by rail engineers for rail engineers
NOV / DEC 2020 – ISSUE 187
THE CHANGING FACE OF
TROUBLE WITH TRACK
EDUCATING THE GOVERNMENT
Track is made up of rails, sleepers and S&C, and the supply of all three has been in the news recently.
The Rail Minister asked industry experts to explain what they mean by Digital Railway and Innovation. www.railengineer.co.uk
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
Climate change is forcing people to act differently, but the response to COVID-19 has shown it can be done.
PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS
HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
FOCUS FEATURES ELECTRIFICATION & POWER
ELECTRIFICATION
Get up to speed with RSSB RSSB is an independent body that works collaboratively with the rail industry, offering safety, consulting and engineering services and resources. We make our collective industry knowledge freely available to our members. So whatever project you’re working on, you can get up to speed quickly and efficiently. Here are three of the hundreds of resources we offer on our site. RSSB Tools
RSSB Guidance
RSSB Reports
Red Aspect Approaches to Signals (RAATS) Toolkit
The Rail Mental Health and Wellbeing Framework
Safety Performance Reports
An online tool that helps you to plan better timetabling, performance, and reduce the chance of signals being passed at red.
With a range of practical resources, the framework helps rail companies navigate the challenges of managing workforce mental wellbeing.
We also offer training and access to some of the world’s foremost rail experts. Visit:
rssb.co.uk/up-to-speed
A series of reports that combines the latest information on health and safety performance, operational learning, and risk reduction initiatives.
10 CONTENTS
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06|
News
10|
Sunak’s Spending Review
14|
The changing face of electrification
3
Railtex/Infrarail, DfT plans for digital signalling, Gypsy Patch Bridge, funding for Crossrail.
A look at #SR2020 and its impact on rail (HS2, Crossrail, Crossrail 2 and regional connectivity).
Siemens’ Shaun Cooper considers how the government’s zero-carbon targets are affecting the electrification programme.
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18| Selling electrification David Shirres explains how electricity isn't "dirty" and hydrogen isn't the only answer.
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24|
KeTech update: Connected Driver Advisory System
28|
Hydrogen trains coming soon?
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Human behaviour
54|
DfT: Educating the government
40|
Routes to zero-carbon rail
58|
Cross Acceptance of systems and equipment
46|
Russian Routes to zero-carbon rail
62|
Trouble with track
50|
New canopies for a historic station
68|
Railway Industry Association in 2020
Paul Darlington has been discussing the latest developments in C-DAS with market leader KeTech.
Rural lines currently served by diesels could see the deployment of hydrogen-powered trains in the near future.
Atkins’ Lizi Stewart explains how climate change and COVID-19 challenge us to act differently.
RIA’s Unlocking Innovation programme turns its attention to reducing emissions from the UK rail network.
With its huge railway network and vast open spaces, how does Russia have the world’s lowest freight-train emissions?
When Pembroke Dock station needed a new roof, Network Rail turned to Twinfix for the technology.
For once, the DfT doesn’t think it knows it all and asked for comment from the industry. Clive Kessell listened in.
Why can’t the approval of new technology by one country apply elsewhere, reducing both time and cost?
Track is made up of rails, sleepers and S&C – and the supply chains for all three have been in the news recently.
RIA’s annual conference is a major industry event. How did it fare when it transferred to an online format?
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
Here when you need us... TBF continues to offer help and support to its members during these unprecedented times. Helping to make a difference. Just ÂŁ1 a week covers you, your partner and dependent children Email help@tbf.org.uk to find out how we can help you, or visit www.tbf.org.uk Transport Benevolent Fund CIO, known as TBF, is a registered charity in England and Wales, 1160901, and Scotland, SC047016.
RAIL ENGINEER MAGAZINE
EDITORIAL
Nothing for rail decarbonisation With COVID-19 forecast to shrink the British economy by 11 per cent this year, Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review was particularly newsworthy. As we describe this month, this included £100 billion for infrastructure investment and £2 billion for emergency rail subsidies. It also included plans to quadruple offshore wind power capacity and provide a £1 billion fund for carbon capture and storage which is essential for net-zero-carbon electricity generation. On the roads, £1.9 billion is to be spent on chargers and incentives for battery cars. However, there was nothing for rail decarbonisation. In contrast, the Scottish government is committed to a large-scale electrification programme. Perhaps the UK government does not consider reducing rail’s carbon to be a priority, as railways already provide low carbon transport and account for only two per cent all transport emissions. If so, this is would be a mistake, as rail’s potentially greatest contribution to UK decarbonisation is the modal shift mentioned in the DfT’s ‘Decarbonising Transport’ document. Yet, despite rail capacity being needed for this modal shift, the government has announced a £1 billion reduction in rail enhancement funding over the current five-year funding period. As our feature ‘Selling Electrification’ argues this month, more needs to done to explain the case for railway electrification south of the border. We believe that, for most of our readers, it is self-evident that a train which takes electrical power directly from the wires to its traction motors will be more powerful and efficient than self-powered traction, and that it is wrong to suggest that innovation can change the laws of nature that make this so. Yet recent comments from politicians suggesting, for example, that research will soon make electrification old technology, indicate that the industry needs to do more to explain why electric traction offers such benefits. Certainly, there is significant potential to reduce carbon emissions by innovation. This was shown at the recent Railway Industry Association ‘Route to Zero Carbon’ webinars. An excellent example is the use of dual-fuel technology to reduce diesel emissions as an interim measure. We also report on the Russian Railways approach to decarbonisation, which includes significant energy savings from widespread use of connected driver advisory systems (C-DAS). In another feature, Paul Darlington considers how C-DAS could benefit UK freight trains and how Class 350 EMUs are now using C-DAS in shadow mode. Network Rail’s Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS) shows that large scale electrification has a good business case. Justin Moss of Siemens also explains how recent developments, including early contractor involvement, can reduce costs. Recent schemes have shown that the industry can deliver cost effective electrification, yet the UK Government’s reluctance to authorise further schemes perhaps indicates that the industry has yet to win back trust to deliver electrification to budget. TDNS also shows that decarbonisation will require many hydrogen trains. As we explain, hydrogen rail traction is mature traction technology, ready for fleet operation in the UK from the Tees-side hydrogen hub. The spending review has funds for this hub but does not mention hydrogen trains for it. Yet it would be wise to order a small fleet soon to gain experience of this novel traction, which could replace hundreds of diesel trains due to become life-expired in the 2030s.
In her feature, Lizi Stewart of Atkins stresses that climate change challenges us to act differently. She also notes that, without the right policies, there is no change and that currently the policy gap is big. That’s certainly true for the decarbonisation of high-powered rail traction, for which electrification is the only solution. Without further electrification, train fleets in England and Wales will continue to use diesel for a high proportion of their energy and thus will remain near the bottom of the world’s railway carbon league table. Decarbonisation was also on the packed agenda of the Railway Industry Association’s annual conference. As Clive Kessell reports, the topics covered included Covid, Brexit, exports, Network Rail, HS2, rolling stock, infrastructure, politics, and the supply chain. The supply of rails, sleepers and S&C is the subject of Nigel Wordsworth’s convoluted and sad story about recent developments, which include the potential closure a steel foundry barely ten-years old, with the loss of 150 jobs. Clive also listened in to a teleconference held by the Minister for Rail, Chris Heaton-Harris, to ensure that he, and his department, understood issues associated with the implementation of ERTMS. One concern raised at this teleconference was the bureaucracy associated with product acceptance, for which cross acceptance might be the answer. Our feature explains why, and the challenges involved. Acceptance of the glazing system was needed for listed building consent for the regeneration of the historic Pembroke Dock station. As we describe, the system chosen was Twinfix’s Georgian-wired polycarbonate roofing system, which enabled the glazing panels to be constructed off-site. The latest plan for Railtex and Infrarail are for them to be co-located in Birmingham’s NEC in September next year. By then, hopefully, pandemic restrictions will have eased. If so, we at Rail Engineer very much look forward to seeing our readers then for real. DAVID SHIRRES RAIL ENGINEER EDITOR
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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THE TEAM
NEWS
Editor David Shirres david.shirres@railengineer.co.uk
Production Editor Nigel Wordsworth nigel.wordsworth@railengineer.co.uk
Production and design Adam O’Connor adam@rail-media.com Matthew Stokes matt@rail-media.com
Engineering writers bob.wright@railengineer.co.uk clive.kessell@railengineer.co.uk collin.carr@railengineer.co.uk david.bickell@railengineer.co.uk graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.co.uk grahame.taylor@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
Railtex/Infrarail postponed until September 2021
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The UK's major railway industry exhibitions, Railtex 2021 and Infrarail 2021, have been postponed to 7-9 September 2021. The co-located events were scheduled to take place from 11 – 13 May 2021 at the NEC Birmingham. The announcement by organiser Mack Brooks Exhibitions follows the postponement of Infrarail earlier this year, which was rescheduled to be colocated with Railtex 2021 following the ongoing COVID-19 crisis globally. The two exhibitions have been organised in alternating years since the launch of Infrarail 25 years ago; the decision to colocate Railtex and Infrarail was taken to maximise the potential of both events by gathering the whole industry under one roof at the same time. “After closely monitoring the situation around COVID-19 and the associated restrictions currently in place, we have been able to secure an alternative slot to hold Railtex & Infrarail in September 2021,” said Nicola Hamann, managing director of Mack-Brooks Exhibitions, about the announcement. “Whilst the decision to postpone the event was not taken lightly, our number one priority is to set up the correct framework and planning security for the UK rail industry. This includes setting up
www.rail-media.com
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
extensive measures to do everything we can to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone involved. “Our aim is to provide the railway industry with the marketplace it needs to recover from this crisis quicker and stronger. The Railtex and Infrarail team will communicate closely with customers and partners over the coming weeks and months and thank their exhibitors, partners, suppliers and visitors for their support during this time.
NEWS
Government to fund digital signalling feasibility on three more main lines
Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris has announced £1.2 million of new government funding to accelerate feasibility work for digital signalling on vital sections on the West Coast main line, Midland main line and East Anglia route, inculding Peterborough to Kings Lynn on the Anglia route, and in the Warrington and Wigan area on the West Coast main line North. The new funding will be used to identify the most effective way to apply this type of technology to the railway and new way of working, capitalising on early engagement with the supply chain, and creating further opportunities to encourage innovation and drive efficiencies across regions. Learning from the recent experience of the East Coast Digital Programme, where a partnership with route-based operators has been a success, this early scoping work will lay the foundation for future digital signalling renewals, as part of a wider national plan to introduce digital signalling across the rail network in Great Britain. Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris said: “We’ve come a long way since the era of metal levers, used by Victorian signallers to provide safe passage for trains rolling into and out of stations. Now it’s our turn to be modern transport pioneers as we build the railway of tomorrow. “Today’s investment brings forward early investigation work with Network Rail engineers and suppliers on how best to roll out digital signalling across the rail network, reducing delays and improving safety in the long term. “Our ambitious programme to modernise Britain’s rail network will support the supply chain by creating high-skilled jobs and boosting the economy, as we level up the country and build back better after COVID-19.” Conventional signalling means the network can struggle to recover quickly following disruption with a small delay on one part of the railway still causing knock-on delays hundreds of miles away on other parts of the network, many hours later. This new technology gives signallers much better real-time information about train movements, enabling them to communicate with train drivers continuously to reduce the impact of delays. Work is already underway on a £350 million investment in the East Coast Digital Programme, which will introduce digital signalling on the East Coast main line between London King’s Cross and Stoke Tunnel in Lincolnshire.
Structural Precast for Railways
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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FEATURE
Are we nearly there yet?
Gypsy Patch Lane underbridge, between Bristol and South Wales on the Great Western main line, is a crucial link between the Cribbs Causeway Regional Retail Centre, Bristol Parkway station and Bristol City centre. Originally a narrow and low brick arch, completely incapable of taking the anticipated traffic, it is being replaced by a much wider structure with enhanced headroom. The tracks of the main line above carry an intensive passenger service through the Severn tunnel and to South Wales – at least they do when the nation isn’t being locked down - along with freight that is less affected by current restrictions. The installation of the new bridge, complete with abutments, involved it being constructed in an adjacent compound and then moved to its final position on heavy duty transporters known as SPMT (self-propelled modular transporter) axles. These are self-contained, self-propelled
units that have hydraulically linked support points. They are used in many heavy transportation applications, often involving several thousand tonnes. The main bridge structure was completed by midOctober ready for its journey from the compound to its final position. At 4,260 tonnes, the exercise was billed as the heaviest of its kind ever undertaken in the UK. The brick arch was demolished in the early hours of Tuesday 27 October and the embankment excavated to take the wider structure. After
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
piling works in the area of the bridge foundations were completed, the bridge move started on Friday morning, 28 October. The journey from the compound to within 20 or 30 metres of the railway began steadily but came to a halt short of its final destination. Local press sources have said that the SPMT axles settled in soft ground conditions, but the cause of the prolonged interruption is now being investigated by Network Rail, its main contractor and subcontractor. Over the following days,
efforts were made to take the bridge back to firmer ground and to release the SPMT axles – some of which had been damaged - from under the structure so that remedial work could be undertaken. By 14 November, the bridge was able to complete its journey and it is now in its planned final position. The tracks have been replaced, along with overhead line and signalling cables, and the railway finally reopened on the morning of Monday 23 November, sixteen days later than planned. Rail Engineer will be following developments over the coming weeks to help the industry learn from the problems encountered at Gypsy Patch Lane and what impact this may have on a commonly used method of heavy transportation on the railway.
NEWS
Funding approved to finish Crossrail Funding and financing for the final phase of the Crossrail project has been agreed by the Mayor of London, Transport for London (TfL), the Department for Transport (DfT) and HM Treasury, so work on the railway can continue at pace. Crossrail announced in August that it expected the Elizabeth line to open through central London in the first half of 2022 and that it would require funding beyond the agreed funding envelope. The shortfall will initially be covered by the Greater London Authority (GLA) borrowing up to £825 million from the DfT, which will be given by GLA to TfL as a grant. The GLA will repay this loan from Business Rate Supplement (BRS) and Mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy (MCIL) revenues. Crossrail is continuing to work hard to reduce its funding shortfall, and TfL is ensuring that further independent analysis of costs is carried out. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Securing this financing package enables us to press full steam ahead with getting the central section of the Elizabeth line open as soon as possible. The government have insisted London must pay the shortfall – despite the overwhelming majority of the tax income that will result from Crossrail going to the Treasury. This is another example of London supporting the country way over and above the help we get from this government. I do not want this project to be stalled so it is vital that we dig deep to get the railway up and running. I will continue to monitor progress closely and do everything I can to minimise costs - helping ensure London and beyond can enjoy its many benefits sooner rather than later.”
Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said: “The government remains committed to the rapid completion of the project, in a way that is fair to UK taxpayers, and has committed to financing the completion of Crossrail. However, London - as the primary beneficiary – must ultimately bear any additional costs. Crossrail Ltd is committed to reducing its funding shortfall and will take all necessary steps to complete the project without requiring further additional funding. TfL is ensuring that further independent analysis of costs is carried out.”
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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#SR20
Sunak's Spending Review AND ITS IMPACT
ON RAIL
C
hancellor Rishi Sunak has delivered his 2020 Spending Review, stating that his immediate priority was to protect people’s lives and livelihoods as the country continues to battle the outbreak - allocating £55 billion to tackle the virus next year. He also set out how the government would deliver stronger public services – honouring the promises it made to the British people with core day-to-day departmental spending growing by £14.8 billion in cash terms next year compared to 2020/21. From 2019/20 levels, that is an average growth of 3.8% a year, the fastest rate in 15 years. The Chancellor also announced how the government would deliver the next stages of its record investment plans in infrastructure to drive the UK’s recovery and level up for a greener, stronger future with
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
£100 billion of capital spending next year and a £4 billion Levelling Up Fund. The National Infrastructure Strategy, published alongside the Spending Review, states that the government will seek to address the longterm issues that have held back UK infrastructure. These issues include ‘stop-start’ public investment, insufficient funding for regions outside of London, slow adoption of new technology, policy uncertainty that undermines private investment, and project delivery plagued by delays and cost overruns. To underpin infrastructure investment, a new infrastructure bank is to be headquartered in the north of England. It will provide a range of financial services to support infrastructure investment and will lend to local and mayoral authorities. The new bank will replace some of the support provided by the European Investment Bank following the UK’s departure from the European Union. It also states that the government wants to transform the way infrastructure projects are delivered in the UK. This will be achieved through wide-ranging reforms from speeding up the planning
system, to improving the way projects are chosen, procured and delivered, and greater use of cutting-edge construction technology. Setting out the budgets for government departments and devolved administrations’ block grants for 2021/21, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said: “Today’s Spending Review delivers on the priorities of the British people. Our health emergency is not yet over, and the economic emergency has only just begun; so our immediate priority is to protect people’s lives and livelihoods. “But today’s Spending Review also delivers stronger public services - paying for new hospitals, better schools and safer streets. And it delivers a once-in-a-generation investment in infrastructure. Creating jobs, growing the economy, and increasing pride in the places people call home.” His announcements covered government spending across all departments. Some observers criticised the Review for not being strong enough on the green agenda, and for cutting overseas aid from 0.7% of gross domestic product to 0.5%, saving £4 billion the Chancellor could then use elsewhere.
#SR20
#SR
Environment The Spending Review supports the previously announced ten-point plan for Britain to lead a Green Industrial Revolution. This includes plans to quadruple offshore windpower capacity to 40GW by 2030 and the provision of a £1 billion Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Infrastructure Fund to establish four CCS clusters. The ten-point plan provides £525 million for the development of nuclear technologies. Nuclear power and natural gas with CCS will ensure net-zero generation of electricity when the wind isn’t blowing. Greener transport measures include £1.9 billion to support the transition to zero-emission road vehicles through the provision of charging infrastructure and customer incentives. £257 million is to be spent on cycling and walking this year as part of a £2 billion commitment to support active travel over five years. £120 million is also to be spent to support the delivery of 800 zero-emission buses this year. Other transport decarbonisation initiatives supported by £81 million of R&D funding includes new initiatives on sustainable aviation fuels, clean maritime demonstrations, zero emission HGV trials and funding a Hydrogen Transport Hub in the Tees Valley. The review notes that the UK’s aim to develop 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 is supported by a £240 million Net Zero Hydrogen fund. The intention is to use hydrogen for both heating and transport.
Rail decarbonisation is not mentioned in either the Spending Review or the National Infrastructure Strategy. However, the expansion in wind power and CCS provision will eventually enable Britain’s electric, hydrogen and battery trains to provide zero carbon transport.
£17.5bn
to upgrad e and rene the conven w tiona network l rail
R #S
Rail Looking at his comments on rail, the Chancellor said that the economic recovery from Covid-19 must work for everyone in the UK and the Spending Review (SR20) will target investment to support regional cities as engines of growth through the Transforming Cities Fund and intra-city transport settlements; rejuvenate towns and communities in need in England through the Towns Fund; and ensure each place is well connected through increased investment in road, rail and broadband. He said that he would create a new infrastructure bank, to catalyse private investment in projects across the UK, and bring in a comprehensive set of reforms to the way infrastructure is delivered. He pledged £12.8 billion to keep the country’s transport networks moving, so that those who need to travel can do so safely and reliably. This includes an estimated £8 billion for rail passenger services in England and £4.8 billion of further support, including for buses, light rail, cycling, and Transport for London. He deemed it essential that the country’s transport system continues to allow people to make their journeys
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£22bn for HS2
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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#SR20
safely and reliably, and will provide funding to support public transport services, including allocating over £2 billion to the Department for Transport to ensure continued operation of the railways in 2021-22. Regarding capital expenditure on infrastructure, he confirmed over £58 billion of investment for road and rail, levelling up across the country. A new Levelling Up Fund, worth £4billion for England, is expected to attract up to £0.8 billion funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This will invest in local infrastructure that has a visible impact on people and their communities and will support economic recovery, and specifically will invest in a broad range of high value local projects up to £20 million, including railway station upgrades. The Spending Review also confirmed that the government will finance the completion of Crossrail and fund East West rail as far as Bletchley, but it has agreed with Transport for London to stop development on Crossrail 2. The money saved will be put towards improving transport networks in the regional cities.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
Regional connectivity As part of its plan to ‘level up’ the country, the government reiterated that it is fully committed to improving connectivity between northern cities. During 2020, the government has been drawing up an Integrated Rail Plan for the Midlands and the North of England, which will be published shortly. In line with the terms of reference, the Plan will ensure that Phase 2b of HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and other planned rail investments in the North and Midlands are scoped and delivered in an integrated way. This will bring transformational rail improvements more quickly and to more places and will be informed by the NIC’s assessment of the rail needs of the Midlands and the North. In its National Infrastructure Strategy, the government has pledged to deliver on its manifesto commitment to create a £500 million “Restoring Your Railway Fund”, part of which is intended to be used to restore transport services previously lost in the Beeching cuts of the 1960s. Based on previous re-opening costs, this would provide about 30 miles of new railway. This funding is generally for feasibility studies rather than new infrastructure and includes: » £300,000 for an Ideas Fund to support proposals to reinstate axed services; » Advanced Proposals to accelerate the development of lines and stations being considered for restoration; » Proposals for new and restored stations. To date, it has provided £1.5 million to support reopening of the Ashington-Blyth line in Northumberland (i.e. one per cent of its projected £162 million cost) and is supporting restoring rail links to Okehampton in Devon. By June the fund had received 50 proposals to reopen lines and stations of which 25
were successful bids. There is to be a further funding round for which details have yet to be announced. The third round of the New Stations Fund is being expanded, to £32 million. This will fund the opening of railway stations at Edginswell and Thanet Parkway in Kent and St Clears in Carmarthenshire. It will also provide funding to further develop proposals for stations at Haxby in York and Deeside in Flintshire.
Industry response The railway industry was quick to respond. Darren Caplan, chief executive of the Railway Industry Association, said: “It is positive to see the continued commitment by Government to transport infrastructure, with the announcement today of a new infrastructure bank, the publication of a National Infrastructure Strategy, the commitment to publish an updated infrastructure pipeline, and a £4 billion fund for local improvements. In the coming years, investing in rail will be vital and, as outlined in our recently published ’10 reasons to invest’ report, we should be confident that following the Coronavirus pandemic, passenger and freight numbers will return to the network. “We look forward to seeing the National Infrastructure Commission’s Integrated Rail Plan on HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, Trans Pennine Route Upgrade and Midlands Rail Hub, and the outcomes of the Williams Review into the structure of the industry. In this time of such uncertainty, clarity and visibility from Government is essential, so publishing these plans and updates on key projects will ensure the rail industry is able to prepare and deliver, ultimately supporting the ‘Build Back Better’ agenda and the economic growth and investment the UK needs right now.
#SR20
“However, the Railway Industry Association and its members will be concerned today that the Spending Review didn’t provide an update on specific rail schemes, particularly those in the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline. We have been campaigning for Government to ‘Speed Up Rail Enhancements’ as part of our SURE initiative, but we have now been waiting over a year to hear news about what enhancements projects are going to be taken forward and when. Despite supposedly around 80 schemes on this list, we are still no nearer knowing which ones are to be progressed. We urge the Government to publish its update on the RNEP as soon as possible.” Colin Wood, AECOM’s chief executive for Europe, commented: “On funding, it’s encouraging to hear plans for a dedicated Infrastructure Investment Bank, something that we and many voices in our industry have been championing for some time. The government must be open to creating and attracting new ways of financing our infrastructure, and detail depending, this should go some way in helping us drive more private cash into our projects. “What we need to see between now and the Chancellor’s next fiscal statement are the details and decisions that are buried in the National Infrastructure Strategy. How is procurement going to change for the better, details on changes to the Green Book, how is the infrastructure bank going to work and confirmation and swift adoption of key recommendations such as the integrated rail plan.” The trade unions also had their say. Mick Cash of RMT commented on proposals to reopen closed lines: “Supporting new railway lines is always welcome, but suggesting this will somehow reverse Beeching cuts is pure spin. “There is no definite decision, funding or timetable to open new lines and, instead of a national direction to begin railway reopenings, this leaves local projects and councils to compete for funding. “This proposal is lacking in ambition, when more than ever we need new ambition that supports a nationally planned and funded programme of guaranteed line reopenings to boost local economies and connectivity and meet the climate change challenge.” Debbie Dore, chief executive of the Association of Project Management, was concerned about whether the industry has the skills to deliver what is being asked of it. Noting that the Chancellor’s announcement “will provide the long-term pipeline of infrastructure and other strategic projects needed to turbocharge recovery and a sustained future pathway for successful delivery” she commented: “As the
Chancellor said, ‘projects must have real impact’. We agree, but this commitment must be backed by investment in the skillsets and training essential to underpin this. Greater investment as well as focus on project professionalism will be required to support the proper inception, delivery and completion of projects both now and in the future.”
In short The Spending review is a long document (116 pages), as is the National Infrastructure Strategy (100 pages). They, of course, cover more than just rail, but there is a lot of content and sorting out what is new from what was already known is a challenge. For rail, there is some good news. Crossrail will be completed and HS2 Phase 2b to Leeds will go ahead – some people feared it might not. However, Crossrail 2 will be cancelled (or suspended – TfL has pledged to safeguard the route anyway). There is no mention of an electrification programme or other rail decarbonisation measures and no recognition that it offers significant carbon savings by taking passengers and freight from less carbon friendly modes. Reopening lines closed under Beeching gets a big mention, but that was already being discussed and there is nothing really new in these documents. ‘Levelling up’ the country is also a big topic, with investment in the North and on the Okehampton route in the West Country. However, the National Infrastructure Strategy is at pains to point out that “Levelling up the rest of the UK does not mean levelling London down”. Still, it gives everyone lots to talk about...
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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ELECTRIFICATION & POWER
SHAUN COOPER
The changing face of
electrification
T
he removal of diesel-powered trains from the national rail network by 2040 (2035 in Scotland) is key to achieving the UK Government’s net-zero-carbon target by 2050.
To meet its sector targets, the rail industry must continue to find sustainable and costefficient solutions. Electrification is one of the key drivers, along with hydrogen and battery train technology, which will enable a broad range of benefits to be realised: improving people’s health, creating better places to live and travel in, and driving clean economic growth.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
A changing market Over the last decade, electricity distribution has undergone significant changes. Not only has there been a trend towards the decentralisation of power generation, but the use of renewable energy has also increased significantly. Renewables suppliers are now producing more than 20 per cent of the UK’s electricity,
a share which is forecast to increase to 50 per cent by 2025. Rail electrification has also seen some major changes, with benefits coming from both product and process innovation. One example of this is the use of static frequency converter (SFC) technology, which addresses the issue of phase imbalance. Whereas the UK electricity network operates on a three-phase balanced system, railway power supplies have traditionally been connected directly using just
ELECTRIFICATION & POWER
two phases of the network. This causes a phase imbalance, restricting the amount of power that can be obtained from the network operator’s electrical supply. The issue is exacerbated by the shift to renewable power generation, which is less resilient to phase imbalance than coal-fired generation. The use of static frequency convertors eliminates phase imbalance and provides more flexibility for supply to the railway, making connections to the network possible at various voltage levels, as well as supporting the shift to renewable energy supply.
Early contractor involvement With an ever-growing demand for a greener, smarter, more reliable railway, the industry is also continually challenged to make the optimal use of the available investment. One approach that is increasingly being used to help meet this challenge is the adoption of early contractor involvement (ECI). By involving the technology supplier 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 enables strategies to be developed to ensure that projects meet the requirements of their stakeholders. For example, when engaged at the ECI stage, Siemens Mobility typically deploys its Sitras Sidytrac simulation software, together with calculations from its Sicat IT tools. This provides the programme team with key insights into the various system interactions and the power quality that is required, both to allow for voltage fluctuations and also to avoid operational disruptions. The software package allows for comprehensive studies of the electrical network to be undertaken, including electromagnetic capability (EMC) and power modelling. By engaging the electrification team at the initial feasibility stage, system support can also be delivered consistently throughout the life of the project, so reducing overall costs and programme length. Through early involvement,
THE TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED Air-insulated switchgear The Sitras ASG25 air-insulated switchgear for 25kV AC traction power supplies is suitable for use in single and two-phase AC traction power supply systems and is currently the only containerised air-insulated switchgear solution on the UK market. 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.
Static-frequency converters Traction requires a single-phase 25kV AC supply, whereas the electricity supply from the grid is three-phase. Traditionally, the railway has taken power from two phases, creating a phase imbalance, an issue which SFCs eliminate by converting three-phase input into the single-phase traction current required.
Surge arresters When 25kV catenary equipment is to be installed underneath bridges or tunnels, in the past the structure has had to be modified, removed or replaced to provide sufficient electrical clearance. Surge arresters work in circuit with the overhead line system to address this issue, enabling reduced electrical clearances to be applied, so that if over-voltages do occur (for example from a lightning strike), the surge arrester reduces the impact.
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ELECTRIFICATION & POWER Siemens 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. From the early stages of a project, it is also beneficial to look at the railway as a complete ‘end-to-end’ system, with a single supplier, taking a holistic view, able to design and deliver the most cost-effective and efficient solution. Conversely, when each individual discipline is procured separately, there is a risk that the solution becomes over-engineered, with each supplier focusing purely on its own, relatively narrow area. By involving technology providers for the whole route, rather than small sections of it, ECI programmes enable the optimum solution to be developed and assessed. Early modelling at GRIP (Governance for Railway Investment Projects) stages 3 and 4 also enables the electrification design to be shaped to meet both the strategic and the business case objectives. GRIP 3 is the stage at which the preferred option is identified, with stage 4 covering its subsequent development. As an example, on one project for which the client had initially considered an auto transformer solution, by looking at a ‘whole system’ design, an alternative technology was ultimately selected. This delivered cost savings of around 60 per cent and a reduction in the programme length of around two years. The integration of the strategy and technology required to control and power trains can also be better identified at an early stage of a programme. Then, passenger flow, train location, power loading and efficient infrastructure placement can all be modelled to inform the electrification system design. This also allows new technologies to be considered that may have otherwise been passed over. For example, systems such as air insulated switchgear, static frequency convertors, efficient overhead line solutions and surge arrestors can all contribute to a more efficient traction solution and to an overall decarbonisation programme. Not only can this approach help minimise the overall cost of delivery, but, if appropriate, it can also lead to the introduction of output-based specifications, which encourage technology providers to take a more holistic, whole-life approach. Similarly, frameworks for traction decarbonisation can also include reward structures for efficiencies and collaboration – recognising the appropriate risk allocation between customer and contractors. Innovative commercial models could then be developed, for example to encourage technology providers to offer licensing or ‘paid on performance’ schemes.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
ELECTRIFICATION & POWER
Effective ECI To benefit from ECI, it is important to define exactly what the outputs from this stage of the programme need to be. ECI should clearly add value to either cost or programme certainty, or both. The ECI process and period must also be managed effectively, ensuring sufficient time and effort is set aside to build the team and set common goals, so that all parties are aligned. The make-up of the ECI team is also important. It should include people who are not only capable of challenging the norm, but also have a true understanding and a passion to achieve the overall programme goals. They must also be willing and empowered to make the best decisions. Similarly, when the client is fully engaged, a true ‘one team’ approach develops, with all members being open and transparent throughout. To achieve the best output for the programme, the client needs to ensure the ECI process
and its team are properly resourced and funded, and ideally are co-located, which will help build its success and encourage the establishment of strong relationships.
Edinburgh Tram approach As supplier of the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), telecommunications, electrification, signalling and road traffic systems to the first phase of the Edinburgh Tram programme, Siemens Mobility was brought in right at the start of the second phase of the programme to deliver a 2.9 mile extension to the original network. Working closely with the client, to develop the technology solution and business case fully, ensured the programme was within the
cost envelope, was achievable and that the relevant risks were carried by the client, the main contractor and the system subcontractor as appropriate. Initial discussions began around two years before the planned start of the project, enabling the technological solutions to be agreed at an early stage. This in turn helped the appointed main contractor to fully understand the tender and gave the client confidence to start an ECI stage with them. As a result, any misunderstandings or queries were addressed in a collaborative way, building the trust required to establish the optimum cost and programme plan. Shaun Cooper is managing director – electrification, Siemens Mobility.
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ELECTRIFICATION & POWER
Selling Electrifi cation
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n a recent interview, an influential government transport MP commented: “Arguably, we are investing in something (electrification) which is still dirty when we’ve got green hydrogen just around the corner.”
Similar comments were made by some members of the UK Parliament’s Transport Select Committee on 11 November, when one member suggested that electric traction could be the wrong technology just as diesel cars were 20 years ago. This resulted in a newspaper headline “Rush to electrify rail risks new diesel fiasco” – a particularly ironic statement as electrification is, in most cases, the only way to replace diesel rail traction. Such comments are demonstrably wrong. Most UK rail carbon savings in recent years have come from the greening of the grid and the virtual abolition of coal-fired power stations. Furthermore, hydrogen rail traction has significant inherent limitations and can only be green if it is produced from electricity generated from zero-carbon sources.
Coal-fired power stations are now a thing of the past.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
DAVID SHIRRES
Yet it would be wrong to blame politicians for such statements. In many cases, their views are a failure of the industry to clearly communicate the basics of rail traction to decision makers. Politicians have many issues to consider and should not have to study lengthy documents in the absence of a clear, brief explanation of what is required. Such a clear statement was provided to the DfT in 2007, in the form of a three-page letter making the case for electrification signed by Adrian Shooter, chairman of the Association of Train Operating Companies, and Iain Coucher, Network Rail’s chief executive. This included these key points: “We can immunise the railway from changing fuels by an electrification programme that puts these decisions elsewhere” and “Using ‘diesel’ trains as ‘mini-power-plants’ - to generate tractive power - is both inefficient and wasteful. It is not a particularly efficient way to convert fossil fuel into power. It is, surely, better to manage this at a power-station level. And this is even before one takes into account the fact that diesel trains consume significant amounts of energy to simply transport heavy engines and fuel around the network.” The Shooter / Coucher letter was successful in achieving the approval of a substantial electrification programme. Unfortunately, in 2017, the unacceptable cost overruns of these programmes resulted in the then Minister of Transport, Chris Grayling, cancelling electrification schemes. He had lost faith in the industry’s ability to deliver electrification in a cost-effective manner and concluded that electrification must be the wrong technology.
ELECTRIFICATION & POWER Task force reports The rail industry decarbonisation task force was set up in response to Rail Minister Jo Johnson’s call, in February 2018, for the industry to “provide a vision for how it will decarbonise”. However, it did not have a free hand. As RSSB report T1145 noted: “UK government has made clear its intention to decarbonise rail where possible and to use innovative solutions rather than relying on full electrification.” Hence, task force members were expected to focus on alternative selfpowered traction rather than stressing the inherent benefits of electrification. Yet battery and hydrogen traction, which can store only a fraction of the energy of diesel traction, are only suitable for a small percentage of rail passenger traffic and are unsuitable for freight. Thus, if diesels are to be eliminated, the only alternative is a large-scale electrification programme. Had the task force immediately reached this conclusion, this could have been counterproductive as it would not have followed UK government direction. Thus, when the task force produced its first decarbonisation report in January 2019, its executive summary stated “Other traction modes, such as hydrogen, bimode and hybrid trains should be actively encouraged as the best low-carbon options where extension of the electrified network is not feasible or will not be the most cost- and carbon-effective whole system solution.” The final 68-page report by the task force was published
Great Western electrification programme. in July 2019. The front of this report states that decarbonisation can only be achieved with “a balanced and judicious mix” of electrification and hydrogen and battery traction. Yet, midway through this lengthy report, it comments that a large-scale electrification programme of 4,250 route kilometres may be required. Both these reports stress the need to develop decarbonisation solutions for alternative traction through research and innovation. They also have a credible analysis of the capabilities of various traction types. However, the inherent limitations of hydrogen and battery traction, which make them unable to offer the high-powered traction required for most rail services, are not mentioned until midway through these lengthy reports. Thus, this did not provide the clear and concise explanation of the basics of rail traction that is needed if decision makers are to make informed decisions. They also omitted some key issues, such as modal shift from road to rail, which could save road CO2e (Carbon Dioxide equivalent) emissions equivalent to those from the entire rail network, and the efficiencies of the different types of traction. RSSB report T1145 shows these to be respectively 80, 65 and 25 per cent for electric, battery and hydrogen traction. The final decarbonisation report was followed by the publication of Network Rail’s interim Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS) in July. This provided a clear vision and rationale of what’s needed, following extensive consultation within the industry. It highlights the benefits of electrification in respect of emissions reductions and other environmental benefits, modal shift
from road to rail, passenger and freight users benefits, operational cost reductions and wider economic benefits. These benefits, and a range of costs, were used to develop an interim business case for five different rates of delivery of the programme, which considered that decarbonisation of the unelectrified network required electrification of 13,040 single track kilometres (stk) and the deployment of hydrogen and battery trains on 1,300 and 800stk of infrastructure.
International rail comparisons The particularly low rolling resistance of steel wheels on steel rail makes railways highly energy efficient, and thus one of the lowest-carbon modes of transport. Electrified railways that benefit from the unique ability of rail vehicles to use electricity straight from the grid offer further carbon savings. In the UK, they have benefited from the impressive reduction in carbon intensity of the national grid from 459 to 198 tonnes per GWh between 2005 and 2019. Rail’s 2019 carbon credentials are shown in the latest figures (BEIS/Defra) for UK passenger travel emissions. For car (with only the driver), domestic flight, bus and rail these are, respectively, 171, 133, 104 and 25 grammes of CO2e per passenger kilometre. For freight, the respective figures for freight carried by HGV and rail are 136 and 27.5 grammes per tonne kilometre. The task force reports rightly stress rail’s environmental credentials, but does not make carbon comparisons with other rail networks, as shown in charts 1 and 2. These use data in reports published by International Energy Authority (IEA). Unfortunately, this shows that, compared with other railways, Britain’s train fleet has a poor carbon footprint.
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IEA Future of Rail International Energy Agency (IEA) launched its 'Future of Rail' report in New Delhi in 2019. The report is downloadable on-line and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in international railway developments. It argues that investment, such as electrification, to encourage modal shift to rail offers significant benefits in respect of energy efficiency, reduced reliance on fossil fuels and a substantial cut in greenhouse emissions. 2015 railway carbon emissions are shown in the IEA's Railway Handbook 2017 whilst the proportion of diesel traction in each of these regions is shown on a chart on the IEA website. The charts in this feature are derived from this IEA data with comparable UK data derived from ORR statistics that show 2016/17 traction energy consumption to be: electric traction (m kWh) - 3,523 passenger and 58 freight and diesel (millions litres) - 501 passenger and 168 freight. Conversion factors used were: 1 litre of diesel = 38 MJ and 1 kWh = 3.6 MJ.
Deutsche Bahn ICE3 high-speed train approaches Utrecht.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
The CO2e emissions shown in chart 1 are a reflection of both energy efficiency and train loading. As 70 per cent of UK passenger trains use relatively low-carbon electricity and, until Covid, were carrying large numbers of passengers, it might have been expected that they would have relatively low emissions. Yet, at 46 grams per passenger kilometre (gpk), their emissions are amongst the world’s worst. This compares with Europe’s 28gpk and is more than twice the world average of 18gpk. Chart 2 shows that this poor record is due to the UK passenger train fleet getting a high proportion of primary energy from diesel fuel. As diesel trains have less than half the efficiency of electric trains, using large amounts of diesel results in a low overall average fleet energy efficiency and, consequently, a poor carbon footprint. Diesel trains are only 30 per cent of the UK fleet, yet diesel accounts for 58 per cent of its energy consumption. This is more than twice that of the rest of Europe’s passenger rail fleet, which gets only 25 per cent of its energy from diesel.
ELECTRIFICATION & POWER
Explaining electrification
Russian freight train hauled by a 9,200kW 3-unit 3ES5K Ermak locomotive. At 27 grams per tonne kilometre (gtk), UK freight trains have a particularly poor carbon record. This compares with Europe’s 16gtk and the world average of 14gtk. Britain’s rail freight gets 96 per cent of its energy from diesel fuel. Whilst USA freight trains are entirely diesel powered, their CO2e emissions are only 18gtk as they are heavily loaded. Russian railways which also has heavy freight trains, has the world’s lowest freight emissions record of 9gtk as 64 per cent of their energy is from electric traction. As the vision of the rail decarbonisation task force is “for the UK to have the world’s leading low-carbon railway by 2040”, the omission of such international comparisons is surprising. They show that this vision is not achievable, although the UK could rise up the rail decarbonisation league table with an extensive electrification programme.
Explaining electrification. “Most businesses fail at marketing because they address their ‘what and how’ but ignore the ‘why’.” This quote from a marketing handbook seems particularly apt in the way that the rail industry has tried to sell electrification to decision makers. Although various reports state that electrification offers more powerful, efficient, greener trains, very little, if anything, explains why this is the case, with the exception of
an appendix in Network Rail’s TDNS. What is needed is a simple, one-page document which makes the points shown in the explaining electrification box. Selling electrification also requires a simple explanation of why electrification projects went so horribly wrong just a few years ago and what has been done to ensure such cost overruns will not reoccur. It is not surprising that the UK Government lost confidence in the industry’s ability to deliver electrification at that time. Hence, the industry needs to do all it can to regain its confidence and trust. Otherwise, decision makers may perceive electrification to be unaffordable or may not be prepared to accept the risk of cost overruns. The Railway Industry Association’s excellent Electrification Cost Challenge report provides many answers, and much has been done to address its recommendations. This report also makes a strong argument for a rolling programme to reduce the cost of electrification. It is hoped that this, and the experience of more recent electrification projects being delivered to budget, should provide the necessary reassurance that the industry can deliver electrification in a cost-effective manner. Network Rail initiatives to reduce electrification costs, as reported in our accompanying feature “Routes to Zero Carbon Rail”, should provide further reassurance.
125 mph electric Pendolino unit.
Electric trains are more powerful and efficient than self-powered trains for the reasons shown below. No amount of research and innovation can change the validity of these points which reflect the laws of science and space constraints. » Planes, ships, road vehicles and trains (except electric trains) must store energy on-board and need a power plant to convert the stored energy into kinetic energy to make them move. » A vehicle’s power and range are limited by the amount of energy it stores and the capacity of its power plant. The available space on a train limits the size of this plant. » The above restrictions do not apply to electric trains which can receive a large amount of energy whilst in motion. Thus they are unique in offering high-speed passenger and heavy freight transport. » Electric trains are highly efficient as taking electrical power from the grid to a train’s electric motors requires no energy conversion process. In addition, when it brakes, an electric train’s motors generate electricity and feed it back into the grid. » Hence a comparable electric vehicle has typically 50% more power than a diesel vehicle and requires only a third of the energy of a diesel train. » Electric trains are future proofed as they can be powered by whatever power source generates electricity. They can also take advantage of significant carbon reductions in electricity generation. » If their electricity is generated by renewables or nuclear power they also have net-zero carbon emissions. » Alternative self-powered traction must store electricity, in batteries or use it to produce hydrogen. These hold much less energy than diesel (batteries - 7% and hydrogen - 14% of diesel’s energy density). NOTE: It is considered that battery storage might be doubled by 2035. This would not detract from any of the above points.
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ELECTRIFICATION & POWER However, concerns remain, as shown by a question asked at the Transport Select Committee in November, which showed that the industry’s ability to deliver cost-effective electrification is still a concern. It is now just over three years since the then Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling, cancelled the Midland main line and South Wales electrification due to cost overruns. His statement announcing the cancellation was entitled “Rail update: bi-mode technology.” This wrongly claimed that advancing technology had eliminated the need for electrification and did not mention carbon emissions. Since then, much has been done to persuade decision makers of the need for electrification, and there are hopeful indications that the case may be accepted. For example Rail Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris told the Railways Industry Association annual conference that electrification sat “very nicely with the government’s green agenda” and that “electrification is going to have a massive part to play in that”. The government recently published its Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution which commits to more railway electrification. Nevertheless, it is clear that some decision makers still need to be convinced or do not understand what electrification has to offer. Although it is, of necessity, a lengthy document, Network Rail’s TDNS report addresses the misleading impression of the rail industry decarbonisation task force reports. Yet there remains a need for succinct clear messaging to explain that electric trains are intrinsically more efficient and powerful than other forms of rail traction and why no amount of research can fundamentally change this.
The Scottish example One question asked at the November Transport Select Committee meeting was why Scotland had a different approach. Living in Scotland, I know the answer to this. Within Transport Scotland (the Scottish DfT), there are experienced railway professionals who know that Scotland’s railway can best serve the people of Scotland with electric trains that encourage modal shift, through improved journey times and better reliability, and that are also greener, more efficient, and cheaper to operate. Hence, when the Edinburgh to Glasgow electrification programme had a substantial cost overun, the response was not to cancel electrification, but to ensure that lessons were learnt so that future schemes were delivered in a cost-effective manner. Transport Scotland officials have also been able to explain the benefits of electrification to Scottish Government Ministers to convince them that their scarce funds should be spent on largescale electrification of the Scottish rail network to enable it to achieve net zero carbon by 2035. Network Rail’s TDNS study also promotes this UK industry vision of rail decarbonisation by a large-scale electrification programme. Given the political dimension, it was understandable the
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
preceding industry decarbonisation reports did not directly promote such a vision, even though their content showed the need for electrification. That TDNS is now promoting the need for electrification is, no doubt, the result of useful conversations making the case for electrification. Thus, it was disturbing to hear rail decarbonisation task force leader Malcolm Brown promote an alternative vision to a recent Rail Technical Strategy event. In a keynote speech, which focused on innovations, he saw “a rolling continuous programme of introducing new technologies” and mentioned electrification only once. Despite TDNS showing that electrification is 85 per cent of the solution, he stated that there was no ‘silver bullet’. Furthermore, his comments that that there is no country leading the field in this area in which the UK had the potential to be a world leader are not supported by international comparisons. In contrast to this speech, TDNS and other evidence shows that there will be no further significant UK rail decarbonisation without large-scale electrification, which will also provide the high-performance traction needed to attract traffic modal shift and provide lower operating costs. At this time, the UK government faces huge financial pressures with many calls on its purse strings. In such circumstances, it would be shocking if a decision not to invest in electrification was the result of misconceptions due to misleading messaging. Note: As environmental performance is the number of passengers divided by emissions produced, this year’s empty trains will make the 2020 rail passenger carbon emissions much higher than last year's. Yet, rail remains an energy efficient form of transport which can take traffic from higher carbon road and air transport. Rail Engineer believes that a long-term view needs to be taken on action required to reduce global warming. Hence it is important to maintain and enhance rail capacity.
ELECTRIFICATION & POWER
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FEATURE
KeTech update
Connected Driver Advisory System
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n December 2019 (issue 180), Rail Engineer reported on a visit to KeTech Systems in Preston to hear about its innovative, truly connected real-time information systems. With the recent update to the industry Rail Technical Strategy (RTS), Rail Engineer recently met up again with KeTech to find out about the latest developments and discover how some of the RTS’ future vision for the development and deployment of technology in rail is being delivered today. Connected Driver Advisory System (C-DAS) is, as the name suggests, a driver advisory system with a communication link to connect with other information sources. It advises the driver with easy-to-understand realtime information to assist the efficient regulation of the speed profile and to avoid unnecessary braking. Avoiding unnecessary braking and acceleration saves energy, provides a smoother journey for passengers, and assists asset life with less ‘wear and tear’ for both track and rolling stock. C-DAS also helps to ensure a train arrives at any junction in time to avoid timetable conflicts with other trains. Passenger comfort and journey perception affect the rating of passenger satisfaction and how people value their rail experience. A journey that is subject to hard braking, frequent acceleration and stops for conflicts (especially just short of the destination) detracts from the passenger rail experience. There is a saying in the rail industry that “A moving train is a happy train”. KeTech’s C-DAS contributes to this objective, with better passenger satisfaction, lower cost, and environmental benefits. C-DAS ‘advises’ a driver, so it does not require a high safety integrity, which can drive up the cost of other train and signalling systems significantly. Safety is ensured by the train’s normal onboard control and braking system, and the lineside signalling system. The communications link provides aggregated real-time updates of information from systems such as the signalling system, Darwin (the rail industry’s official train running information engine) and others, which provide real-time arrival and departure predictions, platform numbers, delay estimates, schedule changes and cancellations. Unlike other C-DAS systems, the KeTech system uses reliable signalling-derived information supplemented by Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) information. Some other C-DAS systems only use GNSS, which cannot provide real-time dynamic updates and can also be blocked by deep cuttings and tunnels. An energy-efficient speed profile is advised to the driver to help meet the timetable, which considers timing points, line speeds, speed restrictions, and the train’s characteristics and capabilities. The driver is advised if the train is behind time and if the line and train speed limits are capable of a higher speed, or, if the train is running early, a more efficient speed profile, both to save energy and wear and tear on the train.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
FEATURE
PAUL DARLINGTON
C-DAS and the WCML KeTech’s C-DAS is now in use in shadow mode on 50 Class 350 trains on the West Coast main line (WCML) between London Euston and Liverpool. This is a busy route and, while famed for its 125mph (201km/h) Avanti Class 390 Pendolinos tilting trains, it is also one of the busiest freight routes in Europe - it carries 40 per cent of all UK rail freight traffic and links Europe with the West Midlands, North West England and on to Scotland. The 110mph (180km/h) Class 350s must therefore be regulated accordingly, so the KeTech C-DAS system is being developed and enhanced on the ideal route to optimise the system. C-DAS could also deliver major benefits to the operation of freight trains, if fitted. Consider a situation where a heavy, long freight train is scheduled to run just ahead of a fast passenger train and ‘pull in’ to a loop to allow the passenger train to pass and call at a station ahead. If the freight train is running only two minutes late it may not get ‘clear’ inside the loop before causing delay to the following passenger train. The slow ‘turn out’ speed into the loop and the length of the freight train will not help and the signal controlling the loop may be ‘approach locked’, which means the signal will not clear until the freight train is nearly stopped at the signal. The subsequent delay to the following passenger train through stopping and starting behind the freight train can easily amount to five minutes. In terms of “delay attribution penalties” the late arrival of the passenger at the station will be attributed to following the freight train, with the original reason for the freight train being late compounded by having the ‘passenger minutes’ added to it. The freight train is then signalled to leave the loop and follow the passenger train. However, let us assume a second passenger train is timetabled to follow the first after a gap of 10 minutes. This train is running on-time which means the freight train will begin leaving the loop, at best, only four minutes in front of the second passenger train. This train will receive
adverse signals as the heavy freight train pulls away and slowly accelerates, resulting in a loss of two further minutes to its timetabled path. The total delay is now 2+5+5+2 = 14 minutes, seven minutes to the freight train and seven minutes combined for the two passenger trains. All because the freight train was only two minutes late! By their very definition, freight trains are heavy and at their most efficient when they are kept moving. As can be seen in the above example, even a few minutes delay to a freight train can have a major impact on other train services, not to mention the environmental damage from unnecessary braking and acceleration.
C-DAS improvements KeTech is continuing to develop and optimise the data gathering and algorithms for C-DAS, to make best use of all the available information. This includes obtaining, analysing, and using route setting information to further enhance the advice the system provides to drivers. In addition to C-DAS, KeTech has a long history of providing Customer Information Systems (CIS) at stations and Passenger Information Systems (PIS) on trains, and the company specialises in providing enhanced, real-time information to improve the customer experience and ensuring that both passengers and operators are better informed throughout the end-to-end journey. KeTech also provides driver-only operation CCTV systems and leads in supplying aggregated real-time information systems to create innovative solutions to enhance the rail journey. When trains are delayed, and passengers have no insight as to why, this causes frustration, confusion and even panic amongst some passengers. Transport Focus in 2019 reported that only 44 per cent of passengers are satisfied with how the industry deals with train delays. Passengers often receive conflicting information from different media sources regarding delays and disruption. This causes irritation and erodes the most basic trust in the industry. Passengers need to be kept informed with
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FEATURE reliable information. If they know their journey is going to be delayed, and by how much, they can reschedule their plans accordingly. Nearly everyone is connected nowadays, so, if passengers know how and why their journey is going to be disrupted, they can communicate with others, read a podcast, download a video, start a new project on their laptop, do some online shopping or order a meal or a taxi. The industry must use the same ‘connected technology’ to keep passengers and operators better informed and KeTech is ideally placed to help train operators to adopt digital technology to streamline and enhance the customer experience.
On-train passenger information KeTech’s PIS can be provided in several different variants and has a flexible architecture. It could be just a ‘light touch’ system, comprising cloud-based software with on-train displays, requiring just power and ethernet for connectivity. Or it could be a semi-integrated system,
which extends the light touch version by interfacing with train doors and the trains public address system, or even a fully integrated version, comprising cloud-based PIS software and on-train software for integration into third-party passenger information system hardware. This could be for onboard legacy or new fleets. Remote announcements can be integrated with sending automated specific delay information, or ad hoc messaging to only the services affected, in real-time, and independent from the trains GSM-R system, which can be dedicated for operational communications. On 9 August 2019, nearly one million people across England and Wales were affected by a power-cut. The outage was caused by two failed power stations, resulting in disruption on most of the UK’s rail network and leaving many train passengers stranded. LNER, however, received praise for its handling of the situation as its KeTech PIS-equipped InterCity 225 trains delivered contextual and live journey information, providing passengers with clear, consistent, and meaningful advice. They were kept updated even during the power outage. It may not have been good news, but it kept them informed of the duration of the delays and the impact on their journeys. LNER passengers even praised the KeTech’s passenger information system on Twitter for providing realtime, contextually aware updates and information about the delay, such as: “This train is delayed by approximately 286 minutes due to electrical supply problems.”
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
Transport Focus also reported the highest customer satisfaction rates derived from several train operators that use KeTech’s information systems. For example, LNER saw an increase of 10 per cent for National Rail Passenger Survey (NRPS) results for “Train Facilities – Provision of Information During the Journey” within a year of installing KeTech’s passenger information system onboard their fleet. The system delivers live updates to passengers via on-train displays every few seconds. The displays can provide, for example, dynamic journey information, journey progress, calling points and ‘Darwin’ delay reasons with estimated durations, along with live departures at the approaching station, intermodal travel information, short platform information, passenger loading information, automatic delay/repay, scheduled future engineering work or events notices, marketing information, the very latest news and local weather – and all in multiple languages if required. Darwin provides real-time arrival and departure predictions, platform numbers, delay estimates, schedule changes and cancellations. It is the only system in the UK to take feeds directly from every train operator and combine the information with train-location data. And it is not just in the UK where KeTech can make a difference. In Australia, the company is working collaboratively with Omada Rail Systems, which has extensive experience in signalling and telecoms systems, as well as excellent knowledge of the rail infrastructure in Australia, to bring the KeTech state of the art information systems to local passenger and freight customers.
FEATURE
Universal Information System KeTech has been providing intelligent systems to the rail industry for many years, and is now pulling all these separate systems together and integrating them to provide a common point of control for stations and trains. As well as being a leading software company, KeTech has the capability to design bespoke interfaces to third party/legacy systems if required. KeTech’s Universal Information System (UIS) is designed to integrate station and on-train information systems to provide better and fully connected information systems. For many train operators, their control rooms are operated via multiple control interfaces, leading to cluttered control rooms and poor efficiency. Unconnected systems can be a source of inefficiency and frustration for both operator and passengers. Merging train PIS and station CIS into a single, fully integrated system with a common user interface means controllers can manage any disruption much more effectively. KeTech is well placed and committed to introduce further evolution. This could include integration of CCTV feeds, remote condition monitoring and connections to
seat reservation and occupancy systems. Staff at depots can be provided with maintenance information from trains and marketing teams can enable changes to the advertising and media on trains in real time. Travellers will be able to receive accurate and timely information via their smart devices, easily and confidently, without having to log on to multiple systems. Integrating the various information systems offers further benefits. For example, if there is an issue with the toilets not working on a train, and the train is approaching a station, it would be useful to show on the station display that the toilets are not working on the next train to arrive. Passengers can then make the decision as to whether to board the train or not. During the Covid-19 outbreak, KeTech has already been asked to use information from trains to look at occupancy, based on the government recommendations, to identify if social distancing has been compromised on a particular carriage. The company is confident it has the capability to deliver this. Another benefit of KeTech’s fully integrated information systems is, not only day-to-day operations, but also incident management.
Right data, right time The Rail Technical Strategy was originally published in 2012, but has recently been updated to provide a vision for the development and deployment of technology in rail. The strategy has been developed by a cross-industry group including RSSB, Network Rail and the UKRRIN research and innovation community. It includes input from more than 130 organisations and cross-industry groups, including the Rail Delivery Group and the Railway Industry Association. It describes a vision of how the UK railway should look in the future and is built around five ‘functional priorities’, which are:
1. Easy to use for all; 2. Low emissions; 3. Optimised train operations; 4. Reliable and easy to maintain; 5. Data driven. The Rail Technical Strategy says: “The railway exists to move people and goods from place to place in a safe and efficient manner, and has a responsibility to contribute to protecting the environment and supporting wider society. The well-established ‘Four C’ challenges of reducing Cost and Carbon, increasing Customer satisfaction, and providing agile Capacity, remain pertinent and align with the outcomes targeted by the strategy. “Maximising the value of the railway is paramount for success. This will not always mean reduced cost in the short term – some technological progress will require an increase in investment – but could significantly improve the value delivered to customers and taxpayers. “As a recognised ‘green’ travel option, rail already contributes relatively little to carbon and air pollution. But there is still more that can be done to meet ambitions around decarbonisation and zero harm.” It is interesting to reflect that all the KeTech products deliver the commendable Rail Technical Strategy functional priorities for the future - today. KeTech’s C-DAS, CIS and PIS are easy to use and much less complicated and less expensive than other signalling systems, such as ETCS, and they can help to reduce emissions and optimise train operations. In field data suggest they are reliable and are easy to use. The systems are very much ‘data driven’, with their aggregated information inputs derived from many sources of data. KeTech information systems are here now and are ready to deliver the Rail Technical Strategy for the future.
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
? n o o s g n i com DAVID SHIRRES
HydroFLEX, the UK’s first hydrogen train takes to the mainline on 30 September.
S N I A R T N E G HYDRO
I
f Britain’s transport is to stop using petroleum, electricity is the only alternative practical method of supplying vehicles with the huge amount of energy they use. In 2018, UK transport consumed 55.2 million tonnes of oil whilst the nation’s total electricity consumption (not just transportation) was equivalent to 30.1 million tonnes of oil. Electricity can also be produced from zero-carbon energy sources. Electric trains are the most efficient way of using electricity as these are the only vehicles that can be directly powered by it. Other vehicles need to store and carry electrical energy before they can use it. Although this is normally done by batteries, hydrogen trains can also store electrical energy. This is because hydrogen can
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
be produced by electrolysis, which uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. A hydrogen train’s fuel cells can then use it to generate electricity, a process that effectively reverses the electrolysis, although storing electrical energy in this way is more complicated and less efficient than using batteries.
RSSB report T1145 “Options for traction energy decarbonisation in rail” includes a comment from Siemens that the efficiencies of various forms of traction from the original energy source to power at the wheels is: » overhead line electrification – 80% » battery traction – 65% » hydrogen – 25%. » diesel – 25%. However, hydrogen trains offer a far greater range than battery trains, as the energy density of hydrogen is twice that of a battery pack. If diesels are to be abolished, hydrogen is the only self-powered traction that can give a passenger train a range of a thousand kilometres per day. Yet, as the energy density of hydrogen is an eighth that of diesel fuel, and so the fuel storage tanks need to be eight times larger, it is not suitable for freight or high-powered/high-speed passenger trains.
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT Hydrogen supply
How many hydrogen trains? For these reasons, the rail industry decarbonisation taskforce report concluded that, for passenger trains, the only viable zero-carbon traction technologies are electric, battery and hydrogen. Hence, a net-zero carbon railway needs a “judicious mix” of these. Network Rail’s Traction Network Decarbonisation Study (TNDS) was more specific. It concluded that achieving rail traction decarbonisation requires electric, hydrogen and battery trains on, respectively, 13,000, 1,300 and 800 single track kilometres (stk) of currently unelectrified rail infrastructure. On a pro rata basis, this indicates that a fleet of about 350 hydrogen vehicles (8.6% of the current 3,900 vehicle diesel fleet) would be required on a net-zero carbon railway. Yet government approval of the recommended large-scale electrification programme is far from certain and such an electrification programme would take decades to deliver. In the meantime, about 1,400 second generation ‘Sprinter’ diesels will reach the end of their service life by 2030, many of which could usefully be replaced by hydrogen trains. Thus, a good few hundred hydrogen trains will be required if diesels are to be abolished. In this feature, we consider when the UK will see its first passenger-carrying hydrogen trains, who will supply them and how they will be supplied with hydrogen.
Although it is the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen does not occur naturally and its production requires the splitting up of chemical compounds. As this requires energy, hydrogen should be regarded as an energy vector rather than a fuel. By far the most common way of producing hydrogen is by the steam reforming of hydrocarbons, usually methane, in large chemical plants. Much of the hydrogen production is then used on site for refining or to produce ammonia. As this consumes hydrocarbons, it generates CO2 emissions and so hydrogen produced this way cannot provide zero-carbon transport. Alternatively, hydrogen can be produced by the electrolysis of water using electricity generated from zero-carbon energy. Hydrogen trains need to use hydrogen produced this way, otherwise they offer little benefit over modern diesel traction. While electrolysis can be more expensive than reforming, there is the opportunity to use surplus overnight wind power. This both balances the grid and reduces the cost of electricity to the extent that it may be negative. Electrolysis plants are scalable and so, compared with chemical plants, can be quite small. Therefore, all that is needed to produce hydrogen is sufficient land and an electricity supply of a few megawatts. This makes it feasible to install electrolysis plants at depots. The alternative is an extensive pipeline infrastructure or significantly more deliveries by road, given the low energy density of hydrogen. Delivery of hydrogen in a tube trailer requires around 20 times the comparable number of deliveries of diesel fuel. A recent RSSB report considered that a typical hydrogen train vehicle will consume 0.2kg of hydrogen per mile. Hence a fleet of 10 three-car trains, with an average daily mileage of 500 miles each, would require 3,000kg per day. Any facility that stores more than 5,000kg of hydrogen (or more than 1½ days’ supply in this example) is a lower tier establishment as far as the Control of Major Accident Hazards regulations is concerned and so would require suitable risk assessment, notification, and major accident prevention policies.
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
(Above) Aberdeen’s hydrogen production and fuelling station. (Inset) BNSF’s hydrogenpowered shunter.
In Aberdeen, a pilot scheme of ten hydrogen buses was supplied by a fuelling station that consisted of three electrolysers (each the size of a 40ft container), two hydrogen compressors and two hydrogen dispensers, together with hydrogen storage, cooling systems and cooling plants. In total, this plant has a footprint of 32 metres x 26 metres. It required a one-megawatt electricity supply and could supply 300kg of hydrogen per day. Since 2015, the plant has had a 99.9% availability. The report on this pilot scheme concluded that electrolyser plants are a mature, reliable technology which can easily be scaled up and provide opportunities for grid balancing. The capital cost of the 2015 Aberdeen plant was £1 million, although the report noted that the prices of such plants are continuing to decrease. On this basis, the cost of a hydrogen plant to supply ten trains would be of the order of £10 million. The report also concluded that the total cost of ownership was £169,000 per bus, which is comparable with battery buses but £62,000 more than for diesel buses. The RSSB report noted that there is potential for significant electricity cost savings if renewable electricity could be generated on site. The cost of the hydrogen would then be the essentially fixed maintenance and capex costs of the required plant.
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Although, as yet, there are no operational hydrogen train fuelling plants, two are under construction in Germany. Work on the first, at Bremervoerde in Lower Saxony, started in July. This plant will be built and operated by Linde with completion expected in mid-2021 when it will be able to supply up to 1,600kg of hydrogen per day for a fleet of 14 iLint trains. Work on the other fuelling station, being built at Hesse in Germany’s Rhine-Maine region, started in October. This will be built and operated by Infraserv Höchst to fuel a fleet of 27 iLints which are expected to be operational from December 2022. This fleet is being supplied by Alstom under a €500 million contract with the local train operator, which includes maintenance and the supply of hydrogen for 25 years. This is perhaps the first rolling stock contract to include a train’s fuel.
Early hydrogen trains The first annual international Hydrail (hydrogen trains) conference was held in North Carolina in 2005. The following year, the East Japan Railway Company unveiled the world’s first fuel cell hybrid railcar powered by two 95kW fuel cells. The world’s first hydrogen powered locomotive ran in 2010. This was a 130-ton shunting locomotive which was developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the BNSF rail freight company, using a 240kW fuel cells provided by Ballard. The UK saw its first hydrogen rail traction in 2012. This was a 10¼ inch gauge locomotive powered by a 1kW fuel cell, supplemented with batteries to give a total power output of 4.4kW. It was the University of Birmingham’s entry at the first IMechE’s Railway Challenge and part of the University’s ongoing research into hydrogen power. Later that year, the locomotive was showcased at the seventh Hydrail conference, held in Birmingham.
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT The government’s Committee for Climate Change estimates that achieving net-zero carbon emissions would require an annual hydrogen requirement for HGVs, buses, and trains of respectively 22, 3 and 0.3 TWh. This illustrates the opportunities for synergies with road transport. Visitors to InnoTrans in 2016 saw Alstom launch its hydrogen powered Coradia iLint train. This was a converted DMU that had been under development since 2014. In 2018, two pre-production units entered passenger service in Germany and recently successfully completed 180,000 kilometres test running. The iLint is a hydrogen/battery hybrid to smooth the load on the fuel cell, boost traction power when required and provide regenerative braking. Alstom reports that optimising the traction control system was particularly challenging.
In the UK, rail leasing company Porterbrook and the University of Birmingham formed a partnership in 2018 to convert a redundant Class 319 unit into HydroFLEX, a proof-of-concept hydrogen train. These first hydrogen trains are the result of fuel-cell technology developments to make them significantly more compact and efficient. Thus, hydrogen can now be considered to be a mature and practical technology for use on trains, HGVs and buses, as well as other applications such as mobile plant.
UK’s first hydrogen train, the University of Birmingham’s entry for the 2012 IMechE Railway Challenge.
Future international developments As mentioned above, depot facilities are now under construction for two Alstom iLint fleets in Germany, totalling 41 trains. These units are certified for running in tunnels up to five kilometres long and in covered stations. After being tested in the Netherlands in March and Austria in December 2019, two pre-production iLint units are now operating passenger services in Austria, where the iLint operates on challenging alpine gradients.
(Left) Alstom’s iLint general arrangement. (Below) Alstom’s iLint hydrogen train. (Inset) iLint’s roof mounted fuel cells.
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT Alstom’s iLint in service in Austria.
Narrow-gauge hydrogen train for the Zillertalbahn railway.
Alstom has also signed an agreement with the Italian energy infrastructure company Snam for the development of hydrogen multiple units (HMU) in Italy. Alstom is also to supply six HMUs to the Italian region of Lombardy based on its Coradia Stream regional train platform. The first one is expected to be delivered by 2024. Meanwhile, in France, the company is developing a hydrogen fuel cell variant of its four-car Coradia Polyvalent unit which will carry 200kg of hydrogen to give it a range of around 500km. As Alstom unveiled the iLint at Innotrans in 2016, Siemens announced its new Mireo multiple unit platform which provides a lighter and more energy efficient family of trains for commuter and regional train services. The first Mireo EMU entered service in Germany this year. Also this year, Siemens received an order for 20 battery-powered Mireo Plus B units, which will enter service in Germany in 2023. Siemens is also developing a Mireo plus H variant in partnership with Canadian fuel cell producer Ballard which, by next year, expects to have developed a fuel cell with triple the service life, 50 per cent higher power density and 5 per cent better efficiency than current fuel cells. The Mireo plus H will be as powerful as its EMU variant. Siemens Mobility has also signed an agreement with Siemens Energy to develop an infrastructure solution for fuelling hydrogen trains. Deutsche Bahn and Siemens are planning to test the prototype Mireo hydrogen train in 2024 in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg where a specially designed hydrogen plant will be provided at Ulm.
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In 2018, Stadler received an €88m order to supply five hydrogen trains to the 32-kilometre 760mm-gauge Zillertalbahn in Austria. These trains are due to enter service in December 2022, when this will be the world’s first narrow-gauge railway to operate hydrogen trains. Stadler is also supplying the United States with its first hydrogen train. This will be a two-car FLIRT H2 unit, with the central power car carrying the fuel cells and hydrogen tanks. This unit has been ordered by California’s San Bernardino County Transportation Authority in a contract that has an option to supply a further four vehicles. In another development, CAF is leading the FCH2RAIL consortium’s €14 million project to develop and test a prototype hydrogen train which will be a modified CAF Civia Class 463 three-car EMU. The project has been awarded a €10 million EU grant. CAF has gained experience of fuel-cell technology through its recently acquired Solaris bus subsidiary. Other FCH2RAIL consortium members are German aerospace research centre DLR, Spanish train and infrastructure operators RENFE and ADIF, Toyota Motor Europe, Portuguese infrastructure manager IP, Spanish national hydrogen centre CNH2 and rolling stock component supplier Faiveley Stemmann Technik. Work on the four-year project is to begin in January 2021. The project will explore the use of waste heat from fuel cells to improve energy efficiency and will draft new and updated European technical standards to ensure the interoperability of future hydrogen trains.
UK hydrogen train initiatives In Britain there are three hydrogen trains under development. These are the HydroFLEX being developed by Porterbrook and the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Railway Research & Education (BCRRE), Alstom’s ‘Breeze’ concept and the production of a hydrogen demonstrator train in Scotland. All three hydrogen trains will be conversions of redundant rolling stock. Recycling trains in this way avoids the embedded carbon associated with the production of new rolling stock. However, it limits available options for the location of hydrogen tanks which, due to the low energy density of hydrogen, take up significant amount of space. This is a particular problem in the UK, with its restricted loading gauge. To support the Scottish Government’s rail decarbonisation plans, which require large-scale electrification, Scottish Enterprise and Transport Scotland are jointly leading a project to produce a demonstration hydrogen train. This project is intended to develop the capabilities of Scotland’s supply chain and give its educational institutions knowledge of hydrogen fuelcell technology within the rail industry, help deliver the required standards and inform further development of the Scottish rail decarbonisation plan. A concept design to convert a redundant Class 314 EMU has been produced by Brodie Engineering and Arcola Energy in the first phase of this project. Phase two is producing the train and demonstrating it off Network Rail’s infrastructure. A contract for this phase has been procured by the University of St Andrews through its Hydrogen
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT Accelerator innovation centre. The contract, with an estimated value of £2.75 million, has been awarded to a team led by Arcola Energy, which will develop a local, Scottish supply chain as well build and demonstrate the locomotive. The demonstration unit will also be a showpiece at the global COP 26 environmental conference, which should be held in Glasgow in November 2021.
Class 600 HMU For Alstom, the challenge is to package their proven hydrogen traction technology within a UK-gauge train and to get sponsors’ acceptance of a commercial package for fleet operation. With the experience of the iLint, a UK prototype would serve little purpose and would need a bespoke arrangement for hydrogen fuelling. Instead, a partnership of Alstom and Eversholt, formed in 2017, are investing £2 million to develop their ‘Breeze’ concept, which was unveiled in 2019, and to prepare Alstom’s Widnes facility to produce a ‘Breeze’ fleet. No external funding has been received for this work. The Breeze is a three-car unit that is a conversion of a redundant Class 321 EMU. It has two driving trailer coaches, which each have roof mounted fuel cells and interior hydrogen fuel tanks taking up a third of the coach space. The central motor coach has the traction motors and batteries. The unit will have between 148 and
168 standard class seats which is more than the two-car Class 15x DMUs that they will replace. These trains will be designated Class 600 HMUs and so, as far as numbering is concerned, they will be the first of the 6xx category of units, a new classification for alternatively powered traction. Following discussions with various potential customers for the Class 600 HMU, it is likely that the first deployment will be in the Tees Valley, where Northern Trains have selected the Class 600 HMU as its preferred solution for the operation of zero-emissions rolling stock. This would initially be a fleet of ten trains operating services to Bishop Auckland, Hartlepool, Saltburn and Whitby.
Alstom’s Breeze has hydrogen stored inside the train behind the driver’s cab.
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT HydroFLEX.
Their deployment will be supported by the UK’s first hydrogen transport hub in Teeside. As part of this, it is proposed to build a hydrogen train maintenance facility on the former Lackenby Steelworks site. This will consist of a three-road maintenance shed, stabling for 16 units, train wash and CET facilities along with a hydrogen production and refuelling plant. Alstom has developed a programme for the detailed design and production of Northern’s fleet of 10 Class 600 HMUs that would see the fleet in service by 2024 if authorisation for the fleet was obtained early in 2021.
HydroFLEX The University of Birmingham established its centre for Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Research in 2000 to research practical hydrogen applications. This led to the University’s miniature hydrogen locomotives being a regular entrant at the IMechE Railway Challenge. In 2018, its entry was the “Hydrogen Hero” locomotive, and this was also the year that that BCRRE formed a partnership with Porterbrook to develop a full-sized hydrogen demonstrator train. The resulting HydroFLEX train is a redundant four-car Class 319 unit in which one coach has had its seats and interior fittings removed to house the required equipment. This includes a 100kW Ballard fuel cell, a 650V 84kWh battery pack, four hydrogen tanks storing a total of 20kg of hydrogen at 350bar, the traction control system and other equipment. It took just nine months to modify the Class 319 to enable HydroFLEX to be demonstrated at Rail Live in June 2019. In May 2019, BCRRE was awarded an Innovate UK grant of £350,000 to undertake mainline testing, which required a complex approvals submission for this novel form of traction. As a result, in September 2020, HydroFLEX was able to run on the mainline at speeds of up to 50mph. A further Innovate UK grant of £400,000, awarded in May, is now being spent to locate batteries, traction control system and fuel cells underneath the vehicle to reclaim passenger space and to finalise the design of the fuel cell and battery hybrid traction power system. As the HydroFLEX units retains its overhead line traction equipment, the production version will be configured for operation using both overhead electrification and hydrogen on non-electrified routes. The production version is expected to have a range of 1,000 kilometres, this is the same range as the iLint which has a 90kg hydrogen tank on each vehicle. As the four-car HydroFLEX currently stores 20kg of hydrogen, it remains to be seen whether it will be possible to provide the required range without the hydrogen tanks encroaching into the passenger space.
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In addition to the Innovate UK funding, BCRRE and Porterbrook have themselves invested over £1 million in the HydroFLEX project, which they expect to be ready for series production by the end of 2022.
What next? If rail traction is to be weaned off diesel, hydrogen is the only available alternative traction for passenger services of any distance on nonelectrified lines. However, as the Aberdeen hydrogen bus trial indicates, hydrogen fuel is likely to be more expensive than diesel, although this cost differential should reduce over time. Yet, if the imperative is to eliminate CO2 emissions, it will be difficult to avoid such additional costs. In this respect, including the cost of hydrogen in the train procurement contract, as was done for the Rhine-Maine region’s iLints, might be a way forward. As this feature shows, hydrogen powered trains in Europe are a mature technology on the cusp of fleet operation. In the UK, a few million pounds of innovation funding is being spent to develop home-grown hydrogen trains. Yet, if hydrogen trains are to make a difference, investment of the order of hundreds of millions on train fleets and their associated hydrogen infrastructure is required. This investment is also needed to replace aging Class 15x diesel trains. Furthermore, TNDS recommends that hydrogen train operations should commence soon, so as to gain experience and develop best practice for the longer-term introduction of these trains. As this feature shows, getting these trains into service should not require further innovation funding. Instead, it requires investment in a small fleet of hydrogen trains to replacing aging diesel trains. If government accepts this TNDS recommendation, the UK could see passengers travelling on hydrogen trains in 2024.
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
LIZI STEWART
BEHAVIOUR
C
limate change is such a large issue, and achieving Net Zero such a difficult task, it is all too easy to put our hands up and say: “But what can I do?” The reality is, if you work in the transportation sector, you play too big a part to relinquish responsibility – ‘the buck stops here’, as they say across the Atlantic. Transport is now the largest contributor to UK emissions. Except for the rail sector, demand growth has offset technology gains, meaning that overall domestic transport carbon emissions haven’t changed in 30 years. That’s 30 years where all our efforts haven’t delivered the outcome we need. We cannot repeat this in the next 30 years.
Why change must start with us
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
Change has already begun The pandemic, and the resultant lockdown, provided a small glimpse into how our behaviours can be changed. During the first lockdown, we saw a reduction in urban nitrogen oxide of approximately 30 to 40 per cent and of approximately 23 to 30 per cent in terms of nitrogen dioxide, with evidence of these reductions being even greater at the roadside. We’ve also seen an increase in the use of local facilities, parks, shops and open spaces. However, another more concerning change also began as a result of Covid. As recently reported in the Guardian following a survey by the RAC, the pandemic has put back attitudes to driving versus public transport by two decades, with 65 per cent of UK car owners now considering their vehicle essential. Reluctance to use public transport is at its highest level in 18 years, with only 43 per cent of people willing to use their car less with better access to public transport, down from 57 per cent last year. We cannot underestimate the habits that are being formed in 2020 when it comes to car use, and the challenge ahead of us to get people to re-embrace public transport. PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
We have a key part to play in developing the right transport modes, energy and systems to help reduce transport-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If we fail to do this, we will continue to pump large amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The impacts on the climate, our health and the planet will continue to deteriorate, temperatures will continue to increase, sea levels will continue to rise and our potential legacy cannot be downplayed – without action we will leave future generations to suffer the consequences. None of us went into the transport sector with the objective of doing more harm than good; we have an opportunity to use our collective intelligence to reimagine our approach to transport, and it is our duty to do so.
PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
HUMAN
how climate change and Covid-19 challenge us to act differently
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. The behaviour of every person, and their transport choices in particular, will have an impact on climate change. We are all going to need to make different travel choices to achieve Net Zero. Only by connecting with transport users and gaining insights into their behaviours can we create a truly beneficial transport system. As Covid has shifted society and how it works, the rule book is being re-written in 2020. Luckily, our ability to gather data gives us more knowledge about how transport is being used than ever before. To help re-shape choices as we emerge into our new normal, we need real time data to better inform customers. Travel demand management will no longer just focus around peaks, events or closures to the transport network. As passengers move to being more flexible in their routes to a destination, travel demand management tools will harness data providing real-time, accessible, responsive and personalised travel which not only ‘reduces’, ‘re-routes’, ‘re-times’ and ‘re-modes’ journey decision making, but ‘re-educates’ and ‘rethinks’ end to end journeys.
The incentive to make change happen Incentivisation plays an important role in these shifting behaviours and in the development of lower pollution solutions. Much like the ‘eat out to help out’ initiative resulted in an increase in people’s use of restaurants over the summer – with diners using the scheme more than 10.5 million times in its first week – there is a need to look at how we better incentivise
PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
How we make behavioural change stick
the uptake of greener transport solutions; and also disincentivise the use of more polluting modes of transport. We may shy away from the concept of disincentivising, but, if we think back to the smoking ban and how effectively that was accepted by society, we can see what an impact it can have on creating change and making it stick. The government’s introduction of ‘bike vouchers’ has already supported the increase in cycling and walking, as has the £2 billion investment package in developing the supporting infrastructure in our towns and cities. Likewise, we need to look at how we incentivise and encourage industry to develop low-carbon solutions efficiently. Be it through tax incentives, funding R&D investment, setting regulatory or legal guidelines and restrictions, or through public finance, we need to support the right behaviours, approaches and tools to ensure that builders, manufacturers, consumers and the supply chain can invest in and adopt more carbon-friendly solutions.
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT CASE STUDY: ENCOURAGING ACTIVE TRAVEL TO SCHOOL
But without the right policies, there is no change Without the right policies in place, our best intentions will not be enough. And currently, the policy gap is big – existing transport initiatives are not projected to reduce emissions sufficiently to meet Net Zero by 2050 (although we await DfT’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan). The most important thing to support the UK’s Net Zero ambition will be funding to support plans, strategies and alternative fuel systems. Nuclear, hydrogen and wind power all require considerable investment; ‘15-minute cities’, more accessible, greener public spaces, new buses, trams and rail – all of these potential solutions also require development and investment. For change to happen, it is essential the right funding is available and accessible to those that need it. While this is a regional challenge as well as a national one, our local governments do not have all of the right powers, funding or technical capabilities to tackle climate change on their own. Many local authorities have declared climate emergencies, informed by local data, but they don’t have all the answers; central government needs to drive policy and strategies and provide funding to enable devolved authorities to develop consistent, focussed and targeted plans. I believe that cascading our carbon budget is a critical part of devolution that we must get right. We need to empower sub national transport bodies and local authorities with the accountability, powers and finance to beat their carbon budgets in the critical years ahead.
The time is now So, to meet our Net Zero targets, change is required at every level – from the general public and local and central government to the people and companies who work in industries, like transportation, that are generating the highest emissions. As former US President Barack Obama aptly put it: “We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.” This decade is going to be critical for our climate; we need coordinated, comprehensive climate action globally. We need to act now. Lizi Stewart is managing director – transportation at Atkins.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
Social distancing measures have impacted how children travel to school – nationally, around 50 per cent of school journeys are two miles or less, and of these, many pupils use the public bus system. Post-Covid, we want to encourage pupils to cycle, scoot and walk to school, creating additional bus capacity for those with longer and essential journeys. Atkins worked in partnership with Slough Borough Council (SBC) to encourage parents, staff and pupils to adopt active travel to schools where it is safe and appropriate to do so. Recommendations included promoting Bikeability training for pupils, creating bespoke active travel maps, assessing the provision of onsite cycle/scooter parking to ensure that there was an adequate provision of facilities, providing guidance in setting up walking buses and personalised travel planning. Atkins tapped into the Council’s ‘Better By’ branding to create a suite of marketing materials that schools could use to promote the core message of travelling actively to school. Posters and an outside banner carried the message “Getting to and from school safely and sustainably”, accompanied by a series of pavement stickers that schools could use at entry/ exit points to enforce social distancing. We are continuing to support the monitoring, adaptation and evaluation of the initiative to understand what measures have worked well, in addition to identifying areas of improvement. This will include engaging with head teachers from both primary and secondary schools, conducting online pupil travel surveys, regular meetings with local bus operators, gathering data from Home to School Transport, data from the council’s automatic traffic counter network and reviewing the effectiveness of social media coverage.
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
DAVID SHIRRES
I
n May (issue 184), we reported on the Railway Industry Association (RIA)’s first on-line Unlocking Innovation event. These events have now been running for ten years and aim to inform suppliers about industry challenges and help them respond by encouraging collaboration with research centres such as the UK’s Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN). Holding them on-line does not detract from the aim of informing suppliers. Indeed, viewing the event from the comfort of your own home potentially increases attendance, although the lack of exhibition spaces and the opportunity to network reduces opportunities for new collaborations. In a post-Covid world it will be interesting to see how many, if any, of these events are held online. For now, however, such online events are certainly worthwhile. RIA’s latest Unlocking Innovation event in October was “Routes to Zero Carbon Rail”, held in partnership with Network Rail, UKRRIN and RSSB. Held in October, 29 presentations were given over four days, each of which had different themes – Driving Electrification on Monday, Decarbonising self-powered rolling stock (Tuesday), Zero Carbon Operations, Maintenance & Renewal (Wednesday) and Generation Decarbonisation to finish up on Thursday.
The bigger picture Any discussion of decarbonisation invariably turns to how trains should be powered. Whilst this is indeed the main problem, much more needs to be considered if all parts of the industry are to decarbonise. It was therefore good to hear on wider issues and from outside the industry. Decarbonising telecoms was the subject of Howard Lungley’s presentation on the approach taken by British Telecom, which consumes one per cent of UK’s electricity, has 6,500 buildings and 30,000 vehicles. He stressed that the number of people that need to be involved should not be underestimated. Although this was hard work, he felt that once there was a critical mass of support this becomes self-sustaining.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
RIA’s Richard Jones introduces the event. Efficient electricity generation and transmission will be an essential part of a zero-carbon future. In his presentation, Dr Will Drury explained how UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is supporting the development of clean and resilient PEMD (Power Electronics, Machines and Drives) supply chains. Since 2019, UKRI has invested £80 million to support the growth of companies in this sector. The construction sector also has a big role to play. It is, for example, responsible for 60 per cent of UK waste. In their presentation, Network Rail’s Janet Dunnett and AECOM’s Philip Charles made the case for a national REM (Resource Exchange Mechanism) to encourage the widespread re-use of materials in construction. They explained what was needed for the exchange of surplus materials within and between companies and how this would deliver a wide range of benefits. Chris Hayes explained what Skanska was doing to reduce its current 350,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions to zero by 2045. This included identifying carbon hotspots in the supply chain and the ranking of construction methodologies by both cost and carbon.
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
Routes to
Zero Carbon Rail
New Track Construction (NTC) train lays track at London Bridge. Just as diesels need to be eliminated for rail traction, alternative means of powering construction plant is needed. McCulloch Rail’s TRT (Trac Rail Transposer) has been used in track renewal sites for 15 years and will soon be available in a battery-powered version. Andrew Davies of Unipart explained what this involved and how this project had been given funding by Innovate UK. Hopefully, there will soon be many other such conversions.
Rail Traction Helen McAllister set the scene for the four-day UI event by describing Network Rail’s Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS), which had concluded that traction decarbonisation requires an additional 13,000 single track kilometres (stk) of electrification, with hydrogen and battery trains operating on respectively 1,300 and 800stk of infrastructure. It stressed the need for a long-term plan for a stable and efficient programme and the need to start hydrogen and battery operations as soon as possible to gain experience.
(Left) McCulloch Rail’s TRT.
Helen advised how the TDNS interim programme business case report, published in July, provided the rational for this recommendation, in accordance with HM Treasury guidance. This was based on achieving decarbonisation and other environmental benefits, modal shift, passenger and freight end user benefits, operating cost reductions, rail cost savings, other environmental and wider economic benefits. The interim TDNS report had considered five pathways to various levels of decarbonisation over differing timescales. She advised that those with the best value are those that take longer and go further. The business case, undertaken in accordance with principles agreed with the DfT, gave a range of net present values (NPVs) with a range of electrification costs. Top end costs (GW electrification) gave a negative NPV, with cost effective electrification giving a positive NPV. Helen stressed that this showed that efficient and reliable delivery of electrification schemes was crucial and felt that presentations during the UI event would help set up the industry to do just that.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT TDNS Pathways. Much of this work will be supported by the University of Huddersfield’s research into OLE pantograph interaction. As Professor João Pombo of the university’s Institute of Railway Research (IRR) described, this uses advanced mathematical techniques as well as an advanced test rig that has been recently installed at the university. This new rig complements HAROLD (Huddersfield Adhesion & Rolling Contact Laboratory Dynamics Rig) which is the IRR’s full-scale bogie rolling contact, adhesion and braking rig that was installed in 2016, as described by Professor Paul Allen in a further presentation.
HAROLD.
Current and future research programmes to support RSSB’s ongoing work on rail decarbonisation were described by Andrew Kluth. RSSB has supported the production of the rail industry task force reports and, as Andrew advised, had been asked to continue to provide guidance to the Rail Minister. Much of the RSSB research is considering various traction options, although Andrew noted that future electrification was necessary “on certain lines”. He indicated that, although the rail decarbonisation report has shown that hydrogen was not suitable for freight, recent research suggested that it was being considered by a RSSB research project T1160 on freight traction options. Although traction accounts for 85 per cent of railway energy consumption, Andrew stressed the need for decarbonisation initiatives at property, stations, and depots. He concluded by advising of the need to engage with those outside the rail sector to ensure that rail industry decarbonisation was integrated into the wider transport sector.
Efficient electrification Helen McAllister was right to think that initiatives presented at this UI event would support electrification delivery. Day one of the event had five such presentations. Network Rail’s Richard Stainton gave a wide-ranging explanation of various initiatives. Those intended to reduce the requirement for bridge reconstructions included insulated pantograph horns, ice loading clearances, reviewing OLE gradients, developing a methodology to determine contact wire uplift at bridges and greater use of surge arrestors. Benchmarking piling techniques and OLE structures against European practice could further reduce costs whilst the development of a new supply system using modern protection technology could limit the number of substations required.
An industry view on efficient electrification was given by Justin Moss of Siemens. His presentation emphasised that costeffective electrification requires a steady long-term procurement programme in which suppliers are involved at an early stage. He also described how Siemens’ innovative OLE systems were engineered to reduce costs and so, for example, had fewer components and longer span lengths. Dr Russell Fowler of the National Grid also mentioned the need for long-term planning to ensure that the required connections from the grid are provided for railway electrification, hydrogen electrolysers and battery charging. He also suggested that intermodal hubs sharing the same electricity supply could offer synergies with other surface transport.
Riding Sunbeams Welsh Valley study.
Surge arrestor. In contrast, avoiding grid connections was the theme of the presentation by Alex Byford of Riding Sunbeams. This considered how the supply of power directly from lineside solar panels offered greater carbon savings at lower cost than grid electricity. A study of the Welsh Valley lines considered that solar panels within one kilometre, and wind turbines within two kilometres, of the line could directly supply 38 per cent of the traction demand. However, this would not be commercially viable unless Network Rail’s licence conditions allowed it to be exported to the grid and a suitable costeffective three-to-single phase converter could be developed.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT The presentation from Loughborough University, mentioned below, also modelled intermittent electrification, which has significant issues of cost and practicability.
Intermittent electrification Research into Intermittent electrification is one of the recommendations in the rail industry decarbonisation task force report. The concept is to have a number of short or longer gaps in the OLE to avoid electrifying costly sections. It is the only specific initiative mentioned in the Railway Technical Strategy (RTS) for the goal of cheaper electrification and has also been considered in the following RSSB studies: » T777 which considered the risks of associated lowering of the pantograph » T1145 Appendix I, which showed its benefits on three specific routes » COF-IPS 02 Optimal Power Control of bi-modes, as presented to the UI Webinar, which also considered the potential for intermittent electrification. None of these research reports consider the requirement to provide individual OLE segments with a 25kV supply, which would require a feeder cable to be laid along the line. At a recent RTS webinar, Network Rail’s Richard Stainton indicated that the cost of such a cable could actually be more than the OLE itself. Until recently, it was necessary for bi-mode trains to operate in diesel mode under Steventon bridge, on the Great Western main line in Oxfordshire. This required the pantograph to be lowered quite some distance before the bridge at a location where the driver was not overloaded with other information. After the bridge, the pantograph could only be raised at speed where there was only a simple wire run. As a result, the pantograph had to be lowered for six miles. This aspect considered by research study T777 proposes an automatic lowering and raising system (ALRS) for the pantograph. It estimated the cost to be, at 2020 prices: £3 million development, £40,000 per train and £30,000 per gap. Fortunately, a simple engineering solution was devised by Atkins such that the train could continue through the bridge under electric power, with only a speed restriction of 110mph to make it work (issue 182, March 2020), so intermittent electrification was not required. As far as Rail Engineer is aware, no other railway in the world has electrified routes with intermittent gaps.
Transitional solutions Transitional technologies, that reduce the carbon impact of existing diesel traction before it can be eventually eliminated, are an important aspect of rail decarbonisation. One such technology is G-volution, which is a dual fuel diesel/LNG system which offers CO2 reductions of about 35 per cent. G-volution’s Chris Smith explained how a trial of the system on a Grand Central Class 180 DMU is projected to give 20 per cent fuel savings with a three to five-year payback. Whilst hybrid cars are now commonplace, this technology has yet to be applied on Britain’s passenger railways. Brian Reynolds of Angel Trains explained that this is to change soon as his company is modifying a Class 165 for use on Chiltern Railways that is scheduled to enter service next year. This involves the
removal of old batteries, engine and transmission and their replacement with an underfloor 300kW traction motor, traction battery packs and twin 120kW generator sets with an intelligent IGBT (insulated-gate bipolar transistor) power system. This is expected to offer a 25 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions, as it will enable the unit to operate like a hybrid car with one exception: GPS geofencing will ensure that the unit operates in battery-only mode in stations and other sensitive areas, such a low-emission zones.
125mph Grand Central Class 180 DMU. Mike Edwards of MotiveZero was also promoting hybridisation of an existing diesel train, in this case a diesel shunter. His company produces kits that enable Class 08 locomotives to have their engine/generator set and control system replaced with a traction battery, a ‘range extender’ with a small clean engine and a modern control system. He advised that the modified shunter offers 95 per cent CO2 savings with a 30 per cent reduction in fuel and maintenance costs. Such savings are to be expected, as shunters spend most of their time idling. Three presentations showed the possible energy savings by changing their duty cycle. Dr Tim Harrison explained how Loughborough University had modelled class 802 bi-mode trains operating between London and Plymouth to consider possible fuel savings. This model showed potential CO2 emissions savings of 3.3 per cent from controller optimisation and 19 per cent from selective engine shut down. Enerail’s Peter Ainsworth described how the company’s traction system optimisation, which is intended for the light rail market, had achieved traction savings of up to 20 per cent. It does so by offering a cost-effective driver advisory system and a performance tool that enables drivers to improve their skills by assessing their own performance. Savings from such advisory systems are also shown in our accompanying feature on Russian Railways decarbonisation.
125 mph Grand Central Class 180 DMU.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT Class 66 diesel locomotive.
Dr David Golightly described how Newcastle University had developed DECIDe (Digital Environment for Collaborative Intelligent De-carbonisation). This provides a collaborative simulation environment that facilitates the use of different rail decarbonisation and power optimisation simulations which he illustrated with examples of driving techniques and the provision of hydrogen for a specific service.
Hydrogen trains Not surprisingly, the webinar included presentations from Mike Muldoon on Alstom’s ‘Breeze’ concept and Stuart Hillmansen of the University of Birmingham on the development of HydroFLEX. These are both described in our accompanying feature on hydrogen trains. Points about hydrogen supply in this feature were also amplified in the presentation by David Horsfall of Tyseley Energy Park and Stephen Kent of the University of Birmingham. This made it clear that supplying a fleet of hydrogen trains by road was unrealistic. Whilst an HGV diesel tanker can deliver diesel to refuel 20 threecar units, an HGV hydrogen tanker can only fuel two such trains. A typical fleet of ten trains would require around three tonnes of hydrogen per day, which could be produced by an electrolyser that would require a 10MW electrical supply. Unlike red diesel, there are currently no tax incentives for the production of hydrogen to power rail and road vehicles by fuel cells. Hence, if hydrogen is to be affordable, the electricity that produces it needs to be generated locally to avoid grid fees and taxes. David Horsfall explained how the Tyseley Energy Park has a 10MW waste-wood biomass plant and two 25MW energy-fromwaste plants, together with a 3MW electrolyser plant which will supply the fleet of 20 hydrogen buses that will start service in Birmingham in 2021. If a fleet of hydrogen trains was based at Tyseley, they could be supplied with a new 25MW electrolyser directly supplied with energy produced from waste. Matt Candy’s Steamology team designed the 380hp steam turbine that powered the world’s fastest steam car, which achieved 148mph at Edwards Air Force base in 2009. Since then they have used this experience to develop an efficient turbine fuelled by mixing hydrogen and oxygen. As a method of producing energy from hydrogen, Matt advised that this has three advantages over fuel cells: the turbine is more energy dense; it has a longer life and is less expensive. However, unlike a fuel-cell-powered vehicle, which combine hydrogen with oxygen taken from the air, the Steamology turbine requires the on-board storage of compressed oxygen. There is no doubt that the Steamology turbine is an impressive piece of kit. Matt advised that it “challenges the assertion that hydrogen freight could not be done”. However, his presentation did not consider the fundamental problem that hydrogen takes up more than seven times the space of diesel fuel. Indeed, the Steamology turbine requires the storage of both hydrogen and oxygen.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
Matt advised this is not a problem, as the turbine takes up much less space than fuel cells. Yet, on the iLint, the space required by the fuel cells is a quarter of the total fuel cell/hydrogen storage space, so the space saved by the use of a turbine would only be a small percentage of this and probably taken up by the additional oxygen tanks required. This presentation, therefore, offered no reason to contradict the TDNS report’s conclusion that hydrogen traction is not practical for rail freight. Similarly, an energy-dense steam generator offers little advantage for freight traction. The diesel tank of a Class 66 freight locomotive holds 6,400 litres of diesel. Storage of the same amount of energy would require 50 cubic metres of hydrogen at a pressure of 350bar. In practice, even more space would be required, as this pressure requires small diameter tanks which cannot be efficiently packaged. Storing this large amount of hydrogen would require at least one tender vehicle to power a locomotive with the power of a Class 66 (2.3 MW). There can be little doubt that, to attract freight from road to rail, the rail freight business would prefer a 4MW electric locomotive with three times the efficiency of a hydrogen locomotive.
Decarbonisation innovation As ever, the RIA Unlocking Innovation event highlighted some impressive initiatives, good practice in other industries, and showed the availability of funding to develop worthwhile innovations. If Britain’s railways are to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, innovations that deliver efficient electrification, fuel savings, lower carbon transitional arrangements and improve the capabilities of battery and hydrogen trains will have an essential part to play. However, innovations cannot change the laws of physics that make electric trains more powerful and efficient than selfpowered traction. This is even more true in a net-zero world, when diesel will have been replaced by much less energy-dense batteries and hydrogen. Yet there remain calls for innovative alternatives to electrification from some influential politicians, which resulted in a recent newspaper headline of “Rush to electrify rail risks new diesel fiasco.” The chairman of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee also recently stated that electricity is dirty and we have hydrogen just around the corner. Whilst it is important to keep an open mind about nonconventional solutions, such as Steamology’s hydrogen-powered freight trains and intermittent electrification, it is also essential that fundamental constraints are assessed and addressed before they are presented as real possibilities and taxpayer’s money is invested in them. Otherwise, such proposals can only undermine political acceptance of the industry’s vision for rail decarbonisation.
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
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Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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Russian Routes to Zero Carbon Rail
DAVID SHIRRES
T Russian freight train hauled by a three-unit class VL80 electric locomotive. These Soviet-era locomotives are being replaced by more modern traction.
he Russian International Transport and Logistics Forum PRO// MOTION.1520 is usually held in Sochi and attracts delegates for many countries. Not surprisingly, this year it was held online. Its “Green Swan Solutions” session considered environmental initiatives and took place at the same time as the RIA Routes to Zero Carbon Rail webinar. With the Russian forum recorded for later viewing, it was interesting to be able to compare these simultaneous events. Introducing this session, Russian Railways chief engineer Sergey Kobzev highlighted his company’s environmental credentials. Employing 700 environmental managers, Russian Railways has an environmental educational programme for school children and has policies that protect vulnerable ecological systems that include the requirement to plant seven trees for each one it cuts down.
World leading
13,120kW 4ES5K Ermak locomotive which was the world’s most powerful when introduced in 2014.
Sergey advised that the company saw electrification and measures to reduce energy savings as key to reducing emissions. Russian Railways has reduced its carbon emissions by 85 per cent since 2003 and, he claimed, is a world leader in having the lowest rail freight train emissions. In 2015, these were just nine grammes per tonne kilometre, compared with the UK figure of 33.
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
More than half of the 85,500km Russian rail network has now been electrified and electric trains carry 85 per cent of all rail passenger journeys. Of the 2,653 billion tonne kilometres (tk) of freight carried by Russian Railways, 87 per cent is hauled by electric traction. This volume is forecast to increase to 3,166 billion tk by 2025, with much of it forecast to increase on far eastern non-electrified routes. Hence the company has an electrification programme there to maintain its high level of electric freight haulage. It also has plans to spend almost two billion euros on 1,000 electric locomotives over the next three years and to increase its fleet of Lastochka EMUs from 183 to 270 by 2021. These investments are being financed by Green Bonds – Russian Railways is one of the first Russian companies to use this type of investment finance.
SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT Since 2012, Russian Railways has equipped over 4,000 locomotives with active driver-advisory systems, which now operate on 7,500 route kilometres and are currently saving 1.2 billion kWh per annum.
Finnish diesels Tatu Tuominen, senior vice president of Finnish Railways, does not believe that hydrogen or battery traction could replace his company’s 222 aging diesel locomotives which form 58 per cent of the locomotive fleet. He felt that modern diesel traction could significantly reduce emissions. For example, Finland took delivery of the first two of nine Wabtec 1525mm-gauge Powerhaul locomotives in June. These have a 2,760kW diesel engine with common-rail fuel injection and are fitted with AC traction that has individual axle control, resulting in an 18 per cent reduction in fuel consumption compared with current locomotives.
Finland also ordered 60 diesel locomotives from Stadler in 2019 in a contract worth 200 million euros, with an option for a further 100 locomotives. These have a central cab and can be used as either remotecontrolled shunting locomotives or on the main line, where they have a maximum speed of 120 kilometres per hour. They have an AC traction system with one inverter per axle for better adhesion performance. Their maximum starting tractive effort of 346kN enables them to haul a two thousand tonne train.
Alternative Traction The technical director of Transmashholding, Mikhall Rozhkov, advised that his company is developing locomotives powered by Russia’s abundant Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). Although not zero-carbon, he advised that typical diesel and LNG freight train CO2e emissions were respectively 750 and 500kg per kilometre and that LNG also offers a significant reduction in harmful emissions.
Energy savings as driver advisory systems have been progressively introduced since 2012.
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Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENT
(Above) Class GTh1 8,300kW LNG-powered gas turbine locomotive. (Inset) Class TEM19 LNG-powered shunting locomotive.
Sapsan is a Russian-gauge version of the Siemens Velaro high-speed train. Siemens and Russian Railways are to develop a more energy-efficient high-speed train to be produced in Russia.
He also mentioned that his company had considered the use of batteries on freight trains. Whilst they have potential for last mile use, he noted that, if a typical 6,300 tonne freight train was to have battery traction on the main line, it would need 24 cars carrying batteries! There was some discussion about hydrogen trains at the conference, as Philippe Pegorier of Alstom Russia described the iLint and Alexander Liberov of Siemens Russia described his company’s proposal for a hydrogen variant of its new Mireo train platform. He also mentioned that his company is to develop a high-speed train jointly with Russian Railways, with 80 per cent of its value manufactured in Russia. Energy efficiency, and in particular aerodynamics, is to be a particular aspect of its design. Russia’s first hydrogen train is also to be produced in Russia. Transmashholding’s Rozhov advised that his company is to build this train,
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
which is the subject of an agreement with Russian Railways, Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, and the Sakhalin Region. Rosatom is to supply the hydrogen equipment and the train is expected to be operational on the far-eastern island of Sakhalin in 2024. International events provide a worthwhile insight into how other railways are addressing the decarbonisation challenge. This was clearly a priority for those at this Russian forum, most of whom were concerned with heavyhaul rail freight. For them, electrification and modern diesel traction are considered to be the way forward, with perhaps a role for LNG locomotives. For me, the most interesting comparison was worldwide railway emissions records, which showed that Russia is indeed a world leader, at least so far as rail freight emissions are concerned.
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FEATURE
NEW CANOPIES
FOR A HISTORIC STATION
T
he station at Pembroke Dock is steeped in history and character. It opened in 1863 and was later adapted, as the station grew in the early 1900s following the takeover of Pembroke and Tenby by Great Western Railway, with fully glazed canopies added over the station entrance and platform.
Now a Grade II listed building situated in a conservation area, Pembroke Dock station has recently been regenerated as part of the £24 million Wales Station Improvement Scheme. The project includes restoration of the station canopies, which will stand the test of time. Principal contractor AmcoGiffen focused on renewing the station, while adhering to the specification to keep the historic design and character of the station. AmcoGiffen brought in Twinfix, a family business that has been involved in the polycarbonate roof glazing market for nearly 30 years. With its team of experts in the polycarbonate and roof glazing fields, Twinfix works on developing the best, newest and most cost-effective roof glazing products. To restore Pembroke Dock station, Twinfix supplied its Multi-Link-Panel non-fragile roofing system to replace the existing, old, tired, discoloured glazing.
Before.
Better than like-for-like The innovative Georgian wired MultiLink-Panel NF (non-fragile) roof-glazing was an ideal fit for the refurbishment project at Pembroke. It was important to retain the feel of a station, so a sympathetic restoration would be crucial. However, it was also essential to not just replace like with like – while traditional materials may look the same, there are often disadvantages associated with them. Georgian wired polycarbonate is a 6mm solid polycarbonate sheet with a dimpled surface that mimics the Georgian wired glass that it was replacing, but it will not break over time. Substantiality is a key advantage of the Multi-Link-Panel and this long lasting, very low maintenance material will ensure the station glazing needs very little attention, as these panels will not break. As well as ensuring the new glazing’s looks were in keeping with the historic Pembroke Dock station, it is also important to improve the safety of the roof and the MultiLink-
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
After.
Panel system is classified as non-fragile in accordance with the ACR(M)001:2014 roofing test. This is an important feature of the roof and brings it up to date with modern day safety requirements. In addition, the access hatches at
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FEATURE
Pembroke Dock are designed to allow access from underneath, rather than on top of the roof, enhancing the safety of the roof. These access hatches are also designed to blend into the glazing and fit the heritage requirements of this historic station.
Quick and safe installation Off-site construction is very important in rail and, as the panel is made and assembled in the Twinfix factory, it allows for a very quick installation and also results in fewer errors on the install than other systems, as any corrections are carried out before it hits the site. Vicky Evans, joint managing director at Twinfix, said “The non-fragile MultiLink-Panel has a long list of advantages. The new roof system is non-fragile which is a very important safety feature. The Georgian wired polycarbonate glazing looks the same as the old glass, so really is in keeping with the look of the station. The system, as a whole, brings the required key safety features whilst still being aesthetically pleasing.” Chris Howchin, capital delivery programme manager at Network Rail added “Twinfix have delivered a fantastic canopy at Pembroke for the community and our passengers, being brighter, better and of course, in
keeping with the station itself. The safer access panels alongside the incredibly resilient polycarbonate panels and fixing mechanisms mean that the canopy will be in good condition for the years to come. Thank you Twinfix.” Paul Childs, company secretary for the Railway Heritage Trust, commented: “The Railway Heritage Trust supported Network Rail’s decision to use Twinfix in
Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
the restoration of the canopies, which was carried out in a sympathetic and considered manner on this historic structure.” Now complete, the installation is a wonderful example of the Georgian wired Multi-Link-Panel system. Twinfix, AmcoGiffen and Pembroke Dock station can all be very proud of the refurbished premises.
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DfT
Educating the Government
T
he two buzz words in vogue are ‘Digital Railway’ and ‘Innovation’. Both appear ad nauseam, and one has to question what they actually mean and whether the people who quote them actually understand what is being promoted.
It seems that the Department for Transport (DfT) has the same problem and a refreshingly frank hour-long teleconference session took place recently, in which the Minister for Rail – Chris Heaton-Harris – acted as chairman, with a panel of experts responding to his questions to try and explain precisely what these words mean. Some responses were not quite what was expected, but, if this event succeeded in determining some of the terminology, it was very worthwhile.
East Coast main line (ECML) where £350 million is already committed to ERTMS introduction. Of the other two areas, the GE route aligns with a proposal put forward by Alstom back in 2017 which viewed London-Norwich as an ideal candidate for ETCS introduction. However, we shall have to wait and see what is proposed, but, if lineside signals are to be abolished, then all trains running in those areas must be fitted.
New spending The session began with the Minister announcing that £1.2 million was to be made available for feasibility studies into three more areas of ERTMS / ETCS implementation. These are: 1. parts of the West Coast main line (WCML) in the Warrington / Wigan area; 2. the Midland main line (MML); 3. the Great Eastern Anglia area including Norwich to Peterborough. Of these, the MML makes most sense, as the Thameslink Class 700 trains that operate to Bedford are already using ETCS in the central London core, so they could remain in that mode as they exit towards Bedford. This also applies to Thameslink trains that run to Peterborough and Cambridge over the
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CLIVE KESSELL
A broad array of panelists To assist the understanding, a team of experts was assembled to answer the Minister’s questions, with 150 or so guests listening in. The experts were: » Rob Morris is managing director of Siemens Mobility’s signalling operation in the UK and one of the suppliers of ETCS systems – the fourth generation of signalling technology that the company, with its origins going back to Westinghouse and Invensys, has been
FEATURE What lessons have been learned so far from the ECML project? Both RIA and Network Rail emphasised the need to bring industry together with the supplier(s) being involved at the outset and the end users – the TOCs, FOCs and route managers – being part of the process. The Finsbury Park to Moorgate branch in London is well underway and the migration strategy has involved all parties to ensure effective co-ordination. This model will be used to implement later stages of the project as it proceeds northwards. Ongoing lessons learned must be back fed into the supply organisations.
What direct passenger benefits can the digital railway bring?
involved with, dating back to the 1800s. » Professor Clive Roberts, from Birmingham University, who, with eight co-partnering universities and 18 industrial partners, is leading the way with technical innovation into the rail industry. » Luisa Moisio, the R&D Director at RSSB, is watching closely the migration of current signalling technology towards ETCS implementation and the safety aspects that need to be assured. » Toufic Machnouk, the route programme director for the Network Rail ECML project, is tasked with delivering all aspects of ETCS introduction from Kings Cross to just short of Grantham. This means moving from a system fixed around infrastructure to one where drivers are directly advised of the movements ahead. This will need a route-based approach with whole industry participation. » David Clarke is technical director of the Railway Industry Association (RIA). His concern is the need to replace 60,000 SEUs (Signal Equivalent Units) in the next few years with ETCS systems and whether the supply industry has the capacity to deliver this. Getting costs down to mainland European levels must be part of the challenge as well as ensuring a consistent workflow to prevent a ‘boom and bust’ investment. » Kelvin Davies from UKRI – UK Research and Innovation UK – stressed the need to introduce digital technology in small incremental schemes, such as the re-booking of tickets and improved information to staff.
Questions to the panel What does digital signalling mean to the supply chain? This was the first of several questions getting to the core of the terminology. For Siemens, recognition exists that ETCS is already established in the UK – on the Cambrian Line, the Thameslink core, the Crossrail extremities out to Heathrow and, in progression, the ECML, and as such the UK can sell its expertise abroad. RIA believes that industry is ready technically, but logistically there is still a long way to go. Network Rail must determine how many suppliers it wants in the market, but the three already incumbent will be insufficient if the rate of ETCS roll out is to be accelerated. There needs to be a total new way of delivering projects as incremental changes to the current methodology will not reduce cost.
The RSSB believes the biggest benefit will be to improve the reliability of services, although it is admitted that this will not be noticed directly but only in the form of performance statistics. The remote monitoring of assets using digital links should be capable of predicting failures before they actually happen. An improved door-to-door experience should lead to a challenge for lowering fares. For the universities, digital signalling (ETCS) ought to be capable, when interfaced with other systems such as Traffic Management, of enabling quicker timetable reconstruction when train service problems occur. Small companies with specialist IT and digital development knowledge must be encouraged to feed their products into passenger interfaces, providing, of course, that access data is available. Innovate UK believes that providing direct information to the user’s smart phone is desirable. Examples would be: 1. helping travellers find the right platform and coach number,
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FEATURE 2. giving disabled people much greater confidence that access and exit facilities will be provided at the relevant stations, 3. provision of customer entertainment and virtual reality information on where the train currently is and which station is being approached. A good example of this is the Liskeard-Looe line in Cornwall where a digital app enables passengers to view the line on screen. Entertainment provision could prove controversial, but the younger generation today are hooked into screens and seem totally oblivious of their surroundings. All of this does depend on data being made available, but it can be done, an example being the Real Time Trains app.
What is the UK learning from other countries? Network Rail is closely monitoring events in Denmark and the Netherlands as both countries implement ETCS programmes. It is clear that migration is the big challenge and, alongside that, the interaction with the driver. Observing things that are not going well is as important as knowing what elements are successful. Innovate UK is very aware of enterprise overseas but to use these, collaboration will be needed to get such innovations introduced and demonstrated into the UK. The ‘not invented here’ ethos still exists and can be very counter productive. At university level, international knowledge transfers take place regularly. The Shift2Rail project within Europe is a good example of sharing knowledge. Birmingham University has working relationships with China, Singapore and Brazil, but very much on the basis of a two-way offering.
How do we embrace new ways of doing things? This question prompted answers from the technologists on the panel. RIA sees a need for a digital design and development forum. To get costs down, the ability to demonstrate a new product or system in a factory using a simulation of the real railway is a real digital win. This must apply to such activities as signalling testing. For universities, the importance of simulation suites to test out new and innovative ways on how a railway operation might be improved must become part of normal development methodolgy. The idea of a ‘block chain’ concept, where a virtual ledger is created to test out the value of new technology, is seen as worthwhile. There is no point in pursuing things if they are going to cost more and offer little real benefit.
How can people be changed to keep pace with the technology? This final question is a difficult one, as many people are resistant to change and it is often left to a future generation to adopt newer technology and working practices. For the ECML project, a lot of effort is being put into both explaining and training for the new technology across all organisations that are needed
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to operate the railway. The aim is that technology should be an enabler of the people and not the other way round. Universities already have 500 students studying rail subjects, which includes the impact on people as well as technology. They will shortly take over the national college of transportation and infrastructure, which will impact on school leavers right through to PhD students.
Was it worthwhile? Getting government better informed on rail technology has to be good and, hopefully, the Minister’s understanding was improved. The Digital Railway banner is a convenient image for the public to grasp, even though the thrust of digital systems into rail operations in the UK started back in 1973 with TOPS (Total Operations Processing System) for wagon movement monitoring. Since then, virtually every railway operation, finance and people control relies on digital systems, so it is not exactly novel. Equally, innovation is an overused word, and it is acknowledged that the application of ETCS is not innovative in terms of the technology (the system began life in the 1990s) but will require innovation in its application. It must be remembered that the ERTMS concept embraces three different applications: ETCS for signalling, GSM-R for radio connectivity and ETML for traffic management. Of these, it is easy to forget the GSM-R element, which will require replacement in the next five to 10 years. Progress on a new 5G system is being made internationally, but the migration of one to the other will itself be a challenge and probably need much innovative thinking. Remember – if the radio connection is lost, the ETCS element is virtually useless. Innovation is much more likely to come in smaller developments, where usage can impact directly on the travelling public. Well done to the DfT for initiating this debate, and maybe they will do likewise with other controversial railway topics in due course.
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FEATURE
Cross Acceptance of Systems and Equipment CLIVE KESSELL
T
he lengthy time taken to get new projects, systems and equipment into service is something that gives many of us a sense of despair. It never used to be like that, so what has happened to make things so complicated and what can be done to speed things up? Part of the problem is that legislation has been introduced at both UK and European levels that imposes a series of rigorous checks to ensure systems are safe, secure and reliable. From this, a whole industry has grown up to independently verify all of these checks and certify a general ‘fit for purpose’. Is it all overkill and does it have significant cost implications that cause projects to be more expensive than they need be? Two associated articles in this edition (RIA Conference and DfT Session) give a general concern as to the level of bureaucracy that has crept into the business of delivering successful projects. To try and put some of this into context, Professor Rod Muttram recently delivered a lecture to the IRSE on the subject of Cross Acceptance. He attempted to explain how it can be a positive influence for the introduction of new technology, but he also set out how difficult it can be for all parties to buy into the whole process.
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So, what is Cross Acceptance? The concept is that a system or product, which is successfully used in one country, should be capable of being used in another country without having to go through a full back-tobasics approval process. The process is not something new and the IRSE International Technical Committee first put forward a proposal for this as long ago as 1992, focussing mainly on safety validation but stopping short of giving a formal definition of cross acceptance and how it would be implemented. Since then, the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European
Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) have set out some basic parameters as to how cross acceptance can be achieved. The issues can be logged as: » Specifying the functional requirements; » Compliance with international standards; » Separation of generic software from application software and between programmes and data – the system architecture; » Determination of which parts of a system are vital and how this is protected; » Whether systems can be designed to be carried out by contractors, railway engineers or both; » The need to have a validation plan. From these have emerged EU standards EN50126 (environment), EN50128 (software) and EN50129
FEATURE Implications for signalling
(systems) and Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) 1 to 4, which can also be controversial as to how they are applied to different elements of a system. Software is very common in most railway equipment across all the engineering disciplines, but it is perhaps the biggest factor in persuading potential users that it is transferable without full revalidation.
The European dimension The Safety Case dominates the end result. Quantifiable safety targets are embedded and are mandatory within the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs), which have emerged piecemeal, the main ones being: » TI 91/440 demanded that rail development separated infrastructure from train operation, at least in financial accounting. This would make it easier for international trains to cross borders to a common standard, as well as stimulating competition. » TI 96/48 required transEuropean high-speed lines to operate to a common train control system, so as to ensure the development of a single system for both infrastructure and cab equipment. The result of this has been ERTMS with its component parts of ETCS, GSM-R and ETML. The latter is the European Traffic Management Layer, which never really got off the ground and reliance is put on proprietary Traffic Management Systems. Since high speed lines were
invariably new builds, legacy rules for operations and signalling did not feature, making compliance less of a problem. These lines do not have level crossings and those built prior to the ERTMS standard will eventually be converted. » TI 2001/16 covers interoperability of transEuropean conventional rail routes, thus imposing a standard on many lines equipped with previously developed national signalling systems and clearly much more difficult to implement and over a longer time frame. The intention is that significant signalling upgrades or renewals will require ERTMS to be fitted. Subsequent Directives 2004/50 and 2007/32 have consolidated these three into newer versions, but with the crux of the requirements remaining the same.
With a history of standards and specifications being different between countries and suppliers having products that are not compatible with each other, getting cross-acceptance in place is not an activity that comes naturally. Realisation has dawned that perpetuating existing signalling practices when replacement projects are planned is not a sensible way forward. Now that ETCS has reached a maturity level and the industry is geared up to supplying ETCS products, new signalling solutions should now focus on the ERTMS standard and, indeed, it is mandatory for the routes described above. The decision is straightforward, but the limits of conformity are not ideal. In the days when interoperability was being discussed, two possibilities existed: » The ‘white box’ product, whereby all equipment from all manufacturers would be totally compatible to allow interchangeability of products, regardless of who made it. Thus, a train with a Siemens unit installed could be replaced with a unit from Alstom if the first unit had failed. » The ‘black box’ solution, which only required
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standardised interoperability across the ‘air gap’ between the train and the ground equipment via the GSM-R radio link. Thus, a failed ETCS unit on a train had to be replaced by a unit from the same manufacturer. Taking account of the investment already made by the different manufacturers of ETCS products, and the cost of having to redesign everything, it was reluctantly accepted that the black box solution was the only practical way forward. This has stifled competition and owners of train fleets are effectively locked into the supplier of the initial chosen system. The result is the emergence of a ‘Systems Market’, whereby the supplier is responsible for the whole system and not just products within it. The onus for satisfactory performance thus rests with the contractor, who has to ensure that the system is compatible with the country’s operating rules, including such things as level crossing requirements. This leads to considerable specialisation and increased costs.
Cross-acceptance challenges If a system or product is to be cross accepted, the usage of the system in the new country must have significant synergies with the country of current usage. This can cover a multitude of factors:
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temperature range, vibration, power supply, definition of vital and non-vital and all other sub systems and components. Then there is the software, where the development tends to follow an evolutionary path from the previous product rather than working from a generic specification. In any case, if cross acceptance is to be achieved, full details of the software need to be provided and there is reluctance from the supplier community to share this level of information. Backward compatibility assurance to earlier variants of the system can be difficult and can result in expensive re-validation.
Barriers to cross acceptance Across Europe, 27 different operating rules represent another challenge. If cross acceptance is to be achieved, some harmonisation has to happen, but getting motivation and approval for common rules is a fraught process.
The evidence is that cross acceptance should reduce cost and speed up deployment, but vested interest groups remain and may well resist the principal intentions. As has been mentioned, suppliers of signalling systems have a history of success by being different to competitors and it was a long time before even the ‘black box’ air gap interface was accepted as part of ERTMS interoperability. A change of mind set is required which might only come from a new generation of design and system engineers. Equally, the safety-approval industry could see much of its work reduced if cross acceptance becomes a reality in terms of generic systems and products, leaving only the application element needing independent verification before commissioning.
Successes and failures Asked whether cross acceptance is becoming a norm in Europe, the answer is – “not really”. There are examples where it has happened; the Bombardier CityFlo 650 control system that was developed initially for the Pittsburgh Metro was successfully migrated to Madrid Metro, using elements of cross acceptance and periods of shadow running. Regrettably, it failed to migrate to the LU sub-surface line resignalling project, mainly because of doubts over the maturity of the product and it not being possible to meet the LU legacy specifications.
FEATURE
Operating rules led to significant problems when trying to implement the Bombardier EbiLock R3 interlocking into the Horsham resignalling project (the scheme was eventually abandoned), the Siemens SIMIS-W interlocking at Portsmouth and the Ansaldo ACC system at Manchester South between Cheadle Hulme and Crewe. The latter was designed to turn signals ‘black’ if a failure occurred, where UK practice demands they go to red. Also, the brightness of the signal displays did not meet the UK specification. Better results came from the American Harmon Vital Logic Controller as used on the Norwich Cromer line, the Bletchley–Bedford line and the Sheerness branch, but even with these, more validation was required than was originally thought necessary. A significant success has been the adoption by Atkins of the GE (originally Harmon) ElectroLogIXS interlocking. Whilst Atkins is one of Network Rail’s nominated signalling system suppliers, it did not have its own solid-state interlocking. Negotiations to obtain and get approved the GE equipment proved successful with its first UK application being the Old Oak Common depot for Crossrail (Elizabeth line). It sounds small beer, but it is a huge site and the installation was awarded Innovation of the Year for 2020. Since then, the interlocking has been deployed on the Shepperton branch as Phase 1 of the Feltham area resignalling, the Norwich-Yarmouth-
Lowestoft resignalling project and will be used on the rest of the Feltham project1. The approval process did involve some modifications to suit UK interfaces and was not cheap, but cross-acceptance principles made it easier. The development in the UK of Automatic Train Operation (ATO) superimposed upon ETCS for the Thameslink central core is seen as something that could be cross accepted by other countries. The GSM-R radio components are universally accepted across Europe but with the advent within five years of a new radio standard, the implications for cross acceptance will again emerge.
It could be worse! Cross acceptance is regarded by some with considerable caution. There are hopeful signs, but software awareness and associated knowledge may be key to ongoing success. Changing software is complex and can lead to a
lot of revalidation, even for the simplest of requirements. The supply industry should be capable of recognising that having a cross accepted product can be beneficial in the wider market. Whilst the European situation has its challenges, it is simple when compared to what is going on in the USA. Following a number of serious train accidents, it was decreed that a system of Positive Train Control should be implemented on all railroads. There is no harmonised framework in America and railroads develop their own systems, with the result that four separate solutions exist across the country, depending on area and type of railroad, none of them being interoperable. The initial implementation dates were never realistic and the saga continues. Whilst this article has focussed on signalling systems, cross acceptance is equally applicable to electrification, rolling stock and many civil engineering activities, where it is understood the same constraints exist. Considerable progress has been made with rolling stock, and manufacturers now build trains to a standardised platform where gauging, EMC and such like are no longer a problem. We all wait to see whether cross acceptance will become a norm in the years to come.
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TROUBLE with TRACK
NIGEL WORDSWORTH
I
t could be argued that the most important asset that a railway has is its track. On Network Rail’s website, under ‘About Us’, it states: “Network Rail owns, operates and develops Britain’s railway infrastructure. That’s 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We manage 20 of the UK’s largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are managed by the country’s train operating companies.” The 20,000 miles of track comes first on that list. Follow the ‘track’ link, and the site states: “We’re responsible for looking after Britain’s rail network, including maintaining and renewing 20,000 miles of track. “When we talk about railway track, we mean the whole structure that trains run on, including: » Rails – these are the lengths of steel that are welded together. » Sleepers – these are supports for the rails. » Switches and crossings – these are moveable sections of track that guide trains from one track to another and allow them to cross paths. They have an especially limited lifespan because trains cause wear and deformation when they travel across them. » Sets of points – these are mechanical systems that move the switches and crossings.” So, Network Rail sees track as being important, and it breaks that down into three elements – rails, sleepers and switches and crossings (S&C), which includes points (London Underground even calls them ‘points and crossings (P&C)’ rather than ‘switches and crossings’). All three track elements have been in the news recently.
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Rails In the UK, steel rails are made at Scunthorpe. This is an integrated steel works – it has a blast furnace and makes first iron, then steel, then rolls it into rails. The works has had several owners over the years. Recently it was British Steel Corporation, then Corus, next Tata, and was finally purchased in June 2016 by Graybull Capital, an
PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS
“entrepreneurial investment group, whose purpose is to improve businesses for all stakeholders”, and its name was changed ‘back’ to British Steel. To start with, it looked as though Graybull did indeed improve the business. A £79 million loss in Financial Year 16 became a £47 million profit in FY17 and an even larger profit in FY18. However, those figures didn’t tell the whole story and Graybull placed the company into liquidation in May 2019. It wasn’t Graybull Capital that went into liquidation, just British Steel. Network Rail, the largest user of rail in the UK, had three companies contracted to supply rails on zero-value frameworks, British Steel, Voestalpine (Austria) and Arcelor Mittal (Spain), although the reality was that it took around 95 per cent of its 100,000-tonne annual requirement from British Steel. When what was then Network Rail’s National Delivery Service (NDS) agreed the contract with Corus that underpinned the move of rail rolling from Workington to Scunthorpe in 2005, one of the key objectives was to obtain 108-metre lengths of rail ‘as rolled’, without the need to weld shorter lengths together. These themselves could then be welded into 216-metre lengths before delivery to site.
To make sure that it could obtain satisfactory supplies from its other two suppliers, Network Rail brought in batches of long length rails from both of them. Those from Voestalpine came to the UK both through the channel tunnel and by sea, the deliveries from Arcelor Mittal came only by sea. Some of the latter came as short lengths, welded up at Network Rail’s own Eastleigh facility, but at least one delivery of long lengths was made as well, proving it could be done. In addition, Network Rail created several stockpiles of rail, one in a dedicated area on the Scunthorpe site and others around the country, close to the regions and routes that would use it. Several organisations looked at acquiring British Steel from the liquidators, including two from Turkey. Network Rail even explored the possibility of buying some of the facilities used for rail finishing if it looked as though the plant would otherwise close down. However, the plant was eventually sold to Jingye of China, so Network Rail’s supply was safe, although the stockpiles and the proven possibility of volume supply from elsewhere no doubt gave some comfort as well. While Network Rail was satisfied, the situation wasn’t so good for UK PLC. British Steel had two rolling mills – the one at Scunthorpe and another at Hayange in Northern France, the former Sogerail operation acquired by Corus in 1999. Both of these plants could roll long lengths. All the raw steel was made in Scunthorpe, but around 400,000 tonnes a year of steel ‘blooms’ were shipped off – by rail – to Hayange for rolling. Although much of that rail was then sold to French national railway company SNCF and the German equivalent Deutsche Bahn (DB), a little did come back to the UK. For example, Crossrail had used some heat-treated rail, and the only heat-treatment facility was in Hayange. Some railway applications require the use of hardened steel rails to withstand heavy use. That can be achieved in two ways – to make the rails out of a steel alloy that is inherently harder and tougher than that normally used for rail (the Scunthorpe solution), or to make the rails out of a heat-treatable grade of steel and then put them through a heat-treatment oven (the Hayange solution).
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Network Rail uses only the former, so it wasn’t affected when Hayange was split off from the sale of British Steel to Jingye. The French Government viewed the supply of rail as a strategic resource, and it didn’t want to have it in the hands of a Chinese company, so Hayange was pulled out of the deal. As a result, Hayange resourced its steel supply elsewhere, the UK lost 400,000 tonnes of steel exports and 450 Scunthorpe workers lost their jobs.
Sleepers As well as 100,000 tonnes of rail a year, Network Rail uses around 800,000 concrete sleepers, although the quantity can vary significantly year-on-year. The bulk of these sleepers conform to the G44 pattern, a heavy, steel-reinforced monobloc sleeper designed for 30-tonne axle loads and 140mph running. There are a couple of other patterns of concrete sleepers, including the shallower EG47, and Network Rail still uses some wooden and some pressed steel sleepers, but G44 is by far the largest usage. Network Rail used to have two main suppliers for these sleepers. Tarmac from its plant at Tallington, near Stamford in Lincolnshire, and RMC at Washwood Heath in Birmingham. RMC was bought out by the Mexican Cemex group in 2004. Tarmac was to cease production of concrete sleepers at Tillington, and the Washwood Heath works was right in the path of HS2 and likely to be demolished, so Network Rail acted to maintain supplies. It reached an accommodation with Trackwork Moll, a joint venture between UK company Trackwork (49%), supplier of a limited amount of S&C and of wooden sleepers, and German sleeper manufacturer Lenard Moll (51%). Trackwork Moll would set up a manufacturing unit in a purpose-built Network Rail facility in Doncaster and manufacture around 400,000 concrete sleepers a year. The sleepers manufactured by Leonard Moll in Germany were of a lighter design, and these were manufactured on ‘carousels’, a series of moulds arranged radially on a circular rotating bed. The steel reinforcements were laid into each mould separately.
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However, the heavy British sleepers had always been made using a long-line method, with the moulds arranged lengthways in rows and with the pre-tensioned reinforcement rods running through them down the length of the factory. Once the concrete sleepers are set, the rods are cut and the individual sleepers can be lifted out of the moulds. Trackwork Moll decided to use the long-line method at Doncaster. Its engineers felt that, if a carousel were to be used, this would require massive steel end anchors at both ends of each sleeper for the tensioning strand, which would significantly increase the cost. Although the Doncaster factory is working well, it was never intended to make more than 40-50 per cent of Network Rail’s requirements. So, the infrastructure owner looked to make a second, similar arrangement and to build a second sleeper factory, this time in the West Midlands. This was a logical choice as it would give employment opportunities to the skilled Cemex workforce that could be out of a job once HS2 acquired the Washwood Heath site, which was planned for late 2016. A rail-connected site at Bescot, in Sandwell, was chosen, and a deal struck with another German manufacturer, RailONE. The contract that RailONE won was based on it using a carousel method. To make sure that this would produce satisfactory product, after the doubts that had previously been voiced, a batch of G44 sleepers was produced, independently assessed and approved. However, residents local to the Bescot site fought a vigorous campaign against the proposed factory. The ‘People of Wednesbury Say NO to Network Rail’ group claimed that the factory would create air pollution and traffic congestion, estimating that the proposal would add an additional 75,000 vehicle movements a year to already busy roads. To appease the protesters, Network Rail redesigned the layout of the site, moving the factory further from residential properties, but it did no good. Despite the company assuring planners that the true number of vehicle movements would be 7,500 a year, not 75,000, protesters raised 800 formal objections and obtained
PERMANENT WAY & LINESIDE ASSETS 5,000 signatures on a petition. Planning officers recommended Sandwell Council to reject the planning application, and it did. This is when Network Rail had a piece of good fortune. Delays to the HS2 programme meant that Cemex’s Washwood Heath factory didn’t close at the end of 2016 as anticipated, but not until 2020. This allowed Network Rail to not only keep supplied but also to build up stockpiles at Tyne Yard and Carlisle Kingmoor. Those stockpiles, of close to one million sleepers, are sufficient, with the Trackwork Moll factory in full production, to keep Network Rail going for two and a half years. But that shouldn’t be needed, as Network Rail is close to announcing a new partner, a new location, and a new factory that should be in production in around a year’s time.
Switches and Crossings The third element of the track ‘family’ is switches and crossings. Network Rail has recently invited companies to tender for four packages of work (with the first three being the more important): » Renewals layouts (major layouts that need a lot of work at the factory and careful installation) » Maintenance S&C products » Cast manganese crossings » Niche products, such as switch roller systems.
The invitation to tender (ITT) incorporated significant commercial changes. Minimum volume guarantees and underwritten costs were intended to give all tenderers the opportunity to leverage market strength. Previously, one supplier had built up a dominant market position and this had enabled it to develop a strong technical base and to provide support to Network Rail that others could not under legacy nil-value frameworks. However, with long-term contracts and committed volumes, Network Rail intended to level the playing field, expecting the winning bidders to be able to increase investment in expertise and infrastructure.
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The new contracts were intended, not only to secure quality products aligned with railway standards, but also to deliver a product in a shorter lead-time, at a more efficient price for UK taxpayers. The ITT went out to a number of companies, including: » Progress Rail, the successor to Balfour Beatty and Network Rail’s largest supplier of major layouts and cast manganese crossings; » Vossloh Cogifer, formerly Corus Cogifer; » Voestalpine Turnout Technology (formerly VAE UK); » Trackwork. A few smaller producers were also involved, mainly for the niche products. Thirteen months after the bids were submitted, following a number of clarifications and a repricing exercise, Network Rail informed the bidders of the outcome. » Progress Rail was offered eight zero-value frameworks; » The major renewals layouts would be split
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between Trackwork and Vossloh Cogifer; » Maintenance S&C products would be split between Trackwork, Vossloh Cogifer and Voestalpine, and would be included in Progress Rail’s zero-value contracts; » Around 80 per cent of cast manganese crossings would be purchased from Voestalpine’s foundry in Spain. The balance would be split between Voestalpine and Vossloh Cogifer, which was offered a nil-value contract. Progress Rail did not bid on this nilvalue framework so could not be offered any of the residual work. This result was a major change to the status quo. The two major suppliers of complex and sophisticated track layouts were not to get any of that work in future. Their staff, who had built up years of experience in the field and who advised Network Rail on the design and installation of these layouts, as well as building them, would no longer be involved. Having lost the manganese crossings business, Progress Rail issued redundancy notices to its 147 workers at the South Queensferry foundry and announced its intention to close the site by Christmas 2020. These notices have, apparently, now been rescinded. It looked likely that it would do the same at Sandiacre, Beeston and Sheffield, where it employs another 310 people. Instead, it issued a legal challenge to Network Rail’s procurement process. Trade union Unite, while critical of Progress Rail’s rapid issuing of redundancy notices, was also scathing about Network Rail. National
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officer Harish Patel said: “It is completely nonsensical for Network Rail to cut Progress Rail, whose specialist sites have been producing UK railway components for generations, almost completely out of its supply chain. “Progress Rail is home to a world-class manufacturing workforce, holds the exclusive patterns for around 800 components and is the only UK firm with the capability to ensure that parts do not need to be brought in from abroad. “The company has stated to Unite that this is about Network Rail prioritising cost over quality and both Progress Rail and
our members have genuine concerns that opening the door to cheaply made parts will jeopardise track safety as well as vital UK manufacturing jobs.” On its website, Unite added: “Progress Rail, which is owned by Caterpillar, has accused Network Rail of prioritising cost over quality. In a letter to the union, the firm stated there is a ‘very real risk to the integrity and security of the UK rail network arising from Network Rail’s decision’. “The firm’s workers have also told Unite that they believe this to be the case, after having had to reject cheaply made parts from other suppliers for unrelated reasons on previous occasions.” So, Network Rail’s procurement of S&C has ruffled some feathers, although, no doubt, it would claim it had not prioritised cost over quality and there is no resultant risk to the integrity and security of the UK rail network. It would seem likely that any legal challenge by Progress Rail could have difficulty, as Network Rail has probably followed its procurement processes exactly. Whether it gave the outcome that Progress Rail and others wanted, that’s another matter. Still, Network Rail has a good supply of all three track elements – rail (British Steel supplying and regional stockpiles), sleepers (Trackwork Moll in full production and a large stockpile to see it through until the second factory comes online) and S&C (a reorganisation of suppliers but confident that they can meet the challenge). The other track users in the UK – Transport for London (30,000 sleepers a year) – Crossrail (infrastructure complete) and HS2 (around 480 miles of rail over the next five years) should also be adequately covered. So, although there has been some ‘trouble with track’, it should be nothing to worry about.
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Rail Engineer | Issue 187 | November/December 2020
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FEATURE
Railway Industry Association
IN 2020
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CLIVE KESSELL
I
n these strangest of times, the Railway Industry Association (RIA) decided to continue with its annual conference, albeit online. The issues facing the rail industry are very much in debate and an opportunity for government, the industry and the supply chain to come together and share their views was something that needed to happen. Rail Engineer participated and many of the challenges are reported here. The technology for a virtual gathering worked well and this type of conference is something we are all getting used to.
Setting the scene Unsurprisingly, the COVID pandemic featured in much of the conference, as indeed did Brexit. Both are producing real concern but, as RIA chief executive Darren Caplan remarked when opening the proceedings, rail is providing an essential service for key workers, as well as transporting freight across the nation. Recent polls suggest that only five per cent think the rail industry will continue to grow, thirty per cent believe it will contract, with the rest undecided. Rail must play to its strengths, levelling up the country’s geography, being environmentally friendly and providing leadership in decarbonisation. However, productivity, skills and employment are crucial – 80 significant projects are currently underway, but these need accelerating, with a steady flow of work to avoid start and stop situations. Export of UK capabilities must be maximised, with the US, India and Australia seen as growth markets.
The supply chain The industries that supply Network Rail, London Underground and the train operating companies are many and diverse. Ranging from the big suppliers, such as Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, Balfour Beatty and Hitachi, classed as Tier 1, through to the SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in the Tier 3 and 4 brackets, all have a vital role to play in keeping the railway operational and maintained. In a panel session, several speakers mentioned the Rail Sector Deal, recently formalised as very significant but how to deliver on it remains an unknown. Philip Hoare from Atkins had three priorities: i) to maintain cash flow, ii) how to better access the data, iii) how to get access
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to the railway and improve productivity. Anna Delvecchio from Mott Macdonald agreed about possession management, with recent reports having done little to improve things. The Rail Delivery Group is seen as key to getting a closer relationship between Network Rail and its suppliers. The availability of data, or the lack of it, was a general complaint. James Bain, the CEO of Worldline (a modernday equivalent of the Railway Clearing House) reckoned that privatisation created many silos, all of which have massive amounts of data, but which are ‘lead lined’. Sharing data is known not to be easy and it must be done in a controlled way that obeys the law. An industry framework (maybe a Rail Data Council) might help. Network Rail releasing asset data is fundamental. Many companies called for a ‘pipeline’ of projects to be visible in sufficient detail that Tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers can align themselves to it. Significant
FEATURE examples would be the Trans Pennine Upgrade and national Electrification. SMEs rarely have the ability to scan the horizon, but, once projects are known, their response to challenges is much quicker. It is a duty of Tier 1 and 2 suppliers to feed information down the chain. Hannah Vickers from the Association of Consulting Engineers stated that rail is not an island and its inability to learn from other industries is all too obvious. A new commercial strategy is needed to deliver better value but with a better ‘line of sight’ between outcomes and investment projections. It was inevitable the digital railway should be mentioned as a means of reducing cost, but often this is aligned only to resignalling by the big alliances. It begs the question as to whether people understand what the digital railway actually means.
London perspective The nation’s capital has had a cliff-edge time, according to Andy Byford, the TfL commissioner. In the first two weeks of the virus, tube travel reduced by 95 per cent and bus by 85 per cent, meaning a new timetable had to be produced and some stations closed. By the end of October, services had recovered with the tube now running at 95%, buses at 100%, the DLR at 84% and Overground at 100%. The latest lockdown will cause another dip. Cleanliness has been all important and the commissioner paid tribute to the staff and contractors who engage in this. Imperial College has carried out air and cleanliness testing with no adverse effects found.
Before COVID, TfL was almost self-sufficient financially, but the virus has caused mayhem. Fortunately, the government has agreed a funding deal that lasts until March 2021. Beyond that, TfL is still working with the DFT and Treasury to reach an agreement. Certain projects will be deferred or mothballed – Crossrail 2, Bakerloo line extension and Barking Riverside. However, the Piccadilly fleet renewal plus resignalling and the Elizabeth line (Crossrail 1 and very embarrassing), now under TfL ownership, must be completed. Not proceeding with most infrastructure projects is delusional, he said, as tourists and workers will return. Some offices may change into residential properties. Automation of tube trains will continue as part of the programme for CBTC (Computer Based Train Control), but whether London Underground follows Paris with a programme for driverless trains is more debatable.
Network Rail’s position The chairman of Network Rail, Sir Peter Hendy, a previous Transport Commissioner for London and always an entertaining speaker, considered it gratifying that the Treasury has funded rail during the pandemic up to £4 billion, a large sum but small when compared to other business support. However, rail has a responsibility to look at the best structure to minimise cost. The call for electrification, whilst admirable, will only be heeded if costs are reduced. The industry has to change, as the private sector will no longer take significant risk. Rail needs to be cohesively managed. An example of inadequate cohesiveness has been the Ordsall Curve in Manchester. This was not specified properly, so the best has not been achieved. The reopening of closed (Beechinged) lines may be possible, the Fawley branch in Hampshire is a distinct possibility, but part local funding will be important.
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FEATURE Rail still has the perception of a workforce that is male, white and middle aged. It does need younger talent and the British Rail method of recruiting graduates, students and apprentices was much better than today’s approach. Ridership will return but it may be different. Leisure traffic is potentially buoyant, and cities are still growing. The country is in danger of living at work not living at home. It was interesting that Sir Peter has accepted a new challenge to conduct a ‘Union Connectivity Review’. This is to improve connection between the UK’s four nations, akin to the EU Trans Europe Network. An interim report is due out in January, with a full report in July. A tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland would be an interesting project, both politically and financially. Watch this space. Andrew Haines, the Network Rail chief executive, believes the fundamentals of rail remain strong but the years ahead will be challenging. Some cut back in finance can be expected. Currently (before Lockdown 2), the government is supporting a 90% timetable to enable social distancing. Authorities everywhere must stop demonising public transport. PostCOVID, rail will have to adapt to a new demand; decarbonisation will remain important and investment could be key to getting out of recession. Some Beeching reversals may be possible, but these will be a political decision. Standards that lead to gold plating must be revised – electrification and access being two examples. GRIP is not used properly so it must be replaced. R&D has not been
co-ordinated for some time with informatics, AI and robotics not being used effectively. Above all, the industry needs fixers and people who can get things done. The commitment of Network Rail’s people and the supply chain is good but is bogged down with bureaucracy.
HS2 The largest infrastructure project in the UK had to feature at this conference, as the virus situation has raised doubts as to future traffic forecasts. Mark Thurston, the CEO of HS2, confirmed that Phase 1 (London to Birmingham) has commenced construction and the Royal Assent for Phase 2a (Birmingham to Crewe) is expected to be granted shortly. Phase 2b (Crewe to Manchester and Birmingham to the East Midlands and Leeds) has a much longer timescale and may change in its route detail. Finance of £45 billion has been agreed with government for Phase 1 and the £6 billion for Phase 2a is seen as acceptable. 13,000 people are currently engaged on the project, which will rise to 30,000 and include 400 graduates and apprentices.
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This scale of investment will always divide opinion, which will continue until people are riding on the trains. The M25, HS1, the Channel Tunnel, the Stonehenge Tunnel and Heathrow Runway 3 all went or are going through the same contention. The boost to the economy must be recognised. An integrated rail plan and the boost for the north (linkage to Northern Powerhouse and Trans Pennine) are part of the business case. The trains must be built in the UK, even if the chosen company has its HQ elsewhere. Innovation, skills and diversity are all part of the agenda. 2,000 organisations are already working on HS2, 77% are SMEs and 97% are UKbased. The country must keep faith with this project.
National infrastructure The Infrastructure Projects Authority aims to evaluate and co-ordinate major projects across all sectors, so explained Nick Smallwood, its CEO. The banner of ‘Transforming Infrastructure Delivery’ applies as much to rail as it does to roads, hospitals and major constructions. It attempts to set out the criteria for success, of which avoidance of changing scope, innovation, digitisation and skill sets are the major ones. A procurement pipeline of £37 billion exists, but other industries are much better in applying digital processes. BIM technology is important, as is the use of GPS technology and the bar-coding of materials, including delivery. Rail shows only limited evidence of applying leading edge technology. Sir John Armitt stated at the 2018 RIA event that rail always tended to gold plate everything, a situation that remains true today. Rail has an over complex supply chain and needs to move away from European methods and suppliers. More reliance on home grown industries must become the norm.
FEATURE Asked on what went wrong with Crossrail, Nick replied that some elements were actually very good, BIM for example, but there has been a fundamental lack of understanding as to what the project actually was. Many saw it as a civil engineering challenge with other factors being add-ons. The project should have started from the commissioning date and worked backwards to the present to understand what could be achieved. A similar situation existed on GW electrification and HS2 poses the same risk. Good examples have been the A14 upgrade in Cambridgeshire and the building of the Nightingale hospitals. Both successfully co-ordinated design, resources and materials from which rail could learn valuable lessons.
A Rolling Stock View A panel session of train interests was revealing. Mary Grant, CEO of Porterbrook, and Sambit Banerjee, managing director of Siemens Mobility UK Rolling Stock Services, would like to see a 30-year plan. Others, including Mark Hopwood, managing director of South Western Railway, and Steve White from GTR, favour a more flexible approach with perhaps a 30-year strategy that can be adapted to emerging needs. All recognise that the biggest challenge will be decarbonisation and electrification, both needing cohesion and innovation. Tim Jenkins, the CEO Gemini Rail, emphasised the need for investment and skill sets to go hand-in-hand with a healthy supply chain. Susie Homan from
the Rail Delivery Group said rolling stock issues must be part of the whole industry plan. A consensus is that the industry must work together to ensure a continuous production line with more standardised trains. Too many decisions are made in different places. A UK manufacturing hub, to include local supply chain companies, was one idea. A single guiding mind is required to steer rolling stock production to customer requirements. ‘Ironing Board’ seats on some recently built trains have attracted much criticism. Accessibility and disabled interests ask for level platformto-train interfaces, but Mik Scarlet, speaking on behalf of the disabled passenger, believes this will take many years. Electrification is recognised as a long-term delivery project, so how to reduce carbon emissions in the short term is a challenge. Not running
diesels under the wires is increasingly prominent, implying more bi-mode trains, which could adversely affect the case for electrification. Can existing stock be converted for hybrid, battery or hydrogen power sources? The train operators should be leading on this. Infill electrification in third-rail territory is much quicker than for 25kV lines. The Reading-Gatwick route is a prime example, as also is the Uckfield line. The position with freight is difficult, with diesel being the only practical power source away from electrified lines. Diesels can, nonetheless, be made more efficient with less pollution. One could comment that the explosion of rolling stock orders within the UK is past its peak. The replacement of the ageing Sprinter fleet will need to be hydrogen or battery trains. Is the industry ready for this? Can the government dictate the starting point?
Alstom's iLint hydrogen train making a demonstration run through the Thuringian Schwarzatal in Germany on 4 February 2019.
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FEATURE The political dimension RIA invited both government and opposition transport chiefs to this conference. Chris Heaton-Harris MP, the Rail Minister, gave an upbeat message on the government’s view of rail. Even in the pandemic, the importance of trains to connect people and deliver goods is recognised but the challenge will be to build back post-COVID. Projects are taking far too long and the GRIP system is over complex, with excessive numbers of people involved in planning and design. The present 90% timetable will be supported for the foreseeable future. The recent setting up of an acceleration unit must apply to rail and some infrastructure proposals will happen; Ely North junction was cited, also simplifying the regulations about level crossings where over-zealous safety is perceived. He advised that “Electrification fits very nicely with the government’s green agenda” but cautioned that it had to be delivered in a cost-effective manner and with simplified technology. No mention was made of the Castlefield corridor or East Croydon remodelling, but one can pray and hope. On fares, an announcement is expected shortly, but any new venture must be technology neutral and the TOCs will likely be on a concessionbased arrangement. Passenger growth will return post-COVID. Somewhat wrong footed by the government’s present public ownership of rail operations, Jim McMahon, the shadow transport minister, admitted that Labour’s call for nationalisation
has happened by default. The present franchise holders may have been favourably treated, leaving the Open Access operators out in the cold, with trains stationary and staff sent home. Eurostar was criticised for shutting Ebbsfleet and Ashford. Concerns remained on funding for ‘Crossrail for the North’, Northern Powerhouse and extension of HS2 to Leeds. Accessibility for all where 40% of stations do not have step free access should be a priority. When questioned on modernising operating practices, such as drivercontrolled operation, the response was non-committal. Importance would be attached to devolving rail issues down to local authorities, as well as growing incentives for the supply base.
Exports A presentation by Graham Stuart MP, the Exports Minister, emphasised the government’s high priority for using the UK’s rail skill base to increase exports. Real help will be given to companies wishing to increase their export potential. Trade missions are constantly
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arranged, but products or services must have a UK reference base. Selling overseas becomes difficult if you cannot demonstrate usage in the home country. Brexit will cause friction when trading into Europe, but 90% of growth is seen to be outside of the EU. The TransPacific Partnership is a big opportunity for the UK. A deal with Japan has already been negotiated. More flesh was put on this in the exports panel session. RIA is running bespoke events alongside the DfT and export authorities, including business development webinars to several countries. A virtual trade mission to Canada will take place in February, where UK companies can fill in a questionnaire to allow potential buyers to engage. Trade missions around the world post-COVID are planned for Australia, New Zealand, USA and India, as well as participating in international trade fairs. Lots of UK companies could do more to export if the effort was put in. A big question is understanding what is exportable and what is not. Concentration on systems and products is more likely to succeed than supplying technicians and maintainers in the labour market. Often, companies do not understand the export business and Louis Taylor, the CEO of UK Export and Finance (UKEF), can help with: » Provide financing terms » Fulfil orders with working capital » Give credit assurance for bad payers » Provide customers with financial help » Advice on export finance » Run supplier fairs overseas A good example is Cairo Metro, where UKEF provided the finance for Bombardier to supply the rolling stock. Lucy Prior from 3Squared emphasised that preparation is all important and they will co-ordinate the support that is available.
FEATURE The typical models for project management and delivery are: » Client-led; » Lead contractor-led; » Third party-led (usually an arms-length consultant organisation); » Hub and spoke (where subcontractors report to a central point). There is no ‘one size fits all’ answer as to which is best, it will be ‘horses for courses’ and much will depend on the commitment and flexibility of the individual suppliers. A recent export survey revealed mapping and mentoring is necessary. Being able to demonstrate capability in the UK is vital. UK Trade policy revolves around four pillars, according to Shanker Singham from Competere: » Unilateral – tariff setting, domestic regulatory settings; » Bilateral – with the EU (assuming a deal), USA, Australia, New Zealand; » Plurilateral – such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership; » Multilateral – World trade organisation and others of a similar ilk. The situation in Europe post-Brexit is a worry, says Simon Argyle, who heads up the UK Mission to the EU. The goal is to achieve a new trading relationship, but much will depend on the political outcome. The success of UK exports was praised by Kaspars Briskens from Rail Baltica, based in Latvia. English language is an advantage and HS2, digital fibre and 5G are areas where UK expertise is valued. Steve Butcher, from the Rail Business Group (John Holland) in Australia, believes UK rail expertise is known and respected globally.
The next 12 months is acknowledged as being difficult. With the government amassing unsustainable levels of debt, the temptation to restrict trade flows must be resisted. One worry regarding the EU is UK personnel needing residency visas once Britain has left. However, these issues must be overcome as the UK is potentially strong in the export business with SMEs particularly having an incredible range of expertise and products.
Barriers to project excellence Projects that go wrong attract a lot of public criticism – Crossrail and electrification to name two – but why is this and what can be done? Public procurement rules are a big barrier. Getting a supplier involved in the business case would be good advice. Avoid trying to deliver everything on day one, as Crossrail in retrospect tried to do, with it ending up almost as an R&D project, according to Mark Wild, its present CEO. Avoid using the phrase ‘World Class’, it is meaningless. Stuart Calvert, the capital delivery director for Network Rail’s Wales and West route and responsible for the Dawlish sea wall, stressed the need to keep neighbours happy. Possession planning and management is always potentially disruptive, with better data needed to keep passengers informed. Technology should be able to create less friction in project deliverance – there are still too many people out there ‘counting wires’. Go for smart and standardised designs with factory production that are needed with limited bespoke solutions. Do not give the customer too much choice. Don’t rush the design phase, the haste to ‘put spades in the ground’ can be a temptation that causes abortive work.
Build Back Better This is the ‘in phrase’ for the postpandemic world. Various speakers put forward views as to how things might be different. Some of the points reiterate what has been said before but are summarised as: » Longer-term frameworks and alliances; » Change GRIP; » Project speed – halve the time and slash the cost; » Identify the constraints, such as the authorisation process; » Better integration within the supply chain; » Challenge the customer (including DfT) if perceived to be wrong; » Understand the range of uncertainties on megaprojects; » Reduce the cost of bidding and procurement – Brexit is an opportunity; » Improve the customer-contractor relationship – base everyone in same office, as for Reading remodelling and station rebuild; » Produce a pipeline of work and stick to it – a 10-year window. A final recommendation was ‘Learn from Scotland’ – controversial, but they do seem to do it better.
Final word Even with COVID, it is good that rail investment seems to be holding up. Some cutbacks can be expected but these will be on the fringes. David Tonkin, the RIA chairman, stated that the supply industry must take the lead to improve performance. Timescale and cost are dominant, but streamlining the processes and tackling bureaucracy must be part of this. Both clients and suppliers appeared cautiously upbeat. A host of issues emerged and there was not always a consensus view. The challenge of skills, opportunity, diversity and inclusion did feature, but will be reported separately in RailStaff magazine.
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We are a family friendly company and our ethos is shown in our flexible roster pattern of one in two weekends working, over our competitors. Generous rates of pay for a good and enjoyable day’s work. Successful candidates will be: • Experienced OTM Drivers & Operators with a valid European Train Drivers License • Drivers will have good route knowledge across Midlands & LNW South and be highly motivated • OTM Fitter Operators will be experienced, highly motivated and a talented On Track Plant Fitter Operator
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In return: • A generous and composite salary fully pensionable. • 35 hours a week over a 4 day shift pattern. • 28 days holiday per year for full-time employees, which increases on a tiered system after 5 year’s service and 8 Public holidays. • A company vehicle is provided for business use.
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Supervisor who will be responsible for inspection, maintenance and repair of the track facility and also safe and efficient operation of the facility. The ideal candidate will be qualified to at least HND/BTEC level in an engineering discipline and have significant experience in rail operations including infrastructure and rolling stock, preferably in a depot or MRO environment. We offer a completive salary and benefits in addition to real career prospects as BCIMO grows and develops, so if you have what we are looking for don’t delay – apply now as interviews will start shortly.
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Siemens Mobility is shaping the future of UK rail Ope drives engineering process improvement to ensure we keep our UK railways reliable and safe. Visit our website for more employee stories.
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