Ardwick depot in Manchester is preparing for a £500 million new fleet of trains, set to replace the much-maligned Pacers.
As part of the necessary upgrades, Sheffield rail safety specialist Zonegreen is installing its Depot Personnel Protection System (DPPS®) onto a new four-road stabling facility being built at the Siemens’ depot, where at least 16 vehicles will be housed as part of Arriva Trains North’s new strategy.
Zonegreen is not new to Ardwick – its technology has protected staff there since the maintenance depot and sidings were constructed in 2006, using the latest technology to automate safety procedures and remove the margin for human error. Following the recent modifications, undertaken by main contractor, Spencer Group, Zonegreen’s New Generation system has been integrated with the existing infrastructure to provide a safe working environment.
Staff working on the new stabling roads are protected via a signalling interface, which prevents routes being set if personnel are logged on to the DPPS. Train movements can only be activated when no one is working on an individual road or on to the existing fuel road that is used to access the new installation. Once a route has been set, post-mounted beacons are activated to warn people of a potential vehicle movement and staff are no longer permitted to log on.
Christian Fletcher, Zonegreen’s technical director, said: “The new stabling facility at Ardwick has allowed us to demonstrate just how adaptable DPPS is to the changing needs of rail depots. Our New Generation system has been designed to suit the new layout, allowing us to maintain the safest working environment possible, whilst giving Siemens the flexibility and confidence to move vehicles around efficiently.”
Zonegreen has also installed a new Depot Manager PC in Ardwick’s control room. It displays the status of DPPS, including the signalling slotting system and provides the names of all personnel logged onto the sidings roads.
View across the campus from the south-west (Credit Secchi Smith)
The City of London Corporation has appointed multi-disciplined engineering services specialist Dyer & Butler, part of M Group Services, to deliver strengthening works to the Snowhill tunnel (rail) lids that run directly under Smithfield Market. The work is being undertaken alongside the £337 million development of the new Museum of London site at West Smithfield.
Photo credit: Ivor the driver
The Museum of London opened in 1976 at its current London Wall site and tells the ever-changing story of London and its people, from 450,000 BC to the present day. Its galleries, exhibitions, displays and activities seek to inspire a passion for London and provide a sense of the vibrancy that makes the city such a unique place. It has a collection of over seven million objects and the largest archaeological archive in the world, all of which strive to connect people with the lived experience of London.
In need of more space, the museum will soon be moving to West Smithfield, a conservation area in central London, where it will take over the currently derelict market buildings at the western end of Smithfield.
At its new site, the museum will have the capacity to welcome over two million visitors a year. It has been designed by London-based architectural practices Stanton Williams and Asif Khan working with Julian Harrap, a firm which specialises in the redevelopment of historic buildings.
Under its new contract, Dyer & Butler will deliver the programme of works that will include:
Extensive temporary works to support the market building whilst the foundations are transferred to the new tunnel lids
Reduction of the depth of structure to form the new museum structural deck
Removal of overburden upon the existing tunnel lid jack arches
PCC structures
Dismantling of historic façade
Installation of strengthening steelwork and steelwork design in the tunnel vaults as enabling works for Network Rail’s installation of new Road Rail Access Points (RRAP)
Highways improvements
Waterproofing
Using its own in-house capabilities, (own labour, in-house design management, training and possession planning, etc.) Dyer & Butler’s specialist rail division delivers essential rail infrastructure services under framework and stand-alone contracts, from maintenance through to major capital projects.
InnoTrans, the world’s largest rail industry exhibition, will now take place in Berlin from 27 to 30 April 2021.
The show was postponed when the Senate of Berlin imposed a ban on staging large events, in particular trade fairs with an attendance of more than 5,000, until 24 October 2020. As a result, it would not be possible to stage InnoTrans as originally planned, from 22 to 25 September 2020.
New dates have now been released and the show WILL go ahead, but at the end of April next year.
Kerstin Schulz, director of InnoTrans, said: “The health and safety of exhibitors, trade visitors and all the employees at the trade fair have the utmost priority. For this reason InnoTrans will take place from 27 to 30 April 2021. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our exhibitors at InnoTrans for their cooperation and loyalty.”
Engineers from Network Rail are upgrading the railway embankment to improve future journeys on the line between Manchester and Buxton by protecting the railway from landslips in the picturesque Derbyshire Peak District.
Embankments are being made less steep and the ground made more secure in two locations near Chapel-en-le-Frith. During the work, Network Rail has kept the railway open to minimise disruption to essential passenger and freight services on the route.
Stephen Townley, senior programme manager at Network Rail, said: “This essential work as part of the Great North Rail Project will make this busy passenger and freight route more reliable in the future.
Buxton embankment work taking place.
“In these challenging times, the importance of freight traffic has been brought into sharp focus, so completing this work safely with minimal disruption to trains is hugely important.
“We’re also working differently so that we can continue to deliver essential work while following guidelines on social distancing. This is to protect our railway staff who are working tirelessly to keep the country moving during the Covid-19 crisis.”
Robert Largan, MP for High Peak, said: “This is really positive news. These works will help improve train reliability on the Buxton line, which will be very welcome for my constituents who travel from Buxton, Dove Holes, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Whaley Bridge, Furness Vale and New Mills.
“I’m very grateful to those who are continuing to work on this essential project, during this very difficult time.”
The work began in January 2020 and is expected to complete in May.
With the Coronavirus having caused events to be cancelled around the country, including the London Marathon, the biggest one-day fundraising event in the world, many charities are facing a huge fundraising deficit.
Railway Children and other affected charities have therefore launched a new event in a bid to help good causes raise funds that are more urgent than ever in these difficult times.
The 2.6 Challenge is a fundraising event open to everyone – marathon fit or not! Participants are invited to come up with their own challenge based on the number 26 or 2.6 and have been encouraged to let their imaginations run wild. Running 26 miles on the 26th April in place of the London Marathon is an option… but so is walking 2.6 miles, reading 26 pages, telling 26 jokes, cycling 26 kilometres, doing 26 star jumps or eating 26 biscuits in record time… the options are endless.
Do 26 of something simple and help Railway children do something incredible.
The charity’s founder, former British Rail professional David Maidment, has already stepped up and committed to taking up the 2.6 Challenge. Despite being 82 and confined to his home, he has vowed to walk two miles in laps of his garden in Nantwich for the next 13 days – until he reaches his 26-mile goal.
David said: “It’s not easy being stuck at home in these strange times, but I know that I am one of the lucky ones as I have a home I can stay safely in. So many of the children Railway Children works with do not have that luxury and our teams need to be able to reach them now more than ever. I know they are all doing everything they can to achieve that so I’m doing my bit too and hope I can raise a bit of money to help them keep those children safe.”
Railway Children reaches and protects vulnerable children in East Africa, India and the UK. These young people are more at risk than ever due to the impact of Coronavirus, so the Cheshire charity’s work is needed now more than ever.
In India, many of the families they work with have already lost all income and are in desperate situations. Railway Children teams there are delivering emergency parcels of flour, rice, oil and soap that will last four weeks and each bundle of supplies costs £26. The charity is urging people to support them through the 2.6 Challenge by raising £26 (or more!) with their own events.
Refurbishment of a historic railway footbridge has been completed at New Mills Newtown station in the Derbyshire Peak District.
The stairs and overbridge were strengthened and the 157-year-old steel structure has been grit blasted and fully repainted. The Grade-II listed Victorian footbridge was originally built in 1863, six years after the station opened. New Mills Newtown is on the route between Manchester and Buxton.
Regular maintenance has kept the railway crossing in good condition over the years, but this latest £340,000 investment will secure its future. No trains were affected while the work took place.
Ian Cockle, Network Rail’s project manager, said: “I’m very grateful to passengers for their patience whilst we improved the footbridge at New Mills Newton station.
“The 19th century footbridge is a key historic feature of the station. Our restoration work as part of the Great North Rail Project will ensure it remains safe and reliable for decades to come.”
Chris Jackson, regional director for Northern, said: “It’s fantastic to see the footbridge restored to such a high standard. Our colleagues at Network Rail have done a great job and I’m sure our customers will enjoy the benefits for many years.”
InnoTrans, the largest global railway industry exhibition, held every two years in Berlin, Germany, has been postponed.
Scheduled for 22-25 September 2020, the organisers have issued a release that simply says: “We have taken note of the decree of the Berlin Senate dated 21 April 2020 regarding the ban on events with more than 5,000 persons until 24 October 2020.
“We are already finalizing an alternative event date and will announce it at the beginning of May at the latest.”
While no new date is yet known, rumours are that it could be sometime in April 2021.
Having just won a challenging new railway project in Belgium, a German manufacturer needed local support in the form of experienced and competent people to implement a new signalling system using Belgian interlocking principles.
Railway interlocking (www.pexel.com).
Interlocking forms the heart of a safe railway signalling system, giving clearance for trains to proceed. They ensure protection against the risk of collision and derailment by route reservation, track switch driving and controlling, and line side signaling.
The project is a country-wide rollout of new interlocking for Belgium – a mammoth task and hugely complex. The design and testing phases alone would take years of concentrated effort, on top of which there would be decades of maintenance and upgrades.
The contractor therefore turned to Altran to strengthen its software development teams. Altran already had significant knowledge about interlocking in general, but it would still have to expand its expertise as country-specific interlocking principles are generally only fully known and understood by the country’s own railway operator.
Implementation is also an important topic as traditionally interlocking is based on a big decision matrix hosted in a central computer. In our case, geographical interlocking is being approached differently. Every element/node in the network has its own state-machine that is exchanging messages with all adjacent elements/nodes. This splits a single grid into a cluster of hundreds of small computers talking to each other. Making the shift from centralization, into the domain of distributed computing. The latter is much more elegant and cost effective on big networks, but is also more complex to test and configure…
Typical development workstation.
Altran established a dedicated team to assist in this process, first starting with a couple of experts and then bringing in talented young engineers, to end up with a design and verification team that could assist the contractor. The main functions of the team were:
Learning the specific interlocking design;
Continuous testing of existing elements via full simulation of interlocking rules on a proprietary platform, according to the customer’s principles;
Developing new designs alongside dedicated training, organised initially by the customer;
Organisation of internal training, both in testing and design, in order to expand the team to meet new project developments.
Altran’s strength lies in its capacity to train newcomers into capable and outstanding signaling engineers. Our young designers, had no prior experience in railways or signaling, are now confirmed design engineers. They started with the eagerness to accomplish things and were passionate to learn about railways. Altran gave them the opportunity to develop themselves in a structured and knowledge-sharing environment.
On-site team visit of the interlocking installation.
Through this combination of experienced signal engineers and enthusiastic team, Altran has accomplished many of its goals:
Verification of new interlocking functional design, with several test specifications, test cases and test reports;
Interlocking design corrections from problems detected during the functional testing phase;
Integration of several different implementations of Belgian interlocking principles into the main contractor’s standard equipment.
Today, Altran is extending the service into new areas, taking on the challenge of more complex systems. This allows it to participate in high-level tendering, building on the experience the team gained over the last few years.
Altran’s centre of excellence in railway signalling allows the company to offer great outsourcing capabilities, both for railway infrastructure and on-board equipment, a role formerly only undertaken by a few major manufacturers.
Network Rail has been working since February both to repair a major freight route and to keep supplies going into Drax power station.
The line into Drax Power Station was inundated with flood water in February when the nearby River Aire burst its banks. With the Selby plant supplying five per cent of the UK’s electricity, it was vital to keep services moving while repair work was carried out. Engineers have been deployed on 24-hour-a-day shifts to maintain the constant safety reassurance required to keep freight trains running.
Although one of the two lines leading in and out of the power station, in Selby, Yorkshire, had to close due to the floods, engineers were able to keep one route open to allow vital freight services transporting sustainable biomass to keep the nation powered up during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The damaged line has now reopened following significant repair work by Network Rail. Deliveries were maintained while the work took place, with over 90 freight trains per week transporting sustainable biomass to the plant. This was made possible by the rail industry working together and the dedication of Network Rail, and their contractors CML (Construction Marine Limited), who took up shifts 24 hours a day to keep watch of the site and make sure that trains could use the line safely. A crucial job was monitoring the railway embankment for any further movement following the damage caused by floods.
Photo showing extent of flooding of railway line near Drax power plant.
Chris Gee, head of operations for Network Rail’s North and East Route, said: “This was an unprecedented operation to deal with an unprecedented situation.
“It’s never been more important for us to keep freight services running, so we pulled out all the stops to maintain this vital link while we conducted repair work at the same time. Our teams have worked non-stop to make sure that crucial deliveries of biomass have been able to run despite severe flooding, which has been incredibly important to keep the nation powered up.
“This has been a real team effort and shows the dedication of the rail industry to vital services moving during this national crisis.”
The emergency repair work cost £300,000 and included unconventional methods to make sure that the line could reopen as quickly as possible. This included using a team of divers to inspect structures which were underwater to check for damage, as well as flying drones and helicopters along the route to assess the extent of the damage. Significant repair work to the track needed to take place before it could reopen, such as replacing ballast, the stones, which support the track, after sections of it were washed away by flood water.
The team faced an additional challenge when they discovered that several Koi Carp from a nearby private residence were on the railway, when the pond they were in also flooded. Network Rail teams worked closely with the landowner to safely transport them home.
Network Rail is working on ways to improve resilience on the line, in a £2.5million investment, and are currently in the design stage of this project.
Three key Network Rail stations have turned blue to show their support for the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic.
To coincide with the weekly tribute to NHS, care staff, health professionals and other key workers, the Network Rail managed stations of Birmingham New Street, Liverpool Lime Street, and Euston stations joined numerous other railway landmarks and buildings across the country as they bathed themselves in blue light – the colour of the NHS.
Euston station lit up blue for Clap For Carers.
Tim Shoveller, managing director for Network Rail’s North West and Central region, said: “It’s been great to join the rest of the railway industry to, quite literally, shine a light on the herculean effort being made by thousands of healthcare professionals working to save lives every day at this time of national crisis.
“We will continue to show how proud we are of the NHS and help in any way we can during the ongoing fight against the spread of Covid-19.”
At Euston the station frontage and historic Robert Stephenson and Captain Matthew Flinders statues were made blue, while messages were played on the media eye displays at the three station entrances at Birmingham New Street while staff Clapped for the NHS.
