The Railways Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 5 November 2025 to create Great British Railways (GBR). GBR is planned to create a new, agile and commercial industry structure, and will be charged with delivering the Transport Secretary’s six objectives for a reformed railway. One that is reliable, affordable, efficient, high quality, accessible and safe.
An example of one new way of working to address these core objectives for the industry is the Non-Intrusive Crossover System (NICS) to help deliver more efficient engineering possessions.
The aim of an engineering possession is to provide a safe, traffic-free worksite for activities such as remedial works and planned renewals to be efficiently carried out. Possessions for engineering trains must allow them to complete work which may require multiple passes and interface with other engineering trains. However, with increasing traffic and reduced availability of possessions, being effective and efficient in accessing, setting up, and giving back access is vital. This is not only to reduce cost, but also to ensure work is completed safely and that rail traffic is not delayed.
Engineering possessions can result in unplanned disruption, with possession ‘over run’ one of the biggest causes of delay minutes. Getting staff and the right equipment to and from the worksite on time and efficiently giving back the worksite into service are critical requirements for efficient engineering access.
So, better cost-effective engineering access is a strategic imperative and a significant business opportunity, and NICS is a welcome initiative to ensure that the machinery involved in any engineering possession is used to its maximum potential. NICS is simply a safe, temporary, portable crossover system to make best use of the engineering time and lines available.
Transforming access
NICS is designed to provide access to and egress from extremely challenging worksites, and for use on projects with limited possession access.
The system is also designed to be used to create a virtual siding from a few 60ft track lengths for the stabling of Road Rail Vehicles (RRVs), plant, equipment, and materials. Stabling the plant and equipment on the virtual siding also allows the trailers to be loaded prior to the possession.
Once the worksite is granted the NICS is deployed by hydraulic motors and secured in place by bolts. The deployment time is around 15 minutes plus the RRV’s drive out of the virtual sidings onto the main line and to the worksite.
Significant increases in actual working times are gained and the more RRVs the greater the gain compared to traditional methods of on-tracking plant. Any number of RRVs can be deployed in less time than it takes to on-track a single one.
The manufacturer of NICS says the time savings transfer into cost savings of 10-15% as the programme duration is reduced. In addition to providing efficiencies there are other benefits:
- Increased Safety Performance: No more multiple lifts at night under constant time pressures to deploy equipment. The people/plant interface is reduced, and this can be done during daylight hours. Reduced risk of an overrun due to an RRV breakdown. If a stricken RRV is towed back to the access point it still has to get off the track, but with an NICS it can be towed into the virtual sidings.
- Noise Reduction: Noise at sensitive access points is reduced to the bare minimum, as there is only one RRV movement at the start and end of the possession. There is no need for the multiple ‘horn beeps’ prior to every RRV movement and no reversing sirens.
- Increased Access: There are multiple locations where the normal possession times are so low it is not economical to on-track RRVs and load the trailers. Once installed, NICS only takes around 15 minutes to deploy, opening up access to previously restricted locations.
The temporary crossover can be installed without impacting existing trackwork. Once the work is completed, NICS is designed to be easily removed and moved to another worksite. The system consists of four main component parts:
- Ramps to lift the rail vehicle approximately 50mm so that the wheel flanges are clear of the permanent track railhead, and to lower the rail vehicle after completing the movement.
- Switch plates to support and turn out the rail vehicle.
- Crossing plates to carry the rail vehicle over the existing six foot.
- Gut rails to form connections between the switch and crossing plates.
The plates were originally designed so that they could be manually lifted and turned depending on the turnout direction or moved to allow normal train working to resume.
Base Line 4
Over a number of years, NICS has been extensively developed and improved, based on the feedback received from Safety Review Panels and industry consultations. This has resulted in the current Base Line 4 product which features hydraulic operation of the plates to reduce manual handling risks, mechanical interlocking of the plates, and a robust key process linked to the signalling system. This uses a number of Castell ‘trapped’ interlocking keys to ensure that the NICS plates must be in the correct position at the end of a possession, before the signal protecting the line can ‘come off’ and allow normal working to resume.
NICS enables rail vehicle and plant repositioning around a worksite to avoid ‘locked in’ scenarios of expensive equipment. It also allows engineering possessions to be shorter, as without NICS rail vehicles may have to travel some distance to reach a crossover. Temporary engineering sidings can also easily be established to enable maximum use of rail vehicles and plant.
Approval
Network Rail trial product approval certificate PA05/07031 has been issued for the initial use of the latest mechanical interlocked NICS, as part of the Kirton Lime Tunnel works on the Eastern Region of Network rail, with installation at Kirton Lime Sidings.
A three-week trial has been planned for September 2026. Anyone wishing to view the demonstration on the operational railway should contact Donald McCallum at [email protected] quoting their name, company, and position.
With NICS offering better productivity, efficiency, safety, as well as less noise, it is just the sort of creative engineering initiative which the industry needs more of. All involved in the development of the system are to be congratulated.