Rail Engineer - Issue 204 | September - October 2023

SIEMENS MOBILITY

We understand that collaboration across the rail industry is crucial for reducing cost and driving transformation.

siemens.co.uk/mobility

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HS2 offered so much

With Phase 2 cancelled, the UK is left poorer for it. David Shirres examines what could have been.

HS2: A glimpse of a green future

With Phase 1 still under construction, HS2 is showcasing green benefits which could have been enjoyed by all.

Siemens Mobility Goole component repair facility

Malcolm Dobell joined the excursion to Goole and investigated the site’s £7 million component facility.

Wi-Fi 7: the new kid on the block

Things move fast in the world of telecoms and Wi-Fi 7 is now setting a new standard.

Signalling maintenance testing improvements

Network Rail is working with the IRSE and its contractors to ensure compliance with the Signal Maintenance Testing Handbook.

ETCS: More Deliberations

If ETCS is a solution to capacity constraints and a revolution in signalling safety, why isn’t it in wider use?

Migrating from GSM-R to FRMCS

With GSM-R becoming obsolete, its replacement by FRMCS needs to be considered. Paul Darlington examines the challenges.

FRMCS – radio network planning fundamentals

Yahya Khaled from ATDI APAC gives his insights on the challenges of radio network planning and modelling an evolving technology.

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Bees, sheep, and trains

Paul Darlington visited Siemens Mobility’s train manufacturing plant at Goole, which has sustainability and social value at its heart.

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Improving railway gauging

Onboard technology and AI may make insufficient gauging data a thing of the past. David Shirres reports.

Modular design simplifies construction of HS2’s Thame Valley Viaduct

The design of the Thame Valley viaduct enables most of its structural elements to be constructed off site.

Synthetic wood saves Nottingham forest

Sekisui’s Nigel Keightley talks us through the state-of-theart upgrade of a Nottinghamshire Network Rail bridge.

Dawlish Rockfall Shelter

Mark Phillips describes the complexities of building a rockfall shelter to protect one of Brunel’s early railways.

Improving passenger ride comfort

With humans coming in all shapes and sizes, ensuring they’re comfortable as they travel is a complex problem.

Edge Hill Engine Station: where it all began

Historic England has added Edge Hill Engine Station to its National Heritage List. Graeme Bickerdike tells us more.

Along the way: IMechE Railway Division Chair’s address 2023

Andrew Skinner’s traditional address covered railway engineering careers and his view of the future.

DAVID

SHIRRES

DAVID SHIRRES

RAIL

ENGINEER EDITOR

The 2012 High Speed Rail White Paper noted that many nations have high speed rail lines, transforming their economies, and that not building such lines means Britain loses out while our global competitors gain. Doing nothing leaves UK rail networks over-burdened and risks lost business, lower growth, and fewer jobs. HS2 was an essential part of raising regional productivity to create jobs, skills, and talent. For 15 years, this was cross party consensus under six Prime Ministers, with Rishi Sunak supporting HS2 during his Tory leadership campaign.

As we explain, HS2 is the result of years of planning. It was to serve eight of the UK’s 10 largest cities and release large amounts of capacity on the West Coast, Midland, and East Coast main lines. This huge increase in capacity offered significant improvements in local services and more freight trains. It would have given rail the capacity to accommodate the modal shift needed to significantly reduce the nation’s carbon transport emissions.

Yet polls show that HS2’s supporters are outnumbered two to one by its opponents who consider it wrong to spend billions just to save minutes off the journey time

Lost opportunities for future generations

from Birmingham to London. HS2 and the DfT bear the responsibility for this narrative as little was done to explain HS2’s huge benefits during the early project phase.

Hence, Sunak’s decision to cancel HS2 between Lichfield and Manchester was announced as an act of political showmanship at the Tory Party Conference. This masqueraded as a strong, long-term decision as “the facts around HS2 have changed”. Yet, as we show, the facts have not fundamentally changed. Replacing a strategy built up over 15 years with expert input by the hastily put together Network North plan that leaves many questions unanswered is not long-term decision making. It also reduces that nation’s standing with international investors.

Network North includes projects already promised, like the West Yorkshire Metro, and some already completed! It is said to be funded by the £36 billion saved from cancelling HS2 phase 2, yet most of this money was not to be spent until the 2030s.

This decision leaves a major gap in the UK’s rail strategy around which city regions have based their economic growth plans. It is also one that is extremely hard to reverse as land is being sold and route safeguarding removed. Capacity on the remaining

HS2 phase one line is permanently constrained by a small HS2 Euston station which will only be built if private finance is available. Getting the best from what remains requires a London terminus designed to maximise the line’s capacity rather than arbitrarily specifying six platforms. Clearly maximising benefits has not been considered.

It is also a decision that irrevocably denies future generations outside London the opportunities presented in Europe by a high-speed rail network. Though HS2 has been criticised as being expensive, innovative techniques are being used to reduce costs. Bob Wright explains how the modular design of HS2’s Thame Valley viaduct enables most of its structural elements to be constructed off-site. HS2 has also successfully pursued its environmental targets. As we report, it is the first UK transport sector client to achieve PAS 2080 accreditation for whole life carbon management.

Sustainability, environmental protection, biodiversity, social value, community support and engagement, rare sheep, and bees all feature in the new £200 million rail village that Siemens has constructed on its 67-acre site in Goole. Though the train manufacturing plant is not expected to commence work until March, we describe how components such as gearboxes and traction motors are already being overhauled there.

Overhauling diesel shunter gearboxes was one of Andrew Skinner’s first jobs as a railway engineering sandwich course student. His career, advice to young engineers, and challenges faced by the industry were the topics in his IMechE Railway Division Chair’s address. One of Andrew’s key messages is that the railway is a tightly integrated system. This was also the theme of a comprehensive feature by Malcolm Dobell on improving passenger ride comfort.

Wide angle aerial view over Manchester Piccadilly train station

Gauging to ensure that trains can fit through the infrastructure is also a system issue for which the lack of infrastructure gauging data is problematic. We report on how it is now possible to use in-service trains to regularly collect this data and how artificial intelligence is being used to input the resultant large amount of data into a new gauging database. In this way the lack of gauging data should soon be a thing of the past.

ETCS is also a system issue requiring compatibility between train and trackside equipment. Though it is intended to be interoperable, £140,000 per cab is now being spent to upgrade the ETCS-fitted Thameslink Class 700 trains for the East Coast Digital Programme. This raises potentially costly issues of backwards compatibility for the largescale ETCS rollout. Clive Kessell considers this, and other ETCS cost issues.

Crucial to ETCS operation is a reliable radio system. With GSM-R fast becoming obsolete, its replacement by FRMCS needs to be considered. Paul Darlington describes the issues associated with possible migration strategies. He also considers the benefits of WiFi 7 which is expected to be available next year.

The worrying increase in signalling wrong side failures following signalling maintenance works indicates that memories of the lessons from the 1988 Clapham collision are fading.

Hence, Network Rail is working with the IRSE and its contractors to ensure compliance with the Signal Maintenance Testing Handbook (SMTH). This includes programmes to reinforce the attitudes and understanding as well as improved training materials and assessments.

The contrast between HS2 and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830 is evident from Graeme Bickerdike’s informative feature on its original route from Liverpool Crown Street to Edge Hill. Another early railway was Brunel’s line through Dawlish which is particularly vulnerable from both sea and cliffs. Mark Phillips describes the complexities of building a rockfall shelter as rock bolted netting does not provide sufficient protection.

These early railways were the first of over 35,000km of railways built in the 19th century which transformed the nation’s economy. British engineers also built many railways outside the UK. In respect of the high-speed rail revolution, this situation is reversed. Japan built its first high-speed line in 1964, followed by France in 1981. Worldwide there are now 58,000km of high-speed lines, yet Britain’s high speed network is now to be permanently limited to 320km. What would our forebears have thought?

Editor

David Shirres

editor@railengineer.co.uk

Production Editor

Matt Atkins matt@rail-media.com

Production and design

Lauren Palin lauren@rail-media.com

Adam O’Connor adam@rail-media.com

Engineering writers

bob.hazell@railengineer.co.uk

bob.wright@railengineer.co.uk

clive.kessell@railengineer.co.uk

david.fenner@railengineer.co.uk

graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.co.uk malcolm.dobell@railengineer.co.uk

mark.phillips@railengineer.co.uk paul.darlington@railengineer.co.uk peter.stanton@railengineer.co.uk

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BOB WRIGHT

The world’s first railway station identified

Following research by the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, which safeguards and promotes the heritage of the route, Heighington and Aycliffe Railway Station has been proven to have been in use since 1827 - 196 years ago. Until recently, Liverpool Road station in Manchester, dating from 1830, had been considered the earliest station. As a result, Historic England has increased its listing from Grade II to Grade II*, recognising it as a “particularly important building of more than special interest”. Just 5.8% of listed buildings are Grade II*.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) opened on 27 September 1825, with statutory powers to operate a public railway for the carriage of both passengers and a full range of goods. However, it was the transport of coal that was its main source of revenue. A regular passenger service was instigated between Darlington and Shildon, using a horse-drawn coach. At this time, the railway was open to any carrier to use its tracks, similar to today’s open access but without the same level of overarching coordination.

In 1826, the S&DR began to build inns to oversee the railway’s depots at Stockton, Darlington, and along the route, including a small depot where the railway crossed the lane between Heighington and the Great North Road at Aycliffe. It had been at this crossing that ‘Locomotion’, the company’s first locomotive, was placed onto the track when it was delivered by road from Robert Stephenson & Co. works in Newcastle on 16 September.

The combination of inn and management of depots is a curious one, especially as the railway’s funders were mostly Quakers who promoted temperance. At this very early date in the history of railways, the concept of a station had yet to be developed, but coaches used inns as calling points on their services and the railway inns probably reflected that tradition.

The buildings were designed by John Carter, a mason from Heighington who had superintended the construction of bridges along the line. Each was of squared, coursed sandstone, quoined at the corners, with projecting stone sills and multipaned vertical sashed windows.

In 1827, the S&DR advertised the leases for the buildings overseeing both Aycliffe Lane and Darlington depots, noting that they were seeking licences for them as inns. The magistrates refused and so the depot at Aycliffe Lane was let without an alcohol licence. An editorial in the Durham Chronicle criticised the decision and, in passing, mentioned that the depot was being used to shelter passengers awaiting coaches and as a collection point for goods and parcels being transported by rail. From this source it is clear this depot was providing some of the core functions that we would today recognise at a railway station, the first of around 7,000 in the UK.

Its use as a station appears to have been ad hoc and informal in its early days, especially as until 1833 passenger services were provided by a number of independent coach operators using horse-haulage, paying a toll charge to the railway. After this date the S&DR took over the running of these services, using its own steam locomotives. Aycliffe Lane probably then took on the booking office function. Previously, payment would have been made on the train.

Alongside the depot, water was drawn from a pond for use by locomotives. On 1 July 1828, ‘Locomotion’ exploded whilst taking on water at Aycliffe Lane, killing the driver John Cree and injuring Edward Turnbull.

long overlooked but truly

By 1856, the station was renamed Heighington and Aycliffe Station and, in 1873, Heighington Station. This ancient railway building remained in use as a station with attached housing until it fell into disuse in the 1970s, the station becoming an unstaffed halt. In 1984, it was renovated and converted into a public house called ‘Locomotion 1’, reflecting that locomotive’s double links with the station. Today, just a quarter of a mile away, Hitachi’s Newton Aycliffe plant is constructing today’s rolling stock. Since 2017, the building has been disused and empty. The Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway and Historic England hope that the raising of its historic significance will prompt an appropriate and long-term use for this long overlooked but truly pioneering station building.

The cobbled surface between the building and the line shown in historic photographs has been suggested as being the world’s earliest railway passenger platform

196 years separate the building of this modest structure and the vast station that will become HS2’s Old Oak Common

Curtailing HS2

Cancelling HS2 phase 2 was a decision of huge magnitude. The full HS2 Y network from London to Manchester and Leeds was designed as a fully integrated system intended to maximise its capacity. Cutting this back to the line now being built has significant adverse consequences, some of which may not be clear for some time.

Since this announcement, various sources have reported that neither Network Rail nor HS2 were consulted. Indeed, it is reported that a £300 million contract for HS2 phase 2 work was signed just days before it was announced that phase 2 was to be scrapped.

The money saved by cancelling HS2 phase 2 is now to be spent on a diverse collection of schemes entitled Network North, yet most of the spend on phase 2 was due to take place in the 2030s. These schemes include some that have already been promised, such as the West Yorkshire Metro and tram lines in Manchester and Nottingham that have already been built. Network North promises a new station for Bradford with a new line to Huddersfield that had not been previously mentioned. Without any development, this proposal is a line on a map and a £2 billion guessed estimate. It is clear that, in contrast to HS2 which has been the subject of years of development with expert input, the Network North document has been hastily produced with, to quote one report, “the whiff of the hotel photocopier about it”.

It is true that HS2 is a costly project. As described in our feature ‘HS2 offered so much’, its initial estimates were over optimistic and significant costs were added to satisfy objectors.

Since then, HS2’s phase 1’s funding envelope was set at £44.6 billion including £4.3 billion contingency (2019 prices).

The HS2 six-monthly report to Parliament in June 2023 reported that total estimated costs for phase 1 were between £35 billion and £45 billion which is around its budget price despite construction inflation of 24% since 2019.

The Network North document states that PwC’s High Speed Rail International Benchmarking Study of November 2016 found that the cost per mile of HS2 phase 1 is five times that of equivalent schemes in Europe. Yet this study relates to HS2 phase 2. On page 22 it shows phase 2 to be 49% more expensive than a comparable high-speed project. Hence, while HS2 is an expensive project, it is not true that its costs were spiralling out of control.

GETTING BEST VALUE

In the statement cancelling HS2 there was no mention of its benefits or how to maximise the benefits from what remains of the project.

HS2 was intended to provide a step-change in capacity to reduce the productivity gap between London and northern cities. This would also have

DAVID SHIRRES

HS2 Euston platforms

enabled the rail network to accommodate extra traffic, in particular freight, needed to reduce the nation’s transport carbon emissions. Yet even with both its Leeds and Manchester legs cancelled, HS2 can deliver significant benefits. It can do so by taking at least 12 trains per hour off the West Coast Main Line south of Lichfield and offering Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Edinburgh a frequent inter-city service that’s up to 15-minutes faster.

The Network North statement states that: “phase 1 will now need to be reviewed to make sure only what is required for the reduced HS2 scheme is being delivered.” This statement wrongly implies that a reduced HS2 scheme means a reduced HS2 phase 1 train service. Instead, the emphasis should be how best to maximise the use of the expensive HS2 phase 1 line. If its benefits are assumed to be at least equivalent to its cost, the value of an individual train path is in the order of £2 billion.

However, no train service has been specified and, instead of maximising phase 1’s capacity, HS2 is being instructed to review designs to reduce scope while the project is under construction. As anyone involved in project management knows, redesigning a project as it is built is most likely to add costs.

The capacity of the HS2 phase 1 line is determined by its terminus. Originally it was considered that 11 platforms were needed for the full HS2 Y network of 18 trains per hour. It has now been announced that Euston will have six platforms. This decision to minimise the cost of construction does not consider the required train service. As a result, it is likely that the highly expensive HS2 phase 1 line will have to run well below capacity with billions of pounds of benefit wasted.

While Prime Minister Sunak’s announcement commits to terminating HS2 at Euston, reports since then indicate that this will not happen unless £6.5 billion of private finance can be raised. If the line were to terminate at Old Oak Common, its capacity would be constrained, and half of its potential passengers would find that its 15-minute journey time saving was less than the extra time it took them to get to their destination. Without a central London terminus, it is doubtful whether HS2 would cover its costs.

HS2’S TRAINS

In December 2021, a Hitachi-Alstom joint venture signed a £1.97 billion contract for the construction of 54 high-speed trains to run on HS2 and conventional lines. These trains will have a top speed of 360km/h on the high-speed line and are 200 metres long. Two of these trains are to be coupled together for operation to HS2 stations which are built to accommodate these 400-metre trains.

Vehicle bodies are to be assembled at Hitachi’s Newton Aycliffe plant, bogies manufactured at Alstom’s Crewe plant, with final assembly at Alstom’s factory in Derby. The first train is expected to be completed in 2027.

A month earlier, the Government published its Integrated Rail Plan which cut back the eastern leg of HS2 from Leeds to East Midlands Parkway. At the time, a study of route options to take HS2 trains to Leeds was promised. However, immediately after the HS2 line to East Midlands Parkway was cancelled at the same time as HS2 phase 2, it was announced that this study is no longer relevant. With the cancellation of the HS2 lines to both Leeds and Manchester it is clear that not all the contract’s 54 high-speed trains will be required for possible likely services. It is understood that this contract is now to be reviewed. This may result in a reduction in the number of trains to be produced, with Alstom/Hitachi paid a cancellation penalty or the use of surplus trains on conventional routes only.

Hitachi’s Italian ETR1000 Frecciarossa. Much of this high-speed rail technology will be used in the Hitachi/Alstom UK high speed trains

The design of these trains to run on both the high-speed and conventional lines involves some compromises which have now become sub-optimal with the cancellation of large parts of the planned HS2 network. For example:

» 200 metre trains are too short. The only dedicated HS2 stations will now be in London and Birmingham. Nowhere else can accommodate 2 x 200-metre trains and the 200-metre trains are shorter than the 260-metre Pendolino trains that operate on the WCML.

» European gauge trains will now not run on HS2. It was originally envisaged that half the trains operating on the full Y network would be dedicated HS2 trains built to European loading gauge. As this will not now happen, platform heights and offsets need to be reconsidered. The trains have a high floor and offered level boarding at HS2’s 1150mm platform height. With only four HS2 stations this becomes more problematic.

» Trains do not tilt. They will be slower than the current Pendolino trains. This was not considered to be an issue when HS2 trains would have eventually saved 50 minutes on the journey between London and Preston.

In view of the above, a design review of the existing train design is needed to ensure that they are appropriate. Rail Engineer will return to this issue.

BEST HOPE

Cancelling HS2 was a huge decision. While there was certainly a need to review its cost against its benefits, it is clear that the announcement of the cancellation of phase 2 at the Conservative Party conference was a rushed decision. It involved no expert input taking account of the project’s benefits and will incur significant abortive costs. It is astounding that a major project, developed with expert advice over many years, can be cancelled in this way.

With the decision to sell land reserved for phase 2, it has also been done in a way that will ensure the UK can never have a high-speed rail network and thus denies the railway its full potential to support economic growth and decarbonise transport through modal shift.

The best that can be hoped for is that the UK’s only remaining domestic high-speed line is able to carry as much traffic as it can.

This requires Government to deliver on its commitment to deliver Euston, not to otherwise unduly constrain HS2 phase 1, and for a six-platform Euston station to be designed and operated to maximise train throughput.

HS2 offered so much “

“Whatever your view of this project, HS2 is now a reality – heading north, creating jobs, and building a brighter future for our country. This vital project is at the heart of the Government’s commitments to build back better from the pandemic, tackle the north-south divide, and drive growth across the country. I look forward to seeing spades in the ground to get this section built and deliver the benefits of high-speed rail to the North as swiftly as possible.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, 2021

“Since its inception, Government has regularly restated the need for HS2. In 2013, the Department set out a comprehensive body of evidence illustrating the need for HS2; and this was restated again in 2015 and 2017. At each point, an increasing weight of evidence has demonstrated the pressing importance for a step change in capacity to alleviate crowding problems on the existing railway, and the scheme’s potential to redistribute opportunity and prosperity more evenly across the country.”

HS2 Business Case 2020

“Looking around the world, the evidence is clear. Nation after nation is planning, constructing, or already using high rail speed lines. High speed rail is transforming their societies and their economies. Self-imposed exile from this new frontier means that Britain loses out, while our global competitors gain. We can take the short-term option – leaving our rail networks over-stretched and over-burdened and risk paying the price in lost business, lower growth, and fewer jobs. Or we can take the longterm option – investing in our economic prosperity by pursuing high speed rail.”

Transport Secretary Justine Greening 2012

These quotes are from the full business case for HS2 phase one, published in April 2020. This document makes it clear that HS2 offers economic benefits far greater than its cost. Moreover, it does not fully quantify all the benefits set out in the strategic case such as the transformative benefits from changes in business location decisions.

It also shows that, of the 30 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UK ranks 24th out of 30 for regional economic disparities. Furthermore, it notes that the UK has a long running nominal productivity gap with the six other G7 countries and that this is largely due to the gap between London and other UK regions.

HS2 Curzon Street station

DAVID SHIRRES

UK labour productivity by region, 2017

The business case notes that: “London’s success as a global city has been driven in part by the effectiveness of its transport system which allows the easy flow of skills, services, and products into and around the city.” It notes that government is keen to replicate the success of London’s transport network in the regions by improving connectivity between the cities of the Midlands and the North.

The above explains why, for over a decade, Government has consistently supported HS2. Yet since 2021, HS2 has been cut back and is now at risk of just being a line from Old Oak Common to Birmingham.

WHY HS2?

In 2008, Network Rail started a 12-month study on the long-term need for more railway capacity. This analysed a dozen options and concluded that a new high-speed line to relieve the West Coast Main Line (WCML) is needed. HS2 was established in 2009 to develop proposals for high-speed rail services. A year later, it had developed proposals for a Y-shaped network which would serve eight of the UK’s 10 largest cities. This network incorporated links to the West Coast and East Coast main lines for highspeed trains to additional destinations. It also served the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. In this way it would serve Britain’s largest cities and free up significant capacity for additional conventional passenger trains and freight on the West Coast, Midland, and East Coast main lines.

The first phase of HS2 is a line from London to join the West Coast main line north of Lichfield with a spur to Birmingham. This is essentially a by-pass for the busiest section of the West Coast main line. The initial train service plan had only a third of HS2 trains from Euston serving Birmingham. The remainder were to continue on the WCML to Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.

Until recently, all documents concerning HS2 published by Government and Network Rail emphasised that HS2 is the most effective way to provide much-needed additional rail capacity. There was also recognition that the UK lags behind the many countries in Europe and beyond which have recognised the massive benefits high-speed rail delivers in economic and environmental terms.

The rationale for a dedicated high-speed line is that it would be cheaper to build and considerably less disruptive than providing an existing rail route with additional lines. A recent Network Rail study found that upgrading the East Coast main line to provide to provide the same capacity of the HS2 Leeds leg would require continuous weekend closures for many years.

The 2012 HS2 White Paper concluded that additional benefits from a high-speed line outweigh the incremental costs of constructing high-speed rather than conventional lines by a factor of more than four to one.

HS2 also offers huge environmental benefits as it creates the rail capacity needed for modal shift of passengers and freight from more carbon intensive transport modes. As HS2 is an efficient highcapacity electric railway, it offers particularly low emissions per passenger kilometre. The 2020 business case states that HS2 will offer lower carbon journeys at 8g CO2e per passenger kilometre compared with inter-city rail (22g), inter-urban car (67g), and domestic aviation (170g).

ROUTE AND SPECIFICATION

HS2’s phase one route is the most direct route between London and the West Midlands. It also passes fewer population centres than the longer and more expensive routes such as those along the M1 and M40 corridors. It does however involve a significant amount of tunnelling to get out of London and pass under towns in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Following consultation, the length of the line in tunnel, including green tunnels, was increased by 50% to around 36km. In addition, 90km of the route will be partially or totally hidden in cuttings. Hence over half of the 225km will be in tunnels or cuttings.

HS2’s design is based on proven technology. Its reference train was the 360km/h (225mph) Alstom AGV which entered service in 2012. This was used to establish the performance characteristics of the HS2 service. Compared with 360km/h, a 300km/h maximum speed would have extended London to Birmingham journeys by 4.5 minutes with longer delays to stations north of Birmingham.

Taking this, and other factors into account, it was decided that HS2 should initially operate at 360km/hr and be designed for 400km/hr to avoid permanently forgoing opportunities for future journey time reductions. Recently constructed highspeed lines from Strasbourg to Paris and from Milan to Bologna in Italy, also have alignments designed for 400km/hr. The route therefore had to be designed with a minimum radius curve of 7,200 metres. The minimum radius curves required for 300 and 360km/h are respectively 4,000 and 5,800 metres.

To maximise its benefit, HS2 phase one has been designed to ultimately support a train service to Birmingham and cities on its Western and Eastern legs. This requires a capacity of 18 trains per hour. This is to be achieved by the use of ETCS signalling and Automatic Trains Operation. Infrastructure configuration, in particular the London Euston terminus, has been designed for this capacity which has been confirmed by operational reviews of converging and diverging junctions.

As it only carries high-speed trains, HS2 is, in effect, a high-speed metro and does not suffer from the capacity-destroying problems of a mixed train railway on which trains travel at different speeds. In part, this is why the original HS2 plan offers a large increase in passenger capacity. Due to this, and the capacity it releases on the WCML, HS2 could increase the peak-time seats per hour out of Euston from 12,100 to 31,200.

HS2’s trains are to be 200 metres long which can run coupled together to provide a train with 1,100 seats. The trains currently on order are classic compatible trains that can run on the conventional network. It was originally planned that, when the full Y network was built, half the HS2 trains would run only on the HS2 network which is being built to European GC loading gauge. Hence it was envisaged that a further order would be for trains built to GC gauge which offers the possibility of double-deck high-speed trains as run on the continent. However, dedicated HS2 trains are unlikely to be built for a cut-back HS2 network, so the cost of constructing phase one to GC gauge will be wasted.

European high-speed rail network 2022

WHERE DID IT GO WRONG?

In 2021, the Government published its Integrated Rail Plan which cancelled HS2’s Eastern leg to Leeds, leaving a spur to East Midlands Parkway. The Golborne link, which took HS2 to just South of Wigan on the WCML was cancelled in June 2022. On 4 October, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the cancellation of HS2’s Western Leg to Manchester and Eastern Leg to East Midlands Parkway. He also confirmed that HS2’s connection to Euston will go ahead, with the number of platforms at the station being slashed to just six. In addition, management of the Euston site has been taken out of the hands of HS2 Ltd, and private investment must be found to fund that leg of the project.

In all the discussion about HS2, the focus is on excessive costs with hardly any mention of its benefits. It is perhaps not surprising that Government Minister’s statements on this issue contradict or ignore previous Government pronouncements, made over many years, that HS2 is essential for rebalancing the economy and increasing productivity. The mainstream media also hardly mentions the transformation benefits that HS2 offers and focuses on costs that are said to be ‘eye-watering’ and spiralling ‘out of control’.

HS2 has some responsibility for this perception. Although it now actively promotes the benefits of high-speed rail, for years little was done to sell these benefits. As a result, the narrative that HS2 is a vanity project which is spending billions to save a few minutes off the rail journey between London and Birmingham took hold. For this reason, polls indicate that those who oppose HS2 outnumber its supporters by two to one.

An 8-car TGV Duplex has 510 seats

HS2 phase one work east of the Chilton tunnel portal

Tunnel Boring Machine ‘Florence’ about to start its 10-mile bore under the Chilterns

COSTS

HS2’s cost estimates have progressively risen since its first phase one budget of £16.3 billion in 2013 (at 2011 prices), as shown in Table 1. The current budget for phase 1, including Euston, is £40.3 billion plus a £4.4 billion contingency. A 2020 National Audit Office report concluded that the DfT and HS2 underestimated the complexity of the programme and that HS2 did not account for risk and uncertainty in its early estimates.

One reason for the higher cost of the 2019 estimate was the unforeseen extent of changes required by MPs as Parliament considered the HS2 Bill. This required a 50% increase in the amount of tunnelling and additional cuttings to lower the railway. Consider that such environmental mitigation made HS2 £1 billion more expensive than comparable European high-speed lines.

Detailed costs for the truncated Y network are currently not clear as phase 2 is at a very early stage. In 2019, the DfT estimated that the costs of the full current HS2 project would be between £65 billion and £88 billion at 2015 prices.

£ billions

201316.3 Basic estimate prepared for business case.

201527.0

201737.0

201944.4

For hybrid bill on basis of route drawings. No ground investigation.

After hybrid bill route finalised route, limited ground and site surveys, estimate comprised 15,000 lines of data.

Prior to start of construction after 80% design complete with input from contracts, estimate comprised 260,000 lines of data.

These costs are now significantly higher as construction inflation has increased the costs of new work by 24% since 2019.

In March, Government decided to rephase HS2 construction by halting work at Euston station to develop an affordable design and rephasing construction of phase 2a between Lichfield and Crewe by

two years. While this decision will reduce the annual cost of HS2, it will inevitably increase its total cost.

After various studies had shown that UK projects are typically 10-30% more expensive than those in Europe, in 2014 the Government commissioned a high-speed rail international benchmarking study.

This looked at 32 comparator European high speed rail schemes and was overseen by an expert panel chaired by Sir John Armitt. It included a detailed comparison which found that HS2 phase 2 was 49% more expensive than a European high-speed line with very similar characteristics. It found that the factors that accounted for this additional cost were:

» Strategic objectives requiring greater capacity and more intermediate stations (7%).

» Limited capacity of UK rail infrastructure requires dedicated high-speed lines into city centres (15%).

» Fragmented UK construction industry and continuity of work (12%).

» Onerous design requirements (5%).

» Scope development compounded by limited experience of delivering high-speed rail in UK (10%).

It was recently reported that sources close to the Prime Minister advised that HS2 costs were “spiralling out of control” and that HS2 bosses were “like kids with a golden credit card”. While this is good fodder for the tabloid newspapers, the above shows that the reality is more subtle. It is certainly true that there is scope for savings. However, construction inflation is at its highest level for decades, though as costs go up, so do the benefits. Moreover, the loss of momentum due to Government indecision and delaying progress also has an enormous impact on costs.

Although Government finances are under severe pressure, a distinction needs to be made between general spending and investment. For over a decade, it has been Government policy that HS2 is essential if the economy is to be rebalanced and regional productivity improved. Government borrowing to fund investment in HS2 should therefore be regarded a profitable investment.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Sadly, now that HS2 phase 2 to Manchester has been cancelled, the vision of this article cannot now be realised.

The full HS2 Y network was a major project that has been 15 years in the planning. During this time, cities and Network Rail have spent much time and money preparing for HS2 phase two. Now, the Government’s command paper “Network North – Transforming British Transport” claims the £36 billion to be spent on HS2 phase 2 is better spent on a package of transport projects. The hastily prepared nature of this plan is evident by its proposal to extend Manchester’s tram network to the city’s airport despite this line opening in 2014.

This paper seeks to prioritise worthwhile intra-city transport investment, such as a West Yorkshire mass transit system, over HS2. Yet both should be regarded as profitable investments to be funded by borrowing. Moreover, there is no timescale for the delivery of Network North. If this is to be funded by HS2 phase 2 savings, this implies that the projects will have a similar spend profile with most expenditure to be incurred in the 2030s. Yet the command paper claims that “we’re releasing a tidal wave of new investment into hundreds of projects.”

It justifies cancelling HS2 phase 2 as the facts have changed. The pandemic is said to have significantly changed travel patterns. Yet anyone travelling on long distance services knows trains are full. LNER passenger numbers, for example, have now exceeded pre-2020 levels. It also claims HS2 phase 1 is five times the cost of equivalent schemes in Europe. Yet the previously mentioned high-speed rail cost comparison study actually stated that HS2 costs 49% the cost of a comparable European high-speed rail project.

HS2 phase 2’s cancellation is irrevocable. The land purchased for it is to be sold, the route will no longer be safeguarded, and a downsized terminus at Euston

will permanently constrain the number of trains.

Though the command paper’s commitment that HS2 phase one will terminate at Euston is some small comfort, the way this has been specified is further evidence of the shallow thinking.

A huge sum of money is being spent on HS2 phase 1 which will enable high-speed trains to by-pass the first 186km of the WCML from London or go to Birmingham. This line is designed for 18 trains per hour (tph) for which it was considered that Euston needed 11 platforms. After cancelling HS2 phase 2, the key issue for the remaining HS2 network is its service pattern.

As shown by the diagram, delivery of the originally proposed services to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, and Glasgow / Edinburgh requires 11 tph.

The command paper does not address this point and just specifies that Euston will have six platforms, which is certainly insufficient for anything like 11 tph.

The priority is thus to build HS2 Euston as cheaply as possible. This decision is economic vandalism as it saves, perhaps, 10% of the cost of HS2 phase one whilst, say, halving its benefits.

The issue of only considering costs, and not benefits, was highlighted by former Minister of Transport Patrick McLoughlin who, in a particularly apt quote, stated:

“Of course, there will always be pressure to look at costs, and to make sure we’re getting the best value for money – it would be insane not to do so. But it would also be insane not to say, ‘what is our transport system going to look like in 30, 40, 50 years’ time?’ and to make sure our great cities have those same opportunities that London has, and make sure that young people look to those cities to base their lives on, and not to move away from them.”

The now-paused HS2 construction site at Euston

HS2: A glimpse of a green future

Downing Street’s decision to scale back the scope of the HS2 has disturbed the industry and its suppliers, but the project had its fair share of detractors from the off, including those who’d welcome its scrapping on ecological grounds. It is true that HS2, like all infrastructure projects, comes with an unavoidable environmental cost as it is built, but to cheer the abandonment of a game-changer for green transport is as myopic as the current thinking at the top level of UK politics.

A key facet of HS2’s mission has been to minimise disruption to the natural environment, reduce carbon emissions in both the short and long term, and invest in any required natural recovery along its route. The past months have brought a number of developments which have boosted HS2’s environmental credentials, if that’s any consolation for recent developments.

HIGH SPEED TRAINS WIN ACCREDITATION

Such has been HS2’s success in pursuing its environmental targets, in 2020 it was awarded PAS 2080 global accreditation, recognising its plans to reduce carbon through the design, construction and operation of the project. It was the first client organisation in the UK transport sector, and the second in the world, to achieve the standard.

PAS 2080 is a global specification for managing whole-life carbon in infrastructure. Developed by the Construction Leadership Council’s Green Construction Board with the British Standards Institute (BSI), it provides a consistent framework for evaluating and managing carbon across the whole infrastructure value chain. The standard

recognises organisations that have strategies in place to reduce carbon and develop more collaborative ways of working to promote innovation, delivering benefit to society and communities, and making an important contribution to tackling climate change.

Three years later, in September this year, the trains due to start running on the HS2 rail network were awarded PAS 2080 accreditation.

Designed and made in the UK by a Hitachi and Alstom joint venture, HS2 has stressed that the trains will be less carbon intensive throughout their lifecycle than any other high-speed train in design, production or operation today. This accreditation, authored to meet World Trade Organisation standards, backs up this claim.

The newly-designed trains are based on the successful Frecciarossa very high speed train now operating in Italy and Spain, has become the first train in the world to achieve the British Standards Institute’s PAS 2080 global accreditation.

Great effort is going into reducing the train’s energy consumption, including improvements in its aerodynamics. It is, according to HS2, the first high speed train in the world to have a smooth, dynamically efficient underside, cutting its drag coefficient.

Work during the train’s detailed design will optimise the weight of its carbody, wheelsets, and cabling; and see more of the train built with recycled and recyclable material. Finally, the train’s traction system and electric motors will be highly energy efficient – reducing energy demand for a train that will reach speeds of up to 225mph and is designed to run for 18,500 miles between servicing.

Jim Brewin, chief director of Hitachi Rail UK & Ireland, said: “HS2 challenged us to meet this certification as part of our competitive pitch, and we’re proud to be achieving it. HS2 trains have gone through a design process of unparalleled rigour – becoming more aerodynamic, more energy-efficient, lighter, leaner, and greener.”

The circa £2 billion contract to design, build, and maintain 54 very high speed trains was given to Hitachi Rail and Alstom in December 2021, and they are due to start rolling off the production line around 2027. Further information on the accreditation can be found here:

WORK BEGINS ON LONGEST ‘GREEN TUNNEL’

In May this year, Rail Engineer reported on the construction of HS2’s ‘green tunnels’, which are designed to blend the high-speed railway into the rural landscape and reduce disruption for neighbouring communities. Bob Wright provides an in-depth report on the design and construction of the tunnels, along with their environmental benefits. His article can be viewed here:

In September, work began on the 2.7km tunnel around Greatworth in West Northamptonshire.

Like its counterparts being built by EKFB (a team made up of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and BAM Nuttall) in Wendover, Buckinghamshire and Chipping Warden, Northamptonshire, the 2.7km tunnel is being built using the ‘cut and cover’ process, which involves excavating a cutting, building the tunnel and then burying it, with trees, shrubs and hedgerows planted on top to blend in with the surrounding countryside.

The tunnel structure is also being made from more than five thousand giant concrete segments, made at a specialist pre-cast factory in Derbyshire, and assembled on site by EKFB.

Applying lessons from the construction of the latest French high-speed lines, EKFB opted for this modular approach - instead of a traditional process of pouring the concrete on site - to boost efficiency and cut the amount of embedded carbon in the structure.

Greatworth is one of five ‘green tunnels’ that are being built on phase one of the HS2 project - three of these are being built by EKFB and two more, to different designs, at Copthall in Hillingdon by Skanska Costain STRABAG (SCS JV), and at Burton Green in the West Midlands by Balfour Beatty and Vinci (BBV).

HS2 Ltd’s Project Client Neil Winterburn, said:

“Greatworth is one of five green tunnels between London and Birmingham designed to protect the natural environment and reduce disruption for local communities - and it’s great to see the first arches in position.

“Our trains will be powered by zero carbon electricity but it’s also important to reduce the amount of carbon embedded in construction.

The off-site manufacturing techniques being used will help cutting the overall amount of carbonintensive concrete and steel in the tunnel and help spread the supply chain benefits of the project across the UK.”

Designed as an m-shaped double arch, the tunnel will have separate halves for southbound and northbound trains. Five different concrete precast segments will be slotted together to achieve the double arch which is the height of two double-decker buses - one central pier, two side walls and two roof slabs.

The tunnel segments are being made by Stanton Precast in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, as part of a contract which is hoped will create up to 100 local jobs. All 5,410 segments will be steel reinforced, with the largest weighing up to 43 tonnes.

By reducing the amount concrete and steel needed for the tunnel, this lighter-weight modular approach is expected to more than halve the amount of carbon embedded in the structure. It also requires fewer people and less equipment on site, improving safety and reducing disruption for residents.

EKFB’s programme director Emmanuel Rossignol, said: “To see the construction start on HS2’s second cut and cover tunnel in Northamptonshire is a proud milestone for the team. The design and construction approach of this tunnel is unique to the UK, and there are many benefits associated with this methodology, including a reduction in our carbon footprint, but it’s not been without its challenges along the way. Our expert teams are to thank for their dedication as we continue to advance the construction programme across the Chipping Warden and Greatworth green tunnels.”

The tunnel will be built in sections, with construction of the main structure expected to take around two years. Local roads such as the B4525, Sulgrave Road, Helmsdon Road and access for Greatworth Park will be realigned to cross the tunnel, as well as local footpaths.

Tailored landscaping design plans are also being developed, with thousands of native trees and shrubs typical to the local area - such as Silver Birch, Oak, Beech and Willow - planted to create new woodland areas around the portals and recreate the hedgerows and field boundaries on top of the tunnel.

Lessons learned during the construction of EKFB’s green tunnel at Chipping Warden are being applied to the delivery of Greatworth. These include changes to quality control and the delivery and installation of the segments.

Follow the QR Code for a timelapse video of the tunnel’s construction:

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VIADUCT PLANNING GETS GO AHEAD

Moving from travelling below the ground to travelling over it, HS2 was pleased to learn in early September that Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council had approved its plans for the Balsall Common Viaduct. The plans incorporate local feedback focusing on environmental sustainability, landscape integration, visual connectivity, and public access.

The project is being led by HS2’s main works contractor, Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV), supported by a Design Joint Venture of Mott MacDonald and SYSTRA together with architects Weston Williamson + Partners. They have engaged with people in the local area over the last couple of years to gather feedback on the 425-metre viaduct.

Understanding the landscape context was a key focus of the design, and plans include wet woodland planting using native species to the local area, woodland edge planting to provide screening, and hedgerow planting to improve wildlife connections.

“We’re very pleased to receive planning approval from Solihull Council for the design of the Balsall Common Viaduct,” said HS2 Ltd’s senior project manager for Balsall Common, Alan Payne. “We’ve engaged with the community and local councillors over the last couple of years to incorporate their feedback as much as possible.

“We’re confident that our plans respect and enhance the local history and natural environment of the area and will provide new green areas for people and wildlife to enjoy.”

HS2’s Independent Design Panel had described the viaduct as “a significant and elegant structure which responds sensitively to its context and delivers a high-quality landscape” in its final preSchedule 17 report.

The Design Joint Venture’s Landscape Director Shaun Ruffles said: “The whole design team, encompassing architects, town planners, engineers and environmentalists are delighted with this outcome, which is the result of five years of careful planning and hard work. We now look forward to working with the local community and developers on the Balsall Common Masterplan which aims to integrate a number of local developments into a wider masterplan for Balsall Common.”

A realignment of Bayleys Brook will increase habitat for fish, aquatic invertebrates and potentially water vole. The approved design sees a reduction in the size of the railway embankment running parallel to Bayleys Brook by 75 metres, improving the resiliency of the area to flooding, and enhancing views through the viaduct to the wider landscape.

To improve connections, the Kenilworth Greenway will be extended to Station Road on the south-eastern side of

the existing railway line and a further extension towards Lavender Hall is currently under consideration. Options for cycling and bridleway extensions are also being considered.

BBV will construct a total of 16 piers to carry the viaduct 10 metres above ground, crossing over Station Road, Bayleys Brook, Heart of England Way Walk, and the local floodplain. Construction refinements have reduced the size of each pier by as much as 17% for single piers and 28% for double piers, giving the structure a lighter appearance. Responding to feedback about the look of the viaduct, a section at Station Road will be finished with a bespoke pattern, referencing the local history of the area. The approval comes with conditions that there will be further engagement and more work will be undertaken on the colour and finishes of the concrete and the type of tree planting around the viaduct. CGI images of the viaduct can be found here:

OVERBRIDGE APPROVED

Sticking with the theme of planning approvals, at the beginning of September, HS2 received Schedule 17 planning approval for the eco-friendly Aston Church Road Overbridge, north-east of Birmingham city centre. New designs ensure that the structure, which will span the line connecting Saltley, Washwood Heath and Nechells, blends sympathetically with the local environment.

Initial designs for the bridge were shared with the public in 2021, with local feedback inspiring changes to provide a wider walkway, creating enough space for cyclists, and an improved lighting strategy. As well as increasing lighting levels for pedestrians and cyclists, the new LED lighting design will also protect wildlife, particularly bats that may forage underneath the bridge, by decreasing overall light pollution.

Public feedback also resulted in the stainless steel finish being replaced with weathered steel panels incorporating a perforated pattern to maximise light and views, making the bridge feel warmer and improving the pedestrian experience.

HS2’s designers, consisting of a Design Joint Venture of Mott MacDonald and Systra working for BBV, have also introduced green spaces by creating new woodland planting in the area around the bridge. This includes silver birch, hazel and hawthorn, and wildflowers and grasses which will provide new wildlife havens and connectivity in the city’s industrial heartland.

Nick McGough, director at Weston Williamson + Partners, and lead architect for the Balfour Beatty VINCI Design Joint Venture, which is constructing the line in the West Midlands, said:

“Our designs balance challenging technical constraints in developing a robust but elegant bridge, whilst seeking every opportunity to both enhance the user experience and increase biodiversity through our adjoining landscape proposals.

“The integrated bridge lighting is particularly innovative and reduces urban light pollution in a way which is sympathetic to local wildlife whilst providing enhanced light levels that will help make the bridge attractive to both pedestrians and cyclists.”

Aston Church Road Overbridge is located two miles north-east of Birmingham city centre. The original bridge will be demolished to create extra space for the HS2 line to pass through, and once built, the new bridge will connect to the existing road network.

Preparatory works, ready for the new bridge, began last year. Main civil works will now commence, and the bridge and associated highway works are due to be finished in summer 2025. HS2 has released CGI images of the bridge:

A WASTED OPPORTUNITY

The developments outlined in this article are a testament to the value that HS2 has placed on delivering a low-carbon, cutting-edge railway while minimising the impact of its build phase on local ecosystems and the environment as a whole. This could not come at a more pertinent time.

We live at a point in human history where environmental change is bringing unprecedented challenges and the actions we take today will have a profound impact, not only on our lives but on those of future generations to come. The way we travel and the way we build our transport networks are critical to our response to the climate emergency.

A key aspect of HS2’s mission is to provide zero carbon rail travel for a greener future. The huge amount of additional rail capacity it could have provided would have significantly reduced UK carbon emissions by enabling rail to accommodate significant modal shift of passengers and freight from roads and planes. It could have been the most sustainable railway of its type as well as a catalyst for economic growth up and down the country. Instead, Government has squandered the opportunity to make HS2 a reality for all regions of the UK, and green transport a way of life.

Bees, sheep, and trains

Rail Engineer was recently invited to visit the impressive new Siemens Mobility train manufacturing ‘village’ facility at Goole, Yorkshire. Sustainability, environmental protection, biodiversity, social value, community support and engagement, all feature in the £200 million rail village. This was immediately apparent as we were met by a row of electrical vehicle charging points, bordered by wild flower natural floral planting.

The village will create 700 new jobs, and an additional 1,700 indirect supply chain jobs by 2030. From March next year, half of the London Underground’s 94 new Piccadilly line trains will be assembled at Goole before they start entering passenger service in 2025. The other half of the Piccadilly line fleet and all the body shells will be manufactured in Austria. During our visit we learned about the extensive manufacturing and commissioning facilities, offices, warehouses, stabling sidings, and the space for a 1.2km electrified test track to be installed. We also heard about the long-term plans for the site.

WARM WELCOME

We were greeted by Sambit Banerjee, joint CEO; Finbarr Dowling, project director; and Milly Johnston, advanced rail technician. Milly joined Siemens Mobility in 2020 as an apprentice and has spent the last three years training. She has also taken on the role of local beekeeper at the apiary (bee yard) on the site, guided by a trained beekeeper from the Selby and District Beekeeping Association. The wild flowers mentioned earlier help to feed the bees.

Finbarr enthusiastically explained that the site spans 67 acres, which is the size of 35 football pitches. When he joined the project, it was a brownfield site with no buildings or hard standing. Siemens chose the site for a number of reasons, including its close location to Goole inland harbour port, the M62 motorway, and its good rail access.

FUTURE VISION

At the start of the project, Siemens wanted to enthuse visitors to the rail development, but with only architect’s plans and an extremely large, empty field there wasn’t much to see. Clay10 Creative, based in nearby Hessle was brought on board and, working closely with the architects, created an interactive 3D model of the facility. The giant buildings were replicated, and an animation was created showing the site growing and highlighting Siemens’ vision for the future. This allowed visitors (which included the prime minister) to view the whole area at true scale through a smartphone or a tablet. The system also allowed Siemens Mobility to make changes as the project moved forward.

As most of the buildings are now constructed, Finbarr used the interactive 3D model to display a ‘time lapse’ explaining how the site had developed. The site was believed to have been a rail depot many years ago, so the construction of the train manufacturing facility has not involved greenfield construction, nor did the brownfield legacy of the site cause any issues with contaminated land, archaeology, or buried services. The only issue was relocating some newts found on the site.

PAUL DARLINGTON

The site has initially been set up to build tube trains for London Underground. The current Piccadilly line order is for 94 x 9-car trains (846 vehicles) of which about half will be built in Goole. If Transport for London (TfL) is able to obtain funding for all the options in the contract, there could be work on a total of over 2,300 cars. There is also space to significantly expand the manufacturing/ assembly facility and lengthen the formation/test/ commissioning building to accommodate longer trains if necessary.

Adjacent to the facility is a rail siding which is currently used by two trains a week to a nearby glass factory, so it will have rail access. Siemens originally leased several plots of land on the site, however seeing the site’s potential it was later decided to take up an option to purchase all the 67 acres of land required for the manufacturing facility.

Yorkshire’s GMI Construction was the main contractor and its scope included the necessary rail track for connection to the main railway line. C R Reynolds carried out enablement works and Premier Modular provided the temporary offices.

To the south of the rail village is Oakhill Nature Reserve consisting of over 100 acres. Oakhill, and the associated pools known as the Brickponds, is one of the best Dragonfly and Damselfly sites in Yorkshire. The nature reserve is now also home to nationally threatened declining bird species such as the Willow Tit and over 200 plant and wildflower species are recorded with an ever-increasing wildlife population.

SOCIAL VALUE

Siemens is keen to support the local community and surrounding area, and has assisted with funding £150,000 of improvements to the nature reserve. Work has been completed to improve car parking to make it easier to access the nature reserve. Sculptures and benches have been installed for everyone to enjoy along the nature trail and wildlife haven. The nature reserve is regularly visited by both local residents and Siemens Mobility employees. Plans are also in development to introduce a rare breed of sheep in a field on the rail village site.

Sustainability is at the heart of the village, and to support the organisation’s overall global target to achieve net zero by 2030. Air source heat pumps have been installed across the facility to ensure there is no need for gas heating along with many other net-zero contributions.

Siemens Mobility is very keen to promote engineering to younger and diverse people, and they are working with Primary Engineer and young people aged seven to 10 to inspire them to take STEM subjects and excite them with the career opportunities in rail engineering. It was explained that Siemens Mobility is in Goole for the long term, and helping to develop the next generation of railway technicians and engineers is part of its sustainability and social value objectives.

Siemens obtained three redundant Heathrow Express carriages and has created an exhibition in one of them to welcome schools to the village and for children to experience and learn about the different roles there are in rail, in a train similar to one they could be building one day. Other social value contributions to the local community include hosting a Primary Engineer event on the rail village site for young people to experience rail design, sponsoring local gay pride events, and hosting a cricket match in July which raised £21,000 for local charities. There are currently 12 apprentices learning their trade at the rail manufacturing facility, with a further three set to join soon. There are also five apprentices working at the Components Facility on the site, covered by Malcolm Dobell in this issue. Siemens is already recruiting staff ready for building trains due to commence in March 2024.

With an emphasis on innovation and creative engineering there is also a £50 million centre of excellence in the village being

developed with the University of Birmingham. Called the Rail Accelerator & Innovation Solutions Hub for Enterprise (RaisE), its 3,200 square metres of commercial floor space with grade-A office and workshop accommodation, high quality conferencing facilities, and a communal café hub, will act as an innovation focal point for the village.

AN EXCITING DEVELOPMENT

The train manufacturing ‘village’ facility is certainly impressive, and it was clear the site has the capability for more rail construction activity in the future. We were enthused to hear of Siemens Mobility’s plans to work with academia, logistic companies, SMEs, hotel companies, and the local community to make the rail village a success. The plans include lots of exciting developments to bring more rail activity to the site for years to come and Rail Engineer looks forward to reporting on these when they are announced.

Siemens Mobility Goole Component Repair Facility

Whilst the Siemens Mobility

Goole train manufacturing plant and supply chain rail village is still being finished, and no train building work is expected to commence until March 2024, one part is already up and running: its component overhaul business. With nearly 4,000 Siemens carriages in service or on order, most of which Siemens maintains, there was a desire to become self-sufficient for some overhaul work.

Some years ago, Siemens set up facilities in Leeds and Lincoln to overhaul gearboxes/ traction motors and bogies, respectively.

Under the leadership of Craig Beech, service operations manager, the quality and turnround times achieved led to more and more work being taken on and it outgrew the Leeds site.

EXPANSION

In June 2022, Siemens Mobility announced it was “expanding its £200 million rail village in Goole by building a new £7 million component facility which will create up to 30 new jobs.” It was built by local firm GMI. In April 2023, just 10 months later, the facility was opened by Micheal Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, and was fully operational a month later.

Already, it employs 40 full-time staff, including five apprentices from the East Riding of Yorkshire and all but five of the Leeds staff had transferred to Goole. The new 4,000 square metre space will allow the facility to take on the maintenance of more components in the future and Rail Engineer was told of plans to increase the workforce to 80 by the end of 2023. Much of the work now done at the site in Goole had previously taken place in mainland Europe.

During a tour of the Goole site (see Paul Darlington’s article on page 22), Rail Engineer was shown around the facility by Rick Birkbeck, head of production.

OVERHAUL

Gearboxes from UK Siemens trains are overhauled at Goole, together with Siemens group manufactured gearboxes for other external customers. A modern train gearbox is a sophisticated piece of kit which is quite heavy and made more difficult to handle as it usually comes attached to half a ton of axle!

The gearboxes arrive for overhaul after the wheels have been removed and with the wheel and axle bearing seats carefully protected. The overhaul process is straightforward, but requires care and precision, especially keeping gear sets together (unless, of course they are damaged or worn beyond limits). Bearings are always replaced typically between four and six bearings per gearbox. Rail Engineer saw machines used to manipulate gearbox housings to enable technicians to work at a convenient height. After assembly and checking alignment/backlash etc., the final task is to check for excess noise or vibration under load using two gearboxes mounted back-to-back in a test cell.

Your writer has watched traction motors being overhauled at various times over a long career, which was usually a skilled task especially when skimming and undercutting the commutator on a DC machine for another four/five years of service. The benefits of three phase induction motors over traditional DC motors really becomes clear when witnessing the overhaul process at Goole. They are much smaller than the equivalent DC motor and there is not much to go wrong.

From L – R, Sambit Banerjee - Joint CEO and Managing Director of Rolling Stock & Customer Services at Siemens Mobility UKI, Huw Merriman - Rail Minister and Rick Birkbeck - Head of Production at the Components Facility, Siemens Mobility

©Siemens

MALCOLM DOBELL

The overhaul process for Siemens AC motors includes, strip, clean, examine and test for damage or failing insulation, and then rebalance the rotor and reassemble with new bearings. A load test of the motor cannot be performed as they’re not designed to hold high loads as they are always connected to a gearbox that holds the load. A routine electrical and running test is performed at Goole. The third current product line is overhauled air conditioning sets where there is at least one set per carriage on the Siemens fleet.

Rick explained the benefits of overhauling locally. The transit time will be much shorter than shipping the equipment abroad to the OEM site. Moreover, the OEM, even a Siemens group company, might be carrying out work for a number of operators and the customer might not be able to influence the priority of work. This means that a component might be away for many weeks compared with a local supplier. Moreover, Siemens Goole has access to key OEM drawings and other technical information as well as Siemens group experts.

After the tour, it was clear that Sambit Banerjee’s ambitions for the site include expanding the components business and it was obvious that there is plenty of space and capability to do so.

Motor overhaul in progress

Overhauled Gearboxes awaiting dispatch

©Siemens

©Malcolm Dobell

Wi-Fi 7

Rthe new kid on the block

ail Engineer 175 (June 2019) ran a feature explaining how and why the future of Wi-Fi technology would be Wi-Fi 6 (IEEE 6802.11ax). But things move fast in telecoms development and, just four years later, the new kid on the block is Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 802.11be). So why is Wi-Fi 7 needed, how does it work, and what will the benefits be?

Wi-Fi has been a huge success and is now the established technology for providing the final telecoms link to devices in the home, offices, stations, shops, schools, and just about anywhere in the world requiring connectivity. UK-based telecom consultancy Analysys Mason, says Wi-Fi now carries the majority of all wireless network data traffic, and the International Data Corporation (IDC) Wi Fi Technology Forecast says there are 19.5 billion Wi-Fi devices in use around the world. The Wi Fi Alliance, based in the USA, says the global economic value of Wi-Fi is some £2.73 trillion ($3.5 trillion).

Wi-Fi 6 provides a relatively fast 9.6Gbps data download rate, but Wi-Fi 7 will provide an incredible theoretical data download rate of 48Gbps. Wi-Fi 7 will also reduce latency and improve overall network capacity, distance, and reliability.

There is a saying in telecoms engineering that there can never be too much bandwidth in a network. As Wi-Fi network speeds have improved (see table 1) application designers have been quick to design systems that provided even greater benefits, but using the ‘spare’ data rate available. The Covid-19 pandemic changed many things, including the way people work, communicate, socialise, shop, learn, and entertain themselves. Wi-Fi is expected by many to be available at railway stations and its use for monitoring railway equipment is significant.

All aspects of life and industry are more reliant on communications than ever and there has a been a huge increase in the use of such things as video conferencing, video streaming, and online gaming. For example, Microsoft says the use of its remote-meeting software Teams increased by 252% from 2020 to 2022.

Fibre to the home and places of work is also fast becoming a reality with Gbps connections, and Wi-Fi must not become a ‘bottleneck’. Wi-Fi 7 is designed to accommodate modern, data-hungry applications, and will support the inevitable arrival of 8K video streaming, and such things as immersive, low-latency extended reality (XR) applications for social, industrial, and gaming purposes.

2.4 GHZ INTERFERENCE

The first three generations of Wi-Fi used a carrier frequency of 2.4GHz, however Wi-Fi interference can be caused by other devices which also use this frequency. This can include devices such as microwave ovens, security cameras, door alarms, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, baby monitors, and, in some countries, amateur radio.

A solution from Wi-Fi 4 onwards introduced another carrier frequency of 5GHz. This allowed higher data speeds with less interference, although the higher the frequency of the carrier signal, the shorter the range. This can be an

PAUL DARLINGTON

advantage though, allowing the frequency to be reused for another connection not too far away. Wi-Fi 6E (Extended) introduced yet another carrier frequency of 6GHz and Wi-Fi 7 will also use 6GHz, but in a new clever way along with the use of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz carrier frequencies.

Each generation of Wi-Fi after WiFi 4 required the user to select which carrier they wished to use when the system was configured. However, WiFi 7 introduces Multi Link Operation (MLO). With MLO, all three carrier link frequencies are used at the same time. By connecting simultaneously using the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz frequencies, the data throughput is increased, latency in reduced, and reliability improved by duplicating packets across the multiple links. Some suppliers say the real time latency in Wi-Fi 7 can be reduced by 75% compared to Wi-Fi 6.

Wi-Fi 7 also uses improved dynamic mesh technology to increase and vary the range, so, for example the 2.4 GHz frequency could be used to connect further away from the Wi-Fi point with less data carrying capability, or the higher carrier frequencies could be used for shorter range with greater data carrying capability, leaving the 2.4 GHz frequency for other applications such as Bluetooth.

The other factor for Wi-Fi data carrying capacity is the number and size (bandwidth) of the channels on each carrier. Although some channels overlap, they have increased both in number and size of the channels in each generation of Wi-Fi and this varies around the world. Wi-Fi 7 will provide a total of 1200MHz bandwidth of the 6GHz spectrum, which is more than double that of 2.4GHz and

5GHz combined. Wi-Fi 6 provides channels of 20MHz, 40MHz, 80MHz, and 160MHz, but Wi-Fi 7 will add 320MHz channels.

MU-MIMO AND QAM

Wi-Fi 5 saw the introduction of Multi-User, Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) downlinks to better support multiple connections simultaneously accessing a wireless access point. Wi-Fi 6/6E also introduced MU-MIMO uplink and Wi-Fi 7 now doubles both the MU-MIMO downlink and uplink streams from eight to 16.

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) is a method to translate data packets to analogue signals transmitted wirelessly. Wi-Fi 6E supports 1024 QAM, but Wi-Fi 7 increases this to 4K QAM, resulting in a 20% data throughput increase.

Like previous Wi-Fi standards, Wi-Fi 7 will be backward compatible. But taking advantage of the new features and improved performance will require new devices capable of Wi-Fi 7. That means new routers and access points, smartphones, laptops, TVs, and so on, will be required.

6 GHZ FOR WI-FI AND MOBILE

Nothing is easy with the radio spectrum which is a limited, finite resource. Radio spectrum is managed internationally by the World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC), held every three to four years, and in the UK by Ofcom. Some countries have released 6GHz for Wi-Fi and Ofcom has permitted the use of the lower 6GHz band (5925- 6425MHz) for Wi-Fi 6E, but it has not yet released the upper 6GHz band for Wi-Fi 7.

Ofcom says 6GHz could be used for either licensed mobile communications (5G) or unlicensed Wi-Fi 7. However, rather than choosing between the two, Ofcom is exploring options for that which would enable the use of both Wi-Fi and mobile 5G in the 6GHz band. It is calling this ‘hybrid sharing’ and says this could be achieved by enabling the indoor use of Wi-Fi whilst also enabling licensed mobile use outdoors. This is because Wi-Fi routers generally tend to be indoors for broadband traffic, with mobile radio transmitters located outdoors for wider area coverage.

Ofcom also says it may be possible to enable licensed mobile use in specific high-traffic locations while allowing Wi-Fi use elsewhere. Ofcom is also pressing for international harmonisation of hybrid sharing 6GHz, to enable economies of scale for equipment production.

As well as problems with 6GHz, the Wi-Fi 7 standard is still in development and is not expected to be released until sometime in 2024. However, some pre-certified equipment is already being released, so manufacturers must be confident in Wi-Fi 7 and the use of unlicensed 6 GHz, as any early-release products may not offer all of the features that will be available once fully-certified Wi-Fi 7 devices are released.

It is early days for Wi-Fi 7, as Wi-Fi 6 and 6E have not yet been widely deployed. However, in a few years’ time, will Wi-Fi 7 with or without 6GHz be fast enough in Britain? Or will Rail Engineer be reporting on the release of Wi-Fi 8, with even faster data rates and features we can only dream of?

Only time will tell.

Table 1

Signalling maintenance testing improvements

Whenever an intervention involving working on or near to an active safety critical signalling item of equipment takes place, the safety integrity failure risk of the signalling system increases. This risk of failure must be managed by robust testing of the equipment before it is returned to service. Following a concerning trend in the rise of signalling failures caused by poor testing, Rail Engineer met with James Dzimba, chief control command and signalling engineer Network Rail, to hear how the competency of people who test signalling maintenance work is being improved.

The testing of signalling equipment has always been very important and the more complex signalling systems become, the more essential it is that robust testing is carried out after any intervention has taken place, however small this may be.

The Signalling Works Testing Handbook (SWTH) describes the procedures and process controls for new and altered signalling installation that involve conceptual design, or with the potential to affect the fitness for purpose of signalling infrastructure. When routine maintenance or a failure requires equipment changed to ‘like for like’, and the signalling equipment has previously worked correctly, Signal Maintenance Testing Handbook (SMTH) procedures and process controls apply. SMTH processes are less complex than SWTH and provide for simple changeovers to be carried out quickly and efficiently. Although such testing has a simpler method of working, the processes and culture must remain the same. Tasks intended to control the risk of errors, such as correlation checks, component examination, and post-work testing, must be completed in accordance with the relevant instructions. SMTH also plays a vital role in work such as track or point renewals, so it may also apply to the renewal of other assets. SMTH is also used by non-Network Rail staff to keep the railway safe.

COMPETENCE AND BEHAVIOUR

Competency can be described as the combination of training, knowledge, skills, experience, behaviours, and attitude, and the ability to apply these factors to perform a task. SMTH competency therefore involves more than simply completing and passing an SMTH course. It is therefore essential that everyone who holds SMTH competency is able to resolutely and consistently carry out the defined tests contained within the handbook, and that they are fully aware of the escalation procedure when these procedures cannot be applied or

PAUL DARLINGTON

PHOTO: NETWORK RAIL

the requirements of the standard are not met. They must also have the confidence and necessary behaviours to carry out the escalation procedure.

In 1988, a collision occurred at Clapham Junction when a train driver received a proceed aspect at a signal which should have been at danger. The incorrect proceed aspect was shown because inadequate working practices had resulted in a loose, uninsulated, redundant wire coming into contact with another circuit. Thirty-five people lost their lives and 484 were injured. The resultant public inquiry led to major changes with signalling design, installation, and testing processes, including the introduction of SWTH and SMTH.

IN THE PAST?

To many in the industry, the Clapham collision was a long time ago and a similar thing happening again with the industry standards much improved is hard to imagine. However, over time many things can change, and the railway of today is organised far differently, with many independent organisations carrying out SMTH work. Today’s railway is also far busier and technicians can face pressure to gain access to the railway and restore failed equipment in the shortest possible time.

James explained that Network Rail’s assurance activity, which monitors wrong side signalling failure data, had identified a rise in signalling failures caused by inadequate SMTH testing. The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) found in its investigation of a wrong side signalling failure and derailment at Dalwhinnie in Scotland in 2021, that some electrical connections not needed for the location were retained inside a point machine following its replacement nine months earlier.

The need to alter the internal wiring of the machine for its intended use was not identified when the renewal work was planned, nor did the prescribed checks required as part of a like-for-

like replacement SMTH process identify the wiring discrepancy. The work was also interrupted, and the testing work was overlooked. A similar event had occurred in the 1970s, which suggested that the corporate memory and lessons from the past were fading.

On 26 October 2022, at Wingfield, Derbyshire, two following trains entered the same signal section due to an incorrect aspect sequence being displayed to the drivers of both trains. Ballast cleaning works undertaken in the area required disconnection at DY586 signal and associated equipment. When the signalling system was reinstated following completion of the track works, the yellow and red aspects on DY586 signal were transposed.

The incorrect aspect sequence resulted in the first train passing the signal at red when it should have been yellow, and a yellow aspect shown to the following train when there was a train in the forward section. Testing steps in the SMTH process would have identified the transposition of the aspects had they been followed correctly. On this occasion the SMTH testing was not carried out by Network Rail maintenance staff, but by a competent SMTH contractor.

RAIB initially decided to publish a safety digest following the incident, but having assessed further evidence it has decided to carry out a full investigation. This will seek to identify the sequence of events, the roles, responsibilities, and competence management of the staff involved, the factors that influenced their actions, and the planning and testing processes. It will also consider any underlying management factors, including the response to RAIB’s

recommendations made in its Cardiff East Junction (RAIB report 15/2017) and Waterloo (RAIB report 19/2018) investigations.

It is concerning to many in the industry and RAIB that there have now been several incidents over the last five years, where the integrity of the signalling system has been compromised by an incorrect application of the SMTH processes.

SMTH IMPROVEMENTS

James explained what has already been put in place to mitigate the risk of poor SMTH testing and what is further being implemented to improve testing competency.

A recommendation from the RAIB investigation into a collision at London Waterloo in 2017 required that the competence of signalling staff includes the attitudes and depth of understanding to properly appreciate the importance of applying all the relevant testing processes. Network Rail has worked with the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE), signalling contractors, and other infrastructure managers to reinforce the attitudes and depth of understanding needed to safely apply technical skills and knowledge.

This included the education of existing staff, managers, and future recruits to promote a better understanding of industry processes, with improved behaviours and understanding of how the lessons learnt from previous accidents have established today’s good practice. People need to understand not only how to do testing, but they also need to fully understand the risk they are controlling and why the testing is required, what the consequences could be with not completing the testing, and what they must do if the testing is not completed.

The establishment of non-technical skills to control SMTH risk has resulted in the introduction of seven training modules, including town hall and local briefings. One objective is to empower people with the confidence to ‘speak up’ and to communicate the consequences of not completing the required testing concisely and confidently when under time pressure. The non-technical ‘soft skills’ learning material has also been made available to the industry at no charge.

THIRD PARTY ASSESSMENT

To gain SMTH competency, a technician must pass an SMTH course followed by six months of mentoring followed by a practical assessment. To maintain the SMTH competency in Network Rail, technicians were re assessed every two years via the Network Rail Assessment in The Line (AiTL) process and the technician’s line manager. To strengthen the assessment process, the AiTL SMTH assessment has now been replaced with a thirdparty assessment process. This now provides an independent assessment of a technicians competency. There are over 200 individual competencies a signalling technician could be expected to hold. These are in the process of being streamlined and targeted to focus on the right underpinning knowledge technicians require to do their job, and they will be trained for only the equipment they work on. Training course materials and standards are also being reviewed to make sure the content is up to date and to make

them modular to make them easier to be updated and changed. Work is ongoing, with the initial standards changing from December 2023.

Network Rail has recognised that the SMTH training, assessment and competency framework improvements needs to apply right across the industry, so it is engaging with many in the industry to change and improve SMTH processes, including the training and assessment processes.

Within Network Rail, James explained how it has also changed the way the technician’s surveillance check by section managers’ is undertaken as part of normal day-to-day activities. This is now able to better support a technician achieving their IRSE licence and has resulted in better IRSE license applications and an increase in the number of licences being approved.

CHAIN OF COMMAND

At the time of the Clapham collision in the British Rail days, the line management from technician to board level consisted of experienced signal engineers, but this is no longer necessarily the case. In today’s railway, a signalling technician could be managed by several layers of management who have no signalling engineering knowledge or experience.

James explained this is why there is a strong ‘dotted line’ of professional signalling line of responsibility from the local signalling maintenance engineer, via the route / regional signal engineer, through to the chief engineer. This is also why it is important that SMTH holders can concisely communicate the consequences of not completing the required testing when under time pressure.

ACHIEVING CONSISTENCY

Network Rail is working to improve SMTH training materials and assessments to achieve consistency throughout the industry. This will also have the objective of encouraging non-Network Rail technicians to gain an IRSE licence, for example by providing them with an IRSE log book. This is important as the uptake of IRSE licensing outside of Network Rail is low. Discussions are also underway to identify an independent training and competence assurance organisation to provide further assurance of SMTH training throughout the industry.

A common industry Sentinel SMTH Authority to Work will be introduced. Sentinel is the rail industry’s Authority to Work system to enable people to work safely on the infrastructure, which is owned and run by Network Rail, for the industry.

SMTH is also being ‘digitalised’ with the introduction of eSMTH to improve knowledge and communications. This is already on trial at Network Rail and the next step will be to make eSMTH available to everyone who holds SMTH competency. Hopefully, this will be available during 2024 once the IT, GDPR, and firewall issues have been addressed.

Improvements to the SMTH processes in Network Rail and throughout the industry are welcome, especially after the incidents at Dalwhinnie and Wingfield, which could have (but thankfully didn’t) result in a serious collision like Clapham all those years ago.

PHOTO: ATKINS

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more deliberations ETCS

Looking back over several years of articles written for Rail Engineer covering the European Train Control System (ETCS), it is somewhat depressing to observe that none of the predictions for system introduction have come to fruition in the timescale stated or at the forecast price.

Right across the world, national railways have struggled to implement ETCS systems for many different reasons, which include technology, operating rules, cost, and train fitting. Only Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and Norway have committed to nationwide roll out, and these are progressing. All have relatively small route kilometres compared to countries such as the UK, France, or Germany, and have a supportive regulatory regime.

The UK rollout has been markedly slower than many other countries with only the Cambrian trial site, the Thameslink central core, and the spur from the GW main line to Heathrow airport being operational. Papers given at conferences over the last decade have predicted a much greater implementation of ETCS than has been achieved. The much-publicised East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP) is making progress and the Finsbury Park to Moorgate section will be fully commissioned in 2024 with the rest of the route between Kings Cross and Stoke Tunnel (near to Grantham) taking until 2029 to become completely cut over. Thereafter, the master plan shows it will not be until the late 2030s that anywhere near a multi-route rollout will begin to happen.

Issue 202 (May/June 2023) gave an insight into some of the thinking and planning, but additional information has since been gleaned that highlights the difficult cost pressures associated with ETCS roll out and where some drastic support will be necessary.

CLIVE KESSELL

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

Nowhere in the world is the railway’s commercial structure more complicated than in the UK. With the multiplicity of organisations involved – government, Network Rail, train operating companies, freight companies, open access operators, rolling stock leasing companies, heritage interests, local authorities – all of whom have a vested and financial interest as to how train services should be provided.

It is small wonder that planning ETCS systems that satisfy all parties is something of a minefield.

Three big challenges emerge:

» Organising the industry to produce sensible commercial structures. Improved and more realistic regulation is of paramount importance, especially where large strategic projects are being planned and developed.

» Developing supplier engagement and operator capability to support such networkwide strategic developments.

» Obtaining a breakthrough in how key activities like train modifications, system proving, integration of approvals, and the undertaking of driver and signaller training are all progressed.

All these add cost to the project and have to happen. They must however not become dominant within the project financial structure otherwise the pace and method of delivery becomes seriously compromised.

The ECDP has developed a novel partnership model and a user centric methodology that bring operations and engineering together to address these core challenges.

ROLLING STOCK COMPLICATIONS

It has been said on numerous occasions that retro fitting rolling stock with ETCS (or indeed any other technical addition) is not the preferred approach. The ideal situation is for trains to come out of the factory ready fitted but, even if this is the case, upgrades to either the hardware or software are likely to happen during the lifetime of the train.

In the UK, it is rare for Train Operating Companies (TOCS) to own their own trains and normally these are leased from a Rolling Stock leasing company (ROSCO). In such instances, the maintenance and performance issues of the train become the responsibility of the TOC who will finance the updating of the train over the lease period. This is relatively straightforward but raises discussions whenever a new system such as ETCS is imposed on the route, and it is usual for the imposer (in the case of ETCS this is Network Rail on behalf of the industry) to bear the cost of the upgrade. The leasing cost is unchanged or changed only very marginally.

The situation is more complex where trains are procured by the government under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) with a rolling stock supplier and typically a range of financiers. Associated with the deal are significant conditions as to how the train is used, maintained, and made available for service. The leasing cost is high and the penalties for non-availability are onerous. Taking trains out of service to equip them with minor changes, let alone ETCS, is regarded as high risk which acts as a deterrent to making the change. Thus, the cost of implementing the change is artificially higher as a result of the penalty and risk regime imposed. The implications are significant for projects that need to make changes to trains.

ETCS frequency testing at Drayton Park.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ECDP

At face value, the rolling stock situation on the ECDP should be relatively easy. The Class 800 Azuma intercity trains were all built with ETCS ready fitted. Similarly, the Class 717 inner suburban units that replaced the 313s were equipped with ETCS as part of the build contract, but even here some minor software changes will be needed. More difficult are the Class 387 Electrostar trains as these need to be retrofitted –a task made harder by the very small cab resulting from the inter unit corridor connection.

That said, a successful retrofit is being progressed with Alstom and Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) as an efficient and directly managed proposition. The Thameslink Class 700 trains that run through to Peterborough and Cambridge from south of the river already use ETCS with Automatic Train Operation (ATO) superimposed for the London central core from London Bridge to Finsbury Park and Kentish Town. In theory, these should require only minimal work to adapt

for the ECDP (see later paragraph). For freight, the Class 66 locomotives are going through the process of ‘first in class’ so it should be relatively easy to equip a number of these even if it means creating a small captive fleet.

There will be a challenge north of Peterborough where DMUs operated by East Midlands Railway run northwards to Grantham as part of the Norwich Sheffield Manchester service. These will either need to be fitted as a sub fleet or perhaps by that time a new build of trains will be in service with ETCS provided as part of the contract.

However, both the Class 700 Thameslink trains and the Class 800 Azumas were acquired via a PFI deal, which for the reasons stated above have made their upgrade a serious challenge. Carrying out the technical changes is relatively straightforward, but it is a major commercial exercise where clear thinking and willingness to succeed from all involved is required.

THE CLASS 700 CONUNDRUM

When commissioned in 2018, the full Thameslink service revolutionised north-south cross London journeys. With the potential for 24 trains per hour in each direction, reliance on manual driving was not deemed possible for this to be achieved, so ETCS with an incorporated ATO package and short block sections was seen as highly desirable. The ETCS software specification had been signed off at European level at v3.3.0. This boded well for extending ETCS along the East Coast Main Line, the Midland Main Line, and eventually to routes south of the river. The system has proved reliable and the ATO works well.

A recent contract has, however, been announced to upgrade the Class 700 trains with a later version of ETCS, incorporating some hardware and software changes so as to be compatible with the national reference design specification

being matured through the ECDP delivery phase. The contract value is £32.7 million which, for the 115 trains in the fleet, works out at £140,000 per cab. This is an enormous sum of money for a train already equipped with ETCS, albeit the development applies to other fleet variants like the Class 717.

The press release states the upgrade will include:

» Software upgraded to v3.6.0. After v3.3.0, a newer version, 3.4.0, was introduced to aid maintenance but did not have backward compatibility to v3.3.0. Seen as low risk, the UK agreed to this. V3.6.0 is a further version but does have backward compatibility to v3.4.0.

» Upgraded driver-machine interface screen modules improving the safety integrity level of the system.

» Packet switching to support ETCS data transmissions on the Euro Radio. This is part of the on board European Vital Computer (EVC) but is separately packaged as hardware. During the Thameslink design, packet switching was considered but analysis showed that sufficient radio spectrum was available for circuit switching (namely, a continuous connection to each train) and thus less of a risk. Spectrum availability on the GSM-R network once the ECDP is introduced is less certain for circuit switching, hence the need to go for packet switching which uses radio frequencies more efficiently.

» Cold movement detection. This is needed to validate a train position after the train is shut down after its daily operation. The position of the train on a Class 700 is memorised but not validated. If the train has not moved, validation will now take place automatically. This facility is not part of the TSI and it was up to each ETCS supplier to decide what to provide. Optical correlation is one method to prove a train has not moved and it is presumed this is what will be adopted for the Class 700s.

» KLIP interface module change. This is the input/output interface to the Driver Machine Interface, viz the cab display unit. Previously this had its own intelligence but now only requires an interface to the EVC.

» Software update for the train’s data recorders. The need for a judicial recording unit is in the ETCS specification with a defined protocol as to how data exchanges are captured. If the recorder does not conform, a Notified Body (NoBo), now reclassified as an Approval Body (ApBo), will request a modification to be made. This is the case with the Class 700s as, despite Brexit, the UK has chosen to continue in the adoption of European standards.

» New wiring to the train databus.

The requirement to make these changes is considered essential at some point in time, as the functionality of the ETCS will be deficient if the work is not carried out. The work is not associated with the safety of ETCS operation, and the trains could still operate on the ECML.

The impact of PFI is the main reason for the high cost. While there could be some ‘sharpening of pencils’ with some of the engineering elements, the changes to the cab and the software updates have to be incorporated into the current PFI and its associated performance and penalty regime.

Carrying out all these things within one upgrade is preferable to doing them separately which would only create more complex commercial interfaces where core safety operational systems are partially in and out of the regime. It will also mean a new ‘first in class’ exercise has to be carried out. Once proven, trains will need to be taken out of service for the modifications to be made, all of which impacts on the PFI contract for train availability and performance, thus incurring costs.

The question that needs asking is why the upgrade cannot be undertaken during the times when the trains are in for routine maintenance? It is understood that the way in which costs are incurred for the PFI financed rolling stock is being challenged by Network Rail as the infrastructure manager.

INTEROPERABILITY AND BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY

It is recognised that ETCS technology will evolve over time and that periodic updates will be necessary to keep offering additional features as they become available. This should not mean that the entire nationwide infrastructure and train fleets have to undergo upgrades for the system to operate safely and successfully. Just imagine the complexity of even trying to do this when the infrastructure and train borne equipment is supplied by many different design and manufacturing companies.

ETCS frequency test.

Machynlleth Signalling workstation with ETCS.

The idea of interoperability is that everything works with everything else, regardless as to who made what, but backward compatibility must also be part of the equation to ensure that older marques of equipment can continue to function. It is a little bit like the domestic computer business where earlier generations of, for example, Word or Excel can still be compatible with later versions of the programme, thus enabling day-to-day business to go on.

It would be easy to raise alarm bells that if retrospective modifications are needed every time an updated version of the ETCS spec is introduced, it triggers the need to modify rolling stock across a nationwide ETCS network. This would become an expensive logistics nightmare with the concept of backward compatibility being flawed. Fortunately, reliable information would indicate that the functionality curve is flattening and future ETCS enhancements will not need to be retrospectively fitted everywhere.

COSTING A SIGNALLING PROJECT

If ETCS is to be the bright future for main line control and command systems, then it has to provide a greater degree of safety, an enabler of greater capacity but more importantly, to be cheaper than conventional signalling with lineside ‘lights on sticks’.

As indicated in previous articles, a conventional signalling project is assessed for value around the basis of Signalling Equivalent Units (SEUs). These are calculated by the length of route, the number of tracks, and the quantity of points, signals, track circuits or axle counters, and such like. Level crossings tend to be outside the equation and treated separately. After the design, manufacturing, installation, testing, and commissioning tasks are priced, when integrated with the above quantities, the cost of an SEU can be calculated. It is the high price of an SEU that is causing concern in the ORR.

However, the equation does not work for ETCS as much of the signalling kit is train borne and thereby new calculations have to be devised. The factors involved are described above, viz, first in class development, train fitment costs, time out of service costs, number and types of trains to be fitted, whether to create a captive fleet, driver and operator training, all of which are primary considerations in the early stage of network migration and have to be taken into account in the long-term costings.

Even for the infrastructure, the ultimate goal is to remove the lineside signals as retention of these will only worsen the costing structure.

Conventional signalling ‘islands’ have been talked about in the past where signals would be retained to accommodate non fitted trains at places such as Crewe, Leicester, York, and many others where routes cross and where trains would not be fitted.

At least one re-signalling project where ETCS has been a consideration, will stay with conventional signalling as the scale of fleet change for ETCS was shown to be prohibitively expensive. North of the border, the Scots have declared that investing in electrification is the policy priority. One might speculate that if new electrification were to lead to new fleets of train that come with ETCS fitted from the factory, the case for equipping a route with ETCS would be much stronger.

FUTURE PREDICTIONS

For ETCS to achieve nationwide acceptability, it must become easier to implement. The central objective is reduced signalling infrastructure costs, but capacity gains predicted by using ETCS are mainly pertinent for the very busiest of routes as normal lineside signals are capable of handling two-minute headways. Equally, for high-speed lines, the need to replace signals with in cab movement authorities is a necessity, as human reaction times cannot reliably cope with reading signal aspects at the lineside. Just how many highspeed lines will the UK be building in the next two or three decades given the experiences and the now declared scaling back of HS2?

The commercial scenario and regulatory regime for ETCS adoption is the major part of the problem, and a strategic review as to how this can be strengthened to accommodate large strategic projects such as ETCS is urgently needed. A realistic approach to risk taking and minimising any associated penalties must happen otherwise the projects will falter.

The Class 700 contract might just be a wakeup call for the future as there will be many more situations where train equipment upgrades are seen as necessary. The big one looming on the horizon will be upgrading the train radios and infrastructure from GSM-R to FRMCS. Maybe Great British Railways will get a grip of this and produce a sensible financial outcome.

MIGRATING from GSM-R to FRMCS

PAUL DARLINGTON

The rail industry faces many challenges, with one being the migration of the Global System for Mobile Communications-Railway (GSM-R) to the Future Railway Mobile Communications System (FRMCS). GSM-R is the train radio system which provides operational communications between drivers and signallers, and facilities including Railway Emergency Group Call (REC) to alert an emergency situation.

GSM-R is based on 2G GSM technology and is fast becoming obsolete. FRMCS is the new train radio system specified by the International Union of Railways (UIC), and is the subject of a paper by Thales, published by the IRSE, explaining what is involved with the migration from GSM-R. The paper was written by Sam Daw, David Grace, and David Taylor of Thales, with the assistance of Mark Maclean of Telent, Luke Coomber of Mott Macdonald, and Amit Seth of Firstco.

FRMCS is based on 5G and will provide reliable, low-latency, mission-critical communications for routine and emergency requirements. It will also provide for applications such as massive and critical machine type communications and the Internet of Things (IoT).

GSM-R was initially ‘voice only’ with ETCS data provided later, but only in a basic form. While this may be sufficient for some ETCS operation, problems are likely with a high density of GSM-R users in a limited area, for example at busy railway stations. GSM-R was also an ‘add on’ to GSM, but with FRMCS a lot of the railways requirements are already built into the 5G architecture.

Even with its obsolescence, GSM-R limitations compared to modern communications do not support a truly digital mobile solution

for applications such as national ETCS. The industry is also starting to suffer from skills gaps, with fewer engineers available with the right skills to support GSM-R.

Thales says there are a number of ‘gains’ associated with an early migration to FRMCS and that planning must start now. FRMCS will enable a greater ability to exploit railway system data to create a more intelligent and improved ‘datadriven’ railway, increasing operational safety, performance, and efficiency.

THE CHALLENGES

The specifications for FRMCS are being established by standards bodies including the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the 3G Partnership Programme (3GPP), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The UIC is also collaborating with a number of railway stakeholders including the European Rail Agency (ERA), and the Association of the European Rail Supply Industry (UNIFE) UNITEL Committee has been established to support and actively contribute to the technical standards.

Version V1 of the Functional Requirements

Specifications (FRS) and System Requirements

Specifications (SRS) were published in June 2023 and version V2 specifications are likely to be published by June 2024. With funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 innovation and research programme, 5GRail is targeting the first FRMCS demonstrator for 2025.

The UIC has the objective of FRMCS solutions being commercially available from the end of 2026. There will be the opportunity to define a Radio Access Network (ORAN)based solution from the 5G mobile telecoms

manufacturers or to define an FRMCS ORAN. ORAN offers the potential for enhanced resiliency, scalability, faster innovation, and improved cyber security at lower costs.

SPECTRUM

The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) defines the radio frequency spectrum allocation in Europe, with Ofcom looking after the UK. CEPT has allocated the paired frequency bands 874.4-880.0 MHz and 919.4-925.0 MHz, and the unpaired frequency band 19001910 MHz for GSM-R and migration to FRMCS.

Currently, in the UK, 874.4-880 MHz and 919.4-925.0 MHz are allocated to rail use, but not 1900-1910 MHz. Ofcom is consulting on the optimal use of 19001920 MHz and says that EE’s current 4G licence to provide the Home Office’s Emergency Services Network (ESN) Gateway using this frequency band may not be optimal, with 1915-1920 MHz more suitable for the ESN Gateway. Ofcom’s consultation drew 14 responses, including from Network Rail which re-emphasised the case for the allocation of 1900-1910 MHz for rail and FRMCS, fully aligning the UK spectrum allocation for GSM-R and FRMCS with CEPT.

GSM-R suppliers say support will be available until at least 2030. But, as with any aging technology, the support costs will increase as the hardware and software components age and require specialist support, which may be difficult to obtain.

INDUSTRY READINESS

The mainline railway in GB is currently not a single enterprise or business, and there are many Railway Undertakings (RUs) and stakeholders. It will therefore take time and resource to facilitate and reach an agreed strategy and crossindustry plan for the migration to FRMCS.

Even though the FRMCS technology readiness level may be sufficient to start planning the migration, a key ingredient for successful migration is the business readiness level - the degree to which an enterprise or business is ready to adopt the new technology. It’s likely that a lot of time and resources will be required to build business readiness in the many organisations that make up the GB mainline railway.

COMPETENCY

There are some pockets of technical expertise in FRMCS, but the industry currently lacks the depth and breadth of technical expertise needed to plan and implement an efficient migration. The development of competence takes time and successful migration will require competence in GSM-R, FRMCS, and safe interworking.

The UIC is establishing the UIC Rail Academy to deliver railway telecoms training, covering railway telecoms foundation training, legacy railway radio engineering, GSM-R, and FRMCS. Its first FRMCS training modules, FRMCS Module 1 – Basics, and FRMCS Module 2 – Advanced, are already available.

Even when alignment has been reached on the strategy and plan for the migration to FRMCS, much work will be needed to create a cross-industry collaboration to competently deliver the detailed migration, including planning, engineering, procurement, and delivery.

Thales suggests that a commercially neutral cross-industry body could secure the collective support to carry out the work on behalf of the key industry stakeholders to make informed decisions.

SUPPLY CHAIN READINESS

Many Radio Access Network (RAN) Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s) are engaged in the drafting of the technical specifications for FRMCS and a number are engaged in the 5GRail project. The RAN OEM’s are also likely to be keen to support and participate in the migration from GSM-R to FRMCS.

The ORAN Alliance is facilitating the collaboration of technology suppliers in establishing and standardising interoperable radio access network components, and all major equipment manufacturers are supporting ORAN standardisation. The UK Government is also supporting the take-up of ORAN, via a market intervention to make the UK less reliant on a small group of vendors. Creating standardised interfaces should increase the interoperability of equipment and ORAN products are starting to appear in conventional telecoms and their use is likely to accelerate.

The rail supply chain capability and capacity will take time to develop, and the migration planning will need to take this into account.

TECHNICAL READINESS

There will be many technical challenges with migrating to FRMCS. For example:

» The co-existence of FRMCS alongside GSM-R, the potential for interference between the two, and the need to support the operation of the systems in parallel. This will include spectrum allocation.

» Choice of deployment model for the core 5G network for FRMCS, between railway owned enterprise data centres, the use of commercial or wholesale data centres, or if multi-tenant/collocated or single tenant/dedicated data centres would be acceptable.

» Partial or full cloud deployment is another key decision as it is essential that access and service levels remain guaranteed. The options need to be thoroughly evaluated against a carefully devised set of criteria.

There will also be the financial challenges. What funding will be available? Will the replacement of GSM-R with FRMCS be progressed on the basis of a renewal - with FRMCS deployed and configured to deliver voice and data communications capabilities as a modern equivalent to GSM-R? Or will it be as an enhancement, with the additional capabilities and the value they bring to the digital transformation of the railways being recognised?

Where will the funding come from, especially for commercial operators who do not stand to make financial returns from FRMCS alone, with their returns coming from increased levels of intelligence and automation?

FRMCS’s capabilities will benefit all parties involved in operating and maintaining the railway, but the business case will need to draw out and demonstrate the benefits for each and every discrete stakeholder, many of whom will need to endure the disruption that migration is likely to bring. For example, the impact of taking trains out of service for train fitment and training train drivers in rotation needs to be affordable. This was a significant cost for the GSM-R project.

HOW TO MIGRATE

Thales says it is crucial to establish a cross-industry collaboration involving all of the RUs, OEM’s, and integrators along with academia. The following will need to be addressed:

» Technical solution development, including the way in which the solution could be optimised to realise maximum business benefit and resolution of technical challenges through a sequence of incremental deployments.

» It will be very difficult to provide and operate dual fitment of GSM-R and FRMCS radios on trains. With FRMCS essentially providing the same services as GSM-R could a single user interface with the selection GSM-R / FRMCS be done automatically ‘behind the scenes’? Could the existing GSM-R radios be modified to operate FRMCS as well, or would it need a new train radio? Could the fixed operator terminals be similarly provided? If dual fitment is required what are the implications of a route-based migration strategy for trains that have to switch between networks? Where ETCS is already provided, ETCS may have to be upgraded in parallel with FRMCS migration, with similar issues of dual fitment.

» Migration planning, to establish the sequence of train fitment aligned with route deployment, in a way that sought to align business benefit with investment and to maximise the business case for all parties.

» Overall business case development for the change to FRMCS, taking account of the migration plan. For FRMCS, consideration should be given to alternative business models, potentially including Public-Private Partnerships and Private Finance Initiatives

Given the volume of work to be done, the need to form a crossindustry team is great. It could even be called the National FRMCS Programme.

WHAT CAN BE LEARNED FROM OTHER SECTORS?

There are lessons to be learned. GSM 2G to 3G required swapping out of considerable infrastructure due to spectrum changes as the system was mostly hardware based. 3G to 4G also required significant upgrade costs due to spectrum changes. 4G resulted in Long Term Evolution (LTE), which promised a smoother upgrade path and some 4G infrastructure, e.g., the base station Evolved Node B (eNB), were designed to support legacy standards and migration. The migration of later generations of public mobile radio have gone more smoothly. 4G to 5G has been easier due to the LTE philosophy. Improvements with 5G had to come through technological innovation, including methods of supporting infrastructure densification. ORAN will come fully on stream during 5G deployment, which will allow for greater flexibility and reuse of hardware and software. The migration from 5G to 6G will likely be an even smoother upgrade path and more of a software upgrade, although higher frequency bands will need newer infrastructure. ESN is likely to represent another source of learning. The current Airwave service used by the emergency services across GB is to be replaced with a commercial 4G network.

Interestingly, the move from Airwave to 4G is not driven by technology or service obsolescence, but by functionality. Airwave

technology is deemed relatively reliable and fit for purpose, but its limited capability means it cannot match the functionality offered by newer communications mobile technology.

The ESN infrastructure is being built by upgrading the existing network of masts and deploying additional masts in rural areas. The Home Office is supplementing coverage by building more masts to provide coverage in some of the most remote and rural areas of GB. FRMCS could be very similar.

We also need to learn the lessons from the deployment of GSM-R, as well as the lessons of using a GB-specific version, and from other rail projects. Based on the industry experience so far in delivering the East Coast Digital Programme, a challenge will be managing the business change of numerous separate RUs, each with their own commercial constraints and business imperatives.

Five key principles appear to be emerging for successful delivery:

1. Migration planning needs an integrated and strategic approach towards what is a whole-industry change.

2. Establish a partnership across the operators, train, freight, and infrastructure.

3. Deliver operational change, aimed at fully realising the benefits the technology enables.

4. Adopt a user-centric approach, bringing together the engineers and the operators.

5. Leverage commercial models centred on outcomes, not centred on the delivery of equipment.

The transition from GSM-R to FRMCS will require new infrastructure, but this can be based on standard telecoms company equipment

with modifications (e.g. hardware to deal with different frequencies), and with software for specific functionality. Mission critical applications are well supported within 5G. Private 5G networks are well understood by the telcos and FRMCS is likely to be another type of private network.

Consideration should also be given to joining the ORAN Alliance, the mission of which is to reshape the RAN industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualised, and fully interoperable mobile networks.

MATURING TECHNOLOGY READINESS

A pragmatic approach is required to mature the technology readiness level ready for deployment, taking into account the testing being undertaken by the UIC and others at international level. The GB testing could involve modelling and lab-based testing, followed by trial to de-risk and build confidence. A model could be created for the whole network, bringing many benefits to both solution optimisation and migration planning. This could be:

» Stage 1 – Modelling of a 5G FRMCS compatible system and architectures, (e.g., location of different modules, frequency of operation, likely throughput, latencies, performance and reliability).

» Stage 2 – Lab-based test of chosen architecture at a small scale, with the aim of testing different rail-based applications to validate Stage 1.

» Stage 3 – Medium scale trial on rail test track to show architecture will work when deployed, importing lessons learned from 5GRail and resolving problems.

» Stage 4 – Large scale trial on an operational route (e.g., the West Coast Main Line) to test performance and various test apps).

» Stage 5 – Large scale trial on an operational route including key rail apps. This enables more complex operational tests, prior to further deployments.

GENERAL MIGRATION APPROACH

Migration is likely to require the two systems to inter-operate in parallel during implementation, with services incrementally or fully migrated over. An REC made using one system will need to alert trains operating on the other. Possible options are:

1. Infrastructure is fitted with FRMCS to operate alongside GSM-R, with trains migrated incrementally, switching over to FRMCS as the rolling stock is upgraded / fitted.

2. Trains are upgraded / fitted with FRMCS to operate alongside GSM-R, and then migrated incrementally, switching over the FRMCS as the infrastructure is fitted.

3. Routes are being fitted with FRMCS to operate alongside GSM-R in sequence, and with the trains with GSM-R being upgraded / fitted with FRMCS.

Careful consideration needs to be given to the co-existence of the GSM-R and FRMCS radio frequency allocation. Conventional 4G and 5G can host 2G services, so there’s a possibility that some GSM-R services could be supported beyond the life of GSM-R. However, given the criticality of GSM-R voice communications to the safe operation of the railway, continuous coverage is required throughout migration.

DETAILED MIGRATION PLANNING

Figure 1 proposes a roadmap for the development and definition of the detailed industry plan for the migration

to FRMCS. The most challenging aspect of the migration is likely to be the way in which the work required for every train cab is scheduled, which involves many stakeholders.

CONCLUSIONS

Thales and its supporters say the opportunity exists to enable the full digitalisation of railway operations through the improvements in railway communications by migrating to FRMCS. The specifications and the technologies for FRMCS are mature and preparations are underway to allocate spectrum for FRMCS in GB. Given the GB railways reliance on GSM-R for its continued safe operation, the migration from GSM-R to FRMCS needs to be carefully considered and planned, taking into account training and competency.

A cross-industry team must be established to start work on the collaborative development of a compelling cross-industry vision for an FRMCS enabled railway, as well as an effective and credible migration strategy and plan. Industry knowledge of the technology and the challenges must be matured in parallel with the development of the migration plan. FRMCS is likely to be a longstanding component part of future digital railway systems and the knowledge and experience gained by early adopters will be invaluable to downstream deployments. Lessons learned must be captured and used throughout the life of the system.

FIG

FRMCS -

Radio network planning fundamentals

Yahya Khaled, technical director at ATDI APAC, gives us his insights on the challenges in radio network planning and modelling an evolving technology.

FRMCS is an emerging next-generation standard set to replace GSM-R. Based on 5G technology, it promises to deliver high data rates, low latency, and networkslicing capabilities. FRMCS supports critical railway

communication services including real-time control, safety-critical applications, high-definition video surveillance, and more.

With migration underway, many questions remain unanswered about the potential challenges facing network operators. With rail networks operating numerous communications systems across the country and over international borders, managing seamless communications and data exchanges can present significant challenges.

FRMCS STANDARDISATION IS EXPECTED TO BE FINALISED IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS. WHAT FREQUENCY BANDS WILL FRMCS USE?

In September 2021, the European Commission announced the harmonised use of the paired frequency bands 874.4-880.0 MHz and 919.4-925.0 MHz and the unpaired frequency band 1,900-1,910 MHz for FRMCS in Europe. Consideration to share the 5GHz frequency band (5,875-5,925 MHz) for Urban Rail and ITS TC RT is also in progress.

LEGACY NETWORKS AND FRMCS WILL NEED TO COEXIST DURING NETWORK MIGRATION. WHAT ISSUES MIGHT THIS PRESENT?

The migration to FRMCS underscores the vital role of interoperability, as legacy radio systems may not align with FRMCS. The complexities vary based on the chosen frequency band, especially the reverse bands that heighten uplink and downlink interference risks. To mitigate this, superior equipment and custom filters may be necessary, tailored to each country’s spectrum allocation. Reflecting on GSM-R’s extended band introduction, meticulous planning makes RF interference manageable. RF planners may reinstate minimum separation distances or other mitigations, particularly near the proposed FRMCS frequency band, ensuring a successful transition while upholding railway communication reliability.

Visualising Sydney’s FRMCS sample site coverage: A 3D Heatmap view in HTZ Communications

Yahya Khaled, technical director at ATDI APAC

WHAT CHALLENGES CAN WE EXPECT FROM FRMCS IN TERMS OF COVERAGE? HOW WILL ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS AFFECT THIS?

FRMCS promises seamless communications and data exchanges across networks, contingent on diligent planning and execution. Achieving a comprehensive network coverage that encompasses remote and rural areas is a pivotal aspect of this technology. The effectiveness of 5G versus GSM-R in terms of coverage hinges on frequency band selection and is governed by the laws of physics. Higher frequency bands offer superior antenna gain and directivity, favourable for rail-type communications. While designers adeptly tackle terrain challenges, they often overlook the impact of man-made structures like railway stations and bridges. Addressing these concerns necessitates high-resolution modelling and a 3D GIS dataset empowered by a deterministic propagation engine.

FRMCS PROMISES IMPROVED DATA TRANSFER RATES FOR VIDEO AND OTHER RAILWAY DATA. HOW WILL FRMCS DELIVER SUFFICIENT CAPACITY TO MANAGE THE GROWING DEMANDS FOR DATA TRANSMISSION?

FRMCS offers high data transmission capacity, enhancing rail operations control and enabling technologies like autonomous trains. 5G’s advantages include traffic prioritisation and flexibility, lower RTT delays, and robust communications. However, planning should consider sector loading, traffic type, and achievable Signal to Interference & Noise Ratio (SINR) for upload and download, especially for surveillance cameras that faced challenges in LTE. Proper modelling and realistic expectations are essential for FRMCS deployments.

BEAMFORMING IS A GAME-CHANGER

IN 5G. HOW WILL THIS BENEFIT THE RAIL ENVIRONMENT?

Beamforming might not offer significant benefits for most FRMCS rail network deployments. Coverage along the rail corridor can be achieved with highly directive sectors, often static, with overlapping beams for multiple data streams. While 5G’s multi-spatial focus is used, it’s not impossible that we’ll encounter 8T8R port antennas with a single radiation beam.

ATDI is hosting a webinar on the Fundamentals of RF planning for FRMCS on 24 October at 10am CEST. To learn more, register today.

Enhancing Connectivity in Sydney: FRMCS sample sites coverage heatmap with directive antennas, classified into four signal strength categories

3D Ray-Tracing reveals FRMCS signal impact amidst existing and prospective urban structures around the rail corridors, produced in HTZ Communications

Improving railway gauging

Back in 2011, Rail Engineer went to Thurso, the most northerly part of the rail network, to ride on Network Rail’s Structures Gauging Train (SGT) which was then ‘state of the art’. This consisted of a Class 31 locomotive fitted with an infrared camera and headlights and four coaches which comprised: the structures gauging coach (SGC), an instrumentation & generator coach, a crew coach and brake runner coach (needed because the SGC was unbraked), and a driving trailer which was also fitted with infrared camera and headlights. These were used to avoid blinding the driver of any oncoming train.

SHINING LIGHT INTO THE DARKNESS

The SGC was built by British Rail in 1981 and was one of the oldest in Network Rail’s infrastructure monitoring fleet. It projected a shielded, narrow beam of strong white light around the train whose reflections were detected by cameras and triangulated to measure distance. Where its light was projected, it was almost cut in two. It was also painted matt black to minimise stray reflections and so had an unusual look.

In 2009, its original halogen lights were replaced with the LaserFleX system which had an array of 45 lasers producing 855 micro beams whose reflections were detected by eight cameras which fed reflection data into software to produce a gauge profile. This system was mounted on the end of the SGC which was coupled to an adjacent coach with an extended coupler. The original white light system was kept as a backup. While the previous BR system could only operate during the hours of darkness, LaserFleX could also perform acceptably in twilight and was largely unaffected by light pollution at stations. However, it could only operate at speeds up to 50mph, and for safety reasons could not be used below 7mph. Vegetation also had to be cleared before SGT runs to obtain accurate gauge profiles.

RILA unit fitted to a ScotRail Class 156 DMU

DAVID SHIRRES

On the SGC, the LaserFleX was also supplemented by a:

» Rotating laser scanning beneath the coach to measure the exact distance between adjacent tracks.

» Cant and curvature measurement using linear vertical differential transformers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes on the SGT’s bogies.

» Real time positioning system using GPS and twin tachometer encoders.

The SGC was withdrawn in 2013 and was replaced by a LaserFleX system fitted to the end of a Mk 2 coach coupled to another by an extended coupling. The SGT data provided composite profiles which are the worst-case gauge profile over five metres.

TODAY’S TECHNOLOGY

Twelve years ago, train mounted collection of gauging information required a locomotive-hauled four coach train that could only operate at a maximum speed of 50mph during the hours of darkness. Today, the equipment required to do this, and more, fits into a unit mounted on an in-service

passenger train’s coupler that can run at line speed at all hours of the day.

Since 2020, Fugro’s Railway Infrastructure Alignment Acquisition System (RILA) has been doing just this. RILA uses downward facing track scanners, LiDAR laser scanners, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and video footage camera. Its scanner rotates at 250Hz and emits 1 million lasers pulses per second using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology while GPS and IMU data is used to compute the position of the point cloud. It delivers:

» Highly accurate rail head data of the rail heads which can be delivered as CAD data or other proprietary formats.

» A high-density point cloud data of the entire rail corridor delivered in a range of industry standard formats (such as .LAZ, .POD, .PTS) for which data blocks can be further split into smaller sections as required.

» Live video footage if the survey is undertaken in daylight hours delivered in standard formats. Location reference individual images can also be supplied.

The original Structures Gauging Train (SGT)

SGC white light system

The original Structures Gauging Coach (SGC) showing LaserFlex unit and extended coupler

SGC control panel

RILA is accredited as Band 1A accuracy in Network Rail’s surveying standard NR/L2/TRK/3100. It provides highly accurate track data within 1mm, and the complete corridor 3D is positioned to an absolute accuracy of +/-8mm.

It takes about two minutes to mount the RILA Track unit on a train. This is done by a universal buffer adaptor for buffered vehicles, or via a bespoke automatic coupler adaptor for passenger trains. There is no electrical or data connection to the train. The unit uses batteries which last around 10 hours. If required, these can be swapped with charged batteries during a shift.

Once the unit is mounted on a train it is turned on and requires no other attention during the shift. However, a Fugro operative is required in case the train fails and the RILA unit must be removed to allow the failed train to be coupled to an assisting train. Data from the unit is collected from anywhere via an internet connection. Although RILA can operate at any time of the day, it is affected by heavy rain or snow and the video captured at night is of limited value.

GAUGING WALES AND SCOTLAND

In 2020, Network Rail contracted Fugro to survey 843 route miles of its Western Route. This captured data on 14,897 structures over a six-week period, or 2,500 structures per week. Although the primary purpose of this survey was gathering data for gauging information, the data is also suitable for a range of other applications including vegetation analysis, ballast profiling assessment, topographical survey information, and measurement of heights and staggers on electrified routes. In 2021, the RILA system was used to survey Scotland’s railway network of over 3,200 route kilometres to provide gauging information. This included 669 station platforms and 4,715 bridges.

The outputs from the RILA system can be delivered through a secure web portal which integrates 2D and 3D data to provide a 3D model of the railway corridor. This allows route engineers and asset managers to view their acquired data in a desktop environment.

Until recently, data had to be manually processed before being entered on the NGD. This required skilled technicians to select and categorise the data and determine the type of structure. This was a significant bottleneck, especially with the increased amount of data to be entered from train mounted RILA surveys. In 2020, Atkins was awarded innovation funding to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance interpretation of point cloud data, and to use it to accurately locate and identify trackside features to provide accurate gauging clearance processing. This process is used to analyse RILA point cloud data for upload to the NGD.

AI is also used to separately classify vegetation from the RILA point cloud as vegetation needs to be cleaned out of this LiDAR data before a gauging profile can be created. This also enables the production of reports on vegetation encroachment.

Fugro’s RILA system being mounted on a train

3D model clash and gauging visualisation from RILA point cloud AI generated section from RILA point cloud

Fugro’s process to create gauging files for structures, platforms, and 6ft passing clearance is accredited to Network Rail’s structure gauge recording standard, NR/L2/ TRK/3203.

USING PASSENGER TRAINS

It takes around three hours to manually gauge an individual structure. Doing this in the time it took the SGT to pass through the bridge at 50mph was clearly a significant improvement. Yet the NGD covers 16,000 route kilometres, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts, and thousands of signals, level crossings, and over 2,500 stations. Hence, maintaining this amount of data with a bespoke train that could only operate at night at 50mph was a significant challenge. Indeed, there were not sufficient train paths for the SGT to survey all of Network Rail’s infrastructure in the required timescale.

The development of the compact RILA unit that can be used on in-service trains significantly increases the rate at which gauging data can be collected. When combined with AI to rapidly process point cloud gauging data into the NGD, this will increase the accuracy of the database and ensure that it is up to date.

Since October 2022, Cordel has also been collecting gauging data from its Cordel Wave32 equipment installed in three GWR Class 165 DMUs based at Reading, which generate LiDAR point clouds and highresolution video.

RAILWAY GAUGING DATA SOLUTION

As Malcolm Dobell explains in his feature ‘Gauging or Gouging’ (issue 202, May-June 2023) gauging is a complex issue requiring an assessment of the dynamic behaviour of the train. There are many limited clearance locations on the UK’s historic constrained infrastructure that require precise processes to get the best use of the network.

However, the lack of gauging information has caused various problems, including increasing the cost of introducing new trains, and preventing rail freight operators from promptly responding to potential customers who may require to move containers over a new route. Furthermore, often routes may be shown as not clear but not why. Yet work to clear the route to a larger gauge may be quite simple. Level boarding is also an important issue for which accurate gauging information is required.

The availability of accurate up-to-date gauging information is essential if the above issues are to be addressed. This requires both the frequent collection of gauging data, made possible from compact units mounted on service trains, and more effective processing of this data.

In December 2021 Cordel, which has partnered with gauging specialists D/ Gauge, won a 6.5-year contract to replace the NGS with a more resilient new Railway Gauging Data Solution (RGDS) using its approved technology for processing gauging information. After 18 months of development RGDS went live as planned in August. As a result, hundreds of authorised users at Network Rail and third-party suppliers are now benefiting from sharper data flows, more consistent positioning of lineside structures, enhanced quality assurance, and shortened feedback loops which improve the integrity of the national gauging dataset.

Going forward, the RGDS IT architecture unlocks further potential to exploit modern ways of collecting and storing infrastructure data including machine learning. This includes being able to accept the larger data input from more frequent in-service passenger train surveys. In essence, RGDS will provide Network Rail and its customers with an end-to-end automated intelligent gauging solution that addresses the unique complexities of constrained UK railway gauging.

RGDS, together with the regular collection of data from Fugro and Cordel equipment, should ensure that problems from the lack of infrastructure gauging data will soon be a thing of the past.

A Class 165 DMU in which Cordel’s Wave32 equipment has been installed

The HS2 project has featured in these pages many times before and its industry leading approach continues to demonstrate innovative methods of design and construction.

HS2 plans to be the most sustainable highspeed rail network in the world, with its objective being to reduce embodied emissions by 50% (tCO2e/t) by 2030, compared with 2021 levels. About half of the emissions being produced during Phase 1 are associated with concrete and steel construction materials.

The Thame Valley viaduct carrying HS2 above the River Thame and its flood plain, just outside Aylesbury, is one of 15 being built by Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and BAM Nuttall (EKFB). It was chosen to trial an off-site manufactured modular viaduct with every major element of the structure being prefabricated. Set low into the landscape with a simple

and consistent profile, the underside of the 880-metre-long viaduct will be just three metres above the ground, with 36 spans crossing the river and surrounding flood plain and wetlands.

Tomas Garcia, HS2’s head of civils structures, and Tiago Palas, head of operations for FC Civils Solutions, explained to Rail Engineer the innovative features and benefits of the design and installation of this landmark viaduct.

The design is of lighter weight than the indicative design and this, together with reduced transport, will save around 19,000 tonnes of embodied carbon, reducing its carbon footprint by a third. Tomas said: “We’re serious about cutting embedded carbon in construction, reducing cost and programme and improving safety, performance and durability. Thame Valley is a great example of how our contractors are embracing the latest engineering techniques to do just that.”

Designed by EKFB, the precast elements are being manufactured by PACADAR UK, at its factory at Isle of Grain in Kent, and installed by construction partner, FC Civils Solutions, using its experience of constructing similar prefabricated structures.

ALTERNATIVE DESIGN

The Thame Valley Viaduct is one of HS2’s Key Design Elements as it is located close to a residential area and in recognition of the community’s interest in the River Thame corridor. As a result, the HS2 team held a public engagement event early in 2020 to present the proposals and gather comments.

The viaduct will be partially visible from public rights of way to the south-west but, elsewhere, is largely obscured by a combination of gentle folds in the landscape and existing hedgerows

Completed piers for the Thame Valley Viaduct at the Pacadar UK factory May 2023

Modular design simplifies construction of HS2’s Thame Valley Viaduct

BOB WRIGHT

Artist’s impression of the Thame Valley Viaduct in ten years time

and trees. As a result, the project was generally seen as uncontentious but some valuable local commentary on the design was received.

EKFB worked with its design partner ASC, a joint venture between Arcadis Setec and COWI, to develop the design. The original indicative design for the viaduct was for pairs of precast hollow pier shells that would be filled on site. These would then support four narrow hollow beams that would be joined together at each end by a cast in-situ cross beam above both piers. On these would be formed an in situ concrete deck and parapets.

Applying lessons from the construction of recent high-speed rail projects in Spain, the alternative developed by the team is based on a modular design which has been widely implemented by PACADAR. This was for fully formed solid piers that could be brought to site complete and simply plugged into the pile caps. On these would be just two wide hollow beams that, unlike the narrow beams, would not require a cross beam for

stability but would be connected simply by a reinforced in-situ deck formed on permanent precast concrete planks. The abutments will be cast in situ as a precast solution was not practical.

The pretensioned hollow beams will be coupled to the next beams through thickened end walls using post tensioned bars. In this way a continuously tensioned deck will be created, with all main elements of the structure always in compression. As a result, there will be no tendency to micro-cracking, resulting in much enhanced long-term durability.

POSITIVE AESTHETICS

Architects are involved in most of HS2’s projects to ensure positive aesthetics that enhance their surroundings. Here specialist architect, Moxon, supported the structural design team and provided a number of features that will help the viaduct to sit comfortably within its landscape.

The spans of the viaduct are relatively short, at around 25 metres, to avoid an unsightly, thick deck. The piers are placed in pairs, one for each side of the deck, so when viewed at an angle, sight lines between the piers to the landscape beyond avoid an apparently continuous line of concrete. The piers have also been detailed to include heavily textured side panels that soften their appearance and, within the central gap between piers, also provide a slot that hides the deck drainage downpipes.

The piers extend upwards to almost connect with the parapet edge, helping to enhance the appearance of a light and narrow structure. This combination of outwardly smooth and inwardly textured surfaces aims to catch the sunlight and draw the eye, minimising the apparent bulk of the piers. The cantilevered sides of the deck provide shading that further soften the structure’s appearance. All external elements are being made at the same location from the same concrete mix components and so the colour will be consistent throughout, something that is not always achievable with on-site construction.

Completed pier for the Thame Valley Viaduct comes out of a mould at the Pacadar UK factory

Pairs of piers installed on the pile caps within cofferdams

Around the viaduct, the river floodplain will be enhanced to boost biodiversity and help better manage flood water. This will include replacing existing arable land with new wildlife-rich areas of woodland and wetland.

The design process involved reviews and approval by Aylesbury Vale District Council and the design received positive feedback from the HS2 Independent Design Panel, which strongly praised the scheme.

MANUFACTURE BY PACADAR

The 68 pier sections and the 72 deck beams, together with parapet and ancillary beams, are being manufactured 90 miles away at PACADAR’s factory on the Isle of Grain in north Kent. The factory also produces tunnel segments for HS2’s London tunnels. To accommodate this large contract, a purpose-built casting shed with gantry cranes has been constructed. To support the project, PACADAR’s workforce has doubled to 200 people which includes apprentices and graduate engineers from nearby universities. The 42-tonne piers and 97-tonne deck beams are substantial elements to transport to site by road and this strongly influenced the design. For example, the piers are being cast and transported on their sides to reduce their transit height.

INSTALLATION IN THE THAME VALLEY

The first task on site in 2022 was the building of an access road alongside the viaduct alignment, together with a piling platform at each pier position. These were constructed using imported fill to form raised working areas above the one in 100-year flood level.

Beginning in October 2022, temporary steel sheet pile cofferdams were constructed at each pier position. Within these, the substructures were constructed. To avoid differential settlement in the variable ground conditions, bored piles, up to 45 metres depth, were installed beneath each of the two pier positions in each cofferdam. Pile caps were then cast in-situ, which included sockets to receive the dowels on the underside of the piers.

The piers were delivered laid on their outer sides. On arrival these are lifted by a 300-tonne crawler crane and 100-tonne mobile crane working in tandem, to lift and rotate the pier to the vertical. Slotting and grouting the piers into the pile caps is a precise task but is a relatively quick process – an efficiency enabled by its innovative design and the construction-led experience that has been incorporated into the design. Once installed, the cofferdam piling is then removed and reused further along the viaduct.

The 97-tonne weight of the beams was the governing factor in the selection of a 300-tonne crawler as the site craneage. These are simply supported on sliding bearings on the pier tops, with no propping required. Once beams have been placed, some light bracing against the pier top is inserted to stabilise it until the deck slab has been formed.

The deck slab forms the top of the box beams and also provides structural connection between the two beams. The slab also cantilevers out to support the parapet beam. As originally scoped, this would have required Paraslim formwork and falsework. In the alternative design this is replaced by precast permanent soffit planks bearing on,

and supported by, the deck beams. Much work at height is avoided by this method and it is a much quicker and safer solution. The deck slab is now the only substantial in-situ concrete required on the project. Once completed the slab will have spray waterproofing applied before a protection slab, and then the track slab, are cast above it. The superstructure erection began with the first pier in May 2023 and the viaduct is due for completion in Q2/2025. Given the success already demonstrated, HS2 plans to adopt the Thame Valley viaduct construction methodology and apply this on future Phase 2 projects.

BENEFITS OF THE MODULAR CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM

» Reduced carbon. The lighter weight deck and other savings will reduce the carbon footprint by a third.

» Higher quality. The offsite manufacture of all major components within factory conditions will ensure consistent high-quality products and finishes.

» Faster construction. The simpler on-site works will result in a shorter on-site construction period.

» Reduced on-site work. The alternative design makes use of large elements that can be simply assembled on site with no formwork, falsework

or propping, whereas the original design would have required support to the beams until joined by the diaphragms and extensive falsework and formwork to construct the in-situ diaphragms and decks.

» Safer construction. With the hugely reduced level of on-site work, the omission of formwork, falsework, propping and high level in-situ concrete means that the small workforce will be exposed to less working at height safety risks.

» Simplified construction. The modular system requires fewer crane lifts than an on-site approach and so a single 300-tonne crawler is all that is necessary to assemble the viaduct.

» Greatly reduced delivery movements. By manufacturing off site, the project will require less lorries to deliver material to site, reducing disruption on the local highway network.

» Less environmental disruption. The reduced on-site works means less noise and less risk of accidental spillages into the river.

Tomas Garcia said: “Thame Valley may not be HS2’s biggest viaduct, but it does represent a major step forward in terms of its structural design. The post-tensioned double-beam approach used here has enabled the whole viaduct to be manufactured off-site – dramatically improving efficiency, safety, and quality, while delivering outstanding performance and durability.”

www.pacadar.com

Synthetic wood saves Nottingham forest

Nigel Keightley, consulting track engineer at Sekisui, talks us through the state of the art upgrade of a Nottinghamshire Network Rail bridge.

Sekisui manufactures synthetic wood baulks made from Fibre-reinforced Foamed Urethane (FFU). Network Rail engineers installed the first FFU baulks as replacements for traditional hardwood waybeam timbers in Kent during 2014. Since then, FFU has been used to provide track support on more than 65 railway bridges in the UK and Ireland.

The FFU product was first introduced on Japanese Railways in 1980 and early installations are still performing to specification. The most recent installation was completed by Network Rail Works Delivery Eastern Team and its industry partners during a blockade at the impressive River Devon Viaduct at Newark, Nottinghamshire, between 2-11 September 2023. This formed part of a wider £2 million project to improve the bridge structure and track assets.

Sekisui holds full Network Rail Product Acceptance Certification PA05/06576 for the installation of FFU to support track systems over bridges, this includes run on and run off sleepers, bearers for guard rails, and gathering rail panels.

Sekisui welcomes the opportunity to work with designers to provide solutions for each individual bridge asset. The FFU baulks can be fabricated and milled to meet structure specific geometry requirements, including providing holes, notches, pockets, and variable cross level to individual baulks.

Key benefits over hardwood include longevity with over 50 years’ service life. FFU is also form retentive, not prone to splitting or absorption of water, and does not rot or deteriorate in sunlight. It therefore contributes significantly to asset ‘whole life cycle cost reduction’ by reducing maintenance and renewal interventions. The product does not require maintenance inspectors to complete micro-drilling during service life and is fully recyclable.

Nigel Keightley

NOB1 BRIDGE 63 RIVER DEVON, NEWARK

Underbridge 63 River Devon Viaduct (NOB1) is located 150 metres southwest of the East Coast Main Line and the Newark Flat Crossing which was successfully installed on an FFU lattice bearer system in 2019. The viaduct supports a 50mph two-track mixed traffic railway on the Nottingham East-Barnetby line. It comprises a total of 26 spans and crosses the southern branch of the River Trent, known locally as the River Devon.

The bridge is in the vicinity of light industrial works and the British Sugar processing plant to the west. A weir

is present on the river immediately to the east of the bridge where an Archimedes screw powerplant and fish pass has recently been constructed. The Nether Lock gate is located beneath the structure and the A46 elevated road runs parallel to the railway. Restrictive site access gave the construction teams quite a logistical challenge.

The plan below shows the main river spans and canal span where the existing track was supported by timber waybeams. Additional spans located to the northwest, southeast, and centre cross the land which serves as a flood plain. The track construction was on hardwood timber sleepers on ballast.

OPTIONS

Network Rail first held initial discussions with Sekisui regarding this project in 2018 during the design phase for the Newark Flat Crossing. The River Devon project began to take shape in 2022 when designers HBPW produced options for the refurbishment of the structure and track system.

The options for the track were:

1. Replace with FFU longitudinal baulk & conventional baseplates, retaining existing concrete fill.

2. Replace with FFU longitudinal baulk & conventional baseplates, removing existing concrete fill.

3. Replace with steel waybeam with VIPA/VANGUARD baseplates, removing existing concrete fill.

The client, East Coast Route Engineer (Track) selected Option 1 as preferred. While Options 2 and 3 offered some benefits in terms of allowing repairs and repainting to the rail bearer, these are slight, and the removal of the concrete fill and installing steel waybeam would be significantly more complex and costly.

The existing longitudinal timbers had comprised a pair of 200mm x 283mm timbers fixed together to form a 200mm x 566mm timber seated on top of the 98mm deep transverse walkway timbers. During previous annual bridge inspections, the local track maintenance engineer had reported that the existing timbers were moving, believed to be due to deterioration to the transverse decking timbers over time. Therefore, these decking timbers were to be designed out in favour of replacement with an open mesh GRP grating walkway system, supported on a new independent steel frame panel.

FFU baulks are available in sections up to 600mm x 600mm. To allow the existing holding down/lateral support brackets to be reused, it was specified that 300mm x 560mm FFU baulks be utilised. The existing track has the waybeams seated on a concrete bed. These were installed when the original timber trestles were replaced with the current steel trestles in 1961. It is understood that the concrete was installed to provide a constant level surface over the river spans to improve the ride vertical profile following settlement of the timber trestles.

While there were a few localised areas of spalling, it generally appeared to be in good condition, and it was deemed suitable for continued use. The concrete showed some steel bars visible,

therefore it was assumed the pad was reinforced with what appears to be mesh reinforcement. The site construction team ensured mortar was available during the construction works so that localised repairs could be carried out as required.

Option 1 provided the most straightforward and cost-effective solution. Initially proposing the replacement of longitudinal timbers with a ‘like-for-like’, early involvement with the project enabled Sekisui to recommend a bespoke FFU baulks system which would reduce production costs utilising by 8-metre-long baulks that would provide an extremely effective replacement for timber waybeams, with a minimum design life of 50 years. The collaboration with the designers ensured track geometry, transom detail, and holding down arrangement could all be incorporated into the pre-site FFU fabrication requirements. The River Span is some 70 metres long and required 44 FFU baulks. The Canal Span was much shorter at around 12 metres and required eight baulks to be fabricated.

FINAL DESIGN

By February 2023, the final design was ‘approved for construction’ and a schedule of baulks was sent to Sekisui for production. Fabrication drawings for each component were provided and approved by the client before the baulks were manufactured and shipped to the UK. Final fabrication and pre-site build up was completed by BSSL in Middlesbrough to ensure exact fit before the FFU was shipped to site for installation.

In addition to the baulks, Sekisui supplied a total of 480 FFU sleepers and bearers to provide track support over the land spans for the run-on and run-offs from the structures. These also supported the Schwihag BCR7 baseplates with UIC33 guard rails and gathering panels. The benefit was provision of continuity of track stiffness.

The Network Rail Works Delivery executed the track programme successfully between 2-11 September 2023 and the line was safely handed back to traffic in the early hours of 11 September. With thanks to Works Delivery Eastern, Capital Delivery Eastern, AmcoGiffen, PBH Rail, and HBPW Consulting Engineers.

Thanks also to Glenn Wilson (SPE Track NR), Rachel Braid (PM Track NR), Lee Stevens (WDM Track NR), Jon Livesey (HBPW), Mike Dawson (PBH Track Designer).

Sekisui is proud to have been a supplier to this prestigious project.

Synthetic Sleeper

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Dawlish Rockfall Shelter

When Brunel planned his railway route between Exeter and Newton Abbot, he probably knew he was challenging himself to a significant task by choosing to follow the coast closely along the Exe estuary, the open seashore through Dawlish to Teignmouth, and then the Teign estuary. Along the open seashore section of the route the challenge was to create a ledge for the railway to run along and then to protect that infrastructure from both below and from above.

Protection from potential damage below in the shape of wave action and storms took the form of substantial masonry walls and beach groynes. Protection from potential damage from above in the shape of landslips and cliff falls from the fairly weak New Red Sandstone took the form of judging the appropriate grading of the excavated cliff faces or, perhaps the easier option, the provision of five tunnels. It is widely known that over the years the sea walls have suffered several failures, often leading to closure of the line. It is probably less well known that the cliffs have also caused problems for safe operation of the railway, particularly over more recent years.

SITE OF NEW ROCKFALL SHELTER

To say that the site of the rockfall shelter is inaccessible would be a serious understatement. It is situated above a rocky shoreline at the foot of 60-metre-high cliffs and in a short section of open line between two tunnels. The nearest significant road access is

the busy Dawlish to Teignmouth main road, 600 metres from the clifftops. The nearest rail access points suitable for loading rail vehicles are at Newton Abbot, 6.5 miles away or at Dawlish Warren, 2.5 miles away. There is a restricted access point suitable only for personnel, small plant, and light materials at Smugglers Cove at the west end of Parsons Tunnel.

EVOLUTION OF THE SCHEME

The works form Phase 3 of the South West Resilience Programme, which has already seen the major works carried out as Phases 1 and 2 for the new sea walls and station enhancement work around Dawlish.

Because of the varying nature of the cliffs in terms of exact rock formation, slope, vegetation cover and water features, the route adjacent to the cliffs has been subdivided and designated into Cliff Behavioural Units (CBUs). Phase 3 addresses the problems presented by CBU 17. Phase 4 will cover CBUs 18-26 and will involve slope stabilisation and enhanced netting installation.

The cliffs at the eastern end of Parsons Tunnel have been previously subject to much protection, with rock bolted netting to minimise the risk of falls onto the operational railway. But these measures, evaluated by the Resilience Study, were now deemed inadequate. This led to the decision to provide a much more robust type of defence in the form of a rockfall shelter. The length was originally going to be around 200 metres, but a value engineering study eventually reduced this to only 109 metres.

MARK PHILLIPS

DESIGN DETAILS

The design of the rockfall shelter consists of 19 reinforced concrete portal frames, each of two columns and a cross member. The roof is a reinforced concrete slab, and the cliff side of the structure is of wall panels against which backfill between the structure and the cliffs could be placed. Interestingly, the seaward side of the structure is left open to preserve the sea views for those extra few seconds of a journey.

The main contractor for the design and build works is Morgan Sindall, which has established a very well set up site office, messing, and safety facilities in a compound just off the main road. A subsidiary messing area at the end of a haul road, right at the top of the cliffs above the site of the rockfall shelter, has also been created to provide staff welfare facilities a little closer to the site and also to stable such plant as mobile concrete pumps and generators. Even from that area there is still a 17-flight scaffolding stairway to gain access to track level. This route crosses the coastal path and padlocked gates either side of the path are necessary.

PREFABRICATED UNITS

The concrete portal frames were prefabricated by Cornish Concrete and delivered by road to Hackney Sidings at Newton Abbot. The concrete has been subtly coloured a very light shade of red to blend aesthetically with the natural geology. This was achieved by experimenting with varying quantities of a synthetic iron oxide pigment, supplied by Proctor Johnson, added to the concrete mix until the desired effect was achieved.

These trials were done as small ‘Lego’ blocks. Once the desired colouration had been approved at the concrete works by Morgan Sindall, the appropriate block could be viewed and compared with the geological setting on site by Network Rail, Morgan Sindall, and the local planning authority. Production of the correct colouration for the actual columns and beams was achieved by scaling up from the pigment mix trials.

Fabrication of the columns and beams was quite complex. Cast into the foot of each column is a 400kg shear key and six Peikko Bolda column shoes, each weighing around 100kg. The columns were cast in a horizontal position, but nevertheless the weight of the steel ‘attachments’ meant that timber shuttering at the base would be totally inadequate to maintain the correct geometry and positioning of these critical fixing components. Even with 25mm thick steel plating for this area of the formwork, additional complex support arrangements were needed during casting. As for the cross beams, U-shaped in crosssection, and with narrow floor and wall widths, and congested reinforcement, great care was needed to ensure correct concrete compaction. Both columns and cross beams are designed with

exposed reinforcement where the two elements are joined in situ. To check the exact positioning of the reinforcement and to avoid a clash between each of the major structural elements, Daniel Burrows, design and technical director for Cornish Concrete, explained that it was essential for the fabricator to go beyond the structural design as produced by Arup and to actually model the spatial interaction of the two elements. This was done using a Building Information Modelling (BIM) software package from Tekla Structures.

Each column weighs in at 17.5 tonnes and each cross beam at 22 tonnes. They were brought by road from Truro to Hackney sidings at Newton Abbot to await transport to site by rail. In addition to these 38 column units and 19 cross beams, the other prefabricated components for the structure are 34 edge beams, 76 wall panel units, and 94 parapet units.

PROGRAMME AND CONSTRUCTION ASPECTS

The works commenced in Autumn 2021 and are scheduled to be complete by Christmas 2023. Major possessions were used between Christmas 2021 and February 2022 to bring lineside plant and materials to site and to construct lineside gantry rails for the overhead crane. The first major activity was the installation of bored piles, being the foundations for the columns. The piles are 450mm diameter installed with a Klemm 702 piling rig. There was a requirement for nine-metrelong steel casings to form the upper section of each pile. It was not permitted to have these made up of shorter sections, site welded, and so manipulation and placement of the casings was a significant task.

The piling work was carried out in special 6.5hour weeknight possessions, which necessitated the temporary suspension of the overnight Penzance-London sleeper services in both directions for a period. Rory Shavrin, project director for Morgan Sindall, told Rail Engineer that very good understanding and assistance with amending train operations was had from Great Western Trains, Cross Country Trains, and Railfreight.

Ben Shearing, senior project engineer civils for Network Rail, explained that following pile installation, the construction of pile caps and pad foundations to receive the precast column units was not a straightforward process, because of the limited working space. Further temporary

sheet piled walls propped off the permanent piles that were needed to support the track, enabling construction of the permanent pile caps and column foundations. This was largely because of the proximity of the running lines to this work.

The prefabricated concrete elements were brought by rail from Hackney Sidings using a Unimog towing up to 10 flatbed trailers. Columns could fit along a single trailer, but the cross beams had to span two trailers. The wall units were stacked three-high on the trailers. With the Unimog being limited to 5mph, considerable cumulative possession time was needed to get all the units to site.

Unloading and positioning of the concrete units was effected with a twin girder Goliath 20 tonne gantry crane. This was a bespoke version of the standard crane with the span increased by Morgan Sindall specifically for the site. A clever feature of the design of the column units is that they were supplied with a single lifting point, just close to the centre of gravity, calculated to be in the correct position such that when lifted from the trailer by the gantry crane, each unit would swing to hang exactly vertical, making final positioning and placement onto the foundation that much easier. There is such limited space at the site that there was no possibility of storing any of the major components at the lineside. Therefore, it was very important to have the facility to lift the units directly from the rail wagons to their installed position. The cross beams had two lifting points and were simply lifted into place with a spreader beam. Longitudinal deck units forming permanent

shuttering were then installed spanning between the main cross beams and finally work proceeded on the reinforced concrete decking, creating a deck of overall depth of 500 millimetres. This work was able to safely continue whilst rail traffic was running.

There are some final stages of the work still to be carried out. Firstly, the backfilling of the space between the wall panels and the cliff face, which has been covered with a membrane. This will be achieved by pumping in an estimated 5,000 cubic metres of very weak concrete. Then a layer of sand, one metre deep, will be placed all over the rockfall shelter deck, which will have a parapet on the seaward side. The sand layer is to spread punching loads from falling boulders and to prevent any such falls bouncing off the shelter. Finally, the remaining area of cliff face where the shelter is not being provided, is being subjected to rock scaling, soil nailing and netting installation. CAN Geotechnical Ltd is providing the labour and plant for this work, with materials supplied by Morgan Sindall.

Pumped concrete for all the works is delivered by vertical 5-inch and 4-inch pipelines from the compound at the clifftop. These pipelines incorporate double bends to prevent separation of the mix through intense gravitational effects. There is also a static pump at the base of the cliffs for onward delivery. Refuelling of all lineside plant is by road/rail delivery of fuel cubes.

HISTORY REPEATING

What was not revealed at the start of this article is that this current rockfall shelter work is an extension of a very similar project which was completed a century ago. The original Parsons Tunnel was 374 yards in length. In 1920 it was found necessary to extend the tunnel eastwards by 147 yards with the provision of a rockfall shelter for the same reasons as in the present day. A five-ring brick arch was built on a travelling falsework. The arch was supported from two brick walls and the falsework was moved on guide rails outside the operational lines.

Like the current project, the space between the new shelter and the cliff face was backfilled with concrete and the roof was grassed over. Will it be another 100 years before the ‘tunnel’ has to be extended further eastwards? Hopefully, the value engineering which reduced the proposed length of the new rockfall shelter will be vindicated, and such further extension may never be needed.

The works are being funded effectively under the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP) and the cost of Phase 3 is estimated at £50 million.

Improving passenger ride comfort

In Rail Engineer 200 (Jan/Feb 2023), an article about poor comfort of modern trains concluded that ride quality is a system property and not determined by the train alone. In July, the IMechE held a ride comfort seminar with presentation from train, track, system, and Transport Focus experts. With humans coming in all sorts of shapes and sizes with a variety of opinions, this is a complex multi-dimensional problem involving human perception.

PASSENGERS

Ian Wright from Transport Focus and Neil Bates from Creactive Design Transport (CDT) outlined comfort from the passenger’s point of view. There’s more to it than just the seat, vehicle movement, and noise. Ian reported that a passenger’s fifthhighest priority was getting a seat

- much more important than getting a comfortable seat (16th). This was taken as an approximation for ride comfort, acknowledging that both factors become more important with older passengers. He explained that passengers’ priorities vary depending on time of travel with off-peak only travellers likely to be less familiar/ confident about train travel.

MerseyTravel commissioned Transport Focus’s passenger research group to help make the interior of its new trains appealing to Merseyside residents. Ian explained how prospective passengers identified what they liked (comfortable bay seating) and disliked (narrow blocked aisles, lack of storage space and longitudinal seat, like those on the London Underground). Customers said they appreciate having seats close to doors, expressed a desire for open wide gangways, but dislike people blocking doorways. The new Liverpool trains (Class 777) have tip up seats providing flexibility, bike spaces, wheelchair spaces, and, crucially, level access from platform to train.

IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT SEATS

More generally, Ian questioned the recent drive for more and more seats. It is really more about the battle for the limited space represented by the available floor area of the train, he said. Legislation has mandated space for wheelchairs, but is it unreasonable for a family to be able to keep a buggy with them adjacent to their seats? And what about enough space for luggage? And has the legislation for wheelchair spaces kept up with thw demand and nature of the wheelchairs themselves?

Neil Bates suggested that the design of trains should start much earlier than is usually the case, saying that the train design is part of the brand and not just a canvas on which to apply it. He showed a Design Council methodology adding that train design usually starts at the ‘plan’ stage – halfway through the process. The seat is one of the most important ‘interfaces’ on the train.

they identify include: (i) legroomseat pitch and free-space between in-line seat backs; (ii) shoulder space - how much free space between seat centres; (iii) seat angles and geometry - appropriate for length of journey; (iv) lumbar support - its location, extent and integration; and (v) seat space (for bay seats with tables).

In another journal, CDT has said: “The industry has largely failed to grasp the importance of passenger experience, which should be at the centre of how trains, stations, and amenities are designed. Railways should work with passengers and do so early”. This was the case with Liverpool’s Class 777s.

Bridget Eickhoff from RSSB described the challenge of specifying and assessing ride comfort, which

track properties. Vehicle modes of vibration are: longitudinal –contributing to general ride; vertical/ bounce and pitch – contributing to vertical ride; lower sway; upper sway and yaw which contribute to lateral ride. The frequencies and how much different modes are excited depends on details of vehicle and suspension design.

Track quality also affects vehicle ride, and some knowledge of track quality is necessary in choosing the suspension options. Bridget outlined the EN12299 standard for assessing passenger comfort. This standard is based on significant practical testing of passenger reactions in a range of vehicles. Ideally then, a specifier could simply say ‘please achieve <this> ride performance measured using EN12299 on <that> track’.

Bridget Eickhoff Vehicle dynamic modes - Video Creactive Design Transport’s ‘starburst’ diagram describing numerous factors affecting seat comfort

© MerseyTravel

© Design Council

© MerseyTravel

Liverpool Class 777 interior

Class 777 multi-purpose area with tip up seats

CHALLENGES

Bridget explained that no single body – specifier, supplier, operator, or infrastructure manager – has overall control. Other assessment methods also have challenges such as: (i) simulation (how to validate the model?); (ii) test track testing (are the conditions representative?); (iii) testing on the actual route (are the conditions predicable and repeatable?); or (iv) comparison with existing trains (how does the supplier know that the existing train is representative?). This illustrates why it is difficult to write robust specifications and how suppliers can easily challenge them.

Phil Rogers from Atkins continued by describing 11 factors that affect a passenger’s ride, only three of which can be influenced by a dynamics engineer. Phil gave a brief masterclass on suspension design beyond the scope of this article, but key principles were that primary suspension should be stiffer than secondary suspension and there should be good isolation between body and bogie dynamics.

For a good ride, soft suspension is desired both vertically and laterally. This requires well controlled damping, progressive bump stops, and good vibration isolation which considers all transmission paths. But, Phil added, it is not that simple. Engineers generally have to balance their desire for softness against the need to manage gauge constraints by tightly controlling vehicle movements. Factors

include roll stiffness (which affects primary suspension stiffness), lateral stiffness, lateral bump stops (which affect ride when curving), and anti-roll bars (which are limited by required twisted track performance). An example is the choice of inside or outside frame bogies. To manage roll stiffness, an inside frame bogie might require much stiffer primary suspension than the equivalent outside frame bogie.

With so many parameters affecting ride, optimisation using simulation is a key ingredient. The simulation must use models of key components, take account of the effect of body flexibility, wheel/ rail conditions, and include representations of track conditions that vehicles will face when operating, including jointed track. The design/simulation also needs to accommodate a wide wheel/rail effective conicity range to help maximise wheel life while avoiding body or bogie hunting. Even then, poor detail design can let down a theoretically good set-up. Phil cited examples. Are the body to bogie connections optimised? Is the bodyshell stiff enough? Is the required end stiffness achieved on dampers? Have all noise/vibration paths been considered - e.g., dampers, anti-roll bar links, traction links?

For the future, Phil said that designers might look at less conventional solutions such as progressive bump stops, switchable dampers, active lateral dampers, or inerters devices that exert force relative to the acceleration they experience.

SEATS

Even if the ride quality is sorted, there’s still the seats to consider. Rail Engineer covered this in issue 176 (July 2019), reporting the results of RSSB research project T1140. Since then, the research has been turned into a guidance note (GMGN2696), which RSSB’s Barry Tan introduced. He also described the next stage of seat comfort research (T1314): Evaluating Dynamic Comfort Factors, which will use the University of Huddersfield’s THOMoS train motion simulator for validation.

Barry talked more generally about comfort – a sense of wellbeing or the absence of discomfort. He illustrated the issue with various subjective factors explained by Ahmadpour et al, 2014.

Green indicates design parameters and comfort aspects that a dynamics engineer can influence

An overview of the eight factors of passenger comfort in relation to their concerns defined by Ahmadpour et al. Note: proxemics is the discomfort felt when strangers are close to each other

Other non-rolling stock comfort factors include stations/interchanges with clear signs and good waiting rooms, reliable frequent services with good connections and the feeling of discomfort whenever a rail passenger sees the dreaded words ‘Rail Replacement Bus Service’.

Martin Ward, head of fleet technical (deputy rolling stock director), at the West Coast Development Partnership talked about turning a seat concept into practice. In Martin’s opinion, rail seats serve different purposes, according to the type of rail service and possibly the length of the journey. Metros need seats to be functional, but comfort is probably less important than seating capacity. On longer distance regional and inter-city rail services, comfort becomes more important.

PEOPLE

Seat design is also affected by what people do on trains. Journey purpose affects the way in which people will sit. Are they working or relaxing? Watching a video? Trying to sleep? Eating a snack? Passengers need to be able to move and adjust their position, but remain comfortable. A train seat must try to accommodate this wide range of requirements.

Martin has been involved in seat development for Avanti and Lumo, a process that started after the adverse media coverage of ironing board seats around 2017/2018. While noting

Ian Wright’s comments about the comparatively low priority passengers place on seat comfort Martin said: “We do know it plays an important role in overall passenger satisfaction, particularly for longer journeys”. When planning the Lumo open access operation, First Group worked with a design agency called ‘forpeople’. Proposals for seat pitch and seat angle were developed together with options for seat layout, bay, unidirectional, staggered, etc. Passenger testing of seats was also carried out for the West Coast franchise bid where it was known that the Pendolino trains would need a mid-life refurbishment. Passenger feedback was, as might be expected, mixed.

While market research initially indicated that the current Pendolino seats and proposed new seats were similar, a more considered response led to a preference for a new, more reclined seat. For the majority, the more reclined seat offered more comfort, the ability to recline/relax, and greater support. And while the current seat’s upright position could be seen as offering a better environment when working, there were concerns about the seat’s configuration in providing comfort on longer journeys.

All this led to the use of a seat from Transcal for all seats on the Lumo Class 803 trains and in standard class on Avanti Pendolinos and classes 805/807. These seats and the extending seatback tables have received a big thumbs up from passengers, said Martin. The new seats have thinner seat backs than those they have replaced but are still rated as comfortable, showing the importance of good design and passenger testing.

As installed in a refurbished Pendolino

ADVANCED SIMULATION

Julian Stow from the University of Huddersfield Institute of Railway Research introduced its Rail Vehicle Ride Simulator, THOMoS (Train Hi fidelity On-board Motion Simulator) - see also Rail Engineer issue 195. As already discussed, evaluating ride comfort is difficult. Passenger comfort is subjective, and people will experience the same conditions differently, while standards try to fit analytical measures to data from human participants in ride tests, but the results can be difficult to interpret. On track passenger comfort tests are very expensive. They need a large cohort to get useful results and changing track or vehicle conditions (e.g., track quality, suspension settings, seats) is not easy. Julian wondered whether these factors taken together might have reduced the focus on passenger comfort.

But, he said, simulation and motion reproduction technology has improved. For example, a six degree of freedom motion simulator can provide a highly realistic, repeatable experience at a comparatively modest price. This led to the

development of a laboratory rail vehicle motion simulator, THOMoS or, as Julian put it ‘any vehicle, on any journey, in any conditions’. THOMoS allows full motion replay of vehicle dynamic simulations. Any vehicle (from trams to high-speed rail) and any route can be simulated using a high-performance motion system. Up to four seated/standing passengers can be accommodated and, to make sure the simulation is realistic, there is 160km of urban/rural scenery, viewed through the ‘windows’ with accurate visual cueing such as simulated tilt. The interior can be configured with table or airline style seats, day or night can be shown, and the audio system provides for diesel or electric traction and rail joints, curve squeal, braking noise, and more. Full audio-visual recordings are available too.

Julian outlined the possible applications of THOMoS which include: a live demonstration of vehicle dynamics simulation results; ride comfort assessment for seated and standing passengers; immediate assessment of comfort and human response to varying curve transition design and switch and crossing alignment (including high speed); assessment of vehicle interior comfort (seat design, layout, temperature etc.); investigating trade-offs between suspension design and track geometric quality; testing interior fixtures, fittings, and equipment; and examining passenger response to unusual situations.

As always, even simulators need to be optimised and Julian described the lessons learned:

» Careful attention was required to tune filters in the system.

» Realism was enhanced considerably by attention to detail, e.g., floor rumble, sound level, and braking/acceleration.

» Simulation output must be flawless requiring careful model validation and high quality track data.

» Test design requires careful selection of ‘passenger’ cohort selection (size/mix), how data is gathered and the length of test.

THOMoS exterior

THOMoS interior

THE TRACK-TRAIN SYSTEM

The track is, of course, a key part of delivering good ride comfort. If the track is smooth and conforms with modern standards, the suspension designer’s task might be eased a little, and, while this is the track engineer’s objective, John Edgley, Network Rail’s Chief Track and S&C Engineer explained some of the challenges.

Track is a system which includes the land (formation) on which the ballast is laid, sleepers, rails, and fastenings. There can be defects in each of these, both individually and in combination, as John illustrated. The track is not rigid and the way it reacts to traffic running over it varies, often depending on the nature of the formation; e.g., rigid obstacles in otherwise flexible formation. Individual components such as sleepers and fastenings fail, and rails are often subject to damage arising from train movements – a location issue or a train fault. Switches and crossings present their own challenges. Switches can rarely be preceded by transition curves and there can be no cant on points. Hence there is usually a small jerk over the turn out. The challenge is to minimise such jerks to avoid, for example, standing passengers caught off balance.

John also highlighted the impact of the weather. During a long hot period, there can be problems with rail buckles and also reductions

in soil moisture leading to track geometry changes. However, new technology and better methods of analysing vast data sets from passenger trains equipped with track/infrastructure monitoring equipment might help target faults more efficiently. Summing up, he said the quality of track has improved in the 20 years since Network Rail was created, and there are areas of excellence. He said that the order of priority was safety, reliability and then ride, and that weather resilience and climate change have provided extra challenges.

Dr Mark Burstow, Network Rail’s principal vehicle track dynamics engineer, presented case studies explaining poor passenger comfort arising from a combination of train and track features. An example related to a turnout in the Norton Bridge area, designed for 100mph running, where the train operator was reporting poor ride through the points on the rear vehicle of the train. Observations showed that the poor ride occurred beyond the switch toes and that the layout had been correctly installed and was within acceptable tolerances. “Is it a problem with the train or the track and what can we do about it?” mused Mark. He presented results that the simulated and measured accelerations were within acceptable limits but when assessed against

the ride comfort measure for discrete events in EN 12399 it confirmed the observations of people riding in the vehicles concerned. While not ideal, a 10mph speed reduction to 90mph was enough to bring the ride within tolerable limits.

REAL-TIME MONITORING

Mani Entezami, senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham, discussed an advanced real-time monitoring system for track geometry and ride comfort using in-service trains. Amongst his tests, sensors had been fitted to the axle boxes, above the primary suspension and above the secondary suspension, at each end of a Class 158 and Class 170 unit. Each sensor was intended to identify particular issues. Accelerations, speed, location and direction of travel were recorded. The recordings were processed with UoB-developed data processing algorithms to demonstrate the ride comfort standard information and track geometry parameters that are similar to Network Rail’s measurement fleet. Data consistency was vital, and Mani showed three examples from the bogie-mounted sensors where remarkably consistent data were collected. Track engineers often find it difficult to identify rough ride locations identified by drivers and Mani highlighted once such case where a driver identified a ‘lurch’ between mile posts 52 ¼ and 52 ½. No fault was found, Mani said, but the data showed that the fault was actually at 52.6 miles.

On High Speed 1, similar equipment but with extra axlebox sensors had been fitted to each end car of a 16-car Class 374 train, and considerable differences in ride comfort results were observed between leading or trailing sensors on the same track.

Mani explained that the trainborne measurement enabled the effectiveness of track interventions to be assessed quickly, possibly allowing earlier removal of speed restrictions. He also found that in one location the track renewal delivered the desired result, but ride deteriorated over the

transition between existing and renewed track. In summary, monitoring track from service trains offers:

» More frequent and relevant data from the fleet using the line routinely.

» More accurate modelling of track degradation.

» Immediate assessment of track maintenance outcomes.

» Removal of speed restrictions.

» Detection of the cause of rough rides, e.g., hunting, bumps etc.

» Identification of vehicle-performance issues with rough rides.

» Ride quality reports.

» Monitoring of wheel impacts and wear.

» Updates on suspension performance.

Poor ride locations derived from sensor data fitted to Class 158 and 170 units

CONCLUSION

Attendees left the seminar understanding that passenger comfort is a complex issue and ride comfort is a complicated system issue that no one party can control. That said, it was clear that seat comfort is important and simply putting in a large number of seats does not necessarily address the needs of all passengers. There are engineering standards that help when specifying trains and track, but even then, as Dr Burstow described, ‘compliant’ trains and track can sometimes exhibit undesirable properties.

Fitting sensors to trains to measure ride and track quality (together with bearing and wheel wear, if enough of them are fitted) has the potential to transform our understanding of how trains ride on each section of track, which might vary from modelled results. After all, even Formula 1 teams have to tune the suspension of their cars when they run on each circuit, despite having access to simulation tools that rail engineers would envy.

GRAEME BICKERDIKE

TEDGE HILL ENGINE STATION WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

echnological revolution through the mid-1990s brought 28.8kbps modems and the mind-boggling prospect – if overheads and latencies allowed – of a 1MB file being downloaded in five minutes.

Today, in a few parts of London, full-fibre broadband offers data transfer rates of 3Gbps, meaning a 1GB file can appear on your device a couple of seconds after requesting it. Change over the past 25 years has occurred at a bewildering rate.

Messrs Grainger and Buchanan, “two respectable engineers from Edinburgh”, carefully calculated the rate of progress per mile as they ventured along George Stephenson’s Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) immediately after its opening, completing the 28-mile journey in 1 hour 20 minutes and 50 seconds – an average speed of 20.8mph and a peak of 28.6mph for the 16th mile. This was, of course, breath-taking by the standards of the day.

A rare archive photo showing activity in the cutting during its operational period.

All being well, when HS2 links a west London suburb with a site close to Birmingham city centre at an indeterminate future time, passengers will typically experience the blurred countryside at 205mph, the original aspiration of 250mph having been jettisoned to cut costs. But either speed would have literally been incredible in 1830 when trains began to run on the world’s first passenger line.

The engineers waited to depart in a 40-footdeep cutting to the west of today’s Edge Hill Station whilst a locomotive, the Northumbrian, was attached – the two carriages and around 48 pioneering travellers having descended the incline under gravity’s assistance from the Liverpool terminus at Crown Street. Today, this hole in the ground plays a modest and almost invisible operational role as host to two sidings, but appearances belie its past status. This could be regarded as the railways’ datum point –zero, zero, zero, zero – if viewed from the right perspective.

PROTECTION SECURED

Historic England was convinced of its significance last summer. After 40-plus years of research and excavations in search of archaeology, the site was added to the National Heritage List for England as a scheduled monument, the outcome of an application submitted in 2018 by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Trust.

PHOTO: LIVERPOOL & MANCHESTER RAILWAY TRUST

The hope is that the thick and damaging vegetation will eventually be removed such that the cutting’s hidden workings can be more extensively investigated, before featuring in plans to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the railway’s opening. Visitor access is a key aspiration. That gives those promoting the idea seven years to convince Network Rail - the site’s owner - of its viability and overcome the associated practical hurdles. Tick tock.

I was generously escorted around the site – including two tunnels which head off to the west – by Chris Iles and Paul O’Donnell from the Trust, with Network Rail’s Keith Billingsley ensuring our protection from hazards on or near the line.

WINDING UP

The L&MR’s opening on 15 September 1830 triggered a revolution and Liverpool did not intend to underplay its position at one end of it. Those arriving from Manchester entered a 300-yard long cutting before passing beneath a grand entranceway – designed by local architect John Foster, Junior – in the form of a Moorish arch which spanned the tracks between two Turkish-style buildings, housing a pair of stationary engines. Beyond it was the Engine Station where locomotive traction initially gave way to horse power for the ascent of carriages to the passenger terminus and rope haulage for goods wagons pulled up from the distant King’s and

Wapping docks, with both inclines accommodated in tunnels. Early locomotives did not handle gradients well and Liverpool’s sceptical authorities prohibited their use in the urban setting. Horses also found a role for marshalling purposes within the station limits.

The winding arrangements were of Stephenson’s invention and at the outset were operated by one 50HP engine ordered from his son Robert and built at their works in Newcastle. It boasted a single 24-inch cylinder with a six-foot stroke, a working beam of 13 feet, four inches, and a 20-foot diameter flywheel. The engine was salvaged and repaired after the ship used to transport it to Liverpool was lost off the Aberdeenshire coast. A second one was added in 1831, taking its place across the tracks from its sibling.

Excavated into the sides of the cutting were chambers in which boilers were located, the first being ordered from Isaac Horton of West Bromwich and delivering 30psi. This was an operation of considerable redundancy, with four boilers installed to serve the two

Stylised illustrations showing Foster’s Moorish Arch and the various tunnels and chambers at Edge Hill Engine Station.

PHOTOS: LIVERPOOL & MANCHESTER RAILWAY TRUST

Chambers cut into the north side of the cutting face accommodated boilers, stores, offices and stables. They included flues at the back, channelling smoke to the chimneys.

engines, despite only one of each being needed. Exhaust smoke and steam from this system passed through flues in the sandstone to two ornamental chimneys, towering more than 100 feet above the tunnel portals and nicknamed ‘the Pillars of Hercules’. Other chambers served as coke stores, workshops, offices, and stables. Steps cut into the rock face provided foot access to and from ground level.

It’s thought that William Fairbairn supplied the winding mechanism. The continuous hemp rope had a maximum loading of 27 tons, typically distributed between six wagons which were attached by a ‘messenger’ – a short length of strong rope – to the leading wagon by a bankrider who travelled in it. There were two five-foot diameter

wheels placed between the flywheel and a tightening carriage, all held in tension by a counterweight consisting of a bucket loaded with two and a half tons of scrap iron, hanging in a 120-foot deep well.

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS

The cutting and tunnels were necessitated by a sandstone ridge east of the city centre. Located at the former’s west end were three portals: to the right, Crown Street Tunnel – a single-track bore of 291 yards in length, rising at around 1 in 72 to the terminus; to the left, an opening created for visual symmetry, used as a workshop and locomotive shed; in the middle, Wapping Tunnel - 2,250 yards long as built, occupied by two tracks and falling towards the docks at 1 in 48.

This passageway was an achievement of epic proportions, blasted with gunpower in seven lengths from eight construction shafts, work on the first of which was started in October 1826. It was

originally intended to push the tunnel outwards from directly beneath these shafts, but surveying errors – prompting the resignation of engineer, Charles Vignoles – forced a realignment 20 feet to the north under the direction of Joseph Locke.

James Scott Walker, in his ‘Accurate Description of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway’ from 1831, observed that “Parties of workmen were employed, under intelligent and active surveyors at each shaft, driving the level towards each other, chiefly through a mass of red freestone, but often through loose and dangerous material; and it is worthy of remark, that guided by the trembling mariner’s compass, they met each other with most astonishing precision, the lines of cutting, though averaging each perhaps 500 yards, seldom varying above an inch at their junction.”

Mishap inevitably attended. On one occasion, a collapse 30 feet below Crown Street deposited loose peat and sand into the workings, delaying

operations whilst a brick lining was erected. But the last of the pilot tunnels joined on 9 June 1828 to create a through route, an event no doubt greeted with great celebration locally. Such things generally were.

in 1829. Small water troughs were cut into the sidewalls from which the horses could drink.

But they were soon relieved of their duties, with rope haulage introduced to this tunnel not long after opening.

The public had a first official opportunity to satisfy its curiosity in July 1829 when the tunnel was thrown open for inspection. Lit by a “continuous and brilliant line of flame”, the whitewashed structure played host to “groups of gaily-clad pedestrians”, while the L&MR’s directors and the Mayor –together with many friends – took their places in a train of wagons which “let loose from the top of the inclined plane, thundered past the astonished multitudes by the impetus of their own weight, at a rate which, had they not feared running down some careless pedestrian, and restrained their speed, would have brought them to Wapping in three minutes, and other parties afterwards accomplished the distance in a shorter space of time.”

Neighbouring Crown Street Tunnel was, in comparison, a much more modest affair, but is notable for a masonry ring of datestones close to its western end, confirming completion

CHANGING TIMES

Such was the L&MR’s success that the Crown Street terminus was rapidly deemed inadequate and poorly located for passengers. Thus, a new line was pushed closer to Liverpool’s centre, diverging from the original route half-amile further east and opening to what is now the city’s Lime Street Station in 1836, via another tunnelled, rope-worked incline. The boiler houses at Edge Hill Engine Station initially supplied steam for its stationary engines, courtesy of pipework laid through a tunnel cut into the rock, but the system proved woefully inefficient and new boilers were soon installed closer to the engines.

In the 1840s, a doubletrack tunnel was driven into the cutting face – alongside Wapping Tunnel – enabling locomotives to reach the yard at Crown Street which had remained open for goods traffic.

By 1849, a new stationary engine at Edge Hill Station –near the junction for the Lime Street line – was hauling longer trains up the Wapping Tunnel incline, making redundant Stephenson’s original facilities. Foster’s engine houses and the Moorish arch were demolished in 1865, the latter attended by tragedy when a collapse occurred, killing labourer Thomas Fowler. The operation made way for the cutting’s

Wapping Tunnel runs for 1.2 miles beneath the centre of Liverpool and still features relics of its operational past, such as a signalling gong.

Wapping Tunnel was originally lit and whitewashed.

PHOTOS: GRAEME BICKERDIKE

Crown Street Tunnel connected the cutting with the L&MR’s passenger terminus and has water troughs cut into its north sidewall from which horses could drink.

It is hoped that the Edge Hill Engine Station site will be opened for public access as part of celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway’s opening.

south side to be cut back by around three metres, allowing the installation of a capacityincreasing track layout.

Wire cables had replaced the winding ropes before locomotive haulage was introduced through Wapping Tunnel in 1896, four large ventilation shafts being sunk by 1899 to release the resulting smoke. The bottom end of the incline was extensively modified at this time, with the tunnel cut back to its current length of 2,111 yards to accommodate a junction for three tunnelled spur lines serving an enlarged goods station. However, this facility closed in 1965 as use of the docks declined. Crown Street goods station survived as a coal yard until 1972, since when it has become a public park, blocking the west portal of the incline tunnel.

FIRST STEPS

You feel the history here with every step. The site of Edge Hill Engine Station is a truly special place, made all the more so – oddly – by the sense of neglect and isolation. Beneath your feet – lost amongst the undergrowth – is the footprint of the engine house and the pits and channels of the winding gear. You can hear that former industry over today’s silence.

On the morning of 15 September 1830, according to the Liverpool Mercury, “the population of the town and the country began very early to assemble near the railway”. Everyone who was anyone was in attendance: His Grace the Duke of Wellington (Prime Minister), Prince Esterhazy (Russian ambassador), the Marquis of Salisbury, the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Sir Robert Peel, and the Rt Hon William Huskisson, the MP for Liverpool, who was struck and killed on the

track during a stop at Parkside Station.

“Never was there such an assemblage of rank, wealth, beauty and fashion in this neighbourhood.”

They all gathered at the Crown Street terminus; 33 carriages being escorted through the tunnel to eight locomotives waiting in the cutting. At 11 o’clock, “the signal gun being fired, the procession started in beautiful style, amidst the deafening plaudits of the well-dressed people who thronged the numerous booths and all the walls and eminences on both sides of the line. The speed was gradually increased till, entering the Olive Mount excavation, the carriages rushed into the awful chasm at a rate of twenty-four miles an hour. The banks, the bridges and the rude projecting corners along the sides were covered with masses of human beings.”

The railway age had begun. Here, at Edge Hill.

PHOTOS: GRAEME BICKERDIKE

PHOTO: GRAEME BICKERDIKE

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Along the way:

IMechE Railway Division Chair’s address 2023

It is traditional that the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Railway Division Chair tours the country giving the traditional address, and this year’s Chair, Andrew Skinner, started in what he called home territory, Swindon, on 18 September. Andrew is the Railway Division’s 55th Chair and the title of his address, ‘Along the Way’, led to a discussion about railway engineering careers and Andrew’s view of the future.

Following tradition, Andrew summarised his career. It is always fascinating to hear about the different routes railway engineers have taken to senior positions. Andrew’s earliest recollections about railways were in the late 1960s as a small boy at a miniature railway in Clacton. It must have influenced him because, as a teenager, he helped a railway memorabilia enthusiast in his small Gloucestershire town by constructing the interlocking for a 15-lever signal frame based on a signal layout this collector had drawn.

This lever frame was unusual. The Midland railway pursued its own ideas right from the very start of signalling initially with a tumbler locking frame introduced around 1870. In a complete departure from other manufacturer’s practice, the entire locking frame was built above operating floor level, with the lever catches and interlocking mechanism all encased in a black metal surrounding.

This feature had several benefits, apart from cleanliness, in that it allowed maintenance to be carried out in good light and also permitted low or ground level cabins to be built without complication. A side benefit, given that the lever pivoted above the signalman’s foot level, was that the levers were easier to swing.

MALCOLM DOBELL

Andrew with ILocoE President’s medallion

TRAINING

Andrew did briefly consider careers in the police and teaching (maths) before deciding on railway engineering and Dowty nearly poached him, its offer arriving a week before British Rail’s. But the draw of the railway was too much, and Andrew started on BR’s Engineering Management scheme in 1984, embarking on a thin sandwich course at Brunel University.

The great thing about a sandwich course is that there is a chance to see, touch, and work on real engineering whilst studying. Andrew had the opportunity to work on a huge variety of assets including the five-speed gearbox of the last Class 03 shunter to be overhauled, Class 58 build, underframe cleaning, changing brake blocks, and strip/rebuild of English Electric engines. He assisted with basic car body construction and even designed the air conditioning system for one of the Mk 3 carriages on the Royal Train.

On completion of training, he was offered the opportunity to work in the plant section but really wanted to work in traction and rolling stock. Andrew said it was time to speak his mind and, as a result, his first assignment was to Wembley depot which was maintaining Mk 2 and Mk 3 carriages for the West Coast Main Line (WCML). At the time, the Mk 3 Driving Van Trailers were being delivered and Andrew discovered two things: it was a novelty to be able to drive the train from a laptop, and it is important that inter-car jumpers are the correct length taking account of all reverse curves, discovered when their first test train blocked all four tracks on the WCML with jumpers that were too short.

Andrew’s takeaway from these early experiences was to “get involved in as much as you can and learn as much as you can however irrelevant it might seem at the time”.

BR Railway Engineering School, Derby

BR management training centre, The Grove, Watford

Diesel Engine Overhaul in Doncaster Works

Andrew with brand new Mk 3 DVT in early 1989

Andrew as RD Chair with the presentation nameplate he delivered to IMechE HQ as a trainee in May 1987. Below, the Class 47 loco bearing the name on 11th May that year.

FREIGHT

Next, Andrew became senior technical officer at Cardiff Canton depot. This involved a variety of activities from locomotive naming ceremonies, clearing ancient scrap wagons from yards around Cardiff, and taking locos to Shrewsbury to test modifications to the radio system for the Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB) signalling system on the Cambrian line.

With the advent of Trainload Freight – one of the BR divisions set up as a profit centre prior to privatisation and something of a success story – Andrew was promoted to area engineer, based in Margam. There he was responsible for locomotives and also wagons which, at the time, his boss described as: “boxes on wheels, but the complex ones had bogies”. He rapidly learned the importance of processes, understanding, and compliance, and he introduced the first railway British Standard Quality System in the UK for traction and wagon maintenance and train examination.

Above all, Andrew learned how important the railway was to the then-industrialised area of South Wales. Key freight flows included coal for export and to steel works, limestone to steel works, iron and steel products from the factory, oil products from Milford Haven and munitions to the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Trecwn.

Incidentally, at the time a 2-foot 6-inch (762 mm) gauge line traversed the entire Trecwn site, with direct access to 58 cavern storage chambers. All rail infrastructure was built in copper to reduce the risk of sparks. Serviced via its own on-site locomotive shed and works, the line was equipped with a series of specially provided wooden enclosed wagons, with sliding roof covers. This allowed sea mines and other munitions to be directly placed within the wagons from overhead gantries and transported over the entire site without access by any form of side door, hence enhancing safety.

This train ran though catch points when the locomotive tried to stop the loaded 3,000 tonne train, all because of a failure to carry out a simple process – the brake continuity test.

Coal train of MEA wagons at Onllwyn, circa 1992. The site for the Global Centre for Rail Engineering is in the background

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SORT IT OUT

From 1994 to 1996, Andrew became depot engineer at Bescot. On appointment, he was told: “you need to sort it out!” Apparently, the staff were doing a lot less work than they were paid for. They were paid for 12-hour shifts, rostered for eight, and worked four. The depot was responsible for 56 locos, had 35 staff, and an annual budget of £1.4 million (in 1994 prices). Andrew’s approach was to work with the staff as, he said: “it’s difficult to ask people to work in filthy dirty and unloved premises”. There was much cleaning, decoration, and reorganising of rosters so that, for example, locos were prepared for weekend engineering work at more appropriate times.

Andrew also put effort into getting recognition for the depot as the photo of the Bescot headboard shows. Another learning experience was when control phoned and said: “The police are on the way. When they arrive, do as they say”. The police said to him: “Jump in your car and follow us, and if we jump a red traffic light, keep following!” They were on their way to deal with a hot axlebox on a train carrying nuclear fuel! Another lesson learned was third rail and snow ploughs don’t mix – a near miss thanks to Andrew’s assertiveness.

In 1996-1997 with privatisation, Andrew was depot engineer for English, Welsh, and Scottish Railways (EWS) at Cardiff Canton. His task was to transform a large depot from locomotive maintenance to rolling stock overhaul, including training, tooling, equipment, process planning, and health and safety. Many skills were brought together with lots of new tasks - a real change of direction for many people. Moving away from locomotive overhaul, the work then included bogie steel wagons and travelling post office vehicles – from cylinder heads to laying lino.

Following a sideways move to become area engineer south (Barton Hill, Eastleigh & Didcot) in 1997-1998, and as infrastructure services manager from 1998-2000, Andrew had the opportunity to gain commercial experience. He was account manager for EWS, providing infrastructure trains to Railtrack whilst managing rolling stock resources and developing train plans. This involved an eye for detail and learning how to path trains when there were many possessions. The railway was newly privatised, and Andrew had had little direct commercial experience. He got through it by working with the customer’s team in their offices with a detailed understanding of EWS’s resources – traincrew, locos, and wagons.

PASSENGER

In 2000, the passenger railway beckoned and Andrew joined GWR as fleet improvement project manager, managing a smorgasbord of 30 different projects for the High Speed Train fleet, all at different stages and involving people, technical, education, and commercial skills. In 2006, Andrew became fleet engineering manager, a new role which involved forming a team responsible for fleet standards and technical engineering. Andrew and

Bescot Depot ‘weekend only’ locomotives

Cardiff Canton 08 957 shunter with overhauled travelling post office Mk 1 carriage circa 1997

Transrail Bescot headboard

his team brought electronic systems overhaul in house, cutting costs and reducing the lead times for material repair. In addition, they started selling these services to other operators. His team also integrated new fleets such as those from absorbed operators - Thames Trains and Wessex Trains.

In 2007, Andrew became fleet manager (High Speed Services), directing and leading the four HST maintenance depots in Penzance, Plymouth, Swansea, and London. He was responsible for the safety of the fleet as well as 565 staff, managing people issues and health & safety, as well as a budget of over £35 million (excluding fuel, materials, and leasing costs).

Since 2010, Andrew has been GWR’s head of engineering, responsible for providing direction on engineering policy, standards, and assurance as well as occupational health & safety, material procurement & logistics, data analysis and reporting, and IT systems. His work has included signing into use GWR’s IET fleet as well as managing new EMUs and a BEMU. There have been many challenges to be resolved based on experience and judgement, including the case for returning IETs to service following the discovery of cracks in 2021.

Andrew spends a lot of time on coaching to allow his team greater autonomy, as well as developing engineers, mentoring, working with national industry groups on issues such as those that needed to be dealt with following the Carmont derailment, and on systems engineering within vehicles and the railway. Almost as a throwaway line, he also mentioned that he’s a fully qualified train guard and has been for 15 years.

SAGE ADVICE

Looking back on his career, Andrew’s advice to young engineers can be summarised as:

» Try lots of things. Some you might not fancy, but you may actually like. In any event, it will help you see the industry and start to form your own opinions.

» Do a mixture of things, e.g., technical, people, commercial.

» Get all the experience you can, most of it is useful at some time.

» Be aware of our history and where we have come from – it will help guide our direction.

» And, best of all, every day is a school day!

Andrew reflected on how safety has improved from his early days of short cuts to today’s safety culture, and stressed the importance of speaking up if you feel something is wrong.

In addition, it is vital that today’s railway engineers try and understand as much of the railway system as they can. As previous Chairs have said, the railway is a tightly integrated system and no one part of the system can function in isolation from the others.

Andrew with Sir Kenneth Grange, designer of the HST

Some of Andrew’s 30 HST projects

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Andrew observed that the railway is at a crossroads. Since lockdown, passenger numbers have recovered quite well but farebox receipts are down and there are significant cost pressures in an industry with very high fixed costs. Moreover, we now have more interfaces in the industry than ever before, and each interface usually involves a price mark up! Perhaps of more concern, though, many of these interfaces contain safety risk.

There is huge potential for the railway. All the reports on decarbonisation highlight rail’s energy efficiency and the zero-carbon potential of an electric railway. If passengers and freight move to rail with its green credentials, rail will be further enhanced. However, to deliver the capacity required to accommodate all this, trains with better performance – something that strongly favours electric trains – will make the best use of the network’s capacity. Andrew quoted a Rail Delivery Group report:

“Travelling by train is more than a journey. It’s the greenest form of public transport, and the ready-made solution for a low carbon future where our roads are quieter and safer, and the air we breathe is cleaner.

“As Britain emerges from the pandemic emergency, we have a chance to pursue a cleaner, greener recovery. With the UK Government’s legally binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions, we must all play our part to achieve those goals – and so the rail industry is working hard to become even greener.

Put simply, taking the train already helps tackle climate change – it cuts carbon emissions by two thirds compared to traveling by car – and it can do more in future.”

CHALLENGES

Andrew strongly believes that we urgently need to bring revenue and costs together avoiding perverse incentives with organisations acting in isolation. Some progress is evident through, for example, the GWR Alliance with Network Rail and the East Coast partnership.

He went on to say that we cannot remain in a world of cost cutting with no investment. We must tactically target investment for the benefit of the customers (passenger and freight). Andrew illustrated this through a quote from Rail Partners’ Track to Growth (July 2023):

“To ensure cost is not reduced to the detriment of revenue, it is essential to consider both sides of the ledger and the net impact of decisions. Considering cost and revenue holistically will help allow operators to begin closing the financial gap left by the pandemic and bring passengers back to rail in greater numbers.”

“Nearly five years on from the announcement of the Williams Review, and after a pandemic that turned the industry on its head, delayed reform is undermining rail’s ability to deliver to its full potential. Critical choices face the railway, including how we can bring more passengers back, make rail attractive against other modes, restore hundreds of millions of pounds in lost revenue, and ultimately set up the industry for long term success.

“It is widely recognised that the railway is not performing as it should, but the scale of the challenges is often underestimated. Getting back on the track to growth involves correctly diagnosing the problems facing the railway, putting to one side ideological debates about public versus private, and prioritising what works. If competition between train companies is harnessed in a reinvigorated public-private partnership for the railway, it will drive better outcomes for passengers and taxpayers.”

However, Andrew questioned whether Great British Railways is the right thing. He observed that if the train operators become one step removed from customers with Network Rail “in the middle”, then it is not. The service operator is best placed to understand their customers, but we still need a guiding mind and fewer interfaces whilst maintaining and improving safety.

Concluding with the priorities for his year as chair, he plans to focus on the importance of the people who shape our industry, the young people that will be our future. Although the railway is experiencing tough times, it’s a good time to join as it’s a good opportunity to help build the future. Growing capacity within the railway, and building its natural “green” USP, will be a significant contribution to the necessary drive for modal shift to contribute to UK (and global) net-zero.