As this month sees the Signalling & Telecommunications issue of the rail engineer, it is opportune that Network Rail chose this month to announce the formation of Network Rail Telecoms.
Making the announcement, Peter Henderson, group asset management director, stated:
“Network Rail Telecoms has been created to design and deliver a new, single, unified telecoms organisation focussing, among other things, on improving the effectiveness of our deployment and use of telecoms assets and managing whole life telecoms in the most efficient manner.
“The team will be responsible for all of our telecoms assets, strategy and policy decisions, including operating, maintaining and enhancing our assets. They will also be responsible for the design and delivery of the service to the customer.”
To head up this new operation Andy Hudson has joined Network Rail as Telecoms Director.
He is currently vice president field operations and infrastructure engineering at Interoute Telecom, where he has helped transform the business from a fledgling operator to a successful European carrier. Andy takes up his new post in September.
Clive Kessell, writer for the rail engineer who headed up the Telecommunications Engineering department of BR and who was the Engineering Director at British Rail Telecoms before it was privatised, commented:
“It is good to see Network Rail recognising that telecommunications form an important part of railway operations by creating this new single department. The wheel seems to have gone full circle.”
