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Major organisation changes at Network Rail

Network Rail has announced sweeping changes to its organisation following the completion of new chief executive Andrew Haines’ ‘100 Day Review’.

Introducing his plans, Andrew Haines said that the organisation needed to put passengers and freight users first: “The need for radical change is clear. Performance is not good enough and my comprehensive discussions with partners, passengers and politicians up and down the country has made clear to me the things we do well and the areas where we need to improve.”

His solution is to decentralise, pushing devolution forward and shrinking the central overhead. Increasing the number of routes, from eight to 13, is intended to make them more aligned to train operators’ franchises, to improve the synergy between track and train and to reverse poor performance.

These 13 routes will fall into five new Regions that will have the headquarters teams to support them and, the idea is, make Network Rail “fleeter of foot”.

Many current ‘head-office’ roles and responsibilities are to devolve and will be absorbed by the five new regions, which will be of sufficient size and scale to support the customer-facing end of the business (the routes).

Network Rail’s new organisation – five regions and 13 routes.

So the five new regional managing directors will, between them, be responsible for the 13 new routes. The intention is that this will allow Network Rail to reduce its national centre still further and to be much more aligned to the passenger and train operators, enabling a more cohesive and joined-up railway focussed on delivering a better and more punctual service for customers.

In addition to this new structure, other changes will take place:

  • Infrastructure Projects and elements of System Operator, Safety Technical & Engineering, and Group Digital Railway will be devolved in a series of phases between now and the end of 2020, but only when Network Rail is confident that the routes/regions are ready to receive them;
  • A new services directorate – Network Services Directorate – will be established alongside the existing Route Services. Both will provide services delivered with a strong customer-service culture;
  • The new Network Services Directorate will incorporate freight and national passenger operators as well as elements of Group Digital Railway and certain national services, providing assurance for national operational performance and coordinating national programmes and capability;
  • The Route Services Directorate will continue to provide business services that benefit from economies of scale (such as payroll) and services that support railway operations involving resources that are scarce and/or managed more efficiently at a national level, such as the track renewal high-output programme;
  • Finance, HR, Communications, Legal and Property will be largely unaffected by the programme at this stage, although each will be developing their own plans for how to integrate with and support the new operating model for the business.

The names of the individuals taking up the new roles have not been released. Posts will be advertised over the coming weeks – those in the routes will be focused on today’s railway and service to customers (operators and passengers) while the regions will concentrate both on the future and, at the same time, support the routes to run the railway.

“Devolution has to go much deeper to enable us to get much closer to our partners and customers and be in a much better place to put passengers first and deliver for business too,” Andrew Haines concluded. “The changes I’m announcing today are designed to do just that.”

Danny Di Perna replaces Laurent Troger to head Bombardier Transportation

It’s all change at the top as Laurent Troger resigns as president of Bombardier Transportation to “pursue opportunities outside the company”. Danny Di Perna, who joined Bombardier in 2018 and is head of Bombardier’s Aerostructures and Engineering Services (BAES) segment, has been appointed in his place.

Alain Bellemare, president and chief executive officer of Bombardier inc, commented on the new appointment: “Danny is an exceptional and engaging leader with a proven record of leading complex industrial organizations. His demonstrated success driving operational efficiency, improving quality and delighting customers make him the right person to follow Laurent and accelerate Bombardier Transportation’s transformation.”

He continued: “I’d like to thank Laurent for his many contributions to Bombardier over the past 15 years, including his exceptional leadership while serving as President of our rail segment for the past 3 years. During this time, Transportation significantly grew its backlog, optimized its footprint and executed an aggressive production ramp-up. As a result of Laurent’s leadership, Bombardier Transportation is a stronger, more efficient company poised for solid growth.”

Danny Di Perna spent 28 years at aero-engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, latterly as a senior vice president, before joining first GE Power and then Bombardier in September last year. He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Concordia University and a masters of business administration from McGill University, both in Montreal.

Design revealed for HS2 Old Oak Common station

High Speed Two (HS2) has released its latest designs for the Old Oak Common complex in west London, which will be the interchange between the high-speed railway from London Euston to Birmingham and the North and Elizabeth line (Crossrail) services to Heathrow and central London.  

The six 450-metre HS2 platforms, which will be built in a 1km long underground box, will connect with the adjoining conventional station at ground level via a shared overbridge. The latest station design also includes provision for future services to Wales and the west of England.

The two halves of the station will be linked by a light and airy concourse with a soaring roof that is inspired by the site’s industrial heritage. Designed by a team led by professional services consultant WSP and architect WilkinsonEyre, the station will accommodate an estimated 250,000 passengers every day.

Aerial view of proposed new station at Old Oak Common. (HS2)

A new railway depot nearby, which will service Elizabeth line trains, has replaced the old Great Western Railway depot that was demolished to clear the site of the new station.

The HS2 platforms will be accessed by escalators concealed under a new public park. This green space, which could include broad-leafed trees, water features and outdoor event spaces, will provide a new focal point for the growing community around the station as the UK’s largest regeneration project is set to transform this former railway and industrial area with 25,500 new homes and up to 65,000 local jobs.

HS2’s Old Oak Common project director Matthew Botelle said: “The arrival of HS2 has the potential to transform Old Oak Common, unlocking thousands of new jobs and homes around the UK’s best connected transport hub. Linking HS2 and Crossrail, our new station will be a landmark piece of architecture at the heart of the development, designed around the passenger to ensure seamless, accessible and stress-free travel.”

WSP project director Adrian Tooth added: “As well as being a catalyst for regeneration within the wider OPDC area, the new HS2 Old Oak Common station will become a landmark destination featuring an area of urban realm to the west of London. Our design responds to the station’s function, recognising that more than half of those using the station will interchange between the below ground HS2 and the Elizabeth Line. The station form takes inspiration from our Victorian railway heritage and the juxtaposition between the above and below ground railways.

“WSP has welcomed 21 new apprentices to the Old Oak Common station project, as part of our 240-strong project team. We are committed to boosting the skills of Britain’s next generation while delivering this transformative project.”

HS2 is currently working to clear the site and prepare the ground for the start of construction later this year. Material excavated during work on the tunnels will be removed by rail from the nearby former Willesden Euroterminal depot.

The construction contract for the underground box and station infrastructure – platforms, escalators etc – will be awarded shortly to one of four bidders:

  • Balfour Beatty/VINCI Construction UK/Vinci Grand Projets/SYSTRA
  • Mace/Dragados
  • Bechtel
  • BAM Nuttall/Ferrovial Agroman

The station systems design contract has already been awarded to Arcadis and the tunnels, from the station box eastwards to Euston and westwards to Ruislip, will be built by a Costain/Skanska/Strabag joint venture.

The community has been invited to comment on the designs, which will be on display during February 2019 at the Collective, Nash House on Old Oak Common lane and other local venues.

Rail Engineer Jan/Feb 2019: Christmas works

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Using Data to Improve Fleet Maintenance

Stock market candlestick financial growth chart.

Rail Engineer has reported on the use of data analytics before (issues 136 and 148, February 2016 and February 2017) following attendance at Rolling Stock Maintenance conferences organised by London Business Conferences.

The latest conference on the same topic was held recently in a new venue in west London that enjoyed a lot more space. So what has changed over the last few years?

Perhaps it is best to start with a recap.

Despite the general title, this series of conferences has tended to emphasise the use of data to improve rolling stock performance and maintenance efficiency. It focuses on a number of approaches to maintenance that rely on data: predictive maintenance, where sensors send data to help analysts predict when maintenance is required; Reliability Centred Maintenance – a process of analysis to determine the optimum maintenance approach for each component; and Remote Condition Monitoring, leading to Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) where maintenance is carried out with knowledge of condition.

The recent conference included 25 presentations, a panel session (in which your writer unexpectedly participated) and a small exhibition including Perpetuum, Trimble, Humaware, Lucchini, NEM Solutions, Nomad Digital, RSSB, Siemens, SKF, UBIMET, and Unipart Rail.

What follows is a selection of the highlights.

Optimising resources

Inevitably, in a conference with so many papers, there was a certain repetition, albeit with differences of emphasis. The overall objectives were probably summed up best by Lee Braybrooke of Trimble who highlighted that fleet managers should be seeking higher utilisation of their fleets, seeking to optimise the use of their resources – both people and facilities, monitoring leading indicators to identify failure points, reduce risk, minimise unscheduled maintenance, and deliver cost savings. He added that fleet managers should also be moving to condition based and predictive maintenance.

Mark Johnson, South East Trains’ engineering director and chair of the RDG Fleet Reliability Focus Forum, opened the conference. He highlighted the large number of new trains being introduced onto the railway and which are generally equipped with data systems that bring the opportunity to implement CBM. That was the good news.

However, he explained that many of the new trains are replacing comparatively modern trains that perform well, compared with the more usual situation where new trains replace those that are life expired. Fleet Focus has encouraged a general improvement in fleet performance and, over the last 10 years, the distance between technical incidents (MTIN) has increased from 5,000 miles to roundly 10,000 miles. The bad news was that, with the influx of new trains, Mark was forecasting a dip in MTIN results whilst the new trains “bed in”.

With that sobering thought, the conference moved to a case study from Paolo Masini from Trenitalia’s rolling stock technology and maintenance engineering department. His organisation’s aim is to get to the most appropriate maintenance for the component concerned. He illustrated this with the examples of doors.

There is no point maintaining doors on a distance-run basis as doors usually only work when trains are stationary, resulting in doors on non-stopping services being over-maintained compared with those on stopping services. If the maintenance planner knows the frequency of door operation, then maintenance can be organised based on that frequency, but if more information is available, such as speed of door operation, then maintenance might be delayed until performance starts to degrade, provided no prior safety checks are required.

Nomad Digital – The increase in peak availability and the decrease in failures per million km operated over time.

Extending life

Moving on to a practical example, Pedro Conceição from Nomad Digital highlighted work on a customer’s fleet over a period of nearly 15 years, which has seen over 70 per cent of maintenance tasks redesigned following comprehensive Reliability Centred Maintenance studies.

Some 50 per cent of tasks are still preventive, with three quarters of these based on condition or to find hidden failures (those failures that are only evident if something else fails). Around 45 per cent of components are allowed to run to failure and about five per cent of components needed re-engineering following the failure modes and effects analysis carried out as part of the Reliability Centred Maintenance process.

As a result, availability has grown from about 70 per cent to over 90 per cent and the failure rate has reduced by two thirds from about nine failures/million km operated to less than three. He did make the point that no condition-based or predictive maintenance programme can overcome fundamentally unreliable systems or components.

Perpetuum – Monitoring the wheel health index over time.

Justin Southcombe of Perpetuum has featured in the previous articles. The company makes vibration energy harvesting devices that power an accelerometer that transmits its data wirelessly to the train, enabling simple retrofitting. It is also maintenance free. It was originally sold to monitor the condition of bearings, but since then has been used to monitor wheel-tread condition and track condition.

Perpetuum has embarked on a £1 million project with the University of Southampton and TWI (The Welding Institute) to use tri-axial accelerometers which will exploit the natural frequencies of axles, excited by wheel/track impacts, to measure load and detect cracks with the prospect that, one day, routine non-destructive axle testing might be eliminated.

Justin highlighted a commercial innovation introduced through a partnership between Perpetuum and Shaeffler, the parent company of FAG bearings. Shaeffler is offering the opportunity for railways to pay a flat rate per month for the use of both Shaeffler’s bearings and Perpetuum monitoring devices.

The rationale for this offer is as follows. Rolling stock bearings do not, in general, wear out, indeed they are generally replaced at a defined point in order to ensure they do not wear out. The overwhelming majority of the population of these conservatively rated bearings might last a great deal longer than the nominal life assigned to them, whilst a minority might fail prematurely (often causing service disruption). The proposition is that monitored bearings that give ample warning of failure could be allowed to run for an extended service life. This is the basis of the Shaeffler offer.

In return for the monthly fee, Shaeffler will guarantee that a large percentage of the bearings, for example 90 per cent, will reach an extended target life, and will supply replacement bearings for fitment at the extended interval. The supplier provides fewer bearings over the life of the train and the train operator saves money by replacing them less frequently.

Bearings that fail prematurely will warn of impending failure and replacement will be carried out “funded” by the “savings” on routine replacement.

Shaeffler said that the savings for a legacy five-car train over 20 years amounted to €0.09 per train/km as, effectively, at least one bogie overhaul is eliminated.

In a different solution to the same bearing monitoring task, Maurizio Giomavelli presented the SKF Insight “totally wireless” sensor to monitor bearing condition. It is battery powered and uses a 2G/3G Internet of Things data service to transmit data “directly from sensor to cloud” and into SKF’s Bearing Application Knowledge Back End.

Maurizio made the point that all bearings solutions are designed, calculated and tested for a specific bogie application: bearing manufacturer engineers are involved in the whole OEM process. The notable difference between SKF’s sensor and Perpetuum’s is that the SKF product is somewhat smaller.

Unpart Rail – Remote Condition Monitoring systems can inform the depot of spares requirements before the train even arrives.

Logistical challenges

David McGorman, digital director of Unipart Rail and managing director of Instrumental, spoke about a world where the supply base is linked into the Remote Condition Monitoring system and is able to dispatch a spare part to a depot almost before the train has got there to have the defective component changed. Several speakers echoed the benefit of the entire supply chain having access to all the data for their respective components. This would allow much more useful data/information exchange than, for example, blue card labels with fault symptoms and paper reports of the repairs.

Philippe de Leharpe from SNCF spoke about the challenge of a large, but dispersed, fleet where any one depot only sees a few vehicles. Data systems add value by allowing managers of small fleets to measure the performance of their vehicles against the overall fleet performance. He also reported that they were gaining value from adding RCM technology to older vehicles. The Corail trailer coaches from the mid 1970s have had sensing and data transmission fitted to warn both train staff, via their mobile phones, and control room staff of issues with the train doors – open/close status, pressure of door closing cylinder and status of the doors closed lamp.

Gerald Schinagl of ÖBB, the Austrian state operator, introduced their process. He summed up his presentation in a few words, that “this is a journey, not a pre-determined destination; although it’s increasingly evident that it’s a worthwhile journey”.

He said that ÖBB had set up a team of 12 diverse people under the brand DIGI@ttack, reporting directly to the managing director. They were referred to as agile and holistic in activity with an evolutionary organisation and a challenging mindset. They had to deal with enormous expectations from people who expected instant results and who thought it was just a new tool.

Emphasising the importance of looking at the rolling stock and infrastructure holistically, Gerald warned his audience not to assume that, “just because one rolls on the other”, models or algorithms for rails will work for wheels.

He added that this is not an IT topic, but it is very technological; that supplier solutions might be limiting. He said it is a mindset and culture programme and, although a project is a good way to start, it needs to move into business as usual. Technology and Data Science competences are located in DIGI@ttack but are organised as a joint team with ÖBB’s Engineering Technical Services team.

The aim is to keep know-how inside the company and respond to day-to-day challenges, including the deployment of “minimum viable products” to address those challenges. Gerald particularly emphasised the importance of providing management with information about the impact on job roles three to five years ahead, for example so that people are not recruited for roles no longer needed!

He also spoke about the use of “sexy” devices such as virtual or assisted reality as a good ice breaker when introducing new ways of working.

UBIMET – Local weather forecasting can help predict the possibility of disruption.

Something completely different

Stefan Eisenbach of UBIMET, a meteorology company specialising in high-resolution and very local weather models and severe weather alerts, introduced how local weather forecasts, specific to an area or route, could be used to optimise operation and maintenance.

Creating specialist weather forecasts for railways started in 2005 when the Austrian Federal Railways asked UBIMET to implement a nationwide meteorological monitoring and warning system in order to face the challenges of climate change and more frequent extreme weather events. He said that general weather forecasts, which provide information about areas, are unsuitable for railways as they require information about routes and, particularly, local features such as cool valleys or cuttings or exposed embankments or bridges.

UBIMET has developed algorithms to provide precise weather forecasts along all railway lines, severe weather warnings for the network and critical assets and special risk predictions for a safe operation (icing risk, trees on tracks).

The objective of this is to reduce safety risk whilst improving network availability together with improved efficiency and reduced cost.

Leo Express operates Flirt trains in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Nguyen Manh Phuc from Leo Express described some of the challenges affecting a small open access operator. The company operates three million train kilometres per year using a fleet of five new five-car Stadler Flirt EMUs in the Czech Republic and Poland and second-hand locomotives and carriages in Germany.

The five Flirt units, which are operated intensively, were the basis of his case study. He said that, during their first two years, the company relied on the manufacturer for maintenance, but thereafter recruited its own team, reducing costs by over 40 per cent.

A further cost saving is made by buying spares directly from the original producer rather than from the train manufacturer, although Stadler still overhauls the bogies. This needs careful planning – the maintenance frequency is every one million kilometres, which for Leo Express is every two years. The company has thirty bogies (six on each train due to its articulated design) plus three spares. Three bogies are dismounted and swapped for the spares, then sent away for overhaul – half train by half train. The overhaul takes two weeks and the whole programme takes six months.

Equally, Leo Express were proud of the work carried out in house to make the Flirt units suitable for operation in Poland, which included modifications to the safety systems, energy consumption meter and to lights. The first unit took one month to modify and the rest were completed over three months. It was reported that the supplier estimated three months to modify one train at much higher cost.

The final challenge reported was that Leo Express does not have its own depot and has to “fit in” others’ depots. Plans are in hand to build a dedicated depot in the Czech Republic near the Ostrava-Prague corridor.

And finally

Simon Jarrett, head of technical services for Chiltern Railways, talked about robotics in train maintenance, specifically cab-front cleaning and replenishment of fluids (Issue 159, January 2018). Since then, a one-eighth scale model has been completed by Cranfield University and partners Garrandale Rail and this was being demonstrated. Simon said that the motivation for developing robotic solutions is to reduce the number of people that have to work trackside around moving trains and that it is increasingly difficult to recruit staff to carry out these comparatively low-skilled jobs.

Reflecting after the conference, it was clear that speakers had generally recognised that Remote Condition Monitoring is largely a people and process issue, enabled by the IT. This is a significant change in the four years that Rail Engineer has covered this series of conferences, when one might have concluded that all one needed were sensors, analytics and “sexy front ends”.

An orange Christmas: Network Rail’s works over the 2018 Christmas holiday

Wellingborough

As usual, Network Rail took advantage of the Christmas and New Year holiday to undertake some of the lengthier and more onerous projects that the renewal and enhancement of the railway network demands.

Christmas is therefore a good time for Network Rail. The 50 per cent drop in demand for rail travel, coupled with the closure of the network on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, means that routes can be closed for substantial work with train replacement bus services only having to cope with half the number of passengers that they would at other times of the year.

However, Christmas is also a bad time of year for Network Rail. Those same closures spark the usual “Travel Chaos over Christmas” banner headlines in both the tabloid press and in publications that should know better.

The timing is also not good. The timetable changes mid-December – this time it was on the ninth – and of course any teething trouble with the new arrangement is always Network Rail’s fault.

And then new fares come in at the start of January, and that’s Network Rail’s fault too! So the nationalised infrastructure owner gets plenty of stick in the press at the turn of the year.

The public understands

However, not everyone blames Network Rail for it all. A recent YouGov Omnibus survey found that a majority of Britons (56 per cent) say that ensuring commuter journeys aren’t disrupted by scheduling repairs on bank holidays and the days after Christmas is the best option – even if it risks disruption for those trying to get home to see friends and family.

Fewer than one in five (18 per cent) took the opposing view – that repairs should take place so as not to disrupt people during holiday periods, even if that impacts regular commuters.

Even the majority (57 per cent) of those travelling by train in the post-Christmas period backed making the repairs that could hold them up. That being said, this group was more likely than the public as a whole to think that commuter journeys should be disrupted instead (27 per cent).

Unsurprisingly, rail commuters answered in their own interest. Two thirds (66 per cent) of those who commute by rail thought repairs should take place at this time of year and in bank holidays. So at least some of the population understands Network Rail’s point of view.

Canterbury.

Mobilised workforce

So, as usual, a small army (actually, quite a large army!) of men and women in orange forsook their Christmas turkey to work on the railway. Over 28,000 people worked at 4,000 worksites across 1,100 possessions and 330 projects to deliver major enhancements, core renewals and maintenance works across the rail network.

Some, of course, were larger than others, and some were more critical.

Approximately 30 jobs contained worksites identified as ‘RED’ through the Delivering Work Within Possessions (DWWP) standard, defined as carrying a greater risk of overrun and/or having a more significant impact in the event of an overrun. These included signalling, OLE and track works at King’s Cross and Holloway, overhead line renewals at Forest Gate junction as part of the Great Eastern main line upgrade and station works at Edinburgh Waverley.

Overall, 383,000 hours were worked and £148 million spent, with 98.7 per cent of all possessions handed back on time. At Preston, there was a two-hour overrun on 27 December owing to an RRV break down and at Westbury on 4 January, significant complications experienced in the signal testing period, requiring signalling modifications and issues with the wiring interlocking, resulted in 2,208 delay minutes, the worst of any project over the holiday period.

Safety, as always, was a top priority. A total of 12 accidents that resulted in injury were reported, of which three resulted in lost time injuries.

One was at Westbury, where the injured person was struck by a dropped panel, resulting in four broken bones – the team was stood down to be re-briefed on the site safety messages.

Another notable accident occurred when the two front wheels of a Mobile Elevated Working Platform (MEWP) derailed whilst in transit at Camden carriage sidings on the LNW route due to a track twist fault. The linesman and operator were clipped to the basket at the time and sustained soft tissue damage.

Two road traffic accidents were reported during the period, with no resulting injuries.

Map of RED sites- Christmas 2018.

Around the country

Five projects stood out from the others, and these have their own reports elsewhere on this website. All of the RED jobs are outlined below, running anticlockwise from Greenhill Lower, at the top left of the map shown here.

Greenhill Lower S&C – During two possessions over the holiday period, 23:00 on 24 December to 05:20 on the 27th, then 23:00 on 31st until 05:20 on 3 January, S&C North Alliance (Amey, Rhomberg Sersa and Network Rail working together) was to reballast points using a vactor and engineering trains, and laid 500 yards of plain line track. The S&C was handed back as planned, but a road-rail vehicle failing during the digging out triggered the contingency plan so only 400 yards of plain line was completed to ensure that the site was handed back on time and at the planned 50mph TSR.

Salkeld Street PLTR – In two mobilisations over Christmas and the New Year (24-26 December and 31 December-2 January), Babcock Rail replaced 313 yards of plain line track at Salkeld Street, Glasgow. A troughing route was discovered in the dig on the second possession, preventing full dig depth being achieved over a 40-metre distance. Both possessions were handed back on time at 20mph line speed.

York IECC Re-control – As the old York IECC was life expired and unalterable, this project called for the re-control of the existing the VDU-based signalling control system (VSCS) in York IECC onto a new VSCS in York ROC, as well as the re-control of the full geographical limits of York IECC, which will be updated from IECC Classic to Scalable.

The Re-control area covers 250 miles of railway and 45 Stations. Over Christmas, all principles testing and confidence testing was completed ahead of schedule. IECC 1 was signed into use early for indication purposes to facilitate emergency track works at Thirsk.

All workstations were signed in to use at 00:50 with the possession handed back early at 02:29.

Preston Fylde.

Preston Fylde S&C – The LNW Works Delivery Unit delivered 90 metres of plain line track renewal and also renewed S&C. It was a full renewal, including replacement of all components and 250mm of ballast below sleeper bottom.

Nottingham station canal bridge – Nottingham Canal underbridge is a two-span structure supporting the Up Newark, Down Newark and the Eastcroft Down Sidings lines. There is also a redundant deck carrying no lines, and the decks also carry several cable troughs, service/utility pipes and walkways. Nottingham station is to the east of the structure. The two Up Newark spans were replaced and the track reinstated. Minor S&T relocations were implemented to facilitate the new bridge and the redundant deck was removed during the Christmas blockade.

All works were handed back on time at linespeed (15mph).

Weaver-Wavertree – The subject of a separate article, the Weaver to Wavertree project is replacing signalling assets along this route that were in poor condition, already life extended and no longer serviceable, as well as recontrolling the area to the Manchester ROC.

NWEP 5 – Phase 5 of the North West Electrification programme, due to be complete in time for the May 2019 timetable change, will provide new overhead lines around the Manchester Victoria area, with provision for this to be extended to Stalybridge. It will also provide power and high-voltage cabling for Phase 4, which runs from Manchester to Bolton. The possession limits changed a number of times, with the blockade being ten days long in total from 24 December to 2 January. OLE and wiring works were carried out at Manchester Victoria, along with installation of 95 yards of new track drainage at Ashton station and an HV cable route to supply power for Phases 4 and 5. The possession was also used to install approximately 55 yards of new track drainage at Bolton station, where 300mm diameter cess and 10-foot drainage was tied into two existing outfalls with UTXs under the Platform 5 loop line and the Up and Down Bolton lines.

Birmingham New Street – Several sets of points (S&C) at and around Birmingham New Street station were converted over to SPX Clamplock operation as they are more reliable than the various legacy points machines currently in use.

Hampton in Arden.

Birmingham International drainage – A total of 420 metres of 300mm cess drainage was installed between Hampton in Arden station and Birmingham International station, directing water away from these stations in a heavily used area of the network, reducing the risk of flooding. In total, some 800 metres of cess drainage and off track/drainage outfalls are being installed in these locations.

Milton Keynes.

Milton Keynes Platform 6 – The scope of work for plain line track renewal through Milton Keynes station Platform 6 consisted of two renewals:

CAT 14 (Rerail, Resleeper, Reballast, Formation – Trax) for 600 yards and CAT 15A, the associated drainage renewal, for 417 yards. All of the planned volume was completed, albeit with a reduced dig depth of 300mm. The possession was handed back to operational traffic on time and at 125mph line speed (rather than the planned post-construction 60mph TSR). This site was Network Rail IP Track’s 100th higher speed handback on conventional plain line/S&C renewals this year.

Bletchley Flyover – OLE enabling works took place underneath and around Bletchley Flyover on the West Coast main line with the installation of nine piles and structures. Re-profiling of the OLE underneath the flyover, due to take place later in the spring, will remove current non-conformances through the area, improving reliability and reducing future maintenance.

Kentish Town slab track stabilisation – One and a half miles north of St Pancras station, the Midland main line (and Thameslink) passes through Kentish Town tunnel. The track here is on an old Paved Concrete Track (PACT) slab, and that badly needed renewing. Over a 10-day blockade, 314 yards of the old slab was removed and replaced with ballasted track, two squaring-off precast concrete units supported on five 10-metre-long piles and a new pumped drainage system in the six-foot. To add to the challenge, the project experienced a high number of plant failures, an OLE contact wire was hit by an excavator bucket during excavation of the Down Fast line and the concrete slab also had a higher percentage of steel reinforcement than had initially been expected.

Wembley North S&C – S&C South Alliance was tasked with the installation of new OLE associated with the four crossover track renewal completed during August in order to lift the BTET (Blocked to Electric Traction) for North Wembley Junction. All of the planned works were completed and the possession handed back on time to operational traffic at line speed (90mph Slows, 125mph Fasts).

Willesden North junction – During a 53-hour possession on the West Coast main line, between West London junction and Harlesden, the S&C Alliance south installed 525 metres of track drainage in readiness for three crossover renewals in CP6 – 250 metres on the Fast lines, including cross track drainage, and 275 metres on the Slow lines. All of the planned works completed and the possession handed back on time to operational traffic at line speed (75mph slows, 90/110 and 90/120 Fasts).

Euston HS2 enabling works – Established to deliver various requirements on behalf of HS2 in and around the area of Euston station, these enabling works also included approximately one mile of the operational railway north of the station. The site of the future HS2 station in Euston is currently occupied by Network Rail platforms and other operational railway systems infrastructure. Clearing the site to create the necessary space required the decommissioning and recovery of existing operational infrastructure, carried out over the Christmas holiday to ensure the timetable can be maintained once Platforms 17 and 18 at Euston station are removed in May 2019.

Southall East S&C – To the east of Southall station, between Hanwell and Northolt stations on the line from Paddington to Heathrow Airport junction, the S&C South Alliance renewed four point ends and about 300 metres of associated plain line. The works involved renewing ballast, sleepers, rail, new points-heating equipment and OLE adjustments. The introduction of a Hy-Drive Backdrive points machine was also included within the project. With all of the work completed on time, the site was handed back at 90mph line speed on the relief lines and 90mph TSR on the main lines as opposed to the published 50mph TSR.

Westbury.

Westbury North – This was actually two projects combined into one possession. The S&C South Alliance renewed 12 separate switches, along with their associated crossings and 538 metres of plain line track, to allow trains from Newbury and Bath to get to all the different platforms at Westbury station. In addition, signalling and power equipment was moved out of the way in order to make Platforms 2 and 3 at Westbury station longer. The longer platforms, which will be built after Christmas, are to facilitate the introduction of new Class 802 trains for Great Western Railway. The possession overran to 23:57 on Friday 4 January, as opposed to the planned hand-back time of 04:00, due to complications experienced in the signal testing period toward the end of the possession requiring signalling modifications. A full report can be found here.

Factory Jn-Stewarts Lane – The team from Colas Rail replaced 372 yards of track using RRVs to dig out 200mm of ballast and replace it with new ballast on a geotextile layer. EG47 concrete sleepers and CEN56 rail was used, with the rails being welded and stressed. All of the planned works were completed and the possession handed back to operational traffic on time at 25mph line speed.

Upper Kennington Lane – Upper Kennington Lane bridge at Vauxhall station is a single-span structure consisting of seven decks supporting eight tracks and station platforms over the A3036 main road.

The wheel-timbered and steel-bearer track support system on Track 6 (Brighton main line Down Main Fast) has been a significant performance risk which has been subjected to emergency speed restrictions and reactive repairs in CP4. Over Christmas, the wheel timbers and steel bearers were removed after preparation of the existing cross girders, thick steel deck plates and ballast boards were installed, waterproofing added and ballasted track laid, including welding of the running rails. The track opened up at linespeed (50mph).

Canterbury S&C – Another busy junction was renewed at Canterbury West over Christmas Day and Boxing Day, with five pre-fabricated track panels being carefully lifted into place by a road crane from the adjacent car park. The panels were constructed by a specialist contractor in Yorkshire and were delivered to site in advance, ready for installation.

Battersea Pier Junction – As is reported in a dedicated article, the S&C South Alliance delivered the renewal of 12 point ends and a fixed diamond crossing, including 330 metres of plain line, at Battersea Pier junction to improve asset reliability and give a smoother ride over the section of renewed track. All of the planned works were completed and the possession handed back on time to operational traffic at 45mph line speed.

Felixstowe.

Felixstowe Enhancement – The works to enhance capacity on the Felixstowe branch includes a new 1.4 km ‘loop’ line in the area of Trimley as well as two new crossovers, a new bridleway bridge and an upgrade of barrier protection at four level crossings, with all pedestrian crossings on the line being closed. Capacity will increase from 32 trains each way per day to 47. During a six-day possession over Christmas, the two new crossovers and a turnout were installed, linking the previously completed loop to the infrastructure but with the switches clipped and padlocked. The bases for the bridleway bridge were constructed, signaling power upgraded and new troughing installed.

King’s Cross remodeling – Planned for completion in March 2021, this remodeling of the King’s Cross throat area will ensure that standard S&C units are used rather than complex units. Life expired infrastructure will be replaced to ensure the station is operationally robust in time for the full deployment of the new Class 800/802 trains on the East Coast main line. The eastern bore of Gasworks tunnel will be reinstated to ensure enhanced capacity and operational flexibility. New interlocking will be provided to King’s Cross and Holloway in order for the first stage of ETCS to be implemented at a future date and panels 1-3 of Kings Cross Signal Box (Kings Cross, Holloway, Moorgate, Finsbury Park and Wood Green) will be re-controlled to York ROC. Passive platform provision for 12 car IEP sets will be provided. Enabling works over the Christmas holiday included the installation of four under-track crossings (UTX) at Belle Isle and FTNx telecommunications network cable diversions.

Holloway.

Holloway Down S&C – Situated between King’s Cross and Harringay, the S&C North Alliance (Amey, Rhomberg Sersa and Network Rail working together) replaced S&C and plain line using a Kirow crane in a possession from 22:00 on 24 December to 04:00 on the 27th. All of the planned works were completed and the possession handed back to operational traffic on time and at line speed – 80mph on Fasts, 55mph on Slows (as opposed to the 50mph TSR previously booked on both lines).

Forest Gate – Another project to benefit from its own article, the Great Eastern Overhead Line Renewal project is replacing the old fixed termination, formerly DC, Overhead Line Equipment (OLE) from Liverpool Street to Chelmsford with a modern, high reliability auto-tensioned system. When complete, the project will have installed a total of 345 new OLE wire runs, including new support structures and associated registration assemblies. 11 wire runs were completed at Christmas, 12.5km of wire in total, created a continuous section of auto-tensioned OLE from Stratford to Chelmsford (42km).

Priory Lane bridge – Situated in a semi-rural area in the village of Little Wymondley, to the South-East of Hitchin and the North-West of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Priory Lane underbridge is a single span, four deck structure with decks separated by air gaps. It carries four electrified, ballasted tracks of the East Coast main line. The Down Slow underbridge was replaced over Christmas, with the track and S&T equipment being reinstated. Collision protection beams were also added to help prevent damage from bridge strikes. The contingency plan had to be implemented (cold welded track joints) to ensure on time handback, meaning the Down Slow would require additional stressing and welding at a later date and necessitating a temporary speed restriction.

Fletton North junction – The Peterborough Down Slow (PDS) project will replace two units of switches and crossings, upgrade the signalling and increase the line speed along a stretch of track south of Peterborough station. The cumulative impact of these changes will mean that trains can enter Peterborough station more quickly, crossing from the Down Fast to the Down Slow to access Platforms 4 and 5, which will allow more trains to run in the same period. Christmas work included modifications to the 650V signaling power supply, OLE re-registrations and signaling testing.

Wellingborough North junction – The subject of a separate report, 10 point ends at Wellingborough North Junction were renewed using Network Rail’s Kirow 1200 rail crane.

Approximately 600 metres of the new Up Slow line which will be used as the head shunt until the main commissioning in December 2019. Sections of the Down Fast, Up Fast and Down Slow plain line, associated with the above points, were also renewed. To challenge the team, the tamper suffered a terminal failure of its drive shaft.

Eastfield Road.

Eastfield Road bridge – Network Rail is undertaking a third-party funded project to provide W12 gauge clearance to the rail corridor between Doncaster (Marshgate) and Immingham Docks. At Eastfield Road overbridge (a three-span arch structure with a skew of 18 degrees, dated circa 1911), an assessment found the structure to have foul clearances to the W12. Over the Christmas and New Year holiday, two outer arches were infilled with concrete and the centre arch demolished ready for new Con-Arch installation. However, the concrete arches were unable to be installed as planned due to uncharted services being found within the footprint of the crane outrigger location the week before the possession. This posed a significant risk to the lift that was unable to be redesigned in time for the possession.

Edinburgh Waverley station – Platform extensions are required at Edinburgh Waverley to accommodate longer trains being introduced on both the Edinburgh to Glasgow via Falkirk route and the East Coast main line. Platforms 5 and 6 will be lengthened to accommodate new 10 car electric Azuma trains and Platform 12 lengthened to accommodate eight-car electric trains. A new train path, which has been previously unavailable, will be created out of Platform 10 to routes north of the station. Over the Christmas holiday, new OLE was installed on Platforms 5 and 6 as well as a new signal gantry on Platform 10, and Platform 19 was resurfaced. The crane that was to lift in the new signal gantry failed, so work had to be re-planned but was completed on time.

Overall success

In all, it was a successful holiday work programme. One major delay and three lost-time injuries out of 330 projects undertaken by 25,000 people working over 380,000 hours, costing Network Rail £148 million.

Commenting on these figures, Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said: “I’m so pleased that we have delivered for passengers and freight users over the Christmas period, safely completing more than 300 improvement projects around the network.

“I realise that it has been cold and wet out there, and that many colleagues have missed out on time at home with their families, so I’d like to thank everyone who has played a part in keeping the railway running this Christmas and New Year, completing crucial maintenance, renewal and enhancement work on the railway network and being part of the successful handback.

“Our decision to do work at this time of year is entirely based on the fact that many regular passengers take this time as holiday, so it causes disruption to the smallest number of people. We really appreciate the patience of those who have been affected by this essential work, which will lead to better and more reliable train services.”

Issue 171 – Projects for passengers

Crowded Kings Cross station in the city. Hundreds people waiting for the train, with delays and cancellations as Storm Doris lashes UK

Editor’s comments – issue 171, January/February 2019

Early last year, we stated that 2018 “will be a good year for many rail passengers as benefits are realised from projects started years ago”. We certainly got that wrong, as did many others who did not foresee the timetable meltdown which severely impacted a fifth of Britain’s rail passengers, many of whom incurred significant costs as a result.

May’s large-scale timetable changes were intended to deliver major passenger benefits from completed infrastructure projects and new trains. Instead, there was huge disruption as flawed timetables, produced in half the usual timescale, did not match train crew diagrams.

However impressive they may be, new trains and infrastructure enhancements are not an end in themselves. As last year’s debacle showed, they are part of a bigger project requiring successful timetable implementation, driver training and other operational issues before customer benefits can be delivered.

This raises the question of who is responsible for the effective co-ordination of everything needed to deliver passenger benefits. No doubt, this will be addressed by the Williams Rail Review, which could usefully consider how Transport Scotland fulfils this role.

As an example, Network Rail only gave four-months’ notice of the delay to completion of the Manchester to Preston electrification project. Hence, Northern had to produce its May timetable in 16 weeks, rather than the normal 40 weeks. The ORR’s timetable disruption inquiry found that there was “substantial pressure from within Network Rail to not defer works while there remained a chance of success, despite the risks”.

This illustrates why the ORR inquiry concluded that “everyone needs to be willing to give and receive bad news”. Hopefully, lessons from this inquiry, together with Network Rail’s new arrangements to manage the risk from timetable changes, will ensure that 2019 will not see a repeat of last year’s problems.

However, this year’s planned introduction of almost two thousand new coaches may be problematic. ScotRail’s refurbished HSTs, LNER’s Azumas and TfL’s Class 710s are examples of new fleets subject to late deliveries and problems with infrastructure compatibility and software. To an extent, such delays are to be expected and need not necessarily be problematic.

However, passengers will suffer if existing stock is cascaded elsewhere before new fleets can be introduced, as shown by the software issues that currently prevent new Class 710 electric trains operating between Barking and Gospel Oak. Here, passengers face a possible complete loss of service as their Class 172 diesel units are being transferred to West Midlands.

Moreover, from 1 January 2020, it will be illegal to operate the large numbers of coaches currently in service that do not comply with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations. It remains to be seen whether these vehicles will have been replaced by new trains before this deadline.

Although new trains may have teething problems with their software, the data it provides from numerous on-board sensors offers significant benefits. Malcolm Dobell explains how this supports condition-based maintenance with examples of cost-savings for bearing and door maintenance.

Getting the doors closed in a timely and safe manner to maintain the throughput of crowded underground trains is a complex issue. In his feature, Clive Kessell explains why the key factor is the door chime alert timing.

Modern trains have become ever more dependent on the radio link currently provided by GSM-R, which may not be supported after 2030. As we report, its replacement will probably be 5G. Migrating to this is a huge task, which requires urgent action now.

The huge amount of infrastructure work completed over Christmas and the New Year was valued at £148 million and involved 28,000 people. As Nigel Wordsworth describes in his comprehensive report, its 1,100 possessions were generally delivered on time, although there was a 23-hour possession overun at Westbury.

Mark Phillips explains how this delay was due to an interlocking issue revealed during signal testing which required a new design. He also describes the complexity of the 12-day Westbury blockade, which included the renewal of twelve point ends. Other complex track renewals were the 11-day Battersea Pier Junction blockade, as described by Bob Wright, and the nine-day Wellingborough blockade about which Chris Parker reports.

Christmas also saw the renewal of over 12 kilometres of OLE at Forest Gate in a 10-day blockade, as Peter Stanton describes, whilst Paul Darlington covers the eight-day blockade that saw the completion of the latest phase of the Weaver to Wavertree resignalling scheme.

We also feature the transformation of Glasgow’s Queen Street station and explain how this will provide more seats on trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

All this work is delivered by members of the Rail Supply Group, who now have a greater say in how they can work more effectively as a result of the Rail Sector Deal. As we explain, this is intended to avoid ‘boom and bust procurement’, introduce innovation and improve skills in order to deliver more for passengers and drive economic growth.

As 2018 demonstrated, implementing improvements on a complex and crowded railway involves significant risks, which now seem to be better understood. Much good work was done over Christmas. Let’s hope that 2019 will see this, and other enhancement projects, delivering significant passenger improvements.

Glasgow Queen Street station – half transformed

Glasgow Queen Street station

Rail Engineer has reported on numerous infrastructure upgrade projects to provide the extra and longer trains needed for increasing passenger numbers. This extra traffic also requires station enhancements to provide space for passengers to move as well as providing a more attractive passenger environment and stimulating developments in the vicinity of the station.

Recent examples are London King’s Cross (2012), Birmingham New Street (2015), Manchester Victoria (2015) and Edinburgh’s Haymarket station, which had its passenger circulating area increased tenfold (2013). Now Glasgow’s cramped Queen Street station is about to be transformed. As will be seen, enlarging this relatively small city-centre station is a challenging project.

The Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway

Queen Street station opened in February 1842 as part of the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway, which then operated four trains a day between the two cities with a journey time of 2½ hours. The railway company had originally intended to approach Glasgow by a bridge over the Monklands canal and build a station just north of the present station. However, the canal company’s opposition to this idea resulted in Queen Street station, which is approached down one of the steepest parts of the UK rail network, a tunnel under the canal with a 1 in 44 gradient.

Although the canal is long gone, its legacy of a cramped station at the end of a steep tunnel remains. The original Queen Street station soon proved woefully inadequate for its increasing traffic and it was rebuilt between 1878 and 1880, with the tunnel being shortened by 153 yards to create a new station throat and platform extensions. The wrought-iron arched roof was also built at this time. As part of an East-West line under the city, the low-level station was excavated underneath the original station and opened in 1886.

The nearby Buchanan Street station closed in 1966, which resulted in Queen Street becoming the terminus for destinations north of Glasgow as well as the main line to Edinburgh. Whilst this may not have been a problem at the time, the station is now too small for its 16.4 million passengers each year who make it the third busiest in Scotland.

The capacity of the Edinburgh to Glasgow main line was significantly enhanced when, first, its train service was doubled to four trains an hour in 2000 and then, shortly afterwards, six-car Class 170 DMUs were introduced on the route.

Yet, just nine years later, this was still not enough as, in 2009, the Scottish Government published its Strategic Projects Review. This concluded that increasing rail capacity between Edinburgh to Glasgow was a high priority and proposed electrification and six trains an hour on the main line between the two cities.

However, this was a costly proposal that required significant infrastructure works including a grade-separated junction at Greenhill and a new chord at Dalmeny. In 2012, the then Scottish Transport Minister announced a revised scheme that did not require these infrastructure works as the required extra capacity was to be provided by longer trains rather than increasing service frequency and that this new approach was due to “new opportunities”.

View of station from Buchanan Galleries during 2016 blockade.

EGIP

One of the new opportunities concerned the Buchanan Galleries shopping centre, immediately north of Queen Street station. In 2011, its developers unveiled plans to expand the centre that would provide the station with an opportunity to extend its platforms to accommodate eight-car trains.

Hence, it was decided that the required extra capacity would be provided by longer trains instead of by increasing service frequency. In addition to the Queen Street work, this would require platforms to be lengthened at four intermediate stations on the route. This work was done as part of the Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP), which has also electrified the route, rebuilt Haymarket station and built a new train depot at Millerhill.

The EGIP programme required two major blockades on the route. In 2015, Winchburgh tunnel clearance work requiring the installation of slab track closed the tunnel for six weeks.

In 2016, the tunnel into Queen Street was shut for twenty weeks to replace its life-expired slab track, install OLE conductor bar and remodel the station’s track and platforms. This remodelling required 165 metres of new track, seven new switch and crossing units and 642 metres of new platform walls. At the same time, the new OLE infrastructure was installed within the station environment.

This work enabled Queen Street to accommodate seven-car units when electric trains started running on the Edinburgh to Glasgow line in December 2017. An eight-car service, however, awaits the completion of the Queen Street station rebuild. Before this work could start, an order under the Transport and Works (Scotland) Act (TAWS) was required to give Network Rail the necessary powers, including those to demolish buildings and purchase the land on which they stood.

Consort House and the Millennium Hotel extension before their demolition.

TAWS

The redevelopment for which the TAWS application was sought extends the station southwards to front onto West George Street, on the corner of George Square, as well as the redevelopment of the east side of the station. This required the demolition of station facilities on the east side of the station, the seven-story Consort House office block of brutalist concrete appearance and a bedroom wing extension to the Millennium Hotel which was within the 20-metre overrun risk zone beyond the buffers – of particular significance as trains approach the station down its steep tunnel.

The station is in the Glasgow Central Conservation Area and the train shed, with its iconic iron arch, is a grade A listed structure while the Millennium hotel is grade B listed. Consort House and the hotel extension were built during the late 1960s / early 1970s. The project’s environmental statement notes that these buildings were of “minimal architectural and historic interest” and that “they are of a dated and generally poor appearance”.

Consultation for the TAWS application took place in 2014. This resulted in changes to the draft order, which was submitted in September 2015.

It was then considered by the Scottish Government’s Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA), which had to consider objections to the order of which the most significant was from the owner of the Millennium hotel – concerned at the loss of 51 bedrooms from the demolition of its extension.

Published in October 2016, the DPEA’s findings concluded that the demolition of the hotel extension was unavoidable as the station works were necessary and had been clearly justified in the public interest. The report included some minor changes to the order and various conditions, including the requirement for a Code of Construction Practice.

Following further consideration of responses to the draft, the TAWS order was finalised and came into force on 11 April 2017. This was nine months later than had been anticipated in the consultation leaflet, which had stated that the work would take three years. With the TAWS order now in place, Network Rail was able to start the Queen Street station enhancement works and announce that it would be completed in March 2020.

However, whilst the TAWS order was being considered, Land Securities, which owns the Buchanan Galleries, placed its £390 million development plan on hold “due to the increased level of risk generated by the simultaneous delivery of the EGIP programme”. As a result, the associated development of the east side of the station is no longer part of the current station enhancement work, other than its use for temporary ScotRail office accommodation during the work. Options for the use of this part of the station, including a possible Platform 8, are now part of a GRIP (Governance for Railway Investment Projects) study which is at stage 2 (project feasibility).

Work starts

In April 2017, Balfour Beatty was awarded a £16 million enabling-works contract for the station’s redevelopment. In August, it was announced that the company had been awarded a £63 million contract to demolish buildings and build the new station. This is a target cost contract in which any gain/pain is equally shared between Network Rail and the contractor and any exceedances over ten per cent are wholly borne by the contractor.

The project’s principle designer is Arup, with BDP architects acting as architectural sub-consultants. Key sub-contracts placed were demolition (Dem-Master), scaffolding (Lyndon), piling (Roger Bullivant), steelwork (J&D Pierce), cladding and roofing (Curtis Moore), curtain walling (Charles Henshaw), railway and frangible decks (Story Contracting) and mechanical, electrical and plumbing (Balfour Beatty Kirkpatrick).

The enabling works included the demolition of the accommodation block on the east side of the station and preparation for the demolition of Consort House and the Millennium hotel extension. At the same time, a pub on Dundas Street, by the west entrance of the station, was converted into ScotRail’s ticket office to be used for the duration of the work.

On 7 August 2017, the station work became evident to passengers as the ticket office was transferred to this temporary office, the station’s southern entrance was closed, and hoardings were erected around the demolition area. At the same time, traffic on West George Street was reduced to a single line with one lane becoming part of the worksite to be used for the receipt and despatch of lorries.

The old ticket office was part of the west-side office accommodation by Platform 2 that was demolished later that year to create space for the extension of Platform 1. Much of this was completed during the Christmas closure of the station in 2017.

Consort House was then fully scaffolded and covered with protective sheeting. In January 2018, lightweight excavators were craned 36 metres to the roof of Consort House to start the top-down floor-by-floor break up of its reinforced concrete and steel frame. At the same time, long-reach excavators were used to demolish the hotel extension.

By March, this enabled the station’s historic train shed to be seen from George Square for the first time in forty years. However, this also exposed it to a wind loading for which temporary work was needed to stabilise the structure. Another revealed aspect of the station’s heritage was the words “North British” on the hotel’s newly exposed end wall, which was surveyed by drone in July.

Demolishing the hotel extension.

By the time the demolition work was completed in October, 14,000 tonnes of material had been removed from the site, requiring around a thousand lorry movements. A crushing plant was used to enable 94 per cent of this to be recycled.

The project achieved its first delivery milestone on 7 May 2018 when the extended Platform 1 was brought into service. This had been extended by 50 metres to accommodate four-car trains using the space created by the demolition of the west-side offices.

Over half-way there

On 26 November, Rail Engineer was pleased to visit the project and meet Network Rail’s route delivery director Kevin McClelland, programme manager Tom McPake and project manager Joe Mulvenna, as well as Balfour Beatty’s senior project manager Barry Nicol. At the time, the project was on schedule and 86 weeks into its 154-week programme.

The project briefing included safety management arrangements, which included Network Rail’s involvement in briefing and reporting arrangements. Barry and Kevin emphasised how such close collaboration was typical of the project’s open and honest working arrangements.

Completed demolition work seen from above the temporary ticket office in October 2018.

Kevin advised that the sub-contractors were generally based within a 30-mile radius of Glasgow. He noted that using local suppliers enables the project team to visit companies, such as Glengarnock-based J&D Pierce which is supplying the structural steelwork, enabling him to monitor progress much more easily than if he was working with someone based at a remote location. There is also the associated environmental benefit of a reduced carbon footprint through shortened travel and delivery routes to site.

It was also stressed how the project had benefited from the single three-dimensional model produced as a result of working to BIM level 2. This had provided walk-throughs using virtual-reality headsets, which had proved to be very useful for visualisation and consultations. It has also avoided both design and construction clashes, especially when planning the later stages of the project when different sub-contractors will be working in close proximity.

The sub-surface station on the low level is not directly affected by the works. However, its fire and evacuation arrangements must be maintained and there are weight restrictions above its tunnels. Joe Mulvenna described the challenges of working in such a constrained site, with only one entrance for vehicle movements, while maintaining the operational integrity of a station with 45,000 daily passenger movements.

To ensure effective liaison with the station, Network Rail has funded a full-time ScotRail representative who is dedicated to the project. Joe also advised that there is excellent liaison with the Millennium hotel, with work being carried out in accordance with the Code of Construction Practice to minimise disruption to the hotel and other affected parties.

Tom described how community engagement is an important aspect of the project. He noted that the project’s Twitter account has nearly 3,000 followers, many of whom followed the demolition works with close interest. In July, the project commissioned local artist Gabriella Marcella to produce colourful artwork on the project’s hoardings that were inspired by the Glasgow coat of arms.

Rail Engineer’s tour of the station started on its cramped concourse, where a small area has been hoarded off at the end of Platform 5. This is being used for work at night for the removal of asbestos lagging from pipes that run along the buffer stop ends below the concourse. These pipes and other services must be moved to allow the extension of Platforms 2 to 5.

In the worksite outside, there was a large amount of empty space around the train shed following the completion of the demolition works. One aspect that was not evident to the public was the depth of the area south of the train shed. In the two months since the completion of the demolition work, piling and basement works had created a level four metres below street level that will eventually accommodate the station’s toilets, left luggage office and plant rooms.

Also visible were tracks at the western end of the low-level station where an old concrete deck had been removed over Christmas 2017.

Basement under construction where Consort House once stood.

The remaining work

Barry advised that visual progress of the work will soon become far more rapid as the steelwork around the train shed is built up. This started with the erection of the 74-metre-long west truss, which was installed in three parts by a 750-tonne crane on the night of 15 December. In January, a tandem lift by two 500-tonne cranes will erect the south truss. By April the remainder of the steelwork, 1,400 tonnes in total, will have been installed around these trusses.

Part of west truss being lifted into position. (Peter Devlin)

This will then enable cladding and roofing works to commence. By October, all the cladding will have been put in place, comprising of the following types of cladding: Eurobond and Kingspan wall (3,200 square metres), stone (1,300 square metres) and anodised gold (3,000 square metres). The roofing is 3,100 square metres. The curtain walling, which includes 500 square metres of glazing, will be completed by December.

By the summer, this station envelope work will enable the concourse to be extended to enable the platform extension work to take place. To avoid disrupting train services during the Edinburgh Festival in August, this will be done in two four-week stages in July (Platforms 2 and 3) and September (Platforms 4 and 5). This work involves new buffer stops and the frangible decking behind them, concourse substructures, drainage, service diversion and OLE work.

When complete, this work will extend Platforms 2, 3, 4 and 5 to accommodate eight-car trains – Platform 7 can already accommodate them. This will achieve the key milestone of having all extended platforms in use so that eight-car trains can be introduced with the December 2019 timetable change.

The last station work is the plant fit out and its associated mechanical and electrical work, which will be ongoing between April 2019 and March 2020. This programme is planned to meet the project completion date of Spring 2020.

BIM graphic showing west and south trusses.

EGIP phase 2?

The completion of Queen Street station will also mark the end of the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme, which has delivered 150 single track kilometres of new electric railway, redeveloped three stations and built one more, constructed one depot and remodelled another as well as extending platforms at four stations.

Before the EGIP programme, the main Edinburgh to Glasgow line carried four 6-car diesel trains an hour in each direction between the two cities, each having 396 seats and completing the journey in a minimum of 49 minutes. The current seven-car electric trains have 479 seats (21 per cent more) and do the journey in a minimum 47 minutes. Once Queen Street’s platforms are extended, the December 2019 timetable will see eight-car trains with 546 seats (38 per cent more than the diesel train) covering the distance in 42 minutes.

Concourse when complete.

In addition, Glasgow is to get an iconic city-centre gateway station to replace one hidden from view from its main square, which will no doubt provide a stimulus for further development. The station’s passengers will also benefit from improved facilities, including a concourse increased from 960 to 1,800 square metres.

Although it would seem that EGIP is almost complete, the planning and execution of this programme to deliver a 38 per cent increase in capacity has taken about ten years. Yet, in ten years’ time, passenger numbers between Edinburgh and Glasgow are projected to grow by a further 40 per cent, so maybe now is the time to start planning EGIP phase two to provide six trains an hour by 2030!

Timing of door closure – how critical is it?

London, England - March 5, 2016: Some passengers inside an underground train arriving at Picadilly Circus station in London, England.

Much has been written and said in recent times about efforts to improve the throughput of trains on metro and inner suburban railways. Using CBTC has enabled 36 trains per hour (tph) to be achieved in each direction on London Underground’s Victoria Line. A dramatic improvement to passenger comfort has resulted and much of the severe overcrowding has been eliminated. Similar predictions are made for other LU Lines and also the full Thameslink and Crossrail (Elizabeth line) services when they reach full fruition.

However, a crucial factor in all of this is the ‘dwell time’ at stations to allow travellers to alight and board the trains. If the time taken for this overruns by more than a few seconds, then very quickly the delay to following trains builds up and the intended throughput becomes unachievable.

A service gap of more than three or four minutes means that crowds increase on the platform, extending the dwell time at every station as they attempt to board the first train, compounding the problem.

Although, in theory, drivers are not supposed to initiate door closure until everyone is safely on board, in practice, they occasionally have to start the closure process whilst people are still squeezing in, otherwise the train would never get underway.

A further factor is now influencing the process, this being to take account of the needs of disabled people, with legislation potentially increasing the dwell time period. Whilst the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations (RVAR) of 2010 (its forbear being the Disability Discrimination Act) is intent on allowing additional time to board, the basis of this prescription may not have been scientifically derived, with perhaps a less than optimum situation developing.

London Underground was concerned that a negative impact could result and initiated a trial to establish exactly how passengers behave when boarding tube trains. Rail Engineer went along to learn the facts.

Door closure sequence

When a train arrives at a station, providing it is proved stationary and at the right location, door opening is initiated by the driver. After passengers have alighted and boarded, a door closure alert signal (known as a Chime) sounds for a period before the doors begin to close. Providing nothing is trapped in the doors (see later paragraph), the driver’s door close pilot light illuminates and the train start buttons can be pressed for ATO equipped lines or the driver engages traction power if driving manually.

The chime signal time is crucial. The LU standard is 1.75 seconds ± 0.25 seconds, whereas the RVAR (aligned to the Equality Act) requirement is three seconds. This difference, whilst small, can accumulate to several seconds for an end-to-end train journey and, if applied to every train, can significantly reduce the overall service throughput. More importantly, however, does changing to three seconds make any detectable difference to either non-disabled or disabled passenger behaviour?

One important element is the ‘hustle’ effect. When the door chime sounds, a regular occurrence is for passengers to hurry into a nearby door so as to avoid waiting for the next train.

Regular commuters are adept at knowing which door is nearest to the exit at their destination station, so they will not always board a train when it arrives but instead continue to walk along the platform to the preferred door. If the chime sounds before they get there, they jump in through the nearest open door.

Equally, travellers who are not regular underground users and who may be tourists from another country, on hearing the chime, will rush to the nearest door, often with large amounts of luggage.

Any instance of incomplete boarding will result in a door obstruction situation and potential train delay. As a door obstruction takes a minimum of five seconds to resolve, the delay impact can be significant if compounded along the route. On the Victoria line, any door obstruction incident is automatically flagged within the train software and sent by Wi-Fi to the server, available for review by engineers within 20 minutes.

Different marques of Underground train have differing solutions to this situation. The most modern trains (Victoria line 2009 stock and the S stock units on the sub-surface lines) have obstruction detection whereby, should an obstruction occur, the door will reopen part way to allow the obstruction to be pulled clear.

They also have sensitive door edges where any deformation of the door edge will cause an emergency brake application should the train have started to move. This deformation can be caused by even very thin items which, when caught, would be pulled on as the train begins to move.

Older trains are designed to ensure doors are fully closed before traction power can be applied. However, this system is not foolproof and thin items such as bag straps or coat belts can be trapped between the doors and are not always detectable. Unfamiliar users often expect the doors to re-open if an obstruction is detected, much as they do on lifts, but this is not true for Underground trains or indeed any UK train with sliding doors.

All of this presents a complex set of circumstances that, when combined with the differing views on chime time, meant that a comprehensive trial was necessary to understand more completely the impact on passenger behaviour and minimising the ensuing risks.

Two groups of risks associated with the door closure sequence.

The trial

To be meaningful, plans for any trial must define what it sets out to do, the way it will be measured and how the results will be analysed. The intent of this exercise was to assess the impact of different door chime timings with respect to the following aspects of door usage and passenger behaviour: safety, accessibility and capacity (in that order).

The trial, which took place on the Victoria line, consisted of a number of investigations within the context of both a 1.8 sec and 3.0 sec chime duration, covering:

  • Door obstruction data, collected from the rolling stock;
  • Platform observations;
  • Reported safety incidents;
  • Passenger survey;
  • Service data (dwell times, lateness).

The door obstruction data ended up being the most meaningful in terms of assessing safety: it was used as a proxy for the number of passengers being struck by the doors, an indication of items that could be trapped (risk of dragging), and an indication of the number of passengers running (risk of slips and trips). If LU’s concerns about the hustle effect were correct, an increase of door obstructions would be observed.

To be effective, the trial needed to ascertain the before and after situation, so data and observations were obtained prior to August 2017 after which the chime duration was changed to three seconds for a period of six months. The whole Victoria line fleet of 37 trains, each of eight cars, was altered so as to get consistency and to accurately observe passenger behaviour. The results have proved interesting.

A schematic of how the balance of the two types of risks can result in the lowest overall risk.

Results

The door open and close sequence was found to be well disciplined at peak hours, with regular travellers standing clear of the doors before getting on in order to allow passengers getting off to disembark more quickly. During off peak periods, however, unfamiliar travellers tended to block the door egress, thus slowing the whole process. A longer chime duration did allow more time to get out of the way of the doors, but equally gave more time to try and board.

The sounding of the chime has always been known to prompt late boarders to run for the nearest door. With 1.8 seconds, the time was insufficient for this to be successful unless very close to a door. Extending the time to three seconds saw an increase of the hustle effect with the result that noticeably more door obstructions occurred. This worsened the safety risks as more doors were striking or trapping passengers, the numbers of trips/falls increased and more pushing/obstruction of other travellers took place.

Clearly there is a linkage between door obstructions and passenger demand, with the number of obstructions using a 1.8 sec chime remaining fairly constant throughout the year, rising slightly between October and the year end. Introducing the three second chime saw a marked increase in obstructions during the lead up to Christmas, during the January sales and at public holiday weekends.

The overall finding was that off peak, more people ran for a door once the chime sounds as the platforms are less crowded, whereas in the peak more people tried to squeeze in.

Not surprisingly, the highest number of door obstructions occurred at the busier stations. The northbound platform at Victoria was by far the worst, with an average of 245 obstructions happening each day during the three-second chime period, an increase of 60 (32 per cent) over the 1.8 sec time. Oxford Circus and Kings Cross also recorded high numbers of around 150, in all cases the longer chime time being marginally worse.

At less-busy stations, the effect was more prominent – at Highbury and Islington southbound in the morning peak, the obstructions rose 80 per cent with the extended chime time and an overall increase was noticed throughout the day.

The door obstructions were also markedly different down the length of the train. At Oxford Circus (northbound), the problem mostly occurred at the doors in the second and third front cars, close to the exit for the concourse and interchange for the Bakerloo line, and at the rear end where people change for the Central line. The number of door obstructions were significantly increased with the three-second timing.

The total number od door npt closed’ events recorded between 01/09 and 22/12 at Highbury & Islington Platform 5 for both 2017 (trial) and 2016 (baseline).

Analysing the trial

Clearly the increase in chime time had a detrimental effect on obstruction occurrences and, due to the safety impact, the Victoria line fleet has since reverted to a 1.8 second timing.

That said, it has been necessary to submit the findings to vested interest groups. Presentations have been given to the London Underground hierarchy (DRACCT – Director’s Risk Assurance Change Control Team), to Transport for London (TfL), the Department for Transport (DfT, in effect – the government) and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR – the rail regulator). The DfT has forwarded the results to the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) and other stakeholder groups.

A passenger questionnaire has been conducted in an attempt to establish what passengers believe are the safety risks associated with their journey. Approximately 150 responses were received, which is considered sufficient to gain some understanding but is a very small sample compared to the approximate 75 million passenger journeys made on the Victoria line during the period of the trial.

Of these respondents, 60 per cent considered themselves to have a disability. Oddly, the time to board and door closure time feature less than the fear of interaction with other passengers who might, in their urgency to board, push people both on the train and on the platform. There was little difference in the responses from both disabled and non-disabled passengers.

Overall, the trial findings have been well received, since there is now hard proof that the three-second chime offers little improvement to accessibility and has a negative impact on safety. The recommendation from LU is that the standard should remain at 1.75 ± 0.25 secs, and this is being considered by the aforementioned bodies.

London Underground stresses the point that it is totally committed to improve accessibility across the entire network, with step-free access being provided at an increasing number of stations and large projects underway to improve accessibility.

Victoria line at Victoria station. (Muhammad Junaid)

Factors for the future

It may be asked how this trial impacts on other metro/light-rail operators and, indeed, mainline suburban services. Main line operation is different in that it provides timetabled departures rather than a high-frequency, turn up and go service, and as such passengers have more time to plan their journey and associated timings at a station. That said, the likes of Thameslink and Crossrail (Elizabeth line) may be more akin to LU operation in the central London sections.

The eventual adoption of fully automatic trains (Unattended Train Operation – UTO) may well become reality. They exist already on the Paris Metro (Lines 1 and 14) where door operation is programmed automatically, dependent on the particular station and the time of day. When the programmed time has elapsed, the doors will begin to close regardless of whether boarding is still taking place or not. Centralised CCTV monitoring of conditions takes place both on platform and train so that remote intervention can happen should anything untoward occur. Travellers have got used to this and it is now part of normal life.

The current modernisation of the Glasgow Subway will adopt UTO when completed in the early 2020s.

In all, this trial demonstrated the many complex interactions that take place at the platform-train interface. As the population of London increases, so the pressure to provide more and more public transport services will mount and the need to be up-to-speed with technology and optimum routines will become ever more vital.

Thanks to Zoë Dobell, LU’s project engineer for the trial, for this fascinating insight.

GSM-R: a migration strategy to its successor?

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The thorny question of what should replace GSM-R as the future radio bearer for track to train communication has recently been the subject of conferences, discussions and, yes, even articles in Rail Engineer. Considerations of 4G, 5G and Wi-Fi options are being assessed, all having their pros and cons, and a few commercial interests have emerged as well.

Whatever and whenever the decision is made for the replacement technology, a major consideration will be how to migrate from GSM-R to its successor. Very little thought seems to have been given to this but Kapsch, as one of the leading suppliers of GSM-R infrastructure, presented a paper in London recently setting out the challenges involved and how they might be overcome. The logistics are somewhat frightening, but they nonetheless will have to be tackled sooner or later.

The present UK position

The GSM-R network in England, Wales and Scotland has been fully operational since 2015 and now comprises two MSCs (Master Switching Stations), 3,000+ masts and base stations, 9,500+ cab radios, 4,500 connected trains and 900 signaller terminals, all covering some 15,000km of railway. It’s quite an impressive portfolio, but having to change it all over to something else will need a very carefully thought out migration plan.

The GSM-R industry group has confirmed that it will support GSM-R until 2030, which sounds a long time off but, in reality, is only just over 10 years. In project terms, that deadline will come all too soon.

The Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) study, being led by the UIC (Union Internationale des Chemins de fer – international union of railways), is making progress with developing a functional specification that the new radio network will need to provide, which is good news, but it offers little advice as to how this might be delivered.

It now seems likely that 5G will be the chosen way forward under the 3GPP R15/R16 (third generation partnership project) terrestrial coverage specification, but this has still to be confirmed. Some requirements are, however, sacrosanct – there must be bearer independence for railway applications, the system must have high robustness and high availability. Those requirements are easily said, but they are not so easy to quantify within a specification.

Functionality

The emerging vision for the new radio system is looking at three areas:

Critical communications – the bearer for ETCS and ATO operation, secure voice communication between driver and signaller, provision for emergency and group calls, real-time video imagery for any occurring incidents;

Performance communications – on-train telemetry, maintenance of non-critical infrastructure, non-critical real-time video, wireless communication for on-train-staff, on-train voice announcements;

Business communications – applications including information to the public and passenger communication connections.

These are listed in order of priority and it may not be possible to deliver all of them at the same time in any migration plan.

However, the FRMCS thrust is to have a single network under the railway infrastructure manager’s control for all safety critical application, but also to allow greater flexibility between dedicated rail and public network operators for performance and business applications. Indeed, it is seen as very likely that business applications will be entirely given over to public operators.

This mix of networks might entail having a ‘Mobile Communications Gateway’ as part of the on board system.

GSM-R base-station mast.

Radio spectrum

GSM-R enjoys a European-led dedicated allocation in the 900MHz band, comprising both a 4MHz uplink and downlink bandwidth, which is now recognised internationally. Recent channel allocations adjacent to these have created some interference problems but improved filtering has largely overcome the problem.

Knowing the future challenges that a migration will cause and the wider use of radio for other purposes, the EU has made a declaration to allocate an additional 2 x 1.6MHz of spectrum adjacent to the present GSM-R uplinks and downlinks. This will be critical to any migration plan as it should permit in-band co-existence of present and future services.

The present GSM-R infrastructure is built around 900MHz operation, with radio masts and towers sited for the coverage patterns of that band. The possibility of having both multiband and wideband aerials on the same sites could cause problems with mast loading, so engineering calculations will be needed. Appropriate separation of aerials on the tower or mast will be sensitive to avoid unwanted interference.

Train aerials, which can be a challenge to fit on the different classes of rolling stock, should ideally be capable of being used for both old and new systems if the spectrum allocation is the same, but there are technical challenges to this which may mean more than one aerial. No change to the permitted radiated power limits is expected.

A special case for deploying 5G technology in the 900MHz band will be needed, as this is not currently permitted for public 5G usage. It may be necessary to provide some additional radio sites to minimise interference from neighbouring users and to create additional traffic-handling capability by having smaller cells.

There is also the potential for having FRMCS services moved to either the 1900-1920MHz or the 2.3GHz bands. These might end up as complementary bands to provide additional spectrum to the 900MHz allocation. There may be complications in using these bands as different countries (including the UK) have parts of them allocated for other users and purposes.

There is lots of competition for spectrum allocation and it may require the railways to co-exist with other users. However, this would almost certainly mean that new infrastructure would have to be to be planned and it would create fitment problems on rolling stock, so, for now, it is not a preferred option.

Adjusting a GSM-R aerial. (DB/Hartmut Reiche)

Planning for migration

It is clear that any migration of this magnitude cannot be achieved overnight. The development of a 5G railway network is unlikely to produce new systems before 2023 at the earliest. Assuming all goes well, there will then need to be several years of co-existence of both old and new networks.

These sorts of challenges have happened before when planning changeovers involving both track-based and train-borne equipment. It is usual to either duplicate the infrastructure or duplicate the train kit, which is fine for a self-contained line such as a metro but much more difficult for a main line railway with many interconnecting lines and different types of rolling stock.

In view of these problems, Kapsch seems to be recommending a mix and match of duplication. Any plan must firstly concentrate on the critical communication need, primarily the bearer requirements for ETCS and voice communication to and from the driver. The former, although at first sight appearing to be the most important, will only have that status if ETCS with no lineside signals is the only control system for the line. If the ETCS is an overlay, then a more relaxed way forward might be adopted whereby, for a short period of time, trains are driven traditionally to whatever aspects are showing on the lineside signals.

By 2023, it is difficult to assess just how many rail routes in the UK will be operating with full ETCS Level 2 and no signals. Certainly, the Cambrian line, as that is already equipped in that fashion, and probably the southern part of the East Coast main line. Beyond that, it is anyone’s guess and much will depend on the roll out programme of the Digital Railway team.

It must be said that predictions for ETCS adoption over the past five years have been wildly optimistic, so any dates into the future should be treated with a degree of caution.

The Kapsch recommendation is that radio infrastructure would need to be duplicated in as short a time as possible, but concentrating on the ETCS-equipped routes as a priority. This will mean the provision of new core network elements, new base stations and, possibly, new aerials, with the necessary redundancy to meet the high availability requirements of the railways.

The next generation of network design will be much ‘flatter’ than at present, meaning that MSCs and base station controllers may disappear. Whatever the outcome, the new network must operate alongside the existing GSM-R network. Assuming the 900MHz band is continued, then the existing masts and towers would be suitable, subject to loading limits for new antennae.

Where coverage is provided in tunnels by radiating cable, then a means of mixing the old and new radio signals will need to be devised, but this should not be a major problem.

The new radio infrastructure will require a separate land-based network that, logically, will be based on IP communication, including all the backhaul links to and between the base stations. Clearly this network will need full resilience, synchronisation for both frequency and phase (PTP – Phase and Time Protocol), path asymmetry, accuracy of time stamp and packet delay variation, plus, of course, minimising the threat of cyber attacks. With regard the latter, the security offered by 5G should be markedly improved over GSM-R.

Even when decisions have been made on duplication, a carefully planned migration strategy will be required to manage the actual changeovers. Kapsch has come up with what is termed a ‘whitespace’ plan, whereby a wideband carrier is superimposed on to the GSM-R channel to enable the continuance of GSM-R services plus up to 5.6MHz of 5G operation. This would allow the gradual introduction of FRMCS services on to the existing GSM-R spectrum but assumes at least an additional 1MHz of bandwidth is allocated.

Included in this plan will be the smooth decommissioning of GSM-R frequencies, which can then be immediately used for FRMCS services, giving much more flexibility to the migration programme.

Rolling stock considerations

The retro fitting of rolling stock is both complex and expensive, regardless of what equipment is involved. The cab radios do not take up much space, so having to have two radios in the cab may not be as onerous as some retrofits.

As well as the cab radio, there will need to be provision of the train aerial(s), additional power supply requirements and a second train data radio associated with the ETCS kit. None of this will be straightforward and significant expense will be incurred.

The Kapsch view is that, once the decision on the new radio standard is finalised, then fitting the equipment to the trains should become a franchise requirement. It would also be advisable for any new rolling stock procured following the radio decision to be made ready for (or even provided with) two train radio configurations, including multiple aerials along the train.

Changeover en-route

With a mix of both infrastructure and train-borne kit, there will then be the challenge of which radio is used on the train depending on where it is on the journey. For the voice radio in the driver’s cab, this should not be too much of a problem as both radios will be powered all the time and it will be obvious which one is active to transmit or receive messages.

For the train radio provided for the ETCS equipment, however, the problem will require more thought since the ETCS movement authority (MA) will require a near-constant transmission of confirmation data from the control centre. In the event of non-receipt of the data within a few seconds, the MA will be lost and the train will automatically brake to a standstill until the MA is restored. Thus, the continuance of the radio signal must be guaranteed during any changeover from GSM-R to the FRCMS and vice versa.

The use of eurobalises to achieve this may be one solution, although it is a clumsy one as the changeover point will be altered from time to time as the radio infrastructure is updated. The reprogramming of balises to reflect the new condition will be an unwanted burden and therefore it is more likely that some on-air signal will need to be devised.

GSM-R racks.

Capacity and priorities

The question is posed as to whether the existing 900MHz allocation, without any additional bandwidth being provided, could support both the GSM-R and FRCMS systems. This seems unlikely, hence the negotiations with the CEPT to obtain the additional 1.6MHz of spectrum.

Although the ETCS operation requires near constant reception, the bandwidth required for individual trains is low – about 4kbps. Even with many trains operating within one radio cell, the now proven and adopted use of packet switched data has considerably eased the problem for both old and new to be contained.

However, should any voice communication take place at the same time, and possibly from multiple trains, it is quite likely that insufficient spectrum will be available. In very busy areas, such as city centres where radio signals will spill over from one line to another, this is already recognised as a problem with GSM-R. One solution would be to re-engineer the cell structure so as to create smaller cells but, even with this, it is a complex engineering and coverage challenge and the chance of spill-over remains.

To provide all the services envisaged in the FRCMS specification would be unrealisable, so priority will have to be given to the critical communications services, with other usage being restricted. The business and passenger communication requirements might have to wait for another chunk of spectrum in another band to become available and/or agreement with other network operators to provide these.

As such, the case for additional spectrum is reinforced. Much will depend on how usage works out in practice and some traffic modelling will be necessary.

Some final thoughts

That someone is giving consideration to how GSM-R will be migrated to a new radio standard is commendable. It is not going to happen tomorrow and the first migration will probably not be until 2023. However, that falls within Network Rail’s CP6, which leaves no great time for the planning process.

There is a significant risk that this advice will be ignored. Many signal engineers have a real problem in understanding the importance of the radio link within the overall ERTMS provision. It is as if they think ‘it will always be there’, a dangerous assumption. Even radio planning authorities have been known to publish papers that state “the railways have GSM-R so all is sorted”.

The harsh reality is that, however much ETCS equipment is installed on both trains and control centres, if the radio link is unavailable and/or unreliable, then it is all a waste of time. Which should provide network planners with food for thought.

Thanks to the IRSE London & South East section for organising the presentation and to Pierre Tane from Kapsch for delivering the paper.

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