GSM-R and fail safe

Giantray in post 109888 said:

Andy174 in post 109784 said:

Just shows how complicated the railway has become. When I was driving under BR the ONLY person you conversed with in such circumstances was the signalman either by then lineside phones or in later years CSR, There was no means of being contacted by anyone else. Just out of interest it used to be the case if stood at an automatic signal on red and there was no means of contacting the signalman ie the phone had failed etc it could be passed at danger, is this still the case?

The original ruling about passing auto signals was there because they didn't protect any point work, it was just plain line to the next signal no point work requiring setting by the Signaller.

No drivers cannot pass Automatic Signal without authority any more. This changed as it was deemed that a driver can always find some form of communication to contact a Signaller, be it Signal Post Telephones, GSM-R even mobile phones that they now carry as standard, or even borrowing a passenger mobile phone. Incidently, many of the new Signalling layouts now only have Signal Post Telephones on signals at stations, or other key places. The majority of signals will not have telephones, just a plaque with the controlling Signallers telephone number.

That's what I thought - in which case I have a follow-up question I've been meaning to ask. Why are signals still plated as automatics in that case? Why not just leave off the white and black stripes?

Passing a signal at danger when the signaller can't be contacted will probably soon be a thing of the past - quite logical as the signaller can now (almost) always be contacted by GSM-R or other means, and it could be seen (with some imagination) as a safety risk

Is it not possible for the driver to call the next (or previous) switched in box, or even better, for the GSM-R system to automatically reroute calls when a box is switched out? I'm sure I've read about signal post telephones being automatically rerouted when boxes were switched out "back in the day", and I would have assumed such a feature would be made easier with a digital system.