Inside Track June 2022

June 2022

June 2022 | Issue 7 railbusinessdaily.com

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RAIB’s annual report highlights seven key safety themes railbusinessdaily.com

Making the case for increased investment in the Midlands Answering the call – UK railway staff support Ukraine Major milestones for HS2

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Contents

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Championing the industry Welcome to your new-look edition of Inside Track, which is now published monthly

How Rail Business Daily can be a force for good in the industry Chris Leech takes up the reins as the new managing director of RBD

8 Tel: 0800 046 7320 Sales: 020 7062 6599

Exciting plans to reopen rail links aim to provide better connectivity for rural areas across southwest England

Managing Editor Nigel Wordsworth nigel@rbdpublications.com Editor Richard Clinnick richard@railbusinessdaily.com

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Production Editor James Jackaman

Subscriptions Danielle Burwood

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© 2022 All rights reserved. Reproduction of the contents of this magazine in any manner whatsoever is prohibited without prior consent from the publisher.

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railbusinessdaily.com

No holidays for some…

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Mobility solutions fit for the future

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Midlands Connect has unveiled details for investment priorities in the region, and has already taken one idea to Parliament

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Spotlight on innovation and cultural change Exciting ‘demonstrator’ projects showcased at TIES Living Lab’s conference

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Innovative consortium creates footbridge fit for the modern age Network Rail joins forces with forward-thinking SMEs to build accessible stainless steel bridge

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A perfect start for the Elizabeth line Inside Track talks to Richard Schofield, one of the key people responsible for getting the new line ready for opening day

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Network Rail answers ‘Ukraine’s call’

Making the case for increased investment in the Midlands

During the recent bank holiday weekends, thousands of men and women worked on the railway network, carrying out extended work to renew and enhance the system

Siemens reveal exciting plans as major Goole development begins to take shape

Global leaders visit the UK for WCRR With 700 delegates, more than 300 speakers, 340 unique sessions, and 600 paper submissions, the World Congress on Railway Research was a ‘resounding success’

Team rally round to deliver supplies needed to keep war-torn country’s railway moving

For subscription enquiries and to make sure you get your copy of InsideTrack please ring 0800 046 7320 or email subscriptions@rbdpublications.com The views expressed in the articles reflect the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher and editor.

The published material, adverts, editorials and all other content is published in good faith.

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RAIB reports and investigations The past few weeks have been a busy period for the Rail Accident Investigation Branch

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HS2 reaches two major milestones Landmark moment for British engineering as construction begins on the Colne Valley Viaduct and work starts on pioneering ‘green tunnels’

RAIB publishes annual report covering activity for 2021 Inside Track highlights the key points from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch’s detailed report

Advertising Team Christian Wiles – chris@rbdpublications.com Freddie Neal – freddie@rbdpublications.com Amy Hudson – amy@rbdpublications.com Published by RailBusinessDaily.com Ltd. 15 Mariner Court, Calder Park, Wakefield WF4 3FL

A return to live engagement marks pivotal point in innovative thinking For the first time in three years, the RIA Innovations Conference has taken place ‘in person’. Inside Track was there to report on the event’s key themes and messages

Designer/Production Manager Chris Cassidy

Print Manager Rachael Dean

Campaign gathers pace for more Dartmoor improvements

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Shellshocked: Network Rail workers reunite family with runaway tortoise Twin had been a part of a family for 70 years, but she went missing. However, the power of social media and some very determined Network Rail workers changed that

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Introduction

Championing the industry Welcome to your new-look edition of Inside Track, which is now published monthly

T

hese may be challenging times for the rail sector, but that doesn’t mean the industry cannot be proud of its achievements.

This is the first edition of Inside Track published on its new monthly schedule. The premise remains based around six core themes, but we aim to report on all of these in each issue now, rather than dedicate an entire magazine to a single theme.

Within this issue you can read about ambitious plans to reopen a railway in Devon that could have a huge societal benefit as well as an economic benefit for the region; we also speak to Richard Schofield, the man responsible for ensuring the Elizabeth line opened on 24 May (see Inside Track 6).

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It can never be forgotten that while statistically the UK rail systems is the safest network in Europe, accidents do still happen

pandemic and more events take place, Inside Track reports on four industry events we recently attended.

Image: shutterstock

Nigel Wordsworth provides a detailed round-up of the work undertaken by Network Rail over recent bank holidays to ensure the railway continues to operate reliably and safely.

We also take a look at the RAIB annual report and a glut of recent announcements from the organisation regarding various incidents on the railway. It can never be forgotten that while statistically the UK rail system is the safest network in Europe, accidents do still happen, and it is important that we continue to learn from these mistakes.

As the country continues to recover from the

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Safety and reliability

The Railway Industry Association (RIA) held its Innovation Conference in Nottingham and attracted some high-profile attendees from within the industry, including Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy.

TIES Living Lab in Stratford highlighted innovation taking place in the industry, with organisations including Network Rail and Transport for London presenting their changes.

The World Congress on Railway Research (WCRR) was a four-day event in Birmingham in early June that enabled delegates to understand much more about the research and development that goes into rail across the world and for global businesses to learn and share ideas.

Finally, Siemens held a press lunch in London for the first time in three years. The company was able to discuss several topics affecting the rail industry including signalling, decarbonisation and fleet replacements.

We also welcome Rail Business Daily’s new managing director Chris Leech. A career railwayman, he joins the business from a senior role at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB). As he tells us in this edition, RBD’s unique selling point is that the company was created by railway people for railway people, and through our unique knowledge base and expertise we can report on the industry fairly, showcase the best it has to offer, and question it when things are not quite right.

That is exactly what makes it such an exciting time to be a part of this thriving industry.

railbusinessdaily.com

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June 2022

Chris Leech

How Rail Business Daily can be a force for good in the industry Chris Leech takes up the reins as the new managing director of RBD

C

hris Leech MBE has begun his new role as managing director of Rail Business Daily (RBD) with a rallying call: “What a time to champion the industry.

“The exciting part is that the RBD collective DNA stems from the industry we seek to celebrate and support,” said Chris. “We know the passion, innovation and the scale of projects, and we have the collective corporate memory and systemwide expertise to provide the independent critical friendship our hundreds of clients need to help bring their projects to fruition and communicate their success.

“We have to be able to support businesses to ensure that they are able to navigate their way through this period and emerge stronger and more resilient on the other side,” he added.

Five years of growth

June 2022

“We are a business growth company, helping customers to achieve their objectives, through advisory, marketing, media, community and recruitment services. We work for some of the UK’s leading brands.”

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I sincerely hope that RBD is winning the hearts and minds of the industry. We are a safe space to collaborate

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The concept of RBD is about creating a framework of strategic support that promotes and celebrates projects, passion and people within the industry.

He credits RBD chief executive David McLoughlin and Simon Taylor, chief operating officer, with the concept of rebalancing the constant negativity surrounding the industry and letting people in the industry feel proud about their achievements. He said: “Like mine, both David’s and Simon’s careers were carved in the sector we seek to celebrate and support.”

RBD celebrated its fifth anniversary on 4 July, and Chris explained: “We’re now the largest media group in rail. Our growth is underpinned by our knowledge for the sector, which in turn enabled RBD to grow in line with market expectations.

“Following direct requests from our clients and members, RBD now delivers additional services such as RBD Advisory, RBD Recruiter and RBD Community, all of which support hundreds of businesses to mitigate risk, reduce costs and grow sustainably across our sector.

“Our unique selling point is that we were created by railway professionals for railway professionals. Our knowledge and expertise help to articulate, humanise and deliver what our communities require during a time of turbulence but long-term hope.

Sector knowledge gap presents an ever increasing risk to the UK rail, and RBD Group is viewed as an extension of our clients’ businesses says Chris. “A critical friend to support them with our system-wide expertise and market knowledge.”

Chris says RBD Group magazines Inside Track and sister publication Rail Director can be a proactive force alongside the newsletters published on a daily and weekly basis.

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Who is Chris Leech?

Having previously studied art, Chris planned to join the 5th Enniskillen Dragoon Guards but a rugby accident resulted in him rupturing his spleen and ending his dreams of following three generations in the same regiment. A friend highlighted synergies between the Armed Forces and UK rail and so Chris started at Northern Spirit (NS) as a guard 25 years ago. Soon he was creating the first community engagement role, under the leadership of NS managing director Dyan Crowther.

He was very aware of how reliant NS and other private sector investors were on the British Transport Police (BTP) and what became Network Rail to safeguard communities. As he looked to progress his career he began training to be a driver, and while training for that role there was an increasing number of fatalities – one Chris remembers vividly involved a five-year-old child.

He said: “This made me realise the fragility of our network and the importance of greater collaboration in a newly privatised sector, if we are to safeguard and integrate with the communities we served. I devised my own rail safety education programmes aimed at four to seven-year-olds, seven to 11-year-olds and 11 to 16-year-olds.

railbusinessdaily.com

Chris Leech

RSSB role This led to him being seconded to the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) to lead on the Track-Off Education programme – a national campaign funded by RSSB members. A national education programme was developed in partnership with Network Rail and the BTP. “Collectively we were able to reduce youth through crime by 54 per cent in known hotspots that we targeted across the UK,” Chris said.

His belief in collaboration and how industries and departments can support each other developed during this period. “The new franchising model had created a culture of competitivity and siloes and all we did was to turn this on its head and encourage collaborative working with mutual benefits for the sector. By doing that we really were not only able to make a wider impact, but to seek match funding for everything that we did.”

From there Chris started his own business, but soon joined Business in the Community.

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Here he worked for HRH Prince Charles’ office for five years leading the transport portfolio. Chris was brought in to build momentum. “When we talk about corporate social responsibility [CSR] or sustainability it is really four pillars of the community: how you engage with the communities and integrate the communities served, how you generate loyalty and wellbeing in the workforce, the environmental impacts of the business and the fourth is the marketplace,” he explained.

“How can you, as a business, level the playing field to allow small businesses to engage and build that relationship for mutual benefit? If you get those four pillars right you’ve not only got a sustainable business, but you’ve got profitable business.”

Chris developed a gap analysis toolkit which he then applied to 10 TOCs across the network. By applying this independent peer review, TOCs were able to identify opportunities and mitigate risks across their business yielding incredible results.

Chris added: “Deloitte did a global survey with chief financial officers and found that businesses engaged in those four pillars are far more resilient because they understood the marketplace.”

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We’re starting to see genuine cooperation within the industry and my role is to help business leaders collaborate

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“I worked with BTP and a number of educationalists to make sure that they were curriculum-aligned with the resources and that they were pitched at the right level,” he explained.

Chris would then print these off during the evening then take them into schools on his days off and give talks about safety. Following months of activities, he was summoned to meet Dyan in York to ask him why she was receiving letters from schools thanking NS for Chris talking to them. “At that point I got found out, basically,” he laughed.

However, Dyan and Heidi Mottram (then the commercial director) both recognised an opportunity and Chris was asked to create a business case and strategy aligned to both the developing franchise structure and societal changes to create the industry’s first community engagement and youth route crime role within franchises.

The activities began to build as did his network of partners, including The Metropolitan Police focusing on gun and knife crime; the Probation and Magistrate services on reparation programmes; and established community groups who through collective aims and objectives would go on to create a portfolio of initiatives that would increase projected outcomes and mitigate risk.

As a consequence, the role decreased youth route crime, increased positive public perception and ultimately footfall across the network.

Chris developed a strategy implemented not just in the UK but across Europe through Arriva, based on the principles of education, diversion, reparation, community engagement and enforcement.

Chris then joined CrossCountry (XC) to develop its CSR strategy, culminating in XC winning eight international awards for its work, despite the fact he was only there for a year.

From XC, Chris moved to the RSSB where he was membership development manager. This involved growing the organisation’s UK and international membership portfolio across five continents. Through this development work, Chris generated significant commercial revenue that enabled the ongoing support to RSSB members here in the UK. Chris also has a very strong reputation for building powerful relationships at home and abroad – a skill set that will be valuable in RBD’s ongoing journey.

Now, Chris will bring his expertise and experience to RBD to help the biggest rail media group grow still further.

“We’re starting to see genuine cooperation within the industry and my role is to help business leaders collaborate. I have tried to influence business leaders to undertake responsible actions, and that is exactly what I am trying to do here.

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“We are looking at how businesses can collaborate and create those frameworks where there is honesty, trust, and it’s mutually beneficial for the industry. I’m really excited about that and I am now in a position to be able to deliver.”

New opportunities Chris is particularly enthused by RBD Community.

“Membership offers businesses of all sizes a ticket to greater business success. It opens doors to opportunities that will help them reach new heights; it’s about collaboration and a level playing field. It allows organisations of all different sizes to come together, swap ideas and lean on each other for the greater good.

“Other benefits include leveraging profile, raising opportunities through the RBD media marketing platforms, making high quality introductions through networking events and accessing critical market insights and intelligence. This is the power of what RBD can provide.

“I think RBD reflects the sector beautifully. I’d like to see RBD supporting train companies by encouraging greater footfall; we can articulate the benefits of rail and the responsible activities rail provides to communities it serves. I’d like to see us really represent the industry by amplifying positive messages that we have already been doing internally, but we now need to spread that to the communities we serve.

“Great British Railways represents a huge opportunity for everybody in rail. I genuinely believe it will be an inclusive operation and they will really start to listen to what the industry needs.

“I sincerely hope that RBD is winning the hearts and minds of the industry. We are a safe space to collaborate and I encourage businesses to engage with us, and we can then facilitate introductions to similar businesses.”

If the first five years are anything to go by, RBD will continue to lead that message, and with Chris in charge, the sky is the limit for both the Group and the industry. ver the past 20 years Chris has been honoured O with 16 UK and international awards for his strategies and innovative projects. His award for Outstanding Personal Contribution Award is arguably his favourite because it was awarded by industry peers. This led him to become a National Rail Awards judge for over a decade and he now has the privilege of judging Women in Rail Awards. He is Chair of the UK Scouts Association Funding Committee and sits on numerous industry boards and committees.

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Dartmoor

Campaign gathers pace for more Dartmoor improvements

Image: Network Rail.

Exciting plans to reopen rail links aim to provide better connectivity for rural areas across southwest England

New track is installed on the Dartmoor line between Okehampton and Coleford Junction

S

ix months after daily passenger trains returned to Okehampton, a new hourly service was introduced

from 15 May. Passenger numbers on the 25-mile (40.2km) line have exceeded expectations with 50,000 journeys made in the first 20 weeks since services resumed. Crediton station has also enjoyed a 39 per cent increase in passenger numbers compared with the pre-pandemic figures.

These figures can only help make the case to reopen more of the former London & South Western Railway (LSWR) line across Dartmoor from Meldon Quarry to Bere Alston.

Restoring Your Railway The Dartmoor line, which runs from Okehampton to Crediton, connecting with the Exeter– Barnstaple Tarka line, was the first to reopen under the flagship Restoring Your Railway programme, and took only nine months to return to operational condition.

Significantly, delivered as part of Project SPEED, the railway came in under budget by £10 million.

June 2022

The railway was mothballed but had been used for a summer Sunday service from the mid-1990s; by then the heavy aggregates trains that served Meldon Quarry had ceased operating. Occasional train testing took place on the line, and a heritage operation subsequently took over before eventually going into administration.

Ahead of the start of the hourly service, Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said: “The huge success of the Dartmoor line shows that when you get the service right the public will respond with increased demand. Put the customer first and you’ll get the results.”

Network Rail Wales and Western regional managing director Michelle Handforth said the upgrade would “undoubtedly bring a further boost to tourism, the local community and regional economy for many years to come.”

The original project involved laying 11 miles of new track and installing 24,000 concrete sleepers as well as 29,000 tonnes of ballast.

This was completed in a record 20-day period.

All communications systems were upgraded too. The key factor behind the project’s success was that the line was upgraded to the actual

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operational requirements, rather than a ‘onesize-fits-all’ scenario. This meant an eventual 75mph maximum speed for a railway to be served by two and four-car diesel multiple units.

No high-speed operation was needed, and this helped reduce costs. Driver training also commenced during the possessions, further speeding up the overall process.

Other improvements The latest closure, which lasted 15 days, involved drainage improvements at Fatherford and Coleford and further track bed upgrades to allow for faster running speeds. When the line first opened, 55mph was the maximum speed, but this has been improved.

Reopening the railway to Okehampton is not all that is planned. The government’s Restoring Your Railway scheme has agreed to provide £50,000 funding for investigations into the reopening of the five-mile (8 kilometres) railway between Tavistock and Bere Alston, which shut in 1968 as part of the closure of the former London and South Western Railway that served Dartmoor, north Devon and north Cornwall.

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Dartmoor

Now, there are ambitious plans to reopen the 20-mile (32km) section between Meldon Quarry and Bere Alston. The collapse of the sea wall at Dawlish in February 2014, which cost the south west region some £1 billion in lost revenue over a 50-day period, has brought the need for a secondary line to the forefront of people’s thinking.

other stakeholders in the region, with a formal community interest company called Tavistock Okehampton Reopening Scheme set up as a potential vehicle to commission, undertake and deliver further work.

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The huge success of the Dartmoor line shows that when you get the service right the public will respond with increased demand

Improved infrastructure

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This is not just a sentimental decision by railwaymen keen to reinstate a former line; the reopening has government support. Back in February 2019 the former Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling said: “A phased development of rail links serving Exeter and Okehampton, and Plymouth and Tavistock, will deliver improved travel to work connectivity with added tourism benefits for Dartmoor National Park and links to north Cornwall. As economic and housing market conditions allow, the opportunity for a full reopening of the Northern Route should be explored from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton.”

The Northern Route Working Group (NRWG) consists of rail industry managers, engineers and consultants as well as academics and

Appropriately for a railway which crosses Dartmoor, this abbreviates neatly to TORS. NRWG began, voluntarily, investigating the feasibility of the line’s reopening, and has produced a service pattern, strategic business plan and timetable for possible reopening.

This has cross-party support from local politicians, and organisations including NR have expressed interest in working with the group.

The plan is that the reopened double-track railway would be used by long-distance and local passenger trains and freight services, but there is also an ambition that it would be a multi-modal operation, with an integrated bus-rail network created over a wide catchment area, including towns in north Cornwall that remain remote from the national rail network. The aim is to provide better connectivity to rural areas facing economic stress and the loss of younger generations to jobs in other parts of the country.

Suggested service Renowned railway journalist and author Andrew Roden is leading the campaign. The leader of the successful Save Our Sleeper (SOS) campaign in the mid-2000s, which rallied support across the region to save the ‘Night Riviera’ sleeper train from closure, he told Inside Track that the plans have changed slightly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that is mainly around delivery timescales, and even then it’s just a slip of one year… so far.

Andrew explained that the suggested service plan would be for one train per hour operating a long-distance service, and one train per hour operating a regional service.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

An NRWG document produced last year suggests there could also be a freight service or diversion path every two hours.

He told Inside Track that between Exeter and Meldon Quarry, and Bere Alston to Plymouth, the route is owned by Network Rail (NR). The section across Dartmoor has multiple ownerships but is largely undeveloped. Many key structures remain in place and are perceived to be in good condition.

However, Meldon Viaduct is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and may be unsuitable for further rail use, meaning a new structure would need to be built, sensitively, to link Meldon to the reopened route. Retaining the original structure in operational condition would be expensive and require significant speed restrictions that could prove somewhat prohibitive for certain services in terms of journey times.

At Tavistock there is a residential development on the former track bed although the NRWG team believes all possibilities should be explored, including a tunnel serving the town centre or building a new station on the northern outskirts of the town in addition to the possibility of using the legacy formation.

The eastern section of the plans includes construction of a chord at Cowley Bridge creating direct access between the Dartmoor line and the Great Western main line towards Taunton.

Andrew says this would ease capacity constraints at Exeter St Davids and avoid flood risks in the Cowley Bridge and Stafford’s Bridge areas.

Freight trains would also not have to reverse in Exeter Riverside Yard thus benefitting from reduced journey times.

Holding back the sea Following the sea wall collapse in 2014, NR commissioned a study looking at what was required to prevent such disruption occurring again. The railway west of Exeter was closed as far as Newton Abbot from 4 February to 4 April 2014. NR examined various options including building a breakwater, reopening the Teign Valley line via Heathfield and reconstructing the Dartmoor line via Meldon. NR costed the latter at around £875 million. Part of that cost is being incurred during the reinstatement of the Exeter– Okehampton service and the proposals around Tavistock–Bere Alston.

However, since the NR report was published in July 2014, there have been significant changes including a better understanding of climate change and weather resilience, the levelling up agenda designed to improve economic prospects across Britain and the backing of the Dartmoor proposals by the Peninsula Rail Task Force (PRTF) from 2016.

June 2022

Image: Network Rail.

Dartmoor

A Great Western Railway Class 150 stands at Okehampton during the opening ceremony in November 2021

As a result, the plans now include: P hase 1 – reopening Exeter to Okehampton in 2021, which has been completed; P hase 2 – reopening Tavistock to Bere Alston in 2024; P hase 3 – reopening Tavistock to Okehampton in 2030; and P hase 4 – reopening Meldon Junction to Bude post-2030.

An outline programme for implementation would be: S trategic outline business case and outline business case development in 2023-2024, with appropriate feasibility studies P reliminary design and securing powers in 2025-2026 F inal business case, funding approval, final design and commencement of preliminary works in 2027-2028, and Construction in 2028-2030.

Andrew says there is concern that interim branch reopenings could bring localised benefits but prejudice the creation of a through route. By reinstating the full length of the line, more revenue is generated and more efficient utilisation of resources is possible.

The NRWG proposals suggest many reasons why the railway should be reinstated. These include that it would be a major contribution to net zero carbon in the region, which he says would be possible via discontinuous electrification.

There is a recognition that installing overhead wires across the Dartmoor National Park could be contentious, however the infrastructure could be built between Plymouth and Bere Alston and between Okehampton and Exeter, using alternatively powered trains, most likely batterypowered over the central section, building on Hitachi Rail’s concept of testing discontinuous electrification on a Class 80x train somewhere in the South West.

Reopening the railway would also improve the net cost of rail service provision in the region and provide sustainable access to tourism attractions that currently are mainly visited by people using cars.

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There would also be extended catchment areas for employers, businesses, educational and regional health centres in Exeter and Plymouth and support for sustainable housing development plans focused on Tavistock and Okehampton. According to the NRWG report, the catchment area is 570,000 in Cornwall, which grows to 850,000 in the summer, and all-year round population of 795,000 in Devon. The catchment area for just the route itself is 161,402 using 2021 figures.

The reopened railway would support the Ministry of Defence’s requirement for dependable rail access to Devonport, while the heavily graded line between Plymouth and Newton Abbot, often seen as prohibitive by the freight sector, could be avoided.

Much needed investment Andrew says that without the investment connectivity across the region will remain poor. In turn, this will not help the productivity figures for Cornwall, which have the county at the bottom of GVA per head across Great Britain. Devon is the seventh worst.

Furthermore, the areas of Devon and Cornwall served by the coastal route via Dawlish will continue to suffer from periodic ongoing economic harm during closures on the main line west of Exeter. In 2014, it was calculated that closing the railway cost the economy £20 million per day and Andrew reckons that could now be close to £30 million eight years later.

There is also the capacity constraint between Exeter and Newton Abbot, Andrew added. This prohibits the development of both local and longdistance services in all sectors. The NRWG proposals argue that rail freight cannot grow in the South West due to the lack of paths as well as weight and loading gauge restrictions. Andrew says that freight, logistics and distribution companies lack confidence to plan and build their operations around rail due to the unreliability of the coastal route. This needs to change with the new Plymouth Freeport, he adds.

There are currently haulage limits on the gradients between Plymouth and Newton Abbot, which are seen as prohibitive to the development of rail freight.

railbusinessdaily.com

Dartmoor

Improving rail and bus services Integrating express bus and rail services through fares, service quality standards and operations is also seen as a risk. However, the report published

by NRWG claims these could all be managed and mitigated by the rigorous application of the sequence of formal business case assessments, leadership and support from the Department for Transport and NR, and the adoption of a progressive approach to project design and community engagement .

The NRWG proposals envisage using the

existing Meldon Quarry site as a railhead for construction, in a similar fashion to how Okehampton station was used for the Dartmoor line project. The quarry offers a secure central construction, support and distribution base for

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Without the investment connectivity across the region will remain poor

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Andrew explains that key risks have been identified by the group. These include the lack of joined-up planning in the multi-phased implementation of the northern route. He said this was reflected in the piecemeal approach to reopening, with Exeter to Okehampton potentially followed by Bere Alston to Tavistock.

Other risks include the choices around alignment and property relocation in Tavistock, renovation or replacement of bridges over at Tavy, Tamerton and Meldon, and the costs of adopting high levels of resilience for rail infrastructure against River Exe floods.

plant, materials and equipment maintenance.

Most materials and equipment can be delivered by rail and there will be minimal impact on residential and other businesses during construction. The existing Okehampton line would not need to close, but NRWG assumes that should the Bere Alston–Tavistock section be reopened then this would need to close to allow a route upgrade to main line standards.

There would be a requirement to double the track between Cowley Bridge, near Exeter, and Coleford Junction, where the Okehampton line diverges from the Barnstaple route.

NRWG has prepared a timetable with sectional running times based on NR’s published work in 2014 that stated a 53-minute journey was possible between Exeter St Davids and Plymouth via Meldon. The NRWG approach is for a 59-minute journey for non-stop trains.

A matter of timing The group has assumed the deployment of bi-mode trains for the purpose of the modelling.

A proposed timetable for the full 58-mile journey shows a 10:17 departure from Plymouth would arrive at Tavistock at 10:39, depart at 10:40, arrive at Okehampton at 10:59, depart at 11:00 and arrive at Exeter St Davids at 11:22. A train leaving Plymouth at 10:38, calling at Tavistock, Okehampton and Crediton, and using the Cowley Bridge chord, would arrive at Taunton at 12:05.

A decade ago the idea of a part-electrified line serving Dartmoor would have been rejected out of hand. But, thanks to the combination of Mother Nature, increased demand for public transport and the clamour for decarbonisation, trains could once again be crossing Dartmoor in the near future.

The full report can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/5n8bewfc

Ecus: Trusted Partner to the Rail Industry Ecus is a environmental consultancy that has been an integral part of the Okehampton project team since 2020.

Our key areas of work include: Arboriculture (including BS 5837 tree surveys) Archaeology and historic environment Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), planning and consenting Ecology (including UKHab habitats surveys, protected species surveys and licencing) Habitat creation and enhancement Marine Licensing and Flood Risk Activity permitting Noise and air quality assessments Nutrient neutrality assessments and guidance

With regional locations across England, Scotland and Wales, and Personal Track Safety (PTS) qualified staff, Ecus is trusted to deliver some of the UK’s most challenging infrastructure projects.

Our national network means we can offer our environmental expertise across the UK and provide services to the construction and building, transport, energy, utilities, and government sectors.

Our collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach helps us understand and respond to your needs.

Call +44 (0) 114 266 9292 or email contactus@ecusltd.co.uk

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

RIA Innovations Conference

A return to live engagement marks pivotal point in innovative thinking For the first time in three years, the RIA Innovations Conference has taken place ‘in person’. Inside Track was there to report on the event’s key themes and messages

From left: Rikesh Shah, TfL; Mark Rayner, Innovate UK; Howard Mitchell, HS2, Anita Brown, Avanti West Coast; David Rowe, Network Rail; David Clarke, RIA

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ike so many events in 2022, it was the first time the Railway Industry Association (RIA) was able to host its annual Innovations Conference ‘in person’ since COVID became a household word.

Last year’s event was held online, while 2020’s event was cancelled. In that time, the rail industry has faced what has been described as its biggest crisis since the Second World War, as passenger numbers plummeted overnight and revenue streams collapsed. As a result of these events, this year promised at least two new things – a welcome return to live industry engagement, and a pivotal role for innovative thinking and, perhaps more to the point, innovative doing in tackling the way to recovery for the sector.

The structure of the conference, as in previous years, provided delegates four key opportunities: the programme of presentations from industry leaders; workshops covering a variety of themes; the exhibition space; and, arguably the most missed when events could only be online, the chance to network.

June 2022

This year’s event, held at the East Midlands Conference Centre, featured a dedicated exhibition space for Network Rail to showcase its research and development (R&D) and innovation journey.

This was just inside the entrance, while several exhibitors lined the corridor leading to the main exhibition space containing a wide range of RIA members’ stands. The diversity of the exhibitors was striking, and highlighted innovative products and services across multiple aspects of the rail sector.

decisions shouldn’t be made solely on recent experience, and indeed pointed out that in recent weeks passenger numbers had been quickly rising, achieving somewhere near 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. He also added insight that a successful railway was essential for successful innovation in the railway. This led neatly on to David Clarke, RIA technical director, taking to the stage to put the conference into focus on the next steps for the rail industry, and for innovation within it.

Great British Railways

A positive tone The first day started with a welcome from RIA chief executive Darren Caplin, who struck a positive tone about the current state of the rail industry.

It is easy to focus on the events of the past two years, and undoubtedly the impact has caused significant harm, but Darren reminded attendees, and particularly policy makers, that long-term

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It comes as little surprise that the theme of the two-day event was targeted at the future of the industry under the new encompassing body of Great British Railways (GBR). While this new structure is still taking shape, the issues of the day are no less pressing, but delegates were to hear time and time again about the role of GBR, and the requirements on it, regarding the future of the industry and the challenges to be tackled.

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RIA Innovations Conference

Essential topics The underlying theme of preparing for GBR recurred throughout the programme of presentations on both days. But more than that, two essential topics emerged: the need for greater collaboration; and the need to create the right culture.

Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy (L) is welcomed by RIA chief executive Darren Caplan

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GBR has the chance to bring about key reforms within which the private sector can innovate and enable closer working with the supply chain

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David highlighted two new launches from RIA: the first stage of the Innovation Navigator Self Assessment Tool, and the publication of the Railway Innovation Strategy.

Anyone who has tried to introduce innovative solutions into the railway will be well aware of the challenging environment for this, especially for those bringing in ideas from beyond the rail industry, and the Self Assessment Tool is targeted at helping innovators understand and assess their readiness and capability, and support with advice on closing the gaps. While it isn’t going to instantly remove every barrier to entry, there’s a welcome approach to making the rail market more accessible to great ideas and innovators whose biggest hurdle is understanding the way in.

In many ways the launch of the Railway Innovation Strategy was an understated affair, given the importance of the content. In announcing its publication David highlighted the key questions and recommendations it outlined, which require the whole rail sector to step up and for GBR to take the reins, enabling rather than stifling, guiding rather than directing.

As we were to later hear from speaker after speaker, the creation of a landscape to better support innovation was one of the most important outcomes for GBR. The strategy document, available on the RIA website, lays out the challenges and opportunities for innovation across the rail industry, makes a number of key asks from the government and provides five recommendations to enable GBR to best support innovation in rail.

The first keynote speech, presented by Keith Williams, to some extent started with a cautionary counterpoint to Darren Caplin’s opener, with a reminder that the need for rail reform is greater than ever due to the combination of rising costs and subdued revenue. Furthermore, even while passenger numbers are increasing, there is a substantial change in the nature of the next generation of passenger, for whom rail travel has to be made relevant and attractive. It is, he said, “ever more important that customer needs have changed and travel patterns have changed” and we need to have a passenger-focused railway.

Keith Williams speaks with RIA’s David Clarke

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This was picked up further in the question and answer session where the question of ticketing, and particularly a multi-modal approach to a system that is (and was) best described as “broken”. The response was hard to dispute from a passenger experience, but so often unrealised in practice – people are interested in journeys rather than just the rail component. At the same time the opportunity for freight must be balanced, with this forming 16 per cent of journeys and having picked up significantly during and as a result of the pandemic.

Collaboration and culture In discussing the formation of GBR as a natural outcome of the Williams-Shapps review, Keith highlighted the twin themes of collaboration and culture. Collaboration takes many forms both passive and active. For example, in the creation of GBR it is an opportunity to take the best of the private sector and integrate this within a guiding mind that is open and responsive to new opportunities. GBR has the chance to bring about key reforms within which the private sector can innovate and enable closer working with the supply chain, especially SMEs and start-ups, while remaining the primary publicly funded body for R&D in the industry.

Culture is an area that has to change, and that change has to start from the very beginning with GBR. There was a clear ambition for the industry to embrace a culture that enables innovation. This was later challenged when the role of a central funder of innovation was compared to the agility that is required to implement innovations more locally; also, how locally achieved innovation that has a national impact can be scaled up appropriately. Importantly it was recognised that GBR needs to promote innovation but also has to learn and change to adapt.

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

RIA Innovations Conference

While starting out in cautionary fashion, Keith later reinforced the point made by Darren that the past two years shouldn’t be the sole basis for change – in fact, he said, the review was always aimed at changing the industry and was under way even before COVID struck. If anything, the pandemic has created an even greater opportunity for rail to reform and rise. There is a momentum there, and now is the time to take advantage of it, a call that went out to the industry at large.

Key partnerships

David Clarke, RIA

isn’t a “Innovation department, it’s a mindset

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The day progressed with a view from Network Rail’s David Rowe, head of rail technology, who brought the achievement of collaborative innovation to the fore, highlighting the partnerships that Network Rail’s RD&I team have achieved and some of the achievements that have resulted, such as the Ava footbridge design.

Recognition was also given to the perennial challenge of deploying innovation, a large step across the ‘valley of death’ that will be familiar to any innovator in the rail sector.

Avanti head of innovation and engagement, Anita Brown, stressed that “innovation isn’t a department, it’s a mindset”, echoing earlier sentiments on the culture that GBR needs to set in order for innovation to come from the ground up.

Avanti’s approach to innovation was also linked to the topic of culture, recognising that innovation is not just about technology, it’s about creating that culture of innovation. And in the afternoon session Transport for London’s Thomas Ableman, innovation director, also reinforced the message, highlighting the need for “rules of the game”, to clarify how people can iterate and experiment, and to liberate employees at all levels to innovate and engage.

As well as collaboration and culture, a third topic that emerged repeatedly was the importance of data. This was an important theme for LNER’s Danny Gonzalez, who stated the aim of using data better “to personalise the customer experience through the whole journey”.

This related back to previous comments in Keith Williams’ keynote about the passenger-focused railway, the interest in the whole-journey view, and the recognition of data as a key resource.

Danny also stressed the need for collaboration rather than direct central control, an important factor in how GBR takes that core role but enables

the industry to contribute as flexibly as possible.

He explained how the rail industry “isn’t set up to innovate”, due to the challenges of ownership of solutions, the complex railway ecosystem and its legacy technologies, not being “start-up friendly” (a point recognised earlier by Thomas Ableman, who appreciated that a large organisation like TfL was currently a hard customer for SMEs and start-ups to break into), and finally the challenge of scaling production rapidly when successful.

Closing the first day, Network Rail’s Toufic Machnouk, director of industry partnerships, digital, shared views and experiences on innovation from within the East Coast Digital Programme, which can be seen as a role model for bringing about positive change in the culture and industry collaboration which GBR can learn from. “A clear mission and a simple open boundary model” is key to unlocking immense potential, while innovation starts from three simple principles of being “divergent, diverse and determined”.

For many delegates the evening provided ample opportunities for networking and reinforced the value of live events to bring the industry together, while conversations abounded picking up on the themes of the day and the state of the industry.

Day two The second day of the event began with an opening keynote from Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy CBE, who challenged the industry in some key areas: communicating the value of the benefits rail brings to the whole country, through social and economic value; and also recognising the approach of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the railways where there is a huge opportunity for the whole industry to get behind the celebrations in 2025 and help focus that message of value.

Sir Peter Hendy, Network Rail

June 2022

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RIA Innovations Conference

At the same time there was still the need to tackle costs, which Sir Peter put at the heart of the innovation agenda.

Completing the morning line-up, two further presentations brought new slants to the same recurring themes, firstly from HS2 with head of innovation Howard Mitchell picking up the collaboration baton. “Friction” in the process was a problem he saw his team as being there to address, acting as facilitators for those who are doing the innovation, rather than being there to carry out the innovation itself.

Meanwhile Mark Rayner from Innovate UK addressed the gap between successful demonstration and commercialisation, which can so easily snub out a promising development.

He stressed the need for making the right funding available at this stage, especially for those smaller innovators who require support. The Innovate UK EDGE programme has led the way here, with some 30 companies supported through two cohorts.

Creating a safer network A double-act from Arcadis, with Chris Pike and Daniel Burggraf – UK rail sector director and asset management consultant respectively – brought a maintenance perspective and highlighted the positive benefits of collaboration. In working closely with the Dutch railways, the results speak for themselves. Over 50 per cent reductions in both time to repair and number of failures, and significant reductions in maintenance costs.

This was achieved with a performance-based approach to maintenance that is also being introduced in the UK on the Elizabeth line, an application where attitudes to unscheduled downtime are likely to be unforgiving.

June 2022

Toufic Machnouk, Network Rail, speaks with RIA’s David Clarke

Closing the day, and the conference, was a final keynote from the chief scientific advisor to the DfT, Professor Sarah Sharples, who once again highlighted the difficulties in breaking into the rail industry but also reinforced the message about costs, in this case bringing to light the government’s challenge of finding the right balance between risk and value. The case for culture change was highlighted once more with an appeal for the industry to bring to government clear, succinct messages that are widely agreed on and can be strongly communicated. This only left David Tomkin, RIA chairman, to repeat the opening positive message from Darren Caplin. There may be challenges ahead, but it is a time of opportunity, and the whole industry has a part to play.

Sharing across the industry In between the presentations bookending both days of the conference were a number of open workshop sessions that enabled attendees to listen, learn and contribute.

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These ranged from RSSB looking at the role of cross-cutting and evolving technologies, and their implications and opportunities for rail; an in-depth introduction to the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN); a workshop on tackling the perception of the rail industry and actions to change this; Network Rail sessions on unlocking innovation in the supply chain; and Connected Places Catapult showcasing how to innovate with collaborative partnerships.

Greater tools Two further sessions linked closely to the launches

by RIA’s David Clarke on day one, with one of these providing insight into the Innovation Navigator Self Assessment Tool and providing an opportunity for attendees to give feedback for progressing this tool in its future phases that will be launched in the coming months.

Meanwhile, a link with the Railway Innovation Strategy came from a workshop with the Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE) – recommended in the strategy to receive GBR and industry support as a key pillar in supporting introduction of innovations into the railway while bringing down costs and reducing risk – with chief technology officer Andy Doherty outlining the ambitious project and inviting the industry to help shape the facilities needed at the “ideal” test and demonstration site.

Overall, it was great to see the RIA Innovation Conference back live, and the positive buzz over the two days reinforced the benefit of so many industry representatives getting back together and targeting the challenges of continuing innovation in difficult times. The common topics of collaboration and culture, which were repeated so many times, and the importance of data as an enabler, are themes we can expect to hear much more of as we prepare for, and bring about, GBR. And if this event is an indicator, there’s an industry out there committed to working towards that.

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10/02/2021 09:55:51

RAIB

Inside Track highlights the key points from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch’s detailed report on operational and investigative activity for the year RAIB called the collision at Salisbury in October 2021 ‘an unfortunate but significant milestone’ in its history

Investigations Out of these preliminary examinations, 16 led to full investigations, which will be published in the form of a detailed report with safety recommendations, and a further eight led to a safety digest being produced. In addition, RAIB also wrote seven letters to coroners, one letter to industry and began nine industry investigation reviews.

The RAIB also published nine investigation reports, eight safety digests, six letters to coroners and issued one interim report. It made 31 safety recommendations during the year to 36 different

June 2022

organisations across the industry including operators, manufacturers and other authorities.

Since the publication of the 2020 annual report, chief inspector Simon French OBE retired after nearly 18 years with the organisation.

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RAIB published nine investigation reports, eight safety digests, six letters to coroners and issued one interim report

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he Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has published its annual report, which covered the period from 1 January to 31 December 2021.

This report covers the operational and investigative activity undertaken by the RAIB during the year.

During the 12-month period covered, the RAIB received 391 notifications. Of those, inspectors and support staff were deployed on 29 occasions and undertook a total of 47 preliminary examinations.

documents continue to be updated and “are a useful reference for the industry.”

In his foreword to the report, RAIB chief inspector of rail accidents Andrew Hall wrote: “During 2021 the coronavirus pandemic continued to have a significant effect on all our lives, and it has presented the railway industry and its people with a number of challenges.” He says that RAIB was able to adjust its methods of working to ensure that, as far as possible, its investigations have continued to be to the standard which the public and the industry have come to expect since RAIB has been operating.

Significant milestone The report also highlights seven recurring safety themes which have run through RAIB’s work during the 12-month period. These are: the safety of track workers, the safety of people getting on and off trains, railway operations, management of bad weather, freight wagon maintenance, safety at userworked crossings and management assurance.

In 2019, RAIB launched a new series of summaries of learning reports, which drew on data from its archive of investigations to highlight important safety learning of continued concern. It says these

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Andrew highlights the incident at Salisbury on 31 October which he called an “unfortunate but significant milestone”. This involved Great Western Railway and South Western Railway trains colliding in a tunnel and was, said the chief inspector, the first time RAIB has had to investigate a collision between two passenger trains moving at significant speed on the national network. Nobody was killed in the accident, although 14 people were hospitalised including the driver of the SWR train.

The accident remains under investigation.

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Image: RAIB

RAIB publishes annual report covering activity for 2021

Track access In early 2021, RAIB concluded its investigation into the death of a track worker struck by a train at Roade on the West Coast main line. It found that, as at Margam, someone was on the track doing a task that was not really necessary. “Proper planning would have identified that there was no reason for people to go on the track every day during this project to apply and remove earthing straps,” said Andrew, adding that RAIB recommended Network Rail reviews its processes with the aim of minimising the need for track access in connection with operating the electric traction supply system. Near misses were also recorded at Rowlands Castle, Llandegai tunnel and Eccles.

Andrew noted: “RAIB recognises the continuing efforts of the Office of Rail and Road [ORR] and Network Rail to radically alter the way that track maintenance activities are delivered, with a fundamental move away from working on lines that are still open to traffic and reliance on warnings provided by lookouts (so called red zone working).”

He applauds the renewed focus on effectively communicating the benefits of new working methods to track workers themselves. However: “Despite this, our investigations during 2021 have shown that the risk to track workers is still there

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Inside the tunnel, near Salisbury

Image: RAIB

He also highlights that the latter part of the year saw a number of “very serious”, and some fatal, interactions between people and trams. Two of these are under investigation.

He added: “In our 2020 report, we reflected that there had been four fatal accidents on the operational railway that year, including both those involving track workers and the derailment at Carmont. Sadly, February 2021 saw the death of another track worker at Surbiton, and February 2022, the death of a train driver at Worthing.” A week after the annual report was published, the report into the Surbiton track worker death was published (pages 22-27).

As mentioned, there are seven main themes that run through RAIB’s work, the first being safety of track workers. In the annual report, Andrew said: “The safety of people who work on the track continues to be a matter of considerable concern.”

He adds that the potential for brief lapses in concentration to have terrible results means it is vital that people only go on the track while trains are running if it is absolutely necessary.

The death of two track workers at Margam in 2019 is highlighted and at the time RAIB expressed concern that the industry had been unable to carry people with it in its attempts to bring about real change.

as the amount of red zone working declines. The close calls at Llandegai tunnel and at Eccles both involved workers who believed that they were protected from approaching trains by temporary blockages of the line.

“In the years to come the focus should be on developing the infrastructure and technology, along with safety behaviours and leadership skills in the workforce, that are needed to keep people safe from trains,” he said.

The next theme is the safety of people getting on and off trains. During 2021, RAIB published two reports on accidents leading to the death of passengers who fell from station platforms.

At Eden Park station in south-east London, a visually impaired person fell off the platform less than a second before an arriving train struck and fatally injured him. RAIB concluded that the absence of a tactile strip along the platform edge may have been a factor.

The investigation found that: “Government and the industry have policies in place to make rail travel more accessible for people with disabilities.

However, there appeared to have been no coherent risk-based strategy for the provision of tactile strips, despite their obvious importance to visually impaired people who value the opportunity to travel independently, without reliance on staff.”

RAIB recommended that Network Rail and the Department for Transport (DfT) should develop and progress a time-bound programme to install tactile surfaces at stations, where justified by safety benefits.

The DfT told RAIB it had made an additional £10 million available for the priority stations not already funded, which would be spent in 20212022. Additional funding had been secured to fit tactile surfaces along all platform edges not already scheduled to have them installed. ORR has reported to RAIB that Network Rail has been funded to fit tactile surfaces along all platform edges on its railway network by the end of 2029 and that the infrastructure manager expects that most of the work will be completed by 2025.

Risk identification A passenger alighted from a northbound train at Waterloo on London Underground’s (LU) Bakerloo line before falling back into the gap between the train and platform, where he was trapped for more than a minute before the train departed. Throughout this time, there was no one on the platform to see what was happening, despite it being mid-morning on a weekday. The passenger was struck by another train as it arrived at the station.

The location has a substantial gap between the train and platform because of the sharp curve the station is built on.

RAIB’s investigation found that LU’s risk assessment processes did not enable the identification and detailed assessment of all factors that contributed to higher platform-train interface (PTI) risk at certain platforms.

Roade, where a trackworker was killed after being struck by a train.

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Image: RAIB

Image: RAIB

RAIB

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Andrew says that Chiltern Railways’ management arrangements “had not been effective in managing the safety risk associated with this individual,” and it is important train drivers get the best possible support from their employers. “This includes the provision of accurate and up-to-date information about conditions on the network both when they come on duty and, where possible, once on duty,” he added. “One consequence of poor practice in this area is trains travelling too fast through emergency speed restrictions, as we found in our investigations into multiple instances of this between Laurencekirk and Portlethen.”

In the case of an overspeeding incident at Beattock the emergency speed restriction board had been wrongly positioned, which gave the driver too little distance to slow to the mandated speed.

The industry needs to improve the methods it uses to impose speed restrictions at short notice, to take advantage of modern technology to communicate effectively with drivers as the situation develops. “Getting this right is critical since the railway is now making more use of local speed restrictions to mitigate the risk to its infrastructure during extreme weather events,” said Andrew.

The fourth theme is management of bad weather. Concern about communication methods is linked to the need for the railway to respond to changing weather conditions, Andrew notes.

During this latest period, RAIB continued the investigation into the tragic derailment at Carmont, Aberdeenshire, in August 2020, where three people died. RAIB published its interim report into the accident in April 2021, and the final report in March 2022. Andrew said: “This accident has served as a stark reminder that

June 2022

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One consequence of poor practice in this area is trains travelling too fast

extreme rainfall can endanger the drainage systems, earthworks and structures that the railway relies on, and that it is very difficult to predict where and when such failures may occur.

The washout that derailed the train at Carmont was caused by the incorrect installation of a drainage system eight years before the accident.

This drainage system, designed to reduce the risk of a much older earthwork failing, was itself vulnerable to failure when exposed to unusually heavy rainfall for several hours.”

He says given that it is so difficult to predict which assets will fail next, it is vital that the

railway applies the precautionary principle.

“In practice this means slowing trains in areas exposed to extreme weather that poses a general but significant risk to assets. The most obvious example is heavy rainfall associated with summer convection storms of the type witnessed at Carmont,” he explained.

This should not be overly disruptive to operating the railway provided operations staff have been given the training and procedures required to fully exploit technology already available to forecast and track weather conditions in real time.

“It was apparent from the Carmont investigation that the industry’s arrangements for responding to bad weather were not adequate.

We’re pleased that following the accident, Network Rail took action to put in place revised instructions and processes that allow for the slowing down of trains in areas endangered by extreme weather events,” he said. RAIB has made 20 recommendations to address the safety issues it has identified.

The issue of freight wagon maintenance was once again raised by RAIB following the oil tanker fire in south Wales in 2020

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Image: RAIB

Accurate information

RAIB carried out its investigation into the tragic Carmont accident during 2021, with the findings published this year

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Consequently, although LU had implemented some location-specific mitigation measures at the PTI, it had not fully quantified the contribution of curved platforms to the overall PTI risk, and so was unable to fully assess the potential benefits of additional mitigation at these locations.

LU has since improved camera coverage at the station platform, amended its risk assessment processes, and taken measures to improve staff and passenger understanding of PTI risk.

Railway operations is the third theme. Last year, RAIB commented on the possible effects of distraction on the performance of train drivers.

This gave cause for concern in 2021. A report into a near miss at Chalfont & Latimer found that a driver who passed a signal at danger and then reset the train protection equipment to enable the train to proceed was probably fatigued.

Image: RAIB

RAIB

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RAIB

Welcomed initiative Nevertheless, the ORR’s decision to reinforce supervision of entities in charge of maintenance (ECM) has been welcomed. “This will provide improved visibility of maintainers’ work. It will verify the extent to which the important role of ECMs is properly understood and applied across the UK freight sector, and the adequacy of surveillance undertaken by certification bodies, whether based in the UK or in the EU,” Andrew added.

The sixth theme is safety at user-worked crossings (UWCs). These have featured in 22 reports and safety digests since 2005. Following delays caused by pressure of other legislation and the pandemic, the DfT has indicated it now intends to introduce new regulations regarding clear and effective signs at locations. Consultation was launched on 6 April 2022 and, once responses have been analysed, the DfT plans to bring forward legislation to make the changes as soon as possible.

RAIB feels that the greatest scope for safety improvement exists at UWCs, whether on public or private roads. “The number of such crossings on public roads is of concern because most motorists are unlikely to be familiar with the concept of a level crossing which they must operate themselves,” Andrew said.

The final theme is management assurance and the management of safety. The investigation into the trackworker death at Roade highlights an issue that has also appeared in several other recent accidents,

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which is the arrangements (or lack of them) for management assurance about site and operational activities. “Unsafe behaviour on site is a familiar theme,” Andrew said. “Everyone working on the railway has a responsibility to themselves and their colleagues, which includes not letting dangerous or non-compliant actions go unchallenged. Managers need to be aware of staff behaviour, and the management structure should make it a normal part of their work to be getting out there and seeing what goes on. It’s all very well to check paperwork, but it’s important to know what is really happening on the ground.”

In the accident at Roade, the person killed was reputedly in the habit of walking on the line when he didn’t need to. And, while his co-workers were aware, nobody had addressed it.

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The second observation is that the railway is statistically very safe and rightly strives hard for continual improvement

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The next theme is freight wagon maintenance.

“Poor maintenance of freight wagons has featured in several reports over the years,” said Andrew.

During 2021 it was the focus of the investigation into the derailment, oil spillage and fire at Llangennech, Carmarthenshire, in August 2020, which was published in January 2022.

“Trains carrying dangerous goods play an important role in the UK economy, but the risks which their operation presents must be adequately controlled,” he said. “The rail industry’s approach to the safe management of these trains needs to improve. The accident was probably a result of inadequate maintenance practices, and a failure to appreciate the importance of the correct fastening of the various components of the tanks wagons’ braking system.”

RAIB highlights that this was not the first time the branch had investigated an accident related to the maintenance of the oil tanker trains that pass through Llangennech. “It is disappointing that the recommendation we made in our report published four years ago, that the maintenance processes and facilities at the depot where the tank wagons are based should be the subject of a full risk assessment, had not been implemented effectively,” Andrew said.

“In all aspects of railway operations, management assurance is important. It matters that what happens on the ground corresponds with what all the carefully devised rules and processes say should happen,” said Andrew.

Further examples of disconnect in different fields were highlighted, including the management of mobile operations managers at Rowlands Castle, the control of unloading vehicles at the Mid-Norfolk Railway heritage line, and in the approach to vehicle movements and access to the lineside when clearing up after engineering work at Penistone.

RAIB’s investigation into Carmont also identified that Network Rail’s management assurance process had not highlighted the fact that controllers had not been provided with the training and procedures needed to exploit the weather-monitoring technology that had been installed in control offices. Furthermore, divergence between nationally mandated weather management processes and local practice in Scotland had not been detected.

Management assurance is not just about audits and compliance checks, says Andrew. To work well, formal processes need to be complemented by an open and honest culture that encourages the flow of information throughout the organisation. “People need to feel that they can speak about their concerns, or deliver bad news, without risk to themselves if managers are to be truly aware of what is happening in their organisation,” he said. “This is a problem that has existed from the earliest days of the railway and, more recently, was probably exacerbated by responses to the COVID pandemic.”

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Andrew says RAIB recognised that the solution is not straightforward: “However, it is important that the industry recovers quickly and continues to strive towards a better understanding of what makes management assurance work because, without it, the rest of the safety management system can be fatally undermined.”

In his conclusions, he made two more general observations over a longer timeframe.

Data analysis The first relates to the railway now being awash with data. “This is very useful to accident investigators because it can provide evidence of accident cause that in the past we would have struggled to identify,” he said. “However, there are numerous examples of where data that provides evidence after a railway accident could, if known about and used to drive action, have been used to avoid the accident happening in the first place. The data may be there, but the management wherewithal to best use it to reduce risk, is not always.”

He warns that not recognising this can lead to a false sense of security where, having invested in equipment that gathers data, organisations can develop a belief that the risks such data can be used to manage have been mitigated, when in fact they have not.

The second observation is that the railway is statistically very safe and rightly strives hard for continual improvement.

“However, it is clear from RAIB investigations that quite a number of significant accidents over recent years could, with slight changes in circumstance, have been even worse,” Andrew suggested. “Such events are a stark reminder of the need for constant vigilance when thinking about and managing risk in a safety-critical industry like the railway.”

Recommendations RAIB made 31 recommendations directed at 36 organisations. These were: Emergency services – 1 Rail Delivery Group – 1 Office of Rail and Road – 1 Department for Transport – 2 RSSB – 2 Contractors (infrastructure) – 2 Freight operators – 3 Passenger train operators – 4 Metro operators – 5 Network Rail – 15

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

RAIB

RAIB reports and investigations The past few weeks have been a busy period for the Rail Accident Investigation Branch

June 2022

“

The prompt actions by the train driver almost certainly prevented a worse outcome

RAIB said the prompt actions by the train driver almost certainly prevented a worse outcome.

RAIB made three recommendations. The first is that Network Rail should assess, and if necessary reduce, the risks of incidents and accidents at vehicular user-worked crossings which may see significant use by unfamiliar users, consistent with current industry best practice. The second is that Network Rail, in consultation with the ORR and Department for Transport (DfT), should improve signage at user-worked crossings which may share features identified in this investigation.

The final recommendation is that the DfT, in consultation with Network Rail and the ORR, should evaluate the extent to which recent guidance on the drafting and making of level crossing orders will better enable the implementation of improved safety measures at level crossings.

Belle Isle Junction At around 03:30 on 16 May 2021, a road-rail vehicle (RRV) ran away while being on-tracked at a road-rail access point near Belle Isle Junction in north London during a maintenance possession.

The RRV involved was a type known as a Mobile Elevating Work Platform (MEWP). It ran downhill for approximately 600 metres before coming to a stop in a tunnel. RAIB said there was no one on the track long its route, Although no one was injured, the operator jumped from the MEWP’s basket before it entered the tunnel. Neither the vehicle nor the infrastructure was damaged.

Image: RAIB

At 17:21 on 21 January 2021, the 16:49 NorwichSheringham, formed of a three-car Greater Anglia Class 755/3, narrowly avoided colliding with two cars at Coltishall Lane user worked level crossing, near Hoveton, Norfolk. Road traffic over the crossing was higher than usual as drivers were seeking a diversion following an earlier incident on a nearby main road.

The train passed over the crossing at 58mph after the driver applied the emergency brake having seen car headlights.

Using the crossing relies on telephones to warn road users of approaching trains. The near miss occurred because the car drivers did not telephone the signalling team before using the crossing. RAIB found this may have been due to unfamiliarity with the crossing because signs were ineffective in prompting users on how to cross safely, and because the level crossing gates had already opened.

RAIB found that Network Rail, and its predecessors, had not taken measures to close or upgrade the crossing despite being aware of the risks it posed. RAIB said that this was possibly because Network Rail’s processes for assessing and controlling risk did not take account of some of the factors present, leading to an incomplete understanding of the risks involved. Additionally, the status of user worked crossings on public roads was not acknowledged within relevant statutory provisions and industry guidance, and this may have affected how safety at these crossings was managed. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) had previously taken regulatory action, but this had not resulted in action by Network Rail to address the risk at this crossing by the time the incident occurred.

Coltishall

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Coltishall

Image: RAIB

S

ince 14 April this year, the RAIB has published reports into a near miss, a fatal accident involving track and a runaway of a vehicle. RAIB also confirmed it will investigate an over speeding incident at Peterborough, a fatal accident at a footpath in Surrey and a near miss at Farnborough North footpath level crossing.

Safety digests were also published regarding a passenger being trapped in doors and dragged at Wood Street station, and a near miss with track workers and collision with a tree on the line in Somerset.

Belle Isle Junction

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Pod-Trak owned, maintained and supplied the MEWP and employed the operator, the Plant Operations Scheme Representative (POS Rep) and maintenance fitter.

RAIB said the MEWP ran away because it entered service with ineffective rail-wheel brakes and that staff working with it were unable to stop the runaway. The brakes were ineffective because a valve in the braking system had been left open following maintenance. The possibility of this had not been recognised during the design or risk assessment of the brake system, and the situation had not been identified during operation or regular in-service testing.

RAIB made two recommendations. One was addressed to Hargreaves, the company which designed and fitted the direct rail-wheel braking system, to revise its process for risk assessment, and the second to Pod-Trak to review its strategy for confirming the ongoing integrity of the direct rail wheel brake system.

Farnborough At around 08:22 on 19 May 2022, the 07:02 Great Western Railway Gatwick Airport to Reading service was approaching Farnborough North

Image: RAIB

RAIB

Farnborough North

station at around 70mph when the driver observed a large group of people using the footpath crossing at the station. The driver sounded the horn and made an emergency brake application, but the crossing did not become clear of users until about five seconds before the train passed over it. No one was hurt in the incident said RAIB. The crossing is fitted with gates and miniature stop lights. These lights show a red aspect to pedestrians when trains are approaching, and the crossing should not be used with this

red aspect showing. The gates at the crossing are also fitted with magnetic locks, which are operated by a level crossing attendant between 05:30 and 00:30 hrs.

These locks are intended to prevent an already closed gate from being opened by users and are activated when a red aspect is being displayed on the miniature stop lights. The train would normally have stopped at Farnborough North station but had been made a non-stopping service due to earlier disruption.

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RAIB

The arrival of the train was not indicated on passenger information screens installed on the platforms.

RAIB will seek to identify: the method of working at this crossing, including the role of the level crossing attendant, the level crossing risk assessment process, the history of this crossing including the response to previous incidents and how plans to replace it were realised and any underlying management factors.

Surbiton

June 2022

Surbiton

“

RAIB’s investigation found that the inspection was planned to be completed while trains were running with a safe system of work in place that used unassisted lookouts

The driver told RAIB that while one of the workers appeared close to the train, he did not believe the worker was in the train’s swept path and was therefore not at risk of being struck.

As the train passed the group, the driver heard a noise which he said he thought was the train hitting a tool. Consequently, the emergency brake was applied and the train stopped 32 seconds later, around 637 metres from the point of collision.

The driver reported what he thought to be the incident, while the track workers were unable to contact the signaller as the phone number was within the safe work pack, which remained with the COSS. An emergency call was made by another driver whose train had just departed Surbiton.

RAIB’s investigation found that the inspection was planned to be completed while trains were running with a safe system of work in place that used unassisted lookouts. This was the least safe type of system of work which could be implemented when working on track, but its ongoing use had not been challenged in the years before the accident.

RAIB found that Network Rail had a programme in place to eliminate unassisted lookout working but this had not yet led to changes to the safe systems of work at the depot where the COSS worked. RAIB also found that the safety of people working on, or near railway lines, relies on the COSS implementing a safe system of work, however where they are responsible for carrying out the work, they are at increased risk of becoming distracted. This can, and has, led to staff being struck by trains or being involved in near misses.

RAIB highlighted that following an accident at Margam on 3 July 2019 where two track workers were struck and killed, it made 11 recommendations of which four were relevant to the Surbiton accident.

Surbiton track plan 15

Up Slow

80

To London Waterloo

Up siding

To Woking

Surbiton 1

Up Fast

80

Down Fast

COSS

2

DoT

80

Down Slow

3 35

Down Hampton Court

24

80 4

Image: RAIB

The train’s on-train data recorder indicates the driver sounded the horn when it was around 416 metres from the group while travelling at 78mph. The COSS was helping to educate the patroller’s assistant by pointing out key features and components of switches and crossings during their work. The COSS had stepped out of the track and was walking in the crossover between the up and down fast lines. Witness evidence suggests that this would not usually have happened. The driver sounded the horn again at 143 metres from the group, travelling at 77mph.

“

At around 11:35 on 9 February 2021, the South Western Railway 11:20 London WaterlooSalisbury, formed of two three-car Class 159 diesel multiple units, travelling at 76mph, struck and fatally injured 30-year-old Tyler Byrne, a track worker who was walking in a crossover between two through lines approximately 365 metres to the country side of Surbiton station, south west London.

RAIB said Tyler had his back to the approaching train when he was struck. He was one of four track workers involved in undertaking inspections at the location and was the controller of site safety (COSS). He was also the person in charge (PIC) for the work which required him having overall accountability for supervising and overseeing safe implementation of the work.

At this location there are five lines; the up slow and up fast lines carrying trains heading to London, the down slow and down fast lines carrying trains away from London and the down Hampton Court line which carries trains heading to and from Hampton Court. Starting around 250 metres on the country side of Surbiton, all five lines are connected by crossovers.

RAIB said Tyler was unaware of his position relative to the train and this was probably because he had become distracted, either because he was teaching an assistant or by undertaking an actual inspection. Once distracted, RAIB said it was likely his deviation towards the line on which the train was travelling was exacerbated by the layout of the rails at the junction. The train driver sounded the train horn twice during its approach but RAIB said neither of the other two people working with the COSS recalled hearing it. SWR examined the train following the accident and found no defects associated with the horn, lights or brakes. RAIB found no evidence that the condition of the train contributed to the accident.

In the moments before the accident, the group walked to, and inspected, the crossover between the up fast and down fast lines. At this point the train was coasting through Surbiton station and the driver became aware of workers on the tracks.

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RAIB

The ORR reported to RAIB on 10 November 2021 that the status of all four recommendations was “implementation ongoing”.

Days after the Surbiton accident the Wessex route moved inspections of crossovers into nighttime possessions when no trains were running.

RAIB recommended that to prevent accidents and near misses Network Rail should review whether safe systems of work in which staff are working on or near the line, and where some or all lines remain open to traffic, incorporate adequate risk controls so that members of the work group remain within the designated safe limits. The review should consider including the role of appropriate technology and whether having members of the group undertaking multiple tasks could compromise risk controls. Network Rail should implement any necessary changes identified in accordance with a timebound plan.

RAIB also recommended that the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), with support from RSSB, should identify issues drivers face in judging the proximity of track workers to the swept path of their train. They should develop training and briefing materials to better prepare drivers to make accurate judgements as to when track workers are at risk of being struck and to react appropriately, for example by sounding the urgent warning. The RDG should share the resulting training and briefing material with transport undertakings..

Finally, RAIB recommended that Network Rail should review working practices at Woking track section to understand the extent and nature of any non-compliances relating to safe systems of work and their related rules, procedures, and behaviours. This review should seek to understand the underlying reasons behind any non-compliances identified and if they may apply more widely to other track sections. Network Rail should take actions to address any issues identified by this review.

Peterborough On 17 April this year, the 08:20 Newcastle-London King’s Cross Lumo service, formed of a five-car Class 803/0 electric multiple unit, passed over three sets of points at 75mph at the north end of Peterborough station at around 10:20. The permitted speed is 25mph. Passing over the points at that speed meant the train suddenly lurched sideways.

The sudden movement resulted in some passengers being thrown from their seats and luggage falling from the overhead storage in the saloon, resulting in a number of passengers sustaining minor injuries said RAIB. The Class 803 came to a stand in the far end of Peterborough station. It did not derail and there was no damage to the train or the infrastructure.

June 2022

Peterborough

The train was not due to call at Peterborough and had been approaching on a fast line, before being routed onto a slower line via the points where the overspeed occurred. The route onto this slower line was being displayed on the signal situated on the approach to the points.

The investigation will seek to identify the sequence of events which led to the incident including the way the train was driven, any factors which may have influenced the driver’s actions, the condition of the signalling system at the time, the nature of the reported injuries and any underlying management factors.

Lady Howard At around 14:51 on 21 April this year, a pedestrian was struck and killed by a train travelling at 62mph, while they were crossing the railway at Lady Howard footpath crossing, between Epsom and Ashtead in Surrey. Another train had passed over the crossing in the opposite direction immediately before the accident occurred. Lady Howard crossing provides access to Ashtead common and is protected by gates. Signage instructs users how to cross.

RAIB’s investigation will determine the sequence of events that led to the accident and will consider: the factors which may have affected the decisions and actions of the pedestrian, any previous incidents at the crossing and how these may be relevant to this accident, the management of risk at this crossing and Network Rail’s wider strategy for assessing and mitigating risks at footpath crossings and any relevant underlying factors.

Wood Street RAIB issued a safety digest after a passenger was trapped in doors and dragged at Wood Street station in London on 14 January. The incident happened at around 08:22. The train involved was the 08:14 Chingford-London Liverpool Street, formed of two four-car Class 710 EMUs which do not have gangway connections. CCTV shows that the passenger involved in the incident had initially got out of the rear door of the fifth car after the train arrived at Wood Street station.

She then attempted to board the train again using the rear doors of the fourth car, after the door closing sequence had begun. As she attempted to board the train, the passenger placed her hand between the closing doors. After the doors closed, the passenger was left standing next to the train, with her hand trapped between the closed doors. The train then started to depart from the platform with the passenger’s hand still trapped in the doors. The train travelled for around 20 metres and reached 7.6mph. After the train stopped the passenger was able to free her hand from the doors. It was reported to RAIB that the passenger did not sustain any injuries and that she left the station after speaking to the driver.

RAIB said the incident happened because the driver did not appreciate that the passenger was in an unsafe position when he made the decision that it was safe to start the train. The driver stated that, although he had seen that the passenger was close to the side of the train before starting the train, he was unaware that she was trapped in the doors and believed that she was pressing the ‘door open’ button to try to board the train.

Wood Street

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RAIB

RSSB research has shown that some passengers believe train doors that are closing can be reopened like lift doors, by placing a hand between them. However, as this incident shows, a hand placed in the doors may not always activate obstacle detection systems or prevent door interlock circuits from being completed.

Uphill RAIB issued a safety digest into a near miss with track workers and collision with a tree on the line at Uphill Junction, near Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset on 14 January. The important safety messages from this, said RAIB, are that the incident demonstrates the importance of: staff undertaking vegetation management in the vicinity of railway lines, being aware of the risks that the felling or trimming of trees may pose to trains, ensuring that any required control measures are implemented in line with the relevant rules and instructions, those responsible for leading teams working within the railway boundary ensuring that they effectively control their team’s activities and implement and maintain the required control measures both in normal and unexpected circumstances, and organisations working within the railway boundary

Uphill Junction

clearly communicating an appropriate and safe method of work to staff carrying out work which may affect the safety of the line.

The incident involved the 09:25 PenzanceNewcastle CrossCountry (XC) service which was travelling at 95mph when it narrowly missed two track workers and struck a tree which was fouling the line. The tree had unexpectedly fallen into the cess. The workers immediately followed the tree with the intention of moving it to a safe area away from the line. Once they reached the cess, they were in a position close to the adjacent open line without any protection from moving trains

in place. While attempting to position the tree to allow for easier removal, they entered the space between the rails and pulled the tree across the open line. The driver of the XC train sounded the horn approximately 10 seconds before reaching the workers, however they did not acknowledge this or move off the line. This led the driver to sound the horn again and apply the brakes. The COSS shouted warnings and the workers moved clear of the line approximately two seconds before the train arrived and hit the tree. Nobody was injured. The train sustained minor damage but was able to continue to Bristol Temple Meads.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Ukraine

Network Rail answers ‘Ukraine’s call’ Team rally round to deliver supplies needed to keep war-torn country’s railway moving

N

No hesitation Working with its supply chain, Network Rail answered the call and donated four vehicles carrying items including generators, drills, jacks and cutting equipment. They were delivered by five Network Rail staff on 16 May who had travelled through six countries and covered 1,242 miles (2,000km) in three days. Polish Railways (PKP) managed the final part of the journey, which took the equipment into Ukraine.

Allan Spence, Network Rail director of regulator liaison, told Inside Track that the equipment donated had been requested by UZ. “We didn’t hesitate when the request for help came through. We often talk about the railway family here in Britain, but the family has international connections too. Anyone who has watched the news over the last few months has been moved by what they’ve seen and that spurred us into action.”

He required five drivers in case of mishap, who took breaks every two hours on the long journey to manage fatigue. They took turns as navigator to ensure they reached the correct destination and stayed together as a convoy. Network Rail received plenty of help including complimentary travel through the Channel Tunnel, radios loaned

by High Motive and help getting back from PKP. The donated equipment included kit from Network Rail contractors.

June 2022

Allan Spence (left) with the team in Poland

We didn’t “ hesitate when the request for help came through

“

etwork Rail staff have rallied to support rail colleagues in Ukraine by delivering a convoy of vehicles loaded with equipment needed to help keep the country’s railway operational during the Russian invasion.

Ever since Russia’s occupation began on 24 February, Ukraine has relied on its railway to move people away from heavy fighting, to transport humanitarian aid across the country, and take refugees to safety. Focus on the Ukrainian railway is further increasing as a possible means of exporting grain that can’t now be shipped through Black Sea ports.

Those left behind have come to rely on the railway to continue their daily life as best they can, however the Russians have continually attacked the railway, causing widespread damage. Ukrainian Railways (UZ) requested help from the international railway community via the International Union of Railways (UIC) citing the need for equipment and spares to help keep the railway running.

“There have been people killed in cruise missile strikes over on the western boundary of Ukraine.

The Ukrainians have a very good relationship with Polish Railways and there is an aid operation running within Poland to get stuff flowing across the border, so we agreed to take the vehicles close to the border and from there the Ukrainians would take them across into their country.”

Destination point Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said it was inspiring that Network Rail had used its knowledge and expertise to keep the Ukrainian railways moving. “Our fantastic transport network continues to demonstrate huge amounts of support and generosity to those fleeting Putin’s brutal invasion,” he added.

Some tools came from Network Rail regional depots while other parts were donated by people in the supply chain. This is not solely Network Rail, Allan explained.

Allan also emphasised that the donation of this equipment didn’t deprive maintenance teams in Britain: “It was very much stuff recognised as surplus for us or which came in from the contractor base.”

The vehicles were taken to a depot near the Polish-Ukrainian border. He said: “I took the decision that I couldn’t ask Network Rail employees to go into a war zone.

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The destination in Poland changed while the convoy was driving across Europe, but that was for convenience for the Ukrainians and Polish teams rather than Network Rail. Allan explained: “At one stage we were destined to be about five miles from the border, but it was a little bit further away when we eventually got to their preferred drop point.”

Allan handed over the equipment and vehicles to the PKP side of the operation. He was in regular contact with the Ukrainian coordinating aid delivery into the war-torn country but they never met.

The vehicles and equipment donated were towards the end of their life, with the road vehicles being retrieved from an auction yard before being dispatched to Ukraine. They had been written down as life-expired vehicles, but nevertheless they were hand-picked by the team and serviced before being loaded to capacity with equipment.

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Ukraine

How did Allan end up leading this project? He explained that Peter Gibbons, Network Rail’s Chief security officer, was the main lead for planning the mission and they worked closely together in the Technical Authority. “I was very willing to go and drive, and so I coordinated the drivers,” he said.

“Four came from the technical authority and one came from another part of the business. It was literally just asking for volunteers of which I happen to be one of the first to step forward. The driving team had a really diverse background: safety, an engineer, security and industrial relations. But it was a much larger team across that Network Rail that helped get everything together.”

Help from DfT The Department for Transport (DfT) was also instrumental and incredibly helpful. “There were some really positive things such as DfT’s help with all the customs documentation that really smoothed our path,” he added.

“One of my biggest hurdles was making sure we could get into the EU when we arrived in France.

The worst thing would have been to find we didn’t have the right customs documents and having to abort the job, but the DfT help eliminated that risk.

“As a public body, Network Rail needed all the right permissions for allocating the cost of the operation in government accounts. In railway terms it wasn’t a huge sum, about £35,000.”

The government policy about overseas aid meant the mission needed clearance by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Allan told Inside Track that as soon as permission was received from the Foreign Office on the Wednesday, the team assembled and left from Romford for Poland first thing on the Friday.

“We’ve learned a lot about the steps we need in place and how best to make a mission successful,” he said. “Network Rail is already looking to see what else can be done.

“We’re not setting a number but Ukraine still needs help and if there’s things that we can do that fall within our ability and financial permissions, we will.”

When undertaking repairs, the Ukrainians have the option of cannibalising parts of damaged equipment as would happen normally. However, Allan says there may be capability in the UK that can further help them during the conflict, or afterwards during the recovery immediately after the war. “We are looking at heavier kit options,” he said.

Allan adds that the gesture may be small, but it was what the Ukrainians asked for. “They have expressed gratitude and have been putting the vehicles to good use,” he said.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

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New era at BTTC as management buy-out completed BTTC, the pioneering infrastructure project consultancy committed to transforming the infrastructure industry, has announced the completion of its management buy-out

From left: Rob Offord, Rhiannon Price and Sam Havill

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he fast growing consultancy, founded in 2016, has been acquired by its senior team members, who now head up the new management structure.

BTTC’s new board of directors comprises Managing Director Rob Offord, Vice President of BTTC (Canada) Sam Havill, Operations Director Rhiannon Price, Procurement and Supply Chain Services Director Duncan Golding and Commercial Services Director Joshua Smales.

The change in corporate ownership saw BTTC co-founders Kevin McGeever and Nick Spall transfer their equity to the new board.

responsibilities to the new management team, and those efforts have now completed.

“Nick and Kevin’s input into the business during our first five years cannot be understated, and without them we would not have the business that we have today.”

A strong vision

Rhiannon Price said: “The strong standing of BTTC in its position at the forefront of collaborative infrastructure delivery is testament to the dedication and commitment of the whole team over the last five years.”

The team will continue to combine its innovative and pragmatic approach to management consultancy, collaboration services and project delivery with extensive experience and expertise.

June 2022

The new management team are looking forward to steering BTTC into the future

“

Rob Offord said: “When we founded the company in 2016, it was always contemplated that Nick and Kevin would take a step-back towards the end of the fifth year and facilitate a new management team to take the business forward.

“Over the last six months, the new management team have been working closely with Nick and Kevin to seamlessly transition management

“

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In addition to consistent growth in the UK, a number of long-term contract wins across Canada has led to the establishment of a permanent office in Toronto. Headed up by Sam Havill, BTTC (Canada) will grow its team, capability, and capacity to transform infrastructure delivery across North America.

Continued growth Rhiannon Price added: “With an incredibly talented team and a client portfolio we are proud of, the new management team are looking forward to steering BTTC into the future. The strategy for the next five years will see continued growth on an international stage, as we look to transform infrastructure delivery worldwide.”

While the impact of COVID-19 has seen a reduction in the number of management buy-outs taking place, BTTC’s transition takes place at a perfect time for the company to move into the next phase of its development and growth.

Building on its co-founders’ successful legacy to drive the business forward, BTTC is now in a strong position to play a widening role internationally as a leading rail infrastructure consultancy.

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Advertorial

Image: LB Foster

Informing every journey How LB Foster is helping to improve information provision for passengers across the country

June 2022

Producing a suitable interface One company which has attempted to at least part solve the challenge is LB Foster (LBF). With a headquarters in Sheffield and premises around the country, it has been in discussion with both Network Rail and the passenger operators for around four years, all of whom have shared the challenges of disseminating meaningful information.

“

The resulting product is a self-standing information display totem that can be positioned anywhere on a major station

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T

his was the title of a recent seminar arranged by Red Brick Communications on behalf of LB Foster and staged at the RIA headquarters in central London. It sounded intriguing, as providing rail travellers with up-to-date journey information is an ever present challenge, so hearing about one of the latest innovations proved interesting.

Those of us who regularly travel by train regularly know how to read, listen and interpret station information systems and can ‘read between the lines’ if disruption occurs. Looking at special notice boards, which should contain detail of what to do if a train is cancelled or re-platformed, becomes second nature. Increasingly travellers consult social media sites (especially Twitter) where information is often more current than what train companies are providing.

However, for people who only use trains infrequently, the information available can be difficult to understand, a bit bewildering and not always consistent. Many passengers find big stations scary and rail staff are not always as helpful as they could be. Compound this with people who are disabled or have a hearing or visual disability, the situation becomes even more stressful and many will choose to find other means of transport.

Solving this challenge is not easy as you are trying to impart information on site to thousands of travellers, who will all have different questions and requirements. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

So, how to personalise the need without resorting to individual smartphone usage that may not be appropriate for every generation of the population?

Regardless of which operator is deploying the terminal, it is important that the same layout of screen and touch controls is deployed so that passengers become familiar with the usage regardless of location. The main screen is at chest height but a flip screen arrangement enables the interactive elements to move to the lower portion to give easier access to the touch buttons if not able to reach the top of the screen.

What information is given?

A welcome screen will be the first picture that someone usually encounters. From that it is easy to choose what type of assistance is required. Many people will only be interested in train times and platforms, and touch buttons will help them find that.

However, much more is also available, including: Accessibility

The resulting product is a self-standing information display totem that can be positioned anywhere on a major station (the largest stations have multiples of these) and where all types of train and station information can be given to people who may not be confident in using smartphone apps.

Graham Kett from LBF explains that the totem was designed in house with the hardware and manufacturing coming from their Nottingham base (formerly TEW Engineering, which LBF acquired) and the software from their Lincoln office. Known as Inform Media, the unit is battery-powered with a 24-hour duration. If a power supply is conveniently placed, then continuous mains operation will eliminate recharging routines.

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Next direct train to Live departures Live arrivals Onward travel options Station map Local walking directions Plan a train journey By pressing one of these, the keypad will appear and by a combination of keying in requirements and touch buttons, the user will eventually end up with the information required.

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Provision for the deaf and visually impaired At Euston, pioneering work has taken place to adapt Inform Media so that deaf or hard of hearing people can benefit from the system. There are 120,000 deaf people in the UK including 20,000 children, many of them not having English as their first language. Mervyn Pierce, the Network Rail control room manager, has a passion to improve facilities for disabled travellers. Four years ago, he became aware of BSL (British Sign Language), which was first recognised as a minority language in 2003.

Many deaf people cannot read sufficiently well to see normal station signs and display indicators, and LBF was approached to see whether Inform Media could be adapted to cater for BSL. This had the support of the operators serving Euston: Avanti West Coast, London NorthWestern Railway, London Overground and Caledonian Sleeper.

In conjunction with Clarion UK, a provider of BSL interpreters, a library of pre-recorded messages has been compiled to assist deaf people with information on train timetables, station facilities and emergency routes within Euston station that are then shown visually by someone using sign language. The BSL messages are accessed from the Accessibility touch button that triggers the sign language messages.

Wayfinding is particularly important for deaf people and the BSL library caters for most requirements.

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As indicated, deafness is often accompanied by visual impairment and as part of the exercise, improved visual support provision is given by using brighter colours, simpler fonts and larger text, including information on step-free access routes.

Producing a BSL message for all questions is not possible, but should a common requirement crop up for a particular disruption over a weekend, then a message can be scripted, emailed to the interpretation service team and a sign language version produced within one to two hours. A live media event was staged in June 2021 with excellent feedback received.

LBF therefore has links to the Twitter feeds and can compare and decide on the merits of alternative information sources. The Inform Media totem displays have welcome boards that show national news, weather and even advertising, but these are suppressed during periods of disruption to concentrate the main display on what is causing the railway to amend its operation. The information and its content management is cloud based and each totem accesses the cloud as a separate unit. As such, there is no need for a LBF server at a station, which ensures that the positioning of totems is as flexible as possible.

Languages other than English

Deployment

It is easy to presume that most people have a smattering of English when travelling in this country or even abroad. This is not always true and while many ticket machines have multi-language choices, information provision rarely offers similar facilities. It was obvious that Inform Media totems should have at least some language choices. LBF has enabled screens to be displayed in French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Hindi as a generality but with other languages including non-Latin characters and right to left text also being catered for as required.

LBF has 180 totems deployed across the Network Railmanaged stations, including eight in London and all other major cities. TOCs are also installing terminals at their bigger stations. Alex Berry, TransPennine Express (TPE) customer communications manager, was enthusiastic about the opportunities that Inform Media can provide. Liaison with LBF has been ongoing since September 2020. TPE has 19 major stations across the northern England with services extending to Scotland. Totems showing the TPE network give details of all station facilities on the screens. There is a need to educate customers but firstly the staff also have to be trained. This is particularly relevant as TPE has a long-standing ongoing industrial relations dispute, which often disrupts train services at the weekend and where updates to train running information is vital. Linking the strike situation to what is actually happening is quite a challenge.

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Getting feedback from users directly into the touch screen

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Especially important is knowing about the impact of engineering works on either the present or future journey. A verbal description of the works and the impact on services is not always sufficient as the place names may not register geographically with the user.

A visual map is therefore shown to illustrate the area where closures are taking place and the lines that are affected. From there, alternative routes which could be taken are advised, considering the passenger’s starting point.

This should enable an alternative train journey to be suggested or where a bus substitution will be required. Sometimes and particularly when planning ahead, the journey might require a different station to be used. An example would be if travelling from London to Birmingham when part of the West Coast main line is due to be closed, then travel from Marylebone instead of Euston.

Finding one’s way around a station may seem a simple task with all the signage that exists but surprisingly it is not always that obvious, especially if you have a disability. So, the station layout is produced in map form showing the ticket office and machines, toilets, waiting rooms, refreshment facilities and such like. Access to ongoing transport facilities, including bus and tram stops, underground or tube lines, nearby rail stations, taxi ranks, can all be advised. All this comes under the banner of Wayfinding.

Accuracy of information It is a truism that displaying incorrect information is worse than showing no information. Mindful of this, LBF has gone to great lengths to ensure the input data is both accurate and timely. The main source for train running information comes from Darwin, a Thalesdeveloped system that links into the Train Planning System (TPS) TRUST that yields train running times at specific locations, and Train Describers (TD) that directly record the step movement of trains at signalling centres. From these, Darwin is able to identify trains not running to schedule, compiles the necessary data to produce amended train running times, and finally distributes this to passenger information systems so that station displays can be updated. The system also feeds to social media outlets. Considering that there are around 750,000 TRUST messages, 7,250,000 TD steps and 525,300 train schedules daily, this is a mighty lot of data to absorb.

LBF has access to this Darwin data and interprets it for onward transmission to the Inform Media totems. Generally this works well, but it is recognised that at times of serious disruption, the data provided sometimes lags behind what the general public can see on the likes of Twitter.

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Logistics and future development The totems can be purchased outright but the option to lease is also available. LBF is continuously engaged in improving and enhancing the product.

Onward travel options are a big challenge since they involve other parties. Advising on platform changes is important for deaf people so taking in PA messages and changing these into a visual format is something being considered. A Lock Out mode, for example, when a station fire alarm and associated evacuation is needed, requires all usual messages to be replaced by emergency evacuation instructions. A linkage to TOC websites for ticketing and reservations is envisaged, but how to manage money transactions would have to be via the TOC. Getting more detailed information as to where disruption is occurring is another objective.

Getting feedback from users directly into the touch screen is enabled but with swearing protection put in place.

As a parting challenge, next time you walk across one of the busier stations, make a point of looking for an Inform Media totem and try it out, firstly with a straightforward enquiry and then with something more complicated. Hopefully you will be impressed.

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Midlands Connect Strategy

Making the case for increased investment in the Midlands

Image: shutterstock

Midlands Connect has unveiled details for investment priorities in the region, and has already taken one idea to Parliament

Midlands Connect’s ambitions dovetail with the government’s levelling up agenda

June 2022

Midlands Connect is not a delivery body or regional policy setter.

It says it will examine every option for improving major transport infrastructure in the region. The fundamental aim of these is to transform regional and UK gateways and bring the Midlands closer together while also accelerating cost-effective improvements designed to unlock east-west connectivity that will enable the Midlands’ economies to work more effectively together.

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Investing in the east-west connectivity for both road and rail is where you will get the greatest return

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idlands Connect is the transport partner of the Midlands Engine and the sub-national transport body for the Midlands.

The partnership is made up of 22 local authorities, nine Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), East Midlands and Birmingham airports and chambers of commerce stretching from the Welsh border to the Lincolnshire coast. The Department for Transport (DfT), Network Rail, Highways England and HS2 Ltd are also involved in the partnership and Midlands Connect works alongside these to drive what it calls “an unprecedented level of collaboration for the good of the Midlands and the UK.” Midlands Connect undertakes research and develops and champions long-term transport projects that it believes will provide the biggest possible economic, social and environmental benefits for the region, and the rest of the UK. Its partnership role is to be a convening space for regional collaboration on key topics such as decarbonisation, to enable the region to work at scale on cross boundary issues such as ticketing and alternative fuels, and to undertake research and develop planning tools which cover common areas of interest such as rural mobility and electric vehicle infrastructure.

The basis of Midlands Connect’s 2017 strategy remains the same. This is that the region’s geography has four economic ‘hubs’ that are, as explained by Midlands Connect chief technical

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officer Simon Statham at a media event in lateMarch, “one around the west Midlands, one around the Derby and Nottingham area, one in Stoke and Staffordshire and then one that covers Coventry, Warwickshire and Leicester.”

Connectivity corridors These important connectivity corridors link them together and also to other parts of the region and beyond – Midlands Connect believes that improving both the speed and reliability of movements through these corridors will have the biggest impact on the region’s economy. It has spent around four years of study to pull these corridors apart and drill down into the specific locations where road and rail requires upgrading and this has been pieced together to form a new Strategic Transport Plan (STP).

The STP has identified 18 short-term priorities that require government funding. Of these, six are Midlands Engine Rail early delivery opportunities (see panel), and two are Midlands Rail Hub Project SPEED deliverables (these are Kings Norton area capacity improvements and Snow Hill platform 4 reinstatement).

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Image: shutterstock

Midlands Connect Strategy

Plans for integrated ticketing are being discussed with Nottingham Express Transit

to “ Wewaitcan’tanyafford longer, it’s essential that government gets behind these improvements

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The right outcomes also need to be targeted, which is primarily east-west connectivity, and getting more people connected into panregional networks to enable improved access to opportunity.

There are plans to reinstate a platform at Birmingham Snow Hill to improve capacity

June 2022

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Image: shutterstock

However, the three grand challenges are: levelling up and strengthening the region and UK; decarbonising transport and adapting to climate change; and driving resilient economic growth.

The levelling up and strengthening challenge involves being ready for HS2 and maximising the opportunities the new line will bring, enhancing the quality of life for Midlands’ residents and integrating with local and national networks to allow end-to-end journeys. For Midlands Connect, levelling up is required on three levels – nationally rebalancing the UK, regionally by improving east-west connectivity, and locally by ensuring access to opportunities. This can be achieved by getting the scale of outcomes from infrastructure investment that the region’s economy needs to thrive, according to Midlands Connect.

Simon said: “Our research says investing in the east-west connectivity for both road and rail is where you will get the greatest return, and you will get the biggest change in productivity benefits.”

Decarbonising transport will see the region positively contributing to the ‘net zero’ target set for 2050, ensuring resilient networks and minimising environmental impacts from delivering new infrastructure.

Finally, the driving resilient economic growth challenge centres on providing fast, reliable connections to allow Midlands’ businesses to grow and enabling population and employment growth.

Aims and ambitions Midlands Connect says its core role, as required by the DfT, is to develop and maintain a regional transport strategy. It published a 25-year plan for the region on 28 March, containing aims to research, develop and recommend major transport infrastructure needs for the region from the various government funding pots. Simon said: “We are quite focused on the short-term and therefore these are the things we want from those big pots of funding that the government has got, and we’ve got the evidence that sits behind them to say why these particular things, and why these particular things first.”

Simon says the STP has the potential to add £5 billion a year to the UK economy, contributing to the Midlands Engine vision of creating 300,000 additional jobs by 2030 and growing the economy by £54 billion.

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Midlands Connect Strategy

Simon added: “We have developed a technical solution that enables multi-operator ticketing so it enables you to use your bank card on any number of different operators in one area or multiple areas depending on what scale it’s applied that would enable you to do the type of capped journey that people in London enjoy. And so the solutions are on the table, but we haven’t found a way to fund it.

“If that comes off, then that is potentially a platform that also enables multi-modal so, in theory, you could use that same system to tap for a rail journey, a bus journey, a cycle hire scheme, a scooter journey, a tram journey… however many kinds of different modes and operators, you could simply tap multiple times and you would only pay a single daily fare.”

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We’ve been doing a lot of work recently on both battery electric hybrids and also hydrogen

This involves plans to reintroduce direct trains and cut journey times between Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham, which has the backing of local politicians, leaders and the business community.

The plan follows research that shows in a survey of 600 local people, 75 per cent said they would be likely to travel by train on the corridor if there was a direct journey. The cities have not had a direct rail link since 2004 and the current average speed by rail is as low as 18.4mph, while the lowest average car speed is 26.4mph. Currently, just three per cent of trips between Leicester and Coventry are made by rail.

Chair of the event Alex Norris, the MP for Nottingham North, called for an “urgent intervention to move these plans along and speed the route for delivery.”

Making connections Midlands Connect’s plans include the creation of a dive-under at Nuneaton, which it says would create capacity at the station for more trains to pass through. Currently passengers need to change here from a CrossCountry service bound for Birmingham for a London Northwestern Railway service. Should the dive-under be constructed, a twice-hourly service between Coventry and Leicester could operate with journey times cut from 54 minutes to 38 minutes.

There would also be new direct links created from Coventry to Loughborough, East Midlands Parkway and Nottingham. Journey times between Coventry and Nottingham would be cut by 35 per cent, from 108 minutes to 70 minutes. The next stage is for local leaders, MPs and businesses to ask government to support the creation of an outline business case (OBC) for the plans, which would provide more detailed analysis of the engineering work needed, costings and calling patterns.

Alex said: “These much-needed improvements have cross-party support from MPs and leaders across the Midlands. The research clearly demonstrates that connectivity is lacking, and that these plans will create the step change in convenience and journey times that local people need to leave their cars at home.

Plans for railways in the Midlands include integration with HS2 Phase One, which is due to reach Birmingham by 2029 at the earliest

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HS2 Ltd.

Looking for the right solution

He said there are others looking at funding, possibly via government or via the private sector.

“I can’t say too much right now,” he added, “but we’re quietly confident that it might happen in the not too distant future.”

At a parliamentary roundtable held on 15 June, the case was made to rally behind rail improvements on the Coventry-LeicesterNottingham corridor.

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Multi-modal and multi-operator ticketing is being investigated too. Simon explained: “We are working with Transport for the West Midlands and Nottingham City Council in particular to look at this.

“There is often a lot of discussion outside of London about why we can’t have a London-style ticketing system where you just tap your bank card wherever you want to go and at the end of the day you will have paid the right and fairest price.

“Without getting too technical with that, it’s basically because we don’t have a franchise system outside of London and therefore all the different operators have different hardware and different back offices that deal with the way in which payments are dealt with on their systems.”

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Midlands Connect Strategy

Improving railway connectivity Jane Hunt, MP for Loughborough, said: “Since I was elected as the MP for Loughborough I have supported efforts to improve railway connectivity, in particular to major cities in the West Midlands and in the north.

We are fortunate to be served by a good service on the Midland main line, but I am always supportive of plans which seek to improve journeys to other destinations.

That is why I am backing this proposal.”

At the media event, Simon also spoke about the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP). He said: “It definitely means that we’ve got to think differently about the rail hub, and we’re in conversation with the DfT as to what that looks like. We are very firmly of the view that we want all of the rail hub’s objectives and outcomes delivered in full, we’re not wedded to any particular infrastructure solution. The rail hub is about more frequent services and faster services between the major cities that make the rail hub, and we’re very flexible about how that’s delivered.”

Midlands Connect is pragmatically working with the DfT at the moment to work out how the rail hub is rethought. The ambition is that even if the infrastructure solutions are changed, the outcomes are still delivered.

Simon added: “It’s still a bit of wait and see but we’re hard and fast in our mind that the rail hub is about the outcomes not the infrastructure.”

Midlands Connect head of rail Karen Heppenstall spoke at the same event about the various infrastructure plans. She said: “I think we’ve been relatively realistic while being ambitious within the strategy around the current funding situation for rail enhancements, in particular around electrification.

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It’s essential that we now get the support we need to finalise these plans, so that they can become a reality

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“It’s essential that we now get the support we need to finalise these plans, so that they can become a reality.”

Colleen Fletcher, MP for Coventry North East, said: “Reinstating this rail link is an obvious solution.

Given how poor the current service is – slow and indirect – it’s no wonder that so many people still drive between the major cities of Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham. These plans have been around for a while now, they will bring down journey times and open up green connectivity. We can’t afford to wait any longer, it’s essential that government gets behind these improvements and gives us the support we need to move them forward.”

“We’ve talked, and we do talk a lot, in the STP about alternative ways of decarbonising the network beyond electrification. We’ve been doing a lot of work recently on both battery electric hybrids and also hydrogen.

“I think the other aspect that we major on quite heavily is the whole concept around access to rail and how that might drive mode shift to rail. So the whole bit about getting people out of their cars and using rail instead, and how we can facilitate that. We’re thinking about decarbonisation in its widest sense as opposed to a pure focus on rail electrification.”

Simon added: “Our view is that if you’ve got money to spend to decarbonise the rail network, given the expense of electrification, is could that money be better spent to improve the rail network to such an extent that more people use it. Therefore, what you’ve done is decarbonise the system rather than just focusing in on a mode of transport that’s only two per cent carbon anyway.”

Karen spoke about Snow Hill. She said that this scheme is “absolutely one of the priority schemes in our plan, and we also know it is one of the elements that Network Rail is promoting through the Project SPEED programme, so we’re still hopeful that that will be delivered within CP7 [Control Period 7, which runs from 1 April 2024 until 31 March 2029].

“Obviously it remains dependent on the government releasing the implementation funding for it and we cannot assume that at this point in time.”

A commitment to deliver In the STP, Midlands Connect makes a commitment to deliver a programme business case for Midlands Engine Rail (MER) by spring 2023. This will include a delivery plan that will aim for a first package of MER improvements to be in place by the time HS2 reaches the Midlands. Officially that is due in a window between 2029 and 2033, but Midlands Connect states 2029.

The business case will also set out Midland Connect’s rail position on issues including decarbonisation, rolling stock and freight.

There is also a commitment to work with other sub-national transport bodies and Network Rail to develop plans that will improve rail connectivity between the Midlands and economic centres in other regions, including east Anglia, England’s Economic Heartland and Wales.

It adds that: “In response to the IRP, we will consider in detail how we can best use released capacity to improve connectivity between Birmingham, the North West and Scotland, also collating our own evidence on how high-speed services can link the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the North East.”

Image: shutterstock

Improving train frequency to destinations including Shrewsbury is key for Midlands Connect

June 2022

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C o l n e Va l l e y

HS2 reaches two major milestones

Image: HS2 Ltd.

Landmark moment for British engineering as construction begins on the Colne Valley Viaduct and work starts on pioneering ‘green tunnels’

The launch girder machine, while was first used in 2004

One-of-a-kind The 160-metre-long bridge-building machine, known as a launching girder, is the only one of its kind in the UK and will be used to lift concrete deck segments that will form the viaduct’s arches into position. Once each section is complete, the machine will inch itself forward into position to build the next stage.

June 2022

Announcing the start of the project in March 2021, HS2 Ltd said that the deck will be assembled from north to south.

The launching girder was built in 2004 and was first used during the construction of the Hong Kong East Tsing Yi viaduct. This is a sixlane 1,250-metre-long viaduct that stands 60 metres above East Tsing-Yi port and which carries the Route 8 road linking Sha Tin town with the international airport.

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This record-breaking structure will form a key part of the HS2 railway – helping to deliver better connections across the UK

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onstruction of the first HS2 viaduct, which is also Britain’s longest such structure, began on 31 May, and was witnessed by the HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson.

The work on the 2.2-mile (3.4 kilometres), 6,000-tonne Colne Valley Viaduct, which will carry HS2 Phase One across a series of lakes and waterways between Hillingdon and the M25, began with the launch of a 700-tonne bridgebuilding machine.

Speaking at the launch, the Minister called the launch a “landmark moment” for HS2 and a feat of British engineering. He added: “Infrastructure is the backbone of HS2 and this viaduct will be integral to delivering faster journeys and an increased capacity rail network.”

The machine is named Dominque in memory of Bouygues engineer Dominque Droniou, who played a leading role in the design and development of the launching girder.

There will be 1,000 deck segments and each one weighs up to 140 tonnes.

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To allow for the gentle curves of the viaduct as it crosses the valley, HS2 said that all the segments are slightly different shapes and made on site at a purpose-built temporary factory close to the north abutment.

A modular approach The segment’s shape will depend on where they fit into the viaduct. HS2 said that a modular approach had been chosen to ensure quality, safety and efficiency.

Construction of the segments began at the start of February at the specially built factory near the M25. This has an internal volume of 105,000 cubic metres, making it bigger than the Royal Albert Hall.

Speaking on 31 May, HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Thurston said of the start of the viaduct construction: “It is yet another big milestone for HS2 Ltd, as we work to deliver the UK’s new high-speed railway. Once complete, this recordbreaking structure will form a key part of the HS2 railway – helping to deliver better connections across the UK, free up rail capacity on the rail network, and offer passengers a zero carbon travel option.”

railbusinessdaily.com

C o l n e Va l l e y

The viaduct project is being led by HS2’s main works contractor Align JV, which consists of Bouygues Travaux Publics, Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzpatrick.

The viaduct will be built using 56 piers, each weighing around 370 tonnes. Construction began in mid-December 2021, with the Align JV working in partnership with Kilnbridge.

Test piling was completed prior to the start of work in March 2021, with engineers sinking 12 piles at two locations with geological and structural data from these tests fed back into the design of the viaduct. HS2 Ltd said this resulted in a 10-15 per cent reduction in the depth of the piles and associated time and cost savings.

There will be 292 piles and 56 pile caps across the whole length of the viaduct. The pile caps will support each of the piers, and each pier will in turn support the full weight of the bridge structure above. Some of the piles will go up to 55 metres into the ground.

The work continues

Instead of hammering the piles into the ground, holes are being bored before being backfilled to create the pile. Where the viaduct crosses the lakes, the piles are being bored directly into the lakebed, using a cofferdam to hold back the water while the pier is constructed.

One segment is put in place each side of the central pier, using a cantilever approach to balance the structure, and two half-arches either side of each pier are constructed simultaneously.

The achievements so far are a great example of what collaboration and excellent teamwork can deliver

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These piers are being constructed along the Colne Valley ahead of the girder, with the girder then moving from one pier to the next, installing the deck segments as it goes. The first of these sixmetre tall reinforced concrete piers was cast on site by a team of engineers who used a specially designed framework to create the shape of the structure. This was then removed after four days to reveal the final product.

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Steel tensioning cables will then be threaded through the segments to further strengthen the structure.

These cables are the result of the design team being conscious of the commitments made to the community about the appearance of the viaduct as it passes over the lakes and so opting for a ‘posttension’ design with lightweight super-strong steel cables running the full length of the structure.

Match-casting The cables will be monitored 24/7 by a network of hi-tech sensors and act to bind the viaduct together, allowing it to handle the enormous forces produced by trains on HS2, which will pass at speeds of up to 200mph (320km/h). HS2 Ltd said that this combination of steel and concrete allows for the most efficient use of the materials and the profile of the viaduct.

During construction the viaduct pre-cast factory, where the segments are made, will cast around 12 segments each week using a ‘match-casting’ technique. HS2 Ltd said that this approach, where each segment is poured against the previous one, will ensure the whole deck fits perfectly when assembled on the piers.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

en

Green credentials The team has also completed the construction of three of four jetties across the lakes that will be used to get equipment into position to support construction and help move construction vehicles off the local roads. HS2 Ltd has already confirmed the green credentials of the viaduct. The organisation is on track to cut the amount of embedded carbon in the structure by at least 28.4 per cent. By applying lessons from construction of the latest high-speed railway bridges in Europe, the British team has been able to cut the amount of embedded carbon in the viaduct by 63,300 tonnes CO2e.

The production of concrete and steel are major sources of CO2 emissions. HS2 Ltd says that by narrowing the width of the structure this allowed for a significant reduction in carbon, and therefore helps reduce disruption for local residents by reducing the number of lorries on the roads.

June 2022

HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson at the launch of the bridge-building machine for the Colne Valley viaduct

Every element of the design of the structure was challenged during the design process.

This resulted in noise barriers moving from solid concrete to a composite design with noise absorbing steel cassettes at the bottom and transparent acrylic at the top. This aims to reduce the amount of concrete while also reducing the visual weight of the structure and enabling views across it.

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HS2 will help cut the number of cars and lorries on our roads

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Align project director Daniel Altier said: “The start of the erection of the deck segments marks the latest important milestone for Align, relating to the construction of the Colne Valley Viaduct.

“There has been a lot of hard work involved to get us to this point and the achievements so far are a great example of what collaboration and excellent teamwork can deliver.”

HS2 Ltd said that the design of the viaduct was inspired by the flight of a stone skipping across the water. Some of the spans are up to 80 metres long and will carry the new high-speed railway around 10 metres above the surface of the lakes, River Colne and Grand Union Canal. The design is such that the viaduct is set low into the landscape. Wider spans will carry the viaduct across the lakes, and the approaches will feature narrower spans. This design was chosen to enable views across the landscape, minimise the viaduct’s footprint on the lakes and help complement views of the natural surroundings.

Align JV worked for four years on the design of the structure with architects Grimshaw and design partners Jacobs and Ingerop-Rendel.

Starting from the reference design produced as part of the HS2 parliamentary process, they refined the design, challenged assumptions and found efficiencies to help reduce the amount of steel and concrete in the structure.

They worked closely with rail systems experts at HS2 Ltd, enabling the structure to be narrowed by one metre. However, despite being narrower than first planned, there is still sufficient space for signalling and control equipment to be installed alongside the railway. The team also worked to bring the northbound and southbound tracks closer together further north. This in turn significantly reduces the amount of earthworks required for the approach embankment.

An extensive programme of test piling was also completed ahead of the start of construction, with geological and structural data from these tests being fed into the design of the viaduct. HS2 Ltd says this resulted in a 10-15 per cent reduction in the depth of the piles and associated time, cost and carbon savings.

“By providing a cleaner, greener way to travel, HS2 will help cut the number of cars and lorries on our roads, cut demand for domestic flights and help the fight against climate change,” said Billy Ahluwalia, HS2 Ltd senior project manager.

“We are also serious about reducing the amount of carbon we use during construction, and the Colne Valley Viaduct is a great example of how we’re using the latest engineering techniques to do just that.

“Concrete is one of the industry’s biggest sources of embedded carbon – and this design will help us cut our carbon footprint while delivering a lighter, stronger and more elegant structure.”

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Image: HS2 Ltd.

C o l n e Va l l e y

In the six years before the start of work in March 2021, HS2 Ltd worked closely with Affinity Water and the Environment Agency to monitor water quality and agree working methods for the project. These will be monitored by a team of specialist engineers during construction in order to protect the natural environment.

A new mindset HS2 Ltd announced on 10 June that work had begun on the first of five pioneering ‘green tunnels’ on the route. When complete, the structure will be covered by earth, trees, shrubs, plants and hedgerows that will help it fit in with the surrounding countryside.

Unlike a normal underground tunnel, the 1.5-mile (2.5 kilometre) Chipping Warden green tunnel in Northamptonshire is being constructed on the surface using a pioneering off-site manufacturing approach to speed up construction and improve efficiency.

This approach will see more than 5,000 concrete segments manufactured by Stanton Precast in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, before being assembled on site.

Eventually this site will manufacture 13,290, including those for two further green tunnels at Greatworth near Chipping Warden, as well as in Wendover, Buckinghamshire. This will create up to 100 new jobs at the Ilkeston factory, an increase of around 50 per cent of the company’s current workforce.

HS2 Ltd says the tunnel construction is applying lessons from the construction of the latest highspeed lines in France. The off-site approach was developed by HS2’s main works contractor, EKFB, which is made up of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and BAM Nuttall.

railbusinessdaily.com

C o l n e Va l l e y

Tunnel work The twin-bore tunnel has been designed as an m-shaped double arch. There will be separate bores for the northbound and southbound trains. Instead of casting the whole tunnel on site, five different concrete precast segments will be slotted together to create the double arch – one central pier, two side walls and two roof slabs.

All 5,020 segments will be steel reinforced with the largest weighing up to 43 tonnes.

HS2 Ltd says that concrete and steel are some of the biggest sources of carbon emissions within the construction industry and that by reducing the amount of both materials needed for the tunnel, this lighter-weight modular approach is expected to more than halve the amount of carbon embedded in the structure.

Cost efficiency Fewer people are required on site while there is also a reduction in the amount of equipment needed, improving safety and reducing disruption for local residents.

“This three-year construction programme will benefit from off-site manufacturing making the green tunnel build more efficient than the traditional on-site building method,” said EKFB project manager Jeremie Martin.

“The green tunnels have been designed as a twin arch m-shape that is more efficient than the standard box structure, reducing the amount of concrete required, which is a great example of how innovative engineering design can reduce carbon impact.”

The tunnel will be constructed in sections and is expected to be complete in 2024. A relief

road has also recently been completed which is designed to take HS2 vehicles, and other local traffic, away from the centre of Chipping Warden village. This will later be extended and will eventually carry the A361 road over the top of the tunnel. Combined these will measure around four miles in length.

The tunnels will have specially designed ‘porous portals’ at either end to reduce the noise of trains entering and exiting the tunnel, along with small portal buildings to house safety and electric equipment.

New woodland and hedgerows Tailored landscaping design plans will be developed for each tunnel, with thousands of native trees and shrubs typical for the local area to be planted, creating new woodland areas around the portals.

Hedgerows will also be recreated, and there will also be field boundaries on top of the tunnel.

The five green tunnels, from north to south, are: Burton Green, delivered by main works contractor Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV); Greatworth, Chipping Warden, and Wendover (all delivered by EKFB); and Copthall, which is being delivered by ailtex /I nR f raaiRl taeixl main works contractor SCS RRailways.

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Stand B71

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

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“The tunnel is a great example of what we’re doing to reduce disruption for people living close to the railway, and it’s fantastic to see the first arches in position,” said HS2 Ltd project client Rohan Perin.

“Our trains will be powered by zero carbon electricity but it’s also important to reduce the amount of carbon embedded in construction.

“The off-site manufacturing techniques being used will help cut the overall amount of carbon-intensive concrete and steel in the tunnel and make the whole process faster, more efficient and therefore less disruptive for the community.”

Bank Holiday work

No holidays for some…

Image: Network Rail Air Operations

During the recent bank holiday weekends, thousands of men and women worked on the railway network, carrying out extended work to renew and enhance the system to make it more reliable for passengers and freight users

Helicopter shot of pre-assembled SAS 13 bridge May 2022

A matter of timing Closing the railway on a Sunday could allow around 28 hours of continuous work to be carried out, from the last train at, say, midnight on Saturday night until 04:00 Monday morning.

Shutting the railway on Saturday as well could give 52 hours. Add in a Bank Holiday Monday, and that’s 76 hours – plenty of time for a major track renewal, a bridge replacement, or for testing and commissioning a new signalling scheme.

June 2022

Post-COVID, commuter and business travel is still well down on pre-pandemic levels while leisure travel is up, so that argument may not work quite so well these days. However, as major blockades can take two years to plan, with long-lead-time equipment needing to be procured, plant and equipment booked, contingent and in-house labour planned, work trains scheduled and essential rolling-stock movements rerouted, many current projects were in fact planned during lockdown or even before the pandemic struck at all.

“

Six accidents to railway workers were reported. All were classified as minor injuries with no lost time

“

B

y far the safest and most productive time to work on the railway infrastructure is while the lines are closed to traffic.

Overnight, that could be anywhere from four to six hours – enough time to carry out emergency repairs but not a lot more. Major renewals and enhancements need longer than that.

Given that, before COVID-19, the railway had to be open for traffic on weekdays to support commuters travelling to and from work and business people attending meetings, that left weekends, when ‘only’ pleasure travellers would be affected.

Also, some jobs need that 76-hour window, so bank holiday work is likely to remain in Network Rail’s arsenal for some time to come.

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In a normal year, three bank holidays follow in quick succession –Easter, early May and late May. In 2022, late May was moved back a week and incorporated into the Queen’s Jubilee weekend.

A large number of people would be travelling to events up and down the country for this celebration, so Network Rail tried to get as much work done as possible during the first two.

Delivering work Over the Easter weekend (15-18 April 2022), Network Rail and the rail supply chain delivered more than £83 million of engineering work, with an additional £70.7 million over the early May holiday (30 April to 3 May 2022). More than 4,000 worksites within over 1,100 possessions delivered major enhancements as well as core renewals and maintenance works across the rail network.

On each weekend, 12 projects were identified as being RED according to the Delivering Work Within Possessions (DWWP) standard, which meant they carried a greater risk of possession overrun and/or a more significant impact in the event of an overrun.

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Bank Holiday work

“

In total, six accidents to railway workers were reported. All were classified as minor injuries with no lost time.

With Network Rail devolved into five regions, it is perhaps best to review the work on a regional basis.

Despite unexpectedly hitting a water main while digging out the ballast in Platform 4, the repairs were made withing the planned timescale

“

Eastern region The Central Rail Systems Alliance undertook the complete renewal of life-expired sleepers and ballast in Hull Paragon station platforms 2 to 5 over Easter. Components that were prone to failure and intervention were removed, resulting in improved ride quality and reduced noise. In the long term, the work will negate the need for temporary speed restrictions.

Despite unexpectedly hitting a water main while digging out the ballast in Platform 4, the repairs were made withing the planned timescale.

The lines were reballasted, resleepered and rerailed and buffer stops were installed on all four platform roads. The site was handed back at linespeed just over an hour early.

As part of a £718,000 scheme, engineers completely replaced 480 metres of rail, sleepers and ballast through Duffield station over Easter.

Carstairs Junction Scotland

This was to make the track more reliable, improving ride quality for passengers travelling between Derby and Matlock.

Improving links Work took place at Bishop Stortford over both holiday weekends, part of the larger 17-week Bishop Stortford London End S&C renewal. At completion, the project will deliver the renewal of 11 point ends and 1,286 metres of plain track.

This is an asset-condition-driven renewal that has been prioritised as part of the CP6 strategic business plan.

The asset is life expired and is being replaced with modern equivalent units to provide a safe and reliable infrastructure, reducing the number of disruptive possessions on a crucial Greater Anglia commuter line and freight route.

Transpennine Route Upgrade Phase W1B Track Renewals Eastern (Transpennine Route Upgrade)

Rutherglen North Curve Scotland

Duffield Station Eastern

Manchester Signalling Recontrol NW&C

Hull Paragon Platforms 4&5 Eastern

Signal LE53 Edge Hill NW&C Bishops Stortford Eastern

Cairnryan

Macclesfield Resignalling NW&C Basford Hall & Independent Lines NW&C

Northern City Line Digital Railway Eastern

HS2 Carol Green NW&C

East Tilbury MK1 OLE Refurbishment Eastern

SAS/13 Bridge Reconstruction NW&C

Ilkeston

Stanford-le-Hope OLE Eastern

LSC1/54 Rugby Road Bridge NW&C Clapham Ladder Southern

Fishguard & Goodwick

Watford North Junction NW&C Tonbridge East S&C Southern

North Wembley Plain Line Renewal NW&C Ascot & Virginia Water Feltham Resignalling Southern

Okehampton Line Enhancements W&W

June 2022

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Bank Holiday work

Over Easter, four point-ends were renewed with new in-bearer point operating equipment and point heating. Coper adjustments were undertaken at the London end of Platforms 2 and 3 and the overhead line equipment (OLE) was reset to take account of the new track geometry. 40 yards of track was renewed on an overbridge.

A further 553 yards of track on the Down Cambridge line was renewed during the early May holiday. Snagging of earlier work was undertaken and new track was tamped.

The ongoing Mk1 OLE Mid-Life Refurbishment Project that is replacing 144 wire runs and 99 structures between Fenchurch Street to Upminster and Barking to Pitsea is nearing completion.

The existing Mark 1 OLE system, which was commissioned across Anglia between 1959 and 1962, is being replaced with the UKMS-R1 autotensioned overhead line system to provide a more reliable network for passengers and freight users – the Tilbury line is a key freight and commuter route.

w w w.zonegreen.co.uk

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Image: Network Rail

Nearing completion

Bishops Stortford

Over Easter, Keltbray replaced 3,600 metres of catenary, cantilevers and contact wire, exchanging existing balance weights with new Tensorex units. At the same time, Network Rail replaced 66 old Mk1 cantilevers with UKMS-R1

Te l : ( 0 )114 2 3 0 0 8 2 2

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C-type units and renewed 5,250 metres of lifeexpired contact wire.

During the early May holiday, six redundant OLE structures were recovered while height and stagger surveys were completed at Purfleet.

info@zonegreen.co.uk

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

The Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) Project W1 aims to provide greater capacity, higher resilience and journey time benefits by line speed increases and capacity improvements between Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge.

During the early May bank holiday, 223 metres of track were renewed at Brewery Junction in Miles Platting, which included the refurbishment of one set of points and realignment of the fixed diamond crossing.

New signals installed near Manchester Victoria

The project team also used the disruptive possession to carry out the demolition of Sunnyside Lane bridge, which was cancelled at Christmas, as well as parapet raising, de-vegetation work and OLE foundations installation, which will allow for electrification of the route.

In one of the few projects that took place over the Jubilee bank holiday, signalling equipment was moved from the 132-year-old signal box near Philips Park to Manchester’s rail operating centre.

As part of wider improvements in central Manchester, engineers also installed 29 new signals, 4,000 metres of new track and 2,800 metres of traction power cable over several weekends.

Drone shot of Rugby Road bridge renewal

June 2022

North West & Central Region Rugby Road underbridge in Leamington Spa carries the Up and Down Leamington Spa to Coventry lines over the A445 Rugby Road. The bridge was in a critical state and a temporary speed restriction (TSR) of 20mph had been imposed.

The bridge superstructure was replaced over Easter with reinforced concrete troughs. The old bridge was removed and the new one brought into position using a self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT). 400 yards of track was replaced and tamped and the line reopened with an increased TSR of 50mph, which was removed altogether one week later. Replacing the bridge also now provides a compliant walking route for maintenance teams.

Image: Network Rail

Transpennine Route Upgrade

Image: Network Rail

All work was completed on schedule although, while leaving the site, an item of road-rail plant failed on Pitsea Hall Lane level crossing, causing a backlog on the approach.

The Northern City Line (NCL) signalling renewal project will remove all legacy signalling equipment from the NCL and introduce ETCS Level 2 in-cab signalling, initially as an overlay to facilitate driver training and then as a no-signals railway by January 2024, increasing both reliability and capacity.

The NCL02 commissioning took place over the early May bank holiday weekend, replacing the legacy trackside equipment (train stops) with TPWS, removing all legacy track circuits by introducing axle counters and relocking the line onto a new Westlock.

Various data changes took place in York ROC (rail operating centre) to reflect the trackside changes and introduce ETCS functionality in readiness for system proving (commencing late May). Additionally, APCO (automatic power change over) functionality was successfully added at Drayton Park, improving the driver workload at this station.

Image: Network Rail

Bank Holiday work

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Two crossovers The Easter weekend saw the installation of four sets of points (two crossovers) to the north of Watford Junction station as part of the project to reinstate Watford North Junction. The existing plain line and ballast was removed, a new ballast footprint for the two crossovers was excavated and new plain line track and the four point-ends installed.

All four point units were fully commissioned, clipped and scotched with reverse routes barred out of use.

Old signalling gangtry lifted out by crane at Macclesfield May 2022

“

Over the early May bank holiday, the old bridge was demolished, ready for the new bridge to be installed the following weekend

“

The tamper suffered a breakdown during the work. However, spare parts were collected, additional crews brought in and the work re-sequenced to allow right time handback to be unaffected.

A number of signals have been highlighted as needing renewal and refurbishment on the North West route. Initial surveys identified Signal LE53, at Edge Hill, Liverpool, as a critical priority. The signal was renewed over Easter as a new maintenance-free, self-cleaning lightweight LED signal head and indicator, improving readability of the signals and also reducing the number of faults occurring on the existing infrastructure. Other works involved repainting and refurbishment of the cantilever structure, new dropper, removal of the access ladders, handrails and walk boards.

The HS2 line emerges from Long Itchington Wood tunnel and heads into the West Midlands, crossing the Network Rail RBS1 line just south of Berkswell station. OLE modifications, including eight new OLE structures, are being carried out at Carol Green to allow for a new overbridge to be installed in the near future.

Six piles and new OLE masts were installed over Easter, and height and stagger surveys completed, to ensure the project programme will continue within its scope and timeframe.

Image: Network Rail

Bank Holiday work

The site was handed back on time with increased line speeds of 90mph on Fast lines and 90 and 60mph respectively on Slow lines.

During the early May holiday, further plain line track was removed and a new crossover installed. This necessitated realignment and modification to the OLE, installation of new points operating and heating equipment and the testing and termination of new signalling cables

in preparation for final commissioning. The new points were scotched and clipped in the plain line position for the time being.

In Cheshire, Basford Hall, Crewe Sorting Sidings North and Salop Goods Junction are being resignalled and re-controlled to Manchester ROC. A new drainage system is being installed alongside the upgrade of associated track and OLE assets for the resignalling scheme.

A significant number of under-track crossings (UTX) are being installed to prevent the need for disruptive possessions later.

Over Easter, two four-track, one two-track and one one-track UTXs were installed and piling was completed for four four-track gantries. One redundant coal siding was abolished, four sets of points were removed and the track plain lined.

Bridge SAS13, a rail viaduct which carried the SAS Lines (Stechford to Aston) over the Derby to Birmingham lines (DBP3), was a concrete/steel span between a number of brick arches.

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June 2022

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Image: Network Rail

Bank Holiday work

SAS 13 bridge demolition work

The existing structure had to be demolished and replaced by a single steel structure, 92.5 metres long, that would both span the existing main lines and leave room for HS2 trains to access Washwood Heath depot.

Bridge demolition Over the early May bank holiday, the old bridge was demolished, ready for the new bridge to be installed the following weekend (6 May).

Demolition protection was placed over the DBP3 lines and the rail systems on the bridge removed before the structure was demolished. The new abutments for the replacement bridge were installed and the protection removed so the Derby to Birmingham lines could be reopened on time and at line speed.

The following weekend, the 2,600-tonne replacement bridge, which had been assembled in a compound alongside the site, was driven into

position atop two giant self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs). The Stetchford to Aston freight line that passes over the new bridge was reopened on 23 May, having been closed for 23 days.

Work on stage 4 of the Macclesfield Resignalling scheme continued over the early May holiday. This project will see the renewal of all life-expired signalling systems and trackside equipment in the Macclesfield Signal Box area and control transferred to a standalone Macclesfield workstation at Manchester Rail Operating Centre. The project is due for completion in August 2022.

Over the holiday weekend, a signal gantry and three associated signals were recovered from the North end of Macclesfield station and three new fold-down signals installed.

Two further signals were replaced by fold-down types, two sets of points converted to Clamplock operation, and two new OLE structures

CIVILS Trial Holes Excavation and installation of concrete bases EMBANKMENTS Installation of all Piled foundations Cess Retention Erection and installation of OHL Gantry structures (masts, booms) De-vegetation REB, LOC and DNO foundations and platform installations (GI, Design & Install) Piling and Soil nails Platform renewals and refurbishments Rabbit Netting Cess walkways and troughing routes Gabian Walls Fencing and Access stairways Site compound establishment and access road

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were installed, and two removed, to improve signal sighting in advance of the main project commissioning.

Although track on the busy North London Down Fast line in North Wembley was still capable of safely supporting the passage of 125mph trains, its aging condition has required regular attention recently as it has struggled to maintain its geometry over recent years.

Over the early May holiday, 697 metres of track were removed and replaced with new rail and sleepers and a further 300 metres of formation and ballast were renewed in the shadow of Wembley Stadium.

Scotland Work continued over both bank holiday weekends on the Carstairs Modernisation Renewal. This is a programme of plain line renewals following the earlier renewal of Carstairs East junction.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Bank Holiday work

Over Easter, 247 metres of the Up West Coast main line were renewed, along with the associated OLE and signalling alterations, such as checking OLE heights and staggers and modifying cable troughing.

During the early May holiday, 712 metres of the Down Midcalder line were renewed and under-track crossings and cable troughing were installed, along with new OLE portals and Tensorex cable tensioning equipment.

Renewal of the Rutherglen West Curve was due to be delivered under the Polmadie to Rutherglen remodelling project in 2018. However, it was cancelled due to design issues. Rutherglen curve is used for empty coaching stock movements and has a tight radius, requiring check rail to be fitted throughout.

Over the early May holiday, 26 track panels (417 metres) were installed on a single line using a Kirow crane. Check rail was fitted throughout and close cooperation with Polmadie depot was required to allow the electric traction supply to be turned on and off as required for the operation of the Caledonian sleeper at key times of the blockade.

Southern Teams working over Easter on the Feltham & Wokingham Resignalling Phase 2 project carried out the resignalling of the existing Ascot and Virginia Water Interlocking areas, previously controlled by Panel 4 at Feltham ASC, with control migrated to a new IECC control system located at the Basingstoke ROC.

As part of the works, three MCB-CCTV level crossings (manual crossing barriers with closedcircuit television) were renewed, one level crossing was converted from an AHB (automatic half barrier) type to an MCB-CCTV, and an integrated MSL (miniature stop light) was commissioned at a bridleway crossing. The level-crossing decommissioning works commenced three weeks in advance of the Easter weekend.

During the four-day possession, 70 route miles of track were resignalled, a total of 118 SEUs (signalling equivalent units) were brought into use, including introduction of an axle counter train-detection system, and four road and one footpath level crossing were commissioned with new equipment. A new Ascot signaller’s workstation and a dedicated level-crossing desk were brought into operation at the Basingstoke ROC, Feltham Panel 4 was decommissioned and all the old signals removed.

The South Rail Systems Alliance (Colas Rail/ AECOM/Network Rail) undertook the renewal of Clapham Ladder on the Brighton Fast and Slow lines London Side of Clapham Junction station over the Easter bank holiday as part of the Victoria signalling project.

Two crossovers (four point-ends) were installed.

One was a renewal of an existing crossover, and this was commissioned and entered into service. The other is new, and this was clipped and padlocked until it will be commissioned over Christmas 2022.

During the early May holiday, the same alliance renewed four point-ends (two crossovers) at Tonbridge, along with the associated plain line,

June 2022

Wales and Western Following the reintroduction of the 15-mile-long branch line at Okehampton in 2021, the Phase 2 works looked to remove two existing temporary speed restrictions at Coleford and Fatherford during the early May weekend by undertaking a formation/ballast replacement and enhanced drainage system at both locations. These works will prevent historic flooding risks and prepare the line for a revised timetable change in mid-May. Cess and cross-drainage were installed at Fatherford, along with 567 metres of formation renewal. At Coleford, 274 metres of formation was renewed and an under-track crossing and a carrier drainage system installed. At both sites, Terram Hydrotex geocomposite was installed throughout to tackle the problem of clay pumping and remove the need for a sand blanket.

As shown by the magnitude of the work carried out over these bank holiday weekends, Network Rail and its contractors will always need extended periods of closure to complete major projects. Now that COVID-19 has changed the way passengers use the railway, planners may have to reconsider just when this work will take place in future.

Will the railway see more mid-week closures, inconveniencing commuters but pleasing weekend leisure travellers? Only time will tell.

Image: Network Rail

SAS 13 bridge demolition work

point heaters and point operating equipment.

Renewal of these life-expired assets improves both the track geometry and its resilience and had the added advantage of renewing clogged ballast. The Up Fast was returned to service at 90mph linespeed.

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Siemens

Mobility solutions fit for the future

Image: Inside Track

Siemens reveal exciting plans as major Goole development begins to take shape

Siemens is commissioning ETCS Level Two on the Moorgate line as far as Finsbury Park

Getting orders Construction of the new factory at Goole, in East Yorkshire, continues, with the first Piccadilly line train due to roll off the production line ready for passenger service in 2025. Siemens remains hopeful that more TfL train orders will be placed, although the planned contract award for 250 trains for the Bakerloo, Central and Waterloo & City lines has been placed on hold following the pandemic’s devasting impact on TfL’s finances.

The Elizabeth line opened on 24 May featuring Siemens Mobility communications systems and signalling. Both were developed and tested at the company’s Chippenham facility, where increased

June 2022

levels of research and development (R&D) is being carried out.

Siemens Mobility CEO Will Wilson spoke at the event on a number of subjects, beginning with the Elizabeth line. “We basically picked up what was going to be tested in London and shifted it down to Chippenham. We continued that testing that would have otherwise delayed Crossrail by another two years,” he said.

This is a large “investment for us.

It will be over £200 million by the time we have finished it

“

S

iemens hosted a press event in central London on 9 June, the first time in three years it has been able to do so due to the pandemic.

Yet, there has been plenty of developments for the company in the meantime.

A contract for 94 Deep Tube trains for the Piccadilly line has been awarded by Transport for London (TfL), and testing of European Train Control System (ETCS) on the City line from Moorgate, on the national network, is under way.

“We managed to have simulated test rigs that were replicating what the train would have been showing. We could do almost a lab testing in a week, which we’ve never done before.”

The funding situation for TfL is tough. It relies on fares to provide the majority of its income, with

54

more than 70 per cent of all funding received from fares from public transport across the capital.

Passenger numbers fell to four per cent during lockdowns, with only key workers able to travel.

TfL was forced to ask for government support, which has been a political battle between the Conservative government and the Labour mayor.

Although the Department for Transport (DfT) has supplied around £5 billion in support since the start of the pandemic, it has done so via various agreements that have varied in length.

TfL leaders have suggested this has not provided the certainty needed to go ahead with projects such as the Deep Tube upgrade.

Funding issues Will said: “We’re all aware of TfL funding and the issues that go there. I know from when I talked with the commissioner that there is a real willingness to want to renew all the infrastructure, but that simply there isn’t the finance that there was pre-COVID. Today we are looking at where that funding can come from.

“But, in the background we are making sure that the existing legacy systems can perform in the way they should.”

railbusinessdaily.com

Siemens

However, he was keen to discuss other projects.

“Let’s think about one of our latest infrastructure projects – the East Coast Digital transformation,” he added.

“We started at Moorgate and used technologies we started using on Thameslink and enhanced them with ETCS, going through to Finsbury Park.” This is the City line, operated by Great Northern using Siemens Desiro City Class 717 EMUs introduced from 2019 onwards. Will says the project is now being extended 30 miles north to Hitchin. “We will continue to take ETCS up to Peterborough in the first phase of this really rather large project,” he explained.

“But what’s special about it? Well, for a start, it’s the first real use of ETCS level two in a very complex area. If you look at a lot of continental applications you will drop from ETCS level two into level one for the complex areas, and then you don’t get the huge capacity benefits that you can by having a level two system.”

Will continued: “Combine that with the need to save money. At the moment we have been working very carefully with the DfT, with Network Rail, in order to make sure that we have the right financial model to go from the existing signalling system to a no signal system so we don’t need to renew all the infrastructure.”

In late May the Moorgate line was commissioned in its first phase, meaning there is now ETCS and a traditional signalling system.

Siemens is working through all the safety and training so that over the next 24 months all the existing traditional signals can be removed. “In doing so, we will be proving the concept so that when we get north of Hitchin we will have a direct changeover,” Will said.

He also spoke about Siemens’ new facility at Goole: “This is a large investment for us. It will be

Image: Network Rail

Financial model

Inside the cab of a Siemens Class 717 on the Moorgate line

over £200 million by the time we have finished it. I say £200 million because it’s not just about manufacturing trains. Our first building is now open, and our first building is actually about SMEs. We worked with a Local Enterprise Partnership [LEP] to create a building called RaisE. “This is on the ground floor and is subsidised office accommodation for those interested in transport

or related industries to co-locate with ourselves and also the University of Birmingham. Phase 2 of the RaisE project involves investment of up to £50 million and the creation of 250 jobs..”

The university is on the first floor, with Siemens on the top floor. The university plans to build a £14 million facility for data analysis, with the business case and funding well-advanced.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Will revealed: “We expect the first units to come out of Goole sometime in late-2024,” he revealed.

“Goole train assembly is a gigantic, huge series of empty warehouses today. There are already some pretty impressive pits and some very nice permanent way going out on a curve that makes for good photographs.

“It is a carbon-neutral build. We’ve used some technology like not putting reinforcement into the concrete unless it’s got a track bed on top of it.

“The fact that we’ve had a local Yorkshire-based contractor doing that build and he’s come in under budget and three months ahead of schedule is a huge commendation to what can be done if we look at how we can add value to that area. We’ve had immense backing from the local community as well.”

Will says that local MP Andrew Percy is perhaps the biggest advocate of the new site. “He tells me that no new houses had been built in Goole since 1950 until Siemens came along, and we believe 1,800 have already been built and now there are other companies coming in.”

Siemens recognises it cannot rely on TfL for Goole. “We are looking very hard at where the government is going, where the Scottish government is going and the procurement of new rolling stock,” Will explained.

“We are already prepared with a new 23-metre platform, called Verve, a design capable of operating at 100mph up to 125mph.” He says this would be launched in anticipation of the procurement documents that are expected to be released by the Scottish government this autumn.

June 2022

“We’re also looking very closely at what happens with CrossCountry, and I’ve had many discussions about where we go with decarbonisation.

“

We’ve used some technology like not putting reinforcement into the concrete unless it’s got a track bed on top of it

“There seems to be a bit of a U-turn, which may work in transport, it may not, but I noticed that we’re opening up gas fields and that we’re

probably going to start bringing North Sea oil back. The concept of decarbonisation as we knew it up until last year is changing.”

Asked what this means for transport, said he says that perhaps it will allow the sector to look at the situation “a bit more rationally” in terms of where it’s going with decarbonisation. The Scottish Government’s decarbonisation plan for 2035 is ambitious. He said. “The Highland lines in particularly, the concept of having hydrogen units, or bi-modes, that are going to be as reliable and effective as diesel is a really great ask. It’s one that we as a supply chain will almost certainly deliver. But the question is at what cost?

“And when I look at what the Treasury is doing here in England, in terms of limited spend in rail, and I can see that going on for a little while, politicians will choose what is right to their idea of how to run the country.

Image: Siemens

Carbon-neutral build

The RaisE building at the new Goole facility

“

The next building to open at Goole is for the overhaul of gearboxes and drives, which is needed to alleviate capacity at the Siemens’ current facility in Leeds. The new facility will be three times the size of the Leeds site and is due to open next spring.

Will said: “The 12 first apprentices have been employed and it’s been great to meet with them 18 months on and see what they’ve been doing.”

Siemens is also working with Selby College to bring rail training into the local environment as well.

“Goole is progressing, and the Piccadilly line is progressing as well,” Will said of the new train order that will be delivered from the new facility.

“Through COVID we managed to get the design completed with very few changes. There was only one significant change which was to the cab design, and that went pretty seamlessly.

“We’re in the stage of building the first body shell and some really close examination of our supply chain to make sure that we don’t get caught up with the global supply chain problems that we see today. But it’s going pretty well.”

Image: Siemens

Siemens

An artist’s impression of a Desiro Verve. Variants of this platform will be offered to operators in the UK

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Siemens

hydrogen today,” he said. He highlights a recent meeting with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who explained her plans for generating hydrogen in Scotland and how it would become the European hub for hydrogen.

“I looked at the plans, and I believe they will get there, but I don’t know that they will get there with a distribution network by 2035,” he said.

“I posed the question: ‘are you prepared to have a higher cost of running your railway by decarbonising in the short term?’ The answer was ‘no’, so we have to come forward as a supply chain with innovative solutions. And we’re doing that.”

Automation “Transport is an important part and modal shift to train is a very important element.” However, he says it doesn’t come above health and it doesn’t come above education; taxpayers will want their money spent efficiently, but this also creates an opportunity. “Particularly as we look at rolling stock, because we’re going to have a number of trains that simply have to be replaced,” he added.

Will cites Southeastern as one such example,

with ridership returning to around 80 per cent of pre-COVID figures, with leisure up 114 per cent at its highest peak. However, the fare box is not necessarily going to pay for a brand new fleet and there is an ongoing question about what is done with mid-life fleets.

Will is a strong advocate for some trains being converted to battery power and discontinuous electrification. “We don’t have a supply of green

This is being achieved through infrastructure, by creating capacity for more trains to operate over the same amount of track, and through automation. “We’re not saying get rid of the driver, but by automating parts of it, it means that you reduce the track wear. It means you don’t have acceleration and braking that isn’t required,” Will explained.

But getting trains across the infrastructure and having that ability to run more trains is predicated by having the grid and the electrification.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Will closed his speech by talking about the passenger: “We are focusing on how you get people out of cars and onto trains. We see other countries that are way ahead of the UK in terms of passenger experience, and the experience isn’t just about having a seat on the train, it isn’t just about having a nice shiny station, it’s about the first mile to the last mile.”

As a result, Siemens has Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in its portfolio. “We have a number of companies which are recent acquisitions, which will give you an app that can give you multimodal ticketing, it will tell you that you have a guaranteed seat. It’ll tell you how much carbon is being emitted by your journey as well. But it also guarantees the cheapest way of getting from A to B and it gives the alternative by going half an hour later, you get some better seats and it costs half the price, which at the moment you would have to do across multiple different paths,” he explained.

Siemens is looking very closely at how a truly multi-modal system can be introduced into certain regions. “It’s how we go to the next step,” Will said. He highlighted the recent acquisition of Skills.

“

What we see is a huge amount of cost pressure across the whole sector

This has helped create a system that guarantees seats on Eurostar services, which Will says helped the operator come out of the pandemic after passenger levels dropped to one per cent.

“We’re looking at that system thinking how we can enhance it, and now we’re looking at the train and linking the train to what the passengers actually see. So if you’re sitting in the very crowded carriage and wanted to move to quieter carriage you could rebook the seat. If you were

Siemens recently launched its first hydrogen Mireo train, adding that power to its portfolio

June 2022

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not happy with the temperature you could see which carriage is colder or warmer. It’s linking the information from the train and linking it to the app,” he explained.

Will also spoke about signalling and research and development. Its Poole facility has delivered more than 10,000 GSM-R radios, meaning every train cab in the UK is fitted with one.

He concluded: “What we see is a huge amount of cost pressure across the whole sector. It’s overshadowed by decarbonisation.

It’s overshadowed again by the fact that the cost constraints out of central government are really potentially going to constrain our industry.

“But actually getting people out of their cars and onto trains and public transport will give us a higher budget in order to be able to invest.

“By investing £200 million in Goole and investing a large amount of money in R&D across the whole business on an annual basis, we’re very committed to the UK market.

“We’re looking forward to the future and we’re looking forward to being here in another 150 years.”

Image: Siemens

Passenger experience

Siemens provided the communication and CBTC signalling system for the recently opened Elizabeth line

“

He said: “Electrification has effectively been stopped, for a number of years post-Great Western [the electrification of London Paddington-Cardiff and Newbury]. And limited orders that are coming out at the moment are tests.

“What I hear from Treasury is that we need to move forward as an industry in order to get to where we can deliver around £1 million per kilometre, and we’ll see whether we there or not.”

Siemens also needs to look at its own stock, at how it can modernise mid-life trains. Will added: “We need to look at the digital solutions, we need to look at the alternative traction and that’s what we have been pioneering with. That is one of the other areas we’ll be looking at as we come to Goole.

We have hydrogen and battery in our portfolio.

Battery has been running for four or five years now in Austria very successfully. Hydrogen will go into revenue service in about 18 months in Europe.”

Image: Paul Bigland/Inside Track

Siemens

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TIES Living Lab

Spotlight on innovation and cultural change

Image: Ava

Exciting ‘demonstrator’ projects showcased at TIES Living Lab’s conference

Ava Footbridge

June 2022

It is hoped these will help drive a fresh approach to future transport infrastructure projects using Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).

“

The TIES Living Lab is giving decision makers involved in planning, designing and delivering these projects a facility to adopt these innovations

“

T

IES Living Lab held its first in-person conference at the Transport for London (TfL) offices in Stratford on 25 May, focusing on innovation and cultural change for the railway.

The event showcased a range of innovative projects that have emerged from the government’s TIES Living Lab programme, collectively known as the ‘demonstrator’ projects.

Project teams discussed their ideas with delegates while insight was also available from leaders from across the transport infrastructure sector who shared their vision on how the work of Living Lab will support a drive for cultural change within their organisations, so that a clear and lasting legacy is created.

Four physical demonstrator projects were showcased, including the Ava footbridge (pages 66-68); as well as a new generic standard for equipment rooms; the automation of cable route management system designs; and cooling panels that tackle the heating issue in London Underground tunnels.

With a greater consideration of whole life value from the outset, the TIES Living Lab projects align to the government’s objective to accelerate the wider adoption of MMC. The event in Stratford provided evidence of the benefits around the key themes of cost effectiveness, sustainability and productivity.

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The keynote address, provided by video, was given by Lee Rowley, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Business and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

He spoke about the importance of accelerating the adoption of modern methods of construction and innovation and to celebrate the work of the Living Lab. He said: “The government is currently working to deliver a £600 billion spending programme over the next 10 years, and this includes billions of pounds of planned spending in the transportation infrastructure sector, which underpins our economy and which creates a profound impact on the daily lives of everyone across the country.

Net zero target “The sheer scale of this projected spend and the pace of this growth requires us to change how we deliver infrastructure, especially transportation infrastructure, to support our objectives of both achieving net zero carbon by 2050 and also levelling up.”

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He said this means a significant improvement in productivity and it also means government needs to invest in the construction sector so that it has the capability to deliver that required transformation. TIES is helping the Department for Transport (DfT) to meet the challenge by pursuing efficiency and ensuring that transport users get the best possible return on every pound spent on the transport networks. He said: “We want the UK to have the most efficient, the most technologically advanced and the most sustainable construction sector in the world.

“The TIES Living Lab is giving decision makers involved in planning, designing and delivering these projects a facility to adopt these innovations.

Improving quality and delivery “As Construction Minister I cannot overstate how important it is to encourage the adoption of Living Lab’s innovation as the norm to improve the quality and delivery of the UK’s transport infrastructure to help level up the country and create a path to net zero emissions by 2050. And, in doing so, to help secure a more productive and more sustainable future for the construction sector as a whole.”

National Skills Academy Rail CEO Neil Robertson spoke to delegates and said of Living Lab: “At times I thought this was impossible. It’s an ambitious project, a remarkable project, but this isn’t Mission Impossible, this is Mission Possible.”

“

I cannot overstate how important it is to encourage the adoption of Living Lab’s innovation as the norm to improve the quality and delivery of the UK’s transport infrastructure

“

velopment

TIES Living Lab

Living Lab was created on the basis that it was known that transport infrastructure lagged behind other sectors. “We wanted to catch up,” he said. “Industry, government and academia came together to see how we can move the sector on.”

He highlighted two ‘critical’ pieces of policy that have emerged recently. The Transport Infrastructure Performance Roadmap and The Construction Playbook. “What we’re doing with Living Lab is entirely consistent with those policies. That’s not an accident,” he said.

The government has key themes such as value for money, a topic that reappeared throughout the day. Social value and carbon were also themes, and Neil said carbon is an issue that has become a bigger feature during the development of Living Lab. He said: “You think about carbon, you think about whole life, you think about technology, but actually the demonstrator project shows how you can reduce carbon and money at the same time.”

A new mindset The Living Lab is not about reinventing the wheel, it is about taking proven concepts and getting them ready for implementation. It’s about making it easier for the arms-length bodies and their suppliers to implement this. He said: “We’re not systematically using data or life costs to drive our work and that is very simply what we’re trying to change through Living Lab. “If we do this we will drive down unit costs and government will invest more because transport infrastructure is a great investment. If you’re the government you get lots of good jobs, and you get connectivity as well, and that’s better than some of the other things that they could put money into, but we have to deliver it efficiently.

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

TIES Living Lab

A wealth of opportunities Toufic thinks that within Network Rail there are lots of opportunities for Living Lab initiatives, and the real challenge as he sees it is around focus. He said: “I think what TIES has enabled is the ability to really drive case study work, and that is really powerful because if something is inherently more efficient and obvious, then there is absolutely no incentive to it not being adopted.”

He added that it’s difficult to innovative on the national scale from the centralised body, which is why getting the Living Lab ideas out to the regions is one of the key elements of development.

However, there is a huge push around productivity and efficiency, and the case studies do help.

Mavin Powercube concept

Changes to the railway through the upcoming introduction of Great British Railways (GBR) are an opportunity, Toufic told delegates: “There’s a better opportunity to articulate what that vision looks like for the national rail network and some of the key elements of that are fundamentally resilient sustainability.

“

The sheer scale of this projected spend and the pace of this growth requires us to change how we deliver infrastructure

“

“Another feature of Living Lab that’s innovative is you have SMEs in the partnership. There are clients and SMEs working together and that is a big learning event for both, particularly against the background of COVID and rising costs.”

Delegates heard from a panel including Neil but also TfL chief capital officer Stuart Harvey, DfT chief engineer David Coles, Toufic Machnouk, director industry partnership for digital railway at Network Rail, and Phil Webb, managing director of Walker Construction.

David Coles says net zero will create the need for some radical changes, and that collaboration between SMEs, client bodies and across the whole transport infrastructure will be key.

Stuart Harvey said TfL has been trying to drive efficiency for three years and the body is making sure that all Living Lab initiatives are being demonstrated within the organisation.

He believes culture is very important, and being aware of issues such as funding and sharing these problems will be a great start; the more processes can be standardised, the better the organisation will become. He said: “Too often we have to justify why things need to be different.”

“Technology is going to feature. Despite the fiscal environment, I do think that we can make very credible cases to government and treasury.

They support investments.

“We’re on the verge of completing our investment case for what we’re doing in digital.

This is something that a few years ago the government didn’t even know it wanted, it wasn’t even on the agenda.

Mavin Powercube concept

June 2022

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“The key to that has been really getting under the skin of what the plan is and coming up with a credible way of doing that and demonstrating it will drive improvement and demonstrating value.”

After a detailed presentation by the Ava footbridge consortium (see pages 66-68) and a lunchbreak, delegates heard from Kiren Kainth, project manager AV and cooling, TfL and project for TIES Living Lab projects 5, 6 and 7.

Modular equipment rooms Project 5 is MMC signalling equipment rooms.

This is managed by TfL and developed by Mavin Powercube and intends to promote a new generic template for modular equipment rooms which are manufactured off-site, reducing future infrastructure investment time, cost and risk.

Project 6 is the Cable Route Management System (CRMS), which features Bryden Wood Technology as the key supplier. They are delivering a digital tool to show how automation can assist with cable route management feasibility analysis and design. The aim of this is to potentially reduce time, financial cost, risk (especially delivery team safety risk) by using automated CRMS design software as part of the design process.

Simon Stockley, project manager for TfL, explained that rewiring London Underground tunnels is hugely complex with many different standards that need adhering to. Time is of the essence as well due to the nature of LU operations with only three hours a night available to complete any work. The chance to work with a company offering a digital solution with rapid prototyping and effective routing was considered too good to turn down. This limits the time needed for people to be on site and realistically price the cost of works. This could never have been done manually before, which was one of the benefits of using this Living Lab collaboration.

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TIES Living Lab

Project 7 is cooling panels. These have been developed by SRC Infrastructure and are composed of a curved ‘radiator’ with internal cooling pipework and forced air distribution. The objective is to find out if they can deliver a more efficient cooling output than London Underground’s Platform Air Handling Units (PAHU) yet also be significantly easier to maintain.

The introduction of new Deep Tube trains built

by Siemens will allow more trains per hour to operate, but this will impact temperatures in the tunnels. Furthermore, climate change is causing temperatures to rise during the summer, making the tunnels even more uncomfortable.

Three-phase process There are three phases to the project. The first involved installing a prototype at LU’s Acton workshop, while phase two saw a fan installed at a station to assess how it performed in a dusty environment, and the third is the installation of a fan at Holborn station to test performance in a live environment. Living Labs has allowed TfL to explore more innovative solutions that are economically efficient.

Vasileios Vernikos, SRC Infrastructure executive director, says everyone can appreciate that the Tube gets hot and that this project, while aimed at the Piccadilly line, can be rolled out across the network.

Tests were conducted at temperatures up to 35C. The panels are manufactured in Chesterfield, meaning that growth on the Tube doesn’t just mean investment in London, and this is very important for levelling up.

So far five stations have been identified for the panels, and one station alone could require 60 of them. If that is then rolled out across the Tube network, then there is serious investment in the supply chain. Already it is thought that 10 sites

From left: Vasileios Vernikos, SRC Infrastructure, Lee Rowley, Parliamentary Under Secretary for BEIS, Anthony Adamson, SRC Infrastructure

on the Central line could benefit from the panels.

Anthony Adamson, SRC Infrastructure portfolio delivery manager, believes this could also be applied to any metro system in the world.

Neil Robertson takes to the stage again to round up the day. He says that Living Lab sets out to challenge doubters, and that the aim is make the work real. “In summary, Living Lab is designed to be innovation with rigour.”

The next TIES Living Lab event is due to take place on 13 July and is titled ‘A catalyst for cultural

change in the construction sector – achievements, lessons and legacy’.

This is the final showcase event of the twoyear programme of TIES Living Lab and will be the opportunity to bring together the strands of the 10 project outcomes to create a clear vision and message on the legacy that this significant programme has created. It will highlight as well some of the important recommendations for ways of working in the future, such as: ommunities of practice – cross-sector subject C specialist groups; Standards, harmonisation across the sector; Data-sharing and benchmarking; Adoption of MMC. Most importantly, it will demonstrate how the TIES Living Lab programmes created ‘proofs of concept’ which align to the objectives of the government’s Transforming Infrastructure Performance (TIP) roadmap, the National Infrastructure Strategy and the Construction Playbook. Partners from across the transport infrastructure sector will explain how they benefitted from collaborative working and how they are now well-positioned for a step change in their approach to projects going forward.

From left: Neil Robertson, NSAR, David Coles, DfT, Toufic Machnouk, Network Rail, Phil Webb, Walker Construction and Stuart Harvey, TfL

June 2022

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Ava Footbridge

Innovative consortium creates footbridge fit for the modern age

Image: Ava

Network Rail joins forces with forward-thinking SMEs to build accessible stainless steel bridge

Adjustable design Network Rail describes the bridge design as light yet robust. It is manufactured using a stainless steel frame and is simple to install. The design can be adjusted to fit any station on the network, meaning it has the potential to connect communities previously unable to benefit from footbridges.

Currently some 80 per cent of the rail network is made up of small to medium-sized stations. Network Rail is aware that making stations more accessible encourages more use of the network; this also

June 2022

“

It is manufactured using a stainless steel frame and is simple to install

“

N

etwork Rail has been working with the Ava consortium of SMEs on a project to create a new fully accessible footbridge that can open up journeys for everybody.

Funding has been provided through Innovate UK, which supports business-led innovation in all sectors.

The consortium is part of the TIES Living Lab programme, which is tasked with improving efficiency in the industry and features Network Rail, Expedition Engineering, X-Treme Systems, MTC and Walker Construction. Key collaborators include Hawkins Brown, SCX, Atelier Ten, Quantum Infrastructure and the Norman Foster Foundation.

encourages socio-economic development in local communities where there are more accessible stations.

Network Rail’s challenge is around station footbridges. It usually uses an access-for-all structure, however timescales currently involved in building these require a different approach. Network Rail head of buildings and architecture and Ava footbridge project sponsor Anthony Dewar had the idea to approach novel suppliers and collaborate in a consortium to create a new design and new process for constructing a footbridge that could save time, money and carbon.

Each option, component and material has been tested against the opportunity to save whole life carbon. While upfront carbon has been reduced by concentrating on replacement cycles overall,

66

embodied carbon will be significantly lower. Statistics from Network Rail suggest the Ava design has a 56 per cent lower carbon footprint than other bridges.

The bridge has been designed as a system and has been reconfigurable from the very outset. It’s not a custom-designed bridge for each site, rather it’s a system that can be configured for any site, which means components can vary in scale or in number.

They can be tuned up or down depending on whether you need to go higher or lower over the railway; spans can vary with the system, able to go from two to fourtrack with an island platform, to six-track.

Beautiful and sustainable The consortium has also not just changed the design of footbridges, but the lifts too. A custom design has been created that has a dual system to minimise downtime, meaning the lifts will likely be in service more often.

The use of bead-blasted stainless steel has been selected with the aim of creating a “more beautiful and sustainable” structure, but one that is also easier to maintain than many modern bridges that can currently be seen across the network. Network Rail says that using this stainless steel creates a “beautiful, weather-proof and vandalism-proof finish.”

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Modernised manufacturing Anthony suggested that the processes used to build bridges hadn’t changed much either. Most are built individually before being loaded onto a lorry and taken somewhere to be painted before being put on another lorry and transported across the country for delivery.

Modernising manufacturing processes is one element of the project, but reducing cost is extremely important too. This has to be made in context of what the passenger sees and the lifespan of the structure, which is typically expected to be around 120 years. Around 80 per cent of the expenditure, typically, includes process and management costs.

Network Rail suggests that the Ava footbridge can cost 34 per cent less than other bridges.

Anthony suggested the reason there has not been scope for change, is that for approval for the previous structures was easy: “In the past few years we’ve released a whole new catalogue of designs, and in many respects, I think these designs aren’t particularly revolutionary. They’re still for bridges that will be fabricated with similar techniques as before, but they are far more suitable for the modern day passenger.”

Network Rail has been working with a consortium of SMEs on the Ava project, with the first structure to be installed at the Rail Innovation and Development Centre (RIDC) at Melton Mowbray.

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Eva MacNamara, associate director at Expedition Engineering, says that to undertake the challenge set by Network Rail there needs to be a group of experienced professionals experienced in diverse ways that hadn’t necessarily come together very often before.

“What are we trying to achieve? That was delivering reliable access for all, delivering a longer service life with lower running costs and more reliability and operational performance,” she said.

“

They are far more suitable for the modern day passenger

“

Using stainless steel is more expensive initially but works out cheaper and better for the environment because structures don’t need to be painted. Most bridge designs currently used by Network Rail need painting once every 30 years, costing roughly £1.2 million each time.

Network Rail claims the Ava bridge ensures substantially better value for money, with each structure offering the potential to save about £1.4 million. They are quicker to install and require fewer possessions resulting in line closures, which also cost money through compensation to operators.

The aim is to install an Ava bridge in just two 52-hour line possessions, cutting the time on site from 34 weeks to 12. Overall, Ava can shave around 75 per cent from the current project time for a new footbridge because of its simplicity and because much of the work has already been completed.

The Ava footbridge and its concept was discussed at the Living Lab event held in Stratford on 25 May. There, Anthony showcased images of a footbridge from the late-1950s and a similar structure from around a decade later, explaining that expectations of the modern passenger (accessibility, inclusivity, a safe environment), understanding of structural design, digital tools, and appreciation of architecture have all progressed, yet the same products are being delivered today as 60 years ago.

Image: Ava

Ava Footbridge

“One of the disruptions we discovered was that lift reliability is a huge issue, so when we looked at this bridge we thought we really need do something with lifts.”

There is also a desire to calibrate the project against existing benchmarks to understand where they stood, and that process continues: “We want to deliver better value for the taxpayer.”

Eva also said the project is resetting the benchmark of industrial design for publicly funded projects: “We’re talking today about a footbridge, but actually it’s an example of the future of manufacturing infrastructure. I think we can take the process that we’ve been through and apply that to many common elements across the networks.”

She told the Living Lab that the Ava project is on track to deliver 33 per cent reduction in whole-life costs, and probably more, and around 75 per cent in overall project programmes. Further savings are possible through the manner in which lifts are installed in whole-life carbon and improved performance, and there is a low maintenance requirement too.

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Andrew Davies, infrastructure sector lead at Hawkins Brown, told delegates: “We are trying to achieve something that is not a one-off; we’re trying to roll this out many, many times, so it has to be configurable in many different ways but also have the same easy-to-build parts.

“What we’ve done is look at two different configuration types that are all inclusive. The first is one we see being the most commonly used, which we call the narrow bridge. This is because most stations will have a narrower configuration available. What we’re trying to do is make this bridge so that it can be changed in its overall span, and its height and stairs can be configured. You can then roll this over many sites.

“The second option is a bit wider, so it’s probably less likely to be as common as the first configuration. The reason we’ve done this is the lift, and the access rule does have a similar journey.

“What we have to always think about is to look at the user experience and to make sure that everyone’s getting an inclusive experience, so a lift is at the same side as your stair, and you arrive at the same point as people coming up the stairs.

Able-bodied and less able-bodied people have the same experience. I think that is very key.”

Aesthetically pleasing Low-level LED lighting will be installed all the around the footbridge. Andrew added: “We want it to be well lit, it’s all the way up and down the stairs across the main span and down.”

The consortium looked at a configuration of both designs for the demonstration project, which will be tested at the RIDC. Part of the remit was not just about getting the most efficient bridge but getting one that is aesthetically pleasing. Andrew said: “I would say as an architect we do think efficiency is sexy and beautiful and not just boring and mundane; it can be a beautiful product.”

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Ava Footbridge

Simple lift design

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We gave ourselves a challenge to design a lift that was user friendly

Eva added that as the lift is a plug and play system, the consortium believes it is possible to retrofit onto existing structures.

Noel Lovatt, director of X-Treme Systems, said: “We’d never built a bridge and it’s fair to say that we have never been in the construction world.

“The main objective of manufacturing instead of fabricating is that we want to utilise all the latest software and systems that we have within our facilities. Using 3D technology allows us to electronically interpret that design intent and create some 3D manufacturing assemblies. Through the same software we break them down into piece-part components and produce drawings, which are then fed into the manufacturing system.”

The various processes are done digitally. “One of the huge benefits of using a componentised manufacturing approach is that we can actually produce prototypes quickly and economically,” said Noel.

The project began just before the COVID-19 outbreak and Eva said it is currently in the manufacturing and construction process.

She added: “What we want to achieve is a step change, and to make continual improvements, which involves going back round this loop of testing and testing again and again.”

Choosing the right bridge Multiple versions of the footbridge were tested in design before a prototype was settled on that the team wanted.

A contract for the first Ava bridge has been awarded for Greater Anglia’s (GA) Stowmarket station. Speaking on 25 May, Eva said: “We’re about to get under way with the design stages now. We’ve also got multiple commissions in the pipeline.”

GA received funding in 2019 for accessibility improvements under the government’s Access for All scheme. Currently the only step-free way to cross platforms is via a level crossing north of the station.

Construction of the new footbridge will begin later this year.

Marek Dowejko, GA asset programme manager, said: “Thanks to this revolutionary new style of bridge the scheme was affordable and we have been able to use the funding efficiently and to get the best outcome for passengers.”

Back at Living Lab, Anthony said that the market is huge. Around 200 footbridges have been installed in the past 10 years by Network Rail through renewals or upgrades. “One can only imagine the number of bridges that HS2 and TfL will require,” he added.

Image: Greater Anglia

The lifts will be designed, manufactured and assembled to applicable standards and legislation. The lift can be used as a through lift or single door entry/exit depending on the configuration, with more than enough room for a wheelchair, buggy or trolley to go move around.

The lift will be belt driven with all the motors, traction, drive pulleys, clutches, gears on the spine of the lift shaft. It will have dual motors, belts and drives and effectively dual redundancy. Phil said: “In theory, the amount of time a lift is out of action because of a problem is very minimal and only for maintenance purposes.”

The need for a lift pit has been designed out, further reducing logistical problems that occur when constructing a footbridge.

“The intention is that the lift will be pre-assembled and tested as much as possible at the factory. This includes the shaft, secondary steel, cladding, lift cars, motors, belts and drives. As much as possible the lift will be put together in a factory environment.

The lift will be as tested and commissioned as far as possible in a factory environment and each module will be lifted on the back of a low loader and taken to site in one go. Each module can then be lifted into position with a specially designed piece of lifting equipment,” he explained.

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Phil Webb, managing director, Walker Construction, told delegates about the lifts for Ava. He said: “The original scope of the project was centred solely on the bridge and the idea was design this beautiful bridge and then install two standard lifts.

“As a consortium we decided it as a consortium to include innovation on the lifts.”

A decision was made to use a company that did not design and manufacture lifts, didn’t work in the lift world, but who were specialists in moving, people, equipment, plant, horizontally and vertically.

Some of its engineering solutions were included in projects such as the retractable roof at centre court at Wimbledon and the retractable pitch at Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium.

“We gave ourselves a challenge to design a lift that was user friendly, more accessible, was adaptable to different spatial configurations of the bridge structure, that was independent from the bridge and could be installed as a ‘plug and play’ component to an existing bridge, and also that resolves some the reliability and maintenance issues Network Rail face with its existing portfolio,” Phil told delegates.

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Improving railway safety through transformative technologies

By Dr Uwe Jasnoch, transportation industry leader, Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure and Geospatial division

A key aspect of protecting people and freight is visibility of the environments that make up the national railway network. This is achieved by monitoring and detecting anomalies in network conditions that may point to hazards. Railway operators must conduct ongoing inspections and monitoring of any obstructions or faults in the track, internal functioning of trains, crossroad maintenance and more. The result is a deep pool of data which traditionally had to be manually sifted through and analysed. The manual process was not perfect, and information could get lost or blocked between organisational siloes, causing delays.

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Rail operators must look to emerging technology to improve safety procedures and mitigate risk across the UK’s railway networks

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Safety starts at monitoring

Image: Shutterstock

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ail networks encounter a great variety of risks to their operations on a routine basis – from security incidents and asset failures to increasingly disruptive weather events, such as storms, landslides, lightning strikes and even fallen leaves. Indeed, Storm Eunice brought railway services across the UK to a standstill earlier this year.

While these risks are here to stay – and in the case of environmental hazards, may even worsen as the climate changes – use of railways is increasing.

Passenger and freight travel are expected to double by 2050, amplifying the importance of optimising railway safety and security.

Between 2020 and 2021, a report by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) found that there were 20 recorded fatalities on the UK’s rail networks and 342 near misses at level crossings with pedestrians – the greatest number since the report was initiated in 2002-2003. However, rail remains significantly safer than other forms of transport.

But as the volume of travel increases, so too will the number of accidents unless safety measures are put in place.

Rail operators must look to emerging technology to improve safety procedures and mitigate risk across the UK’s railway networks. These solutions range from infrastructural mapping and digital twin smart monitoring to improving emergency response with artificial intelligence (AI).

Now, there are integrated transport network information systems that collate all asset and spatial data into a single source of truth instead of multiple separate databases. This guarantees that important data is always up-to-date and readily accessible for any staff across the organisation who might need to see it. When risks are detected in the network, railway operators can proactively solve these issues without delay.

Railway monitoring can also be improved by using digital twin technology, which creates a 3D model of the network and its adjacent infrastructure through live operational data recorded across the network. This creates an identical replica of the whole network and its features, including tracks, bridges and even

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specific details, such as benches, rubbish bins and trees. The model can then be linked to the integrated data that enables insight to the specific areas of immediate issue in the network as well as predict any potential future risk events, using AI-powered automation.

The combination of the digital twin with AI-powered automation means that the system can flag fluid variables that could have an impact on rail network safety, such as high congestion, providing operators with the chance to alleviate potential issues before they result in risk and disruption. Indeed, the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) is developing a National Digital Twin (NDT) programme for the UK’s network.

This would be an ecosystem of digital twins joined within a standardised protocol through which information could be shared securely to benefit the economy, and the environment.

Putting AI and LiDAR to the task of infrastructural mapping AI and LiDAR technologies are transforming the precision and efficiency of railway infrastructural mapping. A collaboration between Network Rail and Innovate UK is a great example of how these technologies can be used together.

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LiDAR light detection and ranging — is a remote sensing method used to map the topography of the earth

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This new approach makes use of LiDAR in combination with AI to automate the collection and analysis of railway data.

LiDAR — light detection and ranging — is a remote sensing method used to map the topography of the earth. Mapping is vital in railway to ensure that there are no objects on or near the tracks that a train might collide with.

Network Rail continuously collects data from its railway tracks and the surrounding landscape to form an accurate picture of spaces between trains and their immediate infrastructure. This data must guarantee safe clearance between the trains and the edges of nearby objects. Traditionally, the data was collected and analysed manually, which was a highly time-consuming task that could take months and even years. Instead, LiDAR collects 3D points to create a point cloud without any laborious manual processing.

Once the data has been collected by the LiDAR technology, it is then automatically analysed

by AI which can identify different structure types and perform measurements on nearby structures to the railway network. Previously, this was a manual activity that required specialised expertise, but now AI models can automatically process unstructured data input and accurately output target objects, for example nearby trees or infrastructure, for further analysis.

It can also detect and flag any potential problems to operator teams. Not only does this allow for the faster identification of any issues, but it allows the human teams to dedicate their attention to where it is needed most, thereby improving safety overall.

For example, the Br̆ezno tunnel, the secondlongest railway tunnel in the Czech Republic, is implementing a security system based on LiDAR detection of moving objects. When it senses movement, cameras point directly to the alarm origin. This enables targets to be viewed from multiple angles autonomously without an operator’s intervention.

Image: Shutterstock

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respond to threats on a rapid and continuous basis. If detected, these risks must be addressed in collaboration with outside organisations – such as the emergency services – within the life cycle of incident management. An integrated approach to security and surveillance where 3D surveillance systems are combined with security, dispatch, and collaboration platforms is the best way of achieving this.

A combination of fixed and mobile sensor technology with AI-powered incident management platforms enables next generation monitoring to detect security breaches across

the railway network. This enables rail operators to immediately flag any risks in real-time to the appropriate emergency response organisation.

The emergency response system of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world’s longest tunnel, includes dispatching software that supports operating personnel via checklists, situation plans and instructions to schedule and mobilise intervention teams. This allows for a swifter emergency response and limits any disruption that might arise.

Monitoring, mapping, and emergency response technologies all rely on vast quantities of data to produce results. By implementing the technologies to effectively analyse and act on this data, railway safety can be improved across the board. As reliance on railway increases, it is important that railway operators embrace these new technologies to minimise disruptions. These technologies will also result in improvements across other areas, such as creating a better ROI for rail infrastructure. Now is the time for railway operators to invest in the future.

Augmenting emergency response through AI monitoring

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Image: Shutterstock

While monitoring and mapping technologies are integral to maintaining railway safety for both passengers and freight, physical security is arguably the most important factor in guaranteeing network safety. As evidenced by the Br̆ezno tunnel example, trespass and intrusions present a major security risk to the railway with tunnels, terminals and other features acting as conduits to people-driven hazards such as vandalism, theft, and terrorism.

To guard against this threat, networks operators must be able to detect, assess, and

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The importance of data visualisation

Image: Shutterstock

Toby Hawkins of mpro5, discusses how effective data visualisation is having a positive impact on the rail industry

Unifying data will transform train operations

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It is about structuring data, putting it in a format that makes it understandable

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ffective data visualisation, though seen by some as a bit of a gimmick, is the final step to having total visibility and control of railway operations. Toby Hawkins, sales director of ‘Software as a Service’ provider mpro5, considers the returns that having one source of the truth can offer, and why it matters that it’s easy to make sense of it.

Over the past year, a series of articles in Inside Track have discussed many distinct aspects of digitising compliance, managing data and how these relate to rail reform. There are many outdated methodologies and sub-optimal processes still in use on the railway, including WONs (weekly operating notices) and PONs (periodical operation notices) as well as various challenges regarding train presentation.

Digitalisation can provide oversight, control and automation in these areas. It is about structuring data, putting it in a format that makes it understandable and allows users to see what is going on by comparing apples with apples. It means that everything has a relationship: a station to a region, or a team to a location. Connecting these data points to each other is what gives this truly holistic view of train operations – the more data that can be included, the better the insight.

Of course, most train operators have reporting capabilities and use dashboards to visualise certain aspects of their operations, even if that means using a pivot table in Microsoft Excel.

While the real value of tools such as dashboards depends on how much of the data is unified and structured, here are several different approaches to this problem that can have radically different outcomes.

Three options The first approach, which is the worst option of the three, is unfortunately the system which many train operators use now. Over time, most of them have accumulated point solutions, adding more systems as needed to aggregate and interpret data in many parts of their operations.

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In practice, this means that most data is siloed – stored separately from other crucial operational information, often in a unique structure. The best many operators can do currently is to have all their separate dashboards running at once in the control room, occasionally pulling this data into a spreadsheet in an attempt to make sense of it for audits.

This is a laborious process that is limited in its effectiveness. You need to be a specialist to finish even a cursory report, and having to look at 25 separate pieces of software just to check that everything is okay is not a workable solution.

The second option is for an operator to try to pull this data together itself, perhaps using a new business intelligence platform that is itself a silo.

But matching all this data up in a sensible way is not as easy as it might seem.

For a start, unifying the naming conventions will no doubt cause issues – it’s no good if the solution for train presentation has a different underlying data structure to the solution for monitoring crowding.

But even after that is all sorted, many systems are likely to be collecting or refreshing data over different periods. This necessitates compromise on the granularity of the data, and still needs some additional calculations to be performed just to get them to match up.

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Digital twins Creating a ‘digital twin’ of a train operator isn’t about creating a fancy three-dimensional graphic of a train station that spins around on a dashboard, it’s about anchoring data to realworld points and structuring it to make sense in that context.

It allows management to investigate and interrogate the data without needing a specialist to do it. Using a digital twin, managers can look at close calls for the whole region, or compare them station by station, or over contrasting times of day, all of this being accessible from a bespoke dashboard that gives a real-time overview.

A digital twin can also be used to look at Service Quality (SQ): how many unresolved SQ faults are still open? What are the most common faults, and

Digital operations can help improve teamwork and capacity

which ones are taking the longest to fix? The key is investigators are given high-level information and the ability to drill down to more granular detail, without having to switch to a different spreadsheet or dashboard.

It is hard to understate the significance of having a solution that unifies data in this way.

Once everyone has the same version of the truth, people will start coming to the same conclusions, being less adversarial and more cooperative.

Often, disagreements between stakeholders are caused by either a lack of information or them having two different takes on the same situation.

In one real-life instance, a major problem was caused by one person having a daily report while the other received a monthly one, which meant that they had completely different information on the same situation.

With effective data unification and visualisation, people can easily receive both real-time updates and the long view, so having this one source of the truth clears up many misunderstandings.

Finding an application that can enable more than one task at the same time can help to streamline processes

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Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

The third option is to find an application that can do two things at once. Firstly, a system that can gradually take over at least 80 per cent of all processes, whether that is aggregating data on toilet cleans or late trains. The second is an application that takes this data and structures it, becoming the backbone of train operations.

Using such an application, it’s possible both to manage and to aggregate data for different departments, while still structuring it and making sense of it in the context of the overall system.

It is probably not realistic to bring every single process under one roof – there might still be a legacy system that’s too embedded to be replaced, or perhaps one specifically mandated by the Department for Transport (DfT). However, this data is still valuable, so integrating it with the new solution is the best option. This will be manageable if it’s the exception and not the rule.

The result of this unifying approach is to produce consistent data that paints the full picture.

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Driving improvement Being armed with this insight and evidence, departments can start to drive improvements and, crucially, demonstrate their efforts to higher management and make the case for more resources if needed. It’s not a case of fumbling in the dark while everyone is worried about failing an SQ requirement.

Instead, stakeholders and other departments can be shown exactly what went wrong, why it happened, and what can be done to ensure success in the future. This results in more constructive discussions that focus on deploying existing resources as effectively as possible or bringing in new ones, as the case may be.

Visualisation might seem to be a minor point, but it’s the capstone of a company’s data hierarchy and it can only be introduced correctly once silos have been broken down and data properly structured.

Digital solution These data models are now being revised to accommodate the recent changes to train operator agreements, wherein the DfT awards profit based on performance. But the mandate for a digital solution to manage SQ scoring and reporting is an opportunity for operators to make fundamental changes to the way they handle their data.

Unifying data, bringing it into one warehouse and using data visualisation to manage it, both in realtime and over the longer term, will transform train operations. It will drive improvements in productivity and change the way companies work, resulting in a collaborative effort driven by a shared common understanding that gives real insight.

It is an exciting time. Improving data visualisation can change both companies and people’s working lives, reducing stress and conflict by creating a sense of purpose, teamwork and interdepartmental cooperation.

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Elizabeth line

A perfect start for the Elizabeth line Inside Track talks to Richard Schofield, one of the key people responsible for getting the new line ready for opening day

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wo days after the opening of the Elizabeth line, Richard Schofield is sitting in Plumstead, looking to

Image: MTR

the future.

The group infrastructure director at MTR UK has just described the first couple of days of operation as “near perfect”. Figures released

by Transport for London (TfL) on 25 May, the day after the official opening, revealed around 260,000 journeys were made on the new 21km (14.2 miles) central section between Paddington and Abbey Wood on the first day. By the end of 29 May more than one million journeys had been made.

Performance was almost perfect on the first day apart from two minor incidents with a fire alarm activated at Paddington and a passenger falling ill on a train.

100 per cent success rate The following day, 25 May, performance reached 100 per cent. When Richard spoke to Inside Track on the third day, performance was around 96.6 per cent. “We almost couldn’t have hoped for better,” he said.

The 100 per cent performance is also quite the achievement says Richard, because even during trial operations this was not achieved on a regular basis. “Operating our trains with passengers brings an added level of complexity,” he added.

But how was that achieved? “A significant amount of work has been carried out to reach this point and that’s been going on for months,” Richard explained “There’s been extra resilience work. On a normal day you might have a couple of engineers out and about looking for failed doors, but for the first six months we’ve got eight of them on site at all times.

“On the first day, when we had a passenger screen door that started to go slowly around 13:00 there was somebody there within three minutes

to isolate that door and then somebody else to request that passengers use adjacent doors for the rest of the day. It was then returned back to service overnight.”

Richard joined MTR from Network Rail in October 2017. He was appointed as programme director with the remit of getting MTR ready for the opening of the Elizabeth line. His experience includes readying HS1 for service and ensuring the railway was ready for the Olympic Games in 2012.

He said: “I like to join projects, but I’m not so excited by tunnelling or construction on their own. I’m excited by turning them into a transport system.”

His initial tasks included ensuring there were enough drivers, that Romford Control Centre was ready for the operational side to begin, ready for the original planned 2018 opening.

Image: Paul Bigland

A new approach

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Former Crossrail chief executive Mark Wild, who left his post on 27 May, asked Richard to join his team in the early part of 2019. There he was to look at everything on the new railway, including resequencing construction, testing and assurance, so that more could be done concurrently to give options on earliest opening. Decisions were then made including perhaps opening without Bond Street finished.

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Elizabeth line

“I spent nearly all of 2019 helping to reprogramme Crossrail and coming up with new dates,” Richard said. Subsequently, he returned to MTR where he was appointed interim managing director before being officially seconded to RfL in June 2021 as infrastructure director.

At the same time Alstom upgraded the software on its Class 345 electric multiple units, which operate the service.

An upgrade to the Customer Information System (CIS) was also required as was one for the passenger screen door software.

Behind the curtain

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On 7 March, Inside Track visited the Elizabeth line and travelled on the new £19 billion railway.

At that point Mark Wild would only commit to the railway being open “in the first half of 2022.”

Behind the scenes, however, there was much going on.

Richard said: “We oversaw two significant software upgrades. Over Easter we upgraded the Siemens software and that took away the final remaining bugs that prevented opening.”

Issues such as robust timetable loading and interfaces with platform screen doors were corrected in this upgrade, and while individually these may appear relatively minor, the totality created a concern over robust performance day in and day out. The update needed four clear days, and work began on 15 April at the start of the Easter weekend.

On a normal day you might have a couple of engineers out and about looking for failed doors, but for the first six months we’ve got eight of them on site at all times

Richard said: “This is a software driven railway.

We needed to ensure we gave ourselves enough time after Easter, so it was a case of how much confidence we had. It was about finding that sweet spot, and all the things we had promised were delivered.”

One of the things that TfL had tried to do since December was to run a series of trials to ensure that the signalling could deal with a failed train and that station staff could deal with doors if required.

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“The problem with running a trial is you train the people who are on shift,” said Richard. “If you’ve got 21 traffic managers, the trial may touch two or three, so then you have to get all the information out. You need to get the technicians trained on the latest software version.”

However, post-Easter was about building confidence. He added: “Of course we were always acutely aware that the Jubilee weekend was coming. I think we opened five weeks exactly after Easter.”

He explains that timeframe was needed because of the work required elsewhere in TfL as much as anything else.

Staff had to be briefed on the new railway and how to use it, while more than 100,000 maps needed to be changed.

The power of three The Elizabeth line is currently operating as three separate railways. There is the central section operating on the new line under central London.

Then there is the eastern section operating from Liverpool Street to Shenfield, and the western section operating from Reading and Heathrow Airport to Paddington.

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Elizabeth line

The first upgrade is ELR210 of the software, which is due to be upgraded in September. A second upgrade, ELR300, will be introduced at Christmas.

Each version takes two or three days to complete.

That upgrade provides functionality required to operate trains seamlessly over the infrastructure borders. Currently only three trains per day operate in each direction between Gidea Park and Old Oak Common but that will eventually rise to 220 through each boundary in each direction.

“It’s a huge step up, so we need that next level of software to make that even more robust and give greater operational flexibility,” said Richard.

“It gives us a huge amount of resilience that we would need. Otherwise, we could do it 440 times a day, but if we got even a two per cent failure rate you couldn’t run a service like that.”

The boundaries are Stratford station and Westbourne Park, west of Paddington. The operations differ.

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We need to be really resilient to make sure that we aren’t actually taking down the whole of southeast England with us

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Upgrade in progress

Image: Paul Bigland

Not all of the central section is yet open, with Bond Street delayed in the construction process.

The plan is to begin the next stage of operations, and open Bond Street, concurrently. This is now known as Stage 5B minus. Richard said: “What we aim to do next is to bring trains in from Shenfield to Paddington and take trains from Abbey Wood out to the Great Western main line, and open Bond Street at the same time.”

Trains are already running from Gidea Park in the east, through the central section, to the Alstom depot at Old Oak Common in west London. With that in mind, why do the passenger services have to wait?

“Siemens has got two more software updates,” explained Richard. “Ultimately there’ll be a software update every year forever because it will obviously improve the base product, and there’s always bells and whistles to add.”

“What happens is as a train coming from the Great Eastern main line passes Maryland the driver is effectively offered CBTC by the train,” Richard added.

“The idea is that as the train stops in Stratford and the doors are open it transitions into CBTC because that is the most efficient way to do it.”

If the train for whatever reason doesn’t accept CBTC, it will simply continue to the main line Liverpool Street station, which means the GEML is not affected.

On the Great Western main line section, the train transitions on the move as it passes Westbourne Park. Richard said: “Effectively the train offers the driver CBTC, they accept and proceed. It works, we are currently doing these six or seven times a day.”

If CBTC isn’t accepted here, the driver can manually drive the train in the central section. To add more to the pot, the trains from Heathrow will use ETCS on the Airport branch, TPWS on the national network and CBTC in the central section.

Although there hasn’t been a trial, in early May there was a successful 12-hour test period with this taking place to prove the systems work.

“It’s the next level of software that would just give us that extra level of operation. At the moment, if the Elizabeth line fails it doesn’t affect anyone else, but in the future when it’s connected to the network, not only could you import other delays but we could export them too. We need to be really resilient to make sure that we aren’t actually taking down the whole of southeast England with us,” Richard explained.

Image: Paul Bigland

More trains

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During the autumn the number of trains operating through the central section will rise from the current 12 trains per hour (tph) to 22tph during the peak and 16tph off-peak. Half of these will run to Paddington and reverse, while the others will continue onto the western section.

From May 2023 the full 24tph service will be introduced when the complete system is opened from Shenfield and Abbey Wood to Heathrow Airport and Reading. Trains will no longer serve the Paddington main line station; however, some will continue serving Liverpool Street to serve the nearby City.

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Elizabeth line

Lessons learned Procurement is another area where Richard has learned from the project.

“When you procure the project has a major impact on how it ends,” he said. If you order 10 stations from 10 different contractors then you must integrate all of that, whereas if you bought all 10 from one supplier there’s a fair chance that they’ll all be identical and your integration is easier.” However, he explained that by doing the latter the cost could increase, adding: “There isn’t a right answer.”

Image: Paul Bigland

There is also capacity for up to 30tph if the need arises, and to lengthen the trains from nine to 11 vehicles, although this would require new vehicles from Alstom – a decision that is several years away.

In Richard’s view, projects like Crossrail are no longer just a civils scheme, and he believes that while this aspect of the project went well, the delays occurred when the system engineering was introduced.

“A lesson for me is to focus on system integration earlier rather than later because it’s always twice as hard as you think it is,” he said.

People are of course key for any project too.

He said: “You need to make sure you’re keeping everyone fresh and motivated and that new ideas are brought in.”

As for the new railway itself, Richard was at Paddington for the first day. “It’s just an astonishing visual railway,” he said. “I was part of the team that helped the project team on St Pancras, and every time I walk in there I still kind of gasp a little bit at how impressive it looks. The Elizabeth line will always have that same wow factor. The stations are lit brilliantly; the architecture is amazing.”

As for the first day, there was a high level of

confidence because of the quality of the project.

Richard said: “This is a world-class system; it looks amazing. The only thing missing was the passengers.

Some people had been working on stations for three months and they’d never seen a passenger, so I think there was a genuine feeling of ‘it’s lovely to see you, come and look at this, isn’t it great?’”

The first phase of the Elizabeth line, 13 years in the making, is finally open. More phases will follow over the next 12 months. Before that, Richard is about to take a family holiday – after all the effort to get the railway to this stage, he’s earned it.

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WC RR

Global leaders visit the UK for WCRR With 700 delegates, more than 300 speakers, 340 unique sessions, and 600 paper submissions, the World Congress on Railway Research was a ‘resounding success’

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Image: RSSB

he history of all railways is bound in innovation. Every change, every improvement across stations, track and carriages relies on research and development and the successful implementation of the best ideas to bring them to fruition.”

That was Rail Minister Wendy Morton’s message to delegates at the 13th World Congress on Railway Research (WCRR), which was held in Birmingham on 6-10 June.

More than 700 delegates, more than 300 speakers, more than 340 unique sessions and 600 paper submissions made up the WCRR event, which was hailed a “resounding success”. The event was hosted by the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) and University of Birmingham.

A lot to discuss

“hasDecarbonisation not gone away

and rail is by far the easiest mode to decarbonise

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“It was also wonderful to see the industry, academia and government all coming together to share ideas to reach our common goal of developing, decarbonising and driving forward the railway industry.”

The Minister was shown the University of Birmingham’s new railway research facilities that are based on its new UK Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN) building.

These facilities have been established to support powerful research and industrial partnerships in digital railway engineering.

The theme of this year’s event was ‘Reshaping our railways post-pandemic: Research with an impact’.

In a panel on the first day, TC Chew, director, global rail business at Arup, told delegates that if you looked back two years ago, much of the conversation around railways was about how the lack of capacity was constraining rail transportation in urban cities as well as on regional intercity railway services.

Image: RSSB

Topics discussed ranged from zero carbon trains to passenger experience, to enhancing rail freight.

Delegates from across the world came together to champion technical development, advocate collaborations and inspire the next generation of rail professionals to work together on the common challenges facing railways worldwide.

“Undeniably it’s your ideas, your expertise and your innovation that finds the answers to the big questions,” the Minister told delegates, “that is what takes our railways not only here in the UK, but across the world.”

She said that the government’s plans and investment opportunities will be more valuable if it continues to work with other countries, adding: “It was great to see delegates from across the globe championing innovation and inspiring the next generation of rail professionals.

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He added: “I think the pandemic is a breathing space, an opportunity for us to look at the technology and climate change impact and ask what can we do with our railway to best serve the customer?

“I don’t believe it’s the end, I believe it’s the beginning of a new era for the railway and I think this is what we can explore with innovation.”

Keir Fitch, European Commission head of rail safety and interoperability, told delegates: “Clearly we have a short-term issue but my understanding from talking to many of the rail operators in Europe is that traffic in other countries has come back far more quickly than you see in the UK or in North America. The German DB long-distance traffic is now actually well above pre-pandemic levels.

“I think also we have got to look beyond the immediate shock and COVID-19. Decarbonisation has not gone away and rail is by far the easiest mode to decarbonise. Of course other modes have got to do their bit, but we must use the bit of transport we know we can decarbonise both for passenger and freight, and freight is the area where in Europe, compared to the rest of the world, we’re pretty weak.”

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Image: RSSB

A return to pre-pandemic traffic

Malcolm Holmes, executive director, West Midlands rail executive and director of rail, Transport for West Midlands, said COVID recovery was about responding to what the market is now looking for: “For the long-distance market there’s a real opportunity to look at what

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happened in airlines so successfully.” He also said timetable planning needs to be done in a much more rapid way.

Encouraging modal shift from road to rail was discussed, and Malcolm told delegates it was about providing the right information.

Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

Image: RSSB

WC RR

Elecrification plans

“We don’t know that today. It’s really difficult, not just for DB but for the whole freight industry to understand jointly, what kind of locomotive it means investing in in the future.”

Speaking after the event, Professor Clive Roberts, head of the school of engineering at the University of Birmingham, said: “It’s safe to say that the 13th World Congress on Railway Research has successfully taken place here in our City of Birmingham. The five-day congress had an excellent turnout of more than 700 delegates from across the globe. We were honoured to host Rail Minister Wendy Morton and the EU ambassador João Vale de Almeida as part of their visits to the congress along with Councillor Ian Ward and many other industrial leaders.

Image: RSSB

Neil also said there needs to be an understanding of the plan around electrification: “We need to understand what the plan is because then we can start to see what locomotives we need to support our operations.

“

Being in the presence of railway and transport professionals from around the globe really underpins the importance of working together

“

The importance of rail freight was highlighted too. DB Cargo UK COO Neil Ethell said: “We really cannot afford to lose sight of the benefit to the economy and the supply chain that freight delivered during the pandemic. And it will be an absolute catastrophe if we lose sight of the benefits again. I understand that people still want to travel by train and we have to deliver that opportunity and make it pleasurable for them.

“But the whole economy was pretty much relying on freight. The supermarkets would have been empty had it not been for rail freight, construction would not have started up again had it not been for rail freight, so I think going forward we have to think differently.” He claims that without investment now, the decarbonisation targets will not be reached by 2050.

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“It was wonderful to see a truly invested interest in rail under one roof. The conversations and discussions that took place across the week all led to the common goal of improving our railway system, making rail greener, the chosen and most attractive mode of public transport, improving passenger experience and enhancing rail freight tying in nicely with the congress theme of ‘Reshaping our railways post-pandemic: Research with an impact’.

“Working with our long-standing partner RSSB to co-host this congress was a great experience and really cements the work we have done together for the railway industry.

“A great example of what can be achieved through collaboration, something we at the University of Birmingham champion and at our Railway Centre we deliver, therefore a very big thank you to those who attended the congress and made it happen. It was brilliant to see our partners, friends, guests, and future collaborators.”

Working together WCRR, the world’s largest international congress on railway research, was founded by SNCF (France), Deutsche Bahn AG (Germany), Trenitalia (Italy), Railway Technical Research Institute (Japan), RSSB (UK), Association of American Railroads (USA), and International Union of Railways.

Since the first event in France in 1994 it has continued to provide a platform for railway technical development and for discussion into the future direction from the management perspective of the world’s railway research, addressing everyone from railway companies to industry and research institutions.

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Luisa Moisio, director of research and development at RSSB, said: “The 13th WCRR was a resounding success and I’m incredibly proud to see everybody’s hard work pay off. It was a fantastic week, with a varied mix of exhibitions, presentations, plenary discussions and technical visits on new railway research, development, and technical innovation.

“Hundreds of delegates joined us from around the world, bringing together their different perspectives and experiences and informing in-depth discussions on the challenges facing the railways in a post-COVID world.

“Through our research and development, building on the success of WCRR, RSSB is committed to helping the industry in Great Britain to make vital improvements that will increase the reliability, efficiency, and sustainability of the railway, delivering more value to its passengers and freight customers while maintaining its good safety performance.”

Shared vision Carlo Borghini, executive director, Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking, said: “It has been a great pleasure to support the WCRR 2022 here in Birmingham and share our vision.

Image: RSSB

WC RR

WCRR is the opportunity to really show to the global rail research community what we have achieved in Europe in the past five years under the Shift2Rail programme, but also to learn from one another and offer the possibility to work together in the future under Europe’s Rail, its five major priorities and the future flagship projects.

“Being in the presence of railway and transport professionals from around the globe really underpins the importance of working together, learning from each other, sharing knowledge.

Maximising performance, sustaining our resources, and investing in our next generations

of engineers will make our railway the most attractive mode of transport for both passengers and freight, contributing to the competitiveness of the European rail industry.”

The next World Congress is due to be hosted in 2025 by MxV Rail in the United States.

Kari Gonzales, chief executive officer and president at MxV Rail, said: “MxV Rail is honoured to host the 2025 WCRR conference in colourful Colorado, USA. We look forward to welcoming delegates to the next WCRR event focused on advancing our industry toward a safer and more resilient global rail network.”

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Building Britain’s Railways - Major June projects 2022

A n d f i n a l l y. . .

Shellshocked: Network Rail workers reunite family with runaway tortoise

Twin had been a part of a family for 70 years, but after she went missing eight months ago, they had given up all hope of finding her. However, the power of social media and some very determined Network Rail workers changed that

June 2022

Twin after her rescue

The power of social media soon brought forward Lizzie Jeanes, the owner of Twin. She had spotted the post and contacted John to claim her missing pet.

By now Twin had left Knebworth and was being cared for five miles away in Welwyn Garden City.

She was driven home and was reunited with

Lizzie Jeanes and her family with Twin

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Image: Network Rail

Image: Network Rail

Network Rail’s John Keeley and Twin

Image: Network Rail

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family in Knebworth was left shocked after Network Rail returned a pet tortoise to them who had been missing for eight months.

The female tortoise, Twin, had been missing for more than half a year when she was found by three Network Rail staff members.

John Keeley, Matt Cooke and Tony Russell were carrying out railway inspections along the East Coast main line when they spotted the tortoise slowly making its way alongside the track.

On seeing her, the three workers immediately set about a rescue mission, moving her from harm’s way. They decided to take her to a nearby vet’s surgery to establish whether or not she was microchipped and enable her to be checked over.

The vet gave Twin a clean bill of health, but unfortunately she wasn’t microchipped, leaving the Network Rail trio with the challenge of how to locate her owners. John, Matt and Tony decided to look after the tortoise and in the meantime, continue their search for her owners.

The following day John visited shops and cafes in Knebworth to ask if they knew of anyone who’d lost a tortoise. While this search proved fruitless, a café owner agreed to post about the Network Rail team’s discovery on their Facebook page to help spread the word.

Lizzie and her two children, 10-year-old Charlie and eight-year-old Connie. Also waiting for Twin was Joey, another tortoise who has lived with Twin since 1952.

A twin surprise John said: “It’s not every day you see a tortoise on the railway, so we definitely did a double take when we spotted Twin!

“Although we weren’t really sure if we’d be able to find the owner, we knew someone would be missing her, so we had to try our best. It took a few days, but the power of social media really helped us and allowed us to deliver Twin home safe and sound.”

He added that Lizzie, Charlie and Connie were delighted and sent the rescuers a card to say thank you.

Lizzie told Network Rail: “I was absolutely elated when I heard Twin had been found. When she went missing we searched high and low for her, but we’d given up hope when she’d been missing for eight months.

“I can’t thank the team enough for reuniting us once more with Twin, who has been in our family for 70 years. We’re all delighted.”

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