GBRX - new web presence

[Royston Vasey]

GBRX has a new website and a new "GBRX Communications" Youtube channel.

I am the third ever viewer of the "Digital Railway Masterplan" which is mainly a talking head interview with the MD, Toufic Machnouk, who seems to have a PhD in management waffle.

And there is a prospectus which gives an insight mainly into infrastructure and innovation - I guess this is what will replace Network Rail? Or a modern day BR Research Division?

https://www.gbrx.co.uk/

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Toufic has been leading the East Coast Digital (ETCS) project for some time, so is not a waffler.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Toufic has been leading the East Coast Digital (ETCS) project for some time, so is not a waffler.

“We face a deep technology adoption challenge, rooted in complexity and inertia. Even established technologies struggle. The system is designed to resist change, and the ability to overcome it is scarce. Those who do work around the system, and that is no way to do our best for people. So we are pioneering a better way. We are building an ambitious strategic capability — to do what we cannot today and reshape the barriers into new paths.”

 

[omnicity4659]

“We face a deep technology adoption challenge, rooted in complexity and inertia. Even established technologies struggle. The system is designed to resist change, and the ability to overcome it is scarce. Those who do work around the system, and that is no way to do our best for people. So we are pioneering a better way. We are building an ambitious strategic capability — to do what we cannot today and reshape the barriers into new paths.”

Sounds very ChatGPT generated.

 

[Horizon22]

And there is a prospectus which gives an insight mainly into infrastructure and innovation - I guess this is what will replace Network Rail? Or a modern day BR Research Division?

https://www.gbrx.co.uk/

I'm pretty sure GBRX is the "innovation wing" of the future GBR. This is an excerpt from their Linkedin page:

GBRX has been established as a strategic innovation body to overcome the barriers to adoption of advanced technologies on Britain’s railway.

In January 2025, the Secretary of State of Transport set out her five priorities for Shadow GBR. GBRX’s mandate is to deliver priority four: 'unlock strategic innovation by partnering with world leading innovators to improve how the railway works for people and support the UK as a technology and AI power.’

GBRX is focussed on unlocking strategic innovation where it is most challenging, at the crossroads of track and train, partnering with world leading innovators, academia, supporting SME’s, and collaborating across the sector, to improve how the railway works for people and stakeholders.

 

[KNN]

“We face a deep technology adoption challenge, rooted in complexity and inertia. Even established technologies struggle. The system is designed to resist change, and the ability to overcome it is scarce. Those who do work around the system, and that is no way to do our best for people. So we are pioneering a better way. We are building an ambitious strategic capability — to do what we cannot today and reshape the barriers into new paths.”

You've picked the wrong guy to slag off, he's exactly the kind of person the industry needs. He's smart and has pretty much nailed the problems in that short quote.

Whether he can execute it, who knows, but he clearly understands the problem.

 

[Royston Vasey]

I'm not slagging him off and I know his CV. The thrust of my post was merely to highlight the new messaging. Although that sort of quote doesn't do anyone any favours.

 

[KNN]

I'm not slagging him off and I know his CV. The thrust of my post was merely to highlight the new messaging. Although that sort of quote doesn't do anyone any favours.

The phrase "PhD in management waffle" doesn't sound like a compliment.

 

[D1537]

I have no idea why apparently talented people feel the need to obfuscate their message by drenching it in management buzzword slang.

I work in education and we have exactly the same problem. We do have a name for it, though i.e. "Can you translate Alan's email into something understandable, please? He's written it in edubollocks".

 

[Royston Vasey]

The phrase "PhD in management waffle" doesn't sound like a compliment.

I have no idea why apparently talented people feel the need to obfuscate their message by drenching it in management buzzword slang.

I work in education and we have exactly the same problem. We do have a name for it, though i.e. "Can you translate Alan's email into something understandable, please? He's written it in edubollocks".

This is my point really, he speaks really well in the video and he's clearly experienced and competent, but that's supposedly a quote from him on the public website. I wonder if they aren't his own words but delegated to a civil servant and attributed. It does happen, I have written "quotes" for the CEO before.

 

[AlterEgo]

I thought the video was good. I'm always curious about the intended audience though; I'm not sure who they are trying to reach.

 

[Dumpton Park]

“ The system is designed to resist change, and the ability to overcome it is scarce. Those who do work around the system, and that is no way to do our best for people.”

That bit doesn't make too much sense. It reads like the first sentence was reworded (from something like "People with the ability to overcome that resistance are scarce"?). But the second one wasn't reworded (leaving that "do" meaning something different to how it wants to be read) and no-one looked at how cohesive the whole was left.

Not quite up there with spelling "Britain" wrong, but could do better...

I thought the video was good. I'm always curious about the intended audience though; I'm not sure who they are trying to reach.

In decades of working for an arm's length uk gov organisation, I found managers always did things like this with their line managers in mind.

DP

 

[father_jack]

That bit doesn't make too much sense. It reads like the first sentence was reworded (from something like "People with the ability to overcome that resistance are scarce"?). But the second one wasn't reworded (leaving that "do" meaning something different to how it wants to be read) and no-one looked at how cohesive the whole was left.

Not quite up there with spelling "Britain" wrong, but could do better...



In decades of working for an arm's length uk gov organisation, I found managers always did things like this with their line managers in mind.

DP

Indeed GBR will be NO different to the current way amongst managers. Managers will still do EVERYTHING with their line managers in mind.

 

[Tom]

I've been to a number of events with Toufic, a few weeks ago two in a week, and he very much understands the challenge that the industry faces. I was somewhat of a skeptic about GBRX's aims early on (and still am to a degree) but I have no doubt in that the people there are willing to engage and understand in a number of different areas even if they don't already.

Toufic is quite a good messenger in simplifying the reality of the complexity for different audiences. Listening to essentially the same talk but aimed at different audiences was quite interesting... (albeit the second one was added to with pictures from the day that the first one occurred, with my ugly mug added...)

 

[Royston Vasey]

I've been to a number of events with Toufic, a few weeks ago two in a week, and he very much understands the challenge that the industry faces. I was somewhat of a skeptic about GBRX's aims early on (and still am to a degree) but I have no doubt in that the people there are willing to engage and understand in a number of different areas even if they don't already.

Toufic is quite a good messenger in simplifying the reality of the complexity for different audiences. Listening to essentially the same talk but aimed at different audiences was quite interesting... (albeit the second one was added to with pictures from the day that the first one occurred, with my ugly mug added...)

Still not entirely sure exactly what GBRX is setting out to do and its role, so I do think the public messaging needs some work! Obviously we are seeing the first steps here and they are generally good!

 

[Tom]

Still not entirely sure exactly what GBRX is setting out to do and its role, so I do think the public messaging needs some work! Obviously we are seeing the first steps here and they are generally good!

My perception of GBRX is essentially that it has three aims: upskilling, unlocking and enabling better integration.

I can't talk so much for upskilling other than that in projects that I work on in the industry I am very keen on ensuring that people I work with get enough knowledge transfer such that they don't need me again to help them on the same things (which is unfortunately common).

Unlocking - there are a number of issues that prevent smaller, and in some cases larger, firms from being able to break through the sometimes impenetrable wall of bureaucracy that exists inside rail. I have an ongoing joke that it is easier to get a £500k project through procurement than it is £50 because of this. "Access" to the industry is frequently blocked inside cliques and pay to play organisations which are only interested in furthering their own, and their members, aims rather than the industry as a whole. Rightfully so in the latter case but it doesn't help the bigger picture.

Enabling better integration is a part of the unlocking picture, but effectively there's a lot of proof of concept projects and not a lot that mature into day to day activity without a lot of effort. They are looking at simplifying, or enabling better understanding, that stage of the process.

 

[D1537]

My perception of GBRX is essentially that it has three aims: upskilling, unlocking and enabling better integration.

I can't talk so much for upskilling other than that in projects that I work on in the industry I am very keen on ensuring that people I work with get enough knowledge transfer such that they don't need me again to help them on the same things (which is unfortunately common).

See, this is exactly what I meant in my comment above. Personally, I totally understand what you're talking about because I've read things like this many times, but a significant amount of people would be saying "upskilling? unlocking? knowledge transfer? What are they?". Seriously, can we not just use simple English? What is wrong with "learning" instead of "knowledge transfer"?

 

[Tom]

I don't have a view of the use of words in particular but I personally think there is a difference in learning vs knowledge transfer.

I have spent a lot of time (15+ years) learning how various things work and the rationale as to how various things function in the way they do - but someone else doesn't need to do that process and instead can benefit from my current knowledge of that. To me, that is a transfer of knowledge, rather than teaching and learning the entire process.

 

[D1537]

I don't have a view of the use of words in particular but I personally think there is a difference in learning vs knowledge transfer.

I have spent a lot of time (15+ years) learning how various things work and the rationale as to how various things function in the way they do - but someone else doesn't need to do that process and instead can benefit from my current knowledge of that. To me, that is a transfer of knowledge, rather than teaching and learning the entire process.

Yes, that's fair enough, but you have to admit the difference is at the best subtle, so quite often people don't understand what is being said and even someone experienced in it like me ends up having to "translate" what is meant. As someone who works in education, it does irritate me when I get undergraduates come to me with jobs they want to apply for and the advert is written in buzzword bingo nonsense (not saying that yours was, but you get the idea).

 

[tumbledown]

See, this is exactly what I meant in my comment above. Personally, I totally understand what you're talking about because I've read things like this many times, but a significant amount of people would be saying "upskilling? unlocking? knowledge transfer? What are they?". Seriously, can we not just use simple English? What is wrong with "learning" instead of "knowledge transfer"?

Hear, hear.

 

[PupCuff]

See, this is exactly what I meant in my comment above. Personally, I totally understand what you're talking about because I've read things like this many times, but a significant amount of people would be saying "upskilling? unlocking? knowledge transfer? What are they?". Seriously, can we not just use simple English? What is wrong with "learning" instead of "knowledge transfer"?

Not everything needs to be dumbed down to pre-GCSE level English. Yes, there are plenty of people who would struggle to understand what is being said but are they the same people who the quote is aimed at? You adjust your communication style to your audience.

Yes if you're putting important, journey critical messaging out to passengers who may have differing levels of education, or are perhaps visiting the country with a lower standard of English comprehension than someone where it is their mother tongue, we should aim for simple English.

In this case it's evidently a quote aimed at industry (and industry-adjacent) professionals who will have a commensurate level of literacy and will understand the nuance of what is being said.

 

[alistairlees]

I read the PDF on the website, as this contains more text than the website itself. Lots of waffle, not a single concrete example of anything, and no figures (costs, benefits, revenues, customers affected etc.). It's unclear to me what it does.

 

[D1537]

In this case it's evidently a quote aimed at industry (and industry-adjacent) professionals who will have a commensurate level of literacy and will understand the nuance of what is being said.

I'm pretty sure that those professionals are perfectly capable of understanding standard English, and through experience I'm equally sure that said professionals will often roll their eyes at communications written in completely unnecessarily complicated language.

 

[Harratt4]

The evidence backs you up!

Guest Post: Clarity is king – the evidence that reveals the desperate need to re-think the way we write – Government Digital Service

Mark Morris is Head of Clear English at the Department of Health and a former speechwriter for the Health Secretary. Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is. So said Publilius Syrus, about two

gds.blog.gov.uk

The key take away from the blog on the importance of writing in plain english being "in 2012, research by Christopher Trudeau at the Thomas M Cooley Law School in Michigan, into the use of language in legal documents found two things, one obvious, the other surprising.

First, when given a choice, 80% of people preferred sentences written in clear English (for example, 97% preferred ‘among other things’ over the more traditional Latin phrase ‘inter alia’) and the more complex the issue, the greater that preference. But second, it found that the more educated the person, the more specialist their knowledge, the greater their preference for plain English. The old argument (or ‘excuse for lazy writing’) that ‘these readers will understand this language’ may be true, but it doesn’t mean they want to read it."

 

[TUC]

“We face a deep technology adoption challenge, rooted in complexity and inertia. Even established technologies struggle. The system is designed to resist change, and the ability to overcome it is scarce. Those who do work around the system, and that is no way to do our best for people. So we are pioneering a better way. We are building an ambitious strategic capability — to do what we cannot today and reshape the barriers into new paths.”

The usual meaningless marketing gubble then.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

Not everything needs to be dumbed down to pre-GCSE level English. Yes, there are plenty of people who would struggle to understand what is being said but are they the same people who the quote is aimed at? You adjust your communication style to your audience.

I can understand perfectly well what is said. That is why I can understand it is meaningless waffle.

 

[Horizon22]

I read the PDF on the website, as this contains more text than the website itself. Lots of waffle, not a single concrete example of anything, and no figures (costs, benefits, revenues, customers affected etc.). It's unclear to me what it does.

Well it's only just been developed as a concept, so it would be quite impressive for them to already have a "concrete example"! Also as an 'innovation' approach, it's likely to be more experimental and exploring new methods of working and novel ways of utilising technology to bring more coherent benefits.

 

[PG]

The evidence backs you up!
https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/17/...-desperate-need-to-re-think-the-way-we-write/

A shame that 11 years later we are even having this discussion. Though not that surprising really, given that the Plain English campaign has been on the go for over 45 years.

 

[Pete_uk]

I like the logo and font in the video thumbnail

 

[whoosh]

Wow.
They had me at at "Actualising capability".

 

[bleeder4]

Wow.
They had me at at "Actualising capability".

What does "actualising capability" even mean? For that matter, what does "actualising" mean? It is all, as has been said in this thread, just nonsense.