Rail Engineer - Issue 128 - June 2015

Engineer

by rail engineers for rail engineers

JUNE 2015 - ISSUE 128

Crossrail’s South East Section

RESIGNALLING IN EAST SUSSEX

WOMEN IN ENGINEERING

WHIFFLET ELECTRIFICATION

Interesting challenges with the many level crossings that needed upgrading.

Clive Kessell speaks with Mark Carne and Jennifer Gilleece, Network Rail.

The Rutherglen to Coatbridge Electrification project.

www.railengineer.uk

@StobartRailLtd WALSALL TO RUGELEY TRACK LOWERING Stobart Rail were contracted to provide a ‘Design and Construct’ track lowering solution for 10 structures to enable future electrification.

The electrified railway line will provide a cleaner, greener and more regular service for passengers using the Chase Line.

Proposed as part of the Department for Transport’s ‘High Level Output Statement’ published in 2012, 25kV AC overhead line electrification is now being installed between Walsall and Rugeley Trent Valley in the West Midlands. The project will deliver the output requirements to run passenger and freight hauled units powered by electric traction supplies on the lines.

Project overview Network Rail selected Stobart Rail as the contractor to deliver the track lowering between Walsall and Rugeley.

Adopting a partnership approach from contract award, the Network Rail team supported the experienced Stobart Rail team.

The project delivery strategy was developed utilising in-house expertise, including resources and innovative plant such as the Ballast Undercutter, ensuring value engineering delivery throughout each section of the project. The Ballast Undercutter was deployed at Hednesford and provided a solution whereby the track was lowered without removing any components, thereby reducing risk and increasing productivity.

Collaboration with all delivery partners, and third parties that worked on the project, was efficiently co-ordinated to minimise disruption and negate possession over-run risks.

This was undertaken with a ‘plan-do’ attitude, ensuring that deliverability reviews gave the required confidence to the Network Rail team.

This project was successfully completed, with its objectives delivered safely and on time, within budget and exceeding the expectations of the Network Rail team who were overseeing the activities.

Our Key Project Achievements:

•

6000 metres of track successfully lowered

•

1500 metres of track drainage successfully renewed

•

The deepest track lowered was 550mm

•

Combined 650 hours of disruptive possession access

•

Zero train delay minutes, with all possession access handed back early

•

25,000 man hours worked by Stobart Rail

•

No reportable safety incidents occurred throughout the entire project

•

In excess of 40,000 tonnes of new ballast installed

•

80,000 tonnes of spoil removed for recycling.

Matthew Taylor Project Manager t. 01228 882 300 e. matt.taylor@stobartrail.com Andrew Sumner Business Development and Stakeholder Manager t. 01228 882 300 e. andrew.sumner@stobartrail.com Dave Richardson Plant Manager t. 01228 882 300 e. david.richardson@stobartrail.com Gary Newton Contracts and Estimating Manager t. 01228 882 300 e. gary.newton@stobartrail.com

Date completed: April 2015

stobartrail.com

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Contents

What we need is...

Inventor Chris Scott takes innovation to a new level.

22 Keeping busy!

32 Women in Engineering

4.4% in rail isn't nearly enough, but what's to be done?

48 Norway to go Nationwide ERTMS

52

3

Crossrail’s South East Section Preparing Abbey Wood station to be Crossrail’s south east terminus.

14

Whifflet Electrification - a RACE to the finish Rutherglen to Coatbridge electrification reviewed.

28

Linbrooke Powers Ahead The Sheffield-based company provides a multi-disciplinary service.

30

Something To Bragg About 34 From a 1915 Nobel Prize to the latest pantograph inspection techniques.

Electronics: Made For Rail Charcroft Electronics makes the case for bespoke design.

40

Flexible Fire Protection Greater fire safety on trains.

42

Assured Quality P&B Weir manufactures equipment for when safety is critical.

43

RETB - Next Generation Project Network Certification Body’s work on the Scottish radio network.

44

Innovative Off-load Switching Morris Line Engineering meets a Network Rail requirement.

46

Completing the GNGE The train now departing from Platform 1 is taking a different route!

56

Resignalling East Sussex Bringing Lewes to St Leonards into the 21st century.

60

An International Impetus To Invention The IMechE Railway Division’s Stephenson Conference.

64

Developing Reliability And Durability Chicago Pneumatic is dedicated to new product development.

68

Sheer Brilliance Peli’s new LED light is powerful and lightweight.

70

Dangerous Occurrence: Signal Passed At Danger The risk of SPADs and how to minimise them.

72

Take A Photo - Win A Phone!

Your chance to win a KAZAM Tornado 350.

76

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

Bridges & Tunnels Level Crossings

in the August issue of Rail Engineer.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

Jam every day

Editor Grahame Taylor

5

GRAHAME TAYLOR

grahame.taylor@railengineer.uk

Production Editor Just when you thought that Railtex was behind you, we continue to give the event coverage. In our news section, we’ve indulged in a relatively brief summary of some of the larger items on show looking at the opportunities of HS2 and the futuristic features that could be incorporated in the new build of rolling stock. In next month’s issue, we’ll be revisiting how the exhibitors got on - in particular looking at the newcomers to the industry of which there were a great number. Something like 20% had never exhibited before. They were the ones who didn’t use railway imagery on their stands - pictures of power stations and oilrigs perhaps, but no trains! So stand by for a new perspective on the industry. Fresh ideas, practical ideas, pragmatic approaches hurray!

Nigel Wordsworth nigel.wordsworth@railengineer.uk

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

Engineering writers chris.parker@railengineer.uk clive.kessell@railengineer.uk collin.carr@railengineer.uk david.bickell@railengineer.uk david.shirres@railengineer.uk graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.uk mungo.stacy@railengineer.uk paul.darlington@railengineer.uk peter.stanton@railengineer.uk stuart.marsh@railengineer.uk

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asif@rail-media.com

Chris Davies

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Devan Karsan devan@rail-media.com Paul Curtis

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David Shirres did his best to listen to most of the 72 research papers presented at the recent Stephenson Conference at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

That’s quite a feat and some of the more fascinating appear in his article. Look out for a novel S&C mechanism now in prototype stage with a 384mm gauge (that’s 15”) laboratory demonstrator under construction.

One project that particularly took his fancy was the application of the one hundred year old Bragg’s law to pantograph monitoring. Be prepared for some complex science. And a paper jointly authored by contributors from Australia, Sweden and Russia considered how to achieve greater wheel/rail adhesion through the use of secondary air springs.

What is that nasty black stuff associated with leaf fall?

It’s pectin - as in jam making. Who’d have thought it?

And who’d have thought that Abbey Wood would one day become one of the final destinations for a major cross-London railway? There was almost nothing there before the railway arrived. Opened in 1849, it was built on a mixture of peat and general splodge. That’s causing a few problems now, with the station just about doubling in size. Nigel Wordsworth’s been told the solution.

This month we’re looking at ERTMS being introduced in Norway, a long thin country with a relatively small rail network. Of the 4,000 route kilometres much of it is single track. Clive Kessell tells us about the transition from relay-based to computer-derived signalling in challenging topography and occasional harsh weather conditions.

Resignalling involves new signalling of course, but sometimes tricky issues turn up which seem to have nothing to do with wires and electronics. Take, for example, the problem encountered by the East Sussex Resignalling team. They’ve had to contend with cows and a private road - not to mention the need for packets of baby wipes. Clive is on the case.

We have a fascinating and detailed view of the electronics that are shoehorned into the rail environment from Chris Leek, Jeff Gurr and Roger Tall of Charcroft Electronics. The challenges are many and varied, ranging from spikes and transients, contaminants, a multitude of voltage demands, and mechanical stresses.

The GNGE Alliance East Coast Mainline Capacity Relief Project - that’s used up eight words of my editorial - has delivered a realistic freight diversionary route so taking the pressure off the line between Peterborough and Doncaster. Effectively becoming the ‘slow lines’ on its route through Lincoln, the scheme also involved the decommissioning of sixteen signalboxes. Peter Stanton travelled on a VIP special to see what was involved.

A signal passed at danger can vary from sliding harmlessly just a few yards past a red aspect, to ploughing into a loaded passenger train at speed. A recent event - under investigation - has prompted David Bickell to review what the industry is doing to make the railway safer. The introduction of AWS took fifty years to complete. Current developments, although slow, will show greater urgency.

Graeme Bickerdike is in awe of what has been achieved by Chris Scott, an engineer with a flare for bold and practical inventions. His recent device - a specialist vacuum cleaner used upside down to clean soot off tunnel soffits - is proving its worth, but it’s just one of a long line of extraordinary machines that Chris has built for the industry.

It’s all a far cry from the esoteric world of software and miniaturisation. But it seems that macroengineering too has become almost as esoteric. It’s comforting that there’s someone out there that can still grab a problem by the throat and do something about it.

Even before I was aware of Clive’s interview with Mark Carne and Jennifer Gilleece on the subject of attracting more women into engineering I was very uncomfortable with the aggressively bloke-ish atmosphere of a ‘recent railway exhibition event’.

Obstacles to women entering the profession may seem small at an office scale, but multiply them in public several hundred fold and the situation becomes all too obvious.

We’re running a smart phone photo competition.

Take a few tips from Paul Bigland and you stand a chance of winning a KAZAM Tornado 350 smartphone and achieving fame and… well, just fame… maybe.

My recent phone photography efforts have been dire.

In addition to heeding Paul’s advice, perhaps I should take it out of my pocket first.

6

NEWS

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Concepts revealed at Railtex The opportunities that exist for train builders in the UK were laid bare at Railtex 2015 as both Siemens and Hitachi presented designs for new trains.

Siemens is targeting the long-distance EMU market with its Desiro Verve - a derivative of the discontinued Desiro UK. The Verve cars will be 23 metres long - three metres longer than the Thameslink Desiro City - and will be equipped with uprated bogies to allow speeds of 125 mph.

This summer, Siemens will deliver the first of 115 twelve-car Desiro City trains to Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR). The new ‘high capacity’ commuter train sets will operate between Bedford and Brighton from 2016.

The Verve features a more aerodynamic front end than the Class 700 and an interior configured for intercity travel. Other features include inside frame bogies, SIBAS train control and plug doors.

Graeme Clark, head of business development, rolling stock, said: “We’ve gone for a lot of features that have been developed specifically for the Desiro City, so it draws very heavily on the technology of the Desiro City.”

Hitachi’s British bullet A few stands down, Hitachi also had something new. Visitors were able to pick up a pair of 3D glasses and walk through the standard class carriage of a very high-speed AT400 - Hitachi’s British bullet train. It will challenge the likes of Bombardier’s Zefiro and Siemens’ Velaro, which will be pulling into St Pancras in December in Eurostar livery.

“It’s just showcasing that we do know what real high speed is about,” said Hitachi Rail Europe managing director Keith Jordan.

Keith said the design looks beyond HS2 and as such is adorned with cutting edge technology - some of which is still being developed in Hitachi laboratories around the world - such as holographic displays, seat reservation lighting and smart windows. Like the Class 395 and Class 800, the AT400 would include a substantial amount of UK content.

“All that you see will be deliverable in the future,” said Keith. “The technology exists, the delivery sometimes takes time and educating customers also takes time.

“We feel we have to be in a very good position because of the technology we’ve got. [We have] 50 years of experience in Japan, more than anybody else in the world with high-speed trains.”

Only recently, the Rail Supply Group (RSG) highlighted the enormous demand for new trains. According to its rolling stock strategy, an average of 12 electric vehicles a week will need to be delivered in CP6 to keep pace with passenger growth and the widespread electrification of the network - at a cost of more than £6 billion.

Do or die Railtex was officially opened by Network Rail chairman, and self-confessed technology geek, Richard Parry-Jones. On day two, RSG co-chairman and Alstom country president Terrence Watson took the keynote slot. Terrence said he believed it was do or die for the industry, which must make the most of the current period of sustained investment both at home and overseas.

“The UK is a beautiful big market today, and we see for the next five to seven years that’s being sustained, so we’re happy,” said Terrence. “But we’re also facing danger because there’s a cycle and that cycle’s going to arrive and it will arrive early 2020s to mid 2020s. And if we’re not investing now and if we’re not capitalising on the investment, and for example exporting, or moving technology forward and bringing those ideas to market, we’ll die.”

The third day’s keynote speaker was Tim Shoveller, managing director of the South Western Railway, who spoke about his experiences of deep alliancing on the Wessex route.

The Railtex Awards 2015 were held on the Wednesday evening, for which Rail Media was the headline sponsor. Awards included Best New Rolling Stock Product, which was won by Bombardier, and Best New Track or Infrastructure Product which went to Dura Composites. After dinner, guests were treated to comedy routines from Rod Woodward and former Catchphrase host Roy Walker.

A full review of Railtex will appear in the next issue of Rail Engineer.

NEWS

Rail Engineer • June 2015

7

London Overground makes greatest contribution The London Overground capacity improvement programme has been crowned the Greatest Contribution to London in the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) London 2015 Awards, which showcase the capital’s engineering projects.

The winning TfL and CH2M programme has increased capacity in the Overground system through the introduction of longer trains, constructing new stabling facilities at Wembley and extending the

existing New Cross Gate and Willesden maintenance depots. The scheme also involved the extension of platforms at many stations.

Six other projects also received awards, including the Herne Hill

Flood Alleviation Scheme which won the award for Community Contribution, the Bond Street Station upgrade which won the Infrastructure Award and Sky’s Believe in Better Building which won the Building Award. Judgements on engineering excellence were based on criteria such as innovation, creativity, sustainability, health and

safety and social value.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP, commented: “The London Overground Capacity Improvement Programme is a deserving winner of the 2015 Greatest Contribution to London Award. It has transformed the East London line, benefitting commuters and visitors in yet another part of the capital.”

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

Mobile grass cutting Keeping lineside grass cut short on slopes and difficult terrain can be time consuming, absorbing a lot of manpower. However, Swiss state railways SBB has solved this problem by substituting sheep-power.

The mobile grass-cutting team consists of a few humans, who erect an electrified fence to keep the sheep off the railway, and a trailer full of sheep.

Once released, the sheep can

graze on some 1,000 square metres of land each day and they work for 22 hours, only requiring two hours of sleep a night. They also promote biodiversity as they eat carefully instead of just

mowing everything down like a machine, allowing more types of meadow plants to grow.

SBB has chosen the Skudde, an old domesticated breed which was threatened with extinction in the 1970s, for it’s mobile mowing team. Skuddes love rough pastures with a wide array of fibre-rich plants, which is exactly

what they can find on railway embankments.

The Swiss railway sheep have rapidly gained a fan base. Their website has a map which shows where they are today, so fans can go and see them, and lead sheep Bruna even has her own email address - bruna@sbb.ch. Why not send her a message?

Prize-winning presentations The IMechE’s Railway Division recently held the annual final of its young engineer’s presentation competition. Those competing in this event had previously won regional heats around the country.

To find out more about our work at Blackfriars visit railsignage.com

The seven young engineers each had eight minutes to make their presentations to the judges.

Their wide-ranging topics covered: couplers and braking systems of class 57 rescue locomotives (Andrew Briddon); using driving technique data to save energy (Robert Ellis); an index to measure infrastructure reliability (Christopher Fachie); intelligent edges for underground train doors (Tara Parandeh); finite element analysis of cast manganese crossings (Hannah Perrson); critical rail temperatures (Phillip Singleton) and 3D printers for rapid prototyping (James Skitt).

Choosing the winners was a difficult task for the judges. After much deliberation they awarded the two £250 prizes to Rob Ellis and James Skitt while the winner’s £1,000 prize went to Tara Parandeh

for her presentation on a sensitive door edge that detects objects trapped in doors only when they are pulled outward. Her presentation had covered development of the required edge strip including material selection and fire testing.

Clearly much work had been put into these presentations. Although not all of the speakers could win prizes, the exercise was a useful one for everyone as acquiring such presentation skills is an important part of the development of young engineers.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

9

So you fancy yourself as a photographer?

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Sometimes that’s true – but some of the photos we get in the Rail Engineer offices are just not useable.

Project teams often record their work using the cameras on their smart phones. There’s nothing wrong with that if the user recognises the limitations of

using such a simple camera – they don’t like movement, or the dark, or sunlight in their lenses. And the file size can make a big difference as well.

In a bid to improve technique, and to promote good photography around the network, Rail Engineer is launching a photographic competition. Take a photo of your work, your project, your train or your piece of the railway and send it to us. It has to be taken on a smartphone, and you’d better

make sure your boss knows and you aren’t sending us any trade secrets.

The rules are on page 77, and professional photographer Paul Bigland gives you some tips of the trade on page 78.

Happy snapping and good luck!

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

Would Positive Train Control have helped?

Eight passengers were killed and more than 200 injured when an Amtrak train running between Washington and New York derailed recently. The accident happened on the outskirts of Philadelphia just after 21:00 local time.

The locomotive-hauled train consisted of seven carriages and was carrying 243 people when it came off the track on a long curve. The Cities Sprinter locomotive was almost new, having been delivered to Amtrak

by Siemens in 2014. Data taken from the loco’s on-board video

suggests that the train was accelerating to over 100mph as it entered the curve which has a 50mph limit and is preceded by an 80mph limit.

The locomotive windscreen was broken. While this could well have happened in the accident, there are reports of a regional train

being struck by an object shortly before the derailment. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member Robert Sumwalt commented that the damage to the windscreen showed a “circular pattern that emanates out just a bit”. The FBI is investigating.

This accident has fuelled the debate on Positive Train Control in America. This computerised system uses a combination of GPS and radio to monitor trains and, if they are going too

fast, slow them down. There is currently a legal requirement for this to be implemented on most of the nation’s railways by December 2015. But it seems unlikely that deadline will be met and there is talk of that deadline being extended to 2020.

However, as Sumwalt told CNN, “We feel that it needs to be implemented because it will prevent the very type of an accident that we’re talking about here.”

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Another new railway line has recently opened, providing a direct link between Manchester and Burnley for the first time in over 40 years.

The 300 metre long Todmorden Curve provides a vital link between the lines from Preston to Hebden Bridge and Manchester Victoria to Leeds and removes the need for rail customers to change at Preston or Hebden Bridge, reducing journey times by up to 25 minutes between Manchester Victoria and Burnley.

The original curve was closed in 1972 when the line was resignalled. It reopened again on 17 May following a £10 million investment from Burnley Borough Council, Network Rail and

Lancashire County Council.

Terry Strickland, area director for Network Rail, said: “The reopened Todmorden Curve is a significant improvement to the railway in this part of the country and will allow services to run directly between Manchester Victoria and Burnley Manchester Road for the first time in decades.”

It wasn’t just a question of dusting off the old piece of railway though. The new curve is on a slightly different alignment to the original as that was thought to be too tightly curved!

NEWS

Rail Engineer • June 2015

11

NCB achieves ISO9001 Network Certification Body (NCB) was set up Now NCB has reached another milestone. in April 2012 as a fully independent subsidiary To operate as an accredited independent company of the Network Rail Group. In October conformity assessment body, NCB is audited to 2012, the new company gained full accreditation a range of standards. In addition to the usual as both a Notified Body (NoBo) and a Designated standards requiring specific competencies, Body (DeBo) authorised to assess rail safety knowledge and rail industry expertise, NCB has and conformity to all UK and European technical chosen to be assessed by the British Standards standards and legislation.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

Jet grouting under the spotlight Transport for London (TfL) has released a video to explain the science behind jet grouting, an innovation that enables safe tunnelling through the ground in challenging conditions. Jet grouting is a process by which grout is pumped under pressure to form columns of stabilised ground, allowing engineers to safely work on complex projects such as the Victoria Station Upgrade in central London. It was described in issue 114 (April 2014) by Chris Parker and was the first large-scale use of jet grouting for tunnel construction in the UK. The advanced works team completed the final 2,157th column last September after working on the project for 34 months.

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The grouting work, designed and planned around existing utilities, was undertaken from street level using 24 discrete traffic management phases.

Implementing the scheme involved excavating three thousand cubic metres of ground by hand, protecting three Thames Water chambers and working carefully beneath the Grade II Listed Victoria Palace Theatre.

They also constructed 68 of these columns from within existing basements near the station.

Glenn Keelan, Victoria Station Upgrade Programme Manager, said: “This work was

a piece of genuine construction engineering innovation, used to great effect at Victoria. The delivery of the project required continuous improvement in the face of extreme scrutiny. This is the first time we’ve used jet grouting techniques on a London Underground estate, and the finished result is a real achievement by the Victoria Station Upgrade teams.”

Now, London Underground has released a video of the process. It is included in the iPad and iPhone editions of May’s Rail Engineer.

Have you downloaded your copy from the Newsstand yet?

NEWS

Rail Engineer • June 2015

13

At Aquarius we believe in making everyday railway maintenance tasks simpler & safer.

Our Road2Rail 4x4 vehicles help our clients be “Quick to site, Rapid to work”* *as described by Neil Moriarty, whilst at Heathrow Express by providing RRVs that are easy to use and flexible for many uses.

And now it’s gone!

Since our article on Abbey Wood was written (see page 14), the old station has been demolished. Network Rail thought it would take two weekends to bring it down, but it only took one.

Built in 1987, the station building was right in the way of the realigned North Kent lines which will be slewed over as part

of the work to make Abbey Wood a Crossrail terminus. So it had to go.

Matthew Steele, Crossrail

programme director at Network Rail said: “With the demolition of the former building, we’re one step closer to providing people in Abbey Wood with a brand new, landmark station with state of the art facilities. When the new station opens, passengers will

benefit from a spacious ticket hall, step free-access to every platform and an improved connection with local bus services.”

An interim station, in place to serve Southeastern passengers while the new station is built, opened in October 2014.

At Aquarius we believe in making everyday railway maintenance tasks simpler & safer.

At Aquarius we believe in making everyday Our Road2Rail 4x4 vehicles help our clients be “Quick to site, Rapid to work”* by providing RRVsmaintenance that are easy to use and flexible for manysimpler uses. railway tasks & safer.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

Welcome to Crossrail – Europe’s largest construction project Network Rail's Nick Willcox (left) and Balfour Beatty's Simon Swaby survey the site with Abbey Wood station behind them.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

15

Crossrail’s South East Section

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

W

hen complete, Crossrail will be a three-legged railway. The western leg will emerge from under London at the Royal Oak portal and run out as far as Reading with a connection off to Heathrow.

To the North East, the portal is at Pudding Mill Lane and the Crossrail route will then go through Stratford and out to Shenfield in Essex.

In the South East, after a couple of open sections at Custom House, the line finally emerges from under the Thames at Plumstead but then runs for only about a mile to the terminus at Abbey Wood.

Currently, Abbey Wood is a simple station on the North Kent line. It has two platforms, set each side of the twin-track railway. Trains to London run into both London Bridge/Cannon Street (six per hour) and Charing Cross (two per hour), while outbound services go to Barnehurst, Dartford, Gillingham and Hither Green.

New islands Under Crossrail, the two existing platforms will both be rebuilt as island platforms by having a track each installed on the ‘back side’ of them.

The northerly island, currently the Down platform to Kent, will be the Crossrail terminus while the current Up platform will become the one for the North Kent line.

Passengers coming in from Kent, which could be from as far away as Dover, Ramsgate and Rochester, will change at Abbey Wood onto Crossrail services.

Consideration was given to having both North Kent and Crossrail lines on each island, so that passengers would only have to cross the platform to catch their connecting trains. However, that would have forced city-bound Crossrail trains to cross the North London line to reach the tunnel portal, so delaying services. Passengers will therefore have to cross the new footbridge (with lifts and escalators) to make their connections.

There is an added complication, and that revolves around the electrification systems. The North Kent is a third-rail DC line, while Crossrail will have an overhead 25kV AC supply. Keeping the two railways apart on their own island platforms will eliminate a lot of potential problems.

16

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Country end of the North London lines slew showing the Crossrail lines on the right.

Abbey Wood station looking East.

The northernmost Crossrail track, on the new platform face, will terminate at buffer stops at the end of the station. The more southerly one, on the existing face, will continue on beyond the platform. Although primarily intended to be a ‘dead train park’ where defective trains can be left until they can be recovered, this track will eventually connect with the North Kent Down line, so giving access for engineering trains.

The approach to that junction will not be electrified at all, so removing any electrical crossover problems, as it is primarily intended for diesel or battery-powered engineering movements.

So that’s the plan. Turn a two-track station into a four track one, and run the two twin-track routes alongside each other for the mile or so to the Plumstead portal. Simple.

Complication Oh - and what about constructing the new Crossrail inside the tunnels?

To do that, access will be needed to the portal to bring work trains in. But they will be coming from the North, not from Kent. And, until the station is complete, the connection between the North London line and Crossrail won’t exist anyway.

To make that connection, it was decided to use the Plumstead Sidings that are just at the London-side of the new portal. One of those would be extended, actually running on top of the concrete box behind the portal, and curve round to join the new Crossrail lines between the portal and the station. Work trains could then reverse into the tunnel.

The station would, in any case, have to be built in stages to avoid disrupting existing North Kent traffic.

And the need for the work train route from Plumstead sidings dictated the order in which things would have to be done.

Crossrail overground works are being delivered by Network Rail, and it in turn brought in Balfour Beatty as principal contractor under a fixedprice design and build contract worth £132 million. A collaborative team of both Network Rail and Balfour Beatty employees was set up in offices a short walk from Abbey Wood station and two and a half years of design and planning commenced.

Soft going The team was fortunate in that, although the North Kent line is only a twin track railway, and has always been so, when it was built a generous amount of land was fenced off as railway property. At the time there was little local building and the land quality was quite poor. Although the area is now extensively developed, there was still quite a bit of space available adjacent to the tracks.

This would allow the North Kent lines to be slewed to line up with the ‘new’ southern island platform. But, until that platform was built, there would be no point. Except, it would generate the space for the construction of the tunnel access lines.

So the decision was made that the first phase would be to slew the North Kent line over by about 10 metres, but only for half of the distance between the portal and the station. The rest of the slew would be done later once the platform works had been completed.

Rail Engineer • June 2015 As was mentioned earlier, the ground conditions were poor. Aluvia, interspersed with layers of peat, made for soft, damp ground that would rapidly collapse if any weight was applied to it. Evidence showed that the existing embankment had been reworked several times in the past and, although it was now stable, any new work to the side would have the same problems.

Scheme project manager Nick Wilcox outlined the options that were considered. The first was to surcharge the area and deal with the settlement over time. Temporary fill would be placed on the area concerned, forcing it to settle and then topping up as required. The process could be accelerated by installing band drains. However, this would be very time consuming and require a lot of temporary fill.

The second option would be to excavate the uncertain ground and use lightweight fill. If the weight of that fill was half that of the ground removed, then twice the height would only put the same pressure on the substrate as before. It was a neat idea, but the excavation would require temporary works to support the existing embankment and the cost of the fill would be high.

Improving the ground using minipiles with layers of geogrid trapped between them could form a stable structure when tied into the underlying strata. However, to develop good tension across the geo-grids the embankment would really need to be higher.

So the chosen solution was to go for a series of driven pre-cast concrete piles supporting a concrete slab. In effect, the soft ground would be bridged, albeit at ground level.

17

September 2013.

May 2015.

March 2016.

Tunnel portal.

Plumstead station.

Abbey Wood station.

Slewing Work commenced in September 2013. Signalling cables were diverted and equipment cabinets moved from the south side of the tracks to the north side. Once the site was clear, the civil engineers could move in to first of all stabilise the ground and then to build a new line, around 800 metres long, alongside the existing North Kent Up line. This could be done during daylight as the new track was about 10 metres away from the live railway.

While this was going on, an existing footbridge had to be removed and replaced as it would no longer span the enlarged track layout.

October 2017.

Stages of the project North Kent lines (DC) are in blue, Crossrail (AC) in red.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

The new station showing access from the road bridge and from ground level.

Once the track was in place, it was connected into the existing Up line during a 52 hour possession one weekend.

The ‘zig-zag’ deviation at the London end would be permanent, the tighter one at the station end would be only temporary until the line could be extended into the station later in the project.

With the Up line displaced, the Down line could be slewed over by the same process, more or less onto the line of the old Up line. However, that old track was lifted and completely replaced - again being connected over a weekend.

Now that the North Kent line had been moved, the first stretch of Crossrail could be built. The old North Kent Down line was lifted and the embankment extended using the concrete slab and piles method mentioned above. Two new lengths of track, again about 800 metres long, were then installed along with a turnout for the line coming in from Plumstead Sidings. This will be installed later

by Crossrail’s C610 contractor ATC as part of the tunnel fit-out work.

This first stretch of dedicated Crossrail line was handed over, as planned, on Monday 11 May. Balfour Beatty and Network Rail will now move on to the next phase of this South East Section (SES) project while Crossrail fit-out contractors ATC (Alstom-TSO-Costain joint venture) will complete the link to Plumstead Sidings and take the tracks down into the tunnel itself.

But that’s not all…

Work on phase two of the project has already started, and a lot of that revolves around the station. Once again it is quite a complicated plan, and Balfour Beatty site agent Simon Swaby took care in his explanation.

The station building itself is exactly on the path of the realigned North Kent Lines, so that will be demolished. It is already closed and boarded off. It will be replaced by a completely new concourse which will span the tracks, with passengers accessing the platforms by stairs, escalators and lifts. Access will be from ground level and also from the adjacent road bridge. The bridge itself has room for the three through-tracks, and the piers will be reinforced with collision protection.

Meanwhile, the existing station footbridge has been replaced by a new, steel-framed structure. The bridge connecting the two platforms will be permanent, although it does not yet have its final cladding, and there is a temporary extension to an equally-temporary station building and gate line which will disappear when the main building opens in 2017.

Construction of the concrete rafts that will take the two ‘outside’ tracks is well underway, and the platforms themselves will also be constructed in phases.

Crossrail South East Section Project Major milestone delivered on time

Network Rail and Balfour Beatty have successfully delivered the first section of dedicated Crossrail track to be installed anywhere along the route. These works were handed over on time and to scope, fulfilling a promise made three years ago.

The new tracks will now be used to support the fit-out of the new Crossrail tunnels to create a fully functioning railway beneath the streets of London.

RNPASSOCIATES

Thank you to all our supply chain partners for their efforts in delivering this major milestone:

20

Rail Engineer • June 2015

(Inset) The proud project team at the hand-over of the new lines to Crossrail.

First, the new platform face on the current Up platform will be completed, along with its track and an extension from the slew. Trains to London will be rerouted into the new platform face from February 2016.

This will allow the existing Up platform face to be demolished and rebuilt, completing the island platform that will service the North Kent lines.

Next, the Up line will be rerouted from the slew, eliminating the temporary ‘kink’ and completing the North Kent platform. This will free up the other existing platform which will be demolished and rebuilt as a second island platform ready to take Crossrail. At the same time, the Crossrail lines will be extended from their current position through the station.

The end of the line - for now So that will complete the Abbey Wood terminus for Crossrail. The end of the line in the South East, although an extended route

has been safeguarded as far as Ebbsfleet.

The width of the existing railway land was convenient, although three properties had to be demolished to maintain signal sight lines and a few local gardens lost four or five metres off their lengths. Three footbridges will be demolished, including the one on the station, and a whole new station building constructed. Two platforms will have become islands and there will be a fence between the two railways, in part to stop maintainers wandering from AC to DC electrified zones.

When Crossrail opens in 2018, 12 trains per hour will run from Abbey Wood in peak periods. These will be in addition to the existing North Kent line services which will themselves be increased as passengers travel from all over North Kent and the Medway to change to Crossrail at Abbey Wood. It is estimated that the number of passengers using the station will treble over the next 15 years, reaching over 10,000 in the morning peak by 2026.

And that’s just from Crossrail’s southeastern leg.

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22

Rail Engineer • June 2015

GRAEME BICKERDIKE

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

Rail Engineer • June 2015

23

H

ow much of our railway network would exist if its Victorian pioneers had been obliged to engage with focus groups and ponderous consultation processes? Even Parliamentary scepticism did not greatly impede Brunel’s progress with his 118-mile ‘billiard table’ - the Great Western Main Line from London to Bristol - which went from promotion to approval to completion in just eight years. The first phase of HS2 - albeit 22 miles longer - will take 16. We just don’t get on with things any more. There’s a whole load of interwoven reasons for this, from our institutional fear of failure to Mr & Mrs Nimby’s loud voices and the now-ubiquitous Great Crested Newt. They all act to elongate timescales.

What we need is...

But what if there’s an obstacle threatening to derail your project - not years away, but weeks? What if there’s nothing in the toolbox that will quite do the job in the time available? You don’t want a talking shop or an options study; what you need is a way forward… today. What you need is Chris Scott and his prowess with steel and hydraulics.

Coalface teaching I find Chris on the first floor of an innocuous office building, overlooking his workshops on the former site of Barnsley Main Colliery. The desk he’s sat at is as characterful as he is, crafted from pine (the desk, not Chris) and probably salvaged from one of the many pit offices he’s occupied over the years. Scattered across it is a collection of sketches and hand-written notes. Retirement age came and went some time ago without Chris noticing. Whilst his brain remains sharp - and it does seem frighteningly so - there’s no chance of him giving up. He’s got the best job in the world, he reckons: people with problems knock on the door and he doesn’t go to sleep - almost literally - until he’s solved them, theoretically at least. How satisfying is that? Just ask Tesco about the doughnut machines he built for them.

Chris provides something of a counterpoint to a society besotted with qualifications, one which has now created a market for graduates at McDonalds. With no O-levels, he walked away from school at 15 to join the Coal Board as its second-youngest entrant. Ironically, they made him go to college for nine years - “the long route” he calls it - studying to become an accomplished mechanical engineer. To that end, he won top prize every year. He left mining after the turmoil of the 1980s, moving to a small steel fabrication firm, Foulstone Forge, which he eventually acquired. Today he’s also a co-director of ISS (Innovative Support Systems) which manufactures a number of rail-facing products. Noone could suggest he hasn’t done alright for himself.

But it would be wrong to give the impression that Chris ploughs a lonely furrow as an innovator. Whilst he is clearly self-motivated - always eager to get his head around the next conundrum - he actually sits at one point of a triumvirate: developing, testing and implementing solutions in collaboration with Colin Sims, a principal engineer within Network Rail who is challenged with resolving many of the problems thrown up by tunnels, and Keith John, AMCO Rail’s senior contracts manager, with whom Chris has a longstanding relationship. AMCO has offered great support over the years - moral, practical and financial - and continues to do so as new ventures emerge.

Chris Scott (main picture) has developed many railfacing innovations.

(Below left) A RamWall embankment on Scotland’s Kintyre peninsula.

(Below centre) A RamWall installation for London Underground.

(Below right) A section of RamArch being positioned in Whiteball Tunnel.

24

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Tunnel vision

A drilling rig used in the Severn Tunnel for installing cable hangers.

With their mining background, it’s no surprise that many of those ventures have applications underground. Back in 2004, AMCO’s work relining Strood and Higham tunnels benefited significantly from Chris’ handiwork: mobile crash decks, protective workforce shelters and a 10-tonne bogie for transporting materials that ran along the six-foot.

More recently, his manipulator and “leg-spreader” coaxed 87 girders into place during the partial rebuilding of Holme Tunnel (see issues 109 and 113 of Rail Engineer), each of them weighing about four tonnes.

That was all bespoke kit - built for a purpose, then dismantled for recycling. Probably his best known offthe-shelf product is RamArch, a support system used for shotcrete reinforcement, comprising curved panels of wire mesh that are bolted together to form an arch.

Each provides a one-metre advance. In 2011, it was installed in Devon’s Whiteball Tunnel to address a rapid deterioration of the brick lining over a distance of 388 yards (see issue 80 of Rail Engineer), about one third of the tunnel’s length.

RamArch itself is quick to assemble; the tougher test from a time perspective comes with the design requirement to secure additional resin-bonded pins in the lining as extra fixings for the shotcrete. At Whiteball, where a possession had been booked for the last Christmas period, this involved drilling more than 6,200 holes into the brickwork at the crown. However, using manual techniques, the need to apply an upwards force of 38kg when drilling each hole was immediately deemed unsustainable in practical terms.

Instead Chris built an elevating platform - christened the “four-poster bed” - and arm onto which Hilti TE76 combihammers were mounted on spears at 750mm centres. The pivot point of the arm could be pushed outwards to reach the tunnel’s centreline and the whole thing then raised to its required working height. Both the positioning and the drilling operation were hydraulically driven and controlled from a panel on the platform. The machinery typically completed an array of six 300mmdeep holes in less than a minute, the TE76s proving remarkably resilient.

Whilst the above might seem a rather mundane task to focus on, it is illustrative of the high-volume activities the railway will need to transform in delivery terms - through technology or mechanisation - if it is to meet its future network availability targets.

The next step for Whiteball will be to shotcrete the haunches; a 4-metre wide strip at the crown having been completed over Christmas. Doing that without significantly disrupting services is a headache now focusing the minds of those involved. Chris has a solution which, if adopted, could change the way minor works are undertaken in tunnels long term. More than that we can’t currently say.

As for RamArch, it now has two siblings: Aspin RamPad, a simple, lightweight foundation system for structures such as signal posts that obviates the need for wet trades, and RamWall, comprising layers of steel mesh which can be built up and filled with stone to form retaining walls of almost any size and shape.

This has recently been used to replace a section of failing revetment protecting the Cambrian coast line from sea erosion at Tonfanau. It also forms the walls of a vertically-sided embankment on Scotland’s Kintyre peninsula where access was needed over a gully to move a 130-tonne transformer. Eye-catching stuff.

PHOTOS: MULHOLLAND MEDIA

Looking for trouble

CO AM O: T O PH

For many decades, hard-working steam locomotives belched a wealth of unpleasantness from their chimneys, helping to destroy the ozone layer and create thousands of jobs in ‘green’ industries. “Every cloud…” and all that.

Although air quality has improved hugely since their demise in the Sixties, they have left a maintenance legacy: the coating of soot on many tunnel linings.

Historically, engineers have had to accept this as a fact of life, but the recent onset of electrification work has - amongst other drivers - brought into focus a need to expose the brickwork in order to obtain a clearer understanding of its condition prior to the fitment of overhead line equipment.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

25

For small-scale repointing or repairs, soot accumulations are removed - very laboriously - by the workforce using scrapers and wire brushes; air and water jetting has also been employed. However, due to the inefficiencies involved, wholesale treatment of tunnels by either method would be unrealistic, even if you could properly mitigate the health and environmental risks they both pose. So it would have been tempting just to bury this issue in the too-difficult pile and hope it was soon forgotten, but, to its credit, Network Rail is tackling it with some vigour. Already doing its business in the East Midlands is Chris’ latest creation - his patented soot scabbler.

Clean sweep In principle, the machine is not desperately complicated - it has just two main components: a vacuum unit linked by hose to a scabbling head. What’s difficult with such systems is getting the detail right as this determines their ultimate effectiveness.

Weighing 850kg, the scabbling head is held at the back by a road-rail vehicle and offered up to the intrados. Inside it are 15 wire brushes, comprising 450mm lengths of haulage rope; these are inserted through holes in a solid steel

PH OT O:

FO UR BY TH RE E

The 15 wire brushes inside the head of the soot scabbler.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

PHOTOS: FOUR BY THREE

26

(Top) The scabbling head is held by a road-rail machine and linked by hose to a vacuum unit.

(Inset) The soot is collected in visqueen bags within the vacuum unit.

shaft, arranged helically to prevent any impulse loading of the brickwork as they rotate, as well as reducing vibrations due to cyclical harmonics. When they’re worn out, changing one brush takes about five minutes.

The head runs on four, small bearing-off wheels, mounted on sliders which the operator adjusts to provide the optimum interaction between brushes and soot, but the least possible impact with the brickwork itself. Around the head is a gap of 30mm - surrounded by a polyurethane skirt - allowing air to be drawn in at a rate of 15.7m/s. With the brushes rotating at around 200rpm, this configuration prevents anything from escaping, even though the soot gets pulverised almost to dust. “We’re touching on particle

physics now”, remarks Chris with a twinkle.

The RRV travels slowly through the tunnel, cleaning a longitudinal band 760mm wide. If the head was any larger, the load created by the suction would be sufficient to dislodge any delaminated brickwork. To ensure an even loading over small changes in profile, sliders and springs allow the front of the head to ride the undulations whilst the rest of it is held steady by the roadrailer. The soot is pulled through the 300mm hose into the suction plant where it is deposited directly into 600-gauge visqueen bags inside building sacks. Although the soot is non-toxic, it’s reassuring that the workforce never comes into contact with it.

What we have here is a vacuum cleaner on an industrial scale. As you might expect, development has involved some trial and error in order to get the hardware and operating methodology right. Trials were undertaken in a disused tunnel at Alfreton as well as the Old Dalby test track. What’s emerged onto the network since then is a machine that meets everyone’s best expectations.

Out of the box In the great scheme of things, those of us who make a living by scattering words about only leave footprints in the sand. Our efforts are transient: you will have forgotten this article tomorrow, even if you’ve stuck with it to the end. But that’s not the case with everyone. In a world besotted with fluff and trivia, it’s reassuring to know there is still a place for muddy-booted folk whose big footprints are set in concrete.

Not wishing to overdo it (and I can sense my editor pulling his hair out), they keep the Brunelian spirit alive. With the railway under increasing scrutiny and pressure to reform, it needs pioneers now more than it ever has.

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28

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Whifflet Electrification a RACE to the finish

GRAHAME TAYLOR

T

he Whifflet line. A Cinderella railway dependant on DMU rolling stock despite being surrounded by electrified railways.

The advantages of electrification - a cleaner, faster, quieter and more reliable service for passengers had somehow passed by this line that runs between Rutherglen to Coatbridge. The route’s electrification had been specified in the Scottish Ministers’ High Level Output Strategy for delivery by 2018, but became an accelerated programme under an alliance between Network Rail and Scotrail. It was delivered by Carillion as a standalone project in 2014.

The RACE (Rutherglen to Coatbridge Electrification) Project involved the design and installation of 26 single track kilometres of 25kV Overhead Line Equipment (OLE) to cater for electric haulage of the existing passenger services, the opportunity to divert passenger and empty stock together with providing the freight operators with the ability to convert from diesel to electric operation.

Series 2 The project used Series 2 OLE, a new system that is designed to reduce both cost and installation time.

Traditionally, cantilevers are assembled on site from their constituent parts. However, with series 2, the cantilever is manufactured as one complete component in a factory.

This provides numerous advantages in terms of logistics, construction efficiency, quality and consistency of assembly and there is no requirement for manufacturing facilities and expertise on-site.

As this was a Series 2 OLE design, much of the equipment came from Bonomi in Italy, imported through Pace Networks. Agreement was reached with Network Rail to purchase early - as soon as the detailed design was signed off - allowing for bulk stocking and storage of the equipment. This was then taken out and installed on a just-in-time basis.

Given the high vandalism and theft risk in the area, equipment was never left out on the track side. For the same reason, the existing power and signalling cables were buried in the ground. A new buried duct route was installed, but it was very difficult to locate and identify the existing buried cables. This, along with the need to avoid existing obstructions using unplanned diversions and alterations, made the installation of the new duct a tricky civils project in its own right.

The mast foundations were predominantly conventional 610mm pile arrangements and there were occasions where the ground conditions resulted in use of mass concrete footings. Piling was the preferred option as testing is not required prior to mast erection.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

29

The RACE route can be used as a diversionary route for Virgin Pendolinos.

For compatibility purposes, there was a need to install a harmonic damper to smooth interferences in the OLE supply patterns that are principally caused by these trains. Once again, there happened to be one being made redundant in Bourn End and this too was acquired.

The 650V signalling power on this route was upgraded to Class 2. This uses twin-core copper cables rather than three-core, reducing the amount of copper in use with consequential cost benefits.

Keeping it local Recovery and reuse The RACE project involved installing one new Track Section Cabinet (TSC) at Langloan and extending the existing TSC at Eglinton Street in Glasgow.

TSCs are used to provide remote sectioning capability within the electrified network, to facilitate isolations of apparatus and to assist in managing electrically perturbed circumstances. The project identified that there were two TSCs due to be decommissioned in the Glasgow area and they were duly recovered and reused on this project.

Immunisation issues could have caused serious delays unless carefully managed. To save the time that would otherwise have been spent on intrusive and lengthy cable surveys, it was decided that the most effective solution would be to install a classic booster transformer 25kV system with an aerial earth and also a return screening conductor. This ensured that all the immunisation interfaces could be managed robustly.

The booster transformers are oil filled and the project team learned that there were a number being made redundant in Rugby. Twelve of these were obtained for use on RACE, ticking several sustainability boxes as the assets were reused and not scrapped.

Receiving an award for ‘Contractor Excellence’ at the Rail Business Awards 2015 for the Cumbernauld Electrification project. www.carillionplc.com

The majority of the management and labour that delivered RACE live permanently in the central belt of Scotland. The designers, Hyder Consulting and Siemens, supported the design from their offices in Glasgow, keeping the need for costly people-movements to a minimum. Similarly, local plant hire and material suppliers were used wherever possible.

With substantial amounts of electrification taking place all around the UK, much has been written about the skills shortage. For this project, Carillion addressed the issue by employing and training new entrants to the industry using the recently developed OLEC training qualifications.

This new portion of electrified line is controlled from the existing control room at Cathcart and so communications links were required to interface with the SCADA systems and control displays. By September 2014, the hardware was ready for commissioning - an exercise that involved signalling input and the preparation of a detailed commissioning document which addressed questions of cutting into existing electrified railways at Coatbridge and on the West Coast main line.

Commissioning was successfully completed on the 28 September 2014, the wires were energised and driver training commenced so that all was ready for the new train patterns in the December timetable.

30

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Linbrooke

powers ahead L

inbrooke Services’ rail power team is continuing to expand, develop and deliver high-quality projects, providing full turnkey low voltage (LV) and high voltage (HV) power solutions for trackside and off track applications. As a principal contractor, Linbrooke works closely with Network Rail, its supply chain and all approved equipment manufacturers in order to deliver high quality services reinforced by sound engineering practice.

Linbrooke is also a fully licenced and accredited independent connections provider (ICP), capable of delivering power from the DNO (distribution network operator) network for trackside supplies. This is a unique solution to an endemic problem which continuously affects key milestone deliverables.

Enhanced by a civil engineering capability for rail applications, Linbrooke offers the full package.

Together with its own in-house telecoms and signalling resources, Linbrooke provides a full multi-disciplinary design, delivery, test and commission solution, enhanced by carefully cultivated relationships with all UK DNOs and the industry regulator Ofgen. This benefits all relevant clients through a moreefficient and cost-effective delivery of projects and new DNO connections which are judiciously managed by Linbrooke’s Rail Power team.

The power of relationships As a company motivated by a “quality driven, can do ethos”, Linbrooke has an extensive and impressive repertoire of services. As well as performing the design, installation, test and commission of new and modified principal supply points (PSPs), auxiliary supply points (ASPs), functional supply points (FSPs), 650V signalling power distribution feeders and other LV power supplies, the company also has widespread experience in installing, jointing and terminating cables up to 33kV, securing wayleaves in third party land and making final connections to the DNO existing network.

Linbrooke’s belief in collaboration and the nurturing of relationships with all stakeholders has resulted in the boosting of their reputation as well as the success rate of managing the unpredictability of securing wayleaves.

The proof is in the project Providing signalling power, brick-built PSPs and working closely with DNOs, Linbrooke’s power teams already have a number of high-profile projects under their belts, such as FTN and GSM-R power installations, GNGE, West Midlands Signalling Centre and LNE 650V signalling renewals.

One such project involved FTN works at Burton Latimer where the FTN REB was running on a temporary generator due to the permanent DNO supply application being stuck in wayleaves. Linbrooke were asked to apply its experience as a principal contractor and independent connection provider (ICP) in order to review the designs and investigate alternative options for the supply. The rail power team performed an analysis of the DNO network

drawings and the Form B designs and as a result the DNO company was able to reinforce the existing LV network and the Network Rail DNO cubicle was relocated further along the road. Subsequently, the outstanding wayleave issues were removed and the proposed 11kV DNO works negated - thus allowing the connection to be made at a greatly reduced cost. This is just one example of over 40 DNO connections that the Linbrooke rail power team has carried out nationally for Network Rail’s FTN programme.

The multidisciplinary Great Northern Great Eastern project (as described elsewhere in this issue) saw Linbrooke’s power and telecoms teams come together to provide services for the installation of the latest generation of Siemens’ modular signalling equipment - thus facilitating the overall programme of essential renewals between Peterborough and Doncaster. The power scope included the provision of PSPs, DNO cabinets, points heating, level crossing lighting works and the commissioning of works over five individual EIS stages.

At West Midlands Signalling Centre, Linbrooke was responsible for the production of detailed designs for modifications to critical signalling supplies.

These supplies required the comprehensive staging of UPS shutdowns in order to provide safe isolations while retaining the availability of backup supplies to maintain the signalling and building domestic supplies throughout the new installation works.

Taking part in the 650V signalling power renewals scheme for the LNE region to the south west of Leeds, Linbrooke was further contacted to provide a full PSP/ASP/FSP Class II solution with partial auto reconfiguration. The new generator-based PSP installed at Bradley was designed as a new brick-built construction in preference to a containerised option. Linbrooke provided a full turnkey design and build solution comprising all telecoms, civils, building and power works - including DNO connections. This was a prime example of the capabilities of the Linbrooke rail power team being further enhanced by its civil engineering competency in relation to rail applications.

With quality and collaboration at its very core, Linbrooke continues to power on!

Renowned for delivering mission critical network infrastructure solutions, Linbrooke & ntrs develop collaborative working partnerships with all our clients - providing exceptional time and cost savings on multifunctional projects.

Telecommunications • Power • Signalling • Training • Resources Design • Installation • Test • Commission

Linbrooke Services’ Rail Power team is continuing to expand, develop and deliver highquality projects, providing full turnkey Low Voltage (LV) and High Voltage (HV) power solutions for trackside and off track applications.

Services Offered: • In house design and installation of HV equipment and switchgear from GRIP1-8

• In house design and installation of all low voltage systems to BS7671 from GRIP1-8

- 11, 25 & 33kV AC substations - 750v DC substations, TP Huts - AC/DC protection settings - SCADA modifications - HV cable installation including jointing and terminations - Compounds including civil and route work - Negative bonding enhancement utilising internal SMTH resource - Substation earthing and bonding - Substation dismantling - Supplies to depot plant, shore supplies - DNO supply modifications and connections

- Principle Supply Points and associated ancillary equipment, Functional Supply Points (FSP), Auxiliary Supply Points (ASP) - Points Heating - Level crossing lighting - Uninterruptible power supplies - PSP and signalling centre power upgrades - Full testing and assessment of system performance - Installation of power supplies to support retail telecoms projects, PAVA, SISS, DOO • Full testing and commissioning • Provision of Level A, B and C staff

For more information on our telecoms, power and signalling capabilities, please call 0844 800 0983 or email info@linbrooke.co.uk.

www.linbrooke.co.uk

32

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Keeping busy!

U

K Power Networks Services (UKPN Services) is an operating division of one of the UK’s leading electricity distribution network operators (DNOs), UK Power Networks, itself owned by the multi-national, Hong Kong-based Cheung Kong Group.

With a strong presence across a range of sectors throughout the UK, UKPN Services is responsible for looking after the power supplies to some of the country’s most high-profile locations, including London’s Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and City airports, and numerous hospitals and universities, commercial buildings and defence establishments.

In the rail sector, UKPN Services has successfully delivered a wide range of projects, from major infrastructure programmes to smaller asset replacement schemes. The company’s track record includes the High Speed 1 line, where UKPN Services undertook the initial design and development work, then funded the construction programme and now has a 50-year contract to run and maintain the assets installed. Current projects see UKPN Services at the heart of both Network Rail’s Thameslink, Great Western Electrification Programme and Kent Power Enhancements as well as London Underground’s sub surface lines modernisation scheme.

Thameslink Programme The company’s work on the Thameslink programme typifies its approach to major projects.

The route is one of a very few in the UK that requires a changeover from alternating current (AC) overhead traction supply in the north to direct current (DC) third rail traction supply in the south and therefore posed a series of technical and logistical challenges.

The core requirement of the Thameslink programme is to increase passenger flow into and out of central London by introducing more frequent and longer trains. To achieve this, UKPN Services designed and built a new DC substation close to Blackfriars station - Ludgate Cellars - the location strategically selected to ensure safe transition of trains from the AC overhead line supply to DC third rail supply.

UKPN Services was awarded a contract for the works in June 2008, the scope of which covered all elements of survey, design, supply, installation, testing and commissioning required to bring the new Ludgate Cellars substation into operational service.

To facilitate the works, UKPN Services developed

Rail Engineer • June 2015

33

and co-ordinated a fully-integrated schedule, defining construction and test strategies that accommodated critical milestones within the Thameslink programme without disrupting the operational railway. The transformer/rectifiers were switched on in July 2009 to enable testing to commence. The Ludgate Cellar facility was fully commissioned two weeks ahead of schedule in November 2009.

Ongoing Success As a result of the company’s continued success on the Thameslink project, it has worked on multiple phases of the scheme, including Key Output 1 (WP2 and WP3 - GRIP 3) and Key Output 2 (Williams Way GRIP 3-4 and HV DC Works GRIP 5-8). As the project illustrates, UKPN Services capabilities and expertise cover the spectrum of project requirements, allowing it to offer a completely integrated solution which spans from initial consultancy and design through each element of supply, engineering, construction, installation, testing, commissioning and, if required, on-going operation and maintenance.

UKPN Services involvement in this significant programme is to end this year.

Commenting on the company’s work in the rail sector, Adrian Dixon, head of projects and business development, said: “It is our ability to offer clients a fully-integrated solution that really sets us apart. Offering full turn-key solutions, we focus not only on the delivery of our own core competencies to the highest possible standards of quality and safety, but also on the appointment and management of specialist sub-contractors to deliver other critical work packages.

“We are also able to draw on the skills and experience of our fully qualified and certified rail team, as well as colleagues from within the UKPN group who work across other industry sectors.

At all times, though, we ensure that we design, develop and install schemes that are robust, safe and future-proof, ensuring that we continually provide value to our clients throughout the life of the asset.”

Early involvement UKPN Services was also involved in the early evaluation stages for the Crossrail programme and delivered the conceptual design work for High Speed 2. Its experience from the High Speed 1 programme uniquely enabled it to verify the power distribution system designs against the results achieved on the UK’s first high speed line - which the company delivered on time, on budget and which has since operated with no major delays to the power network.

Amongst a number of mainline and metro projects, UKPN Services is currently working on Network Rail’s Power Distribution System programme in Kent, which is due for completion this year.

The work involves the renewal of switchgear and the upgrading of electrical infrastructure at 39 substations and 21 traction power huts - as well as increasing general resilience of the power distribution system. More than 50 kilometres of electricity cable will be designed and installed as part of the project, which once complete will allow an increase in train lengths to 12-car formations between London Charing Cross, Cannon Street and London Bridge to various stations in Kent.

As well as currently working in the east of the country, a consortium of UKPN Services and ABB is working to electrify the Great Western main line between Maidenhead and Cardiff. The Great Western Electrification Programme, planned to be completed by December 2017, will improve the efficiency of rolling stock, reduce the journey times and importantly lower the route’s CO2 emissions.

The consortium is responsible for the turnkey delivery of the traction power system combining a mixture of 25-0-25kV feeder stations, auto transformers and all related control and protection equipment. Currently the consortium is undertaking the initial stage works to facilitate the running of test trains later in the year.

As it moves forward, the company is keen to apply the logic and lessons learned from earlier projects to schemes such as this. With basic data such as the route, size of trains and frequency required, it can design and develop concepts for evaluation, selecting the most appropriate equipment to ensure that a cost-effective solution is delivered to meet the exact needs of the client, throughout the whole life of the asset.

Adrian said: “We believe in giving the client the total picture for the power component, not just part of the picture, so that we can provide advice and guidance from the start of the project to the very end of its life. In addition to our offer of integrated solutions, whether that be with main line, metro or tram applications, we are also increasingly working as part of fully-integrated project teams, with our delivery teams now regularly co-located with their client colleagues to ensure fast and efficient working and issue resolution.

“This partnership approach is also evident in a current project that we are developing with Alstom, with whom we are evaluating a new inverter trial designed to capture and utilise regenerative energy from train braking. Through the trial, we plan to re-use the energy (that would otherwise be lost through heat) either to boost power to other trains or to feed back into the grid - effectively turning the motor into a generator.”

Current Rail Projects Network Rail »» Great Western Electrification Programme (in Consortium with ABB) »» Thameslink - Williams Way Grip 3-4 »» Thameslink - KO2 HV DC Works GRIP 5-8 »» Thameslink - N321 - UKPN Services Contractors Management Team »» Thameslink - N321 - London Bridge E&P GRIP 5-7 Works »» Thameslink - C1579 - Three Bridges Rail Operating Centre »» Thameslink - F425 Williams Way Depot Substation GRIP 5-8 »» Thameslink - WP3 GRIP 4-8 NSCD’s »» Kent PSE - 122522 Kent Power Supply Enhancement »» Kent PSE - 138424 Phases 2&3 »» Greater Anglia - 135520 - Brimsdown Supply Point »» Greater Anglia - 137886 - CP5 E&P Renewals »» Greater Anglia - 129685 - Great Eastern Power Upgrade GRIP 3 »» Greater Anglia - 141619 - E&P CP5 Renewals GRIP 3 London Underground »» Sub Surface Rail Package 2 »» Sub Surface Rail Package 3B »» Inverter Trial

34

Rail Engineer • June 2015

DAVID SHIRRES

I

n 1915, Sir William Lawrence Bragg and his father, Sir William Henry Bragg, were joint winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics: "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-ray".

The Braggs are the only father-son team ever to have won a Nobel Prize in any field. At the time, Lawrence Bragg was also the youngest ever Nobel Laureate in physics. Their work was based on Bragg's Law which was developed

by William Lawrence in 1912 and concerns the constructive interference of X-rays reflecting off various crystal planes.

As optical fibres were developed for telecommunications in the 1970s, physicists such as Ken Hill and Gerald Meltz realised that they could also be used for measurement. This could be achieved by altering the fibre to reflect light back under certain conditions, in accordance

with Bragg’s law. This led to the development of Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors which became commercially available in the 1990s.

These sensors are made by illuminating the core of an optical fibre with intense ultra-violet (UV) laser light. The short wavelength (< 300 nm) UV photons have sufficient energy to break the fibre’s highly-stable silicon/oxygen bonds.

This affects the structure of the fibre and slightly increases its refractive index. Interference between two beams of UV laser light results in a periodic variation in its intensity which is then used to create a corresponding periodic variation in the refractive index of the fibre.

All done with mirrors The modified fibre serves as a wavelengthselective mirror as, at one particular narrow range of wavelengths, constructive interference occurs and light is returned down the fibre.

The reflected wavelength is affected by any variation in the physical or mechanical properties of the fibre either due to strain or variation in temperature. The shift in Bragg wavelength (λB) is given by the equation:

∆λB λB

= (1-Pe )ε+[(1-Pe )α+ζ]ΔT

Rail Engineer • June 2015

35

Something to

BRAGG about Where Pe is the fibre’s photoelastic constant, ε is the strain in the fibre, α is the fibre thermal expansion coefficient and ζ is the fibre thermal-optic coefficient. The first term in this equation represents the longitudinal strain effect on the FBG and the second concerns the thermal effect, which is a combination of thermal expansion and thermal-optic effect. For a typical free grating with λB = 1550nm, sensitivities to strain and temperature is typically 1.2pm/µε and 10pm/°C. This shows how temperature has a significant impact for which compensation is required if FBGs are to be used for accurate strain measurement.

As sensors, FBGs have a number of advantages. They are immune from electromagnetic interference, are quite small and are virtually the same size and strength as the original fibre. As their output is the wavelength of reflected light on-site calibration is not required. A single fibre can have multiple gratings with different characteristics along it whose outputs can be read using multiplexing techniques developed by the telecommunications industry.

Quality on Reflection

Complex harsh interface A pantograph head operates in a particularly harsh environment.

It is exposed to all weathers as its carbon strip rubs along the overhead contact wire at speeds of up to 125 mph. Although pantographs are set with a static upward force of typically 90

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36

Rail Engineer â&#x20AC;˘ June 2015

Laboratory demonstration pantograph at City University.

Newtons, they have to contend with varying dynamic loads not the least of which are aerodynamic forces for which the pantograph has to be balanced in both directions. Up to 300 amps may be transmitted at 25,000 volts between pantograph and contract wire with occasional arcing, which can be severe. To see this, take a seat under the pantograph of the first train of the day on a frosty winter's morning for a spectacular light show.

The interface between contact wire and pantograph head is complex and, in truth, not fully understood as measurement of contact forces is not straightforward. When this interaction goes badly wrong the resulting dewirement will cause widespread disruption, typically causing tens of thousands of minutes delay and the cancellation of hundreds of trains.

Whilst there are systems available to measure pantograph force, these use multiple strain gauges and accelerometers which require a low-voltage power supply at the pantograph head, adding to its mass. They also require a method of transmitting data across high voltage insulation and could be subject to electromagnetic interference from traction current collection. The FBG system adds only the fibre to the pantograph head, is robust and transmits its data through the optical fibre which is an insulator. Hence it is an ideal method of measuring force and its location on the pantograph head.

FBG pantograph control The idea of using FBGs to measure pantograph forces was initiated through a 2011 Collaborative Fund grant from the Engineering and Physical

Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which led to the joint development of an active instrumented pantograph by City University London and Brecknell Willis, now part of the Wabtec group. This initiative was awarded a further ÂŁ300,000 last year when, at the Railway Industry Association's Technology and Innovation Conference, it won the best innovation award sponsored by RSSB. This award is being used to develop the FBG pantograph monitoring and control system to prove the concept in laboratory conditions.

Following work by City University London to compensate for temperature effects through the development of new temperature compensation algorithms, the system has now been developed to the stage where it can accurately detect force and its location on the pantograph carbon. This

Rail Engineer • June 2015

37

Above: Use of FBGs to measure pantograph contact force.

Turning Our Customers’ Wishes Into Reality··· The only range offering ZERO Inrush · Legacy compatibility · Compact and maintenance free was demonstrated at a recent workshop held at the University at which Lee Brun of Brecknell Willis and Professor Tong Sun of City University gave a joint presentation on this initiative.

The next stage is to develop a control mechanism that uses the sensor output to vary the air pressure in the cylinder used to raise the pantograph. When this is done, the FBG sensor system will change contact force to ensure a reliable contact with the overhead wire. With the pantograph travelling at up to 56 metres per second, it is likely to have travelled a good few metres before the body mounted air cylinder will have adjusted the force on the contact wire through the pantograph mechanism.

Hence the system is unlikely to provide instant force adjustment, but it will respond to changing environmental conditions and transient effects. It also offers the ability to finetune pantograph aerodynamic design for which there is currently no comprehensive test facility. Thus it offers the possibility of higher speeds and multiple pantograph operation as well as a reduction in dewirements.

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38

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Continuous condition monitoring Network Rail’s measurement train provides valuable data about overhead wire condition data by regularly and accurately measuring contact wire position and wire wear. However, force measurement is subject to the practical constraints of current technology. Current detection arrangements add to the mass of the pantograph and may affect its aerodynamics.

They are also susceptible to electrical interface.

Moreover the overhead line measuring coach MENTOR (Mobile Electrical Network Testing, Observation and Recording) is limited to 100 mph.

This limitation could be overcome with a new 125 mph MENTOR coach but this would require a significant investment. A better option would be fitting pantograph force sensors to a service train.

However the train operator concerned would need to be certain that this would not affect pantograph performance. The recent London City University workshop has shown that the use of FBG pantograph sensors would give this assurance and go some way to meeting the requirement of Network Rail’s Technical Strategy to “develop, test and trial new pantograph technologies to manage and optimise the contact force between the pantograph and conductor”.

Schematic of a Fibre Bragg Grating.

When the control system on the laboratory demonstration pantograph has been proven and the required data obtained from it, the next stage is trial service use. This requires the FBG sensors and control system to be fitted to a service train, or perhaps one of Network Rail’s overhead line monitoring vehicles.

The trial use of a novel pantograph control system will require safety approval subject to a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. It would be hoped that there should not be any unnecessary delays in arranging its first trial use as the system offers improved risk mitigation for the contact wire interface. Moreover it has significant potential benefits for both Network Rail and train operators. These include higher speed running, multiple pantograph operation and increased pantograph carbon life.

In the long term, the FBG sensor system offers the ability to detect contact forces from the entire service fleet if combined with GPS and suitable telemetry. This offers the potential of continuous real-time monitoring of the entire overhead line network. Then the Braggs’ work on X-ray diffraction of crystals a hundred years ago could well have made overhead line dewirements also a thing of the past.

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40

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Electronics: Made for Rail

D

esigning and maintaining electronic systems used in the rail environment is never going to be easy and yet trains are increasingly using electronic systems to enhance safety, performance and the passenger experience.

CCTV systems provide additional security for staff and passengers, touch-screen displays deliver more comprehensive information to the driver, and Wi-Fi backbones and USB charging sockets help passengers to stay connected throughout their journey.

All of these systems, and the components inside them, have a common challenge: they must offer reliable operation despite the presence of spikes and transients, contaminants such as dust and dirt, and the mechanical stresses caused by shock and vibration.

However, the majority of companies in the electronics industry are focussed on the high-volume, fast-changing world of consumer electronics and not the low volumes and long lifetimes of the rail industry. This leaves a few specialist component manufacturers and distributors who have consistently focussed their resources on providing rugged components and have the technical expertise to support legacy and next-generation electronics systems for the rail industry.

On-board power supplies All of the electronic systems installed on rolling stock must draw power from the sources that are available on the train. The difficulty is that each of these systems may need to operate on a different voltage level which typically means using an external power supply. These powersupply modules are used to convert the input down to a lower DC voltage or, in some cases, to invert the voltage to an AC mains supply.

Whilst approval to the relevant rail safety standards provides baseline assurance that a converter meets the appropriate performance levels, other features can help to increase overall system performance.

For example, the PCMD/S series of converters from MTM Power are approved to EN50155 for temperature, humidity, shock and vibration and to EN45545 for fire and toxicity. In addition, they offer a wide input range which enables them to handle brown-outs and transients.

This helps to ensure a smooth, regulated supply without the need for any additional suppression components.

Built-in safety features, such as active current-limiting, eliminate the need for ground-loading whilst protecting the system and the converter from damage caused by spikes and surges. The converters also eliminate potential hotspots by using a patented thermo-selective vacuum encapsulation process. This provides an even thermal path for heat dissipation via a metal baseplate or a finned heat-sink.

Whilst the PCMD and PCMDS would be suitable for lowto mid-power systems rated up to 600W, MTM Power’s MPG series can power systems up to 2000W and includes units rated to IP65 under-body mounting.

Discrete components for power supply designs For engineers developing a power supply from discrete components, making the right component choices is extremely important. This will help to ensure that the system will be able to withstand the rigors of the railway environment, meet lifetime expectations and avoid costly delays or resource availability issues for the operator.

A standard off-the-shelf inductor or transformer may meet the specifications for EMC filtering, main conversion transformers or output inductors in a switched-mode power supply or linear transformer, but a custom device will sometimes provide a better fit for the design. Custom inductors and transformers for AC-DC and DC-DC converter topologies can be based on standard cores or on Microspire’s innovative SESI or CCM series. These are designed specifically for environments where size, shock, vibration and temperature are critical issues.

Selecting the right capacitor is also key. The voltage, current-handling capability and temperature rating are important criteria whether the capacitor is used as a filter or for bulk-energy storage. Aluminium electrolytic capacitors, such as Sic-Safco’s FELSIC range, are designed to withstand high vibration and shock. This series includes the high-capacitance CAPAX series, with values up to 2.2 Farads, or the I-PULS family which offers high repetitive peak current of up to 7,700A at 40ºC, and 3,200A at 85ºC, not exceeding 80Arms.

In space-constrained or high-temperature applications with a voltage rating of 150V or less, a tantalum capacitor may be a better choice. One of the highest energy densities available in a wet tantalum capacitor is achieved by Firadec’s WT83 series. This provides 10,000 microFarads in a standard D case measuring 34mm in length with a 10.1mm diameter. For high-temperature applications the CT79-HT200 series, also from Firadec, is rated for up to 200ºC.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Circuit protection & HVAC

Passives for signal conditioning To protect against overvoltage spikes, it is sometimes necessary to dump excess power into a resistive load.

Many of these circuits will typically use a power resistor such as the axial, through-hole W series from TT Electronics, Welwyn. Although these vitreous-enamelled glass wire-wound resistors are not new products, they have earned the reputation as a ‘fit and forget’ component. Rated at up to 14W and 750V limiting element voltage they combine high reliability with the capability to dissipate surges in rolling stock or trackside signalling equipment.

For dissipating energy from short-term over-voltage conditions, the 1600 and 1900 series provide a larger tubular package with terminal options such as pigtails or screw tabs for secure connection. Rated at up to 208W, with a 3kV limiting element voltage, the hollow design allows these resistors to be mounted vertically to dissipate energy through convection cooling. This feature can also be used to provide an active source of heat within trackside equipment, to remove condensation and prevent icing.

Pulse transformer or opto-isolator In high-current traction applications pulse transformers can be used to provide isolation in the power semiconductor control circuit. Replacing the conventional choice of a GTO thyristor with a modern IGBT power switch can provide switching times which are up to four times faster. Of course, the control-circuit then needs to be upgraded to support the different circuit drive characteristics. Pulse transformers can be ordered as standard off-the-shelf devices or manufactured to meet a custom specification based on standard cores or Microspire’s own SESI or CCM technology.

As an alternative to pulse transformers, opto-isolators can be used to control the switching of the power device.

Whilst the pulse transformer may offer a lower unit cost, the overall circuit design and performance of a pulse transformer does not match that of an opto-isolator.

Problems with waveform fidelity are avoided by using a high-speed opto-isolator, which typically also eliminates the need for additional compensation circuitry. This provides a lower Bill of Materials (BoM) and therefore can provide a lower total solution cost.

An opto-isolator such as the new OPI1268S from TT Electronics Optek combines 20kV isolation and 30kV/ micro-second dv/dt immunity with a fast 2Mbit/second transfer rate. In addition to being sealed to IP65 to protect against contamination by dirt or water, the OPI1268S is also approved for use in explosive environments.

For higher-voltage isolation there is a choice of devices and packaging options which includes the OPI155 with 50kV isolation and a signal rate of over 5MBd.

Circuit breakers and thermostats are used throughout rail electronics to provide vital protection for components and systems. Approval to EN45545 will ensure the safety of the materials in which the components are manufactured but, again, additional features can significantly improve overall system performance.

With the amount of electronic systems being added to rolling stock, size is a key factor in the selection of a circuit breaker. Other factors which will influence the decision will include the number of circuits to be protected, current ratings, type of load, trip response time, and the need for auxiliary contacts or shunt trips. A choice of mounting options can provide the flexibility to save a few additional millimetres which can be useful in rolling stock applications. Sensata’s Airpax range of circuit breakers features rail-approved breakers for front-panel mounting, with the IAL, IAG and JAE series, and for DIN-rail mounting with the IELR series.

Space is also a factor for the thermostats and pressure sensors used in the Heating, Ventilation and AirConditioning (HVAC) systems used in rolling stock. The capability to handle large currents up to 48A enables Sensata’s Klixon 3/4 inch bi-metal disc thermostats to eliminate the need for additional contactors, saving both space and cost. The product range also includes pressure sensors which offer improved control of HVAC systems compared to pressure switches.

Through-life management With many trains now remaining in service for much longer than the original lifespan forecasts, reliability and efficient Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) procedures are becoming increasingly important.

It is always worth checking for a manufacturer warranty before specifying a component, in addition to considering the testing and burn-in procedures which can ensure higher reliability. Some power converters also offer maintenance-free operation which can make a significant contribution to reducing MRO costs over the lifetime of the converter.

The combination of ‘made for rail’ components and specialist technical support for design-in, maintenance, repair and overhaul can help engineers to overcome many of the challenges of using sensitive electronic components in the harsh rail environment.

Thanks to Chris Leek, Jeff Gurr and Roger Tall of Charcroft Electronics for their help in preparing this article.

41

42

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Flexible fire protection

W

hen railway vehicles are designed and constructed, the safety of passengers and staff is of the highest priority. The level of safety has been increased successively over the past years and today all materials used must fulfil the highest fire protection requirements. The introduction of EN 45545-2 (Railway applications Fire protection on railway vehicles Part 2: Requirements for fire behaviour of materials and components) sees the legislation being further tightened and standardised throughout Europe.

Armaflex Rail SD, manufactured by flexible technical insulation market leader Armacell, is the first closed-cell insula­tion material to offer greater fire safety for railway passenger vehicles. The product, which is the first to meet the Hazard Level 2 classification according to EN 45545, was officially launched in the UK at the recent Railtex exhibition.

Using Armaflex Rail SD on refrigerant pipework and air-ducts makes an important contribution to the high level of fire safety required in rail vehicles. The closed-cell insulation material with anti-microbial Microban® technology protects pipes against energy losses and condensa­tion, and because it is so flexible, the material is extremely fast and easy to install.

Integrated protection Armaflex Rail SD is the first flexible closed-cell insulation material with integrated fire protection for the rail vehicle construction industry. The completely new synthetic rub­ber achieves HL 2 according to EN 45545-2, a hazard level previously unattained by flexible insulation materials.

The highly flexible elastomeric foam has very good fire properties and extremely low smoke density, achieving an excellent Euroclass Bs1 D0 rating for insulation tubes. The smoke development of Armaflex Rail SD is 10 times lower than that of a standard elastomeric insulation product and the material is self-extinguishing, does not propagate fire or produce burning droplets.

Because it is a closed-cell insulation material with low thermal conductivity and high resistance to water vapour diffusion, Armaflex Rail SD provides installations with reliable long-term protec­tion against energy losses and condensation.

As is the case with all Armaflex products, Armaflex Rail SD has a ‘built-in’ vapour barrier.

Unlike traditional insulation materials, which need to be protected against moisture penetration by a separate vapour barrier, the resistance to water vapour diffusion is built up throughout the entire insulation thickness. This means increased reliability (the diffusion barriers of open-cell insulation materials usually consist of aluminium foils which can be easily damaged) but also leads to a substantial reduction in installation costs.

The Microban® technology offers additional protection against harmful microbes such as bacteria, mould and mildew. The antimicrobial additives are built into the insulation material during the manufacturing process and therefore do not wash or wear off.

Ease of installation Armaflex Rail SD is available in different insulation thicknesses for a complete range of tubes, sheets, self-adhesive sheets and tape. A great advantage of the synthetic rubber, which becomes particularly apparent in the tight installation situations involved in rail vehicle con­struction, is the highly flexible nature of the material. The homogenous, three-dimensionally linked structure of elastomeric insulation allows the sheets to be cut neatly without the release of dust or fibre particles, which could pose a health threat if breathed in.

The high flexi­bility of the material also allows simple installation even on complex-shaped HVAC fittings and equipment. Application times can be further reduced by using self-adhesive sheets.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

43

Assured quality

W

ith the continued development of Britain’s railways, and electrification of the lines becoming a topic of much discussion within the political playing field, the onus on safety critical equipment has never been more important.

This added emphasis on the safety of OLE engineers is, of course, good news. However, it raises an interesting question. How can one be sure that the equipment used is of the highest quality and can therefore provide the highest level of safety?

Safety by design The first step in the manufacture of high quality safety equipment is the design process. Take, for example, P&B Weir Electrical’s S9B line end earthing clamp. This was designed in 1969 as the first clamp to adhere to a National Grid specification for substation earths, and with a proven track record of 46 years of service, the original design has only undergone minor enhancements such as a spring loaded jaw for ease of application.

As a result, the S9B has provided the requirement for failsafe OLE earths across Network Rail lines for decades, and is now commonly recognised as the industry standard.

The second factor to take into consideration during the manufacturing process is the quality of materials. An example of the importance of using only the highest standard of materials came to light from a customer who explained that they had purchased a defective product from an outside source.

The product in question was a set of bolts that had sheared under strain, which had understandably given caused concern. Experience has shown that, although products appear to be of genuine quality, often the materials used can be produced without sufficient quality control and documented evidence of proven performance and testing. In the instance of the rogue bolts, this turned out to be exactly the case.

Controlled manufacture Following product type testing, technical submission and review, manufacturing can take place. During this process, stringent quality assurance tests should be performed in order to ensure the products maximum durability and performance capabilities are achieved. The J117 clamp is used across the entire UK Rail network as part of long earths or short circuiting straps, and like P&B Weir’s full rail product catalogue, holds Network Rail’s PADS approval codes.

In the manufacturing process, the J117 undergoes no less than forty-four separate quality assurance tests including mechanical, visual and instrument tests at different stages of product fabrication. It is this fine attention to detail that guarantees the final product complies to the high standards required

when safeguarding the wellbeing of linesmen across the network.

Ultimately, the decision to purchase safety critical equipment for isolation/earthing should be based on trust in the manufacturer, never on price alone. Suppliers will always vie to be the most competitive in the market, at times perhaps jeopardising the integrity of their products. P&B Weir takes pride

in providing cost effective solutions, but a commitment to designing and manufacturing high-quality safety equipment that linesmen can depend on is its highest priority.

44

Rail Engineer • June 2015

RETB Next Generation Project

THURSO

WICK

FAR NORTH LINE KYLE OF LOCHALSH

MALLAIG

INVERNESS

WEST HIGHLAND LINE (NORTH)

OBAN

HELENSBURGH

WEST HIGHLAND LINE (SOUTH)

RICHARD FEASBY

N

etwork Rail Scotland is replacing the current track-to-train radio communication system and interface to the train control system on the West Highland lines to Oban, Fort William and Mallaig and the Far North lines to Kyle of Lochalsh and Wick/Thurso.

These lines pass through spectacular countryside. The mountains and moorlands of the landscape mean that, despite its beauty, it represents a major challenge to the engineering design and construction of the communication system.

The system is known as the Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB) and comprises the radio system, the signalling Solid State Interlocking (SSI) and equipment located on-board trains. It is a ‘Class B’ system under the Control Command and Signalling sub-system technical specification for interoperability (TSI).

The RETB Next Generation Project, described in issue 125 (March 2015), is more than a renewal of the current system, as it also mitigates the risk of radio interference when European frequencies for digital television change in December 2015. This means that the current ‘Band III sub-band 2’ radio equipment will be replaced with new radio equipment operating on ‘Band III sub-band 1’. The project’s remit also involves the development of replacement on-train, depot, engineering and trackside equipment.

Operational trials and implementation are planned for completion before the end of 2015 to meet the frequency change deadline.

Conformance approval services Network Certification Body (NCB) is working closely with Network Rail providing conformance approval services throughout the project lifecycle.

Initially, this was safety verification under the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) regulations (ROGS) which transitioned to supporting the project under the Common Safety Method for Risk Evaluation and Assessment (CSM-RA) regulation.

NCB provides safety assessment reports at agreed points in the programme, assessing against the requirements of CSM-RA by checking that: »» There is evidence that the system being changed is adequately defined; »» The process for hazard identification is robust and complete (classification of hazards is justified and the three risk acceptance principles have been correctly applied); »» The hazard record contains the right information about the hazards, associated safety measures, and responsibilities (and that hazards and the safety measures are closed and validated); »» The processes used for managing safety and quality meet the requirements of Network Rail’s Health and Safety Management System.

A positive report from NCB will support Network Rail (as ‘Proposer’ under CSM-RA) in providing a safety acceptance declaration under CSM-RA that all identified hazards and associated risks are controlled to an acceptable level.

This is vital, as it provides the basis for the Proposer’s ultimate decision about whether to implement the system changes.

Richard Feasby is Senior Infrastructure Conformance engineer at Network Certification Body.

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46

Rail Engineer â&#x20AC;˘ June 2015

Innovative off-load switching

W

ith the increase in electrification activities around the country, various new techniques and equipment are being trialled or are coming online to both make installation easier and to make operation more efficient.

Network Rail is therefore working with its supply chain to develop new technology as the suppliers have the specialist knowledge that will make these new initiatives work.

One good example is a new type of load-break switch which can be operated with the associated circuit breakers closed and the line live. The switch may be opened or closed with load from trains drawing current without damage to the isolator.

Developing the LB1250 Since Network Rail announced the requirement for such a device, Morris Line Engineering (MLE) has been in discussion with various key stakeholders. With existing offerings being either off-load only or requiring two switches to handle switching and earthing, it was obvious that an on-load version of its D1250 isolator would be very useful. Having met with a number of decision makers, both from central Network Rail and the major electrification projects, all input was taken into account in the product development phase, culminating in the creation of prototypes in 2014.

MLE has now been supplying the UK railways with high quality isolators for more than 35 years, with a strong record for robust, reliable systems. Throughout the winter, the company carried out a variety of in-house tests confirming the new unitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s functionality and endurance performance. Having satisfied such requirements, a full range of high-voltage tests of the vacuum break head (in situ on the switch) was carried out at a testing station in the Netherlands. After the best part of 18 months in development, there was considerable anticipation for the result and satisfaction all round when the new unit passed with flying colours.

The LB1250 switch utilises the same key components as the existing D1250 isolator which has been in service for several years. Indeed, off-load switches already in service can be upgraded to load break units by changing just a handful of parts.

As with the D1250, the LB1250 comes in twenty different configurations to suit every application. It is

Rail Engineer • June 2015

47

offered in single or double pole, with or without earthing, and with the option to fit micro-switches in order to deliver electronic indication of the isolator blade’s position.

The operating mechanisms remain in common with the D1250 and reflect Morris Line’s ‘belt and braces’ philosophy to building solutions able to cope with variable operating conditions and long life spans.

The vacuum head is a tried and trusted product, sourced from an established manufacturer and rated to 10,000 operations. MLE has designed the housing and its operating mechanism to integrate this unit into its existing arrangements and these will continue to be produced in the company’s Bridgend factory to its usual high quality standards.

Designed and built in the UK The South Wales manufacturing facility was enlarged in 2013 and produces a wide range of products, including track switches and “FED” fixed earthing devices which are supplied to the rail industry. Working closely in collaboration with Network Rail, MLE is focused on being ready for the challenges ahead.

Manufacturing director Brian Jones commented: “After a slow start to rail electrification in the UK, things have changed over the last five years and we have been actively listening to what the rail industry’s new drivers are, so that we can work to meet those needs. The LB1250 represents a significant step in offering a wider range of solutions and meeting new technical challenges.

“As a British manufacturer and supplier to Network Rail, we aim to excel through highly integrated design, quality focused manufacturing and robust system components.

We look forward to supplying the first units of our load break switch over the coming months.”

MLE is part of the Morris McClellan Group which has a turnover in excess of £45 million and employs over 350 staff. In addition to its high voltage isolation and earthing equipment, the company also manufactures low voltage switchgear products suitable for rail applications.

With electrification activity now heavily accelerating, it’s understandable they are excited at the prospects.

Morris Line Engineering Manufacturers of High Voltage Disconnectors & Switches Morris Line Engineering has the capacity to meet any electrical project or maintenance requirements you may have. Our business is based on satisfied customers and a reputation for high quality project support and we welcome the opportunity to discuss your project requirements in more detail.

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Morris Line Engineering, Main Avenue, Brackla Industrial Estate, Bridgend, CF31 2AG, United Kingdom

48

Women Rail Engineer • June 2015

in Engineering

CLIVE KESSELL

T

here is a growing awareness that the UK needs to attract and retain more women engineers. Too few school leavers are entering the profession, maybe because the image of engineering remains as ‘the man who comes to fix the boiler’.

Nowhere is the shortage as acute as in the rail industry and especially in the train control & communications and electrification disciplines. The National Skills Academy for Rail Engineering (NSARE) predicted back in 2012 that the number of ETP (Engineering, Technical and Planning) skills requirement will fall short by around 30% of people in the near future. This in an industry that employs approximately 90,000 staff in the engineering sector.

Whilst some progress has been made to recruit and train more engineers, particularly with government initiatives to re-start apprenticeships and the creation of training centres within the wider rail industry, there is still much to do just to stand still. So what else can be done?

I went with Jennifer Gilleece, telecoms project engineer in Network Rail, to meet chief executive Mark Carne (pictured below) and discuss both Network Rail’s strategy to bring more women into the engineering sector of the railways and their views on some of the barriers that have to be overcome. The session was timely as it preceded the National Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2015.

The nature of the challenge Nationally, only 7% of the engineering workforce is female and this drops to 4.4% in rail. Immediately this indicates that there is a huge untapped resource available if only the right formula can be found to release the potential. So why are these figures so low?

The problem has been researched on many occasions, concluding that there is no single answer but there are some dominant issues. In the world of equal opportunities that we are now supposed to live in, there remains an inherent bias that engineering is a profession for men.

Even fair-minded people can be caught out by questions that drill down into the basics of what an engineer is expected to do. The requirement of having, on occasions, to work shifts, weekends and long hours together with some physical strength can stereotype particular jobs to a man.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

49

(Above) Network Rail IT managers' meeting.

(Left) Katherine Thomas, Network Rail IT Project Manager.

That, however, is only one element of the challenge.

The problem is likely to begin at an early age, where the roles of men and women in society begin to be set out in secondary education at school. Only 7% of parents encourage their daughters into engineering and 76% of girls are influenced by their parents’ advice. This leads to only 13% of girls choosing to study science and engineering during further education and included in this are the more ‘gender neutral’ subjects of information technology, chemistry and such like, where opportunities in research establishments can have wider appeal.

In Network Rail, 14% of the workforce are women, across all grades and jobs. It might not appear too bad when comparing these statistics to 50 years ago when it was around 4%, but at this rate it will take another 65 years to achieve a target of 30%.

Some ideas for implementing change

Balancing work and home

Getting more women into engineering (not just the rail sector) needs traditional thinking to change. It has to start with the 11 to 13 year olds where more efforts must be made to tease out the subjects that they like and to build on that appeal by creating the right opportunities within schools for that interest to be developed. There is no physical or psychological reason why a female brain should be any different to that of a male when choosing subjects to study.

It is much more a matter of past roles and prejudice that steer women away from science and technology.

That said, there is much more that can be done by the engineering profession to portray an image that accurately reflects what it’s like to work as an engineer.

The photographs that accompany many of the projectrelated articles in Rail Engineer show people in orange suits working on the track, thus giving the impression that engineering is only about outside tasks in difficult conditions and often inclement weather. There is a vital need to demonstrate the diversity of skills that make up engineering, particularly the design element with its high intensity of computer expertise.

We are seeing change that supports women to continue a career while still being able to raise a family.

Employment legislation can be part of this progression, together with a change in employment attitudes to facilitate the work / home life balance, for the full potential of women engineers is to be realised. The opportunities for flexibility of working hours by split jobs, part time work, working from home are all ways in which a parent can be gainfully employed whilst still being able to look after the needs of very young children. The internet society and the use of computers to carry out design work makes this challenge that much easier but it does mean a more flexible approach from employers.

The modern family unit will often see both partners in employment pursuing a career, while at the same time raising a family. A case known to me reflects the woman engineer rising at an early hour to commute to a London office and starting work around 7:30, leaving the man to get the children up and taken to school. He then goes to work and does a full day whilst the woman returns home in time to collect the children from after-school activities.

50

Rail Engineer • June 2015 Whilst Mark is relatively new to rail, he has spent many years in the oil and gas industry, another sector with a perceived male dominance. My own knowledge of that industry by being the Engineering Council Liaison Officer for BINDT (the Non Destructive Testing Institute), heavily involved with competence certification of staff working on North Sea platforms, would indicate a totally male workforce coming forward for registration to IEng or CEng levels.

Mark indicated that, whilst this is true at engineer level, the growing number of women employed in the hospitality element of oil and gas platform operation is having a knock on effect in attracting women from other disciplines to go and work in these harsh environments. When increased numbers of women started working on the platforms there was a ‘humanising’ effect which significantly, and almost instantly, reduced the macho culture and resulted in a reduction of safety incidences.

Succeeding and satisfaction

TeenTech founder Maggie Philbin talks to finalists at Network Rail's 'Could IT Be You? IT for girls' competition event.

There is no prescription as to how such work activity is managed and each family will establish a routine whereby both partners can be gainfully employed. It does require the co-operation of employers and the families themselves must have contingency plans to cover for differing day-today requirements. The willingness of grandparents to help out can be important, and I speak from personal experience.

Specific initiatives and other industries

Susan Cooklin, Network Rail Group Chief Information Officer.

The WISE (Women into Science and Engineering) campaign has been around for many years and is currently focussing on the challenge of getting 1 million more women engineers nationally. A 10-point plan exists, ranging from the education of teachers, increasing transparency of opportunities and retention of women engineers right up to retirement age. Many major industrialists have signed up to this initiative including Mark Carne on behalf of Network Rail and also senior people from Atkins, Arup, Babcock, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Thales UK and Unipart, all of whom are major players in the rail supply chain.

Within Network Rail, Mark Carne has set out a programme to attract more female graduates with the goal of having women make up 30% of the intake by 2019. Career development for those women already in Network Rail will focus on getting 20% of its talent pool of future leaders to be female also by 2019. The tackling of deep-seated cultural issues is another action being pursued with the aim of making the industry more transparent and welcoming.

Jennifer Gilleece became an engineer because her father was a maths teacher at school and, with her mother, he encouraged her to pursue her interests that ultimately led to her current career. Having a mentor throughout the training period, covering both college and university education, and especially work-based activities, can be very beneficial, particularly if the mentor has a determination and passion for their student to succeed. Jennifer was fortunate in this respect and remains in contact with her mentor to this day.

Senior engineers reading this article will identify with this role and may take satisfaction from the success that the ones they looked after (be it male or female) have made the grade and are making an important contribution to the industry. From an S&T perspective, I acted as mentor for a number of women who have enjoyed successful engineering careers. They invariably say that their training period was fulfilling and being out trackside and in equipment rooms was especially enjoyable.

When challenged about the risk of positive discrimination, Mark Carne was adamant that this must not happen. When appointing a person to a post, it must be done on merit and only the best candidate should succeed. However, in the selection of candidates for interview and to counter the inherent bias that can exist, he would advocate the inclusion of all qualified women candidates on to the short list to ensure a level playing field. I don’t think anyone could argue with that.

So, while progress is being made, it is still too slow. It is a national issue but one where the rail sector may well become a role model. Working together we can make Britian’s railway a more diverse and welcoming place for women engineers and benefit from the improved safety records and profitability that diverse workforces have produced in other industries. Mark Carne’s statement for everyone is: “What can I do today to make the railway better?”

For those of us with daughters and granddaughters, I guess we all have a responsibility to raise the possibility of a career in engineering and should a spark of interest be shown, to follow this through with all possible encouragement.

Thanks to Mark Carne and Jennifer Gilleece for sparing their time and to Dan Donovan, Network Rail media relations manager, for facilitating the interview.

52

Rail Engineer • June 2015

CLIVE KESSELL

L

Norway to go Nationwide ERTMS

ike many other countries, Norway has a problem with ageing signalling equipment and needs to undertake modernisation. The infrastructure manager, Jernbaneverket, has taken the decision to adopt ERTMS nationwide with a project lasting from the present day until 2030. It is only the second country to have taken this bold step and it has been influenced in part by its near neighbour, Denmark, which made a similar pronouncement back in 2012.

Many eyes have been watching the progress of the Danish scheme and seeing some of the challenges that are emerging. The Norwegian project is to be based on three major signalling contracts covering the whole main line railway network but with the intention of achieving the same result. So what is it all about and what are the critical factors?

the west (including the tourist-orientated Flåm Railway), Åndalsnes and Trondheim in the north west and, with a long northern extension, to Bodø.

Three eastward lines connect to the Swedish cities of Stockholm, Gőteborg, Malmő and Østersund.

In the far north, an unconnected line to the Norwegian network crosses from Narvik to Kiruna in Sweden primarily for iron ore traffic.

Geography

Progressing the project

Norway is a long thin country with a small rail network in comparison to many others. It has 4,000 route kilometres and 4,500 track kilometres, which demonstrates that much of it is single track. There is only a limited capacity improvement achievable by employing ERTMS on such an infrastructure, hence the project is renewal, rather than enhancement, driven.

Suburban commuter routes exist around Oslo but important main line links run to Kristiansand and Stavanger in the south west, Bergen in

Since the adoption of ERTMS will essentially be a state-funded project, the processes to satisfy government that there is a sound business case with appropriate contract allocations and ongoing governance have to be gone through.

This can be a lengthy task and the timescale for getting costs and ‘invitations to tender’ documents prepared has taken more than two years. However, agreement to proceed is expected to be granted in the summer of 2015 with RFQs being issued later this year.

Part of the process has been to equip an 80km pilot line between Ski and Sarpsborg, south of Oslo, with ERTMS Level 2. Testing on this section has been going on over the past few months in collaboration with Bombardier which was the awarded signalling supplier. Trial running is expected to commence this month with commercial operations using ERTMS beginning in August. Part of the trial will be to examine the applicability of existing operating rules as well as learning the technical and maintenance aspects of the equipment.

Once the full project gets the go ahead, the implementation period will extend from 2020 to 2030. The first lines to be converted will be to Bergen and the far north line from Trondheim to Bodø. The logic is to work from the extremities inwards towards Oslo since this minimises the train fitment, a challenging task that will involve around a dozen train operators.

Some lines around the capital will also be fitted with the Norwegian Class B signalling system using conventional interlockings, lineside signals and track circuits / axle counters in order to progress urgent renewals but without the need to fit trains with ETCS. Jernbaneverket PHOTO: Jernbaneverket/Øystein Grue

Eivind Skorstad, Project Manager - ERTMS, Jernbaneverket.

53 Rail Engineer • June 2015

PHOTO: Jernbaneverket/Øystein Grue

54

Rail Engineer • June 2015

PHOTO: Jernbaneverket/Øystein Grue

The ERTMS to be adopted will be Level 2 to baseline 3.0.0 software (or latest version at roll out time), a release still to happen but reported as imminent. Key Management, that is the security code that ensures only the correct train receives the relevant information when transmission of movement authority messages are being sent, is seen as particularly important since it has caused considerable proving problems in the deployment of ERTMS elsewhere.

Consideration has been given to an ERTMS Level 3 solution using the experience of ‘Regional ERTMS’ being installed on remote lines in Sweden, but for the moment this is discounted because the risk arising from being the first to adopt such a system would be unacceptable for such a nationally-significant project.

As with any railway, the fitting of rolling stock is a challenge. NSB (the near monopoly train operating company) will be tasked with fitting the existing fleet of between 400 and 600 units and will receive government compensation for this work. New trains ordered after the commencement of the project will be expected to come with ETCS equipment fitted. It is recognised that the design, installation and testing activities for the ‘first in class’ will be expensive. Some trains will need to be dual fitted with ETCS and a Specific Transmission Module (STM) and associated equipment that will allow them to operate to existing signalling systems in the short term.

The ‘yellow fleet’ of on track machines will also be included in the rolling stock fitment contract.

In summary

has stated they want to keep the number of new Class B systems as low as possible and much of this technology will be ERTMS compatible. In 2012, Thales Norway and Jernbaneverket signed a framework agreement for delivery of Class B systems lasting for 10 years with 25 more years of technical support on each delivered system.

Technical considerations

PHOTO: Jernbaneverket/Øystein Grue

The vision of Jernbaneverket is that, by 2030, there will be a single set of parts for all aspects of ERTMS operation. This will cover control centres with their interlockings, radio block centres and MMI panels; trackside equipment such as balises, train detection equipment, point mechanisms and level crossing operation; and on-board train equipment including the VOBC, driver displays, odometry and balise readers.

Thus the intention is to progress as three distinct contracts, for signalling infrastructure, for on-board train fitment and for the traffic management system. The latter is seen as key to modernising train traffic control before the main ERTMS programme begins and will thus progress in the earlier timeframe of 2018/9.

Jernbaneverket will also issue contracts for civil works in connection with new infrastructure required for cable ducts, trackside signalling housings and marker boards, plus safety measures to facilitate removing train dispatchers on railway sections without continuous train supervision.

Norway already has a GSM-R radio network but with coverage designed primarily for voice traffic. To be the bearer for ETCS, it is going to need additional base stations to give more robust signal strength and coverage.

The prospect of having to find an alternative to GSM-R during the timeframe of the ERTMS project will be addressed when this issue gets resolved within the European Rail community. Although not a member of the EU, Norway is signed up to most EC conventions.

This decision is a brave step for the railways of Norway. It will be one of the most exciting and challenging projects within the country, not just because it is the transition from relay-based to computer-derived signalling but it will also test out ERTMS in challenging topography and occasional harsh weather conditions.

The expected cost of the project is 15-20 billion Norwegian Krone, roughly £1.3-1.7 billion. Much will depend on the reaction of the supply market once the invitation to tender is issued. The business and operational skills required to manage the project will be recruited in house.

As in Denmark, eyes from around the world will be watching this project progress. A project running over such a long period of time will demand a solid and trusting relationship between Jernbaneverket and the supply chain. In the short term however, the ERTMS suppliers need to sharpen their pencils.

The ERTMS-Robel, a maintenance vehicle used to test ETCS on the pilot line.

55

Rail Engineer • June 2015

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

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Completing

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he 08:55, departing from Platform 1 at Peterborough on 9 March, was a special service.

On board were Network Rail route director Phil Verster, project director Neil Lindley and a selection of local politicians and trade press. At its first stop, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Claire Perry MP joined the train.

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That first stop was at Ruskington and the purpose of the train was to celebrate the completion of the snappily-named GNGE Alliance East Coast Mainline Capacity Relief Project.

As published in issue 116 (June 2014), this was described as the “rebirth of a back-stage line”, the renewal of the GNGE (Great Northern / Great Eastern) joint line paralleling the East Coast main line between Werrington Junction, Peterborough, and Decoy Junction, Doncaster.

The works at Ruskington station were celebrated by the ceremonial unveiling of a plaque on the new footbridge, one of several significant bridgeworks on the project. The Ruskington bridge is of a familiar steel design combining disabled access requirements with long ramps and stairs for non-disabled access. Cleverly, the bridge blends in well with the station and does not intrude as do some compliant bridges.

The celebrations served as an effective showcase for what had been a very positive project to improve the capacity of the network by pragmatic remodelling and reconditioning of some fairly neglected infrastructure which was very much in need of bringing up to current standards. It was fairly typical of many secondary routes with mechanical signalboxes and signalling, very restrictive speed restrictions and underdeveloped infrastructure with renewal more than due. The story of the line is worth quickly revisiting to put the project into context and appreciate the finished product.

The route N

To recall briefly, the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway (GNGEJR) was established in 1879 by the Great Northern Railway and its rival, the Great Eastern Railway. The joint company built a line between Spalding and

Lincoln to complete a new, primarily freight, route between Cambridge and Doncaster, a distance of about 123 miles. The main purpose was to move Yorkshire coal into East Anglia, a highly profitable enterprise.

The route has survived except for the section between March, Cambridgeshire and Spalding, Lincolnshire and the Lincoln by-pass line, both of which were closed in the 1980s. The section between Peterborough and Spalding is now regarded as part of the joint line although this is not strictly (historically) accurate. The Sleaford avoiding line had also been left out of action, leading to increasing rail traffic over the level crossings on the line through Sleaford itself.

With the disappearance of the freight business on the railway, the route gradually succumbed to the fate of many non-main lines: seeing little investment and perhaps maintenance optimisation bearing in mind the traffic on the route. As a further economy measure, the signalboxes were no longer manned over three shifts.

The project With the current rapid increases in demand for rail transport, both pasenger and freight, that situation has changed. This resulted in a specification to increase capacity for freight and passenger trains on the GNGE line, the route to be upgraded to form an effective freight path removing traffic from the East Coast main line and also providing a high quality diversionary route. Accompanying benefits were catching up on maintenance and renewals and enabling a much improved passenger service with the potential for growth.

The project has been undertaken within the umbrella of the GNGE Alliance and Network Rail and delivered in an alliancing partnership with Carillion, Babcock and Siemens. Additional

Rail Engineer • June 2015

sub-contract services were provided by Balfour Beatty and Kier, reporting directly to Network Rail. It has been a successful illustration of the Alliance principle.

The GNGE Alliance East Coast Mainline Capacity Relief Project remit was to increase capacity for freight and passenger trains on the GNGE line. The project (valued at around £280 million) was basically a phased programme of renewals culminating in a route that reflected the project management philosophies within the present day rail industry.

The high profile gain is the increase in line speed and an accompanying reduction in journey time - speeds up from 60mph to 75mph for passenger trains and raised to 60 mph for freight, resulting in 17 minutes being taken off the end-to-end time on the route. These times are also related to the fact that, with the need to man signalboxes no longer applicable, the line may be held open for 24 hours in the day, control being from the new control centre at Lincoln.

Sixteen signalboxes were decommissioned though we shall see that one or two will have a continuing life as the local communities did not really wish to see these aspects of their local history disappear. Blankney box remains as part of the level crossing infrastructure at Metheringham and Stow Park is a listed structure. Deeping Saint James signalbox has been “palletised”, in the words of the project director, and awaits re-erection at a suitable site near to its old active location.

Other environmental issues have included the notunexpected colonies of Great Crested Newts and the need to plan vegetation works, often for improved visibility issues, outside the bird-nesting season. The high profile given to neighbour and stakeholder relations has caused some considerable debate over the removal of trees; however the safety requirements for this have been discussed and seem to be accepted by local people.

57

Level crossings Accompanying the removal of the signalboxes was the large-scale modernisation of level crossings on the route with replacement of both whole and half-barrier installations, the latter being replaced with modern half-barrier arrangements. Journey time gains were made from this change to the infrastructure: the old crossing at Tinsley incurred a permanent speed restriction of 10mph but the change to MCBOD format now allows 75mph line speed at the site. Safety has also been improved for local schoolchildren by the replacement of a pedestrian crossing at Heighington where an underpass has been provided.

Of considerable interest is Blankney level crossing

by Metheringham Station where the original signalbox structure remains in use adjacent to the level crossing.

Government, and the media, has placed much emphasis on safety at level crossings and a particular concern after the Ufton Nervet derailment where several fatalities were caused by an HST hitting a car stopped on a level crossing.

Rowston level crossing.

58

Rail Engineer â&#x20AC;˘ June 2015

Blankney crossing has modern full lifting barriers and incursion detection which can detect obstructions on the crossing and prevent the clearance of signals on the approach. The detectors consist of a small transmitter and receiver which look across the crossing at low level, there being four looking across the roadway and covering the at-risk area inside the barriers. The system is designed in line with the Network Rail strategy for level crossing safety improvement and is a result of considerable industry development. The system is one of those being considered for further level crossing upgrades as part of the national strategy.

LiDAR detector.

Significant infrastructure work was undertaken here, including the demolition of a house to improve sightlines and gain a better alignment for the crossing. A 75mph speedboard here emphasises the performance gains for the project and the impact of route improvement works including continuous welded rail, formation upgrading and resignalling.

Other work However there do remain some works to do, inconveniently driven by access restrictions. An example is Vernatts Drain where the life-expired bridge over

the waterway requires renewal but access is through a housing development that has grown up since the railway was built. The works are programmed but will require the use of a 1,000 tonne crane and thus, for the short term, a 40 mph speed restriction remains in force.

Bridges have been a very positive aspect of the value management philosophy on the project where several replacements have been reviewed and refurbishment has been found to be wholly appropriate for long term use. New bridge works have been required to deal with and reopen the Sleaford avoiding line which has been reinstated to allow freight to bypass the town, relieving the level crossings that exist on the town route and minimising road traffic disruption.

Mention of bridges also highlights the achievement of a route-long W12 gauge clearance and passive provision for 25kV electrification, an obvious desire for an East Coast main line diversionary route. The route seems, in the main, to be at low risk of vandalism and it is appropriate that rather than strings of steel palisade fencing in this rural area more conventional post and wire fencing has been installed on much of the route accompanied by a cable route which has not required the anti-vandal treatment seen in more urban areas.

Mention has been made in previous Rail Engineer articles of the proposals for a fly under or over at Werrington junction and the route for this has been identified. The removal of a junction at grade at the south end can only serve to make the use of the GNGE line even more effective. Development work and design for this proposal proceeds apace though at this stage no concrete start has been made.

In summary the engineering has been relatively conventional but with much effort being made to successfully integrate works delivery and at an optimum cost. The project has delivered an excellent example of route refurbishment in a very effective manner through a wholly appropriate alliancing arrangement and the tidiness, and lack of lineside clutter, of the route after completion gives every impression of a job well done and a railway brought up to a standard well-suited to the twenty-first century.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

Resignalling in East Sussex

PHOTO: P.M. Harding

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T

he major routes of the old London Brighton & South Coast Railway have been resignalled many times since the company went out of existence in 1923. However the secondary routes, although mainly electrified many years ago, retained their traditional signalling right up to the present day with lever frame boxes and semaphore signal arms.

Now many decades old and well beyond normal life expectancy, the time has come to bring these routes into the digital age and control them from the Three Bridges Rail Operating Centre (ROC). The first such route to be converted is in East Sussex between Lewes and St Leonards.

This section of line caused some interesting challenges with the many level crossings that needed upgrading along the way.

signalling, with Bo Peep being the fringe at the eastern end.

The mechanical boxes removed from operational service are: Berwick, Polegate, Hampden Park and Pevensey & Westham, together with a gate box at Havensmouth (Normans Bay). Although Eastbourne box has closed, the interlocking is now re-controlled from Three Bridges ROC. The overall distance is around 25 miles.

The route

The project and technology

Lewes is a four-way railway junction: to the west are the lines to Brighton and Wivelsfield, which were resignalled in the early 1980s with Lewes becoming the fringe box to the then brand new Three Bridges Power Box. To the east are the lines to Newhaven / Seaford and to Eastbourne / Hastings. Eastbourne underwent a signalling upgrade in 1992 to replace the mechanical signalling in the immediate station area and introducing a Solid State Interlocking at that time with colour light signals.

The East Sussex scheme extends from Southerham Junction, where the Newhaven line diverges, to the charmingly-named Bo Peep Junction at St Leonards where the main route from London to Hastings is joined.

The Newhaven line remains with traditional signalling for the present.

Lewes remains as a fringe box to both Three Bridges PSB and the new

Network Rail has its own internal mechanism for producing the business case to justify the necessary investment. The commercial scheme sponsor is Tony Hescott from the operations group and it has been his role to determine the scope of the project, to gather all the costs together and to then take the scheme forward for authorisation. This process began in 2010 and was one of the first re-signalling projects to be undertaken in this manner. The project value worked out at £40 million which, as well as being renewal driven, will yield significant staff savings and increased line capacity.

The internal sponsor then contracts the work to the Network Rail projects group to take the project forward from detailed design to commissioning.

Huw Edwards assumed this responsibility at a late stage of the project but nonetheless took it through to completion.

The overall project contract was let to Atkins as one of the three nominated Network Rail suppliers for major signalling schemes. Atkins has the internal expertise to do all the design and management activities but does not have a manufacturing capability, so the supply of the necessary hardware was therefore contracted to a variety of signalling companies.

Manufacturers involved »» Interlocking equipment at the ROC - conventional solid state interlocking supplied by Signalling Solutions Limited; »» ROC signaller’s control panel screens - GE Transportation Systems (GETS); »» Lineside signals - Dorman; »» Point mechanisms - existing mechanical, HW point motors, old style clamp locks and one set of spring points, all replaced by In Bearer Clamp Locks either during previous stageworks or at the main commissioning; »» Axle counters - Frauscher; »» AWS and TPWS - free issue from Network Rail; »» Level crossing booms and barrier machines free issued from Network Rail via SPX; »» Level crossing obstacle detection equipment free issued by Network Rail via TEW; »» Level crossing road traffic signals obtained from Unipart Rail.

The colour light signals are of the LED type but are mounted on lightweight posts that can be lowered to facilitate ease of maintenance. Axle counters have replaced track circuits

Rail Engineer â&#x20AC;˘ June 2015

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PHOTO: P.M. Harding

CLIVE KESSELL

to aid reliability. Installation of the civils element was entrusted to BCM and TPWS has been fitted to the signals judged as critical in terms of SPAD occurrence.

The line speed from Southerham to Wilmington has been raised to 90mph from 70/80, and the signals are positioned for this speed through to Bo Peep Junction although the speed increase on this section is not yet implemented as the civils work needed is beyond the current contract scope. The basic track layout remains unchanged except for the removal of some crossovers.

To distribute the information from the ROC to the individual lineside elements, use has been made of the Network Rail Telecom FTN transmission capability. This provides a dual resilient link to every lineside module such that if any one cable should be cut, the system can still operate via the alternative route. The acceptance by the signalling fraternity of the use of the FTN has been a big step forward psychologically as not only does it give improved reliability, it enables significant saving to be made on cabling.

Since all of the Cab Secure Radio network in the south of England had been replaced by GSM-R a while ago, the radio infrastructure already existed. Control of the track-to-train voice communication had, however, to be transferred to Three Bridges ROC where new radio panels are provided for the relevant signaller.

Crossing Location Ripe Selmestone Berwick (Sussex) Wilmington Polegate Pevensey & Westham Wallsend (Pevensey) Havensmouth (Normans Bay) Pevensey Sluice Hampden Park

Old Type Automatic Half Barrier Automatic Half Barrier Locally Controlled 4 Barrier Automatic Half Barrier Locally Controlled 4 Barrier Manual CCTV 4 Barrier Manual CCTV 4 Barrier Manned Gates Hand Worked Automatic Half Barrier Locally Controlled 4 Barrier

Level Crossings These abound on this section of line and new means of control has been adopted for many of them. The new technology of obstacle detection (OD) to facilitate the semi-automation of four barrier-controlled crossings was appropriate for a number of them.

Obstacle Detection (OD) level crossings were originally introduced on the Ely-ThetfordNorwich line. They are essentially an alternative technology to manual surveillance of a four-barrier crossing, remotely controlled by a signaller using CCTV pictures to verify the crossing is unobstructed before clearing the controlling signals. The application of OD simplifies this process and once the detection confirms that no obstacle is present and the barriers are down, the controlling signals can be cleared automatically.

The detection equipment is a combination of RADAR and LiDAR technologies. RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) is well proven and has equipment mounted at a high level to detect any general movement on the crossing. LiDAR is newer and is there to detect any low level object that might be missed by RADAR.

New Type AHB re-controlled to ROC AHB re-controlled to ROC OD 4 Barrier AHB re-controlled to ROC OD 4 Barrier OD 4 Barrier OD 4 Barrier Manual CCTV 4 Barrier AHB re-controlled to ROC Manual CCTV 4 Barrier

Significant problems have emerged as LiDAR requires a laser light beam to be sent from a transmitter to a receiver on site. If this beam cannot be detected, then the fail safe nature of the operation will prevent the LiDAR from confirming the crossing is clear. Being situated at low level, the equipment was subject to spray and dirt being thrown up by passing trains, thus causing a failure. As one person said, the only solution was to have someone on hand constantly with a packet of baby wipes!

Reliability has been key and various trials have established that the ground level LiDAR can be dispensed with, leaving an upper LiDAR, around a metre high, to supplement the RADAR detection.

As can be imagined, this change has required significant safety analysis, verification and acceptance and has been the prime reason why the East Sussex re-signalling date had to be put back from its original 2013 introduction.

The safety case has now been duly signed off and should allow OD-protected crossings to be applicable to all other areas of Network Rail.

A unique crossing situation was present at Havensmouth (Normans Bay). This was a

Rail Engineer • June 2015

PHOTO: P.M. Harding

62

manned, gated hand-worked crossing which required the duty gatekeeper to manoeuvre the gates across a private road. The operative then operated the switch panel which released the signalled slot to allow the signaller at Pevensey & Westham to set the route for the safe passage of trains over the level crossing.

In order to protect the private road status, the gates were locked up by the operative between 21:55 and 06:55 hours (on a daily basis) which prevented vehicle access during this time. Under this arrangement, one of the land owners had an arrangement whereby contact would be made with the gatekeeper to lock the gates in the event of transferring live-stock across the private road (on the north side only) from one field to the other. This provided ‘the protection from the railway’ requirement to reduce the risk to ‘as low as reasonably practical’ (ALARP) from livestock gaining access onto the level crossing.

As a result of the introduction of the new MCB-CCTV level crossing at this location, with the barriers normally in the raised position except when trains are due, the scheme sponsor had to investigate options to maintain and replicate the safe status.

The solution adopted was: »» The installation of yellow secondary gates (on the south side) to provide the facility for residents to close the road in order to support maintaining the private status.

Pedestrian access is available via an offset gap. »» The installation of a yellow swing arm gate (on the north side), to provide a similar facility for the private road to be closed by the residents, at their discretion.

Note that this is a different design to the above to fit with road width constraints. Pedestrian access is maintained by a corral gate at the side. »» The installation of metal-framed gates on each side of the private road which open and meet in the middle, thus permitting the safe transit of live-stock from field to field and preventing access to the railway if the new barriers are raised. This satisfies the ALARP status. »» The installation of the appropriate signage.

To achieve this somewhat unusual solution, the Network Rail scheme sponsor had to undertake a significant amount of stakeholder management/negotiation activity with the land owners and residents of Normans Bay.

Remote condition monitoring The opportunity has been taken to use the computer equipment in Three Bridges ROC to apply remote condition monitoring on critical pieces of external equipment. These include clamp locks, level crossing barrier machines, axle counters, power supplies and building security.

As well as providing alarms for when failures occur, the performance of the equipment is monitored against a set of parameters such that any significant deviation from the norm can be detected and pending problems put right before an actual failure occurs.

Most of the implementation work was carried out during weekend possessions, the only blockade being needed for the commissioning weekend on the 13/14/15 February 2015 covering the period from the last train on Friday to early Monday morning. All went to plan and the first train left Eastbourne on time at 05:08 on the Monday in readiness for the weekday commuter traffic. Buses were kept on standby just in case but were not needed. Since then, the system has worked reliably and no problems of any significance have occurred.

There is an East Sussex re-signalling stage 2 project in progress to cover the Newhaven branch and the final elimination of the old box at Lewes. This will take place during the CP5 period probably some time in 2019.

PHOTO: P.M. Harding

(Above) LiDAR and (below) Radar detectors.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

An international impetus to invention The IMechE’s Stephenson Conference DAVID SHIRRES

P

ioneering railway engineers George and Robert Stephenson were the first and second Presidents of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). When founded in 1847, its aim was “to give impetus to inventions likely to be useful to the world”.

Richard Parry-Jones gives his keynote address.

This was also the aim of an inaugural international railway research conference hosted recently by the Institution’s Railway Division at its London headquarters. Named after its first two Presidents, the three-day Stephenson Conference was four years in the planning, had 138 delegates and heard 72 research papers from 14 different countries in four parallel sessions with a further ten common presentations.

Worldwide sharing This year the Railway Division has as its Chairman Professor Simon Iwnicki who is also Director of the Institute of Railway Research at Huddersfield University. Simon explained that the aim of the conference was the worldwide sharing of knowledge and research outcomes. It had been a big event to organise and it had proved difficult to find a suitable date that did not clash with other events such as the three-yearly World Congress of Railway Research.

The 72 research papers represented around half of those initially submitted. They were selected after a double-filtering process during which each paper was assessed by two independent reviewers. There was a wide range of papers both in subject and type. Some were purely academic, whilst others were case studies of technologies developed in collaboration between universities and industry. The best fifteen papers will form a special edition of Part F of the Proceedings of the Institution, the Journal of Rail and Rapid Transport.

Wheel / rail interaction Over a third of these papers concerned the complexities of wheel / rail interaction and track behaviour.

An example from Simon’s own research institute at Huddersfield was the development of a tram-train wheel profile to run on the Sheffield Supertram (SST) network and Network Rail infrastructure in 2017.

This had a flange-back cut-out for the different SST and Network Rail checking surfaces, a bespoke flange toe profile for clearance on Network Rail switch toes, a flat flange tip for running on SST embedded switch and crossings and tread geometry derived from the BR P8 profile.

Another wheel profiles presentation featured a very different railway, China’s 13,000km high speed network. This concerned the development of a modified profile to improve hunting stability. Professor Zeng of Southwest Jiaotong University explained how this new profile had been derived first through theoretical analysis and computer simulation before its final validation on a fullscale roller test rig. The result was the new LME17 profile in which conicity was increased at the wheel profile end and decreased at the flange root.

Simulation was also a feature of a paper from the United States on the new Federal Railroad Administration

Rail Engineer • June 2015

(FRA) vehicle-track system qualification requirements.

These were revised in 2013 for speeds up to 220 mph so that new US trains now require both on-track testing and, in many cases, simulations using virtual track segments representative of minimally compliant track conditions. As European train certification only makes limited allowance for simulation, this paper attracted significant interest and indeed won the prize for the best paper presented at the conference.

Getting a grip “The prizes of managing adhesion” paper was about a wheel / rail interface that is more concerned with chemistry than physics. Just what is the black stuff stuck to the rail after leaves have been crushed under the wheels? It is apparently mainly Pectin, the substance used in jam making. Currently the only practicable way to remove it is by jetting water at a pressure high enough to cut into the rail if the jetting train stopped.

A further paper on adhesion demonstrated that, in certain conditions, poor adhesion can also occur solely as a result of low levels of moisture being present.

Whilst this might not be news to train drivers, the presentation demonstrated that more research is needed to understand this phenomena.

Getting the best grip on the rail is less of a problem for heavy-haul freight Co-Co locomotives if the vertical loading on their six axles can be evened out. A joint paper by researchers from Australia, Sweden and Russia considered how this can be done on locomotives fitted with four secondary air springs, (two on each bogie in front and behind the centre pin). It used the GENSYS rail vehicle modelling software to determine the type of control system needed to give better traction performance.

Fibre sensing A critical vehicle / infrastructure interface, on which there was only one paper, was the interaction between pantograph and overhead wire. This was the case study on “Closed Loop Pantograph for Better Current Collection” jointly presented by Lee Brun of Brecknell Willis and Tong Sun, Professor of Sensor Engineering at City University.

The active pantograph that they are jointly developing will reduce carbon erosion, give higher speed running, allow multiple pantograph operation and provide condition monitoring of the overhead line.

This project is now half way through a 24-month development programme made possible by a £300,000 award from RSSB after it won the innovation award at the 2014 Railway Industry Association’s Technology and Innovation Conference. A particularly innovative aspect is the use of optical fibre to sense the force at different points on the pantograph. This uses Fibre Bragg Gratings along the fibre which reflects particular wavelengths of light to measure the degree and location of fibre deformation. Professor Sun explained how the system had to be calibrated for temperature. Unlike electric sensors, the harsh environmental and electrical environment on the pantograph are not a problem for a fibre optic cable which also has the benefit of being an insulator.

For more information about this initiative see the article “Something to Bragg about” in this issue.

Energy saving As might be expected, energy use featured in a number of papers. These included a German paper on “Multidomain simulation of hybrid diesel-driven railway vehicles and comparison of electrical energy storage systems” which had concluded that hybrid vehicles offered fuel savings up to 15%. A particular example of a hybrid vehicle

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Conference delegates.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

was the case study of the “Viable flywheel system”, a joint development

by Ricardo UK, Artemis Intelligent Power and Bombardier Transportation UK. This won last year’s Rail Exec Award for the most interesting initiative in safety and sustainability and is fully described in issue 117 (July 2014).

With the construction of HS2, a paper on the trade-off between operational energy consumption and embedded energy in rail infrastructure was pertinent. This showed that tunnels account for 172 to 243 tonnes / km / year of CO2 emissions, compared with 23 for ballasted track and 5 to 22 for earthworks. A particular trade-off considered in the paper was the benefits of reduced air resistance from larger diameter tunnels against the extra energy required for their construction.

The conference included a number of papers about digital technologies (although none on digital signalling!).

A joint paper between the University of Essex and LPA Connection Systems showed how data centre technology had been used to provide a robust 10 Gbit/s Ethernet train infrastructure to satisfy growing demands for information by passengers and operators.

The wireless mesh sensors developed by Senceive for asset monitoring is a complex technology that can be easily applied. This uses battery-powered tilt sensors that can communicate with each other to derive linear measurements to an accuracy of millimetres. The sensors can be easily fitted and their low power consumption offers a battery life of up to fifteen years so they require no hard wiring. As an

example, real-time measurement tunnel deflection during grouting used sensors that were magnetically fixed to cast iron tunnel segments that were set up within 15 minutes.

Low energy usage sensors were also a feature of a joint paper by the University of Birmingham and Arrowvale Electronics on remote asset monitoring using energy harvesting. For infrastructure monitoring this could be by wind, solar panels or temperature gradient whilst vibrations can provide a power source for train mounted equipment.

This paper considered the required energy management requirements of loads associated with various applications.

Reliability through redundancy The evaluation of options for a faulttolerant railway system used a Petri net simulation and fault tree analysis to assess the benefits of additional network redundancy. This quantified the benefits of providing parts of the network with additional bi-directional signalling or switches and crossings (S&C). It concluded that this technique could be used to prioritise investment plans to provide the most robust network for the funds available.

An example of the application of this approach at a component level was Loughborough University’s presentation of its REPOINT demonstrator, a novel S&C mechanism with fail-safe mechanical design and multi-channel actuation.

As current S&C design requires a drive with a locking mechanism it is not possible to provide the redundancy offered by multiple actuators.

REPOINT avoids this problem as its switch movement is inherently failsafe.

This is achieved by the use of a stub switch which is lifted and moved laterally by a cam between locking blocks. When lifted out of these blocks, the force required to back-drive the motor is less than that required to bend the rails vertically during the switch movement. Hence a power failure will result in the switch falling back to a safe locked state. The use of a stub switch with full section rails also eliminates the failure mode of a blockage between switch and stock rails.

Much work is needed to develop this concept further, particularly in respect of stub switches. For now a 384mm gauge laboratory demonstrator has been constructed. This is the gauge of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway which has been identified as a possible site for the next development phase.

Common and parallel sessions With a relatively smaller attendance, there was a good interaction between speakers and audience at the four parallel sessions. Outside these sessions, a further ten common presentations took place in the IMechE’s main audience hall.

Dr Norimichi Kumagai, executive director of Japan’s Rail Technical Research Institute, described its research priorities. Japan’s high speed Shinkansen network, the world’s first high speed railway, is now over 50 years old and is the subject of various research projects. This includes research into aerodynamic issues and noise mitigation to allow an increase in maximum speed from 320 to 360 km/hr.

For Japan, a particular problem is earthquake resilience so vehicle suspensions have been assessed for susceptibility to earthquake frequencies. After the 2004 earthquake, axleboxes now have inverse brackets which rub along the outer rail head in the event of a derailment to restrict lateral deviation.

From the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB), Winston Rasaiah raised the issue of how the lessons from accidents could best drive railway research. This was a problem if an accepted investigation recommendation required specific railway research. However, useful areas of research may not be progressed if recommendations had been rejected or research is not felt to be justified for a single accident.

He felt that a better way of informing academia of the need for such research was needed and advised that RAIB would be glad to assist in this respect.

With more than a quarter of all passengers on the train derailed at Grayrigg in 2007 receiving serious injuries, the RAIB considered that there was a need for research in the effect of the accelerations to

Rail Engineer • June 2015

which passengers are subjected in derailments. In a derailment at Barrow on Soar in 2008, an axle mounted brake disc in contact with the rail fortuitously limited the train’s deviation from the track, hence the RAIB’s report had recommended research into lateral retention following derailments. This could potentially benefit from consideration of the earthquake mitigation employed on Japanese Railways.

going on” but felt a bold fresh look was needed to provide the required capacity and reliability improvements.

He felt lessons had to be learnt from other industries, particularly in respect of redundancy and mechanical failsafe assemblies such as an aircraft undercarriage. He was pleased to see the development of the novel REPOINT switch mechanism based on these concepts.

Be bold

Although this article describes only a selection of the conference’s presentations, it shows the wide range of topics covered. Some of the concepts presented will shortly be in use, others are perhaps a generation away from implementation.

Sharing knowledge and research outcomes is an important aspect of the development of the technologies required by tomorrow’s railway. By doing this on an international basis, the Stephenson Conference had been a particularly worthwhile event. Simon Iwnicki was confident that the event will be repeated, perhaps in two years’ time.

Network Rail’s chairman Richard Parry-Jones gave the conference an engaging 30 minute presentation without the need for a PowerPoint presentation. He noted that the industry had the problem of managing expansion and that building new track was not always sustainable. This needs better use of the track asset which is only in use, at most, for 3% of the time. To do this a signalling system needs to know exactly where trains are and trains “should talk to each other”.

He acknowledged that there was “some terrific high quality engineering

Maintaining the impetus

George and Robert Stephenson were both practical engineers and visionaries.

At a time when electric traction was in the future, George had noted that “one of the great uses to which electric force will be applied eventually will be the simple conveyance of power by means of wires”.

It was fitting that the conference used the IMechE’s main audience hall in which proceedings were overlooked by large portraits of George and Robert Stephenson. They would no doubt have been pleased to see the very effective way in which the Institution they had set up was continuing to provide impetus to inventions likely to be useful to the world.

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Naim Kuka of Alstom in Italy explains train tilting simulation.

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

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Some prototypes are representative of the external appearance only, these are made with 3D printers. Others are representative of function and/or durability, in which case the critical parts are purchased from specialist suppliers or manufactured in-house.

Using its laboratories based in China, France and Japan, every new design is checked and validated. Depending on its complexity, each new design can be tested at every stage of development: prototype parts, off-tool parts or initial samples.

Quality production Chicago Pneumatic understands that customer satisfaction is key to its continued success, indeed quality is a priority as products are

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

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The same - just shorter With a shorter mast, the 9480 model has similar features. Both models are self contained systems which are easy and quick to set up. They use a rechargeable and interchangeable battery and, with an extra battery which is available as an accessory, the user can double the run time.

Product manager David Smith commented: “The Peli range of area lights eliminates the need for fuel or cumbersome expensive generators, these rechargeable systems are silent running and can be set up quickly and easily. The energy-efficient LEDs offer a considerable saving over the running costs of halogen lights.”

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

O

n the evening of Wednesday 4 December 1957, in foggy conditions, the 16:56 train from Cannon Street to Ramsgate, hauled by ‘Battle of Britain’ Class 4-6-2 steam locomotive 34066 ‘Spitfire’, passed a red signal near Lewisham and collided with the rear of a stationary EMU bound for Hayes that was stopped under a bridge. A scene of utter devastation followed. Not only was the accident itself severe, but the wreckage dislodged a bridge pier causing the bridge itself to collapse and crush two coaches. In total, 90 fatalities occurred and 109 were detained in hospital.

proof cost effective solution. After the SPAD at Harrow & Wealdstone in 1952 (112 killed, 88 detained in hospital) there was to be no further ducking the issue. BR decided on a national rollout of AWS though the project took nearly fifty years to complete.

There was no AWS and TPWS

SPAD risk

Permanent and Temporary Speed Restrictions

Fast forward nearly 60 years to March 2015 and an event at Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire described by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) as a ‘Dangerous occurrence’.

Another member of the locomotive class involved at Lewisham, this time 34067 ‘Tangmere’, hauling a charter special train 1Z67, approaching from Chippenham, had passed signal SN45 at danger protecting the junction of the South Wales main line and come to a stand across the junction. 34067 is now a preserved heritage steam locomotive and is fitted with AWS (Automatic Warning System) and TPWS (Train Protection & Warning System) for operation on the main line.

The signal was displaying a red aspect to protect a train proceeding along the Up Badminton towards Swindon. This train had already passed over the junction and continued on its way. The route at the junction had in fact already been set for 1Z67 to proceed but the relevant section track circuit/s had not yet been cleared by the previous train to allow SN45 to display a proceed aspect.

If the timings had been slightly different with trains passing on both Up and Down Badminton lines at the line speed of 70 mph, the outcome could have been very different. So what exactly went wrong at Wootton Bassett, and why is it that, sixty years after Lewisham, and despite the provision of AWS and TPWS, the network is still apparently exposed to a potentially dangerous SPAD (signal passed at danger)?

As to the first part of the question, the RAIB is currently investigating the incident and will report in due course on the causal factors involved. However, the industry takes SPAD risk very seriously and Rail Engineer will elucidate some of the extensive activities underpinning SPAD prevention and mitigation, with further safety benefits still to come with the national deployment of ETCS (European Train Control System).

Over the period March 2001 to September 2006, the implementation of TPWS together with other industry improvements brought about a significant reduction in SPAD risk of around 80%. September 2006 is a new baseline for measuring SPAD risk, as it is representative of the system risk management in the postTPWS implementation era. As of March 2013, the SRR (SPAD Risk Ranking) process shows SPAD risk to have reduced further, with levels standing at around 60% of the September 2006 baseline.

Driving a train requires utmost concentration on the line ahead at all times, observing every signal and speed limit, interpreting the information displayed correctly, and controlling the speed of the train appropriately. From the early days of railways, faced with possible consequences of such human error, the industry procrastinated for many decades over a fool-

In addition to keeping focus on signals flashing by at speed, drivers have to ‘know the road’ and be aware of all locations at which the line speed limit changes so that, if a reduction is required, then the braking process should be started at the right moment.

Following a serious lapse at Morpeth in 1969 (six killed, 21 injured), AWS was extended to give warning of a significant step-down of permissible line speed. For this purpose, a warning is given in the cab by means of a single permanent AWS magnet.

Similarly, temporary speed restrictions (TSRs) were added to the AWS portfolio after a disaster at Nuneaton in 1975 (six killed, 38 injured). A small portable permanent magnet is clamped to the web of the rails for the duration of the TSR but has to be carefully positioned in accordance with complex planning rules specified in Railway Group Standard (RGS) GK/RT0075, to enable

The result of a SPAD at Southall in 1997.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

"

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currence" us oc ero ng Da

!

Si r gn e g al P n assed at Da

drivers to correctly correlate AWS warnings in the cab with signals or speed restriction indicators on the line ahead. In particular, such portable AWS magnets shall not be positioned between any other AWS equipment and its associated signal, board or indicator.

AWS Achilles’ Heels After receiving and acknowledging a warning, the safety of the train is entirely in the hands of the driver in comprehending the warning and driving appropriately in accordance with signals and speed limits. It was never foreseen that a driver, having acknowledged the warnings leading up to a red signal, would then just drive on.

Secondly, if a station stop intervenes between an AWS warning and the signal at red, there is the risk that once station duties have been completed, the guard gives ‘ding-ding’ and the train starts away but the driver fails to check whether the signal is still red. Also, it is possible to isolate the AWS and drive without protection as happened with an HST at Southall in 1997 (seven killed, 139 injured).

Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) Acknowledging the weaknesses of AWS, BR commenced work in 1988 on a more effective system which became known as the Train Protection Warning System (TPWS). It was mandated by the 1999 Railway Safety Regulations. Fitment was completed in 2003 with suppliers including Thales, Redifon, and Unipart Rail. Sadly, whilst the project was being planned, a further disastrous SPAD occurred at Ladbroke Grove in 1999 (31 killed, 227 hospitalised).

TPWS is designed to stop a train in three situations. At selected signals a train stop (TSS) will be provided at the signal and apply the brakes in the event of a SPAD. At selected signals an overspeed (OSS) facility will operate and apply the brakes should a train approach a red signal too fast. TPWS is designed to stop a train before reaching a point of conflict. Additional overspeed sensors may be provided (TPWS+) to cope with higher speeds. At other locations, such as on the approach to a permanent speed restriction or buffer stop, the OSS will apply the brakes in case of excessive speed.

A weakness of TPWS is that the driver may ‘reset and continue’. Like AWS, TPWS may also be ‘isolated’ thereby removing the ability to protect the train. Furthermore, TPWS is not fitted at every signal as the primary objective is to protect junctions.

The standard TPWS driving cab display unit delivers a flashing visual indication for a brake demand, leaving the driver to work out whether the brake application was due to SPAD, Overspeed or AWS, leading to possible confusion and belief that the equipment is faulty. If the TPWS system initiates a brake application, the TPWS brake demand indicator will flash. There will be no audible warning. Once the AWS/ TPWS acknowledgement button is pressed and released, the TPWS brake demand indicator will go steady. The brakes will release and the indicator will clear 60 seconds after the brake demand was initiated.

An enhanced TPWS control panel has recently been developed with three indicator buttons ‘SPAD’, ‘Overspeed’ and ‘AWS’. Whenever a

brake demand is initiated because of a SPAD or overspeed, the respective flashing indicator is accompanied by a spoken message, preceded by an ‘alert’ tone. This says ‘SPAD alert, contact signaller’ or ‘Overspeed, contact signaller’ as appropriate and continues until the driver presses the appropriate indicator button.

In the signal box Signallers were criticised for not responding quickly enough when they became aware of the SPAD at Ladbroke Grove but it is unrealistic to expect a signaller to continuously monitor the progress of every train moving within their sphere of control, particularly in a busy box with the intensive operational activity that is in progress and ever changing. The signaller may, for example, be engrossed in conversation with a depot about an impending freight movement, or have momentarily left the workstation to read a notice about an emergency speed restriction that has just printed out.

If a SPAD takes place, a signaller needs to become immediately aware of the potential seriousness of the situation and make a split second decision as to the best course of action to stand any chance of avoiding a collision. The options are limited and may include sending a STOP radio message to driver/s in the locality, putting signals back to danger, and trying to divert the errant or other trains away from possible conflict although the latter may be prevented by the SPAD train occupying train detection sections and deadlocking points that could otherwise divert the train away from danger.

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In response to recommendations of the inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove accident, SPAD alarms were introduced, requiring the signalling control system to monitor the states of train detection sections and signals in order to identify a SPAD. The location of the overrun is highlighted with a yellow background on the main track layout diagram, accompanied by a loud distinctive audible alarm. Such a SPAD alarm is relatively easy to incorporate into the software of a computerbased signalling system, whereas SPAD alarms are not generally provided on hard-wired signalling panel systems as this would require extensive, complex and costly additional wiring.

Cab forward visibility and driver competence In the Lewisham accident report, forward vision from the footplate of the ‘Battle of Britain’ steam engine with its ‘air-smoothed’ streamlined boiler casing was described as “adequate” with the “close range view of signals on the right hand side much restricted by the long boiler”. It was stated that these viewing problems would be resolved with the replacement of all steam trains with electric or diesel-electric trains controlled from driving cabs with no obstructions in front of them.

VMS LED signal with TPWS train stop.

Today RGS GM/RT2161 mandates onerous requirements for train builders with the objective of ensuring clear unobstructed lines of sight for the driver.

Considerable importance is attached to route learning for which route-specific packages are available such as from Track Access Services Ltd. Train operators have their own professional driving policies and competence programmes. Signal engineers are well acquainted with IRSE licences and now it is the turn of train drivers. ‘Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010’ have come into force, requiring all new drivers operating on the mainline railway to hold a licence and certificate. Existing drivers will have to comply by 2018.

Signal positioning and visibility The end of steam on the BR network occurred in 1968 and, from the following day, steam locomotives were banned on the network.

The world moved on, and Signal Sighting Committees (SSC) that had traditionally sighted signals very high up to aid visibility from steam cabs were now placing semaphore arms and red aspects of colour light signals at drivers eye level relative to the cab of electric and diesel locomotives. Although the steam ban was relaxed in 1971 to enable steam specials to run, visibility of signals from the cabs of steam engines never really made it back onto the agenda of SSCs.

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Following the Ladbroke Grove accident, RGS GE/RT8037 became the new ‘bible’ for SSCs with principal requirements that signals shall be positioned and aligned so as to ensure that: a) the driver of an approaching train has sufficient time to identify, observe and interpret the information being displayed; b) the information being presented is clear and unambiguous; c) the risk of reading the wrong signal is minimised; d) the presentation of information displayed to the driver is such as to avoid information overload.

Membership of the SSC includes representatives of the infrastructure controller, train operators, station operators and those with signal scheme design knowledge. Meetings may be convened out on the railway but desktop sighting tools are becoming increasingly popular.

Track Access Services Ltd Survey Data and Virtual Track Models provide a comprehensive data set for signal sighting which is compatible with the Bentley Signal Sighting Tool which provides an accurate solution for interactive desktop signal sighting exercise. Network Rail has devised a signal sighting tool using OmniSurveyor3D lineside surveys. In addition to achieving the best possible sighting of signals, SSCs may recommend special controls within the signalling system that may, for example, obviate the risk of a driver mistakenly reading the proceed aspect on a signal further ahead.

European Train Control System (ETCS) Following the SPAD accidents at Southall and Ladbroke Grove the ‘The Joint Inquiry into Train Protection Systems’ was produced in 2001 which reviewed and assessed the value of all train protection systems in use at the time or shortly to be available. Readers who have reached this far in the article will not be surprised with the report’s cautionary statement: “Until ETCS is generally available on UK lines the risk of a catastrophic accident following a SPAD remains. This will continue to be the case after fitment of TPWS.” In context the report also makes it clear that the risk from SPADs is not large in comparison with overall casualties on the railways. SPADs, however, also give rise to the much more significant danger of a catastrophic accident in which many tens of fatalities might occur. ETCS includes ‘Automatic Train Protection’ (ATP) whereby the speed of the train is continuously monitored in relation to the extent of the movement authority and speed limits, with the brakes automatically applied if the driver makes a digression.

The report considered the AWS system and BR’s trials of ATP on Great Western and Chiltern routes but conceded that both systems represented old technology, with ATP being very expensive for widespread fitment. BR and Railtrack had already been developing the cheaper and much simpler TPWS and this approach was vindicated. “We recommend that the current mandated fitment of TPWS should not be reversed”.

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The provision of TPWS was seen as an interim solution and the report noted that European law requires the fitting of a modern continuous ATP system known as ETCS. It concluded that, for not involving high speed running or large volumes of traffic and not covered by present or future European Directives, other cheaper train protection systems may be appropriate including TPWS. TPWS is a success story, affording acceptable protection with high levels of reliability.

The downside of this is that it makes the business case for replacement with the more sophisticated ETCS on safety grounds alone extremely difficult. However, Network Rail and stakeholders have recently produced a strong whole ‘railway industry’ business case based on ETCS Level 2. This has been achieved by including factors such as increases in capacity, performance and availability as well as safety.

Using the ‘Distance to Go’ concept contained within ETCS, it is been demonstrated by modelling that a 40% increase in capacity is possible.

The East Coast and Great Western main lines will be the first high-speed lines to receive ETCS in UK.

A technical description of AWS, TPWS and other train protection systems such as the Driver Reminder Appliance (DRA) appeared in issue 108 (September 2013).

photography competition Send in your smartphone photos to photocomp@railengineer.uk (see opposite for rules).

Entries must be sent before midnight on 30th September 2015.

win

KAZAM Tornado 350 smartphone

®

‘ You don‘ t take a photograph, You make it.‘

Take a photo win a phone!

Rail Engineer • June 2015

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W

hen preparing articles for publication in Rail Engineer, one of the biggest problems is always the availability of good quality, highresolution photographs.

Some projects engage professional photographers.

The quality is then usually excellent but they can’t be on-site every day. We therefore get a good snapshot of the situation at one point in time, or two or three if visited several times, but we still need additional images to fill in the rest of the work.

Other projects rely on the project team to take their own photos. Sometimes these are good, sometimes fair, and other times downright poor.

Many times, photos are taken by project staff on smart phones. They see that their phone has a 12 Megapixel camera, or whatever, and assume that will mean it’s good enough. They forget that the lens is minute, and probably dirty, and then they also reduce the size of the image (its resolution) to minimise the file size and save space on their memory card. The result – a photo that looks good on a camera screen but which is totally unsuitable for printing in Rail Engineer.

By careful photography, and maximising the file size, that doesn’t have to be the case. So, to promote good photography on smart phones, Rail Engineer will be running a competition this summer for all staff on the railways.

Send us photos of your project, or work, and we’ll publish the best ones. The overall winner, as chosen by Rail Engineer’s picture editor and by professional rail photographer Paul Bigland, will win a KAZAM Tornado 350 smartphone – with a 13 Megapixel camera.

To help you, Paul Bigland has written an article in this issue giving some advice on taking good photos.

You have until 30 September to get your photos to us – the winner will be announced in our November issue.

The rules: 1. Your entry or entries (you can send as many as you want) must be your own work and taken on a smart phone.

2. All photos must be as-taken with no extra enhancement using computer programmes.

3. All images must be at least 2,000 pixels across in either height or width (not necessarily both).

4. While the image is your property, you give permission for us to reproduce it in Rail Media publications in print and online.

5. Each image must be sent to us in an individual email to photocomp@railengineer.uk stating where and when it was taken, what the subject is and the make and model of smartphone used to take the image.

6. Your own employer may want to see any photos you send us – please check for yourself.

7. Entries must be sent before midnight on 30/09/15.

Good luck and good shooting!

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

PAUL BIGLAND

There’s been an explosion in the number of people carrying cameras nowadays and it’s all down to the fact that the vast majority of mobile phones are fitted with one and nearly everyone has one. In the UK there are now 130 mobile phones for every 100 people. Add iPads and other tablet devices into the mix and you can (literally) get the picture.

These handy devices can help your company in a number of ways. They can enable you to get pictures to advertise its work and products or help highlight defects or problems. Network Rail is a good example of how to use such photos, tweeting out pictures of incidents or planned blockades to keep passengers, the public and staff informed and up-to-date.

The camera phone’s ubiquitous nature is ideal as it’s not always possible to call on the services of a PTS qualified, professional photographer like myself.

Also, the quality of mobile phone cameras has improved dramatically. I can’t turn you into David Bailey overnight but, in this article, I’m going to offer a few simple tips and highlight a few of the most common problems that trip up the inexperienced and unwary.

On the job As always, the first rule is - stay safe, especially if you’re working trackside. Never put yourself or others in danger to get a picture. Learn the camera settings on your phone before you get to work, not when you’re on the job!

Also, if people are in your pictures, make sure they’re all wearing the correct PPE for the task in hand and they’re following

a safe system of work. There’s no point in taking pictures for publicity purposes only to find that they can’t be used as they show people in a bad light.

Read the manual. You’d be amazed at the number of people who never read up on what their increasingly-clever little gizmos can do. Taking time to read up on how to use your phone’s camera settings can save a lot of frustration later.

Phones like the Samsung Galaxy have an extensive range of shooting options.

Learning what they do and when to use them really will help you get better pictures.

Bigger is better A very common problem is people taking pictures when the actual file size is far too small - resulting in low-resolution pictures. This causes the picture to pixellate when it’s enlarged. What might look good on your phone screen will look very different in print or on a computer monitor. Small files will save you filling up your phone's memory or SIM card but what’s the point of taking pictures you can’t use?

Go into the camera settings menu on your phone and set it to the maximum resolution and the image quality to its

Rail Engineer • June 2015

Taking smarter

photos

finest (you can always change them back later). This will give you the best chance of getting good quality pictures. It’s also worth adjusting your ISO setting to its lowest on a sunny or bright day (say 100 or 200 asa) to lessen the chance of them appearing grainy.

The importance of light Flare, glare and reflections: A difficulty with camera phones is that there’s no lens hood to shield the camera from sunlight shining directly into the lens, which causes flare and those annoying white diamonds that spoil a picture. If possible, try not to take pictures ‘into the sun’. Not only will it prevent the problem but your subject will be better illuminated by natural light.

There are times when you’ll need to use the flash on your phone but I’d recommend using it sparingly. Flash bounces back from people wearing high-vis clothing, creating pictures that are often underexposed and unnatural looking as it highlights the reflective strips on clothing and not a lot else.

Also, remember that the range of flash on phones is very limited. If you’re taking pictures of subjects more than 20 feet away you’re probably doing little more than wasting your battery. Of course, if you are in a situation where you’re photographing people with the strong light behind them, flash is very good for filling in the shadows to highlight important details such as people’s faces.

Night shots: Many phones struggle taking pictures at night and produce images that are very grainy and not much use. That said, more modern phones can produce pictures that are perfectly useable - especially when an area is well lit. What to watch out for though are heavy shadows that detract from what you’re trying to illustrate (or even hide it completely).

At night, a steady hand is essential, so consider options for bracing either you or your phone against something to cut down on the chance of blurred pictures.

If your camera has a self-timer, consider propping your phone up somewhere and using that instead of hand-holding it. This has the advantage of allowing you to use a lower ISO for less grainy pictures. But it will reduce the shutter speed which means movement will be blurred - but with imagination, that can be used creatively.

If your phone camera is equipped with different metering modes (matrix, centre weighted and spot) you will find spot metering very useful for correctly exposing someone (or something) that’s brightly lit against a dark background.

As its name suggests, spot metering

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

A good example of when the phone's metering system can't cope and using spotmetering would help.

Camera phones aren't keen on fast moving trains. Unless they're still.

judges the amount of light on a specific spot in a picture, rather than trying to average it out and risk overexposure. If you need to take closeup pictures, check to see if your camera has different focus modes and select macro mode.

Oh, and don’t forget that helmet torches can be very useful for providing that extra bit of light you might need to get a decent picture.

Interesting angles Moving objects: Many camera phones don’t like fast moving objects! Either they struggle to focus and take a picture so you miss the train or the picture is blurred. Some phones have a ‘sports’ mode. If yours does - use it. If not, try to take a photo when the subject is stationary.

Composition: Railways are incredibly photogenic so consider being creative as well as simply recording what you see. Don’t always take photographs from eye level - think about what other angles and heights you could possibly use.

Photography is as much about telling a story as simply recording things so it’s worth putting some thought into what it is you want your pictures to say and who your audience might be. If you’re taking pictures for a company, can you work your company logo or name into the picture?

Also, remember rail tracks are very good for leading your eye into a picture. To help with composition, photographers use what’s known as ‘the rule of thirds’. Imagine dividing your screen

into thirds, with two vertical and two horizontal lines, then placing your main subject off centre at a point where two of the lines cross, like this:

Rail Engineer • June 2015

81

Motion blur caused by the camera phone bouncing around too much and a slow shutter speed. Understandable on a Pacer!

Not bad for night time but when you enlarge it you can see it's blurred.

In ideal conditions, camera phones can be pretty good.

Sunshine behind you and the track leading your eyes into the picture.

Sun over the shoulder and no heavy shadows around.

Finally, here are some simple tips to remember: »» Always hold your phone with two hands to minimise the chance of shaking causing blurred pictures - especially in low light; »» Check your phone’s camera lens is clean.

They spend a lot of time in your pocket and easily collect dust and dirt; »» Keep your flash turned off until you think you need it. This will save your battery and be safer at night.

I hope these few tips and techniques will improve your photography and allow you to get the best from your phone camera. But if not, don’t forget - you can always use your phone to call on the experts!

Paul Bigland is a freelance professional photographer and writer who has worked in and around the railways for 15 years. Most bank holidays and many weekends he can be found working trackside, photographing engineering possessions or blockades for Network Rail and its contractors. You can find more examples of his work on his website www.paulbigland.zenfolio.com

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Rail Engineer • June 2015

RECRUITMENT

Problem solvers wanted Frazer-Nash is a rapidly expanding systems and engineering technology consultancy with offices throughout the UK and Australia.

We specialise in delivering engineering solutions to clients across the rail, defence, nuclear, power and transport sectors. Our commitment to innovation was recognised at this year’s Rail Business Awards, where we scooped the prize for Technological Innovation.

We’re looking to recruit skilled and experienced engineers to work on a variety of projects: • • • • •

Rail Business Manager Rail Safety Consultant Rail Systems Engineer Rail Systems Modelling Engineer Rolling Stock Engineer

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To find out more about Frazer-Nash and how to apply (quoting ref. RE0515), please visit our website.

Due to the nature of the work that Frazer-Nash undertakes we will require successful candidates to gain UK security clearance.

Our market sectors aerospace • transport • nuclear • marine • defence • renewable energy • oil and gas Our offices UK: Bristol • Burton • Dorchester • Dorking • Glasgow • Gloucester • Plymouth • Warrington Australia: Adelaide • Canberra • Melbourne

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We are recruiting Fleet Engineers and Project Managers to be based in our London or Derby offices. These new roles have been created to help manage an increased workload over the next two years and provide excellent opportunities to join us on two year fixed term contracts.

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Candidates should ideally be graduate level engineers (or equivalent) with chartered status (or working towards such status) and have rolling stock engineering knowledge. The Project Manager roles also require suitable project management experience ideally supported by qualifications such as APM/Prince 2 or similar.

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