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SIGNALLING/TELECOMS
CLIVE KESSELL
Driving innovation IN SIGNALLING
I
nnovation seems to be the latest buzz word. Recent conferences and seminars, as reported in Rail Engineer, have focussed very much on this theme, often coupling it with ‘The Digital Railway’. Having listened to a recent offering by Peloton, I did just wonder how much real innovation is actually taking place and in what areas?
Two speakers, Toufic Machnouk from Network Rail and John Doughty from LNER, explained how the deployment of ERTMS (more succinctly ETCS) would take place on the ECML. One wondered, however, just what the innovative elements are for this project, as compared with rolling out a developed system in a new environment and thinking through the likely problems that will emerge along the way. Let’s look at what was said.
The infrastructure view Route programme director Toufic Machnouk had given an overview of the ECML project at the recent RIA conference on the digital railway (issue 185, July/ August 2020). As well as the phased approach for the implementation, starting with the Finsbury Park to Moorgate section and finishing at Stoke tunnel, just short of Grantham, he described many other factors that are going to be part of the project. Network Rail sees six critical factors for ensuring success, of which three were explained in detail. Quite what the other three are will need to be investigated some other time. The usual claims of ETCS being a higher performance, greater capacity and lower whole-life cost railway were trotted out, but system integration in all its aspects is the one key element where the success criteria will be judged.
Firstly, the partnership with industry needs to be changed and improved. The calculations indicate that 13 organisations will be involved in the ECML project. These include Network Rail itself, with its different groups of management, projects and maintenance; the various train operators that use the line, including passenger, freight, heritage and charter; the supply chain companies, which will include subcontract suppliers; the safety and acceptance authorities and, of course, the government as the overall paymaster. Industry is not currently set up to enable all of this and it requires some sort of overarching structure to bring industry together. This is recognised as not being easy and it is taking many years to get in place. Lessons are being learned from what has happened with ETCS rollouts in Europe, helped by many of the companies operating on an international perspective. Every participant will need to act differently, which requires a fundamental mindset change. Companies must step out of their traditional shell of business boundaries and short-term financial results. Secondly, there is the need for technology centricity. Each of the suppliers need to adopt a long-term stake in the programme. This will include the capability of introducing change as technology and rail infrastructure layouts change, without the need to renegotiate contracts and
Rail Engineer | Issue 186 | September/October 2020
variation clauses. A framework relationship, including design, build, commission and maintain, will be a required commitment from each supplier. Part of this will be a better understanding between engineers/ technologists and the people who operate the railway. Thirdly, the railway needs to recognise that actions must be orientated to outcomes. The individual capabilities of infrastructure engineers and rolling stock engineers are reasonably well known, but this is not sufficient. They must become aligned with the total change needed on how to run a railway.
