be something seriously wrong for this calculation
not to be true also where Network Rail are concerned.

At the very least, how about laying some fibre optics, pretty
worthless for a thief.

But ultimately radio has to be the way forward and if they can’t find
any savings that way, rather than the all to usual we don’t like
change defeatism of finding hideous cost, then they simply aren’t
doing it right.

On Nov 3, 6:05 pm, allanbonnetracy 
wrote:

> At the very least, how about laying some fibre optics, pretty
> worthless for a thief.
>
> But ultimately radio has to be the way forward and if they can’t find
> any savings that way, rather than the all to usual we don’t like
> change defeatism of finding hideous cost, then they simply aren’t
> doing it right.


Fine, but "signalling cable" is also cable used to get electrons to
things like signals to turn them on.  In other words, power cables.  I
am not aware of a way of using fibre optic for this.

For "telecom" functions, then yes, fibre optic can be (and is) used.

PhilD

--
<><

allanbonnetracy wrote:
>> [...]
>> A Network Rail spokeswoman said 10m (32.8ft) of signal cabling was
>> stolen from near Tile Hill station, near Coventry, during Wednesday
>> evening leading to 84 trains being affected by delays and a small number
>> cancelled.
>> [...]
>> "There are hundreds of thousands of miles of railway. We can't be
>> everywhere," she said.
>>
> 
> I've said this before but will say it again.
> 
> In this day and age there shouldn’t be thousand of miles of expensive
> copper cable alongside the railway.

Well, people with white vans are working on removing it...

> BT will confidently tell you that the most expensive parts of their
> networks are the copper cable from the exchanges to your house.
> 
> So much so, that in many areas they won’t cable your house at all
> preferring local wireless loops instead.
> 
> For their trunk networks they’ve switched to fibre, microwave and
> satellite years ago.
> 
> There really has to be something seriously wrong for this calculation
> not to be true also where Network Rail are concerned.
> 
> At the very least, how about laying some fibre optics, pretty
> worthless for a thief.

Doesn't always stop people nicking them, unfortunately.

> But ultimately radio has to be the way forward and if they can’t find
> any savings that way, rather than the all to usual we don’t like
> change defeatism of finding hideous cost, then they simply aren’t
> doing it right.

ERTMS. It just takes a very long while to replace tried and test 
safety-critical systems with new stuff.

-- 
Arthur Figgis               Surrey, UK