Rex Aug 2020

I S S U E 7 | A U G U S T 2020

W W W. R A I L E X P R E S S . C O M . A U

The situation today How Australia’s transport sector responded to COVID-19 - SEE PAGE 28

Digital twins for condition monitoring

A new CEO for TrackSAFE

Trans-Tasman fuel saving innovation

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Contents Issue 07 - August 2020

32

4

From the Editor

6

News up front

M A J O R P ROJ E CT S

28

How rail kept Australia moving through COVID-19

32

The people driving Martinus’s rapid growth

CONDITION MONITORING

36 A unique remote diagnostics solution from Bombardier 38

48

38

Alstom delivering real time condition monitoring

40

AI innovation from 4Tel

42

S SG Insight connecting maintenance to contract outcomes

44

Lycopodium’s independent advice

46

How digital twins can transform rail maintenance

48

Making EAM updates second nature with Trapeze

50

Loram increasing uptime

S A F E TY & M A J O R I N C I D E N T S

60

52

An interview with the new CEO of TrackSAFE

54

ollaborating to find the best track worker safety C technology

P R O D U C T S & T E C H N O LO G Y

56 KiwiRail’s deployment of TTG Transportation Technology

I S S U E 7 | A U G U S T 2020

A dual gauge hi-rail system from Harrybilt

60

tm stagetec coordinating audio across NSW

W W W. R A I L E X P R E S S . C O M . A U

The situation today

S A F E TY & A S S U R A N C E

How Australia’s transport sector responded to COVID-19 - SEE PAGE 28

IMAGE CREDIT: NATALIE BOARD / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

58

COVER STORY Transport leaders from around Australia describe how rail got the country through the COVID-19 crisis.

Digital twins for condition monitoring

A new CEO for TrackSAFE

Trans-Tasman fuel saving innovation

PAGE 46

PAGE 52

PAGE 56

See page 28.

63

RISSB new training offering

I N D U S T R Y A S S O C I AT I O N

64

ARA’s advocacy agenda for freight rail

66

Now not the time for Inland Rail delays: ALC

SUPPORTED BY:

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From the Editor Issue 07 - August 2020 Published by:

Connor Pearce 11-15 Buckhurst St South Melbourne VIC 3205 T: 03 9690 8766 www.primecreativemedia.com.au

Publisher Christine Clancy E: christine.clancy@primecreative.com.au Chief Operating Officer Zelda Tupicoff E: zelda.tupicoff@primecreative.com.au Group Managing Editor (Northern) Syed Shah E: syed.shah@primecreative.com.au Assistant Editor Connor Pearce E: connor.pearce@primecreative.com.au Business Development Manager Oliver Probert T: 0435 946 869 E: oliver.probert@primecreative.com.au Client Success Manager Janine Clements E: janine.clements@primecreative.com.au Design Production Manager Michelle Weston E: michelle.weston@primecreative.com.au Art Director Blake Storey E: blake.storey@primecreative.com.au Design Kerry Pert, Madeline McCarty Subscriptions subscriptions@primecreative.com.au Front Cover Credit: Natalie Board / Shutterstock.com

www.RailExpress.com.au The Publisher reserves the right to alter or omit any article or advertisement submitted and requires indemnity from the advertisers and contributors against damages or liabilities that may arise from material published. © Copyright – No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the Publisher.

4 | ISSUE 7 - AUGUST 2020 | RAIL EXPRESS

Assistant Editor - Rail Express

“Shovel ready” infrastructure funding should not ignore rail

O

N JUNE 15, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced what seemed to be the blueprint for Australia’s infrastructure-led recovery out of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Addressing CEDA’s State of the Nation Conference, Morrison outlined a $1.5 billion infrastructure investment package.

While $500 million of this funding would go towards road safety improvements, the remaining $1bn would be directed to “shovel ready” infrastructure programs.

This gave the infrastructure community the boost of confidence it needed to know that the federal government, along with states and territories, would be looking to invest in the projects that had reached a funding bottleneck and would quickly get contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers back into work. With numerous rail projects around the country awaiting that final funding announcement to get started, here was what the industry had been waiting for.

Over the weeks that followed, Morrison, announced a series of state-based funding packages. As announcements followed press conferences, expectations that the $1bn in federal funding and contributing state grants would go to rail were unmet.

With funding allocated at the time of writing to each state and territory except Victoria and NSW, only one rail project has received funding, a new light rail stop in Canberra.

This is not for want for rail projects being ready to proceed. South Australia is crying out for improvements to regional rail. In Western Australia, the rehabilitation of grain lines could remove trucks from roads, meeting safety goals, while reducing wear on regional routes. In Queensland, work could progress on improving rail between Brisbane

and the Sunshine Coast, or remove level crossings in suburban Brisbane, again making the surrounding roads and communities safer.

This is not to mention the larger projects that are awaiting federal sign off. Work could immediately begin on the final stages of the Murray Basin Rail Project with federal funding, while doubt and uncertainty should be quickly resolved when it comes to the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, another project worthy of nation-building infrastructure funding.

While the Prime Minister’s announcement in the same speech that the Inland Rail will be one of 15 projects “fast tracked” is welcomed, this confidence is tempered by the announcement that another review into the project is being undertaken.

As this edition of Rail Express goes to print, there is still unallocated funding that could be directed to improving Australia’s rail networks. Money spent on rail infrastructure not only benefits the rail network, but has wider benefits which would reduce the need for extra funding for roads. For example, one 1,800-metre-long freight train is equivalent to 140 B-double trucks and one peak hour train removes up to 800 cars off the road.

These figures demonstrate that investment in rail builds resilience across mobility networks. As recovery from COVID-19 occupies the immediate focus, it should not be forgotten that climate change remains a significant issue. Building more roads will not solve Australia’s transport emissions challenge, and the current circumstances represent an opportunity to tackle both of these crises. It is not one that should be wasted.

connor.pearce@primecreative.com.au

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News

National

Inland Rail moves forward as approvals get fast-tracked

IMAGE CREDIT: ARTC

The approvals for the construction of Inland Rail will be sped up, as part of a $1.5 billion investment in infrastructure.

The Melbourne-to-Brisbane freight rail link is one of 15 priority projects that Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday, June 15, announced would benefit from expedited approvals. The list of projects also includes rail works in Western Australia.

Morrison said that joint assessment teams will be established between the Commonwealth, state, and territory governments to fast-track approvals.

The new spending on infrastructure follows a meeting of Australia’s transport and infrastructure ministers on Friday June 5, where the role of government to publicly fund infrastructure to spur an economic recovery following coronavirus (COVID-19) was prioritised.

Transport infrastructure was singled out as not only contributing to economic activity in its construction, but ongoing resilience to disasters such as bushfires. Ministers said that they would work to reduce administrative bottlenecks to get existing infrastructure projects underway.

In a communiqué released after the meeting, ministers said they would aim

Works are underway on the North East Rail line ahead of the contracts for the Victorian section of Inland Rail.

6 | ISSUE 7 - AUGUST 2020 | RAIL EXPRESS

to have infrastructure lead the nation’s recovery from COVID-19.

“Ministers further agreed to work together to harmonise and streamline processes to clear the way for an infrastructure-led recovery to Australia’s current economic condition including consideration of infrastructure bodies processes and environmental approvals.”

INDUSTRY GROUPS WELCOME INFRASTRUCTURE FAST-TRACK, BUT SAY THERE IS MORE TO DO Groups representing the logistics and infrastructure sectors have welcomed the federal government’s focus on cutting approval times and increasing investment in infrastructure.

Morrison said that with delays under environmental legislation costing industry over $300m in 2019, the government aimed to reduce approval times from 40 days on average to 30, a 25 per cent cut over the 2020 year.

“Ultimately, our objective is the streamlining of Commonwealth and state processes to a point of ‘single touch approvals’,” said Morrison.

Australian Logistics Council CEO, Kirk Coningham, said these changes would be of great benefit to businesses that operate national supply chains.

“The Prime Minister’s commitment to addressing regulatory burdens that increase cost and compliance burdens on businesses that operate across multiple jurisdictions is especially welcome,” he said.

Coningham welcomed news that the Deregulation Taskforce will take a national leadership role in the removal of regulatory impediments from within the Prime Minister’s department.

“ALC agrees with the Prime Minister’s observation that many of our laws have not kept pace with the development of technology. There are numerous opportunities within the freight and logistics sector to more effectively deploy technology to advance the efficiency, safety and visibility of freight movement,” said Coningham.

Coningham said that ensuring continuing flexibility for freight operators will be key to the ongoing resilience of Australia’s supply chains.

Chief executive of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Adrian Dwyer, highlighted that enabling works to start

immediately on priority infrastructure projects is a good step, but more should be done to revive the economy.

“Fast-tracking projects that respond to population growth and sectoral transformations in energy, transport, and resource recovery should be the priority moving forward,” he said.

“If the federal government wants to supercharge aggregate demand it should use its balance sheet capacity to deploy more money into new infrastructure projects.

“The federal government can and should redeploy the $60bn saving from its recalculated JobKeeper program into a bold new infrastructure agenda.”

EOI FOR VICTORIAN SECTION OF INLAND RAIL RELEASED Expressions of interest (EOI) are open for the design and construct contract of the Tottenham to Albury (T2A) section of Inland Rail.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) has begun the EOI process as part of the early contractor involvement procurement process.

The contract will cover the design and rebuilding of bridges, civil works and track lowering, in addition to overhead wiring, signal gantry installation, and track slews along the existing North East rail line from Beveridge to Albury.

“We’re asking contractors to express their interest in the works, especially those with experience delivering a program of complex road and rail infrastructure in regional locations, with a value in excess of $200 million,” said Ed Walker, ARTC general manager projects Victoria.

The announcement signals that work is getting underway on the Victorian section of the Inland Rail project. The entire project from Melbourne to Brisbane has been broken up into 13 projects, with Tottenham to Albury being the Victorian segment of the project.

Once complete, the project will allow for 1,800m long, double stacked freight trains to run on the existing North East rail line. The current EOI covers works on stage one of T2A from Beveridge to Albury, while a decision on where a new intermodal terminal on the outskirts of Melbourne will be located is finalised.

Construction is expected to begin in 2021 with the line becoming operational in 2025.

Walker said this would have benefits for

freight operators and the wider community.

“Inland Rail will cut over ten hours and 200 kilometres off the transit from Victoria to Queensland for freight, and provides a direct connection to Queensland, bypassing the heavily constrained route through Sydney and the circuitous route via the NSW North Coast,” he said.

“A recent EY report into Inland Rail regional opportunities estimated that Inland Rail will boost the Victorian Gross Regional Product by up to $4.6bn over a 50-year operating period, on top of the positive impacts during the construction period,” said Walker.

Dual early contractor involvement contractors will be shortlisted by August 2020 and a final selection will be made by early 2021.

CERTAINTY ON INLAND RAIL ROUTE NEEDED: ALC The ALC has criticised last-ditch attempts to re-route the Inland Rail project from the Queensland border to Gowrie.

Another review of the controversial route

over the Condamine River floodplain was confirmed in early June, with the so-called forestry route back on the table. The route, via Cecil Plains, was previously considered but ruled out in favour of the current route because of the extra length. Coningham said that previous reviews had already found the best route.

“With construction on the project already underway, some groups are now attempting to have changes on the Border to Gowrie section of the route. Despite the fact that extensive and independent analysis of corridor options has previously confirmed the route chosen in 2017 is the best option, there is now a further review taking place.”

The review of the forestry route is in addition to a review of the hydrology and flood modelling of the current route, which is being conducted by an independent expert panel.

An extended route would limit the effectiveness of the entire Inland Rail route, said Coningham.

“The whole point of constructing Inland Rail is to provide a safe and efficient freight rail link

for Australia’s east coast that permits a transit time of 24 hours or less for freight between Melbourne and Brisbane. Altering the route to the more complex one being advocated by some will make travel times longer and will make construction a more complicated and costly exercise.

“At a time when Australia should be moving ahead with shovel-ready infrastructure projects that can deliver economic development and employment opportunities for communities, it is disappointing that those benefits are being delayed by another review process,” said Coningham.

A recent study of the Inland Rail route found that the line would create a long-term benefit of $2.9-3.1bn to gross regional product and 560-590 full time equivalent jobs in the 10th year of operations.

“ALC calls on all parties to respect the findings of this latest review once it is concluded, so that certainty is maintained and this once-in-a-generation freight rail project can start delivering benefits for local workers, businesses, exporters, and consumers.”

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News

National

Roads swallow federal infrastructure funding as ACT bags new light rail stop In a series of infrastructure funding announcements, the federal government has so far only allocated funding for one new rail project, a new stop on the Canberra light rail line in Mitchell.

The stop, at the intersection of Flemington Road and Sandford Street, will be the 14th for the network. The federal government and ACT governments will each contribute $6 million.

The funding comes from the $1.5 billion of infrastructure funding announced by the Prime Minister Scott Morrison on June 15. As of June 22, roughly a third of the funding had been announced, with the light rail stop in Canberra the only rail project receiving the go ahead.

In his address on June 15, Morrison noted that $500m of the funding would go towards road safety upgrades, and $1bn would be for non-mode specific “shovel-ready” projects that were identified by the states and territories.

So far, monies allocated under the “shovelready” project stream has been distributed to Queensland with $204.3m, Western Australia has received $96m, $13.6m to the NT, and $16m in the ACT. Out of the hundreds of millions allocated

Roads have gained the bulk of “shovel-ready” federal infrastructure stimulus spending.

to “shovel-ready” projects, $11m will go towards non-road projects, with $6m for the Canberra light rail stop and $5m for pavement rehabilitation along Northbourne Avenue, also in Canberra.

A federal government spokesperson said that further road and rail commitments to be funded under the $1.5bn infrastructure package will be announced in due course.

ACT Minister for Transport, Chris Steel, said

that work would soon get underway on the new tram stop.

“Design is being undertaken on a 14th stop on the light rail line and we will work with Canberra Metro to build the station at Sandford St over the next year,” he said.

“The new light rail stop on Flemington Road at Sandford Street will provide better access to the Mitchell business district in addition to the existing stop at Well Station Drive.”

Adoption of ATMS key to freight competitiveness Rail freight cannot afford to be left “in the age of steam” chair of the Freight on Rail Group (FORG) Dean Dalla Valle has said in the inaugural industry-led Advanced Train Management System (ATMS) oversight group.

Dalla Valle, who chaired the first meeting, was referring to the adoption of semiautonomous trucks in the road freight sector, and the need for rail to adopt similar digital technologies such as ATMS. The group, formed in May, held its first meeting on June 2 and will oversee the rapid rollout of the Australian Rail Track Corporation’s (ARTC) ATMS system.

ATMS will allow for more trains to run on Australia’s freight network by reducing headways and improve safety by allowed for remote control and automatic braking.

Using GPS navigation and mobile internet, ATMS removes the need for trackside infrastructure and operators will communicate with drivers via in-cab equipment. Dalla Valle said that this would shift the public perception

of rail freight.

“Innovative in-cab technologies not only help enhance safety and productivity, they also allow us to better monitor the performance of networks. Smart technology to better utilise existing physical assets is often overshadowed by ‘glamorous’ big-money infrastructure projects, albeit the two need to go together.”

Dalla Valle also highlighted that the adoption of ATMS would remove the tendency towards distinct train control systems, a trend that could limit the effectiveness of the rail freight sector as the different state-based gauge networks did in the 20th century.

“Lack of harmonisation of train control systems across the country – the last count is at least 11 different systems are currently in use – is starting to act as a handbrake on safety and efficiency in our sector.”

Now formed, the oversight group will deliver a business case to fast-track the implementation of ATMS. The business case will involve detailing the deployment of ATMS

and its integration with existing train control systems including European Train Control System – Level 2 on metropolitan networks. A business case is hoped to be delivered to the Australian government before the end of July.

The system is currently in trials on the Port Augusta – Whyalla rail line and will soon be the primary safe working system on this section of track. The next section will be between Tarcoola and Kalgoorlie, beginning in 2021.

Dalla Valle said recent events have reinforced the value of a safe, efficient rail freight network, in particular the demands on the freight network during the COVID-19 pandemic. An Australian-made system, ATMS will ensure that rail freight remains efficient.

“To help recover from the deep economic shocks of the coronavirus pandemic, Australia must get better at both leveraging and synchronising new and improved technologies in our transport supply chains,” said Dalla Valle.

WWW.RAILEXPRESS.COM.AU | 9

News

New South Wales

An extra $3.5 billion will be invested by the NSW and federal governments for the Sydney Metro – Western Sydney Airport line, with construction to commence before the end of 2020, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced in June.

“Construction is already well underway on the airport, and later this year works will start on this new Metro service, which will link the suburbs of Western Sydney to the rest of Sydney,” said Morrison.

Morrison made the announcement of extra federal funding alongside NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

“This project is moving forward, through the hard work that has been carried out by the Federal, New South Wales and local governments over the past year,” said Berejiklian.

“The opportunities this mega project will provide are vital as our economy recovers from the financial impact of the COVID-19.”

IMAGE CREDIT: SYDNEY METRO

Western Sydney Airport Metro line to begin construction this year

An artist’s impression of the future St Marys station.

The line will include six metro stations, including two at the airport, one at the terminal and another at the business park.

Stations will also be built in the Western Sydney Aerotropolis, Orchard Hills, and Luddenham. An interchange station will be built at St Marys to connect the line with the rest of the Sydney network.

The 23km line is expected to cost $11bn and is scheduled to open in 2026 in time for the opening of Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport.

NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said that the metro line will be at the centre of the under-development region.

“This new metro railway line will become the transport spine for the region, connecting travellers from the new airport to the rest of Sydney’s public transport system.”

Federal Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure Alan Tudge said that the project would support the wider economy.

“This project will support 14,000 jobs, bringing new opportunities for the people of Western Sydney, closer to home,” he said.

“It represents an economic stimulus in the middle of Western Sydney, supporting jobs for electricians, carpenters, plumbers, tunnellers, surveyors, crane and forklift operators and truck drivers.”

Sydney Light Rail gets service boost constant 10-minute service on weekdays.

Minister for Transport Andrew Constance said that improvements have been made to the network while patronage numbers were lower during April and May. “Since the L3 Kingsford Line opened to customers on 3 April, we have used the quieter than normal period to make improvements to traffic signal phasing and the infrastructure IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

Nearly 900 extra services are being added to the Sydney light rail network, with an extra 810 services added to the L2 Randwick and L3 Kingsford lines.

Almost 300 services on the lines were added in May, however as of 9 June an additional 518 services are now part of the weekly timetable.

On the L1 Dulwich Hill line, 55 services have been added from 1am to 3pm to provide a

Extra services have been added across the Sydney light rail network.

10 | ISSUE 7 - AUGUST 2020 | RAIL EXPRESS

and systems in place,” he said.

The Sydney light rail line running from the CBD to the south eastern suburbs was initially criticised for slow average speeds, however Constance said that journey times have been decreasing.

“Since April, we’ve seen end-to-end journey times of around 38-40 minutes for both the L2 and L3 Lines.

“As the new timetable is bedded in, we will see further improvements to the end-to-end journey time with services running around 38 minutes on the L2 Randwick and L3 Kingsford Lines.”

The increase in services comes at a critical time as patronage on the public transport network in Sydney is increasing. Commuters are still required to maintain physical distancing while on public transport, and having extra services will allow this, said Constance.

The added services increase capacity across the light rail network by 26,900 spaces a week.

The increase in frequency will see vehicles operating at 4-minute intervals between Circular Quay and Moore Park and every 8 minutes in the south eastern suburbs between 7am and 7pm on weekdays.

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News

New South Wales

River Rail plan to connect south and west Sydney The Georges River Council is making the case for a new rail line linking Kogarah with Parramatta, via Bexley North and Bankstown.

The line, dubbed “River Rail” would provide a link between the T4 Illawarra Line, the T8 South Line, the T3 Liverpool Line, and the T1

An artist’s impression of a future Kogarah train station.

Western line,.

A report released by the council, which stretches from Kogarah to Hurstville in Sydney’s south, said the construction of a new line linking the area’s radial train lines would enable greater access to employment and education. Currently, the area has low levels of public transport accessibility, with only 24 per cent of dwellings located within 30 minutes of a metropolitan centre via public transport.

The proposal, estimated to cost $10.5 billion, has an indicative alignment from Kogarah to Bexley North, with a new stop near Roselands before a connection at Bankstown, Chester Hill and Granville, and then terminating in Parramatta.

According to Mayor of Georges River Council, Kevin Green, the new rail line would enable a true 30-minute city.

“The River Rail connection between Kogarah and Parramatta is a critical project, which will transform the future of Sydney and the only way that the NSW State Government’s

30-minute city goal can be achieved for the South District,” said Greene.

“This vision strives to create a city where most residents live within 30 minutes of their jobs, education and health facilities, services and great places and requires investment in direct public transport links like the River Rail.”

The report highlights that without the link, there is little connection to the growing central river city, centred on Parramatta, for Sydney’s southern suburbs. The link would also enable further connections to the future Aerotropolis.

Committee for Sydney CEO, Gabriel Metcalf, said the line would move the network away from the Sydney CBD as the main interchange.

Transport for NSW’s Future Transport 2056 Strategy indicates the connection between Hurstville and Parramatta as a “city-shaping corridor” but does not specify whether rail would be the preferred transport mode. In the Greater Sydney Commission’s Metropolis of Three Cities plan, the connection is identified as a train link investigation/visionary.

New construction and freight jobs for Western Sydney

The St Marys Freight Hub will grow the local community.

Up to 80,000 truck trips will be taken off Sydney’s congested motorways each year, while 230 jobs will be created in Western Sydney, as part of a combined investment value of up to $100 million to shift freight off the city’s road network and onto rail.

The NSW government has approved construction of a new freight hub in the heart of Western Sydney, allowing shipping containers to be hauled by freight trains from Port Botany to St Marys rather than transported by thousands of truck trips on busy Sydney motorways.

Pacific National’s CEO Dean Dalla Valle said St Marys Freight Hub will shift up to 301,000 shipping containers onto rail each year, removing 70,000 to 80,000 truck trips off Sydney’s congested motorways annually, helping to improve road safety and the daily commute of thousands of motorists.

“By shifting more freight onto rail between Port Botany and Western Sydney, the number of truck trips on the congested M4 and M5 motorways will be reduced by 8.7 million kilometres each year, that’s equivalent to 23 trips to the moon,” he said.

Dalla Valle said St Marys Freight Hub will allow more people to live and work locally, rather than commuting around 130 kilometres each day between Western Sydney and Port Botany.

“With Western Sydney’s population forecast to grow by another 1.7 million people by 2036, freight will be in high demand as will the need for new skilled employment in the region,” he said.

Dalla Valle said under the development consent for St Marys Freight Hub, Pacific National has a year to start construction with early works expected in coming months.

This project will play an important role in helping to boost the NSW economy as it recovers from the deep shocks of the coronavirus crisis.

“With the COVID-19 global pandemic creating the most testing employment conditions since the Great Depression, the St Marys Freight Hub will create 60 construction jobs during the building phase and more than 170 full-time jobs once fully up and running,” he said.

Dalla Valle said St Marys Freight Hub was ideally located to process large volumes of containerised freight, with many of Australia’s major retailers and wholesalers operating national warehousing and distribution centres within 15 kilometres of the new intermodal facility.

“Imported shipping containers will be hauled from Port Botany to St Marys Freight Hub by train, then transported to nearby warehouses and distribution centres by truck

to be unpacked,” he said.

Pacific National has partnered with port logistics operator ACFS who will manage and operate the St Marys Freight Hub and deliver shipping containers the “last mile” by truck to retail and wholesale customers at surrounding warehouses and distribution centres.

ACFS Port Logistics CEO Arthur Tzaneros said St Marys Freight Hub will be a game changer for commercial and industrial areas and facilities in Western Sydney where the majority of large-scale customer warehouses and distribution centres are located.

“The strategically located 43-hectare hub – initially 10-hectares in size – will increase reliability and cost efficiency of freight movements for ACFS customers. It is located outside of Sydney’s road toll zone and will help ensure freight deliveries are not delayed in traffic congestion on the city’s motorways,” he said.

Dalla Valle said contents of shipping containers include everything from food, medical supplies, building products through to household items like TVs, washing machines and furniture.

“To put this in perspective, a single shipping container can hold approximately 25,000 rolls of toilet paper, 55,000 cans of tinned food or 1,500 cases of beer,” he said.

WWW.RAILEXPRESS.COM.AU | 13

News

New South Wales

Auditor-General calculates cost of Sydney light rail at $3.1bn “TfNSW has always been transparent about the cost of the project and the Small Business Assistance Program since it was established in 2017 to support small businesses on the light rail alignment who believe they were negatively financially impacted by major civil construction of the light rail project taking longer than initially advised. TfNSW does not expect the construction cost for the CBD and South East Light Rail to exceed $2.99 billion.”

The report, which follows the opening of both the L2 line to Randwick in 2019 and the L3 line to Kingsford in 2020, also highlighted that the project’s projected benefits are still yet to be realised. Although journey times have been reduced since the line opened, by April 2020 the actual journey time across 97 per cent of services was almost 48 minutes, well above the contracted journey time of 37.5 minutes and the timetabled journey time of 40 minutes.

The project also aimed to reduce bus services between the city and south east, and the Auditor-General found that savings resulting from changes to bus services

are “significantly lower” than the original projected benefit.

TfNSW said that changes to be made to the bus network will occur later in 2020 and the detailed plan is not yet finalised.

“It would be premature for TfNSW to outline the expected project benefits at this stage,” said a TfNSW spokesperson.

In its formal response to the report, TfNSW said that it would report the final cost in December 2020 after the project reaches completion and outstanding commercial issues are finalised. TfNSW also said that performance in the first months of the service will not reflect the long-term benefits, particularly due to the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Increases in population in the south east have led to growth in customer demand since the initial business case in 2012 and TfNSW said the addition of the light rail increased capacity.

The Auditor-General’s report did not consider the ongoing class action against TfNSW regarding the light rail line’s impact on businesses along the corridor.

IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

The final cost of the Sydney CBD and South East Light Rail will exceed $3.1 billion according to an NSW Auditor-General Report.

The $3.1bn figure is $200 million above the latest revised cost released by Transport for NSW (TfNSW) of $2.9bn, which was announced in November 2019.

The increase is the latest in a series of cost increases for the troubled light rail project. Initially costed at $1.6bn in 2012, the figure rose to $2.1bn in 2014. The cost rose again due to legal action taken by the builder that was settled in 2019.

The Auditor-General found that TfNSW omitted costs of early enabling works, the small business assistance package and financing costs attributable to project delays. The Auditor-General noted that TfNSW “has not consistently and accurately updated CSLER project costs, limiting the transparency of reporting to the public”.

A TfNSW spokesperson said that the small business assistance package is a short-term expense and that these costs are not part of capital costs.

The Auditor-General has calculated the price of Sydney light Rail higher than previous estimates.

14 | ISSUE 7 - AUGUST 2020 | RAIL EXPRESS

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News

Victoria

IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

New public transport minister in Vic cabinet reshuffle

Ben Carroll is the new Minister for Public Transport in Victoria

A reshuffle of minister in Victoria has seen changes within the transport portfolios.

Ben Carroll has been appointed Minister for Public Transport and Minister for Roads and Road Safety, taking the Public Transport portfolio from Melissa Horne.

Premier Daniel Andrews said in a statement that the former Minister for Crime Prevention, Corrections, Youth Justice, and Victim Support would be stepping forward.

“Ben Carroll will step into the frontline roles of Minister for Public Transport and Minister for Roads and Road Safety, continuing to ensure we have the reliable and integrated transport

network we need to get Victorians home safer and sooner.”

Melissa Horne will continue as Minister for Ports and Freight and has added Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation to her portfolios.

Minister for Transport Infrastructure Jacinta Allan has retained her transport portfolio and added the title of Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop.

“Jacinta Allan will lead the delivery of our biggest public transport project and reshape our suburbs as the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. She will also continue to oversee

Development Victoria and the key transport precincts of Arden, Sunshine and the Richmond to Flinders Street corridor,” said Andrews.

The ministerial reshuffle follows the removal of Adem Somyurek, Marlene Kairouz, and Robin Scott after the branch stacking scandal.

In a tweet, Allan said that she was proud to be Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop and foreshadowed its impact.

“Victoria’s biggest ever project will change the way we move around forever – creating 10,000s jobs during construction and more jobs and services in Melbourne’s suburbs.”

Warrnambool line sleeper replacement works brought forward Upgrades on the Warrnambool line have been brought forward, with works having begun on June 9.

The works involve the replacement of 27,000 timber sleepers with concrete sleepers at a cost of $8.1 million.

V/Line staff and contractors will work through the night in 10-day blocks to renew the line. The work will be focused on the section of the line between Colac and Waurn Ponds after other upgrade works were done in late 2018 and early 2019 on the section between Warrnambool and

Colac to fix sleepers in that section.

Although the works will be conducted at night, trains will run slower than normal after the works are complete to allow the sleepers to bed down. Some trains will be replaced by buses. Freight services will operate as normal.

Once works are complete, Minister for Public Transport Melissa Horne said that passengers would enjoy a smoother ride.

“These works help to ensure V/Line can continue to offer a safe, reliable and comfortable experience for passengers who

rely on the service.”

The sleepers are being produced by Austrack at their Avalon facility.

“This project is not only going to benefit south-western Victorian public transport users but is supporting local business to get the job done,” said Member for Western Victoria Gayle Tierney.

The Victorian government has been carrying out sleeper replacement works on other regional lines, including a $16.1m program on the Bendigo line that used 48,000 concrete sleepers.

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News

Victoria

The Victorian government has brokered a deal to transfer manufacturing staff from Alstom’s manufacturing site in Ballarat to Bombardier’s maintenance depot in the same regional town.

The deal was agreed to by the Victorian government, the two major manufacturers, and unions, and will see 27 of Alstom’s permanent manufacturing staff redeployed to work on the VLocity train maintenance program, which will be carried out at Bombardier’s Ballarat workshop.

Alstom workers who have not been redeployed will continue working on other rollingstock projects, said Minister for Public Transport, Melissa Horne.

“We’re helping keep these highly skilled manufacturing jobs in Ballarat – giving certainty to workers and their families.”

The deal comes after speculation over the future of Alstom’s Ballarat workforce once the

The deal maintains a skilled manufacturing workforce.

CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

Worker transfer deal maintains train manufacturing jobs in Ballarat

final X’Trapolis trains in the current order are completed. While the Victorian government has committed to an order of X’Trapolis 2.0 trains, designs are still being completed, leaving the workforce in limbo. Victorian secretary of the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) Luba Grigorovitch said that the jobs could have disappeared altogether.

“There was the potential for these regional

jobs to be lost, and I’m really pleased that the state government applied the pressure that was necessary to ensure that the redeployment of the employees has been facilitated.”

The Victorian government has committed $12 million to Alstom to continue designing the X’Trapolis 2.0 trainsets.

Grigorovitch welcomed the investment but said that a confirmed order was needed.

“The investment in the design phase is only the first step and the workers and their families will only truly be secure once they see an order of much needed X’Trapolis 2.0s.”

By redeploying the workers onto the VLocity fleet, maintenance schedules will be sped up, said Horne.

“Alstom workers will gain new experience and skills carrying out vital maintenance on our VLocity fleet – helping to keep services moving across regional Victoria.”

Rail freight projects aim to boost competitiveness Container Export on the Warrnambool corridor, and Seaway Intermodal on the Mildura corridor.

Horne said the scheme improves the cost competitiveness of freight.

“This scheme benefits the community by getting trucks off roads which locals use every day and supporting industry through costeffective movement of freight.”

Chair of the Freight on Rail Group, Dean Dalla Valle, welcomed the decision.

“A big thank you to Minister Horne for listening to industry and giving the scheme a critical lifeline during these unprecedented and uncertain times,” Dalla Valle said.

“The benefits of the scheme stretch well beyond regional freight businesses; the scheme helps to take trucks off local and regional roads, driving better road safety outcomes for the community, and is an investment in the future of regional rail freight jobs.”

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Dalla Valle said the extension of the MSIS would benefit regional Victorian businesses.

“Australian regional exporters operate in highly competitive international markets and ending this scheme would have driven up freight costs and severely impacted many regional businesses,” he said.

The MSIS is one of a number of initiatives to ensure that Victoria’s growing freight task is handled by rail. By 2051, freight volumes in the state are expected to triple, and the government is also investing in improving access to the Port of Melbourne, building new intermodal terminals as Truganina and Beveridge, funding the Port Rail Shuttle, and studying how to get more freight on rail.

The Port of Melbourne Container Logistics Chain Study will look into the flow of containers into the port, trends, and changes since 2009. The study will be carried out by the Port of Melbourne.

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The Victorian government has boosted a scheme that helps to shift freight from road to rail with a $4 million injection.

The funding will extend the Mode Shift Incentive Scheme (MSIS) to 30 June 2021, and takes the total investment in the scheme to $24m over six years.

According to the Victorian government, the MSIS has already taken the equivalent of 28,000 truck trips off Victorian roads and onto rail.

“We’re moving more freight more efficiently and keeping our state connected by reducing rail costs and making it easier to get Victorian products to our ports,” said Minister for Ports and Freight Melissa Horne.

The MSIS provides incentives to freight operators to move more freight via rail. Current recipients of the scheme are Linx Portlink on the Shepparton corridor, Wimmera Container Line on the Horsham corridor, Westvic

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News

Queensland

Call for tenders for early works on Beerburrum to Nambour upgrade

The works will allow for future rail upgrades.

A request for tender has been released for early works on the Beerburrum to Nambour rail upgrade project.

The tender comprises civil works to prepare roads and surrounding infrastructure for future rail upgrades. This includes the construction of two carparks and the realignment of Steve Irwin Way. The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads held an online industry briefing for the project on June 17. The briefing provided industry with an understanding of the project, the procurement process, and the timing of the

works on the Sunshine Coast.

The request for tender is the first stage of construction for the long-awaited project, which involves duplicating of 20km of rail between Beerburrum and Landsborough, the extension of existing passing loops between Landsborough and Nambour, as well as route realignments, level crossing removals, station improvements, and supporting works.

Infrastructure Australia identified the $550.8 million project as a priority project in June 2018, and the state and federal governments have committing $160.8m and $390m respectively.

The works will ultimately benefit both freight and passenger services which share the line, with the Sunshine Coast’s population expected to grow by two thirds between 2016 and 2041 with a 3 per cent growth in passenger demand until 2036.

Disputes about funding between the federal and state governments in the past has led the project to be delivered in stages.

According to the Department of Transport and Main Roads, the first stage will focus on improving passenger benefits via increase capacity and patronage while freight benefits will be realised in later stages.

Adani awards second rail civil works contract The contract for civil construction works on the Carmichael Rail Network has been awarded to BMD. Mining company Adani announced that the $350 million contract would include earthworks, drainage, bridges, rail camp construction, and road upgrades to connect the Adani mine site to the Central Queensland Coal Network.

The announcement is the second civil works contract awarded for the Carmichael Rail Network, with Martinus delivering a separate package of work.

Adani Mining CEO Lucas Dow said that the local company would be well suited for

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the job in regional Queensland.

“BMD is a proud Queensland company and we’re thrilled to have them on board and delivering the largest package of works awarded on our project,” said Dow. “As people will already know BMD has operated in North Queensland for more than 25 years, with Townsville forming their regional base for delivery of this contract.”

Dow expects the works to create 600 jobs.

Scott Power, group executive director – operations at BMD, said that local suppliers and communities would benefit.

“At a time when jobs across the country are hard to come by, this project

is generating much needed employment opportunities for locals and locally based suppliers in north and central Queensland,” said Power.

“The award of this contract is recognition of the capability and capacity of Australian contractors and provides a boost for our teams, supply chain and the communities in which we operate.”

In total, 200km of rail will be constructed, comprising 26,417 tonnes of steel and 319,000 sleepers. The line will progress over 460 culverts, 17 bridges over waterways, two road over rail bridges, 68 crossings, and local road upgrades.

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News

Western Australia

The assessment will determine whether reopening the lines is viable.

The Western Australian government has committed to an engineering assessment of unused Tier 3 grain lines in the state.

The assessment will determine the cost and time of bringing the mothballed freight lines back up to scratch.

The lines, which stretch over 500km, are managed by rail network operator Arc Infrastructure but were put into care and maintenance by the WA government in 2014.

An Arc Infrastructure spokesperson said that it would facilitate the assessment.

“Arc Infrastructure understands the Public Transport Authority (PTA) has engaged a third party to conduct an engineering assessment on the Tier 3 lines. Arc is facilitating the

IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

Tier 3 grain lines assessment to evaluate cost, time to re-open

assessment as required, by providing access to the network and some baseline data, however it is being completed independent to Arc.” Grain handler CBH Group, whose grain freight trains, operated by Watco, take its grain to port, has also supported getting grain onto rail.

“CBH’s long-standing policy is that it supports grain on rail where it is economically viable to do so,” said CBH Group chief operations officer Ben Macnamara.

In 2014, the ABC estimated that it would cost $120 million to return the lines to operating conditions.

Following the closure, CBH Group and Arc Infrastructure entered into an arbitration process over access to the rail network. That

process was completed in 2019, and the final agreement decided not to reopen the Tier 3 lines due to the deterioration in quality.

The WA government is close to completion of the Revitalising Agricultural Regional Freight Strategy (RARF) and is currently considering submissions. The draft strategy recommended improving the rail network in all regions, however noted that the re-opening of the Tier 3 lines is not part of the strategy.

The Arc Infrastructure spokesperson said that it was working with CBH on initiatives proposed in the RARF. “We will continue to support the planning and design on any of the high priority RARF initiatives that will increase volume of grain being moved on rail for the benefit of WA growers.”

CBH’s Macnamara also looked forward to improving the rail network.

“The grain rail freight network is a significant part of the WA grain industry supply chain and CBH has welcomed the State Government’s development of the Revitalising Agricultural Region Freight Strategy.

“We look forward to continuing working with the government and industry on this important initiative,” said Macnamara.

Six level crossings removed in latest Metronet works program Six more level crossing are to go on the Armadale Line in Perth as part of the next major works package in the Metronet project.

The level crossings are at Mint, Oats, Hamilton, Wharf, and William streets and Welshpool Road. All the crossings will involve elevated rail except at Hamilton Street, where land has been reserved for a road over rail solution.

Up to 2.8 kilometres of elevated rail could be constructed, with roads and active travel links created under the rail line.

In addition to the level crossing removals, new stations will be built at Oats Street, Carlisle, and Beckenham and potentially Queens Park. Oats Street Station will replace the current Welshpool station, which will be closed.

WA Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said

that removing the level crossings would benefit commuters and the wider community.

“Metronet is also about connecting the community – for the first time in a century this will remove parts of the rail barrier that have separated the communities of Carlisle, East Victoria Park and Cannington,” she said.

“Commuters can finally say bye, bye boom gates – we’ve all felt the pain sitting at a level crossing waiting for one, two, sometimes three trains to pass by.”

As design work is just beginning, Saffioti said that she hopes the community will get involved.

“This project will also mean new train stations at Carlisle and Oats Street and potentially Queens Park, giving the local community the opportunity to have their say on what they would like these new stations

designs to look like.

“It will create opportunities for new and unique public space and developments around stations, connect our communities and allow us to wave goodbye to boom gates.”

Up to $415 million of state funding has been committed to the Mint, Oats, and Welshpool level crossings, while funding for the other three is subject to an agreement with the federal government.

WA Premier Mark McGowan said the project will deliver a changed community.

“This plan will transform the Armadale Line as we know it, setting it up for the next 100 years and creating more liveable and vibrant communities linked to METRONET.” The current boom gates are closed 233 times a day for up to six hours per day.

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News

South Australia

Adelaide Metro will discontinue its metroMATE app and provide customer information through third-party apps.

The South Australian government is encouraging passengers to use three privately developed apps instead, and the existing metroMATE app has been discontinued since early July.

Minister for Transport Stephan Knoll said that the new apps will give customers better information.

“By providing better, faster and more accurate information we are empowering public transport customers to make better decisions about their journeys, providing a better service.”

The new apps include real-time data, alerts, and countdowns, as well as the ability to save trips and suggest new routes combining transport modes. All three are available on the Apple App Store, however only Moovit and Transit are available for Android mobile operating systems.

As part of the digital restructure, Adelaide Metro’s website will also be redesigned.

“The Adelaide Metro website is one of South Australia’s highest trafficked websites, averaging over 3 million users and 50 millionpage views annually,” said Knoll.

“The new-look website will deliver a simplified home page, which will require fewer clicks to find the information customers use the most.

“It will also be visually easier to navigate

IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

Adelaide Metro app canned, third-party apps encouraged

The South Australian government will discontinue its metroMATE app.

and will provide greater accessibility for people who have a disability, as well as the wider public.”

Knoll said the decision to move to thirdparty apps was due to the low ratings of metroMATE and its limited features.

The new apps are one part of the roadmap released by Adelaide Metro and the South Australian government to get commuters back on public transport after the coronavirus (COVID-19). Services were also increased on the Gawler line along with other measures.

Ovingham level crossing to use road over rail bridge The preferred design for the removal of the Ovingham level crossing in Adelaide’s inner north has been released.

Torrens Road will be elevated over the Gawler and freight railway lines in a $231 million works package. The western end of Churchill Road will also be raised to meet Torrens Road at the same elevation.

Tender for the project has been announced and a contract will be awarded later in 2020 with work to begin in 2021.

The design was chosen not only for its

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impact on traffic and constructability, but the minimal disruption to rail users and the freight line while the road is lifted above the track.

Federal Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure Alan Tudge said the project will have improve safety and traffic flow.

“Not only will this bust congestion, but it will give the SA economy an essential boost and it will mean more local jobs,” he said.

South Australian Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government Stephan

Knoll said the current design of the road causes delays.

“At the moment the boom gates at this level crossing are down for around 26 minutes during both peak periods, which causes traffic delays and frustrates motorists.

“Once complete, this level crossing upgrade will ensure motorists never have to wait for a train to pass again here, making their ride to and from work or home safer and faster.”

The Ovingham project is expected to be complete by 2023.

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News

New Zealand

Passenger services begin to return to normal operations Jacinda Ardern announced that the country was COVID free on Monday June 8, rail passenger operators in Auckland and Wellington have returned to normal service.

This has meant that in both cities, there is IMAGE CREDIT: FLICKR/GORDON HAWS

As the threat of coronavirus (COVID-19) eases, passenger rail operations are beginning to return to normal levels of service, however with some changes.

In New Zealand, where Prime Minister

Fares have been reintroduced on Wellington services.

no longer any need for physical distancing on trains and the wider transport network.

Both cities, however, have made changes to how fares are collected.

In Wellington, where fares were suspended, fares were reintroduced on July 1, said operator Metlink general manager Scott Gallacher.

“Reintroducing fares in July makes sense following New Zealand’s excellent response to COVID-19 and the recent removal of physical distancing measures under alert level 1. Our passengers, drivers, staff on trains and at station kiosks can now safely and confidently interact again.”

Hygiene practices will continue, and passengers are still being encouraged to use contactless payments wherever possible, instead of cash.

Chair of Greater Wellington’s transport committee Roger Blakeley thanked public transport workers for their service during COVID-19.

“As a public transport user myself, it’s been fantastic to see cleaners, engineers, mechanics, drivers, ambassadors, communications and operations staff, union reps and many more people behind the scenes coming together to keep public transport running as an essential service.”

In Auckland, a 30 per cent fare discount is available to encourage passengers to travel outside of peak hours. The discount runs from 9am to 3pm and after 6.30pm on weekday. The discount is available to those using the AT HOP card.

NZ rail projects benefit from fast-track legislation Rail networks in Auckland and Wellington will benefit from faster approvals in a bill introduced to parliament in New Zealand.

The bill names 11 projects that will benefit, three of which are rail projects. The first is the upgrade to Britomart station in downtown Auckland, which will enable City Rail Link to operate at full capacity once services begin.

The next project is the electrification of the Pukekohe line from Papakura and the construction of three rail platforms. Auckland Metro services will then be able to terminate at Pukekohe, decreasing emissions from

26 | ISSUE 7 - AUGUST 2020 | RAIL EXPRESS

transport and avoiding the need to change to diesel-hauled services.

The third project is a suite of small projects across the Wellington Metro network known as the Wellington Metro Upgrade programme. These projects include upgrading drainage and stations, new tracks and storage yards, as well as the creation and operation of a gravel extraction site. Once complete, the works will increase passenger and freight capacity between Masterton, Levin, and Wellington.

If passed, the projects will be assessed

by Expert Consenting Panels, which will

place appropriate conditions on the projects, allowing them to proceed.

“Accelerating these projects will create opportunities for more employment and a boost to local economies,” said Environment Minister David Parker.

The bill also includes the provision for KiwiRail to undertake repair, maintenance, and minor upgrade works on existing infrastructure within the rail corridor as a permitted activity.

This would mean the state-owned enterprise would not need a resource consent.

The fast-track law will exist for a limited time and will self-repeal in two years.

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Major Projects

“People need to travel” In a re-cap of one of the most disruptive events to occur since World War Two, transport leaders around Australia highlight the role that rail has played in getting Australia through COVID-19.

On Friday, March 13, thousands of spectators were queueing outside the gates to the Formula One Grand Prix in Albert Park, Melbourne. The late summer sun was beat down on the spectators as they waited for two hours to find out whether they would be let in. Finally, organisers confirmed that the event could not go ahead because of the fear of an outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19). Extra trams were rapidly mobilised, and the crowds were herded onto public transport to take them back home, via the Melbourne CBD. At the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority (MTIA) offices on Exhibition Street, director-general Corey Hannett was assessing the options for the state’s $70 billion of underconstruction transport infrastructure spread across 119 major road and rail projects.

“I must admit, when the pandemic turned up in March, I think there were doubts that industry could work,” Hannett told Rail Express.

“At that time, we were looking right around the world at what was going on, and it was very clear that lots of countries were actually

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closing down.”

Indeed, other countries had entirely ceased all construction activity, except for projects specifically related to the COVID-19 response.

In Ireland, almost €20bn ($32.57bn) worth of construction activity creased by March 28.

Unlike countries in Europe and Asia, at the time, the impact in Australia was relatively limited, with only 156 cases when Albert Park closed its gates. In Italy, deaths were already in the thousands.

“At the time, we really hadn’t had that massive impact from the COVID-19 infections that the rest of the world was experiencing, but it was fair to say we were very concerned that we had to make sure that we did things in a way that protected the workforce and the community,” said Hannett.

Across all of its sites, the MTIA and its delivery contractors put in place procedures to reduce the change of an outbreak at a construction site. Workers had to be spaced more the 1.5m apart, personal protective equipment was required, and extra hygiene

measures were put in place. MTIA’s own staff moved to working from home and staggered shifts were enforced on work sites.

“Staggering when people start and finish toolbox meetings in the crib shed, getting extra crib sheds, getting extra cleaning in those crib sheds, getting an extra cleaning program of work across the whole sites,” lists Hannett.

All in all, roughly 18,000 people are employed to build road and rail projects under the MTIA umbrella across Melbourne and in regional Victoria. As of the end of June, there have been no significant disruptions to any of the construction programmes.

“I’m quite pleased to say so far so good, but we can only be as good as we are today and we need to keep that vigilance up and keep a heightened focus on making sure that we comply with the relevant rules to keep the community the workforce and ourselves safe.”

Hannett notes that while there has been a small loss in efficiency, the building program is continuing apace.

“In general, the program is in pretty good

IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

Extra services and a rapidly expanded cleaning program kept commuters safe in Canberra.

shape considering the pandemic which was forced upon us in March this year,” he said.

“I can’t imagine what the situation would be today if we had not had our 18,000 plus people not working.”

KEEPING THE COUNTRY MOVING Canberrans had barely gotten the smell of bushfires out of their hair, clothing, and homes by the time the COVID-19 pandemic hit. After a torrid summer, Canberrans were using the newly commissioned light rail more than ever, which, according to ACT Transport Minister Chris Steel, led to an unexpected windfall.

“Thankfully in February this year, just prior to the pandemic starting, we actually increased the frequency of light rail to help manage the crowding that we had seen because we had so many people wanting to use light rail in Canberra.”

Frequency in the peaks was increased, and the peak period was stretched to 9.30am in the morning and 6.30pm in the evening. This extra capacity meant that the light rail could keep running and ensure that those workers who did need to travel were able to get to their jobs and people were able to access essential services during the lockdown.

To ensure the service was safe, a rapid

program of adaptation was rolled out.

“We stepped up hygiene measures across public transport, including light rail, and one of the measures on light rail was to have automatic opening of the doors which wasn’t always the case on light rail,” said Steel.

Across the network, an extra 1,300 hours of cleaning was being conducted per week, and regular cleaners were assisted by over 30 workers hired by Transport Canberra who were stood down from their roles in the wider transport industry.

In Canberra and across Australia, most transport authorities are still encouraging passengers to travel outside of peak periods to avoid crowding. At the same time, Steel and others are concerned that road congestion is rising faster than public transport levels with the ACT at 85 per cent of pre-COVID traffic levels but public transport at less than half.

“We don’t want to see congestion reach even higher levels than it was before the pandemic because people are not using public transport, so we do need to encourage people back at an appropriate time,” said Steel.

“We’ve had for now several months the national cabinet and state premiers and chief ministers very clearly indicate to the community that they should avoid public transport during

peak times and that is still the message.

“We also need to have an equally strong message at the appropriate time to welcome people back onto public transport – come and use it, it’s good for our community, it’s good for your health, it reduces congestion and all of the benefits that it provides.”

In Sydney, Howard Collins, chief operations officer for Transport for NSW and former chief executive of Sydney Trains cannot see a future where a return to public transport does not occur in some form.

“I just look at the maths and say we’re currently carrying 600,000 journeys across the transport network, about 350,000 people every day at the moment, compared with 1.3 million on rail before COVID. Where are those people – even if half of them come back – where are they going to go? I can’t imagine them all cycling down George Street. I can’t imagine we’ll get the cars moving more than about 5km/h if they all jumped in their cars. So, rail will have to take on that capacity, but it may be in a different context in terms of how we operate our train service.”

Prior to COVID-19, capacity on Sydney Trains was almost reaching breaking point, particularly in the peaks. With a 73 per cent drop in patronage, Collins is looking at the

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IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

Major Projects

The flexibility of Sydney Metro’s operations has enabled it to scale up and down services in response to demand.

recovery from COVID-19 as a potential for change in the way the network operates.

“I think patronage will change, permanently.

COVID-19, at the end of the day is an issue that has come along that has been really tragic and has been challenging, but it may well be a warning for things happening in the future.

So, things have to change but I do believe that public transport and particularly rail is going to still have a major role.”

Collins is sceptical that there will be a wholescale shift to alternative working arrangements, such as working from home.

“Many people have said ‘Oh I’ll never going to be going to office anymore. I’m going to be working from home and I’ll be doing it in a café or bar or whatever it is.’ I do think there’s this human nature of getting together and while we all say we’re coping with Teams and remote working there will be a resurgence of people wanting to cluster and get together, whether that’s socially or for work reasons no matter how good our Zoom or Teams structure is.

People will be back, but it will be different.”

During the lockdown, Sydney Trains has increased services during the peak to cope with demand, as well as run extra light rail services.

With an unclear future still ahead, to many, what this has demonstrated is the need for flexibility in time-tabling and capacity.

“We certainly need greater flexibility and if you look at Sydney Metro, boy they can switch on and off a flattening peak or an increased fleet just by the press of a button, and the trains pop out of their depot without any care or concern,” said Collins.

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“But we know that people still need to travel within certain times. If tradies still sign on as they do every day in Sydney at 7 o’clock then we’re still going to get that massive tradie peak.

If schools still operate in the time scale that tends to suit both their parents and teachers, you’re not going to see the flattening of the peak. We will certainly see others spreading the load – particularly office workers – but I think it’s going to be more resistant to change than perhaps some of the theorists believe when it comes to peak services.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Many have noted that COVID-19 is two crises.

First, the health pandemic, and second, the economic crisis caused by the shutdown of businesses and the restrictions on movement and gathering. While testing, contact tracing, and medical care can limit the first crisis, there is more debate over how to grapple with the second.

Infrastructure spending has emerged as one way that governments are dealing with the economic crisis. Rail is one area of infrastructure that has been targeted with spending. Already, in Sydney, Metro Greater West, now known as Sydney Metro – Western Sydney Airport has had funding committed by both state and federal governments, to begin construction before the end of 2020.

Approvals for Inland Rail have been fasttracked. In Victoria, the Level Crossings Removal Project is ramping up and extra money is being spent on regional track and repairs to stations.

While some have argued that smaller infrastructure projects provide more benefits, according to Hannett, all projects should be seen as helping the wider economy.

“A project creates jobs, it boosts the economy, and it also has a significant economic benefit. The fact is. big or small. they do create jobs they do create economic benefit.”

Shadow Infrastructure Minister Catherine King highlighted that now is the time to invest in nation-building infrastructure.

“I think that one of the things that coronavirus crisis has shown us is that while we’ve had infrastructure projects and rail projects, we’ve sort of lacked any large scale, iconic infrastructure transport project,” she told Rail Express.

In May, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese reaffirmed the Labor Party’s commitment to high speed rail from Melbourne to Brisbane, via Sydney and Canberra. According to King, such a project goes well beyond reducing congestion on the air route between Melbourne and Sydney.

“One is the investment potential that it has, but also the nation building potential that it has, in terms of developing a much stronger sense of regional and decentralised regional towns from Melbourne from Sydney, all the way up to Brisbane, and the capacity and possibility of that as we grow as a nation.”

While COVID-19 has been a tragic event, the rail industry is beginning to emerge with a renewed focus on flexibility in operations and the nation-shaping role that rail infrastructure can have.

Digital construction

is common practice at DB E&C: With Building Information Modeling (BIM) we set quality standards in project planning and implementation

Modern technology

is in daily use at DB E&C: For example, 3D laser scanning, ground-penetrating radar and multicopters

Smart data networks

inform us of maintenance requirements for infrastructure and vehicles before problems occur – maintenance via remote diagnostics

Modern mobility is driven by modern technology. This in turn drives us to offer you optimal solutions based on state-of-the-art technology. We know: Innovative processes and construction methods help to increase quality and save costs in construction and operation. As one of the world’s leading engineering and consulting companies in the rail sector, we offer tailor-made mobility and transport solutions that meet the challenges of our time.

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www.db-engineering-consulting.com

Major projects Martinus has invested heavily in people and equipment to complete major projects.

The local solution With an exclusive dedication to the rail industry, Martinus is bringing the approach of a family-owned business to major rail projects around Australia and New Zealand.

Speaking with Treaven Martinus, over a video call in June, the CEO of Martinus Rail is back to where it all began almost 15 years ago, an office in his home in Cronulla.

“I’ve been in the rail industry through my whole working career and in 2005 I ventured out to start a product supply business for the rail industry,” said Martinus.

The business that he founded supplied turnouts to the Australian rail industry, is now delivering the largest track construction project in Australia, the Carmichael Rail Network.

“After seven years developing the product supply business, we saw the opportunity to diversify the business and expand into rail infrastructure construction,” said Martinus.

Over the next eight years, Martinus grew organically into a full-service rail contractor and expanded its presence across Australia, New Zealand and now Chile.

The company’s initial growth was driven by carrying out periodical maintenance across

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NSW for Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC). In 2013, Martinus set out its strategic five-year plan.

“The end vision at that point in time was to be a full service rail contractor for NSW, but, what happened in those five years, and it’s been a constant story throughout, is plenty of challenges along the way as we’ve had to change our direction depending on what barriers got put in front of us.”

The first barrier was focusing on the concentrated NSW market. Despite being based in Sydney, to this day, only three per cent of Martinus’ work is done in its home state, instead the company has gone where the opportunities are.

“There’s been a barrier to entry for us in Sydney which has been our success as it’s pushed us to go where the opportunities are,” said Martinus. “We only focus on rail infrastructure construction, we don’t do anything outside the rail space, so we had to

go where the opportunities were, first being the Hunter Valley, then Brisbane was the next step, Victoria after that, and then we kept just diversifying regionally.”

The series of projects that Martinus would work on would develop the company from a maintenance contractor to a project delivery contractor in its own right.

The main contributors to the company’s early success in the construction space were two young, enthusiastic, and energetic engineers who are now part of the senior leadership team at Martinus, chief operating officer Ryan Baden and senior pre-contracts manager Toby Briggs.

“It’s always been our people who helped us reach the impossible, exceeded client expectations and were instrumental in supporting the growth of the business – and that has been the only constant for us,” said Martinus.

Martinus soon developed a reputation for

Martinus is currently in the process of building the Carmichael Rail Network.

Treavan Martinus has led the company from supply business to international rail construction contractor.

its people, particularly for their strong work ethic, safe delivery of projects, and shared love for all things rail.

In line with their strategic plan, Martinus set out to win more work and they did this by targeting four main projects which met their skill set and strategic direction of delivering larger projects.

“The four projects we wanted to go for were the Port Kembla coal terminal upgrade, a $15m project, over two years; the ARTC Gunnedah yard rationalisation, a $10m complete re-build of the yard, signalling and drainage; Aurizon’s long term stabling facility in Hexham, the $8m subcontract for the track construction and supply of the materials; and then Morton Bay rail line upgrade where Theiss were the head contractor on that $1bn project and there was a 30-kilometre track

package of works.

“We went for all these four projects and we won all four, and that was a huge turning point for us,” said Martinus.

“From there our reputation continued to grow, as did our in-house capabilities and soon enough we became the delivery partner of choice.”

The scale of these projects required Martinus to grow rapidly, and here the company would develop a core principle, one great person equals three good people.

Particularly for Martinus himself, ensuring that the company had the right people on board was critical.

“I have, myself, no background in rail construction/contracting apart from seeing it, which led to the actual successes we had because I had to recruit people who knew what they were doing and then give them the autonomy and authority to deliver.”

In addition, with the projects spread out in regional areas across NSW and Queensland and as more and more project came online, Martinus had to decentralise some internal processes.

“To encourage autonomy across our project delivery, we implemented a project controls framework to empower our project teams,” said Martinus. “The framework has a strong focus on safety and provides project support for each team and is flexible enough to be tailored to suit each project.”

Having delivered those four projects in what Martinus describes as a hectic 2013, the company could consolidate its position as a full-service rail construction contractor. Today, the company has experience across all aspects

of rail construction, from light rail works in Sydney to heavy haul in the Pilbara, and crane rail construction projects at major ports to underground metro rail in New Zealand. With the infrastructure pie only expected to grow, Martinus has invested in its people, processes and equipment so that the company can selfperform on the projects that it is bidding for.

“To sustain the business growth in our home markets of Australia and New Zealand, we invested more than $60m in three key areas of the business: our people, plant and systems over three years. This also speaks to our motto: growth always, in all ways.”

Martinus’ strategic investment will go a long way in solidifying their position in the market, particularly when it comes to Martinus’ depth of capability when it comes to delivering complex large-scale projects.

“Our model is to secure both greenfield and brownfield works across Australia and New Zealand and then deliver those works with our team and extensive range of multigauge plant ranging from flashbutt welding machines to ballast trains and track laying machines,” said Martinus.

When it comes to investing in people, Martinus is also finding a way around the skills shortage that is often thought of as afflicting the rail sector.

“We look for passionate railway professionals who are driven to succeed. We provide the right support and training to nurture future industry leaders,” said Martinus.

In addition, Martinus found people from outside the rail sector whose skills were transferrable. These hires were not only from other construction areas but from the military

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Major projects

opportunities and upskilling local people and engaging local suppliers.

Similarly, Martinus foresees an ongoing benefit from works on the Carmichael Rail Network.

“It will open up an area and there will be ongoing jobs in rail maintenance. There’ll be a larger fleet of rail wagons and coal wagons running around that will need to be serviced, it opens up the region to deliver more works,” said Baden.

“We are proud to support Adani’s commitment to regional job creation and partnering with local businesses.”

Martinus has a history of delivering distributed work programs in regional areas, such as on the Murray Basin Rail Project.

and hospitality industry, and to ensure they stayed, the company has focused on creating a positive culture.

“Because we hired some of those leaders that were not from the rail industry, they were fresh into the rail industry, it actually opened up our pool of the great people that we wanted to hire,” said Martinus.

Combined, these investments ensure Martinus can provide an alternate method for delivering rail infrastructure solutions for their clients.

Martinus attributes their current pipeline of projects to the hard work and dedication of their people, including the Carmichael Rail Network in central Queensland and the Forrestfield-Airport Link in Perth.

TACKLING FOUR CHALLENGES In April 2020, Adani announced Martinus as a successful contractor for civil construction and rail works on the Carmichael Rail Network. The 200km narrow gauge rail line will link Adani’s Carmichael Mine to the existing Central Queensland Coal Network.

The $340m civil and track contracts have four unique challenges, said Martinus’ Chief Operating Officer Ryan Baden.

“The four big challenges are its remoteness, the start of the rail line is 200-kilometres from the coast, and then it goes another 200-kilometres south west from there. Second, is the complexity of the civil works which are currently underway. The third is ensuring we adhere to a significant number of strict environmental requirements and the fourth is

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the challenges around logistics.”

“We’ve always undertaken civil construction in the rail corridor but compared to this they were minor civil construction. Now we’re delivering the port-side civil works, which is 86 kilometres of the earthworks formation with 10 multi-span superstructures - one that spans 50 metres, 87 culvert structures and three-million cubic meters of cut to fill.”

To meet these challenges, Martinus is turning back to the projects that have enabled the company to grow so rapidly.

“Our biggest success has been regional rail construction. Large regional rail projects fit our model, because to self-perform we hold a lot of white-collar and blue-collar expertise and plant that we have to keep busy,” said Baden.

“We are expecting to have more than 600 workers on-site at the peak of construction.”

With regional rail projects, the scale and ongoing nature means that teams can be deployed for significant periods of time, rather than waiting for short-term possession-based work on metropolitan networks.

“The way we deliver regional projects is we have our core expertise that gets mobilised to the project and then we recruit, resource, and train from the region.”

Already, Martinus has 300 staff on site for the Carmichael Rail Network and the company has tapped into the local resource pool to engage workers and suppliers.

The approach is similar to the one taken by Martinus on previous projects, a large focus on community and industry engagement and set targets to employing, providing training

LOCAL PRECISION While Martinus is setting up camp in Central Queensland, its team are preparing in a very different way for another major project, the Forrestfield-Airport Link in Perth. The $1.86bn project is part of the West Australian government’s Metronet program and Martinus is working with the Salini Impregilo-NRW Joint Venture to undertake track and overhead wiring works.

The new line, which extends underneath the Perth airport and links up with the existing rail network at Bayswater combines greenfield and brownfield construction.

“It has large scale rail construction in the dual 8km tunnel where we’re delivering the slab track construction as well as the overhead wire and commissioning, including the brownfield connection at Bayswater Junction,” said Baden.

For a project of this complexity, comprehensive planning has to be undertaken. For the brownfield section, the style of operation goes to where the company first began.

“At the peak of works, we’ll have around 150 workers onsite. Not only will this help us deliver the project but it helps build our team and capabilities in WA, to ensure we are ready for new projects.”

“Being solutions focused, we have to be mindful that our piece is a small piece in a very large project, and our team is flexible enough to be redeployed to help out another team or assist with other works,” said Baden.

“Some expertise are recruited locally but we have also brought in other expertise. The only way we’re going to have success is to build a self-sustaining business in WA,” said Baden. “It’s the same in every market, people want to be dealing with locals.”

“Every market that we’re in, we’re in for the long term. We plan to successfully continue our growth and stay true to why we did this in the first place.”

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Condition Monitoring

Keeping the wheels turning In Adelaide, Bombardier have developed an in-house remote diagnostics system.

For over 15 years, the South Australian (SA) Depart of Planning, Transport and infrastructure (DPTI) and Bombardier Transportation (BT) have been working together to ensure the safe and efficient running of heavy rail fleets. Their aim is to provide the traveling public with high levels of customer satisfaction and increased availability, by working closely and listening actively to feedback to develop a deep understanding of SA’s specific needs.

Reliability is perhaps the highest priority when it comes to the operations of networks and ongoing rollingstock maintenance and performance is key.

Keeping trains on the tracks and moving passengers safely is a cornerstone of any operation and through BT’s through life support, intrinsic knowledge of the SA network, and true collaboration with DPTI, BT has been able to continue to provide high levels of mean distance between failure (MDBF) and ensure fleet performance.

These realities are front-and-centre for both DPTI and BT, which has manufactured and has the contract for the ongoing maintenance of Adelaide’s EMU fleet. The A-City fleet, currently comprised of 22 three carriage sets, with another 12 on order, were the first electrical units to operate on the Adelaide network.

Introduced in July 2013, with the first entering service in February 2014, the fleet has begun to require modernisation to improve services to the traveling public, through implementation of technical enhancements in the through life support of the vehicles.

According to Todd Garvey, Bombardier Transportation’s head of sales, Australia and New Zealand, a unique solution was required to update the fleet and keep performance of the trains at the high level required for the

The system was developed by members of Bombardier’s local team.

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Adelaide network.

“The system allows real time analysis of signals that can ensure the vehicle is safe to run without attending site,” said Garvey.

The remote diagnostics solution can measure an array of vehicle specifics, including engine speed, temperature, oil pressure, HVAC temperature, converter diagnostics, and other faults.

With this information provided to remote maintenance managers, faults can be reset while a train is in service.

“The quick benefit seen by all is being able to reset faults remotely in traffic such as HVAC and convertor issues; these improve on time running and passenger comfort,” said Garvey.

Not only does the system increase uptime but works to enhance vehicle safety. One example of this is having remote awareness of the door safety interlock. The remote diagnostics solution allows for this safety critical element to be monitored and fixed without returning to a maintenance facility.

A COLLABORATIVE HOME-GROWN SOLUTION While remote diagnostics are not unique to this fleet, the solution is a demonstration of value creation through collaborative engagement between DPTI and BT, and has empowered BT to develop a system that is based on its local knowledge of the conditions in which the A-City fleet were operating. As a relatively small fleet, the return on investment in implementing and off-the-shelf solution was prohibitive.

“Therefore, it was necessary to engineer a bespoke solution to maximise the return on investment to get to a point of providing real

benefit to the operation,” said Garvey.

In addition to supplying and manufacturing the A-City fleet, BT has also provided maintenance services out of Adelaide’s Dry Creek railcar depot.

Site general manger for Bombardier Transportation at Dry Creek Brenton Valladares said the local expertise that BT has in SA was essential for this project.

“Our local experts Carl Parr and Graham Schier – an electrical engineer and IT guru respectively – have together been with Bombardier Transportation for over 45 years across the world,” said Valladares. “Graham is a shopfloor electrician, born and bred in Adelaide, apprenticed by BT with exceptional IT skills that were identified and leveraged for the project. This combination of using in-house talent from both the shopfloor and engineering function to deliver a high-quality solution make this project unique.”

Parr and Schier worked with BT’s local partners and global network to develop a custom-built solution to run real-time remote diagnostics on the A-City fleet.

With capital investment and a true partnership approach with the SA government, BT developed the concept and the system integration with third-party suppliers. How the system works is that onboard equipment is networked via the existing service port of each system to a hardware gateway. This gateway is then connected to a secure remote server.

The requested data is sent to an alternate server hosted by Hasler that analyses the

Bombardier developed a solution in partnership with DPTI that enabled trains to spend less time in the workshop.

signals, looking for data matches that align with predetermined events. Hasler also supply the data logger hardware and platform event diagnostics.

“One of the key challenges was networking the legacy systems into the program. These were overcome with some reverse engineering.

The support from DPTI on this project has been marvellous and their ongoing backing of innovation, rail in SA, and BT is something we value greatly.” said Valladares.

When the data aligns with the predetermined events an alert is sent via email or other notification to the maintenance facility. Two full time team members are dedicated to monitoring and reviewing the system now that it is in place.

DELIVERING BENEFITS As the A-City fleet has undergone further

modernisation, one of the elements to be aware of was the learning curve for drivers. By taking these diagnostics out of the train cab and into the hands of remote maintenance personnel, drivers are supported to focus on the new elements of the trains.

This new technology is a great asset for both Bombardier and DPTI said Garvey.

“With these upgrades and changes occurring across multiple systems in the fleet, remote access provides real time information, thereby reducing the learning curve for the drivers, this is a great asset for us and DPTI” said Garvey.

Another unique facet of the maintenance and upkeep of the A-City fleet is the structure of the depots. Adelaide’s mix of electrified and unelectrified lines has meant that the Dry Creek depot is unelectrified. This means that when maintenance does need to occur, the EMUs are hauled into the facility. Having

The remote monitoring can diagnose and rectify faults while trains are in service.

remote diagnostics enables access to the vehicle’s systems without needing to go into the yards as often.

“We have also seen improved turn-around times for maintenance due to having an improved understanding of the faults prior to the asset arriving at Bombardier’s facilities,” said Garvey.

“In addition, there are reduced nuisance faults (less time on NFF) and more cars remaining in traffic. We are also able to reset faults in service, so that maintenance can be planned at an appropriate time.”

With the system now rolled out across the fleet, the system has doubled the KPI that was set for it in parallel with other project work.

The system has now reached figures of above 100,000 MDBF, highlighting the effect that the delivery of local ingenuity, backed up by global expertise, can have on a unique train fleet.

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Condition Monitoring HealthHub can be used by maintenance workers on iPads, for real-time updates on the status of rollingstock and track infrastructure.

Under the bonnet Alstom are using the deployment of HealthHub on the Sydney Metro network as a showcase of what’s possible from an OEM when it comes to condition monitoring.

The level of technological sophistication on the Sydney Metro system is most easily seen when looking up and down the train. When straight, one can see from the front window to the back, without any barriers in between. The lack of a separate driver cabin, and the all-in-one nature of the train point to the cohesiveness of the connection between, train and remote operator.

What the passenger looking out the front or rear of the train cannot see, is the technology ensuring that these trains are running at their most optimum condition, while limiting the disruptions caused by trains having to be overhauled or pulled out of service.

Simon Belet, however, does see this side of the system, as he monitors the data which provide real time information of the status of the train, track, and systems, all the way down to the status of the ventilation vents.

The dashboard that Belet, OCC and HealthHub support officer for Alstom, is looking at, is Alstom’s HealthHub system. Taking data from sensors located throughout the train and on the track, HealthHub enables Sydney Metro’s operator, Metro Trains Sydney to optimise their maintenance and ensure that the operational life of the trains is maximised.

Nicolas Thiebot, Alstom’s services director for Australia, described how the condition monitoring system works.

“The train subsystems are continuously

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monitored by the engineer on the ground, so we can have a real-time overview of the health of the train and we can make an informed decision for what to do with the trains when things do happen, or prevent an issue before it actually happens.”

Thiebot sees three primary ways how a condition monitoring system can benefit a rail operator.

“On subsystems like doors, HVAC, traction, and brakes, we usually estimate that depending on the system, 30-40 per cent of the faults can be mitigated before they create a service affecting failure by having someone like Simon monitoring HealthHub on a continuous basis.”

Sensors are condition logics are set up to send an alarm back to the HealthHub engineer and the operations control centre when a component goes beyond its normal operating range, and then the operator is able to make a decision as to how to respond, said Thiebot.

“The engineers get notified and they can say, ‘This one can run until the end of the day.’ or, ‘This one needs immediate attention. Let’s bring it back to the depot and inject a new train.’”

Preventing a failure which would otherwise lead to a disruption not only helps to ensure an optimal customer experience but also avoids delays to service and ensures a predictable and reliabile service.

The second area where condition monitoring

can find value is through the optimisation of the life of subsystems, particularly those that are exposed to wear. In Perth, where Alstom will build and maintain 41 electric and 2 diesel train sets, Alstom will install prognostics and health management or predictive maintenance sensors on systems such as doors and HVAC to

Every second, data from Sydney Metro trains is being monitored remotely.

KEEPING A SYSTEM’S HEALTH IN CHECK On the Sydney Metro system, Alstom’s Healthhub not only covers the trains but also catenary, track, and critical point machines.

By having a comprehensive picture of the way that a system operates, Belet can direct maintenance personnel to conduct their upkeep most efficiently.

“When the train comes back to the

workshop, we can give the information to the maintenance teams to maximise the number of operations that they could do and this could have big benefits for the reliability and the availability of the rollingstock,” said Belet.

Developed at Alstom’s Centre of Excellence in France, the web based, graphical user interface is then customised for the local network. In Sydney, the system has been deployed under trial for much of 2020.

With the Sydney metro line operated by Metro Trains Sydney (MTS), data is shared between Alstom and MTS to localise and maximise efficiency. One example of how this occurs would be in the case of a broken rail.

Train-mounted sensors can identify the break in the rail, and cameras take an image of the area where the fault is thought to be. An email will then be sent to track maintenance manager and the operator of the line.

“The content of the email will be the position and the picture of the defect to let them analyse as quickly as possible if it’s a real defect or a false positive and what is the best move in terms of safety to take the best decision,” said Belet.

In testing, the system has achieved a time of just minutes between the time of detection to email reception.

Another area where the system can deliver value is in the wear profile of the carbon strip of the pantograph, where it connects with the catenary. By incorporating data from the train and the catenary, maintenance can be precisely located to a particular section of track.

By providing this information to the

IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

guide maintenance over its 20-year contract.

“This will make sure that we have the best approach in terms of maintenance,” said Thiebot. “For something as simple as HVAC filters replacement, how do we measure the pressure drop differential before and after the filter to optimise the whole of life cost of those filters? Those filters typically can be around 3-4 per cent of your total lifecycle costs in terms of material cost. If we can extend them by 20-50 per cent from a nominal replacement frequency without any performance degradation, we can make significant savings – both financial and environmental.”

The final area is reducing the frequency of overhauls of entire train.

“The ultimate goal for me is the relaxation of maintenance overhaul,” said Thiebot. “Typically, we have maintenance overhauls based on mileage or based on time based frequencies.

What we realised is that most of the OEMs tend to be a bit conservative, and if we can make informed decisions on when the overhaul is due based on the condition of the asset, we can potentially defer that overhaul by 1-3 years, sometimes even more.”

operations centre, when something does occur on a system, solutions can immediately be communicated.

“When trains do fail and you have a subsystem failing, usually the driver is under immense pressure to resume service as soon as possible, which can be quite debilitating,” said Thiebot.

“What we can do is when they have an issue, they ring the OCC, we connect real time and we have a display of what the system is showing so we can guide them over the phone as to what needs to be done. It’s the difference between managing a door fault in 30 seconds or one minute or compared to a 10- or 11-minute delay.”

A FLEXIBLE AND INTEGRATED SOLUTION Today, Healthhub is deployed across Alstom’s operations on every continent. Although originally developed to monitor Alstom’s own fleet and equipment, around the globe, the system is able to incorporate data from third party components, and the central algorithm is constantly being updated with information based off these sources. In Sydney, the point machines have been supplied by Alstom and a third party and both have been successfully integrated in the HealthHub system.

When working with rollingstock manufactured by another car builder, Alstom employs the talents of its subsidiary Nomad Digital to instrument non-Alstom equipment to be able to leverage data out of the system. In Sydney, Alstom is potentially looking to extract data from non-Alstom light rail vehicles using this technology.

At the other end of the system, Healthhub can connect into an operator’s enterprise asset management system to interface with maintenance planning and scheduling.

“We can convert data coming from HealthHub into a service notification in an ERP system that eventually gets sent to the mobility tablet that the maintainer is using to do the work,” said Thiebot. “So you have the end to end automated process that takes something that happens on the network and creates a meaningful action for the customer.”

For Thiebot, the kind of intelligence that the system offers, and the ease of use, demonstrates how far condition monitoring has come, and the potential of the system.

“I was maintaining trains myself 10-15 years ago, and it was very tedious to go through the data mining and analysis phase. With very limited training, anyone who’s got a fairly broad understanding of the system can really make sense of the data and have meaningful action out of it.”

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Condition Monitoring

Designing smarter solutions 4Tel is working to bring the latest in artificial intelligence technologies to simplify the uptake of condition monitoring.

In a report prepared for Infrastructure Australia ahead of the first Australian Infrastructure Audit, consultants GHD surveyed the maintenance needs of all major categories of Australian infrastructure.

When it came to rail, the report found that maintaining Australia’s diverse rail networks was a high priority and in regional rail in particular there was a high likelihood of a coming maintenance gap.

For the regional rail networks, the combination of competition with road freight and existing infrastructure reaching the end of its useful life left much of these networks facing maintenance issues. As the provider and maintainer of train control technology for the Country Regional Network (CRN), Newcastle-based software and hardware engineering firm 4Tel is on the front line of developing innovative technology solutions that provide the ability to bridge the maintenance gap.

General manager of control systems Graham Hjort describes how condition monitoring has been enhanced on the Country Regional Network through application of an Internet of Things (IoT) approach.

“The I/O ports on selected field signalling and telemetry assets are connected to a modem which connects the ports remotely back into a central asset management system called 4Site, which then allows the health

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of the asset to be interpreted and, if need be, alarms or reports triggered based on the information received from the asset.”

The process also allows changes to be directed back to the field asset by the reverse connection to change selected settings.

“Another way in which condition monitoring has been improved is through improved analysis of information from the field sites,” Hjort continues. “One of the typical functions that 4Site is able to perform is a real time analysis of how long it takes a set of points to move between positions.

If the time taken for those points to move and lock into place is above an acceptable

Using different methods to detect objects in differing states.

threshold, an alarm is raised via 4Site and an appropriate course of action initiated.

By tapping into the existing telemetry, for remote connectivity, 4Tel has been able to remotely control field assets and their reporting without the need for any additional communications hardware. When you start to talk about return on investment, it is minimal outlay, maximum return.”

While this approach to condition monitoring has its benefits, unless maintenance providers use asset condition information as part of their infrastructure maintenance practices, then the benefits may be illusory.

AI is able to mine data collected by cameras.

Many physical rail assets are unable to provide an interface for health information, however 4Tel is using emerging technologies to solve this issue. In 2018 4Tel partnered with the University of Pretoria, South Africa, to understand the role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) could play in remotely identifying and assessing the health of rail infrastructure. This relationship, along with an existing relationship with the University of Newcastle, NSW, has proven fruitful by providing a platform for researchers to practically apply their work to solving current issues facing one of the largest industries across the globe. With students from these universities, 4Tel is exploring how AI will improve operations for both train operators and rail infrastructure maintainers.

4Tel’s senior artificial intelligence scientist, Dr Aaron Wong is part of the 4Tel Artificial Intelligence Engineering team that includes staff in Australia and internationally. He also continues his work as a conjoint lecturer at the University of Newcastle.

“The use of AI not only can assist in the identification and analysis of defects and faults, but it can also help to reduce cost and risk by allowing the AI to trudge through the data to identify the areas of concern,” said Wong.

Putting these software-driven solutions into practice has also enabled 4Tel to take condition monitoring beyond signalling and cover a broader range of rail infrastructure.

“AI allows us the ability to move beyond track circuits, points, and interlockings for condition monitoring. AI can now be applied AI to rail, ballast, sleeper, and structural defects.”

Aaron Wong, 4Tel senior artificial intelligence scientist “AI allows us the ability to move beyond track circuits, points, and interlockings for condition monitoring. AI can be applied to rail, ballast, sleeper, and structural defects,” said Wong.

With rail maintenance vehicles and trains travelling across the network, 4Tel is developing a suite of sensors and cameras which are able to easily be fitted to a range of vehicles to provide continuous monitoring of rail condition. The aim of this project is that faults are able to be identified in real time, geo-located and tagged, and then reported back to a maintainer, said Hjort.

“What we are aiming to do here is detect where the fault is or is developing, and if needed, send the maintenance team information about the defect to allow them to conduct their initial assessments before they’ve even left their depot.”

Wong highlighted that ML teaches the AI system the different characteristics of a fault or defect.

“Then the system will be able to utilise that learning in future assessments to identify these faults as they develop over time,” he said.

The introduction of AI into the rail industry

in Australia is just beginning with practical applications across a range of environments.

“4Tel’s AI solution allows for multiple inputs into our AI and Machine Learning application. We are able to cater for all the different environments that impact rail operations including in areas of low light such as tunnels, fog, and other challenging spaces including those with high traffic, with the aim of reducing people in the corridor.” said Wong.

“Once the information has been captured through the sensors and/or cameras, the AI processing mines through the data that is collected and then provides detailed assessments to the maintenance provider on the state or the health of the asset,” he said.

AI can significantly shift the rail industry in Australia to more proactive maintenance structure. While this is an example of 4Tel using AI to monitor the health of rail infrastructure, the application of this technology also extends to the above rail operations.

Railway networks and train operations are going to be extensively impacted by AI-based innovation over the current decade and in the future.

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Condition Monitoring

Agility for rail: Delivering on data SSG Insight is delivering Agility, a modern CMMS with unique functionalities designed for the complexities of transportation.

Computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS), which record an organisation’s maintenance and asset management regimes have a history of over three decades. While the digitalisation of railways and transportation networks may have emerged as a talking point in the last 10 years, the digital management of maintenance procedures and asset history is much longer.

One company that has been on this journey since the early days is SSG Insight, which began 35 years ago offering its CMMS platform, Agility to the transportation and facilities management sectors.

James MacPherson, CEO of Asia Pacific and Canada for SSG Insight, describes how the company’s software has evolved.

“We started out providing a pure CMMS system, but over the years that’s morphed into a smarter integrated workplace management system. We provide maintenance management systems, performance management systems, and enterprise workplace management systems around the globe and specifically to the rail industry.”

As CMMS systems have grown, they have become much more than a log of maintenance requests and a record of actions undertaken.

Today, the systems can be used to drive condition-based monitoring schemes, by interpreting asset data. This enables the platform itself to schedule work orders, provide condition assessments over an asset’s lifecycle, and monitor inventory levels and purchasing.

While these functionalities are common to many industries, including manufacturing, distribution, and utilities, for the rail sector, Agility takes the insights from the CMMS software and matches these to contract outcomes for transportation service provides.

“What we offer on top of a standard CMMS is performance management,” said MacPherson.

“We can configure the system to self-manage the contracts.”

For transportation networks run by a private company under a contract with a municipal or regional transport authority, maintaining accurate and transparent maintenance logs is a key contract requirement. What Agility enables the providers to do, is automatically calculate maintenance or asset events against key performance indicators such as kilometres

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Agility provides real time dashboards that match a client’s needs.

served or trips completed.

“In those scenarios the onus is on evidence and transparency, so those calculations around lost kilometres and trips, as an example, enable the contractor who’s running the transport network to be able to evidence why they may have lost kilometres on trips. This is specific for the rail industry, and it’s been developed especially for rail clients,” said MacPherson.

OVERCOMING THE CONSTRAINTS OF LEGACY SYSTEMS For the rail industry, implementing a smart CMMS system requires access to data being produced by an array of legacy systems. With experience deploying Agility on both brandnew systems opened as recently as 2019, and historical systems that were first horse-drawn and have been operating since the 19th century, SSG Insight knows how to collate data from a diversity of sources.

The different histories of different transport systems mean that data is not always organised in a way that is immediately interpretable and actionable.

“Specifically in the rail industry, we will sit down and discuss the legacy systems that operators have, the constraints that they have in terms of data and where servers are located, all of those types of things, because there’s a real mixed bag of rail systems out there.

One of the key offers to the rail industry is a consultative, outcomes-based approach,” said MacPherson.

With data often siloed into different areas, the effectiveness of a smart asset management solution is dependent upon getting disparate systems to talk to one another. In addition, distinct areas of operations may have their own, existing maintenance management systems, which will not be integrated across a network’s operations to be able to provide transparent information. SSG Insight has overcome this with its product Agility Connect, which can take data from any system, interpret it, and create an action.

“One of our recent examples is looking at creating a data-lake from lots of different systems and then analysing that data-lake and bringing those actionable insights back to the client from multiple systems,” said MacPherson.

“That SCADA system there may not talk to anything, or if does talk to something, it’s got to go to a server behind 10 firewalls and it’s got to be housed in a room full of lead. But now, with a true software as a service (SaaS) deployment in secure Microsoft Azure, you have a huge amount of flexibility.”

Just like each area of operations may have its own data and control systems, in a complex transportation network there are multiple subcontractors or parties contributing

to a network. By bringing data from these parties together without needing to replace each system, SSG Insight can provide a comprehensive look at a network’s assets and operations.

“We’re working on one project at the moment where there’s five CMMS systems, which clearly is untenable. So, what we do is we’ll assist with the service companies and the subcontractors with the issue of having multiple systems by creating a flexible and fully interpretable system,” said MacPherson. “If the individual CMMSs can’t go anywhere then we’ll just become the master of information and the master of the contract, so we’ll just integrate with them and pass the information back.”

IMPLEMENTATION Knowing that no two transportation systems are the same, SSG Insight has developed Agility to be flexible to the needs and requirements of each mobility network, without the need to create a bespoke product each time.

“We don’t have to go to our development team and say, ‘Can you produce this for us?’ We have it all built into the configuration of the system so you can take the unique contract and build it in without having to change the commercial off the shelf (COTS) product,” said MacPherson.

“The system is designed by the users, for the users. All of the screens within the system ensure that the workflow is efficient and reduces repetitive entry, and then from that triggers the right set of actions for groups of individuals or the board or whoever, to be able to look at trends, analysis, whatever it might be.”

Agility has recently been deployed by

In Nottingham, Agility is used by over 100 users.

Manchester has utilised Agility to manage its maintenance and rollingstock management.

Edinburgh Trams, a 14 kilometre, 16-stop network between Edinburgh Airport and the city centre. Here, an incumbent CMMS system had to remain in place, so Agility was overlaid on the system to take work orders and completion details created in the incumbent system and measure and track these actions in Agility against the operator’s contract.

“What will happen is we’ll take the asset register from the existing CMMS and then place the contract against it. Then we will feed that information back to the existing CMMS once the job is completed,” said MacPherson.

Automating the reporting of these tasks has a direct outcome by reducing paperwork and multiple handling, a tangible outcome for the client. By building KPI measurements to system requests, tasks are directly and automatically

associated with reporting requirements, often replacing several manual processes.

“The system is built around the client,” said MacPherson. “We will sit with them and ask what is the process at the moment, and we’ll map that out and see that 70 per cent of that you can get rid of, because we can fully automate it. We can put it against the contract, and we can make it transparent, and we can make it auditable and you can see it in real time on the dashboard. Once we go through that process, we find that there’s a tangible sense of ‘Can you get it done tomorrow?’”

In Nottingham, where Agility has been deployed on the tram network for almost 10 years, the system is used by 135 users on 24/7 shifts. The platform collects passenger feedback, is used by service teams on mobile devices, and is the central control room log, making it the reference point for all operational event.

“We’ve gone from being a CMMS, to doing passenger feedback and then adding on to managing service-level agreements (SLA) and seeing which workflows can be improved or changed. The thing about Agility is that once a workflow is in the system it’s not fixed. If you suddenly realise that actually you could improve it then a customer can do it. They can change the question sets, they can change the notifications, they can change the steps that occur and if the contract changes, they can adjust in the performance measurement straight away,” said MacPherson.

Having the backing of a history of developing CMMS systems with the ability to continually innovate, Agility enables transportation to reap the benefits of the ever-expanding collection of data.

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Condition Monitoring

Starting from first principles Getting the balance right between preventative maintenance and over-spending on upkeep requires an independent set of eyes.

The Port of Newcastle handles over $18 billion worth of freight each year, with 97 per cent of trade moved by rail. This makes ensuring that the lines which feed into the port from the Hunter Valley coal network and the links to interstate freight lines are in good condition a critical requirement.

Scott Campbell, general manager - rail for Lycopodium Infrastructure knows this well having worked with a number of rail infrastructure owners whose exports travel to the Port of Newcastle.

“If there is a fault or a defect that will prevent freight transport, that’s a huge impediment, not just to the individual companies who are trying to get a train through but to the logistics and transport industry in Australia,” said Campbell. “Some coal producers put out up to 10 trains a day, so that’d be about 80,000 tonnes of coal per day out from their facility. If there’s a failure in the infrastructure on a particular day and it takes a week to repair and get the trains back on track that’s potentially half a million tonnes of coal and when the market is good, that’s at $100/

Beginning from first principles means that the right maintenance program is designed for the specific section of track.

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tonne. That’s a huge amount of money.”

Lycopodium assists freight operators and infrastructure owners nationally to determine the right rail maintenance program that suits their operations. For Campbell, this is about ensuring that maintenance is done in a controlled manner.

“Commercially and logistically, it’s imperative to get a maintenance program in place so you do preventative maintenance rather than breakdown maintenance. Being able to understand the status of track condition and to fix or upgrade the track back to a fit for purpose standard before there is an issue means you

can program and plan your production and your maintenance, reducing risk to operations.”

What sets Lycopodium apart is that unlike maintenance contractors, there is no large shed of equipment and machinery waiting to be deployed to work on the track. While Lycopodium is an accredited rollingstock operator with its own hi-rail inspection plant for on-the-spot repairs, their focus is about designing the maintenance program to fit the job at hand.

Operating in all mainland states, Lycopodium is an independent advisor when it comes to maintenance, with deep expertise in design,

“Commercially and logistically, it’s imperative to get a maintenance program in place so you do preventative maintenance rather than breakdown maintenance. ” Scott Campbell, Lycopodium Infrastructure general manager - rail

project management, and infrastructure management, and has the ability to conduct track inspection and certification.

“We provide an independent, fit for purpose solution. We will go there and do the inspections, certify the tracks, and identify defects,” said Campbell. “If required, we can then prepare scoping documentation to call tenders and manage the maintenance work on behalf of the client.”

With Australia’s vast network of rail track providing very different tasks depending on the location, Lycopodium can design a maintenance program that responds to the needs of a particular section of track. With this information in hand, infrastructure owners can then ensure their maintenance provider is providing them the best value for money.

“We work on a lot of private sidings around the country where we do the inspections, identify any defects and then put in place a maintenance program,” said Campbell. “We assess the condition of the infrastructure at the time of inspection, report on the severity of any defects and provide an analysis on infrastructure condition trends.”

Through rigorous inspection and trends analysis, Lycopodium’s engineers begin from first principles. By starting with the infrastructure configuration and condition, rather than inferring from theories or assumptions, the maintenance program is tailored to the specificities of that track.

“Our engineers look at the duty of the rail, what tonnage is going to be going across the track over any given year – not just the overall tonnage, but the point tonnage – what the axle load is going to be. We look at the status of the infrastructure from the formation of the ballast to the rail, sleepers and fastenings, and then we provide a maintenance management plan to the client so that again the predictability is there and they can forecast costs when they need to have an outage to conduct on-track maintenance,” said Campbell.

The maintenance needed, whether it be rail grinding, safety measures, or upgrading ballast and sleepers, is therefore based upon the actual usage rate of the track.

To get this understanding of a network or section of track, Lycopodium works with the client in partnership. A round of inspections are done to form a base line and then once usage is discussed a further maintenance inspection will be carried out to see the trends of the track’s wear.

“If a grain siding is only going to be putting out 50,000 tonnes a year and it’s only going to be operated at the end of a harvest, we’re not going to be inspecting the track every month

Lycopodium brings an independent view to the maintenance and management of rail infrastructure.

for 12 months,” said Campbell. “We’re going to look at it at the end of the harvest, so we do a condition assessment at the end of it, and we will compare that with how we predicted it would be.

“We might do a six-month inspection and look at how it’s stood up to almost no use and then come back in closer to harvest time where we’ve predicted what the condition is going to be. Then, we will see what maintenance is required so that the siding is suitable for their forecast use over the next harvest season.”

Within the rail group, Lycopodium has 40 staff, including track inspectors and certifiers, maintenance manager, and condition analysts.

The data from the inspections is fed into Lycopodium’s Maintenance Management Systems (LycoMMS) so that clients can get a

real-time understanding of where the defects in the track are. This tool can then be used to forecast when maintenance is needed.

“A lot of the industry have conducted regular inspections and upgrade tracks to a standard that’s not required,” said Campbell. “What we have focused on is engineering from first principles and monitoring to make sure that the track is fit for purpose, while making sure that the clients don’t overspend on an asset.”

“Focusing on a rail asset’s actual condition and usage, rather than an assumption can avoid overspending in the order of three times the amount required,” said Campbell.

“Marrying up the strong engineering principles with the maintenance management system that provides monitoring and trending, we can then tailor a maintenance program to a client’s real needs, rather than a best guess.”

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Condition Monitoring

Going from data to insights Using a digital twin to drive operational decisions when it comes to maintenance is about turning what could be a cost into an asset.

By 2025, the world will be creating 175 zettabytes annually, according to market research firm IDC’s Data Age 2025 report. To put that in context, one zettabyte is equivalent to one trillion gigabytes. How rapidly this data is growing can be demonstrated by the fact that in 2012, only one zettabyte of data existed.

But, with all this data being produced, how much of it is actually useful? While a rail organisation is only a small proportion of the global data total, according to Andrew Smith, solutions executive responsible for Bentley’s Rail and Transit solution, they are still producing a significant amount of data.

“Rail organisations typically are very data rich,” said Smith. “They’ve got a large number of asset disciplines because it’s a huge complex system and each of those asset disciplines has a number of inspection and measurement mechanisms that can produce data.”

This data on its own, however, is not yet a useful resource.

“Data is a discrete fact about something,” said Smith. “For example, the distance between the left and right rail at this location is X, but data is no use to you when you’re actually trying to either work out short term what you’re going to do or longer term what may happen in the future. What you need to do is start a transformation process, so the first step of that is to go from data to information, which is data in context with meaning attached.”

Giving data its context turns what can be

Digital twins can give meaning to the vast amounts of data produced by railways.

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seen as a cost, the accumulation and storage of data, into a resource, information that can be used to make a decision.

“In order to be able to do that, you need to have a framework in place that allows you to pull all the different classes of data together, such that you can see all of that data in context,” said Smith. “And to me, that’s at the heart of the digital twin.”

Digital twins are a replica or model of a system or asset that can be used to take the information that a rail organisation has, in the form of data, to create insights, that are conclusions drawn from data and information.

“When you bring all this information together, the digital twin can tell you how as well and why things are happening, and it can give you contextual history,” said Smith.

“The digital twin can give you design intent information that you wouldn’t necessarily have otherwise, as well as the as-constructed record.

Critically, a railway is a system, it’s not just a set of isolated components, and what a digital twin allows us to do is understand specifically the relationships between those components and how they can be affecting each other.”

While digital twins are widely used in many fields, including construction and manufacturing, they have a distinct role to play when it comes to the maintenance and management of rail assets. As the complexity of operating a railway requires various departments covering different skills and

mandates, applying a digital twin can overcome the data and organisational silos. Smith, who has been working in the rail industry for over 20 years, highlights one way in which this can be applied.

“For anywhere that’s got overhead electrification for example, if you’re on ballasted track you can move the track from side to side through maintenance, but you need to maintain the relationship with the overhead wires, but these are often managed by two different teams. The digital twin will manage by design the relationship between the two.

The maintenance records, where you’re going to go, and the type of maintenance you’re doing means that there is a chance that you will actually introduce a change to the overhead wire relationship. Therefore, you need to tag that work order as needing somebody to go out and actually measure the overhead wire relationship as well, whereas historically that relationship wouldn’t be as tightly coupled.”

DESIGNING A RAIL-BASED DIGITAL TWIN Getting to this level of maturity with a digital twin takes a deep understanding of how a rail network operates and how best to design a digital twin that fits the reality of a rail organisation. Bentley, as part of its portfolio of solutions in the rail and transit space, has experience working with rail operators around the globe to design and deploy digital twins.

From this experience, Smith highlights, the usual understanding of what a digital twin is can be re-evaluated.

“Normally if you think about a digital twin you actually start with a four-dimensional model, however railways often don’t think in terms of XYZ axes. They tend to think in terms of linear distances with lateral and vertical offsets and that drives the way that measurements are made, the way that inspections are made, but also the way that maintenance is actually managed. If you’re sending someone to go out and do some tamping along a piece of track, you don’t send them to an XYZ coordinate or a latitudelongitude coordinate, you’ll send them this many metres past kilometre post seven on such and such a track.”

With this in mind, Smith suggests that digital twins in the rail space can be more useful if

Smarter decisions around maintenance can be made with a digital twin.

they are designed to fit the way that railways are understood. Then, the data that makes up the digital twin can be overlaid on the representation of the network. When needed, for example at a station or in yards, this data can be visualised as a three-dimensional model, but linear visualisations may be more appropriate for a section of track.

To get to the point of having a representation of a rail network, a large amount of data will have to be collected and interpreted. As managers of an array of legacy assets, rail organisations can turn to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to sort and organise the vast streams of data, said Smith.

“One of the challenges that we see with a digital twin for a lot of brownfield sites in particular is that there are a large number of assets in place that are not being represented digitally. Being able to use image recognition or identifying features from reality meshes and then being able to put an attribution against them is a great use of AI to be able to identify where the assets are.”

With this data in place, the twin must be maintained and kept up to date. With networks spanning across hundreds of kilometres, rail organisations can use automated surveys of a network to provide the constant data upkeep needed.

With the digital twin now operating as a living representation of a rail network, defect detection can be done in a way that gets to a root cause, rather than just addressing individual issues. One example, that Smith describes is if measurement scans identify vertical deterioration. A digital twin would then allow for a cross referencing against other assets that are in place, to see if there is a culvert on that section of track.

“Then I’m not going to send a tamper out,” said Smith. “The first thing that I’m going to do is send a crew out to inspect a culvert to see if it’s collapsing over time. The next thing I might want to do there is ask, if I’ve got twin

track, am I seeing the same deterioration on both tracks? Normally they’d be considered in isolation, separate from each other. Then I would ask, has any maintenance taken place at this region? That’s not just maintenance of this asset, but all maintenance records, so I could say, ‘Hang on, someone actually went in there and did some maintenance work on the drainage in-between, but it happens to be in an area that’s close enough that it could’ve had an unexpected knock on onto the condition of the track.’”

These kinds of insights can only be gained through the kinds of insights a digital twin is able to offer, by bringing together disparate data and putting that data into context.

DRIVING THE SOLUTION While a digital twin may seem like a laudable goal on its own, according to Smith, the implementation of such a tool only makes sense when a rail organisation has identified what are the issues that it needs to solve.

“The driver here is not a technology change.

The driver is to change the way of working, so an organisation has to first understand its current working practices, where the efficiencies and inefficiencies are, where the limitations and constraints may be, and then we can understand the aspirational state, where they actually want to be at some stage in the future.”

Implementing a digital twin begins with understanding the process of going from a current state to an aspirational state in the future. Rather than jumping in straight to a predictive maintenance solution, the first step may be to identify where the current most significant issue is, with a plan or vision to have a predictive system at a point in the future. Understanding where the technology is going to be implemented comes down to working with the people who are going to be using the software.

“It is absolutely critical that those people

are engaged right from the outset, not just the management but the end users,” said Smith.

To get people on board, Bentley has used model offices where representative users are invited to be involved in the design process and give their insights into the particular challenges they face.

“Then there’s buy in,” said Smith. “There’s engagement at that side, which means that the final product is a tool that the engineers have designed and set up to help them do their job better that means they’re positive about the tool and they’re positive about the process change that’s in place to be able to do it.”

Rather than success looking like a piece of software that is installed to contract specifications, Smith outlines how in developing a success plan for the implementation of the software, the outcome is about delivering value.

“Owner operators of railways aren’t installing these systems because they like technology. Technology is an overhead to them – it’s a cost, an expense, and it’s a risk, so the only time that it’s worth doing is when they can show that the value is greater than the cost associated with it, so what we’re moving to is making sure that the focus is now on the value to the users instead,” said Smith.

“You can look into the future and run ‘what if’ scenarios. So, I’m going to increase the tonnage over a particular length of rail and I’m going to run a simulation of what that’s going to do to my rail replacement strategy that I have in place. We can use AI on top of this to look both tactically how do I optimise right now, where do I best spend money, but also starting to look further out by running simulations and trying to predict what the impact the change is going to have.”

This value can be defined in any number of ways, but as Smith highlights, it is the process of creating insights out of data.

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Condition Monitoring

A deep understanding Designed with the rail worker in mind, Trapeze’s EAM is a solution built for the transportation industry.

Transit have 2,000 technicians that use our system every day to fix rollingstock assets, so that topic of what we call ‘change management’ or ‘cultural change’ is a really important one.”

To make the use of EAM second-nature, Trapeze has been designed with the rail worker in mind.

“The first thing, from a product perspective, is having a system built for the industry that is just drop dead simple for end users. If we talk about a technician fixing a railcar, most people in maintenance would agree they don’t want those guys messing around in computer systems any longer than necessary. What they want is for the system to help them do their job, by telling them about repeat problems, by quickly showing them the work history, by looking up parts, but then to be able to swiftly get back to fixing the asset itself.”

Trapeze provides EAM specifically to the rail and transportation industry and is designed to ensure that all rail network assets are operating in a state of good repair through intelligent asset management. The solution allows asset managers, owners, and capital planners to evaluate their equipment from a whole-oflifecycle perspective and make evidence-based decisions about when to repair an asset, when

to upgrade and when to decommission.

“The capital planning tools allow asset owners to be able to see where this physical infrastructure is in terms of its remaining useful life and then make good business decisions around whether it is cost effective for us to rehabilitate this particular series of railcar to extend their useful life, or should we replace them all together, based upon how they’ve been performing,” said Koenig.

In a shorter timeframe, Trapeze can also monitor and schedule daily maintenance through work and materials management to keep safety critical assets in safe working order.

While these and other similar functions are common to many asset management tools, Koenig highlights that Trapeze is built by and for the rail industry.

“What sets us apart is understanding the workflows and the roles within a rail enterprise at a deep level. If you take our work management capabilities, we built from the ground up screens designed specifically for rail supervisors, technicians, materials management, and parts clerks based upon how they interact.”

Beyond the workshop, Trapeze also has mobile capability for track workers and facilities maintenance. This enables Trapeze IMAGE CREDIT: JOSE A FELICIANO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

On the walls of the asset management facilities for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA) commuter rail services a sign in 2-inch high font reads, “If it’s not in Trapeze it never happened”.

Across the 13 commuter rail lines that operate under the MBTA, asset management is conducted through Trapeze’s enterprise asset management (EAM) platform. Used by six of the top ten largest rail networks in the US, the program provides a single source of truth for all assets within a rail organisation. Making this system successful, however, depends on it being adopted by all stakeholders throughout a rail network operator, making the second line in the MBTA banner even more important: “FEED TRAPEZE”.

Having maintenance workers, technicians, and engineers use a system such as Trapeze by nature, is one of the top three issues for the successful deployment of an enterprise asset management solution, noted Brett Koenig, industry solutions manager (enterprise asset management) at Trapeze.

“It’s a tool that at a large rail property will directly be used by, in many cases, hundreds of staff, if not thousands of staff,” said Koenig. “If we take one example in North America, Chicago

In Denver, Colorado, Trapeze was able to deploy the EAM at the outset, increasing efficiency.

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Keolis Boston has made Trapeze second nature to rail maintenance staff.

to encompass the complexities of a railway organisation, with both discrete and linear assets which can be at various stages of digital maturity.

“It’s not only just the vehicle side, as critical as the vehicles are, but it’s also the track and wayside infrastructure and the facilities and building maintenance. Across all of those areas you’ve got smart infrastructure and what we do at Trapeze is define the assets properly from the get-go, not only defining their master asset records, but the full engineering-approved configuration of those assets,” said Koenig.

That gets into things like the parent/child relationships, the serialisation, and the other types of attributes that are critical for the assets to operate safely.”

Across such a broad array of different assets, made by any number of OEMs, Trapeze has a flexible tool that can receive data and interface with the digital components to provide realtime information on an asset’s health.

Recently, Trapeze was deployed on the Denver commuter rail network, and, being a greenfield deployment, was able to notify operations management in real time of any emerging faults in the system.

“We built a full integration with all of their SCADA systems as well as their onboard fault codes,” said Koenig. “The beautiful part about that is they’re being notified in real time about these problems before the component failure happens. As the fault occurs, it’s triggered into the EAM, the appropriate maintenance personnel are notified, and they can immediately get on it.”

A SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH Until recently, preventative and corrective maintenance was often carried out in silos. This limited the ability of railway operators to see trends within their maintenance data that could be used to schedule risk-based maintenance

programs in rollingstock and track assets.

Having a system such as Trapeze in place combines asset divisions, whether it be rollingstock, track, signalling, or facilities management to be able to extend the life and value of an asset.

“All of that data can be used to make better decisions around risk based maintenance, which assets are performing better than other series or other manufacturers’ assets, which ones should we be decommissioning sooner, versus which ones should we be extending the life of because it’s a high-quality piece of infrastructure that we want to keep going,” said Koenig. “All of that comes down again to the single source of truth and underscores why you really want to start with a solution that has the ability to track everything.”

To improve financial outcomes, maintenance workflows can be linked to purchasing decisions through integration with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

To improve operational outcomes, ensuring that maintenance is being conducted in a synchronised fashion stops bottlenecks from occurring when a system reaches a critical safety threshold.

For Australian commuters, this was illustrated in 2019 when an escalator linking platforms 9 and 10 at Southern Cross Station, in Melbourne, broke down, causing overcrowding as the escalator took over a week to fix.

According to Michael Scollo, industry solutions manager (enterprise asset management) at Trapeze, this can happen when a system doesn’t have a holistic view and interface with all of the asset classes that need to be managed and maintained in a rail network.

“You can have great business processes for maintenance of way and rollingstock but overlooking a mechanical asset such as a lift can cause downtime for two weeks in a specific train station.”

Understanding that these systems are inextricably linked in a system such as a rail network is what distinguishes Trapeze, said Koenig.

“In rail, the assets and workflows are so complex that the model that we see working most effectively is a best-of-breed model where the folks in asset management and maintenance get a tool that is tailor made for what they do and then that tool set is integrated with the ERP system.”

In contrast, said Ben Dvoracek, general manager of rail, Australia and New Zealand for Trapeze, attempting to apply a non-rail specific ERP system to manage maintenance won’t cover the complexity of rail maintenance. In addition, while the system may be up to date when deployed, a non-rail specific solution cannot account for the changes within the rail industry.

“One of the things that we have seen is when an ERP system is deployed for finance or HR a decision can often be made to customise the ERP solution to support rail maintenance and asset management activities. Although the system can be adapted to do good things, when you’re not investing consistently into rail maintenance functionality and because it isn’t built for rail maintenance staff, the system usage and operational efficiency drops.”

DEVELOPING FUTURE CAPABILITIES To keep users up-to-date with the latest Trapeze has to offer, the company provides regular updates that draw on the best practices of global rail organisations. User organisations are able to vote on the most needed upgrades, which are released in new versions of the software. In addition, to keep users making the most of the improvements in functionality, Trapeze delivers training and refresher courses for new staff as generations turn over within a rail organisation.

Currently, said Koenig, Trapeze is looking into releasing a network restrictions capability before the end of 2020.

“Essentially it’s a capability for maintenance and operations to both track any areas along the alignment that need to be operating at a slower speed than it was normally designed for.

We’re going to provide the ability to track those slow zones on the screen of the track manager who can see the assets in the linear reference system including all of the work laid out on an embedded map.”

Other future rail-specific improvements include track possession modules, linear visualisations based on geometry measurement, all highlighting how the tool is an EAM designed for rail.

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Condition Monitoring

Loram’s geotechnical inspection service can find faults not seen by manual inspection.

A comprehensive solution Loram is building upon its history of providing the right services to the rail industry with sophisticated expertise in track and infrastructure monitoring technology.

For over 50 years, Loram has been providing rail grinding and track maintenance services to the Australian market. It has become only natural, then for the company to use its expertise in precision rail management to innovate and provide a comprehensive solution when it comes to the interaction of different rail infrastructure assets.

According to Thomas Smith, director business development, cost and consistency are two major issues that are facing rail networks. Having a rich and understandable picture of the track asset can allow for better decisions to be made when it comes to maintenance.

“Having an advanced diagnostic profile of the current health of your track and identifying trends over time allows our

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customers to migrate to a preventative maintenance program which can save significant money by extending the life of their assets,” said Smith.

Having provided rail grinding, ballast cleaning, and track maintenance equipment and services for decades around the globe, Loram has seen where the gaps are when infrastructure managers are seeking to optimise the upkeep of their network.

“For decades, Loram has had the equipment for repairing and/or maintaining the rail and drainage, including ballast and ditches. Having the ability to know exactly where and how to apply that equipment has been a development process leading Loram to create or acquire the technology it offers today,” said Smith.

This technology has taken Loram’s knowledge of the dynamics affecting track condition and brought a level of precision engineering. For the past 30 years, Loram has been refining its rail grinding through the use of high-speed measuring and analysis, which uses laser camera technology. To analyse track for substructure maintenance, Loram has deployed cuttingedge technology for the last 15 years.

These developments in inspection services have been crystallised into three major areas. The first is rail inspection services, which use rail inspection vehicles (RIV) to collect rail profile, wear, gauge, and cant data. This data is then used to refine a rail grinding program, said Smith.

“Collected data is mapped to exact track

locations to positively match the grind plan and applied to the grinder.”

The second area is Loram’s Aurora Track Inspection services. These use imaging technology to scan and reveal the exact condition of below rail infrastructure. Manual detection methods can only detect so much and are limited in terms of the speed at which they can be conducted.

“Aurora can perform inspections at over 65km/h and plays a critical role in prioritising and streamlining our customers’ capital maintenance programs,” said Smith.

Loram’s third area of inspection services are in the field of geotechnical inspection services. These services use tools such as ground penetrating radar and LiDAR scanning technology to measure and analyse geotechnics and substructure. The equipment that performs these scans can be mounted on the vehicle platform most suited to the task, including geometry cars, rail grinders, hi-rail trucks, or other track vehicles.

Taking the results of these services together, Loram can build a solution for a rail infrastructure owner or manager that includes track maintenance as well as formation analysis and remediation.

With experience working in many different environments, Loram’s services are able to be delivered in any circumstance.

“Loram hasn’t found a location yet where we couldn’t deploy and manage our services.

We recently conducted a geotechnical survey in South America where there wasn’t even rail infrastructure present, only formation. Our technology is set up to be deployed in many situations and can be customised to help

Loram’s scanning technology can be fitted to the vehicle required.

The results of a geotechnical inspection service’s scan.

meet our customers’ demands,” said Smith.

With the data collected through a combination of these technologies, the next step is to ensure that it is presented in a way that enables actions to be taken and decision to be made. To simplify this, Loram is working on combining data from its various services into a comprehensive track maintenance platform, said Smith.

“The data we collect is technical, time consuming to analyse, and can be overwhelming. That is why the final output that Loram provides our customers simplifies the information into easy-to-understand reports that are customised to our customer’s specific needs.”

With these insights in hand, maintenance can be conducted in a way that uses resources in the most efficient way possible.

“Having the ability to accurately measure the condition of your track assets allows

our customers to intelligently and precisely plan maintenance activities with regards to subgrade, ballast, sleepers, components, and rail,” said Smith. “When our customers understand the conditions of these assets and how they degrade over time, then they can take actionable measures to prevent degradation and truly maximise the life of their investments.”

What makes Loram unique, however, is that not only can it identify and monitor issues related to track and infrastructure management, but it has the ability to fix and remedy the issues.

“With all of these inspection and maintenance solutions provided by one company, we have the experience, expertise and historical data to understand how all of the different rail infrastructure assets and dynamics affect each other,” said Smith.

Loram’s own rail grinding and friction management equipment can be deployed to areas of track where defects have been found by rail inspection vehicles. When ballast maintenance is identified as an issue, Loram has an entire fleet of ballast maintenance equipment and geotechnical services that are designed to manage track drainage and quality, or material handling solutions that can pinpoint where extra ballast is needed.

Sleeper maintenance is another area where inspection technology can be used to determine the quality of individual sleepers and components, with the data management to deliver customised reports to the required specification.

“We have this broad range of track data and knowledge from seeing just about any track issue that allows us to help our customers precisely plan, prioritise, and execute track inspection and maintenance on their networks,” said Smith.

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Safety Evidence has shown that platform screen doors and fencing are the most effective way to prevent incidents in the rail corridor.

Keeping safety on track Rail Express sits down with Heather Neil, the new CEO of TrackSAFE, to hear about her focus for the harm-prevention charity.

When Heather Neil joined TrackSAFE as its new CEO, the organisation had just coordinated the largest ever Rail R U OK?Day, despite being in the middle of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Instead of the usual barbeques and meet-ups that had been organised in previous years, rail employees were checking in with each other virtually and organisations sponsored conversation challenges.

Despite social distancing measures, over 75,000 rail-sector individuals participated in the annual mental-health awareness day. Speaking with colleagues and partners after the event, Neil said she was heartened by the positivity of the sector and the widespread engagement.

“Even though this year people did Rail R U OK?Day quite differently, there still seems to be a real interest and enthusiasm for those activities in a workplace; to check in on people and to remind them that one day in a year there’s a real focus on it but hopefully

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that rolls into other activities that people do as individuals and in workplaces throughout the year,” said Neil.

“Various companies have reported seeing that long term cultural change about caring for your workmates. They’re more than just your work colleagues – you might not see them outside of work, but it doesn’t mean you don’t check in on them and notice if things don’t look like they’re in a great place today.”

Neil joined rail-focused harm-prevention charity TrackSAFE with 12 years under her belt as the CEO of RSPCA Australia. Having taken a year to do consulting work after leavings the RSCPA, Neil took up the position at TrackSAFE to continue in the charity sector, however, in a very different kind of organisation.

“I was in a very privileged position to have been the CEO of RSPCA Australia and it’s an amazing organisation that’s loved by the Australian community and does such a

diversity of work as well, but it’s lovely being in a small charity that can be nimble but that’s also so connected to the industry itself.”

Being part of an industry-founded and funded charity represented an opportunity to Neil to be able to proactively make change.

“One of the things that attracted me to TrackSAFE is that it was established by the industry to address issues that the industry had identified so it’s a voluntary activity that the industry is doing for society. The rail industry is still very committed to playing this important role in reducing risks of suicide and accidents on rail, so it’s really exciting to be part of an industry that takes a very positive attitude and doesn’t sit back and wait for somebody else to solve their issues. The industry itself knows that it can play an important role in addressing some of these big societal problems,” said Neil.

As a way of settling into the role, Neil has spoken with the companies and organisations that make up TrackSAFE, including rail

IMAGE CREDIT: RAILGALLERY.COM.AU

“Various companies have reported seeing that long term cultural change about caring for your workmates. They’re more than just your work colleagues – you might not see them outside of work, but it doesn’t mean you don’t check in on them and notice if things don’t look like they’re in a great place today.”

Heather Neil, TrackSAFE CEO

Heather Neil was previously CEO of RSCPA Australia

owners and operators, manufacturers, and construction companies. Not only has this enabled Neil to get to know the industry, but to get a sense of the values and aspirations of those involved.

“It’s really interesting to hear of so much development and such positivity about the

future and the opportunities in the industry,” she said.

As a geographer by training, working on strategies to enable people to move around and interact with their environment more safely has brought Neil full circle.

“I worked for Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils and much of my job was advocating for services in Western Sydney, be it an airport, rail links, and other services. Now I’m kind of coming back to how people interact with the environment in which they live and how do you try and make that safe as well as efficient.”

As a harm prevention charity focused on reducing suicide on the rail network as well as accidents within the corridor, Neil sees the adoption of new technology, such as platform screen doors, as one area where new developments in the rail industry can have a positive effect.

“What we know in terms of preventing suicide is that if you can restrict access to the rail network, that is the best way to prevent suicide. TrackSAFE at the moment are pulling together a lot of information on fencing in order to have a conversation with governments to put that into the mix, particularly at the moment when governments are looking for shovel ready projects.”

By taking successes that have been demonstrated overseas or interstate and applying them in new contexts, the rail sector can continually improve safety outcomes, highlighted Neil.

“I really like that attitude of ‘We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.’ If we can build on the experience that others have had, while putting it in a different context, that’s efficient and contributes to good practice all

the time,” said Neil.

These attitudes are distilled into TrackSAFE’s four primary areas of focus, which Neil sees the charity as continuing to operate within. The focus areas are: preventing suicide; providing staff and organisations with trauma management tools; reducing and preventing accidents within the rail corridor, particularly at level crossings; and taking an evidence-based approach to decision making.

While larger rail operators would have their own programs in each of these areas, Neil sees TrackSAFE as playing an important role in enabling the adoption of best practices across the industry as a whole by facilitating information exchange.

“For example, we know that operators are involved in various school-based education programs, and we encourage them to share that information between them and identify what’s worked really well, what can people build on, and then to minimise duplication.”

With Rail Safety Week occurring as passengers and commuters begin to return to a somewhat altered network, due to the changes made during the COVID-19 period, the focus of messages during the week will be on getting commuters to break out of their daily routines.

“We want to remind the community that it’s your individual responsibility to be aware of the surroundings because when you’re going to and from work or school every day you go into autopilot. We are trying to give people a reminder to take out your headphones, be aware of your surroundings, hold onto the railing, and stay back from the edge of the platform.”

Although targeted at the COVID-19 era, these messages will be ones that need to be heard no matter the year.

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Safety

Collaboration to drive safer railways ONRSR, RISSB, and ACRI are working together to provide the Australian rail industry with the best track worker safety technologies and systems.

“Our rail systems are getting busier and rail is under pressure to keep moving,” said McCarrey. “If you look at the work that’s happening right across the rail industry, whether in Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane, that puts additional pressure on the system, and with many more worksites happening, that does cause an increase in the statistics.”

While few incidents are fatal, with the 2016 Sydney Trains being one of the tragic few, what is frustrating to the regulator, said Peter Doggett, ONRSR chief operating officer, is that all are preventable.

“We see a large number of very significant near misses and when you go into the factors that contributed to them, every single one I’d argue is preventable with really simple changes and processes. It’s simple stuff that is breaking down and leading to these incidents.”

IMPLEMENTING GLOBAL BEST PRACTICE The issue of track worker safety and more work going on within the rail corridor is not only an issue in Australia. According to McCarrey, there is a global push to put the best technology in the hands of rail maintenance workers and IMAGE CREDIT: ADAM CALAITZIS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

In one of only two prosecutions carried out in the 2018-2019 year, the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) brought two charges against Sydney Trains after a track worker was killed while working on the network in 2016.

The rare use of the most severe enforcement tool, besides a revocation or suspension of accreditation, signalled to the industry just how serious the regulator was taking the issue of track worker safety.

CEO of ONRSR and Australia’s National Rail Safety Regulator Sue McCarrey said that currently, the Australian rail industry is not going in the right direction on track worker safety.

“Track worker safety is a continuing priority for us because some of the data and the information that we have says we’re not quite improving as much as we would like to.”

Focus areas are based on inspections, audits, and the compliance activities of ONRSR, and in the case of track worker safety, both the number of breaches and the rate of incidents per thousand of track kilometres has increased since 2015-2016.

The result will not determine any particular vendor or manufacturer, but rather provide a tool for industry to make informed decisions.

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network managers to prevent track worker safety incidents.

“It’s an area of concern for rail right around the world. There’s a whole lot of work that’s being undertaken by individual rail companies in Australia and overseas looking at what are different systems, approaches, and, in particular, uses of technology that are being used to keep track workers safe.”

Seeing this work in action, ONRSR, along with the Rail industry Safety and Standards Board (RISSB), have tasked the Australian Centre for Rail innovation (ARCI) to conduct a global survey to provide a baseline reference for Australian operators of global best practice when it comes to track worker safety.

By combining insights from government, research bodies, and the rail industry, the project aims to provide useful information that can be applied straight away.

“The idea is that this research will help companies make decisions as to what is the best approach for them,” said McCarrey.

“It’s different if you’re a Sydney Trains or a Melbourne Metro, or if you’re in the Pilbara and you’re in a fairly remote part of Australia or you’re the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) and your track goes across the Nullarbor. The approach has to be different but everybody’s out there looking at similar systems around the world.”

To be completed before the end of 2020, the research will be a collective project describing what systems and technology are available, what are the advantages and disadvantages, and where has the system been proven to work in different environments.

Andrew Meier, CEO of ACRI, describes the project as a proactive tool.

“It will be seeking engagement from across industry to find out about those trials that are not widely known and that are underway or have completed and what decisions have been made on those that are safe solutions. Being able to have that information available for industry is vitally important.”

The final report will be made up of a literature scan as well as a scan of technologies on the horizon, informed by a survey of industry

IMAGE CREDIT: ICOSHA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

The research project will identify current best practices in track worker safety.

“The project will produce is a table of technologies and techniques around track worker safety. This will cover at indicative costs, time frames for implementation and where they might be useful in different environments.”

Sue McCarrey, ONRSR CEO and Australia’s National Rail Safety Regulator

as well as stakeholder workshops.

“ONRSR and RISSB want this to be a seminal tool for industry to use, to say this is what we know, and you can take this from here. It may well be that some of the things that are identified still need a level of development but perhaps someone will want to pick up that trial and take it further. It will give people a baseline of information to immediately know what they can do to keep their track workers safe,” said Meier.

“It’s a tool for now.”

THE REGULATORY APPROACH With the adoption of new, safety critical technologies, McCarrey outlines that ONRSR and the National Rail Safety law allows rail

operators to adopt new technology, for example in the adoption of driverless trains on the Sydney Metro network and on Rio Tinto’s network in the Pilbara.

“The law actually allows rail companies to introduce new technologies but what we do as the regulator is to have a look at their safety assurance of that,” said McCarrey. “We will work with the rail operator all the way through. We will be looking at where did the technology come from, where has it been used before, how have you tested it in your system, so that we can ultimately see that, so far as is reasonably practical, they have put all the assurance and a governance system in place to ensure that they believe that the system is safe.”

With the adoption of technology to improve

track worker safety, the reduction in cost of GPS-based location technology, as well as real-time communication systems which can alert the driver and network operator, it is becoming more important than ever that rail operators look at what can be applied to their network or operations.

Meier also notes that ACRI is conducting research into the application of off-the-shelf robotics technology to remove people from potentially dangerous locations. However, McCarrey stresses that this research project and ONRSR more generally will not select any particular product or technology.

“We’ve got to be really careful as a regulator, we must remain independent, because different companies will implement different things,” she said.

“What the project will develop is a suite of possible solutions. It’s not going to pick a winner of some kind of technology but what it will produce is a table of technologies and techniques around track worker safety. This will cover at indicative costs, time frames for implementation and where they might be useful in different environments. It’s not going to say, ‘This is the best.’”

Instead, noted McCarrey, the research project will be a resource for industry.

Currently, the project is conducting desktop research and is seeking industry feedback.

Companies seeking to be involved should contact ACRI.

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Operations & Maintenance

Improving fuel efficiency keeps rail sustainable.

Smooth operator KiwiRail tells Rail Express how its adoption of driver advisory systems from TTG Transportation Technology is not just about saving fuel.

When representatives from TTG Transportation Technology first contacted KiwiRail with their new system, the New Zealand rail operator couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

The Sydney-based manufacturer was introducing their driver advisory system (DAS), Energymiser to KiwiRail and were suggesting that the state-owned enterprise could save 10 per cent of their fuel bill. According to Soren Low, technology and customer innovation leader at KiwiRail, it would take a change of management for the offer to be taken up.

“We struggled at first to get any interest in installing Energymiser, but a couple of years later there was renewed interest and the group general manager at the time said ‘Let’s give it a crack and do a trial and see what happens, if nothing comes out of it that’s great, at least we can say we tried.’”

KiwiRail chose to test the system on a freight line that took wood pulp from the mill at Karioi in the middle of the North Island to the Port of Wellington.

“We did a trial over three or four months and what became really clear is that the numbers that came out of this trial were too good to be true,” said Low.

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The initial figures promised by TTG were being delivered and led to the DAS modules being rolled out across the entire network.

“We used the trial to write a business case to justify the investment to roll out Energymiser across the business,” said Low. A few years later, the onboard systems were in the cabs of KiwiRail’s fleet of 180 locomotives and 350 train drivers were trained how to use the system. Now, across KiwiRail’s 4,500km network the DAS technology delivered

by TTG indicate to drivers when to increase speed, when to brake, and when to coast to enable the most efficient runs possible.

The DAS system enables KiwiRail to make the most of a 150-year-old narrow gauge network with many tight corners and steep inclines. Whether hauling bulk freight, logs for export, and dairy during the milking season, Energymiser is enabling KiwiRail to cut fuel costs and significantly reduce emissions.

CHANGE THE WAY YOU DRIVE While the figures from the trial convinced KiwiRail’s management of the benefits of the DAS technology, there was another group who needed to come on board.

“When we first started talking about DAS to the driver union representatives, there wasn’t much support for it,” said Low. “There was a straight-out view that no technology can tell a driver how to drive a train better than they can.

In time, the Rail & Maritime Transport Union representatives came on board, and really helped us sell it to our people. Being able to pull together a small team of committed drivers who believed in what we were doing really helped us test, tweak and deliver the system.”

Until the incorporation of Energymiser, KiwiRail drivers had been trained to travel at the maximum track speed. Now, the DAS onboard screen was telling drivers that they could travel below the track speed and coast on downhill sections and they would arrive at their destination at the scheduled time.

To communicate this change in practice, KiwiRail enlisted the help of a senior driver, Robin Simmons. Having someone with Simmons’s respect within the organisation helped to win over resistant drivers.

“Simmons really quickly bought into this,” said Low. “He really quickly said, ‘You know what, this is actually a really good thing.’ To this day, he is our DAS champion. He has been

“The connected DAS, where you integrate the onboard systems back to the back end of train control can create a potential opportunity to tie those things together to take it to the next level.”

Soren Low, KiwiRail technology and customer innovation leader pretty much working full time on DAS. The training program that we built was very heavily influenced by Simmons and in the early days he did most of the training himself. The fact that he’s a locomotive engineer and train driver was really good in terms of his credibility.”

Another important factor said Low is to ensure that the information that is displayed in cab is not in conflict with conditions on the track. For example, during summer some parts of the KiwiRail network have speed restrictions due to heat. This function was not inbuilt into the Energymiser system initially, so KiwiRail and TTG updated the software.

“The DAS was saying you should be doing 70 km/h whereas the driver knew they should be doing 40 because they were in a heat restriction area and we try and avoid having those mixed messages in the cab,” said Low. KiwiRail found drivers were in three camps; those that embraced the technology, those who used the DAS because they had to, and those who would prefer not to use the technology.

Convincing the second and third camps and encouraging the first to become advocates for the system would take a different approach.

KiwiRail tested the system with driver Robin Simmons, who became an advocate for the technology.

“In our training, we spend a day in the classroom with our drivers and most of it is really hearts and minds stuff. It’s about the bigger sustainability picture, it’s about why this is important, it’s about how organisations like KiwiRail need to cut costs, how we need to invest our money wisely and then a little bit of the training is actually the technical bit of how you use the tool,” said Low. Acknowledging and incorporating these factors has led to the success of the system.

“The reality is if you can’t get the drivers on board then you are dead in the water.”

ENCOURAGING CLEAN AND EFFICIENT OPERATIONS Seven years on from the first contract signed between TTG and KiwiRail the system has enabled a 10 per cent reduction in fuel costs.

However, even more important than the savings are the benefits that the system has brought to KiwiRail.

KiwiRail has three carbon reduction targets and by the end of June 2020 is aiming to reduce energy consumption by 73.5 GWh. This target was raised from 20 GWh, which was

reached only eight months after the agreement between KiwiRail and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) in 2016. Fuel savings in locomotives are a major part of this effort and already 17 million litres of fuel have been saved since 2015.

By 2030, KiwiRail must reduce is carbon emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels, in line with the Paris Agreement. Finally, as a state-owned enterprise, KiwiRail must achieve net zero carbon emissions, in line with New Zealand’s overall climate goals. Since the 2012 financial year, the company has reduced its carbon intensity of rail freight by 15 per cent.

To meet future goals, DAS has a role not only to ensure the efficient movement of freight but to provide a better service for KiwiRail’s customers, enabling more goods to be moved on rail rather than road. The KiwiRail network is predominantly single track, so making sure trains run to schedule is essential. This is where the connected DAS technology can contribute.

“The connected DAS, where you integrate the onboard systems back to the back end of train control can create a potential opportunity to tie those things together to take it to the next level,” said Low. This can enable better scheduling to move freight quicker, without using more fuel.

“Our job is to provide excellent customer service outcomes,” said Low. “The first step is to analyse schedules to ask, ‘How do we take our existing journey time and look to cut up the journey into more fuel-efficient increments, what kind of fuel saving can we derive from that?’”

Getting to that point, however, requires buy-in from across the organisation, and this is where DAS’s fundamental benefits are important, concludes Low. “This is not for us right now, it’s for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. It’s a long-term project, that’s why it’s so vitally important.”

Managing director of TTG Dale Coleman said TTG are extremely proud of its relationship with KiwiRail that embodies what success looks like. TTG and KiwiRail have combined world leading research into to technology that can be successfully implemented into an existing operating environment by a committed Kiwi Rail management and operations team.

Coleman also acknowledged the research excellence of the University of South Australia, which has been instrumental in the delivery of Australian knowhow in building a fully connected and integrated DAS deployed on more than 8,000 devices operating over 60,000 kilometres of track in more than 10 countries worldwide. The system delivers sustainability not only to KiwiRail but also other leading world class railways including SNCF, Arriva, First Group, Abellio, and Aurizon.

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Products & Technology

Straddling both gauges A local manufacturing solution to Australia’s dual-gauge headache.

A perennial issue for the Australian rail industry has been the various gauges across the national network. A legacy of the prefederation era when each state developed their own railway networks to transport produce to their respective ports, in the century since federation there have been a series of efforts to standardise gauges across Australia.

Despite these efforts, and the many hours of work and negotiation that have gone into standardisation programs, rail networks businesses and maintainers still have to contend with multiple gauges in different parts of the country. In some instances, this has meant the duplication of equipment, particularly plant that is required to run on rails. Having multiple hi-rail trucks, excavators, and other equipment can limit productivity and increase cost, particularly when working in sections where two grades interact.

Ballarat-based specialist engineering and manufacturing business Harrybilt Engineering has developed a solution to this headache,

Harrybilt Engineering has over 19 years of experience designing hi-rail systems

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that overcomes Australia’s unique multiplegauge system. The Hi Brid Rail System can be attached to wheeled excavators to allow the machinery to operate on standard- or narrowgauge railways.

Designed by the family-owned rail specialists, Harrybilt Engineering’s Hi Brid Rail System on standard gauge operates the same as the Rail Guidance System, which allows the excavator’s tyres to safely move on the rail. For narrow gauge, the excavator’s tyres contact a drum, which drives the rail wheels in a friction drive set-up.

The dual-gauge solution was developed after hearing from the rail infrastructure industry that the capacity for machinery to switch between narrow- and standard-gauge networks would greatly increase their productivity.

Working from this need, Harrybilt Engineering designed and manufactured the Hi Brid system to best suit the needs of the sector.

The system meets Australian standard AS7502 for road-rail vehicles and is fitted with

The system can run on both standard and narrow gauge networks.

four failsafe braked rail wheels for increased safety.

The rail system is managed from inside the driver’s cab via a programmable logic controller (PLC) system. Having all controls fitted inside the drivers’ cab allows for the safe and efficient operation of the Hi Brid System.

Released in 2019, the system was designed locally by Harrybilt Engineering’s specialist team of railway maintenance equipment engineers. The company has over 19 years of experience designing and manufacturing Hi Rail and Rail Guidance Systems for road rail vehicles, in addition to the 35 years of experience manufacturing equipment for the rail industry.

Knowing the needs of rail infrastructure maintenance businesses in Australia and the growing demand for specialist engineering capability and expertise, the company has recently doubled is production floor space to cater to the expanding local market. With this capability within the business, Harrybilt is able to customise its systems, including the Hi Brid Rail System to meet a customer’s requirement.

The company has already fitted the system to three separate excavator models, and could, if needed deploy, its engineering capabilities to fit the system to equipment other than an excavator.

Combining versatility with solid engineering, the Harrybilt Hi Bird Rail System is designed to meet the unique, multiple-gauge needs of the Australian rail infrastructure sector.

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In the October edition of Rail Express we will be focusing on the unsung heroes of the rail environment; the plant, machinery, and equipment that is essential in maintaining and operating a rail network.

Recent developments have seen this aspect of the rail sector take similar strides forward to the well known successes elsewhere in the industry. Electric vehicles are cutting noise and emissions and are competive with diesel-powered machinery.

Many of these new pieces of plant are the product of local manfuacturing capability and are produced through collaboration with the needs of operators and contractors, making the solutions fit for purpose but also an example of home-grown ingenuity.

CONTACT OLIVER PROBERT

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, RAIL EXPRESS 02 9439 7227 | 0435 946 869 OLIVER.PROBERT @ PRIMECREATIVE.COM.AU

Never wavering from a focus on safety, the deployment of digital and remotely-controlled equipment is one more area where plant, machinery, and equipment is evolving. These developments is where our focus will turn in October.

To have your voice heard by key decision makers within the rail industry, get in touch with our team today.

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Products & Technology

Hearing the call In a world first, tm stagetec systems have implemented a centralised, real time audio control system that spans the entire NSW rail network.

At dawn on April 25, 2020, the Last Post played out at every train station in NSW. While regular Anzac Day services were called off due to coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions on public gatherings, essential staff working for Sydney Trains and Transport for NSW paused to remember those who had died in war as the Last Post played across the stations’ public address systems.

This was the first time that the bugle call was played at the same time across the Transport for NSW network and was made possible thanks to a centralised audio system that tm stagetec systems has recently installed for Sydney Trains.

In addition to the Last Post, 100,000 announcements are played every day across the system, which is orchestrated from the Rail Operations Centre (ROC) in Alexandria, which was opened in 2019. As Mark Lownds, general manager of tm stagetec systems explained, the centralised operations centre also brought together audio announcements that are played out around the network.

“As part of the project, Sydney Trains wanted to centralise a lot of the operation of

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the system and a big part of that was to put all of the controls of the audio systems into the operations centre.”

From the ROC in Alexandria, operational staff can make announcements to individual platforms anywhere in the system, as well as state-wide announcements. This is in addition to scheduling regular announcements.

Previously, just as rail operations were controlled from a number of separate centres, so were audio messages. tm stagetec systems had been involved in these legacy systems, so they were able to adapt to the new version.

“We’ve had part of this infrastructure in place for five years,” said Lownds. “Before the ROC, Sydney Trains had all these separate facilities, so we had little bits of systems here and there with different teams, but the difference here was to centralise it all and by doing that we use a lot less infrastructure but also get a higher availability. From a technical perspective that was quite good because it means a lot less physical equipment to get a better outcome.”

Planning for the ROC began in 2016, when the $296 million facility was first announced.

The complexity of the system was such that design choices were made down to the individual desks that rail operators would work at. Rail management, infrastructure control, security, and signalling were all brought together, meaning that effective communication between the centre and the entire Sydney network was key. To enable this to happen, tm stagetec systems were brought in early to effectively design the audio infrastructure highlighted Clive Dong, solutions architect.

“Even when they were doing the architectural and building design, we had the opportunity to talk about how we would integrate the systems and how we could ensure that it was going to work and meet all the requirements that Sydney Trains had,” said Dong.

Sydney Trains and tm stagetec systems held discussions over where to run fibre cables, making sure that there are redundant connections back into the rest of the system from the ROC, power back-ups, even down to locations for physical racks and equipment space. These early discussions meant that by

tm stagetec delivered a centralised audio system that spans across the entire Sydney Trains network.

the time the facility opened, Sydney Trains was able to streamline audio announcements to improve passenger communication.

“The ROC has separate power, separate fibre connections directly back to their core system at Central. Everything is fully redundant, and then they run dedicated fibre to each of their operational desks,” said Dong.

In addition to being able to schedule safety and generic announcements, such as no smoking announcements, Sydney Trains has recently used the system to communicate to customers the COVID-19 physical distancing guidelines as the transport operator has rolled out its “no dot, no spot” campaign.

“On top of that is the real time announcements for the train services, and then they can do special announcements for things like track work and when necessary they can do live announcements,” said Lownds. “If there’s something happening, and they want to make a live announcement to the station, they can do that centrally from the ROC as well.”

As part of the overall audio package, tm stagetec systems installed a small recording booth within the ROC so that the quality of announcements is maintained.

The ROC also has some role in directing train movements outside of Sydney Trains.

In this case, audio announcements needed to be heard beyond the Sydney metropolitan network. This presented a challenge as there were no dedicated fibre connections between the ROC and regional stations. tm stagetec systems enabled operators at the ROC to make announcements over the telephone line as well to service remote locations.

“We can play an announcement to the entire state at any station and any time, live,” said Dong.

To control the system, tm stagetec systems used a web-based, graphical user interface (GUI) to make the system easy to use and flexible. Audio is distributed between the ROC and speakers on the Dante Domain Manager platform, an audio-over-IP platform developed by Australian digital audio networking technology leader, Audinate.

According to Lownds, the system tm stagetec has installed is the largest Dante network in the world, larger than public address systems to hospitals, campuses, and stadiums. The system avoids the need for lengthy reams of analogue cables and is designed to be secure.

“We had to ensure that this was a very robust network because audio announcements to an entire network is something you don’t want somebody to get a hold of that shouldn’t,” said Lownds.

“So, just in the ROC, we have two separate, discrete fibre runs to make sure that if there’s a problem with roadworks and a fibre gets cut then we can still get the system running. All the backend equipment is duplicated and fully redundant, so if there

is a failure, the system will actually keep working, without interruption.”

In addition, the system is able to be monitored down to the speaker, in real time, to know if there are any faults.

The sophistication of the system also enables Sydney Trains to do more with their audio-based information. Working with tm stagetec systems, Sydney Trains is rolling out integration of the audio-over-IP network with audio frequency induction loops (AFILS).

This means that the audio played out over the loudspeakers at a station is transformed into an electromagnetic field, which can be picked up by a hearing aid or listening device.

Other areas that are being explored include mobile-based functionality so that staff on the ground have access to the audio network.

Across the entire network, the technology would only be useful if the sound that is being transmitted can be understood, and a key requirement of the project is meeting strict sound intelligibility standards measured as a speech transmission index (STI) from 0 to 1, with 1 being excellent intelligibility.

Sydney Trains mandated a reading of 0.75, or excellent, without a train on the platform and 0.6 with a train. Now, the team has achieved that, with a delay of only five milliseconds between the announcement being made at the ROC and the audio being heard across the entire Transport for NSW network.

While Anzac Day commemorations may be held differently in 2021, the clarity of sound across the Sydney Trains network will be exactly the same.

The system is controlled from the ROC in Alexandria.

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Safety & Assurance

New Learning Management System for RISSB RISSB is stepping up its focus on training and will deliver courses online and face-to-face.

RISSB is launching a new learning management system (LMS) in the second half of 2020. The decision to invest in an LMS is part of a broader plan to automate RISSB processes and deliver more of its services virtually.

The online courses that will become available in late 2020 and early 2021 on the new LMS will be easy to enrol for, access, and complete. Among other things, the new system will enable course participants to learn at their own pace either in the workplace or from the comfort of their own home 24 hours a day, 7 days per week and access the LMS on multiple electronic devices. Being user friendly, the LMS will also make it easier for people to register to attend a RISSB course and pay for their course online by credit card in one single transaction.

In addition to offering online courses, the LMS will eventually contain a host of online resources that will assist with take-up of RISSB publications.

RISSB intends to apply for accreditation as a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) within the next year. As an RTO, RISSB will be able to offer accredited courses, reinforcing

the value of RISSB’s training program to the broader rail industry.

RISSB has recently purchased a student management system in preparation for becoming an RTO. The benefits of the Student Management System are: • Streamlined enrolment process • Automated processing of enrolments • Instant invoicing and receipting • Linked with the LMS. Since the implementation of government restrictions and social distancing, RISSB has opted to conduct face-to-face training only in those situations where the requirements of both the Commonwealth and the host

state can be met. But once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, RISSB’s flagship Rail Safety Investigation, Derailment Investigation and Analysis, and Safety Critical Communications courses will continue to be delivered face-to-face in learning facilities located across Australia.

To register your interest to attend a course, or to enquire about training delivery for 10 or more people in your workplace, please send an email to jreynolds@rissb.com.au.

RISSB will start offering online courses this year.

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Industry Associations

Rail key to meet freight demand Caroline Wilkie, CEO of the ARA, sets out the association’s advocacy agenda when it comes to rail freight.

The doubling of Australia’s population over the next 30 years will make connecting the supply of goods and services between our far-flung cities more important than ever.

Resilient freight networks will be an essential part of our national connectivity and will be key to supporting the productivity of businesses across the country.

And rail must play a growing role to meet that challenge.

The Australasian Railway Association (ARA) recently released its rail freight and ports strategic plan to set its advocacy agenda on this crucial issue over the next three years.

Informed by extensive industry consultation, the plan identifies the need for rail to increase its share of our national freight task to ensure the growing demand expected in the next 20 years can be met.

While COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of resilient supply chains, that need has always been there and is only becoming more important.

The country’s freight task is expected to

The ARA has launched three research programs to make the case for freight rail.

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grow by 35 per cent by 2040, and by then our network will traverse more than 1,000 billion tonne kilometres every year.

That new demand can simply not be sustainably supported by more trucks on the roads or planes in the air alone.

A multi-modal freight sector that makes the best use of all modes of transport is a fundamental part of ensuring Australia’s supply chains can deal with the needs of the nation in the future.

Maintaining the status quo will not be enough.

There is enormous potential for rail to play a greater role in meeting our freight task, but regulatory reform is required to make that a reality.

A level playing field for all will be needed for this to be realised to make sure every mode of transport can be used efficiently and effectively to support our economic growth and development.

Common safety, environmental, and economic regulation across the country would streamline operations and put the

focus firmly on delivering on the nation’s freight needs.

So too would the achievement of a truly interoperable rail network, and the ARA’s rail freight and ports strategic plan supports the ARTC’s efforts to implement its Advanced Train Management System on the interstate network.

These are big ambitions that require national focus and strong collaboration between government and industry to be realised.

We are pleased to see these conversations progressing through the National Rail Action Plan working groups and other industry forums.

As we continue to advocate for changes to support the growth of the industry, a clear understanding of the current state of play and the obstacles that the industry may face is essential.

That is why the ARA has launched three research programs to be completed over the next 12 months.

Firstly, we will be working to better understand the impediments to rail freight

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Reform is needed to enable rail to take a greater freight role.

Common safety, environmental and economic regulation across the country would streamline operations and put the focus firmly on delivering on the nation’s freight needs. modal shift.

Just one freight train alone can take 110 trucks off the roads a year, busting congestion and improving the safety outcomes of the sector.

Rail freight remains a sustainable and efficient option that has proven its reliability time and again.

In urban centres, rail freight frees up the road network to create more liveable communities for people in our cities.

Given these benefits, rail should be playing a significant role as part of a multimodal network – and this research will inform how we achieve that outcome.

Secondly, we will be looking at rail freight productivity in Australia.

It will be essential to establish a clear

view of the industry’s current performance and the conditions required to make rail freight even more competitive in the future.

The 2017 Value of Rail study found a one per cent improvement in rail freight productivity could generate $8-20 billion in savings to the national economy over 20 years.

Small improvements could make a big difference and our research will seek to identify actionable outcomes to drive greater productivity in the sector.

Finally, we will research rail freight infrastructure investment.

Continued investment in the freight network will be essential to meet growing demand, but projects must be planned effectively and implemented efficiently.

Getting infrastructure investment right for the beginning will ensure the benefits of that investment are realised faster and reach further into our communities.

Combined, these projects will inform our advocacy agenda to make the case for regulatory reform.

Because we will need more than one approach to make a real difference for the benefit of Australian businesses and communities.

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Industry Associations

Wrong time for delays on Inland Rail All parties should respect the outcome of the latest reviews into Inland Rail, and get on with the transformational project, writes ALC CEO Kirk Coningham.

Australian Logistics Council CEO, Kirk Coningham.

In mid-June, Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivered a major economic address in which he announced that to hasten the pace of Australia’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery, the federal government would move to cut approval times for projects under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

At the end of 2019, approval processes associated with this act were taking an average of 90 days – the Prime Minister has committed to reducing this to 30 days by the end of 2020.

At the same time, the Prime Minister also unveiled a list of 15 major infrastructure projects nationally that are on what he termed the “fast track” for expediated approval under a bilateral model agreed between federal, state, and territory governments.

At the top of this list was the Inland Rail project, which regular readers of Rail Express will know is one of the most iconic freight infrastructure projects ever undertaken and will play a significant role in modernising our supply chains. Inland Rail will allow a transit

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time of 24 hours or less for freight trains between Melbourne and Brisbane via regional Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.

Yet, with construction on the project already underway, some groups are now attempting to have changes on the Border to Gowrie section of the route in Queensland.

Despite the fact that extensive and independent analysis of corridor options has previously confirmed the route chosen in 2017 is the best option, there is now a further review taking place at the request of the federal government.

The whole point of constructing Inland Rail is to provide a safe and efficient freight rail link for Australia’s east coast that permits a transit time of 24 hours or less for freight between Melbourne and Brisbane. Altering the route to the more complex one being advocated by some will make travel times longer and will make construction a more complicated and costly exercise.

This latest review process seems to run counter to efforts to expedite the construction of Inland Rail, and unlock the economic, employment and regional development opportunities that the project offers to areas that have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The enormously successful Inland Rail Conference presented by ALC and the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) in Toowoomba last year clearly demonstrated a high level of support for the project from the communities along its proposed alignment.

Many local businesses have already been making investment decisions based on the route chosen in 2017.

Eleventh-hour attempts to alter the approved route of the Inland Rail project are causing uncertainty for investors and local communities, placing a brake on employment growth and regional development opportunities at a time the economy can least afford it.

Inland Rail has been talked about for decades. The last thing local communities or

the economy need now is for those benefits to be placed at risk by endless reviews of modelling that has already been thoroughly examined and re-examined.

Once this latest review of the is concluded, it is incumbent on all parties to respect its outcomes and turn their attentions to expediting construction. That way, this once-in-a-generation freight rail project can start delivering benefits for local workers, businesses, exporters and consumers that are now needed more than ever.

Endless reviews place the project’s benefits at risk.

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