Rail Engineer - Issue 172 - March 2019

by rail engineers for rail engineers

MARCH 2019 – ISSUE 172

BUYING

’s HS2

HIGH-SPEED TRAINS

TRAIN DETECTION

In this Signalling & Telecoms issue, Rail Engineer looks at the pros and cons of using axle counters or track circuits to monitor train position.

RELEARNING ELECTRIFICATION

GSM-R MOBILE UPGRADE

The Railway Industry Association has issued its report on why electrification is so expensive and how to keep costs down.

With GSM-R likely to be around for a few years, consideration needs to be given to upgrading on-board hardware to the latest version.

www.railengineer.co.uk

DIGITAL RAILWAY, SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

14th International Exhibition of Railway Equipment, Systems & Services

Register r Online fo Now!

@railtex #Railtex2019

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14 - 16 MAY 2019 NEC, BIRMINGHAM, UK

The show for everyone involved in shaping the future of UK rail

RAIL ENGINEER MAGAZINE

CONTENTS

28 Digital Railway, Signalling & Telecoms

06 10 16 54 16

18 24 28 34 38 42

Feature

News Railtex, North West investment, Siemens/Alstom merger, Edinburgh Trams.

Buying HS2’s high-speed trains David Shirres looks at the bidding process in the first of two articles on HS2 train procurement.

Network Rail devolves still further New chief executive Andrew Haines has outlined his plans for CP6, including regional reorganisation.

Relearning electrification The Railway Industry Association reports on the costs and challenges oif electrification.

Head of Digital Railway to retire Clive Kessell sat down with David Waboso to look back over his career.

Nokia: The common bearer Paul Darlington investigates the telecoms ‘glue’ that binds the digital railway together.

Train detection Track circuits or axle counters? Both have their pros and cons, and their supporters.

Repoint: New thinking in point machines Malcolm Dobell visits the Great Central Railway where a new design of point machine goes on test.

The management of railway incidents Austrian Railways turned to Frequentis for assistance with incident management across its network.

Evolution of signalling David Bickell discusses the origins and development of signalling technology and practice.

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46 50

Thameslink Telecoms While all the talk is of new trains and new signalling, it is the telecoms system that makes it all work.

50

A necessary GSM-R mobile upgrade When the time comes to move from GSM-R to 5G, how should the migration take place?

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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Reduce Costs The rail industry is changing, fast. The need to improve efficiency and reliability, whilst minimising disruption and costs has never been greater.

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RAIL ENGINEER MAGAZINE

EDITORIAL

© iStock Photo

Signalling the future Andrew Haines knew that Network Rail was letting its passengers and freight users down before he became its new chief executive. After a hundred days in the job, spent speaking to all concerned, he now knows what must be done. This includes the devolution of control to five new regions to make the company more responsive to its customers.

This signals much more than an organisational change. Haines believes that decision-making must be closer to the end user and so is devolving many HQ roles to the new regions. These include Infrastructure Projects and elements of the engineering function.

Exactly how engineering will be devolved remains to be seen. One example is the management of standards which, as Network Rail’s own standards challenge process acknowledges, can currently be overprescriptive.

Now, although standards management might be felt to be a headquarters function, perhaps it would be better to have standards commonly owned rather than centrally controlled. This will require highly competent regional engineers, who will be accountable for the system risk on their routes, having ownership of the standards process as a group and, as they are closer to the issues, it may well result in more appropriate standards.

There are also significant implications for the Group Digital Railway programme, which Haines does not refer to in the transformational terms used by his predecessor. Instead, the new organisation will give regions the authority to decide what is best for their customers.

However the digital railway develops, it owes a debt to David Waboso who, after joining the programme in 2016, prioritised it to deliver business benefits for passenger and freight customers. Before then, it offered digital solutions for everything everywhere.

Some may be surprised to learn that David is

a civil engineer, as Clive Kessell describes in a feature that marks his wide-ranging career.

Minimising delays on a congested network requires the ultra-high reliability that comes from redundancy to avoid single point failures, such as those that can occur in the control, actuation, detection and locking of points.

To address this problem, a new point system offering redundancy is now in trial operation.

As Malcolm Dobell describes, the novel Repoint mechanism does this by having a drive mechanism that is not secured to the rails, which enables them to move with only one actuator operational.

This month, we have two general signalling features which should be of interest to non-signalling engineers. David Bickell explains how Network Rail’s 40,000 signals are part of a signalling system that has been developed to control train movements in the most efficient manner whilst optimising capacity. In another feature, which should be good reading for permanent way engineers, Paul Darlington explains train detection technology.

On Thameslink, signalling is now in the train cab. This required a significant GSM-R network upgrade to ensure resilience, provide sufficient data capacity for ETCS operation and eliminate interference in the congested London core. GSM-R interference is also an increasing problem elsewhere, as public operators are allocating frequencies close to the GSM-R bandwidth. The solution is a £55 million programme to replace 9,000 cab radios with ones that have improved filters.

Yet, in the not too-distant future, these radios will be obsolete. GSM-R will then be replaced by the Future Railways Mobile Communication System. In an in-depth feature, we consider the telecommunications technologies that might replace GSM-R. These will need to provide reliable, efficient and high-capacity connectivity for both passengers and operational services, as well as allowing for bandwidth expansion for new

applications that are unknown today.

HS2 will also have trains with yet-to-be developed technologies. The company’s £2.75 billion procurement of its trains will see bidders submitting their tenders in April. This process allows for collaborative design after next year’s contract award to ensure trains are state-of-the-art when they enter service in 2026. HS2 will then provide a huge increase in capacity from London to the North and, from 2033, free up space on the West Coast, Midland and East Coast main lines, a fact which recent television documentaries have ignored.

HS2’s trains must of course be electric. No other form of traction can power high-speed trains or, indeed, those that require high acceleration to provide an acceptable service.

In its report to government, the industry’s decarbonisation taskforce recognises that it is also “the most carbon efficient power source”.

Unfortunately, the UK Government has fallen out of favour with electrification due to high cost overruns of the Great Western and other electrification schemes. In its recentlyreleased Electrification Cost Challenge report, the Railway Industry Association explains why these schemes were so costly and demonstrates how electrification can be delivered at an affordable cost, with reference to schemes in Scotland and in Europe. It remains to be seen whether the conclusions of RIA’s excellent report will be accepted so that, in future, passengers on busy non-electrified lines can experience the benefits provided by the electric trains that operate 72 per cent of the UK’s train services.

As many of our features show this month, UK rail has an encouraging future, but only if it can deliver for its customers at an affordable cost.

RAIL ENGINEER EDITOR

DAVID SHIRRES

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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THE TEAM

NEWS

Editor David Shirres david.shirres@railengineer.co.uk

Production Editor Nigel Wordsworth nigel.wordsworth@railengineer.co.uk

Production and design Adam O’Connor adam@rail-media.com Matthew Stokes matt@rail-media.com

Engineering writers bob.wright@railengineer.co.uk chris.parker@railengineer.co.uk clive.kessell@railengineer.co.uk

All sectors covered at Railtex 2019

collin.carr@railengineer.co.uk david.bickell@railengineer.co.uk graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.co.uk grahame.taylor@railengineer.co.uk lesley.brown@railengineer.co.uk malcolm.dobell@railengineer.co.uk mark.phillips@railengineer.co.uk paul.darlington@railengineer.co.uk peter.stanton@railengineer.co.uk stuart.marsh@railengineer.co.uk

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Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

With the exhibition now less than three months away, Railtex 2019 is taking reservations from a huge variety of new exhibitors, covering every aspect of rolling stock and infrastructure services across three days of industry showcasing.

The 14th international exhibition of railway equipment, systems and services is UK rail’s premier event, where organisations meet, network and demonstrate products, innovations and expertise to the wider rail industry.

Over 360 exhibitors from 22 countries have now booked a stand at Railtex. The big names include Alstom, British Steel, HS2, Hitachi, PULSAR, Siemens, Stadler and many more.

Rolling stock suppliers including train carpet manufacturer Axminster Carpets, commercial toilet supplier Dan Dryer, lighting solutions firm KST Lighting & Components, component manufacturing and refurbishment firm Sabre Rail Services, and adhesives, sealant and coating provider Sika have all confirmed their appearance at Railtex 2019, taking place 14 to 16 May at Birmingham’s NEC.

Covering the design, infrastructure, asset management and operations sectors, exhibitors including infrastructure specialists Adey Steel, switchgear supplier Craig & Derricott, depot equipment provider Garrandale Rail, cable and pipe seal manufacturer Roxtec and asset lifecycle management firm Trimble Railway Solutions are all set to showcase their latest offerings to thousands of attending key buyers, managers and decision makers.

With visitor registration now officially open, keynote speakers and details of the exhibition’s supporting programme are set to be announced in the coming weeks.

Visitors are being encouraged to register in advance at www.railtex.co.uk to avoid paying a £20 on-the-door fee.

NEWS

MPs call for increased rail investment in the North West A pledge to support rail investment in the North West has been signed by more than twenty cross-party MPs who represent constituencies across the Liverpool and Manchester city regions.

United by an interest in the vital role played by the rail industry in the North West, the various MPs pledged to support rail investment, more skilled jobs in the railway industry, work for local supply chains, and investment in skills, people and technology.

Coordinated by Alstom, which has a world-class centre for train modernisation in Widnes, Cheshire, the pledge has been supported by a number of local businesses, union and interest groups including the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Hayley Group, Liverpool City Region LEP, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, Northern Rail Industry Leaders, Riverside College, the TUC, Wabtec, and the Institute of Railway Research at Huddersfield University.

Alstom UK customer director Mike Hulme, who is also vice-chair of Northern Rail Industry Leaders, said: “The idea behind the pledge was to build a coalition of support in Parliament for rail investment in the region. There is such a great potential for the rail industry to be a force in the Liverpool and Manchester city regions, and encouraging local MPs to pledge to support that potential will open the door for investment and jobs.”

The Pledge was signed by local MPs: Kate Green, Maria Eagle, Mike Amesbury, Luciana Berger, Lucy Powell and James Frith, Sir David Crausby, George Howarth, Andrew Gwynne, Afzal Khan, Conor McGinn, Dan Carden, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Mike Kane, Stephen Twigg, Bill Esterson, Frank Field, Faisal Rashid (pictured), Dame Louise Ellman, Tony Lloyd and Chris Green.

coming soon...

APRIL 2019 TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION &

RAILTEX PREVIEW Trains, signalling, asset management, communications, and even station control systems, all have technology at their heart. Developing this technology presents its own challenges. In addition, Rail Engineer looks ahead to the UK’s major rail exhibition at the NEC, with details of companies to see and presentations to attend.

Academic Research, Advanced Thinking, Compliance, Innovation, Internet of Trains, Latest Technology, New Working Practices, Novel Techniques, Pilot Studies, Product Approvals, Research & Development, Testing.

RAILTEX: Displays, Exhibitor list, Floorplan, Innovations, Networking, Keynotes, Seminars.

MAY 2019 PLANT, EQUIPMENT &

RAILWORX PREVIEW As work on the railway becomes increasingly mechanised due to the pressures of productivity and efficiency, Rail Engineer looks at the latest equipment and techniques that are coming to or have arrived on worksites around the network.

The first ever RailWorx outdoor exhibition will take place in June and this issue previews what visitors will be able to see at the show.

Attachments, Excavation, Hand tools, Handling, Hire, Innovation, Lifting, Maintenance, Piling, Power Tools, Product Launches, Road-Rail, Safety, Surveying, Welding, Welfare RAILWORX: Demonstrations, Displays, Exhibitor list, Innovations, Networking, Site Plan

JUNE 2019 ROLLING STOCK & DEPOTS With trains and their systems becoming ever more complicated, Rail Engineer’s specialist writers cover everything that improves performance, increases efficiency, and keeps passengers happy. New trains, refurbished older ones, improved technology and alternative fuels are all considered and evaluated.

Comfort, Components, Condition Monitoring, Depots, Driverless Technology, Equipment, Fuel, Inspection, Interiors, Lifting, Light-Rail Vehicles, Lighting, Maintenance, New designs, Onboard Entertainment, Operation, Passenger Information, Platform-Train Interface, Refurbishment, Safety Initiatives, Train Washing, Tram-Train, Underground Trains, Wheel-Rail Interface Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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NEWS

Proposed rail merger hits the buffers The fate of the planned European rail giant Siemens Alstom was sealed on 6 February when unresolved concerns surrounding its impact on competition and the price of signalling and very high-speed trains caused the European Commission to veto the move, despite concessions being made.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager (pictured), in charge of competition policy, said: “Millions of passengers across Europe rely every day on modern and safe trains.

“Siemens and Alstom are both champions in the rail industry. Without sufficient remedies, this merger would have resulted in higher prices for the signalling systems that keep passengers safe and for the next generations of very high-speed trains.

“The Commission prohibited the merger because the

companies were not willing to address our serious competition concerns.”

Alstom described the decision as “a clear set-back for industry in Europe”. Both parties had stressed that the combined company would have created a European player with the ability to cope with growing competition from non-EU companies.

Globalisation of the rolling stock market has created opportunities for both but it has also led to increased competition from countries

such as South Korea, Japan and China - particularly the world’s dominant rail equipment supplier CRRC - which themselves are not open to competition.

As a result of the decision from Brussels, the merger - which was backed by both the French and German governments and would have seen the creation of a new entity with a turnover of €15.3 billion and 62,300 employees in over 60 countries - will no longer proceed.

During its lengthy investigation, the European Commission

received negative comments from customers, competitors, industry associations and trade unions, including Britain’s Office of Rail and Road.

Responding to the news, it released the following statement: “We are pleased to have played an important role, alongside colleagues at the Competition and Markets Authority, in persuading the Commission to reach the same view and block this tie-up, protecting vital competition for the supply of signalling and high speed rolling stock.”

INTEGRATED 19” CABINETS, RACKS & ENCLOSURES Cannon Technologies Ltd Queensway, Stem Lane New Milton, Hampshire BH25 5NU T: +44 (0)1425 632600 E: sales@cannontech.co.uk Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

NEWS

Edinburgh trams could finally reach Newhaven Edinburgh's tram network could be extended to Newhaven, depending on the result of a Council meeting on 14 March.

Councillors will consider the Final Business Case (FBC) which sets out the strategic, economic, financial, commercial and management case for taking trams to Newhaven and outlines the project cost at £196 million. This figure includes a significant additional risk allocation as well as funding to support local business through the construction process.

The project would be funded through future tram fare revenues, along with a special dividend from Lothian Buses. The FBC predicts that “The project is forecast to generate an incremental demand of seven million passenger journeys in its opening year”, on top of the 7.4 million journeys that were made on the current network in 2018.

Even when the recommended percentage of ‘optimism bias’ is added, which would take the project total to £207.3 million, the FBC states that the project remains affordable and self-financing, and would not divert funds from other Council services.

If the project is approved, passenger journeys to and from Newhaven could commence in early 2023, following a six-month period of testing and commissioning on the new 4.69km route between York Place and

Newhaven. Further, “it unlocks a large swathe of the city for housing development and employment opportunities that would not be possible without high capacity public transport”.

Construction is planned to use a ‘one-dig’ approach, with each work site closing only once and then reopening only when all works (archaeology, pre-infrastructure works and construction of the tram route itself) are complete.

This approach reflects lessons learned from the previous tram project, which incurred significant overruns. As a result, in 2009, two years after construction started, the decision was taken to curtail the original Phase 1a route from Edinburgh Airport to Newhaven at the temporary York Place stop, just after St Andrew Square.

The new proposals will see the York Place stop removed and complete Phase 1a as it was originally envisaged. This extension will benefit from the utility clearance work done by the original project before phase 1a was curtailed and will not require purchase of any further trams as the 2007 contract for 27 trams was sufficient for the full phase 1a route.

PROTECTING ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT

Cannon Technologies Ltd Queensway, Stem Lane New Milton, Hampshire BH25 5NU T:+44 (0)1425 632600 E: sales@cannontech.co.uk

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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FEATURE

’s HS2 BUYING

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DAVID SHIRRES

HIGH-SPEED TRAINS

T

he projects and rolling stock that are featured in Rail Engineer must often deal with the constraints of Britain’s historic railway infrastructure.

For HS2, this is not a problem, as the company has a blank canvas for the design of Britain’s first domestic mainline railway for 120 years.

This leaves HS2 free to use best practice to ensure that its new highspeed railway will offer the required capacity, speed, reliability and value for money, as well as designing for energy efficiency and whole system maintainability.

In addition to such operational issues, there is also the requirement to satisfy increasing customer expectations and meet the needs of passengers who are getting older, taller and broader.

When HS2 services start in 2026, the requirement will be a stress-free, seamless end-to-end journey. This may require smart technology that has yet to be invented.

At the heart of this vision is HS2’s fleet of new trains that, for phase 1 of the project, are currently subject to a £2.75 billion procurement exercise to purchase at least 54 trains, each 200 metres long, complete with their supporting maintenance services. The designers of these trains, however, do not have quite the same blank canvas as is available to HS2’s infrastructure designers, as the trains are constrained by having to run on both HS2 and the conventional network.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

HS2 phase one will offer faster and much-improved journeys on intercity routes out of London Euston. In effect, it is a by-pass for the West Coast main line (WCML) between London and Lichfield, with a spur to Birmingham, and so will also release a large amount of capacity on the bottom end of the WCML. In 2026, this is expected to carry ten trains an hour each way, of which seven will use the WCML by-pass to serve Manchester, Liverpool and

Glasgow. Hence the need for classiccompatible trains for HS2 phase one.

When the HS2 network is complete after phase two opens in 2033, its Y network will terminate at Manchester and Leeds and will also by-pass the WCML between London and Wigan and the East Coast Main Line between London and York. It is anticipated that there will then be 24 trains per hour (18 from London and six northwards from Birmingham), of which 14 will run on dedicated routes. This will require a further order of about 100 trains, some of which will be dedicated to the HS2 route to take advantage of its European GC loading gauge.

(Above) Early designs released by Hitachi Rail Europe of its AT400 veryhigh-speed train, which has been labelled "the British bullet train". And the ATR1000 Red Arrow that the Bombardier/Hitachi JV produced for Italy (below).

FEATURE Selecting suppliers HS2’s director of rolling stock and depots, Iain Smith, told Rail Engineer that, in selecting its train builders, the company is seeking a train that offers the best possible customer experience in accordance with many aspects of the Invitation to Tender. In doing so, there is an absolute requirement to be fair, open and transparent.

This requires an innovative approach by the manufacturers, which the rolling stock contract will reward. HS2 also wishes to get maximum benefit from designing the railway as an integrated whole, for example by having trains and infrastructure monitoring each other.

Before selecting bidders, the prequalification stage considered each company’s record in respect of health and safety, the environment, quality and risk management, as well as its financial standing and experience in the design, manufacture and maintenance of highspeed rolling stock. Pre-qualification was also guided by HS2’s strategic goals of being a catalyst for growth and a good neighbour, as well as offering capacity and connectivity, value for money, passenger experience, skills and employment, world class standards and sustainability.

This was done against a range of mandatory and discretionary pass/fail

and scored criteria that also considered collaboration, innovation and contractual flexibility. Consortia applications were allowed, as there was no requirement for applicants to be a single legal entity.

In November 2017, HS2 announced that the five selected bidders for its high-speed train contract were Alstom Transport, Bombardier Transportation UK, Hitachi Rail Europe, Patentes Talgo and Siemens. In July, Bombardier and Hitachi announced that they would form a partnership to submit a joint bid for the contract. CAF has subsequently joined the shortlist of bidders in the interest of maintaining robust competition. Part 2 of this feature, in next month’s Rail Engineer, will have more information about these prospective high-speed train builders.

The HS2 trains contract is split into a manufacturing and supply agreement (MSA) and a train service agreement (TSA). The MSA requires trains to be built in accordance with HS2’s technical specification, which includes on-board, but not wayside, signalling and is

sufficiently flexible to take account of emerging customer requirements.

The TSA covers maintenance, spares and logistics management as well as technical and obsolescence management, but not daily servicing and cleaning. It also includes the provision of operational simulators and fitting out the new highspeed train depot at Washwood Heath in Birmingham.

In addition to the technical specification, the Invitation to Tender specifies the delivery schedule and information that bidders must supply. It also details how HS2 will evaluate bids, including questions and scoring criteria, and the population of a whole-life model. This last aspect is crucial, as the contract award will be to the most economically advantageous tender and so requires consideration of a variety of factors such as maintenance costs, track infrastructure charges, power characteristics and passenger capacity.

The five bidders will submit their bids in April. The contract award will be announced early in 2020.

A Talgo Avril very-high-speed train.

Siemens produced the Velaro RUS (Sapsan), with wider bodies and on 1,520mm-gauge bogies, for the Russian market.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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FEATURE Trains for 2050 As the trains that HS2 are about to procure will be in service well into the 2050s, they will need to be adaptable for both future needs and emerging technologies. They must also meet HS2’s environmental commitments by minimising energy consumption, waste and neighbour impact, with a particular focus on noise reduction.

The 338-page Train Technical Specification (TTS) specifies that trains will be made up of one or two coupled 200-metre-long units. Interestingly, the TTS does not specify vehicle length or doorway position dimensions. To ease passenger boarding, as well as facilitating adoption of the platform edge protection system that HS2 is considering, doorways will have to be in consistent platform positions. This implies that builders of HS2’s first trains will determine vehicle length and doorway positions for future HS2 trains.

This is one example of the relationship between the phase one and later train orders and illustrates how the classic

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

compatible train designs will constrain some aspects of the phase two trains.

A further example is that, from 2033, all trains will need to have very similar performance characteristics to maximise capacity for the required 18 trains per hour operation from London.

This frequency of train service will also be made possible by ETCS level 2 signalling with highly repeatable Automatic Train Operation, which is likely to be a world-first for high-speed rail.

The TTS traction performance specification requires HS2 trains to be able to accelerate from stationary to 360 km/h and cover 40 kilometres in 535 seconds. It also specifies journey times from London to Birmingham and Glasgow of respectively 45½ minutes and 3 hours 45½ minutes, both with only two stops. For the Glasgow journey, this compares with current Class 390 Pendolino performance of 4 hours 8 minutes, with a single stop at Preston. Hence HS2 phase one will see

FEATURE journey times to Scotland reduced by 20 minutes, despite one extra stop and incurring a speed penalty on the curved route through the northern hills as, unlike the current class 390s, they won’t tilt.

Operations and maintenance HS2 is to build its phase one Washwood Heath train maintenance depot in close co-operation with the appointed rolling stock manufacturer, which will fit out the depot to deliver its maintenance services, although daily servicing and cleaning will be the responsibility of the train operator. The maintenance contract is for a 12-year period.

The manufacturer will be expected to design the HS2 fleet for ease of maintenance, with high reliability and availability in mind. The TTS specifies a mean distance between serviceaffecting failures of at least 300,000 kilometres on the HS2 network and 150,000 on the conventional rail network.

To minimise downtime, a maximum repair time for items that could be damaged or vandalised ranges from 45 minutes for internal loudspeaker repairs in a station to six hours for a depot window replacement.

Operational requirements include specified access for servicing tasks and the requirement to have the units ready for service within three minutes from their shut down status and for units to be coupled together within two minutes. The passenger and crew facilities must be designed to ensure that the passenger service is consistently delivered.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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FEATURE

CAF's Oaris is the Spanish manufacturer's latest generation of very-high-speed train

The manufacturer must also provide operational simulators, which must minimise the use of real trains for operational training. HS2 also wishes to see trains designed to support safe and prompt platform train dispatch arrangements.

One such improvement is the virtually step and gap-free train access on the HS2 network for which a platform height of 1,115 mm has been specified. This follows Japanese and Chinese practice of step-free access on high-speed routes, in contrast to the lack of step-free access in Europe where the relevant standard (INF TSI) specifies platform heights of 550 mm or 760 mm and allows for a special UK case of 915 mm.

As platforms on the HS2 network must accommodate phase-two trains, built to GC loading gauge, the classic-compatible trains will have a moveable bridging piece 240 mm wide between the vehicle body and platforms. On the conventional network, they will have extending steps, as on the current WCML Class 390 units.

This level access at HS2 stations will greatly benefit those whose mobility is impaired or who have prams and heavy luggage. It will also help achieve the required two-minute dwell time at intermediate stations. Dwell time is also defined in the TTS, which requires the unit to have a 95 per cent confidence of delivering a two-minute intermediate station dwell time as calculated in accordance with a specified dwell time model.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

The passenger experience Manufacturers are to submit proposals that allow for coach interiors to be fitted out in accordance with a yet-to-be determined final design. This provides flexibility for the trains to cope with the differing needs of those with a 45-minute journey from London to Birmingham or one of over 3.5 hours to Scotland, as well as business travellers in the week and leisure travellers at weekends or holidays.

Designs must also be sufficiently flexible to accommodate emerging technologies that could improve customer experience.

On-board seating will have to meet the requirements of the yet-to-be-appointed West Coast Partnership franchise that is to develop and introduce HS2 services.

This franchise will also finalise the HS2 timetable that will determine the actual number of trains required, which could be more than the minimum of 54 specified in the contract.

To provide this flexibility, the TTS requirement specifies a contractually protected area. This is the area available within each vehicle that can be used for the fitment of interior equipment without any structural changes. Within this area,

the operator will determine the mix of the 1+2, 2+2 and high-density seating, catering and luggage storage options.

There is also a requirement for seats and tables to be moveable without affecting floor coverings. Each seat will have a three-pin socket, USB port, coat hook reading light, cup holder and storage for small items.

There is a detailed specification for highquality passenger information systems and their content management, which includes the ability to display messages sent from a wayside station to trains, or groups of trains. Bluetooth, or similar, wayfinding beacons are also specified so that passengers can use their devices to guide themselves through the train.

The TTS stresses the need to make passengers feel safe, comfortable and welcome, as well as the importance of human factors and good industrial design. It explains how the appointed manufacturer will need to work collaboratively with HS2 and other stakeholders, in particular the train operator and passenger user groups, to develop the “user-facing elements of the unit�.

FEATURE Alstom’s Avelia Liberty train, scheduled to enter service with US operator Amtrak in 2022, combines very-high-speed capability with a Tiltronix tilting system.

After contract award An extensive collaborative design period will follow next year’s contract award, after which it is expected that the first trains will be built in 2022/23 and then be subject to extensive off-network testing during 2023 and 2024. After the testing programme has delivered a design that is capable and reliable, the main production programme will start, probably in 2024.

As the systems integrator, HS2 must both test its new high-speed infrastructure and confirm that its new trains can run on it satisfactorily. To support this work, HS2 is developing a systems integration laboratory. The train manufacturer’s role in testing the new high-speed infrastructure is crucial, as this will require trains in a known configuration. This process will be highly collaborative, from the manufacturer’s early supply of its train systems for integration laboratory testing to the final testing at high speed. Testing and validation on the conventional network will also be required.

Systems testing does not solely concern technical integration. HS2’s trains and infrastructure will have many crew and passenger systems, all of which will need to be tested from a human factors perspective. Hence, from 2025, the trains will be subject to operational testing on the conventional network. This will require significant collaboration between the manufacturer

and the HS2 train operator.

In December 2026, the first paying customers should be boarding a high-speed train on Britain’s new domestic high-speed network. As well as a faster journey, these passengers will experience trains that the HS2 procurement process will ensure have been designed and built around their needs.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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FEATURE

Network Rail

devolves still further

N

etwork Rail has announced sweeping changes to its organisation following the completion of new chief executive Andrew Haines’ ‘100 Day Review’. Introducing his plans, Andrew Haines said that the organisation needed to put passengers and freight users first: “The need for radical change is clear. Performance is not good enough and my comprehensive discussions with partners, passengers and politicians up and down the country has made clear to me the things we do well and the areas where we need to improve.”

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

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

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

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

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

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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

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

Personal experience As the managing director both of South West Trains and First Group’s rail division, Andrew Haines was once one of Network Rail’s biggest customers. He has therefore had first-hand experience of what many described as an inward looking organisation which was not focused on the end user.

This year’s timetable debacle followed seven years of deteriorating performance that has resulted in increasing public and political criticism. No one can doubt that something has to be done and Andrew Haines’s plans are clearly a fundamental change. No longer will the centre of Network Rail dictate what the delivery organisation has to do. Instead, decision-making will be closer to the end user.

This requires real devolution to regions so that they will be responsible for project delivery, own their timetables and have a strong engineering capability accountable for system risk.

From his wide-ranging rail industry career, Andrew Haines understands the importance of day-to-day railway operations.

This essential, but sometimes overlooked, expertise is an increasingly demanding task on today’s crowded railway, on which reactionary delays are 70 per cent of the total. He will no doubt also ensure that Network Rail’s regions also have a strong operational capability.

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

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

HEAD OF DIGITAL RAILWAY TO RETIRE

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CLIVE KESSELL

T

he impending retirement of David Waboso, who currently heads up the Digital Railway team in Network Rail, calls for comment on the man who has made such an impact on the industry. Rail Engineer met him in early February to learn of his achievements and how he has been motivated.

David, like many of us, has been in the right place at the right time.

Chance meetings with high profile people led to job opportunity offers from which he obtained his incredible knowledge base and experience.

Early days Although born in London, David spent his formative years in rugby-mad Gloucester, leaving school to study civil engineering at, firstly, Coventry University and then at Imperial College London, graduating in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

His first job was a year in Chester designing motorways, also playing for Chester rugby club, before he moved back to London. With an aptitude in mathematics, and having seen an advertisement for engineering graduates to teach maths, he attended an interview at County Hall on a Friday and began teaching at a school in East London the following Monday.

It was a baptism of fire, handling kids where a sizeable number

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

didn’t want to be there and were potentially disruptive to the others.

Being a keen rugby player helped his credibility and integration into the local community.

David enjoyed this period of teaching, which left him with some incredible memories and helped build confidence in addressing large and challenging audiences.

However, teaching for the next 40 years was not his career choice, so a change was needed.

Back into engineering, David joined Arup, which were constructing the Essex section

of the M25. This was akin to being on a concrete train - the sections of roadway were laid as a production line with all the necessary equipment and materials having to arrive at the right time and in the right order to ensure construction met the demanding timescale.

Once completed, David joined Pell Frischmann for an assignment in northern Nigeria, where upgrading water supplies and transport was taking place. He soon learned that, on overseas contracts, he had far wider responsibilities and opportunities for development, looking after teams and business development as well as undertaking engineering.

Rugby again helped and he ended up captaining the local side.

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS Docklands Light Railway Opened in 1987, the innovative DLR proved to be so successful that an urgent upgrade had to be progressed. Answering an advert in New Civil Engineer in 1989, David joined the Nichols Group, which was masterminding the upgrade work, as a project manager. Mike Nichols had a major influence on David’s life and they remained close through to Mike’s untimely death in 2013.

David’s first role was the upgrading of all facilities in Poplar depot and the OMC (Operations and Maintenance Centre) building.

Whilst not the most fashionable of projects, it taught David an important lesson - any task must be done to the best of your ability and then you’ll be given greater things to do.

After the successful Poplar upgrades, David led the project to re-model the Delta Junction at the intersection of the lines to Tower Gateway, Stratford and Island Gardens.

Whilst the civil construction of new viaducts and an upgraded West India Quay station was challenging enough, it was during this project that David first encountered the complexities of ATO (Automatic Train Operation) signalling and its crucial interface to infrastructure, trains, timetabling and human factors.

Following successful completion, David was asked to lead the project to replace the original GEC signalling system with the more sophisticated Thales Seltrac TBTC system, based on ‘moving block’ technology, a first such application on UK railways.

The criticality of delivering a new train control system on a driverless automatic railway with rising passenger numbers was not lost on him days of endless software drops, integration tests and weekend closures ultimately leading to the joy of delivering a hugely improved railway to the DLR customers. DLR was a great “railway university”, with innovative technology including swing-nose crossings and different track fastenings to the slab foundations that reduced train noise. All in all, it was a tremendous learning curve that was to prove valuable in future years.

Aside from the technological innovation, DLR was, at that time, building the Beckton extension, on which a significant project over-run had big implications for the company structure. A new leadership team with defence industry experience introduced the innovative procurement strategy of adopting a ‘prime’ contractor, with sub-contractors and suppliers all reporting to that body.

The project became more output-focussed but never lost sight of the operational requirements to maintain a daily train service. For this work, David was awarded the 1995 Project Manager of the Year Award, presented to him by BR Chairman, Sir Bob Reid. It influenced David’s future thinking about, not just technology, but how best to introduce it.

Jubilee line extension The DLR office at Poplar was close to Canary Wharf, where the Jubilee line Extension team was intent on delivering a moving block signalling system. David’s DLR experience and success was seen as beneficial to deliver the JLE project.

Moving with Nichols to London Underground in 1996, David was given control of the JLE systems as part of the multi-billion pound construction project, key to which was a Westinghouse Moving Block train control system, including full integration with train fitment, signal control, driver and maintainer training, power requirements, telecoms and screen door operation.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS London Underground Jubilee, Northern and Victoria lines

It was evident from day one of his employment that considerable unease existed as to the integrity of the system. Given a matter of weeks to assess the situation, he informed the Board that, based on his experience, the risks were considerable and the system was unlikely to be delivered in time for the Millennium.

This led to much discussion and examination of options, with the decision taken in 1997 to implement a fall-back solution using manual driving and lineside signals. To de-risk delivery of this, a test section was set up between West Ham and Stratford. All the different interfaces needed re-engineering, particularly providing drivers with the facilities to stop trains with sufficient accuracy to allow train and platform doors to align and open safely.

As such, the line opened in time for the new century celebrations and remained largely in that condition until 2011. David talks fondly of the great teams at DLR and the JLE he had the fortune of working with over these years.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

Thameslink Core and the SRA During a subsequent spell working for Bechtel, David became project manager for developing the Thameslink central core from London Bridge to beyond St Pancras.

To get the throughput of trains, ATO with attendant automatic train protection (ATP) was deemed necessary but no technical standard existed and only proprietary systems were on offer. These were being deployed on metro-type railways, where trains were invariably the same type and length, but such a solution did not fit a main line railway. What to do posed a difficult question.

Following the Ladbroke Grove disaster in 1999, and in the wake of the Uff/Cullen Report, the industry had to come up with a workable strategy to implement a nationwide ATP system. Whilst ERTMS with ETCS was seen as the eventual end game, this was insufficiently developed to implement in a quick timescale. As a result the cheaper, but not so technically advanced TPWS, was seen as the short term fix.

David was involved in many of these discussions and led the team that produced the industry response. He took part in the press conference to announce the recommendations for train protection, and from this he was asked to join the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) as its technical director. Representing the UK at the European Rail Agency (ERA) proved useful in understanding the thought processes of other countries.

When political decisions were taken to abolish the SRA, David moved back to London Underground.

David joined LU as the director of engineering. This was at the time when increasing ridership meant the ‘temporary’ signalling on the Jubilee line could not continue and a new contract was let with Thales to provide its Seltrac TBTC system. This had a difficult birth, with regular weekend line closures and lateness in delivery causing travelling public anger and questions being raised in parliament.

It was a new and challenging contractual framework as LU had been broken up into two Public Private Partnership (PPP) companies - Metronet and Tubelines - with the various lines assigned to one or other of these companies for day-today maintenance and project upgrades. LU remained in place as the overall client with an arms length relationship to the PPP companies. Tubelines had inherited the Jubilee line, including delivery of the TBTC system.

Eventually, the PPP formula fell out of favour and LU took over the running of the Thales contract. David brought the system teams from previously separate companies into a single new directorate, whilst continuing to ensure the Jubilee upgrade was progressed. This simplified matters considerably, but proving the technical and operational requirements took time. However, the system was duly commissioned in time for the Olympics.

David recognised that the PPP arrangement had many attributes and, in the subsequent re-integration into LU, he was keen for these to flourish. An example was the Northern line upgrade using an identical system to the Jubilee line. This was so successful that the implementation and changeover happened almost without any disruption. Both lines are equipped with a moving block system that yields

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

the benefit of additional train throughput and demonstrates the huge efficiencies that come from long-term investment and retention of teams’ expertise.

In parallel, the Victoria line was already an ATO railway (the world’s first in 1968) and was in need of a live upgrade. This included a new signalling system, new train, a new control centre plus power, track, telecommunication and platform upgrades. Victoria station (stations were also part of David’s team) was upgraded to deal with greater passenger flows. The signalling was a ‘Siemens Chippenham’ fixed block ‘distance to go’ radio-based system, which now delivers a record-breaking 36 trains per hour.

David recalls many challenges, especially early reliability that demanded huge effort and innovation from the integrated team of engineers, operators and the whole supply chain. He regularly rode with the train operators in the cab, listening to their concerns and promising (and delivering) solutions. Getting close to the operators has been a feature of David’s career from the initial DLR days, which he sees as fundamental to the success of any operational upgrade.

More trains and capacity increases energy expenditure in the tunnels, resulting in rising temperatures. Considerable thought and effort went into a solution that included regenerative braking on the trains, more ventilation shafts and a coasting algorithm in the control system to optimise energy.

Sub-surface lines With 70 year old signalling, an upgraded system was desperately needed for the Metropolitan, District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines. These are complicated routes, with lots of inter-running plus sharing of tracks with some main-line train services. An earlier contract with Invensys (now Siemens) had been abandoned so a new specification was produced and put out to tender. David’s intention was “to change LU, not change the product”.

Bombardier won the contract in 2011 based on its CityFlo CBTC system that was successfully deployed in Madrid. Problems began almost

from the first day. The diverse locations of Bombardier offices for the development work did not help.

Eventually both parties agreed that cancellation was the only option and the contract was terminated in 2013. For David, it was a salutary lesson: bringing in new systems to UK railways can be very challenging, often involving significant re-work.

Eventually a new contract was let with Thales for the Seltrac product but using radio instead of track loop based transmission, thus being different to the systems in operation on the Jubilee and Northern lines. The sub-surface lines resignalling (now known as the 4LM - 4 Lines Modernisation - project) is well on the way to delivery, but is recognised as probably the most challenging signalling project in the world.

Station and Track Upgrades As well as Victoria, other underground stations needed upgrading whilst being kept operational. These included Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street LU stations, plus the Bank station upgrade, all using innovative procurement that incentivised value not just cost.

David also led the track programme, replacing huge swathes of bullhead and old ballast with modern track forms. Innovative delivery was encouraged, for example moving away from disruptive weekends to track replacement in smaller sections overnight. There was no right or wrong, but David’s teams gave options to the operators, for example trade-offs between cost and closures.

For his work in leading the delivery of these challenging upgrades in LU, David was awarded the CBE in 2014.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS The Digital Railway Network Rail had embarked upon a digital railway programme in early 2015, with a small team producing a vision to offer digital solutions for everything everywhere. Realising that to proceed on such a wide front was unlikely to succeed, David was recruited in 2016 to bring more realism to this vision. After analysing the progress to date, he changed the focus to prioritise the elements that would yield business benefits for passenger and freight movements whilst supporting the TOCs’ roles of interfacing with the end customer.

As such, the roll out of ETCS, TMS and C-DAS has come to the forefront, all of which are logistic challenges rather than devising technical solutions for products that are largely developed and proven.

Despite initial teething problems, ETCS has been operational on the Cambrian line since 2010. It is, nonetheless, a virtually self-contained railway with captive rolling stock, so the experience gained, whilst beneficial in understanding the technical and operational factors, only touched on some of the logistics of equipping a mixed traffic route.

Past plans to re-equip the Great Western, East Coast and South Western main lines, with predictions of huge capacity benefits, proved way too optimistic but, under David’s guidance, real progress is slowly being made.

The Thameslink central core has been commissioned, including the ATO overlay. The East Coast main line, with its innovative procurement under the route management structure, is in preparation, and other main line schemes are being developed.

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Asked whether a total outsourcing of a route to a contractor is feasible, David says that the client must still be the informed customer, whilst the supply chain that delivers the systems must be tooled up to deliver whole life solutions and incentivised on benefits to passengers and freight.

When asked about ERTMS Level 3, which will facilitate moving block and allow the elimination of conventional train detection equipment (track circuits and axle counters), David commented that proving train integrity remains a fundamental problem, for which solutions have eventually to be found. When Level 3 does come, it is likely to be led by industry but backward compatibility must be assured. There are promising signs from trials successfully completed last year on Network Rail’s test track in Hertfordshire.

Traffic Management Systems, originally thought to be a quick win, have proved more difficult to implement, but are making slow progress and accelerating.

The Thales systems at Cardiff and Upminster are finally being commissioned.

The GWML has the Luminate system, a

product from Delta Rail (now Resonate), which has seen a smoother introduction as it is an overlay to the IECC (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) Scalable product designed to interface with other applications within a signalling centre.

The Hitachi system for Thameslink is well advanced and development work for TMS on Trans Pennine, East Coast, West Coast and South East is well underway. Along with these, real progress is also being made in introducing C-DAS (Connected Driver Advisory Systems) and also crew and stock systems, which will deliver real operational benefit. New entrants are also being encouraged to enter the digital railway market and David looks ahead to CP6 as a real sea change in digital technologies for the mainline network.

In all of these, David emphasises the need to avoid a big bang approach and introduce the systems in small stages.

There is an existing, albeit small, ‘critical mass’ of digital railway expertise, so growing this capability further is important. When questioned about safety, he reiterates it should be an integral part of the culture of all railway engineers.

Safety starts at the design level and should not become an overlay.

Does the Digital Railway group still need to exist as a separate entity? David’s teams support the devolved routes and train operators that will ultimately deliver the digital railway, but a central advisory team has to continue in the immediate future to give the operators a critical mass of expertise. In the longer term, integration into mainstream businesses will happen.

So where does David go from here? At 63, he wants some time out as years of playing rugby have played havoc with his back. He has accepted a small number of non-executive roles outside the rail industry but looks forward to sharing his experience with the next generation of rail engineers, project managers and operators in an industry he obviously loves.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

PAUL DARLINGTON

the common bearer

A

common bearer (transport layer) telecoms network takes advantage of the new digital technologies and ‘big data’ applications in order to provide a safe, efficient, reliable railway. In very simple terms, this unseen telecoms network is the ‘glue’ that binds the digital railway together and is therefore hugely important. It will be the heart and veins of the digital railway.

Railways need to modernise and to provide improved capacity and on-time services, especially as the competition from autonomous vehicles is gaining ground all of the time. Reliable, efficient and high-capacity connectivity is essential in order for railways to make efficiencies, innovate and compete. There’s also a growing desire and need to improve mobile connectivity for both passengers and operational services.

Use cases There are potentially a lot of use cases to support along the rail corridor.

These include operational voice and data services for train control, SCADA for electrification control, remote condition monitoring, CCTV, CIS, GSM-R, IoT, business voice and data, third-party

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

commercial fibre connectivity and broadband track-to-train connectivity.

The digitalisation of the rail network means finally bringing all of these services together on a cost effective, reliable and resilient fibre network that delivers not only on security, with the potential to create virtual private networks (VPN), but also on an ability to expand over a 30-year period.

In some railways, the data services today run across disparate, ageing networks which can be costly to manage and, invariably, fail from time to time. The networks can be near impossible to correlate together and require significant resources to ensure safe, reliable operation. Aging infrastructure (copper, fibre, transmission equipment) can lead to common problems around manageability, to a high cost to maintain and upgrade, and in some cases to operational failures that can lead to train delays.

Globally, many railway infrastructure managers and railway undertakings currently use the interoperable radio communications network, GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communications Rail), for operational voice communications and to provide the data bearer for ETCS (European Train Control System). In the European Union this is legally mandated in the Technical Specifications for Interoperability that are applicable in the European Member States. Voice and data communications are also used for various other applications.

GSM-R has been a huge success all over the world, not just Europe, but it is a MOTS

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

(modified off-the-shelf technology) system based around manufacturers’ commercial GSM offerings, enhanced to deliver specific ‘R’ (railway) functionality. Due to the product modifications required to provide this functionality, and the need to utilise a noncommercial radio spectrum, much of the equipment utilised for GSM-R comprises manufacturers’ special-build equipment and/or software variants. The use of MOTS technology for GSM-R has proven expensive for the railways, both interms of capital and operational expenditure.

The predicted obsolescence of GSM-R by 2030, combined with the long-term life expectancy of ETCS (2050) and the railway’s business needs, have led to identifying a successor for GSM-R. This will have to be future proof, learn from past experiences/lessons and comply with railway requirements.

The successor is the Future Railways Mobile Communication System (FRMCS). This is envisaged to provide the same services, plus a higher data speed capability for operational and business purposes (including real time video), with the option of providing passenger mobile connections. Some metro networks are also interested in FRMCS, not just the main-line railways. All this will require each railway to have a reliable, high-bandwidth common bearer.

Every GSM-R or FRMCS failure for ETCS will shut the railway just as surely as a track circuit failure would; so high availability is essential.

CBTC systems for metros are also reliant on some form of radio connection. While the future of train control in both ETCS and CBTC will be radio-connection based, radio will only provide the last few kilometres of connectivity, and the majority of the connection path will still be via fixed telecommunications using fibre, routers and switches with a common bearer.

(5G) broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps onboard all UK mainline train routes by 2025. This is supported by the communications regulator Ofcom, which has set out its vision for the data connectivity that will be required by 2025 on British trains. From its research, Ofcom says that, in seven years’ time, a crowded commuter train is likely to need 3.6Gbps of mobile data capacity to meet the connectivity needs of its passengers.

A report by Kinetic and Exterion into the spending habits of commuters estimates that, across the whole UK, country commuters apparently spend an average of £89 per week using their mobile devices, with London commuters spending £153 per week. The report says that, in total, commuters spend an astonishing £23 billion per year via their mobile devices while on the move. So, the bandwidth demand is there and growing, but how can it be delivered?

The required track-to-train connectivity will involve many different considerations, such as determining the business model on which such a service would be run, how the deployment would be funded, and potential interoperability across multiple routes or TOCs. The UK rail network is a complex one, with lots of stakeholders - Network Rail, train operators, rolling stock providers and mobile networks - so making the change to deliver the required connectivity requires a high level of co-operation. But, at its heart, a high-bandwidth fixed trackside data service bearer will be required, irrespective of whether the radio system is FRMCS or relies on public mobile network operators, as of today.

FRMCS is likely to be based on a private or shared LTE/5G platform and telecommunications specialist Nokia has already successfully deployed private LTE networks in other transport industries, including networks to control autonomous vehicles and freight shipping ports. It is also one of leading players in the development and deployment of the next generation of 5G radio networks all over the world.

Passenger bandwidth requirements Mobile coverage and Wi-Fi are increasingly considered as the essential ‘4th utility’, similar to water, gas and electricity, and rail passengers now expect a reliable and seamless service.

The government’s current proposals are to provide for ‘uninterrupted’ Wi-Fi and Mobile

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

Telecoms network requirements To support a modern railway with its data requirements and truly drive productivity gains, the telecoms network must be fundamentally more. It must be: Accessible: Networks must provide deeper reach and extend everywhere there is a business or operational requirement. Regardless of access medium, dedicated network connectivity is a must. Various wireless, fixed, IP, optical and microwave technologies must work together to ensure that no site, signalling controller, sensor, worker or customer is left behind and they are all provided with the right priority of service.

Elastic: Networks must be dynamic and programmable. As new control and command digital signalling is rolled out, and as new sites are added and demands fluctuate, the network should adjust in an automated fashion to optimise resource utilisation and meet application needs in accordance with the railway’s requirements. The signalling supplier will require access to the telecoms data network in order for him to safely test the overall train signalling system. This may also require the telecom node to share the domestic mains electric supply with the signalling system, with no outage to either the signalling or telecoms equipment. Dynamically optimised connectivity should be established wherever it is needed. Programmatic handling of changes in the connections to (and between) local, edge and hybrid clouds will be essential to the performance of the applications and the viability of key use cases.

High-performance: The network should deliver seamless, deterministic performance across all the applications it supports. While the requirements of each set of applications may vary, performance against stringent guidelines must be independently guaranteed and demonstrated for each application.

Resilient: For applications critical to both business and railway operations, downtime can have catastrophic consequences. Networks must

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ensure availability at all costs to deliver safety and meet business objectives, with 99.9999 per cent uptime a requirement. That last decimal place is important - 99.999 per cent reliability brings about five minutes downtime per year, with 99.9999 per cent - it’s only 30 seconds.

Train delay costs and reputations are at risk and, in some cases, human lives and safety may also be at stake.

Secure: As business perimeters expand and devices proliferate, so does the threat radius.

Railways know they are at risk from cyber-attacks and cyber security is an essential part of every safety-case approval. Data networks should be a part of the enterprise security solution, rather than the problem. A smart network fabric can play a role in minimising certain threats and ensure that changes are in strict accordance with enterprise policy.

Scalable: Richer data provides deeper context and higher value. A simple move to video for surveillance or for scene analytics necessitates higher bandwidth at each site. Critical real-time video images are considered to be an effective mitigation measure in relation to hazards that may not be detected otherwise by the train control system. In addition, real time video images can enhance operational performance of the railway system when used to support the end user within the target environment. For example, a video application could be used for automatic train operation (ATO), automated detection of objects on or near tracks in the context of autonomous train operation, supervision of platform and tunnels (either by a remote human user or in an automated way) and monitor the situation in the event of an alarm (supervision of railway track, doors, train, smoke detection). It could also be used to transfer a video image in parallel with voice communication (for example, during Railway Emergency Communication). The FRMCS functional working group has just signed off User Requirements Specification (URS) 4.0.0, which includes real time video as a service for the next generation of train radio, so higher fixed bandwidth for video will be an operational requirement.

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS Each additional use will require the deployment of additional computational power. Control of automated vehicles, for example, may ultimately require the processing and coordination of data from a wide spectrum of sources, including surveillance cameras, in-vehicle sensors and other devices.

The use of high-fidelity information from a range of sensors will improve automation decisions made across a wide spectrum of industrials.

As a result, business-critical infrastructure must operate and grow for periods of a decade or longer.

Networks should be designed in a manner that anticipates and adapts to expansion of bandwidth, processing and other capabilities. Within the duration of the life of the telecoms network there will undoubtedly be many compelling new applications that are unknown today, all of which will require higher bandwidth.

Transport layer Fundamentally, it is an optical-to-the-edge architecture that would use DWM (dense wavelength division multiplex) technology to deliver very tight services from an operations and maintenance perspective (fibre break detection and location, lambda performance, fibre degradation and prediction). All railway services will be separate (on their own lambda, or optical channel) with full resilience.

Each lambda can support (on Nokia silicon) up to 400Gbps and, with over 96 lambdas per fibre pair, one can see how this will scale!

Nokia has addressed the problem by introducing a common bearer (transport layer) in multiple-use cases. This addresses both legacy problems and the safety requirements for fibre-based sub-access connectivity, together with the growth and low latency characteristics required by LTE/5G transport, which will

form the basis of the next generation of train radio system.

The solution provides the opportunity to bring all of the data networks together whilst both maintaining security and separacy and also providing for the possibility of huge expansion over a 30-year timeline.

Some major rail operators are already embracing FTTE (fibre to the edge) to great effect.

One example is Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB - Swiss National Railways), which is moving to a fibre underlay with IP/MPLS overlay, to be delivered, managed and operated by Nokia.

SBB, Switzerland’s largest transportation operator that moves both passengers and freight throughout the country, is upgrading its 8,100km communications network of transmission cables and more than 8,500 components to an advanced, converged communications network by 2020.

SBBs synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) operational communications network has supported all mission-critical applications, including CCTV, train control, signalling and GSM-R while a separate business IT LAN, similar to the Network Rail Fixed Telecom Network (FTN), has handled non-vital services. SBB seeks to realise efficiencies by upgrading and rationalising the technologies used for both networks and to gain flexibility in the deployment of new services, such as passenger connectivity, as well as advanced applications for growth.

Targeted to be fully operational in 2020, the new nationwide data network will consist of more than 10,000 active elements at over 1,300 sites adjacent to the railway and at approximately 500 offices.

SBB’s existing SDH infrastructure and separate IP platform will be migrated to an integrated IP/MPLS and optical network. An innovative architecture will address all of SBB’s needs and support a future-proof networking solution. This encompasses a fully redundant fibre-optic communications wavelength division multiplex (WDM) transport layer that will carry data from different sources. Two different IP/MPLS networks will run on top: one full redundant network for all missioncritical applications, including train control and signalling, GSM-R, interlocking and other applications; and another for services and applications such as CIS, ultra-broadband passenger connectivity, ticketing and a LAN/WLAN for SBB employees.

Nokia service routers and service aggregation routers, with end-to-end network management provided by Nokia Service Aware Manager, will also be deployed.

The SBB network utilises the same Nokia common-bearer architecture outlined in this article - so if other railways were to adopt similar, they would not be in uncharted territory and therefore would be able to deploy the heart and veins of the digital railway with minimal risk.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

Train detection

O

ne of the main safety requirements of a train control system is that, before a train is given authority to move along a section of line, it has to be proved to be clear of other traffic.

Thus, the ability to detect the presence of a train on a particular stretch of track is a key enabler for automatic signalling, and hence modern train control.

There are two types of technology generally used for train detection, a track circuit or an axle counter.

The track circuit continuously proves the absence of a train from a given section of track in a fail-safe manner. It cannot absolutely prove the presence of a train, since any failure mode will give the same indication as if a train is present, but, by proving the absence of a train, a clear track circuit can be used to confirm that it is safe to set a route and permit a train to proceed.

As its name suggests, with an axle counter system track mounted equipment counts axles entering and leaving a track section at each of its extremities. This information is evaluated to determine whether the track section is occupied or clear.

Fundamental design principles With a track circuit system, a section of railway track is normally electrically defined by the provision of insulated rail joints (IRJ) in the rails. A source of electrical energy is connected, via a series impedance or resistance, across the rails at one end, and a detector is connected across the rails at the other end.

If there is no train within its boundaries, the detector senses the transmitted electrical energy and energises a repeater circuit. This conveys the absence of a train to the signalling

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

system (track circuit clear). The metal axles of a train within the track circuit will cause the rails to be ‘short circuited’ such that the detector no longer sees sufficient electrical energy and it changes state, informing the signalling system (track circuit occupied).

Any electrical short-circuit between the rails, whether caused by a train or not, or any disconnection within the circuit (for example a cable being cut or falling off the rail), will ‘fail’ the track circuit and inform the signalling system that the track circuit is occupied. This means that any fault will cause the system to ‘fail safe’ - a good thing. However, it can also lead to spurious results and unreliability if the track circuit is not maintained or set up correctly. How many times have we heard the announcement “Trains delayed due to a track circuit failure”?

PAUL DARLINGTON

Correct operation of a track circuit also depends upon good electrical contact between a train’s wheels and the rails, together with a continuous lowimpedance path between each wheel via the connecting axle on the train.

DC, AC and coded track circuits Simple as the track circuit may seem - detecting a train is just a question of monitoring a short circuit between the rails - there are various ways of powering and controlling the system, and all have their benefits and weaknesses.

The source of electrical energy may be DC, AC at power frequencies (typically 50Hz), AC at audio frequencies (several thousand Hz) or a series of impulses or complex waveforms as used by coded track circuits.

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

Rust films and contaminants

Similarly, the detector may be a simple relay, a simple AC ‘vane’ relay or a more complex receiver tuned to a particular frequency or pattern of signals.

On electrified railways, the track-circuit equipment must also work despite the large return currents passing through the rails from the electric traction systems. Some track circuits, therefore, have to be either AC or DC traction immune, or, in some parts of the network, both at once.

In addition, the two rails on a railway are not perfectly insulated from each other. There is always a leakage path between the two through the rail fixings, the sleepers, the ballast and the ground itself. This is called the ballast resistance. Its value is dependent upon the condition of any insulation, the cleanliness of the ballast, and the prevailing weather conditions. It is inversely proportional to track circuit length, with lower values in wet conditions where there is bad drainage and/or contamination from conductive materials. In simple terms, if the track is flooded, the track circuit will show occupied and the signal controlling the section will remain red.

Wet tunnels can be a particular problem, as the conditions can vary quite significantly, and higher values (the lower the resistance the worse the problem, the better the insulation the higher the resistance) may be obtained in dry/clean conditions or during frosty weather. A reliable track circuit must therefore be able to operate over a wide variation of ballast resistance.

One difficulty with adjusting track circuits is knowing the prevailing value of ballast resistance. If a track circuit fails due to wet weather, it may be possible to remedy the situation by reducing the feed resistance. But it is important that the track circuit is re-tested after it has dried out, otherwise a ‘wrong side failure’ may occur with trains not being detected.

This adjustment and testing has to be carried out manually, putting staff out on the railway and, therefore, at risk.

The resistance through the train’s wheels and axles is also important, as it is the train which shorts out the track circuit. The presence of a light rust film on the rail head and/or wheel results in a high resistance which may prevent the short circuit, and therefore the train detection, from occurring. Very heavy rust films, from prolonged disuse, can result in many track circuits being incapable of detecting trains, especially lightweight trains as they are not heavy enough to penetrate the layer of rust.

The mechanical strength of light rust films is much reduced by the presence of moisture, when the contaminant tends to be squeezed out from the wheel/rail contact patch. Therefore, lightly rusted rails will only be a problem when dry.

This problem is most severe when conditions combine showers with a drying wind, or after prolonged periods without trains. Care needs to be taken after track relaying, when track circuits must not be restored to full operation until a reasonable surface has been created.

Other contaminants that increase the electrical resistance between the rails and the train’s wheels can cause the same problems. Those associated with falling leaves are generally limited to autumn and confined to particular locations, although even some built-up areas can be affected. Leaves are drawn into the wheel-rail interface by the passage of a train where they are squashed into a pulp. This contaminates both the rail and wheel, causing wheel-slip problems as well as reducing electrical conductivity.

In simple terms, reasonably dry weather with little wind will cause the leaves to fall gradually over a long time period and to be reasonably sap-free when they do fall. But gale conditions will lead to a sudden fall of sap-laden leaves, giving rise to the worst conditions.

Structural Precast for Railways

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS Problems with coal dust on the rail head tend to be confined to colliery areas, and so this is not the problem it once was.

Sand contamination is not so much due to the seaside but is usually associated with slow-moving locomotives using sanders excessively. In each case, the effect is similar to heavy rust.

Problems can also occur with ballast condition issues associated with carbon-based contaminants, and of course heavy rain causing puddles and floods can short out the track circuits completely.

Train issues Where a thin film of contaminant insulates the wheel from the rail, this can often be pierced by a rough surface. The older style of tread brakes caused the tyres to be roughened at each brake application, whereas more modern disc-braked trains allow the tyres to be rolled into a very smooth surface condition. Therefore, older tread-braked trains provided better track circuit operation than modern disc-braked trains.

Similarly, the axle weight has an effect, as a heavy load will pierce a film more easily. Again, modern lightweight trains (and not-so modern ones, such as Pacers), designed to keep track wear down to a minimum, have more problems than old-style heavy freight trains.

One positive result from today’s crowded railway, however, is that busy lines have little chance to rust, reducing the problem.

However, seldom-used branch lines, particularly those in coastal regions, are particularly at risk.

To assist vehicles to shunt track circuits, a device known as the ‘Track Circuit Assister’ (TCA) is fitted to modern trains to induce an electrical potential between the wheelset and the rail head. Typically, a TCA consists of a control unit and aerial with associated tuning unit, mounted between a pair of wheelsets close to the rails.

Insulation As has been described, any direct metallic connection between the two rails will be interpreted as a train and will cause the track circuit to fail occupied. Therefore, apart from the insulated rail joints used to electrically separate sections of rail, the reliable operation of track circuits requires the provision of other insulators.

At a set of points, for example, there are many of these cross-rail connections - stretcher bars, point motors and heating elements - all of which need to be fitted with insulators, giving rise to quite complex insulator and bonding arrangements.

Damp concrete or wooden sleepers can behave as an electrochemical secondary cell, which can give rise to residual voltage problems with DC track circuits.

Concrete sleepers incorporate a rubber pad under the rail foot and moulded insulations where the fixings bear on the top of the foot. These increase ballast resistance to levels significantly higher than those obtained with timber sleepers. However, the insulations can erode due to the vibration of passing traffic and, consequently, require inspection and periodical replacement - another maintenance headache.

Obviously, steel sleepers are even more of a potential hazard.

They are also insulated, but any degradation of that insulation will result in severe problems.

Bonding Bonding is the means by which the individual components of the railway track are connected together electrically for track circuit purposes. The term also includes the additional electrical connections necessary for the proper operation of electric traction.

In order for a track circuit to fail safe (to show occupied) in the event of a bonding disconnection, it is necessary to bond all elements of the track circuit in series, so that any one failure breaks the circuit.

Insulated rail joints can be expensive, both to install and to maintain, especially on tracks subjected to high speed, high axleweight traffic or where there is an intensive service. Also, in areas of switches and crossings, it may not be physically possible to arrange total series-bonding of both rails.

One solution is the use of audio-frequency AC track circuits which permits the physical limits of an individual track circuit to be defined by ‘tuned’ short circuits between the rails, rather than by insulators in the rails. The track circuits operate at different audio frequencies and each tuning unit is designed to its own track frequency. It is possible, with careful design, to arrange a short overlap in the centre of the tuned zone where both track circuits are effectively shunted.

However, it is not always an ideal solution for complex switching and crossing layouts and, because of the additional complication of significant rail impedance with parallel bonding, audio-frequency track circuits are often unsuitable unless the layout is quite simple.

Track circuits and electric traction Track circuit arrangements in electrified areas are constrained by the need to ensure safe and reliable operation of both signalling and traction systems. This means that the track circuit must be immune to both false operation and damage by the flow of traction currents through the rails.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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32

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS It also causes complications because, while the signalling track circuit is broken up into sections by insulated rail joints, the traction current return needs a continuous electrical connection back to the substation.

This explains the need for impedance bonds. These are devices that present a low-impedance to traction current and a higher impedance to track circuit current.

In simple terms, they allow traction current to pass along the rail, but stop track circuit current in order to create track circuit sections.

Although track circuits will normally be inherently immune to false operation (wrong side failure) from the presence of traction currents flowing in the rails, any imbalance can create a signal that looks like a track circuit feed. The traction currents can also be of a magnitude sufficient to cause damage to equipment, or a right-side failure of the track circuit.

In DC-electrified areas, the relatively low supply voltage results in high currents returning to the sub-stations via the running rails. In order to minimise voltage drop in the DC-traction supply, all running rails are used for the return of traction currents wherever possible, and therefore double-rail track circuits are used.

In switches and crossings, however, it is not usually possible to bond the track in double-rail form, therefore singlerail track circuits have to be installed.

Traditionally, in DC-electrified areas, the track circuits were all AC, using phasesensitive vane relays, so they could be distinguished from the underlying DC. Nowadays, jointless modulated audio-frequency track circuits are used, reducing the number of insulated rail joints and impedance bonds required in plain-line DC areas.

In 25kV AC electrified areas, traction currents are generally lower than in DC systems and, in most cases, single rail traction return is sufficient for electrification purposes. However, on occasion, increased traffic levels and alternative feeding arrangements may increase the need for both running rails to be used for traction return.

Once again, all track circuits in AC electrified areas were traditionally operated with DC current, although feed and relay components were specifically modified to provide protection from damage and immunity to interference.

In combined AC and DC traction current areas, the choice of track circuits has to be limited to those that are immune to both and do not use frequencies (including harmonics) contained in the traction supply.

With the variable voltage and frequency traction packages on modern trains, there can be pretty much any frequency in the rail (or close to it). Together with traction pack and power supply failure modes, the harmonic issues can get extremely complicated.

Modern traction units employing active control methods (such as three-phase drives) can actively generate currents at other frequencies and superimpose them onto the supply. This problem can be designed out, but it’s not easy to avoid critical frequencies and some interference is possible.

Axle counters In many countries of the world, modern axle counting systems have long since taken over from track circuits, as axle counters suffer from none of the above issues. For example, rails can be under water and trains can still run. Axle counters are now the preferred method of train detection for all new schemes in Great Britain, with systems supplied by both Thales and Frauscher.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

One particular advantage of axle counters over track circuits is that they can be overlaid on another detection system (whether track circuits or another axle counter system) for upgrade purposes whereas usually only one-track circuit can be installed on a section of rail at a time.

Axle counters are not without their problems, however. An axle-counter section cannot be made ‘occupied’ by the use of a track-circuit operating clip to protect a train, nor will an axle-counter system detect a broken rail (although a track circuit will also not detect all broken rails, especially in single-rail track-circuit areas).

When an axle-counter system fails, for example due to a power supply problem, it loses track of how many axles have passed through it. Therefore, for safety, it will always recover and ‘come back on line’ showing the section of line occupied.

The section then needs to be proved clear of a train before the axle counters can be restored and reset, which can take some time.

The introduction of GSM-R for emergency communications has provided an acceptable replacement for the non-use of track circuit operating clips.

Signalling engineers were always nervous of track circuits being relied on for detecting broken rails as they were never designed for this purpose. Improved rail integrity and ultrasonic testing has provided a far better method of detecting rail problems and the number of broken rails across the network has reduced dramatically.

Another problem with axle counters is that a right-side failure can occur when a wheel stops directly above the axle counter inductive sensor, known as ‘wheel rock’.

The previous section will remain occupied with no train present and the timeconsuming process of reset and restore has to be carried out. That can cause difficulties at a busy station, where the problem can

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

also occur for multiple short trains stopped along the same platform. For these reasons, Thameslink has elected to retain track circuits on the core section where there are multiple split sections along the platforms.

Remote condition monitoring Track circuits will still be used for many years to come, such is the huge job in resignalling the network, so clever asset management and maintenance techniques will be required. One initiative that has helped reliability is remote condition monitoring (RCM). By monitoring the track circuit current, potential failure modes can be predicted and interventions planned before failure.

It is not something that is easy to automate, but there have been improvements in track circuit reliability with potentially more to come.

One recent innovation on London’s Victoria line is RCM that allows the new jointless track circuits to be inspected in real time from remote locations, improving reliability. Prior to its implementation, track circuits had to be checked by hand using digital multi-meters, which was a time-consuming task and not conducive to finding faults before they occurred. The new RCM is anticipated to reduce the lost customer hours by 39,000 per annum.

A similar scheme is being implemented in Singapore, but built into the jointless track circuit baseplates to provide even greater asset information.

On the other hand, axle-counter systems also have sophisticated built-in remote diagnostics and this is one example of the digital railway delivering results today.

Both methods of train detection, track circuits and axle counters, have their supporters and detractors. However, for now, the world seems to be moving in the direction of axle counters, that is, until something else comes along.

Thanks to Mark Glover, head of innovation, Siemens Rail Automation UK, for his assistance with this article.

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

MALCOM DOBELL

REPOINT

New Thinking in Point Machines

F

aults tend to have significant impact on railway performance, disrupting or stopping train movement. Railway administrators make significant efforts to reduce or eliminate sources of failures. So-called ‘single point’ failures are often the most difficult to deal with as there are no work-arounds. Examples include rails and wheelsets, which are designed to have exceptionally high integrity, an aspiration that advances in materials have supported.

Other equipment is sometimes provided with dual or even triple redundancy, so that a single fault still allows traffic to flow, provided, that is, the fault becomes evident before the other components fail! A good example is the London Underground practice of using at least two air compressors on each train.

Until now, points have been safe but subject to many single point failure modes in control, actuation, detection and locking. It was in 2010 that Professor Roger Goodall of Loughborough University, working with his then colleague Professor Roger Dixon (now with the University of Birmingham), proposed some fundamental research into track switching.

Roll forward to a very cold day in January 2019 and Professor Bob Allison, Loughborough’s Vice Chancellor, and Professor Roger Goodall, Professor of Control Engineering, welcomed some 50 guests from operators, suppliers and friends to demonstrate the results of that original research - Repoint Light - at the Great Central Railway’s Quorn and Woodhouse station.

Repoint Repoint has been covered in Rail Engineer before (issue 131, September 2015 and issue 160, February 2018). Briefly, it seeks to eliminate single point (sorry) failure modes by employing gravity for locking and multiple actuators and detectors to achieve redundancy.

The full Repoint concept also included stub switches, but this feature was not included in the demonstrator, which, except for the actuators, is a standard size CVS flat bottom switch on concrete bearers. Indeed, it also included roller slide chairs, which are redundant in this application.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

The switch is entirely conventional, using flatbottom stock rails and shallow depth switch rails, and standard concrete bearers and roller base plates even though the latter have no function with these actuators. Three bearers - 1, 3 and 5 - are replaced by Repoint actuators, each one of which contains two drive motors and four Halleffect position sensors used for detection.

The drive motors are positioned below the switch rails and are connected to cams that lift, traverse and then lower the stock rails. The motors in each bearer are synchronised electronically.

The rails are not secured to the drive mechanism, which permits the rails to move if only one of the actuator pairs operates.

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

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www.strail.com Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS Rail Industry Technical Innovation Readiness Levels:

Each switch rail is detected in its open and closed position. Detection is arranged such that, if one rail is detected closed, the other must be detected open, and on a ‘two out of three’ voting basis based on the principles of triplicated systems used in aerospace controls. In fact, on this size switch, any one of the actuators would operate the switch and the choice of the location of the actuators was made to ensure each could raise the switch rails to clear the locking blocks of the other two.

For longer switches, the Repoint team advised that additional in-bearer actuators would be provided instead of a backdrive. As the lateral movement is twice the vertical movement (circular motion) a smaller lift would be needed to provide the appropriate lateral movement to maintain the natural line of the rails.

The semi-circular motion of the switch rails was clearly demonstrated at the test site and showed one issue for which care will be required in set up. It is a requirement that the switch rails close firmly on the stock rails and, whilst the demonstrator switch worked, it looked feasible that the switch rail could bind on the stock rail and not drop by gravity into perfect alignment. It will be important, therefore, that the detection is only proved when the switch rail is vertically in the correct position.

This is all a matter of having the right amount of adjustment; one of the reasons for having a prototype. And the Repoint team confirmed that, indeed, the detection will not activate unless the switch rails are fully in the correct location.

It would not be an issue with the full Repoint system using stub rails.

The Valley of Death It is comparatively unusual to see such a fully engineered product developed under the leadership of an academic institution (with support from RC Designs, Baker Engineering, Progress Rail and Ramboll).

The Great Central Railway trial installation represented Rail Industry Readiness Level 5, whereas it would be more usual to stop at RIRL 3.

Loughborough deliberately sought to try and overcome the so-called “valley of death”, where innovations stall through lack of investors to get them into production, and to recognise that, in general, Network Rail expects new products to be at least at RIRL 6 before they can be considered for trail on the ‘big’ railway.

It was good to see that the demonstration at Quorn was attended by many potential industrial partners.

Economics Your writer has been involved with the development of point machines before, and it is quite conceivable that a seven-digit sum can be spent developing and proving new actuators before any see more than prototype service. Unless an actuator is adopted internationally, amortising this cost can be a significant issue.

Equally, having three actuators rather than one might increase costs, albeit, the Repoint Light actuator looks less complicated than many other designs.

That said, in the context of the overall cost of installing a switch, the cost of the actuators is small. However, in conversation with one of the potential industrial partners, it became apparent

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

1 Conception: Early awareness of a need and potential outcomes thought worthy of developing.

2 Opportunity Development: Thinking, supported by research, to develop understanding of need and possible approaches to obtain qualitative benefits.

3 Proof of Concept: Conceptual design supported by experimentation proves viability and feasibility of the concept.

4 Industry Specification: Qualitative plans to deliver the concept are supported by positive market and business analysis.

5 Prototype: Prototype assets and/ or services, developed under quality control methodology are available.

6 Operational Transition: Supply of goods/services of appropriate and repeatable quality meets market needs.

7 Initial Deployment: Operational credibility builds as goods and services are employed, feedback used to confirm user expectations.

8 Roll Out: Supply meets demand in a timely manner, product/service deemed mature and deployable with ease.

9 Whole Life Management: Continued product/service improvement; business as usual; actual whole life cost measured.

that the conditions of the research grants make it difficult for any one supplier to adopt Repoint exclusively.

So it was good that many former colleagues, experienced in introducing new switch mechanisms, were impressed with the concept and its presentation.

They were seeing potential issues and how they might be addressed, but the prize of being able to keep a switch in service to the end of traffic, even if a component fails, is one worth working for.

Great Central Railway themselves were excellent hosts, including a Hall class locomotive, complete with a Repoint train headboard, providing an excellent trip for all the guests.

Thanks to Loughborough University’s Professor Roger Goodall and Dr Tim Harrison for their assistance in completing this article. More information can be found at www.lboro.ac.uk/enterprise/repoint/

Part of

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

CLIVE KESSELL

The Management of

RAILWAY INCIDENTS

N

o matter how reliable or how safe the railway becomes, incidents will always occur, be they related to weather, safety, technical or human problems. Many of these will be trivial, some will be serious, a few may be catastrophic, but all have to be managed effectively and professionally in order to get the railway re-opened and the trains running again as quickly as possible.

All railways have contingency plans some appoint on-site controllers, others produce an emergency procedures handbook, some have specialist teams for technical troubleshooting, many have a combination of these with reviews taking place on effectiveness after any major incident.

Dependence on local knowledge was prominent in the past, with the local operations manager knowing the names of the civil or signal supervisors who, in turn, could call upon the technicians with the right skill set and calibre. In today’s railway, where the number of control centres for a whole country can be counted on one hand, the whereabouts of this local knowledge is not so obvious and it can be a challenge to find the right people who are in the right location with the right management or technical skills, and then to decide how best they can be deployed.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

With the multitude of databases that exist, detailing the rules and procedures for ever-more sophisticated systems, it is a minefield to search for the right information, especially when senior management, social media and radio/ television reporters are constantly requiring updates on the details of the incident and enquiring when a normal situation will be restored.

It would be easy to say that technology can help. Indeed, it can, but in what form and will sophisticated high level overview systems be required? Railways across the globe are studying the problem, particularly in relationship to their own organisational structure.

The Austrian experience Austrian Federal Railways Österreichishe Bundesbanen (ÖBB) - pursued a technical strategy to concentrate its 57 control and communications centres into five locations (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Linz and Villach) plus a national centre in Vienna.

ÖBB control centre.

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS These are now all operational but, in the process, there was concern that the reduction in the number of control centres would lead to a loss of local knowledge with incidents taking on a higher profile and resultant adverse press comment.

Thus, a solution to this had to be found. ÖBB is a railway that is still vertically integrated, which is an advantage in making the problem easier to resolve. Just imagine how the problem is compounded for a fragmented railway such as exists in the UK? ÖBB produced a brief outline on how the railway might better prepare itself for incident management and talked this through with Frequentis, an international company headquartered in Austria with considerable experience in devising solutions for this type of scenario. Frequentis’ origins are in air traffic control but its knowledge base has expanded to provide communication management for the emergency services, public safety organisations, maritime and coastguard, defence and, indeed, the rail industry. All these organisations encounter emergencies and incidents on a regular basis, so the development of suitable technology to facilitate control and recovery was part of the business culture. ÖBB and Frequentis worked closely together to define the requirements for a workable solution, finally producing REM (Railway Emergency Management), which has now been in existence for 10 years.

Understanding the information required and the communication flows were major elements in its development.

Wien Westbahnhof station, Austria.

Incident and crisis management system The basics of the ÖBB system is a software knowledge-base sitting on an independent server. This can then link to all the existing operational databases to access the information they contain and have this information transformed and presented to the incident managers in a unified style and format.

The big challenge was interfacing to the existing systems, as these had been supplied by many different companies with software packages that had been developed as standalone products.

One of Frequentis’ strengths, from past contracts in air traffic control and rail, is its ability to obtain, by whatever means possible, the technical and software details of legacy data systems so that a workable interface to these can be designed. Using this ability, the system has duly matured and is now referred to as Incident and Crisis Management (ICM).

The system output yields the following functionality: »» Providing reliable data for the incident location; »» Identifying responsible staff within all internal and external organisations who will be involved, including ‘blue light’ organisations or any auxiliary forces; »» Providing effective communication for the alerting and updating of staff involved in the on-going incident management; »» Ensuring non-discriminatory information provisioning; »» Providing a standardised work flow to guide the incident manager through the process, according to the operating procedures; »» Recording of all data exchanges and communication to the standard required so that these can be used in future enquiries or any legal proceedings;

Travellers with smart phones are often better informed than local railway staff.

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS office, at that stage, is still unaware. So a real-time information system would help to manage the ensuing multiple calls from the public, many of which will describe the incident in different terminology.

Realism for the future

ÖBB control centre. »» Aggregating detailed incident data for visualisation on GIS (geographical information system); »» Supporting the European Directive for safety management; »» A capability to present the data on mobile devices to aid and support on site operations.

So how do these requirements work out in practice?

Firstly, a list of names and organisations is compiled for each local area so that, if a problem occurs, the nature of the incident is keyed in and the names of, for instance, the permanent way or signal maintenance engineers appear on screen together with all their contact details. Organisations will include internal railway departments but also supply and support contractors relating to specific equipment.

These names will change from time to time and the changes may be recorded on local systems. It is important, therefore, that these changes are captured and transferred to ICM so that the records are duly updated.

Secondly, every voice and data transaction is dated, time stamped and response times are measured. In that way, a full log for the incident can be built up, which can be used subsequently at an incident enquiry, for continuous process improvement and for training purposes.

As well as being adopted on ÖBB, the ICM product has been deployed in Luxembourg (CSL) and in parts of Australia. It should be noted that Frequentis has been heavily involved in the UK rollout of Network Rail’s GSM-R network in the provision of the ‘front end’, where its Fixed Terminal System (FTS) Dicora terminals are installed at the signaller’s work stations in the rail operating centres (ROCs), integrated electronic control centres (IECCs), older power boxes and, indeed, old style mechanical signal boxes. As such, the company’s knowledge of how the railways work is considerable.

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Impact of social media It is recognised that procedures will already be in place for any major railway accident, which would of course quickly become headline news on national radio and TV. The more mundane incidents that occur on an all-too-frequent basis, involving train failures or cancellations, track or signalling disruption, trespassing and human injury (even suicides) are nowadays quickly reported on social media with often significant and unjust criticism of railway infrastructure organisations or train companies being made.

Countering these allegations is all part and parcel of a railway’s publicity role, but the reaction is often ill informed, which only compounds the problem and worsens the railway’s already tarnished image.

Having access to a current and accurate operational log would be of immense value to the publicity people and would help avoid putting out the platitudes such as ‘trains are delayed because of operational difficulties’ or ‘the train is cancelled because of staff shortages’. It is regularly reported that travellers with smart phones are often better informed than the local railway or station staff as to what is going on and when services will be restored.

Indeed, picking up virtually instant social media reports can trigger media queries about an incident of which a railway control

It will take more than buying a piece of technical kit to improve the challenge of incident management. To be effective, it will require the participation of people at all levels and in every part of the train service delivery organisation.

At the top of the pyramid are the control centre operators, who have the task of assembling the facts of the incident from the various information sources at their disposal and then entering all this on to the centralised ICM to create an incident log.

Front line staff from operational and technical departments need to have easy access to ICM so that they can see what is happening, feed in information and receive instructions as to what to do next.

An ICM App is already developed for use by staff equipped with smart phones and the signallers’ Dicora GSM-R terminals are capable of displaying ICM data. In Vienna, the ÖBB ICM system is linked to the ARAMIS traffic management system supplied by Thales and similar linkages are thus a proven interface to other railways that are installing TMS. It is known that a number of UK TOCs are investigating the system and the Network Rail Digital Railway team is also aware of its potential value.

All of this will need training, which should not be understated. Control staff that currently manage incidents would surely welcome the help that an ICM system can provide. Local staff who might be on the front line dealing with irate members of the public must often wish for better information. Maybe the old adage ‘give us the tools and we can finish the job’ is appropriate.

ÖBB and Frequentis worked together to produce REM, which has now been in existence for 10 years.

Improving Incident Management Increasing passenger demand will see more trains running on the existing infrastructure, at higher speeds and with greater density. If an incident occurs it will have an even greater impact on operational performance and passenger experience. The key is how effectively incidents are dealt with and how quickly normal services can resume.

Rail Incident Crisis Management (ICM) from Frequentis is a critical decision-making support tool, based on over 20 years of experience with major rail networks around

www.frequentis.com

the world. It guides the operator through a streamlined process, aligned to operational and safety requirements, while capturing the local knowledge so often lost in large control areas.

Frequentis ICM enables faster, more consistent decision making in stressful situations, satisfying operational as well as safety management system requirements.

Operators are put back in the driving seat and passenger journey experience is improved.

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Evolution of

signalling DAVID BICKELL

T

he advancement of signalling has been driven by the need to control train movements in the most efficient manner whilst optimising the capacity of a given layout configuration. Progress has been achieved as a result of technological developments, new legislative requirements, and the all-important lessons learned from accidents and incidents. This article introduces a major new book that charts the evolution of signalling, and also indicates some additional sources of technical information about signalling for those wanting to learn more.

Signalling in action Network Rail has about 40,000 signals across the whole network, controlled by a variety of mechanical, electrical and computer systems, mostly behind the scenes.

The signalling system in live action may be observed on Open Train Times (www.opentraintimes.com) and other similar websites that provide a much-simplified version of the workstation or control panel that the signaller is operating to control train movements.

Watching complex areas such as Liverpool Street and London Bridge during the peaks, it is difficult for the general user to appreciate the vast amount of complex technical kit that provides for the safe separation of trains and intense working at busy junctions and in station areas. Robust safeguards are built into the interlocking to prevent signaller error compromising safety.

20-lever frame at Acle signal box, Norfolk.

Swindon panel, seen here in 2014, is now preserved at Didcot Railway Centre.

The driver hasn’t been forgotten Integral to the signalling system, driver aids such as the Automatic Warning System (AWS), and Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) play their part to ensure driver compliance with signal aspects.

Automatic Train Protection (ATP) systems overcome weaknesses in the AWS/TPWS combination by continuously monitoring train speed and automatically implementing corrective action should a driver fail to comply with signal aspects or speed limits.

Free standing ATP ‘trial’ systems are in operation on the Great Western main line and the Chiltern line. However, ATP is a component of the European Train Control System (ETCS) that Network Rail is gradually implementing. These vitally important safety systems have been introduced in response to lessons learned from train accidents.

Not so modern In the modern age of personal computing, consisting of devices that are ‘upgraded’ every few years, newcomers to the industry may be surprised that train movements in some areas of the country, including the busy West Coast main line in the Stockport area, are still controlled by nineteenth-century technology, with signallers pulling levers. Elsewhere, mid-twentieth-century control panels are still in service, with signallers pressing buttons to set routes. Computer control is being increasingly implemented since the first digital Solid State Interlocking (SSI) was commissioned at Leamington Spa in 1985, but conversion of the whole network is a long-term project.

So how has it come about that we have such a diverse range of technology in use today?

Funding constraints and longevity Many a proposed scheme has had to be de-scoped when money has run out. For example, mechanical lever frame signal boxes continue in service at Clacton and Stockport, interfacing with adjacent modern signalling centres. Even in the 1960s, new power box schemes were opened controlling a reduced route mileage compared with what was originally planned.

Towards Stoke-on-Trent via Uttoxeter was excluded from Derby Power Box, as was the Northampton loop from Rugby box, although the latter was incorporated some years later. A mid1980s resignalling of Shrewsbury was shelved leaving the lofty 1903 LNW tumbler frames at Severn Bridge Junction (180 levers) and Crewe Junction (120 levers) still in service today!

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

Workstation at Saxmundham, Suffolk.

Despite predictions to the contrary, the skills of the mechanical locking fitter are still with us today, and points and signals operated by metal wires and rods are more durable than those controlled by electrical wiring, the insulation of which may degrade over time.

Staff professionalism Signalling must be designed, installed, tested, commissioned and maintained by staff working to high professional standards in compliance with a series of specialist internal company standards issued by Network Rail. Staff competence is also vitally important and signal engineers are required to hold an Institution of Railway Signal Engineers licence for the category of work that they undertake.

The various factors described above contribute to the overall cost of signalling. It has always been challenging for the industry to justify that the capital cost of signalling improvement schemes will achieve payback in some way such as staff and maintenance savings, or improvements to capacity.

The way in which various factors, including those described above, have played a part in the continuous improvement of signalling since the early part of the nineteenth century are described in a new book - A Chronology of UK Railway Signalling, 2nd edition.

This monumental hardback tome of nearly 500 pages from Peter Woodbridge and his contributors provides a fascinating insight into the evolution and innovation of signalling from the invention of the Leyden Jar (capacitor) in 1746 to the fibre-optic axle counter sensor of 2017. This chronological synopsis of significant events in the development of railway signalling covers all UK railways but concentrates on ‘mainline’.

The one-line event index, split into categories such as accidents, block working, companies, land legislation, is listed in chronological order, acting as an at-a-glance evolution summary and directing readers to the appropriate year in the main body of the chronology. Here, the aim is to present the overall story of the evolution of all the elements that comprise railway signalling and give the general ‘big picture’ of how, through innovation, accidents, legislation and pure chance, we have today’s signalling.

The story starts with the Stockton & Darlington Railway of 1825 and an early attempt at providing signalling comprising braziers (fire baskets) into which burning coals could be hoisted as a stop signal. The section concludes with fifteen entries for 2018 including accidents at an AHBC (automatic half-barrier crossing) and a UWC (user-worked crossing) and, more positively, the first Automatic Full Barrier Crossing Locally monitored (AFBCL).

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Two short sections describe the development of the former Western Region’s E10k relay interlockings, and Geographical relay interlockings used elsewhere, many examples of which are still in service including the 1960 Plymouth Panel Box, and 1966 Birmingham New Street station area Westpac MkI interlocking.

The final section contains an extensive thought-provoking summary of significant accidents spanning 162 years involving signalling design, operation, maintenance and modification.

The lessons learned have shaped today’s signalling system, which plays a vital role in the safe and efficient working of trains.

However, the recent collision at Waterloo is a wake-up call that the causal factors identified in past accident investigations must not fade from the industry’s collective memory.

The book concludes with a selection of colour photographs illustrating Peter’s signal engineering life.

Technical terms are clearly explained making it an easy read suitable for a wide audience. At £30 plus postage it is NOT currently available from online retailers. Proceeds go to Swindon Panel Society, which has preserved the Swindon Entrance Exit (NX) panel at Didcot Railway Centre with train movements, control and indication of outdoor functions such as points and signals simulated by computers.

And there’s more…

Railway Control Systems - This sequel from 1991 includes Solid State Interlocking (SSI), Single line working, level crossings, operator interface and Automatic Train Protection.

Railway Signalling and Control - This further sequel brings the story up to 2014 and includes the various computer based interlockings, axle counters, point operating mechanisms and stretcher bars, AWS, TPWS, Tilt Authorisation and Speed System (TASS), ETCS, HS1 signalling, and signal sighting.

For those interested in learning more about signalling, there are various resources available:

British Power Signalling Register This free online resource, fully updated in January 2019, is produced by Andrew Overton and hosted on the website of the Signalling Record Society (www.s-r-s.org.uk/archivebpsr.php). The documents are aimed at signal engineers but will be of interest to anyone wanting to know more about power signalling.

The first component is a PDF document providing a comprehensive introduction, glossary and detailed explanations of interfaces, power frames and interlockings, concluding with a colour pictorial guide to interface and interlocking designs. The register itself is an Excel spreadsheet with three tabs ‘Interfaces’ (signal box or workstation), ‘Interlockings’ and ‘Power Frames’, the compilation of which evidently involved extensive research since coverage includes all power signalling equipment commissioned in Britain from 1883 to date excluding London Underground and metro networks.

For the technically minded For those with a thirst to learn more about the technical aspects of signalling, the following text books are available from the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (www.irse.org): Railway Signalling - Although published in 1981, it is still relevant today with descriptions of the principles of signalling layout, interlocking and controls. Relays, points, track circuits, remote control and train describers are covered.

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If you wish to purchase a copy please contact Peter Woodbridge, either through the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers, 4th Floor, 1 Birdcage Walk, London SW1H 9JJ - 202 7808 1180, or by emailing the author - david.bickell@railengineer.co.uk

Rail Engineer Of course, you can just continue to read your favourite railway engineering magazine Rail Engineer. Almost every issue contains at least one article on railway signalling, its technology and concepts, and these are reproduced online at www. railengineer.co.uk.

For example, the Digital Railway is moving forward with the introduction onto the East Coast main line of ETCS (issue 169, November 2018), a platform that has the potential to bring benefits of improved capacity and performance whilst reducing lineside signalling infrastructure, significantly reducing the need for costly lineside visits by technician and engineers.

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Thameslink

Telecoms

CLIVE KESSELL

T

he Thameslink north-south rail link across London is nearing fulfilment. Despite the timetable problems back in May 2018, the enhanced capacity on the route is already easing the daily commutes for thousands of people. When it reaches its full potential of 24 trains per hour (tph) in each direction through the central London core, an even bigger demand is to be expected.

whereby Network Rail could demonstrate just how complex and wide ranging have been the telecom elements. Rail Engineer went along to learn more.

Upgrading GSM-R The overall programme, covering five route areas, will have cost ÂŁ4.6 billion, including the provision of 55 new 12car and 60 eight-car trains, running through 10 signalling centre areas of control on track used by 11 train operating companies (TOCs).

Much of the project’s glamour has focussed on the new stations (London Bridge and Blackfriars in particular), its civil engineering, especially the Bermondsey flyover, and the new ETCS with ATO (European Train Control system with Automatic Train Operation) train control system. There has been very little mention of the telecommunications network, without which none of the above could have happened. Yet all the telecoms requirements have

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needed a massive design and implementation project that has equalled the other disciplines in the need for creative thinking and new ways of providing service.

To understand what has been involved, the London & SE section of the IRSE hosted an evening meeting in January

Whilst the Thameslink routes both north and south of the Thames and through the central core had been equipped with GSM-R, this was primarily associated with driver to signaller voice communication.

As such, the capacity, coverage and resilience of the radio network was less than would be

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS required if used as a bearer for ETCS. An upgrade has therefore been necessary the responsibility of the telecoms function within Network Rail for the control and infrastructure equipment but also involving the TOCs for the ETCS trainborne mobile equipment.

The ETCS/ATO area extends from Kentish Town and Canal Tunnel junction in the north to Elephant & Castle and beyond London Bridge in the south. To improve the robustness of the system, most of the previous radio cells have been split with 15 new Kapsch 9000-series base stations being purchased to replace the existing nine Kapsch 8000-series units.

All base stations now have a double landline connection, the majority using diversely routed fibres plus a 12-hour standby power supply at each site. Much of the central core section is equipped with radiating cable and 16 radio cable repeaters are needed to keep the signal strength at the required level.

GSM-R radio performance has to take account of the channel availability within the 4MHz uplink and downlink allocation.

This leads to two constraints.

Firstly, in congested areas like London where multiple rail routes are in close proximity, channel allocations, base

Customer information screen at London Bridge. station locations and aerial alignments have to be carefully planned to eliminate, as far as possible, the risk of co-channel interference.

Secondly, whilst having a circuit switched connection (an individual train seizes and holds an available timeslot for the duration of use) is just about ok for occasional voice traffic, the data requirements for ETCS operation mean that a continuous connection is required.

With circuit switching, there is simply not enough capacity within GSM-R. Fortunately, development and proving work in the UK and Europe has determined that packet switching is an

acceptable alternative for the future.

Even if the occasional packet is lost, the data transfer is sufficiently guaranteed for reliable ETCS information updates as well as enabling a considerable increase in capacity.

The upgraded GSM-R network has been extensively tested, both for coverage and resilience. Additional hardware duplication has been provided to minimise the chance of equipment failure that would result in ETCS data being unavailable. An additional feature with the new Kapsch base stations is a Voltage Standing Wave Ratio alarm, which monitors the radio signals such that any deviation from the

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS norm is detected before a fault actually occurs. The overall monitoring of this, and indeed the nationwide GSM-R network, is undertaken by Network Rail Telecoms (NRT) from its Network Management Centres.

Emergency Services radio The King’s Cross fire in 1987 (right) brought home the need for the emergency services to communicate together effectively in all locations, including underground railways. Since Thameslink in largely underground in the central core, provision has had to be made to enable radio systems covering police, fire and ambulance services to communicate in any emergency circumstances.

Using Tetra technology in the UHF band, all police forces (including British Transport Police - BTP) and the ambulance service have now converted to Airwave, which is the same technology that London Underground uses for its track-to-train communication. Providing Airwave coverage on LU is therefore relatively straightforward. Adjacent LU and Thameslink locations get coverage by default, but, elsewhere on Thameslink, it has been necessary to feed Airwave signals down the same GSM-R radiating cables, but with different types of repeaters.

The fire service has continued to use a different system - Fire Ground - which again has its signals injected into the same radiating cable. The Fire Ground system had already been provided in the St Pancras area as part of the HS1 communication requirements, so this

Antennas at Elephant & Castle.

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system was extended into Thameslink to prevent inter-channel interference. The erstwhile York Way tunnel at King’s Cross has been retained as an access point for the emergency services.

and thus set train paths automatically. The signallers are to be provided with webbased Train Graphs at their workstations so that they can see the overall train service performance at a glance.

Traffic Management

The Signalling Bearer Network

The crucial need for a traffic management system (TMS) to regulate the Thameslink train service through the central core when 24tph eventually happens was described in issue 160 (February 2018). Using the Hitachi Tranista system, this will look at real-time train movements from as far away as Luton and Hitchin in the north and Sevenoaks and Three Bridges in the south, and to then constantly calculate the optimum pathing of trains should any of them be running late and not arriving at the central core in the timetabled order.

Getting TMS to be effective is a complex challenge and demands crucial telecom and data links as part of the design.

Such is the foreseen dependence on TMS that two parallel systems have been procured (A and B) to provide the necessary resilience. Capturing the constant stream of data from all the outlying locations has meant the provision of two independent Ethernet rings of 250Mbit capacity to deliver the train running information. The FTNx fixed telecommunications network provided

by NRT (Network Rail Telecoms) as a nationwide IP (Internet Protocol) data service has been employed for this task.

This means that all TMS data is IP-based, which was a logical way forward in any case.

As traffic management systems spread to other areas of the country, so the Thameslink TMS system will link into these and thus potentially provide train running information from even further afield.

Whilst the output from TMS is an advisory tool to the signallers, who will be able to change the routing plan if they think it advisable, eventually TMS will link into the ARS (Automatic Route Setting) facility within the rail operating centres (ROCs)

Not only is a comprehensive telecom and data network required for TMS, but the very extent of the Three Bridges ROC operation means that similar connectivity would be required for controlling all the outlying signalling equipment.

Traditionally, this would have been done by low-speed data links provided as part of the signalling design, but the cost of such a provision would be considerable and questions were asked as to whether a more cost-effective solution could be devised.

The resulting specification called for a comprehensive fibre and data communications network (DCN) and, with the FTN network already in place, using this was an obvious choice. However, just taking the available bandwidth without any provision for local control gave a measure of unease and thus a compromise was needed.

A joint development between Siemens, Network Rail and NRT came up with a solution that effectively delivers a virtual private network within the FTN backbone.

Three pre-assessments were identified: »» Diversity needed for all required service functions to each relay room; »» The level of availability and path length from the FTN to each relay room to be scored; »» A comparison of options to be made with identification of any diversity shortfalls.

The resultant network has moved the Network Terminating Point (NTP) from the FTN router to the signalling equipment rooms, with an independent network control centre established at Three Bridges working in conjunction with NRT. The DCN has been renamed TSPN (Thameslink Signalling Private Network known colloquially as Teaspoon) and gives

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS four independent paths from the main signalling equipment rooms back to Three Bridges ROC. Every signalling trackside module has an IP address layered to SIL4 (safety integrity level 4) standards. Close co-operation has been needed with the NRT control centre staff and this involved considerable training to ensure familiarity with the critical network requirements. 140 routers are employed to start with, and more will be added once the Hither Green area is converted.

Since start-up four years ago, only two faults have been recorded, one a power supply problem, the other a router failure, neither being service affecting.

Station Information and Security (SISS) All stations in the central core need to give out comprehensive information to the passenger plus sophisticated monitoring of security. Included within this are customer information screens (CIS), public address and CCTV. During the early stage of the project, the displaced CCTV recording equipment from King’s Cross was relocated to London Bridge, so that output from the existing 400 analogue CCTV cameras could still be recorded. These cameras were connected to the new information network by the use of analogue-to-digital converters, prior to them being replaced during the rebuilding.

At London Bridge, new equipment has been provided throughout, based upon an IP station data network consisting of two-core switches forming two VLANs in ring formation. Connected to this are 700 new high-definition Bosch cameras, with recording equipment to match, plus a video wall in the control room. The cameras are also viewable from Three Bridges ROC and the BTP control room at Victoria.

A total of 310 CIS train departure screens using Infotec LED displays are provided across all platforms. New PA amplifiers link into the system but include a hard-wired voice alarm facility to ensure availability in any emergency situation.

Achieving the 24tph throughput in the central core requires critical control of station dwell times. These are timetabled at 60 seconds, allowing 42 seconds for passengers to alight and board.

Automatic door opening is employed but CIS information is crucial to conditioning passenger behaviour.

Train summary displays are provided showing the time until the next train and the six subsequent trains. These use TFT (Thin Film Transistor) technology, with past concerns over display life having largely been overcome. Alternate units go into ‘sleep mode’ at night to prolong life.

Still to be commissioned is an overall integration and monitoring system for all the Thameslink central stations. A contract is in place with Telent for the provision

of its MICA (Management, Integration and Control of Assets) product, with the hardware already installed at Three Bridges. Used previously at Clapham Junction and London Bridge, the system will give visibility of all telecom facilities at every station.

In addition to CCTV, PA and CIS, the system will monitor lighting, lift and escalator alarms, station radio, security and fire alarms, and will also monitor dwell times and passenger congestion, with an alarm being generated if limits are exceeded. The benefit of MICA is that different manufacturers’ products can be monitored, regardless of type and age, thus avoiding the replacement of assets that still have useful life.

In this modern age it is a commonly held view that telecoms will just be there, akin to water in the pipe and electricity at the socket. If nothing else, this account shows just how complex the provision of telecom facilities is on a route such as Thameslink.

Thanks to Tom Chaffin and Stephen Brown of Network Rail for delivering such an elucidating explanation.

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CLIVE KESSELL

A Necessary GSM-R MOBILE UPGRADE I

t is easy to forget that GSM-R, as the standardised track to train radio system across Europe, has been around for over 25 years. The agreement to use GSM technology rather than Tetra was arrived at back in 1992, with development work to produce the railways special requirements taking about seven years. So, from around 2000, GSM-R networks have slowly been rolled out across Europe, with most countries now having nationwide coverage.

Checking a radio in a Class 66 locomotive.

Key to all of this has been the negotiation and subsequent agreement with ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) to allocate dedicated bandwidth consisting of a 4MHz (876-880MHz and 921-925MHz) uplink and downlink.

At the time of allocation, the licensing authorities were mindful to keep a reasonable separation between the GSM-R frequencies and other users.

However, such is the pressure on spectrum that, over the years, allocations have been given to the public mobile operators that encroach very close to GSM-R bandwidth – a situation which is now causing problems for radio reliability.

Even though GSM-R will eventually have to be replaced, this is still several years away and remedial action has to be taken now. Rail Engineer went to meet with Network Rail to learn of the problem and the possible solution.

Interference Impact All across Europe, GSM-R radio interference shows itself in different ways, but, in Great Britain, three fault conditions have been noticed:

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»» The cab radio goes into search mode, causing a lock up and requiring a reinitiation process that takes several minutes during which time the train cannot make or receive emergency calls; »» The radio re-boots itself, which is an eight-step start up process that often only gets to step three; »» The cab radio screen goes blank, which again necessitates a re-initiation.

If these occurrences were very infrequent, it might be a reasonable risk assessment to live with the problem. However, incidents now number 240 a year, often necessitating stopping the train whilst the

re-boot or re-initialisation takes place, causing two to three minutes delay. In total, this results in around 8,000 delay minutes being attributed to GSM-R interference problems.

Perhaps more importantly, there are safety implications and, although no safety incidents have occurred to date, Network Rail is mindful that it is only a matter of time before one happens. Something has to be done.

The Solution Although various companies have produced the in-cab mobile equipment, logistic considerations dictate that having a single supplier and type in any country is a great advantage if radios are to be held at depots to fit into new rolling stock and as spares for whenever a change out is needed.

The cab radio supplier for Great Britain is Siemens, which manufactures the units

SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

Class 43 (HST power car) roof antennas.

in Poole, Dorset. Over the years, the product (currently model V3.6) has been refined to a very high level of reliability, now reaching 378,000 hours mean time between failure (MTBF) for each unit.

There are some 9,000 cabs (including yellow plant) that contain a radio and an additional 2,800 are held at the rolling stock depots.

To overcome the interference problem, these radios need to be fitted with a transceiver having much improved filters that give a sharp cut when frequencies are detected in adjacent parts of the spectrum. Filter technology has improved in line with increased bandwidth utilisation, so designing the filters has been relatively straightforward. The challenge is to provide this new filter within the same radio space envelope such that retro fitting work on the rolling stock is kept to the very minimum.

The V4 Radio Network Rail, working with Siemens, has re-developed the cab radio to incorporate the new transceivers plus an improved power supply and audio card to further improve reliability. The opportunity has been taken both to build in a number of new filters mentioned above and also to incorporate a 4G LTE capability. The specification required a radio product that has exactly the same space envelope, has the same connections to aerials and power supply, has the same display screen and indeed is capable of being produced by conversion of the existing radios. In short, the new must be identical to the old in terms of operation by the train drivers and in fitment at the depots.

That radio at V4 now exists and such is the importance of the upgrade that there is now a £55 million programme of testing and deployment across the entire fleet.

Reliability remains key and, to this end, the initial production run of 100 V4 radios has been fitted to examples of rolling

stock that operate over different types of railway. These include: »» London North East Railway – Class 91 electric locos, Class 43 HST and Mk 4 DVT, 25 cabs in total; »» Merseyrail – Class 507 and 508 EMUs, which, although shortly to be replaced, will test out operation in a tunnel environment; »» South Western Railway – Class 158 and 159 DMUs; »» London South Eastern Railway – Class 466 EMUs and Class 395 Javelin trains, the latter to check performance on a high-speed line; »» Govia Thameslink Railway – Class 377 EMUs and the new Siemens Class 717, which will replace the Class 313 on GN inner suburban services; »» Freightliner – Class 66 diesel locos, 24 in total, where the configuration is one radio wired out to a screen display unit in each cab. The radio will be fitted in the ‘clean air’ compartment known to be one of the dirtiest environments! »» Transport for Wales Cambrian Route – Class 158 DMUs where the train data radio is essential for that route’s ETCS operation.

These have been part of the initial trial that successfully demonstrated reliability well in excess of the contracted minimum MTBF of 50,000 hours, proving that the interference problem has been resolved.

Indeed, once the number of units in service reaches a critical mass, with the improvements (audio circuitry, input voltage circuitry) introduced in V4.0, the reliability of the new unit should be at least on a par with its predecessor.

One important feature is the onward connectivity to the OTMR (the on-train data recorder) and to the train’s PA system to allow direct communication to passengers from the control room should any emergency occur.

The Deployment Programme Siemens will supply a float of radios direct to Network Rail, which, in turn, will supply the radios to the train and freight operating companies (TOCs and FOCs) that will undertake the actual replacement at their maintenance depots. Mainstream deployment is expected to begin in October 2019 at the rate of 100 per week, taking until the end of 2021 to complete. After briefing the fitters, the change out time is around 60 minutes per cab. Programming the radio with the fleet number of the locomotive/multiple unit will be the responsibility of the depot, as of now.

The yellow fleet of on-track machines must not be forgotten as they also carry GSM-R radios and change out is likely to happen at the plant machine depots.

Replaced radios will be returned to Siemens which will then modify them to the V4 specification ready for re-supply to Network Rail. The areas where the worst interference is known to occur will be prioritised, primarily London and the South East, then Manchester.

The TOCs are supportive as the project will overcome the nuisance of the interference and will come at no expense to them. One or two TOCs have other more pressing matters on their mind and cross industry collaboration will be required.

Whilst this article concentrates on the cab mobile equipment, minimising the risk of interference may also require changes to the radio infrastructure.

Smaller cells and altered power levels are likely to be pursued in the most vulnerable areas, but these could well be carried out as part of the GSM-R network enhancement for ETCS provision (see the article on Thameslink telecommunications elsewhere in this issue).

GSM-R interface in a Class 43 cab.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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SIGNALLING & TELECOMS

Other Opportunities The Siemens cab radio has considerable processing capacity, far more than is needed for voice communication or transmission of ETCS data. So why not use this intelligence for other purposes?

Equipping the radio to receive GPS signals or, more succinctly, GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) that includes gyros and accelerometers to measure train movement and distance travelled, is one such addition. One additional new processor card is incorporated into the radio plus additional aerial sockets for GPS and LTE antennae on the cab roof.

This latter will be a combined unit with the GSM-R aerial, thus achieving a like-for-like footprint to facilitate ready fitment.

Although all the V4 radios will be so equipped, funding for the GPS connection is only currently authorised for 200 units, which, at £6,000 per cab, will need a sizeable investment package if all fleets are to be equipped.

The ongoing projects that could benefit from such fitment are: »» Degraded Mode Working System (DMWS) aka COMPASS. The system to get trains moving much more quickly if a signalling failure occurs was described in issue 162 (April 2018) but, for it to be successful, a train’s position must be verified independent of the signalling system.

GNSS information on the train radio can achieve this.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

»» Track Remote Condition Monitoring. Whilst the Network Rail fleet of measurement trains (the New Measurement Train ‘Flying Banana’ and others) do an excellent job of monitoring the state of the infrastructure, track and overhead wires, logistics dictate that every track in a route can only be measured every few weeks.

If a number of service trains can be equipped with basic monitoring equipment, then any emerging problem can be noticed more quickly. It is intended to equip the first 200 trains mentioned above with this facility, using the gyros and accelerometers of the GNSS to record the train position, as well as any unusual ride characteristics, that can then be reported in real time. Looking for track defects and rolling stock suspension problems is the basic objective. »» Phone Books. Train drivers invariably need help if a problem arises during a journey. Problems with the signalling system may need reporting to a Network Rail control centre and problems with the train could need the help of a fleet engineer.

Knowing which number to call can be a challenge but having a phone directory immediately available and kept up to date by software downloads would be a real asset. It is the intention that the V4 radio holds such information.

»» DAS (Driver Advisory System).

These systems are slowly being adopted by both passenger and freight train companies, although the need to accommodate a separate unit in the driver’s cab and the cost of retrofitting is a disincentive. Siemens has demonstrated that the advice to drivers can be accommodated on the cab radio screen and a limited trial took place between London and Norwich back in 2016 with good results and, apparently, judged favourably by the drivers (issue 137, March 2016). DAS, both in standalone and connected (C-DAS) form, can yield impressive fuel savings as well as optimising time keeping, so having it available almost for free must surely be of interest to the TOCs. This cab radio upgrade project has come about through necessity and will proceed in the quickest possible timescale.

The opportunities for using the GSM-R network for much more than a voice communication facility and a bearer for ETCS are there to be seized. Will the industry, both Network Rail and operators, recognise these opportunities and come up with the finance to make them happen?

Watch this space.

Thanks to Steve Leigh, the Network Rail programme manager for cab radio, for explaining the technicalities and logistics of the project.

“Excellence in Engineering”

Lundy Projects Limited 195 Chestergate Stockport SK3 0BQ Tel: 0161 476 2996 Email: mail@lundy-projects.co.uk Website: www.lundy-projects.co.uk

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FEATURE

DAVID SHIRRES

Relearning

T

Electrification

he project to reopen the Airdrie to Bathgate (A2B) line in 2010 included electrification to extend the Glasgow suburban electrification network to Edinburgh via this new line. This electrification work was part of a £60 million contract to electrify 106 single track kilometres (stk) and lay 44 kilometres of track on the new line. This project, which was delivered to time and budget, was Britain’s first significant electrification since the 1994 Heathrow and Leeds North West electrification schemes.

After this long gap, A2B was to be the first of many new electrification schemes as the UK government had accepted the benefits of electrification. Between 2009 and 2012, it announced electrification of Great Western main line, North Western lines, South Wales main line, Midland main line, Electric Spine, Crossrail, Gospel Oak to Barking line and West Midlands suburban lines. In addition, the Scottish government was funding various electrification schemes. These electrification programmes totalled over 2,000stk.

The Great Western electrification programme (GWEP) started in 2010 and was to cost £1 billion. By 2016, its cost had risen to £2.8 billion and its scope was reduced. By 2017, the government had lost faith and cancelled the Midland main line, Swansea and Windermere electrification schemes. This was justified by the claim that electrification was not necessary as new bi-mode trains offer the same passenger benefits despite their diesel mode having about two thirds the power of their electric mode (issue 157, November 2017).

RIA’s cost challenge Although electrification offers significant passenger, cost, reliability and environmental benefits, these benefits will not be realised unless the UK Government is convinced that any future electrification will cost far less than GWEP has.

The Railway Industry Association (RIA) considers that electrification remains the optimum technical solution for intensively used railways - if it can be delivered at an acceptable cost. Its technical

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

director, David Clarke, who considers that the industry can and must deliver electrification at a lower cost, is leading RIA’s Electrification Cost Challenge, which recently produced its report. This highlights lessons from schemes in the UK, notably Scotland, and elsewhere to show that electrification can be delivered at a lower cost than GWEP. David acknowledges that much went wrong with GWEP, but he feels that it is not helpful to assign blame as “the whole industry got it wrong” and the important thing is to recognise the problems and learn lessons. In this respect his report identified the following reasons for GWEP’s cost escalation: »» Unrealistic programme as completion date was set by delivery date for new trains determined by the Department for Transport;

»» Immature estimates with little survey information or cost data from recent schemes; »» Unclear specification as Network Rail didn’t know whether the Department for Transport wanted trains to run at 125 or 140mph; »» The development of high-output electrification construction trains that had not been used before; »» Unnecessarily conservative pile design requiring piles up to 15 metres long which resulted in poor productivity with many repeat visits to individual sites; »» Competition for delivery resources, for example with North Western, Scottish and Midland main line electrification schemes all taking place at the same time; »» Introduction of new UK requirements for multiple pantograph operation at up to 140 mph (later reduced to 125mph) resulted in a new OLE design specification that was more onerous than the European Energy Technical Standard for Interoperability (ENE TSI) which was itself under revision when the project was being designed; »» In addition, the UK introduced more

Installing an electrification gantry on the Edinburgh to Glasgow main line in 2009, 12km of which were electrified as part of the Airdrie to Bathgate project

Clearances and contact wire height /stagger From 2015, railway projects had to comply with European standard ENE TSI. Platform side stagger

Contact Wire Height

For protection against electric shock, this refers to British Standard BS EN 50122, which had a special UK case (Annex G) allowing 25kV equipment to be outside a 2.75metre radius from the platform edge, as shown in blue.

Elsewhere in Europe, it has to be outside the 3.5-metre radius shown in green.

In 2013, a British Standards committee ruled that Annex G should not be used. Hence, unless justified by risk assessment, 25kV equipment has to be outside the normal European 3.5-metre radius.

At many stations where bridges reduce contact wire height, pantographs will encroach on this 3.5-metre radius unless bridges are raised or platforms and track lowered.

OLE equipment rarely encroaches on the 3.5-metre radius. This would require a particular combination of contact wire height, platform side stagger and platform height.

onerous clearance requirements than ENE TSI and it was initially perceived that the ORR expected absolute compliance rather than allowing deviation following robust risk assessment and appropriate safety measures; »» The unproven Series 1 overhead line system was developed during project delivery and was designed for 125mph multiple-pantograph operation, TSI compliance and ease of installation; »» The volume of planning permissions and consents was under estimated; »» The lack of a collaborative contracting strategy with clear objectives, shared incentives and fewer interfaces.

RIA’s electrification cost challenge report explains how lessons from the above have been learnt and implemented.

Furthermore, it shows that the underlying cause of most of the above issues is the British ‘feast and famine’ approach to electrification, which meant that there was initially insufficient expertise to design, plan and deliver electrification projects on the scale of the GWEP. This was not a problem for the much smaller Airdrie to Bathgate electrification as, in 2010, it did not have to compete for resources. In addition, it did not have the problems of unclear specification or standards changes. This perhaps explains why this electrification work was delivered to time and budget.

The Scottish electrification experience provides useful information for RIA’s electrification study, which notes that two schemes completed in 2014, Cumbernauld and Rutherglen, delivered electrification for less than £0.75 million per stk. However, the RIA report notes that £/stk is actually quite a crude measure of performance in view of the varying amount of electrification clearance and power supply work between different schemes.

Although the Edinburgh to Glasgow main line electrification was over budget at £2 million per stk, the later Alloa and Shotts schemes, which both required significant clearance works, each cost £1.5 million per stk. The RIA report concluded: “Having a rolling programme of electrification in Scotland is benefiting from learning and experience being passed from one project to the next.” It included the following examples of good practice from the Stirling, Dunblane and Alloa electrification project:

FEATURE »» The separation of independent activities, even though this extends the programme, into 1) bridgeworks and other route clearance; 2) site investigation; 3) grid supplies, master feed diagram, isolation and switching design; 4) foundations and 5) OLE installation; »» Extensive ground investigation undertaken at 200-metre centres throughout the route; »» Site-specific GRIP 4 OLE design to consider site information, including clearances, to ensure accurate development of GRIP 5 detailed OLE design; »» Foundation options derived from ground investigation CAD model developed from all possible sources with 1.2-metre-cube trial holes dug at each planned location to confirm foundation setting out and design; »» Staged approach to OLE design using finalised isolation and switching design and as-built foundation positions; »» Foundations installed using MOVAX vibrating units mounted on road-rail vehicles; »» A common data model that included steelwork foundation, masts and small parts schedules, material allocation and the wiring CAD model; »» Masts installed using a road-rail vehiclemounted manipulator, rather than a crane, with small parts steelwork prefixed to avoid working at height; »» To maximise wiring train productivity, particular attention was paid to special foundations to ensure that all masts would be in place for each wire-run with

Team Scotland Unlike Westminster, the Scottish Government is committed to a substantial rolling programme of electrification that, it believes, will bring significant economic, social and environmental benefits.

Including A2B, it has funded a rolling programme of seven separate schemes over a ten-year period that will have electrified over 500stk once the Shotts scheme is completed in May.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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FEATURE

cantilevers and registration arms preregistered to +/- 50mm prior to wiring; »» Extended midweek ‘rules of the route’ access negotiated so that night-time engineering access could start after the evening peak service; »» A station electrical clearance risk assessment process was developed to assess acceptable clearances for use in OLE design.

Foundations and arrestors Amongst the various cost-saving measures included in RIA’s report, two particularly noteworthy initiatives are Network Rail’s new standard for foundation design and the use of surge arrestors to reduce clearance costs.

A major factor in GWEP’s cost escalation were obviously over-engineered foundations, up to 15 metres deep, which were the result of an analytical riskaverse design approach. The RIA report considered this to be a major factor in the programme’s poor productivity and resultant cost escalation.

Previously foundations had been designed using empirical methods derived from field tests carried out by the UIC’s Office for Research and Experiments (ORE) in the 1950s. To validate a return to this previous approach, Network Rail engaged the University of Southampton to carry out full-scale field tests to extend the ORE design methodology to 610mmdiameter circular hollow section piles over in-service loading conditions that are at the upper end of current operational experience.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

The results of this research are now incorporated in Network Rail standard NR/L2/CIV/074 ‘Design and installation of overhead line foundations’. RIA’s report notes that it is encouraging that the Bedford to Corby electrification project is now installing 95 per cent of its piles using ORE design methods to achieve productivity of six piles in the available working time of 4 hours 30 minutes.

As described in issue 158 (December 2017), surge arrestors have been successfully introduced on Danish Railways to reduce bridge electrification clearances. These work by limiting any over-voltages, for example from lightning strikes. When combined with contact

wire covers and an electrical insulating coating (onto an earthing plate) electrical clearances required in both wet and dry conditions are significantly reduced.

The University of Southampton was also involved in this initiative as it carried out 193kV tests under controlled conditions under Network Rail’s supervision to determine that, with this mitigation, minimum electrical clearance requirements could be reduced from 270mm to 150mm.

Just outside Cardiff Central Station, there is a low and highly skewed bridge over the railway which itself crosses a substantial culvert. To obtain the required electrical clearance, the reconstruction of this bridge had been costed at £40-£50 million and the estimate of an alternative option of track lowering and a culvert diversion was £10-15 million. Both these options would have been highly disruptive.

Instead, for a cost below £1 million, Andromeda Engineering worked with Network Rail, Siemens (surge arrestors) and GLS Coatings (insulated coating on the underside of the bridge) to provide a solution that avoided the need for these expensive and disruptive options.

Affordable electrification GWEP has been the subject of reports by both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee that draw conclusions about programme management issues. Neither of these reports acknowledges the difficulty of ramping-up supply-chain capability for full route electrification after there having been no such scheme for twenty years.

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A former Network Rail Route Programme Director for LNE & EM, Michael has over 25 years of experience in the rail industry.

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In 2018 Andromeda, along with Amaro, a signalling, power and communications company, were acquired by Affinity Rail Group, providing a multi-disciplined signalling and E&P business solution.

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58

FEATURE

In contrast, RIA’s electrification cost challenge report focuses on practical and technical lessons from GWEP and other projects. It shows how solutions have been implemented and gives examples of actual electrification costs throughout the UK and in mainland Europe. As a result, the report concludes that, in comparison with GWEP’s £2.8 million per stk, “all-in” electrification (excluding route enhancement and major grid connections) should normally cost between £1 and £1.5 million per stk.

The report recommends that there should be a rolling electrification programme that would maintain a core design and delivery capability and support a culture of continuous improvement. It notes that the German rolling programme of electrification, which retains learning and skills, delivers electrification at significantly lower cost than the best that is currently achieved in the UK.

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

Although the RIA report demonstrates that electrification can be delivered at an affordable cost, the case for electrification requires that its benefits must also be accepted. Amongst the many documents that show electrification’s benefits are Network Rail’s 2009 electrification route utilisation strategy and the Department for Transport’s 2009 Rail Electrification paper.

The DfT paper notes that electric trains are 35 per cent cheaper to operate than diesels. It also offers the small, but significant, benefit of more powerful electric trains giving a four-minute journey time saving between Cardiff and Swansea, where they must accelerate from station stop to line speed on four occasions. Yet, when this electrification scheme was cancelled, the government view was that electrification offered no time savings because this was not a highspeed route.

It is to be hoped that the UK Government accepts the strategic case for a rolling electrification programme in the same way that it has allocated £450 million to accelerate digital signalling technology deployment as a strategic policy not subject to a business case. If not, the danger is that hard won lessons will be forgotten as the historic cycle of electrification feast and famine repeats itself.

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Severn Valley Railway Job Opportunities INFRASTRUCTURE / PWAY TEAM LEADER

EXPERIENCED BOILERSMITHS

The Team Leader will manage, lead and motivate the team of Permanent Way Engineers (paid employees and volunteers) to enable the achievement of goals and meeting deadlines whilst communicating safe practices.

Experienced Boilersmiths required at our Bridgnorth Engineering Services boilershop, for the maintenance, repair, overhaul and reassembly of steam locomotive boilers for the SVR

Specific responsibilities will be supporting our current team and developing a five-year plan for track improvements, taking responsibility for a management plan for lineside vegetation and the transition of reported track defects into a job bank for timely attention and completion, making sure that all team members perform to the SVR safety standards.

There will be occasions when the Team Leader will deputise / provide cover for the Infrastructure Manager when

he is on annual leave or where volume or timing of meetings / project management necessitates delegation. The team have a large workload, managing large civils projects through to responding to water leaks and this position will help share that burden of work.

We would expect the successful candidate to have a thorough technical knowledge of bullhead and flat bottom rail systems including switch and crossings and hold (or be competent to achieve) SVR Personal Track Safety Certification).

It is a full time, 40 hours, paid post working 5 days out of 7 including occasional weekend work and a reasonable share of weekend, bank holiday, and other out of hours availability on call when the Railway is operating.

fleet as well as contract work.

Apprentice trained or qualified by experience of machine tooling, principally drilling, reaming and tapping, welding and fitting.

APPRENTICESHIP CAREER OPPORTUNITIES We will be recruiting via Dudley College for our Heritage Skills Training Academy Apprenticeship Programme starting in August 2019.

TO APPLY To find out more or to send written applications with full detail of previous experience and qualifications to: recruitment@svrlive.com Please visit our website for full job descriptions.

www.svr.co.uk

Rail Engineer | Issue 172 | March 2019

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