Railway Conversations with Doc Frank

In this special episode, Doc Frank lets you look behind the scenes of organising a global railway conference single-handedly. It shows what is possible for a single person with just enough commitment and determination, and it can also provide ideas for future improvement of other conferences in the railway industry. As such this is arguably of wider interest, not just for CBTC enthusiasts. More de...

Doc Frank chats with Mats Boman from Stockholm in Sweden. Mats is a truly global player who has been “around the block” and now focuses on how railways can formalise how they work. This is important for a number of things including the succession planning for retiring experts and the introduction of new technology without losing the character of the railway. Please enjoy! Show notes: 1)      The C...

Doc Frank chats with Mick Spiers from Melbourne in Australia. Mick not only holds a senior position in the railway industry, he is also the founder of “The Leadership Project” which combines leadership consulting and coaching with a podcast of more than 100 episodes and a book for first-time leaders and their mentors. The conversation disclosed surprising parallels between Mick’s leadership busine...

Doc Frank chats with Craig Sparrius from Melbourne in Australia. Craig has a substantial career background in railway planning, including timetabling and operational modelling and currently runs his own specialist consultancy in this field. Our conversation focused a lot on planning challenges in Melbourne, but I believe that a lot of that will be similar or transferable to the railway planning in...

Doc Frank chats with Professor Clive Roberts from Birmingham in England. Clive is outstandingly active in bringing together academics and industry to combine the best of both worlds, research and real life applicability. This conversation is a lot about innovation in railways and how to foster it. I’m sure you will enjoy it. Show notes: 1)      The CBTC World Summit 2023 (20-21 September) is the f...

Doc Frank chats with Teeshal Bal, now from Melbourne in Australia, but originally from Malaysia which adds another country to the portfolio of international guests. Teeshal is another example of an awesome woman in the railway industry. She has not only built a fulfilling career in the railway industry, but “on the side” become a serial entrepreneur who founded three companies in very different fi...

Time for the first repeat guest. Doc Frank chats with Roy Unny from Melbourne in Australia. After a well-received episode 22 with him, this one is specifically about the topic of “Reference Class Forecasting” for which Roy is a certified practitioner. This method aims at predicting realistic forecasts for project costs, duration and benefits based on a reference class of comparable projects and ho...

In this special episode Doc Frank talks about the importance of high capacity, for the entire railway organisation about to transform to new levels of operational performance, not just from a signalling perspective. Regardless whether you are attracted to new training offers in this area or not, there will be important food for thought that will be highly relevant for railway upgrades now and in t...

Doc Frank chats with Lauren Guiney from Melbourne in Australia. Lauren has just completed a double degree in civil engineering and architectural design. You will see quickly that she is a very promising addition to the railway industry and I’m certain that our wide-ranging conversation will be interesting not just for young people or industry starters. Enjoy! Show notes: 1)      Join me in my newe...

Doc Frank chats with Lisa Hogben from Melbourne in Australia. Despite her being between jobs as her project was just put on hold, we have quite an upbeat conversation about building a project team culture, integrating minorities, women in construction, resilience and humour at work. I trust you will find Lisa as fascinating to listen to as I, so please enjoy this conversation. Show notes: 1)     ...

Doc Frank chats with Frederic Sancho from London in England, but originally from France (just to add another country to my guest list). Frederic developed his career in testing and commissioning and founded his first company on the back of that. A very informative talk which I hope builds on the great interest in previous episodes in the testing and commissioning field (#13 and #21). Enjoy! Show n...

Doc Frank chats with Roy Unny from Melbourne in Australia. Roy is the National Executive Chair of the Railway Technical Society of Australasia (RTSA) and while this role and the organisation of the upcoming Conference of Railway Excellence (CORE) in Melbourne was a central piece of our conversation we also covered several other topics. One thing this talk definitely shows is that it is never too l...

Doc Frank chats with Danny O’Connell from Brisbane in Australia. Danny is a specialist in testing and commissioning of complex railway systems which is of course the centre of our conversation. We got deep so quickly that we did not even get close to covering his career to date, so that this talk will absolutely need a follow-up. I hope you will find this talk as captivating as I did. Show notes:...

Doc Frank chats with Ivan Ristic from Belgrade in Serbia, adding another country to the list of international guests. Ivan is Managing Director of Signalling Solutions, a company providing design and assurance services mainly for the West Balcan region. We talk about the Eastern European railway market and the challenges to balance resources and demand. Please enjoy this episode and if you like it...

Doc Frank chats with Andy Knight from Derby in England. Andy is Managing Director of Signet, a prime provider of signalling training in the UK, and he also was President of the IRSE (Institution of Railway Signal Engineers) for the last year. Accordingly, we talk about the challenges of his IRSE presidency, the importance of training and ways to attract talent to the railway industry. Please enjoy...

Doc Frank chats with Lloyd D’Cruz from Sydney in Australia. Lloyd works on the important “More Trains More Services” program in Sydney and of course we talked about that program and his role in it. But maybe even more insightful is our chat about career planning, development and the role of mentors. As always, enjoy this episode. And if you do like it, tell your friends and colleagues about it and...

Doc Frank chats with Paul Roach, a business consultant and coach from Perth in Australia. But this time the podcaster gets “podcasted” himself. This interview was held for Paul’s podcast “Business Spotlight”, and since Paul is not a railway person (but still a nice guy) our conversation is not about railway technology or operations. Instead we talk about an example of a small business in the railw...

Doc Frank chats with Stephen Allday from Sydney in Australia. Steve can look back at a railway career of over 50 years and just last year he resolved to “collect” a number of accreditation from professional bodies for engineers working in the railway industry, an initiative he called “Project Self-Esteem”. We talk about the roles of the various institutions he got accredited from, the importance o...

Doc Frank chats with Lena Harnisch from Braunschweig in Germany. Lena is an expert in cybersecurity which is of course the central topic of our talk. Cybersecurity is not just a red-hot topic for the increasing digitalisation of the entire railway industry, it also matters to anyone having a computer, smartphone or tablet at home, in short everyone. Please enjoy this episode and I hope you can tak...

Doc Frank chats with Rebecca Want from Sydney in Australia. She talks about her impressive career in railways that led her to a very senior position in a global consultancy firm, and we also dive into one of her most unique roles to date – being responsible for the “customer strategy” of the newly created Sydney Metro. I’m sure you will enjoy this episode which is refreshingly free of signalling t...

Doc Frank chats with Artur Wolnica from Katowice in Poland. Artur is an internationally experienced system tester of ETCS technology. We talk a lot about testing, of course, and also about the challenges of ETCS interoperability which is too often and falsely taken for granted. A very instructive conversation which went for over an hour (and another two hours post recording). Show notes for better...

Doc Frank chats with Matthew Rea from Kent in south-east England. Matthew is an experienced signalling trainer and also works in assurance of landmark projects such as Crossrail and HS2. Of course we talk a lot about training, the inception of my flagship training CBTC Kickstarter and the massive improvement made when I transformed this training to an online course. We also talked about getting th...

Doc Frank chats with Victoria Winder from Brisbane, Australia. Victoria is my historically first female guest on the podcast, keeping another promise for variety of guests regarding internationality, industry experience and gender. Victoria has long-term experience in testing, commissioning and system integration of mega projects including the Victoria Line Resignalling and Crossrail in London, th...

Doc Frank chats with Barry West from London, England. Barry is a trainer for train drivers and has notably been involved in the driver training for the London Thameslink project which features Automatic Train Operation (ATO) over ETCS. The conversation suggests a curious parallel between Formular One car racing and ATO for trains and lots of other interesting aspects of automatic train driving. Sh...

Doc Frank chats with a double act from Stockholm, Sweden – Andreas Mårtensson and Gunnar Smith. They have spent many years populating “Formal Methods” for the benefits of diverse railway signalling systems and technology generations in Stockholm. It is impressive to learn about the great potential benefits of Formal Methods for a railway organisation, not just for improving the quality of project...