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New power for Liverpool Street

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London’s Liverpool Street station is the third busiest in the capital, after Waterloo and Victoria. Opened in 1874 as the terminus for the Great Eastern Railway, it absorbed all of the services that ran into the adjacent Broad Street station when that closed in 1986.

Today, it is the terminus for the West Anglia main line to Cambridge, the Great Eastern to Norwich and the Stansted Express service, as well as local and commuter trains to the East of England. The station’s 18 platforms are used by more than 1.2 million people every day (over 63 million per annum), traveling on services operated by Abellio Greater Anglia and London Overground, as well as Transport for London which took over operation of the route to Shenfield last year as a precursor to Crossrail. There are also a handful of c2c services.

The station’s underground interchange serves the Central, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan and Circle lines.

Life expired

All of this, with lighting, heating, retail, offices and services, uses a lot of electrical power. There are over 50 high street food and retail outlets alone, and they all rely on electrical switchgear (Durham switchgear and distribution boards), which feeds the power supply. This equipment, which is 25 years old, is coming to the end of its operational life. In addition, because of its age, the apparatus does not meet the current safety standards for maintenance access provision and requires renewal.

As a result, SSE Enterprise Rail has been commissioned to design and deliver a solution to replace all life-expired mechanical and electrical assets between years two to four of Network Rail’s Control Period 5 (CP5) delivery plan. The SSE Enterprise Rail team will also improve electrical safety to help prevent major equipment failure, provide a dedicated back-up electricity supply for the station and train shed lighting to further improve reliability, and expand current electrical distribution capacity at the station by 25 per cent. All of this will be delivered whilst maintaining functionality of all station facilities and operations, keeping disruption to an absolute minimum and travellers on the move.

SSE Enterprise Rail is developing a ‘one team’ approach and will carry out detailed consultation with all interested parties, which include the client, Network Rail, operators Abellio Greater Anglia and Transport for London, as well as station staff, tenants in the station outlets and the general public. This collaborative way of working assures project values and objectives will be agreed from the outset, with less likelihood of anything unexpected occurring during the design and delivery phases with a far greater chance of success for all parties. Safety, SSE Enterprise’s number one core value, will be the primary consideration at every stage.

The completion of GRIP 3-4 (construction and engineering services contract) is scheduled for the end of November 2016, while the completion of GRIP 5-8 (design and construction contract) is expected at the end of November 2017.

Contract win

SSE Enterprise Rail won a competitive tender to design and deliver this ‘Liverpool Street Switch Panels and Distribution Board Project’ on behalf of Network Rail. The tender scoring system awarded the company maximum marks in the ‘commercial’ category, illustrating the organisation’s drive to deliver the optimum balance of quality, safety and value.

Raj Sinha, managing director of SSE Enterprise Rail, said: “This project will be very challenging but we have the right people with the right skills at every level to deliver this type of specialist work. We look forward to supporting Network Rail and other stakeholders at Liverpool Street Station, building on the great reputation that our team of 15 years has already developed there.”

This successful tender award follows other recent contract wins for SSE Enterprise Rail, including the Tier 1 electrical works call-off contract for LNW route electrical framework (for both South and North areas) and the property minor works frameworks contract to March 2017.

2 COMMENTS

  1. London Liverpool Street is a very good and well used railway station in Central London which has been opened since Great Eastern Railway built and opened the railway station in the City of London in 1874 which is about 142 years old since it first opened.

    London Liverpool Street is well used with passengers also can transfer from train to the London Underground-Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines and also can transfer to TfL Rail (Crossrail-Elizabeth Line) and London Overground and also Liverpool Street provides good links to other major cities and towns in the Eastern Region (East of England) including Norwich, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich, Southend-on-Sea, Clacton-on-Sea, Ely, King’s Linn and London’s 2 airports-London Southend Airport and London Stansted Airport (which has its own Stansted Express rail to air link service). Plus TfL took over some of Abellio GA Metro routes on 31st May 2015 (last year) with TfL operates the London Overground Lea Valley metro services to Chingford via Clapton, Enfield Town via Edmonton Green and Cheshunt via Southbury and TfL Rail to Ilford, Romford and Shenfield which will soon become Elizabeth Line with a new Crossrail railway station just around the corner from the main Liverpool Street station and sometimes during early morning and late evening service-London Overground to Upminster via Romford is included if necessary but you have to use either TfL Rail train that goes to Shenfield or use Abellio GA train (either to Southend Victoria, Braintree or Colchester Town) to Romford and then change for London Overground train to Upminster. But if London Broad Street railway station which was right next door to Liverpool Street and Broad Street was still there today and still opened and well used by commuters and passengers then London Overground trains will use Broad Street to terminate and start or stop off from Broad Street to Dalston Junction, Highbury & Islington, Clapham Junction, West Croydon, New Cross Gate, New Cross and Crystal Palace and back to Broad Street as it would of been part of the London Overground East London Line extension if Broad Street was still there but sadly its not there no more since it closed on 30th June 1986 and was opened on 1 November 1865.

    But Shoreditch High Street station is just a few miles from Liverpool Street station in Shoreditch, East London.

    Plus c2c use London Liverpool Street on Sundays as London Fenchurch Street is closed on Sundays which operated to Basildon, Grays, Barking Southend Central, Shoeburyness, Tilbury and Chafford Hundred (Thurrock Lakeside) and also goes to Upminster.

    Plus Liverpool Street has its own bus station which most London buses use just outside the main station to different areas across Greater London.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_for_London
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Street_station
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_railway_station_(London)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Overground
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TfL_Rail
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Street_bus_station
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abellio_Greater_Anglia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stansted_Express
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C2c
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eastern_Main_Line
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Anglia_Main_Line
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lea_Valley_Lines

  2. Most of this comment is superfluous, since likely readers will have used or indeed worked on the infrastructure. Why do you always feel the need to comment on such articles?

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