Rail Engineer - Issue 147 - January 2017

Engineer

by rail engineers for rail engineers

JANUARY 2017 - ISSUE 147

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WELL THAT WAS INTERESTING!

EDINBURGH'S NEW GATEWAY

SIMON SAYS...

The Rail Exec Club gala dinner featured the 2016 Most Interesting Awards. Our review describes all the winners.

Scotland’s newest station opens, connected to both the main line network and Edinburgh’s tram system.

As Simon Kirby steps down, he looks back at his 13 years in rail and considers the future for HS2.

www.railengineer.uk

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Simon says...

Simon Kirby reflects on 13 years in rail.

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Crowds, capacity and Clapham Junction

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Contents Opinon 7 David Brewer’s thoughts on human creativity at the heart of digital engineering.

The great divide Graeme Bickerdike reports on one way to keep workers safe in tunnels.

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Innovation and realism Clive Kessell talks with Adrian Shooter to get his views on innovation.

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Improving Thameslink information Installing new passenger information systems on Thameslink stations.

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A unique estate Unlocking the potential of Britain’s railway network through its stations.

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All change at Paddington 38 Carillion Rail is electrifying Paddington Platform 14, despite changing standards.

Sound Engineering Inaudible train announcements are becoming things of the past.

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Mind the gap!

44 PAMELA aids understanding of the platform-train interface, a dangerous place.

Reducing Project Carbon

The Rail Carbon Tool helps to make the railways even more sustainable.

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Edinburgh’s new Gateway 48 David Shirres visits the network's newest station and considers its potential.

Borders Railway – signalling and telecoms one year on.

52 Paul Darlington investigates the signalling system on Scotland’s newest railway.

The Digital Railway – a reappraisal 59 David Waboso, new head of Network Rail’s Digital Railway, considers the future.

Well that was interesting!

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Swiss towing Discovery Aquarius Rail Technologies convert a Land Rover Discovery to pull a train.

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Bromsgrove Corridor resignalling Making sense of signalling renewals and relocations in the West Midlands.

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Control & Communication – Vision & Reality Clive Kessell attended Huawei’s Global Rail Summit on future technology.

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The progression to 4G Will 4G, known as LTE, replace GSM-R? Or will the railway wait for 5G?

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See more at www.railengineer.uk

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

Signalling & Telecoms

Electrical & Electronic Systems

in the March issue of Rail Engineer.

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

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Rail Engineer • January 2017 Editor

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GRAHAME TAYLOR

Grahame Taylor grahame.taylor@railengineer.uk

Production Editor Nigel Wordsworth nigel.wordsworth@railengineer.uk

All change!

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

Engineering writers bob.wright@railengineer.uk chris.parker@railengineer.uk clive.kessell@railengineer.uk collin.carr@railengineer.uk david.bickell@railengineer.uk david.shirres@railengineer.uk graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.uk malcolm.dobell@railengineer.uk melanie.oxley@railengineer.uk mark.phillips@railengineer.uk paul.darlington@railengineer.uk peter.stanton@railengineer.uk stuart.marsh@railengineer.uk

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This month we look at stations all over the world, the systems that run in the background and the passengers that have to be managed as efficiently as the trains that offload them.

The Passenger Train Interface has its own acronym – unsurprisingly the PTI. As with all interfaces, it causes problems with passengers who tend to assume a seamless transition from being on a platform to being in a train. When they get it wrong the consequences can be particularly grisly. David Shirres explores what can be done.

The new Edinburgh Gateway station opened on 9 December. It’s a substantial structure but may be relatively quiet in its first few years. There are, however, big plans for the area around it, including 1,500 new homes and a £700 million International Business Gateway development. David savours the calm.

Paul Darlington delves into the intriguing world of sound engineering and its application to the railway environment. Fraught with practical difficulties, complaints come from not only the passengers but the neighbours as well. Time for some ‘pink noise’…..

Clive has been to see how technology has been helping passengers navigate their way round one of Britain’s busiest stations – Clapham Junction. It’s a place that does not use audio announcements routinely as there are 17 platforms all in relatively close proximity.

The Borders railway is a year old. In fact, it’s a lot older having been first constructed back in the nineteenth century. It’s the anniversary of its reopening that is the subject of Paul Darlington’s retrospective. The line has had its ups and downs, but now has to cope with passenger numbers much higher than predicted. The local economy is thriving, so the line has to perform.

Another sign of changing fortunes is the station at Bromsgrove. With network contractions of the late 60s it was reduced to just the one platform. In 1990 a second platform was built and now it has four that can cater for nine coach trains! This enlarged layout is just one of the infrastructure changes involved in the West Midlands resignalling plan recounted by Paul.

Can it be possible to set up a worksite within a railway tunnel that is separate from trains? Graeme Bickerdike has been to see a system that does just that. Take a simple idea and apply some bold engineering and much can be achieved. There’s also an invitation to look at a demonstration site in January.

Adrian Shooter knows about innovation, both from his own direct experiences and also from drawing on what

others have attempted to do over the years. Clive Kessell heard him talk at a recent IET annual railway lecture where examples of the good and bad were presented. As Adrian says, “those who shout loudest (for innovation) rarely know what is entailed.” How true!

In our opinion piece this month, David Brewer, market director - strategic rail at Atkins, makes the point that we are not waiting for technology to help us make efficiency savings. It is here already. People with vision applying existing technology is what it takes to create a climate that ‘pulls’ innovation.

“Don’t start writing code until you know what you want”.

Wise words from David Waboso who, in conversation with Clive Kessell, has been giving his take on the Digital Railway. These bon mots sum up David’s whole pragmatic approach to this challenging and very high profile project.

Clive looks back at encounters at Innotrans last year, particularly those from China. The speed of IP transmission gets ever faster and this has helped the China Railway Corporation reduce the processing time of each one of its six million tickets a day from 15 seconds to 150 milliseconds.

Simon Kirby, soon to become chief operating officer for Rolls-Royce worldwide, reflects on his time with Network Rail and, latterly, with HS2. Views from the inside as major changes occur in the industry are always fascinating, and this article doesn’t disappoint.

You may have seen an advert on television featuring a new Land Rover pulling a train over a spectacular viaduct in Switzerland. Making it all happen were those nice people at Aquarius who specialise in converting four-wheel drive vehicles for rail use. Surrounded by great secrecy, their name doesn’t appear in the film so that’s why we think it should be mentioned here.

Should hard-pressed project managers also be expected to reduce carbon consumption and save the planet?

The good news, as David Shirres explains, is that cutting carbon also cuts costs and that RSSB has provided a freeto-use tool to measure project carbon savings.

Our writers report on many worthwhile and interesting developments. But what is most interesting? After watching the acrobats, those at the Most Interesting Awards in the Derby Roundhouse found out. You can too by reading Nigel Wordsworth’s report on this most interesting evening.

And that’s it. After eight years as the Rail Engineer’s editor I’m handing over to my successor David Shirres, whom many of you know already. It’s been a privilege and also great fun, but now’s the time to ‘do other things’. Take care of yourselves and thanks for reading.

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OPINION Using digital design tools presents us with an unprecedented opportunity to increase certainty. Poor predictability of time and cost on rail projects means we risk losing the confidence of funders and sponsors.

Investing both time and effort in design is key. Better adoption of digital tools to support design development has a role to play and will change the way the organisations involved in the design and construction process work together - challenging traditional boundaries.

This week I witnessed an incredible example of auto-generative design; a computer developed an aircraft tail fin, creating thousands of variants to find the best fit within defined performance parameters. I also witnessed the hand measurement of Pucher charts, used to calculate bridge loading - with around a 10 per cent error associated.

This striking contrast reminded me of the expression: “The future is already here, it’s just very unevenly distributed”. The juxtaposition of old and new characterises the railway, but it does perhaps give us some pointers. As an industry, we need to be more responsive to new ways of working and technologies which enable this.

UK productivity rose 0.6 per cent between 2010 and 2015 and remains below 2006 levels. Over the same time frame, car production per man-hour has increased by 56 per cent due to new technologies.

Applications in rail engineering Machines are good at tasks which operate to a series of defined rules, but poor at those requiring creativity, social intelligence and dexterity of perception and manipulation.

Design is a creative, human activity and needs to be engineering, not technology, led. Excellent engineering acumen is the key factor and so the tools which will have the greatest nearterm impact are those which augment, rather than automate. They are driven and governed by human inputs and free engineers to focus on where they can add the most value to a project.

One such example is Atkins’ TADPOLE tool, which harnesses digital technologies to support the design of overhead line electrification systems and was described in Rail Engineer last month (issue 146). This type of tool can cut work duration, increasing accuracy and flexibility.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Human creativity at the heart of digital engineering

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DAVID BREWER To utilise such tools more effectively, we need to bring members of the project teams together in a different way. Client teams, contractors, designers and specialist suppliers need to collaborate to deliver the best and setting the relationships up between the key players at the outset is vital.

Alliances such as the Staffordshire Alliance create an environment which enables teams to experiment and find opportunity to improve, with the contribution of Network Rail as a member of the team a key factor in its success. The Staffordshire Area Improvements Programme delivered improvements to the network ahead of schedule and below budget.

Ultimately, digital tools, in the right environment, have the potential to change the way we design. We know they can increase cost certainty and drive efficiencies. By making it easier to generate and manipulate scenarios, which include detailing, early options development can take greater account of buildability. Crucially, this will allow work to be taken away from safety and operationally critical areas, protecting the welfare of team members.

Greater use of visualisation, including the application of BIM, will support this migration of work away from sensitive locations and allow sponsors to make better and more informed decisions.

Developing skills We need to continue to develop skills to support new ways of working. Skills development in rail is increasingly focussed on digital capability and there is a generation of

digital natives coming through who are better equipped to take advantage of new ways of working. I think in 2D and translate into BIM, but I see my daughter playing Minecraft and she inhabits the space and builds outwards; there is a completely different level of fluency.

Skills development needs to focus, not just on the kind of tools that can augment the design process, but also on the interaction and relationships between all involved in the design lifecycle, while ensuring the fundamental engineering expertise remains at the heart.

Where next?

We need to drive continuous improvement through more effective early-stage design and embrace the opportunities created by the more consistent and effective use of digital design tools across the industry.

Leaders need to press for improved predictability, effectiveness and efficiency, which will create an environment which ‘pulls’ innovation. We need to continue to develop the skills base, future-proofing the workforce and creating the long-term capability to support the delivery of large-scale infrastructure projects.

Perhaps most importantly of all, we need to recognise that design is a creative human activity, and that huge benefits can be realised by allowing digital design tools to augment the design process.

David Brewer is market director - strategic rail at Atkins.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

RVR gets network connection

NEWS

New sidings in Robertsbridge, East Sussex, have linked the rail network to the Rother Valley Railway (RVR) for the first time.

Delivered thanks to a partnership between Network Rail, RVR, Kent and East Sussex Railway and a team of volunteers from London Underground and other organisations, and opened by Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy, the reinstated sidings will not just provide space to store engineering trains.

The new connection to the heritage railway means Network Rail can use both the sidings and the RVR lines to access the railway, improving access for engineering work and testing rail equipment before it comes onto the mainline railway.

This new facility means the heritage railway is also a step closer to realising its aspiration to restore the missing link to the Kent and East Sussex Railway, between Bodiam and Robertsbridge. Delivery of new trains and construction materials will now be much easier thanks to the new sidings.

Mark Budden, Network Rail programme director for the works delivery team which built the new sidings, said: “The sidings will be a real boost to our engineering teams, allowing us to work much more efficiently. The fact the heritage railway will also benefit is a real bonus and I look forward to working with the RVR team in the future.”

Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy in the cab of 66718 ‘Sir Peter Hendy’.

First shuttle in US First Transit, part of UK transport operator FirstGroup, has announced the first autonomous vehicle (AV) passenger shuttle pilot in North America.

Working in partnership with EasyMile, First Transit will pilot the AV passenger shuttle at the Bishop Ranch Office Park in San Ramon, California. It will connect tenants to various transit options including bus, cycle and car-sharing services.

The shuttles will run a fixed-route, stopping at designated stops within the office park. The pilot will begin with two vehicles - each with a customer service agent on board for passenger questions and information.

Designed to travel short distances using pre-programmed routes, the Ligier EZ-10 shuttles can carry 12 passengers and operate for 14 hours on a battery charge. The French-built

machines are equipped with a sensor and intelligent vehicle system to detect obstacles and avoid collisions.

First Transit is also providing onsite personnel to maintain the shuttles at a facility provided by EasyMile.

The Bishop Ranch Office Park has 585 acres with 30 buildings, and is home to more than 550 of the world’s leading companies, including Chevron, General Electric and Toyota.

“We could not think of a better partner to work with for a pilot in North America,” said Gilbert Gagnaire, chief executive officer, of EasyMile.

“First Transit is leading the way in innovative transportation solutions across the globe.”

NEWS

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Made in Newton Aycliffe The UK now officially has two volume train manufacturers.

Hitachi Rail Europe’s £82 million factory at Newton Aycliffe, opened in September last year, has just rolled out its first Britishbuilt train, one of 122 being produced as part of the Inter City Express Programme (IEP).

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and the Ambassador of Japan in the UK, Koji Tsuruoka, attended this significant milestone in the £5.7 billion IEP programme.

Karen Boswell, managing director of Hitachi Rail Europe, considered the event to be a celebration of the return of train manufacturing to the North East.

She was pleased at the way the plant was developing a workforce with strong engineering skills needed by the industry. By the spring of next year it will have

a workforce of nearly 900, with 50 apprentices. By 2019, Hitachi will employ 2,000 across 14 UK sites and support thousands of additional jobs countrywide.

At this early stage in the programme, output is being still ramped up as production is transferred from Japan to the UK. Currently, the plant produces around three vehicles a week. The eventual target is five a week.

Adjacent to the rolled out IEP was a Japanese-built class 385 that was about to be hauled to Scotland for testing under its own power on the Gourock line. This will be done within a possession as the train’s effect on signals has yet to be assessed. 70 Class 385 trains are on order, and most will also be produced at Newton Aycliffe.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Railtex exhibitor list continues to grow

NEWS

Whether the Christmas and New Year break was spent improving or running the railway or in a more traditional way, it is now well behind us and Railtex is approaching rapidly.

There are just four months to go until the show opens its doors, so it’s a good time to set aside dates for a visit. The exhibition takes place from 9 to 11 May at the NEC in Birmingham and is guaranteed to offer something for everyone in the industry.

The number of firms planning to exhibit continues to rise - by midDecember nearly 300 companies had selected their stands. There will be plenty of familiar names present as well as many first-time exhibitors, including some high-profile foreign firms, all offering new products and innovative ideas.

One of those will be train builder Stadler Rail, which last year won its first UK main line passenger stock contracts covering the supply of EMUs and bi-modes for the new Greater Anglia franchise secured by Abellio.

Also making a debut will be Masteris, which provides a single entry point to SNCF’s industrial facilities and experience in fleet maintenance and

refurbishment, and Italian train seat manufacturer FISA. UK-based companies new to Railtex will include DepotRail, representing suppliers of the specialist equipment required for depots and workshops, and trackside power supply equipment manufacturer LC Switchgear, taking part in the event after previously exhibiting at sister event Infrarail.

Meanwhile, the organising team at Mack Brooks Exhibitions is now busy finalising the programme of keynote speeches, technical seminars hosted by this journal, project updates and discussion groups that always attract much interest at Railtex events Registration for free entry to Railtex opens via the show website www. railtex.co.uk at the end of January.

This will give access to the exhibition over all three days, as well as to a wide selection of insightful associated events. The website also features a regularly updated list of exhibitors plus all the latest Railtex news.

Switching-on Crossrail Overhead line has now been energised along 12 miles of railway with the remaining section being completed in 2017.

The overhead line has now been energised along 12 miles of railway between Maidenhead and Heathrow junction, which is being electrified by Network Rail as part of the Crossrail project. The remaining section will be completed next year, allowing new electric GWR trains to run between Maidenhead and London Paddington from this summer - they currently stop at Hayes and Harlington.

The 800-strong workforce has successfully installed over 1,400 piled foundations and 834 overhead line structures. More than three quarters

of the wiring programme, which will see the installation of 150km of wires overhead wires, has now been completed.

Network Rail project director, calling the switch-on a “key milestone”, commented: “This electrification not only enables the introduction of the Elizabeth line but also supports the introduction of new GWR trains in 2017.”

From 2019, Elizabeth line trains will use this route on their way to the central core tunnels, and destinations to Essex and Kent.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

GRAEME BICKERDIKE

great T H E

D I V I D E

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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T

he roll call of railwaymen killed in the line of duty runs to depressing lengths. You don’t have to venture too deeply into the past - only a few decades - to find annual trackworker fatality rates measured by the dozen; go back to the 19th century and the yearly toll reaches well into three figures. William Page (Chatham), Thomas Robertson (Haymarket), Solomon Bridge (King’s Cross), Allen Sykes (Morley), George Beckett (Red Hill), Henry Brown and Thomas Jackson (Birkenhead) all lost their lives to trains in the first nine months of 1900. Yet these seven deaths actually represent a very narrow subset of the overall figure. We highlight them because of their common thread: the sites of work at the stated locations were all in tunnels.

PHOTOS: AMCO RAIL

3D VISUALISATION: FOUR BY THREE

Typical tunnel lining repairs, carried out with both lines blocked.

Being healthy and safe at work is an absolute expectation for every one of us, no matter how adventurous we choose to be in our leisure time. It’s unfortunate that ‘health and safety’ has had its reputation tarnished by occasional overzealousness over recent years, but that should not detract from the bigger picture - in its purest 1974 form, hundreds of railway workers can thank it for keeping them alive.

Long consigned to history are the days of scuttling off to the nearest refuge when a change in air pressure tugged on the lookout’s ears, suggesting that a train had just passed through the portal.

Nowadays, tunnel work is generally safeguarded: all lines blocked.

Whilst the rules don’t preclude a halfway house - one line blocked but the other still open - many would assert that the applicable protection methods are not

sufficiently robust. Certainly, the activities that can be productively pursued in such circumstances are quite limited.

Of course, none of this helps engineers to clear the contents of their job bank, a reality exacerbated by increasingly constrained track access availability, particularly on midweek nights, and time-consuming possession arrangements. Accordingly, resources are becoming stretched driving up costs - as more and more activities end up shoehorned into comparatively generous blockages at the weekend, leaving too many workgroups twiddling their thumbs during the week.

It makes no sense and something will have to give if the railway is to deliver on its efficiency obligations.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

PHOTOS: FOUR BY THREE

Sincere words are often spoken about the industry’s willingness to embrace innovation and accrue the emerging benefits. New technology, better working practices and mechanical advancement are already freeing-up funds and enabling more work to be accomplished in less time. But there remains, in tunnels, an understandable reticence to do things differently. As our introduction shows, history is clear about the potential consequences of mixing men and trains. But what if that half-way house - working on one line whilst the other remains open - could be adopted with zero risk of harm to the workforce?

Long-time collaborators AMCO Rail and Foulstone Forge have been putting their collective minds to this. It’s the sort of thing they’ve been doing for years - developing bespoke solutions to tackle unusual challenges. And they’ve been hugely successful at it. This one though is unique: the concept, development and build phases have been relatively straightforward; it’s the high cultural barrier that’s most difficult to overcome.

In summary, what they’ve produced is a robust screen system which isolates the workforce from the tunnel environment, except for that part of the lining to be worked on. It provides access from the toe of the sidewall up to the high haunch and, being constructed as modular units, can be extended to cover any reasonable distance.

The intention is to facilitate the introduction of adjacent single line working without compromising the safety of the workgroup, thus allowing a limited service to be maintained throughout a major project - which might otherwise necessitate a full blockade - or create a less disruptive midweek-night regime for minor works on a route used overnight by freight traffic.

Everybody wins.

Safety unfolds Each unit comprises a steel base measuring 3.4 x 2.3 metres, designed so that a pair of units can be secured to a single T8 trailer using twist locks and hauled into position by an RRV. As such, they have to meet OTP requirements. So as not to affect the open line, on/offtracking would be possible by means of a virtual siding and non-intrusive crossing system.

The screen protecting the work area - along one side of the base - is formed in three sections: »» A primary fixed vertical panel, 2.4 metres in height; »» A secondary overlapping vertical panel of 1.4 metres, supported at each end by two-metre telescopic columns which can raise it by 1.3 metres; »» A folding panel, also of 1.4 metres, which travels horizontally to ensure the screen’s 1.72 metre loading gauge profile remains within that of a standard shipping container, but can be rotated to stand vertically (or any angle in-between) by means of hydraulic rams.

Deployment of one screen takes less than five minutes.

3D VISUALISATION: FOUR BY THREE

Half and half

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Delivering Innovation in Railway Engineering Providing multi-disciplinary AMCO will beengineering demonstrating its railway solutions unique tunnel industry acrossscreen the UKtorail network partners on 27 January at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, Wirksworth, Derbyshire.

To register your interest in attending the event, please email your contact details (Name, Company, Email and Tel) to: tunnel-screen-demo@amco.co.uk

Safety | Professionalism | Innovation | Respect | Integrity | Teamwork www.amco.co.uk | T: 01226 243413 | E: info@amco.co.uk

Rail Engineer • January 2017

On the other side of the base is a two-part hinged skirt, stored in the vertical position but folded outwards into the cess when work is taking place. The skirt can be adapted to create a platform for activities at the haunch or covered with a geotextile to catch any rebound from spray concrete operations, allowing the material to be cleared away without the need to manhandle it.

Typically, deployment of one screen takes less than five minutes, with all parts controlled simply by four levers. There is a fail-safe system to ensure no part can pass beyond vertical towards the open line, whilst a winch is provided to hand-wind the various elements back into their travelling position in the event of a hydraulics failure.

As you would expect, LED lights illuminate both the working area and tunnel lining.

Fresh breath

3D VISUALISATION: FOUR BY THREE

16

The rush of air generated by a passing train has two components - a positive impulse of about 5kPa, followed shortly after by a 3kPa negative impulse. To reduce the effect of these pressure waves on the structure of the screen, all three panels are fitted with filters covering most of their cross-sectional area, allowing air to pass through with minimal resistance (68Pa/m2). On the working side, louvres direct the flow down towards the floor, ensuring little disturbance to the workforce.

When the screen is used as a standalone system, the filters serve the additional purpose of capturing any contaminants - cement dust, for example - that might otherwise be drawn back into the tunnel during the negative impulse. However, for activities such as spray concrete application, a ventilation unit and generator will accompany the screen - also carried on T8 trailers - capable of extracting 22,000-30,000m3 of air per hour at 4,000Pa by means of two 15kW fans.

Inside the unit are rows of polyester sacks with a total surface area of 240m2 - to capture any particulates which then fall into a lower chamber when the sacks are shaken. From there, they are pumped into bags using an Archimedes screw. The air is discharged clean from the top of the unit and used to dilute the generator’s exhaust gases.

“In the working area, there’s a 600mm flexible hose and you place that where you need it,” explained Chris Scott of Foulstone Forge, who has designed and built both the screen and ventilation system. “This has the same effect as moving the extraction fan. The resulting air flow moves at about 0.35 metres per second which is enough to be effective without causing discomfort to those working in the area.”

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

For longer-duration activities, there is potential to build additional units such as storage and welfare facilities or a workshop.

This would elevate the screen concept to that of a factory train - bringing further efficiency benefits - although a broader range of approval requirements would have to be complied with in order to transport the screens as freight.

Dave Thomas, AMCO Rail’s contracts manager, believes the best approach is to “start small but think big. Minor works with one trailer and one screen: pointing, stitching, grouting, recasing, site investigations. Why not? Then, once people have got confidence in it - they see the savings, see the potential - we build more screens and use them for the majority of our tunnel works.”

The railway is, of course, justified in taking a cautious approach to change. But change there must be - the Rail Delivery Group made a statement to that effect in November.

Operators’ success in attracting more people onto trains - and the implications of that in terms of introducing new services - places further strain on already limited possession opportunities, so engineers need to develop better means of fulfilling their obligations.

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

Leap of faith

The operating panel for the screen’s hydraulics.

It’s easy to find reasons to maintain the status quo. However, AMCO Rail will be hoping to convince decision-makers that the case for change is more compelling when it hosts a demonstration of the tunnel screen on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway at Duffield, Derbyshire on Friday 27 January. Why not come along and see how the future of tunnel working might look?

A limited number of places are available for the demonstration on a first-come first-served basis. Applications should be sent to:

tunnel-screen-demo@amco.co.uk

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F R O M

C O N C E P T

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R E A L I T Y

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Simon says

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

Simon Kirby reflects on 13 years in rail

S

imon Kirby left his role as chief executive of HS2 at Christmas, moving on to become chief operating officer for Rolls-Royce worldwide. This ended a thirteen and a half year career at the head of Britain’s railways, first for Network Rail and latterly for HS2, so Rail Engineer visited him before his departure to get his thoughts on the progress that the industry has made in that time.

The first surprise was that Simon had worked on the railways before. He joined British Rail as an apprentice in 1981, at Horwich in Lancashire, in what he now calls the “dark end of British Rail”. The site closed after two years, and young Simon was made redundant. He went to work for a fire engineering company after that, and then went to Liverpool John Moores University to study Mechanical Engineering.

Early years Looking back on it today, Simon is struck by the difference in the industry in just his career lifetime.

“British Rail Engineering, BREL as it was at the time, was hugely downsizing. It’s fascinating how the industry’s gone through that era, when rail was on the decline, a secondary mode of transport that would get phased out by the car, to privatisation when it is now growing at three to four per cent per annum and we’re talking about High Speed 2 and lots of other major investments.”

From university, Simon went to Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering (VSEL), and thence GEC Marconi and BAE Systems, before returning to his rail roots by joining Network Rail in 2003.

By that time, Network Rail had been in existence for about six months, following the collapse of Railtrack.

“I joined at the time where it was about building confidence, restructuring and configuring the organisation for the future,” Simon recalled. The industry had gone through a tough time, and there was a very real confidence issue across the board, which Network Rail had to address.

It was also a time when there were very few major enhancements to the network underway - it was mainly renewals. Simon was brought in to bring life to the enhancements programme.

A few projects were already under development - King’s Cross, Thameslink and FTN/GSM-R for example. But there was much more to do.

“Through CP3 into CP4, enhancements grew massively and projects such as Birmingham New Street, King’s Cross, Thameslink, Airdrie to Bathgate quickly came through,” Simon remembered. “Because of the increasing need for more capacity on the network, when you’re growing at three to four per cent per annum, you have to get more capacity, which is still the case today. I can’t think of a more successful industry over the last 15 or 20

years in terms of growth. Meeting that demand is clearly a challenge but, compared to where things were around privatisation, I think the industry’s in a really good place.”

Major enhancements “I was brought in to look at how to deliver capital projects. Some renewals are almost heavy maintenance, but a lot of renewals projects are really no different to an enhancement project in terms of physical activity. So I was brought in to look at the organisation. In those days Network Rail became a very centralist organisation, so we had a central renewals organisation that we created in about 2005 or 2006, and in 2008 we took on the whole of the rail portfolio.

“When you look back, the organisation demonstrated some significant increase in capability - I think it doubled its size.

Clearly, managing growth has been a major challenge for them over the last few years but, by the end of CP4, Network Rail delivered £5 billion of renewals and enhancements that year. It delivered some major resignalling schemes and, while projects like King’s Cross Station, Birmingham New Street and Reading were obviously delivered in CP5, much of the work was done in CP4.”

Feast or famine One of the problems faced by Network Rail, and its contractors, was the lack of orders coming out of the system at the changeover between control periods.

Between CP4 and CP5, very few contracts were placed in a period of twelve months, seriously affecting the liquidity of the supply chain. Simon was aware of that problem.

“It’s interesting, if you look at regulated periods in any regulated industry, they have that same sort of curve. If you look at the utility sector, it’s no different. Whatever that funding period is, as you get to the end of it, things become less stable. I think each control period’s had that shape profile to it, as things get tighter near the end, there’s less stability, things get put off and then funding arrives and is given to another development.

Rail Engineer • January 2017 “I’ve always taken the view that running any big project, and it’s no different in my future career, 90 per cent of the value is in the supply chain, it’s not in the client or the first tier organisation. So you have to do everything you can to work with those organisations to give them that long-term stability. Through my last five years in Network Rail, I put a lot of personal time into those relationships. I had to understand it all so that we could deliver, because it’s the only way you get efficiency in the supply chain. If you have a feast or famine type relationship, you’ll never get an effective delivery organisation.

“So I think some of the efficiencies that were achieved through those periods were because of that continuity.

I’m not saying it was perfect, but we did put a lot of focus on it, we worked very heavily with organisations that you would see as strategic and I think, going forwards, HS2 will do the same as it develops its supply chain. Once you’ve got those - they’re long-term relationships; they’re not short term.”

Centralisation The start of Simon’s career at Network Rail corresponded to the period during which Iain Coucher was chief executive - now thought of as being a time of centralised control imposed on a disorganised structure inherited from Railtrack. Simon doesn’t completely agree with that view.

“When you’ve got things that are fragmented and not under control, you naturally bring them under control.

Then, to create more efficiency, you diversify them. It’s not a cyclic process, it’s a constant process of reviewing. So the perception is that, during those Network Rail years, things were very centrally managed. I’m not sure that’s true.

“It was about trying to create an empowered management team with local delivery. Even though it was a national organisation, most of the people were actually in regional offices at the time, or zones, then regions and whatever term was used after that - spatial areas of the country. So the bulk of the people were in Manchester, in Leeds, in Birmingham, in Glasgow, focused on local projects. Whilst the management may have been centralised, which I think did bring quite big efficiencies in terms of contracting, delivery was always local through that period.

“It was getting more consistent in terms of how things were delivered, standard designs, standard types of bridge design, standard parapets, standard signalling approaches, standard families of signalling systems linked to suppliers.

But the actual physical delivery, working with customers, was very much a localised process. So, although the

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March 2010 - Simon Kirby (left) at the Blackfriars station development with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling, Jim Crawford (now also at HS2) and two Network Rail apprentices (Ben FarrowStevenson and Mohammed Rahman).

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Rail Engineer • January 2017 perception is that it was all centralised, in reality, certain things were centralised that were the right things to centralise, but delivery was very much a local aspect.”

When Iain Coucher left, to be replaced by Sir David Higgins, some of that perceived central control also seemed to be relaxed.

“That was very much around the time of the McNulty report, which was all about diversifying into local businesses alongside customers. We were looking to separate the projects business as a standalone competitive business within Network Rail, to effectively demonstrate its efficiency through competition and create a national organisation with the local diversified regions as customers. There’s no right or wrong to many of these solutions. They’re all attempts to be more efficient and more effective.”

Highs and lows During the ten years that Simon spent at Network Rail, there were some great moments, and some not so great.

“I think if you look back at the whole period, the lowlight was certainly 2007, Christmas, the Rugby overruns,” he reflected. “We learnt a huge amount from that as an organisation. It was certainly the lowlight for me personally. Because reputation’s everything and it takes a long time to build a reputation.

“For the highlight, I think the delivery of what was achieved in CP4 by the whole team, the landmarks like Blackfriars Station, King’s Cross, Reading, and the real changes in customer experience. I was recently up in Edinburgh and went down the Airdrie-Bathgate line. When you see railways rejuvenating communities, it’s just great to see. It’s what infrastructure is there to do and what railways are there to do. So I think the highlight for me is just that, it’s seeing old things turned into fantastic new assets that will outlive us for a long time going forwards.”

A transformational programme So with everything going well at Network Rail, and still much to do, why did Simon decide to move to HS2?

“We were at the end of CP4. CP5 would be more of the same, more opportunity to do big type projects. But, at the time, HS2 was the biggest transformational programme in Europe. It was the chance to transform the infrastructure of this country. It was the chance to do a hybrid bill and the front-end development of a project on a bigger scale, and the chance to grow a team, almost start a company from scratch.

“Over the last two and three-quarter years, we’ve taken an organisation of 300 people, 70 per cent of them agency staff, in an office that we were under notice to leave, to an organisation of over 1,400 people, 70 per cent of them our own HS2 staff. We have people from all over the world, people from all sorts of backgrounds, many from all sorts of different types of rail, and also people from other industries as well.

“When you create a new team, you’ve got an opportunity to do things that are unique in a career. I’m very keen on equality and diversity in the workplace, so I had the chance to develop a more diverse organisation. Now, we’ve got 41 per cent women in the 1,400 workforce, which creates a very different environment to one I’ve worked with in the past.”

It was understandable, then, that the opportunities presented by HS2 made the decision to move fairly simple. But it wasn’t one without regrets.

“I’d like to have seen Thameslink to the end. London Bridge took some justifiable criticism a year or two ago, but I think the Thameslink upgrade will be transformational and London Bridge is going to be fantastic. When it’s all finished, it will be fantastic, an iconic piece of London infrastructure, just like King’s Cross or St Pancras, and I’d like to have seen that through. But there’s never a perfect time to move.”

Along with the engineering challenge at HS2, and the challenge of building his new team, Simon had to face criticism of everything from his salary to the choice of the route and the cost of the project from some elements of the press and the public, particularly those close to the proposed new railway.

“We have tried very hard to engage with communities on the route. I think the hybrid bill process makes that challenging because we are dealing with people through a litigation process. They are petitioning, which is absolutely the correct way of doing it, but at the same time we’re trying to create a long-term relationship with those communities. For about the last 12 months now we’ve put a lot of focus round communicating differently and better with the people. I think it’s our absolute focus to be as professional with those communities as we possibly can be. The way I’d liken it to the team is, we should be dealing with those communities in the same way that we would expect to be dealt with ourselves.

“Ultimately they live in places, they bought properties, and they didn’t ask for a railway to be built near their houses. I get that, it’s difficult for them. But you’ve got to look at it from a bigger perspective, from a national perspective. The country needs better infrastructure.

“One of the privileges I’ve had in the last three years, I’ve been around the world to look at most of the new high-speed rail networks and also some of the existing ones. This country is starting to lag behind. We have done a great job in getting more and more out of an existing rail network, but the reality is most of it is a Victorian rail network. It may have been operated on over the years, but that’s what it is.

“When you look across Europe, at the Far East, unless we have that quality of infrastructure, we’re not going to keep up with those economies. So I think you’ve got to balance the two. They’re very much about the absolute needs of local people versus the national need of having better infrastructure in the future.

Rail Engineer • January 2017 “That doesn’t mean to say we shouldn’t deal with people as people and deal with them very professionally. There are times when we will never get complete agreement with people, but it’s all about being professional, listening, trying to understand people’s issues and, at times when we can’t agree or there’s a reason why we can’t do what someone wants, communicating with them and telling them why we can’t do it.”

Planning procedures Another area of criticism, not aimed at HS2 specifically but at the country as a whole, is the long-winded nature of the planning process. Other countries seem to handle the whole thing much more quickly.

Simon, based on his study of high-speed railways around the world, felt that the British system actually had its advantages.

“If you look at one extreme, into the Far East, into China, clearly the process is very basic. However, in the European model, there’s far more of a consultative engaging process.

“Looking at the French system, it does put more activity after the planning consents. So you can easily say yes, there’s less timescale, but actually if you look at the duration from Tours-Bordeaux getting its planning decree through to opening, it’s not a lot different to High Speed 2 Phase 1.

“We have had the fastest hybrid bill, or we will hopefully when it gets through the parliamentary process in a few weeks’ time, half the time of Crossrail. We’ve had three times the petitions of Crossrail and we actually see the process working, it is democracy in action. We’ve made over 400 changes to our design as a result of those petitions and those committee meetings. So, whilst it’s very easy to say it takes a long time, the bill was only submitted in October 2013 - in three and a bit years it will have been through the whole process, through both Houses and quite a lot of changes as a result of that.

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“I think one of the issues we have with the UK model is that it does put a lot of the engineering in before the hybrid bill is submitted, which means less latitude after the commitment through the House. I could argue it creates less opportunity to create client change, which is a bad thing in terms of changing the plan and changing the programme.

But the hybrid bill process will deliver a parliamentary design that will stand the test of time, and you could argue that’s far more effective than one that’s agreed to at a higher level and everything then changes after that.”

Cost control And what of the ‘spiralling cost’ of HS2?

“It’s interesting. All of the changes we’ve made are within the budget contingency we set for Parliament change. So we are within that budget envelope, and I mean within it, I don’t mean at it. We’ve done all those changes in the design within the constraints we set going back to the time I started, before the Commons committee started. The cost of Phase 1 (£21.4 billion) is the same now as the day we came in.”

In fact, the numbers have changed, but only due to accounting practices. Initial goals were set in 2011 pounds, current costs and estimates are in 2015 pounds, so there has been some numerical increase. And the costs of phase 2A (to Crewe) and phase 2B (to Leeds and Manchester) and the rolling stock (two fleets of trains, one dedicated to HS2 and one capable of running on the classic network) have all been added in, making the current total £55.7 billion. But that’s for the whole HS2 network.

“Let’s just reflect on that,” Simon interjected. “Phase 1 - we are on programme. We are looking like first week in February, last week in January for the royal assent, so providing we get that we will maintain the programme and the programme’s got a very high degree of probability.

June 2016 - Simon Kirby receives an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University.

PHOTO: LJMU

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Rail Engineer • January 2017 “We’ve ordered £900 million worth of the early works, they’re mobilising now. We’ve now got a significant period of procurement assessment on the main work civils and they’re looking to be awarded May/June next year to start actual construction about a year from there, so the middle of 2018. I’m really pleased at the people who have shown an interest and bid for those contracts - we set a strategy to make sure we bring in expertise that have built high-speed railways before, alongside and in partnership with UK-based business, creating UK-based jobs.

“So Phase 1 is in good shape. There is still lots to be done, clearly, but what is probably less well known is that next year we do all the market engagement and will release the strategies and PVQs for stations, systems and rolling stock. So whilst we’re thinking about civil engineering in the business, we’re spending probably more time talking around stations and systems now.”

Euston design With the hybrid bill for Phase 1 so close, the design is now fairly well advanced. One much-publicised debate has concerned plans for the London terminus at Euston, and what that will mean for residents in Camden. Various plans have been proposed, all with advantages and drawbacks. Is that design now finalised?

“The answer to that is, it’s fixed for the hybrid Bill. The hybrid bill effectively creates a spatial envelope, limits of deviation, environmental impact elements which link to things like spoil removal, all of that is fixed, or very clear within the bill where we’ve got to do more work - for example spoil removal is one where we’ve got to do more work, to try and get more out by rail. But all of those confines are fixed.

“The actual detailed design of what Euston looks like will be the detailed delivery strategy which will include, in the case of Euston, a development partner for the over-site.

So we’ll have a team looking at the whole master plan, including Network Rail’s footprint, because clearly, whilst there is only funding for one element, a developer needs to take a long-term view of what the whole station will look like.

“Euston has to be seen as one station and it has to have an outstanding experience for High Speed Two but it needs to complement and fit into whatever Euston looks

like overall. So the design has always taken a holistic view, even if it’s delivered in phases. Indeed, it may be a decade or even two decades before the Network Rail element is redeveloped. The point is it will look like one and feel like one facility, with integration of services and station staff over time.

“Customers frankly don’t care whether a particular train is an HS2 train or a Network Rail train. They just want to get the train to their destination, at the best price.

“The current assumption is that HS2 will not be a premium price operation but that we’ll have the same broad cost that we have today. Now, I think there’s some big opportunities here. If you look at how you can control and manage demand, you can create a better customer experience.

“When you get out of bed in the morning and decide you want to go to Glasgow, your connection to Euston, your connection to Birmingham, your car park in Crewe, that should all be done through one seamless experience, not five different advanced tickets. Everyone should have a seat. If you want to change trains you can change trains and you’re just allocated another seat through the system.

I’ve seen it work in Japan. It works superbly well. There’s no reason why it can’t work here.”

Another challenge So, with all that to come, Simon was approached last July to join Rolls-Royce.

“It was a really tough decision, actually. It’s a big personal opportunity. Part of me will always want to have stayed to finish HS2 but you only get one go at life and these things come around when they come around.

“As I leave it, my hope for the railway industry is that it grabs the opportunity HS2 presents. Industry thinking can be quite short term, and HS2 is a huge long-term opportunity, so we need to grab it. I don’t just mean by operating it, I mean by building it. I mean everything from how it configures the supply chain to skills - 2000+ apprentices through colleges - all the way through to a great customer experience. If we don’t, then we’ll always be more expensive than international competition and will always be rightfully criticised for not grasping opportunities.

“It is a huge opportunity, it really is. I look forward to riding on it one day.”

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24

Rail Engineer • January 2017

CLIVE KESSELL

T

&

he press demand for more innovation in the rail industry may be welcomed by many, but those who shout loudest rarely know what is entailed. Innovation takes many forms and often much effort and energy is expended into what turns out to be nothing more than a pipedream.

To bring some realism to the topic, the recent IET annual railway lecture invited Adrian Shooter to give his views on innovation with some practical examples of past success and failure. Adrian will be known to many, having masterminded both the transformation of the Chiltern Railways franchise and the conversion of ex-LU District line stock into a low cost DMU. He is essentially a railway mechanical engineer with a long career history in both engineering and operational rail management.

So what is innovation?

Adrian’s definition is “the process of turning an idea or invention into a good service that creates value and for which customers will pay”. In other words, it has got to have a practical application and a commercially successful end result.

Some examples from the past indicate both good and bad innovative ideas: »» Brunel’s atmospheric railway from Exeter to Newton Abbott would never have succeeded, even without the problem of sealing the air pipe, as the power available from a vacuum tube would never have been great enough to propel a train of any length or weight over the South Devon gradients. »» The LNWR Webb chain brake system for trains, whilst innovative to a degree, immediately became a woefully inadequate technology once the Westinghouse air brake system had been invented. »» The development of diesel traction in the USA to compete against the steam monopolies of Baldwin and Alco was the idea of Charles F Kettering who, as an electrical engineer in the 1930s, used a sales technique to promote diesel-electric traction which was so successful that steam had been all but ousted within ten years. »» The Fell diesel mechanical 2-D-2 locomotive which ran briefly on BR in the 1950s, whilst having four engines capable of 2000hp, had weaknesses in the power train that severely restricted its output power. »» The APT, whilst potentially a fine train with many new features that have been adopted today, had serious weakness in its wheels and axle design that could have caused potentially catastrophic failures. »» The HST 125, designed in parallel with the APT for non-electrified routes, employed simple principles to bring a new standard for UK passenger travel. It is still in service today after nearly 40 years and likely to continue on some routes even after the forthcoming IEP is established in service. »» The massive growth in station car park requirements, and the hassle of paying parking charges at a booking office, led to the development of on-site payment machines that migrated to the design of automated rail ticket machines.

Some Chiltern Railways' examples Adrian’s experience as to what makes a railway successful was put to good use in the Chiltern’s franchise. As well as turning the business from a limited outer suburban service into a successful main line operation linking London with Birmingham and now Oxford, many smaller innovative projects were introduced to give improved customer service with anticipated commercial benefits. »» Warwick Parkway was something of a gamble with many predicting it would be a disaster. However, being three minutes from the motorway and with a half-hourly service to London, it was expected to attract good business. On the opening day with a near empty 500-space car park, even Adrian admitted to having reservations. Now, some 10 years later, the car park has 1,500 spaces and even those are sometimes not enough.

Birmingham Moor Street station.

PHOTO: GEOF SHEPPARD

»» Birmingham Moor Street, a neglected edifice that was only saved from demolition by a last ditch listing, is now a centrepiece of Birmingham’s expanded shopping district. With its restored and expanded Victorian buildings in GWR style, it has created its own sense of place and compares very favourably against the ugly concrete structure that is the re-opened Snow Hill station just up the line. »» Not so successful was the provision of TaxiBuses to pick up travellers around the town of Bicester for conveyance to the station at a nominal £2 fare. This initiative was eventually abandoned after four years due to insufficient patronage. »» Making stations more attractive is a strong Chilterns theme and Leamington Spa is one such where the gardens are now an attraction in their own right and a definite inducement to travel. »» The 165/166 DMUs inherited by Chiltern, whilst high density and well suited to shortish commuter journeys, were not really suitable for

Rail Engineer • January 2017 longer intercity use. Something a bit more comfortable was needed and hence the development of the Class 168, a kind of train Boeing 737. Based upon the engineering of the existing units, these have more space and at seat facilities including power sockets for Wi-Fi. More difficult was whether to include first class, which was only likely to have decent loadings in the peak hours. The decision was taken therefore to have a one class train but with much greater leg room, tested by Adrian himself who is well over six feet tall. »» Even the 168 fleet was insufficient to handle the growing number of travellers, which demanded ever-longer trains. Noticing the ex-Virgin Mark 3 coaches stored at a Warwickshire site was the catalyst for the introduction of a loco-hauled fleet. Heavily refurbished and with the doors converted to power operation, these coaches are arguably the most comfortable to have run on UK rails.

With a Class 67 (later replaced by a more powerful Class 68) locomotive at one end and a Class 82 DVT at the other to enable push-pull working, the trains have proved very popular with the Chiltern’s clientele and even offer a ‘business class’ coach to cater for at seat service of refreshments.

VivaRail Although this well publicised project to convert redundant London Underground D stock into a low cost DMU for secondary and rural lines has yet to reach fruition, it is well on the way to becoming a reality. The prototype train now has interim certification, which allows it to be tested on the main line.

The existing aluminium bodies are very strong and in good condition, and the bogies are only around 10 years old. Most electrical equipment has been replaced except for the Westcode braking system. Flexible layouts for different purposes are envisaged and indeed the test train demonstrates some of these.

The 750V DC power basis is maintained, but the real innovation comes with the concept of quick-change modular packs. The diesel, alternator and motor packs are designed to be exchanged in 10 minutes while the bogies can be replaced away from a depot location.

Although designed as a DMU, it is envisaged that the unit could be fitted with shoe gear to run on DC third-rail electrified lines or with a battery module in place of the diesel engines.

This latter would cater for routes where the electric traction supply is discontinuous. It would even be possible to equip the train with a pantograph and 25kV transformer, thus making it a truly universal product. That however is something for the future.

Trial operation in passenger service is expected to begin in 2017 on the Coventry-Nuneaton line and, if successful, who knows where future deployment might be. 228 coaches are available so potentially this could be a big fleet.

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Nearly twenty years ago, the SPAD (Signals Passed at Danger) situation was becoming a big problem with a number of multiple fatality accidents taking place. The prediction was that it would all be resolved once ERTMS/ETCS - a project first demonstrated 28 years ago - was implemented, but this has turned out to be over-optimistic. It would be difficult to invent the number of ways that it has gone wrong in the intervening period. Designed as a political concept to both improve safety and increase capacity, only now is it reaching any sign of maturity.

Observers of train protection systems in Japan noted a system that was much better than AWS and could be provided at a fraction of the cost than that projected for ETCS. So was born TPWS (train protection and warning system), a system that enabled the speed of trains to be measured when approaching adverse signals. If that was too high, braking would be initiated automatically that the driver could not override.

One big plus of TPWS is that fitting it to existing train fleets could be accomplished by using the same space envelope, power supply and wiring as AWS, thus significantly reducing the cost of retro fitting which is such a problem for ETCS. It is not perfect: it is only provided at high risk signals, it cannot adequately cope with very high speeds, it is not fail safe in the classic definition, it does nothing to improve capacity, but it has made a step change to safety performance.

In his talk, Adrian Shooter conclusively demonstrated that innovation needs a degree of pragmatism to be of value. The 1957 - the Fell Diesel hauls a London-bound express south of Belper and (inset) at Derby works.

PHOTO: VIVARAIL

PHOTO: BEN BROOKSBANK PHOTO: BEN BROOKSBANK

Train protection The UK railway has the best safety record in Europe. How has this come about? Safety legislation has helped: HSAWA (Health and Safety At Work Act), Electricity at Work and others, but ALARP (As Low as Reasonably Practical) has been a big factor.

sometime wacky ideas that originate from academia and elsewhere, whilst eye catching in their novelty, rarely make it to reality. Good practical expertise and experience in both engineering and business are the bedrock of successful innovation. This should be a lesson to us all.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

STATIONS

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Improving Thameslink information

W

ith tests on the new trains and new signalling systems already underway on the Thameslink core through the heart of London, it won’t be long before trains are running through this vital piece of railway at the rate of 24 trains an hour, almost one every two minutes. To maintain this schedule, trains will be stationary for only 45 seconds.

Around 117 million passengers will travel on the Thameslink route every year, so it is essential that commuters receive as much information as possible in the shortest space of time.

Hoping to alleviate station congestion and ensure maximised safety, Network Rail selected Linbrooke Services to install 225 new Customer Information System (CIS) displays across Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Farringdon and London St Pancras stations. The ultimate objective was to provide passengers with more comprehensive information regarding their train departures than previously installed systems.

Streamlining passenger information The additional information to be provided included a diagram of all specific platform and train access points, every journey calling point and 30 minutes’ worth of departure

times. With the original screens only displaying three or four departures at any one time, the new model was explicitly designed to give passengers more information, allowing a longer notice period for their journey and subsequently promoting less urgency, increased efficacy and to ‘signpost’ more passenger journey options.

Ensuring that the screen display could present information from various Network Rail and TOC train reporting services, Linbrooke worked in collaboration with Worldline and Infotec to develop a solution which streamlined the information. Creating innovative screen ‘pairs’ through the merging of traditional information, this also enabled logical presentation of the combinations of data for the first time, making it more accessible and useful for passengers.

In order to facilitate this, Worldline provided modifications to existing systems on Govia Thameslink

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Railway to allow the Local Information Control Centre (LICC) to support the new display formats and enrich the information passed via the external data feed protocol to the displays. This permitted an integration of information to be derived from a combination of the existing timetable, static station-specific features and data from additional rail systems. This was to ultimately create a single data feed to provide information such as train facility locations, cancelled calling points and boarding zone updates.

In tandem with these changes to increase the amount of data passed to the customers, there have also been initiatives to pass data more efficiently to screens, allowing the LICC server to update screens more swiftly and monitor for any hardware failures, adjusting its data streams to prioritise working displays as required.

With Linbrooke and Worldline providing modifications to existing configuration data, Infotec utilised ARM-based technology (a RISC - reduced instruction set computing architecture for computer processors, developed by ARM Holdings of Cambridge) to maximise HD graphics and provide product flexibility and longevity. Gerry McFadden, engineering director for Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), stated that the new screens are absolutely “essential in coping with the dramatic expansion of both passenger and train flows in 2018”.

Innovative thinking One of the first challenges for Linbrooke throughout the planning and delivery of the project was to ensure the information on the screens interfaced with various Network Rail and TOC train reporting services. Developing a solution for a new data feed to streamline the presented information, this also enabled a logical appearance of the combinations of data for the first time, making it more accessible and useful for passengers.

Undertaking site surveys to ascertain the most suitable positioning for the CIS equipment, Linbrooke sought locations with adequate headspace to ensure a safe installation, placement and siting for customers while

maintaining the stations’ aesthetics. Displays with screen sizes of 32 inches and 42 inches were selected, building bespoke ‘rapid-deployment brackets’ to accommodate the differences in size while keeping the look and feel of the equipment the same.

Due to the substantial weight of each screen cluster, Linbrooke built and tested in Sheffield a high availability, manually operated materials lift for the installation of the screens. This reduced the amount of time spent on site, solidified the quality control, enabled safer and more efficient delivery and ensured that each of the screens could be safely installed and brought into service within a single shift.

Providing the exact platform standing points for disabled access, cyclists, first class passengers and regular travellers, the new CIS screens will streamline boarding and exit time, facilitating the scheme’s continual aim of increased safety and passenger risk reduction.

As London St Pancras is one of England’s busiest stations, with 24 hours a day passenger access, it was essential for a work schedule to be developed within a number of mixed access arrangements and possessions including night shifts - both underground and over ground, to ensure minimal passenger disruption.

The planning of the works at Farringdon station was also particularly challenging as Linbrooke was not only dealing with the added requirements of an LUL managed station, but was also contending with a limited amount of pre-programmed possessions imposed on them from the outset.

Fine-tuning the scope Linbrooke’s overall scope of works encompassed the design, installation, test and commission of CIS equipment across London St Pancras, Blackfriars, Thameslink and Farringdon. Additional works that were further incorporated included the upgrading of the existing Public Address/Voice Alarm (PAVA) system to enable dual, simultaneous announcements as well as the survey of existing CCTV systems across all stations in respect of the sighting issues and new CIS displays. Supplementary surveys of existing signals were also undertaken in order to ascertain any sighting issues that needed rectifying.

Throughout the planning and execution of the project, Linbrooke ensured that stakeholder engagement was meticulously maintained. Collaborating with Network Rail, London Underground, GTR and numerous statutory bodies, the project team facilitated a number of screen formatting changes that were required as the project developed.

Janahan Manickavasagar, scheme project manager for Network Rail, was impressed with the overall results, stating that “the innovative screens were installed and commissioned on time to a very high standard, delivering a richer level of information than has ever been seen before on the UK railway network”.

With implementation of these CIS screens, the project has contributed to increasing throughput and capacity while improving the staff and customer experience and reducing overcrowding on the platforms. The equipment and methodologies used have also further contributed to the aesthetic uniformity of stations on the Thameslink line.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Crowds

&

Capacity Clapham Junction

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P

retty much everyone knows that railways and train services have a capacity problem. The ever-expanding population and associated road congestion are making train travel an inevitable option for many commuters.

PHOTO: TELENT

Leisure travel is also seeing significant growth and, whilst this normally happens outside of peak commuting hours, major public events which thousands wish to attend create similar capacity problems.

Increasing capacity is the biggest single challenge for the industry; how to get more and longer trains into the system is a top priority for the Digital Railway group.

The public focus is on the train service but lesser known is the problem that this usage growth puts on the whole business of station management. Masses of people gathering on station concourses or platforms are both a logistical and safety challenge. Just letting people sort it out for themselves is not acceptable and technical innovation has to be developed and deployed to ensure that safety is not compromised to minimise the chance of any accident occurring. Platform staff must be fully informed of any unfolding situation so that the

Clapham Junction Brighton Yard.

best possible advice is given to the travelling public in order to get people to their intended destination.

All stations are different in terms of layout, platform availability, train service pattern and user facilities - there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution. Clearly the major termini and the large interchange stations are the ones where ‘traveller management’ will be at its most critical.

Such stations need a dedicated control operation and are normally provided with an on-site control room.

Busy example One of Britain’s busiest stations, Clapham Junction handles 430,000 passengers per day of which 135,000 are in the morning and evening peaks. Some 2,000 trains stop or pass through each day with up to 180 per hour in the peaks.

It has 17 platforms and serves three train operating companies - South West Trains, Southern and London Overground. Platforms 1 and 2 are the Overground routes to Willesden

CLIVE KESSELL

and Dalston, 3 to 6 are the SW Windsor Line services to Putney and Reading, 7 to 11 serve the SW main line and suburban services to Weymouth and Exeter, 12 to 15 are the Southern services to Brighton and the South Coast, 16 and 17 are used by Southern for their cross London trains to Milton Keynes.

Altogether, Clapham Junction is a very busy place, with many people changing trains in order to get to Victoria or Waterloo.

A station of this complexity needs a carefully considered management structure if it is to operate efficiently. In BR Southern Region days, the station was controlled by the South West Division. This practice continues today; SW Trains has overall responsibility for day to day operation with the other companies providing platform staff for the despatch of their trains.

MICA One company tackling this challenge is Telent, which has been developing its Management Integration and Control of Assets (MICA) system for a number of years as a means of integrating many, if not all, of a station’s operational facilities. These include public address, information displays, help points,

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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CCTV surveillance, clocks, lift and escalator alarms, security and fire alarms, access control and others. The control and monitoring of these is brought together into a single point on the station premises.

The concept is not new and many companies have developed these packages as part of the complete renewal of station information assets, thus designing and building the system as a single entity. However, in many instances, the individual piece-part systems are often quite new and have many years of useful life left in them.

Is it possible therefore to integrate an assortment of differing systems into a single control package, so saving considerable expense and minimising disruption?

The MICA concept attempts to do just that and, at Clapham Junction, Telent was awarded a contract to combine most of the existing assets into a new control room.

The Clapham system The project involved installing a fibre-based IP network around the station with hubs provided on three of the middle platforms designed as a ‘flat ring’. Physical constraints prevented this being a complete ring but it has sufficient resilience to cope with cable faults and suchlike without disruption to all services.

At each of the hubs, connection to the existing assets is achieved via local Ethernet cabling. However these assets are often not IP compatible devices and thus the MICA system uses the hubs to encode the legacy systems into IP addresses such that the information is brought back to the control room as an IP stream. A typical example would be the multiplicity of CCTV cameras that need to have continual video images available on demand for the controllers to view.

The control room is located in the recently opened station entrance at the top end of St Johns Hill known as ‘New Brighton Yard’. Going live in December 2015, systems and facilities have been added on since then, which is a continuing process as requirements for the station are modified or added to.

Two controllers are provided with screens that can access and drill down into graphic displays showing the various systems around the station.

For practical reasons, the platform PIS indicators are not part of the MICA operation as these are primarily controlled from the timetable database and the signalling system. The public address loudspeakers and associated amplifiers, originally supplied by Ditra (now Keytech) and enhanced by new Bosch products in the ticket offices, are all-important with announcements being made from the control room should any variance to the train service occur. Routine ‘next train’ announcements are not made at Clapham as the sheer numbers of trains would swamp the system, let alone the challenge of zoning the PA areas to avoid ‘audio clash’ on platforms near to each other.

Help points (as supplied by Ascom) fitted on platforms and in the lifts are all important nowadays and calls are answered at the control room rather than the line control office as was the situation hitherto. If a call is received, it triggers the nearest CCTV camera to observe the caller so that the controller can verify the conditions.

The control room has a wall of four TV monitors providing up to 16 images, but the station has many more cameras than this. To ensure the optimum monitoring conditions, the MICA system allows the 16 cameras that best observe the conditions in the morning and evening peaks to be quickly selected to appear on the monitors. This is known as the ‘View’ facility, and the selection can be changed to suit any emerging circumstances. All camera locations are shown on the graphic images of the station with the controller being able to select any particular camera picture by touchscreen or mouse operation.

Security threats are ever-present, so the staff and equipment rooms are fitted with door alarms. Clapham Junction has many retail outlets with the problem of theft or vandalism if access doors are left open. Thus an alarm will sound in the control room if a door is not secured shut after a predetermined time.

Unusual and disruption conditions Clapham Junction has three entrances - St Johns Hill, New Brighton Yard and Grant Road - and two interchange routes between platforms - an overbridge at the south end and a subway in the middle. Of these, the St Johns Hill entrance and the subway are the busiest, both of which have space limitations. The entrance has only limited drop off/pick up facilities and the subway is narrow and rather low.

The station sees abnormal passenger flows at certain times during the year - the Wimbledon tennis fortnight, Rugby matches at Twickenham, race days at Ascot and Epsom. There are also occasions when, for instance, London Underground is disrupted and people change trains at Clapham to arrive at a more convenient London terminus. During these periods,

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

the number of travellers interchanging rises considerably and often these people are nonregulars who do not know their way around the station.

To assist these situations, Telent has provided new ultra-bright white LED dot matrix screens at all three entrances to give disruption and passenger flow information. These will be of a size where they can be viewed from cars and buses such that people may change their minds for ongoing travel if the situation is severe. The overbridge and subway will also have back-toback screens, but space constraints limit the size of the latter. Free text information is composed in the control room using standardised formats as appropriate.

At times, it is necessary to introduce a contraflow system between the overbridge and the subway, one going east west, the other west east, with the emergency information screens being invaluable.

Passenger counts and people flows Part of the management challenge at a station like Clapham Junction is predicting and planning the passenger flows. Telent is using a Danish company, Blip Systems, to assist in this as it has the experience of providing passenger head count and flow systems at airports and on Dutch Railways.

Sensors are mounted on the overbridge and subway that effectively count people on a minute-by-minute basis. This data is then processed back in the control room and is shown on the screen graphics as a series of green dots at the sensor locations. The dots grow in size as the number of travellers increase.

If the flow of people gets to a warning level, the then large dot turns yellow, and if congestion is building to an unsafe level, the dot will turn red and an alarm is generated which integrates with MICA, again switching the relevant camera to show the area. The controllers can

then intervene to get station staff to the pinch point and take the necessary action either to divert people elsewhere or locally restrict the flow. This can happen if a serious incident occurs, for example a fire or major signalling failure with train services disrupted.

Predicting passenger flows for long term planning is more of a challenge, but a novel solution is employed. Working on the basis that most people now own a smart phone with Wi-Fi access, the Blip system scans for such devices and tracks where people are going. It must be stressed that this process is completely anonymous and no way does the tracking access the information stored on the devices.

Since not everyone has a Wi-Fi enabled device, it is acknowledged that the information derived is not fully accurate, but it does provide useful congestion measuring data which is sent to the Blip cloud service for initial processing before downloading on to the MICA system. In this way, the station infrastructure and flow management can be monitored and planned for the future

Other MICA applications Clapham Junction is not the only station where MICA has been deployed. In 2010, Stratford Regional was upgraded in readiness for the London Olympics although it retained much of the legacy equipment. For the major rebuild at Reading, MICA integrates the CIS, CCTV and PA systems to make the station management more effective. The rebuild of London Bridge station, not yet fully completed, has a MICA system in its new control room.

Nor is the technology confined to single stations. On London Underground, the system is used for control of fire alarms and help points at 120 stations on the Jubilee, Northern and

Piccadilly lines. On the DLR, the dual control centres at Beckton and Poplar have MICA to monitor TV pictures and control alarms at the network’s stations. A new contract with c2c will integrate the CCTV equipment used for DOO (driver-only operation) platform monitoring on the Fenchurch Street to Southend line.

The 25 Crossrail outer stations will also be ‘MICA stations’. Ealing Broadway and Romford will each control 11 stations, with Abbey Wood and Stratford being standalone. This is in addition to the central core stations that have an LU interchange - Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Moorgate/Liverpool St and Whitechapel. Links to the Siemens signalling system for platform indicators and to Darwin for updates to train running data will be part of the configuration. Use will be made of Network Rail Telecom’s FTNx IP-based transmission facility for the gathering of information from individual stations.

IP-based networks are subject to cyber threats and MICA undergoes penetration testing to ensure it has no vulnerabilities.

Precise precautions are understandably kept confidential. Training both users and maintainers is an important element of any contract and Telent has learnt much from its parallel SCADA project. The threesome of trainer, user and maintainer all learning together is part of the package.

Controlling crowds in unusual or emergency situations is recognised as all-important. Where does MICA sit as a technology and system?

Definitely aligned to the Internet of Things, it is probably an element in the Digital Railway, although not yet recognised as such. In short, it is all part of the digital control and communications evolution that society now embraces.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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34

Rail Engineer • January 2017

STATIONS

MIKE GOGGIN

A unique estate

Unlocking the potential of Britain’s railway network through its railway stations

I

t has been a busy year for the UK’s rail industry when it comes to stations. Whilst there have been civic openings and grand unveilings - perhaps most notably with the partial opening of the new London Bridge Station - the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), the Department for Transport (DfT) and RSSB have all commissioned research specifically about stations.

What does the station estate have to tell us about modern Britain and the future of the railway as a transport mode going forward?

Arguably, no other estate has quite the same emotional attachment or political sensitivity as Britain’s 2,539 railway stations. The post office network has gone through a transformation and the church estate has shrunk, while local pubs have also closed.

The rail industry has commissioned four elements of work to help better understand how its historic estate can best be nurtured, developed and optimised to meet the future needs of Britain’s transport network and its communities.

Stations dashboard RSSB commissioned Steer Davies Gleave to research the scope, use and requirements of a Sustainable Stations Framework. Anthony Perret, RSSB’s head of sustainable development, explained: “We wanted to understand how data linking stations and the places they serve can support evidence-based decision making and encourage more third party investment, to the benefit of communities and the railway”. The final report, which will shortly be published by RSSB, indicates the currently available datasets of the industry as well as open source data.

Steer Davies Gleave developed a prototype ‘stations dashboard’ to pull together the various data sources available to describe the stations themselves and their catchment areas. “For the very first time, the potential for linking the railway and its stations to data concerning the people, places and economies they serve has been demonstrated,” commented Tony Duckenfield, Steer Davies Gleave’s project manager.

The dashboard, now being used by the DfT as it develops its proposition for the East Midlands franchise, links data from the Office of Rail and Road and National Rail Enquiries. Catchment data is drawn from the Census and other open source data provided by the Office for National Statistics and others.

“This has meant us defining station catchment areas based on the front door to train door journey. So each address is allocated to a station using a combination of the access journey and service interval. Using this approach we have now mapped across the whole of Britain in terms of its railway geography,” said Tony.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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An outdated approach?

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One of the other tasks of Steer Davies Gleave (SDG) was to review the current station classification system. The system classifies all of the stations on a scale of A to F. Introduced in 1995, the system has never been revised and station classifications have not been formally updated since they were created. Much maligned as being of poor value and little used in anger, the classification system has nonetheless remained resiliently quoted by communities and commentators exercised about why their station should be a ‘B’ and not a ‘C’ (for example) and therefore deserving of better facilities and more investment.

SDG’s international comparisons indicated that the British system was a blunt tool. It focussed on past usage and asset size (number of platforms). In many of the countries examined, the classification system was more about the station’s context and therefore its potential audience rather than the current usage.

Tony added: “It also became clear, through our industry engagement, that the days of a single static station classification system were numbered. Whilst there was disagreement over the finer details of an ideal system, there was shared agreement that it should be forward looking and dynamic.”

The classification system therefore had to be responsive to change and represent a station’s potential, rather than its current state.

A further piece of work, funded jointly by the DfT and the Rail Delivery Group, looks at the type of interventions that should be considered to

optimise a station when a better understanding of its potential is reached, and the impact on industry and community that might result.

The solution was to develop a flexible classification system based on the area the station serves, rather than the station itself.

This approach identifies a station’s potential usage and retail sales, compares it with its actual performance, and highlights potential areas for improvement. This classification also recognises the special features of a station, such as serving an airport or major tourist attraction.

This work is only a starting point for understanding a station, since each one has its own features and therefore the classification is not a replacement for local knowledge. Taken together, the stations dashboard and classification have the potential to provide the industry with tools which can facilitate more informed, consistent and holistic decision-making.

Building on the vision The Rail Delivery Group has continued to build on its warmly received Vision for Stations with further work over the last 12 months.

RDG asked architects BPR to develop some images that could illustrate the Vision’s nine principles. Publicised in September 2016, the images use an illustrative concept station to highlight integration with the community and its needs, a harmonious relationship with the wider transport network and the creation of efficient, effective space and amenities for the customer experience, convenience for the neighbour, and not least the railway’s finances and operational needs.

The Vision itself continued to gain strong recognition throughout 2016, with the Department for Transport and other stakeholders pointing toward its ambition and principles.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

In early 2017, the RDG will publish some further work by Steer Davies Gleave on the case for investing in railway stations. Building upon an earlier exercise for Network Rail, which focussed on the local economic impacts of stationrelated investment, this later work looks at the community benefits that can arise or be triggered by collaborative investment and engagement at and around railway stations. It identifies the challenges facing central and local government, the constraints of the railway and how by working together all parties can benefit and support each other’s objectives.

As RDG head of stations policy Jonathan Chatfield puts it: “We asked SDG to objectively identify and present the benefits of third party investment and participation in station redevelopment. We are making a clear and unapologetic demonstration of the value that a well-supported station can make to its community.”

Chris Whitehouse, who is leading Steer Davies Gleave’s work to capture and report the benefits, said: “The case studies we have researched indicate that, when rail industry and local community agencies actively work together the station, railway and community benefits.”

This latest work has again reiterated the points made in the 2011 report: »» The benefits are maximised when there is collaborative investment that supports regeneration of the station and its local neighbourhood; »» Action is most likely to occur when there is strong leadership around a common intent; »» All parties, railway and non, need to acknowledge, recognise and empathise with the policy objectives, funding constraints and operational implications of their partners - expecting others to “stump up the cash” without compromise is more likely to result in delay, frustration and inaction or a suboptimal scheme.

Caring for the nation’s stations The DfT has not been static in its approach to the franchised station estate. Recent franchise awards have seen the requirement for preparation of long-term Station Asset Management Plans. The role of the station is recognised by the DfT in the requirement for a

Britain’s 2,539 stations.

PHOTO: STEER DAVIES GLEAVE FOR RSSB

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Social and Commercial Development Plan to be implemented. However, the DfT is keen to learn from experience and has asked SDG to consider the implications for best practice asset management at the franchised railway stations.

In 2012, the Government rolled out franchises with Full Repairing and Insuring (FRI) leases, and there are now three franchises with this lease form compared to the 2000+ stations on the splitresponsibility lease model initiated at privatisation and the 18 Network Rail managed stations.

The review of asset management models and capabilities considered the strengths and weaknesses of the different lease models and the implications and outputs of the FRI model to date.

So what next?

The work undertaken over the last 12 months has confirmed that: »» Over 89 per cent of people live within a 20-minute cycling catchment area of a station, yet it is estimated that just 2.5 per cent of trips involve a bicycle. »» Eight per cent of the population live near the railway but not near a station, yet there

are around 320 stations with fewer than 50 entries/exits on a daily basis and around 45 stations with fewer than 30 trains per week (approximately four per weekday). »» The railway network continues to be complex, both for those operating within it and those who wish to engage with it to get things done. It is estimated that there are at least five station owners, twenty station operators, four contractual models and probably at least four measures of station asset condition and multiple definitions and measures of station ‘success’ and outputs.

The station estate in Britain is uniquely placed to act as a civic amenity alongside the practical rail network gateway. To do so will mean thinking about the station from perspectives outside the railway’s own needs. The network will need to grasp the changing agenda of Britain’s communities and rapidly adapt, evolve and deliver flexible approaches to the management of the estate and individual stations.

Mike Goggin is group client engagement director at Steer Davies Gleave.

We Deliver Carillion has recently successfully electrified two lines in Scotland: Springburn to Cumbernauld, as part of EGIP, as well as Rutherglen and Coatbridge.

Contact us at www.carillionplc.com

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Allat Paddi change ngton With the track in Platform 14 removed, a London Underground engineering train supports the work from Platform 15.

M

uch has been written, in Rail Engineer and elsewhere, about the Great Western Electrification Programme. Articles have covered the design of the overhead equipment, the purchase and deployment of specialist plant to install it, preparatory work needed in Box, Patchway and Severn tunnels, and the complete reconstruction of Reading station.

More recently, readers have been kept informed about rigid conductor beam installations through the Severn tunnel, and the announcement that electrification will be ‘paused’ short of Bristol.

But very little has been written about work at the other end of the line, completion of the electrification at Paddington Station. Most of the station had been electrified for the Heathrow Express service in the early 1990s, but the more difficult platforms were not wired up.

Introduction of electrified stock on the GW Franchise would make these platforms redundant.

Changing standards

In return, LU’s work on Platform 15 is supported by a Network Rail train in Platform 14.

While this had been proceeding as planned, complications occurred when it came to Platform 14. One of the last three platforms to be electrified, Network Rail appointed Carillion Rail to design, install and commission an upgrade which would allow the platform to accommodate 164-metre electric trains. Platform extensions, grading and level changes, track layout alterations, canopy modifications and 354 metres of new overhead wiring would all be required.

TSP was brought in as primary designer.

The track for Network Rail’s Platform 14 at Paddington sits alongside that for Transport for London’s Platform 15. So a

collaboration between Network Rail, TfL, Amey and Carillion worked out a scheme whereby the track renewals for Platform 14 would be supported by a work train parked on the TfL track at Platform 15. In return, a Network Rail train in Platform 14 would be used for work TfL was planning to Platform 15. Inter-company cooperation - it’s a wonderful thing!

The major complication came as a result of a change to Group Standard GL/RT1210 - AC Energy Subsystem and Interfaces to Rolling Stock Subsystem - which was updated in December 2014. The job changed from being a simple electrification to a pilot for the new Group Standard.

Whereas it had been acceptable to just follow the standard in terms of electrical clearances, and to demonstrate that those stipulated clearances had been achieved, it was now necessary to show an

appropriate level of knowledge and expertise for the evaluation of the design. All reasonably practicable measures and controls had to be in place to ensure that the risks associated with the OLE on Platform 14 were reduced as much as was reasonably practicable.

In addition, the project had to continue to run to schedule as the next available access to accommodate any postponement would not be until after the new Great Western IEP service was meant to be in operation.

Delay was not an option.

Complete rethink So what did this all mean for the project?

As lead design organisation (LDO), the Carillion and Network Rail project team had to rethink its plans. All the current approvals in principle had to be shelved and the designers had to go back to the drawing board. A systematic approach was needed.

One option was the raising or removal of bridges within the station, along with further track lowers and associated platform civils work to

Rail Engineer • January 2017

STATIONS

accommodate those changes. On paper, it seemed simple and straight forward, but Paddington is one of the oldest stations in the country.

Options were limited. To extend the platform’s operational length to 164 metres, it had to be extended at both ends. On the London end, the buffer stop had already been moved by 11 metres, and that was all the room available. The country end had also been extended as much as possible.

The existing soffit height of 4,470mm restricted clearance at two specific locations, with no room for alternatives.

Project delivery had to be staged across Christmas 2015 and Christmas 2016 due to the difference in cross fall limitations between Platforms 12 and 14.

The most significant challenge, however, was the need to lower the track still further. Platform 14’s historic footing of concrete below the sleepers and the Thames sewer beneath the tracks already meant that existing ballast depths were non-compliant.

To overcome these challenges, the project team considered various options, some of them quite innovative, before submitting plans to the Office for Rail and Road (ORR).

Where possible, the platform was lowered to achieve normal clearances. The extent of the live section was reduced, especially towards the London side, which was limited by the undercroft.

Some options were discarded due to time and budget constraints. These included raising the undercroft, demolishing the London Underground footbridge and installing platform screen doors.

39

Others were adopted - additional training for station staff emphasising the dangers of 25kV electrification, additional markings, more signage around the station and a further design change in the form of a contact wire grading under the undercroft.

It was time to work together. Teamwork between Network Rail, Carillion, Amey and TSP ensured that the first scheduled train from the rebuilt platform, the 07:18 departure for Hayes and Harlington on Monday 5 September, left on time. It was a true collaborative effort, with team members giving up weekends to make sure that everything was completed to schedule.

And, so far as the passengers were concerned, it was almost unnoticed. Which is as it should be.

PHOTO: LJU

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Sound

STATIONS

Engineering

R

ail Engineer regularly reports on sound rail industry engineering and this article is no different, however it is all about the engineering of sound systems within the rail industry for stations, trains, offices and other work areas. Public address systems have always been important for communicating with customers and staff, and are also used for emergency purposes when linked to fire detection systems. More recently, sound masking systems have been used to improve the working environment in open plan offices and selected workspaces.

A badly designed sound system will quickly annoy customers and may result in negative comments and a poor company image, which will be difficult to defend and turn around. That is why it is important that all sound systems are specified and designed by competent sound communications engineers.

The Institute of Sound and Communications Engineers (ISCE) is the professional organisation for those working in the public address, voice alarm, sound masking, hearing loop systems, audio visual, intercoms, acoustics or any other such sector in the sound and communications industry. Using a sound engineer who is a member of the ISCE is one way of demonstrating the required knowledge and competency.

A good PA system will depend on four key elements.

1. Loudness or sound pressure level. This should be at a volume or level to please those intending to hear the communications Paddington is another challenging station.

message, but not too loud to annoy neighbours and residents close to a railway station, or train passengers who may not need to hear the announcement.

2. Intelligibility. This is one of the most important requirements of a PA system, and is the area where many systems fall short and which can be difficult to overcome.

3. Naturalness. A natural sounding PA system is one where pre-recorded announcements will sound the same, or similar to real time voice announcements.

4. Reliability. All PA systems need to have good reliability and availability, with redundancy in their design. This is especially important with voice alarm systems which will have reliability and availability requirements mandated by legislation.

Elements 1 to 3 are dependent on the acoustic environment, which can be particularly challenging at railway stations with variable building design and noisy trains.

PAUL DARLINGTON

Acoustics When a sound is originated from a source, a series of sound pressure waves propagate outwards, becoming progressively weaker as the distance increases until the volume finally becomes negligible, assuming there are no obstacles in the way. When a sound wave hits an obstacle, it can be reflected, refracted, diffracted, absorbed or transmitted through, dependent upon the material and size of the obstruction.

When soundwaves hit a reflective surface their behaviour is similar to light being reflected from a mirror, in that the angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence. When sound waves encounter a concave surface, they will converge and when encountering a convex surface they will scatter outwards.

Refraction occurs when a sound wave passes at an angle from one medium to another having varying densities. In PA systems, this occurs when the sound waves pass through layers of air of different temperatures and humidity.

Since cold air is denser than warm air the sound is refracted into the cooler region, which is generally upwards.

Diffraction occurs when sound waves encounter an obstacle and flow around it. If the obstruction is large, then this can cause an acoustic shadow and loss of sound behind the object.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Row of speakers at Birmingham New Street.

London Victoria.

Loudness and intelligibility

Voice alarm systems

Station PA systems must be carefully designed to avoid conflict between wanted and unwanted noise, and simply specifying a sound pressure level and intelligibility requirement may provide a system acceptable for customers, but one which annoys nearby residents. There have been cases where PA systems have been renewed with an overall lower volume, but with better intelligibility resulting in more complaints from neighbours.

One extreme case resulted in a noise prohibition notice and for the station PA system to be switched off until it was resolved.

A detailed investigation found a number of issues. The station at times was very busy, with announcements as frequent as every 30 seconds. A second issue was that some announcers took 34 seconds to communicate the same information as other announcers did in 6 seconds. The solution consisted of a number of changes which included zoning of the system and establishing common scripts for the announcements.

Train operators have a duty to ensure the safety of customers at all times. When an emergency such as a fire or a bomb scare arises, or whenever there is the need to evacuate a station, this can be best achieved by a speech announcement rather than bells or sounders.

The spoken word can be ‘live’ from a microphone or pre-recorded. Stored announcements can be initiated by the station’s fire alarm installation when the alarm is activated the sound system automatically broadcasts the stored message.

Public Address Voice Alarm (PAVA) sound systems, which are designed to warn of danger, require special fire-safe wiring and complete building coverage with approved loudspeakers sited to cover all public and staff areas. BS EN54 sets out the requirements by which audio fire warning and safe evacuation systems need to conform, including types of equipment, cabling and operating practice. This includes the provision of auxiliary power sources so that the sound system will continue to operate in the event of AC mains supply failure, together with equipment redundancy, self-checking, alarms, sound level and intelligibility requirements.

One of the most complex heavy rail voice alarm systems covers the Merseyrail sub-surface stations. A new PAVA system was commissioned in July 2015 and is operated by the Merseyrail customer information assistants based at Sandhills IECC Control. The BS EN54-compliant PAVA solution was specified and managed by Gryphon Management Ltd, manufactured by Application Solutions (Safety and Security) Ltd, and designed and integrated by Telent Rail.

The project had to overcome a series of challenges in terms of interfacing, not only the new PAVA, but also the existing CIS and PA systems across the whole of the Merseyrail system. The new PAVA is controlled via a dedicated Cisco IP wide-area network and, for the first time, integrates all 61 Merseyrail surface stations with the five underground stations under a single system. Two of stations are in conservation areas and one station, Hamilton Square, is listed. The project also renewed the CIS LED signs at 10 of the Merseyrail stations.

Ambient noise sensing and zones Ambient noise sensing continuously monitors the changing ambient noise levels and adjusts the audio level of the PA system. This is particularly relevant for railway stations with wildly varying background sound levels and trains. The maximum volume of the PA will need to be limited as some trains can be very loud and it may not be possible to announce over the top of the train noise for health and safety reasons.

Storing and transmitting an announcement when the background noise is lower is something that can be considered and providing adequate real time visual displays.

Dividing a station public address system into defined zones is helpful, particularly where limiting the noise to neighbours is required with only those zones selected being addressed. The output from the amplifier can be automatically routed to the chosen zone or zones either by using zone selection keys on a controller, or by a stored speech system announcing the timetable to only those platforms requiring the message.

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Absorption occurs when sound waves encounter soft and thick materials. Different materials will have different degrees of absorption, so each material (example - marble, concrete, brickwork or wood) is given a different absorption coefficient rating. The ratings will vary with frequency, with generally a greater absorption at higher frequencies. Sound can be transmitted or conducted through most materials with highly reflective materials transmitting less, since the sound is reflected away.

A typical railway station will need careful design of its speaker system to make the best of what can be a very challenging acoustic environment. The other factors the sound design engineer will need to consider include: »» The operating environment of the equipment in terms of temperature, humidity and dust; »» Security of equipment; »» If listed building consent is required - many stations are protected buildings, so finding a suitable structure to mount speakers and cable containment systems on can be challenging; »» Any noise abatement notices that may have been served; »» The density of nearby housing and residential areas; »» Possessions and isolations through platforms for installation and maintenance; »» Feedback from users on the existing system, such as areas of poor coverage; »» Any customer complaints on the existing system; »» Areas where most customers stand when waiting for a service, in all weather conditions; »» Glass shelters, as these can attenuate sound by approximately 25dB.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

The scope included all of the PAVA control equipment amplifiers - including line monitoring, fireman’s microphone panels, platform communications panels, power supplies and audio frequency induction loops. The fire detection system initiates voice messages and is interfaced with fire doors, emergency lighting, lift controls and CCTV cameras. The largest station, Moorfields, consists of five levels and 14 zones.

The system is designed so that, dependent upon the location of the alarm, 30 different messages are automatically announced to move people away from an incident, which may include using a train to escape to the next station.

The core of the PAVA system is the VIPEDIA-12 Professional Sound LifeSafety Digital Audio System voice alarm audio router.

This unit provides up to twelve analogue audio inputs and twelve outputs, together with dual Ethernet IP ports. The unit’s software is stored on an internal flash memory and cannot be altered by a virus or mishap. ASL Adaptive Class-D M-Series amplifiers are used and are fitted with a dual or single line surveillance output card to provide loudspeaker circuit monitoring and fault reporting.

The loudspeaker line monitoring uses an AC method, with an AEL02 active end of line device used at the end of each loudspeaker line. The AC monitoring system enables the ASL amplifier to monitor either single or dual loudspeaker circuits without the need for DC blocking capacitors in the loudspeakers. This solution was chosen as it was not proposed to renew or modify the existing loudspeakers.

Systems for the hearing impaired A PA system can be used to feed directly to the hearing aid user using a specially designed induction loop amplifier and associated cable system. The engineering and design of induction loops is complex and is environment dependent - steel constructed buildings can be particularly difficult.

Qwell sound masking generator and amplifier.

Music provision Background music can be used to fill the “silence” between announcements and is sometimes used at less busy stations. If provided, this should not be loud enough to be obtrusive but should be adjusted so that it adds to the ambiance of the environment. Music should never be so loud that customers cannot communicate or that advice given by station staff cannot be heard.

masking provides added sound that covers the existing sounds in the area - resulting in staff being less distracted, more productive and improving speech privacy.

Sound masking is provided in the areas where conversations should not be heard and not in the areas where the conversation is taking place. For instance, a manager does not want private conversations to be overheard, so sound masking is provided in the reception area to provide speech privacy.

Correctly installed, the resulting ambient noise is not normally noticeable by occupants. When heard in a silent environment, the sound can be compared to a gentle sound like air flowing through a vent. Specialist small speakers, sometimes referred to as emitters, are generally installed every few metres.

Co-locating CIS and PA is important.

Sound masking Sound masking, is the addition of natural or artificial sound (sometimes less-accurately known as ‘white noise’ or ‘pink noise’) into an environment to ‘mask’ or cover up unwanted sound by using auditory masking. It can be explained by an analogy with light. Imagine a dark room where someone is turning a torch on and off. The light is very obvious and distracting.

Now imagine that the room lights are turned on. The torch is still being turned on and off, but is no longer as noticeable because it has been ‘masked’. Sound masking is a similar process of covering a distracting sound with a more soothing or less intrusive sound.

It is typically used in selected workspaces and some public areas. Modern open plan offices can be too quiet, making the conversations of others in the office distracting. The use of sound

Network Rail’s Quadrant:MK offices has loudspeaker panels in the lighting rafts.

So how about sound masking on trains, which are mainly public open plan spaces where privacy is required? Well, sound masking is only relevant in an environment of less than 50dBA. To a certain extent train air-conditioning and the wheel/rail interface noise can provide an element of primitive uncontrolled sound masking. This is why, when a train stops, other conversations can sometimes become more obvious.

One of the largest sound masking systems in the rail industry is provided at the Network Rail national operations centre at The Quadrant:MK in Milton Keynes. This spans over 400,000 square feet and accommodates 3,000 people.

Apple Sound, based in Shotton, Flintshire, was the developer and provider of the Quell® sound masking system, which included custom-made distributed-mode loudspeaker panels that were installed in the lighting rafts throughout all of the office areas.

Any rail project involving sound needs to make sure it is specified and designed by specialists.

Simply hanging up a few speakers or masking emitters as a cost saving afterthought will generally fail, and may spoil the other ‘sound’ engineering used in the project.

Thanks to Ros Wigmore of the ISCE, Mark Dougill of Gryphon Management, and Phil Brown of Apple Sound for their help with this article.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Mind the gap!

DAVID SHIRRES

B

ritain’s rail and tube passengers get on and off trains around six billion times each year, generally without incident.

However, just occasionally, crossing the platform train interface (PTI) can go wrong.

Over the last five years, PTI accidents on the mainline network have resulted in, on average, 1,354 minor injuries, 51.6 major injuries and 3.0 fatalities per year. The figures for London Underground, which has 43 per cent of UK rail journeys, are respectively 409, 14.4 and 1.2.

PTI accounts for 48 per cent of the UK passenger fatality risk on the mainline network.

Generally, such fatalities involve moving trains, whereas minor injuries occur when boarding and alighting from stationary trains.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) held a seminar recently to raise awareness of PTI risks and their solutions.

This was well-attended, with representation from all aspects of the industry, and included presentations from Network Rail, RSSB, RAIB, Crossrail, Thameslink, Heathrow Express and PAMELA (see below).

The key issues at this seminar were perhaps best summed up in two often used phrases: “We are running twenty-first century trains on nineteenth century infrastructure” and “Passengers think train doors are the same as lift doors”.

Non-compliant The UK mainline network has just over 2,500 stations with 6,000 platforms. RSSB’s principal infrastructure engineer Bridget Eickhoff showed just how variable these platforms are.

For new platforms, Group Standard GI/RT7016 specifies a height of 915 mm and offset of 730 mm, within defined tolerances, for new station platforms.

Gap filler fitted to Heathrow Express platforms.

This standard also specifies that new stations shall not be located on curves of less than 1,000 metres. This avoids an excessive gap at centre vehicle doors. On a mixed traffic railway that includes freight, these dimensions are a trade-off between gauging requirements and passenger requirements.

As an illustration of the issues associated with historic rail infrastructure, of all platforms on the network, the height and offset requirements are achieved for 30 per cent and 22 per cent respectively, with only seven per cent complying with both requirements. A fifth of all platforms fail to meet the curvature requirement.

This is a problem for which innovative solutions are required, as rebuilding thousands of legacy platforms to comply with standards for new stations is not a realistic proposal.

Bridget felt that, for certain routes, the idea of a go-anywhere train might not be a good idea.

Merseyrail shares this thought as their new train fleet, to be delivered in the early 2020s, will be tailored to its network.

Lights, Gaps and humps On new lines, a fresh approach can be taken.

In its central tunnel sections, Crossrail will have a platform height of 1100 mm with level access over a narrow gap. Heathrow Express (HEx) also has this apparently ideal arrangement although at Paddington the platform curve results in a large gap at the front of the train. Its operations director, Keith Harding, explained that, to address this hazard, blue flashing lights have been installed under the platform edge which light up when the train is by the platform.

Keith further stated that, with 65 accidents over a three-year period, this narrow level gap has not been problem-free as passengers do not perceive it as a hazard. In 2015, gap fillers were installed to prevent such accidents. These are hard-wearing rubber strips mounted on the platform edge and were first successfully trialled at the airport’s Terminal 5 station. During the year-long trial there were no step board accidents. The gap fillers were supplied by Delkor Rail and HEx is their first application in the UK.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Train boarding simulation at PAMELA.

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Crossrail’s rolling stock and depot manager, Phil Hinde, explained that, in addition to 1100mm-high level-access platforms, Crossrail’s central section will also have platform edge doors (PED). As these doors are critical to station operations, prospective suppliers were asked to specify door cycle times in milliseconds. Phil noted that there are no standards for PEDs which, amongst other things, present an entrapment hazard and need robust earthing given their proximity to 25kV AC overhead lines.

Outside the central section, Crossrail trains will not have level access. Phil explains that platforms on its routes out of Liverpool Street are generally higher than the 915mm standard, whilst those out of Paddington are generally lower. Some work is being done to resolve these issues.

To provide easy wheelchair access on Thameslink, its safety systems manager, Fraser Scott, described how some stations are to have their platform height raised using a modular hump system which uses glass-reinforced polymer sections and is supplied by Pipex Structural Composites. This was first installed in 2008 at Harrington on the Cumbrian coast at a cost of £25,000, about a tenth of that would have been otherwise required to make the platform comply with the disability access regulations.

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PAMELA Taku Fujiyama and Sebastian Seriani of University College, London gave an interesting presentation on the University’s Pedestrian Accessibility Movement Environmental LAboratory (PAMELA). This was completed in 2006 to provide a full-scale simulation of pedestrian infrastructure. A visit to this facility was an optional part of the seminar package.

Taku explained that PAMELA can vary factors such as height, stepping distance and door widths to optimise asset design for passenger movement behaviour. Without such a simulation, designs are likely to be sub-optimal as it is not possible to isolate the effects of these variables. In 2008,

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the laboratory was used to assess boarding and alighting performance of the proposed Thameslink trains - 150 participants were recruited and over 11,000 passenger movements recorded.

PAMELA has also been used to assess optimum train/platform configurations on London Underground and the effect of various types of platform markings at the door position.

On platforms where humps have been provided for wheelchair level access, it was determined that the optimum ramp angle was 6.9 per cent.

Another study concluded that, if step-free access could be provided for all Victoria line platforms, a return Walthamstow to Brixton trip would be reduced by two minutes.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

The effects of PEDs on boarding behaviour have also been studied. With PEDs, more passengers wait at close to the platform edge in crowded conditions. In one simulation, it was found that, when more than 25 board and alight at each door, the provision of PEDs reduces the boarding and alighting time from 31 to 29 seconds.

and that there are 25 types of wheelchair ramp in use. Wheelchair users have reported that they do not feel safe using these ramps, which have been a factor in the 192 PTI accidents last year that involved wheelchair users.

Thinking out of the box

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Train design In his presentation, Simon French, chief investigator for the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB), noted the need for improved train design. He thought that improved obstacle detection technologies such as proximity detection systems and enhanced sensitive door edges could do much to reduce the fatality risk.

RAIB reports had shown that other train design features needed to be addressed to reduce PTI risk. Simon mentioned how, on some trains, passengers can open doors after the driver has initiated the door close sequence. Thus, doors close immediately after opening with a consequent increase in the risk of passengers being trapped in the doors.

He also stressed the need to minimise the force needed to extract objects caught in closed doors and to ensure the reliable operation of sensitive door detection systems.

Human factors Although improved engineering controls can do much to reduce PTI accidents, perhaps the most important and difficult issue is human behaviour. Passengers may not understand the danger caused by their action. Staff may not fully understand PTI risks and, like all human beings, can make mistakes.

In his presentation, Allan Spence, chair of the industry’s PTI strategy group, explained how train despatch arrangements were heavily dependent on a single human doing a very repetitive role when interventions are very rarely required. Such circumstances are likely to result in ‘look but don’t see’ accidents.

He felt there was a need to review station despatch arrangements. For example, platform despatchers are required to observe trains on departure. However, there is nothing they can do if they see something amiss once they have given the train ready to depart indication.

Simon French felt there was a requirement to more effectively engage with the public on the dangers of PTI incidents. Many passengers think that train doors operate like lifts and so deliberately put their arm in a closing train door. In one accident, a passenger did just this and made no attempt to withdraw her trapped hand whilst the train was stationary as she expected the door to open. It was only when the train moved that she understood the danger she was in. She was then dragged along the platform for 19 metres, but fortunately escaped without serious injury.

Shark's tooth marking indended to stop passengers obstructing doors.

The accident also highlighted the need for better staff training on PTI incidents. In this incident, the driver had received a door interlock light to confirm the doors were locked and closed. RAIB’s investigation identified that he, and other railway staff, wrongly believed that this light would not illuminate if someone was trapped in a door.

Dwell time PTI is both an operational and a safety issue.

Crossrail’s Phil Hinde considered that a “metro mindset” is essential for the running of 24 to 30 trains an hour through its central tunnels. To help achieve this, passengers will be given information on which parts of trains are busy, trains will have dwell time counters and interior layouts matched to stations which have entrances at both platform ends. In addition, Crossrail’s concession contract will specify improved station staffing.

Thameslink is also focusing on station staffing when the number of trains through its centre section increases from 16 to 24 in 2018. Fraser Scott advised that the company has worked with French transport group Keolis and SNCF to understand how passenger behaviour is managed at busy French stations.

Fraser also mentioned the concept of nudge theory, which uses indirect suggestions to change behaviour. He illustrated this concept with an example of the etched image of a fly in the urinals at Schiphol airport which has reduced spillage by 80 per cent (readers can work out how this works for themselves). A further example is yellow shark’s teeth marking on the door rubbers.

A presentation by Michael Adlington of the Rail Delivery Group focused on the needs of passengers in wheelchairs who make 400,000 journeys each year. He noted that, of the 2,500 UK mainline stations, only 450 had step free access

The IMechE is to be congratulated for arranging its informative PTI seminar, which clearly presented the complexity of this issue, work done to address PTI challenges and the actions required to further reduce this risk. Much of this is contained in the RSSB’s platform train interface strategy, produced by the cross-industry PTI strategy group in 2015. However, there is no substitute to hearing practitioners describe the issues.

In September, RSSB also launched an app to assess the sufficiency of station PTI risk controls. It is also intended to give station managers a better understanding of PTI problems. The data captured by this app is held on a single database to provide an overview of PTI risks. RSK Business Solutions produced this app to a specification developed by RSSB research project T1029.

The high-profile dispute about whether the driver or guard operates the train doors was not mentioned at this event. This is perhaps not surprising as the seminar showed that PTI safety requires a mix of train and infrastructure engineering controls, effective operational management and the management of human factors. PTI safety is about much more than who controls the train doors.

As Keith Harding advised the seminar, it also requires “thinking out of the box”. Heathrow Express has recently engaged 22 students from London’s University of Arts to address the PTI risk without any pre-conceptions. Keith commented that these students have shown massive creativity and “will soon reveal great things”. We await this development with interest.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

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DAVID SHIRRES

Edinburgh’s new Gateway I

n 2003, the Scottish Government announced plans for the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (EARL) that would be comparable to that at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. Lines from Edinburgh to Glasgow and Fife would be diverted in tunnels to an underground airport station at an estimated cost of £650 million. The scheme was developed to the point of a Bill to the Scottish Parliament which received Royal Assent in 2007.

Later that year the incoming SNP administration scrapped the scheme as it was deemed too expensive. They did, however, confirm the Edinburgh tram scheme to the airport and announced that a new ‘Gateway’ station was to be built on the line to Fife and Aberdeen at Gogar to provide a rail-tram interchange. There was also to be a direct service from Glasgow via a new Almond chord with grade-separated junctions at either end, to be provided as part of the Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP).

The intention was that the Gateway station would open in 2011 at the same time as the Edinburgh tram. However, its construction was deferred due to uncertainty about the tram project. It also lost its proposed service to Glasgow as, in 2013, it was decided that EGIP would provide extra capacity by longer, instead of more frequent trains, thus removing the need for the Almond chord.

The airport got its rail connection in 2014 with the opening of the delayed Edinburgh tram project. Edinburgh Gateway station opened on 9 December to provide an interchange with the city’s trams, with only three stops to the airport.

Haymarket Mark II With two 265-metre platforms that can accommodate 10-coach trains and a 1,500 square-metre floor area, the Gateway station is a substantial structure. It is of a similar size to the new Haymarket station buildings that opened in 2013 (issue 105, July 2013). It also has the same look as both stations are clad with lightweight Econic boards, engineered from magnesium oxide and supplied by Duncryne Ltd. Its 303 square metre concourse is covered by a lightweight ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) roof system, that was also used at Haymarket.

ETFE is a high transparency, recyclable material with a 30-year life. It belongs to the same fluoropolymer family as PTFE - or Teflon as it is more commonly known.

Retaining wall under footbridge to tram stop.

This roof system uses ETFE pillows filled with dehumidified air from an air pump that cycles as necessary. It offers significantly reduced weight compared with conventional roofing systems and is also sacrificial in the event of an incident. It was used at the Beijing Olympics and Glasgow’s new Hydro Arena, as well as for the atrium roof of the rebuilt Birmingham New Street station.

The access road is 300 metres long by 7.3 metres wide with a taxi drop-off point. Only 10 car parking places are provided as it is an interchange station. To provide access to the nearby Gyle shopping centre, an underpass, 45 metres long and 5.5 metres wide, has been constructed under the A8 road. This has CCTV and automatic sliding lockable doors at either end, and is connected to the station by a covered walkway.

Eight metres below the station are four tram tracks. Two of these are the tram line between the city and the airport whilst the other two lead to the nearby tram depot. The Gateway tram station is situated between these two pairs 3D visualisation.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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of tracks. It also has an ETFE roof. Between the depot tracks and the Gateway station is a 130-metre long retaining wall that was built as part of the Edinburgh tram project.

Part of the public realm area outside the main station concourse is on a bridge over this retaining wall and the depot tram tracks. This leads to the tram station entrance which has steps, escalators and a lift down to the tram stop. The entire station has step-free access and has three lifts and six escalators.

Lightweight design The £26 million contract to build the Gateway station was let to Balfour Beatty. The designer was WSP, working with IDP Architects. Specialist sub-contractors were Lakesmere for cladding while Annadale design provided bespoke stainless steel and glass barriers and SES Engineering Services undertook the mechanical and electrical engineering fit out.

Work started on site in November 2014.

However, prior to that, £2.5 million of enabling works were required to move the 11kV cable supplying the airport and to divert a 12-inch sewer. Track lowering under the adjacent A8 road bridge, to ensure the Gateway platforms would not be affected by any future electrification work, was also undertaken before the main works.

EGIP programme director Roger Querns is clearly proud of his new station and offered some interesting insights on its construction.

He considered that the main construction challenges were the eight-metre difference in levels and restricted access off the busy A8 road into Edinburgh. Lane closures on this road were required, as the underpass to the Gyle shopping centre was constructed by the cut and cover method.

Concourse almost complete.

Over two days in one May weekend, the 40-tonne main link bridge between the rail and tram stations and 115 tonnes of steel framework were lifted into place using a 130 and a 500 tonne crane. In total, the station required 470 tonnes of steel and 2,040 cubic metres of concrete. Roger explained the lightweight cladding and the ETFE roof reduced the amount of steel required for the framework and also cut the station project’s carbon footprint, a key consideration of the station design.

Airport bird management As Roger explained, the airport presented its own challenges as the station is 700 metres from the end of its secondary runway. This required the project to have a bird hazard management plan and to prohibit the use of cranes in foggy weather.

The £1.5 million tram station was not part of Balfour Beatty’s original contract and was added as a variation in November 2015.

The completed station required approximately 275,000 man-hours of work and was delivered to time and budget.

However, no matter how well planned, projects will have their surprises. In this case it was thirty tonnes of Asbestos board that was thought to have been dumped on the site in the late 1970s. It took three months for this to be removed by specialist contractors, requiring some project reprogramming.

Station for the future The £42 million Edinburgh Gateway station opened its doors to passengers on 11 December. At its opening ceremony Scottish Transport Minister Humza Yousaf noted: “This

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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50

Tram stop.

£41m investment will offer huge benefits to rail passengers travelling to or from the Gogar area, integrating the rail network with the tram network and providing a convenient link to Edinburgh Airport.”

George Lowder, chief executive of Transport for Edinburgh added: “The opening of Edinburgh Gateway brings us another step closer to fully integrated passenger transport for Edinburgh and the Edinburgh city region.”

To promote the use of the new Edinburgh Gateway station, ScotRail has introduced through tickets with a reduced price for the tram journey to the airport. It has also installed a rail ticket machine at the Edinburgh airport tram stop. Each year, over five million passengers use the tram and eleven million travellers used the airport, which plans to significantly increase its traffic. The Gyle shopping centre is also promoting the station. Being on the tram route, nearby business parks will also benefit from the new Gateway.

Nevertheless, Edinburgh Gateway station is not initially expected to carry large numbers of passengers. There are, however, big plans for the area around it, including 1,500 new homes immediately north of the station for which there is passive provision for a footbridge, and

a £700 million International Business Gateway development adjacent to the airport built around the tram line. Furthermore, the tram-connected Edinburgh Park business area is not yet fully developed.

By December 2018, EGIP will provide the Edinburgh to Glasgow main line with a 33 per cent increase in capacity. Notwithstanding this, the Network Rail Scotland Route Study, which considers route enhancements required up to 2043, envisages that there will eventually

be a need to build the Almond Chord at an indicative cost of £200 million. This would then give the Gateway station a direct connection to Glasgow.

Whilst this large station may initially not be very busy, planned developments, and those that it will generate, will no doubt see it become well-used in a few years’ time. Hence, rather than being built to catch up with increasing passenger numbers, Edinburgh Gateway is indeed a station for the future.

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52

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Borders Railway signalling and telecoms one year on

PAUL DARLINGTON

Hardengreen viaduct.

B

orders Railway, the longest ‘Beechinged’ railway to be reopened, is now just over a year old, having opened to passengers on 6 September 2015. So, one year on, are expectations being met? Rail Engineer recently met with Andy Munro of Siemens to learn more about the innovative signalling and telecoms design, how the route has been operating, and whether it has met all of its objectives.

The Waverley Route was a 98 mile, 25 station railway line that ran south from Edinburgh, through Midlothian and the Scottish Borders, to Carlisle. The line was closed in 1969, as a result of the Beeching Report, and was controversial as it left the area as one of the most disconnected rail regions in Britain. After its closure the route was not protected and so bridges were demolished and new roads, services and buildings encroached upon the railway’s old alignment. This made the reinstatement more challenging, difficult and expensive.

Construction After a very long campaign, the Scottish Parliament passed the Waverley Railway (Scotland) Act in June 2006. This authorised the construction of over 31 miles (50km) of new track from Newcraighall to Tweedbank via Galashiels. Tweedbank is just beyond a viaduct over the River Tweed and so provides a natural rail head for the area to the south. The reopened railway would be known as the Borders Railway.

Preparatory works were formally initiated in March 2007 and it was envisaged that the main construction works would commence in 2011 with services in 2013. However, problems in the tendering procedure resulted in its cancellation in 2011 with the project being handed over to

Network Rail. Works were initiated in November 2012 with BAM Nuttall appointed the following month as the main contractor. Tracklaying was completed in February 2015 and services commenced on 6 September 2015.

The civil engineering content of the scheme was an impressive 65km of track, 1,500,000 tonnes of earthworks, 42 new bridges, 95 refurbished bridges, two repaired tunnels, 100km of drainage/duct/fencing and 10km of new roads.

Signalling The route, predominantly single line with passing loops, serves seven stations and has no level crossings. The signalling is relatively simple and consists of five main islands of similar design to control entry and exit into the loops.

Passive provision has been made for overhead line electric traction to be added later and, while freight services were considered in the development stages, these were not progressed.

The signalling engineering development was undertaken by Atkins, with detailed design and implementation by Siemens.

The signalling is controlled from workstation two at Edinburgh IECC. Alterations were required to the existing Millerhill SSI together with providing a new Borders SSI interlocking.

Rail Engineer • January 2017 The route is essentially a single line with three dynamic passing loops. Seven sets of in-bearer Hy-Drive clamp locks (IBCL) point systems were provided. Five sets of points are ‘G’ switches, with Newcraighall ‘E’ & Tweedbank ‘C’.

The signals are two aspect LED signals protecting the entry and exit into each passing loop mounted on raise and lower columns (other than two platform style structures for signals with additional indicators). Additional turn back facilities at Gorebridge, for the splitting or joining of express services, have been provided.

The layout was driven by short double-track sections and the need to deliver the timetable requirements. Unfortunately, this has resulted in relatively short braking sections which eliminate the use of poorer-braked stock and freight on the route.

Giaconda 3D desktop modelling was used for signal sighting. This was required as the route was still under construction with new bridges and buildings, and no track in place. A draft scheme plan was used as an input into the model and a series of virtual signal structures produced. The output was projected through a high definition projector, allowing the signal sighting committee a clear office-based view of the proposals.

The system provided a function to step back from a signal or move to any position in the rear, with a readout of the chainage and distance in rear displayed. Obscurations were assessed and minimum sighting distances calculated.

53

Signalling equipment at Galabank.

EMB288 was sighted at the exit of a new overbridge. Unfortunately, the bridge was constructed 200mm in conflict with its design which caused an obscuration. The solution was an angled supporting structure, rather than reconstruct the bridge and bypass! Moving the signal was not an option as it would have affected the braking distances and timetable, and moving the base closer to the track would have compromised the track support and ballast cleaning zone.

Siemens Clearguard (ACM100) axle counters were used throughout the scheme. These required no external outdoor electronics and provide a direct input into the SSI trackside functional modules. No central evaluator is required which resulted in less cabling.

A total of 33 distribution network operator (DNO) supplies were installed, along with 650V distribution. Standby generators have been provided, but not with battery-backed uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). This was a

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54

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Tracklaying while Borders was under construction. cost saving and to assist in making the scheme a low-maintenance route. Batteries need regular checking and can have a life as short as four to five years. It only takes 30/40 seconds for the generators to take over in the event of a DNO outage, with seamless return to mains power using a synchronisation controller. However there have been several power outages during the last year and the resultant disruption has led to a plan to introduce UPS, which is being trialled at one site.

The train detection system, however, is already provided with its own battery-backed UPS.

Telecommunications Data and voice communications are by fibreoptic cable down both sides of the line and via Slateford and Portobello to provide diversity. A multi-drop TCP/IP architecture has been used, which is an ideal solution for such a line and allowed all ‘islands’ to be covered by a single data link. The alternatives of a separate pointto-point data link for each island would have required more interlockings, or a baseband data link along the entire length of the scheme which would have massively increased the cabling and troughing, and required many repeaters.

Scotland had been one of the first areas in the country to deploy Ethernet and IP packetswitched telecoms to replace traditional circuit-switching. This was originally used for longline public address communications, but has evolved over the last few years into solutions for operational telecoms and signalling applications.

Cisco routing and switching products were used and the design is now well proven and reliable.

Designed for compliance with CENELEC BS EN 50159:2010 ‘Safety Related Communications in Transmission Systems’, Ethernet TCP/ IPv6 provides defence against security threats using authenticated Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP). Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) provides further protection by using cryptographic security to authenticate and encrypt each IP packet of a communication session.

Borders Rail was one of the first such uses of the Network Rail FTNx Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) IP network. MPLS is a mechanism used in high-performance telecommunications networks that directs data from one network node to the next based on short path labels rather than long network

Cable duct plough.

addresses, avoiding complex lookups in a routing table. MPLS also provides traffic engineering in order to facilitate a virtual private network for the signalling application.

The fibres for the telecom network are installed in a blown-fibre buried cable route, provided by Emtelle UK and installed at a depth of 400mm. The result is a fibre-optic route that is flexible, upgradeable and cost effective, having been specially adapted for deployment using automated trenching technology. Emtelle is based in the Borders and was the first highvolume producer of blown fibre tubing in the world. While it delivers blown fibre solutions internationally, this one literally runs in their backyard!

Rail Engineer • January 2017 There were some problems along the route that prevented the fibres being blown through, but this was down to the installers not being used to the established blown-fibre technology.

The network carries SSI and axle counter data, together with GSM-R links and voice over IP (VoIP) for the signal post telephones. The use of VoIP for operational voice telephony was another first for rail in the UK and delivered further cost savings.

Fourteen GSM-R sites, seven monopole (15 metres high) and seven lattice (29 metres high) masts were provided to accomodate routine and emergency train voice communications.

At the stations, where facilities also include charging points for electric cars, a total of 266 CCTV cameras and 100 PA speakers, along with ticket machines and help points, were installed in order to provide customers with all the facilities expected on a modern railway. The cameras and speakers are mounted on raise and lower posts, and one lesson learned is that there was a shortage of the trolley mechanism tools to lower the posts.

With the amount of installation work required, unapproved methods of lowering the posts were wrongly adopted. Future projects take note!

Performance issues As recently as 2013, there was a study predicting that the scheme may be a white elephant and waste of money. However, after just one year in operation, the scheme is a huge success, with passenger numbers 22 per cent higher than expected and with car parks full to capacity. Local businesses report soaring profits and tourist attractions have increased sales.

The scheme provides access to several million passengers using Waverley Station in Edinburgh each year, and has already boosted tourism to Midlothian and Borders. It provides easier commuting and quicker journey times into Edinburgh. Housing developments are already underway, which include 4,000 new homes at Shawfair. The journey time by road from

55

Galashiels.

Galashiels to Edinburgh is 70 minutes by car and 104 minutes by bus, however the train takes 50 minutes with a line speed of 90mph.

Lessons learned with 12 months’ experience include that the equipment should have had a better soak test that was not compromised by multiple engineering train/trolley movements.

The ACM100 axle counters have failed a number of times during the last year. However, it has been identified that the required sixmonthly calibrations had not been incorporated within the maintenance regime. Systems need to be designed for minimal maintenance and, if essential tasks are needed, they must be imbedded within the maintenance specifications.

The Data Reporting, Analysis and Corrective Action System (DRACAS) has recorded a number of asset failures since commissioning and it is thought a better pre-commissioning soak test would have eliminated some of these failures.

Prior to the commissioning, there were also a number of intermittent axle counter surge filter failures. This was attributed to the poor quality of the surge protectors and they were all replaced with a different type. The SSI data link faults were all found to be in two REB LDT local cables. These were replaced and all REBs checked, and there have been no other failures attributable to wiring.

Slab track installation at Bowshank tunnel.

Some of the poor punctuality has also been attributed to high passenger demand increasing the station dwell time along with train faults and train crew issues. A different design of rolling stock is planned with better access, which will improve the station dwell times.

The route has met its objective of becoming a very popular mode of transport and passenger numbers have exceeded all projections. In the first year, passenger numbers were forecast to be 694,000, but 568,000 were recorded just in the first six months. A risk of possible low use was recorded for Stow Station, but the car park is full every day. Local businesses reporting ‘soaring’ profits and Abbotsford House (a local tourist attraction) takings were up 63 per cent when the line opened and 12 per cent over the full year.

With additional investment, the scheme could have been designed with more flexibility and resilience to failure. However, projects can only provide what they are budgeted for and the challenge for engineers is always to do more with less.

So what next?

The scheme is a credit to all involved.

Communities are now re-connected and it’s a great piece of rail history and proof of the benefits of rail.

Additional double track to mitigate against train or points failure is possible, but expensive.

The provision of outer distant signals (yellow yellow) may increase braking distances sufficiently to allow freight and rolling stock with less efficient braking. Given the success of the scheme, additional car parking may also be required in the near future.

There is already discussion on extending the route towards Melrose and Hawick, and reopening the line as far as Carlisle. This is probably unrealistic as the Campaign for Borders railway estimates the cost of extension to Carlisle to be £1.5 billion and, although it has not been ruled out by the Scottish Government, there would be significant infrastructure challenges to overcome.

56

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Reducing

Project Carbon DAVID SHIRRES

I

n 1972, British meteorologist John Sawyer published his paper Manmade Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and the ‘Greenhouse’ effect. This concluded that “despite the enormous mass of the atmosphere and the very large energies involved in the weather systems which produce our climate, it is being realised that human activities are approaching a scale at which they cannot be completely ignored as possible contributors to climate and climatic change.”

The paper highlighted the exponential rise of the production of greenhouse gases, and accurately predicted the rate of global warming up to 2000. There are various greenhouse gases of which the most significant is CO2. The term CO2e is that used to denote the CO2 equivalent of all emissions.

Practical guidance on carbon reduction is provided by PAS (Publicly Available Specification) 2080 ‘Carbon Management in Infrastructure’, developed by the Construction Leadership Council’s Green Construction Board (GCB). For infrastructure assets and programmes of work, this provides a framework for the management for both carbon emissions and embodied carbon.

Rail’s contribution

This, and other scientific papers published in the 1970s, led to increasing acceptance of the need for action to tackle the dangers of climate change.

1997 saw the world’s first legally binding climate change agreement, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This committed industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 by 5 per cent of their 1990 levels.

UK response In response, Britain enacted the 2008 Climate Change Act which give the Secretary of State a duty to ensure that, by 2050, emissions are at least 80 per cent lower than the 1990 baseline.

The Treasury published its Infrastructure Carbon Review in 2013, which aimed to “make carbon reduction part of the DNA of infrastructure in the UK”. Its recommendations have the potential to save up to 24 million tonnes of carbon (5 per cent of UK total) and save £1.5 billion a year by 2050. This last figure perhaps explains why it was published by the Treasury rather than the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

To promote high environmental and social performance in civil engineering projects, the Institution of Civil Engineers, with Government support, developed their Civil Engineering Environmental Quality scheme (CEEQUAL).

This is a sustainability assessment and awards scheme that was launched in 2003. Since then, it has assessed hundreds of projects with a value of work exceeding £30 billion.

Network Rail’s sustainable development strategy includes requirements for carbon reduction. This is specified in the Control Period 5 High Level Output Specification (HLOS) and includes the need to measure, monitor and seek to reduce embedded carbon, which is that used in the production of materials and services.

In 2014, Network Rail and 40 of its main suppliers signed a Sustainability Charter to advance sustainability standards. This required a reduction in emissions, including championing the use of alternative materials and technology, to reduce embodied carbon – a goal that will be included in Network Rail’s contract requirements.

Transport for London (TfL) is reducing its contribution to climate change to support the Mayor’s ambition of London becoming a zero-carbon city by 2050. To do this, TfL is taking action to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2025 (from 1990 levels), including reducing project embodied carbon.

For Crossrail and HS2, sustainability is a high priority. Considering carbon at the early design stage enables these mega-projects to achieve significant carbon (and cost) reductions for both construction and

Rail Engineer • January 2017

operation. Crossrail’s operational energy usage will be minimised by a vertical track profile that aids deceleration and acceleration, responsive escalators, specially developed LED lighting and lightweight energy-efficient rolling stock.

Crossrail has so far achieved an 11 per cent reduction in embodied project carbon against its baseline. This is mainly due to reduction in construction materials and the amount of cement used in concrete, subject to cement performance requirements and curing time.

Project construction is estimated to generate 1.7 million tonnes CO2e, against which the carbon footprint model indicates annual operational CO2 savings of between 70,000 and 225,000 tonnes, largely due to car journey replacement. Crossrail estimate that, after 9 to 13 years, the project will provide net CO2 savings.

The construction carbon footprint for HS2 Phase One is estimated to be between 5.3 and 6.5 million tonnes CO2e. Some of this is from the construction of tunnels and earthworks as mitigation for environmental noise and visual amenity. Operational emissions are estimated to be a net 3 million tonnes CO2e over a 60year period taking into account modal shift, mitigation from planting two million trees and freight benefits from released capacity on the classic network. Emissions per passenger kilometre from high-speed rail, inter-city rail, car and plane are estimated to be respectively 8, 22, 67 and 170 grams of CO2e.

49 per cent of the embodied carbon for the construction of a high-speed railway comes from steel while 28 per cent is from concrete.

HS2’s opportunities to lower embodied carbon include maximising opportunities to re-use excavated material on site, the use of 4-D modelling to plan efficient logistics with low carbon modes such as rail and development of new materials including sustainable concrete.

Rail carbon tool The management adage “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is certainly true for embodied carbon, for which no meaningful action can be taken unless a project can quantify the impact of design decisions and construction methodologies. To meet this requirement, Atkins developed its ‘Carbon Knowledgebase’ in 2008 and used it on various rail projects up to 2014.

As part of its sustainable rail programme, RSSB set up a project to provide the carbon measurement tool that was essential for the achievement of the embedded carbon requirement in the Control Period 5 HLOS. This project considered whether a new model was a requirement or if any known products could be adapted. After reviewing 60 tools, the Atkins ‘Carbon Knowledgebase’ was selected to become the Rail Carbon Tool. Bought on industry’s behalf by RSSB with co-funding from Network Rail, and launched in 2015, it now has over 300 users and is managed by a crossindustry working group including Network Rail, TfL, HS2 and Crossrail.

Emissions source

57

The Rail Carbon Tool is a web-based tool that uses centrally available carbon factor data to assess embodied carbon for all aspects of project construction. This can then be used to determine carbon hotspots (items that account for a large proportion of construction) and evaluate low-carbon options. However, this needs to be done at an early stage of the project if significant savings are to be achieved.

It is free to use and, as a web-based tool, is reasonably intuitive. However, to get the best use of its comprehensive functionality, it is best used by a dedicated individual who has been trained in its use. RSSB’s sustainable development specialist, Michelle Papayannakos, has no doubts about the benefits of the Rail Carbon Tool and feels every project should use it as it “is freely available and can really help reduce carbon and associated costs.”

Case studies Phase two of the East West Rail project includes the re-opening of a 21km mothballed railway to link Oxford and Cambridge. Its head of environment and sustainability, Lucie Anderton, is a fan of the Rail Carbon Tool which the project has been using since GRIP2.

They are now using it for option selection and development in GRIP3. She noted that “the carbon analyst really enjoyed using it, it's been the right tool which gives the right level of detail and provides confidence about the information provided.”

The project’s carbon footprinting report shows that, at the current state of development, the breakdown by design element of embodied carbon is as shown in table 1.

Table 1 summary of embodied emissions

Total tonnes CO2e

Proportion

250

0.08%

Train power systems

6,100

2.04%

Electric power and plant

15,700

5.26%

Permanent way

133,250

44.64%

3,600

1.21%

Civil engineering

139,600

46.77%

Total

298,500

Railway control systems

Buildings and property

58

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Interestingly, the high percentage of civil engineering carbon does not relate to bridges and earthworks, but to palisade fencing which accounts for 35 per cent of the project’s currently estimated emissions. Lucy advised that, during GRIP 4, the project will be considering how to reduce this and other carbon hot spots.

In a footbridges carbon assessment study, the weight and embodied carbon of footbridges built with different materials was determined as shown in table 2. This demonstrates that the lowest carbon option is by far the heaviest bridge type. Thus it may be that, when other factors such as possession working are considered, the concrete bridge is not the optimum solution. For this reason, it was recommended that the use of other recycled materials should be investigated. For example, in the United States, a railway bridge made from 100 per cent recycled plastic has been constructed to support the weight of a 130-tonne locomotive.

Table 2 comparison of different footbridge types

Footbridge type

Weight (tonnes)

Embodied carbon (tonnes CO2e)

Glass reinforced plastic

6.5

54.7

Steel

13.8

21.2

Concrete

91.3

11.7

Network Rail projects that reduced their carbon footprint include the Reading flyover, which achieved a 15,000 tonne CO2e reduction through a value improvement process, and the Great Western electrification programme’s Broadtown Link Road, which saved 285 tonnes by importing 67,000 tonnes of aggregates rail freight.

TfL’s major station upgrade at Camden is the first to specify carbon reduction as a contract requirement. The project has identified sprayed concrete as a hotspot accounting for 37 per cent of its embodied carbon.

Low carbon opportunities Rail is already a low carbon transport mode and has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by increasing its modal share. However, this is no reason to be complacent as there are significant opportunities for the industry to do more, including embodied carbon savings on infrastructure projects such as the East West Rail project. Moreover, some of these opportunities apply through the network.

No doubt there are opportunities in both the UK and abroad for suppliers that can develop low-carbon fencing and footbridges. This is an example of the way that a low carbon approach could stimulate innovation, making suppliers more competitive both at home and abroad. Reducing carbon also saves money and so helps project teams that are accountable for budget and timescales.

In developing the rail carbon tool, Atkins and RSSB have provided the means to reduce embodied carbon. It is now for the industry to ensure its widespread use on rail projects and develop increasing awareness of techniques to save embodied carbon.

Perhaps the last word should go to RSSB’s Michelle Papayannakos, who wants projects to visit www.railindustrycarbon.com where they “can log on, register for free and start calculating their carbon emissions almost immediately.”

Three Bridges ROC - London Bridge south side signalling workstation.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

59

CLIVE KESSELL

The Digital Railway M

a reappraisal

uch has been written on the Digital Railway project since it was initiated back in 2014. Not all of this has been complimentary, with critics believing the objectives to be overstated or even unattainable. However, the project is still very much ongoing and, with a new leader in place, a much greater degree of realism is being injected to ensure that the original goals can be maintained but re-assessed as to their priority and timeframe.

Rail Engineer spoke recently with Digital Railway’s managing director David Waboso, who has been in post since June 2016. David joined Network Rail from Transport for London where, as capital programmes director, he had been instrumental in getting much-needed new technology introduced to enable greater capacity to be achieved on the DLR, Victoria, Northern and Jubilee lines.

These projects were not easy to implement, with considerable disruption having to be endured, but much was learnt about how to deliver complex technology on busy operational lines. As such, David is a pragmatist and brings with him the experience of how to deploy new systems within a practical and logical plan.

Digital Railway objectives It is perhaps timely to review the objectives for the digital railway. While the broader vision for the railway remains as originally defined, David has brought a much more pragmatic focus to the work of the Digital Railway programme. To drive capacity, performance and safety, focus is targeted on much-improved command and control technology covering ERTMS/ETCS, ATO (Automatic Train Operation), TMS (Traffic Management Systems), C-DAS (Connected Driver Advisory Systems) and, of course, telecoms.

This work links in with the broader industry goals of intelligent trains and infrastructure, leading to remote condition monitoring, smart meters on trains, energy supply resilience, and quicker and effective failure recovery situations. Improved passenger information and associated facilities are

also in the mix, including ticketing, reservations, train running information accuracy and immediacy, train loading data, linkage to the internet and social media.

All these embrace the whole railway, not just Network Rail, and a fully integrated industry team is vital to eventual success. Key will be the participation of the Rail Delivery Group, the train operating companies including freight and, perhaps most important of all, the supply chain.

With the latter, confidence has been low and the need for greater engagement is recognised.

Giving the Rail Supply Group and its many contractors greater accountability, with an enhanced relationship in the long-term projects, is part of the plan. Any scheme under the

Digital Railway banner must contain, almost by definition, significant investment in software, and this has proved to be a troublesome element in the past. An important part of getting software right will be to properly specify the functional and operational requirements, “Don’t start writing code until you know what you want”, as David puts it.

So what are the main thrusts of the Digital Railway in terms of specific projects? There are no real surprises but there is now a much better recognition of what each element entails.

ETCS (European Train Control System) To get more capacity and improved performance out of the existing railway is a cornerstone of the Digital Railway remit. This is not new but, given the increasing capacity crunch on key parts of the railway, the need is now urgent.

As a part of ERTMS, ETCS has proved to be a difficult concept at European level and dates back to the early 1990s. Conceived partly as Three Bridges ROC - a controller's view.

60

Rail Engineer • January 2017

The ETCS display in the cab of Network Rail’s test train.

a political vision for Europe-wide interoperability, the technical and operational content has been a challenge to get common agreement amongst so many countries. At long last, a workable baseline specification has now been achieved.

Deployment plans in the UK, beyond the initial Cambrian line scheme from which valuable lessons have been learned, have included fitment to the GWML as part of Crossrail, and Thameslink. Dates predicted for when these are to become operational are now close and, when delivered, will form a strong basis to move forward.

The commitment to using ETCS on the Thameslink central core is already made, this being a route where capacity will need to match metro-type performance. Elsewhere, a long hard look at where and how ETCS and/or traffic management and CDAS/ATO can be introduced to get maximum benefit reveals eight potential routes: Great Eastern, Essex Thameside, East Coast, Great Western, South West main line, Southeast, East London line and TransPennine. The business cases for all these are still in development, but indications are that significant capacity and performance increases can be achieved without the need for major civil engineering expansion.

It must also be remembered that ETCS brings a safety benefit in that ATP (Automatic Train Protection) is part of the specification. Whilst TPWS has done a good job to mitigate against the SPAD risk, following the accidents at Southall and Ladbroke Grove in 1999 and the ensuing public enquiry, it was always recognised that this was not the long term solution.

The eight routes are an interesting mix of main line, long distance commuting and inner suburban railways. Some business cases will be worked up in partnership with the DfT and one - the East London line - will be progressed with TfL (Transport for London).

The capacity improvements to be gained will be different for each route as many other factors impact on what can be achieved; flat junctions, track layouts, level crossings, different station stops and mixed traffic patterns are typical of the constraints that differentiate a main line railway from a metro. The sometime-stated 40 per cent capacity improvement will very much depend on the layout and characteristics of each particular route and may very well be out of reach on many, but, nonetheless, any gain in double figures will be worth having.

Critically, any improvement will rely on a package of investment in both digital and conventional enhancements to maximise these benefits, which the programme believes will in some cases be cheaper than a purely conventional approach to increasing capacity.

Funding for all these deployments has yet to be agreed, so commissioning dates will not be published until this is known. The expectation is that the ETCS programme will form an important part of the solution to deliver increased capacity and reduce overcrowding as passenger numbers rise.

The idea of a pilot system in the Norwich - Yarmouth - Lowestoft area has been dropped. However, resignalling of this section is an urgent requirement and is to be achieved using modern signalling technology with ETCS future-proofing built in.

ETCS technology Regular readers will be well aware that ETCS comes in three possible levels. Level 1 is a discontinuous train protection application not used in the UK. Level 2 is radio-based using GSM-R, retains traditional train detection equipment such as track circuits or axle counters, but can dispense with lineside signals.

Level 3 removes the need for separate train detection, relying solely on continuous radio messaging to report a train’s position while having the ability to introduce moving block whereby trains can ‘close up’ in congested areas. Part of Digital Railway’s original vision was to eventually move to Level 3, as this further improves the business case.

However, here in the UK as in Europe, a number of practical problems make adopting this on an existing railway very difficult and obtaining a safety case would be a lengthy process.

Thus it is a Level 2 application that will initially be progressed for the routes described. This is in line with what is happening in Europe and the suppliers are well acquainted with the technology. Even so, there are a number of options that need to be considered if a rapid deployment programme is to be achieved.

To remove lineside signals, every train, including on-track machines that operate over the line, must be equipped with ETCS equipment. This implies the need for captive stock, which is a limiting factor and will not be possible to guarantee on some sections without unnecessarily restricting the train service. The trade-off between large volumes of train fitment and retention of lineside signals will need careful consideration.

Rail Engineer • January 2017 A mix and match solution will therefore be adopted that will allow much shorter block sections for ETCS-fitted trains working to a Movement Authority instruction and not necessarily obeying the traditional signals. Similar situations exist in Europe and, indeed, this is the Thameslink solution. It is envisaged that fitted trains will be dominant on any equipped route, thus obtaining the capacity benefit.

ATO as an overlay to ETCS is part of the Thameslink central core and is being pioneered here, with eyes from all over Europe watching how this progresses. Tests on the Hertford loop test track, and more recently in the Thameslink central core, are encouraging.

Level 3 is not to be entirely forgotten and a hybrid solution being developed in Europe to operate Level 3 characteristics over Level 2 infrastructure might be possible. This would retain existing train detection equipment and discrete block sections, but allow the creation of ‘micro blocks’ within these for Level 3-fitted trains. While this concept is still in the early stages, it is good that thought is being given to it.

Traffic Management Systems When the ‘beauty parade’ of TMS systems and suppliers took place back in 2014, it was anticipated that this would be the start of a rapid roll out programme, giving much improved train regulation through pinch points and thus enhanced performance.

Beyond the initial contracts let for Romford and Cardiff ROCs, and latterly at Three Bridges for the Thameslink central core, not much has happened, the reason being that it is a far more complicated application than originally thought. The capture of requirements, the staging and the integration with other systems, all has to be fully understood before any commissioning takes place. Otherwise the system will not perform and will be duly labelled as “another management waste of money” by the local staff.

All is not lost, however. Romford, Cardiff and Three Bridges are now making good progress and there is the possibility of one other being commissioned in the not too distant future. Once the usage

and operational benefits can be established, the ‘domino effect’ rollout can begin.

TMS is part of the ROC deployment plan, but the planning/re-planning functionality is capable of being used in any modern day signalling centre, thus enabling its potential benefits to be put to good use in many areas of the railway in a more rapid timeframe.

Aligned with TMS is C-DAS, which will communicate relevant parts of the decision making process of TMS to the driver in the cab. Without the connectivity that C-DAS brings, the use of standalone DAS is limited as it can only give drivers advice on the train’s optimum speed for the particular journey based on the timetable - it takes no account of the effect of other trains at forthcoming stations and pinch points which may require trains to operate to a more updated train plan.

Telecommunications David knows full well that a digital railway needs a reliable, modern and resilient digital telecoms network for it to succeed. Fortunately, Network Rail is in possession of one such network, namely the FTNx of NRT (Network Rail Telecoms), and this therefore becomes a big part of the Digital Railway group. Recent suggestions that NRT might be sold off in order to make a ‘quick buck’ have now been rejected as it is realised that telecoms is a vital part of the operational railway. To lose the in-house capability would be akin to committing industrial suicide. The sad lessons of the earlier BRT sell off must never be forgotten.

That said, the exploitation by NRT of its asset has to be encouraged as valuable income can be gained by providing bandwidth and services to other organisations, especially in rural areas.

Digital showcase There is no doubt that the Digital Railway is alive and kicking. This article has not said much about the asset management and information services that are all part of the plan.

Rest assured, these are progressing in parallel and are already underway. Not quite as newsworthy as the command and control elements, they are easier to achieve and rely on standard IT technology as used in many other industries.

Technology itself is a challenge, as the rapid advancement of digital systems can mean that applications even five years old may begin to look out of date.

The solution to this is much greater industry involvement with a whole life contractual formula in place that will enable hardware and software updates to happen as technology obsolescence necessitates replacement.

The recent government announcement of an additional £450 million of funding is indicative as to how seriously it takes the digital railway programme and the need to obtain the benefits in the quickest possible timescale.

David’s parting words were: “Britain was at the forefront of railway development, it had the first metro in the world, it introduced the first automatic train operation, it needs to be the showcase for the digital railway revolution.”

Amen to all of that.

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62

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Discovery Swiss towing

T

he rail industry has an access problem. While a few lines run alongside roads for part of their length, most are located away from public access, across fields and down cuttings or up on embankments.

1989 - the first Discovery train pull.

So when work is needed, often the only way to get all the equipment and heavy plant to site is along the railway lines themselves. For this purpose, a wide range of conventional equipment has been modified with the addition of flanged rail wheels front and back. Some of these are purely for guidance - the vehicle is still supported, powered and braked through the normal rubber-tyred road wheels which run along the top of the rails, the flanged wheels just stop it from falling off.

The conversion of other vehicles is more complex. The rubber tyres, or even tracks, are jacked clear of the rail and the whole vehicle is now driven by the rail wheels, with hydrostatic drives and separate braking systems.

Many types of vehicle have been converted; excavators, bulldozers, people-carriers, trailers, lorries even road rollers. All adapted, not necessarily to work on-track, but to at least get to the work site.

“Hello?”

So those companies that convert equipment for use on the railway are used to being asked to work on something new. However, a recent phone call taken by James Platt, managing director of Aquarius Rail Technologies, the well-known specialist rail converter of Land Rover Defenders, took him by surprise.

Could he convert a mystery SUV for rail, to tow in excess of 100 tonnes on track. Unsurprisingly,

he wondered whether the call was a prank. However, he agreed that it could be done and, once the confidentiality agreements were signed, it was revealed that the call was from Jaguar Land Rover and the SUV in question was a Land Rover Discovery Sport. It was to be used in a promotional film for the new model.

This request wasn’t as odd as it sounded. “In fact I was involved in the launch of the original Discovery in 1989, when it towed a series of train carriages,” James commented later. This was obviously going to be something similar.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

63

Aquarius has been converting highway-based vehicles for the last 17 years including Land Rovers, Ford Rangers, Mitsubishi Canters and Kawasaki Mules for the rail industry, so if anyone was going to have the knowledge it would be James and his team.

Is it possible?

One obvious snag was that the published towing capacity of the Discovery Sport is 2.5 tonnes, not 100.

Could the sub 3.5-tonne compact SUV tow over 100 tonnes?

To see if the stunt was even possible, Aquarius conducted a test using the next best thing: an R2R4x4 Land Rover Defender. One damp spring morning an Aquarius R2R4x4 was driven to the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway at Wirksworth in Derbyshire.

Under a cover story, the Defender was hitched to two 20-tonne brake vans and one 40-tonne carriage and driven up a 1:220 slope. That initial testing was a success, proving that the Defender model would be likely to meet the requirements.

The next stage was to carry out static pull tests at Aquarius headquarters with an R2R4x4 providing a benchmark against which to test the Discovery Sport.

Surprisingly, the Discovery Sport produced 15 per cent more pull than the Defender - incredible given the compact SUV is 800kg lighter, at a tare weight of just 1,700kg.

Installing the flanged rail wheels.

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64

Rail Engineer • January 2017

Crossing the Hemishofen bridge, 85 feet above the water.

Conversion

Off to Switzerland

Now confident in the theory that a 100-tonne train could be towed, a Discovery Sport with the latest 180PS Ingenium diesel engine was delivered to the Aquarius team, which set about fitting a modified rail guidance system to provide simple lightweight rail frames.

The conversion had to look discreet - no Rail Yellow RAL 1003 for this rail gear, which was powder coated black.

An additional battery was added to power the rail gear, which was hidden, with the two rail gear pumps, in the boot. With its superior soundproofing, this rail guidance system was the quietest Aquarius has ever made.

Apart from the sight of small rail wheels, the Discovery Sport looked like a standard vehicle and the electro-hydraulic rail guidance system was controlled from the driver's seat just like the Aquarius R2R4x4.

Once the road/rail conversion was complete it was time to test the functionality of the rail gear on a local historic track, this time at Wensleydale Railway, a short drive from Aquarius’ factory at Ripon, North Yorkshire. The test included pulling a Class 37 diesel locomotive up and down a 1:600 gradient.

Communication between RRV and locomotive operators was paramount because the Discovery Sport was not visible from the loco’s cab.

The Discovery Sport was hidden from prying eyes throughout this period with no word to friends and family. Sworn to secrecy, the converted Discovery Sport travelled the country under canvas and was hidden from view in the workshop.

Now ready for its starring role in Jaguar Land Rover’s promotional film, arrangements were made to ship the vehicle to Switzerland. It was going to tow a trio of carriages across the River Rhine on the dramatic Hemishofen bridge in northern Switzerland, a historic steel span measuring 935 feet long and soaring 85 feet above the river. The activity was designed to demonstrate Jaguar Land Rover’s cutting-edge 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel engine and the traction technologies and towing capability of the Land Rover Discovery Sport.

The three luxury train carriages had a combined weight of 108 tonnes.

This is the equivalent to the weight of a Boeing-757 airplane, or 60 times the weight of the Land Rover.

James Platt was in Switzerland for the filming as the road/rail technical expert, and was in the passenger seat operating the rail gear throughout the stunt. Unlike on the earlier test of the first model Discovery in 1989, the Discovery Sport completed its impressive pull without the aid of lowrange gears. Instead, the compact SUV’s state-of-the-art 9-speed automatic gearbox and Land Rover’s Terrain Response technology aided traction. At the press of a button, the All Terrain Progress Control (ATPC)

system was even able to maintain a set speed, effectively working like a low speed cruise control from a standing start.

“What an experience!” exclaimed James afterwards. “This has been a great project for Aquarius; it has really allowed our team to shine. There has been problem solving throughout, from how to make the rail guidance system light enough and minimising disruption to the Discovery Sport chassis, to how to hide the cables for the electro-hydraulic system.

“The train pull really did demonstrate how remarkable the Discovery Sport’s semi-autonomous off-road driving system is.”

Karl Richards, lead engineer for stability control systems at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “Towing is in Land Rover’s DNA, and Discovery Sport is no exception. Over the years, we have introduced game-changing towing technologies to take the stress out of towing for our customers. I’ve spent most of my career travelling to the most punishing parts of the world to test Land Rovers in gruelling conditions, yet this is the most extreme towing test I’ve ever done.”

Following the successful filming, the Discovery went back to Jaguar Land Rover and James is now wondering what the next phone call will bring.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Bromsgrove

PAUL DARLINGTON

Corridor resignalling

I

n November 2015 (issue 133), Rail Engineer reported on the extensive West Midlands resignalling plan with all new signalling being controlled from the WMSC (West Midlands Signalling Centre) at Saltley. This was originally built, close to the existing power signal box (PSB), for the aborted Railtrack West Coast Passenger Upgrade 2 (PUG2) signalling for 140mph running.

However, Network Rail has quietly been getting on with replacing the 1960s PSBs with control transferring to the WMSC. Saltley PSB (1969-2016) has now followed Coventry (19622007), Bescot (1965-2013), Wolverhampton (1965-2015) and Walsall (1965-2013) into retirement, leaving only Birmingham New Street (1966) still operational.

Rail Engineer recently met up with Network Rail to learn more above the latest West Midlands resignalling project of Bromsgrove corridor resignalling, which was successfully commissioned on 7 November 2016. The Bromsgrove Corridor programme consists of three elements: 1) A third party funded new Bromsgrove station (opened in July); 2) Signalling renewal - with capacity enhancements between Five Ways and Ashchurch, along with some track remodelling; 3) Electrification between Barnt Green and Bromsgrove, with the overhead electrification equipment due to be energised in September 2017.

onto the new Kings Norton workstation in the WMSC to create a new turn back facility. The benefit is that, in the event of any major problem with the Birmingham New Street PSB, trains can be controlled and turned back at Five Ways.

To the south, the boundary of Saltley PSB was at Barnt Green at the top of the famous Lickey Incline, but this has now been moved further south to Ashchurch, with control of the former Gloucester PSB interlockings areas of Blackwell, Bromsgrove, Stoke Works, Spetchley, Abbotswood and Eckington transferring into the WMSC. This area is controlled from a new Bromsgrove workstation.

This is to better regulate and manage train services approaching the complex Birmingham rail network and is part of the overall Network Rail control strategy. It has created some interesting cross-route asset management and maintenance responsibility boundaries, but organisational boundaries change quicker than asset configuration changes and it is the right thing to do.

Control area changes

Siemens is the framework resignalling contractor for the route, with the early GRIP stage signalling design work undertaken in-house by Network Rail’s Signal Design Group (SDG).

The northern fringe boundary to Birmingham New Street PSB has been moved slightly north of Five Ways (Birmingham), with control transferred

First train - Lickey Banker at Bromsgrove.

Workstations and interlockings

The two workstations use the Siemens Rail Automation Westcad and Trackguard Westlock interlocking system. Dorman LED signals have been used throughout the scheme with train detection using axle counters. At one point in the design, it appeared that track circuits may have to be retained for the AHBs (automatic half-barrier level crossings) but, in the end, a way was found of using axle counters.

The asset condition of the AHBs at Dunhampstead, Wadborough and Pirton was assessed and it was decided they did not require renewal. However, this created some interesting design challenges as the original intention had been to use central evaluation of the axle counters.

However, with remote triggering by axle counter sections, it was found that critical timings would be problematical because of the timing cycles and processing time required as a result of the propagation delay in passing the data to WMSC and back out to the AHBs. An alternative design has been devised, which provides for the grouping of evaluators in relocatable equipment buildings (REBs) located at the AHBs. The attendant-operated manual crossing at Oddingley was replaced with a full barrier obstacle detection monitored and controlled crossing, known as MBC-OD. This automatic full barrier crossing is the first installation on the LNW South route. MBC-ODs have now been used a number of times in other parts of the network and are proven and reliable.

Rail Engineer • January 2017 A number of bridges have been lifted or removed to enable the electrification and this has assisted signal sighting. Duct routes have been provided ready for the distribution cabling.

Between Bromsgrove and Barnt Green stations is the steepest sustained adhesionworked main-line railway incline in Great Britain.

The Lickey Incline climbs towards Birmingham at a gradient of 1 in 37.7 (or 2.65%) for a continuous distance of two miles (3.2 km). A banking engine, in the form of a locomotive to assist trains that require additional power or traction to climb a gradient, was often used in steam days on various parts of the network.

That is still the case for certain freight trains at Lickey. However, the old system of plungers and indicators to control the assisting locomotives has been replaced by the use of voice communications over the GSM-R network.

This is another benefit of the investment made by the rail industry in GSM-R, as replacing the previous system would have required yet another expensive bespoke system to design and maintain.

Telecommunications The telecoms requirements for the resignalling were designed, installed and commissioned by Linbrooke Services. The voice services are based on a centralised Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) with IP connectivity, connected via FTNx infrastructure to trackside Cisco IE2000 Ethernet switches using a Cisco ASR903 aggregate layer. The IE2000 switches provide both power and Ethernet connectivity for Gai-Tronics VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) trackside telephones.

The CUCM acts as a voice concentrator with its functionality distributed across distributed nodes at WMSC and Rugby ROC. The LAN connectivity for both nodes is facilitated by Cisco ME3400 layer 3 switches, again gaining access onto the FTNx infrastructure through a Cisco ASR903 aggregate layer.

WMSC Cisco telephone system.

67

Looking north as a train of tilting wagons delivers the S&C. Connectivity to existing legacy analogue voice services, concentrators, Public Emergency Telephone Systems (PETS) for AHBs, and analogue extensions are provided through Cisco VG350 voice gateways. The interface to the operators is provided by an IP trade touchscreen system with fall back Cisco IP telephones. The management server for the touchscreens is located on the LAN at both Saltley and Rugby for redundancy and security reasons, and is colocated with a RedBox voice recorder.

The telephony scope consisted of over 200 telephone circuits transferred from Gloucester and Saltley PSB to WMSC, and including the provision of new 66 VoIP telephones, three PETS systems and associated TADU (Text Alarm Display Unit), seven user-worked crossings and 30 telephones for new power supply points.

The signalling data circuits included the new circuits for the Oddingley MCB - OD crossing, 40 SSI circuits and 250 new IP-based axle counter network connections.

Bromsgrove Station The station originally opened as part of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (later part of the Midland Railway) in 1840. In June 1969, the station was rebuilt with a single short platform on the Up (northbound) side. This required stopping Down (southbound) trains to cross to the Up line and back again after calling at Bromsgrove station. The first milestone in the rebirth of rail in the area was a new platform on the Down side that was opened in May 1990.

Move forward 20 years, and the ever-expanding railway required a bigger new station and a better commuter service on top of what was already a busy intercity and freight route.

The station was planned by Network Rail with four platforms to accommodate nine car trains.

The existing site was constrained with little space for new platforms, car parking and turn outs, so it was decided to move the station to a new brownfield site just to the south of the current station.

Contamination of the land was a known factor, it having been an oil refinery site, and was included in all consultation reports and planning stages. However, once construction commenced, the contamination was found to be more extensive and thicker than even the trial survey holes had predicted. It is believed that, in the 1980s, vandals had opened one of the tank’s valves and flooded the area in oil which soaked into the sandstone rock.

There was also asbestos on the site of an old loco shed and the planning consent was conditional on a full decontamination of the station area and car park. No wonder rail projects are expensive and face delays! The contamination on site, and a previously undiscovered culvert, resulted in the opening date of the station being pushed back a number of times.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

New platform duct work at Barnt Green.

Counterintuitively, the new station has its through lines around the back of the platforms; however this is to provide a confliction-free inside turnback arrangement. The platforms in the middle of the station will be electrified for commuter services.

The new station was finally opened in July 2016. The new station facilities and better integration with local bus services were aimed at making it more attractive for people to use the train to travel from Bromsgrove to Birmingham or Worcester, reducing congestion, carbon emissions and making it easier to access the town. It was funded by the local authorities Worcestershire County Council and the West Midlands Combined Authority (previously known as Centro) - which have the objective of making the local area more attractive for businesses and encouraging job creation in the Bromsgrove area.

The new station facilities include a new station building including a manned ticket office, passenger waiting room, ticket/travel information and toilets. A new station car park provides standard parking bays, disabled parking bays, electric vehicle charging stations, car share bays and two bus stops. An external concourse links new bus stops, the taxi rank, pedestrian footpaths, and a cycle store. The station has the capability to handle 800,000 passengers per year.

Understandably, some passenger were perplexed at the route being shut for the resignalling and track works just three months after the station opening, but the station had to be built first to allow the old station to be removed in order to make way for the new track layout and signalling.

The blockade The three elements of the new station, resignalling and electrification have depended on each other for scope and timing. The new station had to be opened first, in order to close the old one. The old station needed to be demolished as it is was in the way of the track remodelling.

Track remodelling and the resignalling had to be synchronised, so as not to disturb the old Gloucester resignalling and to avoid abortive stagework on the new signalling. Electrification will follow to match the revised track layout and to take advantage of the new electrificationimmune signalling system.

VolkerRail, the contractor for the track and civils works in the Bromsgrove station area, operated from a compound at Stoke Court, south of Bromsgrove. From here, the same company deployed road-rail equipment to good advantage last Christmas for a culvert, drainage and track installation which was installed prior to the blockade.

At 21:45 on Tuesday 25 October, an engineering train (empties) arrived at Bromsgrove and the possession was taken. A work sequence was planned that effectively divided the station area into ‘quarters’, each quarter going through a similar sequence of

A Kirow crane lowers the first elements of S&C into place.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

WMCC workstation. track and ballast removal, ballasting, S&C installation, top ballasting and tamping, welding and stressing.

The first quarter was the northwestern side and remodelling of the Up Goods and new Up Gloucester lines. Teams commenced cutting rail and track into 30ft lengths, loading them onto panel wagons. A ‘conveyor belt’ of engineering trains fed the site from the north and, upon being used or filled with excavated material, departed to the south, maintaining the flow.

By midday on the first day, some 6,000 tons of material had been conveyed out of site.

The next stage was track installation. Train 6X17 (top and tailed with Kirow crane and tilting S&C wagons) entered the site. The Kirow crane was shunted away, wagons drawn parallel to the S&C installation site and lowered to horizontal in turn, and the Kirow built its track in front of it, moving into the individual prefabricated switch and crossing panels, installing these in sequence.

The final activity was dropping of top ballast, fitting of temporary rail clamps, ballast brushing and tamping to final top and line.

This sequence was then repeated. By using the newly-installed ‘north west quarter’ track, the dig and track renewal for Stage 2 (‘north east’ quarter) was fed with trains using this adjacent line - in effect, at least one line always existed through the site to keep the ‘conveyor belt’ of a total of 50 engineering trains moving. In practice, Stage 2 start had already been preceded by excavation in Stage 3 to the south, so there was overlap between stages where works could be accommodated in parallel.

Integrated programme reporting and fourhourly conference calls tracked productivity and coordination throughout. VolkerRail maintained progress usually a few hours ahead of plan, only reverting to ‘on time’ when waiting for crucial resources or plant, then accelerated away again to a few hours ahead Saltley PSB switches off.

of programme. The work was handed over to Siemens three hours ahead of deadline on the evening of Friday 4 November.

A small amount of electrification installation was achieved at Barnt Green (HV and LV ducting through the main line platforms) but no lineside installation was possible given the number of engineering trains continuously traversing the corridor.

Siemens commenced signalling testing work at the start of the possession on the night of Tuesday 25 October. Disconnections and recovery work commenced in the Barnt Green-Abbotswood (excl) section, avoiding the Bromsgrove station area. Fringe works to Droitwich signalbox also commenced.

The signalling activity then started to ramp up, commencing with the level crossings renewal works. Activity was also concentrated in the Blackwell and Stoke Works Jn area, within the possession area but still outside the Bromsgrove VolkerRail contract area. For all but the last weekend, trains continued to operate on the Cross-City South, and through Abbotswood Jn - a diversionary timetable operated over this period. Increasingly, as track infrastructure was built at Bromsgrove, the signalling teams moved in to follow, setting up cables, points detection and proving, and installing necessary signalling infrastructure.

The signalling scheme had been mostly built in the last 18 months on Saturday nights, and most of the project geography had been in soak testing and operation in ‘shadow mode’ for many weeks previously, giving confidence about reliability levels and readiness for service. This could not be done for the new track infrastructure at Bromsgrove, so a co-ordinated power, telecoms and signalling installation programme was fitted behind VolkerRail’s track build.

Rail Engineer • January 2017 The signalling project moved into its most concentrated phase on the evening of Friday 4 November. After the passage of the last empty stock train from Redditch to Birmingham, Saltley PSB was signed out of use and powered-off at 00:43 on Saturday. A small and respectful group that included the signaller, local operations and maintenance staff, sponsor, test and commissioning engineer, and contractor’s signalling engineers marked this event. The building was then closed and the panel floor locked off. It will remain as operational accommodation until it will be demolished when HS2 comes through the location.

All of the telecoms requirement was successfully entered into service by Linbrooke on Sunday 6th November at 20:00, some five hours before the telecoms deadline and exactly in line with the Linbrooke plan.

After a twelve-day blockade of the route between Barnt Green and Abbotswood Jn, on the morning of 7 November 2016, the signalling system was successfully signed into use at 03:25 with the possession being handed back 25 minutes early, at 04:51. The first train movement (0B00 light locomotive ‘Lickey banker’) entered the new Bromsgrove resignalled area and made its way through the remodelled layout around Bromsgrove station.

71

Bromsgrove South S&C takes shape.

The track, telecommunications and signalling projects have left the Barnt Green to Bromsgrove corridor ‘electrification-ready’, with a new layout and immune from 25kV interference. The electrification project team, having already installed 90 piled bases, will continue over Saturday night possessions over the next nine months, with energisation scheduled for September 2017.

Next and final stage Reliability over the first few weeks of operation has been good with no axle counter head issues, and already leaf fall and adhesion

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issue messages on the Lickley incline have been communicated quickly in the West Midlands area, rather than via the Swindon control.

With the signalling immunisation in place, together with better control and platform capacity, the next stage is full electrification and the extension of the Birmingham Cross City line to Bromsgrove. This will provide an additional three trains per hour from Birmingham to Bromsgrove calling at Five Ways, University, Selly Oak, Bournville, Kings Norton, Northfield, Longbridge and Barnt Green.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Control &

Communications Vision & Reality CLIVE KESSELL

E

xperiencing InnoTrans in Berlin is a bit daunting for exhibitors and visitors alike. It is so vast that one has to plan what to see and map out the time available. For suppliers and manufacturers, it can be a challenge to contact the people they wish to influence with the latest products and systems.

Chinese manufacturer Huawei has been slowly establishing itself in the global rail market, so having a presence at InnoTrans was taken as granted. However, with limited space and the chance of not getting to see the intended people, the opportunity was taken to host an afternoon conference in downtown Berlin with an invited audience.

The theme was ‘Global Rail Summit’ but majoring on the vision for control and communications into the future and how such a vision will be turned into reality. An introduction from Xilin

Yuan, president of the Transportation Sector, illustrated some of the major and diverse systems that have already been implemented. These include an uninterrupted power supply contract for London Underground, an 8x10Gbit DWDM network for ADIF (the Spanish rail infrastructure company) and the provision of a Regional ERTMS system for Zambia.

Clearly, Huawei has a massive engineering capability and is matching this with an equally impressive sales and contracting organisation. It is, however, mindful that partnerships with other suppliers will be needed to fulfil its future visions.

The radio challenge GSM-R has been a great step forward in getting a unified system in Europe and elsewhere that enables trains to communicate seamlessly across borders and with different manufacturers’ equipment. However, it is old technology and urgent steps must be taken to devise a replacement, not just in technology terms but also with a migration plan.

Robert Safarti from the UIC

explained the Future Railway Mobile Comms Systems (FRMCS) study. This involves many European standards bodies, including the ERA and ETSI, and various rolling stock groupings. A User Requirement specification has been produced and is available to view on the UIC web site. The architecture and technology of any future system must take account of emerging trends in radio usage.

Whilst a single specification across Europe is a necessity, the project is also seen as developing a global standard. The allocation of spectrum to have certainty of frequency availability will be a major factor, hence the involvement of ETSI in the work.

GSM-R is 2G technology, and debate continues as to whether the new system should be 4G or 5G. The public 4G design (and its associated LTE applications) will be frozen in 2017, whereas a workable specification for 5G will not be released until 2019.

The ideal solution will be to have a system that is compatible with both specifications. Hopefully, a new railway radio standard will be finalised

Rail Engineer • January 2017 by mid 2019 with initial testing by the end of 2020 and the first real trials happening in 2022.

Putting more detail to this vision was Klaus-Dieter Masur from DB Netze, the German rail infrastructure company. It took 10 years to get GSM-R ready for implementation and to date 163km of route have been equipped. This will rise to 222km before GSM-R support reduces beyond 2030. Therefore, changing to a new technology will be a logistical challenge as well as being flexible so as to accommodate new applications.

Any new radio system must align with standards that emerge in the wider world, although railway-specific user applications may number around 50. Backward compatibility and the capability of operating at train speeds up to 500kph will be part of the requirement, leading to interworking with other radio systems such as public cellular, WLAN, satellite and broadband IP-based services.

The ‘Internet of Things’ will likely lead to a centralised communications approach based on three layers - application, service and access sub-system - in any future system detailed design. Of these, service is critical as this will define the ‘adaptation’ subsystem for the infrastructure that might mean sharing with other network operators.

The main challenges will be the availability of spectrum, migration from old to new, backwards compatibility and technical management, as well as handling, contractual and commercial aspects involving both client and manufacturer. The most critical of these will be spectrum issues, as radio frequencies are not a commodity and must be used efficiently for the benefit of all. Whether the railways get a dedicated allocation for future LTE operation is in debate, but is seen by many as unlikely. Even if it does happen, the frequency allocation for LTE 4G is not likely to be the same across all countries, meaning that the radio design must have multi-band capability.

InnoTrans was the opportunity for several companies to put forward their vision on how 4G might replace GSM-R. Huawei has already established itself in the GSM-R business but, not being constrained by past European policy, has already

introduced LTE technology in both the metro and main line rail markets and may well lead the way in developing the technology for the various applications in partnership with other companies. A separate analysis on different company’s approach to LTE 4G accompanies this article.

Other user groups In its work to develop systems for rail, Huawei is mindful that lessons may well be learned from other user groups and invited Mme Laurence Meriau from 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) to explain how 3G radio systems are being focussed on the needs of a diverse set of users.

The work started in 2015 and will continue until 2019, and in that time other technologies will also emerge. Initially, the concentration was to get mission-critical public safety applications thought through and listed, including such items as group call, push-to-talk, location dependence and others. Different working groups came up with requirements for core network design, terminal facilities, system architecture and quality of service needs.

It then became apparent that many similarities existed with the work to define rail requirements and thus efforts were made to integrate the work with the FRMCS study. The need for alignment between public and rail services was obvious and the future may well mean that a railway-specific system is no longer needed. Pilots to test this concept are underway between Beijing and Shenyang.

Better connected railway Radio is only one element of train communication requirements and efforts to create a digital railway are not unique to the UK. Xiaoke Li, a vice President within Huawei, gave some insight as to the work being carried out in China to meet their railways emerging needs. The requirements fall into three basic headings: safety, efficiency and sustainability.

Safety is almost a given, as not to pursue the safest practical railway will be potentially damaging.

Efficiency comes in many forms, but service continuity and ticketing are high on the railways shopping list.

Sustainability, whilst having obvious elements on material usage and

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Rail Engineer • January 2017 the China Academy of Railways, explained some of the subjects being researched. Included in these are: »» Integrated information for high speed railways; »» Information for rail business management; »» Impact of failures and natural disasters; »» Improved ticketing, and especially ticket checking machines; »» Use of BIM and linkage to the Internet of Things, plus formation of a China Railways BIM alliance; »» Development of an emergency management platform.

A more recent alliance is between Huawei and the Beijing National Railway Research and Design Institute of Signal and Communications (CRSCD), the aim being to create joint solutions in a number of rail engineering disciplines including

disposal, also impacts into the world of e-commerce in the widest sense.

Achieving business goals completely electronically should save time, material and cost, thus contributing to a sustainable future.

Having ideas is one thing, turning them into reality is an altogether different challenge. Huawei announced two new solutions at InnoTrans: a Traffic Control Integrated Automation System (TIAS) and an Urban Rail Data Communications System (DCS). Both these are designed to use the emerging technologies of cloud computing, ‘big data’ platforms and LTE, all based on IP networking and fibre optic bearers.

Some of these elements are obvious, others less so. The pace of change in IT is mind blowing and trying to incorporate the latest technology, whilst keeping some semblance of stability, is a problem. Modernising hardware platforms, but keeping the same software and introducing new information packages onto this same platform, is part of the idea. This should lead to significant power savings as, eventually, the number of hardware systems will reduce.

The speed of IP transmission gets ever faster; 40Gbits is now commonplace and 100Gbits is already available. These speeds will enable video/CCTV pictures to be easily achieved, but with the constraint as to whether the LTE radio link can cope with this.

The resultant work will impact on many day-to-day rail activities: depot and train maintenance management, urban rail passenger communication, potential merging of operational and signalling control centres. Some of these have already happened, with the data process time needed for every transaction on China Railway Corporation’s sale of six million tickets a day being reduced from 15 seconds to 150 milliseconds and, in the Chongqung West depot, the repair rate of trains has improved by 30 per cent.

Academia and partnerships Huawei knows that, to be successful in the development and deployment of all this new technology, it must look beyond its own company boundaries to get the required knowledge and understanding. Wang Wanqi, from

signalling, electrification, power supply, passenger service systems and CCTV. Partnerships with other companies will be vital to understand the culture and marketing strategy in other parts of the world. Thus Huawei has relationships in place with Thales, Bombardier, Alstom, Siemens, Funkwerk and SPIE. Some of these engage in joint testing programmes, others in design activity on specific elements, whilst some are there just to establish a mutual presence.

InnoTrans is the world’s rail engineering showcase. Many companies use it to launch new products or announce new alliances.

It covers everything: track and bridges, rolling stock, electrification and, of course, control and communications. It is the opportunity to influence the future and to give a strong message on technological developments.

Rail is resurgent in most countries, with a common challenge being how to get more usage out of existing infrastructure and thus ease the capacity problems. The key to this is in the control and communications sector and Huawei, along with others, is intent on demonstrating how this can be achieved, not only by an increase in the number of trains but by keeping the travellers better informed as well.

A global problem that needs a global solution.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

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Nokia.

CLIVE KESSELL

The

progression to

A Nokia LTE system was recently trialled on the Paris Metro to prove safety critical operation for CBTC automatic train operation (ATO) over a radio link. In addition, the link conveyed on-board CCTV streaming, passenger information, operational voice communications and clock synchronisation.

After trials on a test track, one train on Line 14 was equipped and ran in normal day-to-day service, but without passengers, from Oct 2015 to May 2016. The frequency band used was 2.6GHz with a 20MHz bandwidth.

Although successful, further usage and roll out will not occur until a permanent allocation of spectrum becomes available. To achieve this, restricting the CCTV streaming may become necessary.

Thales.

A

common element at InnoTrans 2016 was the number of suppliers both forecasting and demonstrating the possibility of replacing GSM-R 2G with a more modern radio technology.

Most are working on a 4G solution, sometimes referred to as LTE (Long Term Evolution), which embraces numerous features to achieve the required customer functionality within the core 4G specification.

The ideas were basically similar but with different approaches to how this might be achieved and the likely problems to be encountered. A brief summary of each manufacturer’s progress may be useful.

Huawei With 4G radio technology already in use within rail, Huawei continues to invest in different rail applications. Most systems are in the urban rail sector, with 12 metro networks using 4G radio and nine more contractually committed. These are essentially radio-based CBTC systems with full automation as part of the product. Most are in China but one is in Ethiopia.

Another 4G application is in the heavy haul sector where the Shuo Huang Railway uses radio to synchronise multi-locomotive operation of 3,000-metre long freight trains and to prove train completeness. The bandwidth allocated by the Chinese licensing authorities is 1.8GHz with a 24MHz spacing between the up and down links.

If CCTV monitoring is required, a usable bandwidth of 10Mbits is needed, but this can be contentious so trials are underway to see whether a reduced picture quality at a lower bandwidth will be acceptable.

The Chinese company, in furthering its business plans, is working with other suppliers and already joint testing work is being carried out with Alstom, Thales, Bombardier and Siemens.

One test train in Shanghai is already equipped for CBTC, PIS, CCTV and Voice Radio as Thales works to combine its own skills with those of Huawei to develop LTE applications. The aim of the trial is to determine how feasible 5MHz and 15MHz bandwidths are to carry all these services.

Several operational scenarios are emerging, and LTE is seen as not just being associated with 4G but also capable of migration to 5G and any future 6G.

Ericsson.

Bombardier.

4G LTE equipment for the public mobile business is already on sale around the world, but the Swedish corporation now wants to expand that under an ‘LTE for Rail’ banner. Adapting the public sector product has challenges in that, whilst the capacity requirements are lower, the operational resilience has to be much more robust.

The company is working with the ETSI NGZR group to translate the requirements of the UIC FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communications Systems) into a technical reality. A big question is whether to press for retention of the present GSM-R frequency allocation and adapt this for LTE operation. It is recognised that this will be insufficient bandwidth if video streaming remains part of the functional spec. Decisions are likely in 2017 and the Ericsson aim is to have the new radio technology applied firstly on a green field railway project.

It is also foreseen that 4G LTE will replace Tetra on existing Metro systems so as to make these compatible with adjacent urban main line railways and thus facilitate interworking.

It could take 5-10 years to replace GSM-R and, in this time, LTE will likely need to embrace the ‘Internet of Things’ for such things as remote condition monitoring, train preparation, catenary monitoring and others, all needing a multitude of sensors. A partnership with SNCF is already trying out some of this as a feasibility exercise.

Also working with Huawei to carry out joint testing of signalling, voice communications and video, Bombardier is undertaking an exercise to compare main line and metro requirements for LTE deployment. The aim is to ‘mix and match’ different client requirements as variable options on the same basic platform.

Frequency availability will be crucial with the complication that LTE operation will be in different parts of the spectrum in different countries.

Kapsch Although heavily involved in continuing GSM-R provision (having acquired the Nortel business some years ago), Kapsch recognises that a move to a more modern technology has to happen.

Ideas are being thought through as to how this will progress and the positioning of the company in development work and potential partnerships.

The objective is to see how existing GSM-R systems can be migrated to a different platform.

Other companies, such as Siemens and Alstom, are also working on 4G LTE systems for rail operation. All these efforts will need a form of co-ordination, and the standards bodies in Europe and elsewhere must take a leading role.

A dominant theme will be the allocation of sufficient spectrum for the full range of facilities to be encompassed; a difficult element as the railways will be competing with a host of other parties clamouring for bandwidth.

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Well that was Interesting!

E

arly December is the traditional time for the Rail Exec Club, the railway industry’s leading networking organisation for executives and professionals, to hold its Gala Dinner. Which is why representatives from 102 organisations from around the industry gathered at Derby’s iconic Roundhouse a few weeks before Christmas.

Everyone was there, directors and managers from four train manufacturers, three government departments, four institutions, several train operators, numerous infrastructure contractors, many component manufacturers and the rail regulator. All that were missing were the partridge and the pear tree, although they might have been seen near the bar at the drinks reception.

The entertainment started as soon as guests entered the building. Dancers dressed as fairies, or maybe elves, but anyway in keeping with the ‘Winter Wonderland’ theme for the evening, performed while diners gathered, met up with their parties and networked with industry colleagues. Reception hosts Ford & Stanley put on a great show that got the evening off to an excellent start.

After a glass or two of ‘orange juice’, the sellout crowd slowly filtered past the seating plan to find their tables in the semi-darkened main hall. Many were members of the Rail Exec Club, regular attendees at luncheon events in London

and the Midlands, while others were hopeful of taking home one of the Most Interesting Awards that would be presented later.

It wasn’t long before Jon Shaw, the evening’s host, welcomed everyone to the “fabulous building” that is George Stephenson’s roundhouse, first built in 1836 and the oldest surviving structure of its type in the world.

It’s a building that Jon knows well. Before he became chief engineer at Network Rail, he was vice president and head of engineering at Bombardier Transportation, a short walk away and another of the event’s sponsors.

But now the old engine shed was transformed into a truly spectacular setting for the evening. Beautifully decorated tables surrounded a central dance floor with a small stage behind. However, it was impossible to forget the heritage of the wonderful old building. Overhead cranes hung off brackets above diners’ heads and, in places, even the original rails were visible, still embedded in the floor.

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

After Jon had welcomed everyone and set the scene, dinner was brought on. A good meal in its own right, it was somewhat overshadowed by the spectacular aerial show that entertained diners. Acrobats and dancers dressed as birds and butterflies performed breath-taking manoeuvres using ropes and sashes, keeping diners spellbound. What a contrast to the slightly blue comedians more often rolled out for other industry events.

What is Most Interesting?

Seemingly all too soon, the last session of aerobatics was over, the coffee was drunk, and it was time for the awards.

The Most Interesting Awards, or MIs for short, are industry awards with a difference.

While companies normally have to enter to be considered, taking up marketing department time and limiting entries to those companies with promotional budgets, no one can enter the MI Awards. Or, to put it another way, everyone has already entered!

Rail Engineer • January 2017 For the editors of Rail Engineer, RailStaff and Global Rail News, the three Rail Media publications, draw up a long list of everything they find interesting as the year progresses. So anyone who has talked with one of them about any new product, project, service or news story has automatically entered.

The result is a list that includes the innovative, novel, clever, tricky and just plain bizarre. Everything that one of the three editors felt was, potentially, interesting.

In late September, as the annual qualifying period is October to September, the three get together to come up with a short list of six nominations in each of twelve categories. After a session of argument, abuse, pleading and horsetrading, the final list is published. Just to be featured on it is recognition that someone, or some team, or some organisation, has done something special.

This year, one category had seven nominations. Were the entries just too close to call? Or are the editors unable to count? Who knows…

The list of nominations then goes off to the independent judging panel. All are renowned and independent people who are fair in the extreme. Presidents of institutions, directors of trade associations, chairmen of panels, any one of them would be an asset to the Awards. But the MIs have twelve such people, the most high-powered judging panel in the industry. And they even volunteered!

Safety and Sustainability

Most Interesting development in support equipment - Network Rail. products that are sustainable and having policies and procedures in place to ensure that team members come home safe each and every day.”

The Award went to the Hesop reversible substation by Alstom. This new converter system, recently trialled by London Underground, can supply the train, providing voltage stability and regenerating the energy produced by braking trains and sending it back to the TFL electrical network to be used by other consumers or, potentially, sold back to the energy distributors.

London Underground calculated that the energy saved over a week could power Holborn station for more than two days and save five per cent of its energy bill.

Highly commended by the judges was a bespoke fall protection system for workers at Reading station, which had been developed by Eurosafe and Latchways.

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Introducing Ian Prosser, chief inspector of railways at the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) and one of the judges, who would present the award, Jon Shaw commented: “The Rail Industry’s common purpose is to move people and freight safely and efficiently by rail, whilst being careful with the resources used to do it. This cannot be achieved without companies designing

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78

Rail Engineer • January 2017 Rolling Stock Development

Most Interesting rolling stock development - Voith, Angel Trains, Arriva Trains Wales.

Original Design The second award was for the most interesting design, be it architectural, graphical, industrial, product, rolling stock or urban design. “These are cutting edge designs,” said Jon, “and make a real difference to the way in which the industry works and perceived by the general public.”

Richard East, Railway Division chairman of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, was to present this award, and it went to the New Rail Connection to Arcow Quarry by Tarmac, Network Rail, Story Contracting, Babcock Rail, GB Rail Freight and SPX Rail Systems. This £6 million scheme to reconnect Tarmac’s Yorkshire Dales quarry with the rail network for the first time in 50 years will take 16,000 lorries a year off the roads in the National Park.

The judges also chose to highly commend Balfour Beatty Rail Engineering Technology Solutions for ‘Using RED (Railway Electrification Designer) to develop OLE designs’.

Support Equipment What qualifies as support equipment?

“Everything from systems, widgets and cabling through to plant and road-rail vehicles,” Jon Shaw explained. “No project in the UK can be delivered without the use of support equipment and, as projects become larger and more complex, the use of innovative support equipment is imperative for the jobs to be finished on time and within budget.”

On this occasion, David Clarke, technical director of the Railway Industry Association (RIA), was to present the award he had helped judge. It went to Network Rail for using system design exchange format (SDEF) to survey trackside assets. This allows a high-definition video to be taken from a train and then positional information overlaid, pixel-by-pixel and frame-by-frame, describing positional railway infrastructure in great detail and facilitating the surveying of assets without going trackside.

Choosing the winner had been a difficult choice. Robokatta, designed by Cembre to cut rails using a Bluetooth connection and so keeping the operator out of harm’s way, was highly commended.

Training and Development Neil Andrew, director and general manager of engineering and technology solutions at Balfour Beatty, another of the evening’s four sponsors, joined Jon on the stage for the award for the Most Interesting training and development programme.

The winner was the Military2Rail initiative.

This introduces service people into a much needed area where there is a skills shortage and has enabled candidates to transfer their skills from the services to the rail industry. Siemens has worked with Help for Heroes and Wiltshire College while ISS Labour has separately been taking on ex-servicemen and women for new roles in a new industry.

A similar initiative by NTRS and Linbrooke Services, training miners for railway work, was highly commended.

Keeping the variety going, Jon switched from training to trains as he introduced the award for the Most Interesting rolling stock development and asked Graham Coombs from the Railway Industry Association to award the trophy.

The judges chose the project to fit improved transmissions to Class 158 trains, undertaken

by Voith, Angel Trains and Arriva Trains Wales, to receive this award.

Now that fuel economy and CO2 emissions are so important to operators of DMUs, attention is turning to the hydraulic drives often fitted to these trains as they generally suffer higher losses than mechanical transmissions. Working closely with the fleet’s owner, Angel Trains, Voith has fitted two new transmissions to an Arriva Trains Wales in-service unit, which has now racked-up over 50,000 miles since June 2015.

The result has been a reduction of maximum fuel consumption by up to 16 per cent.

The judges also highly commended steps taken by Bombardier, Angel Trains and Abellio Greater Anglia to reduce the cost of fleet upgrades by using current production technology.

Infrastructure Development “This award is for a small-scale railway infrastructure project or development in the UK,” commented Jon Shaw on announcing the sixth award of the evening. “In the news, we hear constantly about the huge projects that are under construction, but the smaller scale projects can also have a huge impact on the industry. Many of these projects save time, money and ensure our network keeps running.”

Huw Edwards, Network Rail’s project director, IP signalling - South, has personal experience of many of these types of project.

Coincidentally, it was a signalling project that had been chosen by the judges to win this one, the introduction of zone controller technology by Siemens Rail Automation.

Most Interesting railway infrastructure development - Siemens Rail Automation.

Rail Engineer • January 2017

79

This new technology is now controlling signalling operations at London Bridge, providing an input/output module (IOM) interface between Siemens Rail Automation’s Trackguard Westlock interlocking and the trackside infrastructure. Developed and delivered entirely within the UK, the creation, testing, proving, installation and commissioning of zone controllers was a good example of partnership-working with Network Rail, with the technology meeting many of the requirements of the digital railway concept and the move to IP-based solutions.

Another technology project, the train-mounted collection of asset information by Fugro Rail Data, was highly commended in this category.

Train Operations Jon Hemsley, chairman of the Railway Technology/Professional Network (TPN) at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and incidentally another of the event’s judges, came up to present the award for the Most Interesting approach to train operations.

The winner was a project dear to the hearts of everyone in the audience - improving on-board internet access by RSSB. But it’s not just passengers who will benefit, train operator’s systems communicate using IP-protocols via the Internet. Companies such as Nomad and Icomera are working with train operators to make it happen.

The Digital Railway as a whole, or at least Network Rail’s take on it, was highly commended in this category.

Community Engagement Sometimes thought of as “keeping the neighbours happy”, but actually a lot more than that, Jon invited Chris Fenton, chairman of the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR), to present this award. In fact, it went to a safety campaign developed by Stobart Rail for use both internally and externally - Think Safety, Act Safely.

Most Interesting community engagement activity - Stobart Rail.

Stobart Rail launched the campaign during a visit to Lochardil Primary School in Inverness, where the contractor is currently working with Network Rail Scotland to deliver the Far North CP5 Plain Line Workbank contract. The visit was an opportunity to talk to the children about how dangerous the railway can be when safety rules aren’t followed, and they were supplied with their own orange PPE, provided by ARCO. The We Listen campaign by Samaritans, supported by Network Rail, was highly commended for its novel approach.

Major Infrastructure Project “Now for the big one, in terms of size of project that is,” announced Jon Shaw. “What a year it has been. New build projects such as Crossrail, together with major enhancements to the network, including the rebuilding of London Bridge station, have challenged engineers all year. Add to that

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Rail Engineer • January 2017

Most Interesting major infrastructure project - Spencer Group, Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Freyssinet. some major repair work needed due to severe weather - landslips and weakened bridges and it has been a taxing twelve months for our infrastructure engineers.

“The impact that these projects will have on the network will last a lifetime. As the population continues to grow and we see an increasing push on to public transport, we need to ensure that these projects continue and we build a network for the future.”

This was also the big one in terms of nominations - seven were read out. This aberration was hardly noticed on the evening, though it had caught out the designer of the awards’ booklet on everyone’s table as he had to shoehorn details of seven projects into the space designed for six!

Carl Garrud, managing director of one of the evening’s sponsors, Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group (UK), joined Jon to present the award which, unsurprising for a major project, went to a collaborative team. The new station at Rochester was delivered by Spencer Group working with Atkins, Freyssinet and Balfour Beatty. Several hundred yards from the original station, the new construction included a subway which had been ‘pushed’ under the live railway.

Work undertaken by Construction Marine, AECOM and Geotechnical Engineering to repair the railway following a major landslip at Farley Haugh, Corbridge, was highly commended.

New Product The Most Interesting new product, defined as “anything from a widget that saves millions of pounds each year to a new train that drives heightened efficiency,” was the next award, to be presented by the national chair of the Young Rail Professionals, Sabrina Ihaddaden.

You may not think that steel rails suffer from corrosion, but they do. In particularly aggressive environments, such as level crossings, in wet tunnels and alongside sea walls, they can last only a few months. So the development of the Zinoco® corrosion-resistant rail by British Steel was a worthy winner of this category.

Hitachi Rail Europe’s new train for ScotRail, the Class 385 that has just started testing, was highly commended.

Innovation Differing from the New Product above, the Most Interesting Innovation award is, to quote Jon Shaw, “for an idea or best use of an idea, device, method or process that the editors have seen in the UK Rail Industry in 2016. Innovation is all about thinking outside of the box. Designing something new, innovative and above all useful!”

Retiring Rail Engineer editor, Grahame Taylor, who stands down after this issue and a run of eight years in the job, was the presenter for this one. He announced that the winner was a tram that had run for 41.6km without any wires.

Developed by Bombardier and tested on the Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr network in Mannheim, Germany, the tram used Primove technology, along with a Mitrac propulsion system, to move one stage closer to solving the problems of building tram networks where it is difficult, or unsightly, to use conventional overhead catenary.

The judges highly commended an infrastructure development, the use of reinforced soil in bridge replacements, developed

by BAM Nuttall, Tony Gee and partners and Maccaferri.

The Most Interesting Thing Suddenly, it was time for the last award.

Intended to give a ‘home’ to anything that didn’t fall easily into one of the other eleven categories, nominations for the Most Interesting Thing

That We Saw included two heritage railways, Underground trains running in the Midlands and using helicopters to deliver telecommunications equipment to mountain tops.

David Shirres, who will take over as editor of Rail Engineer from next month, was called upon to present this final award, which went to a tea trolley!

The British worker doesn’t get very far without a cup of tea. So a tea trolley for track workers stranded far from an access point is essential.

No longer do workers have to trudge to an access point miles away to fetch their flasks from the car. Instead, freshly brewed hot tea is available on site. The brainchild of the Track Safety Alliance and Amey, and built by catering trailer specialist AJC, the tea trolley will no doubt shortly be appearing at a work site near you.

In complete contrast, the project to revive the Glasgow Subway, in which SPT, Graham Construction, Sir Robert McAlpine, Clancy Docwra, Austin Smith Lord, AHR, Freyssinet, Malcolm Hughes Land Surveyors and Stadler are all involved, was highly commended.

The only thing left…

After such a wide-ranging set of awards, host Jon Shaw still had a couple of tasks to perform.

He congratulated all the winners and those highly commended. “Your continued drive and determination is really what makes this industry,” he enthused.

All four of the evening’s sponsors were thanked personally - Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, Ford & Stanley and Rhomberg Sersa.

So too were the twelve judges, for their time and encouragement and impartiality.

Rail Exec Club members were reminded that the next event will be a luncheon on Friday 10 March at Ironmongers’ Hall in London (details on the website).

Everyone was informed that Rail Media will be running the next RailSport Games, using the world-class facilities at Loughborough University, on 8-9 July 2017. So all footballers, chess players and badminton stars were encouraged to put company teams together.

And that was it. The end of the Most Interesting Awards for 2016 and the end of a Most Interesting year.

How interesting will 2017 be?

Most Interesting new product - British Steel*.

@railexec

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