Rail Engineer - Issue 132 - October 2015 (Cover A)
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Engineer by rail engineers for rail engineers www.railengineer.uk OCTOBER 2015 - ISSUE 132 LIFE IS NOT A REHEARSAL Renewing the Victoria line crossover at Walthamstow during a three week blockade. NEW FLEET EXPANDS! Network Rail’s new fleet of engineering trains make track maintenance both easier and safer. INTELLIGENT DESIGN A young engineer’s solution to the danger of clothing trapped in underground train doors. PREPARING THE WAY The biggest track renewal programme ever - 2,539 people work 160,000 hours preparing for Bath electrification
Transcript
Engineerby rail engineers for rail engineers
www.railengineer.uk
OCTOBER 2015 - ISSUE 132
LIFE IS NOT A REHEARSAL Renewing the Victoria line crossover at Walthamstow during a three week blockade.
NEW FLEET EXPANDS!Network Rail’s new fleet of engineering trains make track maintenance both easier and safer.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN A young engineer’s solution to the danger of clothing trapped in underground train doors.
PREPARING THE WAYThe biggest track renewal programme ever -
2,539 people work 160,000 hours preparing for Bath electrification
Rail Engineer full page-Uretek-paths.indd 1 18/09/2015 15:31
Preparing the way for Bath electrification 12The biggest track renewal programme ever.
Life is not a rehearsal 18Renewing the Victoria line crossover at Walthamstow.
Slab Track Trials 28Installing slab track very quickly to an extremely high standard.
The end of the line for rail corrosion 34Unless we do something about it, steel corrodes.
Preparing for the big freeze 42The challenge to keep rail infrastructure from freezing.
Adapting to the change 44Collin Carr speaks with Steve Featherstone, track programme director.
From drainage flows to data flows 50A growing interest in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
SPX Rail Systems on show 52Fifty years on, SPX continues to support collaborative development.
Building on BIM 60Building Information Modelling, crucial to the future success of engineering.
London Underground Sub Surface Resignalling 62Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, District and Circle lines.
Rail Innovation competitions 66A short history by David Shirres.
Intelligent Design 70Development of an Intelligent Sensitive Edge (iSE) Safety System.
RVE 2015 - Bigger and Better 76Rail Vehicle Enhancements show in Derby’s Riverside Centre.
Safeguarding IEP depots 80Safety systems for the depots that will house and maintain the IEP trains.
Explaining the Digital Railway 90Clive Kessell met with Martin Arter, Network Rail’s programme development director.
Contents
We’re looking to highlight the latest projects and innovations in
Electrification/Power Light Rail/Metroin the December issue of Rail Engineer.
Got a fantastic innovation? Working on a great project? Call Nigel on 01530 816 445 NOW!
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Manufacture of a jigsaw puzzleThe jigsaw assembled in Nottingham and delivered at Walthamstow.
A bright new VictoriaManchester Victoria station totally transformed.
Remodelling Cricklewood.
New fleet expands
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Rail Engineer • October 2015 3
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Photos from the 2014 awards
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This year, at the awards, the theme is ‘Out of Africa’.
OK, what’s on the front cover of your magazine? Box Tunnel or a shot of the Victoria Line? We were spoilt for choice this month and so half the print run has Box and the other has Walthamstow. Perhaps your magazine will become a collector’s item.
There are many times when skyhooks would be useful. Just imagine being able to float hefty bits of kit around without having to hump everything from one track to another. But it’s a pipedream for just about everywhere - except , of course, in the tube lines. Above the new crossover at Walthamstow on the Victoria line there is a custom-made overhead crane fixed to the soffit of the tunnel which was put there for the track renewal and will remain as a permanent fixture.
But, hang on a minute, mobile skyhooks really are possible on the mainline network too, and Stuart Marsh has been off to see them in action. Not only overhead cranes, but lighting and heating and messing facilities all rolled into one and passing through a station near you any time soon. It’s the mobile maintenance train and very futuristic it looks too with side panels that go in and out. Soaking wet shifts could be a thing of the past.
It’s the stuff of nightmares. Your coat has been caught in the sliding doors of a tube train which has just started off – and you’re on the outside! The end of the platform is not far away and there’s obviously no room for you and the train. Stuart tells us of a clever door seal arrangement that not only detects a snagged coat (and stops the train), but also works out whether the errant garment is on the inside or the outside.
We have a new acronym – a TPOD, that is a Temporary Period of Disruption – presumably pronounced a bit like Teapot. When the line to Bath was shut (disrupted) this summer, the old term Blockade was thought to invoke ideas of a Siege, implying that Bath was cut off from the rest of the UK – which it wasn’t. With major alterations to Box Tunnel (that’s one of the cover shots), something substantial was needed whatever it was called. Collin Carr tells all.
There have been many changes in the railway industry since Collin last interviewed Steve Featherstone – who is unchanged as Network Rail’s track programme director. In Steve’s management of possessions/blockades/TPODs/sieges there is now the interesting concept of ‘cut and run’. This clearly places the interests of the travelling public at the forefront when the engineering looks dicey. Welcome news.
Chris Parker reviews a couple of slab track options that have undergone successful trials. But there are a few snags involved in the UK market. Firstly, we seem to have more rail sections than on mainland Europe and our concrete – at least the critical stuff involved – has the ‘wrong sort of aggregate’. Solutions abound however.
The project to re-signal the four lines comprising the Sub Surface Railway has had a chequered history. This is not the space to dwell on the past, so we’ll look at Clive Kessell’s account of current developments. Following the very broad premise that if you can understand it you can probably build it, readers may be encouraged by what Clive has to say about the new methodical approach.
Of course we’ve got a Digital Railway – we’ve had it for years and years. As well as Clive’s examples, some readers might remember that the railways had micromail – a form of email - long before email. But the handle ‘Digital Railway’ is being used to invoke something much, much wider, as Clive discovers.
And it’s all tied in with, amongst other things, BIM modelling. If you’ve not got your head round BIM, then now is a very good time to start. Set aside Tuesday 10 November for the Rail BIM Summit in London. You’ll be much the wiser as a result. Chris Parker gives us the background to a number of current projects.
A good deal of thought was expended on deciding whether the old roof over Manchester Victoria was worth keeping. If the great winds of 1981 had prevailed, the discussions wouldn’t have taken place as the whole lot nearly became a kite. So, was the roof significant? Nope! Down it has come anyway. Collin went to see the transformation of what was dubbed ‘the worst station in the country’ – and that was no exaggeration either!
Several of our articles over the past years have covered projects that have become reality as a result of winning a competition. Not some sort of lucky draw but, as David Shirres explains, there are now many organisations that hold cash that is available to fulfil industry aspirations. Competitions encourage innovation and, with the prospect of a prize and further funding on offer, pencils really get sharpened.
If you can, set a course for the Rail Vehicle Enhancements show being held in Derby’s Riverside Centre on Thursday 8 October. As our summary says, there’ll be something for everyone in the rail industry – and we’ll be there too!
LIFE IS NOT A REHEARSALRenewing the Victoria line crossover at Walthamstow during a three week blockade
PREPARING THE WAY The biggest track renewal programme ever planned as 2,539 people work
160,000 hours near Bath.
NEW FLEET EXPANDS!Network Rail’s new fleet of engineering trains make track maintenance both
easier and safer.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN A young engineer’s solution to the danger of clothing trapped in
underground train doors.
Engineerby rail engineers for rail engineers
www.railengineer.uk
OCTOBER 2015 - ISSUE 132
LIFE IS NOT A REHEARSAL
Renewing the Victoria line crossover
at Walthamstow during a three week
blockade.
NEW FLEET EXPANDS!
Network Rail’s new fleet of engineering
trains make track maintenance both
easier and safer.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
A young engineer’s solution to
the danger of clothing trapped in
underground train doors.
PREPARING THE WAYThe biggest track renewal programme
ever - 2,539 people work 160,000 hours
preparing for Bath electrification
GRAHAME TAYLOR
Cover photos: Ralph Hodgson (left) and Ewen Rankin (right).
Rail Engineer • October 2015 5
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NEWS
Firm plans for HS2 at Euston
of HS2 Phase One in 2026, and then a further five high-speed platforms and concourse to support the opening of Phase Two (to Leeds/Manchester) in 2033.
London Underground facilities at Euston will also be significantly enhanced with passengers benefitting from greater space and connections to services including a new ticket hall and
direct subway to Euston Square station. Access to taxis, buses and cycles will also be greatly improved.
The staged approach to building the high speed terminus means existing services can continue to operate, reducing both disruption for passengers and the effects on the community as a whole at any one time.
Plans for fitting HS2 into Euston station have been submitted to Parliament. After much discussion, both locally and nationally, it has been decided that eleven new platforms for HS2 will be built at the station in two stages as part of a phased approach.
As well as the 11 high-speed platforms provided by the new plan, 11 platforms will remain in the current station to serve the existing network. There will be new public spaces for shops,
restaurants and cafes. The high-speed station will
be delivered in two stages - six new high speed platforms and concourse to the west of the station to support the opening
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have seen demand for our services increase significantly, with more than 34 million journeys made on our trains last year, something that we are very proud of. Converting these First Class carriages to Standard allows us to respond to requests from passengers for more seats on our busiest routes. We’ve
also given our Pendolinos a well deserved refresh and customers are already seeing the benefits.”
Now that all of the nine-car trains have been upgraded, the remaining 35 eleven-car Pendolinos will also undergo the major interior refresh and a deep clean with the full fleet completed by mid-2016.
More seats, less comfort
Over the last five months, 21 nine-car Virgin Trains Pendolinos have had one of their first class carriages converted to standard class, creating a net increase of 2,100 seats across the fleet. The trains also received a major interior refresh and a deep clean as part of the work.
This £7.2 million investment, which also created 32 new jobs at Alstom’s depot in Oxley, Wolverhampton, has delivered an
extra 5,500 standard class seats a day across the West Coast main line.
Virgin Trains managing director Phil Whittingham commented: “We
NEWS Rail Engineer • October 2015 7
NEWS
Scotland by the end of the year. Speaking at the conference,
Donald Sutherland of HS2 and Greengage21’s Jim Steer stressed the importance of a three-hour journey time between London and Glasgow / Edinburgh to give significant modal shift from air travel.
Currently, rail’s share of this traffic is only 19%. Steer explained how a sensible mix of upgraded and new lines could give a three-hour journey.
However, any proposal to increase capacity and speed has to consider routes for the increasing amount of freight traffic. The current mix of 40-75 mph freight and 125 mph passenger trains significantly reduces capacity on the steeply-graded route north of Preston.
To further illustrate the need for additional rail capacity to Scotland, delegates heard that, between 2008 and 2013, West Coast rail traffic to London, Birmingham and Manchester
had increased by 144%, 261% and 191%. Hearing this, some expressed frustration that nothing had been done in the four years since the publication of the Fast Track Scotland report. Yet this is not quite the case.
Sir David Higgins has made the case to deliver the HS2 route to Crewe in 2027 instead of 2033, to the benefit of Scotland and Northern England. In December, the Scottish Government will know HS2’s cross-border options and will be able to firm up its plans to ensure Scotland is included in the UK high-speed Rail network.
The Scottish Government is then to sponsor a high-speed rail conference on 17 February to announce its plans. This is likely to take the form of a high-speed line between Edinburgh and Glasgow to provide both extra capacity between the two cities and, via a link to the HS route from the south, reducing journey times to England.
Scottish high-speed rail options
In 2026, under current plans, HS2 phase one will provide 360 km/hr running on the southern end of the London to Glasgow route, saving 40 minutes. However, the HS2 classic-compatible train fleet will not tilt, so 11 minutes will be lost on the conventional route. After HS2 phase two opens, 47% of the route to Glasgow will be on a high-speed line. However, with the demand for HS2 paths, time will be lost as combined trains for Edinburgh and Glasgow split at Carstairs.
This was confirmed at a recent high-speed rail conference in Glasgow organised by Greengauge 21 and sponsored by Alstom. It was opened by Keith Brown, Scottish Government Minister for Infrastructure, who felt that high-speed rail “didn’t just matter for Scotland, it is essential”.
He recalled, in 2011, the Scottish Partnership Group for High Speed’s report ‘Fast Track Scotland’ had concluded that “the case for high speed rail in the UK is strong, but it is stronger when Scotland is included”. This group, a partnership of fifteen public and private organisations, had shown that there was a “real consensus for high-speed rail in Scotland”.
Brown felt that a high-speed link between the South East, the northern conurbation and central Scotland would ensure a more balanced and resilient economy as “together these areas are greater than the sum of their parts”.
He noted that, by the late 2020s, transport links between Edinburgh and Glasgow would be at capacity. Hence, there was a need for a high-speed line between the two cities linked to the UK high-speed network.
He was therefore pleased to announce that an HS2 study, commissioned by the Department for Transport and Transport Scotland, is to report on high-speed route options to
NEWSRail Engineer • October 20158
destination in its own right. The new station will feature
43 shops at concourse level and above it sits the new Grand Central shopping complex, including one of the UK’s largest John Lewis department stores.
The 450,000 sq ft shopping destination, which opened its doors a week after the station, has created more than 1,000 jobs and is expected to attract more
than 50 million visitors a year.At the opening, Network Rail
chief executive Mark Carne said: “Birmingham New Street sits right at the heart of our rail network and the transformation which has taken place here is nothing short of stunning. The station is now bigger, brighter and better able to meet the needs of the growing number of people who use it each day.”
Birmingham New Street fully open
After a five-year, £750m transformation, Birmingham New Street station is now fully open to passengers and the people of Birmingham.
Carried out in two phases, with the first phase opening in 2013, the most obvious feature of the new, enlarged concourse is the atrium which has been created by hollowing out the entire station building and the shopping centre above it. All this while trains continued to use the station as
normal.With brighter, de-cluttered
platforms, improved entrances and a range of new facilities and an abundance of natural light from the new atrium, Birmingham New Street, one of Britain’s busiest inter-change stations, has also become a retail
NEWS
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Rail Engineer • October 2015 9
NEWS
just one week of operation, the new technology recovered enough power to run a station as large as Holborn for more than two days per week.
The results show that the new green technology could allow LU to tap into a previously inaccessible resource, reducing its overall carbon footprint and saving as
much as £6 million every year for reinvestment in improving transport.
As well as saving energy, the technology has the added benefit of reducing the amount of heat generated by trains braking in tunnels, which in turn would reduce the energy required to operate LU’s cooling systems.
Recovered energy breakthrough
Regenerative braking has featured in Rail Engineer many times. Energy recovered when a train’s brakes are applied is fed back into the traction power system and can be used to run other trains or go back to the grid.
Now, using an inverter to convert recovered DC power into AC, a ground-breaking London Underground trial has captured enough power to run a large Underground station – opening the
way for significant savings across the network.
The new ‘inverter’ system has been installed at the Cloudesley Road substation on the Victoria line for a five-week trial and, in
NEWSRail Engineer • October 201510
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specialist skills and expertise across the country, create at least 2,000 new apprenticeships and build a legacy to inspire the next generation of young engineers.”
A pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) has now been issued with a deadline of 18 November. Applicants can bid for a maximum of four construction packages but will only win two at most.
The seven contracts are split into three areas - North, Central
and South - and they will include options for additional contracts north of Birmingham.
Between 2016 and 2017, pre-qualification documents for additional packages covering stations and systems will be issued.
Construction of the line from London to Birmingham is scheduled to begin in 2017, subject to the Phase 1 Hybrid Bill receiving Royal Assent.
Pre-qualify for HS2 contractsBidding to secure the first major civils contracts for phase one of HS2 has begun. Chancellor George Osborne, during a tour of China announced the start of pre-qualification for seven civils contracts worth £11.8 billion, which cover the surface route and tunnels along the first phase of the line from London to Birmingham.
HS2 chief executive Simon Kirby said: “The start of the civil engineering bidding process is a major milestone for HS2 as we continue to move towards the start of construction in 2017. Over the next decade, the winners of
these contracts will go on to build 230km of bridges, tunnels and earthworks and create thousands of jobs across the construction industry.
“Together we will transform intercity rail travel in the UK, build
11Rail Engineer • October 2015
To the east of the city of Bath - from the Georgian Sydney Gardens, through Bathampton Junction on to Box Tunnel - the railway has recently undergone a period of intense engineering work in preparation
for the electrification of the Great Western main line (GWML) by May 2017.
It was the biggest track renewal possession ever planned. 2,539 people were inducted to enter the possession and over 160,000 hours were worked. It all started on Saturday 18 July and was completed on 1 September, during which time trains to London were diverted via Bristol.
Preparation, detailed planning and consultation started over two years ago. Andy Haynes, Network Rail’s project director for the West of England, explained that this involved detailed discussions with, primarily, First Great Western (FGW) and many other groups including Historic England, Victorian Society, Georgian
Society, Bath Preservation Trust and Bath & North East Somerset Council, to name just a few.
Blockades banishedNormally, closing a 20 mile stretch
of the main line, from Thingley Junction to Bath Station, for six weeks would be referred to as a ‘blockade’ but, during the consultation process, the word blockade became a very sensitive issue. It implied that Bath was closed for business, which wasn’t the case. Therefore, to ensure that tourists were not put off travelling to the city, it was suggested that Network Rail should use a different
description for the closure. As a result the acronym TPOD was created - Temporary Period of Disruption! So the work was carried out during a six week TPOD. You’ll get used to it.
The work involved was valued at £50 million. Starting at the east end of the TPOD, the first big challenge was to lower track levels and renew the track throughout the famous Box Tunnel, built by Brunel and opened in 1841.
The tunnel is straight and 2,937 metres long with a gradient of 1 in 100. It is unlined for about the first 800 metres at the east end, the rest is brick lined. To comply with electrification clearances, the track needed to be lowered by approximately 350mm at the east end and 100mm at the west. This meant an excavation of 400mm to 650mm, a significant undertaking in such a tunnel.
Preparing the Way
COLLIN CARR
for Bath electrification
Rail Engineer • October 201512
Close monitoringBefore work started, a monitoring system designed
to detect any movement of the tunnel side walls was installed in Box tunnel and Box Middle tunnel, monitored by consultants AECOM and Cambrian Transport Ltd.
The equipment installed included a comprehensive system of remotely monitored inclinometers as well as some manually monitored tell-tales. There were four trigger levels monitoring structural movement: Clear (0-1.75mm), Green (1.75-3.5mm), Amber (3.25-5.25mm), and Red (in excess of 5.25mm).
If an amber trigger level were to be breached, any excavation work would be restricted or curtailed. If it was a red trigger, then work would stop immediately. As the equipment was installed well in advance of the commencement of the work, the engineers understood how the tunnel behaved in normal circumstances. During the work, only one red was recorded but no issue was identified.
The track throughout the tunnel was more than 40 years old. It was re-laid by Babcock under its five-year plain line contract with Network Rail for this area, with ISS Labour Ltd providing safety critical and track labour resources, site welfare management, front of house management and site lighting. A conventional approach was adopted cutting rail into 27-metre lengths and using road/rail equipment to tandem lift the track panels onto flatbed wagons. The old ballast was then dug out to the required depth. The big challenge was the logistics, planning the work to coincide with the flow of engineering trains required.
MELKSHAM
TROWBRIDGE
BRADFORD-ON-A
VON
FRESHFORD
AVONCLIFF
BATH SPA
CHIPPENHAM
THINGLEYJUNCTION
BFB
BRADFORDJUNCTION
WEY
MLN1
BOX & MIDDLE HILL TNLS/BOX ASHLEY
TRACK RENEWAL (9000 YDS) & REALIGNMENTTRACK LOWER IN BOX TUNNEL (860 MM MAX)DRAINAGE WORKS THROUGHOUT TUNNELS133 ENGINEERING TRAINS
CRITICAL PATH ACTIVITY2 X 8 HR SHIFTS PER DAY + OPTION TO EXTENDBOTH TUNNELS AND TWO BRIDGES LISTEDNIGHTLY SHUTDOWN DUE TO BATS
DUNDAS AQUEDUCT
TRACK RENEWAL (1320 YDS)TRACK LOWERING (350 MM MAX)14 ENGINEERING TRAINS
DRIVES 2 PHASE PROGRAMMEREDUCED BALLAST DEPTH FOR W8 CLEARANCEGRADE I LISTEDPRESERVED FLORA SPECIES POTENTIAL
SYDNEY GARDENS
TRACK RENEWAL (1320 YDS)TRACK LOWERING (200 MM AVGE)INSTALL NEW DRAINAGE THROUGHOUT20 ENGINEERING TRAINS
HIGH OUTPUT DELIVERY UTILISEDUNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE3 LISTED BRIDGES & RETAINING WALLS
HIGH OUTPUT DELIVERY UTILISEDCONSERVATION AREA2 LISTED BRIDGES
13Rail Engineer • October 2015
Modular processNetwork Rail’s programme manager Rob Blackstock
and his team, working closely with Babcock and Network Rail’s National Supply Chain which provided the trains, developed a modular process which ensured that each train arrived on time, with the correct wagons in the proper place and order and facing the right way round. This sounds quite straightforward but, when you consider that the project involved 217 trains coming from five different depots on the network, the task becomes a little
more daunting. The fact that the work was carried out successfully each night on both tracks is a testament to those involved and more than 160,000 tonnes of spoil and 6km of track were successfully removed and replaced.
Having said that, it was inevitable that at least one hitch emerged and, of course, it did - in the form of drainage catch pits. A carrier drain runs down the six foot and some of the catch pits were either in poor condition and/or misaligned while some of the pipes needed to be renewed.
Atkins was the main designer for this project and had to respond at short notice to the emerging problems associated with the drain in Box tunnel. The team also had to understand the complex tunnelling systems that exist around, alongside and under Box tunnel. The systems are complex because tunnels were originally driven to extract the Oolitic Bath stone and then, during WW2, additional tunnels and shafts were constructed by the Royal Engineers to provide shelter for ammunition and explosives.
Amongst this complex of tunnels, the project team found a horizontal shaft running under and across the tunnel. When the track was lowered it would have exposed the Barlow rail cap that covered the shaft. Well in advance of the work starting, Atkins had to prepare a design to make this safe and then Hochtief was contracted to construct a concrete cube with a central duct to allow water to flow through. This work was completed in about four weeks. The contingency built into the plans was adequate for dealing with this issue even though additional pressure emerged when it was realised that the water flowing through the pipes ended up in a lake owned by the musician Peter Gabriel.
Three shifts were planned around the clock to maximise the use of the TPOD but with only two shifts in the tunnel. This was because there are up to ten different species of bat that either live in the tunnel or very close by. David Coles, an ecological expert employed by Network Rail, ensured that the bats were not adversely affected by the work and one of the controls introduced was to not carry out work in the tunnel during the night shift. Given that there were no service trains running through the tunnel anyway, the bats probably considered the TPOD to be a very restful and enjoyable period.
Rail Engineer • October 201514
In order to protect the workforce (and the bats), RVT Rentavent was employed to ensure safe working conditions were maintained within the tunnel at all times. Powerful fans, located at each end of the tunnel in the cess area, were connected to flexible ducting running into the portal where high-speed jets of air created a venturi effect, moving large quantities of air right through the tunnel. Conditions were monitored constantly by on site engineers and consistently good air quality was maintained throughout the project.
Georgian pleasure gardensWe now move west to Dundas Aqueduct,
where more track was re-laid and lowered. A similar monitoring system was installed here and a bogus amber alarm did force the team to curtail the excavation for a while. However, the lost time was eventually recovered and they moved on to Bathampton Junction. To renew the junction Network Rail worked with Colas, its S&C Alliance partner, in a truly integrated team led by Colas’ Said Lahssioui.
The alliance replaced eleven S&C units using tilting wagons to deliver the modules and a Kirow crane to lift and place them. Included in this piece of work was the lowering of track by 150mm to 300mm through the unique and beautiful Georgian pleasure gardens known as Sydney Gardens, an activity watched closely by the local Bath inhabitants.
Great care had to be taken, not only for the substantial retaining wall that separates the railway from the Kennet & Avon canal but also to protect two Grade 1 listed bridges - one a stone overbridge and the second a unique iron footbridge, both designed by Brunel. A similar
monitoring system to the one installed in Box tunnel was used for the retaining wall but, fortunately, no issues were recorded. In total, 350 structural monitoring devices were used to monitor the tunnels, bridges and walls during the works.
15Rail Engineer • October 2015
Rail Engineer • October 201516
TXM provided the plant used by Babcock and A P Webb supplied the plant for the work associated with Colas. Both suppliers were able to provide plant in good operational order throughout the TPOD, demonstrating how much improvement has taken place in recent years to ensure that plant reliability is of the highest order. The innovation that plant suppliers have collectively introduced to the rail industry in recent years has made such a difference to efficiency and output. This project is a good example.
Modelling for the futureAndy Haynes is not only responsible for this project but
for all route modernisation schemes between Swindon and Bristol. He has a BIM 4D modelling team based in Bristol which is slowly building a comprehensive picture of the infrastructure. A significant amount of additional information has been added as a result of this project. For example, seven miles of cabling was stripped out of Box tunnel and new cable installed.
The BIM modelling is enabling the team to view a ‘fly through’ of Bath showing the OLE masts in place. This technique can be viewed from the perspective of a resident’s window and, given that the new chairman of Network Rail Sir Peter Hendy lives close to the railway in Bath, this might prove to be a very useful tool. Already, minor adjustments are being made to ensure that structures are positioned in the least noticeable position.
In total, 12 miles of track has been re-laid and lowered with an extra two miles re-laid using the high output relaying train. It is work that would have to be carried out in this planning period anyway and it helps to maximise the use of the TPOD and minimise disruption in the future.
Andy Haynes was very pleased with the performance of the contractors involved and the safe and responsible approach adopted by all concerned. He also wanted to acknowledge the helpful cooperation provided by the many interested parties but in particular First Great Western and those who travel on its trains. Possession was handed back 10 hours early at a line speed of 60mph rather than the planned 50mph.
The next step is to install the OLE, acquire the new train sets and enjoy the revitalised service in 2017. Having said that, let us not forget those who built the railway in the first place when conditions were quite different from today. More than 100 men were killed building Box tunnel and one tonne of candles were required each week to enable workers to construct it. Conditions are different now, and maybe in another 175 years, it will be robots which do all the work!
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but pumping concrete can be!Life is not a rehearsal
However, both pictures and words are silent. And they have no texture. They rely on the reader to fill in the
noise, the dust, the clamour, the heat.So, look closely at our images of the work that took
place beneath the streets of Walthamstow this summer. Concentrate hard and add in your own overlays of sound,
heat and humidity and dust. If it helps you can always put on a respirator, goggles, gloves, ear defenders and wrap up really
warmly just to get the right effect. Perhaps though, it could be difficult turning the pages of this magazine, so the gloves can
come off.
A technological marvelThe Victoria line was built in the 1960s. It was cutting edge
technology - a marvel of the emerging electronic age. The trains, to all intents and purposes, ran themselves - or so it seemed to the
general public. They were shiny and silver and contrasted with some of the other stock on the underground which still had guards taking their chances in the rear compartment - a smoking compartment to boot!
The trackwork kept pace with the times, but wasn’t shiny and, of course, it was out of sight. At Walthamstow - the end of the line - the track arrangement ended in a scissors crossover. For the non-pway engineers, this is a compact and complex track arrangement where terminating trains arriving at the crossover from the south in the northbound tunnel can be routed into either of the two platforms at Walthamstow Central, then routed back from either platform into the southbound tunnel.
The crossover, installed in the 1960s, was on timber bearers set in a slab of concrete and was due for renewal in 2017.
But gaining momentum, and indeed overtaking the renewal date, the project was to increase the number of trains through the whole of the Victoria line to 36 trains per hour by 2016. The crossover therefore had to include this capability. Previously the line could only meet 32 tph through the centre of London by turning back trains at Seven Sisters station.
Accelerated programmeThe capacity of a railway sometimes has less to do with the running
lines and signalling, and a great deal more to do with train terminating and turnround arrangements. Ultimately, it’s often the ends of a railway that determine line capacity. So it was at Walthamstow. The existing crossover was able to accept trains at 32kph (20 mph). Although a respectable speed, it just wasn’t high enough to secure the rapid movements required.
When John Hardy, London Underground’s head of track programme, was tasked with bringing forward the renewal date, he established a project team as part of London Underground’s Track Partnership. This is a long established partnership with Balfour Beatty, an arrangement that has been in existence since the demise of the Metronet contract several years ago.
Careful survey work of the tunnels checked every millimetre of available space - especially length. The new crossover design is a technical step-change in that it involves the use of Sonneville Low Vibration Track (LVT) - a track system embedded in slab concrete. The point ends have been taken as far as practicable into the tunnels to achieve the longest possible crossover length. Coupled with new components, the maximum speed has been raised to 60kph (35 mph) - enough to secure the required turnround and the 36 trains per hour throughout the line.
Upgrade requiredThe Victoria line carries 200 million passengers per year and
so any decision to shut a section of the line has to be taken with a great deal of thought. Replacing the crossover like for like - changing components on a piecemeal basis in the few hours available every night - could not achieve either short or long term aims. The componentry needed upgrading as well as the geometry, and neither of these aspects could be achieved simply by changing the odd component here or there. The line had to be shut so that the new layout and its support structure could be installed and tested in a manner that would give years of uninterrupted reliable service.
While crafting an article for Rail Engineer, many of us rely on the old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. In fact it’s not that old apparently - maybe only dating from the early part of the last century. But regardless of where the saying came from and when it emerged into common usage, it’s certainly true that the images that
we carry of complex and exciting engineering save us a whole load of effort when it comes to searching for the right word or phrase. Quite frankly, on occasions, they can be a handy cop-out.
GRAHAME TAYLOR
Rail Engineer • October 201518
Rail Engineer • October 2015 19
In the lead up to the main blockade, preparations were made to facilitate the works by installing a bespoke overhead crane capable of handling all the heavy items during the blockade and which would remain insitu afterwards.
Demolition strategiesThe new track layout is fixed in a new concrete
slab. Thus the old rails and timber bearers had to be taken out along with the concrete in which they were embedded and on which they sat.
Track Partnership involved London Underground’s internal Track Delivery Unit (TDU), which has had many years of
experience with taking out old track support systems, and their input was invaluable. The old concrete had been laid on a dry joint with what is termed the ‘engineer’s’ level - that which came with the tunnel! This is a distinct layer down to which the breaking operation took place.
A number of techniques for slab demolition were used, one of which involved the quarry technique of concrete bursting. Cores were drilled in advance of the main blockade ready for the insertion of hydraulic expanding wedges. This method rapidly allows the controlled removal of large pieces of concrete with the
minimum of noise, dust and debris. They also used heavy mechanical plant and had to resort to hand-held equipment only for the most awkward areas.
RehearsalMeeting the engineering tolerances required
meant the breakout had to be to absolutely right. This involved some determined scabbling with a boom-mounted piece of equipment to get the base concrete flat and level. Dust, noise and ventilation were a constant challenge. Forced ventilation took fumes and dust away from the station area to a ventilation shaft. Dust was
The new crossover wrapped before the concrete pour.
20 Rail Engineer • October 2015
suppressed as far as possible with constant water spray. This work was entrusted to 4-rail, a company that specialises in scientific and environmental services.
Once the old concrete had been taken out and levelled, the new layout was unloaded from a material train and precisely assembled in its final
line and level. The overhead crane paid dividends ensuring as little disturbance as possible. With the ironwork in place, it was carefully checked for final alignment to millimetre tolerances, then wrapped in polythene before the final concreting, so avoiding the need to chip concrete off the newly-laid track.
At this point, John was keen to emphasise that the concreting exercise had been thoroughly rehearsed. Not at Walthamstow of course, but at Acton depot where a section of track was concreted using the same pumps, the same techniques and within the same space and time restraints.
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Rail Engineer • October 2015 21
“The golden rule is never to be taken by surprise. A
blockade of one of the busiest tube lines in London is not
the best time to test out your concrete pumps!”
CompletionOver a 20-hour period, some 50
concrete lorries from two nearby Hanson depots ferried concrete to the
three pumps that operated continuously. In order not to paint themselves into a
corner, the team started in the single bore tunnels before working through the main
crossover area. After another 20 hours, the concrete had cured sufficiently for the first
engineer's train to run through. Thereafter, point machines were installed by
LU signal engineers, along with the aluminium Brecknell Willis conductor rails. With signal
circuitry tested, it was time for the traction power to be switched on for the running of test trains.
Despite the team having spent the best part of a day ‘hoovering’ up as much dust as they could find, the test trains found more! It took nearly another day for dust levels to drop to a level acceptable to the travelling public.
But, even so, the whole blockade, scheduled for the 23 days, was handed back about a day and a half early.
PerceptionsWhat did the travelling public see of all this
effort? Not a lot. They saw a car park, some of which had been commandeered to provide contractor working space. They saw a great many buses. They might have seen a squad of concrete lorries, pumps and steel tubes leading down into a ventilation shaft, but very few of them would have known what they were looking at - let alone what was going on for their benefit down below their feet. What will they see in the future? More trains! A record 36 trains per hour will run end to end on the line from 2016, making the Victoria line the UK’s highest frequency railway.
By now, your face mask and goggles will have misted up, the temperature caused by your extra layers will have risen and hopefully all the extra sensations should have helped to convey to you the working environment hidden away down below the car park at Walthamstow.
Perhaps the images have been worth a thousand words. Your extra clobber might have added a few more.
Time now to take it off and enjoy the rest of the magazine!
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In August 2015, Walthamstow Central underground station was closed to the general public for three weeks, allowing Track Partnership to renew the scissors crossover situated just outside the station’s platform. The scale of the closure attracted local TV coverage and regular social media updates as part of a conscious effort to inform
commuters on the Victoria line of the reason for the disruption.
The renewal was part of a strategic plan, which will see the entirety of Victoria line able to run 36 trains per hour from Walthamstow Central to Brixton compared to current 24. The layout and condition of the track outside Walthamstow Central was a limiting factor for this frequency, and the challenges of installing heavy S&C units and significant testing in a relatively confined space meant the work could never be undertaken at nights or weekends alone.
The renewal saw, amongst other things, 339 metres of track removed and replaced, 1,000 tons of track bed removed, 300 metres of new drainage installed and 254 cubic metres of concrete poured. 960 tonnes of rubble were excavated, and 90% of all scrap or spoil was recycled. All of this was undertaken by around 170 workers in an area of only 1200m².
Progress Rail Services UK Ltd (PRS-UK) was initially approached 13 months earlier to consider the provision of design services and the manufacture of the track layout throughout the crossover. Whilst the geometry of the crossover was not especially complicated, the required trackform and the tight tunnel clearances, along with a particularly detailed identification and delivery schedule, made this job a significant one in the company’s 2015 delivery programme.
Devil in the DetailPRS-UK originally developed a range of switches
specifically for London Underground in 2005, known as BB54m switches. These shallow depth switches were based upon Network Rail standard designs but optimised to improve flexure, reduce operation forces, and suit the
variety of available points operating equipment across the network. Since then, all London Underground shallow depth renewals have been undertaken using the BB54m suite of switches, along with the option of a PRS-UK mechanical supplementary drive (backdrive) system.
The configuration of switches (EVSm) and point machine (4ft Surelock) at Walthamstow Crossover required a backdrive solution known as PRS12, which has previously been configured for timber and concrete layouts. However, this layout was to be installed entirely on Low Vibration Track (LVT), or, as it’s more commonly known, “sitting on LVT blocks.” The LVT system uses a combination of concrete blocks, resilient pads and rubber boots, all surrounded by concrete, to provide a dual-level elasticity solution, protecting against both low and higher-frequency vibrations.
Manufacture of a jigsaw puzzle
MORVEN HARRISON
Simplified Figure of a Sonneville LVT Block.
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The engineering teams at PRS-UK were responsible for creating an LVT-specific backdrive, which took into consideration the stranding pattern of the LVT concrete, the reduction in available fixing points, and the necessary anchor systems to ensure correct alignment of the switch points. Care was taken to ensure the system was kept as similar to existing products as possible, so as to reduce the variety and training required for installation and maintenance teams, whilst adapting the solution to suit the site and track constraints.
Rubber booted monoblock bearers were used at key locations under the point motors and mechanical cranks. These were designed in conjunction with Vigier and London Underground, uniquely configured to Walthamstow due to the close proximity of tunnel rings throughout the job.
Drafting ‘the Bible’Armed with the 1:200 layout plan provided by Track
Partnership (London Underground and Balfour Beatty working together), the 1:50 detailed general arrangement drawing was created. This drawing details the precise location of every running rail, block, screw, conductor rail and relevant setting out marking. It was particularly essential for this job that this information was available on hand throughout all stages of work. Simple details, such as a general lack of through bearers, the required assembly of tens of thousands of components, many looking very similar to one another, and loose lay in tight tunnels, meant that as such, it became ‘the bible’ for the layout, both at pre-fabrication and in the tunnels during installation.
Similar to the concrete bearers that normally support the rail, plastic dowels were cast into the LVT blocks to allow the baseplates to be screwed into place. The location of each and every dowel had to be provided to the LVT block manufacturer Sonneville, sister company to Vigier Rail. A total of 918 LVT blocks was used throughout the layout, each with between three and eight dowels requiring precise placement. Whilst every effort was made to minimise the number of variants, the complex nature of the job meant that, whilst there were only four sizes of LVT block, there were a total of 118 differently drilled blocks to choose.
The Jigsaw AssembledThe Walthamstow Central Scissors Crossover is an
EVSm 16 layout, totalling over 115 metres toe-to-toe. The nature of the LVT blocks, weighing between 85 - 155kg before baseplates and fixings, resulted in the need for a flexible, dedicated lifting system.
The pre-fabrication was undertaken by PRS-UK in a warehouse in Nottingham, where there were two gantry cranes available to move the blocks and later the half-sets around the layout as necessary. Five weeks of ground space were dedicated purely to the Walthamstow build, and gradually the warehouse filled with over 30,000 individual components. The manpower required to organise and assemble the layout was significantly greater than a normal layout, the first week dedicated purely to unloading and organising the blocks as they arrived on multiple lorries.
With a simple base of plywood to allow blocks to be fixed into position preventing gauge spread, the layout slowly began to take shape.
3D assembly model of PRS back drive and BB54m switches.
Rubber booted monoblock bearer against tunnel rings on site.
Extract of the 1:50 General Arrangement Drawing.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 25TRACK & DRAINAGE
Overall life of the track is a critical variable, and London Underground is keen to ensure the track installed during these renewals has as long a service life as possible. Low vibration track is one part of this solution, however it is not the sole factor - improvements that have been developed over the years were all combined for this renewal.
For example, explosively depth hardened cast manganese crossings were manufactured at the PRS UK South Queensferry foundry, sliding baseplates used both rollers and Interflon coated sliding surfaces, and an increased switch rail toe opening combined with the improved BB54m switch reduces the chance of flangeback contact.
Toward the back end of the Progress Rail build phase, teams from Track Partnership descended upon the warehouse to begin their pre-fabrication phase. Simultaneously, teams of inspectors, gaugers, rail track welders, signallers and installers began their individual tasks.
A major consideration for this job was how to install the layout in the tunnel. As the time taken to organise, move and collate so many thousands of components became apparent, any ideas of loose lay were abandoned where possible, and a semi-panelised solution was developed.
This solution needed to be able to be loaded onto and unloaded from an engineering train in a restricted environment, correctly oriented (no rotation opportunities in a tunnel!), without overloading rails with hanging mass. LVT blocks were to stay attached in position where possible, although the tightness of the single bore tunnels around some of the switches meant some would need to be entirely loose lay.
Secondly, consideration needed to be given to the engineering train. Having travelled on the old Northbound line to deliver new and remove old Southbound material, a second manoeuvre had to be organised - how to allow the engineering train to travel on the new, not yet concreted Southbound line to allow Northbound materials to be moved. The unique issue here was the lack of connecting bearers, resulting in a naturally uncontrolled gauge - aside from the 16 monoblock bearers, four at each point end, there were no other connecting supporting pieces.
Technicolour planningAnd so was devised one of the most colourful, some
may say psychedelic, layouts to be seen for some time. Each colour had a specific purpose: yellow on the end of a rail meant that had to be loaded facing Northbound, green meant a special, temporary gauge bar had to be welded together, etc. It was simple, but effective - only when the layout was actually being reassembled in the tunnel could it be seen quite how necessary and successful it was.
Matching LVT blocks to the correct position.
Pre-fabricated track, prior to marking up.
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Several paint-fume-filled days later, the layout was clearly marked up and ready for dispatch. A total of fifty-five panels and over 100 pallets were transported down to the delivery depot, along with two of the PRS assembly team whose knowledge of the product was now second to none. The good working collaboration between clients and suppliers meant this knowledge was retained and on hand throughout the job as necessary.
One week into the blockade, PRS-UK visited the site to see the installation first hand. The general arrangement drawing was taped to the tunnel wall (upside down for
correct orientation purposes) with all the colour co-ordination added by Track Partnership. Again, multiple teams were underway with their various tasks - gauging of temporary baseplates, craning of the next loose materials, and moving the engineering train. There seemed an almost out-of-place calmness - from an outside contractor’s point of view, it was an impressive set up. Later that same day, TV cameras ventured down the tunnel to report on the work.
As the whole job was to be surrounded by concrete, sections of the pre-fabrication had had to be assembled next to the main layout as their supporting structure would not exist until the final concrete pour. A noticeable example - a new configuration of conductor rail, insulation pots, foot shrouds and baseplates was used on this development; it was not possible to add this to the full layout until after the concrete was set.
Early hand-backAs ever, the detail in the design and the planning was
critical. This planning and foresight meant not only was the job signed off in time, it was actually handed back two days early, and commuter trains have been running successfully since.
From the point of view of the detail designer and manufacturer, Walthamstow crossover was a unique job and certainly involved aspects of development and innovation on what was very much a live, high-profile site. The track alone consisted of over 30,000 components, and the logistics that surrounded the renewal were a much greater workload than simply the installation of the track.
It is interesting to think, judging by all the interest the project has generated, that a layout which was considered very unusual at the time, and a learning curve for all concerned, may soon become much more commonplace.
Morven Harrison is principal engineer - products with Progress Rail Services UK Ltd
Colour co-ordinated mark-up.
Layout during installation in the tunnel.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 27TRACK & DRAINAGE
Just over a year ago (issue 116, June 2014), Rail Engineer reported on trials of two slab track systems installed in Asfordby Tunnel, on the Network Rail test track near Melton Mowbray. The PORR and IVES slab system trials
were accompanied by a trial of the VTRAS transition system between slab and ballasted track.
All three systems were installed by Rhomberg Sersa, the company marketing and installing these systems in the UK. The installation had gone very well, and seemed to confirm the claims of Rhomberg Sersa that it was possible to install slab track very quickly to an extremely high standard on an existing railway using either PORR or IVES.
The success of the trials at Asfordby has attracted a great deal of positive attention from many parties, particularly infrastructure owners, contractors and designers. This has culminated in the recent use of PORR in Winchburgh tunnel (issue 130, August 2015).
It was therefore an opportune time to visit Rhomberg Sersa’s headquarters in the UK near
Doncaster for an update on the Asfordby trials and to hear of the company’s plans for the future.
Technology revisitedFirst, it is timely to review the three
systems and what they offer. A more comprehensive explanation appears in the earlier article.
IVES, a Rhomberg Rail development, simply stands for Intelligent, Versatile, Effective and Solid. It is not strictly slab track, since it consists of individual prestressed concrete units with rail support assemblies for each rail, separated by a small gap.
The system is ballastless though, the units being laid on asphalt paving, and it does behave like a slab since the 250mm deep concrete units are heavy (one tonne each) and a stainless steel dowel pin is used to restrain the units from moving relative to the tarmac.
Not every unit needs to be dowelled and, on the Asfordby trial site where the curves are relatively flat, one dowel every fifth unit was the requirement. Where sharper curves, faster speeds or heavier loads dictate, dowels would be installed more often by design.
The PORR system, jointly developed by Austrian Railways (OBB) and Allgemeine Baugesellschaft A. Porr AG, also relies on an accurately machine-laid asphalt base on a 100mm Type 1 sub-base. However,
Slabtrials
trackCHRIS PARKER
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the concrete modules of this system are significantly different. Each slab is five metres in length and weighs about five tonnes. They are only 150mm thick, however, and so they are slightly flexible.
Five jacking screws are incorporated into each unit, one in the centre and one towards each of the four corners. These are used to level the units approximately 80mm above the asphalt base. The flexibility of the modules allows them to twist and bend to accommodate some of the variation in rail alignment that may be required in track transitions, for example. Greater variations in alignment are dealt with by designing and casting modules with the necessary curvature and cross-level variation built into them.
In each module, there are two large windows, one towards each end. Once the module has been aligned and levelled correctly, self-levelling concrete is poured in through these windows to fill the void between the unit and the supporting asphalt. At Asfordby, the rails are supported and fastened in Vossloh assemblies, as with the IVES modules. However, plans are in hand for production of units using Pandrol Vipa housings as an alternative.
The VTRAS transition module (Vertical Transition System) is designed to avoid problems caused by a sudden change in track stiffness where ballasted and ballastless track meet. The module is essentially a steel ladder structure consisting of two steel beams with transverse support plates between them at intervals corresponding to the sleeper spacing. These carry resilient pads for the sleepers to sit upon. The plates have upturned ends to restrain the sleepers from lateral movement.
VTRAS - slab to ballast transition module
Prefabricated, precision made, floating support provides even distribution of diffe-rent settlement of sub and superstructures.
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Rail Engineer • October 2015 29TRACK & DRAINAGE
The installation at Asfordby has a cast-in-situ concrete support block under the track at the start of the slab track. The one end of the VTRAS module is supported on the outer end of this block whilst the remainder sits on the bottom ballast, under the sleepers it is to support. The track is packed or tamped through the VTRAS unit in the normal way, but the stiffness of the ladder of steel ensures a gradual increase in the overall track stiffness through the length of the transition assembly.
Asfordby outcomesRhomberg Sersa has learned many
things from the trial, which has given the company the opportunity to further improve the system and to adapt it specifically for implementation in the UK. Managing director Carl Garrud and project manager Chris Kearns, joined by consultant John Lyall of Addo Partnership, explained how the trials had gone.
To start with, there is a far wider variety of rail sections in common use in the UK than in mainland Europe. This could have been an inhibiting factor in the adoption of PORR or IVES here. However, Vossloh and PORR developed a universal rail baseplate that could be moulded into any PORR unit regardless of the rail type to be installed.
The appropriate standard Vossloh clips may be fastened into this plate, avoiding the need to cast special PORR units for each different type of rail. Not only that, but should the decision be made in future to re-rail the line with a different rail section,
the PORR units need no alteration, a simple change of certain components of the fastening system will do the job.
A second peculiarity of the UK environment, compared with the rest of Europe, is the available aggregate gradings within the SCC (self compacting concrete). Simplifying somewhat, British aggregate producers do not produce such fine gradings. This has consequences when trying to produce the necessary self-levelling concrete that will be able to find its way right under the PORR units without leaving voids.
This issue became clear at Asfordby. Rhomberg Sersa spent about five months working with many different suppliers of concrete additives, looking for a way to create concrete with the right flow characteristics using standard aggregates available in this country. Success was achieved
in partnership with Hope Construction Materials, which came up with a recipe that is now being marketed as ‘Hopeflow Rail’ alongside the existing ‘Hopeflow’ from which it was derived.
For many, the greatest positive attribute of the PORR system is the speed at which slab track may be installed in an existing rail track - Chris claims that 100 metres can be installed in a 12 hour shift. Once slab track is installed, there are huge benefits to be enjoyed in terms of longevity, durability and cost reduction by comparison with ballasted track.
The cost and disruption of converting ballasted track to ballastless has been the great barrier to the wider introduction of slab track on existing railways (as opposed to its use in new construction).
Engineering teams at Network Rail and elsewhere have shown great interest, having seen at Asfordby the reduction in disruption and cost that the PORR and IVES systems can offer in comparison with other ballastless systems when they are to be installed in an existing rail line.
There is still an extra cost, of course, compared with the conventional renewal of ballasted track, and the need to fund that cost is an issue.
Carl and his colleagues are confident that the reduced whole-life cost and improved quality and reliability of ballastless track are great enough to make the conversion viable. However, until infrastructure owners see this for themselves, which will take time and experience of the track form, there is still a tendency to choose these systems only where there is another factor involved.
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Currently this extra factor is often the need to increase clearances, such as for electrification or to allow the carriage of larger freight containers. This has meant that tunnels are frequently the locations chosen for the conversion to ballastless track.
Infrastructure owners have not been the only ones to learn from the Asfordby trials. Babcock Rail visited the site to see what had been done. As a result, Rhomberg Sersa was included as a sub contractor in its bid for EGIP (Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Project).
PORR in Winchburgh tunnelBabcock saw the PORR system as the ideal solution to
the requirement to increase clearances in Winchburgh tunnel on the route. Early engagement of the contractor in this project resulted in the adoption of the PORR system with all its advantages.
In fact, in the end the PORR system and the versatility of Rhomberg Sersa saved even more time than originally anticipated. When carrying out preparatory work on the Up line, the first line to be renewed, the Babcock construction team encountered serious unexpected challenges prior to installing the 92 PORR units. The ground conditions were significantly worse than envisaged and there was a major problem with water ingress. This situation required a massive team effort from all the project partners.
The delays had been kept down to five days by the time that Rhomberg Sersa was handed the site to begin the installation of the PORR units. Two VTRAS transition units were also to be installed, at each end of the resulting
slab track. The installation team was able to pull back significant time, including being able to demonstrate that the self-levelling concrete was sufficiently strong to carry traffic only 15 hours after pouring it. The result was that the Up was handed back to the first engineering train on time, a terrific effort by all parties and a great demonstration of the capabilities of the PORR system.
The lessons learned from the Up line allowed the JV to de-risk the Down line works, allowing another 92 PORR units and 2 more VTRAS to be installed in that line without incident.
Glasgow Queen’s Street and beyondNetwork Rail needs to provide electrification clearances
in other tunnels on the EGIP project, and perhaps the most important of these are the tunnels at Queen’s Street station.
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Rail Engineer • October 2015 31TRACK & DRAINAGE
The challenges of this site may make Winchburgh look simple. Obviously, there will be major logistical challenges as a result of the location at one end of a very busy station in the centre of a major city.
Access will be a major issue, especially as, when the tunnel works are to occur, there will be contractors hard at work on the station itself. Bringing out several thousand tonnes of spoil as the existing track and slab are removed will take some doing, even before considering importing the materials for the new works.
The tunnels lie on a 4% gradient down towards the station. As at Winchburgh, water ingress is to be expected and will have to be carefully managed.
All of this means that the PORR system is very much in contention for the slab track installation for the plain line, with Sonneville’s LVT system under consideration for the S&C.
Beyond Queen’s Street, Network Rail and others are considering the application of the PORR system and VTRAS for several other projects. Carl was emphatic about the benefits of early contractor engagement. He said that to get the full benefit from a system like PORR, it has to be planned into the project programme in detail and in a way which is possible only if the decision to use it is made as early as GRIP 2 or 3.
He illustrated this by saying that Rhomberg Sersa had been able to cut the programme of a tenderer for the GOBE (Gospel Oak to Barking) project by 30 days, just by incorporating the PORR system into the plan. The tenderer was unsuccessful for unconnected reasons, but the point was made.
IVES improvementsThe IVES system is also under
active consideration for some future projects, but no definite decision has yet been made on any of them.
In the meantime, Rhomberg Sersa has been actively refining the methodology to optimise its application in the UK. The Asfordby experience highlighted a logistical challenge around the application of standard highways technology to lay the asphalt base for the IVES units in a rail environment.
This did not prove to be a serious problem in Asfordby, which is a relatively short tunnel, but the trial did alert the team to the requirement to modify its approach to avoid problems in longer tunnels. This it has done successfully and Rhomberg Sersa is now confident that it can manage installations in tunnels of any length.
Other developmentsCarl and his team are keeping an
eye on developments with the use of asphalt bases for rail tracks. The accuracy of laying asphalt is now so good that it would be feasible to lay sleepers directly on an asphalt bed.
This could have many advantages, giving the sleepers a stiff but resilient base that could be ‘tuned’ to the application, and waterproofing the trackbed. It would be repairable with
technology that is in common use outside the rail industry, but should last longer than ballasted track before needing repair.
Rhomberg Sersa UK is a small company that is working with other larger organisations to provide specialist knowledge and techniques to assist them to be more efficient and effective. Examples of this include involvement with Track Partnership (London Underground and Balfour Beatty), direct consultancy work with LUL and development work with Amey Consulting for Heathrow Express.
On the Midland Metro in Birmingham City centre, the company is a sub-contractor to Balfour Beatty, installing the rails on the metro extension between Snow Hill and New Street stations. It has also played a role on the Metro works further up the line in Wolverhampton.
The company is actively involved as part of the Amey Sersa JV (Amey Rail - Rhomberg Sersa) in the Northern S&C Alliance with Network Rail, introducing the ‘Swiss’ method for the renewal of S&C using bespoke machines and their operators.
The Northern S&C Alliance is also regularly using the Sersa Second Life System, or SLS. This is a life extension system for S&C, the benefits of which may be understood by considering the outcome of its first UK application at Oxhays in 2005. Designed to provide a life extension of five years, in practice it far exceeded that and the treated S&C has only recently been renewed, ten years later.
As a final thought, it is worth noting Carl’s statistic that Rhomberg Sersa installs about 45km of ballastless track per annum worldwide. That’s a lot of concrete slabs!
Project OverviewNetwork Rail selected Stobart Rail as the contractor to deliver the re-ballasting scheme at Mauchline, Scotland.
The project delivery strategy was developed utilising in-house expertise, including resources and innovative plant such as the Ballast Undercutter, ensuring value engineering delivery throughout the site.
The work was completed during one single weekend possession.
David Tomnay, Network Rail Project Manager: “Thank you for the assistance given by Stobart Rail in ensuring the Ballast Undercutter site at Mauchline. The original plan for working within a 54hr possession was changed to working Friday and Saturday nights only, as a result of other major works within the same possession changing our available access.
“This was further compounded when the Undercutter was blocked from egressing the site as planned and a further shift had to be arranged to get the machine out.
“This was only possible due to the willingness of Stobart staff to stay for an extra night in nearby accommodation and come back out the following night.
“I viewed the site the morning after the main works and was delighted with the standard of work carried out. Good top and alignment, and a tidy site.”
MAUCHLINE
This project was known as the Mauchline Re-ballast S&C.
Stobart Rail’s Ballast Undercutters, and the processes in which they are used, have been developed and improved so that spent ballast can be removed to give a level formation (or with cross fall, if required) and then replenished without the need to break the track.
The machines, their operators and a team of highly qualifi ed operatives can effi ciently remove ballast from underneath plain line, single line, switches and/or crossings. This includes with third and fourth rail.
The Ballast Undercutter also off ers opportunities for track lowering, removing wet beds, removal of contaminated ballast and applying cross fail to the formation to improve drainage.
Steel has many useful properties, which mean it is found in virtually everything around us - from the chair you may be sitting on to the vehicle you took to get to work today. Steel shapes our lives in more
ways than you might initially think.
However steel has one property which isn’t so useful - it rusts. Steel is always trying to get back to its native state (Iron Oxide) and so, unless we do something to stop it, steel corrodes. How fast this happens depends on its environment and I’ll come back to this point as it is vital.
Protecting rail assetsIf you look at pretty much any
steel object in our rail industry, the steel used has some sort of corrosion protection. Whether this
is galvanised overhead masts, paint protected vehicle chassis, line-side cabinets or even concrete sleepers, virtually all steel objects have corrosion protection built-in to stop the steel trying to return to its natural state. The most notable general exception to this rule is a fundamental part of our industry - the rail itself.
So why don’t we always protect the rails? - The key here is the expected life. In the majority of UK cases the rail will usually be replaced due to wear or rolling contact fatigue before it requires replacement due to corrosion, so protection in this
case is unnecessary. However, as operating environments vary significantly, this is not always the case!
The rate of rail corrosion is highly dependent on the operating environment. There are several factors that accelerate corrosion vastly; the most common are water and salt, certainly something we are not short of in the UK.
Where these are present in areas such as coastal tracks, wet tunnels or level crossings, rail life may become determined by this accelerated corrosion. When this becomes the case, corrosion-protection of the rails becomes vital to optimise the life of the rail.
In severe environments, rail lives of just three months have been observed.
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(Above) Level crossings trap dirt, water and salt around the rail - a potent corrosive cocktail.
(Left) Cross section of the above rail from showing severe loss of rail section.
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Failure modesThere are essentially two forms
of corrosion-related rail failure. Rail gall is a general loss of rail
section (usually affecting the foot). This can be general loss of section, but is usually more severe under rail clips/fastenings due to the localised environment here (water trap with abrasion from the clip/insulator).
Severe loss of rail section compromises both strength and restraint of rails.
Foot fatigue results from the combined effect of corrosion and fatigue. A corrosion pit forms on the foot of the rail and under traffic a fatigue crack can grow from this defect, ultimately causing
complete rail failure. This is, in my opinion, the most problematic form of corrosion induced failure, due to the fact that you cannot measure it. Corrosion pits usually form on the rail foot (an area you can’t see or inspect), and in high load areas the pit only needs to be a few millimetres deep to start generating a fatigue crack.
The resulting crack is virtually undetectable via current in-track monitoring techniques, meaning control of this issue is problematic.
As the industry moves towards increasing rail life further by the use of more wear and rolling contact fatigue resistant rail steels, the proportion of rail replacement due to corrosion will likely increase unless we address this by adding protection where appropriate.
So how can we protect the rails against corrosion? - There are essentially two ways to prevent corrosion of steel.
Barrier coatingsThis is one we are probably
all familiar with; you create a barrier to stop the atmosphere/
Virtually undetectable in service, foot fatigue cracks can grow from small corrosion pits on the rail foot. A small corrosion pit can result in a big headache.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 35TRACK & DRAINAGE
environment reaching the steel surface or, in other words, you apply a barrier coating to the rail. This is often a paint coating, but can be other things such as tar or rubber which is still used in some countries.
There are a number of drawbacks to this approach, though. The first is that any damage to the coating means that this area is unprotected and will corrode as fast, or indeed even faster, than if no coating was present. The second is that such coatings are usually unsuited to use where stray currents exist. Without going into too much detail, this means you can’t use them in third or fourth rail areas and also some overhead line locations, as any damage to the coating concentrates corrosion in the damaged area, resulting in extreme damage very quickly.
Sacrificial protectionAnother way to protect steel is to
apply a sacrificial coating to it. This corrodes in preference to the steel (so protecting it at the same time). This is why overhead line poles and many street lamps are galvanised. The zinc coating corrodes (slowly), in preference to the steel. Any small areas of damage remain protected by the coating either
side of the damage (called the throw effect). The size of uncoated area protected depends on the operating environment. Under seawater, for example, the area protected is large and this is why ships use lumps of zinc on their hulls to stop corrosion. In the atmosphere the area protected is much smaller.
Historic rail coatings have typically relied on the provision of a simple barrier coating; however, our latest generation of corrosion protection coatings provide both barrier and sacrificial properties to ensure real-world robust rail protection.
Real rail protectionThe environment provides some
unique challenges to providing corrosion protection for rails: » Impact resistance - Passing
vehicles can hurl ballast at the rails, so an impact resistant coating is needed to prevent excessive damage;
» Damage tolerance - Almost inevitably something, somewhere will manage to breach the coating. Damage may be from ballast or damage from installation or maintenance operations such as damage from tamper tines;
» Stray current protection -
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Stray currents third/fourth rail operations as well as overhead, external or even some signalling current sources can cause rapid corrosion to most barrier coatings;
» Abrasion - Coatings are subject to abrasion and erosion particularly where clips/insulators or other track furniture contact the rail;
» Removal - For maintenance and installation purposes the coating needs to be removable (and indeed replaceable) in order to facilitate track welding.
To provide a corrosion-protection system that lasts requires optimisation of all these items to deliver longer rail life. Tata Steel has spent many years protecting rails from the elements and its coated rail solutions have provided some simply staggering extensions to rail life. The replacement rail installed into the level crossing pictured above has now exceeded 23 times the life of the original. This means improvements for
everyone - passengers have a safer and less disrupted journey, maintainers and network owners have a lower risk network with less rail replacement to do, and the general public don’t have their road/rail crossing closed for rail replacement.
In the constant strive to improve product performance our latest generation coated rail product, Zinoco™, provides maximum sacrificial protection with a step change improvement in durability for the highest level of corrosion-protection.
Daniel Pyke is product marketing manager, Tata Steel.
Is it human nature that most people don’t believe in something until it’s actually happened? Here at Rail Engineer, we’re not known for being cynical of new technology but when we were invited to view Network Rail’s new Mobile Maintenance Train (MMT), it prompted some discussions about the need for such a thing.
Comments such as: “What’s wrong with the way the railway is maintained now?” and “This will be a white (or rather yellow) elephant.” In no time flat we had it parked up in a siding awaiting its fate. Well, the visit was made and how utterly wrong we were. This thing is a marvel!
Described by Network Rail as a ‘workshop on wheels’, the MMT could well revolutionise railway maintenance. The first set entered service in early September, heralding the commissioning of an initial fleet of eight trains. Four sets will be used on the LNE and East Midlands zones, based at Darlington, Retford, Derby and Peterborough. The other four will be used on the South East zone, based at Paddock Wood, Romford, Woking and Horsham.
Self-containedThese state-of-the-art engineering trains are designed to make working
on the railway quicker, safer and more efficient. Each train has three ‘cars’ that provide a workshop facility, two built-in 2-tonne overhead hoists, multiple power points (415V, 110V, hydraulic and pneumatic) and a welfare area equipped with a kitchen, washing facilities and a toilet.
The remarkable feature, however, is the large extendable work area that provides access to the track whilst at the same time protecting the work force from passing trains and the elements. The idea is to provide a safe and contained mobile workspace that will allow track repairs to be undertaken in section, without the need for a possession, and with the adjacent line open to traffic. As a result, the MMTs should reduce disruption during the day as repairs are carried out, thereby allowing better use of the railway at night for freight trains.
They will also keep track workers safe, warm and dry, allowing them to be more productive and better able to focus on getting the job done. Teams will board the MMT at a depot, pre-equipped with all the necessary tools and equipment. They will then be taken directly to the worksite and won’t need to leave the protection of the train until it returns to the depot.
Each 3-car train consists of a Traction & Supply Unit (TSU), an Intermediate Car (IC) and a Mobile Maintenance Unit (MMU).
PowerThe TSU contains the No.1 driving cab, the traction equipment, the
staff welfare facilities and a workshop area. Motive power is provided by two Deutz TCD2016 V8 diesel engines, of 500kW each, which are mounted beneath floor level along the centre line of the vehicle. There are hydrostatic drives on all four axles giving a top speed of 60mph. Above floor level, a 140kW generator set driven by a Deutz TCD 6.1 6-cylinder in-line diesel engine provides the electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic power for the train. Interestingly, the fuel system includes an AdBlue urea
NEW FLEET EXPANDS!
STUART MARSH
An earlier form of protection for track workers. (London Bridge 2015)
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tank, an aqueous solution of urea that is used as a catalyst for the reduction of nitrous oxides in the diesel exhaust.
Power for engine start is from two 24V batteries plus a capacitor array. For battery and capacitor charging, a shore supply can be connected. This can also be used to provide train heating, window demisting and to maintain the fresh and waste water tanks above freezing point.
The fleet is to be maintained by Colas Rail on site. Heavier work though, will be undertaken at its maintenance facilities in Ealing and Rugby.
Colas Rail also had a design input on the driving cab layout and equipment specifications. The cabs are air-conditioned and, as well as having the usual driving controls, are equipped with a sophisticated touch screen DMI (driver machine interface). This provides the driver with various checklists, status indications and diagnostics. A further touch screen device uses GPS positional data and Omnicom Track Locator software to provide the driver with a distance countdown to worksite locations.
StorageIn the centre of the train, the Intermediate
Car provides a full length storage area for hand tools, power tools and materials. Hydraulically operated lift gates (tail lift seems the wrong description) allow easy loading of plant and materials from ballast level. Heavy equipment can be moved along the train by means of two
2-tonne overhead hoists that share a common track. The track continues on into the Work Unit via a cleverly articulated bridge. Hinged floor plates can easily be lifted to give access to an under floor storage bay that will accommodate up to six rails, with a maximum length of 45ft. The rails are lifted from the four foot using the overhead hoists.
As standard, an impressive line-up of power tools is carried in the Intermediate Car. New to Network Rail are the hydraulic hand tampers, weighing just 25kg each. There is also a 415V electrically powered rail grinder and four rail de-clipper machines. A hydraulic intensifier is available to raise the on-board 200 Bar hydraulic system up to the 700 Bar pressure needed for rail stressing. There is also a portable fume extraction system that is used when rail welding is taking place. No petrol or diesel power tools are used at all.
ProtectedAt first sight, the Mobile Maintenance Unit
contains largely empty space, a 16-metre long enclosed work area with no floor. Leaving the Intermediate Car, steps allow direct access onto the track beneath the MMU. The outer end has a similar set of steps leading to an elevated supervisor’s console and the No.2 driving cab. Within the work area, each sidewall is fitted with LED flood lighting and an array of power points for the electric, pneumatic and hydraulic tools. The upper part of each sidewall is almost entirely composed of louvred vents that can be opened and closed by pneumatic actuators. Overhead, the two hoists do their stuff.
The really clever part is the hydraulic system that can independently move each side-wall in and out in six increments of 100mm. With the sides fully retracted for transit, the work area has a width of 2-metres and feels slightly cramped. Moving each sidewall out by 200mm gives the train a standard W6A profile and even this creates a less constrained feel. With
Two traversing overhead hoists facilitate handling.
Power and hand tools stored in the intermediate car.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 39TRACK & DRAINAGE
the sidewalls at their maximum extent, the workspace feels roomy and is adequate for sleeper changing. Standing in the four foot whilst the sides are retracting feels something like the remake of a tense James Bond scene, but they do stop!
For obvious reasons, the strength and stability of this vehicle is dependent on the integrity of the roof section which is, of course, massively constructed.
When work is being undertaken on the track, the train is controlled from the Supervisor’s Console within the MMU. This locks out the driving cab controls. Indeed, of the three control positions on the train, only one can be in use at any time. Interlocks prevent the train being driven from the driving cabs unless the MMU sidewalls are stowed and the side lift gates are closed and locked. On site, the train can operate in Static Mode or Creep Mode. The latter gives a constant forward or reverse speed of 1.2mph, which is useful for re-matting, re-clipping, etc. At each end of the workspace, a ‘light barrier’ beam traverses the vehicle just above rail level. Breakage of either beam by a person or an object on the track will cause the train brakes to fully apply.
DatabaseAs the sidewalls are extended, a laser
measures the distance to the six foot rail, raising an alarm if the gauge is infringed. The amount of extension required depends on the task in hand. Re-matting, for instance, can be done at sidewall setting 2, but rail clipping requires step 3. Welding and sleeper changing require yet more space.
The vehicle end and centre throw needs to be factored in on curves. On the outside of a curve, for instance, achieving an acceptable sidewall extension at the centre point of the vehicle could place the side-wall ends out of gauge.
Andy Keens, project manager MMT LNE, explained more. “At present, the rule book demands that a T3 possession is required whenever the MMT is put to work. Also, we can’t work with the adjacent line open to traffic. The eventual aim, however, is to use the MMT in section protected only by the signalling, for which we will need a rule book derogation. Before this can happen a data base will need to be created in conjunction with ClearRoute for determining the maximum allowable side-wall extension at any location.”
The database will take account of the rail cant, the track curvature, the width of the six foot and obstacles such as bridge piers.
BenefitsThe MMT concept is to move staff, materials
and equipment safely, swiftly and directly to the worksite. Once there, the MMU provides a static or rolling enclosed work space, separated from trains and providing protection from the elements. Excellent site lighting is provided for night-time or tunnel working.
Initial tasks will include the replacement of closure rails, removal and repair of track defects, IBJ (insulated block joint) replacement and repair, renewal of pads and insulators, replacement of base plates and fish plate greasing.
Safety is improved because workers travel to and from site in a protected environment. Manual handling is greatly reduced, as is the risk of trips, slips and falls. The use of hydraulic and pneumatic-powered tools means reduced noise and vibration. Reduced road vehicle usage, especially by tired staff at the end of a shift, also adds to an improved safety culture.
An MMT in use on the continent.
The supervisor’s control desk.
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The price tag comes in at £5.3 million per MMT set. It sounds a lot, but Network Rail has done its sums well and the project fulfils a business case. The benefits mentioned above bring their own cost savings, but there are also financial gains from increased productivity. For a start, preparation and clear-up shifts are eliminated. Everything is transported to site in one efficient vehicle and all scrap is carried away afterwards, leaving a clean site. Because the job is done in one shift, this means fewer possessions and fewer temporary speed restrictions.
The thinking is also that an improved working environment produces a better quality job. There will be a learning curve, of course. Andy Keens says: “From site observations in Norway, where a similar MMT is operated, we were particularly impressed with the setup time. This has motivated us to look at the options for deploying the machine as a train in section and moving away from possession works.
“We are also looking at the restrictions, limitations and potential hazards with the rail welding process. So we’re considering adopting new safety procedures, fume extraction systems and the use of fire blankets within the MMU. We’ve learned a lot from viewing the welding process in Norway and the potential hazards it presents when working in the MMU.”
EfficiencyOn LNE, the acting MMT supervisor is Corey White. He said: “There
was scepticism at first, but now the feeling of the lads is that they love it, particularly because it’s taken away all the manual handling. They are happy with the tools and the working environment - it’s like working inside!”
The MMT is planned to be used over much of the LNE zone, but will be particularly useful on the lines with a high proportion of jointed track. This is because the level of required maintenance is disproportionately high relative to the level of traffic. Corey says: “If we get, say, a level two twist fault, we have to respond just as if it was on the main line. Use of the MMT on remote rural lines makes tackling jobs like this so much more efficient, especially as we can look
to undertake multiple tasks such as combining track geometry repairs with yearly fishplate oiling. In fact the MMT will allow us to move more towards planned preventative maintenance, rather than just reacting to problems.”
The Darlington-based MMT is currently operating five shifts per week, but the intention is to increase this to seven. Andy Keens reckons it should more than double the current production rate. “With the existing manual methods we might expect to change pads on 300 to 400 sleepers per shift,” he says. “With the MMT in service we have an eventual target of 900 per shift.”
Having seen the MMT and heard about its benefits, the traditional ways of carrying out permanent way maintenance begin to look old fashioned. The MMT is a bold initiative that represents a significant investment. Network Rail has not entered into this project lightly. Forward thinking and new technology like this are bound to attract some scepticism, but everyone associated with the project is confident that this will give way to appreciation.
That has certainly been the case in our office!
Scot Bradley, Colas Rail Fleet Manager in the driving seat.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 41TRACK & DRAINAGE
There are some countries in the world, in the far North and East, where winter lasts for eight months of the year. In Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, temperatures can remain well below
zero continuously for many weeks.
Whilst the UK experiences the fringes of the prevalent winter trends in Europe, it is nonetheless a challenge to keep rail infrastructure from freezing. Snow flurries can start in November and occur as late as April, with overnight frosts extending even longer.
So, with the advent of the 24/7 railway, steps need to be taken by infrastructure managers to make sure that switches and points don’t freeze up.
That’s not a great problem. Points heaters, which are long thin electrical elements designed for installation on switch blades to keep them warm at night, have been around for some time. However, switching them on for long periods consumes vast amounts of energy using valuable resources, adding to CO2 emissions. As energy costs rise, it’s a great shame that this expensive heat is radiated out into the cold air.
What is needed is some good yet simple insulation which will help ensure that heat is retained in the points where it’s needed, leading to reduced energy bills and improving the effectiveness of frost and ice prevention.
Keeping heat in and costs downStep forward Tracktherm®, a heat
retainer developed by the A Proctor Group specifically to be installed directly over existing points heating systems designed and tested by Network Rail and proven to work.
With the addition of Tracktherm, which is easily clipped into place over the heater to reduce heat loss, energy from the heater is more effectively directed into the rail. This reduces the warmup time of the heater by more than 50% , reducing the energy used by 25 - 30%. Raising rail temperature from -5ºC to +3ºC can take less than one hour rather than two hours using the same heater but without the Tracktherm heat retainer.
These improvements could mean that lower-rated energy systems could be used to obtain significant benefits on today’s technology. In the case of the railways in countries where winter temperatures are much lower, improvements could perhaps be achieved which will result in significantly less energy being required to operate the whole system and, as systems can use more than 200W/m, this would be worth exploring.
BIG FREEZEPreparing for the
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Changing Track was the title of an article in Rail Engineer issue 109 (December 2013). It was the result of an interview that I conducted with Steve Featherstone, Network Rail’s track programme director.
That was nearly two years ago - a long time in the changing world of Network Rail. Since then, the company has a new chairman, a new chief executive, a new managing director of Infrastructure Projects (Francis Paonessa - Steve’s boss), and now isn’t even a company at all as it has been reclassified as an arm’s length central government body.
But, despite these changes, Steve Featherstone is still track programme director, leading the IP Track Delivery function and responsible for delivering the majority of track renewals work in Network Rail, including track enhancement and refurbishment works. I caught up with him again recently to find out what had changed for him over those two years.
Still organised into national specialist delivery teams for Switches and Crossings (S&C), High Output and Plain Line, Steve and his team are specialists in each delivery method, making sure they are the best at what they do and providing track expertise across the business.
However, Steve has made some significant changes to his organisation, introducing Alliances in the north and the south to deliver the S&C programme of works, and in-sourcing the High Output organisation from AmeyColas.
Safety and performanceLast time we met, Steve talked
about his vision of a ‘seven day railway’ whereby passengers would travel ‘trouble free’ and where maintenance and renewal work would be seamlessly carried out, invisible to the travelling public.
Steve explained that this is still his vision and the team have made good progress. For example, in 2013, IP Track improved line hand back speeds
to 50mph rising on occasion to 80mph. This latter is now becoming the norm and a 90mph line handback speed is now a more regular achievement.
Clamping rails rather than welding joints is a critical factor which is particularly significant in S&C layouts, so the team has set itself a target of 100mph handback speed by March 2016.
It is confident it can achieve this using the rail clamp technology pioneered by Robel - a milestone which will be appreciated by operators and train operating companies alike and which, ultimately, improves rail travel for passengers.
Sticking to the planWe talked about the delays
travellers experienced last Christmas and the impact this had on Network Rail and on IP Track specifically. Steve explained that, although Network Rail would have preferred not to have gone through such an experience, it provided invaluable lessons learnt and emphasised how critical it is that plans are adhered to and that robust contingency plans are in place and followed.
As Steve pointed out, Network Rail is responsible for more than 4.5 million passengers who travel by rail every day, and it isn’t just about getting them from A to B, it is also about caring for passengers and their communities, getting passengers to their destinations in a healthy frame of mind having had a pleasant, delay-free journey.
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One subtle but very important change to the planning process which demonstrates this perfectly is the introduction of a ‘cut and run’ stage. When facing overruns, decision making is transferred from the asset manager, who will understandably want the work to be completed to the highest technical specification, to the operations manager, who will decide on the work that can be undertaken and still deliver the line back to the operator on time. This is an interesting change in focus which has the travelling public’s interest at the centre of decision-making.
IP track delivery teamsWe discussed the organisation design changes that have taken place within
Steve’s IP Track delivery teams in High Output, Plain Line and S&C.In March 2015, Network Rail insourced the high output organisation of
AmeyColas, which included the maintenance and operation of two track renewal systems (TRS) and five ballast cleaners (BCS).
The transfer involved working closely with trade unions to TUPE across over 500 AmeyColas colleagues into Network Rail, and creating a plant maintenance organisation in Network Rail’s National Supply Chain (NSC) managed by its director, Nick Elliott.
Steve West, high output plant director, manages the Network Rail plant teams supplying the TRS and BCS to the production teams which are managed by Ben Brooks, high output director, and which carry out the work and liaise with the route customers.
A comprehensive safety validation process was undertaken to make sure the new role as principal contractor was fully understood by Network Rail and the changes delivered safely and effectively. The production teams are currently being upskilled and re-organised to make sure there are six skilled crews to operate all six units, whilst the seventh unit undergoes maintenance.
Steve explained that the move highlights Network Rail’s commitment to minimise passenger disruption, reduce the cost of running the railway by 20 per cent over the next five years, and improve sustainability.
New ballast cleaner orderedSteve went on to explain that it is the high output track renewals team’s
responsibility to clean the ballast of debris, oil and emissions as well as regularly renewing it so it remains functional and safe - a big job given ballast supports more than 20,000 miles of track across Britain.
Codenamed ‘BCS5’, Network Rail has ordered a new £50 million ballast cleaner from Plasser & Theurer, boasting the latest technological advancements in track renewals, benefitting from reduced fuel consumption and emissions, and incorporating measures to reduce workforce exposure to ballast dust, including mist-based suppression systems.
Built for ‘third-rail’ operation, allowing the conductor rail to safely remain in place throughout the cleaning process - a first for the British rail network - the purpose-built kit and associated support plant will become the fifth ballast cleaning system in the fleet and is due to be delivered in 2016.
Steve was keen to highlight that staff have been issued with self-contained breathing apparatus rather than masks. Costing around £1,000 each, these provide cool air and are being further developed to include lamps and communication equipment.
Plain Line Ian Henley, project director, Plain Line, has led the awards of three
different packages of work. The contracts were awarded to: » Babcock: Western, Wales& Wessex, Scotland, LNW South - value around
£200 million over five years; » Carillion: LNW North, LNE & East Midlands - around £100 million over
five years; » Colas: Kent & Sussex, Anglia - approximately £75 million over five years.These awards represented some significant challenges as, inevitably,
a void was created by the tender process when outgoing contractors retained, wherever possible, their most valuable and skilled staff. Steve said that this had been particularly difficult in the South East where there is often a shortage of skilled resources. However, the situation is improving and Plain Line management is beginning to see a more balanced and skilled set of resources available to the incoming contract teams.
Successful alliancingThe decision to create North and South alliances for S&C track renewals
has proved to be a successful one. The North alliance is between Network Rail, Amey and Sersa while in the South it is between Network Rail with Colas and AECOM. The selection process was heavily biased toward behavioural criteria rather than finance and commercial considerations, the 10-year contracts are collectively valued at £400 million.
Dal Chatta, S&C director for the
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North alliance is a Network Rail employee, whereas Said Lahssioui, S&C director for the South alliance is from Colas. The management teams are made up of colleagues from across the alliance partners, with the most suitable person filling the role irrespective of their parent company.
Steve explained that this approach has removed many of the barriers previously in place. He has two alliance teams that include both the NSC and IP Track organisations which are totally focused on delivering a successful package of S&C renewals. This collaborative approach means the teams share with pain when things go wrong but also take huge pride in their work when everything goes according to plan.
It’s a new, refreshing and exciting approach to S&C renewals which bodes well for the future.
So, substantial change is evident in every aspect of Steve’s organisation. I remember once someone saying that during such times of flux, everything changes but actually everything remains the same. The same issues and risks still need to be acknowledged and addressed and one of the areas where Steve has committed a huge amount of energy to is with the suppliers of small plant and road/rail machines.
Plant databaseSteve is as keen as ever that suppliers with the highest
plant reliability are rewarded. To support this stance, his team has developed a database to record the performance of every plant supplier, which also allows each supplier to view its own plant reliability performance.
Some of the plant providers have grasped the message, which is reinforced by IP Track plant reliability awards. Considering that one operation or shift, within a programme of track renewals, costs around £250,000, the message becomes clear; reliability is crucial and should never be compromised. Those with the most reliable plant will win and those with the least reliable plant will lose.
Getting out on trackEven though the IP Track Renewals team have been
through some major changes over the past year or so, the same issues face the guys out on track at two in the morning and getting out and about is still a very important part of Steve’s diary. He says that talking to the guys laying the track, and digging the ballast, is the best way of understanding what is going well and what needs to be addressed; where the safety, health and wellbeing of the teams are an absolute priority.
It is a sound philosophy which provides an excellent reference and anchor point when all around you is in a state of change.
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Track and other rail assets can be difficult to access, and are often hidden from view. However, rail engineers are learning to rise above these problems and there is growing interest in the use of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) to support survey and development work on rail infrastructure.
A reduced potential impact on services, improved access to hard-to-reach structures and the generation of richer, BIM compliant data are all key benefits of using this new technology. London Underground is embracing this technology and has already successfully carried out a number of projects through one of its maintenance contractors, Lanes Group, and has more in the pipeline.
“Digital technology, and the way it can be deployed using UAVs is changing our mindset,” says Andy McQueen, who heads up Lanes Group’s new professional services team. “In the future, rail contractors are likely to become just as much data management experts as track drainage and building maintenance experts. The opportunities to support rail clients are significant.”
Spy in the skyLanes Group, which operates a range of drainage and structure maintenance
contracts for London Underground, is using the latest UAV technology, originally developed for military use in Germany and only just released for civil applications. Surveillance is still the name of the game but, increasingly, bridges, maintenance depots, power lines and drainage systems will be the focus of attention using ultra-HD digital cameras.
Captured images can be used to generate 3D point clouds, useful for generating 3D structural models, and CAD files, as well as being turned into orthogonal mosaics. Videos can be used to create fly-throughs to help with identifying obstructions, clashes and access issues.
Operators can capture the big picture from 100 or more metres away, or can swoop down to inspect structures in minute detail from just two metres. UAVs can even be flown inside large structures, provided the correct safety protocols are in place.
Thus new technology has significant practical advantages. A UAV survey of the roof at Amersham Station on the Metropolitan line – the first drone survey of a Tube station – was completed in one day by just two operatives.
To carry out the same survey by conventional means – getting boots on the ground – would have taken a team of four operatives up to five nights. In some cases, roof areas are so fragile that carrying out such inspections conventionally is almost impossible.
Direct comparisonThere are now plans to expand the application of UAV surveys beyond
obvious structures to London Underground’s track drainage systems. Lanes Group is trialling the idea and will first carry out a conventional full drainage survey around a major maintenance depot, then mapping the area from the air using a UAV.
Andy McQueen explained: “We will then compare the results. I am confident the exercise will show UAV surveys can be a useful technique to locate and plot catch pits, pump stations, and track drainage, and to create accurate georeferenced asset maps.”
Until now, plotting and managing assets like track drainage has been notoriously difficult and time-consuming, adding to maintenance costs and hindering effective capital investment decision-making.
UAV and digital image technology, as used by Lanes Group, has the potential to change that, with larger areas surveyed more quickly, more accurately, and with a lighter touch.
From drainage flows to data flows
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In the twenty-first century, we have all become accustomed to technology moving on at a frantic pace. Mobile phones change every year,
cars every three. There are hybrid buses, fuel cells, Wi-Fi in coffee shops, smart-this, hyper-that - it’s almost impossible to keep up with the rate of technological change.
And then there are the railways.Railway engineering has always had a
reputation for longevity. It allows plenty of time to pay back the often-huge investments that have been made in the past, and the established way is often thought of as being the safest way.
But that attitude can stifle innovation and keep costs up as well as down. The benefits that new technology can bring are often not realised. It doesn’t have to be ground-breaking innovation either - simple upgrades to existing equipment, making them fit for purpose in today’s world, are often all it takes.
And now - Mk 3One company that has taken that idea on
board is SPX Rail Systems. It has launched a ‘new’ line of products that are major improvements on what has gone before, but which keep the simple ideas of earlier models and are also interchangeable with them.
The new Mk3 line of products was launched at the recent Rail2015 show and was a reaction to Network Rail’s reliability improvement and
‘Whole Life Cost Reduction’ programme and showcases exactly how successful collaborative working can be.
The Mk3 range, including a barrier system, Clamplock and power pack, would never have been possible without a full buy-in to collaborative working, the importance of which has never been higher on the rail industry’s agenda.
SPX Rail Systems’ history of working hand-in-hand with its customers goes right back to the original Smiths Industries Hydraulics Limited and British Rail-designed hydraulic power pack, Clamplock point machine and road level crossing barrier system. Fifty years on and SPX Rail Systems continues to support collaborative development and regeneration of its products.
Delivering the challengesWith 50 years’ experience in collaborative
engineering practices, the SPX Rail Systems team and its customers have developed strong lines of communication that played no small part in the success of the ongoing product development. Network Rail’s whole life costing
(WLC) manual supplied the definition and problem statement principles, and detailed analysis of National reliability data produced upgrade proposals for development. These collaborative processes have helped ensure that methods for life cycle costing, sustainability and reliability are driven into the SPX Rail Systems upgrade decision making process though safety, risk and value management.
Detailed analysis of existing and potential failure modes are key to all upgrade works, but these are only part of the requirement of understanding a true upgrade development. Understanding the original design, historical product changes and reasons for change all contribute to understanding the risks involved in delivering a safe, reliable and cost effective upgrade.
“We have to fully appreciate exactly what our customers are looking for before we undertake any developments with them,” said Iqbal Chadda, commercial development director at SPX Rail Systems. “Sometimes, we are working to support engineering design changes to track, or maybe equipment is going to be used in a slightly different way or environment, or the customer is looking for a more efficient operation - we have to understand exactly what is expected of the development before anything takes place.
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“Over the course of an upgrade the requirements can change again - but if we are working closely with our customer the design develops to meet the requirements of the customer’s needs - that’s just the railway, forever evolving!”
Upgrade work is often complicated, especially where CE approval process is required. SPX Rail Systems ensures that all upgraded components, when introduced, are approved with CE Declaration of Incorporation, specifically approved against each previous product design iteration to ensure risk-free compatibility.
Safeguarding product integration is a key element of every upgrade. The SPX engineering stage gate system allows for assured product changes to be integrated into the principle design with all engineering and historical use knowledge considered. The latest Mk3 specifications now bring a new level of CE and Product Approval which supersedes all upgrades.
Unique testing facilitiesTo deliver the upgraded customer
specifications, SPX Rail Systems has invested heavily in ensuring that the engineering design and testing can be completed in-house. All testing is completed on a loop system that cycles barrier machine, barrier machine power pack, Clamplock and Clamplock power pack on a round-the-clock basis. SPX Rail Systems is the only company in the UK with a fully hydraulically jacked adjustable 21 metre F panel test rig which can simulate realistic track conditions for component testing.
Flexible installation methods enable test programmes to be devised and implemented against customer specifications and a wide range of testing facilities are available to support this activity. All data is captured on a dedicated server, and analysis during the validation stage ensures that design safety and performance
are achieved. Customer approval of the test rig parameters and testing outputs brings considerable project advantages. In most cases, having empirical data from the bespoke product testing can bring about a reduced test programme on the infrastructure, significantly reduced risk, improved performance, less down time and a range of additional cost savings.
Looking forwardsThe launch of the next generation Mk3
products in the UK heralds an important time for SPX Rail Systems and will be followed by the introduction of the European Mk4 Clamplock in November 2015. Customers from various markets were invited to see the new developments for themselves at Rail2015, and looked around the rest of the show while they were there.
“We were delighted to welcome some of our European customers, and we hope that them visiting Rail2015 was beneficial to some of the other UK suppliers, and vice versa,” said Scott Harrison, general manager of SPX Rail Systems UK. “We believe that collaborative working is as much about sharing contacts as it is about utilising knowledge - the UK rail market has such a wide breadth of talented people and clever organisations, and hopefully our European customers will have benefitted from meeting with some of these great organisations.”
Rail Engineer • October 2015 53TRACK & DRAINAGE
Manchester Victoria Station, built in 1844, boasting the longest platform in the UK and cringing under its reputation as “the worst station in the country”, has now been totally transformed into a key transport interchange for the city.
Work started in 2013, and the station now has a bright new roof, an extended raised footbridge over the concourse area, additional platform facilities for the Metrolink tram service and a high level of restoration for the many outstanding Victorian station buildings and features. The redevelopment is part of over £1 billion of investment which will improve rail services across the north of England.
The station is a Grade II listed building and, at an early stage of the project, Network Rail instructed architects BDP to develop a number of schemes to revitalise the station. Additional support for this work was provided by Hyder Consulting so that competitive tenders could be invited to “design in principle”.
Effective crowd managementThe principal contractor, Morgan Sindall, continued to
use Hyder to complete the design work. This took into account a variety of challenging issues which included keeping the station open for Northern Rail passengers, working alongside many neighbours including the Manchester Arena events centre, and ensuring that the Metrolink tram service retained a pathway through the station throughout the work.
To assist both Network Rail and Morgan Sindall in this complex set of challenges, a BIM five-dimensional model of the work was developed - the fourth and fifth dimensions represent cost and scheduling in case you are wondering. Other suppliers were able to contribute to the model as required and it proved to be an invaluable asset, helping the team to anticipate the many challenges that emerged.
Permission to demolish old roofAn early concern was whether permission would be
granted to remove the old station roof, which was in very poor condition. Detailed discussions were held with the Manchester City Council, Railway Heritage and English Heritage to gain approval for this to take place and for the design proposed.
To facilitate this process, a detailed heritage survey was commissioned to establish whether there were any unique engineering aspects to the roof that needed to be retained and preserved for future generations. Fortunately, none were found and it was agreed that full demolition would be allowed and planning and building consent to do this was eventually granted.
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However, there were also many other features within the station that did need to be preserved, for example, a wonderful Victorian coloured glass dome situated over a cafe area was in desperate need of repair and a good clean. It now sparkles over a refurbished cafe! There is also a white glazed brickwork map, towering over the booking hall area, displaying the old Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway network which needed and received similar attention.
Underneath the map is a large bronze WW1 memorial featuring St George, who now has his spear returned. There is a ‘soldiers gate’ which was used by those who were going off to fight in the trenches. All these features, plus the Victorian booking offices and station buildings and canopy, have now been restored.
Complex track layout installedThe whole project has been delivered in partnership
between Network Rail and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) which wanted to preserve its Metrolink tram operations that pass through the station either side of an island platform throughout the project. Therefore, Network Rail had to ensure the tram service was not hindered whilst construction work took place and possession of their tracks was confined to only 3.5 hours per night.
Two of the TfGM platforms have been demolished, four new platforms constructed and an additional new line has been added to the existing two tracks alongside switches and overhead lines that were constructed by Network Rail on behalf of TfGM. This is considered to be one of the most complex layouts installed for any tram system in Europe.
Victoria Station has through platforms, numbered 3 to 6, located under the modern Manchester Arena which was built in 1995. The Arena accommodates 21,000 people and only closes for one week in the year. One of its main exit routes used to lead onto a stairway situated alongside the main entrance to platforms 3 to 6 and the existing concourse area and so it has quite a significant impact on the footfall of the station.
This caused major congestion and was not an ideal arrangement so a new steel-framed footbridge, 30 metres long by 10 metres wide, with a cast in-situ concrete deck, has been constructed. This structure now separates the thousands of people visiting the Arena from the travelling passengers who can now pass unimpeded below.
Lightweight scaffoldingBack to the roof! In the spring of 2013, the demolition or,
more realistically, the careful dismantling, of the roof was carried out as part of the Morgan Sindall contract. They subcontracted the work to Crossways Scaffolding (Elland) group to supply and erect the scaffold - a new lightweight system provided by Dutch company Van Thiel. This was chosen because it is more efficient to erect and uses less manpower than conventional scaffolding because of its push/fit system. It also has fewer loose components, which was considered an added bonus as it reduced the risk to the public passing underneath. The scaffolding sealed and contained the work required to demolish the old roof, completed by the autumn of 2013.
The new roof consisted of 15 steel box girder rib units up to 98 metres long, fabricated by Severfield-Watson Structures Ltd, each weighing up to 80 tonnes. Before they could be erected, a considerable amount of ground work was required. Each rib unit was designed to be supported by an 18 metre high steel tubular column and anchored on a four metre high reinforced concrete buttress. Therefore, more than 100 Continuous Flight Auger (CFA) piles had to be installed for the buttresses and 66 auger piles for the columns.
Rail Engineer • October 201556
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A number of custom-designed steelwork manipulators - capable of handling all types of OLE masts - will shortly enter service with TXM Plant
Rib constructionAs part of the contract, Severfield
was also responsible for site preparation and final positioning of all the rib units. These were delivered to site by road in 24-metre sections. They were then welded together, lifted directly from the welding area and seated onto a buttress, then fixed into position on one of the 18 metre high tubular columns with a pin joint.
The work started in the spring of 2014. Several cranes were required for the lifts, including a 1,200 tonne mobile crane and a 750 tonne Liebherr crawler crane, and these had to be positioned in the vicinity of an 8 metre by 11 metre diameter
culvert that carries the River Irk under the station area. To protect the culvert, monitoring equipment, which would trigger an alarm for any movement above 3mm and stop work, was installed in the culvert. Fortunately, the alarm was never activated.
The lifting and construction work that took place in the vicinity of the culvert was one of the many occasions when the BIM 5D modelling demonstrated the benefits of this invaluable asset.
The cover was shallow so the culvert had to be protected from additional loading, not only from the cranes but also from the columns supporting the roof and the roof buttresses. Two reinforced concrete bridge spans, 22 metres long by 4 metres wide, were constructed on site. Also, an additional bridge span of similar size but using precast concrete construction was needed for distribution of loading from railway tracks. Auger piling was necessary for all three bridge decks.
Once the main rib units were in place, lateral steel bracing was fixed to provide support and a framework designed to support cushioned, clear, light-reflecting ETFE (ethylene tetraflouroethylene) panels. This material was used for the refurbishment of Piccadilly Station in Manchester 10 years ago and for the Eden project in Cornwall.
A brighter environmentETFE appears to have everything
going for it since it is lighter than glass, cheaper and safer. The manufacturers also claim that it lets in more light than glass. It has certainly succeeded in making the station brighter and more inviting to
pass through or visit. Let’s hope that it passes the test of time!
The new roof spans over the tracks and station concourse folding over the parapet wall of the Victorian main station building. The old station roof was supported by the station building at a lower level so, even though the old roof had no specific heritage value, it was decided to construct a zinc outline profile of the old roof onto the wall of the station building. This zinc outline is illuminated by LED lighting at night to remind everyone what was there before. It looks very impressive, enhancing the new environment that has been created.
An opening that wasn’tNetwork Rail arranged an official
opening of the refurbished station but, in truth, it never closed. It has been an excellent example of crowd management with Metrolink, Arena and train passengers all continuing their life, walking under and round the screens and scaffolding containing the surrounding work.
Before this project started, people who used the station would have never considered the station environment itself. It was just somewhere that enabled passengers to get to work or catch their train home.
Today, people stop to look at the architecture and surroundings. Some meet friends and go for a coffee in one of the many emerging outlets. It is evident that, not only has the station itself experienced a revival, but it appears to have had a positive impact on this often-neglected part of the city. This is good to see and a credit to those who were involved in the project.
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Rail Engineer • October 201558
Every decade brings it’s own jargon, slang and buzzwords. Do you remember some from only a few years ago? Kanban, WYSIWYG, transparency, future-proof, synergy, outside-the-box, blue-sky, proactive. Some of these were in it for the long haul, some represented a paradigm
shift and others were not so robust. All required the learning of a new vocabulary every few years.
One of the latest is BIM. It’s actually an acronym - Building Information Modelling - and it applies, in one form or another, to almost all civil engineering projects these days.
While most engineers probably have some understanding of BIM, many would probably struggle to define it rigorously or apply it to a project. Given that Government clearly sees it as crucial to the future success of engineering in the UK, and is mandating its use in all government projects from 2016, engineers clearly need to learn quickly or take specialist advice from those already ‘in the know’.
One of those specialists is CH2M. Recently renamed from CH2M HILL (and before that Halcrow in the UK), the company is making sure that it is at the forefront of BIM in the UK. So Rail Engineer recently visited Vas Vernikos, the company’s head of BIM development, to find out more and how BIM is being used in rail today.
What is BIM?BIM is an integrated data management and
design process that creates value throughout the entire life of an asset, from its procurement, design and construction right through its useful life and its eventual decommissioning.
A BIM model is a 3D model that not only shows the completed structure but includes details of every individual element within it. Project stakeholders can determine what data is stored in the model, but the possible range is exhaustive. Dimensional data and other physical characteristics of elements form the essential minimum, but financial data, information about the source of the element and much more - such as health and safety requirements - may also be included.
Once fully developed, a BIM model will be useful to all stakeholders throughout the life of the project, enabling the management of costs, construction sequencing, sustainability,
safety and more during the construction phase. On completion of that phase, the model will greatly assist the facilities management and maintenance of the completed works and assist if redevelopment or updating of them is required at a future date.
By improving efficiency, reducing costs and risks and by enabling better design, BIM adds value to projects. This is achieved through the existence of a geometric, spatially aware model of the project that, as already described, is linked to relevant and appropriate data.
It is therefore unsurprising that the UK Government has mandated the use of what is known as Level 2 BIM for all government projects from 2016 onwards. Briefly, Level 0 BIM involves basic line drawings produced by computer-aided design (CAD). Level 1 requires the adoption of 2D or 3D models, whilst Level 2 means fully fledged BIM programme supporting models, objects and collaboration.
For BIM to be universally accepted and applied, there clearly needs to be a standard format for information exchange, so that different BIM models or elements can communicate with each other seamlessly. A standard industry format has been developed for this, known as COBie (Construction Operations Building information exchange), the use of which may well soon be mandated by Government.
CH2M and BIMLike all new technologies and management
approaches, BIM doesn’t stand still for long. Organisations such as CH2M therefore have to have a well-defined BIM strategy that is assessed and revised regularly to ensure that it encompasses all new government requirements and client needs.
Building on BIM CHRIS PARKER
60 Rail Engineer • October 2015
CH2M is in the forefront of UK BIM development, and this year’s strategy focuses on reinforcing the relationship of BIM with operations and maintenance, ensuring an improved lifecycle cost and asset management offering. The ultimate aim is for BIM to become ‘business as usual’, fully integrated within the design delivery and project governance processes of the firm.
Working to achieve this goal, the company hosted a BIM conference for the Environment Agency (EA) in March 2014, and is working with the Agency to move it successfully towards the 2016 target date. The company has contributed to the development of relevant British Standards, and is piloting COBie on several projects in which it is working with the EA.
As recognition for its work, CH2M has won two Bentley ‘Be Inspired’ awards for its work on BIM. In 2012, the award was for work on a wastewater treatment and recycling facility project in Denver, Colorado. The award in 2013 was for a similar project for the City of Las Vegas.
Rail projects the company has been involved with include the London Underground Bond Street station upgrade which has been covered by Rail Engineer (issue 105, July 2013 and issue 129, July 2015). The use of BIM on this project was critical to successfully threading the new works through the tangle of existing
infrastructure within the confined site volume, both above and below ground. CH2M was responsible for this model throughout.
In addition, CH2M is assisting Network Rail Infrastructure Projects to manage the Great Western Route Modernisation Programme. The transit and rail team from the company’s Transportation Business Group is currently providing engineering data management services under a two-year contract and CH2M staff are seconded to Network Rail offices at
Reading, Swindon, Bristol and Newport. A team, expected to reach as many as 25 at the peak, will manage all GWRM Programme data in a BIM environment that will be the controlling mind of the project.
To learn more about BIM, and how it is applied to rail projects, you should attend the Rail BIM Summit in London on Tuesday 10 November. More information can be found at www.railbimsummit.com
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61Rail Engineer • October 2015
The much-troubled project to re-signal the four lines comprising the Sub Surface Railway (SSR) is once again in a committed contract situation. This is for the third time of asking but many lessons have been learned along the way, both by London Underground and the various supply companies who have been involved.
The four lines, with their colours on the London Underground map, are: » Metropolitan (magenta) » Hammersmith & City (pink) » District (green) » Circle (yellow)None of these are self-contained and all have interfaces
with each other as well as with other LU lines and some Network Rail routes. It is thus a complex piece of railway and failing to understand the operation has led to some of the past problems.
At the time of the PPP (Public Private Partnership) initiative, the lines were part of the Metronet grouping and the plan was to equip the lines with the then Invensys DTG (Distance to Go) radio system, which later on was successfully deployed on the upgraded Victoria line. With Metronet succumbing to political and contractual pressures, the Invensys (now Siemens) system intention was abandoned.
A subsequent contract was awarded in 2011 to Bombardier employing its CityFlo product, successfully used in Madrid and Shenzhen Metros and considered to be a mature technology. The contract value was £364 million, a very competitive price. However, problems over the interpretation of technical requirements, timescale and cost soon emerged and eventually, in 2013, the contract was terminated by mutual consent.
By this time, new trains for the SSR were well into production so any chance of fitting the new signalling equipment in the factory was lost. In parallel, LU had equipped firstly the Jubilee line and more recently the Northern line with the Thales Seltrac control system and had learned some hard lessons on how its approach to a modern CBTC (Communications Based Train Control) system needed to change. A full description of the Northern line upgrade was given in the Rail Engineer May 2015 edition.
With these systems now successfully in operation, a new contract for the SSR re-signalling was eventually awarded to Thales in July 2015 at a value of £760 million, having been preferred bidder for some time before that. This is more than double the earlier contract so requires some explanation.
CLIVE KESSELL
London UndergroundRe-SignallingSub Surface
Rail Engineer • October 201562
A recap of Seltrac Originally designed in Canada and firstly used on the Vancouver Skytrain,
Seltrac has been deployed on many other metros around the world, including in the UK - the Docklands Light Railway and the two LU lines referred to. It is a fully-fledged combined ATP and ATO package that conforms to the SIL4 requirements for operational safe software. It also has moving block capability, allowing trains to close up when busy periods are encountered.
The components of the system are: » The VCC (Vehicle Control Computer) at the control centre to manage and
control all train movements; » An SMC (System Management Centre) acting as the man-machine
interface; » An SCS (Station Controller sub-station) at each stopping point for station
information updates; » A VOBC (Vital On Board Computer) on each train to control all train
movement and braking commands.All of this equipment is fully duplicated, the VOBCs being positioned at
both ends of the train. Much of it will be identical to the equipment installed on the Northern line. The Seltrac system has seen various upgrades since its initial design, the VCC now being a third-generation product.
The Jubilee and Northern lines used a loop-based system, these being mounted between the running rails with a transition every 25 metres to give a positional reference point. However, Thales is mindful that other CBTC suppliers have moved to radio for the transmission media, this being less intrusive in terms of infrastructure disturbance, and has developed a radio-based alternative that is already in service in South Korea and China.
Therefore, whilst the SSR lines will have the same operational methodology as the earlier projects, there will be differences in the technology that will need to be tested thoroughly.
Contract progressionThe Bombardier contract had made some progress before being
abandoned, with the new control centre at Hammersmith constructed and some SER (Station Equipment Rooms) made ready, all of which will be reused. With Thales as preferred bidder, agreement was reached that concept design work could proceed. This was finished by the end of 2014 and the preliminary design, comprising system requirements and interface specifications, will be completed by the end of 2015. The final design including the application of the system to the existing railway is a 2016 activity.
In parallel, installation work can proceed from early next year with Thales using various subcontractors for the necessary trackside work. More importantly, testing of the system comprising a full wayside installation and prototype equipment on a test train at the Old Dalby test site is already underway. Modifications may then be required and a second train with a
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finalised train configuration will be ready by summer 2016. This represents the ultimate confidence builder, both for client and supplier, and will lead to the provisional roll out stages of: » 2018/19 - Hammersmith to Paddington, then the rest of the Circle line; » 2019/20 - Continuance to Upminster and to Wimbledon, Richmond and
Ealing; » 2019/20 - Northwards from Baker Street to Uxbridge, Watford and
Amersham.These dates are aspirations and better the contract requirements. It
remains to be seen whether they can be achieved but hopes are high. It might seem strange that the work progresses from the centre outwards but this takes account of not having to deal with the complication of interfacing with other lines until the system operation is understood and bedded in. It also enables the biggest benefits in terms of capacity gain to be obtained as early as possible including better regulation of the flat junctions at Edgware Road, Baker Street, Aldgate and Earls Court/Gloucester Road.
Technical aspectsThe operation of the Seltrac system will be essentially similar to that
already in service on the Jubilee and Northern lines. Trains receive a communication from the control every second to ensure continuance of the Movement Authority but, if no message is received within five seconds, an emergency brake application will occur.
Train positioning data is derived from track mounted balises (TAGs) positioned in a multiple of 25 metres, these being the equivalent to the loop transition points. Once passed, the train’s odometer counts the distance until the next TAG. In busy areas, and at the approach to junctions or stations where a train is braking, the spacing will be 25 metres. In country areas, distances may not be so critical and TAGs may be as far apart as 200 metres.
The TAGs are locally powered by a battery with a 10 year life but incorporating an alarm when power is running low. Should one fail or be misread, it is not serious as an update position is obtained from the next TAG. Axle counters will be used as a backup when degraded mode is in operation, these being positioned near stations and critical junctions so as to form logical block sections.
Trains communicate the latest TAG information to the VCC, which is continually scanning ahead for other trains, stations and point positions and will call for routes to be set as appropriate. The movement authority is regularly updated to tell a train how far it can go and at what speed. A safe separation distance of around 100 metres between trains is achievable but will depend on gradients and braking profile conditions.
Normally trains will operate in ATO mode but drivers can switch to protected manual mode with permission. Such occasions may come about during unusual adhesion conditions or when engineering works mean trackside workers being present.
The introduction of radio transmission will be a learning curve. No dedicated radio channels are envisaged, instead use will be made of the unlicensed 2.4GHz public Wi-Fi band. Frequency-hopping using algorithms to search around the band and a security protocol to an international industry standard will be employed. Free space propagation will be used throughout, even in the tunnels, and no use of radiating cable is foreseen.
The aerials will be positioned approximately every 250 metres, mounted on a six- metre mast for above ground lines and on the side wall of tunnels about half way up. In twin track tunnels, alternate aerials will be on opposite sides of the tunnel so as to minimise the blocking effect of one train to another coming in the opposite direction. All of this will ensure that the loss of any one base station will not adversely impact on coverage to the trains.
A full radio survey on the central section has already taken place during ‘engineering hours’ using kit mounted on two trolleys to replicate a train and portable base stations in the predicted positions. Further surveys on other sections of SSR are planned as the project progresses. Full data recordings have been made of the radio signals such that installation of the network infrastructure can now proceed.
The radio system will be fully duplicated to achieve maximum redundancy borne upon a new fibre cable network designed to form overlapping transmission rings. Power supplies will also be duplicated. The new cables will have spare fibres that might be used for other operational systems or, indeed, by third parties.
Junction optimisation will be key to achieve the required 32 trains per hour in the central section. Normal operation will be to timetable mode but, where trains are out of sequence, then a ‘first come, first served’ with caveats will kick in. The system will know if any trains are ‘fast’ over a section (particularly true of the Metropolitan line), so allowing a slow train to proceed ahead should not happen. Equally important is not allowing too many trains to approach a restricted terminus, such as Aldgate, if platform capacity does not exist.
Fitting the trainsBy the time of first commissioning, all the S-Stock trains will be in service.
The work to fit the trains with Seltrac ATP, ATO and radio equipment will be by returning the trains to the Bombardier works at Derby for this to be done. Most equipment can be contained within the driving cab but under floor tag readers, roof aerials, odometry and power supply elements need to be interfaced into existing components.
The engineering fleet including ‘yellow plant’ will also need to be fitted, but this is being planned as an in house job.
Interworking with other linesSeveral sections of the SSR share services with other lines and train
operators. These represent a challenge as to how the Seltrac system interfaces with other signalling systems. There is no single solution and each one has to be considered individually. » Rayners Lane to Uxbridge shared with the Piccadilly line - Seltrac will be
fitted for SSR train running with fixed block signals retained for Piccadilly line trains.
» East Putney to Wimbledon - the Seltrac will be overlaid on the Network Rail signalling controlled from Wimbledon Power Box with lineside signals retained and movement authorities governed by the signal sections.
» Gunnersbury to Richmond - tracks are shared with London Overground so conventional signalling has to be retained with Seltrac movement authorities aligned to that.
» Barons Court to Acton Town - District and Piccadilly line trains can share
Rail Engineer • October 201564
tracks between Chiswick Park and Acton Town. » Harrow on the Hill to Amersham - tracks owned by LU but Chiltern
Railways trains have running rights for their Aylesbury service. The existing LU signalling will be replaced with standard Network Rail three-aspect signals controlled by the Seltrac system intelligence such that ATO operation can be maintained for SSR stock. This is to be known as an ‘underlay’ and LU drivers will see a blue signal under normal circumstances. The train description system will know which trains are controlled by ATO and which are manually driven. Chiltern line drivers will continue to see either a red, yellow or green aspect and will drive accordingly. Their trains will retain trip cock apparatus to trigger any signal overruns. It will not be permitted for a standard red, yellow or green aspect to be displayed at the same time a blue light is showing.
» Watford High Street to Watford Junction - will only be required once the Croxley Link is constructed but, on the current programme, this will be completed before the Seltrac system reaches the extremities of the Metropolitan line, hence the new section will require initially to be fitted with conventional LU signalling. LU is still considering whether to subsequently extend the Seltrac CBTC into Watford Junction but the signalling on the section from Watford High Street to Watford Junction shared with London Overground trains will need to be decided.
All of these represent both a technical and commercial interface challenge which will require sensitive and careful negotiations with the various parties involved.
Other factors The basic track layout will remain unchanged, although there will be
some faster turnouts to allow faster run-in times. Little-used junctions will be plain-lined or moved to somewhere that is operationally beneficial. To install, test and commission the new equipment, some 70 partial closures at weekends will be required. The Connect track-to-train Tetra radio system
will remain, as will the CCTV surveillance of platforms but with the driver’s viewing screen now incorporated into the S-Stock cab. The drivers remain in control of door operation and have overall supervision of the ATO operation. This includes an emergency stop button should anything untoward be observed at the lineside.
Consultation on the new operation with the trade unions will be based upon the Northern line experience that is essentially similar. Training will be mainly by cab simulators but a section of the Hammersmith line will also be made available for driver familiarisation of the actual system.
Key to success will be the housing of the joint LU/Thales team in a common office that worked so well for the Northern line project. With all that has gone before, it is a near certainty that this time the project will progress to a successful conclusion. Further updates will be featured in Rail Engineer as the work continues.
Thanks are expressed to Andy Bourne and Stuart Harvey, respectively the project manager and programme manager for LU, and Andrew Hunter and Andy Bell, the chief engineer and programme manager for Thales, for their time and patience in explaining the system. Thanks also to Sandeep Dhillon from LU and Gayna Hall from Thales for facilitating the meetings.
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w
w A SHORT HISTORYRail innovation competitions
The idea that competition drives improvement is not new. In his 1776 book ‘Wealth of Nations’, Scottish economist Adam Smith concluded: “In
a competitive environment, individuals endeavour to maximise utility”. Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution also proposed that natural selection acts by competition.
Using competitions to encourage innovation is also not new. In 1714, the British Government offered £20,000 for a way of accurately measuring longitude at sea. John Harrison won this prize for his accurate timepiece. In 1795, Napoleon offered 12,000 francs for an idea to preserve food for his army, as “an invaded country was not able or inclined to sell or provide food”. Nicolas Appert won this for his method of sealing food in airtight glass jars.
On the railway, in 1829 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway offered £500 to find a “locomotive engine which shall be a decided improvement on those now in use”. At the subsequent Rainhill trials, the winner was Robert Stephenson for his Rocket locomotive. Up to ten years ago, Britain’s railways had few innovation competitions. British Rail Research was centrally managed and there was no investment for the long-term in the first years of privatisation. Fortunately, there is now an increased focus on rail research.
Cross-sector approach The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
established the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), now Innovate UK, in 2007. This aims to stimulate innovations in areas that offer the greatest scope to boost UK productivity and exports. The Transport Knowledge Transfer Network was set up in 2010 to promote innovation across transport sectors in accordance with the TSB’s cross-sector approach.
In 2011, TSB and RSSB (Rail Safety and Standards Board) jointly launched its first rail industry specific competition as part of its ‘Accelerating Innovation in Rail’ (AIiR) initiative. This was the first of three such competitions to come and awarded grants totalling £5 million to 19 winning projects. These included flywheels, developed for the automotive industry, for rail vehicle energy storage and carriage door lightweighting using aerospace techniques.
In the same year, Sir Roy McNulty published ‘Realising the potential of GB rail’. In respect of innovation, it anticipated annual savings of £100 million per annum by 2018/19 were achievable if current innovation spend was increased from £34 to £75 million by 2018/19. It noted that the return on innovation investment typically varied from 3:1 to 10:1. The report considered that rail industry innovation lagged behind other railways and industries and identified barriers to innovation such as lack of industry leadership and collaborative behaviour.
RTS, EIT, RSSB and RIA2012 saw some significant innovation initiatives.
The Rail Technical Strategy (RTS) was published. This provides a vision for the railway 30 years in the future, for which RSSB leads the implementation plan that sets priorities for competitions. The Enabling Innovation Team (EIT), hosted by RSSB, was formed to accelerate the development and implementation of innovations. This later became the basis for the Future Railway programme, a collaboration between Network Rail and RSSB to deliver the RTS and provides the innovation leadership McNulty required.
DAVID SHIRRES
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The year also saw the establishment of the Railway Industry Association (RIA)’s Unlocking Innovation Scheme (issues124/131, February/August 2015). This runs a series of workshops to provide an understanding of innovation opportunities and funding mechanisms. They also give those present an opportunity to find partners for innovations. To date, fifteen such workshops have been held, each with over one hundred attendees. Thus, RIA plays a valuable role by making industry aware of the opportunities and getting the right people together.
RIA also promotes innovation at its annual Technology and Innovation Conference which this year had a Technology Transfer theme. To illustrate the need for this, Mike Hulme, Alstom’s managing director of trains and modernisation, gave examples of world-class UK sectors that contribute to rail sector development. These included control systems, robotics and autonomous systems, and new materials. The conference includes its own innovation competition which, in 2014, was won by Brecknell Willis for an active pantograph (issue 129, June 2015).
The Radical TrainIn March 2013, Innovate UK and RSSB launched its
second AIiR competition, ‘Enabling the Digital Railway’, to encourage innovative digital, information, communications and satellite technology. Eleven winners were given access to grant funding totalling £5 million. They included CISCO Systems’ station of the future; Guidance Navigation’s high speed asset mapping system; Laing O’Rourke for digital electrification design; Omincom’s asset monitoring platform and Thales for its people centred approach to asset management.
At the same time, the Future Railway programme launched its first innovation competition, ‘The Radical Train’ which was run with support from the Frazer-Nash Consultancy. This attracted 57 entrants from a wide range of industries. Successful applicants from this competition included a Unipart-Warwick Manufacturing Group consortium to develop a very-lightweight passenger railcar demonstrator; the SUSTRAIL freight bogie; a
Rail Engineer • October 2015 67
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Bombardier led consortium to develop composite carriage components; Stored Energy Technology’s rail wheel motor and a confidential emissions reduction proposal. This last award highlights the sensitive intellectual property aspects of such competitions.
Future Railway’s next competition, ‘Rail Customer Experience’, attracted 111 entries. Its winners were decided at a live event in September 2013 when judges assessed the eleven finalists’ 10 minute pitches as they competed for £300,000 in prizes and £700,000 investment funding. The winners were 3Squared for the ‘Station Master’ smartphone app; the Stobart Group with its ‘Stobart Express’ system for distribution of multiple small-volume loads and routeRANK’s freight planning software.
Involving the architects In December 2013, Future Railway and HS2 promoted a
competition led by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to improve the appearance of overhead line electrification. This attracted 62 entries from 14 different countries. The three finalists, announced in May 2014, were Bystrup Architecture of Denmark, COBE Denmark and Moxon Architects with Mott MacDonald who were awarded funding up to £150,000 to develop detailed designs and produce a scale model. IDOM UK, Alan Baxter & Associates and SEMI were also selected as highly commended.
Future Railway launched no less than six competitions in 2014. In a further collaboration with RIBA, the ‘Tomorrow’s Train Today’ competition was launched in March. This sought medium-term solutions for adaptable train interiors and radical long-term rolling stock designs. Of the 48 entries, ten designs were shortlisted to receive £75,000 each to develop their proposals that were judged in January 2015. The resultant finalists were 42 Technology for automatic stowage and movement of seating; Horizon - Priestman Goode for seating that changes between peak and off-peak and Aeroliner 3000 for lightweighting and double deck concepts. £2.2 million is available for the further development of these schemes.
February 2014 saw ‘The Avoidance of Bridge Reconstruction’ competition. With 25% of electrification costs attributable to bridge reconstruction, technologies that avoid this offer huge savings. In this two-stage project, £750,000 was available to the first-stage winners to prove concept feasibility and up to £3 million available to the final winners to develop their proposals further. The first-stage winners were announced in September as: Balfour Beatty, DGauge, Electron, Freyssinet, IDOM, PCAT Collaboration, Tata Steel, TRL and URS. The final winners have yet to be announced.
The £2 million ‘Future Ticket Detection’ competition opened in March to seek alternatives to gate-lines in view of the problem growing numbers of passengers at station ticket gates. Entries to this competition are still being evaluated.
Innovation in operationsMarch 2014 also saw the launch of a £3.5 million
‘Rail Operator Challenge Competition’. This seeks to encourage innovation by freight and train operators. It also encouraged collaboration, as operators had to seek suppliers with potential solutions to their problems.
The winners announced in June 2015 were: Embed Ltd with Southern Rail to apply automotive principles to improve rolling stock performance; First Rail Holdings with First Group to develop a real-time driver assistance system; GOBOTix with Chiltern Railways for automated train inspection; MRX Technologies with Arriva Trains to improve wheelset inspection using magnetic flux leakage and Vortex Exhaust Technology with Northern Rail for their rail diesel carbon efficiency exhaust.
The £4 million competition on ‘Predictive and Optimised Braking for Rail Vehicles’ was launched in October 2014. This sought solutions to the industry’s age-old adhesion problem. It was followed a month later by a £4.5 million ‘PowerTrain’ competition which aims to improve the efficiency of self-powered vehicles. Winners of these competitions have yet to be announced.
To date, 2015 has seen three Future Railway competitions. COMPASS is ‘COMbined Positioning Alternative Signalling System’ (issue 129, July 2015) that will enable trains to move when the signalling system fails. This is a key objective for train operators in Control Period 5 (CP5). The competition specifies three development phases for which total funding is available as follows: feasibility (£300,000); integration and testing (£700,000) and a demonstrator (£1.55 million). The competition was launched in February and its entries are still being evaluated.
The Train Operator Competition 2015 (TOC’15) was launched in March by Claire Perry MP, Under Secretary of State for Transport. This competition offered access to £6 million to co-fund a strategic portfolio of innovation projects. The intention is to increase train operator's ability to deliver innovation across their business. Applicants with the strongest innovation strategy were invited to develop specific innovation projects for evaluation. In July, it was announced that the three TOCs selected to do so were: Arriva UK Trains for development of a ‘buy now - pay later’ scheme; Govia Thameslink for its approach to overcrowding and First Great Western’s disruption management initiative.
Innovate UK’s third AIiR competition was ‘Enhancing Customer Experience’. This had £6 million available for 50% co-funding of collaborative digital technology projects to improve either the freight or rail passengers’ experience. It started with a consortium-building event in March and was a two-stage process in which applicants submitted an expression of interest that was assessed to determine those invited to submit an application.
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Other ways to innovateFollowing these competitions, Future Railway currently
has 137 innovation contracts at different stages of development. Typically, they are between technology readiness levels (TRL) three to seven. These contracts are generally for co-funded projects with funds released at agreed stages of development. A number are currently confidential in view of issues associated with intellectual property. Managing these contracts and competitions is a significant task, but it is not the only way that the Future Railway programme encourages innovation.
The always-open Rail Industry Support Engine (RISE) provides an investment of up to 50% for potentially worthwhile projects that are outside the scope of competitions. Initiatives supported by RISE include level crossing safety sensors, a 25kV coupler between coaches and the REPOINT S&C design. Future Railway also offers subsidised access to test track facilities such as the Long Marston test track.
Future Railway supports one-off collaborations, of which the Independently Powered EMU (IPEMU) that was successfully demonstrated earlier this year (ISSUE 125, March 2015) is a good example. This was a collaboration between Network Rail, Future Railway, Abellio and Bombardier with Future Railway contributing £3 million of the £9 million budget. Bombardier is currently undertaking accelerated lifecycle testing of its batteries prior to a report on the project, including an evaluation of its business case, being published next year.
Funding the futureOf course, all of this requires lots of funding. In 2012,
EIT started with £30 million of pilot funding from the Department for Transport and doubled this investment with co-funding. For the current CP5 control period, RSSB and Network Rail have £147 million to fund innovations mostly as part of the Future Railway programme. A further £50 million is available to TOCs from the
innovation in franchising initiative. There is also potential for significant funding from Europe from the €800 million Shift2Rail initiative.
Ten years ago, innovation was a little used word in the GB rail industry and competitions to encourage innovation were unheard of. Now Future Railway, Innovate UK, RIA and others are holding so many competitions that it is difficult to keep track of them.
Rail Minister Claire Perry’s launch of the TOC15 competition, together with the large sums now available for innovation, demonstrates Government support for this approach. This is because, with surging demand, it's the only way to improve performance, increase capacity and reduce costs whilst retaining rail’s environmental credentials. Successful innovations will also provide UK plc with a greater export market for its rail products.
It is clear that innovation competitions are an ever-more-common way of stimulating rail innovation and demonstrating that novel ideas can actually work. This will become increasingly apparent as the winners of recent competitions complete their demonstrator phases. Then watch out for news of their success and the benefits from these innovations.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 69
Necessity is the mother of all invention, says the old proverb. It’s also been said that the basis of invention is science. We could include talent, insight, inspiration and innovation within the mix too. And let’s
not forget design and development.
We’re playing with words here perhaps, but all of these elements become important when the railway division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) holds its annual competition of technical presentations aimed at young engineers. Entitled ‘The Future of Rail’, this event provides a great opportunity for aspiring engineers within the rail industry to showcase their ideas.
This year’s worthy winner was Tara Parandeh, a thirty-year-old development engineer for Transport for London. Her presentation, entitled ‘Development of an Intelligent Sensitive Edge (iSE) Safety System’, focussed on her work with London Underground to produce a directionally sensitive system for the detection of objects trapped in rolling stock doors. This is certainly an invention of necessity, designed to provide a more refined response to the ongoing safety risks and delays caused by garments and other objects becoming trapped in train doors.
AlarmOn the busy London Underground
system, significant delays can result from passengers’ clothing getting caught in train doors. This is by no means a problem that’s unique to London Underground of course, with similar problems occurring on the national network and other metro systems. There have been sporadic instances of passengers being dragged along platforms by items of clothing, so the doors of new Victoria line trains are fitted with a sensitive edge system to detect small objects such as clothing or bag straps if they become caught.
Entrapment of a thin object like a belt or scarf may not initially trigger the system, but pulling on the item to free it, either from inside the train or outside it, will trigger a response. An immediate emergency brake application occurs and the train driver receives a sensitive edge warning light. The driver should then
reopen and close the train doors so that the trapped object can be released.
Objects becoming caught from inside the train do not represent a significant risk, but the existing sensitive edge system can be triggered when such objects are pulled. On the Victoria line this has led to unnecessary delays. At peak times these hold ups have reached unacceptable levels.
ChallengeTara Parandeh graduated from
Sheffield University in 2008 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Working initially for Interfleet Technology, she was seconded to London Underground in 2011 and transferred there permanently in 2014. She began work to devise a new form of sensitive edge upon her initial secondment, but she has worked on other engineering projects, notably during the build up to the London Olympics. The existing sensitive edge system has an ‘active rubber’ strip along the edge of one door and the other door carries an ‘inactive rubber’ as shown in figure 1.
The sensor system has two conductors surrounded by conductive rubber (natural rubber with a high content of carbon black) that are kept apart within a symmetrical non-conductive rubber extrusion. An object caught in the doors, including any thin object such as a belt that is pulled taught, will deform the active edge profile and create a low resistance path between the conductors.
The system works well and it’s immune from tampering - pressing on the door seal from inside the train for example. Its Achilles’ heel is that there is no directional discrimination for an object pulled through the door seal. The development of a directional alarm activation system was the challenge that Tara took on.
The new design had to be compatible with the existing train door wiring and alarm systems. Tara has therefore continued with the concept of two parallel conductors surrounded by conductive rubber, but cleverly she has staggered them diagonally within an entirely new flexible rubber extrusion. Deformation of this new form of ‘active rubber’ occurs in such a manner that the conductors are brought together when a belt, or other trapped item, is pulled outwards. On the other hand, pulling on similar objects from within the train carriage causes the conductors to be drawn further apart and the alarm will not be triggered.
Importantly, this design also prevents false activation of the alarm by a thumb press on the door seal.
Improved safetyThe main requirements for iSE were specified from the
outset of the design process. For instance, an external pull on a trapped belt should trigger the alarm when a force of less than 100N is applied. The corresponding threshold for a trapped rope is 60N. Another important safety requirement is that a buggy bar should trigger the alarm system when trapped in the door seal at any angle.
The system needs to comply with these requirements at all door set up tolerances and rubber manufacturing tolerances over the life of the seals (1,350,000km, approximately eight years) and in all LU environmental conditions. Furthermore, the seal material had to satisfy strict requirements on durability. Fire performance and the resistance to damage and tear needed to be equal to or better than the existing fleet design.
The iSE safety system is essentially simple in principle, but a lengthy process of development and testing was involved in perfecting it. For the system to function
correctly, the seals need to deform in a precise pre-determined manner. Factors crucial to the success of the seal design are the profile shape and the internal structure of the extrusions.
It was clear from the outset that many design variations would have to be tested, but the manufacture of rubber extrusions requires the production of expensive hand-crafted extrusion dies. Tara’s elegant solution was to utilise water jet cutting to create sample profiles from 20mm rubber sheet. Using a flexible adhesive that performs similarly to the material itself, the cut sections were stacked to form full-height door seal profiles.
New materialThe material used in existing LU door seals is EPDM
(ethylene propylene diene terpolymer) which is an extremely durable synthetic rubber. For iSE, Tara chose to use a silicone rubber material that has a very high tear resistance. There were several reasons for this. EPDM suffers an ageing process that results in its Shore Hardness increasing. Cold temperatures too can cause the material to become less resilient, resulting in higher activation forces that are already close to the limit. A fire performance concession is also in place for it.
High tear silicone, on the other hand, does not age significantly and its greater flexibility gives activation forces half that of the limit. Its properties do not change significantly with temperature and its tear strength is twice that of EPDM.
Fire testing was conducted, which revealed that the High Tear Silicone is compliant in terms of oxygen index (the amount of oxygen the material requires to burn) and toxic fume production. In the Cone Calorimeter Test (heat transfer rate) the Silicone performed 30% better than EPDM. However, in the Small Scale Smoke Density Test (visibility through smoke) the Silicone material was inferior to EPDM. This appeared to be a stumbling block until the actual door profiles were tested. In reality the Silicone iSE profiles are four times better in terms of smoke Density value than the original iSE EPDM profiles!
iSE sample waterjet testing.
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design now established, the next stage involved the manufacture of extrusion tooling that would produce the rubber profiles within acceptable tolerances. Extrusion tool making is a skilled manual process rather than an exact science. The design loop therefore involved the on-train testing of trial extrusions with the results being used to tweak the tool profile.
It was a lengthy process to create the definitive tool design. Static on-train testing was undertaken at Northumberland Park Depot. With good results being obtained there, the seals could then be subjected to dynamic testing out on the line, albeit not in passenger service. At the same time, the effects of ageing were examined by using heat and humidity to artificially simulate an 8-10 year service life. The effect is to increase the Shore Hardness of the material and thereby reduce its flexibility, after which the testing is repeated.
Into serviceFuture planned activities include
environmental testing and life cycle testing. Making use of a Horiba MIRA Ltd (formerly the Motor Industry Research Association) test facility, the environmental testing will involve extensive trials at a range of temperatures between -15°C and
+35°C. Hand-in-hand with this is the repetitive life cycle testing, undertaken using a jig.
Assuming no problems are encountered, the iSE system will then be fitted to a train in passenger service and trialled for two months.
The conclusion of the project will be a Victoria line fleet fit. A total of 47 eight-car units built by Bombardier between 2009 and 2011 operate these services, and the total cost of equipping the entire fleet with the new iSE door seals is estimated at £3 million. There is also, of course, the possibility of the design being incorporated into future ‘Safer and More Reliable’ trains.
It could be said that Tara and the other six finalists of the IMechE’s ‘The Future of Rail’ award are inspirational role models. Tara herself went on to become a finalist in the 2015 FTA Everywoman in Transport and Logistics Awards. Through her highly successful work with London Underground she has demonstrated how women can make a career in rail transport a successful and fulfilling one.
It’s too early to say whether her intelligent door seal system will be adopted system wide, but the 200 million passengers who use the Victoria line each year should soon benefit from reduced delays.
Testing the prototype on-train.
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EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) is an important part of any rail project, be it recommissioning or refurbishing rolling stock, or managing the updates or new builds of depots and stabling
facilities.
EMC management, from a risk-based point of view, is something that needs to be carried through all of the stages of a project, ideally from conception to completion. This is the job of the EMC risk assessment.
Making an early startIt is advantageous to the project, and the EMC engineers, for the risk
assessment process to start as soon as possible. The risk register results are then updated throughout the life of the project. It is possible to create the risk register at the feasibility or option selection stages, and certainly once the outline of the project is known. This avoids the issues encountered by mitigating risks on already installed or purchased equipment during the commissioning phase.
The difficulty arises when keeping the EMC process up to date throughout the life of the project, as contractors and subcontractors generally change at the different stages. Ideally, the risk register is populated before designs are finalised, then subsequent activities reduce the hazards identified in the risk register to ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable) by the end of the project.
One of the actions possible to reduce risks is on-site measurement, both before and after energisation. The reasons for performing measurements prior to any works include benchmarking the existing emissions so that a comparison may be made with the new installation(s), identifying any particular EM threats at the location for inclusion in the hazard analysis and the design review, and gathering evidence in case future claims are made by neighbours or users regarding interference to radio communications services or other equipment.
Self-interferenceInduction from traction current and other HV feeder systems can be
modelled and, if an issue is identified, designed out of most railway installations. This is often an important step in reducing the hazards in the risk register, and is of obvious benefit to carry out at a design stage before cabling is installed.
In terms of compatibility, it is of course of vital importance that the signalling systems are not interfered with by both external effects or by the railway itself. In order to ensure that this is unlikely, the risk assessment will highlight any situation that may result in a malfunction of equipment or apparatus. This will then be closed out by subsequent activities, such as procurement reviews or compliance matrices, or by signalling compatibility studies or testing if required.
A final hazard analysis is normally carried out to provide an end-of-project risk register in which all hazards will have either been closed or set to ALARP.
EMC in the Rail Environment
Measuring emissions at a location where the Risk Assessment suggests there will need to be a check once installation is complete.
High frequency on-site EM measurements at a new-build depot.
¯ Assessing risk in depots
Rail Engineer • October 2015 75ROLLING STOCK & DEPOTS
This year’s Rail Vehicle Enhancements show - RVE 2015 - is set to be bigger and better than ever with a new venue and even more exhibitors. Taking place in Derby’s Riverside Centre on Thursday 8 October, and supported by Wabtec Group, it is almost three events in one with the
main exhibition and two sessions of presentations and discussions.
The move to the Riverside Centre gave organisers Onyxrail the possibility of doubling the number of exhibitors and quadruple the number of places in the forum. It is at the heart of the Rail Industry on Pride Park Derby, with free parking and an overflow car park, and is within easy walking distance of Derby station.
Sensitive designThe whole event gets off to an early start as
Rail Alliance looks at the concept of ‘sensitive design’ on a more holistic level. The speakers, from leading international organisations, will explore challenging design demands that, for example, have to cater for the needs of an ageing population, increasing customer expectation and extreme performance requirements such as anti-terrorism measures.
Rail Alliance’s guest speakers will include Veronica Bocci of Ditecfer, the Italian rail cluster which collaborates as a partner within the Eurail Clusters Initiative.
Registration for the Rail Alliance event is free, as it is for RVE2015 in general, and can be booked through the RVE2015 website.
Diverse displaysThe RVE2015 exhibition itself will open
at 09:00 with 60 companies offering a very broad range of technical products, services, refurbishment materials, electrical componentry and maintenance capabilities.
Televic Rail, the supplier of passenger information systems (PIS) for IEP and Thameslink vehicles, is one of this year’s exhibitors. Televic products take live feeds from Darwin, the rail industry’s official train running
information engine, providing near real time information to passengers. New products include advanced PIS systems with high-resolution screens that can provide managed content. Other advances include remote condition monitoring and CCTV systems.
Infodev will be showing its award-winning passenger counting equipment which will soon be rolling out onto the Abellio Scotrail franchise. Representatives from Canada and the Netherlands will explain how the equipment can achieve unsurpassed accuracy without correction factors and detail the innovative software reports on ridership provided by powerful analytical software. The company has achieved the first truly integrated real-time solution linking to mobile apps.
Vivarail, based in the West Midlands, is creating the innovative new D Train by ‘upcycling’ former London Underground D78 stock, fitting a complete new interior, a new cab and converting it to diesel-power. Management will be on hand to discuss the new trains and how they can be used to increase diesel fleet capacity.
Supporting Vivarail will be traction equipment supplier Strukton which is closely involved in this fascinating project.
DC Airco, which enhances on-train safety by keeping train drivers cool and alert, will be describing its low cost high output solutions for both cab and saloon cooling. The equipment is capable of exceptional cooling with minimal power consumption, making it the ideal solution for legacy rolling stock that competes on services against new trains. DC Airco installations have recently been fitted to Class 323 and Sheffield Supertram.
Not to be sniffed atSignature Aromas brings together decades of
experience in providing air treatment systems using natural oils and the latest environmentally friendly technology. Signature Aromas is the market leader in supplying a unique selection of aromas for everyday situations. Its products are used by a number of train operators including East Coast and Govia Thameslink to enhance the ambience of the travelling experience for passengers.
Leading the “heavy metal brigade” Brentto Industry will be presenting its fabrication, casting and forging capabilities at its extensive facilities in Romania. The company's high quality, low cost solutions have found a rapidly expanding market in the UK.
The electrical supply industry presence includes data and communications specialist Westermo and electrical components and assemblies from Hima Sella, BTROS, Harting and Mors Smitt.
With a broad spectrum of consultants, heavy maintainers, train equipment, structural services and the spares support industry putting in a strong appearance, the show will certainly have something for everyone.
Rail Engineer will be there as well, as part of a Rail Media presence alongside sister publication RailStaff and the events team which stages conferences through the year on topics such as safety, sustainability and BIM.
Insight and inspirationThe RVE Forum begins at 10:00 when chairman
Ian Walmsley will give his eagerly awaited and often uncompromising round up of the industry. Ian will then lead an array of highly experienced industry leaders ready to share their plans and knowledge.
John Abbott, RSSB director of external engagement, will describe the ways RSSB supports the rolling stock supply chain including
bigger and better than ever!RVE 2015
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a focus on the RISAS (Railway Industry Supplier Approval Scheme). His presentation will include an engagement workshop commencing at 11:00.
Shane Duffy, head of supplier management and business development, will outline Porterbrook’s strategy for its fleet, giving a real insight into the investment choices that vehicle owners consider against a backdrop of frenetic re-franchising and rolling stock cascades.
Tim Burleigh, Eversholt Rail’s relationship development manager, will detail the company’s ongoing commitment to deliver contemporary and high performing fleets to its customers. The new-look Class 321 ‘Renatus’ fleet, which is being delivered by Wabtec Rail, will provide a step change in passenger environment, maintainability and cost effectiveness.
Chris Weatherall, managing director of Wabtec Group, will share the Wabtec programme and vision for staff and apprentice development.
Tim Sayer, engineering director of East Midlands Trains, will talk through the challenges faced by a train operator in getting the product and support it needs, what is expected in terms of those products/services and how positive engagement can be achieved.
Helen Waters, business development director of Arriva Trains UK, will outline a range of projects, concentrating particularly on the challenge of getting innovation into rail engineering from an operator's point of view.
James Alton, Interfleet Group’s industrial design section head, will explain how design visions can be effectively delivered through the project lifecycle.
RSSB interactiveThe Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB)
is exhibiting at REV 2015, providing information about its products and services relevant to rolling stock interests and, in particular, to enhancements, standards, research and development and supplier assurance.
In addition, there will be an interactive session on supplier assurance, an update on the RISAS scheme and news of an important development involving UKAS. Far from being limited to heavy engineering supply the RISAS scheme can bring real credibility and marketplace positioning to all companies that achieve approval.
Representatives from RSSB will also bring along their crystal ball to look into the future and predict what supplier assurance will look like and what it will mean for buyers and suppliers.
By railway people for railway peopleRVE 2015 is organised by Onyxrail in
association with Rail Media. Onyxrail is a turnkey solutions provider that
has installed many technical enhancements and has Skills4Rail, a labour provider for rail vehicle projects, in its group. The company is led by a team that understands rail vehicle enhancements and which has worked tirelessly to bring its enthusiasm for technical innovation to the rail industry.
The addition of Rail Media to the organising team has added a significant communication platform and brought easy registration for visitors and exhibitors via the website which is of its design.
Is RVE for you?The show already has a very high level
of registered visitors from all areas of the traction and rolling stock industry, as well as many from the cross over with infrastructure. The show is essential for those who work with or within the rail industry and is of particular interest to train operators, train lessors, the maintenance industry and the supply chain.
Free to attend, can you afford not to be there!
Rail Vehicle Enhancements 20158th October - Derby
The only single theme event aimed at the engineering of rail vehicles for refurbishment and enhancements.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 77ROLLING STOCK & DEPOTS
Railway maintenance is one of the most important aspects of keeping the railways safe and reliable. Due to the UK’s ageing fleets, rising maintenance failures are all too often causing costly downtime and
setbacks that are a constant concern to the train operators and depots that maintain the fleets.
Maintenance is costly and can be inefficient and labour intensive. With rising pressure for rail performance to improve, it is important for the maintenance process to meet today’s demands from an ever-increasing travel population. This is why Yorkshire manufacturing business Oilaway has developed a system that helps to create an optimised vehicle servicing solution, by providing the market place with a comprehensive range of fluid removal and dosing equipment.
Natural development“We have had a number of
successful forays into the rail market over the years through our long standing sister company, AutoDrain. Rail companies have become aware of us and have made contact, seeking help to create an efficient maintenance package that deals with their specific needs. This interest has led us to branch out and become a multi-disciplined provider, delivering to a range of maintenance workshops. We have been delighted with the level
of interest Oilaway has generated from our new business venture,” explained managing director Paul Dixon.
The basis of the Oilaway system is a simple yet ingenious piece of design, replacing the standard drain and sump plugs with a bayonet style connector. By using this connector, servicing can be carried out immediately whilst the oil is still at maximum operating temperature. Critically, this helps to eliminate the risk of spillages and operators’ contact with carcinogenic waste oil.
The unique adaptor can also then be used to refill clean oil directly back into the sump plug for an even faster turnaround. Not limited to just oil, the Oilaway system also provides a multi-functional process as it is compatible with a wide range of equipment such as diesel engines, transmissions, gearbox, coolant and hydraulic systems.
Stacey Clarkson, responsible for UK sales, commented: “We have clearly indentified an area of concern to rail businesses, and they have been quick to recognise the benefit of our system. Of course, the safety and environmental benefits of controlling waste lubricants are a significant factor, but the railways also need to be efficient by saving cost on time and labour. Draining waste fluids
• Sealed fluid drainage with an ability to refill in seconds
• No Spills, No contact , No burns
• Exclusion of contaminates from fluid samples
Lean, Clean, Servicing SolutionsDo you achieve any of the following?
• Easy, safe fluid sampling
• Early detection from potential failures
• The ability for predictive maintenance
• Equipment reliability
Oilaway compatible with a wide range of equipment such as diesel engines,
transmissions, gearbox, coolant
and hydraulic systems
Please call for further information on +44 (0)113 205 9332
the traditional way through a bucket is impractical, time consuming and hazardous where efficiency targets just can’t be met... however using an innovative sealed system can optimise maintenance facilities.
“Meeting with experienced rail engineers and understanding how our products can fit their applications has been very exciting. We are in detailed discussions with a number of organisations, developing bespoke solutions and testing them on site.”
Oilaway is a sealed system that prevents any potential foreign debris entering the oil system, which can ultimately cause breakdowns and major disruptions. Due to the harsh and demanding environments that trains are faced with, the multi-layered plug will eliminate fluids being contaminated and improves reliability.
Analysing potential problemsOne major factor that has the
Oilaway system generating a leading edge within rail maintenance, is the ability to sample fluids through a sealed system with ease. Fluid
sampling allows for precise conditioning analysis of all waste fluids which enables early detection of any potential failures.
Analysing the condition of the fluids can allow operators to better understand the condition of their machinery. Servicing can be specific and practical by critically avoiding unnecessary spending and labour costs. This improvement of equipment efficiency and extended life all adds value whilst reducing the cost of having to perform reactive maintenance.
Oilaway currently offers a complementary diagnostic evaluation to all rail workshops, allowing a project team to relieve strenuous maintenance demands by looking at the customer’s specific needs and fitting a suitable solution.
With a proven track record, Oilaway is serious about the future and opportunities that lie ahead. Simple yet effective, easily adapted to specific needs and with a long service life adding value, it is easy to see the Oilaway system becoming a go-to solution for the industry.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 79ROLLING STOCK & DEPOTS
The first three of the new Class 800/801 trains, being built by Hitachi for the IEP (Intercity Express Programme), have arrived in the country. In addition, the new factory in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, has been opened by the Prime Minister and is now being fitted out
to produce the bulk of the fleet.
So attention naturally turns to the depots that will house and maintain the trains once they enter service, and even before that in the latter stages of testing and route familiarisation. Three new depots are being built, at Stoke Gifford (near Bristol) and Maliphant (Swansea) for the Great Western fleet, and at Doncaster for the East Coast. In addition, the former Eurostar depot at North Pole, near Old Oak Common, is being heavily refurbished to take the new fleet.
Personnel protectionIntegrated into these depots are safety
systems developed by Sheffield-based Zonegreen. The market leading rail safety specialist’s new generation SMART Depot Personnel Protection System (DPPS™), launched earlier this year, has been chosen by Hitachi and contractor VolkerFitzpatrick for all four of the new IEP maintenance facilities. It is tailored to each depot’s layout and controls vehicle movements, protecting staff and infrastructure, whilst increasing the ease with which depot operations are performed.
DPPS is already in place at the two-road Maliphant facility and its larger counterpart, North Pole, where it will be used to bring vehicles in and out on six roads that have interlocks with gantry gates, two bogie drops, a wheel lathe and fume extractors. The depot is receiving two variants of Hitachi Rail Europe Super Express trains - bi-mode Class 800s and electric Class 801s - that will replace the
40-year-old high speed diesel trains currently in operation on the Great Western and East Coast main lines.
Work is underway to install DPPS at Stoke Gifford, another two-road depot that will be equipped with interlocking with gantry gates, two bogie drops, mono rail cranes, overhead lines and protection systems for an underfloor carriage wash and wheel lathe road. Doncaster will be the final IEP depot to receive Zonegreen’s system and its engineers are in the process of agreeing designs with main contractor, VolkerFitzpatrick.
Christian Fletcher, Zonegreen’s technical director, said: “Although the four installations will look and feel similar, they are configured specifically to meet the needs of each IEP depot. Hitachi was already familiar with DPPS, as it is currently in operation in its Ashford depot, but it will now benefit from improvements we have made to the new generation system, which is even safer than its predecessor.
“This latest version enables users to stay abreast of developments in personnel safety and benefit from future changes as soon as we make them. It also delivers increased reliability, a key consideration when specifying depots that will be under pressure to return vehicles to service as quickly as possible.”
Additional featuresDesigned with export in mind, the next
generation DPPS offers intuitive functionality based on a four-button controller and a graphical interface that can be programmed in any
language, accommodating characters and letters. It is operated using personnel datakeys and combines powered derailers, road end control panels, train detection equipment and warning signals.
This advanced and thoroughly tested system provides essential protection to personal working within the maintenance environment. Zonegreen’s technology will help Hitachi maintain high numbers of vehicles safely, keeping the upgraded rail network operating at full capacity and improving the passenger experience.
Zonegreen has invested many hundreds of thousands of pounds in its new generation system. A host of additional features have been added, following six years in development, and it is now simpler to implement and use and more efficient to run. Remote configuration and assistance has also been added, making overseas installations straightforward and cost effective.
The customer-centric focus of this new protection system extends to its design, which is more ergonomic than its predecessor. A tactile membrane has improved durability, whilst high quality electronic components have reduced power consumption, delivering further cost savings.
By continuing to utilise distributed intelligent technologies, Zonegreen has also ensured that, if an error is detected on one road, normal operation can continue throughout the rest of the depot. This minimises disruption and represents a significant advantage over traditional project life cycle (PLC) systems.
Zonegreen’s SMART DPPS™Give your rail depot workforce the confidence to work safely & effectively.
advanced, high-quality, reliable, proven
and widely-installed product of its kind, with
installations both across the UK and around
the world. The company boasts unparalleled
expertise and experience in depot protection
systems and employs an array of
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Zonegreen is also an experienced and
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Protecting your depot’smost valuable assets
Zone Green DPPS Ad AW:Layout 1 01/10/2014 10:39 Page 1
Standardised software is used to run DPPS, which means it can still be configured to the unique layout of each facility, but depots benefit from years of extensive development and testing. Every installation comprises hardware and software that has been verified independently and complies with safety standards, as defined in IEC61508 and EN50128/50129, as well as current electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) railway guidelines. In addition, it is easier for Zonegreen to share new features and updates with existing and future clients.
Like the personnel datakeys that operate DPPS, the engineer’s datakey
can be programmed with a depot’s layout and used to transfer data to the equipment when inserted, minimising installation time. The datakeys have changed in appearance, whilst additional levels of access have been added, providing improved encryption and security. Temporary keys are available for the first time, granting access for a limited period and, therefore, mitigating the distribution of duplicates, should a member of staff forget their original.
Improved working conditionsAll software is tested rigorously and repeatedly by Zonegreen’s in-house
experts to reduce the risk of errors and continued testing is carried out after installation. For example, if power is cut to the derailer, a message will appear informing the user of this change in status.
Christian Fletcher concluded: “These are exciting times for Zonegreen. We have the technology to vastly improve working conditions for depot staff and word is spreading about our capabilities worldwide.
“Although progress is being made within the rail industry, occupational health remains a considerable concern. We believe maintenance facilities should be doing all they can to protect workers and we are dedicated to developing innovative systems that not only respond to the needs of rail operators, but also have the flexibility to adapt to this rapidly changing environment.
“International partners and existing clients are helping us shape the future of depot safety and we believe our latest version of DPPS spearheads a product range that has the potential to transform the industry’s health and safety record.”
Further productsThe enduring success of DPPS has prompted Zonegreen to develop
a range of complementary products, including Operator Planning Suite (OPS). This web-based application is designed to replace the traditional whiteboard, providing increased efficiency and cost effective maintenance planning.
OPS consists of two main screens - an easy to visualise graphic of the depot on which users can position trains and create or assign tasks, plus a tabular layout to plan scheduled arrivals and departures. The data is held on cloud-based technology and can be transmitted to monitors positioned in strategic locations, providing accurate updates about any vehicle.
This multi user system provides seamless management of maintenance activity and collation of information from which reports can be generated, reducing manual tasks and paperwork.
SIEMENS WCM DEPOT, NORTHAMPTON
INNOVATION in Rail
Safe, energy e�cient, fast,reliable and industry proven.
Next time you travel down to London on the Midland main line, look out of the left hand window as you enter the capital. Depending on the time of day, you will see either a load of trains parked up, waiting for the next peak period, or an expanse of empty sidings.
This is Cricklewood. A large part of the East Midlands Trains fleet seems to be parked here during the day, and that role is due to be expanded as the new Thameslink fleet comes into operation.
There are two sets of sidings at Cricklewood - North and South - which are linked by a scissors crossover. Both were to be extended, but without reducing the existing capacity which is used daily and would have to remain operational throughout the development.
Planning brings success“The success of the project lay in the planning
and the collaboration,” said Carillion project director William Dundas. His Carillion team has worked on a number of depots - Bedford, Selhurst, Brighton and Peterborough - so had the skills learned on previous projects to bring to the Cricklewood project.
The first stage of the project was to remove the northernmost out-of-use section of the North Sidings. This created a brownfield site where the new extension to the sidings could be built. The area had previously been managed by a wood waste broker, which engaged with its supply chain to remove 643 tonnes of wood waste from this area, diverting 100% from landfill.
The new North Sidings has six tracks and a total stabling space for120 carriages. Once completed, so all trains could be stabled there,
work began on the 500 metre long South Sidings to create capacity for a further 120 carriages.
All work on the sidings took place while Cricklewood depot was a live operational environment. In order to complete the work required, the overhead lines to the areas over the old sidings had to be removed. Carillion worked with Tata, the scheme designers, to thoroughly plan the isolation arrangements for adjoining lines prior to work commencing. The work wasn’t started until everyone involved in the project was satisfied that the arrangements would provide the levels of safety required to undertake the works.
A question of controlThe new site is fully signalled and controlled
from Cricklewood Depot signal box, via a new NX panel and RRI interlocking. A new 650V signalling power supply has been provided for the new depot equipment and a new Westronic system, acting as a panel multiplexer and train describer, was fitted within the Cricklewood panel.
The North Connection will be signalled in and out of the Reception line by the West Hampstead signaller via two new sets of points, with an existing signal moved to facilitate moves into the reception line, and a new signal to signal out. The South Connection entry and exit remained essentially unchanged, although the entry signal has historical sighting issues so it has therefore been replaced and a new Banner
RemodellingCRICKLEWOOD
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Delivering vital links
www.carillionplc.com
Carillion delivered additional stabling at Cricklewood, for the new Thameslink rolling stock, while minimising disruption to the depot operations.
Repeater provided. Slots have been provided for the signallers at Cricklewood and West Hampstead signal boxes to send and receive trains over the boundary.
Apart from pre-planned weekend possessions the North Sidings remained operational throughout the construction phases of this scheme, but the South sidings were temporarily decommissioned once the North Sidings had been extended to allow their reconstruction for the new layout. As part of the scheme, nine ends of hand points were changed to clamp-lock operation, and were operated under power by the shunter as a local arrangement in advance of the final commissioning; one set of trailing hand points remains as sprung points.
The final commissioning was split over four weekend possessions during June 2015, during which the re-controlled assets from the new Cricklewood interlocking were tested to reduce the time required for the final commissioning and bringing into use.
The two SsDuring the planning phase, Network Rail
introduced the Planning Delivery and Safe Working mandate and this impacted the work at Cricklewood.
As well as the challenges trackside, there were also a number of traffic management issues because the site was next door to a scrap metal
merchant and other parties used the service road. Project manager Tom McElhatton and team devised a number of traffic management strategies to ensure safety and segregation on site. Large fences were erected to prevent any loose materials blowing onto the track and a speed limit of 5mph was enforced, both to protect the workforce and help prevent traffic accidents. In addition the walking route from Cricklewood station to the site was refurbished to provide a safe, segregated route.
There was an excavation incident on the site which was investigated and led to a new process for excavating on all Carillion Rail sites. Steve Bladen and Ray Rushe developed a video and training programme at Cricklewood to demonstrate how the new safer process works which has been shared across the business. The knowledge gained at Cricklewood has been successfully implemented at Peterborough and Horsham depots.
Sustainability was a key feature of the project and, in addition to the community project, the team also focused on resource efficiency - recycled ballast on site diverting 99% waste from landfill, saving natural resources as well as the benefit of significant cost savings from not having to buy in new aggregate.
Despite the challenges of getting everyone onto the large site at the same time, everyone working on Cricklewood attended a morning
briefing every working day. This ensured that everyone knew what was happening on site and there was a greater understanding of what other disciplines were focusing on. It also encouraged the sharing of safety best practice which extended beyond this project to other Carillion Thameslink sites. The level of collaboration with Network Rail was superb and Jim Brown, the Network Rail operations manager, really encouraged the sense of ‘one team’ on this project with the civils, p/way, OLE, signalling and planning teams all working together harmoniously.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 85ROLLING STOCK & DEPOTS
With a year of Control Period 5 (CP5) under its belt, the rail industry is working hard on new targets to drive greater efficiency, reduce operating costs and improve service reliability. Network Rail has committed to achieving “20 per cent efficiencies over the period to 2019,
while continuing to deliver a safe and reliable network and investing £38 billion in a bigger, better railway.”
Many of these impacts will derive from major projects such as Crossrail, Thameslink, Birmingham’s New Street development, signalling upgrades and electrification of the Great Western main line. They will also come from ‘route criticality’, the classification system helping to prioritise and target improvements where track assets are incurring most delays.
box of tricks
MICHAEL MILES
Neat
Rail Engineer • October 201586
HalfPage_Ad_190x130_nobleed_OL.pdf 1 4/9/2015 8:35:25 AM
Protecting assetsBut the industry should not under-estimate what the
engineering of physical protection for line-side services - location cabinets and REBs (Relocatable Equipment Buildings) for signalling, telecommunications and power - can contribute to these outcomes.
In protecting the electrical, telecommunications and signalling systems that power and control the network, their performance is clearly crucial to service reliability as well as the safety of passengers and rail employees. And, with manufacturers capable of designing equipment to overcome difficult logistics and minimise track possession, they can also deliver the efficiencies sought by project and maintenance teams.
With many installed in remote, unmanned areas, cabinets and REBs are vulnerable to tampering, damage or even complete removal from a range of threats - trespass, vandalism, theft, criminal attack as well as risks of sabotage, infiltration and even terrorist attack.
The financial costs and disruption to service are only too apparent from the industry’s experience of metal theft. Cabinets are major targets, of course, for the copper content of cabling installed inside.
In 2010/11, as copper prices peaked, theft of railway cabling is estimated to have caused disruption to over 35,000 rail services and £16.5 million in replacement costs.
Work by Network Rail and the British Transport Police (BTP) has since seen a significant drop in cable theft offences, aided by amendments to the Scrap Metal Dealers Act in 2013 which introduced licensing and tighter controls in the scrap metal trade. Increased CCTV has also
helped, as well as the introduction of forensic marking of cables and cable coding for traceability, making it harder to sell on to legitimate merchants.
But, with metal theft still one of the fastest growing crime types globally, measures that target the disposal of stolen metal do not prevent the devastation of assets on the network.
A study published last year by experts at UCL indicates that, in the case of live-metal theft (such as signalling cable and telecommunications wire), less than one per cent of offences happen within the confines of a station. Inevitably, criminals will continue to target the thousands of cabinets and REBs that lie beyond the catchment of station security, CCTV and surveillance.
The ultimate deterrent lies in measures that increase the effort needed to gain access to the cable - or to breach the housing for any other reason.
Technocover’s UltraSecure location cabinets (full or half) give ultimate assurance of performance under assessed risks of attack.
PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE
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Robust approvalIn addition to PADS approval, it is therefore critical
that lineside housings are assured by robust third party approval that proves their ability to resist physical attack by criminals and their tools of choice.
This is the rationale behind LPCB (Loss Prevention Certification Board), one of the most rigorous certification regimes for warranting the performance of security equipment.
Cabinets and modular buildings/REBs which have been approved by LPCB meet the stringent test standard LPS 1175. This subjects products to different severities of attack using different tools and for different durations, awarding a security rating according to performance - the highest being for terrorist level risks. LPCB approval is revised according to advice from stakeholders on criteria for testing and physical resistance.
Significantly, LPCB approval is not based on a one-off type test. It involves regular audits to ensure on-going production units comply with the prevailing test standard and any revisions. Approved products must also be made to a quality management system providing documented assurance of the consistency of materials and fabrication vital to the reproducibility of structural performance. While a type test indicates the test sample meets a particular performance standard, it does not guarantee that products coming off the production line provide equivalent performance.
LPCB approval demands considerable technical capability and significant investment from manufacturers. Over 95% of products that claim secure design fail the LPCB test. It can be assumed from this that a large percentage of products on the market offering security features will fall below LPCB’s stringent standards.
Technocover, an accredited Link-Up supplier, invests significant money and resources in LPCB approval. It has a dedicated department working full-time to maintain certification on existing products and gain approvals for new launches.
As a result, under the respected UltraSecure brand, the company offers one of the largest ranges of LPCB-approved security equipment, also including doors, access covers, mesh enclosures and louvres for reinforcing security in stations and other areas of rail.
By 2019, the rail network will be supporting 225 million more passenger journeys each year with more trains running, while 500 more level crossings will be closed as centralised signalling continues. Growth of this kind, with ever-greater reliance on trackside technology, needs to be underpinned by proven levels of protection from the cabinets and REBs that are the last line of defence for the nerve system of the network.
However, cost-effective procurement of these vital structures relies on more than robust third-party approval.
Physical security specialists are working hard on innovations to enhance asset reliability and on flexible approaches to installation to reduce track possession - thinking outside the box, quite literally.
Keeping things coolTo tackle the need for internal regulation of heat in
some applications, Technocover has introduced two types of location case cooling kit in line with a current Network Rail framework agreement. These provide a retro-fit solution for maintaining a stable internal temperature inside the cabinet, and reducing the risk of solar heat gain.
Through early consultation, turnkey security partners can value engineer cost-effective REB solutions that answer challenges of scale and location.
Rail Engineer • October 201588
The modular format, designed for full and half-size location cases, means that it can be used to protect just the sides of the unit at risk. The cooling kits are available on UltraSecure LPCB cabinets for SR3 and SR4 security ratings (LPS 1175 Issue 5).
Experienced suppliers have evolved comprehensive support services to deliver innovation and to tailor physical protection to the specific needs of rail.
Technocover offers design and technical support to rail engineers and contractors to help in the planning and timely delivery of upgrade work, for minimal disruption and maximising whole life value.
Early involvement is key in identifying opportunities for cost-efficiency, and achieving security installations that are reliable and offer extended service life with minimal maintenance.
The undertaking of large REBs, especially on steep embankments and in rural locations, poses logistical and design challenges. These need careful planning to look at different design and installation scenarios, identifying ways to value engineering and strip out approaches that involve unnecessary cost.
System protection of steel housings, the predominant choice in rail, should not be overlooked. The effects of climate change are posing new threats to the network, especially in coastal areas. Equipment should have a suitably robust galvanised finish to combat local weathering factors to support the expected security performance over long service life. Technocover provides augmented specifications of post-galvanising for installations exposed to higher regional values of atmospheric corrosion.
By the end of CP5, Network Rail aims to deliver its best-ever level of punctuality for passengers and freight - with a target of 92.5 per cent of trains arriving on time. In making this happen, it will need to increase the reliability of assets and reduce failures related to track, points and signalling.
A robust standard of protection for lineside services is fundamental to this reliability. This can be best achieved by partnering with fully resourced and innovative suppliers of LPCB equipment, like Technocover.
Michael Miles is a director at Technocover.
Working with a supplier with LPCB certification across a broad range of cabinet sizes and security levels will ensure a consistent, high standard of protection for signalling upgrades.
PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE
Rail Engineer • October 2015 89
The much-publicised advent of a Digital Railway by Network Rail has raised questions in the eyes of many engineers working in the rail industry. What does it mean, when digital technology has been in use for many systems since the late 1960s?
Virtually all the NRT telecommunications network is digital and rapidly moving to the next progression of IP (Internet Protocol). Many of the recent signalling systems brought into service use digital technology and the implementation of a nationwide SCADA system for electrification control is all digitally based. Operational systems that we know and love - TOPS, TRUST, APTIS and TSDB - have been around for many years as have systems for finance, personnel records, planning and many more, these all being computer borne and thus digital by definition.
What, therefore, is Network Rail’s motive to create a Digital Railway when much of it seems already to be in place? Rail Engineer went to meet Martin Arter, the programme development director, to find out what it is all about.
Managing growthThe railway has seen spectacular growth since
privatisation. Passenger numbers have doubled in twenty years and this trend is set to continue. The rail freight business needs to change its shape with a decline in the traditional train-load consignments of coal, oil and steel but growth of multi modal, e-commerce and international traffic, and expansion to more routes and terminals.
Future rail strategies based on the four Cs of carbon, customer, capacity and cost, plus performance and safety, have to be managed as a total railway and these objectives are made more difficult in the disparate railway that now exists. Under BR, with its single departmental focus on engineering, information technology and operations, it was possible for a ‘directing mind’ to steer a co-ordinated approach in the systems needed to support the running of trains and the management of business. However, in those times, the perception of a declining railway meant emphasis was on the rationalisation of assets and the reduction of cost.
All that is now changed and the departmental ‘directing minds’ are no longer there to steer the engineering effort needed to implement the required change of direction. Today’s railway managers can only wish they had the potential capacity that once existed. Some of this is being restored - the re-doubling of singled lines, re-opening or building of new station platforms and even the building of new lines like HS1 and 2 are examples - but the selling of land and the sheer cost of infrastructure enhancement makes this a slow process and often an impossible one.
Some other way is needed if the railway is to keep pace with its current business challenges. Andrew Simmons, the chief systems engineer for Digital Railway, commented: “Schemes such as that developed for the upgrade of the West Coast main line were, by necessity, a compromise between the conflicting requirements of capacity, speed and performance. Signalling arrangements for complex areas such as Rugby were at the limit of conventional signalling capability and complexity. A step change in both operational and technical system capability will be required if the railway is to keep pace with current business challenges. Digital Railway aims to deliver that step change.”
The digital ageMedia publicity and advertising has
conditioned people’s mind that ‘Digital is good’ and everything else is out of date. This is, of course, rubbish since the process of digitising is nothing more than turning the original analogue functions into a code of 0s and 1s. From a railway perspective, there are some undoubted advantages in this change as the resultant control and command signals are likely to be much less susceptible to unwanted interference. If the 0 or 1 at the end of a transmission chain can be recognised as valid, then the original command can be replicated without fear of degradation.
The value of this technology should not be underestimated, but the true opportunity associated with the use of digital systems is the introduction of different processes and practices that can achieve greater utilisation of existing infrastructure. Thus, the creation of the ‘Digital Railway’ is primarily aimed at achieving greater capability from existing assets, but also recognising that the public perception that ‘Digital is good’ has benefits.
The concept was launched in 2014 and is based around economic growth rather than the prevailing renewal-driven requirement. In part, it will absorb some ongoing projects, ETCS Level 2 provision being a major one, but it also seeks to embrace technology that is commonplace in the public domain, and integrate this much better into the day-to-day task of rail operations.
There is buy-in for the vision from many stakeholders including government, the train company owners and operators, the multitude of companies in the supply chain and, of course, Network Rail as the infrastructure provider. The challenge now is how best to turn the vision into reality.
Fundamentally, the Digital Railway is not a technology programme but very much an instrument for business change with the potential for going far beyond digitising current technology. It is all about creating an integrated approach to changes in processes brought about by systems underpinned by digital technology.
Explaining the Digital RailwayCLIVE KESSELL
90 Rail Engineer • October 2015
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So what’s involved?As hinted, there are already many digital
systems in use on the railway but most are standalone, often bespoke in design and incapable of integrating with each other. The NRT digital telecom networks (FTN and FTNx) are already in place to enable devices to be connected to host computers in a fast and efficient way, but it is not NRT’s role to develop interconnectivity.
Pulling all this together is, therefore, the objective of the Digital Railway programme and it will focus on three main elements: » Enabling provision of more trains, thus
increasing capacity; » Providing better connections between routes
and at stations; » Greater convenience for the customer such as
ticketing and reservation options, thus moving beyond the magnetic strip.
Of these, capacity, performance and connectivity are the first priorities. To achieve this means collective engagement of customers, the infrastructure provider (Network Rail) and the train operators. Future projections extend this to multimodal travel, thus bringing in airlines, buses, trams and taxis.
For the present, however, it is all about getting the railway to work as a system and for this it needs System Thinking, System Integration and System Engineering. A model of the architecture has been drafted resulting in 132 strategic requirements involving 17 business services. Some of this will mean connection to data services away from the railway, such as social media, but that is part of the vision. The architecture must be such that people will understand and buy into it. It must also be adaptable and upgradeable for the future
There is a need to design and deliver all of this as a totality. The process began with five organisations, all having experience in the field, being brought in for a short period, these being CSC, TCS, BAE Systems, Accenture and Cognisant. They were tasked with giving support to suitable experienced people within Network Rail, ATOC and the FOCs. The current framework suppliers for traffic management and ETCS have also been engaged along with some other qualified companies. European railways are also showing interest with DB, Prorail (Holland) and others being engaged to some extent.
Getting startedAs with all visionary projects, a degree of
pragmatism has to exist in order to get started and the Digital Railway team knows that it must deliver some early results to ensure the bigger project is allowed to progress. The ETCS Level 2 programme will be this catalyst as it already sees a number of disparate systems being swept up to improve the efficiency of the command and control activity.
In addition to the basic ETCS Level 2 package, the Digital Railway needs to absorb TMS, the ROC programme, the provision of C-DAS, the train planning operation and train crew deployment activities. Some of these represent challenges that must be studied and resolved: » Train fitment, and especially retro fitting; » Driver recruitment, training on simulators,
confidence building and driving techniques; » Day to day rosters and rulebook/signalling
principle changes; » Signalling data in terms of quality, integration
and design; » Control office rationalisation and training of
controllers; » Commercial considerations of train planning
and delay attribution; » Infrastructure reliability of signals, track
circuits/axle counters, power supplies and possessions;
» Safety protocols and cyber security.
The learning curve will be from where projects are at the moment - ROC construction and commissioning, TMS at Cardiff, Romford and Three Bridges, ETCS Level 2 for the GWML, ECML, Thameslink including ATO in the central core, and the various DAS projects either in being or planned. These projects already in delivery have been categorised as Phase 1 of the Digital Railway programme.
Phase 2 is the development of a full ‘toolkit’ of systems planned for completion by the middle of 2016 and includes the full integration of ETCS Level 2, TMS and C-DAS, along with telecoms and the necessary interfaces. This phase will need an early deployment site upon which the system integration can be tested, not necessarily with all features but enough to give confidence that the concept is robust and able to demonstrate the benefits that can be delivered.
Thought is being given as to where this might be but it must not be a section of railway that, if it goes wrong, the front pages of the newspapers will be full of damning comment.
Phase 3, to be developed by 2019, is the future vision and includes the development of ETCS Level 3 plus open architecture and automated design, along with the broader customer expectations as to the ‘railway experience’.
Funding and future realityA project like this needs commitment and
belief from those who hold the purse strings and to this end, an Executive Industry Steering Board has been established with membership including the DfT, ORR, ATOC, TfL, Rail Supply Group, Rail Delivery Group and, of course, Network Rail. All of these are committed to modernising the railway with the benefits of integrated digitisation, and are helping steer the programme through its formative phase.
It is recognised that the Digital Railway has to be meaningful to many different types of
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railway, ranging from metro-type operations around big cities, secondary and rural routes, long-distance intercity trains, and finally to freight traffic in all its forms. Equally, the data applications that make up the project will not all be able to progress at the same speed. Data networking and the interfaces to social media must keep pace with the rapid changes that happen within the information technology industry.
Ticketing and reservations are likely to be built around a common platform from which the TOCs and open access operators will be able to build in their own style, branding and information - a complexity that will restrict the amount of change that can take place at any one time. Command and control systems, with the many factors involving infrastructure, train fitment, safety and security, will only change slowly, likely to be in excess of 10 years.
If the vision delivers the benefits predicted, then the original plan to deploy ETCS over a 50-year period could be accelerated significantly, not necessarily waiting for signalling assets to reach the end of their serviceable life.
All this has to be realised, managed and accommodated within the programme that will thus never have a completely stable situation. The Digital Railway must continually move with the times whilst still keeping the total system operational integration as its guiding principle.
There will be some who view the whole concept as a pipedream. This would be defeatist since, in the immediate time frame, it does not involve new systems being developed - they all exist right now. Even systems envisaged for the future are developed in concept and are underpinned by proven technology.
It is a brave move to make ERTMS the starting point since there are many factors that will impact on the deployment plan and these were detailed in the September edition of Rail Engineer.
But as Martin Arter says: “The job of the Digital Railway is to be honest and realistic about the hurdles and challenges but then to set about systematically and thoroughly developing solutions to make the Digital Railway a reality - that’s the whole reason for being here. The prize is huge and this is a time to be brave and bold, and not to accept the status quo. Our customers expect a modern railway fit for the future and we are determined to deliver.”
The Digital Railway is essentially about getting systems to work together such that information can be used much more effectively to improve the running of trains and the services the railway offers to its customers. Surely, no-one can argue with that, but the assembled team - now numbering over a hundred - will have to work hard both from an engineering and publicity perspective to deliver the promised vision.
Do you speak Digital?A guide to useful acronyms
» APTIS - Accountancy and Passenger Ticket Issuing System, also known as the All-Purpose Ticket-Issuing System. The APTIS ticket, introduced in 1986, introduced the orange stripes and general layout still used today.
» BAE - British Aerospace. BAE Systems came out of the 1999 merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems.
» C-DAS - Connected Driver Advisory System. DAS connected to the control centre providing real-time updates.
» CSC - formed in 1959 as the Computer Sciences Corporation. Today, multinational IT consultant with 70,000 staff in more than 70 countries.
» DAS - Driver Advisory System. Provides recommended braking and acceleration profiles to make the journey as smooth and economical as possible.
» DfT - Department for Transport » ERTMS - European Rail Traffic Management System.
Basically ETCS with radio communication between the train and the control centre using GSM-R.
» ETCS - European Train Control System. In-cab signalling in a train which interacts with lineside equipment using balises (Level 1) or radio (level 2).
» FTN - Fixed Telecoms Network. Network Rail’s in-house communications network of 16,000km of fibre optic and copper cabling.
» FTNx - high speed network overlaid on FTN capable of transmitting large amounts of data.
» GSM-R - the rail version of conventional GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications, originally Groupe Spécial Mobile) telephone systems. Modern GSM is operating with fourth-generation systems (4G) while GSM-R is still using 2G.
» ORR - Office of Rail and Road. Formerly Office of Rail Regulation but responsibility for monitoring the Highways Agency was added in April 2015.
» ROC - Railway Operating Centre. A combination of signalling, train control and even electrical power control centres in one location staffed by both Network Rail and train operators’ staff. Current plans are to run the whole British rail network from just 11 such centres.
» SCADA - Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. Industrial control system commonly used on railways to control traction power distribution.
» TCS - Train Control System. » TfL - Transport for London. » TMS - Traffic Management System. A combination of
timetabling, signalling and event recovery that is capable of running an entire railway network.
» TOPS - Total Operations Processing System. The prime source of train operation data such as destination, load and location, TOPS provides a comprehensive system for monitoring a train’s complete movement cycle from workshop and maintenance.
» TRUST - Train Running System. Computer system which records details of train operational data as compared with schedule, supporting the logging of delays and associated attribution process.
» TSDB - Train Service Database. Network Rail’s database of train schedules.
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So many questions and, sometimes, not enough answers.
Which is why the rail industry’s sustainability experts gathered at the first Rail Sustainability Summit, held in London during September. There were train operators, infrastructure owners, civil engineering contractors, consultants and designers - all exchanging ideas and hearing about best practice in the industry.
And the main message that people took away? Not to be afraid of sustainability, and that getting involved can actually reduce costs.
How does it fit?Chris Leech of Business in the Community set
the stage by de-mystifying sustainability. It was he who first referred to sustainable businesses being profitable ones by commenting that, in the recent economic downturn, it was the sustainable companies that had, in general, fared better.
Peter Wilkinson, managing director of passenger services at the DfT, commented that “those companies which are successful do not
necessarily work just from the balance sheet”. While admitting that running a modern railway is an “incredibly difficult thing to do”, he said that operators must keep up with technology in other sectors. Lighter trains use less energy, and also store energy for reuse so reducing their total requirement.
And it’s not just the trains. Building infrastructure is energy sensitive, and the railway industry is the world’s largest user of copper. Planned transport integration will be key as people live longer and want to remain mobile.
Scotland’s approach, as detailed by Gordon Macleod of Transport Scotland, differs in detail but has the same core message - sustainability is now embedded in the railway franchising process.
Contractors have their part to play. Mike Hewitt, from telecommunications installer AD Comms, revealed that 4% of the nation’s electricity output now goes to run data centres! This requires everyone to work more efficiently and have sustainability as an attitude, as the savings can be enormous.
Making it workAndrew English, managing director of Skanska’s
utilities business and formerly commercial director of rail, told the audience it was all about being environmentally smart. Resources are scarce - another common theme of the day - and managing them should be on every company’s agenda NOW.
On one project, they had switched from a cost-based to a carbon-based analysis, and found that the end result was a reduction in cost as well, proving that a sustainable solution was often an economic solution.
Gareth Williams of Northern Rail outlined a typical train operator’s approach. His company has an environmental scorecard and everything is judged against that, even saying that, if targets are missed, then no bonuses are paid out. Every business unit knows how it is performing on energy and sustainability - right down to every individual station.
During the lunch break, delegates visited the sponsors’ displays and learnt from PHS Besafe how laundering good-quality PPE up to 50 times was not only more sustainable but also cheaper than using one-shot clothing which then had to be sent to landfill.
Jansen Legioblock wasn’t there to sell concrete block walls (though no doubt they would be happy to), but to discuss how they could take waste aggregates and concrete from sites and use them in its products, recycling the materials and sometimes even returning them to the same project.
Engaging peopleThe afternoon continued with more
fascinating talks. Cathy Myatt of Crossrail spoke of Key Sustainable Initiatives (KSIs), of the need to have clarity of vision and strong governance and leadership, and of the importance of bringing apprentices along for the ride.
Cal Bailey told everyone that we live in a beautiful world, that transport networks give people access to that wonderful world, and
SustainabilityNIGEL WORDSWORTH
can save you money!In contrast to the days in which our railways were built, engineers and
designers are now much more concerned about the sustainability of their work. How many lorry-loads of supplies come into a site,
and how many loads of waste leave? How much fuel is used, and carbon released? What happens to that waste? How much carbon is released making the concrete that will be used? What about the trains themselves? And their servicing? And replacement? And what about the people, their safety and welfare?
Rail Engineer • October 201596
that business drivers must be not just profitability but responsibility as well. Being known as a responsible business “encourages customers to put business our way” - a policy that NG Bailey is following in its involvement in the redevelopment of Birmingham New Street.
Returning to the subject of apprentices, Cal challenged the industry to include in every major contract the requirement that one new apprentice must be taken on and retained for a full four years for every £1 million of the contract value - a challenge that was much discussed at the next break.
Martin Baxter, chief policy advisor for IEMA, the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, asked: “Is sustainability an option or a necessity?” Returning to the theme that companies with long-term success have a purpose beyond profit, he included in his list of ‘sustainability killers’ short termism, a lack of knowledge and skills, and relying on ‘experts’.
Supporting growthProfessor Roger Venables of CEEQUAL outlined the
organisation’s weighting and scoring of the sustainability built into project schemes, and took the opportunity to present an Award to a team from Crossrail for its achievements.
Costain’s Andy Dixon had a simple message. Sustainability - can we afford it? Can we afford not to? He certainly thought that the answer to both questions was obvious and inescapable.
Finally, RSSB’s Anthony Perrett told the audience that major businesses in the utilities sector were saving 4-6% a year by being sustainable. Rail achieves only 1-2% (£500 million for Network Rail over five years), so there is a lot more work still to do.
In thanking the speakers, Network Rail sustainability lead Tertius Beneke returned to the premise that a sustainable business is a profitable business, and sent the audience on its way determined to start doing better before next year’s Rail Sustainability Summit.
Andrew English of Skanska speaking at the Rail Sustainability summit.
A question from the floor.
Rail Engineer • October 2015 97
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Rail Engineer • October 201598 RECRUITMENT
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