Rail Engineer • January 2017 A number of bridges have been lifted or removed to enable the electrification and this has assisted signal sighting. Duct routes have been provided ready for the distribution cabling. Between Bromsgrove and Barnt Green stations is the steepest sustained adhesionworked main-line railway incline in Great Britain. The Lickey Incline climbs towards Birmingham at a gradient of 1 in 37.7 (or 2.65%) for a continuous distance of two miles (3.2 km). A banking engine, in the form of a locomotive to assist trains that require additional power or traction to climb a gradient, was often used in steam days on various parts of the network. That is still the case for certain freight trains at Lickey. However, the old system of plungers and indicators to control the assisting locomotives has been replaced by the use of voice communications over the GSM-R network. This is another benefit of the investment made by the rail industry in GSM-R, as replacing the previous system would have required yet another expensive bespoke system to design and maintain.
Telecommunications The telecoms requirements for the resignalling were designed, installed and commissioned by Linbrooke Services. The voice services are based on a centralised Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) with IP connectivity, connected via FTNx infrastructure to trackside Cisco IE2000 Ethernet switches using a Cisco ASR903 aggregate layer. The IE2000 switches provide both power and Ethernet connectivity for Gai-Tronics VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) trackside telephones. The CUCM acts as a voice concentrator with its functionality distributed across distributed nodes at WMSC and Rugby ROC. The LAN connectivity for both nodes is facilitated by Cisco ME3400 layer 3 switches, again gaining access onto the FTNx infrastructure through a Cisco ASR903 aggregate layer. WMSC Cisco telephone system.
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Looking north as a train of tilting wagons delivers the S&C. Connectivity to existing legacy analogue voice services, concentrators, Public Emergency Telephone Systems (PETS) for AHBs, and analogue extensions are provided through Cisco VG350 voice gateways. The interface to the operators is provided by an IP trade touchscreen system with fall back Cisco IP telephones. The management server for the touchscreens is located on the LAN at both Saltley and Rugby for redundancy and security reasons, and is colocated with a RedBox voice recorder. The telephony scope consisted of over 200 telephone circuits transferred from Gloucester and Saltley PSB to WMSC, and including the provision of new 66 VoIP telephones, three PETS systems and associated TADU (Text Alarm Display Unit), seven user-worked crossings and 30 telephones for new power supply points. The signalling data circuits included the new circuits for the Oddingley MCB - OD crossing, 40 SSI circuits and 250 new IP-based axle counter network connections.
Bromsgrove Station The station originally opened as part of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (later part of the Midland Railway) in 1840. In June 1969, the station was rebuilt with a single short platform on the Up (northbound) side. This required stopping Down (southbound) trains to cross to the Up line and back again after calling at Bromsgrove station. The first milestone in the rebirth of rail in the area was a new platform on the Down side that was opened in May 1990. Move forward 20 years, and the ever-expanding railway required a bigger new station and a better commuter service on top of what was already a busy intercity and freight route. The station was planned by Network Rail with four platforms to accommodate nine car trains. The existing site was constrained with little space for new platforms, car parking and turn outs, so it was decided to move the station to a new brownfield site just to the south of the current station. Contamination of the land was a known factor, it having been an oil refinery site, and was included in all consultation reports and planning stages. However, once construction commenced, the contamination was found to be more extensive and thicker than even the trial survey holes had predicted. It is believed that, in the 1980s, vandals had opened one of the tank’s valves and flooded the area in oil which soaked into the sandstone rock. There was also asbestos on the site of an old loco shed and the planning consent was conditional on a full decontamination of the station area and car park. No wonder rail projects are expensive and face delays! The contamination on site, and a previously undiscovered culvert, resulted in the opening date of the station being pushed back a number of times.