The Future
RETB is now regarded by the rail industry as a redundant technology and is being gradually replaced with the new European in-cab signalling system, ERTMS. The Cambrian line was due to be changed over to the new system by Spring 2010 but was delayed, being commissioned on 11 March 2011. The East Suffolk Line underwent life extension works in 2006 however the RETB system is due for replacement by 2011. Another reason for the replacement of the system is due to the radio frequency licence expiring.
Read more about this topic: Radio Electronic Token Block
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)