HS2 Ltd, the company charged with constructing Britain’s new high-speed rail network, has today issued Notices to Proceed (NtP) to the four main works civils contractors (MWCC) working on the project – SCS Railways, Align JV, EKFB JV, and BBV JV – to commence full detailed design and construction of Phase One of the HS2 railway, the route from London – West Midlands.
This move follows the publication of the Oakervee Review and the government’s decision in February to continue with the HS2 project.
HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson said: “While the government’s top priority is rightly to combat the spread of coronavirus, protect the NHS and save lives, we cannot delay work on our long-term plan to level up the country.
“HS2 will be the spine of the country’s transport network, boosting capacity and connectivity while also rebalancing opportunity fairly across our towns and cities.
“Following the decision earlier this year to proceed with the project, this next step provides thousands of construction workers and businesses across the country with certainty at a time when they need it, and means that work can truly begin on delivering this transformational project.”
The four work packages are for full detailed design and construction of Phase One of the HS2 railway. Through these contracts, small and medium businesses have the guarantee of a pipeline of activity for the future, helping to protect jobs and boost certainty for them in the current climate.
An estimated 400,000 supply chain contract opportunities for UK businesses will be created during Phase One of HS2, supporting thousands of jobs on site and many more around the country. It is estimated that around 95% of those contract opportunities will be won by UK based businesses and around two thirds of those will be small and medium sized businesses.
Mark Thurston, CEO of HS2 Ltd, commented: “In these difficult times, today’s announcement represents both an immediate boost to the construction industry – and the many millions of UK jobs that the industry supports – and an important investment in Britain’s future: levelling up the country, improving our transport network and changing the way we travel to help bring down carbon emissions and improve air quality for the next generation.
“HS2 has been over ten years in development and design. While the country’s focus is rightly on defeating COVID-19, the issuing of Notice to Proceed today ensures that our contractors and their supply chains have the confidence that they can commit to building HS2, generating thousands of skilled jobs across the country as we recover from the pandemic.”
The four notices to proceed have been issued to:
SCS Railways (Skanska Construction UK Ltd, Costain Ltd, STRABAG AG) – £3.3bn – Euston Tunnels and Approaches – Northolt Tunnels
Align JV (Bouygues Travaux Publics SAS, a subsidiary of Bouygues Construction, Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzpatrick, a subsidiary of VolkerWessels UK) – £1.6bn – Chiltern Tunnels and Colne Valley Viaduct
EKFB JV (Eiffage Genie Civil SA, Kier Infrastructure and Overseas Ltd, BAM Nuttall, Ferrovial Agroman) – £2.3bn – North Portal Chiltern Tunnels to Brackley – Brackley to South Portal of Long Itchington Wood Green Tunnel
BBV JV (Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, VINCI Construction Grands Projets, VINCI Construction UK Ltd, VINCI Construction Terrassement) – £4.8bn – Long Itchington Wood Green Tunnel to Delta Junction and Birmingham Spur – Delta Junction to West Coast Main Line Tie-In (Handsacre Junction)
Total contracts value (point estimates excluding risk) – £12bn
Stations, rolling stock, systems and other non-civils contracts are not included as part of the MWCC awards.
The managing board of Siemens AG has announced that it has set up a COVID-19 aid fund. Under the auspices of the community-serving non-profit organization Siemens Caring Hands, it will provide support, without red tape, to relief organizations and medical facilities as well as to individuals impacted by the COVID-19 crisis worldwide.
All Siemens AG employees worldwide can now make monetary donations to Caring Hands by specifying “COVID-19” as the purpose of the gift. Siemens AG will match every euro donated, meaning the company will donate the same amount to Caring Hands. In accordance with its articles of association, the charity itself will then channel the funds to those who need them most.
Joe Kaeser, president and CEO of Siemens AG, said: “Both medically and socially, COVID-19 is a challenge of a kind that the world as a whole has never seen before in peacetime. Now, acting responsibly is more important than ever – for our company’s future, for the health and economic security of our workforce and business partners, but also for the cohesion of societies around the world.
“Many people have helped make us the strong, successful company we are today. And now we want to help those who are doing excellent work, day in and day out, in serving the sick and needy during this time of crisis. That’s why I’m calling on our management and employees worldwide to donate generously. Every euro counts.
“I want to start things off by personally contributing €1 million.”
In addition, as either an alternative or as a supplement to a conventional donation, the managing board and senior management will have the option of voluntarily waiving vacation time. Siemens will then donate a corresponding amount to Caring Hands by reversing accruals for this purpose. No matching by the company is planned for this form of donation.
As a non-profit organization, Caring Hands will use the donations to support coordinated projects and aid programs and to buy urgently needed products. The goal is to deliver aid rapidly and unbureaucratically to people affected by the coronavirus pandemic worldwide.
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has launched an investigation into a signal being passed at danger (red) near Loughborough, Leicestershire, 20 March 2020.
RAIB reports that, at around 10:57 on 20 March 2020, a northbound train passed a red signal without authority, about 0.75 miles (1.2 km) south of Loughborough station. The train passed the signal, LR507, by around 200 metres.
Signal LR507 applies to the Down Slow line and was protecting the crossover south of Loughborough station which was set for use by a southbound train calling at the bi-directional, Down Slow platform 3. The maximum line speed on approach to the signal is 65 mph (104 km/h).
The train was formed of an empty four-car Class 710 unit and two Class 57 locomotives, one at each end. It was operated by Rail Operations Group (ROG). The Class 710 unit was being moved from a testing site at Old Dalby to storage at Worksop. Under these circumstances, a Class 710 unit does not run with operational brakes; instead, braking is provided only by the two locomotives, which are connected by a brake pipe which is passed through the carriages of the unit.
The signal on the approach to LR507, LR503, was displaying a single yellow aspect as would be expected. The driver applied the brakes before reaching signal LR507, but the retardation was not sufficient to stop the train from the speed at which it was travelling, before it passed the red signal.
Loughborough train station.
There were no injuries or damage as a consequence of this incident, although the southbound passenger train which was calling at Loughborough station platform 3 at the time of the SPAD incurred a delay of approximately 24 minutes.
RAIB’s investigation will seek to establish the sequence of events, including where the train’s brake was applied and at what speed. It will also seek to:
Understand the actions of the people involved;
Establish the braking capability of the train and whether it was affected by the way the train was formed, prepared and driven;
Review ROG’s processes for producing train timing schedules;
Review the industry’s processes for managing the risk of hauling un-braked units;
Explore ROG’s arrangements for managing driver competence and fitness and any underlying management factors;
Review previous similar accidents and incidents investigated by RAIB and consider the response to recommendations made following those incidents;
Make recommendations to prevent a recurrence.
RAIB will publish its findings, including any recommendations to improve safety, at the conclusion of its investigation.
The Easter weekend is traditionally one of the busiest times of the year for work on the railway’s infrastructure. With commuters on holiday, Network Rail takes advantage of the quieter spell to close some lines and do essential work.
Things were a bit different this year. Most commuters haven’t travelled for the last three weeks, though trains have stayed running for essential workers. In addition, some infrastructures are off work, self-isolating to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
Still, work had been planned well in advance and a large part of it went ahead anyway, mostly in warm sunshine. A brief round-up of the work follows.
Track was renewed through Linslade tunnel in Bedfordshire to improve reliability.
At Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, preparation work for East West Rail – which is re-establishing a rail link between Oxford and Cambridge – included the removal of sections of a flyover across the West Coast main line, which will be refurbished as part of the scheme.
Further north, in Greater Manchester, track renewals took place at Golborne near Warrington, work that involved clearing ballast from the sleepers and required a crane to controls operations.
In Lancashire, drainage of the West Coast main line between Preston and Lancaster has been a problem recently, so engineers were deployed to fix that and, at the same time, replace Euxton junction near Chorley.
Further north still, at Polmadie, near Glasgow Central, a tamper was deployed to raise the height of the track by packing more ballast under the sleepers, restoring the track geometry to improve ride quality.
Ballast was also the subject of work at Wolverhampton, where it was cleaned and replaced, once again to improve reliability and track performance.
Birmingham New Street station received a deep clean, particularly of all the floor matting at the station’s entrances – a job best carried out when passengers aren’t walking all over it!
Finally, at Pilning station near Bristol, preparation work was carried out ready for major track renewals as the points that enable trains to change lines between Pilning and the Severn Tunnel will soon be replaced.
All of this work was carried out while the teams of workers from Network Rail and its contractors stuck to Public Health England guidelines to give each other enough space. There were even stickers to remind everyone:
Network Rail’s managing director for its North West & Central region, Tim Shoveller, paid tribute to the men and women who carried out the works: “Our mission-critical frontline colleagues, including railway upgrade engineers, signallers, maintenance, control room and operations staff, are Britain’s hidden heroes, helping to keep Britain connected in this time of need. And I’m proud of them.”
Channel 4’s recent documentary “Britain’s train hell” asked why trains are in such a mess and what can be done to fix them. It did a reasonable job of highlighting the dire experience of northern commuters and explaining why they face late overcrowded trains. However, it didn’t provide any realistic short-term solutions nor mention what is being done. This includes recent enhancement projects in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds as well as orders for additional trains, for which over 100 platforms are being extended.
Instead, the programme focused on 10 projects that were claimed to be shovel-ready “quick fixes” which would actually take years to deliver.
It also proposed that 1,500 operational vehicles, currently in store, should be carrying passengers. There was no mention that these vehicles are surplus due to 7,000+ vehicles that are now entering service. This bizarre omission, in a programme about overcrowded trains, was a deliberate decision. The producers were informed about large numbers of new additional trains, but the programme’s narrative was not concerned with such impending good news.
Other than referring to a crazy, secretive rail industry, there was no explanation of why there are so many surplus trains, hence, the point that this “waste of taxpayers’ money” is due to government-led ‘boom and bust’ train procurement was missed.
Whilst the documentary was poor on solutions, it did include a fair analysis of why there are overcrowded late trains. It noted the large increase in passenger numbers and how proposals for a better co-ordinated railway in the Williams review had “hit the buffers”. The programme also identified the lack of rail enhancement projects in the Budget, despite government commitments on northern infrastructure investment. It was good to see Huw Merriman, the new chair of the Transport Select Committee (TSC), reinforce this point.
One much needed project, and one of the programme’s “quick fixes”, is enhancing capacity through Manchester’s Castlefield corridor, which is one of three areas that Network Rail has declared to be congested infrastructure. In a recent report, the company concluded that this corridor requires additional infrastructure to run a better-performing timetable. Yet Transport Minister Grant Shapps has advised the TSC that he expects the solution will be better train despatch and control of passengers at Piccadilly station.
The long-term solution for commuter lines out of Euston is HS2, which will provide significant additional capacity when phase one opens in 2030. This is not much longer than the “quick fixes” proposed by Channel 4. Yet, as a recent forum demonstrated, HS2 remains a controversial project, perhaps because its benefits have been poorly communicated.
Passenger benefits of new trains are highlighted in features about Siemens and Hitachi. Malcolm Dobell describes how Siemens is moving from reactive to condition-based maintenance on the 3,000 UK passenger vehicles it has supplied since 2003. In Glasgow, Hitachi has set up a dedicated office to manage the maintenance of its new class 385 EMUs – the UK’s most reliable new train fleet.
Future rolling stock will no doubt benefit from carbon-fibre bogies, which are currently under development. We describe how a full-sized carbon-fibre bogie is currently being tested. As this has potential weight savings of about a tonne per vehicle, it offers significant cost and carbon savings.
Improved reliability, operational flexibility and safety is the result of the Wherry lines re-signalling project which was completed in February. David Bickell describes how this has replaced 130-year old mechanical signalling between Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft with computer-based signalling controlled from Colchester.
Absolute-block working, which saw 130 years’ service on the Wherry lines, was an early train location system that ensured that signallers knew where trains were. Clive Kessell has been looking at the technologies used to locate trains and considers whether satellite tracking, acoustic sensing and camera images may one day replace track circuits and axle counters.
Such location systems need to track 23,500 trains per day travelling over 900,000 track miles with 220,000 station stops. Developing a timetable to run this large number of trains with the minimum of conflict is a complex task, especially, as in the last 18 months, if the number of trains has increased by six per cent. We report on five initiatives to improve timetable compilation, much of which is done manually.
If trains run late, it is essential that, wherever they may be, passengers should know what is happening to their train. This is now possible as software houses develop applications for websites and smart phones using the train running data that Network Rail has made freely available. We report on one such application, opentraintimes.com, which provides live train running information, including maps.
It seems odd to be writing this editorial whilst trains run empty as the coronavirus brings normal life to a halt, railway engineering may not seem to be an immediate concern at this time, yet, during this crisis, engineering work will continue as trains carry essential freight and personnel. When life returns to normal, railways will have an essential role in helping to rebuild the economy. Until then, we hope our readers stay safe and well.
As train operators face significant drops in their income due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Government has taken emergency measures to support and sustain necessary rail services.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has temporarily suspended the operators’ normal franchise agreements and transferred all revenue and cost risk to the government for a limited period, initially six months. The current operators will continue to run services day-to-day for a predetermined management fee.
This move is designed to ensure that trains necessary for key workers and essential travel continue to operate. Other passengers are urged not to travel and the number of services has been reduced. Passengers who have bought Advance tickets may apply for a refund, as may season-ticket holders.
The railways have already seen up to a 70 per cent drop in passenger numbers. Rail fares revenue has also reduced as people increasingly work from home and adopt social distancing, with total ticket sales down by two-thirds from the equivalent date in 2019.
The Government said that it has taken this step to minimise disruption to the rail sector, vital to the wider UK economy, through these difficult times. It feels that allowing operators to enter insolvency would cause significantly more disruption to passengers and higher costs to the taxpayer. The management fee will allow operators to act in the national interest in tackling Covid-19.
Fees will be set at a maximum of two per cent of the cost base of the franchise before the Covid-19 pandemic began, intended to incentivise operators to meet reliability, punctuality and other targets. The maximum fee attainable will be far less than recent profits earned by train operators. In the event that an operator does not wish to accept an Emergency Measures Agreement, the Government’s Operator of Last Resort stands ready to step in.
The direct contractual relationship that the DfT has with rail operators, which includes operational and financial requirements and incentives that the DfT control, are clearly incompatible with the Covid-19 situation or conducive to the flexibility that the Government will need in coming months. These agreements will freeze all existing responsibilities and liabilities during this period, and the situation will be reviewed in six months’ time – or sooner, if required.
Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said: “People deserve certainty that the services they need will run or that their job is not at risk in these unprecedented times. These offers will give operators the confidence and certainty so they can play their part in the national interest.”
In a landmark case, railway regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has prosecuted a firm for the deaths of two railway workers due to fatigue.
Zac Payne (20) and his colleague Michael Morris (48) died on 19 June 2013 when a company van, driven by Zac, left the motorway at 5.30am and collided with a parked vehicle. At the time, Zac had been ‘at work’, mainly driving, for 25 hours.
Nottingham Crown Court was told that Zac had originally left Doncaster at 4.30am the previous day to undertake work at Alnmouth, Northumberland – a three-hour drive away. When that work didn’t materialise, he waited until midday and then drove another three hours back to Doncaster.
On arrival, his employer, Renown Consultants, offered him an overnight welding job in Stevenage. So he left Doncaster again jut after 7pm for the two and a half hour drive to Stevenage. He worked from midnight until just after 3.30am, whence the two men left site for the return journey to Doncaster. They were killed two hours later.
The ORR told the court that Mr Payne, who like his colleague was employed on a zero-hours contract, was suffering the effects of fatigue and may have fallen asleep at the wheel or experienced ‘microsleeps,’ which hugely increased the risk of a traffic accident.
It was also pointed out that the company’s insurance policy at the time prevented anyone under 25 from driving company vehicles. Apparently, this was ‘routinely flouted’ and Zac was driving at the age of just 20.
Ian Prosser, Chief Inspector of Railways, said: “The rail industry relies on a huge workforce of skilled manual staff, often working at night and on shifts. Fatigue is a real and known risk which reduces alertness and affects performance. Today’s tragic case shows the fatal consequences that can occur when fatigue policies are disregarded.”
The company was found guilty of failing to discharge its duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act. The sentence will be announced at a later date.
COVID-19 – commonly known as the coronavirus – has changed everything, not least the railway.
As whole hosts of people around the country self-isolate and work from home, the number of commuters and other travellers has fallen sharply.
Add to that the need for railway staff to look after themselves too, and the railway companies would struggle to run a full service, even if there were passengers to fill them.
It’s a fluid situation, with every day bringing news of another closure or cutback. There is no way that this report can contain comprehensive information on every nuance, but it will do its best.
Network Rail
As the industry’s largest employer (around 42,000), Network Rail finds itself in something of a quandary. It has a well-deserved reputation as an understanding employer, yet it needs to keep the railways open so that even the operators’ reduced level of services can run.
There have recently been a number of service interruptions caused by infrastructure failures, including weather-related landslips and overhead lines being brought down, and these still need to be repaired as quickly as possible to keep the network running.
In addition, a major programme of maintenance and renewals has been planned for the Easter holiday. Blockades and line closures have been booked, supplies procured, machinery hired and labour contracted. To back out of the programme now will have major consequences.
On the other hand, the work is predominantly outdoors, steps can be taken to keep workers separated and to make sure they don’t all use common areas at the same time. So should they go ahead?
Some of the work is of the type that, once started, can’t be stopped. If an old bridge is demolished, then the new one has to go in or the railway will be broken. So even if the workforce goes down with the virus, the job has to be finished.
At the time of writing, Network Rail hasn’t made a final decision. Whatever it decides, someone won’t be happy. Many people may not want to work and would prefer to self-quarantine. Others, particularly those on zero hours contracts who don’t get paid unless they work, will want to get out there, even if there is a risk.
It’s hardly surprising that a decision has not yet been announced.
Retailers
One area in which Network Rail has acted swiftly is to support the retailers in its stations and the businesses that lease properties such as railway arches. Rent payments due from tenants in the commercial estate portfolio in the first quarter (25 March – 23 June 2020) have been cancelled, providing significant relief for small businesses who are worried about the impact of the virus on their footfall.
Retailers in Network Rail’s managed stations have likewise had their base rent payments for the first quarter of the new financial year (April-June 2020) cancelled. Retailers in stations typically pay a minimum guaranteed (base rent), and a turnover rent based on sales, and this cancellation of the base rent for an entire quarter will help retailers during this tough time.
Network Rail has around 100 retailers in its managed stations (20 of Britain’s biggest and busiest such as Waterloo, King’s Cross, Leeds, Bristol Temple Meads, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh Waverley) and around 1,000 small and medium business tenants.
Train operators
The rail operators have agreed with government a reduction in service levels to help tackle the spread of the coronavirus. However, they will continue to run core services, ensuring people remain able to get to work, can travel to access medical appointments and the flow of goods continues across the UK.
This move reflects the decrease in passenger demand as people stop all unnecessary travel and decrease non-essential social contact in line with government advice to help stop the spread of the virus. Running reduced services will also help protect the welfare of frontline railway staff essential for day-to-day operations.
There will be a gradual move towards introducing reduced service levels on wide parts of the network over the longer term. To minimise disruption, services will be reduced progressively across the network over a number of days.
The operators’ plan will also ensure key freight services can continue to move around the country, allowing vital goods to continue to be shipped where needed.
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which operates Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express, is one of the companies that has announced that it will move to a revised train timetable as the rail industry works together to manage and protect services for key workers.
Steve White, GTR’s chief operating officer, said: “This is an unprecedented situation for everyone and we – together with the rest of the rail industry – are doing our utmost to keep an essential service running for key workers who are doing such vital jobs.
“The message from the Government is clear – travel only if you have to. The changes we are making should allow us to sustain a timetable for those who absolutely have to travel, such as doctors, nurses and the emergency services. We want to thank them and our own staff who are working so hard to keep trains running.”
Rail Delivery Group director Robert Nisbet added: “This is not a decision we take lightly. However, implementing these measures now will mean that we can continue to operate trains over a prolonged period with fewer railway workers, who, like so many others, are to be commended for putting the needs of the country first, and whose safety remains front of mind.”
Schools
Although the government has asked parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible, it has asked schools to remain open for those children who absolutely need to attend – children who are vulnerable, and children whose parents are critical to the coronavirus response and cannot be safely cared for at home.
Vulnerable children include children who are supported by social care and those with safeguarding and welfare needs.
Parents whose work is critical to the coronavirus response include those who work in health and social care and in other key sectors, including food production, security and transport. Workers who will keep rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass, will still be allowed to send their children to school while they work.
While the children of transport workers will still be able to attend school, they may receive more childcare than education as the schools will also be operating on a reduced number of staff.
London
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Transport for London (TfL) have urged all other customers to follow the Government’s advice and not make anything but essential journeys. Services will be cut back, but steps are being taken to make sure that the people who are keeping the country running can still get to work and home again afterwards.
Around 40 London Underground (LU) stations that do not interchange with other lines will be closed until further notice. There will be no service on the Waterloo & City line and, on Friday and Saturday nights, there will be no all-night ‘Night Tube’ service or the all-night ‘Night Overground’ service that currently runs on the East London line.
Available staff will be redeployed to ensure the resilience of the regular Tube and Overground services. Late services on the Tube and Overground will continue to run, with trains running late into the night on all days for essential travel only.
However, TfL will gradually reduce the frequency of other services across the TfL network to provide a service for critical workers to get to where they need to – ensuring that remaining services are not overcrowded. TfL is aiming to run Tube trains every four minutes in Zone 1, with the possibility that this will reduce further.
Similarly, London Overground, TfL Rail, the DLR and London Trams will be running fewer services.
TfL has also warned that, although these are the services it plans to run, if fewer staff are available then further measures may be needed.
Closed borders
The web page of Eurail, which sells international travel passes, was a stark reminder of how the COVID-19 epidemic is affecting international rail travel:
Austria: no international trains to Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland and Czech Republic
Belgium: limited transport options, no trains to France
Bulgaria: no international trains to Serbia, Greece, Romania and Turkey
Croatia: no international trains
Czech Republic: no international trains
Denmark: limited international traffic
Estonia: reduced timetable
Finland: reduced schedule for domestic trains
France: lockdown
Germany: only limited trains to the Netherlands
Great Britain: revised timetable Eurostar
Greece: some domestic trains cancelled
Hungary: no international trains to Slovakia, Croatia, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Poland
Ireland: normal rail traffic
Italy: lockdown
Latvia: no international trains
Lithuania: no international trains to Poland and Latvia
Luxembourg: reduced domestic train travel, no international trains
Montenegro: no international and domestic trains
Netherlands: restricted train travel
North Macedonia: restricted timetable
Norway: limited domestic trains, no international traffic
Poland: no international trains
Portugal: no international trains
Romania: no international trains to Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria
Serbia: no international trains
Slovakia: no international trains
Slovenia: international and domestic rail traffic halted
Spain: lockdown
Sweden: restricted domestic and international travel
Switzerland: no international trains, domestic trains on restricted schedule
Turkey: no international trains
Goalposts
The situation is fluid, and government advice and guidelines change every day. By the time you read this, no doubt the situation will be different from when it was written (20 March). Events are being cancelled – partly because organisers don’t want to encourage people to gather and partly because no-one would turn up even if they did.
The comment has been made that, with transport cut back, factories and offices closed, food and other supplies in short supply, this crisis is the nearest that the current generation will come to the way their grandparents had to cope with the last war.
All Rail Engineer can do is urge its readers to be careful, plan ahead and stay safe.
Sambit Banerjee took over as managing director of Siemens Mobility’s rolling stock and customer services business on 1 November 2019. Just a couple of months later, Rail Engineer met him in his seventh-floor office, which has a fine view of Euston Station, to find out more about his career to date, his current challenges and his ambitions for the business.
Many years ago, a young Sambit Banerjee qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse in India and, following his exams, joined Siemens India at Kolkata in 1992, working in the low/medium voltage switchgear division. This was followed by stints in the regional sales office in Kolkata before a move to Munich for 15 months as a trainee in corporate finance and treasury in 1996.
On his return to India, Sambit worked as head of corporate accounts for Siemens India at Mumbai.
In 2001, he left Siemens and joined The Times of India group as vice president of finance and he then became chief financial officer of a joint venture between The Times of India and BBC Publications that saw BBC magazines such as Top Gear and Good Food launched in India. “Allowing foreign media into India was very challenging at the time,” he recalled.
In 2005, Sambit re-joined Siemens, once again at the company’s Munich headquarters working in corporate finance and treasury. In 2006, he moved to the UK, becoming responsible for the IT business for North West Europe and, after that, into the logistics and airports business, where he was responsible for the Heathrow Airport Terminal 2 baggage system, Gatwick Airport modernisation and parcels systems for the Royal Mail.
His move into rail came in 2013, when he joined the rolling stock and customer services business as finance director, followed by promotion to his current role of managing director in 2019.
Management role
Sambit is very clear that a major part of his day-to-day role as managing director is to ensure the health and safety of everyone influenced by his company – employees, customers and passengers. He is clearly also passionate about quality and, while stressing the importance of availability, he emphasised the importance of “not pushing out a train if in doubt”.
“Trains that don’t break down and look good are key to passenger perception,” he stated, “and, as Siemens Mobility is a key partner of train operators, we accept our share of the responsibility for performance.”
He naturally also has an eye to the future. Sambit was delighted that HS2 has received the go-ahead, along with indications of the same for Northern Powerhouse Rail. Whilst he could not talk about rolling stock for HS2, as the tendering process is underway, he could discuss the many products and services that Siemens Mobility can provide to the project, including signalling, electrification, electrical distribution, power generation and intelligent buildings.
So far as the conventional network goes, he is hoping the output of the Williams review will lead to a clear steer on franchising, with enough clarity to allow suppliers to plan ahead.
However, Siemens Mobility’s immediate challenge in the UK is to deliver trains for London Underground’s Piccadilly line – the first trains to be made by Siemens for the tube since the original City and South London Locomotives in 1891!
Sambit stressed the importance of delivering these trains on time and working ‘straight out of the box’.
Some of these trains will be made in the UK, a first for Siemens in recent times. Sambit paid tribute to his colleagues Finbarr Dowling, who is leading the Goole factory development, and Dave Hooper, who is leading the Piccadilly line project, and also to TfL’s engineers for their work on the design which has led to the first milestone – initial concept design – being achieved on time.
UK manufacture
Siemens Mobility has ambitious plans for the factory at Goole. The desire to build trains in the UK came from presentations made to the Siemens board in around 2013, building on the success of winning the Thameslink order.
Today, this has developed until the aim is now to do a lot more than simply bolt together large sub-assemblies that have been manufactured elsewhere. As a result, Siemens Mobility is planning to transfer technology to the UK and many UK-based colleagues will move to Vienna to work on early trains before bringing the lessons they learned back to Goole.
In response to the challenge that it’s easy to learn skills and processes but much harder to build a culture, Sambit pointed to the very successful transfer of technology and culture from Germany to the Siemens Mobility plant in Poole on the south coast. Creating the right culture is key to success for a localisation project, he said.
The plans for Goole extend beyond the train factory – Sambit called it “not just a production facility but a technology park”. He talked about the plan to manufacture traction drives in Goole, to build a supplier park adjacent to the factory and, in partnership with the local authority and the University of Birmingham, a research and development facility that can help bring research work to market and as a means to recruit local talent.
Sambit was particularly proud to recruit the first twelve apprentices for the Goole plant, commenting that these will be life changing opportunities for the apprentices and their families. The twelve will spend their first year in UK depots and then work in Vienna for a year.
This is just the start and Siemens Mobility will be working closely with schools and other bodies in the area around Goole to highlight the opportunities. Depending on potential order intake, which includes various UK projects, Sambit anticipates that up to 700 jobs would be created at the peak of production in Goole, with up to another 1,500 jobs in the supply chain.
Siemens already has a significant presence in Lincoln, less than 50 miles away. It designs and manufactures industrial gas turbines at its Ruston Works, and a new bogie overhaul facility, set up in 2018 and employing around 40 people, is already overhauling bogies for the Eurostar high-speed trains and will continue with overhauls for Class 700 and Class 350 trains, a significant pipeline of nearly 3,000 bogies.
Dealing with engineering
It was interesting to explore how Sambit, with a finance background, deals with engineering issues. He clearly relishes that challenge, explaining that, from his earliest time in the switchgear team in India, he was working closely with the engineers – to understand what they did so that they could work better with each other. He added that the Siemens values system, which includes mutual respect for each other’s skills, really helps; something your writer has experienced first-hand in working with Siemens over many years.
The values of an organisation and the respect for each other’s skills and experience comes to the fore in the high-pressure task of assembling a tender for a rolling-stock project and, in this context, Sambit spoke of the projects of which he is most proud. First was winning the TfL Deep Tube contract, which is the third-largest in Siemens’ history. Such a bid requires all parts of the company, in several countries, to work together to produce a tender that complies with the specification, is at a price the customer can afford and will be profitable!
The second was working on the baggage handling system at Heathrow Terminal 2, the Queen’s Terminal. Previously, there had been serious problems with another supplier’s system at Terminal 5, which attracted significant adverse publicity for both Heathrow Airport and its then parent BAA. Siemens was particularly keen for there to be no repeat of this. Sambit said that he was aware that the media was looking for even a hint of trouble, but he was relieved that the installation caused no service-affecting problems when the terminal opened.
Forward thinking
Looking to the future, Sambit said that it is important to keep the cost of maintenance of existing rolling stock competitive, so as to encourage train operators to keep these fleets in service and not to replace them with new trains. Siemens Mobility has to innovate continuously, moving from reactive or time/distance-based maintenance to condition-based. “The assets need to become digital assets in order to keep costs down and, if Siemens Mobility can’t do it, as masters of innovation, who can?” he queried.
New rolling stock is more of a challenge. He said that rolling stock prices are currently at rock bottom, asking: “How can anyone make money? If suppliers are too aggressive in their tenders, supplies might not meet customer aspirations.”
There is also the question of the challenge coming from Chinese rolling stock manufacturers. Sambit was clear that European suppliers must meet the Chinese challenge with quality and innovation.
Another area that will need innovation is the de-carbonisation challenge. Siemens Mobility’s global CEO has set a goal of the company being carbon neutral by 2030, and Sambit confirmed that Siemens had already stopped making diesel passenger vehicles. However, he accepted that diesel locomotives were likely to be required on unelectrified freight lines for the foreseeable future.
As for passenger trains to be used on non-electrified lines, Sambit revealed that Siemens Mobility is “working on the next generation of battery-electric bi-mode and hydrogen-electric bi-mode, with potential use on trans-Pennine and in rural Scotland”. He expects to showcase some of these developments at InnoTrans in Berlin this September and hopes that some of these initiatives will find their way to the UK market in the next couple of years.
UK FLEET
Siemens Mobility has supplied over 3,000 vehicles to the UK that, with the exception of the small CAF/Siemens Class 332/333 fleets, have all been supplied since 2003. The overwhelming majority of these trains are also maintained by Siemens with depots in Southampton, Three Bridges, Hornsey, Northampton, Manchester and York, a bogie overhaul facility in Lincoln and a production facility under development at Goole, Humberside.
There are just four basic designs with several variations: Desiro DMU, Desiro EMU, Desiro City and High-Speed. The fleet designations and sizes are as follows:
In December, ScotRail accepted into service the last of the 70 Class 385 EMUs that Abellio had ordered from Hitachi in a £475 million contract. This was signed in April 2015, just before the company took over the ScotRail franchise.
The completion of this order, together with the introduction of HSTs on Scottish intercity routes, brings the number of passenger coaches operated by ScotRail to 1,016, an increase of 28 per cent since the start of the Abellio franchise. These extra vehicles have enabled ScotRail to use the diesel multiple units (DMUs) they replace to strengthen services and to withdraw its Class 314 EMU fleet that was built in the late 1970s.
Two 4-car class 385 units on a Glasgow to Edinburgh service.
ScotRail’s Class 385 fleet comprises 46 three-car and 24 four-car units. These operate services between Edinburgh and Glasgow via Falkirk High, Cumbernauld and Shotts as well as the Dunblane/Alloa, North Berwick/Dunbar, Lanark and Cathcart circles services. The manufacture of the Class 385s and their introduction into service is described in issues 157 (November 2017) and 162 (April 2018).
Under the contract, the first train was to be operational in Autumn 2017, with all trains on the main Edinburgh to Glasgow line via Falkirk High operated by Class 385s from December 2017. However, for various reasons, including a much-publicised windscreen problem, the first unit did not enter service until July 2018. Since then the number of diagrams worked by the units were: November 2018 – 10; December 2018 – 32; May 2019 – 58 and after the December 2019 timetable change – 62.
This new timetable also saw the widespread use of eight-coach trains on the Edinburgh to Glasgow main line, which was made possible by platform extensions at Glasgow Queen Street station. The eight-coach Class 385 trains have 546 seats. This is 45 per cent more seats than the six-coach Class 170 DMUs that operated this service before the line was electrified.
At the time of writing, ScotRail’s Class 385 fleet has accumulated 8.5 million miles running. The fleet ran 727,000 miles in just one four-week period before Christmas.
Hitachi’s Glasgow central planning contract office.
The contract between Hitachi and Abellio also included a 10-year contract for the maintenance of these units. This is managed at Hitachi’s central planning contract office in Glasgow and undertaken at the company’s Craigentinny train maintenance centre, which also does maintenance work on LNER’s Azuma fleet. Whilst it is not unusual for new train contracts to include maintenance agreements, this is the first time that ScotRail has relied on another company to maintain its trains. Furthermore, as is the case with all new trains, the Class 385s have numerous sensors and are software controlled.
For these reasons Rail Engineer was glad of the opportunity to visit both Hitachi’s Glasgow office and its Craigentinny depot to see how the class 385 units are maintained.
Host for these visits was Tim Olton, Hitachi’s general manager for Scotland, who advised that the company established itself in Scotland in April 2016 and now has 300 people supporting its Scottish train operations, of which around 40 are based in Glasgow and across Scotland’s central belt. Tim explained that the central planning contract office was essential to maintain close contact with ScotRail’s head office for there to be effective collaboration in the delivery of the train service agreement.
Hitachi Glasgow
Our tour started at the Glasgow office. Here we meet Stephen Williams, who is responsible for control room and outstations, and Craig Morrison, the fleet performance and planning manager responsible for the central planning cell. Reporting to Stephen are six maintenance controllers and 25 riding inspectors.
The maintenance controllers are co-located with ScotRail’s maintenance control in the West of Scotland signalling centre at Springburn, close to Glasgow city centre. They can speak directly to the train crews, resolving any issues as quickly as possible in order to limit delays to the service. The 25 riding inspectors check the trains in service and undertake repairs around the clock at ScotRail’s berthing locations.
Craig has a team of six fleet planners who plan maintenance examinations, fleet checks and modifications at Craigentinny depot and ScotRail’s berthing locations. He also has two contract performance technicians who manage delay attribution and fleet performance, including the management of in-service defects and the monitoring of repeat defects.
The work of the Glasgow office is supported by two key systems – SOROS and HFMT. SOROS is a web-based fleet maintenance planning tool, designed to optimise control and coordination of operations, maintenance and safety management activities, developed by Danburykline.
Class 385 and HST at Craigentinny.
The Hitachi Fleet Monitoring Tool (HFMT) uses condition and fault information data transmitted from the train management system (TMS). This is an autonomous, decentralised, integrated system that has a 100-Mbit/s ethernet backbone and controls traction, braking, passenger information and air conditioning, as well as providing functions such as selective door opening and driver advisory systems. It is designed to reduce the amount of wiring, consolidate on board equipment and provide extensive fault detection and automatic testing.
The information obtained from the HFMT is used to proactively manage performance of the fleet by providing real-time information on system health and notification of train faults. It also provides remote fault finding and defect analysis. As an example, this ensures that units with incipient faults are not unnecessarily removed from service. This is possible as HFMT provides information about such things as gearbox oil levels and water tank levels. It also sends an alert in certain situations such as an emergency brake application and the activation of a pantograph automatic dropping device.
Relevant information from HFMT is also passed on to Network Rail. This includes adhesion hot spots, as indication from frequent wheel slide protection activation, and OLE over-voltage.
Weekly meetings are held with drivers and train crew to provide them with advice and information about technical incidents. Tim advised that the rapport that has developed between the technical riding technicians and train crew has proved particularly useful by, for example, reducing the number of coupling/uncoupling incidents.
Craigentinny
Hitachi took over the operation of Craigentinny depot from LNER in November 2018. At the time, the depot had its full fleet of LNER’s 15 diesel HSTs to maintain and also serviced the company’s IC225 trainsets as well as the occasional Hitachi-built Azuma, which had not yet entered service.
The depot also had contracts to maintain Voyager units for CrossCountry trains, Class 73 locomotives for Caledonian Sleeper and Class 350 EMUs for TransPennine Express. It had also started to maintain Class 385 units, of which about 30 were in service at this time. The variety of work undertaken by the depot is explained in issue 139 (May 2016).
At the time of my visit, the depot was about to lose its last HSTs. Two sets had been rebranded, ready to be sent to East Midlands Railway, and two power cars had been repainted in British Rail colours ready for their last LNER passenger service, a four-day “Let’s go around again” farewell special.
With almost half LNER’s Azuma fleet operational, the depot also had an increasing number of Class 800/801s to service. Another change was that it was also about to lose its TransPennine Class 350 units, although the depot was just starting to maintain the new Nova 1 units which are Hitachi-built Class 802s. These units operate a new TransPennine service on the East Coast main line from Edinburgh and Newcastle.
Tim advised that one result of all these changes was that, other than some Class 73 maintenance, the depot no longer maintains HST power cars and locomotives. As a result, much of the depot repair shop space where this work was done is now not required. This provided an opportunity to establish a new technical training facility for the Hitachi-built Class 385, 800, 801 and 802 units, which share many common components.
Transpennine Nova 1 unit at Craigentinny.
Class 385 maintenance
Class 385 engineering manager, Alasdair MacPherson, advised that the depot has 270 skilled maintenance engineers and fitters who are all qualified to work on every fleet. He considers that the Class 385s are a great step forward from the Voyagers and Class 350s even though the new ScotRail units require a different approach – the first step when fault finding is to plug in a laptop.
The training required an integration overview with modules for every system including the TMS, doors and toilets. For a technician with no railway experience, around six months training is required.
385 007 undergoes an X13 examination at Craigentinny. The roof access platform was built to enable Class 385s to be maintained at the depot.
Alasdair advised that Class 385 maintenance is undertaken by a balanced examination system which ensures the amount of work in each examination is about the same. This requires an examination to be undertaken every 20,000 miles or 40 days, whichever comes first. These exams are denoted XN where N is the exam sequence number. The last examination is X36.
Given the amount of information available from the TMS, we discussed the feasibility of introducing a condition-based monitoring maintenance regime rather than the conventional fixed examinations. Tim commented that Hitachi is open to this idea and that TMS data is being used to review maintenance intervals. However, for now, the emphasis is on using tried and tested techniques to ensure reliability. Alasdair makes the point that train component maintenance periodicities will always be a compromise, as the work has to be done when the train is in a depot. Furthermore, any changes to the maintenance regime must be approved in accordance with the ROGS regulations (Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006, updated 2011 and 2013).
At the Millerhill servicing depot, there is a condition monitoring station supplied by MRX Technologies which is due to be commissioned in January. When this is operational, it will enable the Glasgow project office to further refine its maintenance plans with information the monitoring station provides on the wear of pantograph carbons, brake and disc pads as well as wheel profiles.
Improving reliability
The bathtub curve shows the reliability of a fleet throughout its life and identifies three stages of failure: infant, constant and wear out. During the Class 385’s infant failure stage, there had been initial problems with the units involving the TMS, brakes, door setup and speed control unit, all of which have been largely resolved, mainly through software fixes.
TMS updates can be done within a couple of hours at most. These do not require units to come to Craigentinny as technicians can do this at stabling points. However, the speed control unit had to be returned to the manufacturer for its software update.
Alasdair explained that maintenance challenges include evening out the maintenance workload as the fleet is introduced and understanding the intricacies of the IFE electric door system.
MRX monitoring station at Millerhill depot.
Another problem is the different mileages accumulated by the three-car and four-car fleets. This is because the four-car units are primarily used on the main Edinburgh to Glasgow expresses where, each hour, they shuttle between the two cities. Prior to December, this service was a seven-car consist (a three and a four car-unit). However, as many of the three-car unit diagrams are also on lower-mileage stopping services, the three-car fleet has a lower mileage. At the time of my visit, the respective average mileage of the three and four car units was 306 and 572 miles per day.
This mileage disparity increased with the December timetable, which saw the Edinburgh to Glasgow service primarily formed of two four-car Class 385 units coupled together to form an eight-car train.
During my visit, there were six units out of service: two were having X6 and X13 examinations, three needed tyre-turning and one was at Edinburgh Waverley with a TMS fault. In period 10, the Class 385 fleet achieved a record 89,438 miles per technical incident (MTIN) compared with 60,160 in the previous period. As Alasdair pointed out, “the top end of the bathtub curve has now bottomed out”.
