The Northern City Line operated by Great Northern now uses a digital signalling system

Workers remove a signal at Drayton Park (credit Network Rail)

A commuter rail line in North London has become the first in the UK to operate without track-side signals following successful weekend engineering work.

The signals were removed from the Northern City Line, between Finsbury Park and Moorgate, as part of the government-funded £1.4billion East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP). The line is used by Great Northern trains, including those serving the Hertford Loop route through western Enfield.

Traditional signals have been used in one form or another since the route between Finsbury Park and Moorgate opened 121 years ago. But now, in their place, drivers are being told how far and how fast they can travel on an in-cab train computer screen that is fed information from a digital signalling system known as ETCS (European Train Control System).

This digital signalling system will give passengers greater reliability and better punctuality. The system is also even safer and more environmentally sustainable as there is much less physical equipment to produce and maintain.

The Northern City Line has been steadily migrating to the ETCS digital signalling system. Passenger services had already been using ETCS but the traditional signals remained in place. Over the weekend, Siemens Mobility engineers took the final step to switch off and remove the legacy signalling infrastructure, marking the full transition to digital operations.

This is the first ‘no signals’ conversion on the national rail network since the Cambrian Line pilot in 2011, and the first of its kind in a busy, metro-style passenger corridor.

Rail minister Lord Peter Hendy said: “Thanks to £1.4bn of government funding this cutting-edge programme is bringing our railways into the 21st Century and beyond.

“Digital signalling is not only more cost effective, but even safer and more resilient than traditional signalling.”

Oliver Turner, head of digital signalling at Govia Thameslink Railway which operates Great Northern trains along the Northern City Line route, said: “This is a huge achievement, doing away with signals and moving to digital control on such an intensive commuter route. It was 200 years ago that the modern railway was born and ever since then there’s always been something physical at the side of the tracks.

“In terms of modern signalling this is as cutting edge as it gets; it’s like moving from a Nokia 3210 to an iPhone 16. It effectively allows our drivers to see around corners by telling them how far and how fast they can travel. They can drive more smoothly and efficiently, to the best of the train’s capabilities, helping them arrive on time and doing so in even greater safety.

“Our train crews have been brilliant in the way they’ve migrated to this new way of working and taking on board a lot of new learning and I am also incredibly proud of the team here at GTR for what they’ve achieved alongside our industry partners.”

As recently as six years ago, Great Northern services along the route were running with the UK’s oldest mainline electric trains (Class 313s that entered service 42 years earlier, in 1976), on a signalling system that worked with air-operated ‘trip cocks’.

Since then, GTR has introduced a £240million fleet of digitally-enabled Class 717 units, and Network Rail and Siemens Mobility have comprehensively replaced and upgraded the signalling infrastructure. Many months of testing and commissioning has followed alongside extensive driver training.

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