The Rail Engineer - Issue 111 - January 2014

the rail

engineer by rail engineers for rail engineers

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JANUARY 2014 - ISSUE 111

this issue q NEVER THE TWAIN ...MEET 44 q STRATEGIC SLEEPERS 52 q SUSTAINABILITY 56 q ENGINEERING ACCEPTANCE 60

Nottingham’s new hub

High Speed Rail in Denmark Are there similarities with HS2? 20

The Capacity Benefits of HS2 Andrew McNaughton looks at the capacity issues. 16

Crossrail and the Network Rail connection £2.3 billion of infrastructure investment. 24

UK Signalling for CP5 Efficiency Challenge and Enabling Innovation. 32 TECHNOLOGY � DESIGN � M&E � S&T � STATIONS � ENERGY � DEPOTS � PLANT � TRACK � ROLLING STOCK

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the rail engineer • January 2014

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Contents

Crossrail and the Network Rail connection £2.3 billion of infrastructure investment

News 6

24 UK Signalling for CP5

Four winners in the South East.

Nottingham’s New Hub

10

Work at Nottingham’s station continues apace.

The capacity benefits of HS2

16

Andrew McNaughton looks at the capacity issues.

High Speed Rail in Denmark

20

Are there similarities with HS2?

25 years after Clapham

28

A review of signalling procedures.

32

Connecting road, rail, sea and air

40

Integrating the four main modes of transport.

Strategic Sleepers

Never the twain… meet

52

A new manufacturing facility to produce 30,000 sleepers a month.

Sustainable solutions for stations

A new link line over the ECML.

54

Major upgrades for smaller stations.

Sustainability: putting it into practice

56

Sam Brewitt is sustainability manager at Balfour Beatty Rail.

44

Mobile Control

62

Management, Integration and Control of Assets (MICA).

Engineering acceptance of On-Track Plant

60

See more at www.therailengineer.com

We’re looking to highlight the latest projects and innovations in

Signalling and Telecommunications

Earthworks

in the March issue of the rail engineer.

Got a fantastic innovation? Working on a great project? Call Nigel on 01530 816 445 NOW!

the rail engineer • January 2014 Editor Grahame Taylor grahame.taylor@therailengineer.com

Production Editor Nigel Wordsworth nigel@rail-media.com

Production and design Adam O’Connor adam@rail-media.com

Engineering writers chris.parker@therailengineer.com

2014 - there’s plenty going on We’ve taken a leap of faith with our coverage of work that was carried out over the Christmas break. It’ll be no surprise to you that this magazine went to the printers just before Christmas and, of course, before the possessions were even taken. Yet we confidently announce successful completions. There’s a real element of ‘fingers crossed’ when we jump across the year divide!

clive.kessell@therailengineer.com collin.carr@therailengineer.com david.bickell@therailengineer.com david.shirres@therailengineer.com graeme.bickerdike@therailengineer.com jane.kenyon@therailengineer.com mungo.stacy@therailengineer.com peter.stanton@therailengineer.com simon.harvey@therailengineer.com steve.bissell@therailengineer.com stuart.marsh@therailengineer.com

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Part of

London - Birmingham. Is there anywhere else in the HS2 debate?

From the popular press coverage you’d think that these are the only cities involved with other towns decaying away through the lack of a direct high speed connection. But as Andrew McNaughton, Technical Director of HS2 Ltd explains so clearly this month, it’s these very provincial towns that will benefit from the release of capacity on the WCML. Danish high speed? Well, in Danish terms the new railway from Copenhagen and Ringsted will be relatively high speed, but it will be conventional. Clive Kessell has looked at the project and considers the similarities and differences - between the UK experience of HS2. Capacity is a familiar argument, lengthy gestation periods occur in Denmark as well, but anti protests seem to be muted.

I vividly remember the morning of 12 December 1988.

I had just arrived at the Derby technical centre to meet some S&T colleagues when the news of the Clapham accident filtered through. The signalling department went into shock.

Needless to say the meeting was cancelled. Twenty five years on, Clive Kessell reports on an IRSE conference that looked at the wide-ranging changes that have occurred within a department that believed it was safe.

There are plenty of challenges ahead for the signalling community as Clive tells us in his account of the recent suppliers’ conference. But one of those will be to grapple with the abolition of the term ‘Signalling’ and its

replacement with ‘Command and Control’. Yes, Signalling will be no more. But maybe it will be abbreviated to either yet another acronym or back as one simple word - signalling. Has anyone told the IRC&CE yet I wonder?

England is just about to lose a concrete sleeper factory. When you understand that there were only two to start with, then it’s a pretty significant event.

Network Rail needed another one. Nigel Wordsworth has been to see the start of work on a new manufacturing facility in Doncaster. It’s a three party deal involving Network Rail, Trackwork and Moll from Germany which will soon be turning out 30,000 sleepers a month.

Just north of Doncaster a new link line has been constructed over the ECML in order to take freight traffic off the main line.

Graeme Bickerdike has been to see the project that is in its final stages and which is due to be commissioned in April at a cost of £44 million. Part of the construction plan was to bring in most of the fill material by rail, but the slip at Hatfield colliery put paid to that.

Nigel has been finding out about signatures and the fact that, for plant certifications, there were but seven available in the whole industry. This was one of the less publicised railway skills shortages.

Times are a-changing with Lloyd’s Register taking an interest and a lead in addressing the situation.

David Shirres has tracked down Steve Yianni, late of Network Rail, but now chief executive of the newly-formed Transport Systems Catapult (TSC). It’s an intriguingly

5

GRAHAME TAYLOR

titled organisation, one of seven created by government in 2007.

Rail forms just a part of its activities - which includes the coordination of all transport test facilities so that rail, road or marine, for example, are no longer considered in isolation.

Work continues apace at Nottingham with the Grade II* listed porte-cochère and concourse of the original station being fully and sensitively refurbished. Chris Parker has been to see what has been going on and to hear about the hidden gems revealed above the old buffet where traditional craft skills have been used to restore delicate plasterwork.

From Maidenhead in the west to Shenfield in the east and Abbey Wood in the south, Crossrail trains won’t always be in nice new tunnels. They’ll have to travel for part of their journeys on tracks owned by Network Rail.

And that’s where Rob McIntosh comes in as Network Rail’s Crossrail programme director.

He has the task of making sure that, when the tunnels are built, the trains can run complete services and not just stay underground. The pace of working is really cranking up and Crossrail will become much more visible - ironically on Network Rail infrastructure.

Any proponent of sustainability may be a little disappointed that, within all the articles in this month’s edition of the Rail Engineer, we only mention sustainability a handful of times.

It’s a large subject encompassing a multitude of facets and is seen by the industry as a key part of the tendering process. But, in our second article on the subject, we’ve redressed the balance and have used the word sustainability, or one of its derivatives, 63 times - so you’ll have got the message by the end.

6

NEWS

the rail engineer • January 2014

Four winners in the South East Network Rail has announced the first regional framework contracts for CP5. These cover the South East, and are divided up amongst four contractors with a total of about £1.2 billion. That’s roughly half of the £2.5 total workbank for the 2014-19 funding period in the region.

The contracts cover platform extensions, station enhancements, new footbridges to improve accessibility and upgrades to bridges, and work on embankments and tunnels to increase the resilience of the infrastructure in some of the most intensely-used parts of Britain’s rail network.

VolkerFitzpatrick, Costain, BAM Nuttall

and Geoffrey Osborne are the four suppliers who will work with Network Rail’s regional infrastructure projects business to build a bigger, better railway on the Anglia, Kent, Sussex and Wessex routes.

Dave Hooper, Osborne executive director, was pleased with the award: “We look forward to developing a one team, collaborative

approach with Network Rail, South West Trains and our supply chain partners. This will ensure we deliver infrastructure works more efficiently and create a legacy within the local communities that we work within over the course of this framework.”

The frameworks agreements have been designed to encourage increased collaboration between Network Rail and its partners, and will incorporate shared objectives to enable both sides to share in risk and reward and to incentivise safe, efficient project delivery.

Trains in the Gotthard Base Tunnel

Sheltering Accrington

It was all the way back in August 2011 (issue 82) that The Rail Engineer reported on work on the Gotthard Base Tunnel - set to be the world’s longest rail tunnel at 57km.

The railway industry does like to use jargon. Once upon a time there were waiting rooms on stations. To save money, these became waiting shelters (more like glorified bus stops). And now we have eco shelters.

Over two years later, test trains started running in the western tube on 16 December. Trial runs will be conducted along the 13-kilometre southern section between Bodio and Faido until June 2014 to test the tunnel’s infrastructure and various ancillary systems.

Trials also mark 900 days until the official opening - passenger trains remain on course to begin operation in December 2016.

Celebrating the milestone, Transport Minister Doris Leuthard said: “Innovation, precision, safety and reliability - these are the values with which our country prospers - and these are the foundations on which the Gotthard Base Tunnel is built. We can be proud of what we have achieved so far.”

Looking, to all intents and purposes, like a wooden summer house, the latest example has been installed at Accrington station.

It is actually quite a high-tech shelter. It boasts an array of three photovoltaic (solar) panels and the electricity generated by the panels will allow the shelter lighting to be self-sufficient. The windows are made from specially toughened glass.

The timber used is Iroko hardwood and is both Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certified. All timber surfaces have been treated with a fire retardant and then coated with Danish oil.

Craig Harrop, client and stakeholder manager for Northern, commented: “We are committed to a sustainability programme at Northern and continuously look for ways to reduce our carbon footprint and introduce energy efficient solutions such as this, while bringing benefits to our customers.”

All very creditable - but it still looks like a summer house. I wonder what it cost?

the rail engineer • January 2014

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Infrarail gathers pace With Infrarail 2014 just five months away, the tempo of preparations for the event is now picking up. By the end of last year more than 140 companies had already signalled their intention to participate in the show, which takes place at Earls Court in London from 20 to 22 May. This will be the tenth of these exhibitions focusing specifically on rail infrastructure products and services. Adhering to the event’s successful format, it will bring together many of the industry’s leading suppliers as well as companies taking part for the first time, all introducing innovations and new ideas to the market. A section of the show will be devoted to members of the Rail Alliance.

Features familiar to previous

Infrarail exhibitors and visitors will include The Track - sections of track for the display of smaller items of equipment and machinery - and The Yard, an area dedicated to larger items of plant such as road-rail vehicles.

Both will be located in the main exhibition hall.

There is also a significant innovation this year: Infrarail will be co-located with a new Mack Brooks event, the Civil Infrastructure & Technology

Exhibition (CITE). This will provide exhibitors with a showcase for equipment, products and services needed for constructing and maintaining vital infrastructure such as roads, ports, airports, utilities and communications networks. There is plenty of scope for crossover between the two exhibitions and visitors will be able to move freely between them.

Accompanying Infrarail will be an extensive programme of supporting activities. Plans include keynote speeches by industry leaders, technical seminars devised by The Rail Engineer, updates on major UK

rail infrastructure projects, and The Platform - daily interactive forum sessions covering key industry topics.

The Recruitment Wall, arranged by our own RailwayPeople. com, will highlight exhibitors’ job vacancies and skills needs and the Infrarail Awards dinner will recognise significant achievements by companies taking part in the show.

As media partner, The Rail Engineer will be providing regular updates on plans for Infrarail in future issues. Meanwhile, more information can be found at www.infrarail.com

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8

NEWS

the rail engineer • January 2014

1,000 not out!

Workers at Bombardier’s Derby plant have celebrated the production of the 1,000th Sub-Surface line carriage for London Underground.

Construction of SSL stock - the first airconditioned trains to operate on LU - started in 2010, with the last of the 1,395 carriages scheduled to depart Derby in 2015. Current production levels see a new train leave Derby every week before they go to Old Dalby for testing.

Once described by London Mayor Boris Johnson as “the coolest ride in town” after a bicycle, the trains have revolutionised Tube travel across the capital since their wholesale introduction on the Metropolitan line and their increasing use on the Hammersmith and City, Circle and District lines.

All older stock on these lines is expected to be withdrawn by 2016, with the Hammersmith and City line stock being the next to go for scrap.

The SSL trains are supplied in two versions.

S8 run on the Metropolitan line, operating in an eight-car formation, and S7 running on the Circle, Hammersmith and City, District lines.

These run as seven-car trains. Each train has seating capacity for 306 and 256 passengers respectively with total standing capacity figures of 697 and 609.

Every axle of the train is powered, maximising acceleration rates and improving braking capability.

European bank helps out The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a £500 million loan to finance the future fleet of Crossrail trains.

Six hundred carriages are being procured to operate on the new Crossrail route from 2018 at a cost of around £1 billion. After Siemens withdrew earlier in the process, Bombardier, Hitachi and CAF are currently in the running for the contract, which is expected to be awarded in spring 2014. Delivery and testing is scheduled to begin in 2017.

Following the delay in confirming Siemens’ order for new trains for Thameslink, which took over two years from the time of the contract award announcement and was apparently due to delays in arranging the private finance

deals, the Government, the Mayor of London and Transport for London announced in March 2013 a move to a fully publicly-funded procurement

for the delivery of the new fleet of trains and maintenance facilities for Crossrail. This announcement of a loan from the EIB covers about half of that cost.

EIB vice president Jonathan Taylor said: “We are pleased to

provide significant support for the latest step in Crossrail’s development, by backing new trains and maintenance facilities.

This follows a billion pound loan for the tunnels provided five years ago.”

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the rail engineer • January 2014

Nottingham’s new hub

CHRIS PARKER

W

ork at Nottingham’s station has been continuing apace.

Although last covered only in issue 106 (August 2013), it was already time to go back and see how far the works had progressed. A lot of work has been carried out behind the hoardings which have been a feature of the station for some while, and the project team, an alliance of Network Rail, East Midlands Trains, Nottingham City Council and Taylor Woodrow, were very keen to show what they had been up to.

The works are a key part of the Nottingham Hub which, besides the station enhancement and refurbishment, also includes the Nottingham Area Resignalling project and the NET (Nottingham Express Transit) Phase 2 tramway works. The Hub is intended to increase transport capacity, integrate transport modes, improve performance, initiate regeneration of the area around the station and generally to inspire the City of Nottingham.

The total funding of the Hub is around £150 million. Of this, around £50 million is going into the station redevelopment works which have been in planning since the turn of the century.

A key objective for the alliance has been to make use of local suppliers and labour, and there has been significant success in this with 40% of sub-contracts let to local firms and 35% of the 1,500 actively-involved people being from the greater Nottingham area.

Main phases The alliance identified six key phases to the project. The first was the 950 space multi-storey car park completed some time ago. Then there is the new southern concourse that will link the car park and Queen’s Road ‘kiss and ride’ facility with the NET tram station and the old concourse and dispersal bridge of the railway station. A new canopy has now been erected on Platform 7 (the former Platform 6) where there was none before.

The new car park behind the end of the new Karlsruhe Friendship Bridge which will take the tram over the station.

the rail engineer • January 2014

All of the platform buildings are being refurbished, including some that were disused before, and new glazed areas have been installed in the existing platform canopies to allow daylight into areas that were previously rather gloomy.

Some of the platforms are to be resurfaced. The Grade II* listed porte-cochère and concourse of the original station are being fully and sensitively refurbished.

Lastly, there is the NET tram station being built on the big new bridge across the station.

Works not already completed are on schedule. The platform buildings and modified canopies will be returned to normal use in January 2014. The refurbished main station buildings (portecochère and concourse) will reopen in April 2014, together with the new south concourse on Queen’s Road. The NET tram station is due to come into operation fully by October next year, though trams may begin operating before this date.

There are some interesting things to be seen already as a result of what has been done

thus far. The porte-cochère, like most of the old station, dates back to the 1903 reconstruction of Nottingham Station by the Midland Railway Company. It features much beautiful old terra cotta and a large, fully glazed roof.

The whole is about 100 metres long by 20 metres in width and is surmounted by a pepper-potstyle clock tower. One of the notable features is the multiplicity of fine arched openings into the space, each decorated with ornate terra cotta work.

The original roadway inside this area sloped significantly from north to south in order to tie into the roads outside. This is no longer necessary since the whole area is to be pedestrianised and enclosed. The floor, as it now becomes, has been levelled by raising the south end. This floor is being laid with carefully selected terrazzo.

The roof has been entirely refurbished; the original ironwork has been cleaned, repaired and repainted, and the glazing has been replaced with laminated glass.

11

They discovered and restored ceiling of the buffet on platforms 4, 5 and 6.

Original supplier All of the terra cotta has been cleaned, damaged areas being repaired or replaced. This work has been expertly done by the best possible people, the local Hathern Terra Cotta company, which was responsible for the original terra cotta in 1903. They have been able to use some of the original moulds from that work to manufacture replacement sections, and they are making matching arch pieces for the new

archway that will lead from the porte-cochère into the south concourse.

This opening has been cut very carefully as a rectangular hole through an existing brick wall, using a steel portal to support the structure above. The new terra cotta arch will be erected (on timber centring) under the structural steel, and the brickwork will be reinstated around it to hide the modern structure. This should fit in well with the original arches already mentioned.

12

the rail engineer • January 2014

(Right) The ceiling of the main concourse.

(Left) Two more views of the buffet ceiling. Note the plaster frieze below the stained glass windows clerestory.

Hidden gem The 1903 concourse is being restored with equal painstaking attention to detail, and the roof and ceiling already look impressive. Further improvements are taking place on the adjoining dispersal bridge. All in all, there will be a huge volume of sympathetically restored space for use by customers and station visitors within these buildings on the Carrington Street side of the station. There are to be retail units in this area, including a significant one in the former ticket office. The ticket office itself will be re-positioned to a more prominent and customer-friendly location, roughly on the site of the old W H Smith.

Immediately adjacent to these old structures will be the new south concourse. This will be the heart of the hub as it will link to the station, the multi-storey car park, the NET tram station and the “kiss and ride” and taxi exchange in Queen’s Road. There will be lifts, stairs and escalators linking Queen’s Road street level, station concourse level one floor up and the NET station a further floor above. This will be the key interchange area of the new facility, and should be a major improvement for all users.

The platform building refurbishment works are well under way, and they have thrown up quite a surprise. In the former buffet on the platform 4/5/6 island, the removal of the false ceiling and wall cladding revealed that there was a clerestory roof above and that much of the plasterwork of the room had originally featured decorative plasterwork. The plaster frieze immediately below the glazed lights of the clerestory had been badly damaged, but fortunately it was possible to restore it.

Alaways of Lincoln carried out a good deal of the specialist building restoration and working for them were a pair of expert plasterers who had the skills and knowledge required. They were able to clean and restore undamaged panels, then take plaster casts from these. Using these casts they were able to create new panels, exact replicas of the originals, and with these they were able to replace the irreparable sections of the frieze.

Only a few of the stained glass panels were in good enough condition to be restored, and so new panels were made by copying these, allowing the whole clerestory to be reglazed exactly as it was originally. Railway Heritage Trust funds were key to enabling this work. It should delight customers when they see it after it reopens shortly

the rail engineer • January 2014

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the rail engineer • January 2014

The key challenge for the alliance in managing the project has been maintaining an operational station whilst the works proceed. Whilst there were opportunities to carry out certain works during the station closure that was arranged for the parallel remodelling and resignalling project, most of the time the facility has remained open to customers.

The co-operation of East Midlands Trains has been crucial in this. For example, the company was very supportive of the decision to close the whole of the buildings on Carrington Street rather than attempting the works in separate phases in different sections of the buildings.

Shaun and his alliance colleagues were all keen to deliver the vision of the project, which is to make the station into a real transport hub for Nottingham City but also to turn the Carrington Street buildings into a destination in its own right, with retail units and meeting places that will attract people from the city and surrounding area for their own sake.

Shaun mentioned the way in which St Pancras International has become a small town and its own attraction, and he clearly aspires to seeing a smaller version of this at ‘the Hub’ in Nottingham. The quality of the restoration works is an encouraging augury.

Given that improvements are due to continue, with journey time reductions in the forthcoming timetable (fastest journey to London 91 minutes for example) and Midland main line electrification due shortly, things are looking up for Nottingham station. Locals have long wished to see the beautiful old buildings here restored sympathetically, and now it is happening. With a foot fall of around 6.5 million each year before the current works began, and increasing too, it is not before time.

(Top) Work continues in the porte-cochère.

(Centre) Platform 4.

Many thanks to Shaun Kearney, Network Rail alliance director and project manager, John Hartley, Taylor Woodrow; Andy Moore, East Midlands Trains head of stations; and Sarah Alton representing Nottingham City Council, for their time in showing off the works being undertaken.

(Bottom) Construction of the new South concourse which will connect the station, car park and tram stop.

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the rail engineer • January 2014

The Capacity Benefits

of HS2

ANDREW MCNAUGHTON

Back to basics The initial HS2 “Y” network is being delivered in two phases. Phase One will run between London and the West Midlands.

It is now in the Parliamentary stage with the deposit of a hybrid Bill on 25 November that will give planning permission to build and operate the new line. This phase also includes a connection to the classic network near Lichfield on the West Coast main line

(WCML) so that, from 2026, HS2 trains can travel directly to Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.

We are currently consulting on the preferred route of the second phase that extends the line in two arms - the western one to Crewe, Wigan and Manchester and the eastern one through the East Midlands and South Yorkshire to Leeds and York. This phase is planned to be in operation by 2033.

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

P

eople are now beginning to understand that the main reason for investing in the new North-South rail line is the improved capacity and connectivity it will bring to the major cities served on the core network. Both the Department for Transport, in its Strategic Case for HS2, and Network Rail as owner and manager of the existing GB rail network, have published substantial reports on the capacity question. In this article, I want to look in more detail at the capacity issues that HS2 addresses and examine the challenges of the growing railway and the opportunities the extra capacity this investment brings.

Research from the Government and Network Rail demonstrates that there is strong and continuing growth in rail travel in Great Britain.

This is driven by population increasing (with a central forecast for England alone of some 30% by 2050), economic growth and public policy to use more sustainable transport modes. And all of the evidence so far shows that developments in mobile information technology and telecommunications have led to people travelling more not less.

the rail engineer • January 2014

17

Whilst the WCML is not the only long distance line facing a capacity crunch in the coming years, it is the one where three factors combine to make the impacts come earliest and most severely.

First, it serves half of the ten biggest city regions - Central Scotland, Liverpool, Manchester and London. Since the, albeit curtailed, WCML Upgrade was completed in 2008, long distance travel aided by more frequent and attractive services has grown very strongly indeed.

Secondly, the same tracks are in demand for rapidly increasing commuting into those major conurbations and to serve the growing region centred on Milton Keynes and Northampton. Milton Keynes, in particular, already sees very frequent trains taking up much of the available capacity - it’s just that they are busy long distance ones passing through without stopping!

The WCML is also the primary long distance freight artery of the country with good rail access to the freight terminals placed in the major cities.

Some 40% of the nation’s rail freight needs access to the WCML for part or all of its journey.

This combination of fast, commuter and freight trains means that the practical capacity of the WCML is being used already and, as with any system being run at or near full capacity, reliability is vulnerable to any hiccup. Like any long established, mixed traffic railway, its theoretical capacity is reduced by the mix of train speeds, stopping patterns and location/configuration of stations and junctions with all the conflicting movements that inevitably brings.

Of course existing trains can be - are currently being - lengthened and pricing can be used to some degree to incentivise people to travel at less busy times. Adding carriages to the Pendolino trains and potentially

PHOTO: JONATHAN WEBB

West coast crunch

altering the mix of first and standard classes can add some 150-200 seats to every long distance train. And turning the commuter network into one where 12 carriage trains in the peak are the norm makes common sense.

More is needed That is the recipe to manage growth until HS2 comes on stream, but is not a longer term-solution. Widening the existing railway through the multiplicity of cities, towns and villages which have built up around the existing railway is simply impractical without dramatic demolition. And there would be unimaginable disruption to rail services while trying.

So it is generally agreed that the country needs a new north-south railway to provide the capacity our growing country needs. And as other countries have found, building it high speed provides new connectivity

18

the rail engineer • January 2014

with greatly reduced travel times at modest additional cost. We have shown that the incremental cost of a high speed railway over a conventional one is no more than 10%.

The first phase of HS2 will be most useful in releasing capacity to recast the south end of the WCML and the corridor through Coventry into Birmingham. The former will then accommodate the growth into London and the latter high frequency metro style services that Centro envisages. The Milton Keynes / Northampton area could see the frequent fast services the growing population of that expanding area will warrant. It is perfectly practical to see a fast service of London - Watford - Milton Keynes - Rugby/ Northampton at a ‘metro’ frequency of 10 minutes or less.

Both of these fast services would naturally continue beyond Rugby towards Coventry and Birmingham Airport, and northwards serving the principal Trent Valley towns. These in turn, with the introduction of Phase Two of HS2, could continue, in the capacity then released, to provide frequent services towards Stafford and Stoke-upon-Trent. We should see Milton Keynes as the new hub with trains heading towards many points of the compass - London, Oxford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham, Stafford and Liverpool, Stoke-upon-Trent and Manchester. This is simply not possible without the capacity HS2 releases along with the parallel investment in the existing network to which the government continually emphasises it is committed.

Additional services This is not only about capacity in terms of raw seats or trains, it is about fashioning an attractive timetable maximising connections at the hubs along the route. For example, Watford connects through to Clapham

Windows of the new HS2 trains could include ‘smart’ glass.

junction and Croydon to the south and Milton Keynes will connect to Oxford on the about to be restored and modernised East-West route. The list is significantly long; think of the connections at Rugby, Nuneaton and Tamworth.

Then there are the potential areas which could be served for which there is no capacity today - Shrewsbury via Wolverhampton, for example.

We estimate that the nine non-stop train paths initially replaced by HS2 services could be replaced by a greater number of freight and passenger trains - the latter particularly serving Milton Keynes - because the end-toend speed differential between the fastest and slowest trains would be reduced.

The exact traffic mix in the future between freight, medium-distance and regional passenger trains will dictate the practical reliable capacity. A rule of thumb has been that HS2 releases around 11 train paths per hour on the WCML fast lines. Meanwhile HS2 itself,

designed as a high capacity system with longer trains all running at exactly the same speed, will provide twice the seating capacity of those WCML fast lines.

Of course the industry, led by Network Rail, will not be proposing an exact timetable until we are nearer HS2 opening in 2026. However, discussions are already taking place to prioritise the valuable space on the southern part of the WCML for when that day eventually arrives.

More to come Phase Two of HS2 opens up greater possibilities again. Extending the western leg of the Y Network to near Wigan bypasses all the capacity constrained areas south of Manchester and really increases the opportunities for freight. Every container freight train is the equivalent of taking 40 lorries off our roads. So to add one or two additional freight paths every hour through the day quickly adds up to thousands of long distance lorry journeys that are not needed.

the rail engineer • January 2014

It is after opening the second phase of HS2 that a more radical approach to use of the released capacity of the WCML can really be introduced, bringing limited-stop direct services to places which cannot be served today. Exactly where will need to be the result of wide scale consultation and analysis of potential markets by the industry and government nearer the time, but it is not hard to see centres like Blackpool and other East Lancashire towns benefitting. And with these trains also stopping at places such as Milton Keynes, a new classic rail network of direct journey opportunities by fast rail will offer a credible, low-carbon, attractive alternative to the car.

Meanwhile HS2, with its capability to run pairs of 500+ seat trains as a single service, could serve even more destinations than has been included in the current business case. With classic line electrification, Chester and North Wales could easily be added to Warrington as destinations for single classic-compatible trains separating from Liverpool services at Crewe. Of course it is likely that there will need to be some capacity improvements on the WCML immediately north of Crewe but that will be necessary anyway to realise the freight growth potential from the new Liverpool port investment nearing realisation.

And, rather than terminating at Preston, HS2 trains could easily be extended north to provide faster direct services from London and Birmingham to stations towards Carlisle.

The Y-network also releases significant capacity on the Midland and East Coast routes south of Leicester and Leeds/York respectively.

Although much focus initially has been on the potential for meeting outer London and longer distance commuting growth, opportunities to introduce new long distance flows will also exist. For example, with

19

limited infrastructure investment, major cities such as Bradford and Huddersfield could see services to London once again directed on the main line through Wakefield, giving the latter potentially more trains per hour to London than even today. These would complement the already planned frequent quick regional connections to the HS2 stations at Leeds, Meadowhall and Toton.

All the time, we need to remember that HS2 is adding huge capacity and giving us the chance to connect a great number of towns and cities in the North and Midlands to the South. It is not just about speeding up journeys between the major conurbations.

Another exciting chapter is about to be started in the HS2 story; that is exploring the case for journey time reductions north from Leeds and Manchester on the WCML from Preston over the ‘northern hills’ of Shap and Beattock. This is where it currently runs at near-capacity through the timetabling challenge of combining intercity, stopping passenger and freight trains.

So the joint study recently announced by the Westminster and Scottish governments looking at extending HS2 to Scotland will be considering capacity as well as speed - to create a stronger and better backbone linking the cities of the Scottish central belt with their trading partners of northern England, the Midlands, and then on to London and the south. After all, why shouldn’t the twenty-first century journey from Liverpool to Glasgow be quick, frequent and attractive - we just have to overcome the consequences of nineteenth century history.

Andrew McNaughton is Technical Director of HS2 Ltd Possible design for Manchester Piccadilly Station.

W

the rail engineer • January 2014

ith all the controversy in the UK on whether or not to build HS2, it is interesting to draw comparisons with other countries that have yet to construct high speed lines and see how they have fared with the planning process and the general approach to national acceptance.

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

One such country is Denmark. There are no true high-speed lines in Scandinavia, partly due to the topography and partly because of population density. However, trading with the rest of Europe is increasingly important and much of this traffic must flow southwards from Sweden and Norway, via Copenhagen in Denmark, and on into Germany. As such, the classic lines that carry this traffic are congested and capacity constraints are becoming a big problem. The choice, similar to that in the UK, has been whether to upgrade existing lines or build from new.

The chosen solution was a mixture of both. Between Copenhagen and Ringsted, a town some 60km to the south west of the capital, it became obvious that a new line would be required. The drivers for this were not only the need to increase network capacity but also to facilitate the connection of some sizeable towns, such as Odense, Hasler, Køgeand Hårler, to Copenhagen within a ‘one hour target’. Speeding up the commuter network is seen as good for the business prospects of the capital as well as promoting modal shift in the travelling habits of the Danish population, which like the UK is growing.

Planning the new line The Danes were anxious to avoid having to develop any new technology so the broad order specification for the engineering aspects of the high speed line was to call for exactly the same as the latest lines already approved and in operation in other European countries. As a starting point, that was the easy bit. But how would the precise route be decided and what would be the reaction of the general public to the building of the line, particularly those with homes and businesses that were likely to be directly affected?

Increasing capacity between Copenhagen and Ringsted had been thought about since 1993 and a Planning Act had been passed in 1997 for three possible solutions. It took until 2007 to decide the single solution of building a high speed line and a further three years until 2010 for the project to reach the stage where it could be considered to be underway.

The authorities are remarkably reticent about the public relations exercise that took place although questioning did reveal the existence of anti project lobbying during the consultation period. This seems to have been more at a tactical rather than strategic level as the benefits of the line to the wider economy and specifically for Copenhagen and its satellite towns appear to have been accepted by the vast majority of people.

Getting the route decided proved to be less controversial, the main concept being to parallel the existing motorways E20, E47 and E55 to Ringsted. This route is quite different from the existing rail line, which goes via Roskilde, and instead passes close to the city of Køge where a new north station will be provided. A short length of existing railway is to be adapted near to Ringsted and, to reach the centre of Copenhagen, an additional two tracks are to be provided from the suburban station of Ny Ellebjerg to the main city terminus. In retrospect the planning process took many years to complete and has not been so very different to what transpired for HS1.

CLIVE KESSELL

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

High Speed Rail in Denmark

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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the rail engineer • January 2014

21

Engineering aspects As has been said, the line is being constructed and equipped in line with emerging European high speed rail practice.

Infrastructure systems and trains will be akin to buying something out of a catalogue. This will include:  A line speed of 250kph but reducing to 200 and 150kph in the Copenhagen suburbs;  ERTMS Level 2 signalling which will be integrated with the national roll out of this technology across all Danish lines (issue 109 - November 2013);  Electrification to the 25-0-25kV system using auto transformers;  Telecommunications based around resilient fibre optic rings with IP networking;  Trains to be supplied as a standard product ‘out of the box’ from one of the established manufacturers.

and gas pipes will need to be relocated.

Interestingly, many bridges were built in advance of the final project go-ahead as part of a government initiative to stimulate the economy.

Civil engineering aspects cannot, of course, be treated in the same manner as every railway has to be built to a unique route.

However, even here the construction of Underway bridges and tunnels follow a standardised The tendering phase for all this took place civil engineering practice. The 60km line will in 2012 with contracts being let shortly have 5 tunnels totalling 2,000 metres and afterwards. Construction began in 2013 and 87 bridges. 200 buildings will need to be should be complete by 2016. The programme demolished and 1,200 others will be affected for testing allows two years, 2016/7, and the in some way by the line’s construction. commencement of services is planned for % $ %!$ # "%""## %$ #$%!""% ! "" "% 900 utility services such as power lines 2018.

There are three basic levels of organisation: i) strategic, represented by the project director’s team; ii) tactical, primarily concerned with day to day project management and iii) operational, involving all aspects of the supply base. Economy of scale is aimed to be achieved by awarding geographically separated contracts, thus allowing work to take place simultaneously at several sites.

The contract structure is based around design and build, thus eliminating the need for consultants during the design phase. Only pre-bid work has needed the employment of consultants.

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the rail engineer • January 2014

THE NEED FOR THE HIGH SPEED LINE MIRRORS MANY OF THE ARGUMENTS BEING PUT FORWARD FOR BUILDING HS2: CAPACITY CONSTRAINTS ON THE EXISTING NETWORK, IMPRACTICALITY OF UPGRADING EXISTING LINES, ANTICIPATED GROWTH OF TRAFFIC GENERALLY AND AVOIDANCE OF DISRUPTION ON OTHER LINES IF THESE WERE TO BE EXPANDED.

the rail engineer • January 2014

Much emphasis has been put on both defining risk and agreeing where this should be allocated. The list of risks is quite long but, in the main, the client is responsible for interfaces, detailed design, basic material provision, framework conditions, most utility replacements, archaeology and safety procedures. The contractor, on the other hand, looks after time schedules, meeting milestones, construction methods, build ability, construction works and safety at construction sites.

The cost for the line was originally estimated at 10.4 billion Danish krone, about â‚Ź1.2 billion.

Of this, 8 billion krone was seen as the ‘activity’ budget with another 2 billion krone put by as a reserve from both the company budget and from the Government Department responsible for Transport. It is admitted that the costs are expected to rise, mainly to take account of changes to design requirements and contract variations, and the final cost is now reckoned to be â‚Ź1.8 billion.

Comparisons When trying to draw comparisons with the UK, there are both similarities and differences. The need for the high speed line mirrors many of the arguments being put forward for building HS2: capacity constraints on the existing network, impracticality of upgrading existing lines, anticipated

growth of traffic generally and avoidance of disruption on other lines if these were to be expanded.

Denmark has the additional need to create a feeder route to other parts of Europe as part of an international freight corridor. The high speed line will free up paths on the existing lines for this freight traffic. The decisionmaking process seems to have been equally protracted, although dealing with the Nimby factor appears to have been handled with comparative ease.

The differences are primarily twofold. Firstly determining the line of route was made much easier by deciding to parallel a motorway.

Perhaps this was the pragmatic solution since,

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23

with the environment already disturbed both visually and by noise, adding a little more of the same is seen as no big deal. Secondly the construction timescale is much quicker. Certainly the line is much shorter than the proposals for HS2 but distance should not be that much of a factor if geographically separated contracts are to be used.

Collaboration between suppliers to deliver an integrated proven package has yet to be fully tested but the right conditions seem to have been negotiated. Whatever else, the management of HS2 will watch the Danish project carefully to see if reality matches the plans and to learn from the emerging experiences, both good and bad.

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the rail engineer • January 2014

GRAHAME TAYLOR

Crossrail and the Network Rail connection

T

he challenge - deliver £2.3 billion of infrastructure investment, all of which is on the operational railway in close proximity to Central London, and deliver it at a rate of half a billion pounds a year for the next three years.

That’s the task for Network Rail, working with Crossrail in readiness for new services in 2017/8. Rob McIntosh is Network Rail’s Crossrail programme director and he jokingly observes that the Crossrail team has got the easy bit - nice new tunnels and green field sites.

Perhaps the tunnels aren’t quite so easy and maybe picking your way beneath an operational city without rattling the teacups might be tricky, but at least there aren’t any trains to contend with.

There is no 24-hour railway - yet.

Crossrail may be spectacularly ambitious, but don’t ever underestimate the scale of works needed on the National network for the whole scheme to work from end to end.

Activity in Rob’s area of responsibility has yet to peak.

That comes this year as his third and final front becomes active.

His team is already working in the approaches to Paddington and out in the South East near Abbey Wood, and has also embarked on planning what he terms ‘open heart’ surgery at Old Oak Common and the Paddington approaches.

Prior planning So, how did it all start? This hasn’t taken anyone by surprise.

Right from the beginning of the Crossrail project it has been known that there would be the tunnels for the cross-London

Old Oak Common.

link and there would be a need for infrastructure at each of the ends to take Crossrail trains over, under and through Network Rail infrastructure. These interfaces would involve the obvious visible structures, but they would also involve signalling and control systems, power supplies and a whole host of major projects many of which would be invisible to the travelling public.

Over a number of years, Network Rail worked with Crossrail to develop the scope and the requirements which now make up the contract that Network Rail has directly with Crossrail for the delivery of £2.3 billion of infrastructure. There are key deliver dates within the contract - all critical to ensure that each element dovetails with another.

“Network Rail is taking those designs through GRIP stages 3 and 4, with a number of them moving into stage 5 with both design houses and consultancies.

A large part of them are now with build contractors.”

Who pays? Well, by and large, Crossrail pays - via a mature protocol that has been drawn up between the two parties. A target cost contract has been signed and any emerging changes go through a rigorous process of impact analysis before being adopted in the scheme. One such ‘late arrival’ was the approval of electrification of the Great Western main line though to Swansea. This has had to be added into the scheme, but that too was seen on the horizon before it finally arrived.

Disruption to Train Operating Companies has been calculated for each sub-project in accordance with existing, well-documented and robust compensation regimes.

the rail engineer • January 2014

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Abbey Wood Station.

Progress report

A contract has been awarded to VINCI Construction UK Ltd. for the design and upgrade of 13 stations in west London and Berkshire. This contract covers significant improvements to stations from Acton Main Line to Maidenhead. Many on the route are being refurbished or partially rebuilt in preparation for Crossrail. Improvements include new station buildings and ticket halls, new lifts to deliver step free access and longer platforms.

Balfour Beatty Rail has won a separate contract for overhead line equipment. Crossrail is electrifying from Stockley to Maidenhead, where it will butt up against the Great Western electrification programme. The same new ‘series 1’ electrification equipment that’s going all the way to Swansea will be used.

“There’s been some great progress so far. We’ve now opened up our work fronts on all but one of the areas on the programme. The area we’ve yet to mobilise onto site or to begin construction is what we call the North East Spur - the line out to Shenfield. We’re just in the process of finalising our evaluation of the tenders for that work and will soon award that contract.

“The South East Spur work, from Plumstead down to Abbey Wood, is really taking shape now. This past December I went down to open up our site offices there ready for our first infrastructural alterations. We have to do a track slew in May to enable the construction of the two dedicated Crossrail lines from the Plumstead Wall down to Abbey Wood Station.”

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the rail engineer • January 2014

construction to commissioning.

“Yes, we need to complete the construction of the infrastructure, but we then need to commission that infrastructure and introduce the new rolling stock. We will then test everything and demonstrate that there can be a suitable level of reliability so that we can commence timetabled services.

Keeping trains running

Coming soon The next part of the programme is Stockley Junction with the construction of a new flyover.

That’s due to be started on site soon so there’ll be a big, new visible structure appearing. A crossover just to the east of Stockley between the main lines was installed this Christmas to enable future traffic moves.

Acton’s really getting on at a pace. Acton has been going now for a number of years as a project to remodel the existing freight yard to enable construction of a new dive-under. The diveunder excavation by principal contractors BAM Nuttall is now well underway and over Christmas new track and S&C units was installed to take freight traffic off the relief lines and into the Acton yard on the new intersection bridge.

“Our central Crossrail team is based at Enterprise House in Paddington. But more often

than not, I spend a lot of time at Crossrail’s offices in Canary Wharf….. and they spend quite a bit of their time at our offices here. We also have site offices now established from Reading into Maidenhead, at Acton and Stockley and out at Abbey Wood. A team is based at Stratford for the work starting in close proximity to the Crossrail tunnel portal.

The North East spur up to Shenfield will really start to pick up towards the end of this year.

Network Rail will be appointing their contractor and will be going through the phase of finalising designs. Then construction work will commence in earnest around the autumn.

Eventually Crossrail will start turning things on, and after that they’ll start running trains. Rob’s role continues right through this transition and he’s now working closely with Crossrail to develop what that process needs to look like once the project moves from

(Above and below) Plumstead.

“Whilst we’re carrying out this level of investment, we’ve got to guarantee the train services going into and out of the three major arteries in London that we’re working on - the Great Western route, the North Kent lines into London Bridge and the Anglian route into Liverpool Street. The challenge that I face with all these projects is to make sure we deliver everything with the highest level of professionalism - and ensure that we do it all safely without hurting anyone and that we do it without disruption to existing trains.”

So, for every article you read about Crossrail, just spare a thought for Rob and his team who are making sure that, once the tunnels have been dug, everything else on Network Rail will be ready.

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the rail engineer • January 2014

25 years after Clapham A review of signalling procedures

CLIVE KESSELL

T

he UK signalling profession took a long hard look at itself at a recent seminar in London organised by the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE). This was a chance to reflect on the recommendations and lessons following the enquiry into the tragic event that occurred on 12 December 1988 and to see whether these were now fully adopted. Also considered were the subsequent changes in organisation and technology since 1988 and any associated impact on the design and implementation of signalling projects.

A key note speech by Ken Burrage, the director of signal and telecommunications engineering at the time of the enquiry, gave a hard hitting message that people do make mistakes but accidents are preventable. A disaster occurs because a series of mistakes come together and a typical accident chain comes about because of inferior standards leading to a lack of training, poor installation and inadequate testing.

Human error at every level is the normal cause.

At Clapham, the signalling work was being carried out in a series of multiple stages, each of which depended on the integrity of the people involved. The ‘stageworks’ involved modifying 50-year-old signalling equipment to accommodate changes to track layouts and signal positioning in advance of the eventual changeover to power box operation.

The evidence showed that poor installation practice, lack of wire counting, poor supervision and defective testing, coupled with poor communication, lack of staff competence and inadequate monitoring, all added up to a management failure. There were many reasons for this: shortage of staff, difficulty of recruitment, too many re-organisations, lack of audit and pressure on timescales. The lessons were hard ones for everyone involved but the hardest of all has been that management commitment from the top down must be there to prevent anything like the Clapham accident happening again.

An RAIB View The Rail Accident Investigation Branch did not exist at the time of Clapham, only coming into being following further significant rail disasters, but its subsequent investigations often refer to the recommendations from the Clapham enquiry when assessing what went wrong and what should happen. Mark Turner from the RAIB gave a realistic assessment of the current position, which was not entirely comfortable listening. Acknowledging that the industry structure has changed in 25 years, it may be harder for the modern railway to relate back to the Clapham lessons. Typical examples are:

»» Privatisation leading to significant commercial pressures and penalties; »» Human factor issues focussing on the different types of human error; »» IRSE Licensing being fine for technical knowledge competence but doing nothing for attitude and approach; »» Prescription being superseded by risk assessment now largely under the banner of the ROGS regulations; »» The whole safety culture being under scrutiny by health and safety management.

In all of this, and perhaps not surprisingly, accidents involving ‘signalling’ are continuing to occur. Four examples were given: at Milton Keynes a data error led to a green aspect leading into an occupied section; at Stockley Bridge a wiring error led to an unsolicited movement of points in a locked route; at Greenhill Upper Junction a wiring error caused points to be incorrectly detected during installation of a new point machine; at Lindridge Farm User Worked Crossing an incorrect scheme plan caused a signaller to think a train was in a different location.

All of these reflect back into signalling design, installation and testing practices. Computer based signalling does make data errors difficult to spot but there are still far too many installation errors and wrong images on signallers’ displays. Above all, the old problem of interfaces remains the biggest risk.

Signalling Statistics and Incident Causes David Marriott, a former senior signal engineer on Network Rail and, by chance, a passenger on one of the trains involved in the accident, put accident statistics into context by comparing rail with road. In 2012, there were 1754 people killed on UK roads (much fewer than earlier years) as against 5 fatalities on rail in the period 2011/2 excluding trespass and suicide.

The means of categorising rail signalling accidents has improved considerably so statistical analysis and trends can be measured accurately. A hazard index has

the rail engineer • January 2014

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PHOTO: PRESS ASSOCIATION

been constructed that categorises the most serious incidents. Currently there are about 1000 higher risk failures a year but only 10 were classified significant with none as really dangerous. Seven classes of failure/ incident have evolved: »» Equipment and Installation Shortcomings Not obeying manufacturer’s instructions, missing out a test, taking short cuts, equipment degradation through age, omitting ‘out of use’ safeguards; »» Staff Communication Errors ‘Thought you had done it’, did more than the tester thought, incorrect comms protocol, technology feature not advised to appropriate people; »» Money & Time Job larger than available resources, abbreviated testing, rushed design/installation/testing; »» Technology Knowledge Shortfall ‘I thought I knew how it worked’, unpredicted failure modes, project manager/ TOC pressures to change things, new trains with new failure impacts on signalling; »» Signal Engineer Mentality Signal engineers and train driver not always having same understanding, problem of layering testing, signal engineer attitude to some systems such as the train protection and warning system (TPWS); »» Incidents That Never Were Predicted failure modes eliminated at design/ installation/test, engineers ‘play time’ with new systems/facilities; »» Ones That Shouldn’t Have Happened Potters Bar, Grayrigg, Ladbroke Grove.

Many incidents do not result in accidents but nonetheless do occur: points moving in a locked route, two trains in a section, false clearing of signals, points out of gauge, incorrect overlaps, incorrect route indication, impact of sunlight on aspects, signals dim or out, signallers failing to understand system, public failure to interpret instructions at crossings, poor signal sighting, inadequate driver aids.

The likelihood of future incident causes are seen to be: more pressure on timescale, understanding new technology, poor communications between the many parties now involved, not sorting out root causes, reluctance to air problems in public, inadequate awareness of other disciplines. This should not be alarmist but more an indication of where the effort should be put into accident prevention.

Rolling Stock and Train Borne Systems Whilst the Clapham accident was due to a signalling deficiency, many of the fatalities and injuries were caused by the poor crashworthiness of Mark 1 rolling stock. Kevin Crofts from Interfleet explained how the accident has influenced carriage design with changes to ensure vehicle boundaries are not breached in a collision and that train ‘furniture’ does not move.

Modifications suggested for Mk 1 stock were not implemented as the carriages had only a limited life. For new stock, research focused on five collision scenarios: end on crash, side swipes, road vehicle level crossing impact, buffer stop impact and derailments. A new crashworthy strategy has evolved based on energy management and absorption backed up by computer

30

the rail engineer • January 2014

PHOTO: PRESS ASSOCIATION

modelling and dynamic tests. The Vehicle Acceptance Body (VAB) process has emerged with associated Group Standards and the European standard EN15227.

The emergence of in-cab signalling has created new challenges for managing signalling responsibility with much of the equipment being on board the train. Not only are there external interfaces to balises and radio messaging but also internal ones to traction motors, brakes and odometry coupled with the complications of performance data and train preparation. The challenge is determining who owns ‘the system’ and how integrity across the wheel rail divide will be assured.

The Testing Dilemma Four contributions focussed on signalling testing and whether the Clapham recommendations were still appropriate. Helen Sumbler from Atkins viewed both the positive and negative: testers now know their limits and are independent but testers are no longer ‘rounded’ signal engineers, the levels of knowledge is declining and the time for mentorship is lacking. Testers are often called upon to get involved in project management at the same time that workload is increasing. Much reliance is placed on time-served engineers who learned their testing expertise through hands on experience but these people will soon be retired.

It is reckoned that general compliance with the recommendations has been achieved but only around 56% are fully implemented. Functional testing remains

aligned to interlockings and no national formal training programme exists. The distinction between signalling and software engineers in the testing process and the mentality of both is a future concern.

The need for Principles Testing was questioned by John Arnell from Atkins, especially in the field of data testing. Testing has become more compartmentalised and there is a danger of micro engineering and missing the bigger picture. Perhaps testing is over documented with the GRIP process causing projects to be finalised too early. Twenty five years of data testing in solid state interlockings should mean that requirements driven software is understood.

Whilst computer based signalling allows more functionality, this comes at the risk of introducing errors. It is possible that SSI and its successors Westlock and Smartlock have been pushed too far; errors in source code are resolved by ‘cut and paste’ fixes but there is difficulty in checking data printouts and no real comparator between test and command.

The relationship between designer and tester is a risk as it is all too easy for the former to rely on the latter to find mistakes.

There is little doubt that testing computer-based systems cannot be treated in the same way as relay interlockings. The danger is that testing will focus only on what the system is supposed to do and not what it might do. Rod Muttram explained how this problem has been approached in Bombardier by using a process of

the rail engineer • January 2014

Formal Methods and Automated Testing. These need planning from the outset.

A complex methodology has been devised for interlockings including development of a formalised programming language plus associated tools, and has resulted in the STERNOL code. This will produce many hundreds of command combinations that can exist in a computer-based system and, if done properly, will lead to automated testing that can be run continuously for long periods of time. It should halve the number of hours required for testing but must be accompanied by an appropriate means of interpreting the results.

Is Britain the only country to have these challenges?

Clearly not, and Francois Fleuret from Systra/SNCF gave an account of several high profile French rail accidents with subsequent investigations. As well as leading to improved ATP systems, RFF (the French rail infrastructure organisation), in conjunction with SNCF staff, has devised a process that details who does what in the task of implementing new signalling. Although contractor staff are employed, they are much less dominant than in the UK and do not undertake some key activities such as possession management. RFF witnesses all stages of implementation including factory acceptance tests / software validation, site pre tests, integration testing to adjacent systems and equipment and the actual commissioning process. It is interesting that testing and works on an operational line are performed during normal day time shifts. There are similarities with British practice but there is much more dependency on in-house staff.

WHILST SAFETY MUST CONTINUE TO BE A CORNERSTONE OF DESIGN, RECENT CHANGES TO GET EFFICIENCY HAS RESULTED IN A MORE PROPORTIONAL DESIGN PHILOSOPHY USING MODULES WITH LESS DETAIL.

Design and Project Management Investigations into design methodology following Clapham revealed that regional practices prevailed.

Drawing offices had their own styles and concentrated mainly on scheme plans and control tables. Written specifications were seldom produced and stage works were often not being formally designed.

Graeme Christmas from Network Rail recounted how this has changed and it is clear that giant strides forward have been made. The Design Handbook, the production of standard drawings and a regularised distribution of instructions has been part of the process.

IRSE licences have helped ensure safe designs but perhaps with a resultant loss of efficiency. Recruitment and training of staff has improved but there is still much to do.

Other factors have impacted on the design process: new regulations such as Electricity at Work, CDM, Safety Cases and ROGS all demand compliance to national standards with decisions of principles being made at the centre.

Under ROGS (the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006), safety has become a shared responsibility including contractors, and embraces both understanding and behaviour.

The new CSM (Common Safety Method) system for risk evaluation and assessment offers a more pragmatic way of achieving compliance. Whilst safety must continue to be a cornerstone of design, recent changes to get efficiency has resulted in a more proportional design philosophy using modules with less detail. The need to get to grips with system engineering may lead to a Standards moratorium so that all interested parties can collectively look at ways of taking this forward.

A pragmatic review of past and present management of signalling projects was offered by Bruce MacDougall, a seasoned signal engineer, with experience on both British and overseas railways. The focus on testing is right but oddly, no amount of testing (except for a wire count) would have found the Clapham error. It was a supervision problem.

More important these days is how to stage and resource a programme. Some issues are: »» When to do work - weekday, weekend or blockade?

The debate continues. »» Do staffing levels match the plan? »» Is there a staging strategy risk balance? »» Is it allowable to plan resources on a global basis? »» Is it right to ‘wave’ the safety card when things go wrong? »» Should a project be slowed down if resources are lacking? »» How critical are hours of work: should weekends off be enforced, should weekends be part of the scheduled work load, how critical is this to the eventual changeover? »» Recruitment, training and competence: how effective are ‘fast track’ conversions, should courses be linked to competence, how to ensure competence on new systems?

Project and engineering management need to be more closely aligned so as to understand better the use of temporary or displaced staff, the pressures on headcount numbers, the call for arbitrary financial reductions, the leaving of vacant posts unfilled, the investment in training plus other typical business pressures. The question was asked: “do designers spend too long demonstrating competence and not long enough designing?” Perhaps the answer is to move to template design standards that interface with test plans and emanate from manufacturing industry. But would such standards promote best practice or stifle innovation?

The signalling profession finds it hard to critically examine itself, so this seminar was refreshing in that respect. Assurances that safe working practices are now in place were given and Clapham could not happen today. However, the processes now practised may not be entirely suitable and the understanding of new technology gave rise to some worrying questions.

Hopefully the concerns raised will be noticed by those in power and acted upon.

31

32

the rail engineer • January 2014

UK signalling

CLIVE KESSELL

for CP5

W

ith the next Control Period (CP5) rapidly approaching, it was time once again for Network Rail to update its signalling suppliers with a review of technology, the level of predicted expenditure and the efficiencies that will be expected. Crewe Hall Hotel was the venue for this now customary annual gathering of both client and contractor engineers, a welcome opportunity to not only hear the latest news but to meet colleagues from both sides of the industry.

Chaired by Mark James, Network Rail’s head of engineering signalling, a quick recap of the improving safety gains and the need to do things quicker and at lower cost, set the scene for announcing that signalling would have £3.2 billion to spend over the next five years.

Too many people are focussed on only their part of the business and there remain too many ‘blockers’ who prevent progress.

‘That’s not the way we do things’ is often the excuse from both sides

of the industry; sentiments often borne out of past experience, but a failure to recognise the need for change leads to time wasting and additional expense.

Solutions are not always easy, but recent attempts to get improved collaboration are bearing fruit. The single client and contractor delivery teams for schemes at Reading, Watford and East Kent have been successful and the same way of working will be required for ongoing and future major projects.

Supplier accreditation is a sensitive area, but the ‘Route to Gold’ system, whereby, once internal processes are proven for a supplier, Network Rail will not need to do exhaustive future product checks, is seen as a hopeful improvement. Minimising the work that needs to be done on site by transferring most tasks to a factory environment and a resultant ‘production line’ approach will be encouraged.

The engineering and technology drivers for CP5 will be:

Overall Demands Responsible for the signalling delivery programme, Mark Southwell spoke about the ‘Efficiency Challenge and Enabling Innovation’. Within the £3.2 billion, an efficiency gain of £580 million will be expected, clearly quite a challenge. Part of this will come from the use of more modern systems and equipment but the main challenge will be the different way in which resources by the whole industry are used and deployed.

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the rail engineer • January 2014

»» Traffic Management systems that will give far more intelligence to operating decisions and where three suppliers - Hitachi, Signalling Solutions and Thales - are already building prototypes; »» The ongoing programme to concentrate command and control at Regional Operating Centres (ROCs); »» Modular signalling for secondary lines; »» ERTMS / ETCS for the main trunk routes, noting that four suppliers are in the process of testing out interoperability at the Hertford North test site.

At a tactical level, the work of the Signalling Innovations Group must be recorded as this shows how some relatively small measures can have big economic benefits. Some of their projects were recorded in issue 109 (November 2013), but specifically ‘plug and play’ cabling and Class II power supplies are having a direct impact on the bigger schemes referred to above.

CP5 in Context The numbers and demands for the signalling element of CP5 were spelt out by Andy Smith, business improvement manager for the signalling programme.

Comparing past and present, the expected improvement in productivity will be calculated on the basis of Signalling Equivalent Units (SEUs) per £ spent.

In CP3, £2.24 billion delivered 3,500 SEUs. 5,500 SEUs cost £2.4 billion in CP4 while, for CP5, Network Rail is being asked to deliver 11,000 SEUs for only £3.2 billion. `The price of an SEU will therefore reduce by 15%, much of which will be achieved through layout rationalisation and simplification.

Network Rail and supplier initiatives are expected to yield £247 million in savings. The ORBIS project (Offering Rail Better Information Services), which is revolutionising asset collection methodology, is expected to give £106 million of benefits as a result of enabling better asset management decision making.

25% of the expenditure in CP5 will be assigned to ERTMS / ETCS, Modular Signalling (see later) and Traffic Management projects.

This allocation is expected to rise to 60% in CP6. It is also evident that the ORR will be monitoring signalling project performance over the period with particular regard to: »» Maintaining safety standards in both projects and day to day operation; »» Innovation initiatives and associated usage capability; »» Impact on climate change and environment; »» Automation of inspections; »» Improved management of possessions; »» Working arrangements for the most productive use of time; »» Getting work done right first time.

The GRIP (Governance for Railway Investment Projects) process has established a robust process for getting projects properly established but some criticism as to the time it takes is being recognised. As such the planning stages (GRIP 1-4) will, via a programme called ‘TARDIS’, be reduced from 27 to 20 months. A similar review of the deliverables process (GRIP 5-8) is in progress.

Focus on Technology Signalling as a name is rapidly being replaced by Command and Control. Some diehards do not like this, but it is a sign of the times. Jerry Morling, the principal engineer for command and control strategy, outlined the main technology focuses for the period - ROC implementation, traffic management, the use of radio and intelligent trains.

All of these will have challenges, the main ones being migration considerations, competing technologies and technical feasibility. Couple these with an expected lifespan of 35 years for signalling, 15 years for control systems and 10 years for telecom networks, and one gets a sense of the logistics problems that lie ahead.

The Network Operating Strategy (NOS) will centre around the intended 12 ROCs (although, as confirmed at this gathering, some discussion still exists as to the final number of ROCs), the roll out of ETCS on main lines and the use of modular signalling on secondary routes. A watchful eye will be kept on progress with ERTMS Level 3 in Europe for the most rural lines but nothing definite is yet planned for the UK. Good work is being done to get the industry geared up for ETCS Level 2. Valuable lessons have

the rail engineer • January 2014

35

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the rail engineer • January 2014

been learned from the Cambrian Line early deployment scheme and the integration trials at Hertford are going well. Transferring all this experience to the Great Western main line will, however, be a stepup in factors and complexity but the omens are good.

The advent of driver advisory systems (DAS) - as reported in issue 104 (June 2013) - is showing efficiency gains but linking these to the signalling system will give much greater benefit.

The upgraded Thameslink route should become a reality in CP5 with much depending on an ATO overlay package to ERTMS for the central London section. It is recognised that introducing complex systems has risks so the philosophy will be to use COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) technology wherever possible while preparing for a high degree of system integration. Reducing the amount of infrastructure and doing as much testing off-line as is feasible will also bring benefits.

Product management and innovation The term ‘product’ is used often, but what does it actually mean and how should products be managed? Steve Armstrong, the head of category management, gave a useful insight into this often trivialised subject.

A product can be a sub system or a component with all sorts of categories in each. All have to be managed over a lifetime, which could be several decades. R&D into products is nowadays almost all done by suppliers at their own risk, mostly without an end order book. This has resulted in little investment for the development of game changing technologies.

As a generalised reckoning, there are more products in the market than are really needed.

Too often there is a single source of supply for some critical items, it is hard for new entrants to get products accepted and having gained technical acceptance, this is no guarantee of reliability.

This is not a particularly healthy

‘Plug and play’ cabling. scenario and signalling is probably worse than other engineering disciplines.

The intention is to devise a strategy on what to buy now and in the future. This should be based on available technologies, optimisation of whole life costs and collaboration with the supply base to make it happen. In turn this means giving suppliers visibility of future requirements at product level.

ERTMS / ETCS is seen as a technology that is supply-led with interoperability as its core requirement. Other elements of the signalling product portfolio should ideally follow suit. A list of priority products will be launched in 2014 but it must be recognised that 87% of signalling work will be either in framework contracts or alliances, with only 13% available to the open market.

The recent devolution of the Network Rail organisation has advantages in giving accountability and empowerment but it does permit the purchasing of products not aligned with each other. Some new found freedoms may have to be reined back to prevent a product free for all.

Innovation seems to be the ‘in’ buzz word at the moment and David Clarke from the Enabling Innovation Team tried to put this into context. The UK supply chain for rail is worth £7 billion each year and supports 80,000 employees. Aligning this to Network Rail’s four ‘C’s (Cost, Carbon, Capacity and Customer) within its Technical

Strategy should result in many of these innovative ideas coming forth. However, these need to be planned and hence the ‘Innovation Gap’ concept has emerged which sets out the order: Define the Challenge [->] Get the Funding [->] Produce the Innovation. Most will result in tactical improvements and some examples are: »» Independently powered EMU »» Cycle Travel App »» Gateless Gatelines »» Station Canopy erection without a possession »» A 25kV inter coupler proof of concept »» Gearbox acoustic monitoring device.

More long term innovations include the Radical Train Demonstrators, the European initiative Shift2Rail and the Customer Experience Prize.

Modular Signalling Much is being made of this as the salvation for secondary route modernisation but what are the lessons from the first two schemes (Crewe - Shrewsbury and Ely - Norwich)? Both are commissioned and valuable experience has been gained.

Peter Duggan from Siemens Rail Automation (formerly Invensys) highlighted the plus points encountered on the Crewe-Shrewsbury line: »» Standardisation of hardware and software; »» Lightweight signal structures; »» Plug coupled connections;

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38

the rail engineer • January 2014

»» Standard design elements; »» Site depot can be a van including messing and toilet; »» Concept of ‘hangaring’ for doing nearly everything away from site including integration testing.

There were some problems, however. The FTN (Fixed Telecom Network) was not always appropriate as a transmission medium with recourse to an IP Ethernet being used. The FTN must be available early and configured to the required specification.

Screw pile signal bases proved more expensive than a concrete slab and measuring cable length accurately proved to be a challenge with cables needing to be tested on site. The AWS brackets needed modifying, as did the S60 level crossing barrier machines from the USA which had to be altered to meet EMC and Machinery Directive requirements.

The Network Rail view on modular signalling results so far was given by Ken Vine. Whilst it is a step forward in reducing signalling costs, there are limitations and these must be recognised. Project scope flexibility and signalling facilities are more limited and some enhancements to the designs are to be made available via the latest modular handbook update. These include: »» Capability of having four routes from a signal (instead of three); »» Inclusion of banner repeater signals; »» Provision for permissive movements on passenger routes; »» SORA (Signal Overrun Risk Assessment) changes; »» Provision for higher speeds and ladder junctions.

Erection of a new LED signal head.

More standardised designs for the civil elements (bases, structures, etc) and reduced framework contract rates will need to happen. The concept of ‘Modular Plus’ for more complex sites is likely to be developed Whilst modular signalling has shown considerable promise, one cannot help feeling that Network Rail missed a trick by not specifying interoperability and interchangeability between the two incumbent suppliers.

From the gathering it seems that no other firms will be invited to supply modular systems so perhaps the die is cast for the foreseeable future?

A Level Crossing Opportunity The cost of providing or replacing barrier crossings seems ever more expensive and innovations to reduce cost should be welcome. Andrew

Please see our latest vacancies on page 66.

Nelson from Henry Williams Ltd described a product developed for low speed lines inside an industrial complex using a standard PLC (programmable logic controller).

The design is 60% fixed and 40% site-specific while the crossing can be equipped with wig-wag lights, full or half barriers, driver or treadle activation - all based around either a Siemens or Omron PLC and industrial type relays. The PLC controls the initiation and cancelling, the aspect sequence of road lights, the status monitoring of all lights, signal aspect sequences and any unique inputs or constraints.

Functionality is based on a standard base programme but this can be easily changed and tested in a factory environment.

Systems have been in use since 2003 with no PLC failure and only one relay fault.

So are these systems suitable for use on main line railways?

The answer was a definite yes, but probably needing a hardware interlock to ensure no PLC can cause a wrong-side failure. The main problem will be overcoming prejudice but, with the financial challenges ahead, surely this should be not too much of a challenge.

At the end of a fascinating day with a different slant to previous supplier briefings, no-one should have been in any doubt as to the financial opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. One can only hope that the signalling industry will be willing to work in collaboration with Network Rail but, perhaps more importantly, that suppliers form a partnership to avoid the parallel development of similar systems and products so that the customer is not locked in to bespoke equipment for ever and a day.

the rail engineer â&#x20AC;˘ January 2014

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40

the rail engineer • January 2014

Connecting road, rail, sea and air DAVID SHIRRES

U

ntil recently, Steve Yianni was technical director for Network Rail where he introduced new arrangements to support rail innovation (issue 84, October 2011). In August, he became chief executive of the newly-formed Transport Systems Catapult (TSC). As such, it might be thought that he is now also concerned with innovations in other transport modes. However this is not quite the case. In an exclusive interview with The Rail Engineer, Steve Yianni explained that this Catapult is “not specifically about designing trains, ships etc, instead we are about integrating the four main modes: road, rail, sea and air”.

The new Catapults The TSC is one of seven Catapults created by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) - established by Government in 2007 to stimulate innovative technology and so boost UK productivity. The TSB does this by, amongst other things, the formation of online communities, Knowledge Transfer Networks, and competitions such as ‘Accelerating Innovation in Rail’ (issue 95, September 2012).

The TSB’s mandate was strengthened in 2010 by a Government announcement that £200 million was to be invested in technology and innovation centres for specific sectors which provide guidance on funding and emerging technologies. They also will bring together business, universities, research establishments and other expertise to develop innovative products to meet market needs. In this way businesses will have access to equipment and know-how that would otherwise be out of their reach. They have been branded as Catapults, signifying how they will accelerate innovation.

The TSB has now created seven Catapults: High Value Manufacturing, Cell Therapy, Offshore Renewable Energy, Connected Digital Economy, Satellite Applications, Future Cities and Transport Systems. These were chosen as they address areas that are strategically important for UK and have a large global market for which the UK has research and business capabilities to exploit. Steve advised that by 2025 the annual global transport market is likely to be around £3.6 trillion per annum, of which £900 billion will be for innovative integrated transport systems.

Making a start There is an air of excitement at the TSC’s temporary office in Milton Keynes. Steve said: “We are just getting off the ground, identifying what we are going to work on and creating a team.” Currently there are 35 personnel with 271 planned by 2018. The TSB has just approved £47 million to fund the TSC’s five year plan and a further £17 million has been received from the Department for Transport.

Producing the five-year plan was an important initial step. Developed from extensive consultation involving 110 organisations, it estimates that by 2018 the TSC will generate economic benefits of £712 million. The plan includes a route map to achieve its aim of ‘Intelligent Mobility’, the cost effective movement of people and goods, which is a roundel with four concentric circles.

The outer circle represents the vision of Intelligent Mobility, inside this is one for the two part strategy to achieve this: Integrated Transport Systems using innovative technology and a Unified Transport Sector achieved through cultural change to avoid fragmentation. A further circle represents the four delivery mechanisms to achieve these strategies: innovation projects, thought leadership, an innovation centre and platforms & infrastructure (large-scale modelling and test facilities).

The inner circle is the TSC’s foundation of its organisation and its engagement with stakeholders.

Beyond the jargon Some might consider the language used in this route map as hype and so may be sceptical about its effectiveness. For example the phrase ‘strategic innovation platforms’ might not impress but, in reality, describes two multi-million pound projects for which there is a great demand. These are the National Transport Systems Modelling (NTSM) facility and the Integrated Testing Environment (ITE).

the rail engineer • January 2014

In recent years, there have been great advances in virtual modelling to such an extent that prototype cars will soon be a thing of the past. Modelling of transport networks is also becoming increasingly sophisticated and includes economic benefits, environmental impact, asset management, operational cost, vehicle flow and pedestrian movement.

However most of these are currently confined to a single transport mode.

NTSM meets an industry requirement for a multi-modal model identified at the initial consultation stage. It will provide open access to linked data from existing models, initially from the Highways Agency, Network Rail and Transport for London. The creation of a joinedup model for the entire transport system is considered to be a world first with benefits that include better planning decisions and improved assessment of new products. Steve considers it to be “a huge task”.

Just as NTSM will link models from different transport sectors, the ITE will use test results from facilities such as the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute, Transport Research Laboratory and Network Rail’s Old Dalby test track. Steve explained that collaboration is the intention as money will not be spent developing new test facilities.

Instead, opportunities will be created for existing facilities to collaborate to test different transport interfaces. He identified the testing of new level crossing equipment as an example for which there might be a case for installing a railway line across the Motor Industry Research Association’s proving ground at Nuneaton.

Thought leadership On its website, the TSB explains that the TSC is needed as “we have a market failure in that there is no co-ordinated effort addressing

41

transport integration”. This is because individual transport sectors work in isolation due to silo thinking and commercial pressures.

“Of course there are commercial sensitivities, but I’m describing a vision that creates an environment where everyone wins” was Steve’s comment.

To promote this message requires ‘thought leadership’. The TSC is working with various groups to promote integrated transport and will run an Intelligent Mobility summit in 2014. Different sectors working together on NTSM and ITE should also break down barriers.

The TSC’s innovation centre will provide an environment for different industries to work together on developing cross sector projects.

This centre will be located at Milton Keynes with 36,000 square feet of space for the delivery of innovation projects and will provide access to NTSMF and ITE.

42

the rail engineer • January 2014

LUTZ self-driving pods.

Futuristic projects

HIGNFY promotes LUTZ The TSC team were delighted that the television programme Have I Got News For You

LUTZ will also develop ‘cloud-enabled mobility’ - the concept of using a vast amount of transport data from all relevant sources, including vehicle sensors and personal phones, to create a ‘City Motion Map’. This will provide a real-time map of all pedestrian and vehicle movement in the city which can be used to optimise transport operations. Other potential benefits include ticketless travel using smartphones and monitoring road condition from vehicle suspension system sensors.

There will also be leisure and retail sector applications for this data.

A specific benefit of the City Motion Map is the ability to offer transport-on-demand. This is not a new idea, as shown by the availability of dial-a-ride services in many areas. However, recent improvements in processing power, high-speed communications and route planning software offer the potential for

almost instant cost-effective on-demand services. LUTZ will develop and trial such a system which will use both the self-driving pods and a fleet of 100 vehicles that can carry 8-10 passengers.

We want to lead the world Unusually for The Rail Engineer, this article is not about railway engineering. It does however address developments that will become increasingly important for the UK rail engineering sector so it is important that rail engineers are aware of the opportunities that intelligent mobility will bring.

Providing better information and more responsive public transport must benefit the rail industry. In France, for example, SNCF has developed ‘Mytripset’ (http://mytripset. voyages-sncf.com), a Europe-wide journey planner which includes the UK and gives times and costs for all types of transport modes including car. SNCF would not be investing in this system unless it felt that it would show the advantage of rail travel. With on-demand self-driving pods to get to the station, rail becomes even more attractive.

It is interesting that the TSB has selected the integration of transport systems as one of seven technologies that meet UK strategic needs and offer the greatest potential to exploit global markets. The UK rail sector may have long lost its manufacturing lead but still offers world class in rail consultancy services.

The TSC’s vision is to build on this and other expertise so that the UK will “lead the world in intelligent mobility”. As it starts up, the Transport Systems Catapult is providing the foundation to both achieve this aim and give Britain the joined up transport it needs.

Find out more about the Transport Systems Catapult and download its five year delivery plan at: https://ts.catapult.org.uk/ PHOTO: BBC/HAT TRICK/RICHARD KENDALL

The TSC does not sponsor projects nor run competitions. As Steve says: “This is something that the TSB is good at.” His Catapult intends to work collaboratively with others to pursue R&D work. This may involve being part of a team competing in TSB competitions such as the one for feasibility studies on integrated transport: in-field solutions for which results are announced in January.

The TSC is currently working with industry partners to develop a number of project opportunities. It is these projects which demonstrate how intelligent mobility can be achieved in practice. They include: »» Instant Weather (‘Now-casting’) - a collaboration with the Connected Digital Economy Catapult and the Met Office to develop applications for short-term localised weather predication using real-time environmental data from transport systems, for example sensors on cars that detect temperature, precipitation and lighting. »» Sentiment Mapping for Transport Systems - considering how the analysis of publically available social media channels can be used to optimise the design and operation of transport systems to meet public requirements. To do so, the TSC is working with the Royal College of Arts and will use Commonplace technology developed by OpenCityLabs. »» Autonomous Vehicle System Review - with European funded research into unmanned ships, this project has been initiated by the Marine Industries Leadership Council to assess state of the art development of autonomous vehicle systems in all transport sectors. »» Airport Integration - a project to integrate all real-time departure information across UK airports to both improve efficiency and the transition between transport modes.

These projects exploit concepts that may not be familiar and also capitalise on new ways of communicating and processing vast amounts of real time data. They can therefore be justifiably described as futuristic.

(HIGNFY) had recently mentioned the LUTZ project. According to HIGNFY this project is a “new car that can drive itself” and that Milton Keynes was chosen for this project as it has “helpfully wide pavements”. Whilst it’s good to get such publicity, as might be expected this was not quite an accurate or complete description of the project.

In reality the LUTZ (Low-Carbon Urban Transport Zone) project plans to use Milton Keynes as a test bed for autonomous vehicles and transport-on-demand services. It has been developed by the Automotive Council and supported by the TSC. Its vehicles will be small self-driving pods that can each carry two people. The HIGNFY’s comment on the town’s pavements is partly true as the city has the space for an initial stage of the plan which has pods operating on pathways segregated from pedestrians. By 2018, it is expected that the concept will have been proven, enabling a fleet of 100 self-driving pods to mix with pedestrians on city centre paths.

the rail engineer â&#x20AC;˘ January 2014

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44

the rail engineer • January 2014

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

Never the twain

The six-span viaduct that will carry the new chord over Joan Croft Lane, the East Coast Main Line and Applehurst chord.

T

oday’s railway system might be a singular entity but it was formed from many discreet parts, pushed through the Victorian landscape by competing companies to secure commercial advantage. Coal proved a powerful inducement across the north of England, prompting a convoluted network to develop on which passengers often played second fiddle. It was only later in the nineteenth century that corporate collaboration brought a more joined-up approach with the widespread development of connecting spurs to meet emerging needs, rather than costly new lines being laid.

A typical case study can be found in the flatlands four miles north of Doncaster. The railway arrived here in June 1848 when the Lancashire & Yorkshire and Great Northern companies met end-on at Askern Junction, providing the latter with its first route into Leeds. The West Riding & Grimsby overflew this line just south of the junction in 1866, fired by the prospect of minerals being dispatched to export markets. Five years later, the North Eastern Railway pushed today’s East Coast main line northwards from Shaftholme Junction, then constructing an east-facing chord to the WR&G in 1877.

Last to trouble the cartographers in 1916 was a nowclosed joint effort by the Hull & Barnsley/Great Central, again with an eye on local colliery output. All these routes were threaded under and over each other in less

than one square mile of countryside.

Inconceivable back then was any notion that Britain might become dependent on coal imports. But we are, bizarrely. So the railway now finds itself trying to work in reverse, accommodating significant flows - around 30 trains daily - from Immingham to the Aire Valley power stations. Much of this travels via the WR&G, now known as the Skellow line, before transferring to the East Coast Main Line via the 1877 (Applehurst) chord.

GRAEME BICKERDIKE

the rail engineer â&#x20AC;˘ January 2014

45

PHOTO: NETWORK RAIL

...meet

Replacing Joan Croft level crossing (next to the red-brick houses) with a bridge has brought many knock-on benefits to the project.

46

the rail engineer • January 2014

Trundling slowly northwards for 14 miles as far as Hambleton South Junction, this freight acts to constrain the capacity for additional long-distance passenger services to York and beyond, needed to meet forecast growth.

Get up and go The solution - part of a £600 million package of CP4 interventions on the ECML - is to connect the Skellow with the L&Y’s lesser-used Askern line via a new 3.2km railway known as the North Doncaster Chord. A 12-month consultation period and the submission of proposals to the Infrastructure Planning Commission culminated in the Secretary of State formally granting a Development Consent Order in October 2012. By this stage, an alliance had been formed between Network Rail and Morgan Sindall - the appointed contractor which based itself in York while URS finalised the design.

Mobilisation swiftly followed, with the land take getting underway in December and the project team moving into offices alongside the Skellow line on 2nd January 2013, overlooking the wasteland occupied by Thorpe Marsh Power Station until its demolition over the previous summer.

In overview, the chord extends southwards from Owston Grange Farm No.1 crossing on the Askern line, climbing on embankment at 1:120 to a 246 metre six-span viaduct over Joan Croft Lane, the East Coast main line and Applehurst chord, then curving eastwards as it descends - again on embankment - to cross an underbridge at Bell Croft Lane before meeting the Skellow line 520 metres beyond Applehurst Lane crossing. You will gather from those words that muck shifting formed a very significant part of the project in its early stages, averaging 2,500 tonnes per day and peaking at almost 5,000 tonnes.

On the move The search for sources of general 1A fill was focussed locally to minimise the impact and cost of transportation. For the eastern embankment, washed colliery spoil from three pits - Hatfield, Kellingley and Maltby - was assessed for two qualities: a 35° or greater internal angle of friction - determined by shear box testing - and sufficient durability to deliver a 120year design life. Maltby’s stood out as meeting these criteria, with the added advantage that delivery by rail was possible. The power station’s former sidings were fettled back into shape to receive it. Also achieving the required structural properties was a limestone material from Wentbridge Quarry, north-west of the site, which arrived by road to form the slightly smaller embankment at the north end.

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

Five weekend possessions were needed to install the junction with the Askern line.

the rail engineer • January 2014 E LIN RN KE AS

CURRENT FREIGHT FLOWS

ECML

30

A19

NORTH DONCASTER CHORD JOAN CROFT LANE BRIDGE VIADUCT

30

BELL CROFT LANE BRIDGE APPLEHURST CHORD

NEWTS

APPLEHURST LANE LX OFFICES

SIDINGS

E SKELLOW LIN

FORMER POWER STATION

400mm of drainage stone was introduced upon which to build-up the 7.2 metre high embankments. Negating the need for ground improvements, this approach helps to even the loading, control settlement and increase the embankments’ resistance to deep-seated failure planes.

The site in overview, showing the network of railways (in orange) that developed here between 1848 and 1916.

Goodbye Joan Located 100 metres north of the new viaduct, Joan Croft is one of several manuallycontrolled gate crossings over this section of the East Coast main line. Whilst acutely

P-way staff create a scene of industry at the chord’s western end.

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

That at least was the plan. The landslip at Hatfield Colliery in February 2013 (issue 105 - July 2013) effectively cut the Skellow line off until July, putting paid to the train-hauled importation of spoil. And prior to that, the ubiquitous Great Crested Newt disrupted work on the eastern embankment until the arrival of spring allowed their relocation to a purposemade habitat on the other side of the railway.

This frustration drove a greater use of road transport, approaching from the west side, to serve the section between the viaduct and Bell Croft Lane bridge. The team worked wonders to make up for lost time.

Access routes for the 20-tonne wagon fleet were the subject of lengthy discussions with the local council. The communities hereabouts are served by narrow lanes which are not in great order, certainly unsuitable for the loadings and volumes demanded by the North Doncaster Chord. This prompted a swift programme of resurfacing, kerbing and junction improvements on the highways linking the site to the A19, together with the laying of temporary haul roads across fields to straighten a couple of tight corners. Allied to this has been the establishment of a 30mph speed limit and one-way system for construction traffic. Two farm crossings over the railway have also been upgraded; these remain open to construction traffic unless a train is approaching, requiring regular dialogue between the relevant signaller and crossing keeper.

Handling the vast task of constructing the earthworks - all 500,000 tonnes of them has been Jakto. Due to the underlying soft laminated clay, Tensar Basetex - a reinforced geotextile starter layer - surrounded with

H& B/ GC

TEMPORARY HAUL ROADS

FO RM ER

UPGRADED PUBLIC ROADS

47

48

the rail engineer • January 2014

(Below) A wagon load of ballast heads along the haul road.

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

(Bottom) Looking north along the new embankment to the Askern line junction.

unremarkable, its significance to the project should not be understated. By replacing it with a bridge, the overhead line equipment could be lowered, in two stages, by 1594mm in total.

This allowed the elevation of both the viaduct and embankments to be reduced, cutting the quantity of import materials needed and bringing consequential benefits in terms of transportation and cost. In turn, this has lessened the chord’s visual impact. And all that comes before any consideration of the safety and operational improvements brought by another level crossing closure.

An initial concern was that the foundation piling for the viaduct’s abutments would have to be rotary bored, rather than the more efficient CFA piling, which would have resulted in another rig being mobilised. But this was soon discounted following further local ground investigations undertaken with the piling contractor Bachy Soletanche. Once piling for the bridge could start in earnest, 52 piles were augured in just two weeks.

Efforts were then concentrated on the concrete works, delivered by Brenbuild, with protection screens erected during possessions to remove any ongoing railway interface. These doubled as formwork for the abutments.

Eight weeks after starting, a 500-tonne crane lifted the nine precast concrete bridge beams into place during a single overnight possession; others were taken to install the permanent formwork for the deck and the parapet barriers. No time was lost before Jakto came in to build up the approach embankments, the programme being that tight. “The rate of fill placement has been phenomenally good because the weather has been on our side,” reflected Morgan Sindall’s engineering manager Tony Naylor. “If we had lost days through weather, we would have been stuck.”

The road bridge played a key logistical role, offering the only means of access to the east side of the railway for the 1,200-tonne Gottwald AK680-3, supplied by Sarens Construction, and its convoy of assorted components which would be assembled over five days to lift in the viaduct’s longest span.

The limited availability of this crane defined a critical path for the project - if the piers weren’t ready for an open window over the August Bank Holiday of 2013, there wouldn’t be another for the best part of two months.

This served to concentrate minds, instilling a can-do must-do approach to any problems that arose.

49

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

the rail engineer • January 2014

Digging deep Piling for the viaduct started at the end of April last year, two weeks after the road bridge piling. Working north-to-south with an 85-tonne Soilmec SF-120 CFA rig, between 12 and 32 piles were sunk per pier to the Sherwood Sandstone bedrock, 19 to 22 metres below ground level. These vary in diameter from 600 to 900mm, dependant on the loadings, and support a concrete raft on which stands a pair of seven metre high concrete columns. Progress with this work had to be carefully driven to coincide with weekend possession and isolation opportunities, allowing the rig to be taken over Joan Croft level crossing without it having sat idle for several days. Much time and application was invested to evade the potential embarrassment of it running aground or striking the overheads. It did neither of course.

The build for Pier 2, closest to the East Coast main line, again exploited a protection screen to minimise its effects, this time attached to the sheet piling that safeguarded the excavation for the pile cap and then propped off the foundation base. Cleveland Bridge, the project’s steelwork partner,

A train of empties passes under the new Joan Croft Lane bridge.

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50

the rail engineer • January 2014

A final concrete pour on Bell Croft Lane underbridge.

helped to ease the time pressures associated with this pier by revising its programme such that span 4 was in place before Joan Croft Lane - which passes under the northernmost span 6 - was closed on 29 July 2013.

Thereafter work progressed southwards from the abutment as planned.

Weighing 462 tonnes, the longest steelwork section of 65 metres - crossing the ECML and Applehurst chord - went in overnight on the 24/25 August. Unlike the spans to the north, its main girders, cross beams and formwork panels had all been built-up beforehand at ground level using a 250-tonne crawler crane. After being lifted in, this occupied span 2 and part of span 1, and was then spliced to a second prefabricated section - weighing in at 227 tonnes - which was positioned two days later. It’s worth making the point that all this activity over the East Coast main line was fulfilled in standard Rules of the Route possession periods.

Whilst closure of the Skellow line unhelpfully held up the embankment works, it did allow VolkerRail’s track team to install the S&C at the eastern end considerably earlier than anticipated, working four weeks of days.

However, five disruptive weekend possessions were needed on the Askern line for the new junction. The track formation thereabouts was poor - resulting in a long-standing 20mph PSR - so stabilisation work has been instigated involving the installation of steel sheet piles along both sides of the railway and formation renewal work. This will allow the speed restriction to be lifted.

The chord itself has been receiving track since November, a process that was substantially complete before Christmas, with just the top ballast and tamping yet to be completed. Signalling is rarely simple, a reality that emerged here as the design work, led by TICS, came to its conclusion. Commissioning is likely in April 2014, having cost £44 million from start to finish.

Making it happen All this magazine’s writers will find an echo of familiarity in the words spoken by project leaders when describing their team’s efforts. “We’ve all worked together” is an obvious favourite, perhaps reflecting times past when this wasn’t always the case. What’s clear about the North Doncaster Chord is that every contributor - from subbies to the principal contractor has had a voice and this has engendered a spirit without which the project would probably have been in trouble as a result of the difficulties thrown at it.

Network Rail’s alliance manager Adrian Elliott recognises with generosity that “Everyone who’s walked onto site has engaged with the ethos of getting it over the line. It’s been a challenge but we’re getting there.”

51

Don’t forget the

the rail engineer • January 2014

A

S&T

lthough Doncaster North Chord was very much a civil engineering job, like all railway works there were S&T ramifications.

Morgan Sindall contracted Optilan to carry out the necessary telecommunications work. This involved lifting and shifting the FTN (Fixed Telecoms Network) and legacy cables at Applehurst Junction and Haywood Junction to make way for the new chord, a cable diversion of approximately 1.5km.

The new telecoms infrastructure required to support the chord includes; 11 phones, 2.6km of 10pair copper cable connected through 5 box on posts, which will ultimately be connected in to the existing FTN copper trunk cable at either end

of the chord. Optilan will also undertake the modifications to the HiPath telephone concentrator in the controlling signal box, Doncaster PSB. Also working at Doncaster PSB are TICS - the signalling designer for the project. Work commenced in late 2012 and is being undertaken in 18 discrete stages, each of which is interspersed with numerous P-way, OLE, M&E and civil engineering stages. It all requires careful integration of the various programmes and activities.

Already complete are the reinstatement of a ground frame at Thorpe Marsh, to

enable the import of fill material by rail, and associated cable diversions. Then there were signal renewals at Skellow, new points and interlocking recoveries at Shaftholme, and new S&C at Thorpe Marsh Junction and Haywood Junction.

Even the removal of the Joan Croft crossing needed work as

the equipment was taken out of the system.

The really interesting works are just starting with the installation of a brand new panel at Shaftholme, extensive alterations at Doncaster PSB, interface change to Norton GB, re-control of Haywood LC and the commissioning of the new chord.

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52

the rail engineer • January 2014

Strategic sleepers T

he railway runs on sleepers - literally. Apart from a few miles of track which has a fullyconcrete base (slab track), usually in tunnels with tight clearances, Network Rail’s 20,000 miles of railway track are mounted on sleepers.

Let’s consider the maths. 20,000 miles of track with a sleeper every 650mm (sorry about the mixed units) - that’s around 49 million sleepers in total. Now some routes have wooden sleepers, and some medium-speed lines have steel ones. But the bulk of the main line railway uses concrete.

On average, a railway has to be replaced after 40 years. So it’s a simple calculation to come up with the fact that Network Rail needs one million sleepers a year just to keep up with its replacement programme.

A reliable supply of volume sleepers is therefore essential to Network Rail’s business.

However, it had only two main suppliers, Cemex in Washwood Heath, Birmingham, and Tarmac’s Tallington factory in Lincolnshire which was scheduled to close. Although some were also being sourced from Turkington Precast in Portadown, Northern Ireland, something needed to be done.

Collaboration One of the largest manufacturers of concrete sleepers on the continent is Leonhard Moll.

With factories in Hanover and Laußig near Leipzig, as well as foreign subsidiaries in Poland and Croatia, it is a major player.

Britain’s Trackwork, based at Kirk Sandall near Doncaster, is a major supplier of wooden sleepers as well as complete track items such as switches and crossings. So the two companies got together to look at setting up a new sleeper factory in the UK in a former

Pilkington Glass building that adjoined the Trackwork site. However, the logistics were difficult and initial costings didn’t show the savings that Network Rail needed.

So, instead, a tri-partite arrangement was made. Network Rail would build a brandnew factory on the Woodyard site on Ten Pound Walk in Doncaster. This would have a mainline connection, making the logistics much more acceptable, and there would be space for a stockyard and distribution hub as well as a factory. Trackwork Moll would supply the machinery inside the factory and the technology to actually make the sleepers by a highly automated process which would reduce costs as well.

Trackwork Moll has a ten year contract to supply up to 400,000 sleepers a year - which was a good justification for the whole project.

from the whole site. Therefore, principal consultant Hannah Reed developed a SUDS (sustainable urban drainage system) solution which created a water reservoir under the external hard-standing of the factory. This would be filled by the run-off from heavy rain, and then released to the local sewers in a controlled manner. EPG (Environmental Protection Group) carried out the design which was installed by specialist contractor SEL Environmental Ltd.

The factory The site was cleared, with a few unused buildings being demolished and some disused sidings lifted, so that work could start at the beginning of October 2012. Trackwork Moll contracted Sheffield-based contractor JF Finnegan to carry out the work as part of a policy to involve local companies in nonrailway work wherever possible.

One early constraint was the problem of rainwater run-off. The local drains would not cope if the large, 200 metre long factory was subjected to a major downpour - they could only take a maximum of five litres a second

Looking along the main factory, this line of moulds is one of four.

the rail engineer • January 2014

The building itself is a conventional steelframed structure finished in a gun-metal grey cladding. It has a 22 metre high ‘tower’ at one end that contains the silos for the concrete batching plant and allows the attached Network Rail logos to be seen from some distance away. In fact, the silos were installed first and the factory then built around them.

To one side of the new building are the main stockyard and railway sidings. A large gantry crane spans the stockyard and will be used to both move finished sleepers into place and to load and unload supply trains (recycled sleepers from the high-output track replacement trains will come in here as their wagons are reloaded).

On the other side, there is a storage area for all the Pandrol clips and cast-in shoulders that will be installed in the sleepers themselves.

Construction took almost exactly a year - 11 months plus one month of snagging. Peter Heubeck was very pleased with the way everything had gone.

Manufacturing process Inside, all the kit is now in place. When The Rail Engineer first visited at the end of October, some equipment commissioning was still going on, but trial production runs started in December.

The production process is interesting in itself. Although Leonhard Moll has a wealth of experience in making concrete sleepers, it tends to do this using a carousel process with moulds mounted on rotating beds. This was to be the first factory to use a long-line method.

Peter Heubeck, general manager of Trackwork Moll, explained why: “The carousel method is not as efficient for Network Rail’s design of sleepers. The G44 is a big, heavy sleeper, designed for 30 tonne axle loads and 140mph running. If the carousel manufacturing process was used, it would require quite chunky steel end anchors at both ends of each sleeper for the tensioning strand which would significantly increase the cost.”

So production manager Ralph Kortmann had to come up with an automated long line process. Long line methods are not new, they have traditionally been used in the British market, but not on this scale.

Looking at the factory, it is easy to see how the process works. There are four production lines, running side-by-side up the length of the building. Each line has a row of moulds, one sleeper long by eight sleepers wide, and there are 44 rows of them arranged end-to-end. The moulds are designed so that sleepers are cast upside down, with all the markings machined into the mould and the flat bottom of the sleeper ending up on top. The shoulders for Pandrol rail clips are also placed in the bottom

of each mould, ready to be cast in.

Once a complete line of moulds is in place, the reinforcement strands can be positioned.

Reels of spirally-wound reinforcement strand are positioned at one end of the line, and the individual wires picked up by a moving carrier.

That then proceeds down the line, pulling the strands behind it, until it reaches the far end.

There it is locked into a 900-tonne concrete block, as are the wires at the reel end, and a 7.5 tonne tension applied. This not only gives the required pre-tensioning, but the arrangement of the wires in the carriers gives the correct strand pattern as well.

Now it is time for the concrete to be applied.

This is mixed in the batching plant up in the tower and transported down the line in a skip suspended from the overhead crane. A precise amount is released into each mould, which is then vibrated to make the concrete settle around the reinforcement wires and to fill the mould without airholes or voids. Once the complete line is full, it is left to cure.

Three of the four lines are identical, and will make only G44 sleepers. The fourth line can be changed over from G44 to the lighter EG47 type. This, being shallower, needs a slightly different wire arrangement than the regular G44 but Ralph Kortmann was able to come up with an arrangement that suits both the EG47

53

and the G44. For the moment, these are the only sleeper designs that the new factory will make.

By the end of a shift, all four lines of moulds will be full and curing- a process which largely happens overnight. The next morning, work starts on stripping sleepers out of the first line of mould that was filled the previous day.

Tension is released on the cables and each set of sleepers cut free. These are then turned the right way up, Pandrol Fastclips are attached, and piles of sleepers moved to an interim stock line outside. They will be released into the main stockyard later. Meantime, the individual moulds are cleaned, sprayed with an oily release agent and fitted with cast-in shoulders - ready for the whole process to start again.

Samples of sleepers, and of each batch of concrete, are tested in the in-house laboratory so that quality can be assured.

Commencing production So that’s the process, which itself imposed limitations on the construction of the factory.

The ground in the old Woodyard site was not the best - soft material over sandstone that was eight metres down and a very high water table. This necessitated 1500 piles to support the equipment - particularly the heavy concrete tension blocks which themselves reach down 3.5 metres into the ground.

Once approval testing has been completed on all three styles of finished sleepers (G44, EG47 and G44 with an EG47 wire pattern), the factory will be in full production in January. It has already had its official opening - Secretary of State Patrick McLoughlin did that in midDecember. The first task will be to build up some stock, the stockyard can hold around 90,000 sleepers or three months’ production, and then sleepers will start appearing on the Network with TWM-D (Trackwork Moll Doncaster) written on them.

Which will allow Network Rail’s procurement team to relax a little, knowing it has now secured a strategic supply of concrete sleepers for the next ten years.

The overhead crane is used to deliver concrete to the lines from the batching plant on the left.

54

the rail engineer â&#x20AC;˘ January 2014

Sustainable solutions for stations

W

hen looking at railway projects, it is all too easy to focus purely on the big ones. The iconic bridges, the glorious Victorian main line stations, the railway wending its way across splendid scenery.

To be honest, The Rail Engineer is probably as guilty of this as anyone. Major projects involve a lot of contractors, subcontractors, machinery and money. Large-scale works are also more photogenic and allow for visually more interesting articles.

But there are 2,500 stations on the UK network. And several major programmes to upgrade many of them. Although many projects are small, under a million pounds in cost, they still need significant planning and creative thinking - especially as the stations often have to remain open throughout the work.

These projects need specialist contractors.

Not necessarily ones that only undertake smaller contracts, but ones that have the right mindset to undertake the variety of work, the tight timescales, the uncertainty of working on older buildings, and the determination to get each one completed on time - if only so they can move on to the next job.

Over the past five years, multi-disciplinary contractor Buckingham Group Contracting has successfully delivered numerous projects to improve passenger facilities at railway stations throughout the UK. Many of these have been under national programmes. The company has improved ticket offices, car parks and restrooms under the National Station Improvement Programme (NSIP), installed Equalities Act compliant footbridges, passenger lifts and access ramps under the Access for All (AFA) scheme, and constructed platform extensions and car parks for Capacity Enhancement programmes.

All of these projects share the common

theme of being undertaken within live environments where the protection of the operational railway, rail staff and passengers is critical. Buckingham had to integrate its demolition, deconstruction, civil engineering, building and rail engineering skills into a single team to achieve the level of flexibility required to meet the various challenges.

At the same time, the projects had to be delivered within Network Railâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sustainable Procurement Pledge plus similar sustainable development plans and promises made by other rail clients. This meant not only being concerned about safety and welfare, and protecting railway and local heritage, but also recruiting staff locally and designing, building and delivering station buildings that are energy efficient with the highest BREEAM Rating that can be achieved.

A look at a few recent projects shows the variety of challenges involved.

Stratford Parkway station Working in partnership with Mott MacDonald and client Warwickshire County Council, the design and build of the ÂŁ3 million Stratford Parkway station was completed in May 2013. It was delivered as part of the Stratford Local Sustainable Transport Project, which is being promoted, funded and delivered by the Authority.

The new station comprises two platforms, each capable of accommodating six-car train sets, along with platform shelters, lighting, CCTV and ticketing facilities/machines.

Equalities Act-compliant access was essential, and a new vehicle access road/station

forecourt area included bus stops, set-down and drop-off areas along with a taxi rank and car, motorbike and cycle parking.

Salford Crescent station Salford Crescent station occupies a strategic location between Windsor Bridge North and Windsor Bridge South and thus carries traffic from both Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria stations. As well as experiencing a high volume of students from the surrounding university, the station is also used as an interchange between adjacent routes.

Plans were drawn up to open out the station platform and remove the existing overcrowding problems by relocating the ticket office and extending the platforms to give passengers more room to move around.

These called for the demolition of the existing platform building, canopy and access ramp, a new overbridge with significant piled foundations to facilitate the construction of a new ticket office at street level providing a more prominent station frontage and improved staff facilities, and the construction of a wide footbridge linking the ticket office to the platform which would itself be lengthened in both directions.

It was originally planned to close the station completely for three months while this work was carried out. However, working with design partner Atkins and in close collaboration with Network Rail and train operator Northern Rail, Buckingham developed a programme and possessions schedule which minimised disruption whilst allowing the station to remain operational for all but bridge lifts and demolition works.

The reconstruction work was completed in November.

the rail engineer • January 2014

55

More to come

Wakefield Westgate ‘Gateway’ station Buckingham Group, in partnership with Architects CJCT and designers Amey Consulting, were responsible for the conceptual design, detailed design, and construction of the new £7.5 million Wakefield Westgate station building (above) for Network Rail and East Coast Mainline. The overall aim was to deliver a modern, sustainable, and fully accessible station facility incorporating high quality passenger amenities, complemented by large public realm areas that create an aesthetically pleasing and safe external environment for all station users and visitors.

The work involved constructing the station building, an Equalities Act compliant over-line footbridge, and a modern transport interchange facilitated by the provision of a functioning forecourt with short stay parking and a taxi drop off area.

The station building was handed over on 13 December 2013 while recently-instructed platform works are due for completion early this year. The project’s sustainability targets of achieving BREEAM Excellent and Very Good Considerate Constructors scores were achieved by a range of measures including rainwater harvesting, installing photovoltaic cells and re-using of site-won recycled aggregates.

In addition to these projects, Buckingham Group is currently undertaking the redevelopment of Llandudno station, which is within the town’s Victorian Town Conservation Area and therefore requires careful and considerate material selection to ensure building regulations and heritage issues were carefully considered at each stage of the development.

At the same time, the company is also constructing the new Northampton ‘Gateway’ station alongside the existing one which will be demolished once the new station is complete. The team is working under an archaeological watching brief to preserve the site of Northampton Castle.

With regards to sustainability the same team at Buckingham recently delivered the design and construction of Network Rail’s new National Distribution Centre at Ryton, on behalf of developer Prologis. The completed building achieved Planet Mark Property Development Certification through a carbon negative status, thanks to 110% of the unavoidable emissions being compensated for by protecting endangered rainforest.

Most of the above are projects that are not in the public eye, apart from in the local area, but they are all part of the rich variety of work that Network Rail and its contractors such as Buckingham Group have to tackle every day. Perhaps we should look at them more often.

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56

the rail engineer • January 2014

Sustainability: putting it all into practice

I

n a world becoming ever-greener, sustainability is one of the latest concepts that the railway engineer has to wrestle with. It is now being used as part of the scoring process when Network Rail is assessing bids for new work, yet some people are still struggling to fully understand the principles involved.

In issue 106 (August 2013), Tertius Beneke principal environment specialist for Network Rail - explained how the United Nations defines sustainability and how it applies to railway work.

Now Network Rail has launched its Sustainable Development Strategy, and the introduction in new tenders of a minimum 5% allocation to sustainability has certainly put the topic on the agenda.

This puts the onus squarely on contractors to meet sustainable targets. Going forward, they must demonstrate that they have a clear understanding of the importance of embracing a sustainable approach in all that they do - and that’s not just in terms of the bottom line.

Implementing a sustainable strategy To understand how this new requirement affects them, The Rail Engineer spoke with one of the largest of those contractors. Sam Brewitt is sustainability manager at Balfour Beatty Rail.

“I agree with Tertius Beneke when he says that you must engage the ‘hearts and minds’ of individuals,” Sam commented. “The principles of sustainability do not change that is, trying to achieve a balance between economic, environmental and social impacts.

However, it is important to note that when applied at different levels the challenges you face are often different. It is therefore essential to define what sustainability means to you as an organisation.”

Sam explained how Balfour Beatty Rail has taken the sustainability lead from the wider Balfour Beatty Group and offers some advice to contractors keen to bring sustainability to the table.

“I have worked for Balfour Beatty Rail for over 12 years and in that time have witnessed a company that, to a large extent, operated in a sustainable way but without necessarily recognising it as being under the sustainability ‘banner’. While this had been encouraging, the good things we were doing were not being pulled together in a dedicated, sustainability programme until about four years ago.

“A dedicated, co-ordinated approach to sustainability is an important one, at least initially, in order to drive cultural change and embed sustainability principles in an organisation. The Balfour Beatty Group introduced a dedicated sustainability programme in 2009, influenced largely by clients such as the Highways Agency and the water companies. It was also simply ‘the right thing to do’ in terms of operating a successful business over the long term. Why would you not want to attract and develop talented individuals, have a healthy workforce, or save cost through reducing your carbon emissions?

“So, our main drivers to date have not come from meeting Network Rail’s requirements which, until their specific sustainability targets were rolled out, made implementing sustainability a challenge.

“Balfour Beatty Rail implements dedicated sustainability action plans on all its major projects in order to help deliver our sustainability targets. This is not mandated by Network Rail on every project so you might ask, why do it? These plans take time to develop and implement, but we believe they are essential to deliver local action and realise associated benefits.”

In the rail industry, Balfour Beatty Rail is amongst the leaders in terms of sustainability, because it has been influenced from other industries and is large enough to support a dedicated sustainability programme. It has also had the benefit of being able to learn and share sustainability best practice from being part of a larger group. However, Sam is keen to stress that, like everybody else, “we don’t always get it right”.

“You cannot underestimate the importance of getting the basics right,” Sam explained. “Having projects adequately resourced, an effective management system and commercial controls are a few examples of the building blocks of a sustainable business.”

Across the industry So what advice does Sam have for other contractors, in terms of implementing and embedding sustainability?

“The ultimate aim is to ensure that the principles of sustainability are applied at every level of an organisation and are the responsibility of everyone. The challenge is to work out how to achieve this and what works for your own organisation. Do you fully resource a dedicated sustainability team, but risk alienating the very thing you want to integrate by creating

the rail engineer â&#x20AC;˘ January 2014

a culture of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the sustainability teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s responsibilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;? At the same time, not having enough resource to co-ordinate sustainability and raise awareness to the point that everyone understands and owns sustainability is also a risk. There is no right or wrong but what matters is that, whatever resource is applied, it delivers results.â&#x20AC;?

As sustainability becomes embedded within the industry, Sam questions whether there will be a need for a separate sustainability section in future tenders. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ultimately, in the longer term, there shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really be a need to have a separate sustainability score. It must be the responsibility of all departments involved, from HR to procurement to the delivery team, and therefore sustainable thinking should be evident in every aspect of the tender return. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Going forward, it is essential to create a culture where employees adopt a sustainability mind-set and consider all three areas of sustainability when making decisions on a daily basis. They must ask, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;in addition to cost, what is the impact on people, the environment and on the communities in which we work?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;.â&#x20AC;?

Sustainability in practice The first rule to instill around putting sustainability into practice is that it must embrace more than just efficiencies. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;How to

do more with lessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has become a business mantra for all in recent years and, while it would be churlish as a business to not respect that view, forgetting or ignoring other areas of responsibility is not an option. As Sam has stressed, putting an equal focus on all aspects - social, environmental and economic - is crucial when embedding sustainability. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We do so much â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;goodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; work out there, but sometimes we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always recognise and capture the wider sustainability benefits,â&#x20AC;? said Sam. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Therefore it is key to raise awareness.

Take, for example, the Hainault Blockade delivered by Track Partnership (a collaboration between London Underground and Balfour Beatty Rail). Traditionally, we would spend numerous weekends to do 19 days work but for Hainault the railway was shut for 12 consecutive days, during which time this part of the London Underground upgrade was completed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This approach not only generated a cost saving in the region of ÂŁ4.8 million and reduced disruption to train services, but the additional sustainability benefits included reduced carbon emissions because there were fewer journeys to and from the worksite for plant and people, not to mention safer for staff who were effectively on the road less. Weekend noise and vibration for the community was cut drastically too. We all need to get into the habit of capturing this best practice and selling and sharing it!â&#x20AC;?

On the Instructions of the Liquidator, Mr Declan de Lacy )

57

Look, learn, shareâ&#x20AC;Ś then look again Once the concept of sustainability has been embedded in an organisation, embracing it, almost without thinking, should become second nature - inevitably spawning a ripple effect that reveals other potential sustainability benefits.

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the rail engineer • January 2014

As Sam points out: “When people start to realise that they are implementing sustainability and doing a huge amount already on a day-today basis, it may lead to them thinking of better ways to approach activities by asking questions such as ‘Is this the most sustainable method of construction?’ Or ‘can we redesign this to use fewer materials?’

“At Balfour Beatty Rail, we are starting to see these questions being asked in practice. On the North West Electrification Project we replaced traditional timber shuttering for concrete OLE foundations with a cardboard alternative. As well as being cheaper, this reduced resource consumption, waste, and manual handling risk.

“Another interesting question is, do you really need to travel to meetings when teleconference or WebEx meetings can often work just as well?

At Balfour Beatty Rail we are working to increase and monitor the use of conference call and WebEx facilities. This may seem trivial, but 48% of our scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions are from company vehicle travel (46% is plant fuel use).

Gas and electricity use is actually a drop in the ocean in terms of carbon emissions, although we should still focus on reducing this usage as it will help to reduce costs even further. ” “Clearly, the advice is to not become complacent. By all means plan from the start to deliver sustainably, but also be prepared to embrace other opportunities to deliver sustainable solutions as the project progresses.

In order to ensure this happens, education and effective communications are key.

“Sustainability requirements must be embedded into existing systems and processes but, more importantly, people need to receive regular communication. If people don’t know what sustainability is, then how will they know if you do not communicate with them?”

This is an area where Balfour Beatty Rail has had some success. Its annual employee survey last year revealed that 87% of employees said

they had a ‘good understanding’ of sustainability, 81% knew there were things they could do in their role to contribute to sustainability and 75% knew they contribute to sustainability in their personal lives.

“What we found is that there is actually a lot of sustainability in action happening across the business, but that often we simply do not recognise it.” Sam commented. “I am amazed at the amount of good practice that is actually taking place already. By sharing best practice examples, we can help people to recognise that what they are doing is already sustainability in practice and that they need to consider more than just direct costs.

“Sharing progress against targets is also important as people want to know what impact their actions have made,” Sam continued. “Lack of feedback tends to switch people off. Capturing and managing sustainability performance data will be a major challenge for Network Rail in the future. If data is seen to be going into a ‘black hole’, with no feedback on performance or consequences, then it will not drive the required change.”

The challenges ahead From Balfour Beatty Rail’s point of view, taking a sustainability approach to business is ‘simply the right thing to do’. As Sam Brewitt said, “We are on a journey to ensure that sustainability is truly embedded into everything we do and the decisions we make on a daily basis. Perhaps when this is achieved my role as sustainability manager will not even exist - I had better start looking for an alternative career!”

The rail industry has been set the challenge to increase capacity, improve reliability, whilst reducing cost and ensuring that everyone gets home safe every day. These are often competing priorities that make decision-making difficult.

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the rail engineer • January 2014

Engineering acceptance

of On-Track Plant

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

T

here is a skills shortage on the railways. It’s not news anymore. In fact, it’s not even surprising. But when one thinks of a skills shortage, one tends to think of areas in which a large amount of skilled people are needed and there simply aren’t enough of them to go around.

Electrification, signalling - they all have their problems.

However, there is another crucial aspect of railway engineering which also has a skills shortage approved on-track plant engineering acceptance signatories.

Compulsory certification All on-track plant vehicles have to be certified that their “designs, construction and maintenance” comply with the railway industry standard, RIS-1530-PLT, issued by

the RSSB (Rail Safety and Standards Board). Whilst this is not a mandatory standard, but an industry guidance document, it has been mandated by Network Rail for on-track plant that operates on its infrastructure. As such all on-track plant must have a valid certificate of engineering acceptance.

The definition of Certificate of Engineering Acceptance defined

by RSSB states: ‘The declaration by a Railway Undertaking, or by a

Notified body or a Competent Person employed or contracted by a Railway Undertaking that a rail vehicle(s) conforms to all of the relevant mandatory standards (including authorised non-compliances)’.

So whether it is a multi-million pound on-track plant project or a humble excavator conversion, they all have to be signed off.

And that’s where the problem lies. While in theory there is plenty of capacity - the latest RSSB list of approved signatories includes nine companies and 70 people - most of them can’t sign off on-track plant.

In fact, looking at the category of engineering acceptance of on-track plant (to RIS-1530-PLT), there are only seven - and three of those work for Network Rail. So that is a definite skills shortage.

Small wonder then that Lloyd’s Register, the international specialists in safety engineering and assurance, became interested. On-track plant was a gap in its assurance portfolio, as it was in many other companies, so steps were taken to set up a specialist on-track plant approval unit.

Neil Hewitt was brought in to head up that department. In his 27 year career, Neil had spent time with AEA Technology, British Rail’s engineering development arm, and then with

the rail engineer • January 2014

Network Rail and Jacobs. He had been responsible for several Vehicle Acceptance Body (VAB) projects, including the engineering acceptance of Kirow cranes, and the acceptance of many road-rail vehicles and various rail-mounted maintenance machines.

He is also one of those seven signatories.

Supported by colleagues Steve Tidmarsh and Richard Grundy - a railway plant engineer with 40 years of industry experience - Neil is based at York. He explained the thinking behind the initiative: “There has been a shortage in the number of approved signatories available of late which has led to a sense within the industry that approvals services for on-track plant have been getting stretched.

Coupled with this are the changes to approvals standards and the recent procurement programme initiated by Network Rail and other suppliers for new vehicles, which has meant there is a greater demand for approvals.”

New plant Every new design of on-track plant needs to have a ‘first of class’ approval. This is very detailed and includes such elements as stability and braking performance. Of course, many road-rail machines are modifications of existing construction industry plant, but those very modifications may cause the problems. The machine may sit higher when on its rail wheels, affecting stability. And the ability to work under live wires, or adjacent line open, will certainly not have been assessed for normal building-site use.

Once that first-in-class assessment has been made and signed off, subsequent machines of the same

design also need certifying but may not be checked to the same degree.

Depending on the manufacturer/ converter, local in-house inspections may be accepted for some vehicles with either a spot check or a planned frequency inspection made (for example the first, third, sixth and ninth machines).

In every case, however, an approved signatory has to verify that the vehicle complies with the standards and provide certification - so if he is going to leave it to the manufacturer’s representative, Neil will have to be very sure of them.

“We don’t accept just anyone,” Neil commented. “They have to be approved by us in terms of competency and suitability.”

The latest version of RIS-1530-PLT, issue 4, requires that the vehicle has to comply with the standard and does not imply that the vehicle is safe in all respects. Of course, compliance should also bring about safety, but Neil stressed that he is not making a judgment-call on safety, but certifying that the vehicle meets the standard.

It also doesn’t mean that the machine is fit for purpose. Neil’s example was a rail grinder - he will certify that the lights all work and that it will stop when the brakes are applied, but he will have no comment to make on whether it grinds rails well, that’s not his job. Though he believes in time it will become so.

Out and about Stability and brake testing can only really be done at a suitable test site, so Neil and his team are rarely in their offices. “Most manufacturers have a test rig in their premises,”

Richard Grundy stated. “Such test rigs can test a range of static conditions to meet the requirements of the standard. This can include wheel unloading characteristics and stability requirements.”

Network Rail’s test track at High Marnham, Nottinghamshire, has everything that a plant tester wants, so the team can spend quite a bit of time there. Switches & crossings, plain line, guard & check rails, 1:25 gradients severe track twist, high cant (200mm) and 80-metre (4-chain) reverse curves - it has it all.

Checking interlocks for adjacent line working can be problematic. “A couple of problems have arisen over the last 18 months, and the ORR (Office of Rail Regulation) is interested,” explained Richard Grundy. “Controlling the limits of movement of a machine used to be done with removable pins - a very positive solution. Now it is has moved to electronic systems with software control which now have strict standards applied for safety performance. ” However, with the growth of electronic aids such as the latest safe load indicator systems for vehicles capable of lifting, these have brought in improved safety for operators.

With all the new machines coming onto the railway every year, and the requirements for existing vehicles to be re-certified on certificate expiry, there is certainly plenty to do.

It looks as though Neil and his team won’t be in York very often.

61

62

the rail engineer • January 2014

Mobile control

P

assenger growth on Britain’s railways has been a real success, but that has brought ever busier stations and greater challenges for those responsible for supervising their safe and efficient running.

Technology is used extensively to assist. Banks of CCTV monitors, passenger information screens, help points and station PA announcements are all available in the control room to help those responsible for the safety of the stations. However, these systems are of little use when someone needs assistance with a large bag through the gateline or the controller is down on platform 12 helping someone off a train.

Now, however, a British technology company has found a way to get the control room staff out into the open, where they can both be seen by passengers and see problems for themselves, while still remaining in command of the station’s vital functions.

The company is Telent Technology Services, based at Warwick. It first launched a network-based communications management control system back in 2006, using standard interfaces to manage new assets, legacy systems and other building applications. The system, known as MICA (Management, Integration and Control of Assets system) has been enhancing communication subsystems, integrating CCTV, public address systems, passenger information displays, help points, fire detection systems and more ever since.

MICA goes mobile MICA is now operational at over 80 stations, and interfaces with almost all makes and models of station communication assets. But it still needs control-room staff, locked away from the public, to make it work. All that is about to change, however.

Chris Hooper, senior integration engineer at Telent, explains: “The latest enhancement to MICA embraces Wi-Fi in order to go mobile, enabling MICA’s existing capability to be accessed by station staff via handheld devices, such as iPads, from anywhere in the station. This leaves staff free to leave the office and move around the station, to speak to and assist customers, whilst remaining in complete control of station systems at all times - whether to play a service update announcement, alter information displays, or keep an eye on the crowds from any of the CCTV cameras.”

Other than hand-held devices and Wi-Fi, MICA mobile requires no additional equipment and works with existing systems. A station has already been offered as the location for the first operational trial, with Telent working in partnership with the operator to ensure a smooth integration.

“It is in times of service disruption that MICA mobile really comes into its own,” explains Chris. “When faced with customers needing information and assistance, operational staff will no longer need to disappear from the front line to sort things out. MICA mobile enables them to do precisely the opposite - to get out among the travellers - whilst still able to control announcements and other communications as it can all be done via their hand-held devices, from wherever they happen to be at the time.

“Beyond making life easier for station staff, MICA mobile offers real benefits in terms of customer information and safety; by saving valuable time when providing the latest information to travellers and keeping station staff visible and available, continuity for travellers is maximised.”

Innovation and development - the essence of evolution Chris is no stranger to engineering his way to a solution, having joined GEC 29 years ago and stayed with the company as it has evolved into Telent as it is today. He’s been involved in electrical, electronic and software engineering throughout that time and is now part of the technical integration team.

“The bit I enjoy most is working with our customers to solve real problems - so much so that most of the technical work I do takes place beyond the working day.”

the rail engineer • January 2014

His efforts were recognised when he was voted Rail Engineer of the Year at the 2012 RailStaff Awards. Chris feels it is partnership working that often stimulates innovation: “I like to listen to people’s aspirations, then consider how technology can be used to realise those aspirations.”

This philosophy fits neatly with Telent’s own. The company specialises in developing their technological innovations by working directly with their customers and, in this case, station staff, to ensure they meet a real need which often involves a lot of testing and adjustment but results in a highly tailored system.

The Station of the future One example of this is Stations as a Service (StaaS), a two-year project to create a new management and commercial model for future stations, integrating communications and mobile subsystems onto a single, IPbased network. Co-funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), Telent will be working with Workware Systems and Abellio Transport Holdings on the project, which is to be led by CISCO Systems.

The project will involve demonstrations at different categories of UK train stations to show technical feasibility, as well as a wide range of associated benefits. StaaS will bring together the connectivity demands of passengers, retailers, train operators and security providers. By converging various systems and technologies such as Building Management, Internet of Things and Big Data, StaaS will deliver benefits to all of these groups. This will enable operators to move towards a holistic architecture with centralised management, helping to unlock future investment and innovation in the UK Rail Sector.

So the future may well be coming soon to a station near you.

If you can’t wait, contact Gerri Bilclough at Telent and see if you can get an invitation to see the future now at Pirin Court. You can reach her on 01926 693564 or gerri.bilclough@telent.com.

63

Save the date

18-19 June 2014

The National Track Plant Exhibition, held in July 2013, was a great success. More than 4,000 visitors saw displays and demonstrations from over 200 exhibitors, and there were presentations to attend and network opportunities galore.

Next year, it will be even better. New exhibitors are already clamouring to be included, and the signalling, telecommunications and electrification sectors are asking to be part of it.

It will all happen on 18/19 June 2014 at Long Marston, the same venue as this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s show. Put it in your diary now.

Be there!

In partnership with

RailwayPeople.com Fast track your career

Helping you find the right people for your projects since 2001

www.RailwayPeople.com

New Year

great opportunities with a fast moving company Signalling Solutions is a company formed by combining the complementary signalling resources and products of Alstom Transport Information Solutions UK and Balfour Beatty Rail Projects.

If you are looking for a new challenge and want to make a real contribution to the success of our business, we have opportunities across all our locations in the following disciplines: • Design • Testing • Planning • Project Management • Quantity Surveying • Installation Management • Project Engineering • Health, Safety and Environmental • Systems Engineering

If you want to work with a forward thinking company and the latest cutting edge technology, apply today.

In return for your commitment and contribution, you can expect an excellent package and the opportunity to shape your career the way that you want, with training, development and career planning.

All the advertised positions have the following benefits: We offer a competitive salary plus a range of benefits including a contributory pension and 25 days holiday.

For more information please visit www.signallingsolutions.com or apply by sending your CV to recruitment@signallingsolutions.com

For further information, or to make an application: Tel: +44 (0)1923 635 089 email: recruitment@signallingsolutions.com

a Balfour Beatty and Alstom company

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