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All change at Paddington

Much has been written, in Rail Engineer and elsewhere, about the Great Western Electrification Programme. Articles have covered the design of the overhead equipment, the purchase and deployment of specialist plant to install it, preparatory work needed in Box, Patchway and Severn tunnels, and the complete reconstruction of Reading station.

More recently, readers have been kept informed about rigid conductor beam installations through the Severn tunnel, and the announcement that electrification will be ‘paused’ short of Bristol.

But very little has been written about work at the other end of the line, completion of the electrification at Paddington Station. Most of the station had been electrified for the Heathrow Express service in the early 1990s, but the more difficult platforms were not wired up. Introduction of electrified stock on the GW Franchise would make these platforms redundant.

Changing standards

While this had been proceeding as planned, complications occurred when it came to Platform 14. One of the last three platforms to be electrified, Network Rail appointed Carillion Rail to design, install and commission an upgrade which would allow the platform to accommodate 164-metre electric trains. Platform extensions, grading and level changes, track layout alterations, canopy modifications and 354 metres of new overhead wiring would all be required. TSP was brought in as primary designer.

The track for Network Rail’s Platform 14 at Paddington sits alongside that for Transport for London’s Platform 15. So a collaboration between Network Rail, TfL, Amey and Carillion worked out a scheme whereby the track renewals for Platform 14 would be supported by a work train parked on the TfL track at Platform 15. In return, a Network Rail train in Platform 14 would be used for work TfL was planning to Platform 15. Inter-company cooperation – it’s a wonderful thing! The major complication came as a result of a change to Group Standard GL/RT1210 – AC Energy Subsystem and Interfaces to Rolling Stock Subsystem – which was updated in December 2014. The job changed from being a simple electrification to a pilot for the new Group Standard.

Whereas it had been acceptable to just follow the standard in terms of electrical clearances, and to demonstrate that those stipulated clearances had been achieved, it was now necessary to show an appropriate level of knowledge and expertise for the evaluation of the design. All reasonably practicable measures and controls had to be in place to ensure that the risks associated with the OLE on Platform 14 were reduced as much as was reasonably practicable.

In addition, the project had to continue to run to schedule as the next available access to accommodate any postponement would not be until after the new Great Western IEP service was meant to be in operation. Delay was not an option.

Complete rethink

So what did this all mean for the project?

As lead design organisation (LDO), the Carillion and Network Rail project team had to rethink its plans. All the current approvals in principle had to be shelved and the designers had to go back to the drawing board. A systematic approach was needed.

One option was the raising or removal of bridges within the station, along with further track lowers and associated platform civils work to accommodate those changes. On paper, it seemed simple and straight forward, but Paddington is one of the oldest stations in the country.

Options were limited. To extend the platform’s operational length to 164 metres, it had to be extended at both ends. On the London end, the buffer stop had already been moved by 11 metres, and that was all the room available. The country end had also been extended as much as possible.

The existing soffit height of 4,470mm restricted clearance at two specific locations, with no room for alternatives.

Project delivery had to be staged across Christmas 2015 and Christmas 2016 due to the difference in cross fall limitations between Platforms 12 and 14.

The most significant challenge, however, was the need to lower the track still further. Platform 14’s historic footing of concrete below the sleepers and the Thames sewer beneath the tracks already meant that existing ballast depths were non-compliant.

To overcome these challenges, the project team considered various options, some of them quite innovative, before submitting plans to the Office for Rail and Road (ORR).

Where possible, the platform was lowered to achieve normal clearances. The extent of the live section was reduced, especially towards the London side, which was limited by the undercroft.

Some options were discarded due to time and budget constraints. These included raising the undercroft, demolishing the London Underground footbridge and installing platform screen doors.

Others were adopted – additional training for station staff emphasising the dangers of 25kV electrification, additional markings, more signage around the station and a further design change in the form of a contact wire grading under the undercroft.

It was time to work together. Teamwork between Network Rail, Carillion, Amey and TSP ensured that the first scheduled train from the rebuilt platform, the 07:18 departure for Hayes and Harlington on Monday 5 September, left on time. It was a true collaborative effort, with team members giving up weekends to make sure that everything was completed to schedule.

And, so far as the passengers were concerned, it was almost unnoticed. Which is as it should be.

Simon says – Simon Kirby reflects on 13 years in rail

Simon Kirby left his role as chief executive of HS2 at Christmas, moving on to become chief operating officer for Rolls-Royce worldwide. This ended a thirteen and a half year career at the head of Britain’s railways, first for Network Rail and latterly for HS2, so Rail Engineer visited him before his departure to get his thoughts on the progress that the industry has made in that time.

The first surprise was that Simon had worked on the railways before. He joined British Rail as an apprentice in 1981, at Horwich in Lancashire, in what he now calls the “dark end of British Rail”. The site closed after two years, and young Simon was made redundant. He went to work for a fire engineering company after that, and then went to Liverpool John Moores University to study Mechanical Engineering.

Early years

Looking back on it today, Simon is struck by the difference in the industry in just his career lifetime.

“British Rail Engineering, BREL as it was at the time, was hugely downsizing. It’s fascinating how the industry’s gone through that era, when rail was on the decline, a secondary mode of transport that would get phased out by the car, to privatisation when it is now growing at three to four per cent per annum and we’re talking about High Speed 2 and lots of other major investments.”

From university, Simon went to Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering (VSEL), and thence GEC Marconi and BAE Systems, before returning to his rail roots by joining Network Rail in 2003.

By that time, Network Rail had been in existence for about six months, following the collapse of Railtrack.

“I joined at the time where it was about building confidence, restructuring and configuring the organisation for the future,” Simon recalled. The industry had gone through a tough time, and there was a very real confidence issue across the board, which Network Rail had to address.

It was also a time when there were very few major enhancements to the network underway – it was mainly renewals. Simon was brought in to bring life to the enhancements programme.

A few projects were already under development – King’s Cross, Thameslink and FTN/GSM-R for example. But there was much more to do.

“Through CP3 into CP4, enhancements grew massively and projects such as Birmingham New Street, King’s Cross, Thameslink, Airdrie to Bathgate quickly came through,” Simon remembered. “Because of the increasing need for more capacity on the network, when you’re growing at three to four per cent per annum, you have to get more capacity, which is still the case today. I can’t think of a more successful industry over the last 15 or 20 years in terms of growth. Meeting that demand is clearly a challenge but, compared to where things were around privatisation, I think the industry’s in a really good place.”

Major enhancements

“I was brought in to look at how to deliver capital projects. Some renewals are almost heavy maintenance, but a lot of renewals projects are really no different to an enhancement project in terms of physical activity. So I was brought in to look at the organisation. In those days Network Rail became a very centralist organisation, so we had a central renewals organisation that we created in about 2005 or 2006, and in 2008 we took on the whole of the rail portfolio.

“When you look back, the organisation demonstrated some significant increase in capability – I think it doubled its size. Clearly, managing growth has been a major challenge for them over the last few years but, by the end of CP4, Network Rail delivered £5 billion of renewals and enhancements that year. It delivered some major resignalling schemes and, while projects like King’s Cross Station, Birmingham New Street and Reading were obviously delivered in CP5, much of the work was done in CP4.”

Feast or famine

One of the problems faced by Network Rail, and its contractors, was the lack of orders coming out of the system at the changeover between control periods. Between CP4 and CP5, very few contracts were placed in a period of twelve months, seriously affecting the liquidity of the supply chain. Simon was aware of that problem.

“It’s interesting, if you look at regulated periods in any regulated industry, they have that same sort of curve. If you look at the utility sector, it’s no different. Whatever that funding period is, as you get to the end of it, things become less stable. I think each control period’s had that shape profile to it, as things get tighter near the end, there’s less stability, things get put off and then funding arrives and is given to another development.

“I’ve always taken the view that running any big project, and it’s no different in my future career, 90 per cent of the value is in the supply chain, it’s not in the client or the first tier organisation. So you have to do everything you can to work with those organisations to give them that long-term stability. Through my last five years in Network Rail, I put a lot of personal time into those relationships. I had to understand it all so that we could deliver, because it’s the only way you get efficiency in the supply chain. If you have a feast or famine type relationship, you’ll never get an effective delivery organisation.

“So I think some of the efficiencies that were achieved through those periods were because of that continuity. I’m not saying it was perfect, but we did put a lot of focus on it, we worked very heavily with organisations that you would see as strategic and I think, going forwards, HS2 will do the same as it develops its supply chain. Once you’ve got those – they’re long-term relationships; they’re not short term.”

Centralisation

The start of Simon’s career at Network Rail corresponded to the period during which Iain Coucher was chief executive – now thought of as being a time of centralised control imposed on a disorganised structure inherited from Railtrack. Simon doesn’t completely agree with that view.

“When you’ve got things that are fragmented and not under control, you naturally bring them under control. Then, to create more efficiency, you diversify them. It’s not a cyclic process, it’s a constant process of reviewing. So the perception is that, during those Network Rail years, things were very centrally managed. I’m not sure that’s true.

“It was about trying to create an empowered management team with local delivery. Even though it was a national organisation, most of the people were actually in regional offices at the time, or zones, then regions and whatever term was used after that – spatial areas of the country. So the bulk of the people were in Manchester, in Leeds, in Birmingham, in Glasgow, focused on local projects. Whilst the management may have been centralised, which I think did bring quite big efficiencies in terms of contracting, delivery was always local through that period.

“It was getting more consistent in terms of how things were delivered, standard designs, standard types of bridge design, standard parapets, standard signalling approaches, standard families of signalling systems linked to suppliers. But the actual physical delivery, working with customers, was very much a localised process. So, although the perception is that it was all centralised, in reality, certain things were centralised that were the right things to centralise, but delivery was very much a local aspect.”

When Iain Coucher left, to be replaced by Sir David Higgins, some of that perceived central control also seemed to be relaxed.

“That was very much around the time of the McNulty report, which was all about diversifying into local businesses alongside customers. We were looking
to separate the projects business as a standalone competitive business within Network Rail, to effectively demonstrate its efficiency through competition and create a national organisation with the local diversified regions as customers. There’s no right or wrong to many of these solutions. They’re all attempts to be more efficient and more effective.”

Highs and lows

During the ten years that Simon spent at Network Rail, there were some great moments, and some not so great. “I think if you look back at the whole period, the lowlight was certainly 2007, Christmas, the Rugby overruns,” he reflected. “We learnt a huge amount from that as an organisation. It was certainly the lowlight for me personally. Because reputation’s everything and it takes a long time to build a reputation.

“For the highlight, I think the delivery of what was achieved in CP4 by the whole team, the landmarks like Blackfriars Station, King’s Cross, Reading, and the real changes in customer experience. I was recently up in Edinburgh and went down the Airdrie-Bathgate line. When you see railways rejuvenating communities, it’s just great to see. It’s what infrastructure is there to do and what railways are there to do. So I think the highlight for me is just that, it’s seeing old things turned into fantastic new assets that will outlive us for a long time going forwards.”

A transformational programme

So with everything going well at Network Rail, and still much to do, why did Simon decide to move to HS2?

“We were at the end of CP4. CP5 would be more of the same, more opportunity to do big type projects. But, at the time, HS2 was the biggest transformational programme in Europe. It was the chance to transform the infrastructure of this country. It was the chance to do a hybrid bill and the front-end development of a project on a bigger scale, and the chance to grow a team, almost start a company from scratch.

“Over the last two and three-quarter years, we’ve taken an organisation of 300 people, 70 per cent of them agency staff, in an office that we were under notice to leave, to
an organisation of over 1,400 people, 70 per cent of them our own HS2 staff. We have people from all over the world, people from all sorts of backgrounds, many from all sorts of different types of rail, and also people from other industries as well.

“When you create a new team, you’ve got an opportunity to do things that are unique in a career. I’m very keen on equality and diversity in the workplace, so I had the chance to develop a more diverse organisation. Now, we’ve got 41 per cent women in the 1,400 workforce, which creates a very different environment to one I’ve worked with in the past.”

It was understandable, then, that the opportunities presented by HS2 made the decision to move fairly simple. But it wasn’t one without regrets.

“I’d like to have seen Thameslink to the end. London Bridge took some justifiable criticism a year or two ago, but I think the Thameslink upgrade will be transformational and London Bridge is going to be fantastic. When it’s all finished, it will be fantastic, an iconic piece of London infrastructure, just like King’s Cross or St Pancras, and I’d like to have seen that through. But there’s never a perfect time to move.”

Along with the engineering challenge at HS2, and the challenge of building his new team, Simon had to face criticism of everything from his salary to the choice of the route and the cost of the project from some elements of the press and the public, particularly those close to the proposed new railway.

“We have tried very hard to engage with communities on the route. I think the hybrid bill process makes that challenging because we are dealing with people through a litigation process. They are petitioning, which is absolutely the correct way of doing it, but at the same time we’re trying to create a long-term relationship with those communities. For about the last 12 months now we’ve put a lot of focus round communicating differently and better with the people. I think it’s our absolute focus to be as professional with those communities as we possibly can be. The way I’d liken it to the team is, we should be dealing with those communities in the same way that we would expect to be dealt with ourselves.

“Ultimately they live in places, they bought properties, and they didn’t ask for a railway to be built near their houses. I get that, it’s difficult for them. But you’ve got to look at it from a bigger perspective, from a national perspective. The country needs better infrastructure.

“One of the privileges I’ve had in the last three years, I’ve been around the world to look at most of the new high-speed rail networks and also some of the existing ones. This country is starting to lag behind. We have done a great job in getting more and more out of an existing rail network, but the reality is most of it is a Victorian rail network. It may have been operated on over the years, but that’s what it is.

“When you look across Europe, at the Far East, unless we have that quality of infrastructure, we’re not going to keep up with those economies. So I think you’ve got to balance the two. They’re very much about the absolute needs of local people versus the national need of having better infrastructure in the future.

“That doesn’t mean to say we shouldn’t deal with people as people and deal with them very professionally. There are times when we will never get complete agreement with people, but it’s all about being professional, listening, trying to understand people’s issues and, at times when we can’t agree or there’s a reason why we can’t do what someone wants, communicating with them and telling them why we can’t do it.”

Planning procedures

Another area of criticism, not aimed at HS2 specifically but at the country as a whole, is the long-winded nature of the planning process. Other countries seem to handle the whole thing much more quickly.

Simon, based on his study of high-speed railways around the world, felt that the British system actually had its advantages.

“If you look at one extreme, into the Far East, into China, clearly the process is very basic. However, in the European model, there’s far more of a consultative engaging process.

“Looking at the French system, it does put more activity after the planning consents. So you can easily say yes, there’s less timescale, but actually if you look at the duration from Tours-Bordeaux getting its planning decree through to opening, it’s not a lot different to High Speed 2 Phase 1.

“We have had the fastest hybrid bill, or we will hopefully when it gets through the parliamentary process in a few weeks’ time, half the time of Crossrail. We’ve had three times the petitions of Crossrail and we actually see the process working, it is democracy in action. We’ve made over 400 changes to our design as a result of those petitions and those committee meetings. So, whilst it’s very easy to say it takes a long time, the bill was only submitted in October 2013 – in three and a bit years it will have been through the whole process, through both Houses and quite a lot of changes as a result of that.

“I think one of the issues we have with the UK model is that it does put a lot of the engineering in before the hybrid bill is submitted, which means less latitude after the commitment through the House. I could argue it creates less opportunity to create client change, which is a bad thing in terms of changing the plan and changing the programme. But the hybrid bill process will deliver a parliamentary design that will stand the test of time, and you could argue that’s far more effective than one that’s agreed to at a higher level and everything then changes after that.”

Cost control

And what of the ‘spiralling cost’ of HS2?

“It’s interesting. All of the changes we’ve made are within the budget contingency we set for Parliament change. So we are within that budget envelope, and I mean within it, I don’t mean at it. We’ve done all those changes in the design within the constraints we set going back to the time I started, before the Commons committee started. The cost of Phase 1 (£21.4 billion) is the same now as the day we came in.”

In fact, the numbers have changed, but only due to accounting practices. Initial goals were set in 2011 pounds, current costs and estimates are in 2015 pounds, so there has been some numerical increase. And the costs of phase 2A (to Crewe) and phase 2B (to Leeds and Manchester) and the rolling stock (two fleets of trains, one dedicated to HS2 and one capable of running on the classic network) have all been added in, making the current total £55.7 billion. But that’s for the whole HS2 network.

“Let’s just reflect on that,” Simon interjected. “Phase 1 – we are on programme. We are looking like first week in February, last week in January for the royal assent, so providing we get that we will maintain the programme and the programme’s got a very high degree of probability.

“We’ve ordered £900 million worth of the early works, they’re mobilising now. We’ve now got a significant period of procurement assessment on the main work civils and they’re looking to be awarded May/June next year to start actual construction about a year from there, so the middle of 2018. I’m really pleased at the people who have shown an interest and bid for those contracts – we set a strategy to make sure we bring in expertise that have built high-speed railways before, alongside and in partnership with UK-based business, creating UK-based jobs.

“So Phase 1 is in good shape. There is still lots to be done, clearly, but what is probably less well known is that next year we do all the market engagement and will release the strategies and PVQs for stations, systems and rolling stock. So whilst we’re thinking about civil engineering in the business, we’re spending probably more time talking around stations and systems now.”

Euston design

With the hybrid bill for Phase 1 so close, the design is now fairly well advanced. One much-publicised debate has concerned plans for the London terminus at Euston, and what that will mean for residents in Camden. Various plans have been proposed, all with advantages and drawbacks. Is that design now finalised?

“The answer to that is, it’s fixed for the hybrid Bill. The hybrid bill effectively creates a spatial envelope, limits of deviation, environmental impact elements which link to things like spoil removal, all of that is fixed, or very clear within the bill where we’ve got to do more work – for example spoil removal is one where we’ve got to do more work, to try and get more out by rail. But all of those confines are fixed.

“The actual detailed design of what Euston looks like will be the detailed delivery strategy which will include, in the case of Euston, a development partner for the over-site. So we’ll have a team looking at the whole master plan, including Network Rail’s footprint, because clearly, whilst there is only funding for one element, a developer needs to take a long-term view of what the whole station will look like.

“Euston has to be seen as one station and it has to have an outstanding experience for High Speed Two but it needs to complement and fit into whatever Euston looks like overall. So the design has always taken a holistic view, even if it’s delivered in phases. Indeed, it may be a decade or even two decades before the Network Rail element is redeveloped. The point is it will look like one and feel like one facility, with integration of services and station staff over time.

“Customers frankly don’t care whether a particular train is an HS2 train or a Network Rail train. They just want to get the train to their destination, at the best price.

“The current assumption is that HS2 will not be a premium price operation but that we’ll have the same broad cost that we have today. Now, I think there’s some big opportunities here. If you look at how you can control and manage demand, you can create a better customer experience.

“When you get out of bed in the morning and decide you want to go to Glasgow, your connection to Euston, your connection to Birmingham, your car park in Crewe, that should all be done through one seamless experience, not five different advanced tickets. Everyone should have a seat. If you want to change trains you can change trains and you’re just allocated another seat through the system. I’ve seen it work in Japan. It works superbly well. There’s no reason why it can’t work here.”

Another challenge

So, with all that to come, Simon was approached last July to join Rolls-Royce.

“It was a really tough decision, actually. It’s a big personal opportunity. Part of me will always want to have stayed to finish HS2 but you only get one go at life and these things come around when they come around.

“As I leave it, my hope for the railway industry is that it grabs the opportunity HS2 presents. Industry thinking can be quite short term, and HS2 is a huge long-term opportunity, so we need to grab it. I don’t just mean by operating it, I mean by building it. I mean everything from how it configures the supply chain to skills – 2000+ apprentices through colleges – all the way through to a great customer experience. If we don’t, then we’ll always be more expensive than international competition and will always be rightfully criticised for not grasping opportunities.

“It is a huge opportunity, it really is. I look forward to riding on it one day.”

Written by Nigel Wordsworth

The great divide

The roll call of railwaymen killed in the line of duty runs to depressing lengths. You don’t have to venture too deeply into the past – only a few decades – to find annual trackworker fatality rates measured by the dozen; go back to the 19th century and the yearly toll reaches well into three figures. William Page (Chatham), Thomas Robertson (Haymarket), Solomon Bridge (King’s Cross), Allen Sykes (Morley), George Beckett (Red Hill), Henry Brown and Thomas Jackson (Birkenhead) all lost their lives to trains in the first nine months of 1900. Yet these seven deaths actually represent a very narrow subset of the overall figure. We highlight them because of their common thread: the sites of work at the stated locations were all in tunnels.

Being healthy and safe at work is an absolute expectation for every one of us, no matter how adventurous we choose to be in our leisure time. It’s unfortunate that ‘health and safety’ has had its reputation tarnished by occasional overzealousness over recent years, but that should not detract from the bigger picture – in its purest 1974 form, hundreds of railway workers can thank it for keeping them alive.

Long consigned to history are the days of scuttling off to the nearest refuge when a change in air pressure tugged on the lookout’s ears, suggesting that a train had just passed through the portal. Nowadays, tunnel work is generally safeguarded: all lines blocked. Whilst the rules don’t preclude a halfway house – one line blocked but the other still open – many would assert that the applicable protection methods are not sufficiently robust. Certainly, the activities that can be productively pursued in such circumstances are quite limited.

Of course, none of this helps engineers to clear the contents of their job bank, a reality exacerbated by increasingly constrained track access availability, particularly on midweek nights, and time-consuming possession arrangements. Accordingly, resources are becoming stretched – driving up costs – as more and more activities end up shoehorned into comparatively generous blockages at the weekend, leaving too many workgroups twiddling their thumbs during the week.

It makes no sense and something will have to give if the railway is to deliver on its efficiency obligations.

Typical tunnel lining repairs, carried out with both lines blocked.

Half and half

Sincere words are often spoken about the industry’s willingness to embrace innovation and accrue the emerging benefits. New technology, better working practices and mechanical advancement are already freeing-up funds and enabling more work to be accomplished in less time. But there remains, in tunnels, an understandable reticence to do things differently. As our introduction shows, history is clear about the potential consequences of mixing men and trains. But what if that half-way house – working on one line whilst the other remains open – could be adopted with zero risk of harm to the workforce?

Long-time collaborators AMCO Rail and Foulstone Forge have been putting their collective minds to this. It’s the sort of thing they’ve been doing for years – developing bespoke solutions to tackle unusual challenges. And they’ve been hugely successful at it. This one though is unique: the concept, development and build phases have been relatively straightforward; it’s the high cultural barrier that’s most difficult to overcome.

In summary, what they’ve produced is a robust screen system which isolates the workforce from the tunnel environment, except for that part of the lining to be worked on. It provides access from the toe of the sidewall up to the high haunch and, being constructed as modular units, can be extended to cover any reasonable distance.

The intention is to facilitate the introduction of adjacent single line working without compromising the safety of the workgroup, thus allowing a limited service to be maintained throughout a major project – which might otherwise necessitate a full blockade – or create a less disruptive midweek-night regime for minor works on a route used overnight by freight traffic. Everybody wins.

Safety unfolds

Each unit comprises a steel base measuring 3.4 x 2.3 metres, designed so that a pair of units can be secured to a single T8 trailer using twist locks and hauled into position by an RRV. As such, they have to meet OTP requirements. So as not to affect the open line, on/off- tracking would be possible by means of a virtual siding and non-intrusive crossing system.

The screen protecting the work area – along one side of the base – is formed in three sections:

  • A primary fixed vertical panel, 2.4 metres in height;
  • A secondary overlapping vertical panel of 1.4 metres, supported at each end by two-metre telescopic columns which can raise it by 1.3 metres;
  • A folding panel, also of 1.4 metres, which travels horizontally to ensure the screen’s 1.72 metre loading gauge profile remains within that of a standard shipping container, but can be rotated to stand vertically (or any angle in-between) by means of hydraulic rams.

On the other side of the base is a two-part hinged skirt, stored in the vertical position but folded outwards into the cess when work is taking place. The skirt can be adapted to create a platform for activities at the haunch or covered with a geotextile to catch any rebound from spray concrete operations, allowing the material to be cleared away without the need to manhandle it.

Typically, deployment of one screen takes less than five minutes, with all parts controlled simply by four levers. There is a fail-safe system to ensure no part can pass beyond vertical towards the open line, whilst a winch is provided to hand-wind the various elements back into their travelling position in the event of a hydraulics failure.

As you would expect, LED lights illuminate both the working area and tunnel lining.

Fresh breath

The rush of air generated by a passing train has two components – a positive impulse of about 5kPa, followed shortly after by a 3kPa negative impulse. To reduce the effect of these pressure waves on the structure of the screen, all three panels are fitted with filters covering most of their cross-sectional area, allowing air to pass through with minimal resistance (68Pa/m2). On the working side, louvres direct the flow down towards the floor, ensuring little disturbance to the workforce.

When the screen is used as a standalone system, the filters serve the additional purpose of capturing any contaminants – cement dust, for example – that might otherwise be drawn back into the tunnel during the negative impulse. However, for activities such as spray concrete application, a ventilation unit and generator will accompany the screen – also carried on T8 trailers – capable of extracting 22,000-30,000m3 of air per hour at 4,000Pa by means of two 15kW fans.

Inside the unit are rows of polyester sacks – with a total surface area of 240m2 – to capture any particulates which then fall into a lower chamber when the sacks are shaken. From there, they are pumped into bags using an Archimedes screw. The air is discharged clean from the top of the unit and used to dilute the generator’s exhaust gases.

“In the working area, there’s a 600mm flexible hose and you place that where you need it,” explained Chris Scott of Foulstone Forge, who has designed and built both the screen and ventilation system. “This has the same effect as moving the extraction fan. The resulting air flow moves at about 0.35 metres per second which is enough to be effective without causing discomfort to those working in the area.”

Leap of faith

For longer-duration activities, there is potential to build additional units such as storage and welfare facilities or a workshop. This would elevate the screen concept to that of a factory train – bringing further efficiency benefits – although a broader range of approval requirements would have to be complied with in order to transport the screens as freight.

Dave Thomas, AMCO Rail’s contracts manager, believes the best approach is to “start small but think big. Minor works with one trailer and one screen: pointing, stitching, grouting, recasing, site investigations. Why not? Then, once people have got confidence in it – they see the savings, see the potential – we build more screens and use them for the majority of our tunnel works.”

The railway is, of course, justified in taking a cautious approach to change. But change there must be – the Rail Delivery Group made a statement to that effect in November. Operators’ success in attracting more people onto trains – and the implications of that in terms of introducing new services – places further strain on already limited possession opportunities, so engineers need to develop better means of fulfilling their obligations.

It’s easy to find reasons to maintain the status quo. However, AMCO Rail will be hoping to convince decision-makers that the case for change is more compelling when it hosts a demonstration of the tunnel screen on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway at Duffield, Derbyshire on Friday 27 January. Why not come along and see how the future of tunnel working might look?

Written by Graeme Bickerdike

A limited number of places are available for the demonstration on a first-come first-served basis. Applications should be sent to: [email protected]

In case you missed it – Testing on the West Highland line

Tourists flock to Scotland every year, drawn by the rugged scenery. Many travel by rail, on the West Highland lines to Oban, Fort William and Mallaig and the Far North lines to Kyle of Lochalsh and Wick/Thurso.

However, the spectacular countryside, the mountains and moorlands of the landscape, while they may attract visitors and sightseers, they also present a major challenge to those who have to design and construct the railway’s communications network.

The system in place is known as the Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB). It comprises the radio system, the signalling Solid State Interlocking (SSI) and equipment located on-board trains. It is a ‘Class B’ system under the Control Command and Signalling sub-system technical specification for interoperability (TSI).

The RETB Next Generation Project, described in issue 125 (March 2015), is more than a renewal of the current system, as it also mitigated the risk of radio interference when European frequencies for digital television changed in December 2015. This meant that the existing ‘Band III sub-band 2’ radio equipment had to be replaced with new radio equipment operating on ‘Band III sub-band 1’. The project’s remit also involved the development of replacement on-train, depot, engineering and trackside equipment.

Hilltop delivery

Fenix Signalling, in collaboration with Telent, has successfully delivered the Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) signalling testing works on the West Highland Line, the first part of the RETB Next Generation project.

RETB is an electronic development of the physical token system for controlling traffic on single lines, with the driver receiving movement authority via a cab display radio (CDR). Fenix Signalling is responsible for the signalling design and the signalling testing and commissioning works for the project under the management of Eddie Murphy, Fenix head of projects.

The project, commissioned by Network Rail and led by Telent as principal contractor, has seen remote hilltop base-stations upgraded to support the new frequency. Access has been problematic, and has even involved the use of helicopters to deliver equipment where there were no suitable roads or tracks. Using this method, Telent’s on-site operations team, led by senior operations manager Lee Clinton, has installed radio equipment at the highest site on Network Rail infrastructure – White Corries in the GlenCoe ski resort.

In addition, new on-train, depot and transportable maintenance equipment has been developed by Comms Design Limited and installed by Telent field engineers.

Phase One complete

Prior to commissioning all sites, two TPWS trial sites were selected at Crianlarich and Spean Bridge, with two-week trial periods being conducted at each site. The success of the trial sites has resulted in the Fenix and Telent teams completing the works at 19 sites on the West Highland Line, covering more than 150 miles of track. This included modifications to the TPWS power supplies and commissioning of the TPWS frequency converters to support the frequency change. All this was accomplished despite some extreme weather courtesy of Storm Douglas.

The commissioning of the West Highland Line TPWS marks the completion of the first phase of TPWS testing and commissioning as part of this major project. Phase two will see the TPWS on the Far North Line commissioned. This includes a total of 19 sites from Inverness out to the Kyle of Lochalsh in the West, and up to Thurso and Wick in the North, covering in excess of 200 miles of track.

This year will also see the next phase – the split of the Far North interlocking at Inverness SCC, with Fenix Signalling responsible for principal testing and the commissioning of the new SSI at Inverness.

In case you missed it – Level crossing problems solved

There’s nothing particularly special about the level crossing at Ashwell, just north of Oakham in the county of Rutland. Adjacent to Ashwell signal box, this MCB (Manually Controlled Barriers) crossing takes the Whissendine road across the twin-track railway that forms the diversionary route off the Midland main line at Syston through Melton Mowbray and Oakham to Corby. A picturesque line, it can add an hour to a journey to London when the MML is closed for work on a Sunday.

But back to the crossing itself. It has two full-length barriers with the usual flashing lights, and a mixed road surface of Polysafe concrete and rubber Strail panels that span the tracks.

The Polysafe system consists of a row of steel-framed concrete panels that fit into the four-foot, along with similar, yet narrower, panels which cover the cess. The panels are held in place in the direction of road travel by concrete cill beams which are set into the road surface.

In the case of a twin-track railway, as at Ashwell, two sets of cess panels are retained in the six-foot by two cill beams, with the space in between filled with asphalt. This allows the system to cope with variations in actual width of the six-foot – the basic construction is the same but the width of the asphalt strip varies.

Once the crossing is complete, the panels are retained by rubber wedges and end brackets which prevent lateral movement along the railway.

Collapsing cills

Having been in place for many years, the Ashwell crossing had developed two problems. The concrete cill beams were deteriorating and needed replacing, and, at some time in the past, the cess and six-foot panels of the crossing had been replaced by a row of Strail panels within the existing cill beams with a tarmac overlay.

Strail panels are alternatives to Polysafe, but are made from vulcanised rubber rather than steel-framed concrete. Both types of crossing construction are approved but, to comply, the entire crossing must be made from one system – hybrids are not allowed.

So Network Rail approached level crossing specialist Premier Rail to both renew the cill beams and replace the Strail panels with new Polysafe ones.

Premier Rail, based in Doncaster, is an approved and recommended installer of all types of crossing systems. It also has a large hire stock, claimed to be the broadest in the UK, which it uses to provide temporary crossings and road-rail access points (RRAPs) to projects and work sites around the country.

Having surveyed the site, the work seemed fairly routine. New Polysafe panels for the cess and six-foots were ordered – all of the ones in the four- foots could be reused.

Water water everywhere

Work commenced at the time for a weekend possession of the line. The installation team from Premier Rail removed the existing panels, broke out the damaged cill beams and started to excavate the mortar substrates so they could be replaced, giving a firm, fresh base for the new cills.

However, in the middle of the six- foot, the excavators struck water. Not just dampness, but a mini-lake that filled the space where the new cills would rest. There was no way that the semi-dry mortar bed could go down in the middle of all that water.

All of Premier Rail’s staff are employed by the company full-time. They are multi skilled – they have to be, as they need both Network Rail and Highways Agency approvals due to the ‘crossover’ nature of their job. They are also trained in fencing, vegetation control and the other skills needed around a level crossing installation.

So, faced with this problem, the team had the skill set to come up with a solution. There was no easy way to drain off the water, so the ballast was excavated deeper to give a firm base. A bed of concrete was poured with its top surface proud of the water level. Despite being underwater, the concrete would set – given time.

Meanwhile, a lorry was despatched back to Doncaster to go and raid the RRAP hire stock. It returned three hours later with a load of rubber Strail cess panels.

A temporary arrangement was put together for the six-foot whereby the fresh concrete was protected by a sheet of Visqueen waterproof membrane. This was then covered with a type 1 aggregate infill, compacted in layers, and then the rubber panels were placed over that with a temporary infill of Instarmac Ultracrete cold lay asphalt behind the temporary Strail panels.

The rest of the crossing was replaced and made good, and then left for four weeks.

Ashwell crossing – part two

When the team returned for a second weekend, and stripped the rubber panels and temporary asphalt out of the six-foot, the concrete was “rock solid”, to quote Premier Rail director David Claridge.

A fresh semi-dry mortar bed was laid and a total of twelve new cill beams were bedded into position. Once they were in place, the void between them was filled with concrete and topped up with 60- 70mm of new Instarmac Ultracrete coldlay tarmac. This was a temporary measure until the carriageway was planed and resurfaced along with white lining.

By now, all of the other work had been completed. The crossing was now a Polysafe crossing system throughout. New wooden anti-ingress panels had also been installed to stop pedestrians and animals from accessing the running lines from the crossing.

Although an extra shift had to be worked because of the water-in-the- cess problem, it had all been carried out within the allotted possession time so no trains or passengers were delayed by the extra work.

David Claridge explained: “At Ashwell, our difficulties were caused by the fact that the ground conditions had changed. Fortunately, because we have such a large hire stock of panels and accessories, we could come up with a temporary fix on the night, which got both the road and the railway back in service, and then we came back with a permanent solution a few weeks later.

“Other installations have other problems, such as a recent one at Moat Hills. There, we had to change all of the panels.”

Various track combinations

The job which David referred to was one which Premier Rail had worked on with Carillion, just north of Doncaster station. The existing crossing was lifted to allow for track remodelling but then, with the track combinations changing, the existing level crossing would no longer suit and the original panels wouldn’t fit any more.

The solution was for Carillion to renew one track, with the crossing reinstated using a temporary crossing made up from Premier Rail’s hire stock of various panels. On a second occasion the other track was reworked, with another temporary crossing going down.

Once everything was complete, a survey was made and an order placed for a new set of permanent panels which would replace the temporary arrangement.

“Our large stock of panels for temporary crossings and RRAPs gives us a great advantage,” David explained. “We stock panels from all three major manufacturers, so we can usually come up with a suitable solution should the need arise. And we are used to making temporary installations, so they are always perfectly safe and properly put together. Then we can take it all back up again and put in the permanent crossing when it is ready.”

So it seems that, even though level crossings are all modular these days, the railway still needs a specialist installer with the flexibility to get the job done.

In case you missed it – The power to keep projects on track

Within the UK rail industry, innovation is the lifeblood of every project; every rail infrastructure company, large or small, must employ innovation to create value for its clients and the travelling public. Successful companies are recommended on their proven ability to do just that.

A good example was a recent high voltage (HV) feeder project between Stone Crossing and Ebbsfleet. This formed part of the third phase of Network Rail’s power supply enhancement programme, preparing for the new high-powered rolling stock on the North Kent lines which will serve London and form part of a wider initiative to renew many of the aging electrical assets on this part of the network.

Access issues and possession cancellations plagued the project throughout, with installation works mainly restricted to midweek night possessions. This provided a tiny working window, which required careful planning of activities in conjunction with other third parties.

It could be said that this sounds familiar. However, this HV project had one main difference – an outside party that wanted to convert a Track Parallel Hut into a new substation in between the other two substations, creating a second HV feeder location in the worksite.

As a result, it quickly became apparent that, in order to complete this asset upgrade on time, specialist turnkey power contractor RJ Power Group was faced with re-engineering its complete scope of works, taking into consideration a second feeder being introduced into a single weekend commissioning scope – a feat that had never been previously achieved.

Meticulous pre-planning allowed RJ Power Group to take the lead throughout the commissioning weekend, flexing its significant in-house resource pool to successfully hand over both feeders using only one HV outage. These were fully commissioned during a single weekend possession, minimising risk and disruption to the railway.

Power engineering solutions

With time, space and opportunities limited, and various different contractors vying to complete work on the same piece of track on the same day at the same time, and even with detailed planning of the highest order, disruption can occur which cuts short works that have been several months, if not years, in the planning.

These circumstances provide regular challenges for the networks and their contractors to collaborate and come up with unique solutions to continue to keep Britain’s railway assets in tip-top shape.

Some projects present such challenging issues and a solution is required that is truly unique – one that has perhaps been considered previously for other schemes, but never before tested. In these situations, the circumstances dictate that the risks can’t be satisfactorily managed to outweigh the benefits, even if it means delaying the completion or increasing the project cost.

This collaborative working approach and understanding of the multi-faceted nature of major rail projects also helped RJ Power Group to deliver a significantly time-challenged major rail project at Three Bridges Depot for its partner VolkerFitzpatrick. These efforts were rewarded with the announcement that the project had won the Volker Wessels Group Platinum Award for Project of the Year.

Volker Fitzpatrick’s project manager Martin Dobby, commenting on the contribution of RJ Power Group, said: “Despite some of the tough challenges brought about by late design and other disciplines, your team had a pragmatic and team spirited approach to help me hit the key milestones and commission the ETE bang on time. The most notable achievement for me was that the ETE works were defect-free at handover. That doesn’t happen very often and is a reflection of our strong relationship. Thank you for your support throughout.”

Delivering rail and power networks excellence

With over two decades of providing engineering solutions in the power sector, RJ Power Group now boasts two divisions following a recent restructure: the existing dedicated rail contracting division (covering HV electrification works, DC traction power and maintenance), alongside a new complementary power networks contracting division (covering power distribution works from 415V to 33kV) within the private networks utilities industry.

This new offering covers all manner of installation works from control cabling and relay works, through to the provision of high voltage ring main systems and private networks. With dedicated in-house engineers, the company’s high quality service covers everything from initial supply to installation, maintenance and testing, and commissioning for everything from transformers to high and low voltage switchgear, cabling and earthing.

The resulting change of name from RJ Power Ltd to RJ Power Group Ltd reflects its complete offering and a new brand that captures the company’s growth and progression as it looks to the future with great confidence.

Sales director Matt Woolley, who has managed the restructuring, said: “It is an exciting time to be part of the newly formed group, both in rail and the wider private networks. Our dedicated in-house power engineering capability provides a strong market offering, as we look to push ahead with our considerable plans for growth.”

RJ Power Group’s highly skilled staff have been delivering innovative solutions for many years, and the company has continued to complete a large number of successful projects as a power contractor. As a dynamic organisation, RJ Power Group has showcased that it is able to quickly integrate its expertise into each client’s structure, working as collaboratively or as autonomously as required with excellent results.

Business-wide sustainability

A sustainable approach is fundamental to its success and allows the business to align with the client’s requirements. That means working hard to ensure each person is equipped with the very latest skills and knowledge. This has resulted in a company with tremendous in-house engineering capabilities, representing something genuinely different in the power and rail sectors.

In addition, RJ Power Group is developing a new graduate programme as it looks to the future to secure a resource to meet the industry’s needs – providing an exciting platform for those aspiring professionals to join a business that is undoubtedly going places.

Its values of quality, respect, reliability and safety are at the core of everything in the business, characterising its behaviour and helping to shape its culture, attitudes and principles. For the company, sustainability means ensuring the future viability of the group and its business operations, as well as looking after the planet.

The company is also fully committed to meeting the requirements of its management system and its business approach embodies the core philosophies of planning, assurance and control.

Managing director Glenn Rowatt added: “This is a wonderful time for RJ Power Group. We are in the process of communicating to all our clients that we have changed our brand and logo. We have evolved and we want the industry to know we have full project turnkey capabilities in two distinct divisions: rail and power networks.

“We hope to build upon our contract successes to date and with the strength of our in-house capabilities, aim to deliver truly integrated power solutions.

“Our goal is to be the partner of choice for power engineering, achieving this through collaborative, open and honest relationships with our clients, partners and staff; providing innovative ideas that focus upon delivering efficient and effective results and offering safe, healthy and environmentally responsible working conditions for all.

“Ultimately, this means providing experienced and reliable delivery that provides a legacy for future generations.”

This article was first published in April 2016

In case you missed it – New zone controller technology

Over the 10-day blockade at London Bridge (24 December to 4 January), three new lines through the high level section of the station and the new Borough Market viaduct were brought into use as part of Stage Seven of Network Rail’s Thameslink Programme.

Representing a major landmark for the programme overall, the commissioning also marked a significant milestone for Siemens, with the company’s new Zone Controller system installed for the first time in the UK. This new technology is now controlling signalling operations at London Bridge, with further deployments scheduled for later stages of the Thameslink programme.

The Zone Controllers were installed in relocatable equipment buildings (REBs), the majority of which were installed under viaducts due to space constraints. The controllers provide an input/output module (IOM) interface between Siemens’ Trackguard Westlock interlocking and the trackside infrastructure.

86 trains an hour!

Commenting on the development, Mark Ferrer, Siemens’ director of new technology, said: “Although, at first glance, it may seem a little unusual to introduce a completely new system on such a high profile, much-scrutinised project, the performance requirements of the London Bridge area were such that traditional technology would have been too slow in operation. Network Rail’s specification for the programme demanded that the performance of the interface had to support a peak flow of 86 trains per hour (tph) through London Bridge.”

Independent analysis was commissioned to establish a precise speed target, effectively setting a performance specification for Siemens’ development team to meet.

The Zone Controller developed by the team is an internet protocol (IP) network-based solution, rather than one that operates over a baseband datalink as TFMs (track function modules) would. As fast as a relay solution, the new controller also has a significantly smaller footprint than an equivalent TFM and provides greatly improved diagnostic capability, making any future maintenance requirements simpler, faster and more efficient.

Mark Ferrer continued: “Having been operational for a little over three months now, the technology is already performing well and faster than the target speeds. There’s no doubt that this is a good solution, not only for Thameslink, but also for future Network Rail projects. As a combined delivery team, we certainly set ourselves a challenge by committing to developing a completely new technology for the first time at London Bridge.

But having established its capability on one of Europe’s busiest stretches of railway, we’re confident that in time it will become part of Siemens’ standard solution.

“Developed and delivered entirely within the UK, the creation, testing, proving, installation and commissioning of Zone Controllers is a great example of partnership-working with Network Rail, with the technology meeting many of the requirements of the digital railway concept and the move to IP-based solutions.”

Closer intervals = more capacity

Thameslink, of course, will also see Siemens delivering a European Train Control System (ETCS) solution overlaid with automatic train operation (ATO), these being crucial requirements for the achievement of a reliable 24tph service. These ATO and ETCS solutions will be installed on the Thameslink route through the London Bridge area, enabling all train movements to be controlled automatically from Network Rail’s new Three Bridges Rail Operating Centre on programme completion in 2018.

ETCS will allow trains to use the Thameslink core lines more efficiently by managing the signalling directly to the train through the radio block centre (RBC). The conventional signalling system in the area will be retained, allowing non-ETCS traffic to use the lines.

The train-borne ATO unit will drive the train within the speed and distance limits set by the ETCS system, which will provide continuous automatic train protection (ATP). This allows the trains to be safely managed at closer intervals, allowing a greater throughput of traffic. If the speed or distance limits are exceeded, then ETCS will intervene and return the train to a safe state.

From the automatic train regulation (ATR) within the control system, the ATO unit will also receive a ‘target arrival time’ for the next station, enabling it to fine tune the train’s speed for optimum performance. Once ETCS is engaged, drivers on Siemens’ new Class 700 trains, will accept automatic control on arriving at the ATO boundary, normally with the train continuing on the move, with a transition back to manual control at the end of the ATO-controlled area.

Testing underway

In Autumn 2015, Network Rail completed the first ETCS trials through central London, with the Class 313 test train completing a series of tests between Elephant and Castle and Kentish Town on weekends in October and November.

Mark Ferrer said: “The equipment worked first time and demonstrated the technically demanding transition from traditional signalling to ETCS. Although testing will continue at Network Rail’s ETCS National Integration Facility (ENIF), the next major milestone is testing with the new Siemens Class 700 trains between Blackfriars and St Pancras which is scheduled to take place in August 2016.”

To achieve an operational 24tph timetable, the signalling and control system actually has a design capability of 30tph in both directions, to allow for recovery from any perturbation.

ATO will open the train’s doors immediately as it stops in order to meet a 45 second dwell time – allowing passengers time to embark and disembark before train dispatch. To maintain passenger safety, door closing will be manually controlled by the driver.

In the unlikely event of the on-board ATO becoming unavailable, the system will allow manual driving with ETCS train protection. Further levels of back-up operation use lineside signals with Network Rail’s existing train protection and warning system (TPWS), or special provision to allow the driver to continue at slow speed.

Mark Ferrer concluded: “The Thameslink project will be the first operational application of full ATO functions over ETCS, certainly in the UK, and possibly the world, and is Siemens’ first operational application of ETCS (both for the infrastructure and on-board) in the UK.

“The introduction of ATO represents a vital part of the high-capacity timetable planned for the route and means that every train runs at the optimised speed profile, performs accurate stopping, and advises the driver to adhere to strict station dwell times.”

In case you missed it – Gigabit jumpers: Key links in new-generation on-train networks

Ethernet communications links are now being widely used both within trains and for inter-car connections. The first generation of these interconnectivity solutions was developed to link systems for functions such as passenger information, entertainment, security (CCTV) and automatic passenger counting, and were largely based on 100Mbit/s Ethernet technology running over cat 5 cabling.

As both communication technology and the economic and regulatory needs of the marketplace have evolved, there is now a need for further expansion in the capabilities of these networks.

Additional capacity is needed to meet the requirements of advanced train control systems such as ETCS (European Train Control System), driver-only operation, train-wide data monitoring, and new public access services such as Wi-Fi. More significantly, there has to be clear physical separation between critical and non-critical networks in many cases, so that systems responsible for train control and safety functions are fully protected against potential cyber attacks via the public access network.

In performance terms, current Ethernet networks on board trains are operating at 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s because this is the maximum practicable speed that can be achieved with the current generation of Ethernet switches.

However, train manufacturers are looking to the future, so all new designs are specifying 10Gbit/s to allow for the higher speeds that will result from technological developments and the requirements of new applications.

Inter-car jumpers

A key element in the on-board network is the inter-car connection, and this is an area where Harting has been able to develop an integrated modular solution that addresses the challenges outlined above as well as providing ‘future-proofing’ for the next generation of trains.

This solution is based on an ‘open’ Han® 24 HPR hood and a range of inserts from the Han-Modular® family. The standard HPR housing has been approved by the rail industry and is already in use in the field. A threaded locking mechanism enhances stability and provides good protection against shock and vibration. Strain relief is achieved using a clip or a corrugated conduit adapter.

Shielding from several cables can be attached to shielding rings or clamping brackets to reduce cost. Instead of using bulkhead or surface-mounted housings, the interface at the car end is screwed directly onto a mounting plate, which results in a significant reduction in cost and weight.

For this application, Harting supplies a fully preassembled and tested inter-car connection, pluggable from both sides by using the open hood, along with mounting plates which are attached to the walls of the cars. The most popular module is the Han Quintax® module, which is part of the highly successful Han- Modular® connector range. The Han DD module is used for analogue and digital data signal transmission, and the Han 46 EE monoblock is designed for medium-power applications. Corrugated conduits, which protect the cables, are attached to the open hood using M40 threaded connections.

Han-Modular, Han Quintax and Han EEE inserts in HPR upper and lower housings are fitted onto the power and signal cables that are routed through corrugated plastic conduit. In some cases, top-entry upper housings are used which mate with lower housings that are mounted on existing angle plates to optimise cable routing. The wires are protected inside the conduits to minimise the risk of abrasion. A pivoting threaded conduit connection is used to accommodate the dynamics of the application.

Interference must be avoided between the power and signal lines which are routed very close to each other. However, the EMI immunity of this system has been demonstrated during system testing.

Future-proofing

These robust jumper cables and customisable connectors provide sufficient bandwidth to allow expansion to accommodate the demands of future higher-performance communication networks. Using Han HPR connectorswithgrounddisconnect,thesesolutions provide full 10Gbit/s transmission tested to IEEE 802.3. They are compliant with fire regulation EN 45545 – 1, 2 and 5 and EN 50155:2007 to ensure reliable application on rolling stock, and offer industry-leading IP68 (submerged under pressure) and IP69K (high-pressure steam lance) sealing capability.

Harting also carries IRIS certification to meet the stringent demands of the rail industry. This includes certification to IRIS Version 02, which covers trackside use as well as rolling stock.

The modular nature of the Han HPRfamilygivesusersthe ability to mix signal, data and power interfaces in a single connector, along with the flexibility to incorporate up to six 10Gbit/s links in the connector.

The modular Gigabit jumpers have been developed and manufactured by Harting Integrated Solutions, a division of the company which designs and manufactures backplanes and backplane systems as well as customised cable assemblies for a wide range of customer-specific applications. The group’s activities range from design simulation and validation to comprehensive system testing.

Power to PCBs

For the rail industry, Harting offers a complete range of design and build solutions with the emphasis on saving space and weight. To complement its connectivity products covering high-speed data transmission at speeds of 40Gbit/s or more, the company has developed a number of techniques for providing power to PCBs on board trains, on platforms or trackside.

Backplanes and passive PCBs are used to link the power supply to connected devices as well as their normal use for carrying data and signals. A range of connectors handles the necessary current levels for different applications and designs. The Han connector family includes PCB adapters that can supply currents to the PCB from 7.5A to 40A. When combined with the company’s expertise in mechanical integration, this approach can save space and assembly costs when interfacing with I/O connections.

The Han-Fast® Lock is used for even higher currents, up to 60A, and is simply and easily locked in place with an integral latching pin, and released again if necessary.

Another connector in the Harting range, the compact har-flexicon® connector, is rated for currents from 6A to 17A and is available in pitches of 1.27mm, 2.54mm, 3.50mm/3.81mm, 5.00mm/5.08mm and 10.16mm/15.00mm. It is suitable for processing with reflow soldering, and offers both field-installable screwless push-in cage clamp style and insulation displacement termination technologies for single- strand wiring.

Harting can also supply ‘classic’ connector types for the combined transfer of signals and power. One standard DIN 41562 Power connector can transfer up to 40A together with signal and data, while the D-Sub Mixed connector, also rated at up to 40A, is an industry-standard I/O connector with a range of other high- current, high-voltage, coaxial and pneumatic contacts in addition to the standard signal ones.

Wiring replacement

HanOnBoard® is a connector technology which can replace standard discrete wiring by allowing power I/O connectors to be mounted and connected directly onto the PCB via a boarded-mounted adapter through which data, signals and power are distributed. This solution eliminates time-consuming and potentially fault-prone wiring and is based on an optimum combination of tried-and-tested Han components, PCB adapters and PCB solutions.

Because HanOnBoard is compact and weight saving in use, it offers additional benefits over traditional wiring. Printed circuit boards are more resistant to external influences such as shock and vibration compared with discrete wiring, and the total electrical path can be coated to provide enhanced protection. As a result, HanOnBoard solutions lend themselves to the harsh environments found in rail applications.

In addition to eliminating manual wiring, the use of HanOnBoard will also replace any potential wiring troubleshooting with quick module replacement and will help to avoid service faults. It can replace dozens of power cable interconnections, allowing distribution boxes to be made lighter and more compact. It will also help to reduce production costs through streamlined production processes and less material usage.

Having high currents routed in close proximity to sensitive PCB signal paths is a common problem that can cause problems in terms of PCB design and thermal management. Harting offers the expertise to overcome these issues by developing custom backplanes and passive PCBs.

As an example, in a typical recent rail project, Harting developed a rail-approved (EN50155) chassis for an embedded drive controller at lower cost than the existing customer product using a custom backplane, I/O and chassis.

Globally, Harting Integrated Solutions is a fully integrated system developer and manufacturer. The company has factories on three continents: Europe, Asia and North America. Each site has common equipment, tooling and procedures to provide seamless service to all the company’s customers worldwide.

Written by Mike Brookes, regional manager at Harting.

In case you missed it – Looking into the FuTRO

While RSSB (Rail Safety and Standards Board) is sometimes only thought of as a standards authority, the company actually has a far greater role for the rail industry. Its primary objective is to support its members (the rail industry) with improving safety and performance, and value for money across the industry. In order to do this, it is funded to manage and sponsor various research and development (R&D) programmes.

Through RSSB, the industry invests about £9 million each year in R&D to support a broad range of short and long term engineering, operations, and management activities that no one company can solve on its own.

The R&D programme has evolved from being solely about safety to include a wide range of issues. The Innovation Railway programme, a collaboration between Network Rail and RSSB, exists to support the delivery of the Rail Technical Strategy (RTS). It has cross industry support through the Technical Strategy Leadership Group and currently has over 100 active projects.

On behalf of the Future Traffic Regulation and Optimisation (FuTRO) project control board, RSSB recently arranged a networking event in Birmingham to share progress and inform its members about the Digital Railway, and FuTRO programmes.

To achieve the improvements in the railway’s capacity, quality, environmental impact and cost, the whole system has to be smarter. The more trains that can detect their position, communicate and share information, the easier it becomes to ensure everything is in the right place at the right time.

A smarter, more connected railway will have benefits for operators and customers alike. Introducing in-cab signalling in line with the ETCS will reduce capital and operating costs, and make capacity more flexible, while increasing automation will help services to react more quickly after a perturbation.

Similarly, communications between the train and infrastructure can enable intelligent traffic management systems to optimise capacity, speed, timekeeping and other priorities – and can also keep customers connected and informed through their own mobile devices.

Digital Railway and FuTRO

Digital Railway is a rail industry programme with an ambitious agenda, focusing primarily on signalling and telecoms, but also affecting other aspects of the infrastructure and passenger experience.

An example of the possibilities brought about by combining new thinking and digital technologies comes from another transport industry. A series of motorway network enhancements and expansions was originally estimated at £44 billion, with considerable land take and environmental damage.

Instead, smart motorways were constructed which have delivered 90 per cent of the benefits at 10 per cent of the cost of the original proposals. Digital Railway and FuTRO objectives are similar and are all about delivering additional capacity, reliability and efficiency using new digital technology, instead of building more of the same type of railway.

Safe railway operation by the separation of trains by fixed signals has essentially not changed since the principles developed from the 1870s until the 1950s, with drivers looking out of the front of a train to see lights on sticks. The principles of ETCS and CBTC have been explained many times in Rail Engineer. ETCS Level 1 and 2 systems are now in service across the world.

The current ‘top end’ Level 3 ETCS, with moving block radio controlled movement authorities and minimal lineside infrastructure, is still some way off but is likely to appear from 2030.

The RSSB event suggested a Level 4 ETCS by 2040 with a convoy approach of joined-up trains, similar to that envisaged for autonomous cars and using vehicle-to-vehicle communications to deliver safe separation. This would further increase capacity by reducing the space between trains.

Looking further ahead to 2050, how about a Level 5, with intelligent trains delivering their own movement authorities? This sounds very ambitious and futuristic, but the automotive industry is already forecasting something similar in five years, so why not rail? This would require virtually no lineside infrastructure, only some centralised control to manage major junctions.

Whatever level of ETCS is finally adopted it will improve service reliability, capacity, efficiency and cost. While there will be some safety benefits, rail safety is ahead of the game compared with other modes of transport and it needs to build on this advantage.

The rail industry can be slow to adopt change and new technology, but in this fast moving world this is not acceptable. The danger is that the rail industry may become complacent and assume that the spectacular growth in demand experienced over that last 20 years will continue, but this is not guaranteed and the bubble may burst.

On the other hand, shared autonomous on-demand self-driving cars could provide local transport, with rail complementing the end to end journey experience. In the future, rail could be part of mobility as a service (MaaS), with customers ordering an end to end journey via an app, and a service provider delivering a complete joined up service of road and rail. There is already a vast amount of data which could contribute to MaaS; for example station car park usage could be made available and would help to inform the most efficient split of a journey by road and rail.

Let’s assume that rail does survive and prosper. Once ETCS is fully deployed with traffic management, there are some interesting challenges that may arise. The network could be configured for more trains, better reliability, or faster trains. There may have to be a trade-off between these three outputs, but who would decide  the priority? How would this fit with the current regulation and train delay attribution system? There may be a need to delay one operator for the greater good of the system, who pays?

One more pressing challenge for the industry is that there is rolling stock being ordered now which will have a 30 to 40 year life, but is not being provided with automatic train operation or ETCS. The industry requires some quick decisions in order not to compromise the future.

Rail Technical Strategy

RSSB revealed that it is shortly to release a detailed plan for how the industry can use technology to modernise and transform the railway. It is now four years since the whole of the industry signed up to a vision of the railway of the future, which was set out in a document called the Rail Technical Strategy (RTS).

The RTS is now to be accompanied by a ‘Capability Delivery Plan’ that will be published at the end of November and will set out the steps needed to be taken in order to bring about the modernisation of the railway. At the centre of the delivery plan is a set of twelve key capabilities that have been developed following detailed consultation with industry experts to provide a framework which can enable the transformation of the railway.

Taken together, the twelve key capabilities will deliver a railway of the future,. This will feature trains running close together with more space inside, fewer service disruptions and self-regulating trains arriving and departing precisely on time, quicker boarding and alighting for passengers who will enjoy a personalised customer experience and better connectivity for freight movements. All delivered for less cost and with less damage to the environment.

Each key capability is then broken down further into a sequence of milestones and a programme structure. The milestones provide the industry and suppliers with a clear set of near-term delivery priorities that can deliver benefits to the railway and also start the journey of realising the future vision in the RTS.

The RTS Delivery Strategy Manager, Trevor Bradbury told the audience that, “Britain needs a technologically-enabled railway that delivers efficient, affordable, flexible, and attractive transportation for the record number of customers who now use it. The amount and speed of change needed to meet
the challenges faced by the industry requires looking beyond conventional solutions and toward the transformative power of technology.”

Mr Bradbury admitted that achieving all twelve capabilities would take concerted and coordinated effort from all parts of the railway industry and those in the supply chain. He said that RSSB was developing a new website which will offer all stakeholders a chance to contribute to the development and delivery of the RTS. It will also serve as a portal providing updates and new information, opportunities to engage with the team developing the CDP and new materials to support organisations and companies in joining the RTS journey.

More detail on the RTS will be revealed in the next issue…..

DITTO and DEDOTS

The research projects instigated by RSSB FuTRO are wide and varied and are a mixture of academic research by universities (for example Southampton, Newcastle, University College London) together with specialised technology companies. Two examples are DITTO (Developing Integrated Tools to Optimise Rail Systems) and DEDOTS (Developing and Evaluating Dynamic Optimisation for Train Control Systems). These aim to deliver optimisation tools and methods, applications, algorithms, artificial intelligence decision support systems, and demonstrators.

DITTO will provide a greater understanding of the safety implications as a result of changes in traffic regulation. Near real-time dynamic simulation tools are used to develop an understanding of the relationship between capacity utilisation, reliability and recovery from disruption.

DEDOTS will be used to develop optimisation at network level, using near-real-time data within a control area and across control area boundaries. The effect of control area decisions on capacity and the effects of constraints (such as environmental, climatic, rules, regulations) are assessed as test cases on a simulator, against a number of objective functions (such as delay, energy usage, capacity utilisation).

SafeCap+ aims to further develop novel modelling techniques and tools to support and explore integrated and efficient dynamic capacity and energy of networks and nodes while ensuring whole systems safety. It will provide the ability to deploy tools and a framework that allows independent control rules for multiple, mixed traffic operational scenarios.

Being fundamental research, the route to market for all three projects is long and will include the need to further test and refine algorithms, and the development of industry appropriate software for integration into the Network Rail traffic management systems.

Video train positioning

A key requirement for any railway is to accurately identify where a train is on the network. This includes knowing precisely which track, of potentially many parallel combinations, the train is currently on. This requires reliable and definitive tracking so that the train’s track position can be followed through junctions. The obvious solution is to use a global satellite navigation system (GNSS) such as GPS, however this will not work in tunnels, will not provide reliable accurate positioning of which track the train is on, and any system will not be under the control of the railway infrastructure manager or operator.

There are methods of improving the accuracy of GNSS, which were discussed, but tunnels are still a problem. Other solutions such as laser tracking have been evaluated, however two specialised technology companies, Reliable Data Systems Technology (RDS) and Gobotix have, in parallel (and both sponsored by RSSB), concluded that the answer is to use video analytics from a forward facing camera. The video camera, and equipment installed inside the train, is used to measure speed using video pixel analysis to accurately provide information to position a train from known reference points. The systems have been proven to provide great accuracy and with no external infrastructure required.

RDS has used their location technology to enable a driver’s support system (DSS) in order to provide route knowledge via a tablet displayed to the driver.

This has been successfully trialled with favourable feedback from drivers. Gobotix has used similar positioning technology to develop a roll-back mitigation device which would automatically apply a train’s brakes in the event of a roll back being detected. Both systems could form the basis of simple and cheap signalling systems.

A video train positioning system could provide the answer to the ETCS level 3 problem of checking if a train has lost a vehicle, with a camera at each end of the train. If one detects more movement than the other, then the train must have split. For a freight train, power at the end of the train to support the camera would be an issue. However, camera technology is improving all the time, with more sensitive cameras needing less light and power to operate. Could a rechargeable camera provide the answer?

This is a summary of only some of the subjects discussed at the Innovation Networking Event, and there are many other interesting R&D projects that time did not allow for on the day. These include work to develop a more reliable and efficient train braking system, which is another key requirement to enable more trains on the rail network of tomorrow.

Written by Paul Darlington

In case you missed it – Streamlining signal sighting

The purpose of signal and sign sighting is to ensure that a train driver is able to quickly and accurately read and interpret information provided by a signal controlling the movement of their train so that the driver can take appropriate action.

At line speed, in variable lighting and weather conditions, with varying demands on the driver’s attention and with a multitude of other signal and signs controlling other adjacent lines, this is not a trivial task.

The signalling design engineer (SDE) and the signal sighting committee, comprising stakeholders from multiple organisations, need to sign off the signal or sign sighting form. This is typically achieved by reviewing the proposed technical design, by considering operational use cases, assessing associated sighting risks and by the committee undertaking a site visit.

The signal sighting process is undertaken either as part of a signalling scheme design process or following a reported Signal Passed At Danger (SPAD). Clive Kessell’s article elsewhere in this issue describes the latest thinking on this topic.

Different paper and electronic tools exist across the rail industry to support the production of sighting forms to Network Rail standard ‘NR/L2/ SIG/10157 Signal Sighting’.

The problem with spreadsheets

The existence of different tools (from paper to spreadsheets) with corresponding variations in sighting form layout and content, combined with local process variations across the Network Rail routes, signalling design centres and sub- contractors, meant there was an inconsistency and a lack of standardisation.

SSiFT v2 was a complex spreadsheet-based sighting form that attempted to address the issue of standardisation, with only partial success. This was because users were still able to edit the sighting form, increasing the risk of introducing computational errors as the spreadsheet increased in complexity.

Spreadsheet-based sighting forms also suffered from manual version control and the industry had no easily searchable centralised repository for electronic sighting forms. It was also impossible to identify if parallel design activities were being undertaken on the same signalling asset by two different teams or organisations.

The process of creating a signal sighting form was also time and effort-intensive with information having to be manually re-entered from other design tools. The sighting committee also could spend significant time on, potentially, multiple site visits, with their inherent safety risks.

Innovative approach

Through the Network Rail Signalling National Innovations Portfolio (SNIP), SIG is delivering a suite of integrated signalling design tools.

The purpose of these tools is to enable signalling scheme designs to be quickly, easily and iteratively created, updated and shared between different design tools without any manual re-entering of information. This is achieved using Network Rail’s System Design Exchange Format (SDEF) XML schema.

Another objective is to reduce the requirement to attend site visits by developing tools to allow site surveys to be undertaken from the designer’s desk. This removes exposure of staff to risk trackside, reduces cost and saves time.

The SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit team delivered SSiFT v3 in April 2015 and it fulfils each of these objectives. It is a web-based solution powered by SNC-Lavalin’s clyx.net rail industry portal.

It can be accessed using any standard web browser (IE11+, Chrome, Firefox) and is available to any authorised organisation that undertakes signal-sighting activities in conjunction with Network Rail assets.

It offers designers the ability to quickly and easily create sighting forms, either manually, using an Excel template batch-based import feature, or an SDEF import feature from other design tools. Automated form creation allows up to 70 per cent of the form to be created with no additional input from the user. Forms have defined versions and a workflow process manages draft, published, withdrawn and superseded forms. It also identifies and supports parallel design activities where this cannot be avoided.

The user interface was designed to be intuitive, validated through user-driven human factors testing. Batch editing functions allow custom groups of forms or forms for a specific project to be edited in specific ways at the click of a single button.

At any time in the design process, a sign or signal sighting form can be generated by the user, which delivers a professional PDF document in less than one minute, either by email or by download from the website. The designer is also able to generate an output SDEF file to allow additional design information determined using SSiFT v3 to flow onward into other design tools.

A training version was also delivered, allowing users to practice, learn or experiment in safe environment away from the master database.

To streamline the signal sighting process where there remains a need to visit a site trackside, there is also a fully integrated mobile application for iPad and iPhones. This allows the designer or signal sighting chairman to prepare the form in advance, download the data to their device and then undertake site based activities whilst updating the form (photos, geographic information, distances). Upon completion of the site visit, the form can be re-synced with the website seamlessly at the touch of a button.

Immediate benefits

SSiFT v3 has enjoyed a high level of adoption across Network Rail and the wider industry, with currently 150 active users across 17 different organisations. Adoption within Network Rail continues to increase as projects and routes make the decision to switch to it. In the last 12 months 526 sighting forms have been published within SSiFT v3 with another 1,162 draft forms currently being worked on.

Users have reported significant time savings being achieved with examples such as 20 sighting forms being produced in two hours (six minutes per form) rather than two days/14 hours (42 minutes per form). If this typical time saving is applied to the 1,688 active forms in SSiFT v3, it would represent an estimated total time saving of 1,012 person hours or 145 person days.

These efficiency improvements lead to time and cost savings through SDEF integration, substantial automation and batch editing of forms. Savings are also delivered through the seamless and immediate integration between desk and site work offered by the SSiFT mobile app. Control and ownership of the form and the underlying data is clearly retained by the designer and the project.

Through integration with other SIG design tools, fewer site visits are required and less time is spent on site. This increases safety and reduces staff exposure to trackside risks.

During the first 12 months, a wide range of user- driven changes and enhancements have also been delivered by the SSiFT v3 project team, further increasing automation, standardisation and flexibility. Network Rail and SNC-Lavalin are keen to maintain the user community’s enthusiasm by remaining responsive to their needs.

Looking forward

In July 2016, the project team will commence work on further user-requested high priority enhancements to SSiFT v3, due to be deployed in late summer 2016.

A revised signal sighting standard at Network Rail is expected to be introduced in late 2016 and the impact of that on SSiFT is also being evaluated, with further substantial features (such as assessment plans, competence and electronic signatures) and enhancements being considered to more closely integrate with Network Rail’s design processes. Network Rail is also considering the use of SSiFT v3 for managing the master signal or sign sighting record nationally.

Looking further ahead, it is possible that the SSiFT mobile app will be made more widely accessible via mobile phone devices and, potentially, other platforms.

Written by Simon Perkin, section head – systems and information solutions at SNC-Lavalin

This article was first published in September 2016.

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