Rail Engineer - Issue 145 - November 2016

Engineer

by rail engineers for rail engineers

NOVEMBER 2016 - ISSUE 145

And now

Hydrogen Power!

Alstom’s new fuel cell powered train

SEAMLESS INTERCHANGEABILITY

BUILDING BLOCKS

HUDDERSFIELD'S ROLLING RIG

Combining the old concept of slip coaches with advanced train control to run nonstop yet still serve intermediate stations.

How a passion for Lego® helped designers with a new drainage scheme on the Settle-Carlisle line.

Installing a new rolling rail rig for bogie testing involved digging Yorkshire’s most expensive hole.

www.railengineer.uk

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Road Crossings

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Road Rail Access

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Pedestrian Crossings

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Anti-Trespass

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Contents Collaborating on the Red Arrow Bombardier and Hitachi (AnsaldoBreda) developed the Frecciarossa 1000.

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Seamless Interchangeability

News 6 Severn Tunnel, HS2 overseas suppliers, Railtex 2017.

And now, Hydrogen Power!

Malcolm Dobell reviews Alstom’s new iLint hydrogen fuel cell train.

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High Speed Rail Technologies Looking back to the HST and forward to HS2.

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From TESCO to SNC-Lavalin Not the supermarket, but another acronym. David Shirres explains.

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Cutting-edge Equipment for Tomorrow’s Depots Mechan’s latest advances in depot technology.

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Huddersfield’s Rolling Rig 44 Yorkshire’s most expensive hole now contains high-tech test equipment.

24 RVE Goes from Strength to Strength

Rail Vehicles and Enhancements (RVE 2016) recently held in Derby..

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Broken Bridge at Barrow When the parapet wall of a road bridge fell onto the tracks.

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Planning Makes Perfect Chris Parker investigates Costain’s special approach to planning.

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Mixing Concrete On-track Van Elle’s new volumetric mixer delivers concrete where it is needed.

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East Coast Gears Up for ERTMS Clive Kessell tries out the new driving simulator at King’s Cross.

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125mph S&C Handback 66 Grahame Taylor considers how progressive assurance works in practice.

Building Blocks

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Looking into the FuTRO That’s the Future Traffic Regulation and Optimisation control board.

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Driver Support System Paul Darlington checks out RDS’ new in-cab guidance for drivers.

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Shear Brilliance Vegetation control is a doddle with NCD’s new TMK tree shear.

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Expertise Saves Time and Money Sorting out snails (and bats) with Southern Ecological Surveys (SES).

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See more at www.railengineer.uk

We’re looking to highlight the latest projects and innovations in

Stations

Surveying/BIM

in the January issue of Rail Engineer.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016 Editor

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GRAHAME TAYLOR

Grahame Taylor grahame.taylor@railengineer.uk

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Production and design

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One word keeps cropping up in this month’s issue. The future. OK then, two words. Several of our articles look at the future of rail travel, the future advances in support technology and even the way in which journeys will be undertaken. There’s no suggestion - yet - that steel rails and steel wheels will be abolished. That’s something a little too far ahead, but who knows?

The Future Traffic Regulation and Optimisation (FuTRO) project looks, as its name suggests, at developments in the digital railway and at the way the railway will behave as a system in the future. Paul Darlington has been briefed on many of the varied strands in this investigation, some of which come up with intriguing scenarios. For example, escalator reliability will need to match train reliability in a saturated network.

The UK’s High Speed Train (HST) has been responsible for transforming the image of inter-city rail travel since it entered service on 4 October 1976. Malcolm Dobell attended a seminar at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers that celebrated the HST’s success and also looked at what lies ahead for high speed rail travel.

There are interesting differences between the ways that networks throughout the world are developing.

Driver simulators have been around for some time.

Clive Kessell mentions that they first appeared in the mid 1960s. But now they’re being developed to cater for ERTMS where signalling moves into the train cab. Along with a conventional view of the line ahead, there are many more details for the driver to look at. Clive takes us through what is involved.

Paul Darlington unravels the mysteries of a fundamentally new approach to train positioning. Using video pixel analysis, the system is independent of any track or lineside infrastructure, other than existing fixed reference points. It will work in tunnels and the reference points need not be at precise, regular positions. Paul tells us what it’s being used for now – but it’s the future that’s really fascinating.

Slip coaches. Remember them? For some of you that could be possible, as their last use was in 1960. But now there’s a resurgence of interest in a modern version of the concept. Rebeka Sellick gives us a hint of some (very) forward thinking being explored by the RSSB. Non-electrified lines may no longer be the domain of diesel trains. As we’ve seen, a battery train can give a very good account of itself. In Germany, there’s another alternative - a train powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. No longer an aspiration, there’s a good chance that fuel cell powered trains will be in service by 2019. Getting into the

detail of how it all works, Malcom gives an account of his briefing at InnoTrans.

Hot on the heels of that monster InnoTrans exhibition, Derby hosted the UK’s more compact RVE at the Riverside Centre. Malcolm reviews the highlights of the many high tech products on show.

Pride Park in Derby has been built on the site of the former BR loco works and is where innovation continues apace in the railway industry. David Shirres’ recent visit revealed how all manner of projects in the UK and around the world are keeping SNC-Lavalin busy.

A small depression in a footway on a brick arch overbridge is often bad news. At Barrow-upon-Soar, such a depression turned into a 200 tonne pile of bricks and debris on the running lines - which was really bad news.

Chris Parker looks at the work required to stabilise the structure and to eventually reinstate the footway and carriageway Lego has established itself as an engineering educational tool - in much the same way as Meccano.

Go to the ICE library in London and you’ll see a recordbreaking suspension bridge in Lego. Go to Dent on the Settle and Carlisle line and you’ll see a drainage spillway built in mega-sized interlocking Legato (no relation!).

Stuart Marsh has been piecing it all together.

We covered high line speed possession handbacks a few months ago. There were soft mutterings at the time that these were ‘commonplace’ back in the 1980s, but it has to be admitted that never did anyone try handing back S&C at 125mph. Even in those swashbuckling days, that was seen as a bit too chancy. But now, by relying on a technique christened ‘progressive assurance’, 125mph S&C handbacks have arrived.

There’s a HAROLD in a big hole in Huddersfield. It took some serious civil engineering to get it there and, once in action, it will undertake some serious mechanical engineering. David Shirres explains the acronym, and the role of HAROLD in the drive to develop new products to make the rail supply chain more competitive.

When Bombardier and AnsaldoBreda (now Hitachi Rail Italy) collaborated to build a new train for the services operating between Turin-Milan-Florence-Rome-Naples, there were engineers from all over Europe working together in one office. All went to plan… and then the final tender documents arrived. Nigel has the tale of what happened next.

A last mention of the future: Most Interesting awards 1 December at Derby and Railtex next May in Birmingham.

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NEWS

Rail Engineer • November 2016

Severn Tunnel reopens After being closed for six weeks, the Severn Tunnel reopened as planned on 22 October.

Over eight miles of conductor beams were installed in the roof of the 130-year-old tunnel bores, as well as in the adjacent Patchway tunnel. Principal contractors Babcock and ABC Electrification worked with a number of sub-contractors, including AMCO, Keltbray, Furrer+Frey and Arup, to deliver this work which forms part of the electrification of the Great Western main line to Cardiff and Swansea.

While the tunnel was closed, trains were diverted between Swindon and Newport, adding around 35 minutes to the journey.

Interestingly, three-quarters of the workforce were Welsh, recruited from the steel and mining industries as well as the armed forces. Of 597 staff from Network Rail and its contractors,

including those already mentioned plus TXM, High Motive, ISS Labour, and ABC Piling, a total of 452 employees were from Wales.

ABC head of organisational development Sarah Bowles commented: “This figure demonstrates the highly skilled, experienced and knowledgeable

people available to work in the rail sector in Wales.

“The project team has also completed nearly 3,000 training days this year - this training includes rail competencies, career development, professional and technical training, including specialist overhead line equipment (OLE) qualifications.”

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Railtex 2017 gathers momentum

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With just over six months to go before Railtex 2017 opens its doors at the NEC in Birmingham, show organiser Mack Brooks Exhibitions reports continuing strong demand for stand space.

More than 240 companies have already selected their stands and the amount of floor space allocated is running at around 16 per cent ahead of the figure recorded at this stage before the last Railtex in 2015. This promises to be another big show, with the number of exhibitors poised to grow substantially.

Some of the industry’s best known names already feature in the growing list of exhibitors, including Alstom Transport, Hitachi Rail Europe, Siemens and Talgo, along with a wide range of UK and foreign companies covering all aspects of the railway supply market. And as well as conventional stands, the show will again include The Track display area, sponsored by British Steel, and The Yard, hosting larger exhibits such as RRVs. Events taking place within the exhibition hall have become an established and popular feature of Railtex and next year’s show will be no exception. Keynote speeches discussing wider industry issues, technical seminars, project updates and discussion forums will all form part of a busy programme of activities open to all, free of charge.

Exhibition manager Kirsten Whitehouse says: “The enthusiastic response we have seen from the industry for Railtex 2017 points to another great show at the NEC. This is an exciting

time for rail in the UK, with plenty of business opportunities for companies offering the right products.

“Railtex provides a unique showcase for those firms, as well as for exhibitors keen to export. We also plan again to offer a free Business Matching Service to ensure a good quality and quantity of meetings and networking opportunities for all attendees.”

The dates for Railtex 2017 are 9 to 11 May. As usual, entry will be free if you register in advance to attend. Registration via the show website will open early next year.

Foreign HS2 suppliers must leave legacy Foreign rolling stock manufacturers will need to demonstrate how they will deliver a legacy for British industry if they want to supply new high-speed trains for HS2, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has said.

Speaking at a recent conference in London’s Docklands, he was responding to a question from Alstom’s managing director in the UK, Henrik Anderberg, about whether HS2 would impose strict domestic content requirements - as is the case in the US where Alstom recently won a contract to build a new fleet of high-speed trains for the Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Boston and Washington D.C. A lack of experience in delivering high-speed rail systems will make the participation of foreign companies essential, said Grayling, but suppliers will need to show how they will create a lasting benefit to the UK’s rail industry through the creation of new

jobs and apprenticeships.

Earlier, the Transport Secretary had stated: “You can take it from me today, HS2 is going ahead.

“We need HS2 now more than ever. We need it for the capacity it will bring on the routes between London, the West Midlands, Crewe, Leeds and Manchester, as well as the space it’ll create elsewhere on our transport network. We need it for the boost it will give to our regional and national economies. And we need it for the jobs it will create, and for the way it will link our country together.

“We’re not backing away from HS2. The case is as strong as ever. We need this railway.”

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

And now

ROLLING STOCK/DEPOTS

Hydrogen Power!

Alstom’s new fuel cell powered train MALCOLM DOBELL

I

first saw a hydrogen fuel cell locomotive four years ago, at the Stapleford Miniature Railway near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. A team from Birmingham University had entered a fuel cell powered one-fifth scale locomotive in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Railway challenge.

If someone had told me then that a full-sized fuel cell train would be launched just four years later, and that I would be writing about it, you could have “knocked me down with a feather” (on both counts).

It was therefore quite a surprise to be invited

by Alstom to visit InnoTrans in September 2016 to witness a product launch that was widely speculated to be a fuel cell powered passenger train. This visit also included a tour of Alstom’s Salzgitter plant where these trains are being manufactured.

iLint launch The world is committing itself to targets to reduce CO2 emissions, some of which are tough and with no obvious means of delivery.

It is frequently held that railways are inherently environmentally friendly due to the extensive use of electric trains.

However, as the UK has learned, electrification can be very expensive and, increasingly,

there are views that electrification might not be viable for any lines other than those attracting significant volumes of traffic. The challenge of significantly reduced or zero-carbon trains on non-electrified lines is therefore likely to remain.

In general, these un-electrified lines are operated by diesel multiple units. Just four countries, Germany, UK, Italy and France (in descending order), operate two-thirds of Europe’s DMU cars, and it is

suggested that the annual market value of Europe’s DMU market is some €650 million.

The potential market is significant and Nick Crossfield, Alstom’s managing director for the UK and Ireland, explained that there is a

Rail Engineer • November 2016

System context As Alstom’s launch was in Germany with a train for the German market, the German context is as good a place to start as any.

Clearly, any mass exploitation of hydrogen technology will require some sort of infrastructure to provide the fuel to enable relatively unrestricted operation of vehicles.

This is usually more than any one organisation can manage. It needs political will to provide the environment and the infrastructure.

Germany has committed to reducing its CO2 emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 (compared to 1990) and to using 80 per cent renewable energy in its power supply mix by 2050. Given that about 50 per cent of German railways are not electrified, the need to reduce diesel operation is crucial if German railways are to play their part in delivering the target reduction in emissions. As hydrogen is a source that allows

100 per cent CO2-free traffic, Alstom signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) in 2014 with four German States (Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg), and another LOI with one additional region (Calw) in 2015, for the development of a fuel cell train.

But where will the hydrogen come from and how will it be distributed? As part of its commitment, Germany has started to invest in a hydrogen generation plant and hydrogen distribution networks. Whilst these facilities may not yet be developed to permit extensive use, a train refuelling depot located next to a compressed hydrogen pipeline, servicing a captive fleet, is the ideal starting point for trials of hydrogen technology.

Manufacture of compressed hydrogen requires a great deal of energy, which could make hydrogen uneconomic, but Germany has invested heavily in wind turbine technology.

As part of its energy mix, Germany is using the energy generated by the wind turbines to make hydrogen when electricity demand is low. This energy might otherwise have gone to waste, so can be regarded as almost free.

As this shows, the infrastructure is gradually becoming available and, because German regional transport authorities are pushing for

the implementation of emission-free transport technologies, the scene is set for a truly zeroemissions train.

Andreas Knitter, Alstom’s senior vice-president for Europe, confirmed that Germany, with its Hydrogen Association and some support for development costs, was a good place to explore the benefits in practice.

Alstom Coradia iLint Henri Poupart-Lafarge, Astom’s chairman and chief executive officer unveiled its zero emission train at InnoTrans on 20 September 2016. This is the Coradia iLint, a hydrogen fuel cell version of the Coradia Lint regional diesel mechanical unit which is available in a variety of configurations from single cars though to three car units.

On the Lint, each car generally has an underfloor diesel engine driving through a cardan shaft onto the adjacent bogie. The fuel tank is provided at the other end of the vehicle and, in between, there is a low floor section for reasonably level access at typical regional stations.

The iLint retains the same mechanical configuration to allow the homologation work to be restricted solely to the changes necessary to gain acceptance of the revised drive train.

The prototype trains will be two-car sets, approximately 54 metres long. On each of the two cars, the propulsion system will comprise: »» Compressed hydrogen tanks on the midsection roof of each car; »» Hydrogen fuel cell on the trailing end roof of each car; »» A body-mounted AC traction motor and converter; »» A static auxiliary converter to provide power for the train’s systems and a lithium-ion battery pack to store energy recovered during braking, located in the trailing end underfloor space.

Alstom has partnered with experts in fuel cell and battery technology. The fuel cell (from Hydrogenics) takes hydrogen from the highpressure fuel tanks (Xperion) and combines it with oxygen from the air to produce electricity with steam and water as a by-product. The

ROLLING STOCK/DEPOTS

very compelling argument for an electric train that doesn’t require overhead catenary. He added that Alstom has extensive experience with tram vehicles that do not require catenary, and he could foresee a time when catenary electrification would be confined solely to high density or, perhaps, heavy haul routes.

A fuel cell system adds another option to operators to provide high quality transport without the cost or visual intrusion of catenary systems.

This, and the political context in Germany (below), led to the development of the Coradia iLint.

Up to now, hydrogen fuel cell proposals have suffered from the lack of ready sources of hydrogen and concerns about performance and range. Is this about to change? We will get to the iLint launch, but, as with most railway issues, the train in isolation doesn’t provide the answer. A carbon-free train requires a system solution, so we’ll start with the infrastructure.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

fuel cell supplies the auxiliary converter, the lithium ion battery pack (Akasol) and the traction converter.

The efficiency of the system relies on the storage of energy in the lithium-ion batteries.

Fuel cells tend to work at their best if they are run continuously at reasonably constant performance. The battery stores energy from the fuel cell when not needed for traction and from regenerative braking when the train’s motors turn kinetic energy into electrical energy.

In short, the batteries store the energy not immediately required, in order to supply it later, as needed.

During acceleration, the power of the fuel cell will be used mainly to supply traction power demanded by the traction inverter and to supply the on-board systems (via the auxiliary converter), supplemented by power from the battery. The level of fuel cell power depends on the rate and duration of acceleration - short acceleration phases with limited power demand will mainly be supplied by the battery. Only during longer phases of high power demand will the fuel cell operate at full power.

During phases of lower acceleration, constant speed running or coasting, part of the fuel cell power will be used to recharge the battery and to supply the on-board systems. When the battery is fully charged, the fuel cell output will be reduced so that it only supplies the auxiliary converter/on-board systems. This will reduce hydrogen consumption.

During braking, the fuel cells are almost completely powered down. The traction inverter supplies the DC-link with electrical power generated by the motor from the kinetic energy of the vehicle. This power is used to supply the on-board systems and surplus power is used to recharge the battery, a feature that also saves hydrogen.

In service The specification included a requirement for minimum change from the established Coradia Lint product and that the standard product’s top speed of 140km/h and range (on a single tank of fuel) of at least 600km be retained.

To successfully introduce a new energy source into routine service, a number of changes will be necessary, not least to depot infrastructure and maintenance arrangements. To make the deployment of the fuel cell system as easy as possible for operators, Alstom will be offering a complete package consisting of the train itself, its maintenance and the whole hydrogen infrastructure. This will allow the operator to focus on its core competence while Alstom and its partners take care of all rolling stock and hydrogen-related matters.

During the launch, Alstom officials were confident that, following homologation in 2017, and pre-service trials in 2018, the trains would be in passenger service by 2019. Moreover, they were also confident of receiving a fleet order by the end of 2016.

Testing and homologation will have to demonstrate that all the changes, both to infrastructure and to the trains themselves, meet the requirements that have been set and are safe.

Alstom’s engineers will no doubt be considering the risks arising from the introduction of hydrogen (such as sparks during refuelling, or implications for crashworthiness) and lithium ion batteries (possible runaway failures - the launch coincided with the battery problems reported on a wellknow brand of mobile phones).

Returning to the conversation with Messrs Knitter and Crossfield, and the cost of hydrogen fuel, readers may be surprised to learn that it is competitive with diesel - at least in Germany.

Andreas Knitter added that Germany has an advanced strategy for rolling out the distribution network necessary for its successful introduction.

As for the opportunities for hydrogen in the UK, this was seen as more challenging than in Germany, partly, because the UK is less well advanced in developing hydrogen infrastructure, and partly because the train would have to be a new design, given the need to design for the UK loading gauge. That said, Nick Crossfield confirmed that Alstom is looking for a suitable UK opportunity.

Alstom Salzgitter Alstom’s largest rail vehicle plant is in Salzgitter, some 68km south east of Hanover. It occupies a site of area 1.2 million square metres, of which 200,000 are occupied by workshops.

Approximately 2,500 people work there.

The Salzgitter plant carries out train and bogie manufacture and wagon repair. Alstom’s activity in this part of Germany started in nearby Breslau when Gotfried Linke began manufacturing rail wagons in 1839. The Linke organisation eventually became Linke Hofmann Busch, before partial takeover by GEC Alsthom in the mid-1990s. It was finally wholly absorbed into Alstom Transport Deutschland in 2009.

Production at Salzgitter restarted in 1949 after a period making what were described as “other things”! In 2015, some 150 trains of various lengths were delivered, over 1,000 bogies manufactured and over 3,500 wagons overhauled.

Burkhard Reuter, operations director of the plant, and Christian Wiegand, global planning director for Germany/Austria, showed Rail Engineer around the facility.

The plant currently specialises in regional trains particularly the Coradia range - Continental, Nordic and Lint. It is also manufacturing the DT5 U-Bahn cars for Hamburger Hochbahn.

Outline descriptions of the products in approximate order of vehicle size are: »» Hamburg DT5 - This is an electric third-rail three-car set. The centre vehicle has two bogies and the end vehicles are suspended off the centre vehicle and mounted on one bogie each. They are constructed from stainless steel, partly unpainted and have open wide gangways through the set. Over 80 of these have been produced in a consortium with Bombardier. »» Coradia Lint - A diesel-mechanical rail car design available as a single car, articulated twocar, bogie two-car or bogie three-car sets. They

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Underframes are necessarily formed of heavier sections than body sides and roofs and the structure on the front end of the end vehicles is even more massive so as to comply with the crashworthiness requirements specified in EN15227.

Once the individual elements have been completed, they are all welded together in a jig and then sent to what was described as the straightening shop which was not visited as it was described as “rather noisy”. This was probably an understatement! In this shop, the vehicles are adjusted (cue heat and hammers) to correct are steel construction, with an entrance height and the top speed is 180km/h. It is currently inevitable distortion during welding. Following this of approximately 630mm or 810mm above rail. produced in four and six car articulated sets and process, the cars shells are sandblasted, inspected Each car’s power pack is rated at 335 kW or for 15kV 16.2/ 3rd Hz electrical supply. Over 300 and then painted.

390kW and they have a top speed of 140km/h. trains have been built with another 70 trains on The next stage is fit out, using kilometres Over 900 trains have been built or are on order. order/in production. of cable, great lengths of pneumatic pipes, The Coradia iLint is based on this series.

The scale of manufacturing plant necessary windows, insulation, doors, traction equipment, »» Coradia Continental - An electric rail car to build modern steel rail vehicles is impressive. compressors, brake equipment, toilets, cladding, design available as three, four, five or six-car It all starts with steel sheet (bodies) and plate pantographs, gangways, floors, seats and articulated sets. They are steel construction, (underframes), cut and shaped precisely and luminaires, before the cars are ‘married’ to their with an entrance height of approximately then welded in extensive jigs. Roof sheets are bogies. Following that is a static test, and then a 600mm or 800mm and suitable for 25kV, welded flat and then bent and welded to the dynamic test on the plant’s own electrified test 50Hz or 15kV 16.2/ 3rd Hz electrical supply. curved roof frames. Jigs are arranged such that track. The final stage is cleaning and preparation, Top speed is160km/h. Over 200 trains are they can be rotated where necessary to allow and then customer inspection. in service with nearly another 200 trains on access for welding to be carried out in the most At the end of the process, a shiny new train, off order or in production. advantageous way, and some of the welding is to carry passengers somewhere in Europe. »» Coradia Nordic - Based on the Coradia carried out in automated plant.

Continental but with a wider carbody to take Seeing them side-by-side, it was noticeable that Thanks to Will Roberts, communications advantage of the Scandinavian gauge and the only significant structural difference between director of Alstom UK, for organising the visit additional winterisation features for extreme the Continental and the Nordic versions of the to InnoTrans and the factory and to the many cold weather. They are steel construction, Coradia is the flat sides of the former and the Alstom employees who gave their time to entrance heights are 610mm or 760mm curved sides of the latter. support this article.

CORADIA iLINT THE CLEAN TRAIN OF TOMORROW

Born of a global movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions coupled with the desire to offer silent, green alternatives to diesel on non-electrified lines, iLint is the world’s first low-floor, fuel cell train.

THE PRINCIPLE Electricity for the traction and on-board equipment is generated by a fuel cell, stored in a battery and recovered during braking. All this is overseen by energy management algorithms which optimise the system. This virtuous circle makes Coradia iLint an unprecedented innovation.

100% emission-free, it is the definitive green product.

A FUEL CELL

THE HYDROGEN,

generates electrical energy via chemical reaction, combining a fuel (hydrogen) with a combustion agent (the oxygen in the air). The only exhaust? Water and steam.

The fuel cell powers the traction motor during acceleration and, at the same time, the batteries and on-board equipment..

© Alstom, 2016 –Design and production:

02

stored as gas in holding tanks on the roof, is the fuel used by the fuel cell. It will be supplied by a partner.

H2

LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES

THE AUXILIARY CONVERTER

THE TRACTION INVERTER/ CONVERTER

THE TRACTION MOTOR

store part of the extra energy produced by the fuel cell as well as kinetic energy recovered during braking. The batteries supply the train under normal operation and can be used to boost the acceleration of the train when necessary.

converts electrical energy received from the fuel cell or the battery to adapt it to the various on-board equipment (air conditioning, doors, passenger information displays, lighting…)

ensures that the appropriate energy is transmitted between the fuel cell, the battery and the traction motor. It also collects energy generated by the movement of the train during braking, redistributing it to the auxiliary converter and the batteries.

drives the wheels for acceleration and braking.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

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MALCOLM DOBELL

Prototype power car 41001 (left) with first production power car 43002.

T

he Institution of Mechanical Engineers frequently organises topical seminars with excellent speakers. This one was no exception with speakers such as Jim Steer and Andrew McNaughton. The timing of the event was to celebrate the success of the UK’s High Speed Train (HST), which has been responsible for transforming the image of inter-city rail travel since it entered service on 4 October 1976. It was the 08:05 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads, although one member of the audience was on what he was told was the first train which departed from Weston Super Mare. Perhaps there was a first “up” and a first “down” train?

As Andrew Mellors, deputy managing director and engineering director of GWR said, as he introduced the event, the purpose was not to rake over the history of the HST, more to nod to its history whilst looking forward at the technologies that are required for today’s and tomorrow’s high speed lines.

Yesterday

Unveiled at Bristol in its original InterCity 125 livery on 2 May 2016 is power car 43002 (initially from train 253001). It was also named Sir Kenneth Grange after its designer.

The first presentation was by another Andrew - Andrew McLean, the head curator at the National Rail Museum in York. His title of “The Most Successful Train in the World?” referred to the impact of the HST. His assertion was that the UK has always been in the forefront of high-speed railways ever since Stephenson’s Rocket travelled at the unheard of speed of 30mph, and that the times when the UK appeared to be in the speed wilderness were mere blips of history.

PHOTO: GEOF SHEPPARD

Andrew treated the audience to a gallop through railway development in the nineteenth century before going on to the era between the two World Wars, immediately following the formation of the “big four” railway companies.

He focussed particularly on the London and North Eastern Railway and its chief mechanical engineer (later Sir) Nigel Gresley, who pushed the envelope to and beyond 100mph.

Gresley was a man who travelled widely and had befriended Ettore Bugatti, from whom he learned the importance of streamlining. He applied these ideas to the A4 pacific locomotives, but also to the rest of the train with articulated coaches where the gaps between coaches with ‘India-rubber fairings’, and a streamlined observation car minimised turbulence following the train.

Andrew also emphasised the importance of LNER’s publicity and service that accompanied the streamlined trains, with the train as the very visible and marketable ‘face’ for the offering.

The second World War and nationalisation almost certainly extended the life of steam in the UK by about 20 years, and the story moves to the 1960s where there was both an urgent need to do something about the competitiveness of long distance rail and to solve some fundamental problems of keeping trains on the track at higher speed. Andrew mentioned three people who were transformational in UK railways and had influence worldwide.

Dr Alan Wickens led the research work to understand why high speed trains were prone to derail and to provide solutions, leading directly to the work on the Advanced Passenger Train.

PHOTO: GEOF SHEPPARD

High Speed Rail Technologies

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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The keynote address was given by Karen Boswell OBE, managing director of Hitachi Rail Europe. Her message was that high speed has been good for Britain. Moving on from the success of the HST, she talked about the contribution of the class 395 trains to the economy of Kent, how these trains have halved the journey time to Ashford and that the domestic high speed service carries half the passengers that use the High Speed 1 route.

The success of this fleet has established Hitachi’s reputation in the UK and has led to the orders for highspeed trains for East Coast, Great Western Railway and Trans Pennine Express as well as inter-regional trains for the Edinburgh-Glasgow route.

Karen’s message emphasised connectivity, creativity, collaboration, and engagement with people at all levels, whether customers or employees. Moreover, she highlighted that high-speed lines are successful the world over. Don’t let critics talk HS2 down, she said.

Practical lessons of high speed Jim Steer, who set up Steer Davies and Gleave in 1978 and has been a champion of high speed rail for over three decades, talked about what can be learned from 125mph operation in the UK, from High Speed 1 and from the experience of France.

Jim highlighted that, as 125mph operation spread through the UK, journey times fell, stimulating more journeys and land development. Many of these improvements took place at roughly the same time as other developments including motorways, housing and retail. As such, it was not easy to attribute which activity contributed most to the economy. Complicating the picture is the green belt land around most of the UK’s major cities, which means that development might not necessarily be allowed to happen. He cited examples of Doncaster and Newport, which received high speed trains but did not receive significant economic development.

Kenneth Grange's jottings in the design of the HST.

Southeastern Class 395 'Javelin' crosses the Medway viaduct.

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Today and tomorrow

PHOTO: NATIONAL RAILWAY MUSEUM

Terry Miller, then chief mechanical engineer of British Railways, led the development of the HST and the strong, light and spacious Mark 3 carriage; and Kenneth Grange designed the iconic and timeless “face” of the HST. Andrew argued that these three men had a transformational impact on the UK’s long distance passenger services. Together with the Deltics on the East Coast, and the ‘sparks effect’ on the West Coast main lines, BR had products that could be marketed well, and developed the ‘Inter-City’ brand, with the HST and Mark 3 coach featuring strongly in advertising. The HST still holds the world speed record for a diesel train of 148mph, recorded in 1987.

Andrew concluded that the HST has had a transformational impact on the UK economy (for example, people now commute to London from York) and is going to continue in front line inter-city service in Scotland until the end of the 2020s, still retaining the timeless good looks designed by Kenneth Grange all those years ago.

PHOTO: PAUL J MARTIN/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Rail Engineer • November 2016 France

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PHOTO: PAUL J MARTIN/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Hitachi Class 395.

SNCF TGV Duplex, Strasbourg, France.

For his section on HS1, and with reference to the fears of many of HS2’s neighbours, Jim recalled that the Eurostar train is comparatively noisy and that it was the subject of many complaints when running over the old boat train route on the Southern electric network. These complaints ceased when HS1 opened. His point is that a well-designed high-speed railway is generally not intrusive on neighbours’ lives. The key points included: »» HS1 has stimulated development around Kings Cross/ St Pancras whilst Ebbsfleet has yet to catch up; »» HS1 was justified on forecast Eurostar numbers that have never been forthcoming although the introduction of the domestic high-speed service has delivered, overall, passenger numbers in line with forecasts; »» Reliability of the HS1 infrastructure is very high; »» Infrastructure needs to be flexible and this flexibility has value for uses not envisaged when the line was built, such as the HS1 domestic service.

With its main cities tending to be separated by significant distances, France was an ideal location to grow high-speed rail. For example, the first high-speed line, from Paris to Lyon, currently runs trains in just two hours. By comparison, a car journey takes four hours and, unless you are close to either airport, flying is slower than the train.

The success of the high-speed lines is well known; France is currently constructing four more lines, and the risks and rewards have become well enough understood to make a Public Private Partnership viable. Jim also highlighted that countries which have commenced building high speed lines have always built more of them.

He added though, that a number of lessons have been learned. France expanded TGV services but has recognised that secondary routes have been neglected.

Furthermore. the president of SNCF has declared that railways are guilty of underestimating long term growth, that more cross-Paris travel routes should have been provided and that strategic thinking should be applied to linking every major town and city, and not just be Pariscentric.

In closing, Jim Steer made several points. Mixed traffic railways are not efficient users of capacity, and taking long-distance fast journeys off existing lines provides the opportunity to improve the offering on those existing lines.

The HS2 business case assumes best-case growth of about 2.8 per cent, although current actual growth is significantly greater than the HS2 best case.

And the key to the success of high-speed lines is improved connectivity, both for customers and for regional economies.

PHOTO: LEONID ANDRONOV/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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JR Central N700-series Shinkansen, Japan.

What Can the UK learn from Japan

was required to accommodate rows of 3+2 seats in standard class. This determined the structure gauge and track spacing.

However, in the desire to build stations in densely populated areas, where people want to go, land take had to be kept to a minimum. It became usual, therefore, to specify quite short turnouts with an operating speed of 75km/h. For these not to be a constraint, trains with high acceleration and braking rates were specified.

Conversely, in Europe, it is quite common for high-speed trains to have their own infrastructure and also to use the existing infrastructure at ends of the line, sometimes for a considerable distance. Thus, the vehicle gauge has to be compatible with the existing lines, which is almost always smaller than in Japan.

In Europe, space is often made available for longer, 230km/h turnouts from the main line to a deceleration track and then 95km/h into platforms, with the reverse for acceleration. These turnouts are rated at more or less the correct speeds for the deceleration (and acceleration) curve of the trains, and thus a stopping train will get out of the way of a following train with minimal impediment. The higher the throughput required, the more important this becomes, particularly if the stopping pattern is irregular.

ICE 3, Frankfurt Airport, Germany.

PHOTO: PHILIP LANGE/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Felix Schmid, director of education at the Centre for Railway Research and Education at Birmingham University, compared the European and Japanese approaches to high-speed rail or, as he asked, “Is it all about speed?”

Starting with a little self-deprecation, Felix told his audience: “I visited Japan thanks to Central Japan Railways’ exchange programme. I had read lots about Japan, about its railways and the Shinkansen and I was convinced that I would learn nothing new! And then I understood…”

Felix highlighted the essential truisms of high-speed rail everywhere - bringing communities closer together - and contrasted some of the engineering approaches in Britain and in Europe with those adopted in Japan. He illustrated how the Shinkasen developed on Honshu island, which is slightly smaller than Britain but has nearly twice the population.

More significantly, the Tokyo - Osaka corridor (about 500km apart) represents less than 25 per cent of Japan’s land mass, but has nearly 60 per cent of the population and more than 60 per cent of Japan’s economic activity. It was between these two cities that the Tokaido Shinkasen opened in 1964, partly to reduce journey times and partly to improve capacity.

The opportunity to increase services on Japan’s conventional 1067mm gauge mixed traffic lines was small. The Japanese decided to create the new line using standard gauge, dedicated solely to the high-speed service, thus not importing any of the issues that might affect the narrow-gauge lines. From opening, the reliability of the service has been legendary, with average delays of less than six seconds per train.

In covering the expansion of the network, Felix superimposed the network onto a light pollution map showing the distribution of Japan’s urban population, and how, in the interests of connectivity, both dense and lightly populated areas are served.

Felix moved onto railway system design, where there are some differences in approach between Europe and Japan. As the Shinkansen has always been a dedicated system, Japan has developed its infrastructure based on the needs of the train. For example, the Japanese engineers determined that a width of almost 3.4 metres

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

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PHOTO: LEONID ANDRONOV/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Alstom ETR610 on the Gotthard railway, Switzerland.

Frecciargento ETR600, Bologna, Italy.

However, 230km/h turnouts are very long and require considerable track equipment to make them work, resulting in issues for maintenance and reliability.

Felix’s point was that the high-power train and simpler infrastructure provided a number of benefits such as: »» High ratio of motored axles increases acceleration and braking rates - the latest Japanese trains have all axles motored; »» All axles motored opens the way for purely electrodynamic braking (270km/h to 30km/h); »» Low speed (75km/h) turnouts have multiple benefits: »» No need for swing nose crossings / moving frogs; »» Low complexity and cheaper to buy and renew; »» Reduced land take and lower track forces; »» Replacement in one five-hour maintenance window. »» Low technology maintenance is flexible.

Felix also stated that all aspects of a journey need to be considered in the planning of high-speed lines. His example was a three-hour journey where only 90 minutes are on the train. If a high-speed line allows the on-train time to be reduced to 60 minutes, the saving in on-train time is one-third but the saving on the overall journey is only one-sixth.

All phases of a journey, both value-adding and nonvalue-adding, need to be considered. Non-value-adding elements include having to wait 10 minutes to buy a ticket or walking up and down the train to find a seat.

He also illustrated the sort of analysis that can be undertaken to minimise the activities necessary at terminus stations (other than disembarking and embarking passengers). He compared this with what the low cost airlines have done to minimise time on stand at airports.

Developments in high-speed rail

PHOTO: MURATART/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Andrew McNaughton, technical director HS2, has over 40 years in the industry or, as he put it “40 years of mistakes and they call it wisdom”. Andrew’s approach was to emphasise similarities, not differences, because, he said in his understated way, “the laws of physics are pretty much the same worldwide”.

High-speed rail is over 50 years old, has been adopted across the world and has all been built to similar technical standards. Andrew illustrated the point with a photograph taken in Korea of a train to largely French standards on track to largely German standards.

Highlighting some different approaches to optimising requirements that can possibly be conflicting, such as connectivity, capacity, reliability and availability, Andrew described how there are broadly three categories of highspeed lines in different countries/continents.

In Asia, closed systems are preferred, with high-speed trains running solely on dedicated infrastructure. This tends to produce the highest capacity and reliability.

France, Italy, and the UK have generally adopted highspeed infrastructure where only high-speed trains run, but some of those continue on existing ‘classic’ lines to destinations beyond the high-speed network. There is generally high capacity on the high-speed line.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland have built new highspeed lines that allow mixed high speed, conventional and even freight trains to operate to destination on existing lines. These tend to have lower capacity reflecting limited demand.

Andrew talked about the discipline and opportunities offered by closed systems which are similar to those of a metro - managing all aspects of the operation to maximise capacity. The issue of demand is critical, there’s no point building the railway if the demand isn’t there.

Moreover, if there is demand for a new railway, then

Rail Engineer • November 2016 Andrew foresaw that customers should be able to navigate the station to their train using satnav style spoken instructions though their smart phone, based solely on knowledge of their current location and their train time/seat number. Clearly there are a number of developments required to make all this happen, not least the ticketing system to enable ‘barrierless’ travel.

His team is already modelling the performance of the line as it is being designed using BIM (Building Information Modelling), which allows all elements to be integrated in a virtual world to ensure they all work together before anyone starts building anything.

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it might as well be build it as a high-speed one - the additional cost is comparatively small and the benefits are significant.

Moving onto HS2, Andrew reiterated that HS2 is all about capacity. Britain is growing. In 2008 the population of England was about 52 million, by 2033 it’s estimated to rise to 60 million and to 70 million by 2050. He illustrated the UK with a light-pollution map and superimposed the path of the Y-shaped HS2 line to illustrate that it is planned for HS2 to go where the people are located.

Andrew outlined the operational specification for the core section: »» Capacity: up to 18 services per hour each way of up to 1,100 people per train, which represents roughly the capacity of three 3-lane motorways; »» Availability: operational hours 05:00 to 24:00 (0:800 on Sundays); »» Reliability: average delay less than 30 seconds per service; »» Journey times will be based on up to 360km/h maximum speed balanced with environmental impact; »» Reduction of whole journey time - station design, service frequency will both be part of the mix.

He then moved on to infrastructure maintenance specification. Bluntly, he said infrastructure maintenance is still in the dark ages. Anyone running trains at speeds of 100m/s or more (360km/h) really ought to know on a continuous basis that it’s safe to do so and it should rarely, if ever, cause service-affecting delays. His outline maintenance specification is thus: »» Automation of examination/condition monitoring; »» Preventive servicing; »» Mechanisation of maintenance (replace not repair); »» Largely rail-based; »» Standardised elements; »» ‘Factory’ approach throughout.

Building on his comments about the whole journey, Andrew showed a number of cartoons that had been produced when interviewing potential customers on their wants and needs from the stations. The challenge for the designers is to provide for many thousands of individual journeys and all sorts of individual needs, but common factors emerge such as ‘no barriers’ and ‘no steps’.

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Metro - a digital incubator for high-speed rail Andrew Love and Doug Blanc of SNC-Lavalin argued the proposition that the integrated approach of modern metros provides a working model for closed system highspeed systems.

For example, metro CBTC systems do today what it is hoped the ETCS level 3 might do at some point in the future. However each supplier’s CBTC system is proprietary and the trains and infrastructure both have to have the same system.

It is also fair to say that few, if any, metro CBTC systems cope well with freight (engineers’ trains in metrospeak). Metros usually have the advantage of integrated management, ability to specify the whole system and have relatively small fleets/infrastructure compares with most main line railways. However, taking the system design principles and applying them to the HS situation is a valid proposition.

All in all, it was interesting to hear of the various developments, both in the UK and overseas. Whilst there were some differences of opinion, speakers generally agreed on the way forward. The only significant divergence of view was about the proposed station track layout and length of points, with Felix Schmid advocating the Japanese short points whereas HS2 is proposing something that takes up more space but is likely to have headway benefits.

Andrew McNaughton summed it up pretty well when he said, in response to a question, “Well, decisions have to be made”.

Impression of HS2 at Euston.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Collaborating on the Red Arrow

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NIGEL WORDSWORTH

T

he term “Jack of all trades, master of none” dates back to Elizabethan times, with one William Shakespeare being on the receiving end of an early version. Today’s railway industry is very complex technically. The supply chain is made up of many small companies, each with its own specialisation, and several giants who provide a broad range of services and products. To prevent them being “masters of none”, they employ a host of specialist engineers and technicians, masters in their own fields, and combine that knowledge and experience to provide a complete offering.

Even so, every company will still have its strengths and weaknesses. The latter may not necessarily be technical, but could be geographical or political.

On many occasions, the company’s strengths allow it to win supply contracts from its customers. However, there are occasions when the weaknesses might prevent that, or at least throw the result into doubt.

Pragmatic managers are therefore quite prepared to collaborate with other concerns whose own strengths and weaknesses counteract theirs. Joined in a collaboration or joint venture, the result should be almost only strengths, and very few weaknesses.

Planning for speed This was the case when Italian state railways (Ferrovie dello Stato - FS) first started to consider a new very-high-speed train for its Eurostar Alta Velocità Frecciarossa (Eurostar high speed Red Arrow) services operating Turin-Milan-FlorenceRome-Naples. New lines from Milan to Bologna (opened 2008) and Bologna to Florence (2009) would then combine with the older Direttissima line (1977-1986), resulting in a high-speed corridor between Milan and Rome. Another new line (completed 2009) would take trains on to Naples.

To have a train design ready for the new route, Bombardier and AnsaldoBreda (now Hitachi Rail Italy) started working together in 2008. A design office was established by the joint venture at Bombardier’s Hennigsdorf plant, pulling together experts from various locations around Europe.

“It was not just Germans and Italians,” remembers Marco Sacchi, Hitachi Rail Italy’s head of engineering. “There were Spanish engineers from Trápaga, bogie designers from Derby and an electrical power team from Västerås in Sweden.”

Bombardier personnel were responsible for the concept and detailed design of the trains, the provision of propulsion equipment and bogies, as well as project management, engineering, testing, homologation and commissioning of the first five trains. AnsaldoBreda personnel were looking after the industrial design, carbody, interior, interior systems, doors and signalling, together with final assembly and commissioning of the series production trains. Both parties were involved in detail design and engineering activity.

“But everybody worked in one office,” adds Marco. “It was a strong team to develop the train. It was a very challenging time, the customer had big demands for both technical solutions and aesthetics.”

In terms of performance, the team was working to produce a train capable of 350km/h (217mph), even though the high-speed lines had not yet been upgraded to allow for running at that speed.

As for the aesthetics, Italy has more than its fair share of design houses that have, over the years, produced some stunning cars. It was to one of these, Bertone, that the joint venture turned to design the shape of the new train. The design brief was complex. Bertone was asked to come up with a style that represented “elegance and speed”, but it would have to include crash protection, meet driver visibility standards and also take account of the functionality of the headlights in terms of international railway standards.

The result was an elegant cab with an elongated nose that incorporated the crash protection structures. The joint venture team checked the submitted design, both theoretically and in the wind tunnel where drag coefficients and crosswind stability were assessed, and found that it didn’t need any changes. The Bertone design had ticked all the boxes.

With the ultimate blend of Japanese engineering and British manufacturing, travelling on a Hitachi train guarantees comfort, reliability and style. We’re transforming rail travel across London and the UK. Find out more at www.hitachirail-eu.com

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Changed requirements After two years of hard work, the design was ready. The team only had to wait for the official invitation to tender and then submit its proposal.

But… When the documents were opened, all was not as expected. FS, and operator Trenitalia, was now looking for a train with a maximum operating speed of 360km/h, not 350. In addition, the train would have to be able to operate in seven countries across Europe and there was a requirement for condition-based maintenance.

With six months to revise the design, the team was re-established at Pistoia in Tuscany, home of AnsaldoBreda. Almost everything had to be checked and revised.

The new top speed had implications for the design of the bogies, power and control systems and pantograph. The aerodynamics and crosswind stability had to be rechecked. Room had to be found for a number of new signalling systems, although this would be passive provision with the trains to be delivered only with ERTMS level 2 and the legacy Italian system.

Power supply and cubicles for other systems would be in place, in case other signalling was to be installed later.

Of course the joint venture’s competitor, Alstom, had the same challenges, but in the end it was Bombardier/AnsaldoBreda that won out.

“I believe we won as we had some special solutions that were appreciated by the customer,” Marco explained. One example of these was the provision made for customers in wheelchairs. As well as having space to park them, and access to the disabled toilet, the walkways are wide enough that a wheelchair can move about the train and visit the Bistro.

Testing was complete by 25 April 2015, when the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, boarded the train in Milan for an inaugural run to Rome, where it arrived just three hours 39 minutes later.

Commercial services commenced in June 2015, with 36 trains in revenue service as of September 2016. Today, the final cars are in production and trains are leaving the factory at the rate of two every week. The last train will enter service next year.

Production

Legacy and the future

An order for 50 eight-car trainsets, worth around €1.54 billion, was signed in September 2010. Detailed design commenced immediately and the first mock-up was shown to the world at Rimini on 19 August 2012. Now called the Frecciarossa 1000, it was also shown at InnoTrans that year where, being a mock-up rather than a finished train, it was parked on a pavement not the railway tracks. Still, the striking looks attracted a lot of attention.

Incidentally, also in 2012, FS retired the Eurostar name and the new trains were to be destined for the Frecciarossa (Red Arrow) service, representing the fastest trains. Other services are categorised as Frecciargento (Silver Arrow) and Frecciabianca (White Arrow).

The first actual train was unveiled at the Pistoria factory on 26 March 2013. In a short ceremony attended by representatives of both companies, as well as FS Group chief executive Mauro Moretti and Mrs Lilli Bertone, the new train was named ‘Pietro Mennea’ after the Italian sprinter and European 200 metres record holder who had died only five days earlier.

Testing commenced in August 2013 on the Genoa-Savona line and then moved to night time running between Milan and Bologna. To save time, five trainsets were involved in the testing programme, which included 10 per cent overspeed tests on a specially prepared length of line. During these, the train recorded an actual speed of 399 km/h.

So the joint venture between Bombardier and, now, Hitachi Rail Italy can be judged a success. A 10-year service contract for the trains has been awarded to the consortium by Trenitalia, worth €250 million. Work on the high-speed lines should shortly result in line speed being increased from 300km/h to the full potential of the train - 360km/h (224mph).

There seems to have been true cooperation and collaboration between the two parties. Marco Saachi has stated that there were very few ‘black boxes’, in which one of the two companies hid their proprietary technology.

The team used English as a common language although, by the end, the Bombardier engineers were quite fluent in Italian.

He then looked back at the whole experience of designing and producing the new train.

“It was a fantastic experience for all the people who worked on this project. It was a very important experience, unique really, to develop a train on this level. The customer has declared that, after three months of revenue service, it was the easiest introduction of a new train into service in their history. That is fantastic to hear.”

Also after three months, the train has hit all of its reliability targets.

So would the two companies work together on another project?

“We already are,” Marco replied. “Having developed a good way of working on the Frecciarossa 1000, we (Bombardier Transportation and Hitachi Rail Europe) have jointly designed and bid for a new tube train for London. The success of our first project has shown that, by combining our strengths, we can have the best of both worlds and create a really compelling offer. Also, there are a lot of things we’ve learnt so, if the bid is successful, it will be easier the second time around.”

What is Marco’s abiding memory of the project? “To improve the functionality of the team, we had a meeting for three days in the Tuscan countryside, with support psychologists and everything. It was a great thing to do and, over some nice dinners, the team really came together well…”

There are some advantages in building a train in Italy!

Thanks to James Rollin (Bombardier), Adam Love (Hitachi Rail Europe) and Alessio De Sio (Hitachi Rail Italy) for providing the background material for this article.

As a global leader in rail technology, Bombardier helps to keep London moving, on one of the busiest and most complex transport networks in the world. Our MOVIA metro trains on London Underground’s Victoria and Sub-Surface lines and our ELECTROSTAR vehicles on London Overground transport thousands every day.

And for the Elizabeth line and London Overground projects, we are delivering state-of-the-art trains based on our new AVENTRA product family. With Bombardier’s latest trains and technology offering marketleading performance, we are driving The Evolution of Mobility.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Seamless

Interchangeability REBEKA SELICK

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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I

magine Britain’s railways in 2040 and what can you see? Would we even call it a railway? When we’ve got autonomous pods to transport us from door to door, what’s the point of a railway? When we’ve superfast broadband everywhere, will

any sort of travel be too expensive - a luxury for the planet to afford?

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

We railway engineers, and our operating colleagues, say the network is capacity-constrained, but anyone looking at the tracks can see they’re mostly empty most of the time…

Great openers for a chat in the pub with your mates - if they’re so inclined. But also serious questions not only for the UK but for the world.

The more we grapple with climate change - represented by one of those four Cs that underpin our Railway Technical Strategy (namely Carbon; alongside Capacity, Cost, and of course the Customer).

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

The Seamless Interchangeability dynamic coupling concept.

The RSSB Innovation Programme sought and funded projects to develop ideas for ‘Radical Trains’ in a competition which has now come to fruition. Seamless Interchangeability is one of the fruits borne, quantifying significant benefit from a radical approach, not just to trains, but also to running a railway. New high-speed railways are being progressed, but what could we achieve on the conventional infrastructure - and what more could ultimately be achieved on high-speed lines, maximising overall network utilisation?

Dynamic coupling

Slip coach service in 1959.

A slip coach (left) rolls to a halt at Bicester North having been dropped from the rear of the 17:10 Paddington to Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It is then collected (right) by 6001 King Edward VII to be attached to the front of the 04:34 PaddingtonWolverhampton semi-fast waiting in the adjacent platform.

Interfleet (now SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit) and colleagues from Academia posed themselves the question of how to increase capacity further, taking the European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 3 - automatic train control - as a start point. We know closer running is already being considered, but how much more network capacity would we gain from actually joining trains together - coupling up (and uncoupling) - on the move?

For example, a long train composed of individual trainsets or vehicles might depart from a high-density London hub, and split en route with smaller trainsets breaking off from the rear to serve regional stations, whilst the front portion continues non-stop to, say, Edinburgh.

Dynamic coupling would also work in reverse, allowing passengers to travel from a regional station such as Hull, Lincoln or Oakham with their carriages being speeded up ahead, and then joined to the front, of a non-stop train en route.

“There’s no such thing as a new idea” goes the adage and, as those who know their history will assert, the rearuncoupling process re-invents slip-coaching (but safely - with a controlled, independently-braked train). Frontcoupling is, however, without precedent and trickier, but a credible build on ETCS Level 3 - the project’s starting point.

ETCS would control trains until the minimum conventional safe separation, then train-to-train communications would supervise at distances smaller than relative braking distances. An alternative (to be designed) system would then switch in to manage the trains down to a maximum closing speed of say five km/h until they couple: conceptually similar to the quasi-static case of coupling two units at a platform.

Instead of changing trains, for journeys to and from regional stations, passengers could walk backwards down the same train. Conceptually, it should be physically easier and psychologically less stressful to walk along a specially designed train corridor to the correct carriage for one’s destination rather than the current process (of having to alight from a train at an intermediate station, find the platform for the next train and board it).

“But, thinking of the UK demographic where half the population will be ‘old’ in 30 years time, what about the elderly and infirm?” asked retired Railway Industry Association technical director Richard Gostling at a Rail Research UK Association (RRUKA) conference. Under Seamless Interchangeability, changing destinations on board the same train should be easier for all passengers - including people who are mobility impaired - than conventional changing at stations. We will certainly need to re-think train interiors and what they’re for - partly for seating, from where passengers can access catering, entertainment and other facilities; and partly as a transfer corridor which passengers use to reach their destination carriage, maybe including a travellator, or something resembling a stairlift, to ride on.

So, Seamless Interchangeability is a radically new operational concept enabling latent capacity to be freed up on the rail network (filling some of that fresh air over the tracks with vehicles), whilst at the same time increasing connectivity and hence customer satisfaction (increasing the number of through journeys to different destinations).

Long trains running non-stop would need less energy to stop and start (consuming less carbon) and - in addition to fuel savings - a smaller number of more-efficiently utilised carriages would reduce leasing and maintenance costs.

But would it be worth doing?

Starting not only from the assumption of ETCS Level 3 Automatic train control, but also assuming that it would be technically feasible to design, build and approve suitable rolling stock and safe enough operating principles, what would the benefit of Seamless Interchangeability be?

“We wanted to quantify whether Seamless Interchangeability would make much difference - to establish whether it would even be worth thinking about designing trains and creating new operational rules to deliver the concept,” explained Ian Mylroi, principal consultant at SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit.

PHOTO: ROBERT DARLASTON

PHOTO: ROBERT DARLASTON

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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The team persuaded RSSB to fund the research. A software model was built, based on key features of the Midland main line (MML), in Matlab - with Simulink, State-flow and dedicated C-code.

The simulation consists of three layers: infrastructure and topology; interlocking safety control; and dynamic train movement.

SNC-Lavalin provided expertise (in human factors, railway control systems and operations, in addition to its business consulting, vehicle and infrastructure engineering teams); as did a specially composed advisory group - including representatives from a train operator (First Group), an infrastructure manager (Network Rail), a train builder (Siemens), and another university (Loughborough).

The combined team came up with parameters for the model, thinking hard about what assumptions were valid to maintain (such as timetabled station dwell) and which were unnecessarily constraining, in order that the true benefits of the Seamless Interchangeability concept could be explored. Sensible simplifications were made, including that individual vehicles had the same traction and

braking capability (whether operating independently or coupled together to make a trainset of up to 11 vehicles), as well as the same physical characteristics (23-metre length, 43 tonne unladen mass, 7.5 per cent additional mass due to rotational inertia), and each person weighed 80kg with 10kg luggage.

Similarly, the route model considered representative nominal gradient topology with maximum speeds for each track section based on curvature and junctions, but assumed double-track throughout with four platform tracks at all stations, and ignored power loss over neutral sections.

The model recognises that other technologies will have advanced by 2040, so assumptions are made to ensure that the additional benefits that Seamless Interchangeability would bring are conservatively assessed. For example, regenerative braking is assumed by then to deliver double today’s best of 30 per cent conversion rate from kinetic energy back into traction power. By thus overstating the likely regeneration improvement in 2040, we understate the significant carbon benefit of the

Seamless Interchangeability pattern of reduced stopping and starting of long through-trains.

The model provides a baseline against which other scenarios can be tested and developed, using the software’s graphical user interface to vary parameters. It is not a perfect replica of the detailed features and absolute values of current MML operations, but the model is sufficiently realistic that changes in Key Performance Indicators found under the different scenarios tested are real: and they show significant benefits.

What would we gain?

The main target was to enhance network capacity, but the team found that Seamless Interchangeability actually offers improvements on all four Cs of the Rail Technical Strategy.

Simpler journeys with fewer changes would increase customer satisfaction (although this benefit was not quantified); fewer stops for through services - and more efficient vehicle utilisation - would halve the miles run overall, cutting maintenance and traction energy costs and reducing carbon accordingly.

(Right) The Midland main line today.

(Left) Midland main line speed profiles.

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Fewer stops would also enable more efficient use of the network, doubling capacity by creating more paths to run trains and by reducing journey times, further enhancing customer benefits.

Despite the system deploying fewer vehicles than currently, potential disbenefits from doubling passenger loading were not seen: load factors remained below 90 per cent in all scenarios, albeit noting the simplifications made - such as to assume that all rolling stock had exclusively standard class accommodation. A negative consequence of the overall optimisation and aggregate reduction in journey times was that a few journeys would take longer, such as those to small regional stations adjacent to significant hubs which are currently served infrequently, but directly, by intercity-style trains.

Could it be implemented?

Technically, implementation of Seamless Interchangeability on the railway would require a paradigm shift in rail operations and rail travel. Implementation requirements have been developed and worked up to give indicative costing for four key system elements: signalling, vehicles, operations and infrastructure.

Signalling for Seamless Interchangeability is a logical extension of the current cross-industry work towards ETCS implementation and could progress at marginal cost to that massive overall project. Vehicles will need significant modification to trainsets at the front and rear to enable dynamic coupling, and to interiors so as to facilitate passenger transfer to the correct portion of the train.

The project concludes that research would be worth initiating, such as to revisit crashworthiness criteria given signalling system robustness and further potential for modal shift onto railways from less safe, less carbonfriendly modes. Interestingly, the biggest changes needed may be to the infrastructure, particularly station layouts which may require significant investment, and possibly more land-take, to deliver the Seamless Interchangeability concept.

So where are we going?

Perhaps, returning to the initial Radical Train idea, people in 30-odd years time will leave their homes in automated driverless pods to travel to stations where they dock into trains which couple dynamically through

Seamless Interchangeability into longer trains. Then they’ll move down the train to their destination vehicle and subsequently slip off from the combined running into individual pods again to reach their destination doorstep.

Operational rules would need to be developed to support each stage of implementation, building on a fresh look at overall system safety and how people could best use Britain’s railways. Initial modelling found that, compared to the vehicle and operational challenges, infrastructure and system investment costs were low, readily traded off against reductions in fleet size (and therefore reduced vehicle leasing and maintenance costs), and lower traction power costs. Refining these cost estimates is a key area for future work.

The world moves on. Since the Seamless Interchangeability project described here was conceived, RSSB has developed a project known as Closer Running under the cross-industry FuTRO (Future Traffic Regulation Optimisation) Board. FuTRO aims to identify technologies to support a vision of the rail industry in 2040: technologies which optimise traffic management, increase network capacity, reduce energy consumption, hasten service disruption recovery, and improve customer communications and satisfaction. Seamless Interchangeability logically meshes with FuTRO’s closerrunning research programme going forward.

Seamless Interchangeability is no quick fix to rail capacity, but the project has established that it’s worth pursuing. Proposed next steps are to focus on a particular route to consolidate understanding of the benefits - and costs - of adopting the novel approach, prior to devising a network-wide implementation plan.

Clive Burrows, group engineering director of First Group and chair of the FuTRO Board, said: “You have uncovered the results we hoped for, and a lot more besides. The question is how best to address the challenges to Seamless Interchangeability so we can begin to design and evolve the technologies and the thinking to deliver an optimal future railway.”

Rebeka Sellick was formerly head of research at SNCLavalin Rail & Transit) and is now head of rail at TRL. Thanks to SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit, RSSB, Siemens, Network Rail, First Group and Loughborough University for their help in preparing this article.

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

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DAVID SHIRRES

From TESCO to SNC-Lavalin

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etween 1994 and 1997, British Rail was split up into almost a hundred separate companies. Amongst these, TOCs, FOCs and ROSCOs are well known within the industry.

Not so well known are the TESCOs (Train Engineering Service Companies), the sale of which raised £2.5 million in 1996. Of these, there were two management buy-outs, Engineering Link (later bought by AEA Technology whose rail division was sold to become DeltaRail) and Interfleet, whilst Network Train Engineering Services was sold to WS Atkins.

Interfleet was formerly the fleet engineering division of British Rail’s InterCity sector. When sold, it employed 99 staff, had a turnover of £5 million and an office in Derby. On celebrating its fifteenth birthday in March 2011, it employed 600 staff in 22 worldwide offices and had a turnover of £50 million. Six months later, Interfleet was acquired by the Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Group, which delivers projects in the infrastructure, mining & metallurgy, oil & gas and power sectors. This includes rail projects such as the design and build of a new automated metro to Vancouver airport.

Until 2016, Interfleet continued to trade under its own brand with Richard George as its managing director. However, in January 2016, it became SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit, part of the group’s infrastructure sector with Richard as its group managing director. This enabled the group to serve its global rail clients better by uniting its rail expertise.

Although the company is well known for its technical rolling stock engineering expertise, it also provides associated business services, safety and assurance services and manages rolling stock projects. Rail Engineer was glad to accept an invitation from SNC-Lavalin to find out more about the work carried out at its Derby offices.

Long term planning Rolling stock director Jason Groombridge is clearly proud of his team which, he notes, has a combined 4,000 years of rolling stock expertise.

He considers the maintenance and development of this expertise to be a long-term investment that is vital to the success of the business.

An essential aspect of this is the recruitment of eight to twelve graduates each year. Part of the company’s graduate scheme is their participation in the IMechE’s Railway Challenge.

Entering first as Interfleet, and in 2016 as SNCLavalin, the company is the only organisation to have entered the challenge each year since it started in 2012. It won the first competition and repeated that feat this year, winning by a comfortable margin.

Andy McDonald, director of system consulting and assurance, offers another example of a long-term strategy. He explains how SNC-Lavalin is evaluating Britain’s rolling stock requirements in accordance with the franchise bid timetable and Department for Transport franchise requirements, which now include quality criteria. In this way, for each forthcoming franchise, cost models are produced for new and refurbished fleets. This enables the company to develop an optimum rolling stock strategy in support of prospective franchise bidders.

SNC-Lavalin, supported by Arup, is the rolling stock and depots technical advisor to HS2. As such, it is providing technical, business case and commercial advice on the specification and procurement of high-speed trains. This includes the development of a rolling stock and depot strategy, a performance-based technical specification for both classiccompatible and captive high-speed trains, and determination of the optimum mix of this rolling stock.

Rail Engineer • November 2016

South Africa and Hong Kong Another rolling stock project is the replacement of South Africa’s electric commuter trains. In 2011, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) engaged SNC-Lavalin to undertake a feasibility study to assess the replacement of its ageing EMU fleet. Later that year, the company was appointed to lead the procurement of a new fleet of 3,600 vehicles and, in 2013, to undertake a design review of the new fleet.

The resultant £3 billion contract for 600 trainsets, to be delivered between 2016 and 2027, was let to an Alstom Gibela joint venture in October 2013. This included a requirement that 69 per cent of the train’s value would be sourced locally by year two as well as the provision of technical support and spares over an 18-year period.

Kevin Crofts leads the specialist rolling stock engineering team. As an example of this work, he described how SNC-Lavalin supported the Changchun Railway Vehicle Company (CRC) in its contract to supply 148 new metro cars, and to life-extend a further 348 cars, for Hong Kong MTR’s East-West Corridor.

This commission required SNC-Lavalin to support CRC in developing the design of the vehicles’ car bodies and bogies to meet MTR’s specification, which is based on British Standards, and could therefore potentially help CRC to enter the British rail market. The requirements included confirmation of a 40year bogie fatigue life, refining the lightweight five-door-a-side vehicle body shell and the development of innovative repairs for vehicle life extension.

Product acceptance SNC-Lavalin’s novel approach to gauging was explained by Stephen Pell, who joined the company graduate scheme in 2009 and now leads the dynamics and testing team. He described how the GAUGYX system was being developed. This uses a multi-body simulator to predict vehicle movement for more accurate dynamic gauging and quantifies the risk of a vehicle infringement. Stephen expects that this system would help manage potentially bigger vehicles or reduce the cost of infrastructure works.

In recent years, much has changed in the world of assurance. The European common safety method on risk evaluation and assessment (CSM-REA), along with Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs), have replaced Railway Group Standards.

An example of this approach was provided

by John Ovenden, section head for on-track machines, who described the challenges of assurance for Plasser and Theurer’s fifth High Output Ballast Cleaning System (HOBCS5) which involved the delivery of 53 individual vehicles of ten designs. These include the RM900 ballast cleaning machine, 09-2X/ CM tamping and consolidating machine and material, conveyor and hopper (MFS) wagons.

The system also has transport systems and wagons for spoil and new ballast.

John describes how this is split into two work streams. The first, safety assessment, covers CSM-REA risk assessment, infrastructure compatibility and Network Rail product acceptance, while the second, conformity assessment, involves compliance TSIs and other standards.

With each different machine having hazards that are both distinct and similar to other machines, the assessment was packaged as appropriate. For example, the safety assessment was split into material conveyor and hopper wagons, self-propelled machines and other dead-hauled machines (the core system).

PRASA EMU.

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Metro car for Hong Kong under construction by Changchun Railway Vehicle Company.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Refurbished Heathrow Express.

Plush train interiors In contrast to utilitarian yellow plant, plush train interiors are conceived by SNC-Lavalin’s industrial design section. Its head, James Alton, makes the point that the company not only designs trains that look good, but has the expertise to ensure these interiors can be built and maintained in a cost-effective manner. An example of this is the way his team worked with Saudi Railway Company (SAR) and Spanish rolling stock supplier CAF on trains for the new 1,320km Saudi NorthSouth Railway.

These are 200km/h trainsets with dieselelectric power cars at each end. The trains include executive, business and economy class accommodation as well as restaurant and sleeping cars. They have to cope with sandstorms and desert temperatures up to 55°C and will be first used when passenger services are launched between Riyadh and Qassim at the end of the year. James explains how his team worked with CAF and SAR to develop high-end designs that had to satisfy complex cultural issues, customer aspirations, operational requirements and extreme environmental conditions.

James’s team also supported the 20-month £16 million programme to refurbish 14 Heathrow Express Class 332 units, which was completed in 2013 on the fifteenth anniversary of the launch of the Heathrow Express service. The refurbishment included new vehicle interiors, including 1+1 first class seating, and an upgrade of the passenger information system. SNC-Lavalin undertook the required vehicle acceptance and developed the specification for the refurbishment work, which was undertaken at Railcare’s Wolverton works (now Knorr-Bremse).

Electrification and plant A presentation from Ganesh Ayyanan, section head of electrification and plant, showed that SNC-Lavalin’s Derby offices are not only concerned with rolling stock. Ganesh explained that, to deliver electrification projects, the company has a 48-strong team (E&P - 18, building & structures - 15, track and survey - 15). Many of these are graduates and technicians who have been trained in-house.

As part of the National Electrification Programme (NEP), Ganesh’s team has been engaged on three distinct packages of work for Network Rail and its contractors.

Between 2012 and 2014, as part of the forthcoming electrification from London to Sheffield, the team undertook a feasibility exercise to analyse upgrade and replacement options for the overhead line equipment (OLE) between London and Bedford, which was originally installed in the early 1980s.

This was followed by work on two sections of the West Coast power supply upgrade, which required both outline and detailed design of OLE and structure modifications for the autotransformer upgrade following a laser survey of the route.

SNC-Lavalin is also currently working for the lead design organisation on four of the Great Western electrification’s ten route sections.

Software solutions An increasingly important aspect of the business is the software provided by Rail & Transit’s business services for asset management and service delivery. This is being led by head of software solutions Adam Collins, who considers that the success of these applications is due to SNC-Lavalin having the software and rail expertise to understand both what is required and how best to provide the required solution.

The suite of software consists of around 30 applications to support design, maintenance, management, control and train running. SNCLavalin also runs clyx.net, a web-based solution for managing data to support this software.

Applications include Diagnostyx, for remote condition monitoring, as well as SSiFT (Signal Sighting Information Form Tool) and NIR online which were developed in conjunction with RSSB to manage the industry process for signal sighting audits and reporting high risk defects.

These applications have won a number of awards. Energyx won the ‘Environmental & Sustainability’ category at the 2015 UK Rail

Industry Awards. It uses data from electric trains with energy meters and has enabled train operators such as London Midland to save energy by influencing driving styles and reducing consumption at depots.

Also shortlisted at these awards was Rail Companion, which uses a tablet to give different types of rail staff easy access to all the information they need. It also provides an overview to show how users have accessed this information.

Winner of the technical development category of the 2014 Rail Freight Group awards ceremony was the Timetable Advisory System (TAS) which had also won a Railway Industry Association innovation award the previous year. TAS operates on a tablet to advise the driver how the train is progressing relative to timetable. Adam advised that running a train just to timetable can provide energy savings of between two and eight per cent.

Derby’s pride Derby’s locomotive works once employed 8,000 and had 20 acres of covered workshop on its 80acre site. It built its first locomotive for the Midland Railway in 1851 and its last one in 1966. This was the last of over a thousand Derby-built diesel locomotives for British Railways.

The works was also a pioneer of rail research.

Its laboratories were part of the LMS scientific research laboratory, which opened in 1933, and later became part of the British Rail Research Division.

After the works closed in the early 1990s, its buildings were demolished except for the manager’s office and the Roundhouse, which now forms part of the city’s college. The rest of the site has been redeveloped into Pride Park, where SNC-Lavalin has its offices on the site of the former wheel and traction motor shops. The work done in these offices continues Derby’s rail engineering tradition and, as shown above, makes a valuable contribution to the rail industry, both in the UK and overseas.

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MALCOLM DOBELL

RVE Goes from Strength to Strength

W

riting about the 2015 RVE exhibition in Rail Engineer (issue 133, November 2015), Nigel Wordsworth called it “the best yet”. I was there last year too, and this year was even better. Coming just two weeks after the huge InnoTrans exhibition (where I kept getting lost!), it clearly illustrated the value of a “smaller, but perfectly formed” exhibition. It did exactly what it said on the tin, bringing together, under one roof, many of the suppliers who can help enhance rail vehicles.

Held at Derby’s Riverside Centre, just across the way from Derby County’s football ground, it was organised by Onyxrail, whose managing director, Kevin Lane, is someone I first worked with when he was at Metro Cammell 30 years ago!

There was a large area for exhibitors with space to chat. A series of lectures were given in an adjacent room, once again presided over by journalist Ian Walmsley, whose often controversial views are published elsewhere. His keynote is an annual treat; always up to date and relevant, but delivered with a wicked sense of humour.

Ian gave a very important message about how the industry has changed in just a year.

Last year, there was a lot of confidence that the way forward was to be life extension of mid-life rail vehicles with enhanced performance and passenger amenity to deliver the service customers would want. What actually happened is that the quality requirement in recent franchise competitions has led to the successful bidders buying new trains. As a result, even some quite recent trains will shortly be replaced. No doubt these trains will cascade to other operators, opening opportunities for refreshment, refurbishment and technical uplifts.

From the proliferation of innovative and relevant exhibitors, it was clear that requirements are changing in the rail vehicle

enhancements business. When I was involved in the work - indeed helped to create the industry with the London Underground refurbishments in the 1990s - enhancements were typically just to electrical systems and fixtures and fittings. In the modern railway, electronics, networks, 4G, Wi-Fi and information systems have become a very significant part of the work and were heavily represented alongside the more traditional suppliers of labour, interior fittings and seats.

Perhaps future exhibitions will see suppliers are competing to fit ETCS equipment on existing trains. Who knows?

To avoid this being a travelogue of the exhibition, I’ll refer readers to the RVE website and concentrate on the exhibitors that caught my eye.

Information systems Infodev was showing its real time passenger counting system. I spoke to Pierre Deslauriers, the company’s CEO, and discussed the accuracy of his system, having been highly skeptical about such devices in the past. He explained that, generally, his company recommends to customers that they do a trial and monitor the sensors using video cameras to confirm for themselves that 99% accuracy - Infodev’s claim - can be achieved. Needless to say he has many satisfied customers. Having counted people on and off, the information can be used both to inform customers how busy the train is and to build very accurate data for the operator on how its services are used. This can be used in making tactical control decisions as well as for the strategic planning of services. Pierre told me that the latest application is on Scotrail where the installation is being carried out by partners Onyxrail.

I moved on to Televic Rail, whose elaborate stand of passenger information displays included the wide-screen unit seen on the

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

latest Siemens Class 700 and 707 EMUs. Also amongst the displays were the neat little seat reservation indicators which will be used on the Intercity Express trains. Compared with previous electronic reservation displays, these looked much more eye catching.

Whilst the displays are the primary product of the company, the value to train operators is provided by Televic’s LiveCom system, which allows them to generate or edit content and, using iSync hardware and software, to send that information directly to the train or trains concerned. Thus the displayed information is no longer limited to what has been loaded onto the system in the depot. iSync can also be added to existing trains to facilitate the export of data from on-train systems to a centralised server.

Next was Diagnostyx - a partnership of Arrowvale, SNC-Lavalin and Clyx.net which provides an on-train data logger, transmission facilities, engineering, installation, application support, and cloud data hosting.

These systems will deliver benefit if information can be distributed or collected via a network. More and more legacy fleets are being equipped with Ethernet networks which can, for example, distribute passenger information, and provide customer Wi-Fi. There is also the possibility of connecting any suitably equipped systems, such as the on-train monitor recorder, for remote downloads.

Various electronic elements - often literally black boxes - were on show, including switches, routers, Wi-Fi access points and 3G/4G interfaces that provide the function of the network. Suppliers demonstrating this kit included Comtrol and Westermo.

Ciesse introduced its RailWare EcoS system, an energy monitoring system that works in real time to the latest European standards. Designed to interface with other systems, it can be used to provide drivers with information about energy consumption. Since it monitors voltage in high resolution, it also gives an indication of pantograph performance. Once data is downloaded, it can be analysed in a variety of ways, for example, to identify different driving styles.

I met Alan Stewart from Perpetuum, whose product is most usually employed to monitor axlebox vibrations powered by energy harvested from the vibrations themselves. The tiny amount of power generated, approximately 80mW, is sufficient to operate a small circuit that records the output of a triaxial accelerometer and send this information wirelessly to a train mounted data accumulator. This information, together with other data such as train position, is sent back to base where it can be used to identify issues with wheel bearings, wheels themselves and also the track condition. Each time I speak to Perpetuum, they have something new to talk about, most recently the ability to detect wheel flats and a forthcoming development of their bearing sensor.

Other highlights Dellner had an automatic coupler on display.

I am used to the relatively simple London Underground Wedglock automatic-coupler, and I found it instructive to learn how complex a modern auto coupler can be; an electromechanical device which has to survive in possibly the most exposed location on the train. For Dellner, just getting its demonstrator into the hall was a challenge as it weighs about 500kg!

Whilst I found out a lot about how a coupler works, the purpose of the display was to demonstrate the benefit of retrofitting

existing couplers with heating elements to ensure that they don’t freeze in winter and to help keep the electrical contacts dry. It was very impressive to feel by touch and to see by thermal image camera how quickly the heating elements work.

I recalled trials of aromas on the East London line of the Underground in the 1990s that received much derision from the press. I hadn’t imagined that aromas had reappeared until I walked up to the Signature Aromas stand (Kevin said they’re not to be sniffed at - groan!) and realised that I was familiar with the smells, indicating that a number of operators are using those products to improve the customer ambience.

Apparently, one operator changes the aroma depending on the season and, of course, they have a ready use to counteract the less pleasant smells in toilets! Who wants to be on a smelly train when you can be wafted to paradise with the fragrance of jasmine?

Trolex had on display some LED lamps in the format of fluorescent tubes, with all the electronic components inside to allow them to be fed from 24V or 110V DC. Whilst there is still a cost premium for LED over conventional lamps, it is my view that it would be madness not to use LED lamps throughout for new trains, and there is a good case for retrofit on existing trains despite both the higher cost of the lamps and a one-off cost to remove existing fluorescent lamp control gear. Apart from the reduced maintenance required by LED lamps, the reduction in energy consumption can produce environmental benefits or, in some cases, reduce the load on supplies with marginal capacity to provide headroom for new systems such as Passenger Information Systems or Ethernet networks.

Strukton Rolling Stock was displaying its power converter modules and a three-phase drive module for use in a shunting locomotive.

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provided for the Vivarail conversion of the former London Underground District line trains to diesel-electric operation.

So far, I haven’t talked about the traditional suppliers to rail vehicle enhancement projects, such as interiors, seats and upholstery. I bumped into Keith Griffiths, who I worked with on the Victoria line 1967 stock refurbishment over 25 years ago. He is with the I M Kelly Group which was showing off both its own train driver’s seat and the LEAN2C passenger seats from Fisa in Italy. The aim of this seat was to look and feel comfortable whilst providing a recess in the seat back to accommodate the knees of the passenger sitting behind.

The recess also allows the seat to meet all the UK structural requirements whilst being lightweight.

McAuley from Northern Ireland supply interiors and grab poles internationally. Getting lightweight grab poles to meet all the structural requirements, applying hard wearing finishes and compliance with the TSI for People of Reduced Mobility or the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations, is far from trivial. Moreover, as

trains get more crowded, there tend to be more handrails as everyone must have something to hang on to!

Muirhead high performance leather had a very simple stand; bar chairs upon which an array of leather swatches were spread. I thought this was incredibly effective, as it is the colours and feel of the material that sells it.

One must not forget the suppliers who carry out the engineering, installation and homologation of the various enhancements.

These included: »» Onyxrail, the show organiser, is also a turnkey installer of technical modifications and partner company Skills4Rail provide skilled labour for depot based modifications. »» Wabtec, one of the sponsors, is now a multinational supplier of parts, equipment and subsystems as well as owning four sites in the UK for vehicle and component overhaul and enhancements. These are in Kilmarnock, Doncaster, the former Brush works in Loughborough and the LH site in Burton upon Trent. »» Knorr Bremse Rail Services has made

great progress in vehicle enhancements since taking over the former Railcare site in Wolverton, Milton Keynes a few years ago.

Providing exceptional added value to visitors were presentations from representatives of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; Wabtec; Ciesse; Ricardo Rail, Rail and Road Protec; York EMC; Eversholt and Hitachi, covering subjects as diverse as the opportunities to improve fleet performance though to the performance of ETCS equipment on class 37 locomotives.

As the show organiser, Kevin Lane was very excited about this year’s show. He said that he is consistently surprised and encouraged by its growth in terms of the breadth of products and the calibre of the companies that choose to exhibit at RVE. He added that the forum which runs alongside has offered some excellent technical papers that provide an informative view on the opportunities available to train operators and train owners.

It was clear that Kevin is ambitious for the future. He said: “2016 marks a major phase of development for the show and our intention is to double the size of the show for 2017.” He was full of praise for the support of Wabtec Group as sponsors, the help provided by of the Department for International Trade, the loyalty of the Rail Alliance to the show and media partner Rail Media. Their support underpins RVE as the show for those seeking the best railway products and services that the supply chain can offer.

So RVE 2016 is over, and organisation has already started for 2017. It’s planned to take place on Thursday 5 October 2017 at a new venue, the Derby Velodrome. See you there.

For more infrmation on RVE2016 and RVE2017, visit www.railve.com.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Cutting-edge equipment for tomorrow’s depots Traverser at Ilford.

I

nnoTrans is the world’s largest railway exhibition. Held in Berlin in September, and reviewed in last month’s Rail Engineer, it attracted 145,000 visitors from across the world. One of them was British Rail Minister Paul Maynard.

As MP for Blackpool, Mr Maynard has seen first-hand the maintenance equipment, including a turntable, which is in regular use at the town’s tram depot. He was interested to learn that it had been manufactured in Sheffield

by Mechan, so he took the opportunity in Berlin to visit the company’s stand. There, he found out more about Mechan’s role in key UK infrastructure projects, including the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) and Crossrail, both of which are equipping facilities with the company’s innovative lifting and handling products.

Express deliveries To date, Mechan has supplied five sites associated with the Department for Transport’s IEP project. Its most recent orders came from the Rail Innovation Development Centre near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, where the new high-speed trains are being trialled.

Working with civil engineers Construction Marine, Mechan designed and fitted a bespoke bogie bridge that spans the width of an existing bogie-drop pit, improving vehicle access into the rail shed. It also provided Network Rail, operators of the centre (formerly known as the Old Dalby

Test Track), with eight 25-tonne mobile lifting jacks with moving anvils, to enable the incoming IEP trains to be assessed fully.

The jacks will work as one synchronised set to give the facility the extra capacity to accommodate longer vehicles. Using Mechan’s patented Megalink controller, any number of units can be linked together via a single cable and operated by just one person from a portable, touch screen HMI panel. It provides constant feedback on the lift, records information about usage and faults and offers impressive power savings.

Call for Mechan’s equipment and expertise has come from all areas of the IEP and the firm has already delivered lifting jacks and equipment drops to the Stoke Gifford and North Pole maintenance centres, plus a pair of 80-tonne traversers to Hitachi Rail’s vehicle manufacturing facility in County Durham.

Traversers are a perfect example of Mechan’s bespoke engineering skills. No job is too large or small and a completely individual design can be produced to meet workshop constraints and vehicle requirements.

The two Newton Aycliffe traversers were developed to move carriages between 33 tracks inside the plant and out to the test area. The internal unit was specified with a customised low profile design and four metre hydraulic ramps, to allow traffic to pass through the traverser pit when it is not in use. The external installation (left) has a more conventional construction, but was fitted with a canopy to protect Hitachi’s vehicles from the elements.

/ RAILCAR LIFTING JACKS / BOGIE/EQUIPMENT DROPS / TRAVERSERS / TURNTABLES / BOGIE TEST MACHINES / UNDER CAR EQUIPMENT HANDLING / RAIL DEPOT WORKSHOP EQUIPMENT E: info@mechan.co.uk W: www.mechan.co.uk T: +44 (0)114 257 0563

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

North Pole.

A three-road equipment drop, 40 lifting jacks and two bogie turntables are currently in production for the IEP depot being built in Doncaster. Bogie handling is another specialist area for Mechan and its versatile equipment drops are becoming increasingly sought after, as they make bogie change feasible within two hours. Time can also be saved on other underfloor work, with the addition of adaptors that enable any type of undercar module to be removed or replaced.

New depots are not just being erected to care for the IEP trains, but also the vehicles responsible for carrying out the necessary line upgrades. Mechan has supplied a further eight 25-tonne lifting jacks to Network Rail’s £7 million High Output Operational Base near Swindon. They will be used at the behind-thescenes facility to maintain the 23-vehicle High Output Plant System, responsible for installing overhead electric cabling along the mainline route.

Zwiehoff shunter.

Crossrail collaboration One of Mechan’s largest contracts of the year came from the capital’s Crossrail project.

The firm was asked to produce more than £1 million of maintenance equipment for the new eight-road Old Oak Common depot in north west London, which will accommodate 33 of the 66 trains being introduced to the local rail network.

A set of 30 lifting jacks with 15-tonne capacity, five bogie turntables and a threeroad bogie drop have been commissioned

by Bombardier, which is building the depot, supplying the trains and will maintain them once the project is complete. Mechan will be fulfilling the order in two stages, with an initial batch of products scheduled for installation before the end of this year. The remaining items will be delivered early in 2017, before the first trains arrive in May. Richard Carr, Mechan’s chief executive, said: “We were really pleased to secure a contract of such value for one of the most significant

investments in London’s rail system for many years. It proves small UK businesses have what it takes to compete against much larger international organisations, thanks to our focus on innovation and build quality.”

Working with VolkerFitzpatrick, Mechan also designed and built a 130-tonne, tworoad traverser to suit the tight confines of Crossrail’s Ilford facility, enabling vehicles to be manoeuvred around a new paint shop. Due to the limited space available, it was not possible to use sidings to transfer carriages from the shotblast bay to the paint booth, so an alternative was required.

Having collaborated on a similar project at the Port of Felixstowe, VolkerFitzpatrick knew Mechan had the capacity and technical know-how to create a suitable solution to its space issues. The 28-metre-long traverser was constructed and tested before being disassembled and moved to site in components small enough to fit into the new Ilford facility. It was then rebuilt on site and proof tested to carry loads of 162 tonnes, before entering service.

Richard added: “We’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy a steady stream of orders from these two high-profile projects and our work is by no means complete. Further equipment is in the pipeline for Ilford, including jacks, bogie turntables, a lift table and two electrically powered shunters from our European partner, Zwiehoff - the first to arrive in the UK. We’re also looking forward to continuing our relationship with all partners involved in the IEP, particularly as the new Doncaster facility takes shape on our doorstep.”

Jacks at HOOB near Swindon.

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Huddersfield’s

DAVID SHIRRES

Y25 freight bogie on rig.

The top of the roller can be seen under the centre of the bogie.

Digging the pit, February 2016.

T

Rolling Rig

he Rail Supply Group (RSG), formed in January 2015, is a collaboration between Government (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Transport) and the UK rail industry. It aims to strengthen the capability and competitiveness of the UK rail supply chain, which employs 124,000 and makes an annual contribution of £3.8 billion to the UK economy.

The long-term vision is to both ensure that the supply chain can exceed rail industry requirements and capitalise on export opportunities with the intention of doubling rail exports by 2025. Currently, only 10 per cent of the rail supply chain’s income is from exports compared with 50 per cent for German rail companies.

RSG launched its industrial strategy, Fast Track to Growth, in February.

This is divided into four principal areas: creating the right market conditions, addressing the skills gap, encouraging export growth and supporting innovation. In this respect, the strategy addresses the barriers of limited R&D investment, timeconsuming product approval, risk aversion, high barriers to entry and insufficient UK testing facilities.

IRR and CIR The University of Huddersfield officially opened its Institute of Railway Research (IRR) in April 2013.

Its director, Professor Simon Iwnicki, had been at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Rail Technology Unit which specialised in vehicle dynamics and rolling contact fatigue. However,

with Huddersfield’s offer of better facilities, Simon and his team moved over the Pennines in 2012 and, within a few months, the University had modified its technology building to provide space for the IRR’s laboratory and research offices.

In its first year, the IRR had engaged in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes, underpinned its commercial enterprise activities and won new research contracts. It also agreed a five-year partnership

with RSSB worth £1 million per annum to undertake research in railway engineering systems simulation and safety science.

The Regional Growth Fund aims to create growth and employment. In 2014, it made a £4 million grant for the creation of a Centre for Innovation in Rail (CIR) within the IRR. This requires a total investment of £20 million, building on the RSSB strategic partnership with the support of its industry partners: National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR), Unipart Rail and Omnicom Engineering.

The CIR works with its industry partners and the University’s Business School to form new relationships with innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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which are then offered specialist technology and support.

This helps them realise the full potential of their services or products so they can be successfully delivered to the rail market. Last month, CIR opened its new £4.5 million railway research laboratory which started with a very large hole in the building’s floor.

Installing the rig

A unique facility This full-scale bogie rolling contact, adhesion and braking rig combines a large rotating rail drum which can test a complete bogie assembly. Its key components are a two metre diameter drum with two circumferential rails, a bogie turntable to vary angle of attack and a loading frame with actuators to impose body and roll motions on the bogie’s secondary suspension.

Worldwide, there are perhaps a dozen full-scale rolling rigs. The large roller of the Huddersfield rig gives a more accurate representation of wheel-rail contact conditions.

This specific combination of features is considered to be unique.

The drum has 90º rail segments, which had to be specially treated as they were bent to ensure their metallic properties were not affected. The segments have variable mountings to simulate varying sleeper spacing. With four different segments, it is possible to test different types of steels. The joints between the segments provide additional dynamic input, which is useful for certain tests, and the rig has a built-in lathe to apply any new or worn rail profile to the roller.

The rig can test a bogie’s lead axle at up to 200 km/h, apply an axle load up to 25 tonnes and accept a braking torque of up to 110 kNm to assess adhesion and braking performance. It can also undertake traction tests of

ROLLING STOCK/DEPOTS

The hole concerned accommodates the frame for the bogie rolling rig and is 12 metres wide, 15 metres in length and five metres deep. It required one hundred and three 450mm-diameter piles, installed to a depth of 14 metres after hitting bedrock eight metres below ground level.

Creating such a hole in a low building was a particular challenge as the piledriver barely fitted under its roof.

This was also a design constraint for the bogie rolling rig’s frame and the overhead crane that operates above it.

Commissioning of the rig required a new sub-station to be installed in the laboratory to power the 0.45MW roller drive motor and a 150 kW power pack for the hydraulic actuators. This has two 75kW electronically controlled radial piston pumps that can deliver 140l/min at 280 bar.

The rig design was conceived by the IRR working with Heinrich Georg, the company that was also commissioned to carry out the detailed design and manufacture. Heinrich Georg, historically, specialised in steel and aluminium process equipment. Today, it also provides custom-built special purpose equipment, including aircraft test rigs.

A particular design challenge was ensuring that delicate scientific instruments, in use nearby, were not affected by the rig. This was achieved by isolating the walls and the 1.1 metre thick reinforced concrete pit base from the rest of the building. In addition, the 150-tonne rig frame is supported by ten tyre-type air springs. These lift the rig by about 50mm until it contacts elastomeric strips above the frame, allowing the effective stiffness of the rig’s mounting to be changed by adjusting the air spring pressure.

Work started on site in August 2015. The rig was substantially complete by July 2016 and will be fully commissioned by the end of the year.

Lining the pit with concrete, March 2016.

The most expensive hole in Yorkshire, May 2016.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

ROLLING STOCK/DEPOTS

Roller in the pit of the completed rig.

powered bogies. In this mode, the roller’s motor acts as a regenerative brake to absorb the load. Relative to the rollers, angle of attack can be adjusted by up to 60 and lateral displacement up to 20mm. There are 128 analogue data channels, sampling at up to 10kHz, to provide three-axis wheel/rail contact force measurement and a wheel-rail creep resolution of less than 0.1 per cent.

Dr Paul Allen, the IRR’s assistant director, explained that, with these features, the rig offers a very flexible testing facility that is essential to support the diverse nature of the team’s research activities.

Not the only thing

The roller arrived, June 2016.

Whilst it is undoubtedly an impressive facility, the bogie test rig is just one of a number of items in the new railway research laboratory.

The 50 tonne advanced dynamic test cell is essentially the top part of the bogie rig. It is used to apply variable forces to any object that has been secured onto the 11x4 metre test-bed using a grid array of M24 screwed holes. A likely first use of the rig will be the accelerated fatigue testing of slab track, which will be subject to variable loads to simulate the passage of trains over a 30 day period. Other possible applications are the fatigue testing of bogie frames.

A six-axis hexapod motion platform can impose vehicle body motions derived from dynamic simulations on various components. This can, for example, evaluate underframemounted equipment from a mechanical fatigue perspective or evaluate energy harvesting systems.

The laboratory has a highperformance computing cluster to process data in volumes not possible with desktop machines. Its use includes the development of big data for risk analysis and predictive maintenance based research. The system has 100-core Intel Xeon processors, running at 2.6GHz, with 640GB RAM, and 2.56TB of storage.

Launch event On the 12 October, Rail Engineer was invited, along with over 100 guests, to an opening for the new railway research laboratory. As is customary at such events, there were a number of speeches. The University’s vice chancellor, Professor

Bob Cryan, considered that railways are destined to be more important than ever and was proud to have the IRR at Huddersfield. He joked that construction of its new laboratory had, perhaps, created Yorkshire’s most expensive hole.

From the IRR, Professor Simon Iwnicki described the wide range of research undertaken by the institute and the partnerships that it has formed. He explained that the IRR “does a lot of research by computer modelling, but that this needs to be supported by testing and that is why what we are showing you today is so important to us”. Dr Paul Allen explained how the CIR was helping SMEs to develop innovative products.

Unipart Rail’s engineering director, Dr Steve Ingleton, was sure that the new test rig, given the lack of UK rail testing facilties, would help accelerate new products to markets.

Stirling Kimkeran, Omnicom’s head of technical services, agreed and encouraged companies to use it whilst David Clarke, technical director of the Railway Industry Association, explained how the RSG was promoting innovation as part of its strategy to support the supply chain.

Other speakers were Chris Lawrence, RSSB technical director, Simon Rennie of the National Training

Rail Engineer • November 2016

47

Academy for Rail (NTAR) and Richard East, IMechE Railway Division chairman who later unveiled a plaque to open the facility. There then followed a tour of the new laboratory with an opportunity to climb down the vertical ladder into the bogie test rig pit from where it could be fully appreciated.

Huddersfield’s HAROLD

ROLLING STOCK/DEPOTS

The statue outside Huddersfield’s railway station is of the town’s famous son, former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who conceived the Open University. It is no coincidence that the IRR have named their new rig HAROLD (Huddersfield Adhesion & ROlling contact Laboratory Dynamics rig).

No doubt HAROLD will help develop new products as part of the drive to make the rail supply chain more competitive. Indeed, to obtain its grant from the Regional Growth Fund, the University had to guarantee that at least 62 jobs would be created (half at the University, half in the supply chain).

It will do so as part of the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN), which David Clarke described in his presentation at the opening ceremony.

UKRRIN will initially bring together existing university and industry test facilities. The universities concerned have also submitted a bid for around £40 million to fund new innovation centres for digital rail systems and rolling stock, as well as a co-ordinating hub.

HAROLD will be part of the rolling stock innovations centre which will be led by a partnership of the Universities of Huddersfield and Newcastle. The intention

is to create a network that will be open to all suppliers who wish to develop innovative products, with the hub providing a single point of contact and advice.

It is over 50 years since Harold Wilson delivered his “white heat of technology” speech in which he warned that, if the country was to prosper, a “new Britain” would need to be forged in the “white heat” of a “scientific revolution”. The rail industry’s drive for innovation is an example of how this sentiment remains true today, and it’s good to know that HAROLD is part of this.

Bob Cryan, Richard East and Simon Iwnicki at the launch event.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

CHRIS PARKER

Broken Bridge at Barrow

B

arrow-upon-Soar railway station, nine miles north of Leicester on the Midland main line, was opened by the Midland Counties Railway in 1840. Thereafter, it changed its name a couple of times, from Barrow (1840) to Barrow-upon-Soar (1871) and then Barrow-upon-Soar and Quorn (1899). The station closed in 1968 and, despite the fact that much of its original Midland Counties architecture was still intact, it was completely demolished.

A new station, a simple couple of platforms, opened in 1994. It was a few hundred metres from the original location and accessed down steps from the bridge approach at Grove Lane.

This bridge consists of two arch spans over four tracks, one arch for the two Fast lines and the other over the two Slows.

So it was a major problem in many respects when, on 1 August 2016, the southern parapet wall and spandrel of the Down Fast line arch of the bridge collapsed, together with the adjacent wing wall. (right) A significant quantity of debris fell onto the adjacent embankment and Fast Lines below, but fortunately rail traffic was stopped in time to prevent a train running into this.

Swift action A short while earlier, a depression had appeared in the footway of the road above the Fast line arch. This had been seen and reported, with the result that investigatory works were under way on site at the time of the collapse.

Nobody was hurt and the prompt actions of those on site enabled rail and road traffic to be protected.

The south footway was lost with the collapse of the structure, along with some of the fill beneath, and a water main and other utilities were left without adequate support.

Steps were taken by Network Rail and its contractors to make matters safe by closing the road to vehicular and foot traffic, and arranging for the affected utilities to be shut off. AMCO’s Asset Management Minor Works team came in at once to assist with this and to begin to clear up the debris. AMCO brought in the Derby office of consultant engineers Donaldson Associates to assist them at this stage. At the same time, Amey undertook checks on the bridge to ensure that the remaining structure was safe and not liable to further collapse.

As a result of these rapid actions, it was possible to reopen the Slow lines on the following day, with the Fasts being reopened 24 hours later. Some 200 tonnes of debris had to be collected and removed to permit this. The road over the structure remained shut to vehicles and pedestrians at this stage, however, and the utilities could not be reinstated either.

Permanent repairs The next stage in the repair process involved the development and implementation of a suitable permanent scheme. The first priority had to be the reopening of the bridge to foot traffic and the restoration of the water and gas mains and the other utilities. Consultant HPBW was engaged by AMCO to design the permanent works to achieve these ends.

Rail Engineer • November 2016 The work began with the stabilisation of the remaining structure of the Fast line span and of the fill above it. The fill that had not fallen had been left unsupported by the disappearance of the brick walls that had collapsed. It was at a fairly steep angle of repose and liable to possible further movement if, for example, there had been heavy rainfall.

To eliminate this risk, two measures were taken. Firstly, tie bars were installed by drilling right through the structure from the north spandrel parallel to the railway, to emerge at the failure surface on the south side.

Secondly, (right) sprayed concrete was applied to the exposed fill, to strengthen it and protect it from rainfall. The tie bars were secured using sprayed concrete, but in the final works they will be extended by the addition of further lengths of bar to bring them out through the rebuilt spandrel wall. Pattress plates have been fitted to the tie bars on the north spandrel face, and will be fitted similarly to the bars’ southern ends when the new spandrel is complete. In all some 20 tie bars have been installed in this way.

The drilling for the tie bars was demanding work since the holes had to pass through mudstone between the south and north sides of the bridge as well as through the remaining brickwork.

These works were completed, allowing pedestrian traffic across the bridge to resume three weeks after the original incident.

At the time that AMCO’s project manager Shaun Trickett and Network Rail’s scheme project manager Gary Matenga spoke to Rail Engineer, it was thought that the final structure was likely to be built in reinforced concrete and faced with bricks to match the existing work. Reconstruction entirely in brick would be feasible, but would take longer to reach a point where the restoration of utilities and vehicular traffic would be safely allowed. Given the priority attached to these restorations, the reinforced concrete with brick facing option is expected to be adopted.

Network Rail and AMCO have been at some pains to avoid unnecessary inconvenience and disruption to neighbours in Barrow. They held a

49

public meeting in the village early on to explain what was happening and to consult with local people. They obtained the use of the local Scout hut for this meeting, and intend to thank the Scouts by carrying out some works for them in return.

Plans are afoot to avoid further works on Grove Lane bridge for the Midland main line electrification in the immediate future by doing these concurrently with the present repairs.

In particular, the parapets of the bridge need to be raised and modified to comply with electrification requirements. If this work is carried out now it will avoid the need for further noise, dust and road closures, minimising future inconvenience to local people.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Building blocks PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

A

nyone who has walked barefoot into a child’s room late at night will probably hate Lego bricks. That aside, Lego has got to be one of the best toys ever developed. It’s an open system with which you can build whatever you want. Lego took the simple wooden cube and turned it into a building block of the imagination. It’s a powerful thing for a child to realise that they can think of something and then create it. One wonders how many of today’s engineers have started that way?

What goes around comes around.

High on the moors in Cumbria, near the border with North Yorkshire, building block modelling has taken on a new relevance. Near the southern portal of Risehill tunnel, on the Settle and Carlisle line, a drainage problem has been rectified with the aid of

those pesky little bricks. Not literally, you understand, but they were used in the development of an intricate concrete structure built from - yes, that’s right - interlocking blocks. And it’s pleasing to learn that the definitive Lego model was taken to site as a source of reference!

STUART MARSH

Water everywhere On the Settle and Carlisle railway, dealing with the problems created by excess water has been ongoing since the line’s inception. That’s what you get, of course, if you run a railway through the high Pennines, but then climate change hasn’t been helping much of late.

The Eden Brows landslip (issue 143, September 2016) is a case in point.

Indeed, the remedial drainage works at Risehill have been completed, under a framework contract, by the same company that is undertaking operations at Eden Brows - Story Contracting.

Just south of Risehill tunnel, the railway is carried on an embankment.

A stream known as Cowgill Beck flows in a large culvert built on the skew through the base of it. In this vicinity, rainwater had been collecting which threatened to destabilise the embankment. A three-pronged solution was put in place to create a permanent solution to the surface and ground water problems and then to strengthen and protect the embankment.

Logistical challenges The location is wild and remote, so before any of this work could start it was necessary for Story Contracting to lay a 1.4-mile haul road. Making partial use of an existing forestry road, it traversed a plantation, known as Dodderham Moss, from the so-called Coal Road near Dent station - the highest station in England at 1,150 feet above sea level.

This unclassified public road is narrow and twisting, with very steep gradients.

Not for nothing is the approach from

Rail Engineer • November 2016

the valley to Dent station called the Corkscrew! Even just getting plant equipment and materials to the worksite therefore presented difficulties, with all heavy vehicles having to approach along the Coal Road from the direction of Garsdale.

The largest item of mobile plant - Story Contracting’s 22-metre long reach excavator - had to be driven on its tracks from Garsdale station, a distance of over three miles to the start of the haul road. Over all of this distance, the road surface required protection from the vehicle’s tracks.

Staged approach

Slump Important as this work was, the main action was to occur at the foot of the embankment. The slumping of the cess and problems with track alignment were symptomatic of movements occurring due to instability at the toe, with resultant slope failure. And the cause was easy to see - scouring caused by the fast flowing Cowgill Beck.

Reconstruction of the lower slope of the embankment was required and, cleverly, the planned mitigation was linked with the construction of a complex river weir. When the river flows in spate, this large concrete construction has been designed to slow the stream flow around the base of the embankment. Additionally, it incorporates a substantial retaining wall that supports the repaired slope above and protects it from erosion.

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

The work on site was divided into three phases.

Starting in the early summer of 2015 and continuing until December 2015, the ‘Dodderham’ drainage works mitigated surface water and groundwater problems around the southern portal of Risehill tunnel. Concurrently, the ‘Risehill Up Side’ drainage scheme dealt with similar problems to the east of the tunnel approach embankment.

Extensive land drainage schemes were installed, all emptying directly into Cowgill Beck.

Work recommenced in July 2016, under the title of ‘Dent Embankment’. This third scheme, to be completed within just a two-month time slot, commenced with the stabilisation of the embankment at cess level over a distance of 62 metres on the Down (western) side.

Stability here was achieved by means of a ‘Kingpost Retention Wall’. This involved driving hollow 339mm diameter steel piles, installed at two metre centres and reaching a depth of seven metres. The piles were filled with site-won aggregate, with the top 1.5 metres being capped with concrete.

Cess retention was achieved by bolting 25mm thick vertical steel road plates to the tops of the piles. These are sunk to a vertical depth of 1.25 metres. The piles were also used as the anchor points for a continuous handrail.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

You can take your choice on that, but the name isn’t the only feature of familiarity. The overall proportions and the concept of male and female jointers mean that this product is like an adult version of the kiddie’s Lego brick.

There’s nothing toy-like about them of course, weighing in at up to 2.5 tonnes each and formed from high strength (50N/mm2) concrete.

Modelling the concept in Lego bricks sounds like a joke at first, but not so. With similar proportions to the concrete version, it made every sense. In fact, so useful was the Lego model that it became a three dimensional source of reference on site. It was also used as a briefing tool.

By using the Legato product, AECOM was able to design a weir and retaining wall that is essentially selfsupporting. There are no tie-bars or other fixing methods binding the structure together. Wet concrete was used to form the foundation, but thereafter it was just a matter of building up a kit of parts. Each block has a lifting eye cast into it, making the site work even easier. In total, some 245 blocks were used on the project.

Kit built The water flows through a channel-shaped revetment structure that has increasing width and which falls with four distinct weir levels. Bevelled concrete protrusions from the revetment are designed to impede the water flow. With limitations on the size of vehicles hauling to the site, it became clear at an early stage that the complex weir and water channel would have to be constructed offsite and assembled as a kit - enter the Lego set. Or to be more accurate, enter Legato™.

The design work for the project was undertaken jointly

by Story Contracting and engineering consultant AECOM. With the worksite being pretty much in the middle of nowhere and sited within a deep ravine, in-situ concrete pours were ruled out. The decision was therefore taken to use pre-cast concrete interlocking blocks to construct the weir and retaining wall. Elite Precast Concrete of Telford is a specialist in this field and produces many ranges of interlocking blocks, troughs, anchor blocks, barriers and posts. Its Legato range seemed ideal.

Scale Is it a coincidence that the name sounds similar to those smaller plastic blocks we know so well?

Apparently, it is derived from the Italian ‘legati’, meaning ‘joined together’. Lego on the other hand is thought to come from the Danish ‘leg godt’, which means ‘play well’.

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Deflection PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Contained The Dodderham drainage scheme had involved extensive excavation. Rather than transporting the won materials off site, they were used to grade the access to the Dent Embankment scheme within the Network Rail boundary. Although it was necessary to transport blocks and materials into the site, no excavated materials have left it. In view of the narrow roads in this area, this was an important design consideration.

Building a weir in an active brook isn’t the most straightforward of projects. What happens to all that water?!

The answer in this case was to over-pump it. A ‘water retaining structure’ (a dam to you and me) was created at the outflow from the embankment culvert. Carrying out this scheme during the high summer was an obvious necessity, but even then things didn’t go to plan. With the British weather being what it is, the site bypass pumping was overwhelmed on two occasions. Each time, the resultant setbacks amounted to about three or four days of lost work.

The embankment retaining wall is substantially built, again using the interlocking Legato block technique. As well as supporting the embankment, it acts as a water deflector when the stream is in spate. A porous pipe, wrapped in geotextile material, runs behind this wall to drain the embankment toe. It empties into Cowgill Beck downstream of the weir. The embankment toe behind the retention wall, including the erosion gully, was extensively excavated and then re-graded with rockfill.

The entire three-part scheme was costed in at £2.4 million. The isolated nature of the worksite and the difficulties presented by the terrain and the weather has meant that some lateral thinking was required. The engineering solutions produced by Story Contracting and AECOM are a credit to both organisations.

Rhiannon Price, project manager for Network Rail, said: “The work that the team has carried out at Dent will make sure that train services will be able to run safely and more reliably on a remote and iconic section of railway for years to come. There were a number of challenges that the team faced in completing this, not least the environment where the site was located. The roads were narrow and winding with some very steep gradients. However the staff overcame these physical obstacles and the end result is quite impressive.”

She is not wrong!

When Story Contracting completes its work at the Eden Brows landslip site in March 2017, the Settle and Carlisle line will be once again be a strategic through route, and will be in its best ever condition.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Planning makes perfect CHRIS PARKER

A

s Network Rail strives to achieve a 24/7 railway, the process necessarily places both restrictions and obligations on its suppliers. Work has to be meticulously planned so that it takes place as efficiently as possible, achieving the maximum result in a short space of time.

At the same time, record keeping has to be equally precise, so that the next contractor or maintainer to work on the same stretch of railway knows exactly what was done.

To find out what contractors are doing to meet these requirements, Rail Engineer met with Costain’s Peter Roberts, professional head of track, to hear about the company’s special approach.

“We have an ever-increasing need to work smarter,” he commented. “Costain’s aim is to understand the challenges and needs of its clients and, in particular, those of the actual user.”

Structured approach ‘Users’ is a broad term. It includes all stakeholders, passenger and freight train operators as well as the rest of the railway industry and the public-at-large.

The approach taken includes many wellknown acronyms - a whole systems engineering ‘end-to-end’ (E2E) approach that has Safe by Design embedded as well as process assurance

that includes Common Safety Method (CSM), Construction Design and Management (CDM) regulations, Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs) and Asset Management Plans (AMPs).

For example, it is essential that contractors deliver assurance that the finished works meet the standards of quality specified, together with ‘as-built’ and other deliverables information that confirms what has been delivered to the client. They must do so in a format that complies with the client’s specification, standards for asset data/information and operability and sustainability. It must integrate with the client’s AMPs, including smarter maintenance systems, technology and digital information while including future systems where possible.

Costain sets out to give progressive assurance, including intelligent maintenance, to clients and end users without creating and handing-on masses of unnecessary and unhelpful data. It is understood that data, per se, is not valuable until it is turned into information.

What good looks like How is this done? It is essential to engage the ‘hearts and minds’ of all personnel, from project directors to front line supervisors and operatives.

Design plays a major part, and early engagement and a ‘safe by design’ ethos can improve the whole system, including maintenance regimes and the end state. Project outputs include the

Rail Engineer • November 2016

physical works, naturally, but there needs to be much more. Contractors have to constantly ask themselves, can we do it safer? better? smarter? leaner? When to use technology, and what form should that take?

All team members - clients, contractors and sub-contractors - need to know what good looks like from a quality perspective (at their level of responsibility). They must understand the value they can add to the team and the consequences of non-conformances on safety, performance and cost.

If successfully implemented, this will drive a ‘one team’ ethic and approach to quality. The natural results are better safety and improved health and environmental factors - a natural progression of this one-team approach as, individually, all will have differing issues and varying levels of risk and impact.

When Costain carries out a survey, it intends to do so once and to do it right. The initial survey forms the foundation of an E2E assurance process that is taken right through to the finished product. Verification and validation (V&V) is key, and must take place before a survey is used for design and implementation.

Sometimes, V&V is under-used or its importance is overlooked. Costain finds it best to engage early in the Network Rail GRIP process, say from GRIP 2/3 to 8, rather than from GRIP 5 to 8 ‘Design & Build’ that it is currently the norm.

This early involvement ensures that greater ownership and understanding are embedded throughout, including risk.

Keeping technology in check “I cannot emphasise enough the importance of ‘Right for the Job’, be it people, kit or plant,” Peter explained. “Experience, competence and understanding play a major part of the process.

It is equally important to V&V that the right

57

people, equipment and plant are going to be available with the right software to interpret

levels etc.) have been created and that they communicate correctly with the machine.

Tamper files should go through a checking process to ensure they have been created correctly. Deficiencies with these can slow site processes and even lead to non-conformances and re-work. That can prove costly, particularly with the access and possessions implications.

Peter stressed that the selection of appropriate technologies is vital, but it isn’t good to get too bound-up in technology for the sake of it. Of course, it has its place, but LiDAR and point clouds are not always necessary sometimes simpler things will suffice. “Even a tape measure can be appropriate if it is adequate and the results are verifiable and auditable,” he commented. “That is why we need to understand the end goals and what good looks like for the end user and all stakeholders.

“The objectives have to be to aid ‘entry into service’ and to ensure that clients are supplied with comprehensive data or, more importantly, information for the finished works in a format

and apply correctly the survey and design information for the job.

“This is particularly important for tamping and for dozing operations.”

He went on to explain further how important ‘getting it right’ was to those processes. Files pertaining to 3D dozing require V&V prior to the works to ensure the correct models (spacial,

that is acceptable to them for simple entry to their asset management system. Take-off certification and health and safety files have to be provided at the right time, in the right format to the right recipients in a way that makes their lives easy. Data is fine but this has to be translated into user-friendly and intelligent information.”

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Successful implementation New developments by Costain include automated systems for monitoring track adjacent to civils works. These are designed to minimise the need for personnel to be on or near the line and to generate automatic alerts appropriately when a problem arises.

Additionally, new survey managers have recently been appointed to the company to provide additional skilled resource.

The aim is to simplify wherever possible - to make it easy. To fill in forms using Electronic Data Management Systems (EDMS) and electronic signatures, aiding and supporting end product and particular users. To look outside of the box, not just stick to the normal “because that is what we have always done…”

A good example of this approach was the recent collapse of the Dover-Folkestone ‘sea wall’ and its subsequent reconstruction.

Costain installed a concrete slab and flood defence prior to reinstatement of the track structure.

The Costain project team challenged the construction and design programme dates, and the actual logic in certain areas of the programme, improving timescales for delivery and reducing cost and risk. Bottom ballast was installed using 3D-controlled dozing, with the key being V&V prior to the works. Track installation was very closely monitored, in particular ‘bottom ballast’ levels, stiffness and

uniformity using a lightweight deflectometer for added compliance and future quality and smoothness that would aid track ‘shelf life’.

Track alignment and geometry were controlled using the new Amberg IMS 3000 ‘one trolley’ system. This outputs geometry and alignments (including ‘as-builts’ and RED line drawings) directly into the tamper. The information also formed part of the H&S files and handover data, including data for the National Gauging Database (NGD), which were verified and ‘backed up’ using traditional techniques to ensure quality installation.

The track was pre-built and prepared in 108-metre long panels to aid installation speed and efficiency and also to support follow-on

stressing and welding. The panels were installed using a Geismar PEM/LEM system, which was judged to be “right for this job”.

All deliverables, from an ‘Entry into Service’ and health and safety file perspective, were completed, automated, and delivered to the client as soon as reasonably practicable, closing out the AMPs and allowing the site to be taken into maintenance responsibility quickly.

As a result if these initiatives, Costain delivered the sea wall works three months ahead of schedule, giving Network Rail, train operators and the travelling public a railway line in which they can take pride.

Delivering whole life, end-to-end asset lifecycle solutions Costain is one of the UK’s leading tier one engineering solutions providers, bringing innovative solutions to the increasingly complex requirements of our customers in the rail sector.

Our extensive knowledge and experience delivers value to our customers’ assets across all phases of the project lifecycle. Our solutions incorporate both high-level consultancy and advanced engineering design at the front-end, through to complex programme delivery, operations and maintenance further down the line.

www.costain.com Scan here to discover why you should choose Costain

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

Mixing concrete on-track

R

ail construction projects, by nature, always present a number of key challenges for any contractor. With the time pressures involved under strict possessions, efficiency is crucial to the success of a project.

One factor that can affect the smooth running of a project is the use of wet concrete products.

Quality can be compromised by late possessions, obstructions and lengthy travel distances, which can cause the concrete to segregate and cure ahead of placing in the pile or foundation.

Specialist ground engineering contractor Van Elle Rail identified and overcame this problem by developing a solution in the form of a state of-theart on-track volumetric mixer. First of its kind in Europe, the computer-controlled mobile batching plant RRV is capable of dispensing specific concrete mixes whenever needed.

Onsite production Volumetric mixing is a technique of producing concrete at the location of the works rather than batching off site. The raw concrete ingredients (cement, water, aggregate) are proportioned volumetrically before being mixed. It allows for production of only the required amount with each batch, as well as topping up if more is needed.

Using this process, concrete quality can be maintained at all times, offering better performance, improved workability and savings on cost and programme. In addition, by ensuring that only the exact amount of concrete is mixed as it is required, significant savings can be realised on production, transportation of any extra material to the site, and disposal of any excess concrete remaining.

Different types of aggregate can be mixed with cement consecutively with the volumetric system, as each ingredient is stored in separate compartments, ready

for mixing as and when needed. The user has complete control over the proportions added to the mix throughout the process, allowing for modification at every stage whilst meeting design requirements.

Being onsite, the risk of a premixed batch becoming hydrated or segregated in transit especially on hot days, or in heavy traffic - is almost entirely removed. Similarly, if more concrete is required for a project than was originally thought necessary, there is no delay waiting for extra to arrive onsite, during which time the already poured mix may begin to cure.

Increased efficiency Van Elle Rail’s on-track volumetric mixer has a significant advantage over more traditional methods of concrete delivery. The mixer simply accesses the track, travels to the work site, batches the required amount of concrete and returns back to the RRAP in order for the materials can be replenished ready for the next possession.

It is a truly efficient method, and a vital one, given the small window of opportunity under strict possessions.

The volumetric mixer is capable of dispensing 7.4m3 of concrete and, if a greater volume of concrete is required, it can easily be replenished on track using RRVs and trailers. It is ideally suited for blockade work, remote locations and isolated works.

This method also reduces Van Elle Rail’s carbon footprint as there is no need for multiple trips to and from a batching plant. Multiple deliveries can be made to sites with just one load, making smaller trips far more feasible economically.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

East Coast

gears up for

ERTMS

CLIVE KESSELL

T

raining drivers on route knowledge and cab controls using simulators has been a useful tool for many years. First developed for the aviation industry, simulators for rail were first deployed in the mid-1960s when the initial electrification from London to Manchester was nearing completion.

In those days, real film was taken of the cab view ahead with signals and other trackside elements being superimposed and capable of being programmed to mimic typical operating circumstances.

The simulator technology of today bears little resemblance to those early days. The cab view is now a digitally created image that can be modified when changes to the rail infrastructure occur. Different weather conditions can be simulated showing the impact of fog, snow, torrential rain and even fallen trees, all displayed with 3D graphics and accompanying sound. The view may not be quite the same as real film footage, but it is much more adaptable for training purposes as it can demonstrate a multitude of operational scenarios.

Many TOCs now possess simulators and they have been used on the East Coast franchise for almost ten years.

With the franchise now with Virgin Trains, and with ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System, a combination of ETCS European Train Control System and GSM-R radio) pending, a complete update of the simulator equipment has been

undertaken, ready for driver training when the new signalling system becomes a reality.

As well as having ETCS capability, more powerful graphics and computer hardware have been implemented, along with improved instructor and control interfaces. The simulator provider is CORYS, a French company and a global player in simulator technology for the rail and power industries. In early October, Rail Engineer was invited by Virgin Trains to the King’s Cross simulator suite to see what has been achieved so far.

Designing the requirements Part of the Virgin franchise requirement was to review all existing simulators and prepare them for upgrade or renewal. Working with CORYS, the starting point was to decide which sections of the East Coast route would be initially modelled, what types of trains

needed to be included and the list of operational conditions that would need to be simulated.

For the present, only the Class 91 electric locomotive desk and HST diesel cabs from the original simulator are in place but it is recognised that, in due course, the HSTs will be phased out and replaced by the new Class 800/801 Intercity Express ‘Azuma’ fleet, meaning that a new cab model for the Virgin Azuma is currently being constructed.

Paul Boyle, the Virgin Trains ERTMS implementation project manager, explained that a training base needed to be achieved throughout the length of the East Coast main line (ECML). Thus simulators are provided at King’s Cross, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. The sections of line modelled to date are Kings Cross to Peterborough, Newcastle to Alnmouth and Craigentinny Depot.

Whilst the precise form that ETCS will take on the East Coast route is not yet set in stone, the intention is that this will be ETCS Level 2 to Baseline 3 specification with no traditional lineside signals. The line-ahead graphics have been produced on this assumption, with ETCS marker boards and balises shown in the anticipated positions. These can be

Rail Engineer • November 2016 easily modified as necessary to reflect precisely the eventual signalling plan once this is finalised. One feature on the simulator is the use of kilometres and not miles in ETCS mode, since the system is a European standard and Virgin Trains want to understand the implications during the period of debate on changing from miles to kilometres for the UK railway.

As well as normal running conditions, the simulator must model out-of-course conditions. These will include temporary speed restrictions, single line working and permissive working, as well as many different equipment failure modes, plus the more usual but unexpected transition from fast to slow (and vice versa) and junction diversions.

Class 91 simulator.

The simulator in action The room at King’s Cross has been purposely adapted to have a darkened ambience and houses two locomotive control desks (Class 91 and HST), each with a display screen showing the route ahead. For those readers who are familiar with ERTMS/ ETCS operation, the display follows a normal pattern: the permitted speed within the Movement Authority (MA) is shown as a grey circular band on the outside of the speedometer dial, the driver being required to keep the train speed within this limit.

Should this limit be exceeded, an orange warning will flash up as an overspeed tolerance of 3-4kph is allowed without the system taking intrusive action. If the speed should go beyond this tolerance, the orange warning changes to red and braking action will occur until the speed has dropped to below that permitted.

As a train approaches a speed restriction of any kind, so the permitted speed band reduces around the dial and the driver must apply the brakes so as to keep within the new limit. If the MA is such that the train has to be brought to a stand, then the speed band will gradually reduce to zero.

In circumstances where the stopping point must be precise, when the speed is reduced below a predefined value (which varies according to train type and the distance to conflict points), the ETCS system relaxes supervision to allow the driver to stop the train close to the ETCS block marker or buffer stop.

This is known as the release speed and acknowledges that ETCS must allow for a certain level of error within the system’s train position reporting.

Without a release speed, the train may be forced to a stand before reaching its intended stopping point, for example before all of the train is alongside a platform. However, the system will never allow a train to reach a conflict point.

A separate indication (planning area) gives a scrolling linear read out on the distance ahead that the MA permits, changes in permitted speed and electric traction features, i.e. neutral sections and pantograph raising/ lowering zones. This display can be zoomed out to 32km so in theory the MA could be seen to extend to this distance, or beyond. This situation will only be present when traffic is light on very long stretches of line without level crossings (such as between York and Darlington).

The planning area constantly shows the 500-metre point ahead, halfway down the linear scale, regardless of the zoom value. This is so that the scrolling objects (such as End of Authority and target speed) appear at a consistent rate within this distance so helping the driver not to misjudge the approach. If a linear scale were used for the entire display, at low speed with a 32km zoom setting, objects would appear almost stationary.

Within the simulator, the train performance characteristics (acceleration, braking, coasting) can be changed. Characteristics representative of a freight train can be modelled by altering acceleration and braking performance. Furthermore, the ETCS braking curves (the data that

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

determines at what point braking must begin and the amount of braking effort that must be used) can be manipulated.

For example, a passenger train will be programmed with steeper curves than a freight train because of the better braking performance and hence, shorter stopping distance.

As these curves can be adjusted in the simulator, it is therefore possible to apply the braking curves of a freight train to the Class 91 or HST, thus creating the ETCS conditions which would be applicable to freight trains. It follows that, by altering the performance characteristics and braking curves within the simulator, it can be used to represent any type of train that is likely to use the route.

Next year, the simulator will be upgraded with the recently standardised ETCS baseline 3 release 2. Within this specification is the option to display the new Time to Indication (TTI) alert which appears 14 seconds before the orange band appears on the speedometer. This feature was proposed by the UK to give a conspicuous indication (audible as well as visual) of the impending need to begin braking. This is especially useful when low rail adhesion conditions exist when it is necessary to begin braking earlier than usual.

The current ETCS specification has an optional ‘slippery rail’ function which can be selected by the driver or triggered on the train automatically, for example if the signaller becomes aware of such conditions. Once triggered, this function ‘flattens’ the brake curves to command the driver to brake earlier and lighter.

However, the fixed value of these curves will, in many circumstances, be insufficient or will be overly restrictive due to the variable nature of low adhesion conditions (severity, locations or weather). The TTI option will provide drivers with an alert so that they can react according to the individual circumstances at the time.

When upgraded, the simulator will be able to test the effectiveness of this function.

The stopping pattern of a passenger train is not built into the simulation, and thus drivers will continue to need detailed route knowledge and will be responsible for stopping the train at the timetabled calling points.

Separate screens monitor the driver's progress.

Level crossings The ECML still has numerous level crossings along its route and the operation of these will need to be built into the ETCS design. Because of the high line speed, crossing barriers are currently controlled manually by CCTV monitoring to prove that the barriers are down thus allowing the route to be set by the signalling interlocking. A similar arrangement is needed once ETCS is introduced and thus an MA cannot be given until a level crossing ahead is proved closed to road traffic.

The simulator can reflect typical level crossing behaviour in that the MA will not be given until the train is in relatively close proximity. This will maintain road vehicle passage for as long as possible, but still be within time to avoid the need for the train to slow. It is to be hoped that, in time, many of these crossings will be eliminated or controlled differently.

This could mean the crossing being triggered by an individual train’s actual or potential speed, taking into account its maximum available acceleration.

This will not happen until after ETCS has been introduced on the ECML.

Training logistics The timetable for provision of the East Coast ERTMS project has still to be confirmed, but it will be 2020 before the first stage is implemented.

This may be in ‘overlay’ mode, with lineside signals retained, and the simulator has to be capable of modelling all eventualities.

Around 350 drivers and management staff will need to be trained, so it will be a lengthy process and no timetable

has yet been set for this to commence.

In addition to the actual simulator location, an adjacent room has been equipped with screens and monitoring controls to display what is taking place whilst a driver is undergoing training.

Thus, any mistakes or suboptimal practices can be observed by others, which will be part of the learning process. It is anticipated that eight trainees will take part at any one time, together with the instructor, at any of the four sites.

The simulator training can never be regarded as a one-off exercise and ongoing familiarity with the system will be needed. To support this, a replica of the simulator will be available for loading on to iPads or tablets such that ETCS driving conditions can be replicated away from the work place. This method will also be used in the classroom environment so that all trainees can operate a simulated train rather than one driving and the others observing.

The Virgin staff are mindful that the East Coast project is not the first in the UK - the Cambrian Line having been converted in 2010 - and also that many ETCS projects are in operation in other countries. Visits have been made to some of these to see what the real operation looks like and to learn from the training methods deployed.

The future of signalling is beckoning and Virgin Trains is well prepared for it.

Thanks to Paul Boyle, Paul Lartey, Vicki Havron, Richard Stanton and Neal Smith for facilitating this fascinating visit.

Enabling intelligent infrastructure decisions Amey is one of today’s leading engineering consultants and public services providers, managing the vital infrastructure that we all rely on.

We deliver innovative and versatile asset management, engineering design and operational delivery solutions to many of the country’s largest rail operators and providers including Network Rail and Transport for London.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

125mph

S&C handback

a UK first.

GRAHAME TAYLOR

A

t the beginning of the year, the Rail Engineer magazine (issue 136, February 2016) covered the Christmas and New Year programme of track delivery work, including a plain line possession on LNE that was proudly handed back at 125mph. At the time we mulled over the possibility that 125mph handbacks for switches and crossings (S&C) projects could be just a couple of years away.

Nine months later, and two years after the S&C North Alliance - the powerhouse partnership between AmeySersa and Network Rail was formed, we’re celebrating the delivery of Britain’s first ever 125mph handback on an S&C project.

The expectation of higher handback speeds is becoming the norm, especially on busy passenger routes where the timetable is sensitive to train speed reductions. However, grasping those extra few mph (or km/h) takes a great deal of extra care.

25mph on top of 100mph may not seem much, but anyone involved in managing the dynamics of a train going at 125mph will appreciate just how fast things are happening.

On plain line, 125mph is relatively straightforward. High speed running over switches and crossings is another kettle of fish. To open an S&C renewal at 125mph takes careful planning. Many in the industry thought that this milestone would be years down the line.

The complications Pway engineers can look away now while we go through the basic list of the fishes in the kettle. Pretty obviously there are the switches, which have to maintain their integrity and relative positions with the stock rails. There is a crossing which in itself could involve moving parts to avoid there being a gap to jump over. There is an assortment of bearer lengths, and the whole lot has to be tamped using a specialist S&C tamper. Oh and then there’s the signalling and OLE to contend with. So, S&C isn’t straightforward.

Nick Matthews is the programme engineering manager with the S&C North Alliance, and he explained what it takes. “You’re looking at the culmination of two years of work we’ve taken a gradual approach to what is a major step change in S&C delivery. We’ve been quite cautious, by identifying the right test sites, techniques and applying the due diligence to succeed.”

Nick refers to “progressive assurance”. It means looking at each stage in a project and making sure that it is demonstrably checked against defined tolerances.

With each stage signed off as being within tolerance, the Authorised Person - the individual who has the responsibility at the end of the possession to decide on an opening speed - will have a complete history of each stage in the works.

Rail Engineer • November 2016

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Compaction tracked

The issues that are critical to successful high-speed track handover at the end of a possession are largely hidden from view, buried in the ballast. Top and line may appear fine, but it is the quality of formation treatment and ballast compaction that will decide whether a train rides smoothly over newly laid track or whether it - or subsequent trains - experiences rough riding (or worse).

The S&C at Belford, on the East Coast main line (ECML) north of Newcastle, was chosen as the site to go live with progressive assurance. Between 16 and 19 September 2016, there were two worksites involved on the Down line at each end of the Down passenger loop - 506 points (facing) and, about a mile further north, 510B points (trailing). The latter set of points was planned for a 125mph handback. 506 points, being a facing connection and also close to Belford level crossing, was planned for 80mph.

Both sites were dug to 400mm and made good with a 100mm sand blanket followed by 300mm of bottom ballast compacted in one layer by a Variomatic Bomag roller. This particular machine gives an output trace of its performance and the stiffness of compaction achieved at every stage, which is retained as part of the assurance process.

At the ends of each excavation there is a transition length where the depth of dig tapers up to the existing bottom ballast level. A basic formula of line speed divided by seven gives the appropriate gradient. The purpose of the transition is to ensure that trains don’t ‘drop’ abruptly into a hole of relatively less compacted ballast and at the other end don’t suddenly hit a step. Although the possible differences in level are very small, trains travelling at high speed are likely to experience a rough ride.

The S&C modular units were then installed and aligned manually to within 5mm. Then followed the stone drop followed by a combined tamp/DTS (dynamic track stabilisation). The first pass is what is termed a disruption

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

The ballast was compacted using a Bomag Variomatic roller.

pass where every single bearer, including any hollow bearers, is tamped with the DTS following on in maximum mode to give maximum ballast consolidation. There’s then a second, very fine lining pass with the tamper, with the DTS in variable mode. Rather than giving maximum consolidation, it follows the geometry ramping up its action where slight track tolerance issues are found.

DTS reputation It may be worth reflecting for a moment on the DTS function. DTS machines (right) have been around for several decades. Indeed they formed the backbone of the highspeed handbacks of the 1980s.

For our non-pway readers, DTS machines simulate the passage of trains by vibrating the track - a lot.

But they had their detractors. They were perceived as being…brutal.

Whether this was a valid viewpoint could be up for debate. For track compaction they were doubtless very effective - because they were indeed brutal (allegedly). For lineside

structures and buildings they were quite rough. They made the teacups rattle. For S&T equipment they were - or at least it was felt that they could be - downright destructive. For many, the perception persists to this day, and so it was necessary to be a little more scientific to measure what they are capable of doing - and undoing.

In our last article on this subject we referred to forthcoming trials to assess the true nature of the DTS beast. These were to be conducted through Network Rail’s central

innovation team of IP Track with help from Southampton University - their ISVR Consulting.

Two sets of switches were chosen, located in Grange sidings near Stoke. The trial was run in February and June of this year. A 39-page report, with many tables and graphs, concluded that an appropriately used DTS should not cause any more vibrations than would be experienced in normal train running. However, the S&T equipment at Belford was taken off just in case…

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And the first train is…?

When the time came for the Authorised Person to assess the track at Belford, he was in possession of a complete file of all the stages in the relaying process and their measured results. Progressive assurance proved its worth. Along with what could be seen and, just as importantly, a fact-based knowledge of what could not be seen, the temporary speed boards were ‘spated’ that is, a cancelling indicator was shown.

Despite the months of planning, it isn’t possible to anticipate what the first train to run over the relaying site will be. In the end, a freight train running at its speed of 60mph turned up. The site team didn’t have long to wait, though, for an empty coaching stock movement of an HST from Heaton Depot to Berwick, which duly rattled through with its throttle wide open for the clear line ahead. A very satisfying end to a well-planned endeavour.

Next up?

What’s next then? Whilst opening at line speed won’t be appropriate everywhere, making high speed handback BAU (business as usual) on S&C is realistically on the cards - it’s simply a matter of putting the pieces together - combining the people, techniques and technology to deliver more of the incremental improvements we’ve seen over the last few years.

The next big challenge will be to tackle the logistics of relaying a full crossover. For our non-pway readers, the complication here involves bearers that are long - very long. They are continuous under both tracks. Anything

you do to one track affects the other whereas, with the single leads at Belford, none of the timbers extended under the adjacent track and the connection to the loop line was a modest 40mph. Nick acknowledges that opening a full crossover at 125mph will be challenging, but having tested the concept of progressive assurance and found it to be fit for purpose, there’s just the engineering to sort out.

And engineering’s easy, isn’t it?

Celebrating the first S&C 125mph handback.

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Rhomberg Sersa - Slab Track The UK’s leading slab track design and build specialist

// Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group have introduced SLAB TRACK AUSTRIA (STA) to the UK infrastructure, Winchburgh Tunnel, Queen Street Tunnel, Gospel Oak to Barking Reduced Construction Times Cost effective Maintenance Free Low Construction Height Future oriented modular slab system Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group I T +44 300 3030230 I carl.garrud@rhomberg-sersa.com I www.rhomberg-sersa.com

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

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

The R&D programme has evolved from being solely about safety to include a wide range of issues. The Innovation Railway programme, a collaboration between Network Rail and RSSB, exists to support the delivery of the Rail Technical Strategy (RTS). It has cross industry support through the Technical Strategy Leadership Group and currently has over 100 active projects. ​​On behalf of the Future Traffic Regulation and Optimisation (FuTRO) project control board, RSSB recently arranged a networking event in Birmingham to share progress and inform its members about the Digital Railway, and FuTRO programmes.

To achieve the improvements in the railway’s capacity, quality, environmental impact and cost, the whole system has to be smarter.

The more trains that can detect their position, communicate and share

information, the easier it becomes to ensure everything is in the right place at the right time.

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

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

PAUL DARLINGTON

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

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

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

Rail Engineer • November 2016 Safe railway operation by the separation of trains by fixed signals has essentially not changed since the principles developed from the 1870s until the 1950s, with drivers looking out of the front of a train to see lights on sticks. The principles of ETCS and CBTC have been explained many times in Rail Engineer. ETCS Level 1 and 2 systems are now in service across the world.

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

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

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

Whatever level of ETCS is finally adopted it will improve service reliability, capacity, efficiency and cost. While there will be some safety

benefits, rail safety is ahead of the game compared with other modes of transport and it needs to build on this advantage.

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

On the other hand, shared autonomous on-demand self-driving cars could provide local transport, with rail complementing the end to end journey experience. In the future, rail could be part of mobility

as a service (MaaS), with customers ordering an end to end journey via an app, and a service provider delivering a complete joined up service of road and rail. There is already a vast amount of data which could contribute to MaaS; for example station car park usage could be made available and would help to inform the most efficient split of a journey by road and rail.

Let’s assume that rail does survive and prosper. Once ETCS is fully deployed with traffic management, there are some interesting challenges that may arise. The network could be configured for more trains, better reliability, or faster trains. There may have to be a trade-off between these three outputs, but who would decide

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Rail Engineer • November 2016 the priority? How would this fit with the current regulation and train delay attribution system? There may be a need to delay one operator for the greater good of the system, who pays?

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

Rail Technical Strategy RSSB revealed that it is shortly to release a detailed plan for how the industry can use technology to modernise and transform the railway.

It is now four years since the whole of the industry signed up to a vision of the railway of the future, which was set out in a document called the Rail Technical Strategy (RTS).

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

Taken together, the twelve key capabilities will deliver a railway of the future,. This will feature trains running close together with

more space inside, fewer service disruptions and self-regulating trains arriving and departing precisely on time, quicker boarding and alighting for passengers who will enjoy a personalised customer experience and better connectivity for freight movements. All delivered for less cost and with less damage to the environment.

Each key capability is then broken down further into a sequence of milestones and a programme structure. The milestones provide the industry and suppliers with a clear set of near-term delivery priorities that can deliver benefits to the railway and also start the journey of realising the future vision in the RTS. The RTS Delivery Strategy Manager, Trevor Bradbury told the audience that, “Britain needs a technologically-enabled railway that delivers efficient, affordable, flexible, and attractive transportation for the record number of customers who now use it. The amount and speed of change needed to meet the challenges faced by the industry requires looking beyond conventional

solutions and toward the transformative power of technology.”

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

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

DITTO and DEDOTS The research projects instigated

by RSSB FuTRO are wide and varied and are a mixture of academic research by universities (for example Southampton, Newcastle, University College London) together with specialised technology companies.

Two examples are DITTO (Developing

Rail Engineer • November 2016 Integrated Tools to Optimise Rail Systems) and DEDOTS (Developing and Evaluating Dynamic Optimisation for Train Control Systems). These aim to deliver optimisation tools and methods, applications, algorithms, artificial intelligence decision support systems, and demonstrators.

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

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

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

Being fundamental research, the route to market for all three projects

is long and will include the need to further test and refine algorithms, and the development of industry appropriate software for integration into the Network Rail traffic management systems.

Video train positioning.

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

There are methods of improving the accuracy of GNSS, which were discussed, but tunnels are still a problem. Other solutions such as laser tracking have been evaluated, however two specialised technology companies, Reliable Data Systems Technology (RDS) and Gobotix have, in parallel (and both sponsored by RSSB), concluded that the answer is to use video analytics from a forward facing camera. The video camera, and equipment installed inside the train, is used to measure speed using video pixel analysis to accurately provide information to position a train from known reference points. The systems

have been proven to provide great accuracy and with no external infrastructure required.

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

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

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

Could a rechargeable camera provide the answer?

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

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Driver Support System PAUL DARLINGTON

I

n November 2009, Rail Engineer featured a new and unique video trainpositioning system (VTPS). Developed by RDS International, VTPS provided a fundamentally new approach to train positioning and offered a simple-tooperate, reliable product, with both low installation and maintenance costs, and requiring no complicated lineside infrastructure.

With VTPS, a forward-facing video camera, together with equipment installed inside the train, is used both to measure speed using video pixel analysis and to accurately provide

information to position a train. The system is accurate to within, typically, 2 per cent of distance travelled compared to, say, ETCS which is specified for an accuracy of 5 per cent.

One of the key advantages of VTPS is that it is independent of any track or lineside infrastructure, other than existing fixed reference points.

RDS has developed a new real-time driver support system (DSS) utilising VTPS which has now successfully completed user evaluation trials.

Part-funded by RSSB, the system helps drivers to learn and retain route knowledge information and provide additional information on demand.

DSS displays a rolling railway map to help train drivers anticipate the route ahead. The map is displayed on a tablet, showing the location of key information including stations, signals, junctions and speed restrictions for the route ahead. The design team has worked closely with passenger and freight operators to achieve a layout which presents key information clearly at a glance. The system allows drivers to operate with confidence in less familiar situations, for example when a train has to be diverted off its planned route.

Being able to display accurate data and information to the driver requires an accurate train positioning system.

This could not be provided by a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) alone, since this would not provide positioning in tunnels, nor adequate positional information to determine which line the train is on.

Lineside beacons are expensive to install and maintain, are a hindrance to track maintenance, and require additional equipment on the train to receive locational information.

VTPS and DSS overcome all these disadvantages with minimal train fitment requirement. This makes the task of retrofitting the system to existing stock relatively simple.

RDS is a young company with new innovative ideas, but it is built on solid foundations. The directors and engineers

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have extensive experience, gained over thirty years, implementing major railways projects involving electronic equipment installed on trains.

VTPS Two cameras, with one for redundancy, are attached to the inside of the cab windscreen. The camera image is transformed from a horizontal to a vertical view, giving a picture that appears to look directly down on to the track. Connected to the cameras is an image processor which can be some distance from the camera. The frame image is divided into a matrix of blocks and pixels, with one pixel covering an area of ground approximately two centimetres square. As the train progresses, the system looks for the displacement of pixels with the same patterns in an earlier frame, and is able to provide accurate positional information.

A major feature of the system is that it is not dependent on any external equipment or radio signal.

It will work anywhere using fixed reference points which the camera will read. Measurement will start from this point and continue until the next marker is reached.

There is no prescribed distance between markers and they can be existing structures or any known reference point which the camera can recognise. If the track is already fitted with beacons or balises for another purpose, then these can be fed into the video positioning processor as required.

Designed to meet and exceed the performance requirements for ERTMS odometer and speed measurement, VTPS can support other applications, such as standby signalling systems at low cost, as well as DSS.

DSS Some forms of railway system failures can be worked around through diversion of a train onto a different route or line. Current operating practices prevent drivers from operating over such a route unless they have ‘knowledge’ of the intended route (route knowledge).

This is normally gained by the individual driving the route a number of times over a set period. There are some diversionary routes which are relatively straightforward but may not be able to be used because of the current rules.

RSSB research study T665 (risks associated with working trains during degraded modes of operation) investigated whether moving to a risk-based approach could lead to a greater degree of flexibility to enhance service reliability. The study identified that the network utilisation benefits are much greater than any safety impacts, so long as lower speed running (~20mph) is implemented and route information packs are provided.

DSS was developed with this in mind and to provide route information in a user-friendly format.

DSS is an application to help drivers, not to replace them or tell them what to do. It can provide the type of support that hitherto was provided by a driver’s assistant, without compromising the driver’s responsibility. For instance it can also provide reassurance that a driver hasn’t inadvertently missed a speed restriction - no matter how experienced and knowledgeable a driver may be, human fallibility is always possible. DSS demonstrates the industry’s continuous investment in its aim to improve safety, in the same way that the railways have always done over the last 150 years.

Other business benefits of the system are that DSS will speed up the process of driver training and continuous assessment. Rapid access to additional information for use in emergencies is possible as it has the potential to update the system in real time with, for example, temporary speed restriction information.

This may provide a cost saving to the infrastructure manager and reduce any risk to lineside staff.

Another side benefit is that the system has a month of recorded video on board, so stock without a forward facing camera will gain this facility when DSS is provided.

DSS development and trial

Class 43.

Led by RDS, along with partner First Great Western (now GWR) and sponsored by RSSB, the project to specify and agree the user interface started in early 2015. Trialling of the system followed in June 2016, and has recently concluded. The trials set out to evaluate the user interface by testing with drivers in a train simulator, and to evaluate the system using an in-service train.

RDS has developed the system in house and have control over all of the software and hardware. CCD Design & Ergonomics Ltd assisted with the user interface design.

Driver Support System

The Driver Support System displays the train's track-precise position on a real-time rolling route schematic for short diversions, shunting and unexpected stops.

www.rdsintl.com

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Rail Engineer • November 2016 Static Mode

A DSS user group was established consisting of drivers/driver managers from four train operators and one freight operator as well as representatives from Network Rail yellow plant operations, RSSB operational standards and human factors. Several different interfaces were evaluated before agreeing on a vertical format of the line ahead displaying route information.

A number of operational modes were agreed, with more or less information being displayed according to the selection. For each mode, the features chosen for the display to a driver were carefully considered along with any safety issues. The modes include:

Journey Mode

Video train positioning system.

DSS presents critical route information to assist when signalled onto an infrequently used line, for example following an operational incident, commencement of a planned diversion, or a railway system failure.

Designed to cater for both high speed running and when driving at caution, it presents the train position with signals, stations and line speed changes ahead.

It shows the current track name, route mileage and line speed plus the next line speed and a distance countdown to the next signal. This mode also highlights the route to be taken at diverging junctions, based on journey information entered by the driver, and the possible routes that could be indicated at a junction signal. DSS allows easy selection between different map scales, day and night display, and icon preferences.

Shunt Mode The DSS presents the rolling track map with the move highlighted ahead of the train’s location and exactly how much further to pass a shunt signal. It displays the limit of shunt, the signal to ‘drop behind’ and other shunt signals. A distance counter indicates how far the train rear needs to travel to be clear.

If an unplanned stop is made in an unfamiliar location, then Static Mode can be selected. The DSS displays the current position on a track schematic complete with GPS co-ordinates.

The driver can toggle on and off local railway access points, bridges, tunnels, signals, line speeds, track electrification status and site specific communication information. This would be very useful if it is necessary to detrain a passenger service.

Once the DSS user interface was agreed and designed, a series of tests was carried out using a Class 43 HST simulator. In order to determine a baseline, a driver who had no knowledge of a route drove it on the simulator under the guidance of a Route Conductor (RC). Further tests were undertaken with drivers having no guidance from an RC and just assisted by the DSS. The simulation tests concluded with a run driving in thick fog with the driver having no situational awareness from looking ahead through the cab window so having to rely totally on the DSS. The results of the tests revealed no substantial difference in the way the train was driven along the route. The system was well received by all who experienced it with comments on its usefulness.

The trial concluded with a series of live testing runs with the system installed in a GWR Class 43 HST on the Bristol to Cardiff route. The DSS was monitored by a driver manager and it was concluded that the system delivered on all its requirements straight out of the box.

The DSS demonstrator trial gathered more than sufficient evidence to confirm that the concept is valid.

Typical uses of DSS Scenarios for the use of DSS may include the following:

»» A tree is on the line ahead and trains are stacked up behind. It’s been four hours and everyone’s getting hot and bothered. It’s time to evacuate the train before passengers take matters into their own hands.

The driver checks the DSS for the nearest access points and provides the signaller with the train’s GPS co-ordinates so that help can be directed to the right place. »» Five miles up the track a train has broken down. There’s a junction ahead and the signaller has routed the train so it can be terminated at the next station. The driver has not signed for the two miles of route to the station but, with the DSS, he is able to drive the two simple track sections. »» A train is shunting from Platform 1 to Platform 7 and the signaller instructs the driver to leave the station and drop behind shunt signal SH1234. The driver believes he knows where that is but he switches DSS to shunt move and he is now very clear on what is required.

Next stages The next stage is likely to be more extensive operational trials, possibly on a compact route with captive rolling stock, and with multiple ‘real’ users. In parallel, RDS is looking for easier ways of incorporating data into DSS from existing asset information systems. RDS would welcome input from train operators who may wish to help sponsor and bring to the railway this exciting, simple to use and install, inexpensive digital rail enhancement.

Could VTPS and DSS provide the elements of a standby signalling system for ERTMS and future rail?

Well, they have the vital ingredients of simplicity and independence from other systems, just what is needed for any back up system.

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SUSTAINABILITY/ENVIRONMNENT

Shear brilliance "W

orking with saws to clear vegetation and trees up and down steep banks by a line isn’t fun. If it’s not tripping over dead wood, it’s avoiding the sting of blackthorn. But then, if I hadn’t hated that so much, I probably wouldn’t now have a business supplying tree shears.”

Those are the words of Nick Dinsdale, director of NCD Equipment. He started his company in 2014, having previously worked within the agricultural world using various types of equipment, excavators and chainsaws.

He was getting tired of clearing vegetation and trees for the railways, it was time consuming and awkward and he felt there must be a better way to do the job.

After some research, Nick found TMK (TM Koponen Ky), based in Finland. The TMK Tree Shear fits onto an excavator, and one unit will clear an area of trees and vegetation in a single day that would otherwise take six operatives with chainsaws.

Nick’s initial intention was to buy the shear and contract himself out, but he also started selling them and it wasn’t long before he was the official dealer in the UK. Working on 5-16 tonne dual-acting hydraulic machines, the shear clears hardwood and softwood vegetation safely and cheaply. Its simple, robust design and operation has spurred a quick success and good reputation in the UK with prices starting in the region of £4,500.

Customer satisfaction The shear has a bolt-on/bolt-off quick-hitch system, making it easy for operators to change over when working on different sized machines. This has helped sell the tree shears to foresters and farmers alike. It can cut 250mm hardwood and 300mm softwood and keeps hold of what it cuts, allowing the operator to safely place it on the ground. The shear is very strong and requires little maintenance, the body is made of Hardox 400 steel and the blade is 500.

Details aside, it’s results that matter. NCD has sold to Link-up approved railway contractors such as Greenman Environmental Management. Director Gary Rowlands bought a shear back in November 2015 in order to cut back and clear the vegetation both sides of a 2km stretch of line.

“The shear was easy to get the hang of, and we were surprised how quickly it got through the work,” said Gary.

“It was our first effort with the shear and still saved us over 30 per cent of the time - we got the job done well within the time we were set in the winter period. We teamed up the shear with a banksman and they could get on with the work with little dust, which left the rest of the team able to tackle other jobs.”

Gary enjoyed the benefits of being able to cut the tree, keep hold of it, and place it down safely and exactly where he wanted it. He had the choice of using an 8-tonne or 5-tonne excavator, but the smaller one coped with the whole job. It was great at leaning over embankments and not just removing trees but also stretches that required topping hedges.

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Greenman is now using the shear on roadway contracts because it deals with overhanging branches easily and can be used safely around the public.

Operator comfort Chris Theobold of Fen Contracts had a similar first experience when he bought and used the shear in Park Lane, Ramsden Heath. It was for the CP5 Earthworks Package, an Anglia Route collaboration for VolkerFitzpatrick.

“We used it on the Up side of the railway and cleared 1,200 metres in a day and a half,” he enthused. “All cut and stacked ready to be chipped. Guys on saws, working with a digger and grapple, would have probably taken three days and, per day, it's still cheaper to use the shear.”

The shear is good for certain applications, although there is still a need for handwork. However, as Chris explained, the more that the shear is used, the better as it reduces operator fatigue, hand-arm vibration, and the number of people working in exclusion zones.

Environmentally, it has the benefit of lower noise pollution as the excavator is much quieter than a team working on saws.

More to come TMK also offers accessories for the shear, which can be retro-fitted if customers find a need for them later. These include a de-limber and the popular collector bucket, which enables operators to cut and collect several smaller trees before placing down in a pile.

The newest addition is the Telescopic Extension Beam, currently in use in Finland and soon to be CE approved and available in the rest of Europe. The beam will help the shear reach out even further and handle tougher jobs, which Nick feels is perfect for the railways, especially when attaching the shear to a road-rail excavator.

With a growing waiting list for customers to see the product demonstrated, NCD set up a YouTube channel dedicated to showing the shear in action. It’s found simply by searching NCD Equipment in YouTube and farmers and contractors alike have taken to buying directly after seeing how quickly the shear can get through the work.

TMK’s motto is “Simply Efficient” and NCD Equipment’s is “Half the cost, half the time”. It would be a welcome addition to the larger toolbox of anyone involved in tree or vegetation management.

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Expertise saves time and money

S

upplying ecological services to the rail industry almost always presents an interesting challenge. Emergency works programmes rely upon the ability to attend site with very short notice and to deliver to tight time constraints. Implementing protected species licenses and mitigation on-site for the likes of bats, reptiles, great crested newts, dormice, badgers and Roman snails relies on specialist skills and knowledge to ensure that works can continue within existing wildlife laws and with as little disruption to the project as possible.

At Southern Ecological Solutions (SES), the main aim has always been to try and avoid protracted mitigation and licensing programmes that can delay works packages for months on end. This can be done by drawing on expert knowledge of the wildlife legal framework and by gaining consensus with statutory consultees such as Natural England.

Licensed or non-licensed?

After conducting a scoping survey for a rail substation adjacent to a chalk cliff embankment in Surrey, Southern Ecological Solutions outlined the possibility of Roman snails being present within the woodland and chalk embankment habitat adjacent to the site, and the potential for them to use the works area as transitory habitat.

No mitigation works were recommended at the time although, should Roman snails be observed within the works area, works would cease and an ecologist would be contacted.

This was, in fact, what happened. Roman snails were seen within the site boundary and works were halted. An ecologist was sent to site on the same day to reassess the use of the site

by Roman snails and provide advice on actions to provide necessary mitigation in line with the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

After further consideration by SES and independent legal advice, it was concluded that two potential mitigation options were available.

The first was a non-licensable approach, whereby the scale of the site’s use by Roman snails would be quantified using daytime and torching surveys and, if the numbers were found to be nil or low, habitat manipulation and the instatement of exclusion fencing would be undertaken under a method statement with an Ecological Clerk of Works (ECoW) present.

Given that the active season for Roman snails is considered to be April-August, it was imperative

that the exclusion of snails from the site and the works to be undertaken occur within this active window.

The second option was a licensable approach where, if an approach with significantly less legal risk than the non-licensable approach outlined above was desirable, or the site was found to support large numbers of Roman snails during the surveys, a conservation license should be sought from Natural England to actively translocate snails from the works area to areas of nearby suitable habitat.

If this approach were to be adopted, once a license was granted, exclusion fencing should be erected around the works site, and prior to the commencement of works, a period of translocation of Roman snails would be required.

Due to the ecology of the species, Roman snails would not be moved more than 20-30 metres from the site at which they were found.

Following the surveys, it was deemed that, although Roman snails were utilising the works area, the majority were located within habitats adjacent to the work site and, as such, the non-licensable exclusion approach was adopted to mitigate for Roman snails on site. A method statement was prepared, outlining pre-works habitat manipulation of areas of suitable terrestrial habitat such as a small tussocky area of improved grassland remaining within the works area, and the instatement of exclusion fencing to isolate the area where works are still to take place to deter further snails from entering the works area.

Rail Engineer • November 2016

Multi-skilled staff Rather than have individuals with singular specialisms, SES has created a team of multiskilled employees able to undertake the tasks that many firms would allocate to a number of employees. This approach saves time and money, and enables decisions to be made as and when required.

There are no elongated chains of management, with clearly defined line management structures and a senior management team experienced in all aspects of the business. The senior team maintains the ability to undertake all tasks expected of the group, so real life experience in the senior decision chain is not lost to purely office-based operators.

As an example of this multi-skilling, a fieldbased consultant with five years experience with SES could be a qualified and experienced ecologist, particularly in tree felling and vegetation removal, be IRATA-trained in rope access and an IPATH-trained MEWP operator, hold a protected species license, be an expert in badger mitigation, the live digging of setts and licensing, have specialist knowledge of invasive weeds and treatment, be an effective clerk of works and a PTS-qualified site delivery manager.

So SES ecologists, whether working alone or as part of a team, have a wealth of experience to draw upon and are unlikely to be surprised by much that the railway can throw at them.

SUSTAINABILITY/ENVIRONMNENT

Following erection of the fence, works were able to recommence three weeks after being halted. The ecologist’s knowledge and expertise was instrumental in saving the client from the prospect of a much lengthier halt to their works (see timeline above). The contractors conducting the works were instructed that, should any other Roman snails be found on site, for example, in the ground, the project ecologist should be contacted immediately.

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Rail Engineer • November 2016

RECRUITMENT

Asset Engineer

(Location: Christchurch, New Zealand)

Would you like to have a key role in a dynamic and challenging environment? Do you want to be part of an exciting leadership team providing input into the strategic leadership and direction of KiwiRail’s South Island Network Services team?

At KiwiRail we are undertaking an ambitious long-term growth plan to assist us being recognised as a world-class mover of freight and people – and we need you! We are seeking an Asset Engineer to join our South Island Network Services team based in our Christchurch branch.

This position requires a person with the ability to undertake thorough data analysis to identify asset condition patterns, develop plans for the timely rectification of faults and build strategic plans for the life cycle of assets in their “patch”. The Asset Engineer will work collaboratively with the Production Manager to develop, prioritise, and deliver the portfolio of work efficiently fully utilising plant, people, and processes. Assets include – but are not limited to – track, bridge structures, tunnels, drainage/culverts and level crossings.

Role responsibilities include: • Leading field asset engineers, structures and track inspectors • Planning and scheduling • Asset inspections and condition assessments • Compliance inspections • Maintenance of asset management system data (for your section) • Development and prioritisation of work portfolio • Cost estimating We will require proven forecasting and forward planning skills, and an exceptional drive for results. You will be customer focussed in line with KiwiRail values, leading alongside the Production Manager building exceptional internal and external stakeholder relationships.

You will ideally have a background in the leadership of large, diverse teams within the network asset management environment, however we will consider applicants with backgrounds from the engineering or civil construction sectors. You will be a tertiary qualified engineer, with a strong analytical ability that allows you to make effective and innovative decisions. Thoughtful in your approach, you will be a keen problem solver to improve efficiencies for the work teams, and able to understand asset life cycles.

HO’S W E N O HE ING S OUvisitTwww.kiwirail.co.nz I Yplease N A For more information and to applyA forR thisErole, G ?

S OR ALWAY AND GAMES ES MATCH

If you are up for a challenge and want to work in an exciting iconic industry, to lead and make a difference within a progressive organisation – one that encourages forward thinking, innovation and recognises success, then we need to hear from you.

ARE YOU THE ONE ANISING G R O S Y ALWA ORT? P S E MATCHES AND GAMES? V LO U O Y DO The all-new RailSport Games will be hosted at Loughborough University in July 2017, when we’ll bring together over 1,000 people from the rail industry to compete in 15 different sports.

>> WE’RE LOOKING FOR RAILSPORT AMBASSADORS TO HELP SPREAD THE WORD...

If you are passionate about sport and motivated to inspire others to get involved, then this is for you.

When you become a RailSport Ambassador, you will receive: • A pack to help you start promoting the event • Regular updates on the planning and progress of the event • Complimentary entry to your chosen sport • Limited edition RailSport Ambassador T-shirt If you’ve ever been to a Rail Media event before, you know we like to party.

After the final whistle, competitors from across the industry can enjoy an evening of live music and socialising.

WE NEED Y OU!

>>

in helping us If you’re interested t, then email promote the even ilsport.uk ambassador@ra

Opportunities at Siemens Siemens Communications and Information Systems (CIS) has grown rapidly over the last three years and is now expanding further. The Siemens CIS business has a number of exciting permanent opportunities at all levels working on major rail infrastructure projects UK-wide and overseas.

Business Development Senior Project Manager Test & Commissioning Manager Senior Project Engineer Bids and Tendering Design Management Software Engineering SCADA & Telecoms Design Site Management Project Planning The Siemens CIS business has offices throughout the UK so you could be located at either our Ashby de la Zouch facility or at our regional offices in Glasgow, Manchester, York, Birmingham, Chippenham or London.

If you are interested in the opportunities, please search the current vacancies via the website as this is regularly updated.

For further information on these positions, please contact Savin Sathyanath on savin.sathyanath@siemens.com

siemens.co.uk/careers

FROM CONSULTANCY AT THE BEGINNING...

...TO MAINTENANCE AND BEYOND

FULL PROJECT LIFECYCLE CAPABILITY UK Power Networks Services specialises in design, build, finance, operation and maintenance of electrical infrastructure. Using a Whole Life Cycle Cost approach, assessing all costs and benefits, your electrical infrastructure will have full accountability from cradle to grave. Our Asset Management Strategy ensures assets retain their integrity, performance and condition. UK Power Networks Services - keeping your operations on track.

The power to deliver a better future www.ukpowernetworksservices.co.uk