Rail Engineer - Issue 193 | November-December 2021

by rail engineers for rail engineers

NOV-DEC 2021 – ISSUE 193

Subway Revival

EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL THING?

WEATHERING STEEL AND ELECTRIFICATION

Use of synthetic wood is rising – a recent Sekisui project demonstrates its advantages.

Is there a case for using weathered steel in the construction of OLE? We find out.

www.railengineer.co.uk

ELECTRIFICATION & POWER

The industry showcases its net-zero train technology and reveals exciting developments.

PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS

TRAINS ON SHOW AT COP26

LIGHT RAIL & METRO

Glasgow’s modernisation

FOCUS FEATURES

an update on

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Subway revival: An update on Glasgow’s modernisation

David Shirres discusses the work underway to renovate and refurbish Glasgow’s subway system.

Very light rail: A revolution

Revolution VLR may help to prise rural commuters from their cars. Malcolm Dobell investigates.

Getting back on track: Light Rail Summit Edinburgh 2021

After 18 months of virtual conferences, 100 light rail delegates convened in Edinburgh.

What to expect from UK-SPEC4

Paul Darlington explains the revised edition of UK-SPEC which comes into force on 31 December.

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Even better than the real thing?

Developed over 40 years ago, synthetic sleepers are seeing wider use in the UK.

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Intelligent monitoring for slope risk management Extreme weather is making slope failures more common.

How can technology help?

Take gauging to the next level

Clearance assessment has not changed significantly in years, but new approaches are emerging.

SigTech Rail Consultancy: adaptive, creative, and innovative

Rail Engineer learns more about this company and the specialised signalling support it provides.

Checkleys Bridge repaired, refurbished

A relatively small repair scheme became a project to replace or refurbish 50% of this bridge.

Maintenance optimisation can reap hidden efficiencies From cost savings to sustainability, the benefits of optimisation are greater than you think.

Weathering steel and electrification

Martin Young argues the case for using weathered steel in the construction of OLE.

Embracing integrated infrastructure systems The UK must ramp up its electrification plans and introduce hydrogen technology faster, says Siemens Mobility.

Reminder of Live Exposed (RoLE) equipment for overhead line working

Paul Darlington discusses the introduction of RoLE equipment for when working on 25kV overhead line traction systems.

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High Performing Railways

What is a High Performing Railway? Clive Kessell found out on this two-day, online seminar.

Experiencing COP26

David Shirres, Rail Engineer’s own COP26 delegate, gives us his experience of the summit.

Hydrogen: Fuel of the future?

A substantial hydrogen economy is required to achieve net zero, but reservations over its use persist.

Net zero freight

Low carbon logistics was on the agenda at COP26. Find out about the companies encouraging rail freight.

Trains on show at COP26

November’s climate summit saw the industry showcase its net-zero trains. Significant developments were revealed.

Arc Infrastructure, serving West Australia

As Australia rolls out numerous major rail projects, Arc Infrastructure is eager to entice skilled engineers.

Keep Melbourne moving with MTM

UK engineers are a prime target for Metro Trains Melbourne which serves an urban population of five million.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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EDITORIAL EDITORIAL

The North's lost opportunity In 1964, Japan pioneered its Shinkansen service which showed how a dedicated high-speed rail network provides a large increase in capacity with all trains running at the same speed. The first such European line was France’s LGV (Ligne à Grande Vitesse) between Paris and Lille, which opened in 1981. Sixteen countries now have 28,000 kilometres of high-speed lines operating at over 250 km/hr.

Historically, new railways have always driven economic development

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

and worldwide experience shows highspeed rail offers transformational benefits.

It also attracts passengers from planes and cars, and relieves capacity on existing lines to drive the modal shift needed for decarbonisation.

Britain’s first domestic high-speed railway was first proposed in 2009. HS2 was to be a 530-kilometre Y network between London, Manchester, and Leeds. Until recently it enjoyed cross party support, including commitments from the Prime Minister that HS2 was to be delivered in full. However, it was badly sold and, until recently, nothing was done to counter the view that it is a vanity project costing billons just to save a few minutes between London and Birmingham.

This falsehood took root and was one of the factors underlying the recently published Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) which the Government hailed as transforming rail links in the north.

However, as we describe, in reality it cuts back Transport for the North’s proposals for Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) and curtails HS2’s Eastern Leg to Leeds which was to be the most transformational part of HS2.

It replaces these with proposals that will require years of passenger disruption to upgrade existing lines and will still not deliver HS2’s capacity or journey time savings.

Furthermore, the Government’s

transport decarbonisation plan notes that it is essential to avoid a car-led recovery and supports modal shift of freight from road to rail. Yet its IRP cuts back proposals to deliver the required rail capacity to do so on the East Coast Main Line and across the Pennines.

Years of planning by HS2, Network Rail, and regional authorities has been reversed by the patently flawed IRP report which has been subject to universal criticism by the rail industry and local authorities affected by it. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain have seen the benefits from the 9,000 kilometres of high-speed rail lines that they have built since the 1980s. Unfortunately, such longterm strategic planning does not seem to be evident in the UK. It is ironic that a plan curtailing the railway’s ability to accept modal shift was published a week after COP26. This aimed to strengthen the Paris agreement so that global temperatures will not rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius. This requires global emissions to be reduced to 27Gt CO2e by 2030 from the present 52Gt CO2e. However, the agreements made are estimated to only limit emissions to 42Gt CO2e.

The numerous events at COP26 on the UN Climate Change website provide an international perspective on the climate emergency. We report on one such event, a hydrogen transition summit. This showed how and why a global hydrogen economy must be developed if the world is to be weaned off fossil fuels.

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THE TEAM Editor David Shirres david.shirres@railengineer.co.uk

Production Editor Matt Atkins matt@rail-media.com

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

Engineering writers bob.wright@railengineer.co.uk clive.kessell@railengineer.co.uk collin.carr@railengineer.co.uk graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.co.uk lesley.brown@railengineer.co.uk malcolm.dobell@railengineer.co.uk mark.phillips@railengineer.co.uk paul.darlington@railengineer.co.uk peter.stanton@railengineer.co.uk stuart.marsh@railengineer.co.uk

Vivarail battery train passes newly erected OLE masts outside Glasgow.

The rail industry rightly proclaimed its green credentials during COP26. Stations had posters proclaiming Scotland’s Railway’s plan to achieve net zero by 2035. Hydroflex and Vivarail trains were running from Glasgow Central station where the RDG’s ‘We Mean Green’ stand on the concourse explained rail’s carbon savings. Outside Glasgow, the Scottish Hydrogen train was on display at Bo’ness and the Mossend Rail Freight Terminal hosted a low carbon logistics conference. These were all informative and thought-provoking events as our COP26 reports show.

The novel green trains displayed in Glasgow attracted much media coverage, typical of which was that they are the ‘trains of tomorrow.’ Yet at Central station they were surrounded by electric trains with far greener credentials. The more important railway decarbonisation story, that Scotland is delivering a plan to decarbonise its railway by 2035, went unreported.

Yet large-scale electrification is only possible if it, and other associated infrastructure work, can be delivered in a cost-effective manner. Our feature from Siemens explains why this requires

DAVID SHIRRES

RAIL ENGINEER EDITOR

integrated infrastructure systems. With the power and acceleration it provides, electrification also supports high performing railways. Clive Kessell’s report from a wideranging two-day seminar on this topic is essential reading for those who wish to know how rail can deliver the performance needed to attract custom and carry high levels of traffic. Having competent engineers is clearly one requirement. In these respects, budding engineers should read Paul Darlington’s explanation of how UK-SPEC standard for becoming a professional engineer has changed.

Trams are a green solution for public transport and get people out of their cars.

This was clear from the recent Light Rail Summit in Edinburgh at which Malcolm Dobell learnt how this sector is being drawn together to improve both its safety and efficiency. In another feature he describes a low-cost Very Light Rail vehicle intended to support restored railways. Another light rail system is the Glasgow Subway. We describe how this is to introduce the UK’s first unattended train operation as part of its modernisation programme.

With the festive season fast approaching, all at Rail Media would like to wish our readers a happy and safe Christmas, especially for those working on the railway over the holiday period.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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NOTICES

Leaves on the line: a thing of the past?

Poor adhesion is in the news following the collision between two trains at Salisbury Tunnel Junction on the evening of 31 October. The RAIB has said that analysis of the South Western Railway train’s OTDR indicated that wheel slide was present, both when the driver applied service braking and after emergency braking was demanded, adding that wheel slide was almost certainly a result of low adhesion between the train’s wheels and the rails.

Water-Trak MALCOLM DOBELL

In autumn conditions, low adhesion is usually caused by leaf film that adheres to the rails and often the wheels too. Currently, lines are cleaned using railhead treatment trains, also known as RHTTs, but there are only a limited number of these trains available, so they cannot treat the whole of the network. RHTTs are also expensive to run, so they are mainly used to clean high-traffic, intercity lines, which means some lines are left untreated.

Rail Engineer has frequently reported on techniques to manage or remove leaf film, and, on 24 November, Northern Rail demonstrated two new leaf-busting technologies at its Allerton Depot.

These were Cryogenic Rail Head Treatment and Water-Trak, last covered in Rail Engineer 191 (July /Aug2021). As Northern’s press release put it: “The disruption from Autumn leaf-fall for Britain’s railways could be a thing of the past – thanks to trials led by Northern and rail industry partners.”

Recapping, the debris from falling leaves can cause significant disruption to the network.

Leaves stick to damp rails and passing trains compress them into a smooth, slippery layer, reducing the trains’ grip. This can cause delays to services, which lead to disruption for passengers, and the issue costs the railway industry millions of pounds every year.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

The Water-Trak team discovered that leafcoated rails only become slippery if they are damp and noted that trains still stop safely in heavy rain. Water-Trak simply creates rainy-day conditions on the rail surface by spraying a small amount of water from the train onto the track when a slippery rail is detected.

Two Northern trains have been fitted with Water-Trak and have been successfully operating in passenger service since late October. The trials with Northern are being run thanks to funding from Network Rail’s Performance Innovation Fund.

Cryogenic Rail Head Treatment This rail cleaning technique, developed by a team of researchers led by Professor Roger Lewis from the University of Sheffield, uses dry ice pellets in a stream of high-pressure air which freeze the leaves and then, as the pellets turn back to gas, increasing in volume by 800%, they are blasted away from the rails. The research team is running further trials with Northern throughout Autumn and Winter 2021/22 to test the cleaning system onboard passenger trains.

Coincidentally, on the same day, Roger Lewis was presenting Cryogenic Rail Head Treatment to an Institution of Mechanical Engineers seminar webinar where he described this and other research into the causes of leaf-induced low adhesion. Roger reported that the Cryogenic Rail Head Treatment system has been fitted inside a class 153 unit and will be tested on the little used Monk Bretton freight branch in early December, prior to in-service trials possibly on the Huddersfield to Bradford Interchange line where there have been several incidents in recent years.

A proposed redesign for 2022 will see the system fitted to the underframe of a vehicle and Roger hopes to be able to combine this with artificial intelligence techniques to analyse the images from forward-facing cameras to identify contaminated rails.

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NOTICES

Hitachi-Alstom joint venture wins HS2 train contracts

HS2 Ltd has confirmed that a HitachiAlstom joint venture has been awarded the contracts to build Britain’s next generation of high-speed trains at their factories in Derby and County Durham. The deal is set to support 2,500 jobs across the UK. The £2 billion contracts will see the joint venture design, build, and maintain a fleet of 54 state-of-the-art high-speed trains that will operate on HS2.

Building on the latest technology from the Japanese Shinkansen ‘bullet train’ and European high-speed network, they will be some of the fastest, quietest, and most energy efficient highspeed trains operating anywhere in the world.

Alstom’s Managing Director, UK & Ireland, Nick Crossfield said: “HS2 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform Britain by building a sustainable transport system fit for the 21st Century. I am delighted that Alstom’s joint venture with Hitachi Rail has been selected to develop, build, and maintain in Britain the next generation of high-speed trains.”

The design, manufacture, assembly, and testing of the new trains will be shared between Hitachi Rail and Alstom. The first stages, including vehicle body assembly and initial fit-out, will be

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

done at Hitachi Rail’s facility at Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. The second stage of fit out and testing will be carried out at Alstom’s Litchurch Lane factory in Derby. All the bogies will both be assembled and maintained at Alstom’s Crewe facility – the first time since 2004 that both jobs have been kept in the UK. Andrew Barr, Group CEO, Hitachi Rail said: “We are excited to be pioneering the next generation of high-speed rail in the UK as part of our joint venture with Alstom. This British-built bullet train will be the fastest in Europe, and I am proud of the role that Hitachi will play in helping to improve mobility in the UK through this project.”

The first train is expected to roll off the production line around 2027. Following a rigorous process of testing and commissioning, the first passengers are expected to be carried between 2029 and 2033.

Designed to be fully accessible, the interior layout will be decided following a two-and-ahalf-year collaborative design process involving HS2 Ltd, the Department for Transport, and the West Coast Partner, the operator of the trains when they first come into service.

Each train will be around 200 metres long, with the option to couple two units together to create a 400-metre-long train with up to 1,100 seats.

The train will benefit from Hitachi Rail’s pioneering low noise pantograph – the arm which collects power from the overhead wires.

Developed in Japan, this technology will make it quieter than comparable high-speed trains and use regenerative braking to boost energy efficiency.

Alongside, design, manufacturing and testing, the contracts also included 12 years of maintenance which could be extended in the future to cover the estimated 35-year life of the rolling stock. The fleet will be maintained at a new maintenance depot being built by HS2 Ltd at Washwood Heath on the outskirts of Birmingham, creating jobs and additional apprenticeship opportunities.

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NOTICES

Integrated Rail Plan scales back HS2 East and NPR DAVID SHIRRES

The UK Government heralded its recently published Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) as the biggest ever public investment in Britain’s rail network that will deliver faster, more frequent and more reliable trains in the North and Midlands. However, as explained below most of these claims are fictitious.

example, IRP includes around 180 route miles of electrification, primarily the Midland Main Line to Sheffield and the entire Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade, which have longer sections of three and four tracking plus freight gauge-clearance.

There is also a commitment to build a mass transit system for Leeds and West Yorkshire.

Although IRP’s £96 billion is a substantial amount, it is to be spent over 25 years and compares with a recent National Infrastructure Commission report which considered between £86 billion and £129 billion was needed.

Furthermore, transport spend per head in London is 2.4 times that in the North of England.

The future of HS2

Transport for the North (TfN), the statutory body set up to plan the region’s long-term infrastructure investment saw its proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) cut back. It considered IRP to be “woefully inadequate.”

The Railway Industry Association described it as “a piecemeal approach to national strategic railway infrastructure development.” It was also criticised by various Conservative backbench MPs including Transport Select Committee Chair, Huw Merriman who noted that “the Prime Minister promised that HS2 and NPR was not an either/or option and those in Leeds and Bradford may be forgiven for viewing it today as neither.”

However, Merriman also observed that IRP has “some fantastic projects that will better connect our great northern cities.” For

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

HS2 is to provide a dedicated high-speed line with far greater capacity than a mixed traffic railway. Its Y-network from London to Manchester and Leeds was also estimated to provide capacity relief on the West Coast, Midland, and East Coast main lines of 67%, 33%, and 50%, respectively.

Constructing such new lines also has minimal impact on the existing railway. Network Rail’s Andrew Haines has previously noted that HS2’s opponents understate the “absurd” rail passenger disruption from work to upgrade the existing network to HS2’s capacity.

IRP proposes that HS2’s Western Leg to Manchester should proceed but that its Eastern Leg should be curtailed to now terminate at East Midlands Parkway to enable HS2 trains to run direct to Derby and Nottingham. Instead of building 60 miles of HS2 to Leeds, IRP earmarks £100 million to look at the most effective way to run HS2 trains to the city and proposes ambitious upgrades of the East Coast Main Line (ECML) to deliver comparable benefits earlier by running, for example, 140mph trains.

IRP claims that ECML upgrades would reduce the London to Leeds journey by 20 minutes. However, 125 mph running is currently only possible on 111 miles of this 186-mile route. If the heroic assumption is made that this could all be upgraded to 140mph this would save less than five minutes.

Furthermore, running trains at this speed on a mixed traffic railway will increase capacity.

IRP also claims that its proposal will cause less disruption than HS2 by overstating the disruption from building its bridges over the motorway network and HS2’s small number of interfaces with the rail network. It barely mentions the huge disruption from large-scale main line upgrades. A 2013 DfT report on HS2 alternatives concluded that these would require around 1,500 weekend

NOTICES

disruptive possessions. This is equivalent to almost 10 years of continuous weekend ECML disruptive possessions which is clearly unacceptable.

Curtailing HS2’s Eastern leg reduces its effectiveness as a whole as it fails to make the best use of the core route into London. It also significantly increases the number of HS2 services that will run on the conventional network which means it may not now be feasible to achieve the planned 18 trains an hour from Euston.

This also significantly reduces the number of dedicated HS2 trains that can take full advantage of HS2’s European GC loading gauge as doubledecker high-speed trains do on the continent.

NPR cut back Manchester’s Castlefield corridor is amongst Network Rail’s most congested infrastructure. Yet IRP offers no solution for it until Liverpool to Leeds services can use the completed HS2 Western leg in 20 years’ time. However, this will create a problem of these services crossing the throat of the new HS2 Piccadilly station as they turn back there. IRP does not recognise the capacity issues associated with turning back trains at Manchester Piccadilly’s dead-end station and considers that a through station only offers a three to four-minute faster service.

For a future Liverpool to Leeds service IRP proposes electrifying the line between Liverpool and Warrington where Bank Quay low level station will be reinstated. A nine-mile high-speed line from there to HS2 will then enable a high-speed service to be provided between Liverpool and Manchester Piccadilly, where trains will turn back before continuing to Leeds.

The Trans-Pennine upgrade will provide improved services by around 2030. By the early 2040s, a new 12-mile high-

speed line between Manchester and Standedge tunnel will both speed up and increase services between Manchester and Leeds, although IRP does not state how capacity will be increased through the tunnel.

This new line is significantly less than the NPR proposal for a new 40-mile line connecting Manchester and Leeds via Bradford.

Other proposed NPR enhancements are Leeds to York electrification with some sections four-tracked, with upgrades and electrification of the nine-mile Leeds to Bradford Line via New Pudsey to reduce journey time between the two cities from 20 to 12 minutes.

without considering the need to accommodate increasing freight demand. It also claims that previous proposals were inflexible to future changes in demand. Yet the Eastern leg of HS2 would have released 50% of the ECML’s capacity south of York which could have been used for whatever mix of freight/regional or commuter trains might be required in 20 years’ time.

The IRP report generally focuses on journey times rather than capacity. Its significant capacity increases are mainly associated with the HS2 proposals it retains. The only significant new additional capacity is that between

Reduction in passenger journeys on ECML Leeds / Edinburgh to London services post-HS2 phase 2

Peterborough Doncaster Leeds York Darlington Newcastle Edinburgh Lost capacity The IRP report considers that the Covid pandemic has weakened the case for long term rail investment and shows that an adaptive approach to respond to trends that we can see is needed. Thus, the preference is for piecemeal upgrades rather than large schemes. This approach takes no account of the experience of the past 20 years in which growth outstripped the required enhancements which take years to develop and deliver.

Nor does it take account of the need for rail capacity if there is to be significant modal shift of freight and passengers to rail.

The IRP seems to dismiss this requirement by suggesting that, post-Covid, the need to release space for more commuter trains no longer applies

57% 77% 74% 80% 73% 72% 54% Liverpool and Leeds though this is constrained by the turn back at Manchester Piccadilly, especially if Birmingham to Leeds high-speed services are also to turn back there.

While the Trans-Pennine Upgrade and other electrification work will provide benefits by the 2030s, the new lines that will provide significant benefit will not be completed until the 2040s. Thus, IRP’s claim that its proposals will deliver benefits earlier than delivering HS2 in full is over-exaggerated.

Between London and Leeds, IRP offers half the rail capacity that would have been available from HS2 and does nothing for the slow congested Sheffield to Leeds corridor.

A parliamentary statement advised that construction of the full HS2 Eastern leg has

not been ruled out, though the suggestion that an alternative to the HS2 route to Leeds should be considered can only add to its cost and delay.

Broken pledges For all of these reasons IRP has been subject to universal criticism by the industry, specialist rail media, and those affected by it, especially as there had been many recent pledges to build HS2 in full.

IRP’s biggest loser is Leeds which, Network Rail’s ECML route study notes, is the biggest city region outside the South East and, with 120,000 businesses, is responsible for 5% of England’s economic output. This study also considers that HS2 provides a once in a generation opportunity to see a stepchange in the provision of rail services to free up significant capacity so that the ECML route can be used to drive better connections and more journey opportunities as shown in the table.

This is one of various studies that took strategic direction from HS2 which resulted in the development of various proposals such as those

by Midlands Connect. HS2 itself has been developed since 2009 with cross party support which includes recent commitments by the Prime Minister to deliver both HS2 and NPR in full.

Transport for the North has written to Grant Shapps expressing its collective disappointment and dismay at the IRP’s inadequacy, asking for sight of the technical work that underpins it.

Nevertheless, TfN wishes to work with government to explore ways of realising its ambitions for Northern England. Hopefully, something will come of this, though, unfortunately, this is not likely given the government’s robust defence of its patently flawed IRP.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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LIGHT RAIL & METRO

Subway Revival an update on

DAVID SHIRRES

Glasgow’s modernisation

G

lasgow’s Subway comprises a four-foot gauge double track in a circular 10.5km tunnel and is the world’s third-oldest underground railway (after London and Budapest). When it opened in 1896, there was no rail connection to the surface, so cars were lowered into the tunnels from the depot above.

Lifting one of the original 1896-built cars out of the tunnel.

Although trains were steam-powered, there was no smoke in the tunnels. Instead, a stationary steam engine moved a 10.5km long continuous cable in the track bed at a constant 19km/h. Trains were moved by a gripper that closed around the moving cable, as on San Francisco’s cable cars today. A legacy of this system is that each station is on a hump that helped accelerate trains down a steep gradient as the cable was gripped.

Although the Subway has not expanded in size since it opened 125 years ago, it has been the subject of two modernisation programmes. In the late 1930s the original cars were converted to electric traction. Between 1977 and 1980, the Subway was closed for a major enhancement programme that included station reconstruction, tunnel repairs, track bed and rail replacement. This provided the Subway with its first points as part of a triangular junction to provide a surface rail connection to the Govan depot.

The 80-year-old wooden cars were replaced with a fleet of 32 new power cars. A further eight trailer cars were added in 1992 so that all trains could be three-car units.

One of the tunnel turn out chambers provided as part of the late 70s modernisation.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

LIGHT RAIL & METRO

Current Subway train.

The third modernisation The 1970s refurbishment has served Glasgow well, with 13 million passenger journeys undertaken each year. However, after 40 years, it was time for another major enhancement programme.

Otherwise, it was likely that increasing costs would force the Subway’s closure.

So, in 2011, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) initiated a £288 million modernisation programme of which the Scottish Government contributed £246 million. The five main strands to this programme were smart ticketing, station refurbishment, infrastructure asset renewal, rolling stock and control system replacement, and organisational change.

Maintaining the 40-year-old Subway cars is increasingly challenging.

Getting the workforce’s commitment to new working practices was an essential first step of the modernisation programme. SPT achieved this in 2012 with an agreement between UNITE and SPT for more flexible working and establishment reduction, with no compulsory redundancies.

Contactless Subway smartcards were introduced in 2013.

Developed by Nevis Technologies - a joint venture between SPT and Ecebs - Subway cards comply with the UK ITSO standard and can have ScotRail and local bus tickets added to them. In 2015, Smartcard top up was extended to 45 retail outlets close to Subway stations using the Payzone system that also accepts payments for utility and credit card bills.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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LIGHT RAIL & METRO

Station refurbishment Refurbishing the Subway’s 15 stations accounts for around £50 million of the modernisation.

This started in July 2011 with the second busiest station, Hillhead, and was completed in 2020. To avoid passenger disruption, 90% of the work was done in short night-time possessions.

As a result, all the Subway stations are now bright, modern stations with new SPT branding.

These revitalised stations are expected to attract new patronage and also reduce operating costs by using lower whole-life-cost modern materials

and energy efficient lighting. The system’s 28 escalators have been replaced by power-standby, energy-efficient versions.

The new stations incorporate DDA enhancements including hearing loops, tactile maps and paving, and colour contrast flooring. However, due to the constrained nature of the Subway’s small stations, it was only possible to fit lifts at Govan and St Enoch.

There were three framework contractors for this work (Graham Construction, Sir Robert McAlpine and Clancy Docwra) and two framework designers: Austin Smith Lord and AHR.

Formal opening of the refurbished Hillhead station in 2012.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

LIGHT RAIL & METRO

Leaking tunnels The modernisation programme includes a comprehensive programme of infrastructure works including tunnel repairs. The Subway’s two circular tunnels have a nominal diameter of 3.35 metres and are between three and 40 metres below ground level. They pass under the river Clyde twice and are mainly within the groundwater table. Construction methods varied according to the differing geology and used linings that were brick circular and horseshoe, concrete horseshoe, brick and concrete circular, and cast iron segmental.

Historic records show that the ground conditions encountered were hard going (rock) or particularly poor (loose sands/muds).

The worst section between Buchanan Street and Kelvinbridge passed through former quarries. The differing forms of construction, in conjunction with changes in the surrounding soils, have led to varying degrees of deterioration over the last 120 years, resulting in significant water ingress with resultant maintenance problems, including rail corrosion.

Since 2015, Freyssinet has been undertaking tunnel lining upgrade work. In 2020 the company was awarded a further five-year contract for such work which includes annulus grouting, lining repairs, and resin injection leak-sealing. Pumps were also replaced at 21 pumping stations as part of a £2 million contract awarded to WGM Engineering in 2014.

Other tunnel work included the removal of 120km of redundant cable and the provision of a new chainage system to re-baseline tunnel survey datum. New datum plates with radio frequency identification were also installed.

The only closure In contrast to the 1970s modernisation which saw the Subway closed for two years, the Subway has, with one exception, remained open during the modernisation programme.

The exception was a one-month closure in 2016 to replace the track system in the depot access ramps and turnout chambers that were installed during the 1979 modernisation. This work included replacement of the concrete track bed and drainage, and renewal of the plain line rail, switches and crossings, and point motors.

During this time replacement bus services were provided, mimicking the circular service on the surface streets above.

Around this time there was an accelerated rerailing programme which was completed 2017.

This was needed because of the condition of existing rails and the requirement to start testing the new rolling stock at night.

Subway tunnel.

(Inset) Freyssinet working on tunnel lining.

Made-to-measure trains Impressive though the station and infrastructure works are, the new trains will no doubt attract the greatest attention as they will be the first trains to operate in the UK with Unattended Train Operation (UTO).

Instead of procuring the trains by a prescriptive technical specification, prospective suppliers were given a concept of operation that covered general requirements such as the number of people to be carried and how SPT wished to operate the trains. A competitive dialogue then followed to develop the technical solution that offered best value.

In 2016, SPT announced that a consortium of Stadler Bussnang AG and Ansaldo STS (now Hitachi Rail STS) (ANSTA) had won a £200 million contract to supply its new trains, signalling and associated equipment.

Although there had been concerns that suppliers may not be interested in an order for a small number of four-foot gauge Subway trains, this proved not to be the case. Stadler, in particular, is known for its bespoke manufacturing operation with production lines that can easily be changed for small orders, such as 34 cars for the Berlin Underground and 10 Croydon trams.

Stadler is supplying 17 four-car articulated trainsets. Half of each set comprises of a power car with two bogies that supports one end of a trailer car that has one bogie at its other end. There are wide walk-through connections between the cars which have a standard floor height, made possible by smaller diameter wheels. Each train is 39.25 metres long, compared with 37.74 metres for the current three-car units. The trains have the same 58km/hr maximum speed as at present and have capacity for 310 passengers compared with the current 270.

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General arrangement showing articulation arrangement.

New Stadler train on the test track.

The trains have secondary air suspension and cushioned, resilient wheels. This both improves ride quality and allows tyres to be replaced without removing the wheelset from the bogie.

The wheelsets have radial steering to reduce flange wear. Wheel condition monitoring equipment will be installed at the depot to take daily wheel profile measurements, to predict when tyre turning is required.

With high levels of redundancy, it is unlikely that a fault would require a train to be taken out of service immediately.

Stadler unveiled the Subway’s new trains at Innotrans in 2018 and delivered the first train to Glasgow in 2019. There are now three pre-series trains in Glasgow. Due to their four-foot gauge, dynamic testing cannot be done before delivery so the trains are being tested on a 760-metre test track by the depot. This test track has been constructed by ANSTA having previously been part of the 1979 modernisation and follows the route of the closed Govan branch line.

ANSTA has built the construction depot and store adjacent to this track, which will be fitted with the new signalling system and have a platform with platform screen doors. This ANSTAcontrolled facility is assembling and testing the new trains and is segregated from normal operations.

After a pause in production to assess modifications required following testing, the production run for the remaining 14 vehicles has now commenced. The three pre-series trains will be modified in Glasgow.

Once the new train fleet is operational, SPT will be responsible for its maintenance with support from ANSTA under a technical support and spares supply agreement.

UTO, PSD and CBTC The AC traction motors are water cooled with IGBT traction control that offers regenerative braking. Systems will be continuously monitored to detect potential defects. For example, increased effort and time to close a particular door indicates an emerging problem, allowing the problem to be investigated before the door fails. A system failure sends an alarm to control, complete with advice on the required action.

UTO requires a fully automatic signalling and control system. A key requirement is for controllers to monitor trains with on-board CCTV and to communicate with passengers if required.

With no on-train staff, platform screen doors (PSD) will be fitted to control the platform train interface risk. These will be 1.7 metres high and provided by Gilgen Door systems, the company that installed them on Paris Metro line one when it was converted to UTO.

Old and new Subway cars after delivery of the first Stadler train.

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Graphic showing installed platform screen doors.

Signalling will be the Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) system that Hitachi has supplied to Copenhagen, Milan, and Stockholm.

Car-borne Controllers (CC) calculate the train’s position using a tachometer which records distance travelled since the last track balise and transmits this to the Zone Controller (ZC). This determines movement authority limit for each train and advises each train’s CC of its limits. The CC then brakes as required and enforces speed restrictions. It also provides Automatic Train Operation (ATO) and controls the train’s doors and other systems.

The ZC also controls the Wayside Standard Platform (WSP). This operates and responds to infrastructure-based equipment such as platform doors, platform alarm buttons and point motors.

Other aspects of the system are the Automatic Train Supervision (ATS) system and the iVENCS control system. The ATS regulates movement of trains in line with the performance and schedule requirements of the system. For example, when a train is due to enter service, the ATS instructs the WSP/ZC which then sets the points from the stabling sidings to the tunnel and the ZC instructs the CC to move the train at a safe speed. The iVENCS control software manages passengerrelated infrastructure such as CCTV, information screens, and station assets.

New Operations Control Centre.

Driver Simulator.

Depot enhancements A new Operational Control Centre (OCC) has been built at the depot to house the signalling and control system, train control, and driver simulators. This incorporates best security, safety and ergonomic practice. A new Hegenscheidt wheel lathe has been installed at the depot so wheelsets will no longer be sent away for tyre turning. A new, fully automatic, UTO-compatible wash plant will also be provided.

New Hegenscheidt Wheel Lathe.

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Mixed fleet running.

Although trains will enter the stabling sheds under UTO, they will be manually driven into the maintenance sheds. The trains will arrive under UTO at a platform from where they will be driven into the maintenance sheds using a flip-up control panel, provided at each end of the train.

Getting to UTO The delivery and commissioning of these trains and their transition to UTO is a complex programme. The first step is testing the new trains in the Subway’s tunnels at night when there is no public service. It is hoped that this might start soon. The trains will then need to accumulate significant test mileage before they can enter service.

At this point they will be operating under the existing signalling system and will be manually driven from a temporary cab created by a partition wall. This will be removed after the introduction of UTO. After a period of mixed fleet running the existing fleet will be withdrawn.

It will then be possible to commission the new CBTC signalling system and install the platform

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screen doors that are not compatible with the door spacing of the existing fleet. Once this is done, it will be possible to introduce UTO. UTO offers many benefits including the flexibility to introduce additional trains for short periods to move exceptional crowds. If required, the normal four-minute headway can be reduced to as little as 90 seconds. This, no doubt, will be appreciated by the thousands of Rangers fans who use the Subway’s Ibrox station to get home from a match.

Introducing the first UTO service in the UK is a challenging project, not least in respect of the approval process for which SPT is in constant contact with the ORR. DfT is also being consulted about cyber-security. SPT also has close ties to all metro operators across the world through its membership of UITP and is constantly learning from other operators which have converted to UTO, in particular the Paris Metro.

Given the unknowns associated with installing and commissioning this complex system on the Subway’s 125-year-old infrastructure, the SPT has not committed to a date for UTO operation.

However, the programme is taking longer than originally envisaged when it started in 2011.

Reasons for this include the complexity of installing infrastructure in the old, constrained tunnels, and the Covid pandemic.

However, this delay has not inconvenienced passengers, who have experienced various improvements during the modernisation programme while the system has been kept open. The eventual introduction of UTO trains offers passengers further improvements and brings the SPT significant business benefits. This will also ensure that the diminutive new Subway trains will attract much attention and might perhaps encourage standard-gauge operators to follow the SPT’s trail-blazing approach to train operation.

Rail Engineer wishes the Subway well as it celebrates its 125th birthday on 14 December, and looks forward to seeing the completion of its modernisation programme in the not-too-distant future. As we go to press, we learn that one of the new Subway trains entered the tunnels for the first time for testing.

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Very light rail A

MALCOLM DOBELL

REVOLUTION

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f you’ve not been following what’s been happening in the world of very light rail (VLR) it is easy to get confused. In Issue 191 (July/Aug 2021), David Shirres described, among other things, the establishment of a VLR National Innovation Centre (VLRNIC) at Dudley and the cost/disruption challenge when constructing light rail track. In issue 188 (Jan/Feb 2021), Clive Kessell and I covered a Railway Industry Association event dedicated to light rail covering a wide range of issues. All these were aimed largely at the urban/suburban market.

There is another market, however. Many, mainly rural, groups have been trying to get their local rail links restored and they’re assisted by the Restoring Your Railway Fund managed by the Department for Transport (DfT). Across the globe people are thinking about how to reduce their dependence on the car. There is a generally held view that car drivers will not be encouraged out of their cars onto buses but are much more likely to do so for a high-quality rail product.

This has led to much thinking about what sort of vehicle might operate such restored routes.

If asked today, the default option would be a 1980s single-car, diesel-powered train such as the UK’s class 153. These are not attractive vehicles. Their passenger accommodation is cramped and for the drivers it is worse, resulting in the unattractive nickname ‘dogbox’. The vehicle tends to be the public face of the railway, but a class 153 is not what even its designer would call a pretty one. Enter Revolution VLR (Revolution Very Light Rail or RVLR).

Background Rolling back a few years, the 2012 Railway Technical Strategy led to a competition called ‘Radical Train’ which was aimed at producing technology demonstrators; real things that people could see and touch which would be inspirational and show the way ahead for the industry. Your author, before ‘retirement’, was a member of a panel of judges assessing aspects of the short-listed entries.

One of these was from a consortium of companies that was proposing a very light self-powered train. In November 2013, they won a modest award from the RSSB Future Railway Enabling Innovation Team funded by the DfT, which led to further funding to develop a self-powered bogie with an integral, hybrid propulsion system and kinetic energy recovery system.

In May 2018, Eversholt Rail, one of the UK’s rolling stock owners, announced it had joined the RVLR consortium and programme, the industry consortium that will develop, manufacture and market the RVLR vehicle.

Today In October 2021, Rail Engineer met with the RVLR team on the site of a former power station in Ironbridge, near Telford in Shropshire.

It soon became clear that the exercise is more than just developing the vehicle. The RVLR has been created by a consortium led by Transport Design International Ltd (TDI) with Eversholt Rail, WMG at the University of Warwick, Cummins diesel engines, Transcal, RDM Group, and Prose (Switzerland) with support from DfT and RSSB. The objective of RVLR is to deliver a reliable, high quality passenger experience at the lowest possible cost of system implementation and operation. It has to encourage modal shift and be technically and economically sustainable, not just ‘cheap as chips’. With similar arguments to those advanced for the urban VLR concepts, the aim is for a low-cost railway system using a lightweight vehicle to minimise track wear

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and enable cost-effective infrastructure. The aim is to adopt appropriate systems using a modular construction technique that is both lighter and more adaptable than traditional rolling stock.

Vehicle design The key to attracting car users is a good-looking vehicle that is easy to access and comfortable inside. One only has to see and then step inside the RVLR to see that these objectives have been delivered. The frontend design features a large windscreen with a very clear view for the driver who also has a comfortable seat. Drivers of class 153s will be envious.

A good view out was seen as essential as some line-of-sight driving might be involved.

The 18.5-metre-long vehicle has been laid out with 56 seats and a wheelchair space. It complies with the requirements of the PRM TSI accessibility specification. Power and USB sockets have been

provided and there is full air conditioning. Eight seats are in bay layout with tables, and the remainder are airline style with a 770mm pitch. Unusually in today’s trains, the seats had a reasonable amount of padding and were comfortable, although the journey was short.

The cab is laid out with all the controls in appropriate locations established through ergonomic studies and consultation with train drivers.

The photo shows the clean console design with CCTV monitors either side displaying the views from the interior and exterior (front, rear and sides) cameras.

Construction RVLR is constructed on a steel underframe, with aluminium/Kevlar reinforced vehicle ends and roof. The bodysides are double skinned composite (recycled carbon fibre) elements pre-wired, that are bonded and bolted to the underframe. Windows

are bonded to the bodyside units and their trapezium shape is a result of seeking the maximum window size allowed by the structural design of the bodyside elements. The doors are a sliding plug design to EN 14752.

Bogies are based on the Wabtec LN25 low noise freight bogie. That said, it has been modified to become a power bogie, has rubber secondary and coil spring primary suspension and has yaw dampers. RVLR is currently designed for a 65mph (104km/h) top speed.

The overall tare weight is 24.8 tonnes, a 40% reduction compared with class 153. RVLR personnel explained that the freight bogie is proven on often indifferent quality track which might be a feature of the target lines, and whilst comprising roughly one third of the tare mass, this proven design significantly de-risks the project.

Reducing weight Weight saving techniques have been applied. The wheels are much smaller than would normally be used on a freight bogie and are mounted on hollow axles. The hollow axles each deliver a mass saving of 130kg each. The four traction motors are possibly the smallest your writer has ever seen on a train. They are permanent magnet three-phase motors and each one is mounted on the bogie parallel to, and driving the axle mounted gearbox though a carbon fibre shaft.

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Braking is mainly regenerative, but disc brakes are provided at the motor ends of the carbon fibre shafts for emergencies and parking.

The motors are fed from three phase inverters powered by two banks of Toshiba Lithium Titanate batteries with a total capacity of 62kWh. On this version, the batteries are kept charged by twin Cummins 2.8l diesel engines that conform to Euro 6 (road use) regulations with particulate filters and selective catalytic reduction using AdBlue. During the demonstration the diesel engines did not run. The team reported that it is intended that the diesel engines would be automatically stopped at stations and in other sensitive areas, and would always run at their most efficient speed.

Again, depending on the duty, larger batteries could be fitted with charging stations at appropriate points on the route, something that would be selected as part of the system design. A battery-only version is expected to be lighter.

The vehicle has been designed for ease of maintenance without the need for bespoke facilities and equipment, and any of the underframe modules can be exchanged in about 20 minutes using ordinary tools and a forklift.

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System design The choice of Ironbridge for the demonstration was made to illustrate how quickly a redundant railway could be brought back into use.

The old Ironbridge Power Station was connected to the Birmingham to Shrewsbury line between Ironbridge and Shifnal. Development company Harworth purchased the site and has recently gained planning permission for constructing 1000 homes and associated communal facilities.

Large development companies repurposing old industrial sites are often required to provide public transport facilities of some kind, and they have co-operated with RVLR to set up the test site to illustrate the possibility of a rail based public transport solution.

The track – mainly bullhead rail on timber sleepers – was in reasonable condition. It was fettled, and the workshop, visitor centre, platform and derailer were all constructed in six months at a cost of less than £400,000.

While the platform and buildings are temporary structures, with only a little more work (e.g., platform lighting) they would suffice to start a service. Indeed, the visitor centre was of better quality than the shelters seen on many mainline stations.

When a rural line has delivered or exceeded its ridership targets, then perhaps more permanent facilities will be provided.

Assurance While the RVLR is designed to meet the requirements for its intended duty, there are numerous non-compliances with the standards currently in place for heavy rail operation.

The RVLR team has been working closely with RSSB to agree where non-compliances are appropriate and what mitigations might be required for mixed traffic operation.

Using structural strength and crashworthiness as an example, the requirements of GMRT2100, EN12663 and EN 15227 have been evaluated and, without getting into the technical detail, the vehicle conforms to requirements for trams/light metro vehicles.

LIGHT RAIL & METRO The vehicle meets the requirements for level crossing collisions, but the requirement for train-to-train collision, say, RVLR to freight train, will be managed by separation.

Operation into bay platforms at interchange stations is an example of separation. Provision is made for an obstacle deflector, but it is not currently fitted.

The RVLR team said that ETCS, AWS, TPWS, sanding and other equipment can be fitted as required by the nature of the operation. ORR have been involved throughout. This is an example of progressive assurance, where early assurance can be provided that the requirement set is valid, followed by assurance evidence being provided hand-in-hand with project design and delivery.

Costs and deployment In restoring any railway, the cost of the vehicles is a small component of the whole. The costliest part is usually building or reinstating the infrastructure. If adopting RVLR can deliver a reduction in overall project cost – even 10% – it will be worthwhile, but it will require a mindset change. The question “what do I need to do to provide a safe, reliable, attractive and low-cost railway and how can the standards help me achieve that ambition?” must replace the statement “I have to build a railway and I must comply with every standard”.

For existing branch lines, RVLR brings a welcome uplift in quality and appearance. The promoters were reluctant to quote a price for a RVLR vehicle, a sum that depends on specification and order quantities, but they said that they are aiming for the cost to be nearer that of a modern 56-seater bus than the cost of a conventional heavy rail vehicle.

Customers of branch lines, such as those at Gunnislake, Looe, and Tavistock, would see an immediate uplift in quality.

With thanks to the team demonstrating the Revolution VLR including Tim Burleigh and Wendy Allington from Eversholt Rail, and Len Islef and Nicola Islef from Transport Design International.

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MALCOLM DOBELL

Getting Back on Track Light Rail

Turnback at Balfour St stop in Leith Walk.

The route of the Edinburgh tram extension from York Way to Newhaven. New stops marked in yellow.

Summit Edinburgh 2021

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radually, people are starting to meet face to face again, and my September visit to the Light Rail Summit in Edinburgh was a welcome relief after 18 months of Teams, Zoom and the repeated phrase: “You’re on mute!” The event was hosted by Edinburgh Trams, UKTram and the Light Rail Safety and Standards Board (LRSSB) and nearly 100 delegates, mainly representing the UK’s light rail networks, attended to hear about UKTram’s and LRSSB’s work over the last two years.

The event included a presentation and walking tour around the works to extend the Edinburgh Tram system to Newhaven and, whilst the text of this article concentrates on other summit matters, the illustrations highlight progress on the extension as a visual update to David Shirres’ article in issue 188 (Jan-Feb 2021).

George Lowder, CEO of Transport for Edinburgh and Chair of UKTram, opened the event and delivered a roundup of progress made during the pandemic, especially the productive relationship established with the Department for Transport (DfT) and Treasury. He was also pleased to report that the pandemic had enabled the development of much better governance for UKTram and LRSSB, leading to the publication of a handbook describing roles and responsibilities, amongst other things.

UKTram James Hamnett, Managing Director of UKTram, presented the draft Light Rail Strategy that is currently out for consultation with members and stakeholders including the DfT. The strategy argues the benefits and contribution of light rail to the economy and people’s lives, stating that light rail will contribute to ‘building back better, greener and faster’ and will invest in urban areas to continue to drive their economies, though this will not all be focused on London and the Southeast.

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Amongst other things, the strategy aims to focus on UK employment and R&D with regard to vehicle & infrastructure construction, signalling, power and control systems, services (operations, cleaning etc.).

It promises to support high street outlets as well as retail centres, be a catalyst for regional improvements in economic and social mobility, and significantly improve regional air quality and landscapes.

LIGHT RAIL & METRO The strategy also states that light rail can be an important contributor to the ‘Restore your Railways’ programme; support central government investment projects, e.g., HS2 connectivity; help provide world class schools and hospitals with world class local transport networks; and help develop UK expertise that can be exported across the world.

There was a great deal of positive comment from the delegates and, said James: “The strategy, which was widely welcomed by summit delegates, builds a compelling case for future investment in light rail and looks at ways to remove barriers to the expansion of existing systems and the building of new networks.

Crucially, it highlights the many economic, environmental and social benefits of putting tramways and similar transit systems at the heart of future integrated urban transport networks.” He added that UKTram plans to publish the strategy by the end of the 2021/22 fiscal year.

built light rail systems, with 20 of them in France. He added that of 72 European cities/metropolitan areas with populations of more than one million, only three do not have light rail systems and they are all in the UK. Alistair’s view was that this difference is explained by the strategic framework in France where: (i) the public transport vision includes a long-term plan with integrated public transport, aimed at reducing the reliance on the car; (ii) there is a single authority to drive schemes with the power to tax locally and invest in transport; and (iii) the business case framework includes features which value drivers for economic growth and where not all costs are passed onto the developer. This creates a sustainable market providing certainty for the supply chain to invest, with an emphasis on investment in local technology. There is currently nothing like this in the UK except, possibly, in London.

terms of the green agenda, more electric cars will not deliver as they still emit pollution from tyres and brakes. Light rail is already green but could become even more so – for example by finding ways of harvesting 100% of their braking energy.

Jonathan stressed the importance of building an “armoury” of evidence to support the argument for light rail. He said this needed to be presented as part of a national debate on how our cities can be made better, rather than being considered as a local issue as it often is now. He called for a fast-track approval process for schemes which, in turn, should be developed using template scheme designs, and a much more collaborative approach to multi-modal public transport such as one would find in London and countries such as Switzerland.

Innovation: FOCUS+

Largely competed track at Ocean Way. Overhead conductor system yet to be constructed.

Global comparisons

The benefits

Alistair Gordon, CEO of Keolis UK, presented some international comparisons. Keolis UK are involved in light rail operations in Manchester, Nottingham, and London Docklands.

Internationally, Keolis is a €6 billion company operating in 16 countries with over 68,000 employees. It serves 3.4 billion passengers and 300 transport authorities, according to 2020 figures. It operates more than 10 transport modes and has over 23,000 buses, of which more than 4,000 are non-diesel.

Alastair said that, compared with mainland Europe, the UK has not invested in light rail. He said that since 2000, 108 European cities have

Jonathan Bray, Director of Urban Transport Group, provided examples of light rail’s benefits. In Tyne and Wear, 67% of customers do not have access to a car, Jonathan said, adding that light rail is not just about transport links from A to B, but also enables change. The example given was the comparatively small sum of £20 million spent on the Manchester Metrolink extension to Salford Quays which enabled inwards investment in Media City worth well over £500m.

He said that light rail has some of the highest levels of public transport customer satisfaction and that surveys often indicate that people would not give up their car for a bus but would do so for light rail. In

Next was a presentation about an innovation aimed at improving safety by Neil Clark, CEO of Integrated Human Factors. UKTram had formulated the Driver Innovation Safety Challenge (DISC). With trams largely operated by driving on sight, and with little or no immediate response in the event the driver passes a stop signal or misses some other significant hazard, it is vital that an appropriate level of care is provided to ensure driver wellbeing and prevent error prone states – for example, fatigue. Neil noted that only 10% of all rail and road accidents are the consequence of equipment failure.

The product developed through DISC is called FOCUS+. It is a fatigue, health and wellbeing monitoring system consisting of a wrist wearable device and hub. The hub can be attached to a belt or secured within the vehicle cab. The system passively collects the driver’s biometric data which is anonymised and stored within a secure Amazon Web Services environment. The data is processed using machine learning models developed for each individual user.

Red, amber, and green alerts are generated to signal the wellbeing of the wearer. A red alert, for example, means that the wearer’s biometric data has significantly deviated from its normal baseline and Neil emphasised the importance of learning what normal looks like for each wearer.

The medical measurements include heart rate, oxygenation, and skin temperature, and in their normal states these vary between individuals. What is normal for some people might be a red alert for others.

The device also transmits time, GPS position, and acceleration/gyro data.

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Small radius curves for turn from Ocean Drive to Melrose Drive at Ocean Terminal.

Volunteers required Working with UKTram, IHF has been seeking volunteers to test the system.

They will receive full training on the system and will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the system over a period of six months. The testers will be asked to wear the systems routinely and will also be asked to provide a range of demographic and health data, including height, weight, sex and age, to help the designers develop the data baselines.

The discussion was mainly about whether drivers and unions would support the system. Acceptance will possibly depend on how well management and unions are already cooperating on a ‘just culture’ where individuals are not blamed for honest errors but are held accountable for wilful violations and gross negligence.

People are generally less willing to inform the organisation about their own errors and other safety problems or hazards if they are afraid of being punished or prosecuted.

The applicants are provided with a secure system for making applications with a case management process for both the applicant and the tram operator. Hazard identification and risk mitigation are integral to the process and when the permit is issued, all the conditions are part of the permit which can be carried on a mobile app, allowing people carrying out the work and the operator’s inspectors to verify easily that conditions are being complied with and agreed mitigations have been applied. In circumstances where there is a charge for access, the system includes an integral mechanism for charging and is able to accept card payments or to invoice known organisations. This can include different prices for various application types and can accommodate surcharges if applied.

The LRSSB Carl Williams, Chief Executive of the Light Rail Safety and Standards Board (LRSSB) updated the meeting on progress since the organisation was established as part of the sector’s response to a Rail Accident Investigation Branch report into the tragic 2016 Croydon derailment. Now in its second year, LRSSB has cemented its position in the sector’s consciousness and with stakeholders. An early piece of work was the development, with Atkins, of an industry risk model that provides the sector with individual network and national risk profiles, ensuring more control of emerging risks and precursors to incidents. In 2020/21, Carl added, the output of the tool indicated a reduction in the national Total Fatality Risk to passengers of 12%, and a 4% reduction in the National Total Risk profile to passengers, public and staff.

New standards have been published as well as a number of guidance notes, reports and good practice guides, some of which are intended to assist in closing out recommendations in the RAIB investigation report into the Sandilands accident.

He said that projects in progress included one to fully integrate the Tram Accident and Incident Recording system (TAIR) into the risk model, and a project to fully populate a digital reference library to be hosted on the LRSSB website.

Looking forward, Carl reminded the meeting that there is currently no obligation on operators to be a Member of LRSSB or to comply with its output, unlike the situation on the main line

Protect+ Another innovation, this time about an improved Authority to Work (ATW) process called Permit+ was sponsored by UKTram and is being trialled in Edinburgh.

Anthony Stevenson, Managing Director, Codemakers described the system which is to be marketed and operated by a spinoff company, Metrotech. Currently many ATW systems are paper based where applicants (typically public and utilities) and responders are only connected by the paper or email trail. Permit+ aims to provide a transparent cloud, web, and app-based system available to the applicants and run by the tramway.

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One cannot build street tramways without disruption.

Street closed to traffic adjacent to South Leith Parish Church.

LIGHT RAIL & METRO network where operators are required to be Members of RSSB and to comply with Group Standards. As LRSSB was set up with only an initial three-year funding agreement, the requirement of membership would provide LRSSB with stable funding and, with the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), he is discussing making membership of LRSSB a licence condition for operators.

Pooling knowledge Working groups, a key part of UKTram’s remit, are responsible for pooling knowledge as well as identifying and commissioning work. Their membership comes mainly from the operators, together with a UKTram staff member who takes forward their work programmes. Each group gave a report.

UKTram’s Mark Davis, General Manager, Croydon and Steve Duckering, UKTram Operations Manager, reported from the Executive Group. Current activity includes working to understand each operator’s contract models to develop and guide on good practice. An example future project aims to make recommendations about rolling stock procurement which could include, perhaps, joint procurement.

Matt Taylor described the Centre of Excellence, a group of about 20 tram experts, with collaboration from Network Rail. The group advises anyone on issues likely to be faced when promoting, gaining approval, or extending light rail schemes. When an issue is identified, the appropriate experts meet in smaller groups to offer advice. They are not solely cheerleaders for light rail and will not offer it as a solution if it is clearly inappropriate.

The group has developed a route map to help promoters cover all the activities needed to get to a Transport and Works Act order, and they are now working on a new template to help people thinking about a light rail system to decide whether light rail is the right solution.

Finally, they are working with current Independent Competent Persons to increase the supply to alleviate a shortage of people qualified to perform this role.

Further developments Mark Ashmore, Safety and Assurance Manager at LRSSB reported on the Health and Safety Group’s work. This includes work to integrate TAIR into the risk model; development of a new dashboard to help users better understand what the risk model is indicating; using bow tie modelling

(BowtieXP software) to help operators develop suitable controls for identified risks; and the use of RM3 audit tools with peer review to assess the maturity of operators’ safety management systems.

Iain Middlemass, Head of Tramway, Blackpool and Craig O’Brien, Engineering Manager, both at UKTram, gave the Engineering Group’s report. Space is insufficient to report fully on all their work as it covers several activities in each of over a dozen broad categories.

A notable example was an initiative to assess all operators’ rail grinding needs with the aim of encouraging a grinding supplier to base a suitable machine in the UK that can be called on by all networks

Sharing solutions The final working group report came from Mike Mabey, Head of Operations, Nottingham and a second outing for Steve Duckering. Over the last 18 months the Operations Group’s focus has been keeping staff and customers safe during Covid. Sharing experiences and solutions was doubly important during this period to share what worked and what didn’t when knowledge was still emerging. The current topics for the working group included getting customers number back to the pre-Covid levels; mental health issues amongst staff leading to absence issues; and recruitment, linked to the HGV driver shortage.

Leith Walk is a wide road but, during construction, is reduced to a single city bound lane.

as required. They have a programme to create standards or guidance and 12 topic areas were described, from stray current management and engineering techniques, to managing the risk of trapping and dragging people caught in tram doors.

They are also seeking an externally moderated benchmarking arrangement similar to those currently facilitated by Imperial College London (e.g., CoMET and NOVA). They also had a long list of R&D topics including pedestrian distraction at level crossings; detection of cars at level crossings; standardisation of fire-fighting systems for rail vehicles; improving the safety performance of passenger rail vehicle glazing systems; integrated information management systems, improving the effectiveness of rescue operations at railway accidents; and the development of a derailment detector.

The working group is also considering the challenges of sourcing replacement buses during engineering work due to unavailability of bus drivers; the sharing of best practice on driver training to help fill the recruitment issue where drivers might resign with one month’s notice; and the development of a common definition for signals passed at stop.

Conclusion It is pleasing to see how much work is being done to draw the sector further together in order to improve both safety and efficiency, and to promote the development of the sector as a green solution for public transport in urban/ suburban transit.

Thanks to UKTram’s Jamie Swift for his assistance with this article. See video on their strategy at https://tinyurl.com/4p8t8km6.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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LIGHT RAIL & METRO

LRSSB review by the ORR At this Light Rail Summit, the strong relationship developing between the UKTram, LRSSB and the ORR was evident. It was in October 2021, that ORR announced their review of LRSSB. This review is taking place as a direct result of a request by LRSSB’s chair and CEO in a letter to ORR sent in May 2021.

The first recommendation in the RAIB investigation report into the 2016 Sandilands accident stated that: “ORR should work with the UK tram industry to develop a body to enable more effective UKwide cooperation on matters related to safety, and the development of common standards and good practice guidance”. LRSSB was the result.

Recommendations two to six required the tram industry to work on a number of safety issues, and LRSSB took on this work on behalf of the operators. The key purposes of LRSSB are to: » Codify and develop standards and guidance to provide both support and guidance to its members. » Support the design, delivery and ongoing operation/maintenance of light rail systems in the UK and abroad. » Manage and assist in the collation and analysis of industry safety and risk data, and to provide a platform to help lower the level of risk in the member networks by sharing best practice and benchmarking data. » Ensure data and learning points are gathered from worldwide industry partner organisations to ensure best practice advice is shared whenever possible. » Ensure that ORR/RAIB future recommendations are acted upon industry wide.

As ORR stated in their terms of reference: “As light rail becomes an increasingly important solution to the UK’s urban transport challenges, the LRSSB has evolved into the central sector body responsible for coordinating advances in tramway safety and setting recognised industry standards.”

The ORR review will act as a light touch “temperature check” of LRSSB’s progress prior to a more comprehensive review at the five-year point following its formation in 2019. The review will involve all the tram operators and key stakeholders including

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

customer representatives and trades unions. It is planned to be complete in the first quarter of 2022.

Carl Williams, LRSSB Chief Executive, commented: “When the organisation was first established, we invited the ORR to carry out a review of our initial work. It was agreed that this would take place during the first two to three years of LRSSB operations, and we welcome this evaluation process.

“Since Sandilands, the sector has worked tirelessly on fulfilling specific recommendations made by the RAIB, and the LRSSB has taken the lead in a number of areas. These include extensive research into the most appropriate driver inattention and speed monitoring systems, the development of a comprehensive framework for risk management and mitigation, and a sector-wide database for incident reporting.

“Further research projects, including studies of obstacle detection/avoidance, passenger safety and driver fatigue monitoring, are planned for the coming months.

“While much has been achieved in a relatively short period of time, there is still more to do, and we look forward to working closely with the ORR on the review as we strive to drive continuous safety improvements through standardisation, collaboration, research and shared best practice.”

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30

FEATURE

What to expect from UK-SPEC4 Summary of changes

PAUL DARLINGTON

B

ecoming professionally registered as an engineer or technician is an important milestone in any engineering career. Registration demonstrates that applicants have reached an internationally recognised standard of competence and have committed to maintaining their competence in the future. The standard for registration, which sets out the competence and commitment required, is published by the Engineering Council and is known as UK-SPEC. A revised fourth edition of UK-SPEC – UK-SPEC4 - will be implemented by 31 December 2021.

Being registered by the Engineering Council via a professional engineering institution enables successful applicants to use the internationally protected titles of Chartered Engineer (CEng), Incorporated Engineer (IEng) and Engineering Technician (EngTech). Registration provides recognition as a professional engineer or technician, improving career opportunities and salary prospects. Benefits for organisations that employ professionally registered engineers and technicians are many, and include possible mitigation of potential liabilities if an accident or incident occurs and a means to satisfy the requirements of quality management systems.

In order to gain the title of CEng, IEng, or EngTech, applicants must first join one of the 39 professional engineering institutions licensed by the Engineering Council to assess candidates.

Examples of institutions covering the rail industry include the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE).

The list of licensed institutions also includes the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE) and the Permanent Way Institution (PWI) who are dedicated to the rail industry.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

The requirement standards have not changed in the fourth edition, but they have been redrafted to make the requirements more obvious, to reduce the duplication of information, and to reflect the way many companies now operate in a matrix reporting structure. In previous editions potential registrants were referred to as both “candidates” and “applicants”, but will now only be referred to as “applicants”.

The qualifications which provide the required level of knowledge and understanding in order to apply for professional registration are normally: for EngTech - a Level 3 qualification as part of an approved apprenticeship scheme; for IEng - an accredited Bachelors degree; and for CEng - an accredited integrated Masters degree or a combination of accredited Bachelors and Masters degrees.

Applicants who do not have the recognised qualifications will require an individual assessment of their qualifications and any other relevant learning such as: formal academic programmes; in-employment training; experiential and further learning; or passing an institution formal exam. Applicants may be also asked by their institution to write a technical report or attend a technical interview.

The two routes were previously referred to as “Standard Route” and “Individual Route” but in UK-SPEC4 the terms are replaced with “Recognised Qualifications” and “Individual Assessment” to convey that both routes are equal in status.

Previous editions of UK-SPEC alternated between the terms “Professional Engineering Institution”, “PEI”, “Licensed PEI”, and “Institution”. UK-SPEC4 now uses the term “Licensee” to provide consistency with the term used in the revised Engineering Council Bye-laws.

The comparison table of EngTech, IEng and CEng competences no longer contain examples of evidence, as the previous version was very difficult to read for people with visual impairment and incompatible with screen-readers. It was also difficult to compare across registration categories and there was undue repetition of information from elsewhere in the document. The comparison table now precedes the information on professional and ethical behaviour.

The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) section has been rewritten to include updated information on the CPD Code and sampling, and a link to the CPD policy statement is now included. The Guidance for

FEATURE Licensed Member Codes of Professional Conduct section has been shortened to remove all the information intended for Licensees, rather than for potential registrants. The Glossary has been extended to provide greater clarity on all the terms used in UK-SPEC. The requirements are now illustrated in a way that helps less experienced applicants draw out their relevant experience and some subcompetences have been reworded; for example, C4 (CEng) from, “bring about continuous improvement through quality management” to, “bring about continuous improvement and promote best practice”.

The generic role description for CEng is revised and “accountability for project, finance and personnel management” is replaced with “responsibility for the financial and planning aspects of projects, sub-projects or tasks and leadership and development of other professional staff through management, mentoring or coaching”. The term “accountable” has been interpreted as having formal responsibility in an organisational context, e.g., a line manager or project manager; so, competence C has been changed to better reflect the actual level of competence required.

The change also makes it clear that the Standard can be met by applicants who are operating with significant responsibility in a matrix management structure, which many organisations now use. CEng C3 has also been changed from “lead teams and develop staff” to, “lead teams or technical specialisms” to better recognise technical specialists.

The examples of evidence have also been strengthened to include examples that are more accessible to academic applicants and technical specialists.

Greater clarity between IEng and CEng The requirements for IEng and CEng have been clarified, specifically differentiation between IEng and CEng, principally at competences A and B. For example, A2 (CEng) emphasises technical complexity and level of risk.

There is closer alignment between the requirements for competence C, recognising that the management/leadership requirements are more similar than they are different.

There is reduced emphasis on technological innovation as the primary way to demonstrate the application of a high level of technical knowledge (CEng, A2). The definition of A2 has been broadened to emphasise complexity and level of risk: “developing technology solutions to unusual or challenging problems using their knowledge and understanding and/or dealing with complex technical issues or situations with significant levels of risk...”

Diversity and inclusion There is greater emphasis on diversity and inclusion, which in the 3rd edition was only included in the requirements for EngTech (competence D2). This is now also included in IEng and CEng, as D3, “demonstrate personal and social skills and awareness of diversity and inclusion issues”.

For consistency with other categories of registration “diversity and inclusion” is now split out into a new competence for EngTech, (D3).

Competence E5 “Ethics” has been reworded to help draw out applicants’ understanding of ethical issues, even if they have no clear-cut issue to describe. It now says “Understand the ethical issues that may arise in their role and carry out their responsibilities in an ethical manner”.

In the consultations during the drafting, several pieces of feedback were received questioning the extent to which minor deficiencies in sub-competences can be

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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FEATURE

allowed, or whether all competences (A1E5) must be met. The following wording has therefore been included: “An Engineering Technician/Incorporated Engineer/Chartered Engineer must be able to demonstrate their competence in all of the areas listed, but the depth and extent of their experience and competence will vary with the nature and requirements of their role. They will demonstrate a level of competence and commitment in each area, (A1-E5), at a level which is consistent with their specific role. It is to be expected that they will have a higher level of competence in some areas than others and their role may provide limited experience in certain areas. However, they need to demonstrate an understanding of, and familiarity with, the key aspects of competence in those areas of limited experience as a minimum requirement, while demonstrating higher levels of competence in those areas which are critical to their role. Overall, they will demonstrate an appropriate balance of competences to perform their role at Engineering Technician/Incorporated Engineer/Chartered Engineer level effectively.”

Professional registration interview Licenced institutions are required by the Engineering Council to interview all Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Incorporated Engineer (IEng) applicants for professional registration.

The process for the interview has not changed in UK-SPEC4.

The interview will be conducted by two registered members of the institution, with at least one who will be broadly from the same engineering or technology discipline as the applicant. An observer from the Engineering Council or an assessor in training may occasionally be present at an interview.

The purpose of the interview is to confirm that applicants have demonstrated the overall level of competence in all the competence and commitment requirements as set out in UKSPEC. The interviewers will generally use the applicant’s application and CV as the agenda for the interview and will encourage the applicant to

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

talk about their experience, drawing out evidence of competence during the discussion. They will also provide the opportunity for applicants to expand on the information in their application and clarify any points. The interview will assess all the UK-SPEC competencies, which broadly cover: A) knowledge and understanding; B) design, development and solving engineering problems; C) responsibility, management and leadership; D) communication and interpersonal skills; and E) personal and professional commitment.

During the interview applicants should be prepared to explain the technical content of their work as the interviewers will probe specific competence areas. Applicants will not be expected to divulge material of a commercially sensitive nature, and the interviewers will at all times maintain integrity during the process.

The interviewers will want to support applicants as best they can, and to identify examples of any activity the applicant has experienced to demonstrate the required standard of competency. The interviewers do not make the final decision on the award of professional registration, but they normally compile a report to another independent review group in the institution to make the final decision. It can therefore take a number of weeks after the interview before the result is communicated.

The best way to prepare for the interview is for the applicant to review their application and decide which experiences best demonstrate the required range of competences. Even though most people work as members of a team, it is the applicant’s competence that is being assessed. So, applicants should avoid being over-modest and answering as “we” and they need to demonstrate their contribution and engineering competency.

Applicants should have an example of how they demonstrate professional and ethical behaviour ready for the interviewers. An example will be required for the interviewers to assess competence E5. There are four fundamental principles: a) accuracy and rigour; b) honesty and integrity; c) respect for life, law and the public good; and d) responsible leadership; listening and informing.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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EV EN BE TT ER TH AN TH E RE AL TH IN G ?

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PHOTO: GÜNTHER KOLLER

ynthetic sleepers have been in production for over 40 years, but it is only in the last 20 that European infrastructure managers have adopted the technology. With a contract to supply FFU timber for the Chelsea River Bridge refurbishment, leading synthetic material manufacturer, Sekisui, had an opportunity to showcase its product on a project that made use of all its advantageous properties.

Constructed in 1863, the Chelsea River Bridge – also known as the Cremourne Bridge or the Battersea Railway Bridge − links Battersea to north-east Fulham and carries 18 trains per hour, including passenger services and freight.

The bridge has seen considerable refurbishment work over the past decade. This year, Sekisui was chosen by Network Rail to provide synthetic rail sleepers for its renewal of the bridge’s track. More than 120 fibrereinforced foamed urethane (FFU) longitudinal bulks (w/h/l = 450/130/7,500mm) were installed on the existing bridge structure, on top of which over 800 FFU bridge sleepers (w/h/l = 240/130/2,600mm) were placed. The prefabricated FFU longitudinal baulks and bridge sleepers were pre-drilled before shipping at the production plant in Japan. Despite all the recent challenges with Covid and shipping, this project was a great success.

A long history Synthetic sleepers aren’t exactly a new phenomenon. Sekisui began developing its product in the 1970s, after Japanese National Railways found that its wooden sleepers were degrading after exposure to the elements.

A longer-lasting material with the same characteristics of wood was called for and Sekisui’s FFU timber fit these requirements.

“Some 1,550 km of railway was laid on modern FFUs, globally, between 1980 and 2020,” says Sekisui’s Patrick Childs.

“Many have been in service for 35 years and their use has been analysed by the Technical University in Graz, Austria and the University for Technology and Architecture in Frieberg. These sleepers are of similar weight to our wooden ones and use the same types of fastenings, and so on. The initial trials in the 1980s were carried out using bi-block FFU sleepers incorporated into a ballastless track area in a tunnel.”

Newark crossing, 8 baulks from FFU (w/h/l = 700/380/16,000mm)

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS Sekisui’s FFU was first used in Europe by the Vienna public transport system, Wiener Linien, on the Wienfluß Bridge project in 2004. Since then it has been used across Europe, specifically on metros and light rail networks in Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, München, Bochum and Toulouse. The London Underground and the Paris and Lille metros have also installed these artificial sleepers.

PHOTO: NETWORK RAIL

Multiple benefits

PHOTO: GÜNTHER KOLLER

The benefits of FFU are manifold and it’s no surprise that it was chosen for use on the Chelsea Railway Bridge.

The material has the weight of natural wood and many of the same properties. Its close resemblance to traditional timber means that the visual appearance of the bridge remains intact. It is also easy to repair and, most importantly, has an extremely long life.

In 1996, Japan’s Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) carried out tests on sleepers which had been installed in 1980. Several fatigue tests simulated 100 million load cycles. These tests led to the prediction that FFU would have a life expectancy of 50 years. In 2011, sleepers from 1980, which had now been in service for 30 years, were again removed and tested by RTRI. As a result, RTRI confirmed that these FFU sleepers would work safely for the next 20 years.

FFU is not affected by UV light and retains its technical properties after many years of exposure. Where FFU is not painted, long-term UV irradiation only leads to discolouration of the surface.

Not only does this increase the material’s longevity but also has environmental implications as FFU products do not need to be treated with harmful chemicals to protect them from UV exposure.

Ecological advantages Continuing on the environmental theme, FFU has been proven not to contaminate water sources, as reported by the Japan Food Research Laboratories’ 1994 report, OS57110607-1.

The organisation conducted

water quality tests with FFU synthetic wood and concluded that the water into which FFU was immersed met the same quality standards as control water. A further environmental benefit is that FFU is 100% recyclable.

Currently the UK’s record in recycling, especially plastics, is far from good. Perhaps we should consider the wider use of what are claimed to be recyclable synthetic railway sleepers with a proven 35-year durability? This would surely be beneficial due to their long life on bridges as waybeams, in tunnels, and to carry switches and crossings.

The use of recyclable synthetic sleepers is ramping up across the UK rail network. FFU synthetic sleepers were first installed

by Network Rail on track and bridges in Ashford, Kent, in 2014, followed by bridges in Rochester and Faversham. In 2019, the diamond crossing in Newark was replaced using FFU sleepers with a size of 16m in length, 70 cm in width and 38 cm in height.

A 2013 EU-wide creosote ban, which exempted railway sleepers until 31 July this year, has now come into force and the alternative material − hardwood − is mainly sourced from Brazil and is not sustainable.

Chelsea bridge – cross sleepers from FFU.

Ashford bridge project.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS

RTRI Test values for FFU sleepers new, after 10, 15 and 30 years in use. The values are the material failure values.

FFU sleepers can be worked and machined in much the same way as traditional timber, using standard tools and existing fastening devices.

These properties are a result of the material’s manufacturing process.

“The synthetic sleepers are manufactured using the ‘pultrusion process’ in which glass fibres are soaked and mixed with polyurethane, then hardened at a raised temperature, moulded and cut to length, says Patrick. "Currently, the maximum practical length is just 10 metres due to shipping restrictions. The FFU bearers for Network Rail’s renewal of Newark Flat Crossing were made in Japan, shipped to Britain and are up to 8 metres long having been made using 30mm thick layers of material.”

Various manufacturing processes can also be applied to suit the requirements of specific locations. Examples include cutting the material to produce the correct angle to match the designed cant of track, drilling screw holes, milling out spaces for accommodating other parts of the structure and surface sanding. The technology offers the advantage that nearly any shape of sleeper can be precisely produced from

a plan – for example, soleplates from a height of as little as a few millimetres up to sleepers of 16 metres length, 70cm width, and 38cm height.

Each sleeper is also given a unique identification to ensure it is laid at the intended location on site. All of this means that sleepers can be delivered to the project site ready for installation. This ease of use can lead to much shorter possessions, saving time and money and minimising disruption.

Considering the advantages of the technology, along with the rail industry’s increasing awareness of environmental matters, synthetic timber looks to play a major role in the future of rail construction. To find out more visit www.sekisui-rail.com.

Special thanks to Peter Blakeley and Christopher Brown from Network Rail for all their hard work and support in making this project happen.

PHOTO: NETWORK RAIL

(Below) Ashford, run on/ off and ballasted track between two bridges.

(Inset) Chelsea bridge.

Manufacturing

PHOTO: GÜNTHER KOLLER

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

R A I LW AY T E C H N O L O G Y

State of the Art

FFU™ synthetic railway sleeper Since 1985 we have installed more than 1,550 km of track 1.7 billion load tonnes | equivalent of 50 years use Application: Ballast, Slab Track, Steel Construction and Direct Fastening Can carry Axle loads of up to 65 tons Use on High Speed Rail up to 300 km/h Maintains long term track geometry Contact with ballast similar to timber sleepers Workable properties like timber sleepers SEKISUI CHEMICAL GmbH T: +44-(0)796-6598055 E-Mail: childs@sekisui.de www.sekisui-rail.com

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Intelligent monitoring

for slope risk management

R

ailways in many parts of the world are built on embankments or adjacent to steep slopes. Climate change has brought increasingly frequent extreme weather events and slope failures have become more common, particularly following heavy rainfall. Failures can manifest in gradual settlement and disruption, or sudden landslips and significant threat to human life.

Historic management practice has been based on manual inspection and attended survey.

More recent technological development has brought automated survey instruments, remote sensing and better data management, e.g., improved weather forecasting. All have limitations, however, such as limited spatial and temporal sampling, and the need for frequent site visits with associated costs and risks.

Robust and proven Remote condition monitoring specialist Senceive has pioneered the use of IoT technology over the

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

last decade to provide a robust and proven wireless intelligent monitoring solution (IMS) to detect and respond to ground movement and provide early warning to geographically dispersed stakeholders. The core element of the system is a network of long-life movement sensors, connected to each other and the internet via a wireless radio platform.

The Senceive IMS displays many of the properties common to other IoT technologies: it is cost-effective; small; easy to install; and needs little or no maintenance over an ultra-long (10-15 year) life.

It does not need mains power and has self-healing properties

in the event of damage to individual components. It can integrate highly sensitive triaxial movement sensors with a wide range of other sensors including automated cameras, as well as geotechnical and structural logging instruments.

Over the last decade this technology has moved from the laboratory to become widely adopted by users such as Network Rail and HS2 who, together, have installed more than 10,000 of these smart sensors in the last year.

Considerable challenges Network Rail feels the pressures of managing railway earthworks more than most national rail operators. Its network is intensively used and dependent on the performance of more than 190,000 earthwork assets in geologically diverse conditions. Most pre-date modern geotechnical

PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS

Wireless solution

standards by a century or more, and were built fast, cheap, and steep, in the NineteenthCentury heyday of railway construction.

Asset management policy requires periodic examination of these cuttings and embankments − many of which are at remote locations. They are monitored and assessed to determine locations that might be vulnerable to landslides and require maintenance or repair.

As a result of the age, scope, and deterioration of the earthworks, combined with more extreme weather events, engineers face considerable challenges that are not readily solved by longstanding inspection and assessment methods.

Record-breaking rainfall figures have coincided with a growing number of slope failures in recent years, and it is widely recognised that a better solution is needed to manage the risks associated with trains hitting debris on the track, or damage to the material supporting the track.

That better way takes the form of wireless condition monitoring technology that is simple to install and operate and provides automated warning of slope failure based on a huge volume of virtually real time information. The system is built around the Senceive FlatMesh™ wireless mesh communications platform. Movement is detected by a series of triaxial tiltmeter sensors that detect rotational movement and report to a solar-powered cellular communication gateway that relays data to the cloud and to Network Rail Control. 4G digital cameras that can operate day and night provide high resolution images on a pre-set schedule, or when triggered by an alert.

In many situations it compares favourably to more well-established ways of gathering information. The traditional, manual monitoring approach tends to involve periodic visual examinations or collecting geotechnical data from instruments such as inclinometers, piezometers, and extensometers. This requires an individual going to site, perhaps on a monthly basis, reading the instrument, taking those readings back to the office, downloading them, and interpreting them. It may provide an indication of long-term change at a site but doesn’t tell when a landslip has happened. In most cases the first news of such a failure comes when a train driver or member of the public reports it.

Engineers at Network Rail were convinced of the effectiveness of the wireless remote monitoring solution following the prevention of a potential disaster at Barnehurst in Kent in 2018. Here, an early installation of just 20 sensors and automated cameras detected a landslip and alerted controllers to close the line just before the morning rush hour kicked in.

One of the advantages of this system is the speed and ease of deployment. Faced with the challenge of instrumenting 20km of track at 36 locations in a period of just four months,

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PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS Senceive, Network Rail, and contractors BAM Nuttall and J Murphy installed 5,790 tiltmeters, 222 cameras and 111 gateways. The mesh communications network can incorporate a wide range of sensors, such as the piezometers at Pagdene Cutting that are reporting soil moisture data without the need for site visits.

The system will operate with minimal maintenance for 10-15 years, at which point sensor batteries will need replacement.

Network intelligence Once installed, the remote monitoring system is operational almost immediately and, while it is normally set to sample every 30 minutes to optimise battery life, it is smart enough to respond to events, for example by increasing sampling frequency to nearreal time and sending high resolution imagery in the event of movement outside pre-set thresholds.

This is invaluable in preventing false alarms, such as those caused by a tree branch falling on a sensor. The frequency band used by the Flatmesh communication platform is higher than that used by most other wireless monitoring systems (2.4MHz vs. around

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

0.9MHz). This allows more sensors to be concentrated in a dense network and provides assimilation and transmission of data with minimal lag time.

These are critical considerations when the possible consequences of delayed reporting are considered.

The system has already proved its value by warning of a landslip at the approach to Wadhurst Tunnel in East Sussex after heavy rainfall.

Movement was detected and near-real time alerts were sent to asset managers and ‘flight engineers’ at Network Rail’s Control Centre, which manages train movements. The line was closed and the risk of an accident averted.

The impacts are far-reaching.

In the areas covered so far, when the ground moves the trains can be stopped − almost immediately. This means improved network resilience in the face of a warming climate, improved safety through reduced risk of derailments, and fewer site visits, reduced carbon emissions, and another step on the journey towards intelligent infrastructure and predictive maintenance.

The Network Rail routes in Kent and Sussex are international pioneers in largescale intelligent earthworks monitoring. Rollout is now underway in Wessex, with more deployments in Kent and Sussex ongoing. Work is already underway to extend the initiative across the UK and then overseas, with significant progress in France, Germany, the USA, and more.

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Take gauging to the next level

C

learance assessment has remained largely unchanged for years. While it might be familiar and embedded within the market, the UK is looking at using technology to execute new approaches for Track and Infrastructure Engineers.

Gauging is an important topic.

It’s key to avoiding strikes, keeping passengers safe, and maximising asset utilisation.

There are many different aspects involved when asking why gauging is key, but with over 40 years of established industry guidance on its value − the question is what’s next? How do we take it from essential to beneficial?

For some track designers, gauging is at the bottom of the to-do list; the first and last process in the design workflow.

Incumbent software is binary and simply facilitates the result.

Modern software should be innately intuitive and helpful.

The aim is for Engineers to carry out their gauging tasks smartly, safely, and quickly.

Gauging providers D/Gauge focusing primarily on Rolling Stock and TOC’s. They pivoted to take their existing in-

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

house, Network Rail approved software and modified its capabilities for the Track and Infrastructure community.

D/Gauge Rift is a brand-new clearance assessment tool which draws on advances in cloud computing to de-risk and simplify gauging for everybody.

The next level Innovation in rail is at its peak and SMEs have the agility, and arguably the responsibility, to reinvigorate the supply chain with fresh ideas. Gauging for track and asset design has seen some of its largest technical advancements in a relatively short amount of time.

Survey data has increased in size and complexity. With larger survey files containing millions of data points, software needed a way of calculating, interpreting, and presenting

clearances in a streamlined and efficient manner. The railway is ready for a better connected, intelligent environment. But how exactly is this possible, and what technical and technological advancements are required?

Simplifying standards D/Gauge works closely with Network Rail to consistently improve and update standards, working with professional bodies such as the Railway Industry Association (RIA) technical leads, The Permanent Way Institution (PWI) members, and the Railway Safety and Standards Board (RSSB).

Generally, there is a requirement for gauging software users to read, understand, and apply these standards to design work to obtain clearance results. One of the innovative elements of Rift is the ability to configure environments for each railway.

Standards can be pre-set and automatically applied, reducing setup time for each Track Engineer.

PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS

- SPONSORED ARTICLE -

Depending on the reviewing body, each organisation can choose the standards that are appropriate. This reduces the complexity required.

Homogenised reporting Calculating the assessment is only half the task. Understanding, collating, and presenting the results in a coherent manner takes an equal amount of time. The industry has a clear understanding of the key requirements a gauging report needs to show, but paper-based and manual approaches, as well as archaic templates, often add confusion and inconsistencies.

D/Gauge has worked with Network Rail to create a homogenised automated report that contains all the required information, without the need to draft separate reports and carry out additional manual data processing and interpretation. As gauging is key to the approval of a proposed Track design, Engineers need their colleagues and stakeholders to be able to pick up a report and understand its implications quickly. D/Gauge Rift allows

users to see the important information almost instantaneously, and on screen. The final report is then just a click away.

A generated PDF output contains all the inputs, vehicles, tolerances, and information which went into the gauging assessment. The new way of presenting this information provides simplified reporting methods and clear, easy-to-digest data.

Faster workflow Whether gauging is a daily necessity or only required on certain projects, the key requirement in the modern world is speed. High-speed trains, high-speed 5G, and high-speed gauging software. Software doesn’t need to limit track and infrastructure designers but should empower them to create more iterative designs and verify gauging at every stage of the process. Waiting for results should not be a delimiting factor.

Projects are completed faster with this new way of working. More projects can be handled within teams and less time is spent setting up, compiling data or sharing results.

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PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS Collaboration

Pioneering www.dgauge.co.uk/rift David Johnson, Technical Mandeep.singh@dgauge.co.uk Director of D/Gauge, was the info@dgauge.co.uk first person to computerise 07566793420 gauging, making the move from poles and wet string to laser scanning and computerised software. His software coding led to the deployment of VDP Gauging, ITD Gauging, and Clear Route Original (among others).

Since the computerisation of surveying, D/Gauge Rift has taken this to the next step.

Vast swathes of data are now entering the industry. Gauging software needs to keep up with this demand. Cloudbased computing allows users to grapple with larger amounts of data, from storage through to processing to get results faster.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

A key task which uses large amounts of data is Passing Clearance. With its new capabilities, D/Gauge Rift can incorporate Passing Clearance into its software. Passing trains are notoriously lengthy gauging tasks to assess. Running two vehicles across miles of track can sometimes take designers days. At the end, users are left with excessive information which does not immediately aid decision making.

D/Gauge has developed a method of completing passing clearances more efficiently.

Instead of running the typical combination profile, designers can have faith their exact vehicle profiles are being run, giving a more accurate understanding of the real clearances we would see out on the ground.

Cloud-based technology unlocks a new world of collaboration and possibilities.

All users need is a working internet connection and a desktop, and they can pick up exactly where they left off.

D/Gauge Rift uses Microsoft Azure servers to provide unrivalled speeds and power, with the added benefit of freeing up the user’s own computer so that they can continue working on other tasks.

Track designers can now view internal projects, pick up where peers have left off, or review results, simplifying the internal process before results are communicated externally.

A seamless workflow in house is key to delivering projects in a more efficient manner.

But what can this state-of-theart software provide for its end users? For engineers, D/Gauge Rift provides a straightforward approach to gauging. Existing industry knowledge, datasets and standards requirements are all pre-loaded. The software can be just as easily picked up by a graduate or principal engineer in the same way.

Teams no longer need to be formally trained in using complex gauging software and can focus on their exceptional Track and Infrastructure design expertise.

PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS

MAINTAIN THE QUALITY OF YOUR RAILWAY TRACKS Using grinding, reprofiling and deburring machines, semi automatic large grinding machines and road-rail grinding vehicles Goldschmidt maintains the quality of your railway tracks – quickly, efficiently and with precision. Well-trained, experienced grinding teams offer flexibility.

The VM8000 grinding vehicle is fully certified to RIS-1530-PLT Issue Six.

Find out more at www.thermit-welding.com

www.goldschmidt.com

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SigTech Rail Consultancy adaptive, creative and innovative

PAUL DARLINGTON

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ail Engineer recently met up with Pete Lindley, Managing Director of SigTech Rail Consultancy Ltd, to learn more about the company and the specialised signalling support it provides for track and point renewals, civil engineering works, and any project simply involving signalling.

We often hear about the large resignalling projects delivered by the big railway signalling companies, but there are also many important small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) companies, such as SigTech Rail, who play an important part in providing a safe and efficient railway. In the UK, the usual definition of an SME is a company with less than 250 employees.

The best SMEs are highly adaptive, creative and innovative, and are often owned and run by skilled and experienced engineers, who have learned their trade from the bottom and quickly risen to the top. Network Rail says it works directly with over 3,000 SMEs and a survey of its top 100 tier 1 suppliers found that the indirect spend with SMEs rose to 17.8% in 2019-20. An increase of 3.8%.

Network Rail’s direct expenditure with SMEs has also increased and in the 2019-2020 financial year it spent 35.6% of its total £7.1 billion expenditure with SMEs, exceeding the government’s 33% target, and by two years. In real terms, this equates to a total of £2.52 billion and is the first time Network Rail has exceeded £2.5 billion in a single financial year. SMEs also play a significant role in the growth of the country’s economy, and 60% of all private sector UK employment is via SMEs.

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SigTech Rail Consultancy Pete began his railway career in September 1993 as a signalling and telecoms (S&T) Trainee Technician, working for British Rail, based out of Retford Low Level faulting and maintenance depot. He gained valuable quality experience and qualified as an S&T Technician in 1995, quickly passing all the technical and safety rail qualifications available, including his BTEC ONC in Electrical Engineering. He then progressed to be an active member of the faulting and maintenance teams, working up the promotional career ladder to become Team Leader, Balfour Beatty Kent renewals in August 1999. In August 2016, Pete founded SigTech Rail Consultancy Ltd, and has successfully built the company to be a respected, specialised signalling consultancy.

PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS In conversation with Pete, it soon becomes clear that he has the dedication, passion, and determination to do his very best for signalling and the rail industry, and to continue to successfully build his company. He explained how he was mentored and developed by experienced technicians and engineers to deliver safe and efficient signalling engineering excellence, and how he is determined to do the same for his staff, as well as the clients and customers his company serves. He emphasised how he imparts his personal values to all that SigTech Rail does; be it safety, honesty, trustworthiness or adding value.

Pete has handpicked his team and will only employ people who have the right technical skills and attitude to deliver safe and efficient signalling solutions. He explained that, so long as people have the right attitude, they will quickly learn the right way to deliver work and SigTech will help with training and mentoring. Having the wrong attitude leads to problems and responses such as “That’s not my job”, “How much work?”, and “When is home time?”. Such people are not for SigTech.

Pete explained how his phone is always on, and how he is ready to guide and develop his team wherever they are, at any time. He has established a team of signalling technicians who have a proven track record of delivering safe, cost effective, quality signalling solutions on time, and sometimes in challenging circumstances.

The company has grown to become a first-class provider of specialist signalling services including non-conceptual

design, installation, and permanent-way support including operational telecoms.

SigTech Rail has enjoyed working with some of the UK’s most demanding clients to provide them with rapid turnaround signalling solutions to meet challenging requirements. Being an SME allows the company to be highly adaptive, creative and innovative, and they are not restricted by excessive company bureaucracy and process.

Larger companies and their leaders often come to rely on process instead of people to solve problems and can have an overdependence on meetings. Productive teamwork does not require meetings for every single action or decision, and people can become disheartened and ineffective when they are regularly stuck in meetings. It was clear from our discussion that this is not the case with SigTech Rail and it does not suffer from any lack of perspective and openness.

Company accreditations SigTech Rail has an impressive set of company policies which can all be seen on its website. The company has been verified and audited by the Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme (RISQS) and is a certified member of the Confidential Incident Reporting & Analysis Service for transport (CIRAS), Railway Industry Association (RIA), Rail Alliance, and Rail Forum Midlands. Accreditations include ISO 9001, Construction Online (Gold), and Builders Profile.

Its signalling engineers operate on a national basis and are highly experienced and fully qualified in the required signalling disciplines. Signalling practices can vary around the country, but SigTech Rail has the knowledge, experience, processes and contacts to quickly and safely identify solutions. They are ready to take on the most complex of signalling engineering challenges, from delivering simple short-term projects ranging from the re-positioning of a signal, through to supporting conceptual re-modelling and re-signalling projects. SigTech Rail prides itself on providing its clients with value-formoney signalling services via a single point of contact who has the required signalling engineering knowledge and experience, and health and safety as a priority.

SigTech Rail core competencies currently consist of, as a minimum: asset condition walkout surveys; installation; Signalling Maintenance Testing Handbook (SMTH) testing; A2-9 Functionally Equivalent Design, Signalling Intermediate Testing Handbook (SITH) including G110 testing and author / checker; faulting & maintenance; switch and crossing (S&C) – points operating equipment, surveys and refurbishments; plain line and S&C renewals; signalling support for P-Way and civil engineering project works; and

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signalling design and build. The SMTHtrained staff are all individually licensed with, or working towards, IRSE Licence category 1.4.160 (Signalling Maintenance Tester), and are supported by a 24-hour on call Signalling Manager.

Testing The testing of signalling equipment has always been very, very important and as signalling systems become more complex, it is even more essential that robust testing is carried out after any alteration has been made, however small it may be. Tester independence – meaning that no person involved with the production, checking of design details, or with the installation work, takes part in any testing activity (except in an assisting capacity) – is key. All the testers involved must have the right competency, along with understanding the processes and complying with the testing requirements, and providing a documented audit trail.

SigTech prides itself on closely mentoring testers as not everybody can be easily deemed competent.

The Signalling Works Testing Handbook (SWTH) describes the procedures and process controls for maintenance or project ‘new works’ to alter signalling infrastructure involving conceptual design, or with the potential to affect the fitness for purpose of signalling infrastructure. SWTH testing is intended to prove equipment and systems work safely and reliably in situations where the

equipment is new, or alterations have been made that have not previously been tested. The objective of SWTH testing is to confirm that systems conform to conceptual design requirements, statutory requirements, and Railway Group and Network Rail Company Standards, and that the signalling equipment has been constructed in accordance with the relevant installation specifications and codes of practice to ensure there are no safety or reliability issues.

When equipment is changed like-forlike, such rigorous testing is unnecessary as the signalling equipment has previously worked correctly, therefore

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

SMTH can apply. SMTH testing is the ‘like-for-like renewal’ or the renewal of operationally specific equipment, along with the disconnection and reconnection of signalling equipment and associated cabling. It is an integral part of maintaining and faulting the operational network, along with playing a vital role in any track or S&C renewals.

In simple terms, SMTH is used to safely restore equipment to service that has worked before, and SWTH is there for systems and projects that have never worked before.

There are also circumstances where it is appropriate for alternative techniques.

These are NR/L2/SIG/30014/A210 Design and Testing Processes for Minor or Repetitive Alterations, and NR/ L2/SIG/30014/G110 Signalling NonConceptual Works and Emergency Testing. These are part of SWTH, but G110 testing uses the processes and procedures based on SMTH only for pre-planned, non-conceptual works, and small-scale emergencies.

It can’t always be easy for clients to correctly scope G110 activity. Sometimes it needs an organisation, such as SigTech Rail, to survey the site and confirm if the work can be delivered under G110 before any work, such as the correlation of the available records, can commence.

So, if you need someone to undertake signalling work to support your project, and who is competent, flexible, and trustworthy, as well as knowledgeable, safe and reliable, then contact SigTech Rail on 01303 764344. Pete and his team are ready and waiting to help any project over the line.

PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS

Checkleys Bridge REPAIRED, REFURBISHED

R

oberts & Sale Construction (UK) Ltd, a leading supplier in both steel and civil construction works, has successfully delivered the repair, refurbishment, and modernisation of Checkleys Bridge BBM/8. The overbridge, which crosses the Bletchley-Bedford Midland line, is a threespan metal structure over two electrified lines near Ridgemont, Milton Keynes.

The project of works started as a relatively low steelwork repair scheme, with the main scope of works focused on the replacement of a timber decking system suffering from severe degradation as it came to the end of its life cycle.

The ongoing access requirements and existing profile of the structure meant a decision was made not to encapsulate the entire bridge but to utilise hydroblasting to remove the paint work, allowing a thorough investigation before a full schedule of works could be agreed.

The steelwork, particularly above the bearers, had severely corroded, along with majority of the deck crossbeams. To reinstate the structural integrity of the bridge, the project scope was increased to replace or refurbish more than 50% of the original structure.

The largest of the bridge repairs took place internally and externally on the web and stiffeners situated above the

pier bearing locations. The extent and location of the area for repair led Roberts & Sale to undertake a new and innovative installation methodology. Collaborating with the client − Story Contracting Ltd − the decision was made to weld the new web top and packing plates, as well as the stiffeners, directly into position.

The severity of the corrosion and scale of the affected areas meant this approach delivered a high-quality repair on site to the exact dimensions and prevented a loss of connection where there was significant section loss. To achieve this in line with the programme deliverable dates, an innovative approach was designed with the scaffold allowing pedestrian access with a vehicle either side.

Flash blasting was completed in all areas of the repairs via localised encapsulating to ensure a faying surface before further refurbishment works continued. The repairs were sequenced to meet the revised programme of works, while allowing for the simultaneous installation of a modular GRP structural deck solution. Dura Slab 100, supplied by Dura Composites, was suitable to take the 7.5 tonne loading requirement and made an ideal solution with a grit-blasted surface finish, painted to an M24 paint specification.

Roberts & Sale worked closely with the client throughout the project to ensure the new designs for Checkleys Bridge were both feasible and buildable. The repairs met the revised programme and ensured minimal disruption to the affected landowner. The challenges of access and

multiple disciplines meant the project had to be approached with an honest and clear programme to achieve key project milestones. At times, taking an innovative approach meant embracing new ideas and installation methodology.

Checkleys Bridge is one of many practical and innovative project solutions delivered by Roberts & Sale Construction (UK) Ltd within both the rail and civil sectors. Its approach to delivering the best standard of workmanship within agreed timescales makes it a highly respected contractor within the railway industry.

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FEATURE

- SPONSORED ARTICLE -

Maintenance optimisation

can reap hidden efficiencies

RICHARD WHITE

Richard White Practice Director, Digital Asset Management & Transportation O&M Digital Twin lead, Atkins.

B

ehind every train service is a maintenance regime, upholding safety, value, and reliability. However, while every operator will have a maintenance strategy, few are fully optimised. And, from cost savings to sustainability, the potential benefits of optimisation are far greater than you might think.

One of the most expensive aspects of the railway is maintenance. It’s not uncommon for trains to cover 300,000 miles in a year, carrying over a million passengers - and this load comes with wear and tear. Without a robust maintenance regime, the value of a train will plummet, curtailing its potential lifespan and undermining the owner’s investment. Not only must trains be regularly serviced to ensure their reliability, but their safety must always be of paramount importance. No wonder, then, that maintenance is one of the most significant costs of running a train service.

Yet the potential benefits of maintenance optimisation are often under-appreciated. While all operators understand that maintenance is essential, not everyone is aware of the many knock-on benefits that accrue from fine-tuning schemes, integrating periodicities, and perfectly timing overhauls. While there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution, there are a number of maintenance optimisation principles that can help calibrate the most efficient and cost-effective way to service your fleet while upholding the highest standards of safety.

Small changes, big benefits Maintenance is essential That’s why optimising maintenance is so important. If your regime is too stringent, you may be over-servicing your fleet, raising costs and making it harder to run your service as your trains will be out of action more often than necessary. Not to mention the human factor risks of undertaking repetitive tasks, potentially leading to error. But if your services and overhauls are too sparse you run the risk of breakdowns, shorter train lifespans, and potentially even operational incidents.

Maintenance optimisation involves investigating the periodicity of all the different exams trains must undergo in order to operate on Network Rail’s infrastructure. It’s about ensuring that you’re maintaining it enough to uphold safety and minimise breakdowns, but not so much that you’re overspending or jeopardising your fleet availability.

Since trains are complex machines, their maintenance regimes include a vast array of processes, testing and renewing many different elements. Take the brake pads, for example.

ALL PHOTOS: TfL

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

FEATURE Maintenance optimisation can help operators to achieve higher levels of availability. Even ensuring that you have one more vehicle available can be the difference between running a service or cancelling it.

Maintenance must, therefore, always compliment the operational timetable and vice versa. That way, operators know what availability they want to hit and can judge how it impacts safety and reliability.

Aligning maintenance and operational strategies improves the passenger experience while preserving the maintenance activities of the train and ultimately the lifespan of the train itself.

Individual requirements Typically, a train may change its brake pads every 50,000 to 200,000 miles depending upon the type of train. However, if we can work out the optimal moment for this renewal, the potential savings are enormous.

With a 12-vehicle unit (circa 384 brake pads), and a 50-unit fleet, changing the brake pads every seven months rather than every six compounds to a significant saving in cost and time. In turn, this efficiency improvement can potentially enable you to run more services.

And it’s not just brake pads that need replacing, but a whole host of components, from bogies and wheelsets to engines, HVAC systems and doors. Over a 30-year lifespan, the savings from such minor adjustments can be vast.

These benefits extend beyond finances. Optimising your maintenance schedule can improve sustainability. Better maintenance extends the lifespan of train units, reducing the burden on the environment that invariably comes with de-commissioning old trains.

At the same time, rationalising overhauls, refurbishments and component replacements helps to eliminate waste and ensure that every aspect of the train is deployed to its maximum utility.

Running reliably?

Every day, operators face the same challenge: how to complete their timetable while operating the correct train formations. An operator might have a fleet of 30 trains, but in order to uphold their service they’ll need 27 of those trains to be operational in order to faithfully carry out their promised timetable. Taking them out of service for maintenance is costly. In passenger trains, the passengers must be compensated through ‘delayrepay’ schemes for delayed or cancelled trains. Freight operators may lose contracts if they cannot fulfil their obligations or miss a container ship sailing. Operators who consistently fail to uphold their services risk being fined or being issued with an improvement notice by the DfT/ORR. The recently-published Williams-Shapps review promises to reshape Britain’s railways. Although it remains to be seen how its recommendations will specifically impact the trains themselves, reliability, availability, and safety are going to be paramount - it’s how operators will be judged.

Maintenance efficiencies usually boil down to either (i) extending a maintenance regime or overhaul, leading to greater availability; or (ii) reshaping the structure of the activities themselves, potentially making better use of condition monitoring equipment, to better utilise the available ‘downtime’ for each train, again enhancing availability. But every train is different. Each train should be individually assessed for its own performance levels.

The older a train is, the more operators tend to know about its particular needs. With failure data gathered over a number of years, operators

New maintenance facilities for Elizabeth line at Old Oak Common.

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FEATURE Making maintenance better

can identify patterns which demonstrate where the risks are likely to be, informing their regime with historical information. And, if they have the right support, they can challenge service and overhaul regimes so that they’re calibrated to the exact needs of each train which, in turn, can improve availability, reliability and cost. This is always based on a risk-assessment approach, so that safety is never compromised.

Depot gospel Trains don’t operate in isolation. They rely on a vast infrastructure, including servicing and fuelling points as well as depots. For many operators, depots are crucial to their fleet’s maintenance. Yet they often encounter problems when trying to expand. If you enlarge your fleet with new trains, how are you going to maintain your legacy units while also adding new maintenance points to the existing facilities?

Expanding the depot is not always an option and building a new depot doesn’t come cheap, and that’s without considering the difficulty of finding a suitable location and gaining the appropriate planning consents.

That’s where maintenance optimisation can help. By fine-tuning the maintenance regime of your existing fleet, you can often free up valuable depot space for your new trains.

Finding the right level of maintenance can push up capacity, making room for new units. Aligning periodicities is key. The art of integrating different maintenance regimes enables expansion without always having to redesign the depot layout itself.

To do this, you need a deep knowledge of how depots actually operate. For instance, how will it affect working hours and how will the staff respond to revised shift patterns? And how does that impact your maintenance strategy?

Some depots are still relatively unionised.

Knowing the landscape helps to intelligently shape maintenance, while engaging with staff representatives, and informing operators and vehicle owners so that they know the most effective way forward.

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Clearly, optimising maintenance is complicated.

A wide variety of stakeholders, a complex owner-operator system, the limitations of the infrastructure, the idiosyncrasies of particular trains, the changing demands of regulators, staff consultation, and the continuous need for impeccable safety standards: all of these must be carefully balanced when designing a maintenance scheme.

That’s why Atkins' approach is based on both risk-assessment and a deep knowledge of trains, infrastructure, and industry. When helping clients to optimise their maintenance regimes, Atkins tap into the knowledge of our engineers, who specialise in bogies, engines, wheelsets, corrosion, HVAC, and more. Each particular component is properly assessed by those with the right expertise, informing the overall maintenance strategy.

Atkins also know the vehicles themselves.

Having worked on the whole unit lifespan, and know each phase well - this knowledge can be extrapolated to understand how the vehicle is likely to perform for the rest of its service. With newer vehicles, we have procurement teams who have helped our clients negotiate for, commission, and buy them. In some cases, we even helped to write the specification of the train itself. Our staff have been depot managers, vehicle engineers and system specialists, giving them a good understanding of how they operate. This frees up other staff to focus on defect improvements, upgrades, design improvements, or refurbishment, improving the overall safety and reliability of the train.

The rail industry is volatile. It’s dependent on a matrix of owners, operators, regulators, and supporters, while also being vulnerable to changes in political attitudes and unpredictable events like the Covid-19 pandemic. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to develop a robust maintenance plan that enables you to meet your timetable and operational needs, but with the flexibility to cater for the occasional challenges endemic to the industry.

SNC Lavalin and Atkins have decades of experience of helping optimise rolling stock operations and maintenance, bringing together their experience from hands-on working on mainline and metropolitan railways in UK, Denmark, Sweden, and Canada. They are always looking to work with operators looking for greater efficiencies - get in touch and find out how they can help to optimise your maintenance schedule.

LONG LIFESPAN MINIMAL MAINTENANCE WEATHERING STEEL Helping you deliver railway success As the UK’s only manufacturer of rail and heavy structural sections, we have a well-established track record in developing innovative infrastructure solutions for the rail sector.

Our weathering steel structural sections are the latest addition to our product portfolio.

Self-protecting, durable and attractive, they’re the perfect choice for bridges, buildings and overhead line structures.

Discover how we can help you succeed.

T | +44 (0)1724 404040 E | construction@britishsteel.co.uk @BritishSteelUK

BRITISHSTEEL.CO.UK/WEATHERINGSTEEL

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ELECTRIFICATION & POWER British Steel - Teesside Beam Mill.

MARTIN YOUNG

A

recent article published in Rail Engineer detailed the designs of the new viaducts that are planned for the HS2 project. It was stated that the new slimmer designs have been achieved by the combined use of cast reinforced concrete deck sections with the use of weathering steel rolled sections. The intended message was environmental, based on how the new composite structures have been slimmed down from conventional designs to blend unobtrusively into the landscape of the many areas of outstanding natural beauty that the HS2 route passes through.

The article sparked my interest in revisiting research work I conducted eight years ago into the use of weathering steels within the wider rail industry. At that time a number of bridges had been fabricated from it but, I believed, the obvious choice for its use had to be the lineside masts and structures of the Overhead Line Equipment (OLE). My research revealed that weathering steel was being used for OLE structures in Europe.

Not only had it been used successfully on previous electrification projects by the Danish Railway Network (DSB), but work had started on new electrification schemes involving 550 km of lines.

So, why is it that HS2 advocates the use of weathering steel for bridges and viaducts, but does not consider its use for OLE masts and structures? Or, indeed, other lineside fixtures?

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

Political environment Sustainability and efficiency are key concerns for the European rail industry, particularly in the current financial and political climate, and considering the environmental issues raised by global warming. With the cost of living high on the agenda, the challenges that governments face in sustaining investment are: (i) securing value for money; (ii) improving operational and environmental performance; (iii) including providing better customer information; and (iv) engagement with local communities.

To drive down operating costs and improve efficiency, Network Rail and HS2 are actively advocating innovation as a way to make gains in whole life costing, and global warming has led Network Rail to implement a 15-year decarbonisation initiative. The wider use of weathered steel on the network would aid these efforts.

ELECTRIFICATION & POWER

Weathering steel

and electrification

The standard practice for manufacturing masts and structures for OLE involves hot dip galvanising, in which standard mild steel rolled sections are immersed in molten zinc to provide an anti-corrosive layer. However, the many advantages of weathering steel make it a viable alternative to hot dip galvanising in the right environment and application.

The anticorrosive properties of weather-resistant steels are better than those of other structural steels and there are clear economic reasons for using them in many applications, especially when, at the project stage, the total costs over the life cycle of the structures are considered. The enhanced resistance of weathering steels is based on the ‘self-healing’ oxide layer. This corrosion-retarding effect is produced by the way in which alloying elements are

distributed and concentrated.

The oxide layer develops and regenerates continuously when subjected to the effects of the weather, protecting the surface.

Essentially, the superficial rusting of the steel forms the protective oxide layer.

Cost benefits Employing weather-resistant steel in steel structures removes the need for costly surface treatment processes.

Prime examples of its use are for shipbuilding, offshore architecture, bridges, and works of art. In the case of the latter, Antony Gormley’s ‘Angel of The North’ at Gateshead is a good structural example of its use.

Manufacturing load bearing structures from weathering steel is essentially no different or more costly than with equivalent mild steel, and procedures related to selecting the correct welding consumables and techniques to match the parent

metal are now well known throughout industry. By using this method, based on my own research, railways can make substantial capital and operating cost savings. Hot dip galvanising can account for 20% of the total manufacturing cost of typical mast designs.

But weathering steel doesn’t just bring the user initial and whole-life cost benefits specific to the material. Because no further processing is required, it also reduces the overall construction time. Plus, once in situ, the minimal maintenance requirements of weathering steel structures greatly reduce both the direct costs of maintenance operations, and the indirect costs of traffic delays or rail possessions. Furthermore, environmental issues associated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from paint and the disposal of blast-cleaning debris from future maintenance work are avoided.

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ELECTRIFICATION & POWER Technical environment During my previous research into the supply and comparative manufacturing costs between weathering and mild steels, I had been told by steel stockholders that weathering steel could only be provided in sheet form. One international steel manufacturer explained that the lack of rolled sections was down to lack of demand, but there was no reason why weathering steel could not be produced as standard rolled sections by the rolling mills. I was also told that the smelting process would need to be changed due to the different alloying elements, adding a hypothetical ‘markup’ of over 15% per tonne dependent on the sections required. In addition, they said that a minimum order of 1,000 tonnes had to be guaranteed.

The picture today is different.

British Steel produces a wide range of rolled steel sections.

The new weathering steel sections match the design requirements of those used for the manufacturing of existing galvanised masts and structures. In fact, British Steel has developed a very flexible

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

manufacturing process, and the engineers are more than prepared to work in partnership with clients to develop new ideas and design solutions. This client engagement has a high potential to develop viable bespoke designs, or modified sections to meet the client needs. Regarding the previous minimum order of 1,000 tonnes, the new flexible manufacturing process is designed for small batch production, with a minimum order of 20 tonnes.

Technical and operational issues have been addressed with the assistance of rail engineers from Denmark who have first-hand experience of the design, installation and

in-service performance of weathering steel masts. Danish State Railways (DSB) and Rail Net Denmark specifications require that OLE masts and structures can remain in service for 50 years. DSB also asserts that OLE designs are aesthetically appropriate for the landscape in which they are placed. Architects and design engineers collaborated closely and selected weathering steel for masts and structures. The architects came up with an innovative solution to mitigate the felling of line-side trees by careful linear adjustment of the masts and structures.

This strategy, helped by the neutral reddish brown oxide

ELECTRIFICATION & POWER

layer of the steel, has resulted in a design that complements the Danish landscape. So, why not in the beautiful English landscapes?

Geographical factors We must also consider atmospheric conditions.

A research paper entitled: ‘Modelling of sea salt concentrations over Europe: key uncertainties and comparison with observations.’ published in the international scientific journal ‘Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics’ shows that Great Britain and Denmark have similar atmospheric concentrations of sodium. Technical literature mentions that weathering steel can be vulnerable in salt-laden environments where the oxide layer can become unstable and susceptible to undesired corrosion.

What is not mentioned is the fact that the land area of Denmark consists of a long narrow peninsula and a number of islands, and many of the rail routes follow the coastlines. The UK, however, has a large, wide land area, with most rail routes being inland. This is especially true

of HS2 where the route runs centrally through the country.

New information from a recently published international scientific research paper, the subject of which is corrosion of metals, indicates that weathering steel structures are not subject to adverse salt laden atmospheric conditions if they are located at a minimum five kilometres from coasts. It did warn, however, that the design must eliminate water traps, the use of clamps, and must allow for the ventilation of all surfaces.

This is considered an essential design detail comparable to that of avoiding closed spaces/ volumes in hot-dip galvanised designs. However, that was from experience with masts fabricated from formed sheet steel sections. The use of the newly available rolled steel sections will eliminate many of the water trap areas.

An open mind As a rough estimate, 5,000 tonnes of steel would be required to make all the OLE masts and structures required for the whole HS2 project – though this assessment was

made before the announced curtailment of the Leeds leg, which reduces the requirements.

My research demonstrates that the use of weathering steel in the manufacture of OLE masts, structures and other lineside fixtures on the HS2 line is financially viable, has minimal design considerations and is both environmentally and aesthetically beneficial.

Environmentalists, rail infrastructure designers, administrators and members of government should therefore look closely at this research with an open mind for the benefits to be gained.

The existing HS2 project is now firmly under way, but it is not too late for amendments to be made that will allow the use of this cost saving and environmentally friendly solution. Perhaps the Transpennine route, through the beautiful UNESCO European and Global Geopark, could also benefit?

Thanks go to: Mr Gordon Hodgson, Commercial Manager, British Steel. Mr Mike Beeson, Technical Planning Manager, British Steel. Mr Niels Thougård Pedersen, Trailc-Denmark Technical information and photographs.

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ELECTRIFICATION & POWER

- SPONSORED ARTICLE -

Embracing INTEGRATED INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS

JUSTIN MOSS

Justin Moss Head of Sales, Electrification, Siemens Mobility.

T

he UK is in danger of missing its climate change targets if it doesn’t speed up electrification plans and introduce hydrogen railway infrastructure and trains, according to Siemens Mobility. Using data produced by the Office of Rail and Road and Network Rail, the company has calculated that the current railway electrification proposals could take until 2060 and beyond to complete. It is therefore important that the rail industry continues to find sustainable and cost-efficient solutions to drive decarbonisation.

Despite only 42% of the UK rail network having been electrified, over 80% of rail vehicle kilometres are already travelled by electrified trains. New technologies give us the opportunity to address the remaining 20%, further increasing capacity and encouraging more journeys to be taken by train. There is also a significant opportunity to further decarbonise the railway by addressing the 58% of the network not yet electrified and phase out diesel-only and hybrid diesel trains.

With this in mind, a fully integrated infrastructure system will help reduce the cost of signalling, electrification, and digitalisation, and will be a critical enabler in the transformation process. But other technologies will also play an important role.

Early contractor involvement To help deliver integrated solutions, one approach increasingly being used is the adoption of early contractor involvement (ECI).

By involving technology suppliers at an early stage, a much greater degree of operational flexibility can be achieved and programme disruptions minimised. This means that potential risks and challenges can be identified and strategies developed to ensure projects meet the requirements of their stakeholders.

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From the early stages of a project, then, it is possible to look at the railway as a complete ‘end-to-end’ system, so that the most costeffective and efficient solution can be designed and delivered. Conversely, if each individual discipline were to be procured separately, there is a risk that the solution becomes overengineered, with multiple suppliers focusing purely on their own relatively narrow area.

Engaging the electrification team at this initial feasibility stage means system support can be delivered consistently throughout the life of the project, reducing overall costs and programme length. Through early involvement, Siemens

ELECTRIFICATION & POWER Mobility has demonstrated substantial project cost savings and has been able to bring forward large programmes by several years, supporting business cases and enabling projects to secure funding. On one electrification project where the client had initially considered an autotransformer solution, by looking at a ‘whole system’ design, an alternative technology was ultimately selected. This delivered cost savings of around 50% and a reduction in the programme length of around two years.

By involving technology providers for the whole route rather than small sections of it, ECI enables the optimum solution to be developed and assessed. Early modelling, with technology partners brought in at the same stage as consultants, also enables the electrification design to be shaped to meet both the strategic and business case objectives.

Modelling a route in Scotland With Scotland requiring the removal of dieselpowered trains from the network by 2035 (five years earlier than England or Wales), Siemens Mobility plans to demonstrate the benefits and opportunities of an integrated transformational change programme through a model based on a route in Scotland.

The modelling identifies the most efficient and effective locations for the required infrastructure assets as well as where the potential requirement

for discontinuous electrification needs to be considered. This would be appropriate where it is either impractical or uneconomic to install overhead line equipment, so there will be gaps in the electrification system.

In such instances, onboard power or energy storage systems are used to move the train where there are gaps. The modelling also covers the most efficient traction power system design and delivery approaches, enabling the benefits to be assessed as part of a fully integrated programme of signalling, electrification, and digitalisation.

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Whole-life solutions For an intensively used route, electric traction provides the lowest whole-life carbon solution, providing faster, more reliable, and less polluting services than diesel trains. However, the degree of electrification required needs an assessment of the amount of traffic, with alternative options considered to maximise benefits.

In these discontinuous electrification scenarios, battery has its place for short-range routes, while hydrogen-powered trains are the most viable alternative for passenger services that need to operate over longer distances. This approach can accelerate the path to net zero while the electrification programme is being completed.

Through close collaboration with both Network Rail and the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), as well as the train and freight operating companies, the modelling programme will also cover a review of faster, more efficient access and digital construction methods and the opportunity to minimise maintenance, so that whole life costs can be optimised.

A range of new solutions is already being deployed on the railway in Britain, including full traction power capabilities through advanced substations, air insulated switchgear (which remove the need for greenhouse gasses for insulation), static frequency converters that better regulate power, including from renewable sources, and surge arresters which address the problem of installing electrifying infrastructure across bridges and tunnels.

Static frequency converters While the UK electricity network operates on a three-phase balanced system, railway power supplies have traditionally been connected directly using just two phases of the network.

This causes a ‘phase imbalance’ and restricts the amount of power that can be obtained from the network operator’s electrical supply. The

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issue is exacerbated by the shift to renewable power generation, which is less resilient to phase imbalance than coal-fired generation.

The installation of SFCs provides an interface between the electrical supply network and the railway, so that power can be supplied at optimal locations and transmitted greater distances along the railway. The SFCs sit separately from the railway and ‘plug-in’ to existing electrical network where they effectively ‘clean’ the supply between the railway and the power network, enabling the railway to use power from more local supplies. Their use eliminates phase imbalance and provides more flexibility for energy supply to the railway, optimising it to provide the ideal power supply for trains, and making connections possible at various voltage levels, as well as supporting the shift to renewable energy.

This is achieved without the need to disturb the local power supply and so avoids the need to close the railway for extended periods of construction and installation, negates the need for new pylons and the associated civils work, and significantly reduces the number of cables required, all of which are expensive to install and disruptive for passengers.

ELECTRIFICATION & POWER Air insulated switchgear Air insulated switchgear removes the use of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) gas insulation, and so eliminates the need for any special precautions to be taken during manufacturing, operation, or recycling. The containerised unit is manufactured, assembled, and tested off-site in the UK and then transported into position ready to be connected to the power distribution system. This means there is a reduction in carbon emissions (compared to transporting equipment from overseas), as well as supporting the creation of jobs and skills within the UK.

Surge arrestors Electrifying a network that predominantly comprises Victorian infrastructure can be problematic, particularly dealing with bridges and tunnels where equipment has had to be installed underneath existing infrastructure. Until now, the only solution has been to either remove and replace them or lower the track, both of which are extremely costly and time consuming.

To address this, Siemens Mobility has developed an engineered solution which, when installed in circuit with the overhead line system, enables reduced electrical clearances to be applied, delivering major cost and programme benefits. Depending on the required protection level, the new surge arrester equipment can be applied to the

overhead line at both sides of the structure to enable the wires to run closer to it, reducing the potential for removal or replacement.

This solution was successfully deployed in Cardiff, where the proximity of a canal to a rail-over-rail bridge meant the track could not be raised or lowered to accommodate the necessary electrification equipment.

Ordinarily, the bridge would have had to be rebuilt but this technology allowed the project to be delivered, saving money and time, and minimising disruption.

The use of SFC, ASG, and Surge Arrester technology shows the benefits that can be delivered where new, all-electric trains are introduced to replace the diesel fleets, with the new trains being longer, quieter, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly.

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Reminder of Live Exposed (RoLE) EQUIPMENT FOR OVERHEAD LINE WORKING PAUL DARLINGTON

F

ollowing a number of safety incidents and the ORR issuing Improvement Notice I/DTHM/20210729/01, Network Rail is introducing the use of ‘Reminder of Live Exposed (RoLE) equipment’ for when working on 25kV overhead line traction systems.

RoLE equipment is simple and consists of a blue steady or flashing light, and a reflective warning sign. Its purpose is to remind staff working on overhead line traction systems to check their Overhead Line Permit (OLP) as they may be approaching their safe working limits, or that a residual electrical hazard may exist.

RoLE equipment is an additional procedure to improve compliance with the Electricity at Work Regulations (1989) and to prevent danger and injury.

When working on or near live electrical conductors, the Regulations require that no person shall be engaged in any work activity where danger may arise, unless it is unreasonable in all the circumstances for it to be dead, and that suitable precautions are taken to prevent injury.

The Regulations are mandated

by Law and apply to all aspects of the use of electricity within the workplace. Duty holders must have the electrical systems constructed in a way that prevents danger, they must maintain the electrical systems to prevent danger, and any work on the electrical systems must be carried out in a way that prevents danger.

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Blue lights The new requirements are part of standard NR/L3/ELP/29987 Working on or About 25 kV A.C. Electrified Lines and require that only RoLE equipment approved for Overhead Line Equipment (OLE) isolations will be used.

Currently, two suppliers of RoLE equipment have been approved and more may follow. The RoLE equipment can be freestanding, attached to the running rail, lineside structures or isolated OLE, and clearly displays ‘Danger’ using a reflective sign. The blue lights are to aid sighting of the warning in darkness or poor visibility, and the use of blue lights ensures that there is no conflict with signal aspects.

In terms of reliability, the blue lights are over specified, but where the lights are not operating the reflective signage is designed to warn individuals of the Safe Working Limits or the Residual Electrical Hazard. When operating, the blue light may be steady or flashing; in both cases the danger meaning is the same to the user. A flashing blue light is normally used, but there may be situations when many RoLE devices are in use, or they may be located near to neighbours of the railway. In these situations, a steady light RoLE may be better.

RoLE equipment has already been in use at some sites for some time and was previously known as ‘Demarcation Equipment’, but it will now be introduced across the network to improve safety. Where RoLE equipment is being used, it will be identified on the Overhead Line Permit (OLP) (Form C). All holders of PTS (AC) and COSS (OLP) have been briefed that: (i) they must receive a briefing of the safe working limits of their OLP (Form C) prior to starting work; (ii) they must also receive a briefing of any residual electrical hazards present within the safe working limits of their OLP (Form C); and (iii) if they don’t understand their safe working limits or residual electrical hazards, they must challenge the Nominated Person or COSS (OLP) delivering the briefing.

ELECTRIFICATION & POWER

Residual electrical hazards In an ideal situation all the overhead line equipment would be isolated when work takes place, but this is not possible unless it’s Christmas with no trains running, and even then it is not practical to isolate all overhead line traction systems. This is why there will always be residual electrical hazards. Consider a fourtrack route with Up and Down Slow Lines, and Up and Down Fast Lines.

To keep the railway operational during maintenance it may be necessary to isolate only the Slow Lines, with electric trains still running on the Fast Lines. If the 25kV feed to the Fast Lines runs from the cess side of the Slow Lines then there will be a residual electrical hazard on the Slow Lines overhead equipment from the live cross track feeders.

Examples of Residual electrical Hazards are: live adjacent OLE, including Autotransformer Feeder Systems (ATFs); live cross track feeders; live bare feeders; and live cable sealing ends.

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Visibility When used, the RoLE equipment must be visible from inside the Safe Working Limits on the line it is fitted to and not applied to live OLE​, live ATF, or non-earthed return conductors. They can only be installed, moved, inspected and removed by a Nominated Person or Authorised Person, and must not require any personnel to go within 2.75 metres of exposed live parts in order to install, move, inspect, or remove them.

It is also important that they are not placed such that they obstruct or interfere with signal sighting, and an assessment must be made by the Nominated Person if the RoLE equipment is defective. In dual electrified areas they must be installed to the running rail furthest from the conductor rail. When provided, all RoLE equipment must be recorded on all the required paperwork. It must be checked to ensure it is fit for purpose before use and counted ‘in and out’ before and after use.

Planning During the planning stage of an OLE isolation and as part of the electrical risk assessment, the frequency of inspection of RoLE equipment that is to remain in place for extended periods of time, must be determined. Typically, the normal frequency for inspection shall be every 24 hours.

However, the frequency of inspection should be determined based on a range of factors, typically including the duration of work, the length of the site of work, the battery life of the device, and the likelihood of any disturbance.

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The selection and location of RoLE equipment is determined as part of the Isolation Details Form completion and the electrical risk assessment for the proposed work. The selection and location details are dependent on the electrical risks related to the work, the work delivery method, the device remaining visible, and the environment in which it is to be installed. For example, a static blue light might be less effective in a junction area with multiple features, therefore it may be decided to use a flashing light.

As a result of mandating the use of RoLE equipment, the following forms have been updated: IDF - Isolation Detail Form, Form B - Authority to test and apply portable earths and RoLE devices to overhead line equipment, including return conductors and autotransformer feeders; STED - Switching Testing and Earthing Detail; and Form C Overhead Line Permit (OLP).

An important point is that not all residual electrical hazards may be identified with RoLE equipment, and the golden rule for engineers working on 25kV overhead line traction systems is to always, always check the OLP (Form C).

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FEATURE

High Performing R AILWAYS CLIVE KESSELL

A

seminar with a title like ‘High Performing Railways’ just had to be investigated and it was a privilege to be able to participate in the two-day, online event held in early November. With many pre-recorded presentations to listen to and two online question and answer sessions, it was quite a marathon.

Organised as a joint affair between the IET, IMechE, IRSE, IRO, PWI, and RIA, this was effectively a Railway Engineers Forum event. The subject matter covered all disciplines and some unexpected ground.

So, what could be considered a high performing railway? Two such lines were cited − the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (HS1) and London Underground’s Victoria Line.

Channel Tunnel Rail Link

Victoria Line The Victoria Line opened in 1968 and was the first application of Automatic Train Operation (ATO) with a 90 second headway between trains. By the 1990s, the technology’s obsolescence meant an

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PHOTO: GEORGE CLERK

Dyan Crowther, Managing Director of HS1, acknowledged that a new line built for a specific purpose should be capable of giving high performance.

HS1 is designed for high speed, and all the associated infrastructure is capable of being maintained without disruptive possessions. Blockades should never be necessary as the hours set aside for maintenance and renewals are sacrosanct.

The line can also claim green credentials and aims to be carbon neutral by 2030, partially by removing most flights to Paris and Brussels. Although a serious downturn in business has

occurred because of Covid, the road to recovery is underway which includes merging Eurostar with Thalys to create GreenSpeed, an integrated high-speed network for Northern Europe.

upgrade was necessary, resulting in a new fleet of trains and a ‘distance to go’ radio control system. This has yielded a capacity increase to 36 trains per hour in the peak, according to Charles Horsey from Transport for London, making it one of Europe’s highest performing metro lines.

Alongside all this, there is the need for minimum station dwell times, terminal station management, good information systems with local accountability, crew utilisation, and the ability to quickly recover from perturbations. Advancement of the technology is continuing with timetable design being critical. Trains make 500 round trips every day amounting to eight million per year for the entire fleet.

FEATURE Operations management

Performance has worsened over the period 2014-19. Train running must match the advertised timetable, realising that one train being delayed will cause delay to other trains. Modelling can help but beware of overestimating the value of the model: rubbish in = rubbish out!

The key is to have rolling stock and train crew numbers that match the timetable, but too many crew changes en-route will cause disruption. Strangely, adding one minute to the timetable is more acceptable than having one minute of delay but following this premise may result in journey times that are worse than in steam days.

Systems engineering This term is still something of a mystery. Anne O’Neil and Bruce Elliott from Cap Gemini attempted to explain.

The ‘System’ will have many sub-systems and these must integrate into the whole system. Specify the outcomes, not the assets but define the capability and functionality. Technical changes are not the solution to the end requirement.

PHOTO: OLRAT

Some basic guidelines on how to predict and manage operations were given by Felix Schmid, Professor emeritus from University of Birmingham. Fares and tariffs are easy to change whereas infrastructure alterations and resource restructuring are difficult and expensive. Timetables are often heavily politicised but are cheap to amend providing the assets, rolling stock and staffing are commensurable. New lines, changed layouts, and new signalling systems carry huge risk. Variety is the enemy of performance and performance is the enemy of variety.

Single line railways offer poor capacity and performance - many routes in the UK were reduced to a single track in the 1970s-1980s and were subsequently re-doubled at considerable expense.

Double track is better but still restricted if it is a mixed traffic railway. Metros offer the best capacity where all trains do the same thing. High Speed lines are similar but are limited by braking distance between trains. Flighting of services offers the best compromise.

Performance Performance issues were discussed

by Steven Brown from Rail Aspects.

A recent survey of customers showed that punctuality and reliability were the top priority. Delays and how they are dealt with are the biggest source of dissatisfaction. One UK train operating company’s data showed that with a revenue of £800 million, the cost of delays was £145 million with ‘delay repay’ costing another £5 million, a significant worsening of the finances. Cancelling a single train costs around £5,300 amounting to £1.47 billion for all cancellations annually.

Emergent scenarios need modelling and simulation, but these must be well focussed. Many tools are available – VISION, OSLO, RAILSYS, TRAIL – that focus on different specialisms.

Increasingly dominant are BIM and Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). All these can be viewed online for suitability. A good example of Systems thinking was the London Underground Circle Line where to improve reliability, it was changed to a linear line with two end stations yielding an integrated fares and information structure.

Systems Engineering requires a ‘Line of Sight’ which can be described as Purpose Operational Concept Whole System Design Disciplines and Sub Systems. In Engineer’s speak, this might be better described as Determine Develop Design Deliver Display. A little disappointing in this presentation was no mention of where ‘The Directing Mind’ sits, nor any reference to Digital Twins that has emerged as the optimum way of ensuring a trouble-free system development.

Reliability engineering Nigel Best, Systems Analysis Manager at Network Rail, spoke about measuring trends in train service reliability. After seven years of reasonable stability, the Covid pandemic has led to improved reliability as fewer trains are running.

High performance means value for money, reliability of the end-to-end journey, adequate capacity, safety and sustainability, and above all reliability of the infrastructure assets and rolling stock.

Performance requirements start with the business case, then the functional and operational elements to meet this, and finally the asset and technical aspects.

A feedback loop between all of these is necessary noting that different criteria are needed for new or existing railways.

RAM starts by constructing the V Diagram life cycle but now includes PRAMS (Performance, Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) to include supplier engagement.

Modelling the likely outcome of failures using data from a past year’s operation is recommended. Modelling is ideally geared to a 15-year future majoring on control room operation with all other functions − signalling, rolling stock, power and suchlike − linking into that. Failure mode analysis as to frequency, response, effect, system fault tolerance, criticality, and control decisions, are all part of the modelling assessment.

Using technology and associated processes to improve reliability was considered by Oliver Bratton, the Director for Network Strategy and Operations at Network Rail. Computer controlled railways have the best reliability with a fully automated railway giving optimum performance - easy in the Metro sector but main lines and especially mixed traffic lines being more difficult.

He posed the question, how do you know what signals are showing red on the network, currently, in 60 seconds, in

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FEATURE 60 minutes or in a whole day? Factors like asset failures, route and speed restrictions, weather, make this prediction very difficult.

Driver behaviour, train length, freight train movements, passenger loading times, all contribute to the equation. Planning a timetable is not easy and built-in recovery times are not always beneficial as they sometimes do not relate to where the problems are. Only with accurate data and intelligence within the system can data be analysed to improve reliability.

Train braking and adhesion The performance and reliability of modern trains is impressive, but a crucial factor is an effective braking performance.

With higher speeds, braking distances increase and capacity decreases. It is all about kinetic energy so says Daniel Woodland, a Principal Consultant at Ricardo and immediate past President of the IRSE. Braking converts energy into electricity or heat which must provide an adequate force to stop a train.

Various forms of braking exist, including: tread or disc brakes which can damage wheels or rims; dynamic brakes that produce electricity by turning train motors into generators; hydrodynamic brakes that provide energy into the drive shaft hydraulics; flywheel activation where the energy is absorbed by the flywheel; rubber tyre wheels alongside the steel wheels which produce greater adhesion; magnetic track brakes that attract the train to the rails; and eddy current brakes that do much the same thing.

Of these, dynamic brakes are less effective than friction brakes, being ineffective at low speed and slow to activate. Adhesion will vary due to

conditions – water, grease, ice, leaves, vegetation – which may be improved by sanding, plasma torches, water jets, scrubbers, or chemical enhancers. The recent Salisbury accident is a timely reminder. Consideration must also be given to acceleration and jerk rates that can impact on passenger comfort.

Eliminating adhesion-free braking can result in a 20% capacity improvement.

of application up to 7.5kg/minute, dependent on speed, improvements of up to 50% less distance travelled during braking have been witnessed at a Network Rail test track.

Applying sand to the third and seventh wheelsets brings further improvement to stopping distances and, as the time the sand is applied is reduced, so the usage rates are not changed significantly.

Beware, however of applying too much sand at low speeds as this can impact on track circuit operation.

Optimum sander configurations The cost of adhesion problems is around £345 million per year, according to Liam Purcell from Ricardo Rail, mainly in delay minute payments and remedial work.

Sanding equipment is commonly used but is its efficiency always maximised?

Application of sand can be either automatic or driver initiated, typically dropping 2kg/minute/rail on the third wheelset. By developing variable rates

Infrastructure data

PHOTO: PETIA_ST

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The need for data to aid reliability has been stressed but understanding the data is a problem according to Jeremy Allen from Cognisant. Data requires clever computers to interpret and handle it.

The roll out of intelligent infrastructure on Network Rail is yielding information on the probability of single asset failures, when failures will occur, the impact of the failure, and planning an intervention prior to a disruption occurring. Such data has already avoided 1.3 million hours of manual maintenance, 500,000 minutes of passenger delay avoidance, a 10% reduction in service affecting failures, and improved safety at the lineside.

Data, in itself, has only limited value and needs to be surrounded by the right people and technology. Of the latter, drones and helicopters for airborne surveying, along with with forward facing imaging from trains, are creating a 3D digital map for lineside inspections. This builds a ‘data lake’ which needs artificial intelligence to successfully interpret it and provide the right decisions for humans to action.

FEATURE Decarbonisation and electrification A high performing railway is usually electrified but does not have to be.

David Clarke, the Technical Director at the Railway Industry Association, gave the UK statistics. While 70% of trains are electric, only 40% of the route mileage is electrified and, for freight, only 10% of trains are electrically hauled. Both statistics are way behind mainland Europe. So why is this? The boom-andbust approach to electrification in past years has not helped with insufficient skills being available for the GW and Edinburgh Glasgow projects with consequential cost escalations and delay.

The result was electrification investment being cut back.

The RIA wants to see a rolling programme to get 60% of the network electrified to meet the England/Wales target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2040 (Scotland aims for 2035). Ideally, the aim is to have 90% of the network electrified but is this realistic or affordable? Other non-polluting traction options – battery and hydrogen – are developing at a rapid pace, but these are not yet foreseen as alternatives to diesel for heavy haulage, be it by road or rail. Low volume, passenger-only lines may

be more applicable for battery trains. The range and charge times are constantly improving for electric cars and technology transfer should be possible.

Another aspect of decarbonisation is non-traction elements. Eighty-seven percent of greenhouse gases are caused by road transport with only 1.4% relating to rail, according to Dr John Rossa from Network Rail. However, the railways must not be complacent if the national target of net zero by 2050 is to be achieved.

Network Rail has 8,500 road vehicles

which need to be replaced with electric technology incorporating telematic intelligence to reduce mileage. Electricity needs to be provided by 100% renewable sources with power purchase agreements that allow feed back into the grid; devices in depots and offices need to be energy efficient; hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) is required fuel for generators and plant; charging points are needed in station car parks. All of this requires capital spend but also an understanding of carbon emissions within that spend.

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FEATURE motors with 45% monitored. The latter are invariably the Siemens M63 Surelock, the latest ones having current draw and temperature sensors. Current monitoring can be applied to older machines and to the few clamp locks that exist. The ongoing policy is to fit data loggers wired to local servers and then over radio to a control centre. For the future, intelligent switch machines will emerge with a built-in, self-monitoring facility, including sensors for rail vibration and hydraulic/ pneumatic operation, accelerometers, and the capability of integrating with other monitoring systems.

Track worker safety System Design

Point machine reliability Point actuator mechanisms are a common cause of failure. Anna Cornish from Voestalpine informed the audience that, on London Underground, 67% of points are pneumatic but only 0.2% are monitored, whereas 28% have point

Power supplies A robust power source is essential for any high performing railway. The existing system for 25kV overhead catenaries has static imbalance with special transformers needed to combat low frequency harmonics, a maximum rating for peak power, a low power factor at low loads, and the requirement for neutral sections.

Power is taken from 275kV or 400kV HV grid connections at the feeder stations.

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Recent fatalities have highlighted the ongoing risks to track workers with higher speed and quieter trains. Nick Millington, Head of the Safety Taskforce at Network Rail and President of the PWI, stated that with the issuing of an Improvement Notice from the ORR, a radical rethink of how to maintain and fault find on operational lines must now happen. Site unawareness and look out failures are prime causes of accidents and near misses so two priorities are being implemented: i) zero use of lookouts; and ii) line blockages to carry out work. Five activities are considered − maintenance reviews, signaller workloads, line blockage data, planning and delivery, track safety technology.

Twenty-eight million maintenance tasks are performed each year on Britain’s railways. All are being reviewed with some no longer being needed and more use made of risk-based periodicity. Intelligent infrastructure and condition monitoring with plain line pattern recognition being carried out by monitoring trains, all enable remote based inspection. New technology is continually being developed − drones, a geofence to provide a virtual wall around a safe space, and train operated warning PHOTO: PEETERV

While good design is part of a high performing railway, performance can deviate from what is expected. Alex McGrath from Melbourne, Australia asked: “Does this matter and how can it be measured?” Her experience of local railways showed design deviations in engineering, operations and resources.

People must; i) recognise the change; ii) decide what to do next; iii) consider who to ask; and iv) establish a full information flow within the organisation.

Two examples were cited. Pedestrian level crossings have a hierarchy of controls, but users frequently disobey lights and gates, particularly if they notice a train stopped in a station. Therefore, the design is flawed. Power supplies range from a mix of safety critical to essential commercial. Duplication of grid supply points, often with a battery back-up, do not always provide the robustness desired. A rail control centre (ROC) should be the nerve centre for infrastructure, rolling stock, and all aspects of operation, maintenance, and emergencies. Evidence suggests they often struggle to adjust to more trains, layout changes, and timetable amendments. Design is part of this and, whilst failures will occur, having a nimble recovery plan is essential.

Dr Dela Sharifi from Atkins has researched Power Converter Feeder Stations enabling fully synchronisation with each other by active voltage and phase control. Neutral sections are eliminated, and all power sources are effectively joined together. Further, the power feed can come from any convenient grid line, be it 132kV or even 33kV with trains taking proportional power according to the distance from the power source. A study of 14 trains (seven in each direction) over a 160km section demonstrated that by using this system, the transmission losses were reduced if the number of feeder points were increased from convenient grid lines. This is being promoted for newly electrified lines as it has lower capital costs. The configuration for existing lines needs more research as to practicality and cost.

equipment. More access points and safer walkways have reduced slips, trips and falls. The use of unassisted lookouts and lookout-operated warning systems will be phased out. The roles of COSS and Site Supervisor will be merged. Health and wellbeing of staff will result in medicals every three years.

However, routine maintenance and fault rectification will still be needed.

Line blockages will be necessary for the former and windows of 15 minutes with trains stopped will be granted once the technicians have assessed a faulting requirement. Failure to achieve a clearance in that time will mean coming away from running lines with a re-think on the work needed, and another 15-minute blockage will be requested. Liaison with signallers will be crucial. An integrated access system linking into the signalling system is being considered. Work in the cess is to be discouraged but will be allowed providing a two-metre distance from a running line can be guaranteed.

Standards How do standards impact on a high performing railway? Tom Lee and Dan Hamm from the RSSB stated that standards represent a common way of doing things, providing interface requirements for linkage of systems and ensuring hazards can be considered appropriately. Some are market led, to avoid the risk of proliferation when competing innovations emerge.

Standards must not stifle innovation, but a resulting standard should be of benefit.

Standards should not be blindly followed if they are inappropriate or cause a cost increase. Challenges to standards are always welcome.

A classic example has been the introduction of multi-mode rolling stock where many technical and operational issues emerged, namely: changeover from one mode to another by automation or the driver, on the move or when the train is static; maintenance

PHOTO: FRANCKREPORTER

FEATURE

routines; who is involved – TOC, rolling stock owner, manufacturer, infrastructure manager. The resulting standard became a framework for collaboration that has led to a general acceptance.

Climate conditions A high performing railway must be resilient to climatic conditions. With the recent world summit in Glasgow fresh in our minds, what does climate change mean for the railways? Andrew Quinn from University of Birmingham observed that the focus is predominantly on carbon emissions but much less on the impact for infrastructure and operations.

Infrastructure varies enormously according to its age and the design standards of the day, also geographical distribution and its sensitivity to variables. The vulnerability is insufficiently known as to the weaknesses and risk.

Caroline Davies from the Met Office said that much time is being spent on forecasting techniques in terms of current time, hours, days, weeks, months, and seasons ahead. Probability predictions will include financial impact which presently is based on intuitive thinking. Longer term predictions are less accurate, but patterns do exist for 30 different kinds of weather dating back to the 1850s. Turning predictions into useful information for transport is a challenge and a three-month forecast is the aim.

For rail, three outcomes are considered: i) robustness so that the infrastructure does not fail; ii) redundancy where alternative services will be available; and iii) recovery with a plan for rapid return to service. Planning and asset management processes are needed for each eventuality. Identification of hazards and weak assets is important to identify the vulnerability of these and produce train service plans that mitigate the risk.

One can only hope that HS2 planners are taking climate into account.

Water ingress and flooding are high risk. Prof John Dora gave a quote from Thomas Telford: “flooding is the Civil Engineer’s greatest enemy”. With railways traditionally built along river valleys and often across flood plains, they are particularly vulnerable. Modern signalling technology has made the problems worse with cables and equipment at ground level, compared to high up telegraph poles and wires in the past. Rainfall, surface water, ice melt, storm and tide surges, coastal erosion are all making the risk of flooding more likely.

How to deal with this has no easy answer but three considerations emerge: i) by design for new and refurbished assets; ii) by maintenance meaning understanding the thresholds and keeping drains clear; and iii) by operational measures on the assumption that floods will occur with associated reaction analysis and good forecasting.

Technology can play its part with improved alarm systems that monitor bridge scour, rock falls, landslips, and water levels.

In summary This seminar covered a lot of ground. A high performing railway is not about highspeed lines or high-capacity metros. It is about every line and route in the country.

Making all of these high performing is the challenge for engineers and operators, and the seminar gave useful guidance as to how this can be achieved in all disciplines. If this article awakens people to the issues, it will have achieved something.

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Experiencing DAVID SHIRRES

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COP26

hen the world came to Glasgow for the crucial COP26 climate summit, there were numerous events giving an international perspective of the climate emergency. Companies were keen to demonstrate their green credentials although, in some cases, this was questionable.

For example, the provision of generators to charge the large, electric-powered SUVs loaned to VIPs who drove 45 miles to the summit from their luxury hotel in Gleneagles, attracted critical press comment. There was also much local cynicism about the idea of 25,000 people, including the US President’s 29-vehicle motorcade, flying into Glasgow to decide how to save the planet.

However, nothing will be achieved unless world leaders agree a plan of action and if all of this is what’s needed to achieve that, the associated, relatively tiny carbon expenditure will have been worthwhile.

As I live a 30-minute train ride away from Glasgow, the summit was an opportunity not to be missed. Hence, I found myself attending various events.

Before the summit was the Railway Industry Association’s RailDecarb21 Unlocking Innovation workshop and two IMechE COP26 events.

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The rail industry rightly proclaimed its green credentials during COP26. Railway stations had numerous posters proclaiming Scotland’s Railway’s plan to achieve net zero by 2035. Hydroflex and Vivarail trains were running from Glasgow Central station where the ‘We Mean Green’ stand in the middle of the concourse explained rail’s carbon savings as well giving visitors a chance to try a train driving simulator.

Outside Glasgow, the Scottish Hydrogen train was on display at Bo’ness and Mossend’s rail freight terminal hosted a low carbon logistics conference. At the COP26 green zone, there was an international hydrogen transition summit. These were all informative and thought-

provoking events. I hope readers think the same of my description of them.

The United Nations Climate Change website − https:// unfccc.int − has further information on COP26, including its public webcast portal with the conference’s numerous events such as Alstom’s hydrogen train presentation on 10th November.

The aim of COP26 was to strengthen the Paris agreement so that global temperatures will not rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius. Although there were various agreements to limit emissions, there was no agreement on ‘phasing out’ coal, instead the term is ‘phasing down’. The Energy Transitions Commission estimates that pledges at COP26 will reduce annual emissions from 52.4 to 41.9Gt by 2030. However, limiting warming to the required 1.5 degrees requires emissions of no more than 26.6Gt. The world still has a long way to go.

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Hydrogen fuel of the future?

DAVID SHIRRES

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he three words that the public most associate with hydrogen are ‘Hindenburg’, ‘Explosions’ and ‘Hiroshima’. I learnt this on the stand of the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) at Climate Action’s Hydrogen Transition Summit which took place in COP26’s green zone. BEIS is assessing how people think about hydrogen which is likely to be heating their homes in the not-too-distant future. It seems it might be a hard sell, yet the idea was mooted a long time ago.

BEIS stand.

In 1874, Jules Verne wrote of a world where “water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable”. At COP26, much was said about the need for a substantial hydrogen economy if net-zero carbon emission is to be achieved. As this strengthens the case for hydrogen trains, the opportunity to learn from world experts at COP26 was too good to miss.

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Wind is the new oil In his welcome address, Michael Matheson, the Scottish Government’s

Cabinet Secretary of Net Zero – Energy and Transport, stressed that hydrogen is a crucial element of the transition to a low energy future. He advised that his government’s ambition was for Scotland to have a strong hydrogen economy and that it had published its hydrogen action

COP26 Grey, green, blue and turquoise

plan which includes an installed hydrogen production capacity of 5GW by 2030 and 25GW by 2045. It also commits £100 million towards the development of Scotland’s hydrogen economy over the next five years.

He felt that Scotland was well suited to produce the lowest cost hydrogen in Europe with an abundance of fresh water and some of the world’s best offshore wind resources, with commitment to install an additional 8-12GW by 2030.

Its redundant oil infrastructure offers cost-effective carbon storage to support the production of low-cost, netzero carbon hydrogen at an industrial scale. Moreover, well-established sectors such as oil and petrochemicals have the skills to diversify into a hydrogen economy.

Hence, it is expected that Scotland will eventually export much of its hydrogen. To this end, part of the hydrogen action plan is the development of the required transportation and distribution infrastructure. A strong hydrogen supply chain is also required, the development of which is supported by a £100 million renewable hydrogen development fund. In addition, funding is being made available to support hydrogen hubs that combine production, storage and distribution with multiple end use applications. The Aberdeen hydrogen hub is to receive £15 million from the hydrogen development fund.

In closing, Michael emphasised that hydrogen is a key tool in the climate change toolbox which represents a huge opportunity that everyone should seize with both hands.

Michael Matheson’s address.

Worldwide production of hydrogen is 80 million tonnes per annum. Although it is a hazardous gas, its properties are well known and there are proven technologies to store and transport it.

However, currently almost all production is grey hydrogen from reforming methane which produces emissions only slightly less than those of liquid fossil fuels.

If hydrogen is to help provide net-zero emissions, it needs to be either blue hydrogen (produced by reforming with carbon capture and storage) or green hydrogen (from electrolysis powered by net zero electricity). However, hydrogen produced by electrolysis plants may be turquoise as it may not be possible to use 100% net-zero electricity all the time.

The market Roman Kramarchuk of S&P Global Platts considered that, rather than colours, it is more meaningful to consider hydrogen’s carbon intensity.

With hydrogen accounting for 5-10% of the world’s energy supply. Price Waterhouse Cooper estimate that, by 2050,

Electrolyser and fuelling station for Aberdeen’s fleet of 10 hydrogen buses.

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Air Products 600-mile US Gulf Coast pipeline provides hydrogen from 20 production facilities.

ERM’s Dolphyn project.

the green hydrogen export market will be 200 million tonnes, worth $300 billion per annum. If this market is to function, guarantees of carbon intensity will be required as grey hydrogen will always be less expensive than that of green hydrogen.

Seifi Ghasemi, Chief Executive of Air Products, noted that the reality is that green hydrogen is expensive compared with fossil fuels, but we need to use it if we are to decarbonise. Like many speakers he felt a global carbon tax was necessary to provide the right incentives. He feels the role of government is to promote the use of green hydrogen. Once there is a demand, he has no doubt that business could scale up production to meet it.

To make use of existing assets, he feels the first step had to be blue hydrogen with carbon capture. He advised that Air Products had committed £15 billion dollars to produce hydrogen, including a large blue hydrogen facility in Canada and on the US gulf coast, together with a huge plant to produce green hydrogen in Saudi Arabia.

Dr Emmanouil Kakaras of Mitsubishi Heavy industries said he has no doubt that the

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technology to produce hydrogen at scale is available now. He also feels that there is no time to invent new technologies, though he considered that a gamechanger for blue hydrogen would be producing carbon black as a by-product, as another form of carbon capture. Rod Christie of Baker Hughes agrees and is convinced that economics is the issue and tax incentives are required, though he feels that government promotion of hydrogen clusters is useful in getting a lot of players “on thesame page.”

David Caine of Environmental Resources Management (ERM) described the Dolphyn project,

which combines an offshore floating wind turbine with green hydrogen production and requires a desalination plant. He considered that the offshore floating wind sector had the most reliable wind and that hydrogen is the most efficient way of transmitting energy back to shore from such deep-water facilities. He expects that such plants will be able to produce hydrogen at less than $2 per kilogramme and advised that a 10MW commercial scale demonstrator close to Aberdeen would be operational by 2024. It was expected that a 300MW plant will be operational by 2028.

COP26 Using hydrogen All speakers agreed that hydrogen is a versatile fuel that is essential for a low carbon economy and that it is the only way to eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from things that cannot be directly electrified such as ships, steel production, and heavy mobility. Filippo Gaddo of Arup considered that in a net-zero world, hydrogen would be 5-15% of the world’s energy supply.

Although, in general, the most efficient use of hydrogen is by fuel cells, it can also be burnt directly. Raphael Schoentgen of Hydrogen Advisors stated that using hydrogen in gas turbines was straightforward and Emmanouil Kakaras noted that the marine sector had successfully burnt ammonia, a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, in existing diesel engines. David Bryson of Uniper stressed that the transition to hydrogen fuel had to use existing assets in this way and avoid assets being “stranded”. Hydrogen will also have an important role balancing a future energy network largely powered by variable renewables.

Dr Fiona Simon of Australia’s Hydrogen Council considered that a major hydrogen pipeline network would be needed as this is the most efficient way to transport hydrogen above a certain volume. She also feels that there was a need for international standards to support worldwide carbon trading.

Shiva Dustdar of the European Investment Bank advised that a €1 trillion investment for climate action needed to be mobilised by 2030 to support the Paris agreement. In 2020, her bank

www.hy4heat.info had financed €12 billion of climate investments of which hydrogen was a “modest” €2 billion. She acknowledged that more investment in hydrogen was needed but feels there is a lot of political momentum for this with many EU member states developing hydrogen strategies.

The requirements for greater use of hydrogen were nicely summed up by Rosalinde van der Vlies, Director of Clean Planet at the European Commission.

She considered that three things were needed: “political vision; a supportive regulatory framework; and an investment agenda.”

Hydrogen in the home Although buildings account for about a third of UK GHG emissions, there is currently no definitive strategy to eliminate emissions from domestic heating. Various options include heat pumps, district heating schemes and the use of hydrogen which could make use of the local gas pipeline network.

However, the feasibility of hydrogen for heating buildings has yet to be proven.

To consider this, the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy

(BEIS) set up the Hy4heat initiative in 2017 to establish whether it is technically possible, safe and convenient to replace natural gas with hydrogen in residential and commercial buildings. BEIS’s Deputy Director of Energy and Innovation, Dr Mark Taylor, explained this initiative.

Mark noted that the 2019 change in the Climate Change Act target, from an 80% reduction of the 1990 baseline to net-zero emissions, was extremely challenging. He advised that his department estimates that green hydrogen could save 9% of GHG emissions as well as supporting up to 9,000 jobs by 2030 and potentially unlocking 100,000 jobs by 2050.

The Hy4heat initiative is a four-year £25 million programme, that BEIS launched in 2017, to assess the feasibility of using hydrogen in homes, commercial premises, and industrial heating. To date it has shown that injection of colourant is unlikely to be required and that hydrogen can use the same odorant as natural gas. It has also produced guidance notes on safety certification for hydrogen appliances and a competency framework for gas engineers. A safety assessment, that has been independently reviewed by the Health and Safety Executive, has also concluded that hydrogen can be made as safe as natural gas when used for heating and cooking.

Ships can be powered by the hydrogen in Ammonia.

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Hydrogen boilers on the BEIS stand.

Hydrogen neighbourhood Two months ago, a Pilkington’s glass furnace was fuelled by hydrogen. To date over 150 hydrogen domestic appliances have been developed and there are now two demonstration hydrogen houses in Northumberland. BEIS has launched various competitions to promote the use of hydrogen which include a £10 million green distilleries competition.

Mark advises that the next step is the world’s first hydrogen neighbourhood.

In 2023 up to 300 homes in Levenmouth, Fife will be able to opt-in to have their homes supplied with hydrogen from a purpose-built local grid. Those participating will receive free hydrogen appliances and pay the same for hydrogen as they would for natural gas. This pilot project is to be supplied from a 5MW electrolyser that can supply two tonnes of hydrogen per day. A hydrogen village using the existing gas grid is planned for 2025 and a hydrogen town for 2030.

He considered that the Levenmouth pilot scheme was pivotal as the next steps were dependant on its success and will inform strategic decisions in 2026 on the role of hydrogen in heat decarbonisation.

Baxi’s Managing Director, Karen Boswell (formerly of Hitachi Rail), noted that gas boilers had been in use since the 1960s and are the

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workhorse of domestic heating.

The UK Government’s plan to phase out the installation on new boilers beyond 2035 presents a significant problem as heat pumps are not suitable for all premises. Baxi has developed various hydrogen appliances and, in 2019, showcased the world’s first hydrogen condensing domestic boiler. By 2024 the company intends to produce hydrogen ready gas boilers.

Karen feels that hydrogen will have a strong role in decarbonising buildings and recognised that heat pumps will work in some buildings, heat networks in others.

Baxi’s role is to listen to its customers and help them find the right solution.

Karen referred to the UK Government’s hydrogen strategy and felt that its target of a 5GW green hydrogen annual production capacity by 2030 was “underwhelming”. She felt that the infrastructure “will need to move more quickly to get this market growing” and that “if production is ramped up, there are no limits on the number of homes that could be converted to use hydrogen.”

Jules Verne was right All speakers at the summit were clear that hydrogen presents a huge opportunity for achieving global decarbonisation goals and supporting new economies around the world. Averting a climate disaster requires the world to be weaned off fossil fuels which, in part, requires the novel use of hydrogen at scale for which technologies

already exist. The summit’s firm consensus was that, if hydrogen is to be affordable and accessible for all, policy and finance have a key role.

Two key themes that emerged during the day were the importance of creating a strong end-use market and the synergy between hydrogen and renewable power generation.

For someone with an interest in hydrogen trains, it was a fascinating day. Yet, while the summit addressed many big picture issues, it did not consider the role of hydrogen for transportation. The only end use application considered in detail was hydrogen’s use for heating.

Dr Taylor of BEIS demonstrated that the UK Government has an effective programme in this respect, which included some world firsts. Over the past four years BEIS has invested £78 million on green hydrogen supply, Hy4heat, and industrial fuel switching.

While there was hardly any talk of hydrogen trains, this was no bad thing. It underlined the point that hydrogen trains will eventually be a small part of a much larger hydrogen economy.

This must eventually drive down the price of hydrogen and support hydrogen train operation to strengthen the case for their use.

It is certainly true that, per coach, hydrogen trains have a greater power output than the steam trains of 1874, when Jules Verne predicted that hydrogen from water will one day provide a source of power that surpasses that of coal. As far as trains are concerned, it seems that his prediction has now come true.

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NET ZERO FREIGHT

PHOTO: NETWORK RAIL

DAVID SHIRRES

Mossend’s expansion plans on show at PD Stirling’s stand.

D

uring COP26, a three-day ‘Low Carbon Logistics’ conference took place at the Mossend railhead off the West Coast Main Line near Motherwell, which is operated

by PD Stirling. This is Scotland’s largest rail freight park and handles up to 16 trains per day, which includes steel and bulk cement products, intermodal containers and finished cars. One of the success stories of Scottish rail freight is the way that logistics companies such as WH Malcolm and J.G. Russell took the risk of contracting trains to make rail freight available to small companies by aggregating full train loads.

Work has now started to expand the Mossend terminal to give it direct access to the motorway network and an additional eight 800-metre electrified sidings. When completed in 2024 it could transfer 14,000 HGV movements per week from road to rail and provide a throughput of 18 million tonnes/ annum to support other Scottish logistic hubs.

The conference was opened by the Scottish Minister of Transport, Graeme Dey, who considered that rail and road freight must come together to deliver the real prize that is modal shift. This needs new business models and industry innovations. He outlined Scotland’s decarbonisation plans which included phasing out delivery vans by 2030 and decarbonising passenger trains by 2035. He noted the Rail Delivery Group had estimated that rail decarbonisation would create 6,000 jobs per year.

Decarbonising Scotland Presentations by Alex Hynes, Managing Director of Scotland’s Railway and from Transport Scotland’s Bill Reeve, Director of Rail and Frazer Henderson, Head of Rail Policy, set the scene. These described the challenges of climate resilience and what Scotland has to do to meet its legally binding target of net zero by 2045.

Alex Hynes noted that extreme weather events from global temperature rises are a now real problem and that COP26 emphasised the need for urgent climate action. Network Rail was investing heavily in infrastructure, now has an infrastructure monitoring helicopter based full time in Scotland, and is applying modern asset management techniques to ensure

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COP26 resilient infrastructure for which Scotland’s geography presents a challenge.

He advised that electric traction is net-zero carbon as Network Rail procures its electricity from nuclear power stations. Electric trains account for 76% of Scotland’s passenger journeys and 45% of its freight electric. Since 2007, the Scottish Government has invested £8 billion on railway enhancement work. This has included re-opening lines to support modal shift to railway and a rolling programme of electrification with eight schemes totalling over 500 single track kilometres (stk).

Bill Reeve noted that to meet the Scottish Government’s 2045 net-zero target, there had to be a 56% reduction in emissions by 2030. By then there needs to have been, for example, a 130% increase in cycling; 20% reduction in car travel; 57% switch to rail for journeys over 30km; 33%

Transport Scotland’s rail freight strategy.

reduction in aviation emissions (either from sustainable fuels or reducing aviation demand); and 23% of truck tonne kilometres shifted to rail.

He explained that although rail accounts for 1% of Scotland’s CO2 emissions, its contribution to decarbonisation is so much more than that. Hence, the Scottish Government places great importance on its rail decarbonisation plan which requires Scotland’s passenger

railway to be decarbonised by 2035. Bill emphasised that this will also provide a cleaner and more cost-effective railway.

The first part of this plan is the decarbonisation of four routes: Barrhead, East Kilbride, Fife, and Borders. Alex Hynes advised that electrification of the Borders Railway had a good business case as the line was built with passive provision for electrification and that an announcement is expected soon.

Electrification of Queen Street tunnel on Edinburgh to Glasgow main line.

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New electrification masts at Crossmyloof station.

At the Low Carbon Logistics event, Nuclear Transport Solutions, which operates Direct Rail Services, unveiled its new green livery during the naming of locomotive 68006 'Pride of the North'.

Frazer Henderson advised that Scotland was currently delivering electrification at £2 million per stk. Whilst this cost is significantly less than recent UK schemes, it needs to be reduced further with greater efficiencies during design development and delivery. He stressed the need for hydrogen and battery traction during the transition period and noted the challenges of procuring new trains in quantities, types, and timescales to meet the electrification programme.

Bill Reeve advised that he had “never felt more optimistic about rail freight than I do now.” With 80% of Scottish HGV movements on the M74 corridor there was potential to shift such long-distance

PHOTO: NETWORK RAIL

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trips to rail as two thirds of Scotland’s rail freight is crossborder traffic. He was pleased to see Tesco using rail freight and looked forward to seeing Orion’s converted passenger trains carrying parcels traffic.

If the rail network is to carry decarbonised freight traffic, electrification has to be continuous as there is no credible alternative traction for freight trains. To accommodate freight Scotland’s electrification programme also includes freight enhancements, such as gauging and reviewing loop turn out speeds as part of the electrification programme. Bill felt that “freight trains absolutely need the performance of electric traction.”

Decarbonising rail freight The Rail Freight Group’s Assistant Policy Manager, Phil Smart was also clear that overhead line electrification is “the only game” in town if freight is decarbonised.

He emphasised the need for short infill electrification schemes. For rail, and wider UK decarbonisation, the priority is rail capacity and faster rail freight for which electric traction is needed. Gauging and loop lengths also need to be addressed if rail freight traffic is to be increased.

He stressed that rail freight companies needed visibility of the electrification programme if they were to invest in the required electric locomotives.

There also needs to be greater

COP26

PHOTO: NETWORK RAIL

collaboration between road and rail freight, with rail being used for the long haul. Phil also mentioned future trends such as Stadler’s class 93 tri-mode locomotive and repurposed passenger units being converted for parcels traffic for Orion’s new logistics service.

Tarmac operates 30 trains a day with an average load of 1,450 tonnes. The company’s Head of Rail, Chris Swan, advised that rail freight was becoming increasingly important. He stressed the need for better operations such as standard 775-metre-long trains and reducing the time freight trains spent in loops. As a positive example he cited the operation of the company’s 3,600 tonne, ‘Jumbo’ freight train of 48 stone hoppers from its Derbyshire

Tunstead quarry to Wembley yard. They gave a 50% fuel saving and led to conversations which resulted in other longer trains. Also, the increase in stocking area at Tarmac’s Battersea depot had enabled it to be a 100% rail operation.

Chris advised that the company has also received ‘First of a Kind’ innovation grants for locomotives powered by hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO), battery operated shunters, and electrification of a rail freight terminal. This last initiative involves installing a moveable conductor bar supplied by Furrer+Frey at Tarmac’s Dunbar cement plant.

Carbon savings from better logistics was the subject of the presentation by Stephen Carr, Peel Port’s Group Commercial

Director. He advised that the Midlands accounted for 35% of the UK’s warehousing and that this is the result of the conventional logistic model in which there are average HGV trips of 135 miles port-towarehouse and warehouseto-delivery of a further 135 miles. He explained how a port-centric model could reduce this average total 270 mile trip to 167 HGV miles and that if rail was used from port to distribution depots, this HGV mileage would be reduced to 72 miles. It was clear from his presentation that new logistic models offer significant savings of carbon and costs.

3,200 tonnes of CO2 will be saved when Highland Spring Group’s new rail terminal at Blackford, between Stirling and Perth, opens next summer. This has two sidings accommodating 11 wagons which will make each train equivalent to 22 HGVs. Scotland’s Railway’s 2020 annual report notes that this is the result of a £19 million investment in signalling and track which includes a new south facing connection and is future proofed for electrification. The new facility will significantly reduce local HGVs movements by about 8,000 a year and has been sensitively designed to minimise the noise and visual impact on the village, for example continuous welded rail in the sidings will reduce noise and incorporation of community generated ideas such as a fruit orchard.

‘Jumbo’ freight train.

Movable conductor bar system at a Moscow train depot similar to that being installed at Dunbar.

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in cities is problematic, this presents an opportunity for highspeed logistics operators such as Orion.

This is an example of the need for suitable terminals and facilities at stations to support the emerging high-speed parcels traffic for which there is great potential. However, it was noted that late internet shopping cut-off for next day deliveries favoured vans which could be despatched at a moment’s notice.

(Map) Orion’s planned logistics network.

On Monday 8 November, Class 92 locomotive, 92020 was named after Billy Stirling who drove PD Stirling’s move to Mossend in 1981.

During the panel discussion that followed, it was felt that modal shift of freight from road to rail was now a realistic option and that rail freight was now competitive over shorter distances. However, everyone needs to think differently − for example, last mile solutions require mature collaboration between road and rail. More terminals are needed as their capacity is crucial to get material on a train at source. Although out of hours terminal operation

The following day Class 90 locomotive, 90039 bearing the inscription ‘I am the backbone of the economy’ was named ‘Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport’.

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Driving diversity Although the strategies and hardware for a vibrant rail freight sector are fascinating topics, equally important is the need to support the workforce and recruit a diverse workforce for the future. Three speakers specifically addressed these requirements.

ScotRail’s Head of Strategic Workforce Planning, Neil Archibald, advised that only 22% of the company’s

workforce were female and that 42% were over 50 and due to retire in next 5-10 years. ScotRail has a five-year strategy to acquire talent acquisition which includes the need for engaging early careers experience to retain and attract talent.

He explained that only 3% of job applications were from women and so it was necessary to think differently to ensure future workforce diversity.

ScotRail is developing various campaigns to ensure that, by 2036, its workforce reflects Scottish society. This includes engagement with the Primary Engineer and Scottish ‘Young Person’s Guarantee’ initiatives.

Dr Susan Scurlock founded Primary Engineer in 2005.

She explained how it aims to develop children through engagement with engineering, promote engineering careers, and support teachers to deliver these aims. Its Rail Project is supported by Network

COP26

Rail and Hitachi Rail who are funding teachers and provide engineers on Primary Engineer Rail Project courses.

One percent of UK freight train drivers are women and Heather Waugh is one of them.

She was a train driver with ScotRail when she applied for the job and, when she did so, was apprehensive of being the only woman in traditional male environment. Yet the reality was that her colleagues were welcoming, supportive, and encouraging. It was clear that she loves her job.

However, what she did experience was unconscious discrimination such as there being no suitable PPE for her and no female facilities in the depots. She felt that women in rail can give fresh insights. Her message was that the world has been made by men for men and that if an environment is created where women can excel, then everyone will excel. In other words, we should all be aware of the needs of those who are different from ourselves.

the cluster which provides learning, support, connections, networking events, and market insight reports. Of these, 19 were subsequently connected to rail businesses in Scotland and five have been connected to the Hydrogen accelerator at St Andrews. The conference included presentations from the following SMEs: » Autonomous IoT who are based in North Lanarkshire and provide off-grid, always available external lighting, powered by wind and solar energy. » Genista Energy offer battery storage solutions to reduce grid dependency and optimise energy use. » Railway Support Services (RSS) whose RSS TP 60 shunting locomotives have twice the tractive effort of class 08 shunters and only consume seven litres per hour when idling, compared to the 08’s 130 litres. RSS offer shunters with LNG/LPG engines or a

battery hybrid version. » McCulloch Group who started their vegetation management business in 1992 and now offer rail track renewal and maintenance solutions across the UK, including their Trac Rail Transposer (TRT). The company produces a large range of rail machines at its Ayrshire plant and will soon offer a full zero-emissions track renewal system. » Findlay Irvine which offers a wide range of weather monitoring and condition monitoring equipment including wireless rail temperature sensors and earthworks tilt sensors, of which 150 systems, with a total of 6,000 sensors are in use on Network Rail’s infrastructure. » 3SC Ltd has, in partnership with Ultra MTS, been operating their Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system at Heathrow Terminal 5 since

Heather Waugh asks the conference “Where are the women?”.

McCulloch’s battery operated TRT.

Involving SMEs The Rail Cluster Builder is an 18-month project launched in August 2020 funded by Transport Scotland and Scottish Enterprise. Over 200 SMEs registered with

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(Above) An example of the pods offered by 3CS Ltd and Ultra MTS.

(Below) Network Rail’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy emphasises the need to minimise waste.

2011. Their automated battery powered pods run on a lightweight segregated guideway and present minimal, if any, waiting time. As such they offer last mile connectivity. A PRT system at Chengdu airport in China will open next year. » inDex which offers a cloud-based software platform and works collaboratively to automate the calculation of their carbon footprint. » Route Konnect, which uses video analytics that offer multi-camera movement insights without the need for controversial individual facial recognition to provide accurate headcounts and full journey analysis.

Sustainability Sustainability is not just about decarbonisation and decarbonisation is not just about electrification. This was the message given by Wendi Wheeler and Keira McLuskey of Network Rail Scotland’s Sustainability team.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

They explained that their three priorities were: 1) a low emission railway; 2) a green and resilient railway and 3) a responsible railway.

This requires consideration issues such as embodied carbon, enhancing biodiversity, operating in a circular economy, and improving social value. Activities to support sustainability in Scotland’s railway included construction of a beaver tunnel under the railway, reverse vending machines at major stations, and providing shelter and warm clothing for the homeless.

If the UK is to have a sustainable transport network, energy use needs to be minimised and emissions reduced to net zero. This requires as much freight as possible to be carried by rail, especially as there is not yet a net-zero solution for HGVs. It was good to see the Low Carbon Logistics conference highlighting various worthwhile initiatives to promote the required modal shift.

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COP26

DAVID SHIRRES

TRAINS ON SHOW AT COP26

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OP26 presented the rail industry with the opportunity to showcase its net-zero carbon traction. Vivarail and Hydroflex trains performed short demonstration trips from Glasgow Central, while at Bo’ness, 30 miles to the east, Scotland’s hydrogen train was on display. Although Alstom had no trains, at COP26 the company announced a significant development.

While these are future developments, on numerous imaginative station posters Scotland’s Railway proclaimed what it was already doing to save carbon. For example, its electrification programme is saving 5,000 elephants (30,000 tonnes) worth of carbon per year. These posters also promoted the class 385 electric train which carried many COP26 delegates from Edinburgh to Glasgow, as a “Net Zero Hero”.

70kWh battery packs that could be recharged in 10 minutes using the company’s patented fast charge system, and that this offered a range of at least 80 miles.

While in Scotland the train had its longest battery-powered promotional run over the Forth Bridge. This required a 47-mile trip from Polmadie depot to Inverkeithing yard where the unit was charged overnight before returning to Polmadie. The demonstration trip was a 15-mile round trip to Barrhead from Glasgow Central.

Vivarail Departing from Glasgow Central station on a London Underground train is not an everyday occurrence. Yet this was the experience Vivarail offered to invited guests taking a trip on their innovative class 230 battery train during COP26. As reported in issue 186 (Sept/Oct 2020), the class 230 is a converted London Underground D78 unit. However, with its plush interior, the train’s origin would not have been obvious to an uninformed guest.

The three-car unit concerned, 230 001, was the prototype diesel unit for the three units that are now in service between Bedford and Bletchley.

On board, Vivarail’s founder, Adrian Shooter, advised that the unit had been re-engineered as a battery-only train, with each coach having two

HydroFLEX and Vivarail at Glasgow Central.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

Adrian Shooter talks to Scotland’s Railway’s Alex Hynes on board 230 001.

Vivarail’s Head of Marketing, Alice Gilman, advised that the train had attracted much international interest. On my trip were representatives from Japan, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico where Vivarail trains are being considered for use on the new Mayan

COP26 (Left) Vivarail’s ‘Pop Up’ metro in the USA.

line. Also on the train was Henry Posner whose Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) ordered a two-car, class 230 unit which is now running trips to demonstrate RDC’s pop-up metro concept in Pittsburgh, USA. RDC has ordered a second train which will be shipped to North America soon.

(Strip top) The 36 cylinders inside the hydrogen coach.

HydroFLEX HyroFLEX is a collaboration between Porterbrook and the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) to convert a surplus four-car, class 319 EMU into a hydrogen train. The 319s were introduced in 1987 for the Thameslink route and so are capable of operation using 25kV AC overhead and 750V DC third rail. The units have a DC bus line which can be powered by a hydrogen traction package. This enables HydroFLEX to be a tri-mode unit powered by hydrogen, AC or DC. The original HydroFLEX unit, 799 001, was a demonstrator unit with a 100kW fuel cell and a maximum speed of 50mph. It was demonstrated at Rail Live in 2019 and was the first hydrogen train to run on the main line in September 2020.

Following this successful main line test, another class 319 was converted into an upgraded HydroFLEX unit to give it the range and performance to operate a passenger service.

It was also renumbered 799 201. This work was done at the Gemini Rail Services’ facility at Wolverton. This was the unit demonstrated at COP26. Porterbrook’s Innovation and Projects Director, Helen Simpson, explained that it is essentially a production version of HydroFLEX, although minor modifications may be required following mileage accumulation test runs.

The train has 36 Luxfer gas cylinders that each store a total of 277kg of hydrogen at 350 bar.

The four fuel cells supplied by tpgroup deliver 700kW, and the 400kW traction battery is below the coach. Due to hydrogen’s low energy density the tanks, fuel cells, and control equipment occupy a full coach, hence only three of the unit’s four coaches are available for passengers. One of these coaches had an on-board boardroom to support discussions during COP26.

(Strip middle) The 4 fuel cells inside the hydrogen coach.

(Strip Bottom) HydroFLEX’s boardroom.

For five days during COP26, HydroFLEX made three demonstration runs per day from Glasgow Central over the six-mile Cathcart circle and the train was powered from the overhead line. Helen Simpson explained that the reason there was no hydrogen on board was to allow guests access inside the hydrogen coach.

Hydrogen at Bo’ness As reported in issue 188 (Jan/Feb 2021), Arcola energy have been engaged to convert a surplus class 314 EMU into a hydrogen train to support the development of Scotland’s hydrogen economy.

HydroFLEX at Glasgow Central showing the train’s hydrogen coach.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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COP26 On display outside the marquee was the train, a hydrogen electrolyser, a 550 bar depot hydrogen storage tanks, a hydrogen bin lorry powered by Arcola’s power train, a demonstrator hydrogen bus project, and hydrogen powered lighting tower provided by TCP ECO, which offers a hundred hours of silent, pollution free, on-site lighting.

(Below) Hydrogen powered bin lorry and bus.

Scotland’s hydrogen train at Bo’ness converted from a class 314 unit that is now a class 614.

AC and DC motors inside the marquee.

The Scottish hydrogen train is being produced from a surplus class 314 unit that arrived at the workshops of the heritage Bo’ness and Kinneil railway just before Christmas last year. At the time it was envisaged that the train would be operational on the heritage railway during COP26. However, due to Covid and supply chain issues it was only possible to display a part-built hydrogen train at Bo’ness.

Although there was no opportunity to travel on a train, the exhibition that Arcola provided at Bo’ness was a particularly interesting event. Instead of components being on the train, they were laid out in a marquee with clear explanations of how they will work. This included the small permanent magnet AC motor that is to replace the original much larger DC motor. Using this AC motor, which is part of Arcola’s A-Drive hydrogen fuel cell power train, simplifies system integration of the new hydrogen traction equipment.

(Above bottom) TCP ECO hydrogen powered site lighting.

The exhibition at Bo’ness was therefore showcasing, not just the converted class 314, but other aspects of the nascent hydrogen economy of which such trains must eventually be part.

Scotland’s hydrogen train is expected to be ready for demonstration runs on the Bo’ness and Kinneil railway next spring.

Thereafter, the intention is to trial the converted train on the mainline in 2023, use it for passenger trials in 2024, and work towards fleet operation of passenger services in 2025. HITANS (Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership) are keen to see hydrogen trains operating on the Far North line and have commissioned a study to determine the best configuration of hydrogen infrastructure onboard trains.

Alstom’s new hydrogen train Arcola’s power train uses two 70kW Ballard fuel cells hybridised with high power batteries to provide over 350kW peak power. The underframe fuel cell raft incorporates high and low voltage power distribution, voltage and traction inverters, as well as air filtration and thermal management which could use waste heat from fuel cells to heat passenger compartments. Another underframe raft contains six hydrogen cylinders which store 80kg of hydrogen at 350 bar.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

Alstom’s Coradia iLint is the world’s first hydrogen train and entered service in Germany in 2018. This fleet has run over 200,000km since then. The company has orders for two fleets of hydrogen trains in Germany totalling 41 trains, and has further hydrogen train orders from Italy and France.

Although the company did not have a train on display during COP26, it did give a presentation to the conference on 10 November which signalled

COP26 a significant development. This was given by James O’Sullivan, Project Manager Aventra UK and Mike Muldoon, Head of Business Development, Transport UK and Ireland, and included the announcement that Alstom has just announced an agreement with Eversholt to design, build, commission and support a fleet of 10, three-car, brand-new hydrogen multiple units (HMUs) which will be an evolution of the company’s Aventra platform.

Both companies had previously worked together on the ‘Breeze’ project which was announced in 2019. Like HydroFLEX, this was to be a conversion of surplus electric multiple units. However, both companies now believe that there is a market for a fleet of new trains.

During the presentation, James O’Sullivan mentioned that these new trains would store hydrogen as effectively as possible with

Alstom’s James O’Sullivan and Mike Muldoon speaking at COP26.

Ecolite TH200

LGP Power Pack

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Contact TCP ECO for more information about ZERO EMISSION clean air alternatives 0845 3717 626 www.tcp-eco.co.uk Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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OLE and battery power - Newly erected OLE masts near Crossmyloof and 230 001 on its COP26 demonstration run.

roof-mounted tanks to avoid encroaching passenger space as shown on the graphic of the new HMU in the press release. Neither HydroFLEX, nor the ‘Breeze’ concept were able to accommodate roof tanks within the UK loading gauge due to the constraints of modifying existing trains. However, the design of a new train provides more flexibility.

If Alstom are able produce a HMU without hydrogen encroaching passenger space they will clearly have a competitive product, which is likely to justify their speculative build of HMUs for which there is as yet no specified demand.

The main solution

Alstom’s proposed UK Aventra hydrogen train with roofmounted tanks not encroaching passenger space.

The green trains showcased at Glasgow Central attracted much press attention, especially when they were visited by Prince Charles and the Prime Minister. Headlines considered these to be the trains of the future with no other aspects of rail decarbonisation attracting press interest.

Yet at Glasgow Central, Vivarail and HydroFLEX were surrounded by more efficient electric trains with greener credentials. The electric Pendolino that carried the Prime Minister to Glasgow at 125 mph was powered

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

by electricity as it is generated. Batteries and hydrogen cannot offer such high-speed passenger services, or indeed freight trains.

On its demonstration run to Barrhead, the Vivarail train passed underneath the newly erected OLE structures which are part of Scotland’s rolling programme of electrification.

In reality this offers more carbon savings than such alternative traction. Why Scotland has such a programme and England does not would have made an interesting story.

There is of course an essential role for battery and hydrogen trains, especially in the transition to a net zero railway. Those developing them are also to be commended for their work on this innovative traction.

However, it is essential that these trains are seen in context. Network Rail’s Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy considered that the required net zero traction mix for the unelectrified network should be 86% electrification, 9% hydrogen, and 5% batteries. Showcasing new green trains at COP26 does not change the fact that a largescale electrification programme is needed if the rail network is to be decarbonised.

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visit: www.RailwayPeople.com / email: rp@rail-media.com / telephone: 01530 816 450

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CAREERS

Arc Infrastructure, SERVING WEST AUSTRALIA

A

s Australia rolls out numerous major rail projects, there is no better time to pursue career advancement and job satisfaction abroad. If you’re considering an exciting life change, Arc Infrastructure is on the lookout for skilled engineers to help manage and operate its thousands of kilometres of standard, 1067mm-gauge and dual-gauge rail infrastructure.

Operating the only freight rail network in the southern half of Western Australia, Arc Infrastructure’s transport infrastructure is vital to businesses in the region and is crucial to connecting the western and eastern states of Australia. Its network gives local communities and industry access to central and eastern states, as well as overseas markets through government-owned ports. With a team of 400 employees, the company is helping to drive Western Australia’s economic growth and has invested over $2 billion in its rail network since 2000.

The MR upgrade program runs from 2020–2027 and this year has seen Stage 2 of the works carried out, resulting in a $17million investment. The Stage 2 works have focused on two sections of the line between Narngulu and Dongara, and Moora and Mooliabeenee, and have involved the replacement of 38,200 timber sleepers with heavy duty steel sleepers, approximately 28,000 tonnes of ballast top-up, resleepering of eight non-bitumen sealed level crossings, and replacement of 8,600 steel sleepers.

Crucial work This year, the company has continued major works on a key segment of West Australia’s grain rail network. This comes as part of a seven-year upgrade program that will see $54million invested in the Midland Railway (MR) line, running from Midland to Geraldton.

The MR line is the link to the northern section of Arc’s network, connecting the Eastern Goldfields Railway (EGR) line to Geraldton. The line is used exclusively by the grain growers’ cooperative CBH – which handles, markets and processes grain from the wheatbelt of Western Australia – to transport grain to the ports of Geraldton and Kwinana.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

The line’s timber sleepers are being replaced with heavy duty steel sleepers sourced from Adelaide. The sleepers are a new design that was originally tested on the standard gauge Leonora line and will now be made for the 1067-mm gauge grain lines. These steel sleepers have a lifespan of at least 40 years, compared with timber sleepers which last up to 15 years.

Award winning In November this year, another of Arc Infrastructure’s projects earned them the Freight Rail Excellence Award at the Australasian Rail Industry Awards 2021.

The award was won for delivery of the Hampton Intermodal Terminal (Hampton IMT) in just 98 days.

CAREERS best to act and reduce its impacts. The company aims to continually improve its environmental performance and exceed regulatory compliance to protect the environment in and around its rail network.

Valued work force

The Hampton IMT was constructed to aid the logistics providers Watco and Qube to transport products between multiple Goldfields locations, Kwinana and Fremantle Port. Watco and Qube were recently awarded the freight logistics contract for the BHP Nickel West mineto-market business. Arc’s involvement allowed this task to remain on rail, rather than shifting to road.

The award-winning works included the development of two new rail sidings, container storage and transfer facilities, and rail provisioning services, which all sit alongside the company’s existing ballast storage and works delivery operations. The Hampton IMT was officially opened on 21 June.

Environmentally aware With a rail network that passes through numerous nature reserves, heritage sites and areas of geological significance, Arc Infrastructure takes its environmental commitments seriously. The company is dedicated to protecting these areas of importance, identifying the risks and challenges of its construction and maintenance activities, and working proactively to mitigate them.

The company works with local and state governments, including the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation & Attractions, Department of Water & Environmental Regulation, and Department of Planning, Lands & Heritage to better understand how

Staff at Arc Infrastructure enjoy a team environment where the skills, ideas and experiences of all employees are valued. The company provides a range of employee benefits including competitive pay, access to training and development, and discounted health, home and car insurance. The company also offers flexible working arrangements to suit today’s hectic routines.

Arc provides a range of health and wellbeing initiatives including fitness challenges and annual skin checks, and employees often take part in volunteering, team sports activities, and team building days to get to know each other better and build strong relationships. The company puts its employees at the heart of its business and works hard to ensure staff feel safe, valued, and fulfilled in the work they do.

Arc currently has opportunities available for track engineers, signal technicians, project supervisors, signaller - network controllers, maintenance planners and more to help maintain and upgrade its essential network. If you’re open to the opportunity of a lifetime, visit www.arcinfra.com/careers.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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- SPONSORED ARTICLE -

Keep Melbourne moving

W

with MTM

ith a largely urbanised population, Australia’s rail system is made up of numerous booming urban networks linked by a handful of long-distance lines, with heavy-haul freight lines bringing ores and minerals to the coast.

But with a relatively modest population of 25 million, the pool from which to draw experienced engineers is small. Australia’s major rail organisations are therefore eager to attract rail professionals from elsewhere, and UK engineers are a prime target.

Urban network Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) is one of the organisations currently searching for top talent. MTM is a consortium of rail and construction businesses, all with some very impressive credentials. The operator draws experience from three leading rail industry organisations: Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation, as well as the John Holland Group and UGL Rail, a division of United Group Limited. The same group also owns Metro Trains Sydney, which has run the services in Australia’s largest city since 2019.

MTM serves Melbourne’s extensive metro system, keeping a population of five million on the move. The company runs 15 lines (along with an events-only line to Flemington Racecourse) operated by 220 six-car trains running on 600 miles of track and serving 219 stations. It has operated the franchise since November 2009, and its initial eight-year contract has been extended until 2024.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

Metro Tunnel The company is currently working on several projects for which it needs experienced people.

An example is the twin-bore Melbourne Metro Tunnel which will create a new end-to-end rail line from Sunbury in the west to Cranbourne/ Pakenham in the southeast. The two new 5.6mile tunnels will free up Melbourne’s biggest bottleneck and enable 39,000 more passengers to use the rail system during peak periods.

The project is currently under construction across Melbourne and the new infrastructure will be assisted by the installation of next-generation, high-capacity signalling (HCS), replacing the existing ‘fixed block’ system with fixed signals with a ‘moving block’ system with in-cab signalling.

HCS technology works by monitoring and controlling the speed and location of trains in real time, moving with the trains and allowing them to safely run closer together and more frequently.

Thanks to HCS, trains will run every two to three minutes which is the first step to creating a ‘turn-up-and-go’ train network for Melbourne, similar to those in London, Hong Kong and Singapore. Existing signals currently used along the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury Lines will also be updated so trains that use the HCS, as well as those that rely on conventional signalling, can seamlessly operate on the same network.

CAREERS Updating infrastructure The Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) is another development that MTM is heavily involved with. The program, initiated in 2014, will see the removal of 85 level crossings across Melbourne. For background, when Melbourne’s railway network was built, because of the city’s flat topography and sparse population, many railway crossings were via level crossing rather than bridges or underpasses. But, as traffic levels have increased, these crossings have become bottlenecks for road traffic and have limited the number of trains that can be run, especially at peak times. As of September 2021, 50 crossings have been removed, 26 train stations have been rebuilt, and many kilometres of track have been laid.

“The progress we’ve made on this project within six or seven years is incredible,” says Nik Dumovic, Program Signalling Manager at MTM, “particularly when you consider the complexity of the infrastructure in Melbourne. One of the challenges, broadly, is that we have areas of legacy infrastructure in Victoria which, while being actively replaced, at times needs to be retained and integrated with the newer technologies.”

Aside from these projects, MTM works closely with a variety of third parties to perform maintenance on the track and deliver smaller projects and upgrades. The Franchisee projects team delivers a wide range of nominated projects on behalf of the Department of Transport (DOT) and other state agencies, while the third-party team (Metro Site Access) manages general access to the MTM network by other organisations or agencies. Both project teams work closely with DOT to align with the Network Development Plan and deliver on government commitments.

“The career prospects and the opportunities to work on different projects are significant,” says Nik. “Young engineers will get the benefit of being able to grow with projects and experienced engineers will able to influence their outcomes. It ticks the box for just about every person at any point in their career.”

Professionals wanted

Great organisation

The effort to keep Melbourne’s rail network up-to-date and its population moving requires skilled, knowledgeable and experienced rail professionals; the Melbourne Metro Tunnel alone depends on the expertise of 77 different types of engineer. While people power isn’t a resource that Australia has in abundance, MTM has developed a reliable recruitment strategy to tackle the industry’s skills gap. The company has targeted domestic expertise first, with recruitment drives in Brisbane (Queensland) and Perth (Western Australia). It also recruits internationally and has worked with contacts in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, China and the Middle East, as well as the UK. MTR already has a base in the UK and will operate the Elizabeth line. It is also a partner with First Group in South Western Trains.

As a multi award-winning organisation, MTM prides itself on its team of honest, high performing professionals who are talented, inclusive and safety focused. The company is known for promoting a strong work/life balance and has robust policies on diversity, wellness and mental health. UK engineers who take the leap will be joining an organisation that is known as a global leader in its field, and which embraces new technologies.

“The work environment is amazing,” Nik says. “In terms of opportunities, it’s been incredible. I’ve been able to work on the biggest mega projects in Melbourne and I’ve had some very experienced MTM people around me who’ve guided me and helped me progress with my career. MTM has been incredibly supportive and is a great place learn on a variety of projects.”

MTM hopes that UK-based railway engineers and managers will be sufficiently tempted by the chance to work in Australia’s growing market to make the move and is currently targeting engineers of the following disciplines: Signalling (all types); Testing and Commissioning; Design Engineers; and Design Review Engineers.

“Anyone who is interested in career opportunities should head down here,” says Nik. “There is so much work and so many good opportunities, and a lot of scope for experienced operators to come in and bring their knowledge. We’ve got a lot of work on, and a lot of very capable people, and the more capable experienced people you have the, the better.”

If you’re eager to apply your knowledge and experience to an exciting project in a superb location, then MTM wants to hear from you. Successful candidates and their families will be offered sponsorship and be provided with relocation assistance as part of the MTM’s Global Mobility Framework.

For more information see contact details in the advert on the next page.

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

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Haydn Evans is committed to Engineering Technical Excellence, operating from modern premises in Ipswich, delivering specialist consultancy services in Civils, Infrastructure, Rail, Marine and Structures markets.

We strongly value our colleagues, recognising the instrumental role the team plays in delivering a high quality service to clients. We firmly believe that when people are happy and supported, they progress and reach their full potential.

We actively promote and encourage individual development, wellbeing and career progression. We really are an equal opportunities employer and our diverse, committed workforce is testament to this.

Our outstanding team of professionals work on a stimulating portfolio of project work for contractors, developers and TOCs. Due to our success, we are seeking civil and structural engineers at all levels to join our team and fulfil their potential. Opportunities are available from Graduate to Associate level. We value our staff and reward them with fair and competitive packages Rail Civils & Structures Career Opportunities

● Graduate Engineer ● Senior Engineer ● Principal Engineer ● Technical / Associate Director Haydn Evans welcome speculative applications from candidates who identify with our values.

To find out more or apply, please send your CV with a covering email to careers@haydnevans.co.uk

For full job descriptions and to apply online, please visit www.haydnevanscareers.co.uk

Rail Engineer | Issue 193 | Nov-Dec 2021

Together WE

GO BEYOND

Career Opportunities in Western Australia

Arc Infrastructure is currently looking to recruit individuals with solid, relevant experience in the following roles: Senior Track Engineer Senior Civil Geotech Engineer

Arc Infrastructure manages and develops transport infrastructure assets that support growth and create jobs in Western Australia (WA). Rail is at the heart of our business, and the 5,500km rail network is the backbone of freight transport in Western Australia from the diverse Midwest across to the fascinating Goldfields and Yilgarn regions through to the stunning South West and Great Southern. We’re committed to working with industry, our customers, partners and communities to find new opportunities that will support and strengthen our rail network for the benefit of WA.

Project Supervisor Signalling Signalling Test & Commissioning Engineer Signaller Maintenance Planner

The Opportunities Our employees are the heart of our business and we work hard to ensure our people feel safe, valued and fulfilled in the work they do. There are more than 400 of us at Arc Infrastructure – each connected by a desire to continually learn and improve. We are a team that respects one another and the communities and environments we work within.

Working at Arc Infrastructure Working with Arc Infrastructure means working in a team environment where each person and team is valued for the diverse skills, ideas and experiences they bring. We promote a work environment that is characterised by fair treatment of all employees, personal accountability, and mutual trust and respect. We understand our employees are the key to our success and as a team, our focus is to ensure they feel safe, valued and fulfilled in the work that they do. We provide a range of employee benefits including: Competitive remuneration package

Paid parental leave

Flexible working arrangements

Professional development opportunities

Health and wellbeing subsidy

Sponsorship for VISAS and relocation

ARC’S RECRUITMENT PROCESS If you see a role that you feel you are suited for and have previous experience in rail, email your CV to Arc Infrastructure’s people team at recruitment@arcinfra.com outlining the type of work and/or area you are interested in, and we will record your information for future reference.

Recruitment agencies, our internal people team looks after all of our vacancies. If we need your assistance, we will reach out to you. www.arcinfra.com

Shaping Melbourne Australia Are you interested in joining the project team at Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) that is involved in multibillion dollar city-shaping infrastructure projects?

Did you know? Metro Trains Melbourne is part of the MTR family, with global reach across Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

Can you bring your wealth of experience to help us support the delivery of Melbourne’s three largest rail infrastructure projects?

THE METRO TUNNEL PROJECT The A$11 billion Metro Tunnel will untangle the city loop so more trains can run more effectively across Melbourne. The Metro Tunnel scope includes twin nine-kilometre rail tunnels, five new underground stations as well as new high capacity signalling. The Metro Tunnel Project is being delivered in three work packages, with a programme-level team assisting each package. The three work packages are: Rail Systems Alliance, Rail Infrastructure Alliance and the Tunnels and Stations Public Private Partnership.

THE MELBOURNE AIRPORT RAIL PROJECT Melbourne Airport Rail is a transformational public transport project connecting Melbourne Airport to Victoria’s regional and metropolitan train network. Trains will run from Melbourne Airport through to Sunshine Station, then into the Metro Tunnel and the heart of the CBD, before continuing on to the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines. This eagerly awaited project will connect people from the airport to where they need to go – be that work, home or Victoria’s key tourism destinations – via a rail service for the first time.

> MELBOURNE METRO TUNNEL & AIRPORT RAIL PROJECT ROLES: » Signalling Project Engineer

» Head of Operations

» Signalling Project Manager

» Operations Definition Test Manager

» Testing and Commissioning Managers - Dynamic testing & CBTC

» Operations Delivery Manager

» Testers in Charge

» Operations Resource Coordinator » Operations Integration Manager

THE LEVEL CROSSING REMOVAL PROJECT The Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) was established by the Victorian Government to oversee one of the largest rail infrastructure projects in the state’s history. LXRP is part of the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority and our projects fall under Victoria’s Big Build.

Central to the project is the elimination of 85 level crossings across metropolitan Melbourne by 2024, in addition to other rail network upgrades such as new train stations, track duplication and train stabling yards.

> KEY LXRP PROJECT ROLES: » Testing & Commissioning Managers

» Signalling Design Review Engineer

» Testing & Commissioning Engineers

» Signalling Design Managers

» Signalling Project Engineers

» Testing & Commissioning Review Engineer

www.metrotrains.com.au

Melbourne: Australia’s sporting and culture capital.

if f e r AD

e nce

e Deliver a great passenger experience OUR VISION

EA

S

Connecting people and places for a growing Melbourne

E G I C F O CU

ri Ca ng

Zer

o Ha

Support rail transformation

OU

OUR MISSION

We work smarter every day to be Australia’s most respected city railway

Empower and engage our people

RF O

UR

S T R AT

One T e am

OU R V A L U E S

R SA

De pe nd ab le

ke Ma

Be a sustainable business long term

rm OUR FOUNDATION

Safety – Our goal is Zero Harm, because every injury is preventable

> FURTHER CAREER OPPORTUNITIES: Metro is a multi-award winning organisation, and we pride ourselves on our team of honest, high performing professionals who are talented, inclusive and safety focused and who are at the core of our success. You will be joining an organisation that is known as a global leader in its field but also prides itself on being dynamic, embracing new technologies and focused on customer service. Our aim is to promote work/life balance, allow team members to bring their best to work and to truly be focused on a common goal which is to provide a world-class railway service.

> OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ENGINEER ROLES:

> SIGNALLING STRATEGY TASKFORCE ROLES:

» Signalling Assurance Managers

» Signalling Data Designers

» Senior Signalling Support Engineers

» Principal Testers » Testers in Charges

INTERESTED? If what you’ve read resonates with your values, experience and career aspirations then we want to hear from you.

Successful candidates and their families will be offered sponsorship and be provided with relocation assistance as part of the MTM’s Global Mobility Framework.

To register your interest, contact Kyle MacLean (Talent Partner) on kyle.maclean@metrotrains.com.au with your CV and contact details, or for more information, see:

mtm-careers.com

Siemens Mobility is shaping the future of UK rail Joshua is committed to increasing the sustainability of our rail network through electrification of the railway. siemens.co.uk/sustainablemobility