WHAT’S THE COST OF LIVING?

Renowned as the global market leading depot protection system, the SMART DPPS™ delivers physical protection from vehicle movements to rail depot staff whilst providing visual and audible warnings.

The Smart DPPS™:

• Protects staff and equipment

• Ensures safe and controlled movement of rail vehicles into and out of the depot

• Allows train maintenance operations to be conducted without endangering the safety of staff or damaging infrastructure

It is:

• Fully configurable, flexible and functional

• Proven in use and installed globally

• Capable of interfacing with third party equipment including signalling systems.

• Adaptable to the safe requirements of the depot

Compatibility And Safe Integration

New trains affect Network Rail infrastructure, of course, and might have an impact on other operators’ activities. Organisations introducing new trains into service or moving existing trains to a new route have several legal duties to undertake including demonstrating compatibility with the lines on which they will run.

David Galloway, network technical head for System Compatibility and Traction & Rolling Stock, Network Rail (NR), outlined some of the issues. Duty Holders (i.e., Train Operator for trains, NR for, e.g., new stations) must demonstrate their changes are safe, comply with relevant international, national and railway specific standards and are compatible with the rest of the system, though, in general, fleet cascades generally need only consider compatibility.

Considering new trains, train operators sometimes delegate responsibility for some of the work to the train supplier. Network Rail also must satisfy itself that trains are compatible with its infrastructure, so it is important that organisations collaborate, a process, David said, best started early with open dialogue between affected parties. Railway and general health and safety law imposes the duty of cooperation between Duty Holders, but to make the railway work, there must also be cooperation with ROSCOs, manufacturers, neighbours and others who are not specifically identified in the law.

Whilst there is plenty of guidance on what factors to consider, there cannot be a definitive list. David cited 24 relevant Group and Railway Industry Standards that usually need to be considered. Key topics include power, signalling and train protection, gauging, acceleration/braking curves, track wear, selective door operation and electromagnetic compatibility.

As well as demonstrating compatibility, duty holders have to demonstrate safe integration; making sure that a change (e.g., a new vehicle type, network project, subsystem, component, software, procedure, organisation) fits into, and does not create an unacceptable risk for, the resulting system.

Looking To The Future

Rich Fisher and Maria Cliff, from the Great British Railways Transition Team looked at future rolling stock, depot, kilometres of electrification. He said that it would be wise not to assume that this plan is the only solution. He said that a balance of rolling stock and infrastructure solutions will be necessary, and he anticipated that rail will need to use offsetting and bio-fuels to demonstrate net zero carbon beyond 2050. That said, electrification scenarios have been

Rich presented a graph showing what type of traction might replace the diesel fleet over the next nine control periods (45 years). This programme would see the virtual elimination of diesel only passenger trains but would retain a significant number of bi-mode diesels (or other fuelled internal combustion engine). He said that hydrogen has limited role, due to cost and energy density, but this could be revised if technology develops. He added that electric passenger trains outperform diesel which brings carbon gains through modal shift and benefits all customers whilst delivering lower operating and maintenance costs.

Rich’s views on trains for the future focussed on improving from the short termism of specifying new trains to win a franchise. He added that the supply chain has been getting inconsistent messages from the industry, hindering investment in innovation, and increasing costs. He wants the emerging strategy to consider trade-offs and choices (e.g., seats vs luggage vs bikes) and to quantify them where possible. There will be a vision to help the supply chain deliver for both funders while meeting the needs of passengers, but the strategy will not be about designing new trains, more it will be about linking the long-term strategy to existing good practice.

Maria considered some near-term decisions required, specifically the ‘legacy’ DMU fleet (Classes 150, 155/6, 158/9, 165/6) which are nearing life expiry. Although some operators have begun to engage with the market for replacement trains, she said “a network-wide vision will help support individual operators and ensure best value decisions”. That said the default position is that most replacements will be diesel powered or, in a small number of cases, batteries. Options being evaluated include bringing younger off lease diesel trains back into service, selective life extension to defer replacement, and/or accelerate deployment of battery trains (new or upcycled) to low-risk routes.

Maria and Rich expect that with better planning and more homogeneity, trains might be introduced more efficiently.

Conclusion

For your writer, key messages from the event included: introducing a train fleet isn’t just an engineering challenge, it’s a major business change programme for the operator and others in the industry. As Liam Hockings said, new trains don’t put themselves in service, people do, and the importance cannot be overemphasised of detailed planning and investing the time to build open and honest, collaborative relationships between operators, manufacturers, rolling stock owners and infrastructure managers so challenges can be shared and solved. Finally, there are still over 1,000 vehicles from the pre-2020 orders to place into service and this means that there is still plenty of opportunity to apply lessons learned here and from the RDG Guidance Note: New Trains – A Good Practice Guide.

Thanks to Mark Molyneux of RDG and Neil Ovenden of Rail Partners for the opportunity to attend and report this industry event. Photos and other illustrations provided by presenters unless otherwise stated.