GBRX - new web presence

[davidhg]

If you can do it - DO IT !

 

[The exile]

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.

It’s not a matter of “dumbing down”. The problem with a lot of “management speak” (or any jargon buzz words) is the “emperor’s new clothes” element - where no one really has a clue what is meant but isn’t going to risk admitting it, so everyone nods sagely and gets on with what they were doing anyway. Equally, such buzzwords cover a multitude of sins: “We’ve done intensive cross training” sounds so much more impressive than “every now knows where the spare photocopier paper is kept and who to tell if the coffee machine is out of order again”.

 

[KNN]

This thread is increasingly depressing. He is speaking to his audience, which isn't Dave who sits in Wetherspoons reading the Sun.

It's a keynote speech for a rail technology forum. It isn't aimed at the general public, it's for a specialist selection of people who understand the language of what he is doing.

 

[AlterEgo]

This thread is increasingly depressing. He is speaking to his audience, which isn't Dave who sits in Wetherspoons reading the Sun.

It's a keynote speech for a rail technology forum. It isn't aimed at the general public, it's for a specialist selection of people who understand the language of what he is doing.

Of course, but it's fun for some people to go on the internet and say they don't understand words like "actualising" (which is not in the transcript of the video anyway) while another guy goes "yeah, nonsense!".

It's probably on Youtube as a convenient and free place to host such videos, but doing this as a public video is a comms mistake because it will just escape the jar and reach people for whom it wasn't designed. Much more sensible to have it as an unlisted link. My consultancy fee for this advice is £250.

 

[Dave W]

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. If he spoke plainly everyone on the ground would like it but the thrust of the message would be lost on the corporate and industry side of things. If the message he sends is clear at the working level - and colleagues above suggest it is - then the corporate talk he puts on YouTube is irrelevant to you.

GDS blogs proclaiming Plain English is Best are not evidence of anything, by the way. They weren't very good at it then, and they aren't now.

“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.”

This example of so-called "waffle" entirely makes sense to me and I actually think it's more direct than it could have been. The railway is notoriously resistant to change - surely no one is disputing that! Building technical strategic capability is a perfectly reasonable response to this.

Not every message is for everyone.

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.

Exactly.

My consultancy fee for this advice is £250.

I'll do it for £249.99!

 

[KNN]

This example of so-called "waffle" entirely makes sense to me and I actually think it's more direct than it could have been. The railway is notoriously resistant to change - surely no one is disputing that! Building technical strategic capability is a perfectly reasonable response to this.

I think this is the key point, I've heard him speak at events and he was, like you say, refreshingly direct, and seems clear on what needs to change for a future railway to function in a modern way.

Compared to most of the other speakers he really stood out as _not_ being another paint by numbers "leader".

 

[LickeyIncliner]

What is wrong with "learning" instead of "knowledge transfer"?

"Knowledge transfer" isn't just learning. At a minimum it refers to both teaching and learning. It's generally used in relation to organizations, not to individuals, so it includes possibilities such as as staff being recruited or seconded from one organization to another (e.g. from a research body to an industrial firm).

 

[Dave W]

"Knowledge transfer" isn't just learning. At a minimum it refers to both teaching and learning. It's generally used in relation to organizations, not to individuals, so it includes possibilities such as as staff being recruited or seconded from one organization to another (e.g. from a research body to an industrial firm).

And is vitally important in "traditional" industries where acquired knowledge is not usually written down and is internalised by one person or a team or group of people (one only has to read the various memoirs of ex-railwaymen who tell amusing anecdotes of coming up against something totally at odds to what they expected and having no idea how to handle it until the old hand explains it to them).

Further relevant in technical areas where details of system specifications, methods of repair/maintenance and even day-to-day usage are lost. That's not peculiar to the railway, but again history is littered with several examples where the last person that knew how to use a system or do a long-established process retired and took that knowledge with them.

Then, I imagine (as I am not on the railway), there's a whole Pandora's Box to consider around standardisation and streamlining of processes and systems - you need good knowledge transfer for that too.

Lots of companies, organisations and industries do this very badly - someone who can speak both directly about decision making to those on the ground and in detailed terms about the overall strategic impacts of same on a corporate level is a serious asset in my opinion.

 

[whoosh]

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.

A myriadic smorgasbord from a supercharged management dictionary, is what it means. Forging a 'track' to the future, turning a key and unlocking potential, right here, right now.

Whoop!

 

[Tobberz]

It's unfortunate this thread has descended into a debate about language rather than a discussion of the fact GBR has created a technology & innovation department with a public-facing presence, and appears to want unified thinking regarding signalling.

Naturally, my main concern with "digital railways" is hackability. Unless it is somehow an entirely isolated system ("offline", in a way), it will be an absolutely brilliant target. Not something that can happen to a... semaphore signal!

 

[Horizon22]

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.

You could just search Google, it clearly isn't 'nonsense':

actualise: to make something that could possibly happen or be achieved really happen or be achieved

It's a shorter way of saving "realising and achieving success in tapping into the large amount of potential resources/promise/scope for X/Y/Z"

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2025 ==

It's unfortunate this thread has descended into a debate about language rather than a discussion of the fact GBR has created a technology & innovation department with a public-facing presence, and appears to want unified thinking regarding signalling.

Agreed.

 

[Bertie the bus]

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.

That quote is quite damning of the railway and its culture. If you are going to criticise the organisation you work for and some of your colleagues in public then you have to use flowery language.

 

[KNN]

It's unfortunate this thread has descended into a debate about language rather than a discussion of the fact GBR has created a technology & innovation department with a public-facing presence, and appears to want unified thinking regarding signalling.

Naturally, my main concern with "digital railways" is hackability. Unless it is somehow an entirely isolated system ("offline", in a way), it will be an absolutely brilliant target. Not something that can happen to a... semaphore signal!

Isn't it common on the continent already? I don't know much about signalling, but it seems possible to make it secure, in a world where most banking is done digitally this is small fry.

 

[dmncf]

Has the YouTube video been taken down?

 

[Royston Vasey]

Has the YouTube video been taken down?

The account has been closed, in fact!

Now replaced by one called GBRX Spaces with a couple of new videos including a new talking head one wIth the MD. Comes across very warmly and relatable, credit where it is due!

https://youtube.com/@gbrx_spaces?si=RRY-9m-rzoMf5usM

 

[vuzzeho]

It's unfortunate this thread has descended into a debate about language rather than a discussion of the fact GBR has created a technology & innovation department with a public-facing presence, and appears to want unified thinking regarding signalling.

I think this is pretty great. Seems to be part of NR, as expected. Is this the first public-facing GBR-as-a-real-organisation-and-not-just-a-plan stuff we've had from them? Seems like things are heating up.