Rail Engineer - Issue 178 - October 2019

by rail engineers for rail engineers

CEL

E R Y AIL IN D USTR

OCTOBER 2019 – ISSUE 178

RA

TH

EB

T

IN

G

10

YEARS SER

VI

NG

M E G AT E C H

celebrates

10

years

of platforms with a

difference

SEVEN INTO FOUR DOES GO The rebuilding of Thickley Wood footbridge over the Stockton to Darlington railway turned three arches into an embankment.

BACK TO PORTALS

HS2 WAY OUT IN FRONT

Why headspans were necessary, how resilience has suffered, and the decision to go back to portals.

High-speed tunnels suffer from sonic boom, Japanese trains have long noses, the UK has a test rig in Derby.

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42 CONTENTS

26

07|

News

10|

Platforms from polystyrene? Who’d have thought it?

16|

Striving for innovation – an industry challenge

3

Network Rail, Old Oak Common, East West Railway, Welsh stations, Bank Tube station.

MegaTech Projects celebrates its tenth birthday by completing its best, and cheapest, project.

Clive Kessell investigates the latest new ideas from the Signalling Innovations Group.

20

20|

Seven into four does go at Thickley Wood bridge

Bob wright reports on the rebuilding of a historic footbridge over the Stockton to Darlington railway.

56 26|

Back to portals

30|

HS2 way out in front

34|

First light

38|

New techniques to analyse and predict water damage to earthworks

60|

BIM on the Northern line extension

42|

Chips and fried electronics at the 8th Railway Challenge

64|

Denmark’s first high-speed line

52|

All change and mind the gaps

70|

Scerbinka’s big show

56|

Depot improvements at Inverness

79|

Edinburgh’s international railway engineering conference

Peter Stanton considers why headspans were necessary, how resilience has suffered, and the latest solution.

Grahame Taylor explains why high-speed tunnels suffer from sonic boom and how to prevent it.

Stuart Marsh reveals how solar power, the ultimate green energy, could help keep trains running in future.

Paul Darlington discovers that Nokia doesn’t just make mobile phones, but helps monitor earthworks too.

David Shirres attended the IMechE’s latest event to find Germans, Poles and trashed control systems.

Malcolm Dobell sat in on Graham Neil’s address as the new chairman of the IMechE Railway Division.

Stobart Rail and Civils has been preparing Abellio Scotrail’s northernmost depot for the new HST fleet.

ADComms is implementing Building Information Modelling as the basis of its design and documentation.

Keith Fender visits Denmark’s new 250km/h line that runs southwest from Copenhagen.

Russia’s 1520-gauge exhibition, which mixed the old with the ultra-new, celebrated recent links with Austria.

A truly international event, with 100 papers on a wide variety of topics and delegates from Asia and Brazil.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Modular and efficient track laying technology

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EDITORIAL

RAIL ENGINEER MAGAZINE

It is always good to learn about new techniques and innovative rail technology. This month’s magazine has many such examples, as well as international insights from Edinburgh and Moscow.

Around 120 papers were presented at the recent engineering conference in Edinburgh, at which over half the participants were from outside the UK. Examples of the in-depth international technical papers included on asphalt track beds (USA), pre-packed concrete slab track renewal (Japan) and the longevity of masonry bridges (Australia).

Many delegates felt it was worthwhile to fly half-way around the world to present their papers and learn from others present. This raises the question of what Britain’s railways can learn from such events.

Russian Railway’s biennial Expo 1520 provided another international learning opportunity. The conference programme included much about the fourth industrial revolution and plans to take advantage of it.

Indeed, the event started with a demonstration of artificial intelligence in the form a self-driving train.

Presentations from Alstom included hydrogen trains whilst Siemens highlighted its Thameslink ATO overlay on ETCS level 2. Both companies have done much to modernise Russia’s trains. However, their contracts for the provision of new trains stipulate developing the Russian supply chain to produce high-value train components.

Clearly Russia’s rail industry has learnt much from Europe, yet what can be learnt from them? One answer may be track recording systems, which include ultrasonic inspections at 140km/h while Network Rail’s ultrasonic rail inspection challenge statement aspires to increase its current 50km/h inspection runs to 100km/h.

Another area is train control systems. Russian Railways has about 30,000 GPS-linked KLUB-U cab signalling systems in use and plans to introduce moving-block signalling by 2027. From a UK perspective, this large-scale deployment of the Russian ETCS equivalent is impressive.

No doubt, this is supported by a strong guiding mind, which ensures that there is an effective systems approach across the wheel/rail interface.

Whilst the UK’s ETCS deployment is relatively modest, as Clive Kessell explains this month, Network Rail’s Signalling Innovations Group has progressed various worthwhile initiatives, many involving analytics and big data. In another feature, we describe how data management is fundamental to the success of Building Information Modelling (BIM) on London Underground’s Northern line extension.

Advanced analytics is also being used in a new water events prediction application. As Paul Darlington describes, this should reduce the number of earthworks failures. An innovation that does not involve data analytics is the use of expanded polystyrene to build station platforms. Nigel Wordsworth describes the benefits of this technique and explains how it was developed.

Innovations for rail decarbonisation, and in particular hydrogen power, are a topical subject. Simon Meades reports how this is now being used to power, not trains, but on-site generators to reduce both CO2 emissions and noise levels. Another decarbonisation innovation is, we think, the world’s first use of solar power to directly supply a rail traction system. Stuart Marsh explains how this Riding Sunbeams initiative is powering the DC third rail around Aldershot.

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

Learning from others

Although electrification is the best way to decarbonise the railway, on today’s busy railway it must not fail. Peter Stanton has been considering the reliability issues associated with OLE headspans and reports on an initiative to convert them to portals.

Thickley Wood footbridge spans what was the historic Stockton and Darlington Railway at Shildon. As Bob Wright states in his report, the footbridge reflects the growth and decline of the coalfields around the area. As there was no longer a railway below much of the old sevenspan bridge, its recent repair involved three spans being replaced by an embankment.

From the world’s first steam-hauled public railway to Europe’s newest high-speed railway, Keith Fender describes the 60-kilometre Danish high-speed line which opened earlier this year at a cost of €1.6 billion and will eventually operate at 250km/h. Whilst this might seem cheap for a high-speed line, it has only one station, few major structures and just one tunnel. Nevertheless, tunnels on high-speed railways can be problematic - as Grahame Taylor describes, they may require hoods and trains with long noses.

Graham Neil clearly thinks that it is important to learn as much as possible about the industry. As the new chairman of the IMechE Railway Division, he recently gave his address ‘All change and mind the gaps’, an unsurprising title as he is also TfL’s professional head for vehicles. In his report, Malcolm Dobell explains Graham’s concerns about the skills, Brexit, economics, technology and IMechE/railway gaps that need to be minded.

Bridges for these gaps include the requirement for all in the industry to do their bit by encouraging young people to consider a railway career. Meanwhile, the Railway Division must work with industry to provide more relevant events to encourage learning and development.

One Railway Division event at which young engineers learn much is its annual Railway Challenge, on which we report this month. As it was won by a German team, while the Polish team’s locomotive won an award for engineering elegance, this event DAVID SHIRRES also proved to be another opportunity for international learning.

RAIL ENGINEER EDITOR

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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THE TEAM

NEWS

GUIDE TO NETWORK RAIL’S

Network Rail's ROUTES AND REGIONS

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

Production Editor

14 new routes, led by route directors, now take responsibility for operations, maintenance and minor renewals, including the day-to-day delivery of train performance and the relationship with their local train operating companies. Five regions will support one or more of these new routes under the leadership of region managing directors. This structure enables Network Rail to build the right capabilities in the right places, empowering its people to improve train performance, and putting passengers and freight users first.

regional structure revealed

Nigel Wordsworth nigel.wordsworth@railengineer.co.uk

Managing directors – Network Rail regions

Route directors

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

8

Matthew Stokes

Scotland Liam Sumpter

1

East Coast Paul Rutter

matt@rail-media.com Eastern Rob McIntosh

5

Engineering writers

North West Phil James

bob.wright@railengineer.co.uk 2

clive.kessell@railengineer.co.uk

North & East Matthew Rice

collin.carr@railengineer.co.uk david.bickell@railengineer.co.uk graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.co.uk

North West & Central Tim Shoveller

6

Central Dave Penney (David Golding, interim)

grahame.taylor@railengineer.co.uk

3

lesley.brown@railengineer.co.uk

East Midlands Gary Walsh

malcolm.dobell@railengineer.co.uk mark.phillips@railengineer.co.uk paul.darlington@railengineer.co.uk peter.stanton@railengineer.co.uk

7

Scotland’s Railway Alex Hynes

West Coast Mainline South James Dean 4

stuart.marsh@railengineer.co.uk

Anglia Ellie Burrows (Mark Budden, interim)

Advertising Asif Ahmed

asif@rail-media.com

Chris Davies

chris@rail-media.com

Craig Smith craig@rail-media.com

13

Wales & Borders Bill Kelly

Southern John Halsall

10 Network Rail

High Speed Katie Frost

Indicative only, subject to consultation

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Western Mike Gallop

Wales & Western Mark Langman

9

12 Wessex

Mark Killick

11 Sussex

Shaun King

Kent Fiona Taylor (Shaun King, interim)

As part of Network Rail's plans to put passengers and freight users first, recognising the need to get closer and be more responsive to both customers and local stakeholders, Network Rail has announced who will fill the key roles in its new regional structure.

Appointments as at 16 September 2019

The five new regional directors, who had already been named, have now all appointed their own management teams. Key posts include the 14 route directors who will take responsibility for operations, maintenance and minor renewals in their respective areas, while managing the day-to-day delivery of train performance and relationships with their local train operating companies.

Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said: “The 14 new routes are all about moving power and accountability from the big network functions to the routes and regions, giving them greater accountability for train performance in their areas.

“It is a fundamental change and at the heart of the transformation of Network Rail to a business that is unequivocally on the side of passengers and freight users, focused on delivering better day-to-day performance.”

The new routes and regions are part of phase one of the Putting Passengers First programme, providing the framework for further phased changes to be introduced through to summer 2020, subject to consultation.

NEWS

Balfour Beatty, Systra and Vinci join forces to deliver Old Oak Common

A joint venture of Balfour Beatty, Systra and Vinci has been awarded a contract worth around £1 billion for the management of the construction and delivery of HS2's new Old Oak Common station.

On completion, the new HS2 station at Old Oak Common station will become the UK’s best-connected station, providing direct services to three major airports, eight of Britain’s ten largest cities and forming part of one of Britain’s largest regeneration projects which will help create up to 65,000 jobs and 25,000 new homes in West London while also dramatically increasing rail capacity across the UK. The BBSV joint venture will be responsible for the final design, construction and commissioning of Old Oak Common station in North West London, delivering six underground platforms as well as up to eight

platforms on the adjacent Great Western main line.

Balfour Beatty’s in-depth expertise of constructing critical major transport terminals across the world will combine with Vinci’s knowledge in constructing high speed lines and UK rail infrastructure projects, and Systra’s expertise in designing, integrating and project managing transport systems.

During its construction phase, the project will employ a direct management team of 140 and a wider workforce of approximately 2,500.

Project director Nigel Russell said: “This award reflects the combined strength of our

joint venture and recognises our world-class capabilities in designing, managing and delivering complex infrastructure projects.

“We look forward to applying our expertise to deliver this critical piece of national infrastructure so essential to driving the skills agenda, to the rebalancing of the UK economy and to the enabling of a resilient and competitive construction and infrastructure industry.”

A Balfour Beatty Vinci JV has already been contracted to deliver Lot N1 and Lot N2 of HS2’s main civil engineering works package in a two-part design and build contract, valued at around £2.5 billion.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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NEWS

East West railway classified as a National Significant Infrastructure Project

The Government has declared the Bedford to Cambridge section of the East West Rail Project a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP).

This means that, following comprehensive public consultation involving local authorities across the route, the East West Railway Company can apply to the Secretary of State for Transport for a Development Consent Order to authorise the project.

In addition, the scheme also got a mention in the Autumn Spending Review when Chancellor Sajid Javid set out the government’s spending plans for 202021. The Treasury report references its continued support for the development of major transport projects including: “driving

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

forward East West Rail links in the Oxford to Cambridge Arc”.

The East West Rail Project aims to link Oxford with Cambridge and then continue on to Ipswich and Cambridge by the end of the next decade. While much of the route already exists, using existing lines or ones that have been mothballed or otherwise protected, the central section between Bedford and Cambridge is more problematic due to the old route having been redeveloped.

Earlier this year, the East West Railway Company consulted on five possible route

options for the line between Bedford and Cambridge. A full report of the consultation is expected to be published later this year, alongside the preferred route.

East West Railway Company chairman Rob Brighouse commented: “Achieving this status as an NSIP is important because it unlocks the ability for us to secure a Development Consent Order to authorise the project.

“It’s brilliant to get two affirmations for the project in one week with our mention in the Government Spending Review also warmly welcomed.”

NEWS

Welsh station refurbishments Transport for Wales has announced its Station Improvement Vision. All 247 railway stations are to be refurbished at a cost of ÂŁ194 million.

The Station Improvement Vision, developed in partnership with Wales and Borders railway operator KeolisAmey, which details the improvements customers and communities can expect to see at their local stations over the coming years.

The ambitious programme will deliver free Wi-Fi, improved shelters, CCTV, enhanced cycle storage provision and more extensive passenger information at every station.

The planned improvements also include expanding the Secure Station Accreditation programme, a UK accreditation in conjunction with the British Transport Police, which will make stations safer and more welcoming for passengers, and the installation of new footbridges, lifts and ramps, part-funded by the Department for Transport.

There are also plans for new retail facilities, creating opportunities for local businesses, further initiatives to develop community spaces within stations, and a minimum of 1,500 additional car parking spaces across the network, helping to increase the accessibility of the country’s public transport network.

As part of its plans to reinvest into the communities it serves, TfW has held events and workshops aimed at small and medium enterprises in Wales, providing opportunities for them to bid for work linked to the Station Improvement Vision.

Bank Tube station 'topped out' London Underground's new Cannon Street entrance to Bank Tube station has been 'topped out' with the completion of work to the roof, The new entrance will provide direct access to the Northern line and connect with the Central line via a moving walkway. Due for completion in 2022, it will boost capacity at the busy interchange by 40 per cent.

The next stage of the build will focus on creating the dividing walls and operational rooms within the new station entrance, which is spread across 11 storeys.

Tunnelling is progressing well, with the southbound platform already under construction in the new Northern line running tunnel, and the construction of the new escalator barrel to the DLR due to commence in early Autumn.

The project, which passed the halfway mark earlier this year, will eventually provide two new lifts at the Cannon Street entrance, 12 new escalators and two moving walkways.

These additions will make access to the Northern line step-free and improve the existing step-free access to the DLR.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

Platforms from polystyrene?

WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT IT?

MegaTech celebrates ten years of platforms with a difference

N

ext time you are standing on a station, waiting for a train, look down.

Not at your feet - past those. What’s down there? On an older station it may be paving slabs, or tarmac. If it’s a newer platform, or a recent extension, it could be a fibreglass panel, or a concrete slab.

But what’s under that? Rubble fill retained by a brick wall under the platform coping stones? A complex arrangement of piled steel sections and cross braces with a glass-reinforced polymer (GRP) deck on top?

If it was built in the last ten years, it could even be a block of expanded polystyrene. You know, the stuff that TVs come packed in when they are delivered in a box.

It seems an unlikely material to use for station platforms, but, actually, it’s a good choice - easy to install and simple to modify.

An idea It all started over ten years ago. A chartered surveyor named George Rowe saw expanded polystyrene being used to fill voids under platforms in the Netherlands, and thought it was a great idea.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Up to then, George had been leading a double life. He joined Tarmac Major Projects in 1986 as a trainee quantity surveyor. Working first at the Faslane naval submarine base on the Clyde, and then at the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport, he had been spending one month in three at college in Croydon, where Tarmac trainees from all over the country gathered centrally for the academic part of their training.

At the same time, George was a semiprofessional footballer. He trained with local clubs wherever he was working around the country, but at weekends he was back in Scotland, playing for Clydebank, Queen of the South, Arbroath, Stirling Albion and finally Partick Thistle. While at Queen of the South, George also spent 18 months as the player/manager, being the youngest league manager in Britain at the age of 29.

By this time, George had left Tarmac and was working as commercial director with railway contractor QTS. When he saw the Dutch platform, George thought that the simple idea could have applications in the UK, which was just embarking on a programme of renewing and extending station platforms as new, longer trains started to come into service.

He spoke with the Dutch supplier, intending to use that company as a source both of technology and of

INFRASTRUCTURE

Three stations on the East Grinstead line were to have platform extensions. Geoffrey Osborne was the chosen contractor and three different solutions were chosen.

Oxted itself was to be extended using traditional techniques - a brick retaining wall with a rubble infill behind.

Upper Warlingham was fitted with a GRP deck, supported by a steel framework that had been piled into the ground.

Sanderstead suffered from poor ground conditions, so it was the natural choice for MegaTech’s new lightweight system. A 50mm sand screed was laid and the EPS blocks placed on top. These were topped off with a polythene membrane and the concrete slab.

Network Rail’s lighting, CCTV and longline public address requirements were all incorporated into the precast slabs. Coping stones and a tactile strip were fitted and the platform finished off and lined out.

And that, as they say, was how it all began.

Supply chain

material. However, when he approached Network Rail, he had a setback as the material wasn’t acceptable in the UK, so he had to re-engineer the whole product.

Improved technology Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is naturally flammable, self-igniting at a temperature of about 450°C. However, additives such as hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) give the foam flame-retardant qualities

such that the material shrinks away from a flame and self-extinguishes when the source of the fire is removed.

The large blocks of EPS used for building platforms need to be protected from the weather and accidental damage.

The original Dutch system used sheets of polyurea, bonded to the outer surfaces of the blocks. That also has a flash point of around 450°C and is self-extinguishing.

However, at Network Rail’s request, George sought out another material, finally selecting sheets of a cementitious material that both met the technical specifications and gave the product the appearance of cement, so fitting in with existing and surrounding structures.

Tests were carried out by Exova Warringtonfire, demonstrating that the new product complied with Network Rail’s standards.

Once the tests were completed to the satisfaction of all Network Rail Departments, including James Holland, Network Rail’s principal fire safety specialist, George’s new company MegaTech Projects was ready to take on its first real-world challenge.

The experience of successfully delivering Sanderstead enabled George and the MegaTech team to fine-tune the design and to establish their supply chain.

Adams Design Associates of Hastings became MegaTech’s sole designer, sorting out not only the design of the finished platform but how the various components fit together. The EPS blocks and the concrete slabs have to overlap so that no two joins coincide. Some blocks are channelled to accept cables, or drainage, in which case manholes need to be left in the concrete slabs.

The EPS blocks, cut to size and with channels, holes and recesses in them to the Adams design, are supplied by DS Smith of Livingston, West Lothian.

Peter Duffy, a civil engineering and construction company in Wakefield, takes those blocks and finishes them off.

The cementitious board, delivered from Warrington, has to be fixed to exposed faces - normally three sides on end blocks and two sides (front and back) for those in the middle. In addition, recesses, such as chambers under manhole covers and cable/ drainage channels, have to be clad as well.

Interestingly, about ten millimetres of EPS is left exposed, sticking up above the cladding. This is the compression allowance, to give room for the block to be slightly crushed as several tonnes of concrete slab is placed on top, without it damaging or cracking the cladding.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE In addition to Duffy, GK Railways, CSM Projects and Rainton Construction (Scotland) build the platforms and extensions on site. Hayward Contracts manufactures, supplies and erects all of the fencing and Wrightseal seals all of the exposed edges and joints. Even the job of lining-out the completed platform is entrusted to only one supplier, Lincs Lining from Lincoln.

Bath Spa

Those concrete slabs come from FP McCann. Originally, they were ‘just’ platform surface slabs - the copers and tactiles had to be added.

Now those are all cast-in too, though tactile strips from Viztek are still used on occasion.

The slabs also have an anti-slip finish and are thicker at the front than the back - the slope of between 1:40 and 1:80 encourages drainage towards the rear of the platform and again complies with Network Rail’s standard requirements. system and While the civils plant on site is usually supplied by the contractor, on ISO 9001, ISO likes to use road-rail (RRV) plant from Readypower, as its MegaTech drivers know the system and how it fits together.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Ask George what his most memorable job is, and he has several definitions of the word ‘memorable’.

One of the largest was at Bath Spa station, in amongst the World Heritage Site that is the city of Bath. Electrification was coming through, and there is a minimum distance allowable between the overhead wires and the edge of the platform canopy. At Bath, this would have been below the minimum and, at any other stations, the canopies would have been modified and cut back.

But not at World Heritage Bath.

Fortunately, however, Isambard Kingdom Brunel originally built the line using his broad gauge of seven feet (2,134mm).

When the route was converted to standard 4’ 8.1/2” gauge (1,435mm) in 1892, having been dual-gauge since 1874, this left the two tracks ten feet apart rather than the usual six.

So, the plan was to move both the tracks and the platform edges closer together, while leaving the canopies in their original location. This would give extra clearance between the canopies and the overhead wire, now above the moved tracks.

One platform was to be modified at a time, leaving the other platform open so that a revised train service could operate, with trains between Bristol Temple Meads and London Paddington via Bath and Chippenham operating every hour.

INFRASTRUCTURE The speed with which the MegaTech platforms could be erected was key to it all working.

Main contractor Hochtief asked MegaTech to handle all of the platform work, including lifting the original surface.

This was a mix of Victorian paving slabs and tarmac. The plan was to lift and reuse as many of the Victorian slabs as possible, so that, when the new, wider platform surface went back down, it would be similar in appearance to the original.

On the weekend of 8-9 April 2017, Babcock removed the track adjacent to Platform 1. MegaTech moved in on Monday morning, stripped the platform surface, broke up the old platform underpinnings, laid the sand bed, positioned the EPS blocks, replaced the retaining wall so it would closely resemble the original and relayed the surface using as many old slabs as possible.

That was all finished on Friday night. That Saturday, Babcock replaced the track, then removed the railway next to Platform 2 on Sunday, which was Easter Day. Monday to Friday was a repeat of the first week. Babcock replaced the track on Saturday, Sunday was spent tidying up and commissioning, and the whole station reopened with new, wider platforms, which were now at the standardised height of 905mm above the track and 740mm from it, on Monday morning. What’s more, the new OLE wires, when they were installed, would be the regulation distance from the untouched canopies.

Uckfield One property of EPS that is not normally needed when building a station platform is that it floats. However, at

a station such as Uckfield in East Sussex, which regularly floods above the platform height, that could be a problem. What would happen if the natural buoyancy of the EPS was more than the weight of the concrete platform slabs? Would the whole thing just float away?

MegaTech’s designers and installers had an answer to that. For a change, they didn’t butt the EPS blocks up against one another they left a gap, facing all four sides of each one. This allowed the floodwaters to pass through the platform and reduced the total amount of (buoyant) EPS. The concrete slab was also thickened into ribs that fitted down into the gaps, both locking the blocks in place and adding weight.

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Tel: 0191 516 6606 Email: info@viztekltd Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE Finally, Platipus ground anchors were driven through the platform surface slab, passing down through the gaps and three metres into the ground, locking the assembly in place. It wasn’t going to go anywhere!

Short access times One of the two platforms at South Hampstead station, between London Euston and Watford, had suffered from retaining wall heave in 2013. This pushed the footings out and forced Network Rail to close half of the platform, only using the other half.

With the added complication of a highvoltage cable running through the platform, and work access limited to only two hours each night, with no time available at weekends, that half of the platform stood unused for two years.

Finally, J Murphy & Sons was brought in to rebuild it, and MegaTech was asked to undertake the platform work using its EPS system.

The first task was to demolish the damaged platform and survey the footings.

These contained cast-in concrete ribs that, although they could be cut back by hand, couldn’t easily be removed entirely. The solution was to cut the EPS blocks to fit, and cast the concrete slabs to fit them. This resulted in 26 slabs - every one of which was different.

The blocks and slabs were prepared in a Murphy compound nearby, then brought to site in the correct order. The platform was rebuilt between late-January and April 2015, a three-month period that only allowed a total of 45 hours of access - on one night it was just 50 minutes.

Access was also a problem at Newark Northgate, this time it was just six hours a

week, all on a Saturday night. A timber 28-metre platform was to be extended by 38 metres. As the existing timber trestle was in poor condition, MegaTech and principal contractor Carillion were asked to replace the whole thing. However, the train operator required at least 28 metres of platform, an equivalent length to the original structure, to be available at all times.

To achieve this, work was planned in three six-hour possessions over three weekends. Every section had to be complete at the end of the shift so as to comply with the train operator’s requirements.

Watford Junction was another station with an old wooden platform - Platform 11. It was replaced over Christmas, with the last train calling late on Christmas Eve and the first train using the new platform on the morning of 27 December, just 54 hours later.

All of this is a far cry from building a new station, as MegaTech did for VolkerFitzpatrick at Cambridge North.

1,000 metres of new platform on virgin ground - a doddle!

Success breeds success One of the more successful results of a MegaTech platform extension came at Slough. Working to an overall design by Amey Consulting, MegaTech was asked to extend two platforms, one by 100 metres and one by 70 metres, which it did in 36 hours.

The visible speed and success at Slough meant Network Rail’s response was to cancel the partially completed, traditional design at Maidenhead station (in March) and have it reissued, specifying the MegaTech EPS. Amey Consulting worked with Adams Design Associates to rework the design.

Installation commenced in August and was complete

by September, more or less when it was originally required. Network Rail had clawed the overrun back.

It’s a cracker But ask George Rowe what the best project that MegaTech has completed is, and his answer is surprising

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

- Ulceby station rework, Saturday 7 September 2019, for a fee of just £10,000.

Really?

MegaTech had extended Ulceby, which lies on the Barton line in Lincolnshire and is served by trains between Cleethorpes to Barton-on-Humber via Grimsby and Immingham, in 2015 as part of Siemens Mobility’s North Lincolnshire resignalling and control project.

The platform extension was completed as planned. However, the railway line through Ulceby was undulating, and the extension followed that line (905mm high and 740mm from the track).

A couple of years later, Network Rail upgraded the track, smoothing out the undulations and slewing it over, which now made the EPS platform too low (by up to 60mm) and too far from the track by 30mm. To conform to standards, it had to be moved outwards and raised up.

Using any other system, the whole platform surface would have to come off, the underpinnings modified, and then the surface reinstated, a major job.

Instead, MegaTech did it in one evening with an excavator and four bottle jacks.

First, the excavator got behind each concrete platform slab and gave it a shove, moving it out 30mm.

Then, using the bottle jacks, each slab was raised up by about 70mm. A spacer of the correct thickness, already faced by the cementitious material, was then slid into the gap and the slab lowered. Job done.

It was quick, easy, cheap, and really demonstrated the versatility of the MegaTech EPS system.

It was also almost exactly ten years since MegaTech installed that first platform extension at Sanderstead.

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INFRASTRUCTURE

Striving for Innovation CLIVE KESSELL

An Industry Challenge Group organisation and mission

S

ignal engineers tend to have a measure of distrust when new ideas and concepts are put forward.

This is understandable, given that any radical change to signalling practices can have catastrophic consequences if it all goes wrong and accidents occur.

It has taken over 20 years to develop and prove ERTMS/ETCS but, even now, the ultimate goal of Level 3 systems with no lineside signals and radio-based train detection seems many years away.

Nonetheless, progress has to be made with technology and engineering methods in order to drive down the cost of signalling, now measured by the terminology SEUs (Signalling Equivalent Units), a measurement based on the number of items controlled by the central interlocking.

Network Rail has had a Signalling Innovations Group (SIG) for a number of years and it holds a seminar annually to enlighten the railway community on the initiatives it is engaged in. Rail Engineer has reported on this event in the past, the last time being in 2014, so it was high time to take a re-look at what the group is currently engaged in and a meeting with the Group’s head, David Shipman, was held recently.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Having national implications, SIG is part of the centralised engineering organisation within the IP Signalling project delivery organisation. The Group has a total of 18 engineering and support staff, based principally in Birmingham, Crewe and York but with outbased members in Glasgow, Derby, Milton Keynes and Reading. This will enable close contact with the soonto-be-established Regional organisations, each of which will have its own signal engineers responsible for day to day performance.

Whilst much of the team’s work is an essential operational overhead, there was a budgeted programme of signalling innovations in Control Period 5 (CP5). For CP6, the group will work far more as an internal consultancy, winning the mandate for delivering specific packages of work.

This has already borne fruit in establishing SIG as the deliverer of design tools elements of the research and development (R&D) programme for command, control and signalling (CCS).

Under the ‘putting passengers first’ devolution programme, SIG expects to become part of the national Network Services directorate, offering a key link between capital delivery in the regions and the central technical authority.

In line with the consultancy role and the need to maintain customer demand both internally and externally, SIG’s activities are regularly marketed by means of articles, external events and participation at national and international conferences. Interestingly,

INFRASTRUCTURE Tail Lamp Camera

there is no one equivalent group in electrification & plant or building & civils, and only a smaller element in track, which perhaps demonstrates the complexities with which signal engineers are now faced.

Past success A number of previous initiatives have come to fruition, others are still being taken forward: »» ‘Plug and play’ cabling. This is a dreadful term, since it is anything but ‘play’, but it is now routinely applied to most signalling projects, mainly for the connection between trackside location and local devices such as signal heads and point machines. The idea allows much greater testing to be carried out in the factory, thus saving time. Lessons learned have shown, however, that the original intent to apply the plugs to long lineside cabling is inefficient, due mainly to the range of lengths that would need to be stocked for spares. »» Product acceptance. The often arduous process of getting new products accepted has been tackled head on by SIG. Equipment worthy of note, and now approved, includes the ElectroLogix interlocking developed by Atkins, now in use on the Shepperton Branch and in progress for the Norwich-YarmouthLowestoft resignalling project; also the updated Ansaldo (now Hitachi) interlocking employed on the

Ferriby to Gilberdyke project. »» Aluminium cabling for power.

The Class II lineside power supply for signalling systems now uses two-core instead of three-core cabling. This, in itself, saves a third of cable costs, but the adoption of aluminium instead of copper cores gives further reductions in price. SIG has been instrumental in achieving product acceptance for the many components and cables required. »» Regional team assistance.

Getting track circuit re-set procedures in Manchester and a new design of theatre style route indicators for the recent resignalling at Liverpool Lime Street are examples where acceptance assistance has been given to regional teams »» Level crossing PLCs. Some level crossings are now equipped with proprietary PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers), thus reducing project cost. However, more work is needed to get a consistent set of requirements and to understand properly what is available in the commercial market. Being a tiny user in the vast quantities that are manufactured makes any special adaptations difficult.

This is a misnomer as the device is at the front of the train but hung on the tail lamp bracket. It incorporates a standard high-definition camera, is battery powered lasting up to six hours and is controlled using custom software developed for SIG. Pictures are taken at 25-50 frames per second with a GPS positioning reference incorporated. Greater positioning accuracy will increase the usefulness of the system for detailed design, and more work is planned on this element.

Originally envisaged for signalling needs, it is now extensively used for many asset-inspection purposes, for example saving around 5,000 site visits for the measurement of bridge parapet heights in the East Midlands.

Agreement has been reached with most TOCs for the camera to be put on any train, but with every journey being accompanied by an engineer who fits the appropriate camera for the purpose intended. This is normally a single forward-facing camera, but variants can include extra cameras viewing down to the track or out to the side. It is normal for images to be taken in both directions if double or quadruple track.

One of the ongoing challenges is transferring the images over existing network infrastructure owing to the file sizes involved.

Current projects With the overall aim of reducing SEU costs by almost half, various innovations are underway, not always directly associated with signalling hardware and systems.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE Design Automation

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

Positioned Video Pixels

Headway Analysis Tool Predicting future traffic flows and calculating the possible headways required to achieve the train service pattern is an interactive process. SIG has developed tools to optimise the process, commencing with the foreseen headway requirements and then inputting the train characteristics, such as length and speed, loading the given signalling system layout design and, finally, calculating whether it achieves the necessary results. If not, then a rework is required until an optimised solution is eventually achieved.

Signal-Sighting Form Tool (SSiLT) It traditionally took significant amounts of time to generate a signal-sighting form and obtain all the necessary signatures. If an electronic form with electronic signatures were to be available, the time taken would be significantly reduced.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

For signal sighting purposes, obtaining an accurate picture of the area where the signal is needed can be a fraught process.

The old methodology of going to site with replica signal boards is long gone, but use of video and laser technology requires more development.

The latest result is a 4K ultra-highdefinition video imagery and laser pointcloud system, three of which are now available, two mounted on maintenance vehicles, the other fitted as required to a Class 37 locomotive. The latter has permanent fixtures including power supply, cable looms and brackets to which a dual laser source can be attached. As part of the overall SIG service, an in-house train planner is also part of the team.

The resultant images enable signal sighting and its associated sign-off by many departments to be achieved off-site as it is capable of very accurate measurements.

Laser data enhances the flexibility of video pictures. The signal engineer can position the signal where it is required and then assess this against other existing and proposed structures, such as OLE supports and gantries. Various assets can be inserted so as to visualise how the signalling will fit into the overall scheme.

All information is stored in a data model for the area or layout. The forthcoming Leeds to Manchester trans-Pennine upgrade will be using this modelling system. The images can be used for design, construction and access planning and can be downloaded to portable devices to assist trackside workers.

Such a system has thus been devised and is now a mandated format with records stored in one place. The system can be updated from other signal sighting methods through SIGs common data format, and a Signal Clearance Calculator interfaces with track geometry data to ensure the end result is not foul of the gauge.

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

18

The digital railway and associated radiobased train control will require a new approach to signalling design if the SEU cost reduction is to be achieved. A design automation strategy is thus being devised that will deliver many principles of BIM (building information modelling) through a core data model that is stored, extended and shared through the project life.

A number of key steps are required to achieve this: »» Step 1 - Asset Discovery. Asset data is collected by various means from surveys and existing records, usually in different data formats and covering different disciplines - track, signalling, overhead electrification, power and suchlike. Workstreams are underway to integrate these accurately in order to obtain a complete record of survey data and to identify the assets from the images automatically. This will yield many benefits in safety, time and cost, but the result has to be 100 per cent accurate in order to eliminate inefficient human activity. »» Step 2 - Scheme Design. Automation will free up the designer to concentrate on the key issues that introduce risk to the proposals. As signalling, track and electrification design progresses, so the identification of problems, tradeoffs, risks and cost can be analysed and changes made more effectively by automating time consuming repetitive aspects. »» Step 3 - Design Review. Having designed a new scheme based on an underlying

INFRASTRUCTURE Norway, Sweden, Slovenia, Switzerland and Italy) was never going to be a fast process, but members of SIG head up the assurance aspects and alignment of data structures.

With meetings in a number of different European cities, it has the spin-off benefit of observing what other European railways are doing in the field of innovation.

SKETCH

model, interactive review can then take place, including simulated trains running through the layout to prove the effectiveness of the signalling. This enables better visualisation of the results and the changes that may be needed to obtain optimum performance. »» Step 4 - Detailed Design. At this stage, data needs to be shared with the supply chain, who can automate elements including signalling controls, power supplies and construction. Establishing data-exchange criteria will enable structured data to be provided during the bidding process and returned (in updated form) on project completion. »» Step 5 - Construct and Test. Ensuring that a project is built on a ‘right first time’ basis is crucial, as re-work costs money.

The new approach for design tools can be extended to provide greater support during later project stages and, whilst 'right first time' is the ultimate aim, when problems do arise, they can be resolved with the best decision support available. »» Step 6 - Whole Life Management. Once commissioned, the project elements need to be integrated into all existing asset management systems.

It is estimated that the development of the core automated design process will take five years, and SIG is working to deliver this as part of Network Rail’s CP6 R&D provision. Data is at the heart of the process, with core software tools for visualisation and finalisation of scheme design supported by modular extensions for specific tasks. Currently, development is in the first year with the goal of having multiple ‘proofs of concept’ available so that the overall proposal can be

demonstrated to stakeholders, including users, management and potential suppliers.

There is much work still to be done to achieve the end game of enabling automation tools built around a scalable core data model. With continuing devolvement of activities down to the new regions, a means of ensuring a universal commitment will be part of the challenge.

EULYNX A European project that has existed for some time, EULYNX aims to specify and standardise the interfaces between electronic interlockings from different suppliers with the outside components of a signalling scheme, such as points, signal heads, axle counters, track circuits and so on, with the overall objective of facilitating equipment from different suppliers to be incorporated into the same project.

Achieving cross acceptance within 12 infrastructure organisations in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Great Britain, Finland,

Getting a signalling scheme plan right at the outset of a project is important and time consuming. Whilst computer aided design (CAD) techniques have been employed for some time, these have limitations in how they analyse the suitability of the plan for the eventual project.

Hitachi Information Control systems Europe (HICSE) implemented SIG’s requirements for a SKETCH tool that not only makes drawing of a scheme plan much easier but also allows many more elements from other disciplines to be included with sufficient intelligence to alert designers that the plan may have deficiencies. This is acknowledged as a first step toward automating the design production.

SIG will promote the system within Network Rail and the supply chain, as well as providing second line support and training of the design teams. A further article on how it all functions will be written for Rail Engineer later this year.

In closing, David Shipman was keen to stress that the above are all examples of how innovation in signalling has migrated to a different perspective and is now much more focussed on design challenges for a total railway solution. While previous work relating to new hardware or component elements will not be forgotten, it is less likely to produce the savings required to make signalling more cost efficient than the initiatives now being taken forward by the Signalling Innovation Group Long may these continue.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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FOUR

INFRASTRUCTURE

SEVEN INTO

BOB WRIGHT

T

DOES GO AT THICKLEY WOOD BRIDGE

hickley Wood footbridge at Shildon, County Durham, is unusual but reflects the growth and decline of the local coalfields. Spanning the historic Stockton & Darlington Railway, this bridge dates from 1857, at which time it was a cast iron span of 16.5 metres over the Darlington to Bishop Auckland line.

As the collieries expanded to meet the demands of Victorian Britain’s industries, so were additional sidings required. In 1868, a second wrought iron girder span of 10.9 metres was added to the south and, in 1875, four additional wrought iron lattice spans, one of 7.7 metres and three of 15.2 metres, were added to the south.

At this time there were two running lines and six sidings passing below the bridge.

Although, there had been 27 miles of sidings around Shildon at their peak, by 2018, there were just two running lines and a single siding passing beneath the bridge, with the first three spans being redundant.

The bridge carries a footpath, much used by walkers and recreational visitors Thickley Wood Bridge in the distance behind the vast array of Shildon’s sidings at their peak.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

to Thickley Wood. The bridge is just 40 metres to the east of ‘Locomotion’, part of the National Railway Museum.

The oldest section, ‘span 7’, is cast iron and is listed Grade II because it is “a single casting of exceptional length”.

This includes a maker’s plate, ‘HARRIS MDCCCLVII MAKER’. John Harris was the Stockton & Darlington Railway’s resident engineer from 1836 to 1844. He then became self-employed, and one of his many businesses was Hopetown foundry, in Darlington, where he cast this bridge.

It was recognised by Network Rail that parts of the bridge were in very poor condition and that substantial investment would be required to return it to full strength.

Local concerns The 1825 Stockton & Darlington Railway was the birthplace of Britain’s railway system and was designated in 2018 by Historic England as a Heritage Action Zone. This is part of a five-year project to unlock potential investment into the structures and environment surrounding the Stockton & Darlington Railway with the aim of creating an iconic tourist attraction that will increase economic growth in the surrounding area. As a result, any works around it have the potential to be controversial.

In 2018 Network Rail submitted an application for local authority planning consent for the works as they would affect a listed structure. This described the removal of the redundant spans replacing these with an embankment and the refurbishment of the remaining spans. This being the only realistic economic solution.

INFRASTRUCTURE SPAN 7 BRICK MASONRY PILASTER

SPAN 6 STONE MASONRY PILASTER

CAST IRON HANDRAIL

KEE-KLAMP HANDRAIL

EXISTING GROUND LEVEL

SPAN 7

CAST IRON GIRDER

PIER 6

PIER 5

UP MAIN

SPAN 6

DOWN MAIN

SPAN 5

PIER 4

SPAN 3 BRICK MASONRY PILASTER

BRICK MASONRY PILASTER

SIDING

SPAN 2

SPAN 1

BRICK MASONRY PILASTER

BRICK MASONRY PILASTER

STONE MASONRY SOUTH ABUTMENT LATTICE GIRDER

POST AND WIRE FENCE

PIER 3

BEFORE

PIER 1

PIER 2

SPAN 4

BRICK MASONRY PILASTER

LATTICE GIRDER

LATTICE GIRDER

LATTICE GIRDER

POST AND WIRE FENCE

POST AND WIRE FENCE

CYCLE WAY

SPAN 4

CAST IRON PLATE PARAPET FOOTPATH LEVEL

CAST IRON GIRDER PATTRESS PLATE BRICK ARCH

STONE MASONRY NORTH ABUTMENT STONE MASONRY WINGWALL

SPAN 5

SPAN 1-3

NORTH APPROACH RAMP

AFTER

Spans 1 and 2 bridging the overgrown siding area before works began.

Span 4 spanning the ‘Locomotion’ access siding and overgrown siding area before works began.

The very poor condition bridge in 2017, contrasting with the 2004 built ‘Locomotion’ museum building alongside.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE These proposals met with much criticism locally. There were concerns that the work would destroy the character of the bridge and the wish was expressed that the bridge should be preserved especially leading up to the bicentenary of the S&DR. Jonny Ham, Network Rail’s project manager, explained: “The design stage was a real challenge and we treated the whole bridge as a listed structure, even though it was only the original three spans that were protected.

“We were conscious that we wanted to be sympathetic to the design of the bridge, so we replicated the original metal latticework in the railings of the new ramped access, and painted the bridge in its original shade of grey”.

In its submission, Network Rail commented: “By maintaining different styles of bridge across the spans, the appearance of the bridge will alter, but this will tell a story of the development of the railway across a period of time. The appearance of the bridge will reflect one altered over the years to accommodate an ever-changing railway and local landscape.”

In March 2018, both Shildon Town Council and Durham County Council considered the application and raised no objections to Network Rail’s proposals.

Span 5, timber deck removed, part blasted in preparation for repairs and painting.

Design Leeds-based Construction Marine Ltd (CML) was awarded the £1.6 million contract for the works under its RCDP (Renewals Collaborative Delivery Programme) framework contract. The project at this point was at GRIP 3 (option selection) stage.

CML’s Nigel Lea and Mark Anderson explained to Rail Engineer how the project was delivered.

CML prepared an options report, based on Network Rail’s remit, with several alternatives being considered for each of the bridge’s seven spans.

Network Rail had liaised over a couple of years with Durham County Council to understand which options were likely to be acceptable at this sensitive location, and this guided the optioneering process.

There was prolonged and more detailed consideration on costing and practicality of the various options than is usual, to ensure that the planning application would be very detailed, and the logic fully justified.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

150-tonne LTM 1150 crane lifting out span 3, 16 September 2018.

INFRASTRUCTURE The agreed solutions were: • The four redundant 1875 lattice sidespans (1-4) would be removed and spans 1 to 3 replaced with an embankment.

This was designed to be a reinforced earth structure, reducing fill requirements but also enabling its footprint to remain much the same as the original bridge, and fit within the adjacent boundary fencing of the ‘Locomotion’ museum; • Span 4 would be replaced with a standard LM footbridge welded steel span. The original pier between spans 3 and 4 was to become an abutment, with new wing walls built from masonry recovered from the demolished piers.

The reinforced embankment behind the abutment would be self-supporting but a compressible layer between fill and masonry would be provided to ensure that no thrust would be imposed on the slender pier; • Span 5 (1868 span) would be retained and the wrought iron structure repaired and repainted, timber decking refurbished and full height parapet handrails installed; • Span 6 would receive minor masonry repairs and have a lightweight in-situ concrete deck installed; • Span 7 (the listed 1857 cast iron span), would have stitch repairs to its cast iron

The part reinforced-earth northern access ramp under construction.

Forming the base of the new southern embankment with Paragrid 80/50 reinforcement.

cross girders, making good poor historic repairs, and would be repainted. This, too, would have a lightweight concrete deck over the waterproofed jack arches, and improved parapets; • In addition, a second embankment would be formed to provide a wheelchairfriendly access ramp up to span 7 from the former track bed, connecting with the foot and cycleway that connects the town to the museum. This was to be funded by Durham County Council and was designed to be easily removable as it occupies a former track bed that might at some point in the future be required should freight expansion take place.

Completed works to spans 4 to 7.

Civil Engineering EARTHWORKS DRAINAGE SCOUR S TAT I O N S BRIDGES BUILDINGS

Achieving engineering success through collaboration 0113 262 4444 www.cml.uk.com

CML delivers safe, efficient, value driven engineering solutions for the rail industry nationwide Official opening of the re-constructed 7-span Thickley Wood Footbridge on 28th March 2019

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE

Construction Before works began at the end of August 2018, the CML project team met with representatives of Network Rail, National Railway Museum, landowners and Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, to fully explain the scope and timeline of the project.

Following initial site clearance operations, the team installed a temporary 120-metre access road from the site compound, which was established adjacent to the ‘Locomotion’ access road. This was designed to cope with the bulk earthworks deliveries and bridge delivery. Good, regular liaison with the museum team ensured deliveries of plant and materials did not affect their peak visitor periods. Crane pads and a large laydown area were constructed to store the removed and new spans.

The siding into ‘Locomotion’ through span 4, was blocked throughout the project.

On 15/16 September, the four lattice spans were lifted out by a 150-tonne LTM 1150 Crane. The 10-tonne spans 1 and 2 were lifted out during the day and these placed in the laydown area. The crane then de-rigged and moved forward to lift out spans 3 and 4 during a 23:00-06:00 possession of the Darlington - Bishop Auckland line.

During November to January, the new reinforced earth embankment was designed and constructed by Maccaferri using its Terramesh system. This combined the use of galvanised steel cages to

The formal opening on 28 March was well attended by local stakeholder groups.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

face the embankment with geo-fabric tensile straps installed in layers as the embankment was constructed.

The fill for the embankment facing was locally sourced gabion stone, tipped adjacent to the work areas and loaded into the 3000mm wide facing baskets, to create a drystone wall appearance. The central fill was placed by 25-tonne and 13-tonne excavators, a D6 bulldozer and dumptrucks and compacted in 150mm layers by rollers and plates.

The geotextile straps were installed in sequence with the erection of the facing baskets. Paragrid 80/05 reinforcement was laid every other layer at the face edge. As the works proceeded, temporary scaffold edge protection was attached to the baskets.

Pockets of pre-seeded soil mixture were incorporated into the upper section of the face, which will result in grass-covered walls.

The lower will remain stone-faced, matching the adjacent walls of ‘Locomotion’. The new access ramp at the north end was constructed using a mix of reinforced earth and, at the lower ends, natural fill. The steel footway fencing of the south embankment incorporates a lattice design, reflecting the original girders, the north ramp has steel, five-rail estate fencing.

The masonry wing walls and repairs to other part of the structure were carried out by a team from Darlington-based D France Masonry. They constructed the walls using recovered stone from the demolished piers, matching exactly the historic masonry.

The new span 4 was fabricated by Britcon Engineering Services at Scunthorpe and the pre-cast retention units by Ebor Concrete.

These were installed in possession by a Liebherr 160-tonne crane - the bridge unit weighed 9 tonnes and this planned lift was delayed by two weeks due to high winds.

The repairs to span 5 were carried out by HS Carlsteel Engineering. This span has a timber deck, which was refurbished using timbers recovered from the demolished spans 1-4.

Re-used masonry wing walls beside the original pier at Span 4.

Spans 5 and 7 were wet blasted to Sa2.5, and an M24 paint system applied

by Bagnalls, in a series of Saturday and weeknight rules of the route possessions of the Darlington - Bishop Auckland line.

Following the blasting, further cracking was identified in the bottom flange of the cast main beams. A supplementary planning consent for additional repairs to the listed structure was quickly agreed. These fractures, together with the known problems with the cross girders, were repaired using the Metalock stitch system.

The heritage of the site and structure were very much in the CML teams mind during the project. In addition to the use of recovered timber and masonry, the redundant lattice span 4 was donated to the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. Ross Chisholm explained that this is in store at the Weardale Railway but that they hope to use this as a training project for the next generation of tradespeople.

Once restored it will be displayed within the Heritage Action Zone.

The opening of the completed bridge took place on 28th March, attended by 30 representatives from stakeholding groups. Despite their initial concerns at the scope of the works, the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway complimented Network Rail and CML, describing the bridge as a “good job well done” and were very pleased to have been involved in the project.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE

PETER STANTON

Back to portals HEADSPANS WERE NECESSARY BUT NOW

IMPROVED RESILIENCE IS NEEDED

G

enerally, the railway electrification schemes that first emerged in Britain, before the introduction of more recent AC designs, relied on fairly heavy equipment. Multitrack supports were generally of the portal type - that is, a heavy ‘goalpost’-style arrangement.

As new designs emerged for the development of the 25kV AC system in the 1950s, once again multitrack overhead line equipment (OLE) situations were met by solid structural arrangements. A common example on the West Coast main line south of Weaver junction was the BICC ‘Welded Road’ portal. Other portals were of double-channel, structural steel beams.

When British Rail (BR) looked to complete the electrification of the West Coast main line northward from Crewe to Glasgow, the cost of electrification was being seriously challenged by the government. To gain approval for those northbound extensions,

BR undertook an extensive review of its existing designs with the intention of reducing both capital costs and the ongoing maintenance that painted portals needed.

What emerged from that review was a new, lightweight, modularised, headspanbased support system. This new design was used on the northern extension of the West Coast main line electrification, opening the route up to electric traction.

Despite its advantages in terms of cost, the headspan does have issues with resilience and reliability. In particular, the lack of mechanical independence between

A typical four-track headspan being installed on the East Coast main line in the 1980s.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

registrations means that, in the event of a problem such as a de-wirement, the impact is significant, affecting multiple tracks and increasing the time to reinstate the equipment.

To help resolve these issues, engineering consultant Arup has successfully completed a ‘Headspan to Portal’ conversion project on the East Coast main line south of Peterborough. Working closely with Network Rail, Arup has provided a portal conversion design that could largely be installed during ‘rules of the route’ access.

Arup’s head of electrification, Jonathan Ridley, invited Rail Engineer to meet him in York and explain the details.

Headspans Already described as a ‘goalpost’, a portal consists of two vertical masts which support a single horizontal beam that spans the railway. The OLE is supported from this beam, one assembly for each line.

An alternative to the portal is the headspan arrangement. This structure still comprises two vertical masts, but, instead of the beam, two horizontal tensioned wires (the upper and lower cross-span wires) are strung between them to locate the OLE. A third, top wire is a profiled headspan wire, and this provides support to the overall arrangement.

The headspan does have the advantage of being generally cheaper and easier to install than the equivalent portal. However, the headspan is a load-balanced system where the tensions in the wire runs themselves contribute to the geometric stability. If one wire run breaks, the design geometry will be lost, since all other wires

PHOTO: NIGEL THOMPSON

INFRASTRUCTURE

Luton Airport Parkway station in 2013.

will be out of balance. This type of structure is therefore not mechanically independent and a failure on one track can well mean all four tracks are out of service.

Headspans require regular maintenance to check the span wire tensions, and adjustment of the equipment tends to lead to the design and replacement of assemblies. On high-speed lines, a mechanical wave, created by the passage of a train pantograph, also affects the adjacent wire runs.

In addition, headspans can require larger foundations than a portal, so as to resist a heavy overturning moment caused by the transverse wire tension.

Headspan wire corrosion issues have also been experienced, as well as some other disadvantages. For instance, a midpoint anchor (MPA), where the OLE wires are fixed in position at their midpoint to keep the contact wire stable, cannot be a single point restraint due to the flexible nature of the system. This results in a distributed MPA, where the catenary is restrained over several structures to distribute the load.

Because of these reliability issues, it is now apparent that headspans are best suited to lower-speed applications or circumstances where low capital cost would be more important than high availability or performance. In the UK, headspans have been installed in large numbers, but their less-than-reliable performance means they are no longer installed for new designs on main lines.

based cross-track structure described here. For some time, where infrastructure projects included major reconstruction, headspans have been replaced with new portal structures.

An early example was the construction of Luton Airport Parkway station, within the original Bedford to St. Pancras electrification project, where several portals of a new design were installed. Modern designs of portal boom have replaced the welded rod format of the early years.

Recent experience of a significant number of catastrophic mainline failures has led to the consideration of the wholesale replacement of headspans, in order to improve performance and reduce disruption.

During works connected with enabling Crossrail connections to the Great Western main line on the approaches to London Paddington, there arose a need to make numerous alterations to the overhead line configuration due to staged track layout changes.

Arup became involved in the proposals, as designer for the scheme. The â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Old Oak Common and Paddington Approachesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (OOCPA) phase of the

works involved complex staging, with continuous rearrangement of track layout and the accompanying stage-by-stage rearrangement of the OLE. However, the existing electrification scheme utilised headspan structures, as that was the standard design protocol at the time of construction in the early 1990s.

Analysis carried out by Arup confirmed that multiple sequential rearrangement of OLE on a headspan was not practical, as the balanced-cable arrangement would not allow for the easy rearrangement of individual wire runs, whereas small part steelwork (SPS) on a fixed portal beam could be adjusted relatively easily as the track alignment changed during construction staging.

Designers considered installing new portal structures, but they also examined the feasibility of utilising the existing steel support structures and landing a new portal beam on them.

Learning from a Network Rail trial project, at Potters Bar on the East Coast main line, Arup produced proposals for a practical method of converting the OOCPA headspans to portals, which was progressed over a small number of strategic OLE structures. As the headspans in the site formed a mid-point anchor, a new mid-point portal was installed for practical reasons, but the conversion of adjacent headspans went ahead as per the Form A design.

Valuable experience was gained from these OOCPA conversion works. For example, one of the masts on a headspan was found to be rotated by around nine degrees - not a problem when supporting flexible span wires but quite inconvenient when supporting a stiff fixed portal beam.

In addition, the installation of the portal beam impacts the type of loading on the supporting steel.

Improving resilience With the continued drive to improve resilience within the railway system, and in view of some of the shortcomings and restrictions of the headspan solution, there has been a growing move to seek alternatives or replacements for the wire-

Point-cloud surveys of the existing structures were undertaken.

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Portals for Connington The Connington area, on the East Coast main line south of Peterborough, experiences relatively high windspeeds and, as such, is prone to dewirements, resulting in significant train delays over recent years. Network Rail identified this area for conversion to portals to help build resilience into the OLE system.

Arup was commissioned to prepare a design study to look at replacing several headspans in the area. Again, the provision of installing new structures was rejected and a detailed analysis of the possibility of reusing the existing support masts was undertaken.

Using Arup’s well-developed tools for assessing geotechnical issues and ground conditions, a close study of the foundations was made, to discover whether they would cope with the varied stresses and loads from the new portal geometries.

Economy would best be achieved by the reuse of the existing masts, but these would have been installed in a manner that facilitated the cross-track wires. Using point cloud surveys, the precise positions of the masts had to be recorded, along with any skew or twist as had been seen at Paddington, which would have an impact on the loading of the finished portal.

Ground engineering studies of the foundations were essential as the original foundations would have been installed to take cross-track stress rather than the new loadings imposed by the beams. This involved a detailed structural analysis to determine the existing foundation loads and compare them with proposed portal loads. Arup’s proprietary software was used both to model the new loads imposed on the foundations and to check the stresses in the Series 1 boom and connection angle to the masts due to the loads of the UK1 OLE, a design first used on the West Coast main line for higher train speeds, and the

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

OLEMI (OLE Master Index) equipment which continued to support the OLE in the conversion.

In summary, the emphasis was on the strength of the concrete, reinforcing bar cover and the general suitability of the foundation for the portal conversion.

However, without the cross wires, the bending stress on the vertical structures is reduced. In all cases, the foundations at Connington were side-bearing concrete no piles were involved.

Following these initial design considerations, a detailed design for thirty structures was prepared, covering this high-risk area on the East Coast main line.

Performance aspirations would suggest that all headspans in a tension length should be changed, but the complexity of replacing items such as mid-point anchors and neutral-section supports drove the decision to convert only the simpler, multitrack headspans within the tension length.

Mid-point anchors, booster transformer structures, and switching structures were among some of the structures deemed too complex for this phase of the headspan-toportal conversion projects.

Installing the Portal booms Many design and construction meetings were held with the Network Rail’s works delivery team, accompanied by drawing revisions, such as extra dimensions, to suit the construction team’s needs on site.

Installation was carried out on site by Works Delivery, acting as principal contractor.

Design acceptance was similarly eased by working with the E&P (electrification and plant) and structures route asset managers, and the crane provider was brought in at an early stage.

Staging of the work was very important, particularly on such a heavily used route.

The design, therefore, detailed all of the stages of the conversion process, not just

the finished result, taking into account the analysis of both mast and boom orientation, the detailed construction methodology and a view of simple versus complex structure types.

First, after the headspan wire was removed, the new boom was landed on the two main steel masts, with the two cross wires retained. After this interim stage, the SPS was modified, in a staged process, to fit in with site availability and line possessions.

Lifting in the new boom was a complex procedure, each one weighed in excess of a tonne and had to be manipulated into the final position with existing wires in situ, but, once it was in place, the processes became more self-contained. An initial stage-bystage approach could have led to one road being upgraded at a time, but Jonathan Ridley pointed out that, in practice, all four roads were completed at once.

If an incident occurs, damage is now usually limited to the single track involved and the equipment can be returned to normal operating condition in less time than if the failure occurred on a headspan structure.

With the conversion of 30 headspans completed, Arup can look to the future.

The next step is to convert a complete tension length, including all of the complex structures that were left out in this conversion project. Further evaluation of the complex structures will be required as part of a new feasibility study and the performance improvement gain is expected to be considerable.

Whilst the reasons for the original switch to headspans can be readily understood, when their low capital cost contributed to obtaining authorisation for important electrification schemes, it resulted in reliability that was less than that of the original portals. Now the design has gone back full circle, to the cost-effective conversion of those headspans back to portals, delivering the reliability that today’s busy railway needs.

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GRAHAME TAYLOR

H S2 way out in front

N

ow, what are the similarities between Cyrano de Bergerac, the central character in the 1897 play of the same name by Edmond Rostand and a modern Japanese high-speed train?

Perhaps they’ve both got panache.

Cyrano de Bergerac did indeed have panache, Rostand having introduced that very word into the English language.

Undoubtedly, the Japanese train also has panache - or panasshu.

What else? They both have very long noses, but whereas Cyrano de Bergerac was born with a long nose, the Japanese high-speed train had its nose specially designed - and designed for a very specific purpose.

The train has to travel very fast.

But there’s a problem here. Take a look at the latest images of the trains proposed for HS2. They too have to travel very fast - just as fast as, if not faster than, their Japanese counterparts.

The HS2 trains also have panache, but their noses are far more ‘Audrey Hepburn’ in comparison. So, what is going on? Why have the very savvy Japanese embarked on such prominent nose jobs whilst the Brits are so nasally understated?

The basic reason is because HS2 will be tailoring new rolling stock to suit its new infrastructure, while the Japanese have had to tailor new rolling stock to suit existing infrastructure.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

(Above) A model about to enter a tunnel portal at speed.

(Inset) A 1/25-scale model on the University of Birmingham’s test track in Derby.

A bit of background

Tunnel hoods

The shinkansen railway was a ground breaking achievement. Opened in 1964, in time for the Tokyo Olympics, it took high speed rail travel to a new level. Speeds of 210km/h in commercial passenger service had not been seen anywhere in the world.

Everything was new - both the rolling stock and the infrastructure and, as it turned out, the aerodynamic effects. The trains were streamlined to minimise drag in the open air and through the (many) tunnels, which were conventional tubes through the ground.

When the railway was extended in the 1970s, those living near the portals of one of the new tunnels were disturbed by loud bangs that occurred a short while before a train emerged. Technically, these are known as micro-pressure waves. To the press, they quickly became known as ‘sonic booms’.

Something had to be done.

The engineers quickly analysed the problem and realised that they had to slow down the build-up of pressure in front of the train before it entered the tunnel mouth. To do so, they designed and retro-fitted hoods for the tunnel portals that would guide the air as the train entered. Without these measures, the pressure wave would build up too quickly and, after travelling down the tunnel bore at the speed of sound, would emerge at the other end.

The world learnt from the Japanese experience and just about all of the long tunnels on subsequent lines have been fitted with hoods of one pattern or another.

As a result of this experience, sonic booms are something that designers of all high-speed lines are mandated to avoid. This, of course, includes HS2.

INFRASTRUCTURE 360km/h maximum speed As HS2 chief engineer Mark Howard is keen to point out: “We don’t want to find there’s a problem only when the first trains start to run.”

Having an iron grip on all aspects of the project specification will ensure that the problems encountered on the Nuremberg-Munich high-speed railway in Germany will not occur.

The emission of micro-pressure waves depends on both tunnel length and on the effects of friction. A design change from ballasted track to slab track inside two of the longer tunnels, Euerwang (7,700 metres) and Irlahüll (7,260 metres), reduced the surface friction and led to sonic booms occurring near the portals of both tunnels.

Measures had to be taken to stop this phenomenon before the line could open in 2006, and acoustic absorber panels were fitted between the rails.

High speed lines that have been built to date have, in broad terms, a maximum line speed of up to 320km/h. HS2 is being designed to run at a maximum of 360km/h. On the face of it, this may not seem to be a significant speed increase just 12½ per cent.

However, the physics of micro-pressure wave propagation is such that they increase in proportion to the cube of

Macrete Macrete NCENCE 1-2 page 1-2 page Feb Feb 15-paths.indd 15-paths.indd 1 1

The German solution. West portal of the Finne tunnel, designed for 300km/h, built 2011 and opened for service 2015. Note the smaller number of larger slots compared with the HS2 design for 360km/h running. the speed - and by more than the cube in longer tunnels. A quick calculation suggests that the relatively modest 40km/h increase in speed leads to at least a 42 per cent increase in effect.

Mitigating this would be way in excess of the capability of existing tunnel hood designs and so a new solution is required - one that has to be carefully calculated, modelled, designed - and verified.

Model trains at (really) high speed As we covered in a Rail Engineer article back in issue 160 (February 2018), Arup and Birmingham University are at the forefront of tunnel aerodynamic research, using a mix of scale model testing and computer modelling to verify and optimise tunnel designs. The university’s scale model test-rig catapults model trains down a 150-metre-long track in a

27/01/2015 27/01/2015 14:23 14:23 Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE huge shed at British Rail’s former research centre in Derby. Scale models of the tunnel and hood are placed over the track to measure the performance of the proposed design.

Whilst it is possible to make train and tunnel models to 1/25 scale, it is not possible to scale down our atmosphere or its physical properties. However small the model trains, speed through the air has to be full-scale if the results are to read across directly to the full-scale tunnel. The catapult isn’t quite powerful enough to manage 360km/h - but it is still blink-andyou-miss-it fast, and plenty fast enough to see that, in principle, the design works as intended.

The scale model results are used as testcases for validating the computer models, and then the computer model is cranked up to the full 360km/h. Finally, the details of the hood can be tweaked in the computer model to optimise the design to make it as cost-effective as possible whilst meeting all the numerical targets.

Leading the team is Richard Sturt, an Arup Fellow whom we met during the preparation of our previous article.

Richard has considerable experience in the application of fundamental physics to engineering problems, along with knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of computer modelling.

“HS2 will have hoods that are longer than in Germany or Japan because of our higher speeds and tight tunnels,”

Comparison of the HS2 design of tapered portal for 360km/h and an earlier 300km/h version.

he explained. “To make a really efficient design, we’ve used an idea by Prof Alan Vardy (one of the world’s leading academic experts in the field) to shape the hood so that it smoothly narrows down from quite a big entrance to meet the main tunnel without any sudden changes of cross-sectional area.

“Then there are many small holes along the length of the hood which let the pressure out in a very controlled way, so dissipating it very smoothly, without any sudden changes.”

Standards - or lack of them There is a difference between the treatment of micro-pressure waves and pressures experienced on a train by passengers. As Mark explained: “The standards for passengers inside the

Alternative styles of portal for varying applications.

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train are designed to give a backstop if a window were to break, so exposing passengers to the pressure outside. That would be very much worse than the normal operating scenario when they’re seated in a nice comfortable train.

“Standards apply to the emergency rather than the normal condition.

Mandatory requirements are in the standards for interoperability.

“Nothing covers the micro-pressure waves.”

Noise levels generated by HS2 are embedded in the Act of Parliament that authorised the project, but this is wheel/ rail/aerodynamic noise arising from the running of trains. Despite there being hundreds of papers written on the subject of micro-pressure waves at tunnel portals, there is practically nothing that defines the

INFRASTRUCTURE levels that are acceptable. What constitutes a nuisance in some circumstances will be benign in other cases. An audible thump at the dead of night in rural surroundings will cause many more issues than one in an industrial estate.

This vexed problem has been researched in Japan and resulted in a rule of thumb - what people find tolerable and what not. Rules in Germany are based on measurements made on a sound meter.

Eliminating the problem Given the dilemma of ‘guessing’ what noise level would be acceptable, Mark’s team made the decision to opt for a design that eliminated the noise altogether - or at least to sound frequencies below the capability of the human ear. The HS2 designs will give rise to pressure changes that may well be detectable using instrumentation, but nothing will emerge into the open air that will be within the audible range.

All this explains the difference in approach by the Brits and the Japanese to train design. The physics of sonic booms is the same wherever you are on the planet. It’s just that HS2 has the opportunity of designing and building new tunnel hoods to avoid the pressure

Impression of an HS2 tunnel portal showing the row of slots that form part of the shock prevention design. build-up with speeds of 360km/h. A 100-metre tunnel hood is relatively straightforward to build.

The Japanese started early with their high-speed lines and so their infrastructure is, by and large, fixed. They had little alternative but to change the trains.

As stated earlier, the micro-pressure wave effects increase by the cube of

DUST SUPPRESSION FOR THE RAIL INDUSTRY

the speed and so, if there’s little hope of altering the tunnel hoods, then it’s down to the front of the trains to do their part. But the effect is also dependant on the length of the nose, which is why the newest, and fastest, Japanese trains have the longest noses. Ramp up the speed to 360km/h, and the nose would need to be too long to manage.

Sorry Cyrano!

T: 01480 458 888 E: sales@appsuk.com W: www.apps-group.com Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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First light STUART MARSH

H

ow many times have we looked at clever innovation and wondered why on earth no one thought of doing it before? Often the simplest of ideas seem to lead to the most elegant of engineering solutions. The truth is, of course, that invention is only half of the story. Sometimes the right meeting of minds must happen before a bright idea can become a reality.

To the best of our knowledge, the direct supply of solar power to rail traction systems has never been done, anywhere in the world. Now, thanks to a collaboration between Network Rail and a social enterprise scheme called Riding Sunbeams, the very first solar farm to directly supply power to trains has been switched on. That’s right, not in a distant country with a hot climate and wall to wall blue skies, but right here in our cloudy UK, near Aldershot station to be precise. The new system went live on 23 August.

Riding Sunbeams is a joint venture between 10:10 Climate Action and Community Energy South. 10:10 is a registered charity on a mission to speed up action on climate change by inspiring more people to become involved, while Community Energy South was set up in 2013 as an umbrella organisation, enabling community organisations and local energy groups to grow as sustainable low carbon businesses.

Feasible Behind the Riding Sunbeams project is a pretty simple idea. It is that solar farms could be installed next to the train tracks - on embankments, train sheds, nearby fields and industrial buildings - and that these could power the railway directly to provide traction power for the trains.

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In 2017, the 10:10 charity brought together experts from the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London, Community Energy South and electrical engineering specialists Turbo Power Systems, to find out whether the idea was feasible, and the answer was yes. It was estimated that solar traction power could realistically provide around 10 per cent of the energy needed to power trains on the UK’s 750V DC electrified routes.

Community energy, where local people own the renewable energy and benefit from it, is at the heart of this work.

Riding Sunbeams has a mission to see community and commuter-owned solar farms powering the railways for the

mutual benefit of the railway routes, the communities that host them and, of course, the planet. In other words, to have third-party funding contributing to the national rail network. This is no madcap scheme; the idea has huge potential for metros, trams and heavy rail in the UK and around the world.

Benefits Network Rail purchases an awful lot of electricity. The potential to obtain even 10 per cent of the DC third rail electrified network’s energy requirements from renewable sources, and at a cheaper rate, was worthy of consideration.

Stuart Kistruck is Network Rail’s director asset management for the Wessex route.

In 2017, he had attended a presentation

by Riding Sunbeams. “Making use of solar energy, produced on our own land, seemed like such an obvious thing to do,” he said.

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“We started conversations and it became clear that the third-rail electrified Wessex route could provide favourable locations to trial the technology. We have many southerly facing cuttings that could be used for solar farms, which would not only provide some of our energy needs, but also relieve some of our commitments to vegetation management.”

Stuart also saw that community energy, where local people own the renewable energy and benefit from it, could be at the heart of such a scheme. “There is clearly an opportunity for communityenergy funding to benefit the railway connecting solar farms, not necessarily on railway land, to the rail network.”

The Riding Sunbeams’ ‘First Light’ demonstrator project has attracted funding from Innovate UK and the

Department for Transport. Six potential sites for the trial were identified across the Wessex route, with a location near to Aldershot station being the one chosen for the pilot scheme. It offered a suitable area of waste land for the solar farm that was conveniently close to an existing traction power supply point (substation).

Compatible In terms of power transmission efficiency, the relatively low traction voltage of 750V does not lend itself to distribution over long distances. For that reason, it is necessary to provide third-rail traction supply points every three to five kilometres along the railway.

It was realised that it would be possible to connect solar farms into the existing 33kV AC feeder systems that

carry power from the grid supply points (GSPs) to the substations. Although this approach will lead to some DC-AC-DC conversion losses, it has some practical advantages over DC-DC supply to the substations: 1. Equipment for connecting solar farms to high-voltage AC networks is very well established and widely available. Being able to make use of existing technology (usually used for something else) for deployment on the railways has reduced the development time from an estimated five years to about one year.

2. Connecting to the feeders helps to overcome the major technical challenge for solar traction power: intermittency. This is because each GSP supplies around ten to fifteen substations. The load is shared across all of these, creating a more stable demand than if only one substation were to be fed. It may also be possible to export small amounts of surplus power from the feeders back onto the grid via the GSP. 3. This approach should largely negate the possibility of DC voltage-range exceedances and other power quality issues on the tracks, which would have increased operational risk.

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Challenges Despite the compatibility of the technology, which makes it straightforward to bolt the new equipment onto existing traction substations, Leo Murray, director of innovation for 10:10 Climate Action, explained that there are still technological challenges: “By its nature, the supply is intermittent and we have a very peaky load. And of course, the periods of peak demand and peak generation don’t coincide.”

Depending on the nature of the rail traffic, there can be long periods with no demand interspersed with periods of high demand. Leo continued: “A train under acceleration may draw up to 2,000 Amps.

Lineside storage (batteries) could provide a solution, but the required technology for rail systems is not developed. We would be faced with perhaps a five-year development programme, which couldn’t pay for itself.

“Even in the long term, the business case for using battery storage doesn’t look as good.”

This was another reason for choosing the Aldershot substation for the trial.

The location should provide a reasonably constant load.

The Aldershot trial is a modest undertaking with a solar array that comprises just 135 panels, installed for Riding Sunbeams by local firm Basingstoke Energy Services Cooperative.

Peak output is rated at 37 kW. Its purpose is purely to test the technology and the modelling that was used as part of the feasibility study.

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Theoretical modelling of the systems was undertaken by Dr Nathaniel Bottrell, then with Imperial College. He has since joined Ricardo Energy & Environment as a consultant, and this company has itself become an important partner in the scheme.

Design work on the ‘First Light’ solar traction test unit was completed by Riding Sunbeam’s resident engineer Ernie Shelton, in dialogue with Network Rail’s Wessex Route’s lead traction engineer Nigel Wheeler - Network Rail effectively acted as the DC-traction engineering consultants.

As Leo put it: “The objective at Aldershot is to test the technology without spending millions of pounds.”

Data loggers would monitor the load, generation capacity and the quality of the supply.

Meanwhile, Network Rail is, of course, looking closely at the system performance and ensuring compliance with its own technical requirements for safe operation.

These include protection settings and the fail-safe operation of circuit breakers in the event of a fault condition.

The quality of the supply is also under scrutiny, with the production of voltage spikes and harmonics being closely assessed. The potential for over-supply during periods of low demand and peak generation is another concern, but Stuart Kistruck is keen to stress that, overall, the position of Network Rail is one of collaboration and support.

There is also involvement from the electrical engineering department of Birmingham University. Using data gathered from the Aldershot installation, and from data loggers at the other five proposed sites, they will undertake sophisticated modelling. By pinning this to Network Rail’s traction model, it should be possible to predict accurately how a larger solar installation should perform.

This work will be important in ensuring that a successful and commercially viable engineering solution is attained.

Expansion Assuming all goes well, by this time next year, the other five sites that have been allocated for trials on the Wessex route should be happily generating electricity for the third rail system. The trial itself is open-ended with no fixed timescale, but Riding Sunbeams has great ambition.

Leo Murray explained: “Once the technology is proven, we’ll go bigger, offering shares in solar farms to

INFRASTRUCTURE solar farms. Leo is enthusiastic about this, and about other possibilities too: “We’ll also be looking at the potential to use community wind turbines to power the trains.” There is currently a ban on new land-based wind farms in England, but not in Wales.

Unlocked

communities and commuters, so that local people will own and benefit from the clean energy powering their trains.”

There is no doubting the magnitude of the opportunities that lie ahead.

Leo continued: “We’ll be gathering electricity demand data from our six potential solar sites in the south of England. Putting this real-world data together, we’ll be able to work out how to plug in much larger solar arrays to power trains in future.”

It’s estimated that those arrays would each be capable of generating between one and four megawatts. All being well, the world’s first ever full-scale, community and commuter owned solar traction farm should be connected to the railway during 2020.

Overhead As we have seen, the generation of electricity using solar technology lends itself to supplying trains on the 750V DC third rail system. Looking ahead, though, Riding Sunbeams is working with

Transport for Wales to build renewable energy into their plans to electrify the lines north of Cardiff using 25kV AC overhead line equipment (OLE).

The difficulty with retro-fitting existing 25kV AC lines with solar power generation is that the OLE feed points tend to be much further apart than on DC lines.

They also tap directly into the national transmission grid, rather than distribution.

This means that, even if a solar farm could be sited nearby, bespoke equipment would be needed in order to provide an interface.

An alternative would be to build new feed points near the solar farms, but this would create disruption to rail services.

Either way, the costs involved are higher, and the specialist equipment needed for feeding the OLE at 25kV would require development and approval.

That said, by taking account of solarpower generation at the design stage, the South Wales Green Valleys scheme should be able to accommodate new feeder substations close to the best sites for

Back at Aldershot, if successful, the Riding Sunbeams: First Light project will prove that direct solar PV supply can be successfully integrated into UK railways without negatively impacting on rail operations or safety.

This is a world first and it should also establish the business case and contractual relationships needed to unlock opportunities for community energy groups and other renewable generators.

It is as much about developing innovative ways of owning and financing renewable energy as it is about proving the technology.

The rail industry plays an important role in reducing carbon emissions and, as part of that, Network Rail is committed to making use of renewable energy. The necessary land is available, the technology exists and there is the will to take this exciting project forward. With the passing of net zero emissions legislation in the UK there has never been a better time for Riding Sunbeams to help the rail industry respond to this challenge.

To quote Riding Sunbeams, it’s time to get on board - here comes the sun!

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PAUL DARLINGTON

N e w te c h niq u e s to a nal y s e a n d p re d ic t

WATER DAMAGE TO EARTHWORKS

A

n ideal railway is one that is as level and straight as possible. Unfortunately, this is not easy to achieve and, when the rail network was constructed in the 19th century, thousands of earthworks were constructed to create the national network. Even though the total route mileage is now much reduced, nevertheless Network Rail still manages a portfolio of over 190,000 earthwork assets.

There was no precedent in the scale of excavation to create cuttings, or in the placement of material to build embankments. It was a great feat of Victorian engineering to undertake ground works in this order of magnitude, and all whilst using basic empirical techniques.

However, those ‘rule of thumb’ techniques have resulted in a legacy of over-steep embankments and cuttings across the network – just travel on any Victorianconstructed railway and you will observe that the slopes of railway cuttings and embankments are far steeper than those of a more modern motorway or railway.

On some routes, those earthworks were also poorly built, without the knowledge of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering that exists today. In the main, there are three classifications of earthworks: »» Embankments, over low lying ground; »» Soil cuttings, excavations through the surrounding ground that is composed entirely or predominantly of soil; »» Rock cuttings, through the surrounding ground which is entirely or predominantly rock.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

The Department of Transport (DoT), in its review of Network Rail’s Management of Existing Earthworks (ref 25/2008), said that an increase in the number of earthworksrelated failures could be observed over the years up to 2008, although the authors added that the increase was too small to be statistically significant and may have been the result of the ongoing improvements in reporting.

Nevertheless, there have been some significant earthwork failures resulting in derailments, although there has fortunately been no fatality attributed, either directly or indirectly, to an earthwork failure since 1995.

The earthworks statistics indicate a greater prevalence of failures in cuttings than embankments, but this may be because of the greater focus given to embankment defects and maintenance.

The report concluded that the approach to earthworks management taken by Network Rail is comparable or better than other industries with similar earthworks. However, how many other

INFRASTRUCTURE

industries have thousands of earthworks over 150 years old? Inland waterways maybe?

Geotechnical engineers When compared to infrastructure constructed with the benefit of modern design codes and techniques, the railway earthworks asset count, age, degradation, and rate of degradation provide a unique management challenge to todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s asset engineers. Increased embankment traffic loading and tonnage growth adds to the challenge. 30 years ago, it fell to the track and structures engineers to manage earthworks, but things have improved.

Prior to rail privatisation, British Rail did not have a national strategy for the management of earthworks. A small, limited centralised resource was available to support local track engineers by providing specialist support such as testing, analysis, interpretation and design capability.

However, the local track engineer was responsible for the safety of the operational railway infrastructure and part of this was the inspection and minor maintenance of earthworks. The local teams were larger than now, so were able to carry out more drainage and vegetation control.

During the period post privatisation of 1994, a number of earthworks failures occurred, which the investigations concluded may have been preventable had an earthworks asset management regime been in place. Railtrack North West in Manchester was the first to appoint a regional geotechnical earthwork engineer in 2000, partly as a consequence of an incident at a site that had previously been inspected, but not acted upon.

This new post carried responsibility for asset stewardship of earthworks within the region. Other regions soon followed suit, appointing their own geotechnical earthworks engineers.

Nowadays, specialist railway geotechnical engineers are in place. They have made great progress in managing the fragile asset portfolio and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;earthworksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is now an engineering discipline in its own right.

Competent experienced railway geotechnical engineers are essential, as basic knowledge and appreciation in geotechnics can often lead to inaccurate conclusions on failure causes, asset capability and rates of degradation.

Perceptions of the asset base and expectations of its ability to perform will often need careful management, particularly at times of heightened potential for failure during prolonged rainfall, which is a main cause of slope failure.

With the predicted hotter future climate, it is predicted that rainfall will arrive in more intense storm events, some of which we have already experienced. Prolonged periods of wet weather, which increase pore water pressures and reduce effective stress within clay slopes, reduce the factor of safety and increase the likelihood of asset failure.

The effects of vegetation on soil and rock slopes can also be dramatic. Drains can get blocked or damaged and excessive vegetation removal may destabilise some delicate earthworks.

Every aspect of engineering involves risks that must be understood, prioritised and moderated in order to utilise resources appropriately. The strategy to manage earthworks includes the need to improve technology in order to make best use of the resource available, reduce cost and evolve more efficient methods for moderating risks. This is where technology can help, as using available data to identify and fix the root cause, rather than treating the symptom, in the embankment, formation, and drainage is key.

Proactive risk management may involve time-intensive trends analysis, but this cannot handle the real-time information and immense, growing data sets. Innovative applications and advanced analytics capabilities are required to help manage the earthwork risk so as to enable early detection and rectification of issues before they lead to failure and disruption.

Fully embedded, intelligent infrastructure monitoring of all earthworks would be disproportionately expensive and, because of the variety of failure modes it is still unlikely to enable intervention in advance of all failures. However, the integration of data from remote failure-detection technologies, particularly of at-risk assets, greatly assists asset managers.

There is a wide variety of slope deformation technologies that provide a range of capabilities to detect the onset of earthwork instability or failure, and new technologies are starting to offer greater potential to monitor more parameters that effect earthwork failures.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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INFRASTRUCTURE

Water events risk Railway lines are inherently vulnerable to water events risk and traverse terrain with varied topography with localised climates.

The nature of railway lines everywhere means they are exposed to the effects of high rainfall that can damage earthworks.

Water events that affect railways can occur in many ways, such as stream or river courses breaking their banks, overland flash flooding, ponding, subsidence and mudflows that are triggered both seasonally and by extreme weather-related events.

The ever-increasing extreme weather is exacerbating water event risks, and asset managers are finding that water events can occur in locations where they have not been observed historically. Heavy rainfall is one of the weather events that can cause the most damage, by creating landslides, eroding riverbanks, destroying bridges, overloading culverts and other supporting structures, or simply by collapsing embankments entirely.

The referenced DfT report said that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) had investigated three earthwork incidents in the UK between 2005 and 2007. All three incidents were initiated by earth slope failures and resulted in passenger train derailments. Each was an unexpected cutting failure and involved a recent period

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

of localised extreme weather, deficiencies in the performance of the local drainage systems at the site and surface water standing on, or flowing from, adjacent nonrailway land.

Nokia Water Events Prediction solution Nokia is a world-wide major telecommunications company that, at first, may not appear to be associated with managing railway earthworks. However, as well as providing all aspects of mobile and fixed telecoms networks, the company has also developed advanced analytics applications for asset-intensive industries that focus on operations in context, in motion and with rolling future predictions collecting and correlating data, predicting asset condition and operation, optimising and automating networks of people and assets and visualising everything in real time.

These applications are developed on an advanced, end-to-end platform with machine-learning engine techniques producing cutting-edge analytics that provides high-quality solutions and rapid time-to-value for customers. Nokia believes this approach to solving business issues gives railway asset managers the tools to deliver freight and passengers safely and on time.

Nokia Water Events Prediction is a predictive analytics solution that provides actionable data for railway geotechnical asset managers to determine rail washout failures before they happen and prioritise intervention action to be taken.

Water Events Prediction uses advanced predictive analytics to combine past and real-time data and transform it into actionable information on likely future outcomes. An advanced map interface with pre-configured business views filters key attributes without needing to execute queries or create custom reports.

E-mail or message alerts can be triggered when the predictive analytics uncover potential rail washout situations. Third-party systems can also be used to distribute alerts if integration with customer workflows is needed.

Advanced analytics The analytics built into Nokiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Water Events Prediction create and transform data sets using an advanced high-powered hydrologic model to anticipate how the water will flow across the land surface while taking into account the detailed characteristics of the affected rail assets.

Filtering criteria, based on business rules, are configured to identify which statistical risks will trigger alerts.

Real-time weather data is continually updated and potential outcomes are recalculated. When these exceed defined thresholds (geography, time interval, or type), alerts are sent to operational staff who can then research conditions, analysing the best course of action to mitigate risk to assets, environment and life for the predicted impact area and assets.

The Nokia Water Events Prediction application is already in production use and in trials with infrastructure managers, aiming to reduce earthwork failure risk from prolonged periods of wet weather, so improving safety, performance and cost.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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FEATURE

S P I H C IEIDCS R F & CTRON

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t is always a pleasure to report on the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Railway Challenge, as Rail Engineer has done since the first competition in 2012. Experiencing the enthusiasm, energy and ingenuity of the teams taking part, seeing the professionalism of the senior engineers from the Institution’s Railway Division who volunteer to run the event and the opportunity to experience the Stapleford Miniature Railway make this a thoroughly enjoyable weekend for all concerned.

FSMR’s 2-8-4 Berkshire steam locomotive hauling a spectator train.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

The Railway Challenge requires teams of graduates, students or apprentices to design and build a 10¼ inch gauge miniature locomotive that must compete in various challenges, with marks also given for reliability. Before the locomotives can enter these challenges, they must pass static and dynamic scrutineering to confirm that they are built to specification and safe to run.

Teams are also assessed on their design and innovation reports and how they present the business case for their locomotive.

This year’s challenge took place on 28, 29 and 30 June. It was run in accordance with its rules and a technical specification which is, as far as possible, performancebased. The intention is to encourage novel ideas - in past competitions these have included the use of springs for energy recovery and hydrogen fuel cells for traction, which was first seen in the UK at the Railway Challenge.

As always, the challenge took place on the 10¼ inch gauge Stapleford miniature railway, near Melton Mowbray, run by the Friends of the Stapleford Miniature Railway (FSMR). This has an impressive collection of locomotives and is one of the UK’s largest such railways. It is considered to be ideal for the Railway Challenge, especially as it is not normally open to the public.

FEATURE

Sheffield practise their auto-stop.

Transport for London's entry.

Ringing the changes Over the years, it has been interesting to see how the Challenge has developed, although some things, such as the enthusiasm of the teams, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t change.

Also, as the table of previous results shows, for the past few years only around 70 per cent of the locomotives present were able to undertake the dynamic tests.

Ensuring all systems are operational on a recently built or modified locomotive is a significant challenge and it is not unusual for a team to spend most of the night repairing their locomotive. As will be explained, fried electronics were a significant problem this year.

What does change is that each year there are new challenges and variations to the rules and technical specification. This year saw a new auto-stop challenge, which required the locomotive to stop exactly 25 metres after Lighthouse building. passing a marker provided by the team. A recent rule change concerned refuelling.

Prior to 2018 this rule stated that refuelling shall not comprise the replacement of energy storage assets (batteries) and should be done in 90 seconds. Since then, this rule has been changed to allow battery replacement within a refuelling time of 120 seconds.

In 2018, following this rule change, three of the ten competing locomotives were battery-powered. This year, with the same number competing, eight were powered by batteries.

Also new this year was a schoolsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; event, which Jelena Gacesa, operations manager of the IMechEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s education programmes, had initiated by inviting Leicestershire schools to an educational event during the competition. About a dozen pupils from Inglehurst Junior School in Leicester took up this invitation.

This involved a competition to build the tallest working model lighthouse, seeing the teams work on their locomotives, a ride on the railway and a quiz on what they had seen.

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FEATURE

The quiz’s requirement to draw a picture of a railway carriage of the future brought some interesting responses. One of the teachers present, Debbie Walsh, felt that the event fitted well into the design and technology module in the school’s curriculum.

Encouraging youngsters to consider an engineering career in this way is a worthwhile initiative and it is hoped that this will be expanded during next year’s Railway Challenge.

Introducing the teams Of the 14 teams that entered the competition this year, only 10 were able to bring a locomotive to Stapleford.

Of those unable to attend, Helwan University in Egypt, South Western Railway with CEMAST college and the University of Warwick had submitted design reports with the latter submiting an innovation paper.

This year saw two teams from the European continent, the joint team of FH Aachen University and Reuschling GmbH from Germany and Poznan University of Technology, whose journey from Poland to Stapleford had taken 21 hours. Also present was a large team from several Thai universities, including Suranaree University, who have started building the locomotive that they intend to enter in next year’s Challenge.

The UK universities entering were Brunel, Sheffield and Huddersfield and there were company teams from Network Rail, Ricardo Rail, SNC Lavalin and Transport for London (TfL). There was also a joint Bombardier / University of Derby team.

Train of the future.

The new entrants this year were Network Rail (supported by the University of Birmingham) and Poznan.

SNC Lavalin, formerly Interfleet, has entered all eight Challenges to date.

Huddersfield and TfL were also veterans of the competition with respectively seven and six entries.

Brunel’s pneumatic powered entry bore a strong resemblance to a steam locomotive. Sheffield’s two-unit locomotive was also distinctive, with its clear cover and semi-circular body section. Ricardo had the look of a retro diesel locomotive whilst others had striking liveries. For example, TfL’s entry was painted to resemble the preserved 1923 Metropolitan Railway electric locomotive ‘Sarah Siddons’.

Previous Railway Challenge Results Aachen University, Germany Alstom Transport University of Birmingham Bombardier Transportation / University of Derby Brunel University London Derby Independent University of Huddersfield Manchester Metropolitan Unversity Network Rail Poznan University of Technology Ricardo Rail SNC-Lavalin Rail and Transit University of Sheffield University of Southampton / Siemens TE Connectivity Transport for London University of Warwick Number of locos on site Number entering dynamic tests

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

As previously mentioned, eight locomotives were powered by batteries which had the capacity to operate the locomotive for three hours without refuelling. The exceptions were Huddersfield and Brunel, whose machines were powered by 7kW petrol generator and 8kW petrol powered compressor respectively.

Although the norm was a batterypowered single-unit locomotive on two four-wheeled bogies, there were significant design variations in respect of auto stop arrangements, braking systems, electronic control, suspension and bogie design. Poznan had a particularly elegant bogie design, with the frame manufactured from an aluminium / polyethylene composite and carbon-fibre composite primary leaf springs.

Unable to enter dynamic tests 2012

2013

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FEATURE

WINNERS

Won noise and maintainability challenges, joint winner of reliability challenge.

Also won energy storage, ride comfort and auto stop challenges.

FH Aachen and Reuschling University

Bombardier Transportation/ University of Derby

Brunel University London

The 2019 Railway Challenge Locomotives University of Huddersfield

Network Rail Special award for engineering elegance for bogie design.

3RD PLACE Also won traction challenge.

Joint winner of reliability challenge.

Poznan University of Technology

Ricardo Rail

University of Sheffield

Won technical poster challenge, joint winner of design challenge.

Won innovation award.

2ND PLACE

SNC-Lavalin Rail and Transit

Transport for London

Also won business case challenge, joint winner of design challenge.

Warwick

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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FEATURE A challenging plan The Railway Challenge requires the teams to undertake presentation and track-based challenges. The four presentation challenges with their maximum scores were: design (150); business case (150); technical poster (150) and innovation (150). The design and innovation challenges are the only ones judged beforehand, based on submitted reports. The poster challenge is judged during the weekend, as is the business case challenge, based on the team’s presentation to the judges.

The seven track-based challenges were: energy storage (150); traction (150); ride comfort (150); noise (150); auto-stop (150); reliability (300) and maintenance (150).

Except for the maintenance challenge, these are all dynamic tests that require the locomotive to have passed scrutineering before it can run on the railway. This requires the collection of a set of seven coloured stickers, awarded when a scrutineer has confirmed the safety calculations, undertaken a physical inspection, seen the user guide, together with the required markings, as well as indications and evidence of reliability.

Once this has been done, dynamic scrutineering examines the required safety performance, primarily braking and speed control.

Undertaking these tests, allowing for test runs, a rescue locomotive and spectator trains, requires a detailed operational plan that is sufficiently flexible to accommodate inevitable changes during the weekend. Bridget Eickhoff of RSSB, as the IMechE’s operational controller, had the job of managing this plan to ensure the Challenge ran smoothly.

Bombardier/Derby locomotive passes noise measurement station followed by rescue locomotive.

The plan was for most locomotives to be unloaded on the Thursday night, with the remainder unloaded on the Friday when all the static and dynamic scrutineering was undertaken, together with some of the maintenance challenges. On the Saturday the remaining maintenance challenges were completed and each team gave their business case presentation. They also had the opportunity to give their locomotive a 45-minute test run.

All the dynamic track-based challenges were run on the Sunday, when the FSMR also ran steam-hauled trains for the dozens of spectators who witnessed the challenges from the Haven.

Sunday’s operational plan required that, during each hour, a spectator train would run, two locomotives would undertake their dynamic challenges and a rescue locomotive would be available to assist either locomotive if required.

The planned movement sequence during each hour was as follows: »» Spectator train leaves the station and

Scrutineer Cliff Perry confirming Huddersfield’s locomotive can operate in the rain.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

proceeds around the loop to point G; »» Once the spectator train has passed the signal box, Challenge locomotive No 1 and its train leaves the station followed by the rescue locomotive.

This locomotive does the auto stop challenge. It and the rescue locomotive move clear of the points at the Haven signal box; »» The spectator train departs for the station. locomotive No 1 does the ride comfort test and stops at point E followed by the rescue locomotive; »» When the spectator train arrives at the station, locomotive No 2 departs, it undertakes the auto stop challenge and moves clear of the points at the Haven signal box; »» Locomotive No 1 completes the energy storage challenge, whilst locomotive No 2 does the ride comfort challenge and stops at point E; »» Locomotive No 1 does traction and noise tests and returns to the station.

The rescue locomotive follows it to just before point H; »» Once locomotive No 1 is at the station, the rescue locomotive stays ahead of locomotive No 2 whilst it completes its energy storage, traction and noise challenges. The rescue locomotive and locomotive No 2 then return to the station.

In this way, with the railway operating at its capacity, two locomotives an hour were put through their challenges.

Thus, assuming an intensive seven-hour operational day, 14 is the maximum number of locomotives that can be put through the dynamic track-based challenges. However, there are plans for alterations to the railway that will significantly increase this number.

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48

FEATURE Fried electronics On the Friday, the maintenance challenge saw the start of the contest as teams demonstrated how fast they can remove and replace a powered wheelset.

The time each team took to do this varied from 2½ to 27 minutes and was largely a reflection of the way their locomotives were designed to meet this challenge.

To ensure that this challenge was conducted in a safe manner, it was done in accordance with an approved method statement and undertaken in several stages. After each stage, the stopwatch was paused until the judges confirmed that it was safe to continue.

As well as the maintenance challenge and scrutineering, Friday and Saturday also saw much work done on the locomotives to resolve various problems. Some of these reflected the lack of testing, as some teams had only run their locomotives on short tracks by the workshop. Hence, not all locomotives had been run at full power for long periods or experienced the harsh vibration environment and impact loads from continuous running.

The most significant problem was fried electronics, with some teams suffering

SCALE (METRES)

HAVEN

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HAVEN SIGNAL BOX

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LOCOMOTIVE & CARRAIGE SHEDS

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Challenge locations Auto stop A to B (backstop C) Ride comfort D to E Energy storage Start at E stop between F and G Traction H is start point, time between I and J Noise J, measured during traction challenge

burnt out motor controllers. This was an issue for Poznan and Network Rail, whose locomotives operated at reduced power as a result. Part of the information that the Institution provides to the teams is a useful 'technical tips' presentation. This includes a slide showing that traction components need to be significantly overrated as traction motors have a spikey current profile.

Nevertheless, despite these problems on the Friday and Saturday, all the teams, except for Brunel, were able to take their locomotives for a test run around the railway’s 2.6-kilometre long circuit,

Aachen do their maintenance challenge.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

although the Poznan locomotive had to be pushed back by the FSMR’s rescue locomotive. Unfortunately, Brunel was not able to overcome the problems associated with the unique design of its locomotive.

Thus, it looked as though Sunday would see the previous maximum of seven locomotives doing the dynamic challenges being exceeded. However, this was not to be as, Brunel could still not run, SNC Lavalin had a burnt-out motor controller and, unfortunately, as Poznan’s locomotive left the station, it was damaged after it hit an obstruction and was unable to proceed further.

FEATURE

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Network Rail team work on their locomotive.

The first hour of the day saw Ricardo and Aachen’s locomotives running exactly to the operational plan.

Thereafter, due to locomotive availability, only Bombardier/Derby and TfL shared an hourly slot and Sheffield, Huddersfield and Network Rail ran alone during their challenges.

Some of the locomotives were unable to undertake all the tests. For example, when starting, Huddersfield’s locomotive suffered from a jerky traction control which prevented it starting on the gradient for the traction and noise challenge. With burnt out controllers, the underpowered Network Rail locomotive could only do the ride comfort challenge and required the FSMR rescue locomotive to push it up the gradient back to the station.

All this was observed by dozens of spectators from their vantage point at the Haven, who were kept informed by Rail Engineer’s own Nigel Wordsworth and his megaphone.

The track challenge results were also displayed on a scoreboard.

The spectators were well placed to see how the locomotives tackled the new auto stop challenge, in which a track-side marker of the team’s own design had to be used to command the locomotive, travelling at a speed of not less than 10km/h, to stop at point B, 25 metres beyond the marker. The wide variety of markers used included lengths of rail between the track, an infra-red control from inside a TV remote, ultrasonic detection, a traffic cone and caravan reflector. Unfortunately, of the six locomotives entering this challenge, only two stopped within five metres of point B and so were the only ones to score points.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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FEATURE

Sheffield’s locomotive, closely followed by the rescue locomotive, attracts the attention of spectators at the Haven.

And the winners were There was tension in the air as everyone waited for the prize-giving. After a short delay, the appearance of chief judge Bill Reeve signalled that the judges’ deliberations were complete. Bill advised that, in the view of the judges, this had been the best Railway Challenge yet, with some real innovation in design, and everywhere there had been real enthusiasm and commitment from the teams.

Before declaring the overall winner, awards were made for the individual challenges. In addition to the track challenges shown in the table, the winners of the presentation challenges were: »» Design – jointly won by SNC Lavalin and TfL; »» Business Case – TfL; »» Poster competition – SNC Lavalin; »» Innovation – University of Warwick.

Poznan’s awardwinning bogie.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Although not present, Warwick had won its award for an innovation report entitled “a study of efficiency improvement for an electrical regenerative braking system.”

The other challenge award was for reliability, which was jointly given to Sheffield and Bombardier/Derby which had each achieved a not-quite-perfect 290 points out of 300.

In addition, this year the judges gave a discretionary award for something that particularly impressed but was not reflected in the challenges. This special award was given to Poznan for innovation and elegance in mechanical design in respect of the composite bogie frame and leaf spring bogie.

Then it was time to announce the top three teams. In third place was Ricardo with 1099 points, narrowly beaten by

TfL’s 1100 points. The overall winner was Aachen with an impressive 1389 points. Team captain Robin Muhlmeyer commented “We are participating now for the third time in the Railway Challenge and have continued to make progress each year. This time it was enough for us to take the trophy back with us. It’s always an incredible pleasure to be here at the Stapleford Miniature Railway.”

It was then time to thank those who had made the challenge possible, including the Institution’s staff, the sponsors (Angel Trains, Beacon Rail Leasing, RSSB and the Young Rail Professionals Group), support from Network Rail and, last but not least, the unstinting support from FSMR personnel who ran the railway during the challenge. FSMR is also actively supporting planned enhancements to its railway that will enable the challenge to accommodate up to thirty locomotives in future.

As the Railway Challenge goes from strength to strength each year, this expansion plan will no doubt be required as more organisations wish to enter so that they and their young engineers can benefit from it. As Bill Reeve noted; “When I come to this event, I see enthusiastic teams learning, in a short period, a huge amount about the realities of engineering projects. I also see real innovation in engineering design tested here in a low risk environment.”

Put another way, the Challenge is an excellent way to train and develop young engineers.

FEATURE

THE TH

CONGRATULATIONS

Aachen, winners of the 2019 Railway Challenge.

TO THE WINNERS CHALLENGE

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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FEATURE

All Change and Mind the Gaps CHAIRMAN’S

ADDRESS TO THE IMECHE RAILWAY DIVISION 2019

MALCOM DOBELL

G

raham Neil CEng FIMechE FIET is the 51st chairman of the IMechE Railway division, taking over from 2018/19 chairman Andy Mellors. Almost his first official duty was to give his chairman’s address, which he duly did at the Institution’s headquarters in London on 9 September 2019.

It is traditional for new Railway Division chairmen to talk about their careers. Partly, this illustrates the diversity of paths to senior roles and, partly, it provides the authority for them to talk about the future and challenges they hope to tackle.

Graham has worked for Transport for London (TfL) and its predecessors since 1971 - a mere 48 years. He started as an indentured electrical apprentice in the apprentice training centre at Acton Works, passing a plaque with words to the effect that anyone starting an apprenticeship could aspire to become the chief mechanical engineer.

That post was abolished long ago but Graham became professional head of rolling stock for London Undergound in 2004, the nearest contemporary role.

He was appointed professional head of vehicles for TfL in 2018, which added to his portfolio vehicles from London Overground, TFL Rail, London Trams, DLR, London Buses, Dial-a-ride Taxis, the Emirates Airline, Bicycles, River Boat Services and the Woolwich ferries!

Graham Neil congratulates the winning TfL team at the 2015 IMechE Railway Challenge.

He has achieved this position over five decades, so summarising 48 years into a few words is not easy, but taking each decade in turn, please see infographic on next page.

It was Graham’s work with the Skills Task Force and with the National Skills Academy for Rail that highlighted the first of the five gaps that Graham explored in the next part of his address.

Bridging the Skills Gap Over the last 10 years (at least) most Railway Division chairmen have highlighted the skills gap in the industry. Graham commented that those of us who already work in rail engineering know how endlessly fascinating it is with, usually, new things to learn.

The challenge, therefore, is to get that message across and attract youngsters into roles that will engage them for life, overcoming the common portrayal of a staid, old fashioned industry.

With the TfL team of apprentices and graduates at the 2019 IMechE Railway Challenge.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Rather than spanners, hammers and oilcans, we need to show students that work with computers, even artificial intelligence, and working in ordinary work clothes, is now more often the norm. His was a call to arms for all of us in the industry to “do our bit” to encourage young people and to seek a more diverse workforce.

Bridging the BREXIT Gap Graham’s take on BREXIT focussed on economic and people impacts. But, with events on the political stage moving so fast (or is it so confusingly?), between drafting and publishing this article the situation might have changed.

With that health warning, Graham said: “As I see it, the long drawn out BREXIT process has, and will have, a profound impact on the future of the UK rail industry.

From a purely rolling stock engineering perspective, our train builders come from Europe or the Far East and those train builders source the component parts for their trains from either within Europe or from within the UK - the choice for them is one of cost, performance and logistics.

“The uncertainty surrounding BREXIT and its impact on UK trade and sourcing from UK suppliers must affect their purchasing decisions. Will BREXIT cause currency fluctuations or excise taxes that will increase costs?”

He added that he had yet to speak to anyone who thought BREXIT would have a positive impact in the short term, that it could be disastrous for SMEs who rely on trade with Europe and he is already seeing signs of far fewer EU applicants for UK rail engineering jobs.

FEATURE Graham’s 4-year apprenticeship included fabricating his own tools, and his first proper job involved repairs of unreliable electronic train components. Those of us of a certain age recall 1970s electronics and are glad reliability has dramatically improved.

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Graham was promoted to the design department and became involved with specifying many of the electronic systems for the 1983 tube stock and 1986 tube stock prototype trains, including the very earliest electronic train control systems, the embryo of the Train Control and Management Systems of today.

He inflicted the first automated public address system on unsuspecting customers. It was nicknamed Sonya as in “get ‘S on ya’ nerves”.

More seriously, Graham represented LU on a joint British Rail/LU/Railway Industry Association initiative to produce standards and specifications for train electronics to overcome the unenviable reputation they had for reliability. These standards were the forerunners of today’s Euronorms and ISO standards.

He was also nicknamed “Mr ATO” for his work developing a replacement for the original, obsolete Victoria Line ATO controllers.

A further promotion saw Graham leading the rolling stock electronics development section, where he was able to set up facilities to test and evaluate equipment designed to comply with the new electronic standards.

With a reorganisation and with his experience of creating standards, Graham led a team creating and or updating standards for all LU rolling stock sub systems and critical components. This was followed by becoming effectively the internal Independent Competent Person for acceptance of new rolling stock at a time when privatisation of the main line railways had led to the acceptance and authorisation regulations becoming more formal.

He also led the work to improve understanding of the risk from, and protection against, arcing in DC power circuits caused by double pole earth faults on LU’s 600V floating-earth traction supply system.

Following yet another reorganisation, Graham was put in charge of a team of about 25 rolling stock engineers supporting the Central, Northern and Victoria line fleets as well as a small team of noise and vibration engineers and a team that routinely surveyed the track at line speed, capturing still images from passenger trains at a frame rate of 25 pictures per second.

Later he was appointed as project engineer for the 1995 tube stock Northern line trains being produced and brought into service by a Public Finance Initiative contract that was, at the time, ground-breaking.

The Public-Private Partnership preparations led to the overwhelming majority of LU’s engineers being distributed amongst the “shadow” companies that would be taken over by the PPP bidders. Graham was assigned briefly as the chief engineer for rolling stock for the Jubilee, Northern, and Piccadilly, before being promoted back into LU as control systems engineer and deputy to the then LU head of rolling stock engineering (modesty forbids me…!).

During this period, Mr ATO came to the fore again, supporting the introduction of ATO in the open areas of the Central line where there was a particularly challenging requirement to deliver a service braking rate of 0.7m/s2 in some areas of known poor adhesion.

He also advised Metronet BCV on the replacement of the Victoria line ATO controllers, as the first replacements (see 1980s above) were now obsolete and could not be kept going until the new trains due in 2010 were introduced.

In 2004, Graham became head of rolling stock engineering with, inter alia, the role of accepting that the new trains obtained by the PPP contractors were fit to enter service. He made a significant contribution to the technical architecture of the future deep tube lines trains, the first of which has been ordered for the Piccadilly line.

Graham is an active participant in the Union of International Public Transport Operators (UITP) and is now the chairman of the UITP’s Metro rolling stock group. He has also been a member of the IMechE board since 2011 and has presented at many IMechE events.

He is a member of the IMechE’s Skills Task Force and contributed to the early drafting of the Level 5, 6 & 7 (T&RS) Apprenticeship Standards for railway engineering that are now starting to be used.

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FEATURE

Three prototype tube trains outside Acton depot Metro Cammell with GEC traction (red), British Rail Engineering with Brush traction (blue) and Metro Cammell with Brown-Boveri traction (green). The blue version became the basis for the Central line’s 1992 stock. 1986.

Bridging the economic gap Provocatively, Graham talked about the bad old days “when, frankly speaking, railway organisations were treated as ‘cash cows’ for some monopoly suppliers to milk to their hearts content, where prices were agreed and profits were boosted by contract variations.”

Perhaps this was stretching a point, but many will recognise the general principle. Graham went on to emphasise that funding is generally in short supply or, to put it another way, each pound spent had to deliver maximum value.

He referred to the changes in his own organisation, where engineering headcount has been reduced by around 12 per cent, and TfL, like Network Rail, is working with the supply industry to challenge its own standards and streamline its processes.

As was shown in a recent RAIB report (Overspeed at Sandy South Junction, Bedfordshire, 19 October 2018), the challenging of standards needs its own carefully considered process as changes to standards can increase risk unexpectedly.

Of course, optimising maintenance and renewals, and making informed choices whether to do work in-house or have it done by suppliers, are all part of the mix. Graham wondered aloud whether the efforts to make the industry leaner and fitter are happening fast enough.

Bridging the technology gap Graham said: “We are at a tipping point in our industry, where advanced digital railway systems and the technology they use - more common on high-density metro systems like London Underground - need to be applied to our main line railways to overcome challenges with passenger capacity, especially at complex junctions and to deal with the forecast increases in passenger ridership.”

He went on to explain that, whilst the metro systems cannot be transferred directly, as individual lines using proprietary closed systems are unsuitable for mixed traffic lines and non-compliant with Interoperability Regulations, “the same professional skill sets, knowledge and experience present in high density metro railways can be shared and, where used appropriately, can bridge the technology gap to give UK mainline railways a real advantage in developing solutions that deliver the required outcomes efficiently and ‘right first time’.”

Bridging the IMechE/railway gap Graham referred to his predecessor Andy Mellors who, last year, spoke about Challenging Times (issue 168, October 2018). “Well, I have to say, times are still challenging,” Graham said, adding: “We have had a very difficult 18 months or so in the IMechE. That has resulted in significant change and my theme this year is all about building bridges.” Graham is seeking to build new, closer and more collaborative working relationships between all areas of the IMechE - the volunteer groups, the Railway Division and the other divisions and groups, the Trustee Board, Council and IMechE staff.

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PHOTO: LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM

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Graham said that delivering engineering change is second nature to him, but, in this role, he will be delivering people and organisational change, which is a new skill he is developing. He said he is lucky to be supported by “a very experienced team of Board members, past chairmen and volunteers, and I shall be calling on their support heavily if we are to make the changes we need for our Division and Institution to become more dynamic and inspirational, driving, motivating and inspiring even more professional engineering engagement within our railway industry”.

Graham said that it is his objective to provide more relevant events to allow learning and informal discussions over the coming year and to grow attendance. He hopes that this initiative will encourage the railway industry to work more collaboratively with the Railway Division in areas such as attendance and sponsorship.

Graham explained that the Institution offers the opportunity for people from across the industry to come together, at the events organised at headquarters and at centres around the UK, on neutral territory and discuss matters of mutual interest when competitive pressures can at least be put partially aside - so-called ‘learned society’ events.

With £50 billion committed to renewals Control Period 6, Crossrail, HS2 and possibly Crossrail 2, together with 7,500 new main line vehicles and well over 1,000 for metro and light rail, electrification and Digital Railway, there’s lots to talk about and lessons to be learned.

Graham added that, against the background of all these technical developments, the pattern of travel is changing. Whilst passenger numbers and big city populations are predicted to rise, companies are increasingly allowing their staff to work more flexibly. Although this trend might be helpful in depressing the loads during the peak of the peaks, the shoulders of the peak are likely to extend for longer.

FEATURE knowledge, skills and experiences with me and made me a better engineer by doing so, thereby helping me to deliver professional engineering activities that have resulted in my being where I am today in the IMechE, the IET and at TfL Engineering.

“I’ve often said ‘you’re only as good as your network’, because it is impossible to know everything and this ethos means that you develop a very wide group of friends, colleagues and experts, that you can trust mutually to give good, sound advice when it is needed, and thereby help to make reasoned, informed decisions when they need to be made.”

Graham advised anyone joining the rail industry to listen and learn as much as possible, as early as they can, from those that have the experience, but never forget that learning everything is impossible and to cultivate those career long friendships and seek out the advice of experts when you need to. It is this type of ethos that will make you a professional engineer, a good team player and eventually a good leader.

Graham Neil (right) with collegues in the electronics repair shop. 1977 “Indeed, on some London Underground lines we already run a near peak service for most of the day, in between the rush hours,” he said.

The London Mayor’s Transport Strategy also aims to improve the air quality in London with the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which introduces a daily charge for all road vehicles with petrol or diesel engines that exceed certain exhaust limits operating within the London Congestion Charge Zone. The ULEZ is to be extended to cover everywhere within the North and South Circular roads by April 2021.

Whilst this is likely to give a significant improvement in the air quality within

London, it is also likely to increase ridership on the capital’s public transport systems and put pressure to provide carbon-free propulsion on the last all-diesel rail terminus at Marylebone.

Conclusion Rounding off his address, Graham concluded: “I started my career 48 years ago as a rolling stock apprentice, destined, at that time, to become a rolling stock maintainer.

“Along the way, I met and worked with some really great people, many of which saw in me greater potential than I saw in myself. Those people shared their

Thanks to Graham Neil for his help in preparing this article. Note the views in this article are the Presenter’s own and are not necessarily those of TfL.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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FEATURE

Depot improvements at Inverness

W

hen Abellio secured the ScotRail franchise in 2015, it soon commenced an exciting transformation programme to improve passenger services across Scotland’s network.

Plans included a £475 million investment in new and better trains on routes between Scotland’s seven cities. These faster and more-spacious trains, with more carriages and new onboard facilities, will speed up journeys across the network, increasing capacity and enabling revised timetables that improve connections between services.

To support its new fleet, Abellio ScotRail is delivering a programme of enhancements throughout its depot facilities, including at the high-speed train (HST) depot in Inverness. This site required increased siding capacity to accommodate the longer, five-car HST fleet and a range of enhancements to improve safety and accessibility for drivers and maintenance teams.

Longer trains Abellio ScotRail appointed Stobart Rail and Civils to construct the £1.5 million Inverness depot HST upgrade, ready for the arrival of their new fleet. Stobart’s regional manager for

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

Scotland, Keith Robertson, said: “ScotRail’s investment in new trains will deliver great benefits for Scotland, so we’re proud that Stobart can play a key part in creating these vital depot facilities that will ensure each train performs at its best. We have just finished an £11 million programme delivering track maintenance across 300 route miles in Scotland, so this was an ideal opportunity to further contribute to great passenger experience.”

Track works at Inverness included the complete renewal of three sidings to a new layout and longer length, together with installing two new S&C units - one BV8 and one CV9.25 - that join the sidings and connect them back to the main line.

Unusually, the project’s track design used vertical rails throughout the plain line in the sidings rather than standard inclined rails. This posed a unique challenge for Stobart’s procurement teams who quickly realised there were no vertical baseplates available anywhere in the UK.

Using some impressive detective work, the team discovered several projects in Germany that used vertical rails and they even found the baseplate manufacturer who had supplied these schemes.

Unfortunately, they had no baseplates in stock and no plans to cast any new ones.

Undaunted, Stobart negotiated to acquire the baseplate moulds and bring them back to the UK, then worked with a local supplier to cast the nearly two thousand new baseplates that the sidings needed. They also produced a healthy supply of spares to future-proof any maintenance needs.

The sidings’ alterations involved removing the existing and relaying roads 6, 7 and 8 together with installing the two new turnouts. This provided the ideal opportunity for Stobart to deploy its specialist road rail fleet that includes laser dozers to grade the bottom ballast, Colmar heavy lifters to position the S&C components and the new road-deliverable S&C tamper to deliver a perfect track alignment. With the track reconfigured and buffers installed, Stobart completed the extensive signalling modifications needed to suit the new layout.

Within a depot environment, the major challenge is invariably delivering the works programme alongside normal depot operations without causing disruption that might affect vital maintenance work. At Inverness, this was a particular challenge owing to the depot’s 24-hour operations, with the depot servicing and maintaining the

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FEATURE

Highland Sleeper train through the day and the standard fleet overnight.

Keith Robertson said: “Ensuring normal depot operations continued unhindered was one of our key project objectives. We operate logistics sites with a rail interface throughout the UK, so we understand how important it is to minimise disruption.

“We worked together with the depot team to plan our works and ensure we segregated our activities from the depot’s operations.

Daily coordination meetings then ensured that all stakeholders remained fully informed of upcoming works. This was a very successful approach, particularly when the depot’s maintenance programme often changed owing to emerging needs.”

Enhanced facilities To improve access to the sidings for the drivers and maintenance staff, Stobart delivered an extensive civils upgrade that included new concrete driver-walkways alongside each siding.

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A new tarmac-surfaced depot access road and pedestrian crossings over the tracks ensured that the maintenance teams could safely access the new sidings.

Mechanical and electrical installations included shore supplies positioned next to the buffer stops on each siding, along with nearly 150 low-level bollard lights to illuminate the siding walkways that would otherwise be in shadow once a train is stabled next to them. These were all served using a network of multi-way ducts that safely protect the cables below ground and provide ample cable capacity for any future development needs.

Finally, an existing portal-framed shed spanned the existing road 5 within the depot to protect the maintenance teams from the weather. To enable safe maintenance of the HSTs in this shed, Stobart installed a new exhaust ventilation system that positioned a series of extraction hoods directly above the HST’s engine exhausts.

The successful completion of Abellio ScotRail’s HST depot earlier this year marks an important milestone in its investment programme and is another example of Stobart’s team in Scotland making a positive contribution to the ongoing improvement of Scotland’s railway.

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FEATURE

BIM

ON THE NORTHERN LINE EXTENSION

L

ondon Undergroundâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Northern line extension, which is being built from Kennington to Battersea with a new intermediate station at Nine Elms, uses Building Information Modelling (BIM) as the basis of its design and documentation. This requires LU to put the same level of rigour and governance into creating and managing information about infrastructure assets, as it does in building and operating the assets themselves.

BIM is a process involving the collaborative production, use and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of a facility or asset. The resulting information models, when fully coordinated, provide a shared knowledge resource to support decision-making about a facility or asset throughout its life - from early concept stages, through increasing detailed design, construction, operation and maintenance, and ultimately decommissioning, removal and demolition.

The objective of BIM is to procure/produce, manage and maintain data and information about engineered assets that are complete, consistent and trustworthy for use across operational and business intelligence purposes. This aims to drive efficiencies in the production, modification,

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

operation and decommissioning of engineered assets, through data analysis that helps improve decision making to deliver best value to stakeholders.

BIM is a collaborative process that leads to better solutions for clients and their supply chains by enabling lean, accurate and complete design information for an effective construction process and leaves clients with better tools for asset management. Assurance is at the heart of BIM and, arguably, its most important use.

Telecoms and BIM As part of its work on the Northern line extension, telecommunications systems integration specialist ADComms, a Panasonic company, has been implementing BIM within the business through both the design and construction phases and is working towards Level 2 BIM compliance. This will ensure that the company creates and shares appropriate information, in a suitable format, at the right time to facilitate better decisions throughout the delivery and operation of a built asset.

ADComms is currently committed to updating its current ISO 9001 suite of quality management documentation to incorporate BIM for integrated project delivery design, CDM, safety planning, and assurance.

FEATURE

On the Northern line extension, this will contribute to LU’s duty to deliver design, construction and maintenance/operations handover information (both graphical and non-graphical), in line with the April 2016 mandate from Government that all UK public infrastructure projects meet BIM maturity Level 2.

Carl Pocknell, ADComms managing director, commented: “BIM is not the future, it is now - a dayto-day reality. With the advances in communications technology being developed under Industry 4.0, this is an opportunity to engage and develop holistic, collaborative, digital approaches and methodology workflows and realise tangible benefits for our clients and their end users.

“Once BIM adoption has been agreed, then BIM must become the norm.”

ADComms, a Panasonic company, applies technology and technical expertise to the UK Rail industry that delivers solutions for: • Safety Critical & Security • Customer Experience • Infrastructure & Operations Connectivity enables innovation, and innovation delivers safer operations and journeys – we blend technology to deliver CCTV analytics, access control, onboard security and customer experience with resilient network infrastructure.

Tel: 01724 292200 Website: www.alandickcomms.com Email: info@adcomms.eu.panasonic.com

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Zero-carbon:

the need for innovative construction plant

SIMON MEADES

W

ith the announcement this year that the UK has become the first major economy in the world to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050, the pressure is now on to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. This means good practice of energy management on site. Consequently, the efficient use of construction plant equipment powered by sustainable fuel has never been so important.

This creates a huge opportunity for plant hire companies to expand their fleet and offer customers cleaner air products and services. It also opens the market for new, innovative plant equipment that produces zero harmful emissions.

There are many solutions already available, some of which are currently being used or trialled by the rail construction industry, but which ones

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are best is still to be proven. Working off-grid is perhaps the biggest challenge, as connecting to the National Grid could dramatically reduce CO2 emissions, instead of using diesel generators, which produce not only air pollution but also noise.

Typically, nearly everything on site is run by generators - from light towers, CCTV, welfare cabins and power tools

- so imagine the reduction in pollution if everything could be run by an alternative power source in the absence of mains electricity. Hybrid generators are one option, as they use battery and solar power to reduce the run time of the generator; diesel is only used to supplement the battery for high-power jobs or to charge the batteries.

The clean alternative Another option is a hydrogen fuel cell/battery hybrid generator, which is completely free of diesel.

A hydrogen fuel cell generator produces electric power by combining hydrogen with atmospheric oxygen. The

FEATURE only emission from these cells is water vapour, and they are virtually silent in operation, which is a big advantage when complying with Section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act. With zero impact on air pollution levels at point of delivery, zero noise pollution and no risk of fuel spill, hydrogen fuel-cell power arguably presents the perfect solution for a healthier work environment.

This could be why we are increasingly seeing hydrogen fuel cells in our cities.

London now boasts entirely hydrogenpowered bus routes, and many cities and motorways are installing the vital fuelling stations needed to allow wider adoption of hydrogen vehicles. Britain also has its first hydrogen fuel cell train, the 'HydroFLEXâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, being developed by Birmingham University and Porterbrook, which presents a much greener solution than bi-mode trains which run off electricity where there are overhead cables, and off diesel the rest of the time.

Hydrogen fuel cells offer greater efficiency as, with a continuous supply of hydrogen, a fuel cell can provide electrical energy indefinitely, unlike a battery which requires charging or replacing. It is also more reliable than trying to use sun or wind to generate a constant flow of energy. However, hydrogen fuel cells can be hybridised with these renewable energies to further improve efficiencies - making this technology very versatile. For example, a hydrogen fuel generator with battery power and PV (photovoltaic) solar panels can effectively provide sufficient energy to power a welfare cabin.

So, when it comes to reducing carbon emissions for railway construction and maintenance, hydrogen fuel cell/ battery generators could help provide a sustainable solution for reaching net zero.

This technology is already being used by several major rail infrastructure companies with great success, not only to reduce carbon emissions but also to cut noise pollution when working near residential properties.

Low noise, low pollution A good example of this was the railway enhancement work which took place in the Oxford area last year. Working 24/7, and in close proximity to residential properties, the Network Rail Western Enhancement Delivery (WED) team knew it had to make every effort to keep noise down to a minimum.

It was therefore recommended that Network Rail needed the TCP Ecolite TH200, which would give them a 200W LED output and longer run times. This hydrogen fuel cell light tower, which is virtually silent in operation, would also help WED to reduce noise pollution within the residential area whilst work was being carried out at night over a five-week period.

TCP and Torrent Trackside provided Network Rail with 25 portable Ecolite TH200 hydrogen fuel cell light towers, which were positioned at various site locations along the Oxford corridor.

Collectively, the units, which have been designed to carry four cylinders of hydrogen gas, delivered an average of seven hours of LED light each working night over a five-week period.

During the project, 122 cylinders of hydrogen gas were used, providing a

total energy saving of over 19,000kWh and a significant reduction of CO2, when compared to a modern diesel light-tower.

The lights not only reduced disturbance to residents, but also reduced the carbon footprint throughout these intensive works.

Having equipment that is fuel efficient helps reduce vehicle movements, which again contributes to lowering the carbon footprint, as does having smart remote monitoring to control the run time of products during periods of peak and low activity.

This is undoubtedly an exciting time for manufacturers of plant equipment as the demand for zero-emission decarbonising products can only increase if we are to reach net zero by 2050.

Simon Meades is Ecolite product manager at Taylor Construction Plant.

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FEATURE

D EN HI GH MA SP RK EE ’ SF D LIN IRS EO T PE NS

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KEITH FENDER

PHOTO: KEITH FENDER

Existing diesels, like this Class ME seen at Roskilde, will be replaced by Siemens Vectron electric locomotives.

O

n 31 May, Danish Crown Prince Frederik officially opened the first section of 250km/h highspeed line in Denmark between the suburbs of Copenhagen and Ringsted to the south west - free public services on the new line operated later that day.

The new line has cost €1.6 billion, mostly funded by the Danish government (98 per cent) with the EU, via its TEN-T Programme, contributing the remaining two per cent.

Initially, the 60km long line will not be used as a truly high-speed line. No operator in Denmark has trains capable of operation at 250km/h and an interim signaling system, installed by national infrastructure manager Banedanmark, will limit traffic to 180km/h until ERTMS is in use.

More capacity and faster journeys Successive Danish governments have set the political goal of cutting travel time across the country whilst also reducing carbon emissions.

They have aimed to achieve

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this, in part, by investing in major rail infrastructure projects including largescale electrification and the introduction of ERTMS with ETCS Level 2 signalling.

Funding for these projects has been provided via a number of different sources, controlled by central government. The DKr28.5 billion (£3.3 billion) Togfonden DK (Train fund Denmark) infrastructure package, announced in 2013, established by government using tax revenue from Denmark’s oil and gas industry, was originally envisaged as sufficient to fund nationwide electrification plus several new and improved lines.

Reductions in oil prices (and consequent tax revenue reductions) have led to the fund and its plans being scaled back.

As a consequence, the new Copenhagen to Ringsted line, ETCS deployment and other works in connection with the new Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link tunnels (connecting Denmark to Germany under the Baltic Sea) are being funded separately.

Planning for the new line Danish rail infrastructure manager Banedanmark is a governmental body under the Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing and acts as the national rail infrastructure manager, although some regional lines have other owners. Banedanmark is responsible for main-line electrification, installation of the ETCS signalling system and has led the construction of the highspeed line from Copenhagen to Ringsted.

The main purpose of the 60km long high-speed line is to increase capacity for eastwest domestic services from Copenhagen to Odense and, beyond, to towns and cities in

FEATURE Jutland. Before the new line opened, all main line services to western Denmark, plus those heading south to Germany, used the existing Copenhagen to Ringsted line, which is saturated at peak times as the section in the Copenhagen suburbs is just double track.

The existing major junction station at Roskilde (where lines south to Nykøbing Falster and the Rødby – Puttgarden train ferry to Germany, plus those southwest to Ringsted and Odense, diverge) is already operating at maximum capacity at busy times with frequent passenger services (mostly domestic) sharing the route with freight services connecting, not only Copenhagen, but also Sweden and Norway,

with Germany and the rest of Europe. The new line provides additional capacity and a diversionary route in the event that the classic line is closed.

Looking forward, the new Copenhagen to Ringsted line is the first part of new rail infrastructure that will connect Copenhagen with the new international undersea tunnels under the Fehmarnbelt, which, when complete in around a decade, will substantially reduce journey times between Danish cities and those in Germany.

The new 18km long Fehmarnbelt fixed link, which is currently expected to be completed in 2028, will be built using prefabricated immersed concrete sections. These

will comprise a double track electrified railway plus a fourlane motorway.

In 2028, travel time between Copenhagen and Hamburg will be approximately 2.5 hours by through electric train. That is almost half of the current travel time on a route that, today, has to include either the Rødby to Puttgarden train ferry across Fehmarnbelt or a much longer land route in both Germany and Denmark.

Banedanmark’s separate Ringsted – Fehmarn (Rødby) project will also upgrade the line from Ringsted to Rødby Færge to serve the new tunnel.

Once complete, the line will be electrified and rebuilt for 200km/h operation with ETCS Level 2 signalling. The

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FEATURE

PHOTO: BANEDENMARK

PHOTO: KEITH FENDER

(Above) A bi-mode train, Danish-style. A three-car IC3 DMU leads a four-car IR4 EMU with pantograph up. (Inset) Temporary motorway built to enable railway construction where the line crossed the M21 motorway south of Copenhagen.

upgrade will be carried out in stages, commencing with the section between Ringsted and Nykøbing Falster by 2023 and with the last stage from Nykøbing Falster to Rødby Færge completed before the opening of the Fehmarnbelt Link.

The high-speed line project had been under discussion since the early 1990s, with multiple options considered, and was finally approved on 26 May 2010 when the Danish Parliament passed the Construction Act. The project was planned and developed by the former Danish Traffic Authority and, in 2010, handed over to Banedanmark which established a separate Copenhagen-Ringsted project business unit to deliver the new high-speed line.

Between 2010 and 2013. preparatory works, including utility relocation, archaeological surveys and site access routes, were undertaken.

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The new line The new electrified doubletrack line has been built entirely to the south of the existing Copenhagen to Ringsted (via Valby and Roskilde) line and uses a different route between Copenhagen main station and Ny Ellebjerg. This creates capacity on the classic route via Valby, where the mainline is double track all the way to Taastrup in the western suburbs of the city. The other pair of tracks paralleling the classic route are electrified at 1.65kV DC and reserved for S-Tog (suburban train) use.

The new line has reduced the overall Copenhagen to Ringsted distance by just over a kilometre to 61.7km. When operating at full design speed, it will also significantly reduce journey times.

Full scale construction began in 2013 and was completed on time by early 2017. From Copenhagen, the new line starts at Ny Ellebjerg on the existing secondary line to Køge but at a lower level, forming a junction with the line from Copenhagen Kastrup Airport (and Sweden).

The line is built using conventional ballasted track and electrified at 25kV AC, which is used for all mainline electrification in Denmark. Tracklaying began in late October 2016 and was completed in the beginning of February 2017. From April 2017, the completed railway line was electrified and signalling was installed.

A joint venture of Atkins, Vössing, EKJ and Sweco delivered the DKr200 million (£27 million) railway technical

FEATURE contract for Banedanmark.

As part of this, Banedanmark developed a new design for high-speed track switches in conjunction with BWG/Vossloh to provide greater comfort for passengers.In response to Banedanmark’s requirements, Atkins completed all designs and as-built documentation for the railway in one integrated 3D-model, so as to prevent any physical conflicts and facilitate the work of all contractors.

The new line has few major structures, most of those which have been built are to enable it to pass under or over the motorways that the new line has largely been built alongside. The line initially follows the M21 motorway before crossing a major motorway junction on a bridge and then heading southwest to Køge, running some distance west of the E20 motorway and largely parallel with it all the way from Mosede to Ringsted.

During construction, a temporary section of motorway was built to enable railway

construction where the line crossed the M21 motorway south of Copenhagen – the resulting 800 metres of diverted motorway enabled Banedanmark’s contractors to work without any disturbance, from June 2014 to September 2015, whilst they constructed the tunnel the new railway uses to pass under the motorway.

Banedanmark estimates that this approach reduced overall construction time by 18 months and minimised disruption to road users during the period.

Once the tunnel and track bed were complete, the motorway was reinstated in its original place above the new railway.

Where the new line crosses one of Denmark’s busiest motorway junctions at Vallensbæk, a 512-metre-long railway bridge has been built across the junction, with the work being done in 2014-2016. Although it spans the entire junction, the motorway was only partly closed (once in each direction) for two weekends whilst the bridge steelwork was lifted into place.

PHOTO: ATKINS

New stations The only brand-new station is at Køge Nord, which is a park and ride station on the northern fringe of the town of Køge. In addition, a new S-Tog/Copenhagen Metro interchange station has been provided at Ny Ellebjerg, where the existing station has been rebuilt and expanded to serve the new line.

Køge Nord, which is designed as a park and ride station on the northern edge of the coastal town of Køge, has been built where the existing Copenhagen – Køge S-Tog line runs parallel

Køge Nord station from the air looking north in 2018. The centre pair of the four tracks nearest camera are the new highspeed line through lines (the outside tracks are the connections to the existing Roskilde to Køge line. The Copenhagen – Køge DC electrified S-Tog line is on far right on the other side of the motorway. The new 225-metre footbridge crosses both railways and the motorway.

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PHOTO: BANEDENMARK

(Above) Test train on the new line 25 October 2018 - Hector Rail Eurosprinter 242 502 is on rear of DB Systemtechnik test train.

(Inset) Most freight trains are already electrically powered, such as this DB Class 185 seen hauling an intermodal train at Roskilde in April 2015.

to the new line and just north of the recently electrified Roskilde to Køge / Næstved secondary line, to which a connection has been built via a flying junction just south of Køge Nord. Electrification of this line between Køge Nord and Næstved has recently been completed, allowing electric trains using the new line to serve Næstved.

A new pedestrian bridge was built at Køge Nord station. 225 metres long, it turned out to be one of the project’s most complex construction tasks.

It spans both the motorway and two railway lines (the new one and the S-Tog route).

The engineers responsible for actually building it were working to a design that had been selected at the planning stage.

The key issue was to find an engineering solution for the ribbed roof in the slight curves of the bridge which both complied with the aesthetic appearance in the design brief but also would protect pedestrians in torrential rain (not uncommon as Køge is only a few kms from the Baltic).

Detailed design work was only completed in Spring 2017 and the sections of the bridge were lifted into place between November 2017 and August 2018. It was completed in May 2019.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

PHOTO: KEITH FENDER

Commissioning and initial operations Commissioning work began in August 2018 when the overhead power supply was switched on and test running began to prove the line at its design speed. As it is the country’s first high-speed line, a new national rail speed record was set during the high-speed test trials, which took place from 22 October to 7 December. The new speed record is 255.6km/h set by a Eurosprinter loco from Hector Rail.

In late 2017, Banedanmark issued revised plans delaying the implementation of the nationwide ERTMS level 2, baseline 3 deployment by seven years from 2023 to 2030.

The reasons for this change were largely rolling stock driven - problems obtaining and fitting onboard equipment to much of the DSB legacy, longdistance DMU fleet (IC3 and IC4 trains) was a key reason for the change. Some other DSB and Arriva fleets are being/have been equipped more quickly.

Danish national passenger operator DSB currently has 26 Vectron electric locomotives, capable of 200km/h running, on order from Siemens and due to be delivered from 2021. It is

also is tendering for at least 100 new EMUs for delivery in the early 2020s. All the new trains will be ERTMS equipped.

The interim signalling system is based on a track vacancy detection system from Siemens and uses conventional line block signals/ATC. The 60km line is divided into five block sections with reversible signalling.

Under the temporary signalling system, the maximum speed is limited to 180km/h, which allows five trains per hour in each direction.

Implementation of this system led to the new opening date of 31 May 2019 (instead of 9 December 2018 as originally planned).

All the necessary ERTMS hardware for ETCS Level 2 operation is installed on the new line but will not be used to replace the temporary ATC system until sufficient trains equipped with it are available.

Operation From June, only one or two trains an hour are using the new line, but traffic will increase progressively with more trains by the December timetable.

The majority of these passenger trains will be diesel-powered in the first few years, for the

FEATURE simple reason that Danish national operator DSB has not yet obtained new fleets of electric trains. The line is designed to be used by any TSI compliant passenger or freight train, potentially enabling existing German or Swedish multi-voltage ICE or X2000 trains and Traxx/ Vectron locos to use the line.

Perhaps uniquely in Europe, Banedanmark will charge the same track access charges on the new line as on the existing route.

The new line is designed for mixed traffic, although freight will not use it until 2021 at the earliest. Maximum axle loading for the new line is 25 tonnes, however this is higher than the existing lines at each end, which each have a 22.5 tonne maximum. Passing loops capable of handling Danish standard 835-metre-long freight trains have been built at Lellinge, three kilometres east of Køge Nord station, to allow passenger trains to overtake freight.

Banedanmark, with contractors, are currently completing the new highspeed line’s connections with the existing railway at both Ringsted, where a flat junction is now planned, and Vigerslev in the suburbs of Copenhagen, where a flyover enables trains from Sweden towards the classic line (via Roskilde) to cross the new line without pathing conflicts.

Future plans Banedanmark expects that traffic will grow over the first few years. Its full potential is likely to be realised from the mid-2020s, by which time ETCS deployment will be very widespread and DSB will have replaced many of its older diesel trains with new electric ones.

Freight use of the new line (almost all of which is now electrically powered) will probably start from 2021.

From 2030, the Ringsted – Fehmarn (upgraded) line, plus the opening of the Fehmarn

Belt link and completion of the ETCS rollout, will lead to much more traffic, significantly reducing journey times to towns and cities south of Copenhagen as well as to Hamburg and other German cities.

Banedanmark began work to upgrade the line west from Ringsted in March 2019 as far as the Great Belt (Storebælt) crossing at Korsør. The upgrade will be completed in two stages; 2019-2020 and 2022-2024. The line is heavily used and currently suffers from temporary speed restrictions in several places where infrastructure renewal is required.

Two further sections of new high-speed lines are proposed, but not yet funded, west of Ringsted - a 35km stretch of the line to Odense on the island of Funen and 24km south of Aarhus on Jutland.

Both will be constructed for at least 200 kph.

Thanks to Banedanmark for helping to prepare this article.

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DAVID SHIRRES

SCHERBINKA’S BIG SHOW Dynamic exposition.

VL22, Russia’s first electric locomotive.

T

he biennial international fair of Russian-gauge railway equipment that is Expo 1520 took place over four days at the end of August. This year was the seventh such show, which offers static and dynamic exhibits, extensive exhibition halls and conference presentations, with over 700 companies present. It was held at the Scherbinka test facility, 30 kilometres south of Moscow, which opened in 1932 and has a circular test track, six kilometres in circumference.

The impressive event showcases the latest 1,520mm-gauge railway equipment and offered visitors both the opportunity to hear conference presentations which offered international insights and the chance of a close-up examination of the latest Russiangauge rolling stock.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

A highlight of the show is the ‘Dynamic exposition’, in which locomotives are run on the circular test track. This year’s show included nine preserved steam locomotives, Russia’s first mass-produced 3kV DC electric loco, introduced in 1938, and the latest freight locomotives.

These included the protype two-unit 2ES5S 25kV AC freight locomotive, unveiled by Transmashholding (TMH) last year, which has an autopilot and pre-emptive self-diagnostics and recently completed 5,000 kilometres of test running at Scherbinka, hauling 6,900 tonnes at up to 120km/h. As a result of a programme to localise the supply chain, 85 per cent of its value is Russian made. This includes traction equipment, transformers, compressors and control systems.

Also in the exposition was the 9,300kW three unit 3TE25K, Russian’s most powerful diesel locomotive, also built by TMH. This was introduced on the Baikal Amur main line last year and can haul freight trains of 7,000 tonnes.

FEATURE Self-driving swallow The event also provides an opportunity for news releases.

On 30 August, the completion was announced of the re-gauging of the rail network on Sakhalin island, in Russia’s far east and just north of Japan. Until World War 2, the island was ruled by Japan, hence its railway was originally built to Japanese 1,067mm gauge. The programme to regauge the island’s 700-kilometre network to Russian 1,520 mm gauge started in 2003.

News from the Expo itself was that Russia’s first selfdriving train had been tested at Scherbinka on the first day of the show. This was a specially fitted ES2G unit - a high-density version of the Siemens Desiro EMU variant, known as the Lastochka (Swallow), which operates the Moscow Central Circle (MCC) service. This line opened in 2016, as reported in issue 158 (December 2017), and already carries 11 per cent of Russian Railway’s passengers.

This self-driving unit has machine vision using radar, LiDAR and both conventional and infra-red cameras. It also has infrared motion sensors that are installed at the train doors to ensure platform safety, as opposed to the normal worldwide practice of using platform screen doors to control platform safety of unmanned metro services, and an ultrasonic positioning system that enables station stops to be accurate within 50 centimetres.

The autonomous train will require several months of testing to fine tune its algorithms. The intention is that services such as the MCC, with a large volume of traffic and small distances between stations, will eventually be operated by unmanned trains, whose operation will be monitored by a control centre that can operate the trains in an emergency. It is envisaged that one control room operator will be able to control ten trains, although this will require the approval of appropriate legislation.

On board the autonomous Lastochka at Scherbinka were the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, Maxim Akimov, and Russian Railways chairman, Oleg Belozerov, who claimed that this Russian-developed technology was a year ahead of that being developed by foreign colleagues.

The MCC’s Lastochkas are maintained at Podmoskovnaya depot, which has a data-

service centre in which it uses the Siemens Railagent application suite make full use of the fleet’s connectivity, supporting smart monitoring, data analysis and predicative maintenance. As a result, the fleet has an availability greater than 99 per cent. Some of the trains are also fitted with infrastructure diagnostic and rail fault detection systems, to maintain high infrastructure availability.

The 3TE25K, Russia’s most powerful diesel locomotive.

Shaping the future In his speech at the opening of Expo 1520, Oleg Belozerov advised that the driverless train on which he had just ridden signalled a new era and highlighted the importance of artificial intelligence. He advised the conference that Russian Railways intends to become a leader in such advanced technologies and that, in particular, the company is focusing on quantum communications, which offer complete protection from hacking. This is because such

Autonomous Lastochka showing the slits for its machine vision, inset shows it being demonstrated to Oleg Belozerov and Maxim Akimov.

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FEATURE Strategy to headway on the Moscow Central Circle service.

TEM5X hybrid shunting locomotive produced by Transmashholding.

communication is based on physical principles rather than cryptographic systems.

His address set the conference theme of how railway engineering technologies can shape the future. In the opening session, speakers were asked to choose one of twelve technologies that will have the greatest impact in the next ten years. In most cases, artificial intelligence was the answer, although some speakers didn’t wish to answer the question as they considered that it was wrong to focus on just one technology. Other answers were high-speed rail, big data and 5G as an enabler.

Various presentations featured the use of digital technologies for asset management, traffic management and train control.

This included the development of unmanned trains, which are being developed for both freight traffic as well as metro services such as the MCC. In a

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

presentation on digital railway traffic control technologies, Professor Efim Rosenburg, first deputy general of Russian Railway’s Research Institute, outlined a strategy to introduce moving-block signalling with interval regulation by radio.

He envisaged that this would be introduced from 2027 onwards, after initial concept testing. This would be a development for Russia’s KLUB-U train control system, for which there are currently 18,000 in-cab units in service. It would also build on the experience of coupling virtual freight trains by radio on the east Siberian railway.

In another presentation, it was estimated that reducing headways to three-minutes on the MCC, which carried 129 million passengers last year, through the introduction of a hybrid radio moving-block system would cost 13 billion roubles (£160 million) and would pay for itself in five years.

Green technologies Technologies to reduce the rail industry’s impact on the environment were also promoted. Introducing the session on green technologies, Boris Ivanov, Russian Railways deputy head of technical policy, advised that the company’s carbon emissions had been reduced by 30 per cent since 1990, though he accepted that this was still not meeting UIC targets.

His presentation showed that Russian Railways has a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 per cent of its 1990 baseline by 2030 and have carbon-free train operation by 2050. For particulate emissions, the target is a reduction of 40 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030 and to eliminate them by 2050.

To reduce emissions further, Russian Railways is looking at alternative energy sources, such as hydrogen. There is also a large-scale programme to introduce more efficient diesel and electric locomotives.

One such initiative is a programme to introduce battery-hybrid shunting locomotives, which are estimated to offer a 27 per cent cost reduction, equivalent to annual savings of nine million roubles (£100,000) per locomotive. As Russia has 18,000 such locomotives, which spend up to 85 per cent of their time idling, this initiative offers significant cost and environmental savings.

FEATURE Other speakers referred to initiatives to replace diesel with cleaner fuels such as LNG (liquified natural gas). However, whilst this will significantly improve atmospheric pollution, it does little to reduce CO2 emissions.

Initiatives to reduce energy use at stations included the installation of solar panels and heat exchangers, which pay for themselves within two years.

Hydrogen-powered trains were also mentioned in other sessions.

Alstom’s chief executive, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, described how Alstom had introduced the world’s first hydrogen train in passenger service and explained the benefits of this technology.

He suggested that its use on rural routes might result in electrification equipment on little used lines being dismantled.

Joerg Liebscher, CEO of Siemens Mobility in Russia, described how his company’s Mireo commuter trains can be battery or hydrogen-powered and would use the next generation fuel cells that offer a 50 per cent increase in power density. He advised that there was a great deal of interest in hydrogen powered trains in Europe and that the German government had a 350-millioneuro programme for their development.

Other speakers considered that it should be possible to power freight trains by hydrogen.

Whilst this is not possible in the UK, due to hydrogen storage space limitations, this may be feasible in Russia, where the use of four-unit freight locomotives to haul freight trains that are one kilometre long is not uncommon.

As Russian Railways is primarily a freight railway, there was a range of innovative wagons on display and mentioned in the conferences. These included articulated wagons with swop bodies, techniques for lightweighting and a power pack for refrigerated containers powered by an axle-end mounted hydraulic pump.

A presentation from Korea explained how folding containers had been developed to address the trade imbalance between Asia and Europe that requires containers to returned empty.

In a pilot scheme introduced in July, four such folding containers take up the same space as a normal container.

Austrian technology day Day two of the Expo highlighted rail technology partnerships between Austria and Russia. This was underscored from day one when Expo 1520 was jointly opened

by Oleg Belozerov and Andreas Reichhardt, Federal Minister for Transport, Innovation and Technology of the Republic of Austria. In his opening speech, Reichhardt noted the deep friendship between Austria and Russia and suggested both countries had much to offer each other. He considered Russia to be a global leader in artificial intelligence and noted that Austria is the world’s fifth-largest

supplier of railway goods and services.

The Austrian technology day was introduced by Andreas Mattha, CEO of ÖBB (Austrian Railways) who noted that both companies had spent time understanding each other’s markets and that Austrian companies were actively involved in upgrading Russian Railways’ infrastructure. He stressed the importance of environmental protection and felt that ÖBB also had much to offer in this respect.

He also considered that it was important to extend the Russian broad-gauge network into Vienna by building the proposed 400-kilometre 1,520mm line from to Kosice in Slovakia as described in issue 162 (April 2018). At an earlier press conference, Alexander Misharin, first deputy managing director of Russian Railways, advised that this project was proceeding to plan and that the feasibility study for this new line would be completed this year.

Folding containers.

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FEATURE Independent snow plough.

Double decker coach produced by THM’s Tver carriage work, inset, shows emergency escape from the top deck.

The Austrian technology day also provided an opportunity to launch a joint Austrian/ Russian rail technology platform to market and coordinate research, innovations and bilateral technology projects. Commenting on this, Oleg Belozyorov noted the importance of this transition from direct procurements to the creation and promotion of joint products.

The session also provided the opportunity for 14 Austrian companies to showcase their products and services. In addition to the well-known names of Plasser & Theurer and Frauscher, this included Calipri, Linsinger and Kiepe Electric, which manufactures HVAC equipment for various trainbuilders including Bombardier, Stadler Rail, Siemens and Alstom.

Calipri produces handheld, highly accurate profile measurement devices for

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

wheels and rail. These use the company’s patented principle of using three laser lines with roll and pitch correction. Linsinger designs and manufactures rail milling machines, which operate at a cutting temperature of 320°C. This compares with rail grinding temperatures that can peak at 820°C and may potentially change the microstructure of the steel rail head.

A presentation from Dr Hee-Seung Na, President of the Korea Railroad Research Institute, provided another international aspect of interest.

Dr Na was confident that the railway across the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea would soon re-open, following an agreement at the April 2018 inter-Korean summit. He explained how a new route across the two Koreas could be used to carry containers by rail from South Korea to Europe.

Another interesting perspective was offered by a presentation on the problem of creating a Russian industrial internet of things from Vladimir Betelin of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He noted that, by 2050, 50 billion devices will be connected to the internet and he was concerned that undeclared capabilities on Intel processors, which included auxiliary cores that monitor inputs and outputs, rendered these devices liable to cyberattack. He felt this was a factor in the development of the Stuxnet virus which had reportedly destroyed Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

For these reasons, he felt it was important for Russia to expand its ability to produce microprocessors.

Static display As the Russian loading gauge is 34 per cent higher than that in the UK, this British visitor found it an awe-inspiring experience to walk around the rolling stock on display on the tracks between the exhibition and conference halls.

Vehicles that seemed to be built to the full 5.3 metre height of this gauge were the double decked coaches, a self-powered liner-tamper and self-powered snow plough that can clear snow at 40km/h.

A much smaller exhibit was the hybrid TEM5X shunter built

by TMH. This has a 200kW diesel engine, lithium-ion

FEATURE batteries of an unspecified capacity and a 135kN starting force.

One of the latest freight car designs offered by the United Wagon Company was its articulated hopper wagon.

This has a tare weight of 36.5 tonnes and can carry 113.5 tonnes (or 160 cubic metres) of grain or fertilisers on three bogies, resulting in a maximum axle load of 25 tonnes. Due to the short gap between their two hoppers, the use of these wagons enables train weight to be increased.

TBEMA’s high-speed diagnostic coach normally operates in Siberia and Kazakhstan. It has various cameras and sensors that measure around 200 infrastructure parameters at 160km/h. This includes track geometry, pattern recognition, structure gauging, rail profile and OLE geometry. The coach undertakes ultrasonic rail testing at up to 140km/h. This highspeed testing is possible as there are separate transmitting and receiving ultrasonic sensors.

The coach also has ground penetrating radar.

For a UK visitor, it was also noteworthy for having the only Union Jack to be seen at Scherbinka. This was on the coach’s standby generator, which was provided by Welland Power from the Lincolnshire market town of Spalding.

It would be interesting to compare the capabilities of TBEMA’s measurement coach with Network Rail’s New Measurement Train. Although TBEMA only has offices in Russia, Ukraine, India and Hong Kong, it does have a joint project in France, after SNCF engineers saw its equipment at the 2015 Expo in Scherbinka.

It may well be that the UK could learn from Russia’s infrastructure measurement techniques. There may also be lessons from its development of unmanned metro trains on lines without platform screen doors and plans for a hybrid radio moving block system.

Although these are technically challenging programmes, perhaps their most difficult aspect is the integration of infrastructure and rolling stock systems. In Russia, it seems that such integration is supported

(2)

by a strong central guiding mind. In the UK, systems integration requires all parties to have aligned objectives.

Achieving this may be more difficult than overcoming the technical problems.

Swop-body articulated freight wagon concept; graph shows that it is respectively 200 and 142 per cent more economically efficient for the carriage of grain and coal.

(3) (1) Measurement bogie of TBEMA’s high-speed diagnostic coach which includes ultrasonic sensors.

(2) Inside the high-speed diagnostic coach.

(3) Diagnostic coach’s standby generator from the UK. (1)

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Edinburghâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

international Railway Engineering conference

DAVID SHIRRES

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

FEATURE

E

ach year, the UK hosts numerous railway industry events. Most of these concern domestic issues and few have complex technical content throughout.

In contrast, more than half the 150 or so participants at the biennial Railway Engineering Conference held in Edinburgh were from outside the UK (33 per cent from Europe, 14 per cent from Asia, eight per cent from USA, plus individuals from Brazil and Australia). Hence, most of those present had travelled a long way to present their in-depth technical papers.

Presentation by Prof Xuecheng Bian.

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(Above) Mike Forde introducing the conference.

(Right) Niall Fagan’s HS2 presentation.

There were a hundred such papers, covering all aspects of railway engineering, although track, structures and civil engineering accounted for more than three quarters of them.

The conference is chaired by Professor Mike Forde of the University of Edinburgh and organised by ECS Publications, part of the multi-award-winning Edinburgh Railway Group.

The first Railway Engineering Conference in the series was held at Brunel University in 1998, thereafter the event was held in London until it moved to Edinburgh in 2011.

This year’s two-day conference was held on 3-4 July. Each day started with keynote presentations, after which papers were presented in three parallel sessions. Two of the keynote presentations were the only ones without detailed engineering content.

Chris Jackson, editor of Railway Gazette International, gave his review of specific railway developments in each continent from which he saw globalisation, increasing urbanisation and decarbonisation to be common worldwide issues. He felt that the data-driven ‘fourth industrial revolution’ had huge implications for asset monitoring, maintenance, train control and automation for which the critical challenge is attracting and developing new skills.

Professor Rod Smith asked whether railways in rural areas were a financial drain. His key point was that high fixed infrastructure costs don’t change much with use. Therefore, proposals for lightweight rail vehicles showed an inability to learn from history as such vehicles do not satisfy the requirement to make the best use of the infrastructure. In this respect, the UK has one of the best records in Europe with 11,200 passenger-km/route-km/day, although this compares poorly with Japan’s 40,900.

High speed track Niall Fagan, HS2’s head of track engineering, explained the thinking behind the design of HS2’s track, which will carry 18 trains per hour and over 60 million gross tonnes per annum, and for which there will be a five-hour overnight maintenance window, with eight hours on Sunday. Phase one consists of 486 linear kilometres of track and 153 S&C units, for which there is a 20-month construction window.

HS2’s survey grid will be a snake projection, which has been developed to provide a unified coordinate system for long, linear projects as the Ordnance Survey grid does not take account of the curvature of the earth. The difference between the two projections is 50 metres over the 170 kilometres between London and Birmingham and Niall illustrated the importance of this grid by explaining why millimetres matter at the highly constrained Euston approaches.

He also explained the issues that had to be considered to determine HS2’s trackform.

These included the predicted tamping of ballasted track, which is largely a function of tonnage carried. It also determines the renewals requirement, as ballast life is a function of the

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

FEATURE number of tamps. If, as seems possible, HS2 is to consist of largely slab track, measures will be required to prevent groundborne sound and vibration reaching buildings above tunnels.

By the end of 2018, China has built 29,000 km of highspeed lines, of which more than 80 per cent is slab track.

Professor Xuecheng Bian, of Zhejiang University in China, described his research into the mechanisms that trigger mud pumping under slab track, for which polyurethane injection is an effective remedial measure.

He also described how the University had used a full-scale ballasted-track test rig to observe the dynamic responses of ballasted track at speeds up to 360km/h. This showed that high-speed wheel loading increases ballast particle rearrangement, due to greater particle rolling and sliding, and that dynamic ballast settlement was 75 per cent more than that caused by stationary cyclic loading.

As HS1’s head of track engineering, Dr Sin Sin Hsu is responsible for 109 route kilometres and 143 sets of S&C, of which 62 are highspeed swing-nose turnouts. Her presentation considered how high-speed line maintenance, especially S&C, must consider higher dynamic forces, for example HS1’s track maintenance tolerances are essentially the same as Network Rail’s construction tolerances for 200km/h track.

Dr Hsu described the complex geometry of high-speed swing nose crossings. On HS1 these are produced by Vossloh Cogifer and are 1 in 65, 230km/h turnouts with 152 metres from toe to nose.

She also gave an example of the problems of maintaining high-speed S&C - a badly

vibrating point machine which had to be changed every three months. After trying various solutions, the cause was eventually found to be a onemillimetre rail dip, for which the solution was a 0.5mm rail grind.

She stressed that this showed the importance of obtaining the correct data to understand the root cause of any problem.

Other high-speed rail papers included an assessment of critical speed by Pedro Alves Costa of the University of Leeds, which concluded that this was governed by soil properties up to a depth of eight metres, and a presentation from the Austrian PORR on the Slab Track Austria (STA) system.

A team from the SNCF also presented a paper on a holistic approach for high-speed lines maintenance and renewal.

Subgrade including asphalt One of the keynote presentations was given by Professor Carlton Ho of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, on substructure track design principles and how these differ between the USA and China. He noted that, in the USA, where heavy freight has axle loads of between 33 and 39 tons, standards are based on the American Railway Engineering Maintenance-ofWay Association’s (AREMA) Manual of Railway Engineering (MRE). These are based on geometrics and absence of defects and so allow railroads the flexibility to use the most appropriate design practice.

In contrast, in China, track design is more prescriptive as it must meet the various codes for different aspects of railway engineering.

Professor Ho’s presentation featured probably the longest equation presented to the

conference, for the amplitude of elastic displacement of the subgrade bed.

Two presentations considered transitions at bridges. Giacomo Ognibene of the University of Southampton has studied ballasted railway bridge transition using a finite element model to assess the effects of train speed, sub-base soil and under sleeper pads and found that both the train speed and the sub-base material affect transition performance. In particular, it was found that a stiffer, wedge-shaped backfill mitigated the support stiffness variation at the bridge approach.

A paper by Stark and Wynn of the University of Illinois, Urbana, considered ballast-based reinforcement, mechanically stabilized earth reinforced walls, and geosynthetic reinforced and pile-supported embankments (GRPE). This concluded that segmental retaining walls with geosynthetic reinforced soil is a cost-effective solution to mitigate differential movement at railway/bridge transitions and that GRPEs are a more cost-effective method than unreinforced pile-supported embankments for the reduction of soil deformation.

Professor Jerry Rose of the University of Kentucky is clearly a fan of asphalt. His

The conference’s longest equation.

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FEATURE

Flooding at Cowley Bridge Junction. presentation described the benefits from the US railroad industry’s selective use of a 25-37.5mm hot-mix asphalt layer in the track substructure since the 1980s. It described how testing such trackbeds, from 12 to 29 years old, had shown that the asphalt had no brittleness, weathering, or deterioration due to the insulating effects of the overlying ballast. The benefit of its load bearing properties was evident from the asphalt mat being subject to typical dynamic pressures of 13-17psi from the heaviest freight trains whilst the layer below it is subject to 5-7psi.

The use of asphalt outside the USA was considered by Dr Diego Cardona of Eiffage Infrastructure in France. His presentation showed that Italy first used it in the 1970s, for the country’s first highspeed line between Rome and Florence, and now has 1,200 kilometres of asphalt track. In France, a short trial section of the Paris to Strasbourg high-speed line was provided with an asphalt mat in 2004.

After this was shown to require much less tamping than the rest of the line, a further 283 kilometres of French highspeed lines have been built with an asphalt base. Short lengths of asphalt track are in use in Spain, Germany and Austria, where the first asphalt trackbed laid in 1967 had not required any maintenance by 2011, 44 years later.

There is also widespread use of asphalt trackbeds in Japan for high-speed and conventional lines.

Dr Cardona noted that this experience highlighted the reduction in both maintenance and line closures from the use of asphalt, which had justified its higher initial cost. However, the use of

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

asphalt required careful consideration of drainage requirement, due to its higher run off, and the need for tamping and ballast cleaning to take account of the asphalt layer.

Drainage and Flooding With 300,000 hours of delay recorded each year in the UK due to flooding issues, papers considering how potential drainage problems could be better analysed and predicted were well received. A joint paper produced

by Network Rail, the University of Birmingham and the University of Lampung in Indonesia proposed a better method to understand underlying problems and failure mechanisms associated with drainage failures. This used expert input to produce a fault tree with 22 casual factors basic events, eight casual factors mid events and three failure modes leading to one top event.

When this method was used to investigate drainage failures at Ardsley tunnel, it was concluded that the underlying problems were change in land use, resulting in increased surface runoff, changes to drainage upstream and damage caused by others or third party assets.

Yiqi Wu of the University of Sheffield and Raja Jamie of Network Rail presented a Markov chain model for predicting the degradation of various classes of railway drainage assets. This approach, a widely used probabilistic model for simulating infrastructure deterioration, considered the influence of various factors, such as construction material, size, shape

and location, to quantify the rate of the degradation on all 329,781drainage assets on Network Rail’s Ellipse database.

Cowley Bridge Junction between Tiverton and Exeter St Davids has been subject to frequent flooding and washouts as described in issue 169 (November 2018). Here, the depth and velocities of flows overtopping the railway have exceeded 0.5m and 0.5m/s respectively.

This is due to the complex hydrology and character of the River Exe system, which has a sinuous channel that meanders severely back and forth beneath the mainline.

In their presentation, Sinead Lynch and Thomas Mymors of Arup described the complex hydraulic modelling process used to determine the best flood mitigation option, which was the selective lowering of the flood plain on the approach to the embankment into which twin concrete box-culvert sections, 3.5 metres wide x 2 metres high, were inserted.

Earthworks and Bridges Although the closure of the railway at Dawlish highlighted its vulnerability to the sea, the stability of the 50-metre-high cliff above it poses an equally serious problem.

As Tim Laverye of Network Rail described in his presentation, there have been 50 recorded cliff failures in the vicinity. He described the current mitigation for such failures, including numerous sensors in the cliff and its drape netting, and outlined plans to ensure the long-term resilience of the railway. The many issues to consider include the complex groundwater regime and the nature of the dominant Teignmouth Breccia strata.

FEATURE The problem addressed by the paper produced by Raynor and Bennett of Ove Arup is the design of OLE structures. In a wide-ranging presentation, this addressed ground investigations, selection of foundation type, constraints of construction plant and the need for cost effective design. For example, it showed how pile depth could be reduced, resulting in only a slight increase in permissible contact wire movement.

The fatigue life of riveted railway bridges was the subject of the paper presented by John Mander of Texas A&M University.

He noted that, whilst appropriate for new bridges, current conservative design codes are not helpful in assessing the remaining life of older structures. His paper outlined a systematic process that considered both initial fatigue-life and post-crack fracture propagation life through to fracture. This gives a 20 per cent life extension beyond crack initiation, providing a grace period for remedial repairs.

The longevity of masonry bridges was considered by Manicka Dhanasekar of Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

He described how digital-image correlation had been used to determine the deformation of masonry arches and a flat jack method was used to measure the elastic properties of aged masonry. This showed that the maximum deformation at the crown of a 150-year old bridge was 0.5 mm for freight trains and that the absolute maximum strain was well within the limit of the masonry arch barrel.

Two papers considered train derailments. Shinya Fukagai of Tokyo’s Railway Technical Research Institute considered how the size of machining marks after tyre turning can increase risk of wheel-climb derailment.

Richard Bullet of Arup referred to historic accidents as he considered mitigation for the risk of bridge collapse after derailment.

Using an intelligent vision system to improve platform safety was the subject of a presentation by Howard Parkinson of Lancaster University. In it, he identified Railway Gazette International the potential for such innovation award presented to systems to detect potentially Saki Matsuo of the Tokyo Metro. dangerous situations, including automatic indication on the driver’s monitor, and reduce platform dwell time. He also identified the issues that a pilot scheme would need to address.

Safety and Environment

Prize winning presentations

The paper “Are Hydrogen trains the answer?” was one of the few about rolling stock. This was presented by your writer and considered the environmental benefits and limitations of hydrogen trains. It concluded that they are not the answer to “life, the universe and everything”.

Loss of refrigerant contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and air conditioning failures. In his presentation, Andrea Stanio of Alstom described how a virtual twin of each train’s HVAC system, coupled with sensor data acquired from the associated physical counterpart, can provide accurate assessment of the actual amount of refrigerant in the system. This reduces both the cost of maintenance of the air conditioning system and the risk of its failure.

Comparing different optimisation algorithms to analyse metro eco-driving was the subject of a paper presented by the Universitat Politècnica de València. This was intended to take advantage of the advanced communications between train and track, which now make it possible to define multiple speedprofiles for ATO (automatic train operation) systems.

This study compared genetic algorithms with the particle swarm optimisation algorithm inspired by the collective behaviour of insect colonies and concluded that, in terms of spread, the swarm algorithm performed better.

The presentations mentioned in this review are about a quarter of those presented at the conference. They are, of necessity, an arbitrary selection of the 98 presented to the conference, but they give an indication of the breadth, the intellectual rigour and complexity of the issues covered. Four of the papers were given special prizes. These were: »» Best paper by a university researcher: “Analysis of a bridge approach: Long-term behaviour from short-term response” by G. Ognibene, W. Powrie, L. Le Pen, J. Harkness of the University of Southampton; »» Best engineering application paper: “A holistic assessment approach for high-speed lines maintenance and renewal” by A Dhemaied, G Saussine, S El Janyani, Q A Ta, J M Cornet, J Lossignol, M Koscielny, A Schwager Guillemenet, A Hily C Renaud of SNCF; »» Railway Gazette International innovation award: “Proposal of track renewal method using prepared concrete method” by S Matsuo, T Fujioka, S Watanabe, I Arai,Y Yonehara, S Kubota of the Tokyo Metro; »» Best Paper demonstrating use of Geophysics and NDT: “Autonomous vehicle-track interaction monitoring to improve infrastructure maintenance” by S Jovanovic, P Tešić, University of Novi Sad, Serbia and M Dick, Ensco Inc, Springfield, USA. The award for the best exhibition at the conference was jointly awarded to edilon)(sedra and Staytite.

A lifetime achievement award for distinguished international service in the field of railway track engineering was also awarded to Dr Jerry Rose of the University of Kentucky. A surprise award was that given to Edna Forde for her contribution to the technical development of the PWI by the Institution’s technical director, Dr Brian Counter.

With many of those present travelling half-way around the world to present their papers, the conference demonstrated that railway engineering is an international community from which there is much to learn. It would be good to know if some of this international practice is adopted in the UK as a result of this conference.

Potentially dangerous situation highlighted on driver’s monitor.

Rail Engineer | Issue 178 | October 2019

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