Rail Engineer - Issue 155 - September 2017

Engineer

by rail engineers for rail engineers

SEPTEMBER 2017 - ISSUE 155

Whitechapel

An Overground station going Underground

79 DAYS AT DERBY Derby station will be remodelled and re-signalled in a major £198 million project over 79 days from July 2018.

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

MODIFIED MEWPs FOR LU TUNNELS

FROM BLAME TO BETTER UNDERSTANDING

Attaching over 450 radio antennas to the roofs of LU tunnels would require a lot of scaffolding, or eight new road-rail vehicles.

Lessons learned from both major and minor accidents over the last 35 years have given us a safer railway today.

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RAIL ENGINEER MAGAZINE

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Feature

18 24 30 34 38 42

CONTENTS

06 10 12 46 50 56 72 76 82 86

79 days at Derby in 2018 David Bickell previews the 79-day rebuild of Derby station taking place next year.

Formal methods for Signalling Interlockings Pete Duggan explains how to check complex signalling control programs.

Green Trough polymer cable-troughing systems First installed in Japan, Green Trough is now managing cables in the UK.

A COMPASS update Clive Kessell catches up with the latest thinking on incident recovery.

Elegance with practicality Jon Andrews on how Lundy makes signal gantries blend with the surroundings.

Train Antennas Paul Darlington investigates how to get radio signals on and off trains.

News Ordsall Chord, Facial recognition, Penn station, EGIP energisation.

Hansford Review explained Marc Johnson talked with Peter Hansford shortly after his review was published.

Whitechapel - an Overground station going Underground Collin Carr looks at the new Elizabeth line station.

Big data A new approach to risk analysis and safety management for the railway industry.

Asset reliability A railway is only as reliable as its assets, so understanding any failure is crucial.

From blame to better understanding Learning the lessons from past accidents has created the safest railway in Europe.

Shoreham viaduct undergoes major refurbishment Mark Phillips describes methods to replace rusty steelwork carrying a coastal railway.

IMechE Rail Electrification 2017 Peter Stanton attended a recent seminar on electrification as changes hits the the industry.

Siemens success in USA Lesley Brown discovers that Siemens now has 800 employees at Sacramento.

International insight from the Caucasus David Shirres flew to Sochi to attend Strategic Partnership 1520.

Plant and Equipment Feature

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Signalling and Telecoms Feature

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64 68

Modified MEWPs go underground Total Rail Solutions used 'cherry pickers' in the Underground to speed up access.

Piling excellence Using Van Elle's new Colmar excavators to install Smartpiles and stabilise tracks.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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RAIL ENGINEER MAGAZINE

EDITORIAL

Controlling complexity The previous White House incumbent, Barack Obama, recognised that “we live in a complex world at a challenging time, and none of these challenges lend themselves to quick or easy solutions”.

His observation applies to many of our features this month. The complexity of railway systems and the challenges of keeping an overcrowded railway moving whilst making major alterations to its infrastructure are formidable. Railway engineers have an impressive record of controlling this complexity.

Computer code for signal interlocking is particularly complex, making its production and modification an expensive and time-consuming business, but perhaps not for much longer. In his article on formal methods for signalling interlockings, part of this month’s Signalling and Telecommunications Focus, Pete Duggan explains how mathematical verification techniques have produced error-free interlocking data in a matter of hours, rather than weeks. Although this offers huge benefits, Pete considers that its introduction will require considerable behavioural change within the signalling industry.

With the increasing centralisation of control, failures can have a much greater impact, despite signalling systems becoming more reliable.

Keeping trains moving during signalling failures is the aim of the Combined Positioning Alternative Signalling System Degraded Mode Working System (COMPASS DMWS) initiative. Clive Kessell describes the progress of this ambitious project.

Radio communications are a crucial aspect of train control. With trains also needing data for passenger and operational requirements, train antennas are a crucial component. Paul Darlington explains that antennas need to be an integral part of train design, with shark’s fins and beamforming also required.

However good the antenna, radios don’t work well in tunnels. Hence London Underground is installing radio repeaters every 200 metres to introduce a communications-based control system on its sub-surface lines. We describe the not-so-obvious issues associated with the modification of mobile equipment working platforms to do this work in the tight confines of tube tunnels.

At Whitechapel, the Crossrail tunnels are thirty-two metres deep. Here, the station is being transformed into an interchange on four levels.

Above Crossrail are the Overground platforms, which are below the Underground platforms. Above all these lines is a new concourse to all platforms. Colin Carr explains the complexity of this work, its congested site and demanding logistics, which includes the requirement to excavate the escalator shaft tunnel uphill.

Another complex station project is next summer’s radical remodelling at Derby and the associated renewal of life-expired track and signalling equipment. David Bickell explains why a new layout is required and describes the complexities of this £198 million project, which will see Derby station partially shut for 79 days.

Although refurbishment of the 16-span Shoreham viaduct to replace and repair its corroded steelwork is quite different from the Derby station work, both projects are designed to minimise passenger disruption. Mark Phillips explains the innovative techniques used to repair the viaduct’s 69 cross girders, which almost eliminate the requirement for possessions, and how emphasis on buildability has reduced the time to do this work.

Professor Peter Hansford’s review considers how third parties can be encouraged to both invest in and deliver railway projects. Since his report was published in July, Professor Handsford has been talking to Marc Johnson who reports that Network Rail is receptive to the review’s proposals, which aim to unlock private finance to deliver railway improvements that would otherwise not be possible.

Despite its complex nature, the industry has an excellent safety record - due, in part, to the way lessons are learnt from accidents. Past practice of blaming those directly involved for railway accidents did not stop others making similar mistakes. Now the approach is to understand the conditions that lead to errors, as shown by our feature which illustrates the benefits of this approach by reference to recent accidents.

As safety performance improves, it becomes ever more difficult to predict potentially risky situations. Another recent development is the accumulation of vast amounts of data which can provide new methods of identifying risk as explained by our feature on a recent Big Data Risk Analysis conference. Big data also features in our article on how intelligent infrastructure can significantly improve in asset reliability. This explains how data generated by remote condition monitoring needs to be harvested, transported and extracted.

Russia’s digital railway strategy, its approach to rail innovation and the proposed high-speed rail line between Moscow and Beijing were considered at the conference for Russian-gauge railways, held each year in Sochi. This offered a perspective well beyond Russia, including Indian Railway’s massive expansion plan. Our report offers an international insight into railway developments east of Europe.

On the other side of the world, our European correspondent, Lesley Brown, ventures to the USA to report on how Siemens established itself in Sacramento in 1992 and is now the US market-leader for Light Rail Vehicles.

The recent IMechE Railway Division seminar on the design of future electrification was a particularly timely event. As Peter Stanton reports, it considered the excessive cost of current electrification schemes and the reasons for this, which included unnecessarily prescriptive standards, over-specification and a lack of focus on the overall installation process. Unfortunately, this was one case when complexity was not managed as well as it should have been.

RAIL ENGINEER EDITOR

DAVID SHIRRES

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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THE TEAM

NEWS

Editor David Shirres david.shirres@railengineer.uk

Production Editor Nigel Wordsworth nigel.wordsworth@railengineer.uk

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

Engineering writers bob.wright@railengineer.uk chris.parker@railengineer.uk clive.kessell@railengineer.uk collin.carr@railengineer.uk david.bickell@railengineer.uk graeme.bickerdike@railengineer.uk grahame.taylor@railengineer.uk lesley.brown@railengineer.uk malcolm.dobell@railengineer.uk mark.phillips@railengineer.uk paul.darlington@railengineer.uk peter.stanton@railengineer.uk stuart.marsh@railengineer.uk

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Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

Ordsall Chord bridge complete The final elements of Manchester’s eye-catching new Ordsall Chord bridge have now been lifted into place. The twin steel cascades each weigh 40 tonnes and link the bridge’s 89-metre long steel arches over the River Irwell with its approach viaduct.

Peter Jenkins, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, who is new head of transport for the BDP worldwide, says of his flowing cascade design for the viaduct bridge: “The overall concept for the bridges is that of a continual, flowing ribbon which incorporates individual structures into a single over-arching identity.

“This latest piece of steelwork connects the River Irwell and Trinity Way bridges with a twisting, sinuous form which smoothly brings the concept of the structure to fruition. The development has been a true team effort from the original sketch through to construction, integrating different people and different tools to achieve the vision.

“The process began with pen and paper concepts which were explored through structural analysis and developed into

complex three-dimensional modelling.

The bridge’s arches and cascades were then fabricated by Severfield in Bolton using the latest steelwork techniques before being delivered to site.”

The new cascades are a different colour than the surrounding steelwork simply because they are newer. As the weathering steel, which will never require painting, ages, the whole structure will become a uniform red-brown.

Work will now continue on the remainder of the project with the laying of ballast and track on the 1600-tonne bridge as well as further track work, signal work and installing overhead line equipment. When the entire project is finished by December 2017, it will provide new and direct links from the north to Manchester Airport as part of Network Rail’s Great North Rail Project.

NEWS

coming soon...

NEXT MONTH...

CONCRETE / EARTHWORKS / DRAINAGE Precast Sections, Modular Systems, Piling, Structures, Maintenance, Installation, Geotechnical, Soil Nailing, Rope Access, Excavation, Geotextiles, Ground Surveys, Foundations, Ground Stabilisation, Fastenings, Pipework, Gratings, Design, Installation, Cleaning, Specialist Equipment

INNOVATION Latest Technology, Novel Techniques, New Working Practices, Product Approvals, Research and Development, Pilot Studies, Advanced Thinking

NOVEMBER 2017

EGIP goes live!

The Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP) gets ready for testing as the public is warned that overhead wires go live on 2 September.

Network Rail route delivery director for Infrastructure projects said: “Energisation is an important phase of work to test and validate the new equipment and ensure it is operating as it should. As well as ‘live testing’ the equipment, the energisation phase of work is critical to ensuring the safe introduction of the electric trains that will operate on the route from later in the year.

“Electrification also marks a significant change to the railway environment in terms of risk for those living or working

near to the newly electrified routes, so it is important we do what we can to make people, particularly young people, aware of this change and encourage them to stay safe near the railway.”

Over 100,000 safety leaflets are being delivered through every door in local communities and warnings posted online through social media. In addition, Network Rail has taken the safety message into the classroom and the community by working with industry partners in schools and through local groups.

ROLLING STOCK / DEPOTS New designs, Components, Interiors, Refurbishment, Maintenance, Lighting, Fuel, Equipment, Vehicle Maintenance, Condition Monitoring, Lifting, Train Washing, Inspection

SUSTAINABILITY / ENVIRONMENT Sustainable Programmes, Effciency, Planning, Surveys, Wildlife, Vegitation, Waste Disposal, Carbon Emissions, Sustainability, Green Initiatives, Seasonal Issues, Recycling

DECEMBER 2017 ELECTRIFICATION / POWER Transformers, Generators, OLE, Distribution Networks, Monitoring, Earthing, Lightning Protection, Control Equipment and Systems

LIGHT RAIL / METRO Vehicles, Rail, Electrication, Signalling, Tram, Tram-Train, Underground, Operating Systems, Platform Screen Doors, Automation

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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NEWS

AECOM and Network Rail to review Penn station

Amtrak has appointed Network Rail and AECOM to conduct an independent review of New York's Pennsylvania station.

The partnership will start work to assess the station immediately and will make recommendations to improve its design, functionality, communications and coordination.

‘Penn’ station, the main one in New York, serves more than 600,000 people each workday, triple the number of passengers it was designed for.

Earlier this year New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo announced a plan to deal with the station’s “intolerable state of disrepair”, with derailments and cancellations causing delays for millions of travellers.

Operators Amtrak, Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit currently manage their respective passenger concourses at the station but the AECOMNetwork Rail partnership will be asked to review and advise how the trio can better work together.

The recommendations are expected in early 2018.

Amtrak co-CEO Wick Moorman commented: “New York Penn Station is the busiest

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

rail hub in the country, and Amtrak is dedicated to making improvements to the railroad and the station that will improve the passenger experience.

“We have made significant progress in renewing rail infrastructure at Penn Station and are now taking steps to improve the passenger areas.

“We have assembled a top-notch team of national and international experts to work with the railroads on delivering solutions that will greatly improve the passenger experience at New York Penn Station.”

NEWS

Facial-recognition In a bid to reduce terror attacks and track suspects, Germany’s Ministry of the Interior has announced a pilot project to employ facial recognition technology at Berlin Südkreuz station, which is served by Berlin’s S-Bahn network as well as national and international rail services.

The six-month trial will overlay facial recognition software over the station’s existing video surveillance system and will track a database of just 250 volunteers.

The project, which is being jointly undertaken by the Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Police, the Federal Criminal Police Office and Deutsche Bahn, will test three different facial recognition systems to see if they can reliably keep track of when passengers enter and leave the station.

Announcing the pilot, the ministry said the technology would be able to detect people in need of help, as well as suspicious behaviour, and report it automatically. In a statement, the government stressed its commitment to privacy and data protection.

Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that good police work wasn’t just about police officers and powers but also “good equipment and intelligent technology”.

There are currently more than 6,000 CCTV cameras across Germany’s 900 or so stations.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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NEWS

Hansford Review explained

MARC JOHNSON

A review led by Professor Peter Hansford, which looks at what Network Rail needs to do to bring more private investment to the railway, has been published - and it pulls few punches.

Professor Hansford, who sat down with Rail Engineer following the publication of the review at the end of July, was approached by Network Rail’s chief executive Mark Carne to carry out the assessment at the end of last year.

Although the review focuses heavily on investment, it also sets out the benefits of private-sector competition for Network Rail.

The review was put together

by Peter Hansford with the help of the Nichols Group and Rail PR. The process was supported by an expert panel which included Alistair Gordon, the chief executive of Keolis UK; Andy Milner, chief executive of Amey; John Smith, managing director of GB Railfreight; Matthew Symes, a partner at Concerto; Mike Gerrard, independent expert; Zara Lamont, performance improvement director at Carillion; and Daniel Hanson, director of policy and economics at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The review made 12 recommendations, which ranged from encouraging Network Rail to publish details of upcoming projects, to giving each of the routes the commercial capability to look at alternative design and delivery models for projects.

New models and behaviour Route devolution is central to the report’s recommendations, which points to a transition away from the traditional hub and spoke contracting approach used by Network Rail Infrastructure Projects (IP), although Prof Hansford believes that there would still be a need for a centralised IP even with empowered routes. Over the next 12 months, Network Rail has been tasked with identifying ‘pathfinder projects’ to test different delivery models.

Prof Hansford said private companies should be expected to help fund projects from which they will derive benefit.

That said, Network Rail would still need to provide general oversight and decide whether projects fit the wider network strategy.

Several sections of the report talk about how a lack of process and the current culture is hindering Network Rail’s ability to engage with the private sector. Companies consulted as part of the review said their experience of working with Network Rail had been difficult and “fragmented”. The review specifically talks about the need for a “welcoming, predictable and trusting environment” that would give the private sector more confidence around cost and risk.

The report made some practical suggestions for Network Rail to consider. These included creating a new service level agreement that establishes the terms of business between Network Rail and third parties.

It also said that there should be a single point of contact within Network Rail to simplify the whole process.

Risk vs reward The allocation of risk appears to be one of the biggest barriers to overcome. The uncertainty that exists during the early stages of projects can even make the cost of bidding unviable and the review found companies felt pressured to accept “emerging cost” contracts, which impose any additional project cost on them even if it is the result of an error by Network Rail.

To address these issues, the review recommends creating an “early development fund” to cover some of the initial bid costs and, as a result, allow companies to produce more

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

“high quality proposals”.

Prof Hansford also touched on the prickly issue of standards.

He highlighted scenarios where contractors are required to make changes to the cost and scope of projects to meet standards dictated by Network Rail. One of the recommendations states that an appeals process needs to be established.

Response The response to Prof Hansford’s review was immediate. Network Rail has already announced a series of reforms that address many of the review’s recommendations.

These include publishing regular updates on upcoming opportunities, demonstrating flexibility around standards and drawing up a service level agreement. Prof Hansford believes Network Rail has even gone beyond his recommendations in places. In particular, Network Rail plans to launch a reward scheme that would see it share the profits of innovation with private-sector partners.

Mark Carne said: “I am

determined to create an environment where innovative third party companies can compete for and directly deliver railway projects. These reforms mark the next stage of Network Rail’s transformation, having already decentralised into nine devolved individual businesses.”

He added: “I am also determined to find ways for the private sector to directly invest in railway projects. As a government-owned business, this has some challenges but, by unlocking private finance, we can potentially deliver railway improvements that would otherwise not be possible.”

The full interview with Professor Peter Hansford will be published in the September issue of RailStaff while the Hansford Review can be found at www. thehansfordreview.co.uk.

Next month’s Rail Engineer will include an interview with Dr Francis Paonessa, managing director of Network Rail Infrastructure Projects, who will address some of the points raised by the Hansford Review.

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FEATURE

COLLIN CARR

Whitechapel

An Overground station going Underground

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

FEATURE

T

he clock is ticking as the biggest, and one of the most complex, railway engineering projects in Europe moves into its final stages. Eventually, even the name will change, from the project title of

Crossrail into the operational route’s Elizabeth line.

As the line’s new stations continue to emerge from below the ground, there is more and more visible evidence of this £14 billion scheme throughout the London

conurbation. Additionally, after months of testing on the Liverpool Street to Shenfield railway line, Transport for London introduced the first of the brand new Class 345 trains in June this year, equipped with Wi-Fi and a solid 4G connection.

However, if we thought that most of the challenging engineering was now behind us, we would be far from the truth and a recent visit to Whitechapel Station to meet Crossrail’s project manager Kevin Brown confirmed this.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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FEATURE Important interchange Whitechapel station is an important interchange for both the Hammersmith & City and District lines with London Overground. This site is proving to be one of the most challenging and congested, with the existing station’s protected Victorian facade, local community, school and The Royal London Hospital all closely snuggling up to the new station area.

Work started at Whitechapel back in December 2011, when three contracts were awarded for sinking shafts, digging tunnels and spraying concrete, for building a new underground station for Crossrail and for completely refurbishing the existing Overground and Underground stations.

The principal contractor for the main works at Whitechapel is BBMV, which is a joint venture encompassing Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall and Vinci Construction.

The concept design was developed

by Arcadis and BDP Architects, then consultant Baker Hicks worked alongside BBMV to develop detailed designs for use by the joint venture and its supply chain.

The planned completion date for all the work is the summer of 2018, when it will form part of the new route ready for final testing before going live in December 2018.

Elevated station concourse The design adopted includes the construction of a new Elizabeth line station that will weave between the existing transport services onto an elevated station concourse, which is designed to act as a bridge for passengers and the local community. The new station platforms will be 32 metres below ground.

Access to all interchange services will be from a spacious new ticket hall sitting on a bridge above the Victorian railway.

Entry to the station will be through the refurbished original entrance on Whitechapel Road but, in the interim, the existing station entrance has been closed and a temporary ticket hall and control centre constructed. To improve connectivity to the surrounding area, a new second entrance will be provided on Durward Street at the northern end of the concourse.

The new station concourse will rise from Whitechapel Road over the East-West Underground lines and above the NorthSouth Overground lines before dipping under the road bridge at Durward Street.

It continues along the course of the railway cutting where it then allows access to the new platforms.

The raised concourse structure will be supported by steel struts, resting partially on the brick retaining walls of the Overground cutting. The concept is for the concourse to appear to be floating in the space, allowing daylight to stream down on to the Overground platforms.

Environmental benefits The concourse will be covered by a ‘green roof’, topped with sedum plants, and will dip down under the new Durward Street bridge. The intention is that this design will also provide several other environmental benefits including improvements to air quality, noise and storm water attenuation, conservation and biodiversity. The natural light and fresh air from the station concourse will certainly help to create a calm, open, brightly-lit environment, an ambience that will be welcome in this busy congested part of the capital.

A new square at the northern side of the station will provide a public space with raised lawns and cycle parking. Three

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

FEATURE Arrival of the TBM

escalators and a lift shaft will give access to the Elizabeth line platform at the northern end. The existing Victorian station frontage on Whitechapel Road, built in 1867, will be refurbished. Also, there will be a widened stone-paved footway which will form a forecourt for the new ticket hall and concourse. A pedestrian crossing, providing safe passage to the Royal London Hospital, will be reinstated at this point.

Finally, to the west, Court Street, leading to a pedestrian bridge over the Underground tracks, will be made vehiclefree, with improved paving and lighting.

The Crossrail project as a whole is now 85 per cent complete. At the tightly constrained, busy, urban location of Whitechapel station, that figure is around 80 per cent.

escalator shafts, new station platforms and an open area to the west of the new platforms to accommodate a track crossover. As this work progressed, the new tunnel linings were reinforced and lined with sprayed concrete.

On the 4 April 2014, the 150-metre long, 1,000-tonne tunnel boring machine (TBM) Elizabeth, working from Limmo Peninsula in East London, broke into the huge space of the Westbound platform tunnel. It then travelled slowly through the 325 metres of the mined tunnel section to the west end, where it broke out through the sprayed concrete wall and carried on creating the 7.1-metre-diameter tunnels, working towards Liverpool Street. This was subsequently followed by a second TBM, Victoria, boring the eastbound tunnel.

By winter 2015, the first key milestone had been reached. The construction of Whitechapel’s temporary ticket hall and control centre was complete and they were handed over to London Underground.

This interim station is designed to re-route passengers out of the station, away from all the engineering works that could now take place in a safe environment with minimal disruption to the existing Underground and Overground services.

Two major shafts A significant amount of piling work has been carried out by BBMV, supported

by Bachy Soletanche and Balfour Beatty Ground Engineering. Alongside the piling work, two shafts have been constructed by an earlier contract under a BAM Nuttall/Kier JV. To the east of the site is the Cambridge Heath Shaft, which has been designed to accommodate a ticket hall connection although, at present, it is primarily for ventilation and emergency access.

The second is the Durward Street Shaft.

This is in the centre of the site and is designed to house the ventilation and railway systems, three escalator shafts and a lift shaft.

Alongside, a significant amount of tunnelling work has been carried out.

In total, Kevin Brown estimates that more than 1,000 metres of tunnel has been excavated to form cross passages,

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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FEATURE

This significant project milestone meant that all the technical systems involved in running the station complex could now be migrated from the original main station building while it is upgraded, to make way for the new concourse.

An uphill excavator The team had planned to excavate the escalator shaft tunnel at the same time as excavating the Durward Street shaft. There was a conflict of movement between the two activities which meant that, to avoid any delays, the diagonally poised tunnels had to be dug from the bottom to the top.

This was not an easy task, and it called for some inspirational engineering.

The solution was an ‘Uphill Excavator’, suspended from the roof of the tunnel (above). In this position, the excavator could travel up the designed gradient, scoop up the earth as it went and pass it back down underneath the machine to be carted away. The innovative idea worked, it kept the project on schedule and won an award for innovation.

Kevin pointed out the importance of teamwork and good relationships to the project’s success. Both London Underground and Overground teams work closely with the Crossrail project team. Kevin is clear that, without this approach, the project would be impossible to complete. In addition, one of the clear outcomes from this collaborative working is that there have been no unplanned delays to trains resulting from this work.

Silence during the exam It is a similar experience with the local community. Whilst school exams were in progress, noise and disruption were kept to a minimum and, in return, during the summer holidays, the team have been given access to the school area, providing invaluable additional storage space for materials and equipment and better access to the site.

The project has also provided employment opportunities, and many of the young engineers have impressed Kevin and the senior members of the team with their commitment and often-innovative thinking.

The emphasis on pre-fabricating structural units off-site to minimise construction time, as well as risk and hazards on site, is evident in the final stages of the work as the platforms start to take shape and the new station areas are equipped with escalators and lifts.

Safety record While work was underway in 2015, the team recorded one million working hours without a RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013) incident. This finally rose to pass 3.5 million working hours, an excellent achievement by anyone’s standards given that work is taking place

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

around the clock and in a 24hr cycle where there are about 800 workers on site in a very challenging environment.

It is estimated that more than 13 million passengers will use the Whitechapel Elizabeth line station each year and, at peak times, there will be 24 trains per hour stopping at Whitechapel in each direction.

Journey times to Heathrow will take about 40 minutes. The Victorian face of the station will be cleaned and unchanged.

With the remaining 20 per cent of the programme, which will see the fitting out of the new station and all that entails, well underway, a bright new Elizabeth line station with plenty of breathing space will be ready to address the demands of the twenty-first century travelling public from December 2018.

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

Derby 79 days at

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EAST MIDLANDS CONTROL CENTRE

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he £198 million project to remodel and re-signal the Derby station area is proceeding towards the construction phase. This will deliver a radical reconfiguration of the track layout in the Derby Station area, including London Road Junction, Derby North Junction, Derby LNW Junction and Derby St Mary’s Junction, and the provision of an additional through platform.

The project is being managed

by Network Rail’s Infrastructure Projects Signalling Northern (East Midlands) team under the leadership of project director Chris Hannah. Although run as a signalling renewals project, the Control Period 5 (CP5) funding is split approximately 1/3 renewals budget and 2/3 enhancement funding. The bulk of the work will be undertaken during a 79 days partial closure from 21 July to 8 October 2018 inclusive.

The project is currently at GRIP (Governance for Railway Investment Projects) Stage 5/6 with detailed designs being finalised and early construction taking place. GRIP 5-8 (detailed design to close-out) contracts have been awarded to Siemens for signalling, civils, E&P and control centre works, and to Galliford Try

for the new platform and adjustments to platforms 2/3 and 4/5. The latter is actually working for another division of Network Rail - Infrastructure Projects Central - which has the necessary expertise in this field. IP Signalling has a service level agreement in place with IP Central.

Derby station Opened in 1840, Derby soon became the hub of a network of routes in the East Midlands.

Capacity was increased by the addition of an island platform (2 and 3) in 1869, followed in 1881 by a further island - Platforms 4, 5 (bay) and 6 - creating the basis of the mechanically signalled track layout that continued through to the introduction of power signalling in 1969, when the layout was rationalised.

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A Meridian Class 222 heads south to St Pancras.

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

The station was busy while the goods lines, which bypassed the station and cut across London Road Junction, were buoyant with coal traffic passing from colliery to power station. A typical example was the Denby colliery to Willington power station working, characteristically hauled by a pair of Class 20s coupled bonnet to bonnet.

The passenger business was revitalised in the eighties and nineties by the introduction of High Speed Trains (HSTs) on the Midland main line, the creation of a new North East/ South West (NE/SW) route, and the use of high-frequency second-generation sprinter DMUs on local and regional services.

Passenger numbers have grown substantially in recent years with a much more frequent service on most

SUNNY HILL LOOPS

lines. In 1969, there were eight passenger movements per hour off peak across the junction at London Road.

By 2017, this had grown to eighteen, with the station used by 3,766,902 passengers.

On the debit side, the trip coal trains are no more, and freight consists mainly of through block trains on

the north-west axis through Derby which often pass non-stop through platforms 1, 2 or 3 without a crew change, thereby rendering the segregated 15mph goods lines underutilised and too slow for present traffic. Many regional trains run through on the south-west axis, reversing in Derby station.

The need for a new layout The 1969 layout is, to put it mildly, sub-optimal for today’s traffic, and there are other significant issues. There are no signal overlaps to the ‘starting’ signals. This was considered acceptable in 1969 due to the low 15 mph throat speeds at each end of the station but would not be appropriate

2017 LAYOUT

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

Derby PSB NX panel.

Closes on completion of project.

today as a TPWS Train Stop command is unlikely to stop a train passing a red signal before it reaches the point of conflict. Grafting compliant overlaps onto the existing layout would really stich up the station!

Another nail in the coffin for the existing layout is the inherent performance risk of critical assets where, for example, a track circuit failure along one of the diamond crossings could have a severe impact. The diamond crossings themselves require high maintenance.

With much of the equipment within Derby Power Signal Box (PSB) nearing life expiry, the opportunity has arisen to: »» Provide a layout in the Derby area that enables reduced journey times and improves performance by increasing line speed and segregating services through Derby Station in line with the government’s HLOS (high-level output statement); »» Remodel the station area to provide a compliant track and signalling layout; »» Deliver a simplified layout for future electrification; »» Renew all signalling and track infrastructure within the area that is nearly life expired.

Segregation of traffic flows Whilst the flexibility of the existing signalling system allows for two simultaneous passenger movements at London Road, this is no longer sufficient as there are a large number of conflicts at this junction.

For example, a train from St Pancras arriving at Platform 1 blocks moves to/from the west.

Furthermore, there is a blanket line speed limit of 15mph across all lines at the junction (also at the north end) which prolongs the time taken to free up routes for other trains. Consequently, time is wasted standing out at red signals awaiting a path into the platform.

The project team worked up eight options for a new layout. The Capability Analysis team, using Railsys software, analysed each layout to assess the potential journey time improvements that could be facilitated. The chosen option achieves an uplift in line speed to 40mph through Platforms 1

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

and 2 and 30mph on all other platform lines, the latter limit being constrained by sighting limitations. The lines are to be grouped to segregate flows in and out of Derby station generally as follows: »» Platforms 1 and 2: Cross country traffic on the N-W axis between Birmingham and Sheffield, including freight traffic which is predominantly on this line of route; »» Platforms 3 and 4: Local and regional services, many terminating or reversing at Derby; »» Platforms 5 and 6: St Pancras to Sheffield services.

The modelling undertaken demonstrates a much better flow of traffic overall, with six passenger train movements able to take place simultaneously at London Road Junction instead of the present two. However, as with any large through station with junctions at

each end, conflicts cannot be entirely eliminated. At L&NW Junction (near Peartree station), trains departing Platform 1 or 2 to the West will conflict with incoming services from Birmingham and Crewe crossing onto the Up Tamworth Slow heading for Platforms 3 or 4. Some careful timetabling and traffic regulation will be needed to avoid incoming services being brought to a stand at Peartree in the future. New timetables are required for December 2018.

Outline of the works »» Track and signalling renewals throughout the area; »» Control of the area from a new Derby workstation at the East Midlands Control Centre (EMCC); »» Construction of new Platform 6, along with alterations to the north and south ends of existing platforms; »» Removal of bay platform 5; »» Adjustments to: the entry/ exit of Etches Park depot and enhancements at Chaddesden sidings to facilitate empty coaching stock movements; »» Alterations to St Andrews head shunt to facilitate the Rolls Royce Aviation train

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS and stabling of yellow plant; »» Renewal of Spondon Level Crossing from MCB-CCTV (manually controlled barrier with CCTV) to MCB-OD (obstacle detection).

The project is not specifically aiming to increase capacity.

Nevertheless, the resultant overall improved flow of traffic and reduced journey times will have a positive benefit on performance throughout the resignalled area and beyond.

The coming of HS2 to the East Midlands will provide new journey opportunities and capacity.

Key stakeholders Extensive consultation with stakeholders has provided the opportunity for train services to be planned to match the available access, which will change as the work progresses.

East Midland Trains requires access throughout to Etches Park depot, although this will be blocked on Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2017 whilst the new island platform worksite is established. CrossCountry Trains and freight operators GB Railfreight, DB Cargo and Freightliner Heavy Haul were all consulted to obtain their views.

Loram UK (previously RVEL Rail Vehicle Engineering) specialises in engineering work on railway traction and rolling stock. Its workshops behind the Railway Technical Centre (RTC) will be in the middle of a work site and thus have limited rail access.

Bombardier’s Litchurch Lane rail access is also smack in middle of the London Road building site. The most destructive work is planned to take place during the factory’s fortnight holiday closure, equating to the second and third week of the 79 days.

Good planning will ensure that new deliveries of Crossrail trains can leave the works and Underground stock booked for service can get in.

London Road Junction now sees 18 train movements every hour.

The Rolls Royce aero engine manufacturing plant receives aviation fuel via the Sinfin branch, so plans are in place regarding fuel stock requirements.

Construction strategy During the no train period last Christmas, the opportunity was taken to construct new under-track crossings (UTXs) in readiness for S&T and power cables. This will replace the existing cable bridge across the tracks to the west at London Road.

Key works this coming Christmas include recovering track and signalling of the goods lines and pilot siding to create the footprint of the new platform. Galliford Try will then construct the new platform between the first week of January and June 2018. The non-operational side of the new island platform will be utilised during the 79-day partial closure as a temporary platform between days 9 and 44 for passenger services operating from Derby station.

During the 79 days, as much access as possible will be granted, although there will be a few wheels-free days. The broad plan is as follows: »» Days 1-9: Possession taken of Birmingham line, but North-South fully operational; »» Days 9-44: Work extended to include the South lines towards Trent; »» Days 44-79: Station becomes a temporary terminus from

South and West, no trains to the North whilst the remodelling and re-control takes place north of Derby; »» Day 79: Derby PSB closes and all lines open.

London Road Junction will be remodelled over the course of 14 days, working from Platform 1 side to Platform 6 side - all track west of London Road junction will have been relayed prior to the remodelling of the Junction.

The track will be scrapped out piecemeal in order that a haul road for engineering trains remains at all times.

So, the two-track approach into Platforms 1 and 2 will be scrapped out first and track relayed up to the tie-in point with the existing track in the platform area. This process will be repeated for Platforms 3 and 4, and finally the track into the existing Platform 6 is scrapped out and relayed into the new Platform 5 and also the new Platform 6.

This process will be facilitated by Galliford Try demolishing the southern ends of Platforms 2, 3, 4 and existing 6 to clear the footprint for the new track. The track and civils contractors will work in tandem to enable London Road junction to be transformed.

Hub and spoke The project is being managed under a ‘hub and spoke’ arrangement. Network Rail is at the hub, acting as principal contractor and facilitating project delivery

and management of the remodelling and resignalling.

The ‘spokes’ are: »» Siemens: Signalling, control centre, E&P, telecoms, civils design and build; »» Network Rail Signalling Design Group (SDG): signalling scheme plan design; »» S&C North Alliance (Network Rail and AmeySersa): Pway build; »» Jacobs: Pway design and station civils GRIP 4 (single option development) design »» Network Rail Infrastructure Projects Central: Station civils and M&E design and build through framework contractor Galliford Try; »» Babcock: Telecoms enabling works design and build.

Good collaboration is crucial to the success of the project, facilitated by the co-location of Network Rail, Siemens, Galliford Try, S&C North Alliance and IP Central project staff within the construction depot at Pride Park.

Signal and telecoms equipment An extensive Midland lines resignalling scheme was undertaken in 1969, providing three new PSBs (Power Signal Boxes) at Derby, Saltley, and Trent.

Derby PSB, the last remaining in service, was provided by Westinghouse (now Siemens Rail Automation).

Life extension work carried out over many years included replacing the Westpac

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

East Midlands Control Centre (EMCC). relay units with Howells’ equivalent, Westronic Time Division Multiplex (TDM) with a Vaughan Harmon product and, on the N-W axis, replacing the original Style 63 point machines with High Performance Switch Systems (HPSS) under the Cross Country Route Modernisation programme. Also, filament bulb signal heads have been progressively replaced with the latest LED heads by the maintenance unit.

The Signalling Condition Assessment tool (SICA) has confirmed that much of the external signalling is not life expired. Accordingly, the West lines from Derby, beyond the Sunny Hill loops, were re-controlled to a new Burton workstation within East Midlands Control Centre in 2015.

The remote interlockings at Duffield and Ambergate, to the north of Derby, will be re-controlled to the Derby workstation at EMCC during days 44-79 of the partial closure. The existing TDM systems in Duffield and Ambergate will be replaced with Westronic 1024 TDM’s linking to the new Westcad workstation.

In the resignalled area, the following equipment will be deployed: »» Frauscher: Digital axle counters utilising type

RSR123 wheel sensors; »» Cisco: IE2000 Ethernet switches and modems for the ring transmission circuits; »» Dorman: LED signals; »» Unipart: AWS, TPWS; »» SPX: In-bearer Clamplock point actuation systems with the new standard tubular adjustable stretcher bars; »» Progress Rail, Beeston: Switches and crossings; »» All-new 650V AC Power Supply Point (PSP) going north/west/south - double end-fed auto reconfigurable; »» Spondon MCB-CCTV: Completely replaced with an MCB-OD, together with a new road layout which will improve safety on the highway at this wide crossing.

Mid-platform signals will not be provided, but all platforms will be bi-directional with permissive routes available.

The existing four-aspect sequence from the South and West through Derby will be perpetuated and meshed into the existing three-aspect sequence north of Breadsall.

East Midlands Control Centre (EMCC) Now one of Network Rail’s Rail Operating Centres (ROC), EMCC has an increasing number of Siemens Controlguide Westcad workstations,

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

with Burton, Chesterfield, Erewash, Kettering, Leicester, Netherfield, Nottingham, Mansfield and Trent already in service, and Derby to be added next year. Automatic Route Setting (ARS) is expected to be added to the Derby workstation six to nine months later.

The existing Westpac interlockings at Breadsall, Derby, Spondon and Melbourne Junction will be replaced with three new Siemens Trackguard Westlock interlockings. Whilst these traditionally communicate with object controllers via trackside interfaces (TIF), this project will use the new Trackguard Westrace Trackside System (WTS), which uses a Front End Processor (FEP) in place of each TIF. The FEPs will appear as virtual Trackside Function Modules (TFMs) to the interlocking and therefore

the FEPs will be limited in size to replicate a traditional TIF boundary.

The FEPs will communicate with zone controllers using a secure Internet Protocol (IP) network utilising the Fixed Telecommunications Network (FTNx) and local optical fibre and copper Ethernet In addition a multi-service telecoms platform will be supplied by Keymile for general calls, and, of course, a GSM-R unit will be provided for communication with drivers.

With planning well underway, the project team will be well prepared for their 79 days at Derby in 2018.

Having personal involvement with the maintenance of Derby PSB in the 1970s, I’d like to thank former colleagues, and S&T staff past and present for keeping the systems in a safe and reliable condition for nearly fifty years.

Specific thanks for their help with this article to Chris Hannah, project director; Peter Luniw, senior project manager; Kerry Arrowsmith, project manager; Ian Burgess, engineering manager and Toby Higgins, media relations manager - all Network Rail. Thanks also to Chris Potts, Siemens project director, for his input and assistance.

EMCC Mansfield Westcad workstation. Derby Central West CIP Zone Controller configuration.

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

Formal Methods for SIGNALLING INTERLOCKINGS

PETE DUGGAN

B

ack in the day of mechanical signalling, it was comparatively simple to prove that signalling interlockings did what they were supposed to do. There were drawings to study and a finished mechanical system that could be tested. The interlockings themselves were fairly limited in their application, perhaps covering one junction or, at most, a series of junctions such as at a station throat, but it was all fairly comprehensible.

Then along came computer systems. Suddenly, the problem was immeasurably more complex. Every line of code could alter how the system worked and interlockings grew to control larger areas, introducing possibilities of more interactions. So how to check it? With teams of computer experts who were also signalling engineers, or signalling engineers who were also computer programmers, laboriously going through the program line by line?

A sensible and standardised approach was needed. So-called ‘Formal Methods’ are mathematical techniques used to specify, develop and verify computer programs and systems. They seemed like obvious candidates, but would have to be modified to work on safety-critical signalling systems.

Railway Industry Association Standard 23, (RIA 23) was developed back in the very early 1990s. ‘Formal Proof of Program’ was one of the selected techniques, labelled R for ‘recommended’ (as opposed to HR - ‘Highly Recommended’), for all (Safety Integrity Level) SIL 3 and SIL 4 systems. It was the forerunner to IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) standard SC65A, concerned with the functional safety of electrical/electronic/ programmable electronic systems (which would encompass safety-related software), and the BS EN 50128 standard - Railway applications, communication, signalling and processing systems, software for railway control and protection systems.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

The standard has evolved such that formal methods seen today recommend ‘R’ for SIL 1 and 2, and ‘HR’ for SIL 3 and 4. Clearly progress has been made with the standards.

However, there are many preconceptions on what ‘formal methods’ means. One of the more common definitions is ‘Using mathematically rigorous techniques and tools for the specification, design and verification of software and hardware systems’. In the early 1990s, few formal methods existed, with VDM (Vienna Development Method) and the use of Z-notation being two of the options available at the time.

There was good reason for the early standards to only ‘recommend’ formal methods, as they were very much in the early stages of evolution. Not only were they the preserve of academia, but also they were certainly not sufficiently mature to allow industry adoption.

Most such methods lacked support for automatic formal proof. It has been a long journey to bring them to the level of sophistication that is available today.

First foray In 2001, Siemens Rail Automation (which at that time was Invensys Rail) worked with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) - the distributor of products from Prover Technology in the UK - on formal proof of requirements against an interlocking. In those early days, the safety requirements (the signalling principles) were the preserve of experienced ‘Signalling Engineers’. Written requirements, as we understand and use them today, just did not exist at the time.

This was a major first hurdle. What were thought to be ‘clear requirements’ were, in fact, imprecise. The combination of a lack of understanding of the necessity for precise requirements and the toolset itself caused considerable challenges. The approach was not considered viable for commercial use at the time.

Second foray Several years later, as a result of a technology change with the Trackguard Westrace Mk I interlocking (configured by means of ladder logic) being replaced by the Mk II interlocking that is in use today, the capacity for configuration data increased ten-fold. With the higher potential for error as a result of increased data capacity, and the opportunity to apply the new technology onto Network Rail infrastructure through modular signalling, both templated design methods and formal methods approaches were investigated.

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

By this time, the understanding of the necessity for precise requirements had matured and, compared to the early days of the project, tool support had evolved considerably and established a long track record in railway signalling application.

Clearly, using a formal approach such as this requires a definition of both the safety strategy and the approach, to gain acceptance with the customer and, internally, with the design and test community.

By this time, the process had evolved from just using formal proof to also including the generation of the data, test of the data and sign-off verification - in other words, complete automation of the process from a data configuration perspective.

The architecture of the system comprises a suite of generic specifications, including the generic rules (design, test and safety), which have a 1:1 relationship with the ‘Signalling Rules’ for a specific infrastructure owner and are only specified once.

Prover’s Trident Process.

Prover Technology’s standard process for development and Validation & Verification (V&V) of interlocking system software, Prover Trident, is based on using a generic requirement specification library for a particular railway. This library is defined in the PiSPEC language and includes design, test and safety requirements.

Based on the library, the software tool suite Prover iLock™ provides configuration and automatic generation of interlocking data, including simulation and verification and all test cases and safety requirements for the particular location.

Prover Certifier™ is a sign-off verification tool developed in compliance with SIL 4, creating the safety evidence for the location, based on automated formal proof.

The revised process with replacement of principles testing of application data.

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS Once completed, the next step in the process is the specification of the specific installation, in other words the Scheme Plan. This is either entered in XML (extensible markup language) format, electronically via SDEF (standard data exchange format) as specified by Network Rail, or using other electronic formats, for instance RailML (European open data exchange format) Once these are in place, the other manual input to the process is defining the input/ output mapping that specifies the allocation of function names to mnemonics.

Results of the second foray Data for the Shrewsbury to Crewe (SYC) Modular Signalling project for Network Rail was prototyped as a single interlocking (today there are three interlockings). A number of iterations of the evolvement of the ‘Safety Requirements’ occurred between Siemens and Prover engineers (configurers of the toolset) but, in concept, the whole

process created the interlocking code, test cases, safety requirements and verified and simulated the application in less than 40 minutes once set up. This demonstrated not only the viability of the toolset, but also that any future changes to the layout or signalling principles could be easily changed and rerun in minutes.

Whilst the process of generation and test had been proven by the prototype SYC installation, clearly the safety argument for the tool use was significantly more of a challenge. The basic premise used for the auto-generation and auto-test of the configured data is for a suite of SIL 0 applications which, once complete, are presented to the existing Westrace Graphical Configuration System (GCS) toolset (in the same manner as would be used with templates). The application data is then subject to consistency checking, compilation, de-compilation and reverse checking, prior to input to Prover Certifier for sign-off verification.

Example safety reliance overview.

This process was subject to independent assessment by Professor John McDermid of the University of York, who concluded: “Siemens is to be commended for the strategy it has followed in introducing formal methods into its processes. Formal methods do offer benefits, but they are not a panacea and the approach adopted

by Siemens seems to be balanced and to have due attention to the need to demonstrate the integrity of tools on which the process relies, and also to acknowledge the important role of humans in the process.”

Third foray Subsequently, an opportunity arose to apply Prover Technology to an overseas metro contract. In essence, this encompassed the implementation of the sign-off verification (certification) process only, with the configuration data having already been generated and tested using conventional means. This required a slightly different approach, whilst the definition and review of the safety requirements remained one of the major activities.

The input of the geographical representation of the railway was a minor challenge (this project entered the geographical representation manually).

After the third iteration of conventional testing, the forth iteration was tested solely with the toolset.

Lessons learned The biggest problems faced on any project are imprecise, ambiguous or conflicting requirements. During development of the generic application, requirements need to be presented in natural language so they can easily be translated into the toolset code. This removes ambiguity and forces conflicting requirements to be expanded to a more explicit form so the conflict can be removed. As signalling engineers tend to talk in a language that software engineers don’t understand, this process can be harder than it sounds!

The safety requirements, themselves based upon two previously and successfully implemented projects, still contained some requirements that were imprecise, ambiguous or conflicting. While sufficient for conventional development that relies on principles testers’ knowledge, imprecise requirements raise exceptions when the toolset is run. So, preciseness of requirements is key to successful deployment.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS Having a baseline of design, safety and testing requirements for the generic application agreed at the start of the project helps avoid scope creep and minimises changes during the project lifecycle.

The downside to this reliance on the generic application is that getting a project off the ground is labour intensive.

Any missed safety requirements limit the scope of the safety verification.

With a tool-assisted process for development and V&V, much of the V&V and manual steps are automated.

This moves the focus to capturing the requirements - traditional V&V has used more ad-hoc verification of interlocking data, not requiring the same level of requirement capture. Therefore, the design, review and checking process of generic application specifications has to be extremely robust.

The tools for formal proof analyse the interlocking logic by only looking at the critical functions defined in the object model, determining whether safety requirements can be broken or not. This is a more economical way of data verification and avoids the complications caused by irrelevant warnings.

Principles testers have a habit of trying to test every contact in a ladder logic rung, resulting in lots of test logs which either question the design or state that they are unable to verify the design due to it being untestable. Using formal proof analysis, the logic can be scrutinised in greater detail, and each safety requirement can be determined to either hold or have a counter example. For example, there have been examples where safety requirements are not met for individual cycles, which is very hard to establish using traditional testing methods.

One of the issues was determining what additional testing evidence was required, over and above the level of verification that was automated by the Prover toolset.

This was essential to the process of developing the safety principles, and resulted in a further iteration of the toolset.

When the model was initially developed, the primary focus was on the ‘Signalling Principles’, the operation of the overall system and its verification wasn’t fully taken into account.

Overall, this foray has been successful, allowing for future modifications to be verified solely using Prover Certifier and replacing current principles testing for data.

Object models In parallel to the above, significant work has been undertaken capturing requirements contained within Network Rail’s Modular Signalling Handbook. As previously noted, missing, ambiguous or implied (badly specified) signalling requirements will lead to incomplete specification and thus incomplete proof.

So, the importance of requirements capture cannot be emphasised strongly enough.

This led to a comprehensive trawl of, not only the UK Modular Signalling Handbook, but also other existing standards within the Network Rail portfolio (there is significant fragmentation on this subject, and many different documents), to produce a comprehensive object model - one which splits basic interlocking functionality into ‘objects’.

The object model is a central part of the generic application, used within the generic safety specification, generic design specification and generic test specification. Apart from the objects themselves, the object model defines attributes of each object and the relationships to other objects within the model.

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS Example relationships and multiplicity of an auto signal.

The diagram shows an object model - a representation of the characteristics of an auto signal and its relationship and multiplicity with signalling objects.

The properties (relationships, static and dynamic attributes) of abstract objects are inherited by their offspring objects, with generic properties defined at the highest possible level in the inheritance tree to avoid repetition.

Adding the definition of the inputs, outputs, dynamic and static attributes (name, control bits and function), the model of the auto signal becomes complete. With all objects modelled, the overall object model can be used to define the design and safety properties for all modular signalling applications.

This was clearly a complex and timeconsuming task, with traceability to the existing standards in place and formal review with signalling experts, but did give high confidence of completeness and correctness.

The next task is the derivation of the safety requirements which, based on the natural language requirements and the object model, are defined in terms of the object model to become the ‘formal’ generic safety specification. In combination with the generic design specification, the document that defines the ‘design’ rules, and the generic test specification, the document that defines the ‘test’ rules, these form the ‘Generic’ suite of ‘Requirements’ that input into the toolset.

Prover Certifier is now being implemented in parallel to the traditional well-tried and tested method of creation and test of a specific modular interlocking to be commissioned in the UK. The next step - Generic Use for Modular Signalling?

- there were clear business benefits in introducing automated development with Prover iLock, based on a generic application defining signalling principles.

There are several other examples where such full automation processes are in use in Europe, including at Stockholm Metro.

International implementation A number of railway infrastructure managers (IMs) today have contract requirements that mandate the use of formal proof for safety verification, prior to commissioning of interlocking and CBTC systems. Examples include Trafikverket in Sweden, RATP on Paris Metro, New York City Transit and Stockholm Metro.

There is reason to believe that many other IMs will follow suit as they increasingly demand reduced engineering effort and duration for system delivery - the use of automation tools and sign-off verification of IM requirements are key ingredients to be able to meet this demand.

From a technology point of view, the obstacles are few, if any. The major challenge lies with people and mind-sets.

One way to approach this is by the gradual introduction of new tools and processes in production projects, gaining the trust of and educating the signalling engineering experts and IMs involved.

For some, it may be just as well to skip the gradual introduction and directly replace existing processes with automated development and sign-off verification. This is the approach taken by the Class 1 freight railroad Canadian Pacific in North America

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

Assured future It is clear that the ‘Formal Methods’ seen in the early 1990s have evolved significantly. Formal proof as a means to verify safety has matured to the point that it can be applied for any railway interlocking system. Proof of safety can also be used within automated development processes for railway interlockings.

Siemens has worked in partnership with Prover Technology to demonstrate the worth of these tools in terms of feasibility on both UK infrastructure (generation and test of configuration data on ShrewsburyCrewe in 40 minutes) and non-UK infrastructure (formal proof only).

There remain many hearts and minds to win over and the journey requires a considerable change in behaviours within the signalling industry. It is more than a concept, there are other signalling suppliers taking this approach, and there are other providers of Formal Methods toolsets on the market, but the tools and processes are here to stay.

Pete Duggan is chief engineer at Siemens Rail Automation.

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

Green Trough Polymer cable-troughing system

T

he traditional method of cable routing is by using ground-level concrete troughs which are heavy to carry and difficult to install without the aid of lifting equipment. Prone to cracking and spalling, which over time will lead to their failure, concrete troughs can’t be easily modified at a later date to accommodate cable entry or exit points.

Other materials have been tried, including wood, asbestos and plastic.

All of these were expensive to install.

Wood quickly rotted while asbestos was fragile and still presents an expensive maintenance problem for asset managers with its associated safety hazards. Some plastic and polymer-based products suffer from expansion and contraction problems, buckling lids, collapsing lids from ballast compression on the sidewalls. They also burn when ignited or float in water. All of them fail to provide adequate cable protection.

Recognising back in 2002 that cable containment and protection is an essential part of communication, control and power networks across a diverse range of civil infrastructure projects including rail, highways, power and water, the Furukawa Electric Company (Thomson Reuters Top 100 Global Innovators 2013, 2014) began testing a new type of trough manufactured from a 100 per cent recycled polymer.

Their objective was to design and manufacture the world’s first complete polymer cable troughing system. Capable of being deployed rapidly and installed safely by one person without the need for lifting equipment, Green Trough was born.

Made from a 100 per cent recycled polymer, Green Trough is a versatile, environmentally friendly and durable product, designed to carry power and communications cabling anywhere horizontally, vertically, at an angle, around an obstruction, along a wall, as a walkway, or even in an elevated position. Units have built-in anti-vandal and anti-theft features with lockable lids to help deter cable theft.

Rapid deployment.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

As a proven system, it is installed throughout Japan’s railway networks — including the Tokaido Shinkansen, which carries the record-breaking Bullet train.

Launched in 2005, following a period of intensive R&D, the complete polymer cable-troughing system is now installed on major global infrastructure projects and was winner of the Best New Electrification Product at the Infrarail and CITE Awards in 2014.

Offering a diverse range of components, the system includes straights, curves, junctions and gradients, all available in a range of sizes comparable with concrete, but with greater internal capacities.

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS TTS has built-up an unrivalled wealth of expertise in the rail industry over the years and provides off-the-shelf and bespoke polymer troughing solutions. Its configuration team works with organisations, designing tailored solutions for specific project challenges and assisting in product configuration to find the most cost-effective outcome. A unique range of accessories offer more scope for customisation on-site.

A recent configuration project for Balfour Beatty was to install large TTS 430 series troughs on the London Bridge station approach viaduct, part of the Thameslink Programme - Key Output 2. This complex project involved a suspended trough route on both the top and the outside of the viaduct walls, navigating many fixed obstructions and safety recesses along the route. Balfour Beatty designers worked closely with the TTS configuration team to develop the optimum route, keeping the bespoke units to a minimum.

Following the most recent audit, TTS has been awarded the latest ISO9001:2015 Quality Management System standard certified by BSI, demonstrating a continuing commitment to the highest levels of quality management and customer satisfaction.

Green Trough Walkway Green Trough installed around an obstruction.

Key Benefits Connecting the units is simple and any combination of troughs is possible. With a male and female connector moulded at the end of each duct, no joint grouting is required. Pan and tilting flexibility in the joints also means a bending angle of 2° to 5° can be achieved, enabling the route to form a natural minimum radius of 13 to 15 metres. This flexibility makes laying the units on uneven surfaces much easier and they can effectively be installed into various ground types, including ballast, soil (or a combination) and as a free-standing cable-troughing route. Green Trough can also interface with other troughing systems.

Made from a 100 per cent recycled polymer, the system complies with HSE manual handling requirements and was awarded a green rating on Network Rail’s Manual Handling Assessment Chart (MAC). Weight savings of up to 83 per cent mean that Green Trough significantly reduces transport and on-site handling costs.

Troughing units are easy-to-cut with hand tools, without creating smoke or dust. A range of accessories is available, to allow cabling to branch off or interface with existing concrete routes.

The polymer’s thermal coefficient of expansion has been determined and used to design a sacrificial ‘pip’ that is moulded into the connection at the female end of the unit. In extreme temperatures, these ‘pips’ absorb any expansion that might occur without distorting the trough route, so preventing buckling.

If enhanced capacity is required for future proofing with extra cables as part of any upgrade at a later date, Green Trough offers much more internal capacity and design options than many other troughing products.

The whole life costs of installing Green Trough are very favourable, with an expected lifespan of over 50 years.

Working in conjunction with Network Rail, TTS has designed the Green Trough Walkway system (pictured below). Having recently gained product acceptance, its hard wearing, non-slip and safe surface is ideal for troughing routes where a low-tozero maintenance walkway is required, often found near depots, stations and signalboxes.

The product was recently installed at a key work section of the Crossrail Anglia project, prompting a Costain section engineer to comment: “The TTS Green Trough Walkway was selected as the ideal product to resolve issues which can be found at many infrastructure sites due to the heavily congested nature of ageing assets. One of the greatest benefits of Green Trough is the flexibility it provides from construction to operation. Light to transport and install, versatile to fit around existing infrastructure; the safe and solid walking route provides a robust and resilient solution.”

Delivering value Green Trough is rapidly becoming the product of choice where versatility and speed of installation is paramount. It offers installers a truly customisable solution and is available from TTS Rail, a leading supplier of polymer cable troughing to Network Rail and UK rail infrastructure companies.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

An elevated installation.

Consisting of two TTS 300 series units (the equivalent of two C/1/29 concrete troughs) joined together in parallel pairs with steel straps to ensure stability, individual access and integrity of the lids, this durable, combined walkway and troughing route is easily assembled by a two-man team and offers significant onsite benefits compared to other systems: »» Non-slip, 780mm-wide walkway surface; »» Zero-static build-up for pedestrians; »» UV resistant; »» 105,000mm2 internal capacity; »» Easy access without lids buckling or becoming dislodged and unstable.

Elevated System Network Rail had a requirement for an elevated system specifically designed to provide above-ground level cable management. TTS designed a simple, but effective, supporting mechanism that can carry multiple independent cablecontainment trough routes.

Galvanised steel posts, concreted into the ground at two metre intervals, support ladders and horizontal bends bolted to brackets suspended from the posts.

One-metre Green Trough units sit in the ladders connected to each other, forming a continuous run. Developed for use with

three of the Green Trough series; TTS 90, TTS 150 and TTS 200, the system is simple to install and can carry one, or up to four, cable-troughing routes.

Fast, Flexible and Efficient Green Trough has proven its capabilities for quicker installation, faster maintenance and improved worker safety over the years in the Rail industry. It is now used across a growing range of market sectors where cable containment and protection is an essential part of the infrastructure.

Recent site applications of Green Trough have included a water treatment works for United Utilities, Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing, solar farms, Celtic Park football stadium and highways power and comms to name but a few.

Green Trough installed at a wastewater treatment works.

Keeping things simple while helping customers solve their troughing problems, Green Trough is delivered in kit form on a pallet, with all the units needed to complete the job.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

W O N E AY B L W LA LK I A VA W A

POLYMER C ABLE TROUGHING SYSTEMS

TTS GREEN TROUGH WALKWAY SYSTEM NOW WITH NETWORK RAIL PRODUCT ACCEPTANCE The TTS Green Trough Walkway system provides a hard wearing, non-slip and safe surface for troughing routes where a low to zero maintenance walkway is required.

Easily assembled by a two-man team, the durable TTS Green Trough Walkway system offers significant on-site benefits compared to other walkway systems: • Non-slip, 780mm wide walkway surface • Zero-static, UV resistant, thermal expansion and flame retardant properties built-in • 105,000mm2 internal capacity • Easy access without lids buckling or becoming dislodged and unstable • Manufactured from a 100% recycled polymer • Conforms to HSE manual handling guidelines • Substantially reduces transport and on-site handling costs The walkway is comprised of two TTS 300 series units (the

equivalent of two C/1/29 concrete troughs) joined together in parallel pairs with steel straps to ensure the stability, individual access and integrity of the lids. Various accessories are available to allow cabling to branch off, or interface with existing routes.

Recently installed at a key work section of the Crossrail Anglia project, a Costain Section Engineer said: “ The TTS Green Trough Walkway was selected as the ideal product to resolve issues which can be found at many infrastructure sites due to the heavily congested nature of ageing assets. One of the greatest benefits of TTS Green Trough is the flexibility it provides from construction to operation. Light to transport and install, versatile to fit around existing infrastructure; the safe and solid walking route provides a robust and resilient solution.”

Whatever your walkway and troughing requirements, the TTS Green Trough team can help you find the ideal solution.

For more information about the TTS Green Trough Walkway system, call our sales team on 01302 343 633, or email info@ttsrail.co.uk Alternatively visit our website www.ttsrail.co.uk

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

a

C MPASS CLIVE KESSELL

Update

N

o, not a new way of finding where you are going, but a review of the Network Rail and RSSB joint project to find a way of getting the railway operational

again, should a significant signalling failure occur.

With Network Rail’s infrastructure being required to provide ever-more capacity in terms of number of trains run, the impact of signalling failures can be very significant. Trains queue up, one behind the other, whilst someone is sent out to site to rectify the problem or arrange for hand signallers to be put in place, maybe also securing the points.

Mitigating this problem formed the main element of the initial COMPASS project, which has now been termed the Degraded Mode Working System (DMWS). COMPASS DMWS is a project aimed at reducing the time to get trains moving again and was first reported in issue 113 (July 2015). Since then, a greater degree of realism has entered the thinking and a meeting with Chris Fulford, the project’s lead engineer, revealed the present progress.

Project objectives In simple terms, the project will design and develop a system whereby, in the event of a signalling problem, an instruction can be given to a train driver that it is safe to proceed beyond the failure locality to a distant position determined by the signaller. In effect, this is an electronic version of the setting up of present-day Temporary Block Working (TBW), with its associated paperbased instruction giving authority to pass signals at danger. The project will be applicable to both conventionally signalled railways and lines equipped with ERTMS/ETCS. It is not currently part of the Digital Railway initiative, since the technology solution is at an early stage of development.

At this stage, the failure situations are likely to include loss of signalling power supplies, loss of indication at the signalling centre, multiple track circuit/axle counter failures, lineside cable damage

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

and theft. DMWS will initiate checks to ascertain that nothing untoward exists that would prevent a train from proceeding safely.

To achieve this, DMWS must know the accurate position of the train, which track it is on and the intended route it is to take, plus the whereabouts of other trains in the vicinity. DMWS must also know the status of critical infrastructure, such as the lie of the points and whether they are locked in position, or whether the level crossing booms are up or down and road lights are working.

Once these facts are proven, then the signaller can give the driver an instruction (this could be sent within an encrypted SMS text message acting as a data packet) to proceed to the specified distant position. This will be known as an ‘Authority to Move’ (ATM), so as to avoid confusion with a Movement Authority (MA) as used in ERTMS/ETCS train control.

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS Satellite System). The new generation of train radio will have a GPS input, and thus the feed for this will be readily available. It is, however, the intention that the train and freight operators will be free to choose whatever equipment suits their own fleets.

Whilst DMWS is seen as a natural addition to the operational management systems within the new Railway Operating Centres (ROC), there is no reason why it cannot be deployed in any IECC (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) or power signalbox. Indeed, if the expected advantages are to be realised, the pressure will be to deploy it as widely as possible.

Progress to date

Track plan of Didcot shows the path of a Class 180 DMU working in degraded mode.

Technical requirements The means of locally and independently assuring the precise state of a set of points or a level crossing will be achieved by having a COTS (commercial off the shelf) PLC (programmable logic controller) linked to sensors that indicate the points or level crossing status. The PLC will connect to the central system using the GSM-R network radio, fitted with an appropriate SIM card, linked to modems located in the DMWS ground equipment.

The radio will be interrogated by the DMWS central system with a separate control screen being provided at the signaller’s work station, which will normally be switched off and only activated when required.

Initially, the PLC will be programmed only to inform on the current position of the ground equipment, but more adventurous commands are foreseen once the system is proven. The PLC will constantly receive points and level crossing status information, not just when a failure condition occurs. It is possible that the GSM-R system might also have failed, for instance if a cable has been cut that feeds the nearest base station, and, to guard against this, the radio unit will comprise a public mobile receiver as a secondary unit, with the combined unit being a dual-band receiver.

So much for the trackside and control centre units, but what will be needed for the train-borne kit?

A means of communicating the ATM instruction to the driver has to be available. This can either be a free-standing unit in the cab or, more likely, the COMPASS DMWS facility could be built into existing systems such as the train borne DAS (Driver Advisory System) unit or perhaps the next generation GSM-R voice radio. The latter will have considerable computing power and a Rail Engineer article in issue 129 (March 2014) described the additional uses that might exist in the new generation of train mobiles, including facilitating DAS information on its screen.

DMWS will need train position to be reported to the signaller on a near-constant basis and this implies the use of GNSS (Global Navigation

The 2015 intention to pursue a trial on the ECML did not materialise, beyond fitting some test infrastructure monitoring equipment to the three nominated locations between Doncaster and Peterborough.

A more pragmatic way forward is now progressing, with a three-part R&D programme.

Part 1 consisted of an invitation to 13 companies, issued in early 2015, to bid for producing a feasibility study on how a DMWS system could be progressed.

Five of the 13 companies were awarded a contract in September 2015 and invited to submit a further bid for Part 2, entailing production of a laboratory-based simulator to demonstrate how a DMWS would operate in practice, including the integration of the various sub-systems.

From the feasibility studies and proposals received in Part 1, and after the relative merits of the responses had been assessed, two companies - Thales and Altran proceeded to build a simulator, Altran in Bath, Thales in Cheadle Hulme, the work taking place between March and December 2016.

Additional studies were included in the work packages, such as RAM (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability), safety and security, and human factors implications. Both companies were also required to submit a proposal for Part 3 - the building of a functional DMWS demonstrator.

The two simulations, together with their associated deliverables and the proposals for Part 3 were duly assessed, with Altran being awarded a contract extension for Part 3 in February 2017.

This will involve provision of a real demonstration on the Hertford Loop test track. The line is double track, but the infrequent train service allows one of the lines to be used outside of peak hours for testing purposes and it is where the ETCS integration / interoperability tests have taken place. The single line has no points or level crossings but these will be artificially inserted into the test section using the real points and level crossings that exist in the Network Rail Walsall training centre (left) - it’s amazing what can be done with Network Rail’s in house broadband transmission links!

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

The test train used for the ETCS work (a Class 313 EMU) will be fitted with the train-borne DMWS equipment, including the necessary GPS satellite tracking picture and ‘distance to go’ count down.

The signaller’s control panel will be fitted in one of the test control rooms for the line, located at the Hitchin ERTMS National Integration Facility (ENIF).

GPS co-ordinates for the relevant track geography (such as signal locations) will be provided by translating video images that already exist of the railway using the Systems Data Exchange Format (SDEF), thus enabling the infrastructure information to be linked to the GPS location.

A two-week trial slot is allocated for January 2018.

During the test period, the train driver will not be expected to directly take part in the trial as this may cause confusion with other test programmes.

The DMWS ATM instructions will be monitored by Altran test engineers, who will instruct the driver accordingly.

Altran will have the responsibility for proving that the combination of GPS positioning, points-lie information and historic berth occupancy is capable of determining which track the train is on. It is hoped that the on board requirements can be largely incorporated into the new Siemens GSM-R voice radio which will have 4G and WiFi capability as well as GPS positioning and a modem, thus being able to switch from GSM-R to other radio modes.

Safety implications Since the Hertford Loop site already has a safety case as a test track, the demonstration work can be carried out without any new safety requirements needing to be specified. No trackside infrastructure needs to be fitted, as this will exist in the safe environment of Walsall training school.

DMWS will need to effectively disconnect the point machine or barrier mechanism from the interlocking, as to initiate commands from two sources during the period of disruption could be confusing and compromise safety. DMWS may also suppress any TPWS operation within the failed area so that trains will not have to stop for the driver to manually isolate the on-board TPWS equipment.

Following this, an operational trial should take place on a chosen piece of railway, which will then need a separate safety case to be produced.

However, since DMWS is essentially an electronic version of the long-established manual means of setting up temporary block working, it is anticipated that the safety procedures used for the latter can be the basis of the DMWS intentions.

Ongoing vision There can be little doubt that, if successful, COMPASS DMWS will become an important tool to get trains moving again more quickly when degraded operation is necessary. With the ability to assign the length of the DMWS block section, and with the train’s movement regularly updated, it

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

will give the signaller much greater control than the manual ‘man on site’ situation existing currently.

It must be emphasised that the system is only an aid to operation, recognising that the signaller and driver remain in control. DMWS is essentially a way of enhancing the communication protocol in getting an instruction to move a train from point A to point B. Once the system is proven in operation, the ongoing vision extends to using DMWS to initiate an instruction that would move a set of points for the intended route and for level crossing activation to commence. Indeed, the level crossing sequence at Walsall has already been activated by a similar type of remote command, as have points at Doncaster training school. However, that is for the future, and it is very much one step at a time for now.

The immediate ongoing work will be to complete the practical demonstration, produce a business case and the writing of a procurement specification for an operational trial. All these will need to embrace the use of COTS equipment as the justification for proceeding will need to minimise the amount of financial outlay required.

The total number of DMWS trackside units to be procured could be considerable as one unit is only expected to monitor one or two sets of points or one level-crossing site. An analysis carried out at Didcot showed that up to 36 units would be needed to cover all the various junctions.

DMWS deployment will need to link into the railway’s business performance model and will be prioritised to the most vulnerable inter-city and major city suburban routes.

Rail Engineer will continue to monitor the development of this fascinating project and will report progress from time to time.

Thanks to Chris Fulford of Network Rail for his knowledge and explanation of the system.

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

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Sustainability S us sttainability S ummit Summit Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

JON ANDREWS

Elegance with practicality Bespoke signalling structures

T

he Northern Hub programme and electrification scheme will provide an upgraded rail network in the north of England, particularly in the Manchester area, to provide better connectivity, faster journey times and improved capacity.

The new track layout, which will allow up to 700 more trains to run each day through central Manchester, will primarily be on masonry viaducts and the new Ordsall Chord railway elevated viaduct, which links together Manchester’s Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Manchester Victoria stations.

Lundy Projects was subcontracted by Northern Hub Alliance member Skanska/BAM to design, fabricate and install signal gantry structures, bespoke OLE (overhead line equipment) structures and associated foundations.

Having installed its first structure for the project (signal gantry MC466) during the 2014 Christmas blockade, Lundy has commissioned 14 further signal gantries since then.

Gantry mounting The structures are predominantly sited on Victorian elevated masonry viaducts, which has inherent design and construction constraints. To achieve the

end user requirements and to successfully install the structures within a restrictive environment, a variety of substructure and superstructure solutions were required.

Where gauging prohibited the gantry legs to be positioned within the parapet walls of the viaduct, the structures were designed so that the legs would be outboard of the arch piers, mounted on fully welded steel bracket assemblies which were mechanically fixed to the masonry viaduct piers with using a drilled Cintec anchor system and cementitious grout.

The piers were core drilled with an oversized hole and an anchor tendon, formed of a stainless steel threaded bar and

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

for the Ordsall Chord

an encapsulating fabric sock, which was then inserted into the cored void. Cementitious grout was mixed and injected, under low pressure, through veins to the base of the sock, so filling the void.

Once cured, the anchor was then pull-tested to ensure the design strength had been reached.

Fixing a gantry to preinstalled brackets on a masonry viaduct.

A completed signal gantry.

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS One of Lundy’s Colmar T10000FS excavators installing a CHS pile.

A signal gantry nears completion.

The stainless-steel bars projected from the wall face, so that the steel mounting bracket could be attached. As the brackets were fixed above quoin level, this design omitted street level foundations, securing the railway from trespass and resultant vandalism.

Project manager Tony Boyle stated: “The works required the fabrication and installation of OLE portals, TTCs (two-track cantilevers) and piles.

With only a short lead-in time of two weeks, and installation to be carried out over five 30-hour blockades, both the fabrication and installation teams, including our client Skanska/BAM, had to work in complete unison to deliver the project.”

The steel CHS (circular hollow section) vibro-driven piles were fabricated in Lundy’s robotic facility, which allowed a quick turnaround and mobilisation of site crews within two weeks.

As the REFOS (Rail Edge to Face of Structure) dimensions at some locations resulted in the reach being too great to install the piles from a rail machine, so an off-track piling solution was needed.

Skanska/BAM constructed a new haul road and piling mat to allow Lundy to bring in a 35-tonne tracked machine to install the piling and mast in one possession.

The on-track piling was then undertaken with Lundy’s own T10000 Colmars, each fitted with a Movax and BSP hammer attachment to allow the CHS steel piles to be vibro-driven to design total depth. A long-reach Colmar was then used to install the masts.

Once the as-built dimensions had been taken from the piling, this information was immediately relayed back to the fabrication works, allowing the booms to be finalised, galvanised and delivered within a week. Tony Boyle commented: “This close working collaborative relationship forged between Lundy, Skanska/BAM and the client effectively reduced the number of possessions and programme duration from what would otherwise normally be required.”

Architectural harmonisation Due to the architectural importance of Manchester’s viaducts as they run through the city centre, positioning a visually exposed signal gantry in the heart of this infrastructure required an ‘out of the box’ approach. Signal gantry MC665 is sited on the newly installed Trinity Way steel bridge, part of the new Ordsall Chord track and elevated viaduct, so, although the design had to meet all signal sighting,

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

OLE electrical clearances and gauging requirements, aesthetics was still a major concern.

Signal gantry MC665 is a twotrack portal, with three signal dropper cages serving the Up/ Down Ordsall Chords in both directions. The route is AC electrified, so the signal dropper cages had to be coordinated around pantograph envelopes while the entire structure needed OLE mesh and solid screens for protection. Fortunately, being sited on a newly designed steel bridge, gauging was not a concern, which allowed the unconventional structure design to work.

MC665 structure was to be harmonised with its surroundings.

Working to the architect’s vision, Skanska/BAM and Lundy Projects supplied a bespoke solution.

Unfortunately, from the architect’s perspective, the colour scheme had to remain Network Rail standard black for the boom and signal cages and grey for the legs. However, providing that the structure’s shape and signal position conformed to the standard gauging and sighting requirements, the project was free to change the actual shape. This is where the trapezoidal prism gantry was born!

The gantry’s primary steelwork was fabricated entirely from steel plate, welded together to form

the boom cord sections. The legs were again formed from steel plate, shaped as an inclined A-frame, but, significantly, they were designed to be streamlined, without any of the diagonal bracing which is normally used to provide rigidity.

The column shafts were inclined in both cross track and along track directions, forming a trapezoidal prism gantry. The column shafts were also cranked at the base - as they were unseen from the street below, they returned to vertical, which allowed a perpendicular baseplate connection to the bridge deck.

The fabrication was undertaken in one of Lundy’s two fabrication facilities, using the latest software technology and machines to produce the quality needed on such an aesthetically demanding structure. Special jigs and templates were designed to accommodate the different axial directions of the individual plates forming the column and boom section profiles, ensuring they were welded within the tight fabrication tolerances.

To maintain the sight lines of the legs being continued to the boom floor level, each column was spliced below the boom level, with an end-plated connection. This resulted in the ‘join’ being hidden, maintaining the continuity of the leg profile. The leg sections above

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

the splice continued to the top of the boom level and the boom shafts were fully welded between the inside faces of the columns.

The boom sections, which were fabricated from steel plate, were designed with a flange on one edge. The cable trays were fixed to the lip of the flanges which allowed them to be fully accessible but still be hidden from view from below.

To follow the lines of the leg members and the trapezoid shape, the walkway containment handrailing and OLE mesh panels were also set to the same incline as the legs, resulting in a truly bespoke structure that fits in with the design of the new viaduct and also with its historical location in Manchester city centre.

Signal Gantry MC665.

The boom for signal gantry MC665 before installation.

“Excellence in Engineering”

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

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Train antennas PAUL DARLINGTON

T

he rail industry requirement and desire to achieve an on-board ‘connected’ environment, for both customer and operational purposes, has resulted in the need for the installation of a wide variety of transmitting and receiving antennas on the rooftop of trains. The physical size constraints of the rooftop mean that the antennas often need to be installed in close proximity to each other, which has the potential to give rise to technical conflicts, particularly interaction and interference issues between the different radio communications systems.

These conflicts have the potential to limit the performance of the radio systems - of particular concern with safety and performance-related communications. Many problems with rail radio systems around the world have been identified to poor train antenna design and deployment.

With the introduction of internet connectivity for passenger Wi-Fi and operational purposes, together with wireless connections for train signalling and satellite positioning, the train antenna is becoming increasingly important and train to ground connectivity will be at the heart of digital rail. 5G radio will probably use

both lower and higher frequencies than traditional radio systems. Methods of delivering higher data rates for customer internet use will also be required. All this makes efficient roof-top antennas a very important train body requirement, one that is important for the rail industry to get right.

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What is an antenna?

Electromagnetic (or radio) waves are waves of energy that travel through the air at the speed of light. A radio wave can be visualised as a sine wave and the distance it travels to complete one cycle is known as the wavelength of the signal. A 2.4 GHz signal will travel 12.5cm every cycle.

Basically, the magnetic field that the transmitting antenna radiates produces an electric current on any metal surface that it strikes. In a receiving antenna, the applied electromagnetic field is distributed throughout the entire length of the antenna to receive the signal. If the metal that the wave strikes has a certain length relation to the wavelength, the induced current is much stronger.

Hence antennas can be ‘tuned’ for the frequency they are required to transmit or receive.

Normally, a radio works on multiple frequencies. For example, the 2.4 GHz band, used by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices, has a range of 2,400-2,483MHz. In this band, many channels are used

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

with a frequency-hopping technique, with typically 1MHz between each channel. This means that the antenna has to perform well over a range of frequencies.

Any train rooftop obstruction will ‘block’ the propagation of the signal transmitted or received by the antenna. This results in the signal being reduced and also increases the variability of the signal. Given that a trackside base station may be several kilometres from the train, the signal arrives at the train at a low angle of elevation above the horizontal. Therefore, any obstruction on top of the train impacts on the level of signal. In this situation, the signal relies on diffraction for it to be communicated.

Train antennas need to be certified in accordance with EN50155.

This is an international standard covering electronic equipment used on rolling stock for railway applications. The standard includes temperature, humidity, shock, vibration, and other parameters. A train antenna will be typically 40mm to 80mm in height and allow the mutual use of different communication systems, which for example can include; 2m-Band, 70cmBand/trunked radio/TETRA/UIC, GSM-R, GSM 1800, UMTS, LTE, 2x2 LTE MIMO, 4x4 LTE MIMO, Wi-Fi 2.4, Wi-Fi 5.8 and a Global Navigation Satellite System receiver, all via a single antenna!

Antennas on trains The ideal position for an external antenna on a train is for it to be as high as possible, although this is likely to be constrained by gauge limitations. Some train classes have almost no space between the envelope of the train and the maximum permitted gauge, although antennas have been specially designed for this situation.

Mounting antennas underneath non-metallic train roofs can be used to resolve the gauge limitation issue. This was incorporated into the antenna systems design for the Class 390, where some antennas are visible on the roof and others are hidden under a non-metallic fairing. The obstructions on the train roofs provide a wide range of challenges to the siting of train antennas; ranging from simple to complex.

A gently curving, uncluttered shape will permit good omni-directional coverage from an antenna placed almost anywhere on or near the centre-line of the roof. Such a simple roof type allows good coverage at low angles in the direction of the front and back of the train for railway-specific communication systems where the base stations are likely to be positioned alongside the track.

The fitting of air-conditioning units can result in significant obstructions being present on the rooftop.

Mounting an antenna near to these obstructions should be avoided, as considerable degradation of performance can be expected, particularly if the height of the units is significantly greater than the height of the antennas.

It is not always practical to elevate the antenna such that it is higher than other rooftop items, however the further an obstruction is from the antenna, the higher the obstruction can be before there is a noticeable impact on the signal level.

The tops of air-conditioning units on the Class 390 are about 300mm above roof-level and are typical of train rooftop obstructions in that they block the view from the antenna along the track, both forward and backwards. Any signal that is received via an antenna in the ‘well’ between the air-conditioning units comes predominantly from a signal that is diffracted over the edge of the air-conditioning unit or reflected from objects in the vicinity of the train.

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SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

Jargon Buster FSO: Free-space optical communication - an optical communication technology.

GSM-R: Global System for Mobile CommunicationsRailway or GSM-Railway.

LAN: Local Area Network.

LTE: Long-Term Evolution telecommunications similar to GSM 4G. MIMO: Multiple-input and multiple-output.

TETRA: Terrestrial Trunked Radio (formerly TransEuropean Trunked Radio).

UHF: Ultra High Frequency.

UIC: International Union of Railways.

UMTS:

On the Siemens Desiro Class 444, for example, the GSM shark’s fin antenna has been positioned away from the airconditioning units taking advantage of the large roof area available.

The ground plane is a conductive area on which the antenna is mounted to maintain the correct functioning of most types of antenna. The ‘ideal’ ground plane would be a large, flat, horizontal sheet of metal located above the height of any other object on top of the train, with the antenna mounted centrally on it. In practise, the metal train body is generally used as the ground plane, although some train bodies fall short of this requirement. For example, train roofs are generally curved and, at the antenna mounting point, the roof is often sloped. Fibreglass and composite materials used on some trains do not help the provision of suitable ground planes.

There have reportedly been instances where space has been left on train roof for antennas in the future, but with air conditioning units positioned directly underneath, preventing antenna and cable feeder installation. This is a good example of the many competing requirements for space on trains, and the need to thoroughly and robustly consider antenna requirements early in the design of a train

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System - a 3rd generation mobile cellular

Internal antennas

system.

For Wi-Fi inside train carriages, low profile antennas are available which can be located completely out of sight. Wireless Access Points (WAP) with integrated ‘Smart’ antennas can be deployed. These are more efficient than traditional antennas with higher gain and better interference mitigation which provides better coverage/ capacity. They require fewer and lessexpensive cables (data cable vs radio frequency cable), and may be cascaded with a single connection to a switch.

VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol - also Internet telephony.

WAP: Wireless Access Point.

WiGig: Wireless Gigabit Alliance. Subsumed by the Wi-Fi Alliance in March 2013.

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Multiple Input and Multiple Output A train’s radio channel will be affected by random fading (variation of the attenuation of a signal dependent on factors such as geography) and this will impact the signal to noise ratio, and in turn the data error rate.

In very simple terms the principle of Multiple Input and Multiple Output antennas (MIMO) is to provide the receiver with multiple versions of the same signal.

The probability that they will all be affected at the same time is considerably reduced and this helps to stabilise a link and improves performance, reducing error rate.

MIMO antenna technology effectively uses multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver to enable a variety of signal paths to carry the data.

MIMO antenna systems are already widely deployed - an example is Ferrovie del Gargano, one of the largest commuter rail systems in Southern Italy. Its passenger Wi-Fi service uses a hybrid approach using a combination of a Fluidmesh-provided train-to-trackside Wi-Fi system and public LTE. It supports data, VoIP, as well as live video streaming to passengers.

The Ferrovie del Gargano project demonstrates how dedicated trackside wireless networks can be an effective solution to provide on-board connectivity in areas with limited or no mobile radio LTE coverage. The on-board system is provided by two Fluidmesh FM4200 MOBI radios per train connected with high-gain 2×2 MIMO roof antennas. The 5GHz Wi-Fi base stations are deployed along the track with a trackside spacing up to 5km (3.5 miles) delivering 100 per cent coverage. It is claimed that the system provides a Gigabit of usable bandwidth to a train traveling up to 250mph. So, the technology exists, the issue (as often) is how will the infrastructure provide and connect the base stations be funded?

Wireless communications in tunnels has for many years been provided using leaky feeder radiating cables or, for relatively short tunnels and UHF bands, free space antennas. There is now a growing interest on implementing MIMO systems in tunnels with the aim of delivering higher data rates and/or a decrease of the error rate as in free space.

Research by Lille University on propagation mode in tunnels as a means to deliver MIMO has concluded that the challenges can be overcome. In the UK a trial of MIMO over the radiating cable in the Waterloo & City Line is underway to evaluate communication links to customers.

SIGNALLING AND TELECOMS

However, suppliers are developing micro beam-forming control technology. This rapidly modifies the communication module (in less than 1/3,000 second) should the signal be interfered with in any way, hence getting around the obstruction problem. It could therefore be ideal for use within a train, or from the ground to the train link, although a considerable number of Wi-Fi points would be required.

Fee space optical and terahertz communications to trains

Beamforming Beamforming is a signal processing technique used in directional signal transmission or reception. This is achieved by combining elements in a phased array in such a way that signals at particular angles experience constructive interference while others experience destructive interference. Beamforming can be used at both the transmitting and receiving ends of a link to improve performance.

Pivitol Commware is one company which is developing a metamaterials beamforming product for what is referred to as Access-in-Motion™ and Holographic Beam Forming™ (HBF). This is aimed at boosting the agility, range, capacity, and spectral efficiency of the communication links for transport sectors (rail, air and sea), while also reducing equipment cost, size, weight and power. HBF objective is to provide high-capacity, long range and interferenceavoiding data links, combined with electronic speed beam switching.

5G Technologies such as massive MIMO, super-dense meshed cells and macro-assisted small cells are being discussed as possible 5G radio access technologies. These may use very-high-frequency bands in the ‘millimetre’ range of the radio spectrum, such as 15GHz through to 70GHz. This spectrum can better support the use of multiple, miniaturised antennas, and more bandwidth is available in these bands than in the bands below 1GHz However, millimetre-wave bands do not lend themselves to providing wide area coverage. Therefore, further spectrum below 1GHz is expected to be needed in order to improve mobile broadband coverage. 5G may therefore encompass a range of existing and new bands, which will potentially span a wide section of radio spectrum.

60GHz Wi-Fi for rail?

Traditional Wi-Fi uses either the 2.4 or 5GHz radio spectrum band, but 802.11ad is a relatively new Wi-Fi standard that can deliver speeds of up to 7Gbps using the unlicensed 60GHz radio spectrum band. Known as WiGig, 60GHz is five times faster than current Wi-Fi systems with speeds of up to 70Gbps and, by using such high frequencies, the antennas will be a few mm in size. It sounds great, but at these extremely high frequencies the range will only be a few metres and the signal will be absorbed by walls or other physical obstructions. In summary, it’s a very short-range, high capacity, line of sight same-room solution.

With increasing demand for broadband communications, the radio frequency wireless spectrum is a finite resource that is fast running out. Free space optical (FSO) communications offers another possibility of Gbps data rates for mobile applications without using any licenced spectrum. FSO transmission can be limited by attenuation due to cloud and fog, plus small variations in the refractive index of the atmosphere, however it may be ideal for shortrange systems.

The advent of high-power light emitting diodes and highly sensitive photo diodes and simultaneous use as a source of lighting and data communication, has helped the development of FSO as an attractive as well as energy-efficient technique for high-speed data communications.

Channel coding methods are being developed to address the fading issues and provide reliable and high-speed communication channels. Adaptive transmission methods have been used very successfully in fading RF channels for many years, and investigations indicate that significant performance gains may be possible. It is relatively early days for FSO communication, with many challenges to be overcome, but it is another technology for train-to-trackside communications which the rail industry may wish to adopt.

Train radio antenna design is important, but it can involve many compromises and is an area which will become more complex as requirements and technology evolves. It will be essential for both digital rail and customer requirements, and train designers and builders need to involve radio designers at the early stage of a train design. However, with a train body having a typical life of 30 to 40 years and radio frequency technology changing every few years, it is a very challenging subject for all the engineers involved.

Antennas or Antennae?

The word ‘antenna’ is Latin, and means the yard of a sail - the spar that stiffens the sail on a (usually) square-rigged sailing ship.

The Greek word for the same thing was ‘keraia’, but it had another meaning as well - horn. So it came to be applied to the feelers of insects, perhaps because they looked like small horns.

When a Greek text, supposedly by the philosopher Aristotle, was being translated from Greek into Latin, the plural ‘keraiai’ (feelers) was mistakenly translated as ‘antennae’, and the word stuck. So an insect’s feeler became an antenna - plural antennae.

When early radio aerials began to look like long metal feelers, the name ‘antenna’ was adopted, but the engineers involved either didn’t know the Latin source, or ignored it, so the plural became ‘antennas’.

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PAUL DARLINGTON

This technology is already applied in the oil and nuclear sectors and could supply tomorrow’s rail safety manager with a real-time ‘intelligence console’ about incidents, infrastructure and rolling stock faults, providing rapid tactical analysis and automating parts of the existing paper trail. It will also give better information for efficient and robust boardroom decisions.

Challenges

B

ig Data Risk Analysis (BDRA) is a new approach to risk analysis and safety management for the railway industry. Led by the Institute of Railway Research and RSSB, it is based on the intensified use of vast amounts of safety-relevant data, analytic software, non-relational databases and powerful computer systems.

A recent conference on the BDRA programme, held in Birmingham was attended by representatives from Japan, France, Sweden, USA and Korea, had academic representation from the universities of Huddersfield, Birmingham, Cranfield, Lumera (USA) and Imperial College London, and attracted delegates from the air transport industry.

The safety performance of Britain’s railway has improved dramatically over the last 50 years. In the 1960s, up to 100 workers a year lost their lives, while now, in some years, no fatal incidents occur at all. This much-reduced number of incidents makes further improvements more challenging, and so new methods of identifying risks and control measures are needed, which is where BRDA comes in.

Proactive to reactive In very simple terms, any safety management system consists of three elements - plan, act and review. This can be further broken down into the need to define the objectives, risks, and control measures, then to monitor the improvements and feed them back into a modified plan. Investigations following incidents identify new control measures but, because there are now fewer incidents, new ways of identifying control

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measures are required. Put another way, safety improvements need to become proactive rather than reactive.

The basic tools of BDRA have been developed by the University of Huddersfield and RSSB, with the objective of an integrated approach to safety and risk assessment, based on data-analytics. It is still early days in the programme but, looking to the future, state-of-the-art risk monitoring technology could pinpoint faster, targeted improvements to safety and reliability on Britain’s railways at the push of a button. The vision is that it will provide the right insight, to the right person, to help them make the right decision.

There are many challenges to overcome, such as sharing information between companies, privacy and security, capturing data in a consistent format, and making sure the analytic process allows appropriate human cognitive review. What it must avoid is data overload to engineers and managers so that they can’t see the wood for the trees. What BDRA must do is to extract intelligence from multiple data sets - ideally, in real time.

The Rail Industry’s Data and Risk Strategy, published by RSSB and steered by a crossindustry group, sets out how the railways can make better use of data to improve safety performance, prevent delays and disruption, retain high productivity and reliability, and prevent train accidents.

The first step of the strategy is already in place, with the new Safety Management Intelligence System up and running, and actively in use by Network Rail and train operating companies. SMIS+ is the programme to modernise safetyreporting capabilities, making it easier for people to collect information, and

Sebastien Bianchard of SNCF.

FEATURE SNCF SPAD experience.

extract intelligence. This could reduce the time taken, from first being alerted to incidents and close calls to making the ultimate remedial decision or investment to manage the risk, from years to weeks in some cases. It will make it easier for companies to report and track safety incidents and investigations, and provide the right risk information in the right format to the right people at the right time.

SMIS+ is a completely new, cloud-based on-line system exploiting commercial off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art safety management software which has replaced the old SMIS. So, while the name is similar, this is a completely new system, denoting a transformation in system capability.

Phase 1 was introduced on 6 March 2017, replacing the old SMIS system, with phase 2 being rolled out later in the year and replacing the existing close call system. This will deliver the ability to record and track ‘close calls’, as well as the ability to use mobile devices.

In France, SNCF has also been working on a similar analytical risk system for its SPAD management. It has managed to integrate a year’s worth of on-board data, but identified that the data was overwritten in all the recording systems. This is one learning point for any BDRA system.

The experience of having scattered data across the French network was not an issue, but data quality was a bigger problem, with the accuracy of geographical and time data being vital for robust analytics. Good results have been achieved using text analysis, and those from machine learning supervised classification algorithms are encouraging.

SNCF admitted that the project’s access to the company’s data could have been better and that its IT systems can’t access all the required data across the network. There are also plans to merge event reporting from other sources, such as signal asset data, performance and maintenance records.

Text analysis

SPAD management.

Peter Hughes of Huddersfield University explained a process of text-analysis of cold calls, which is one of the tools of the BDRA system. To analyse and identify risk from free-text cold calls requires a very carefully designed set of algorithms to make sure nothing is missed and to provide intelligence to enable improvement plans to be implemented.

NoSQL is the next-generation database used at the heart of the text-analysis system. These were originally called ‘non-SQL’ or ‘non-relational’ databases, reflecting the fact that the database provides a mechanism for data storage and retrieval which is modelled in other means, rather than the tabular relations used in relational databases. NoSQL databases are used by the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon, and are increasingly being used in big data and real-time applications.

Improvements by the industry mean that the risk from signals passed at danger (SPADs) is low, and it is over 17 years since the last fatal train accident was caused by a SPAD. To make the next step in risk reduction, though, it is necessary to look deeper into the circumstances that cause a SPAD, such as how frequently a signal is approached while showing a red aspect.

Rail companies will be able to identify the signals which are most frequently approached at red thanks to a new on-line tool developed by RSSB and the University of Huddersfield. The tool can help to focus attention on signals where SPADs may be more likely. It has been proven successful in trials and it is hoped that it will be used to generate new safety and performance insights for rail companies.

The Red Aspect Approaches to Signals (RAATS) tool uses 420 days of train movements provided by Network Rail through its open data initiative and applies complex algorithms to identify where red signal approaches are happening. The results can be broken down by train type, day of the week or time of day and analysis can be carried out on signal groups. Users can interrogate data within the tool or export it into Excel.

The RAATS tool was released as a prototype in January, and work is underway to refine it, including linking it to live data feeds, before formally launching it later in the year. Looking to the future, it should be possible, with the right collaborative industry approach, to integrate data from on-train monitoring recorders with signal asset condition and maintenance databases, using a BDRA approach to provide a complete proactive SPAD risk management system.

The text analysis is designed to pick out and highlight key terms in free text messages. The requirement is to identify common hazardous events, regardless of the language. It must take into account that the free text may have been generated by a user who may be wearing gloves, stood in poor light and lineside in freezing rain! So, for example, “access” could be entered as “acces” “possession” entered as “posession”. The NoSQL database takes this into account.

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Vision for the future

The results of the system are encouraging and the process has been able to find events from text supplied

by Swiss Federal Office of Transport.

Common events were identified regardless of the language the incident report was written in, which included German, French and Italian.

The regulator’s view Steven Naylor, data analyst from the Health and Safety Executive, explained that the HSE is also looking into a big data approach and is very supportive of the rail industry plans. Challenges include the large amounts of multi-formatted data in word, pdf, spreadsheets and databases.

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HSE also wants to move from using lagging performance indicators to leading ones, and convert key-performanceindicator-led reporting into actionable insights to inform decision makers.

One example of using BDRA aims to make better use of investigation resources to identify health and safety non-compliances.

The machine-learning model, using statistical machine learning techniques together with predictive algorithms, is applied to inspection reports to target more in-depth investigations. Without the use of the model, a random selection of inspections resulted in 48 per cent noncompliances being identified but, using the model, this increased to 71 per cent.

Perhaps one way to aid comprehension of this concept is to look at a hypothetical incident that could be managed using big data.

A future incident could be managed using big data as follows. A passenger train service experiences problems and automatically reports the train and the track conditions, indicating something may be wrong with the train or infrastructure. In the control room, the safety manager receives an alert and has already begun processing information within the Safety Management Intelligence System. This uses risk analytics to provide a simple real-time-rich picture to decision makers of how the threat can escalate, what control measures are in place and how the controls are performing.

Engineers use the BRDA information to determine the action that needs to be taken. The decision-makers analyse the risk across the network using the tools and information in the system to identify vulnerable locations and improvement options. The boards of the companies involved are provided with all the information they need to target investment and interventions to resolve the wider issues at source. Key tactical and strategic decisions are made in compressed timescales.

Is this scenario in the future? Certainly - but perhaps not as far into the future as you might think.

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ASSET RELIABILITY PAUL DARLINGTON

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he Office of Rail and Road has set very challenging targets for the CP5 control period (2014-2019), with disruption to passengers to be reduced by eight per cent and to freight customers by 17 per cent. While the railway’s infrastructure is the most reliable it has ever been, it’s also the busiest, so any incident has a much bigger impact. Therefore, asset reliability is of even greater importance in delivering a reliable railway and achieving the targets.

So, what are the issues and techniques that need to be used to improve asset reliability?

Understanding failure The first step in improving reliability is identifying the root cause of any failure. It is vital to understand how and why assets fail, so that maintenance practices and techniques can be developed to make the infrastructure better and more resilient.

Various levels of peer review and analysis are used to determine the immediate and root cause of failures, and what lessons have to be learned to prevent similar and repeat failures.

Specialists should guide maintenance managers and engineers to carry out root-cause analysis and gather

data for the investigating process.

This includes collecting data through interviews and analysis, together with applying techniques to identify and know the difference between symptoms and root causes. The objective is always to learn how to avoid future incidents by developing appropriate recommendations to address causal factors and root causes as well as, where appropriate, developing processes to identify systemic problem areas.

Very often, an equipment failure is quickly rectified by replacing a faulty component with a good spare. It is then vital to understand why the component failed. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or repair companies should be encouraged to investigate and identify

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the root cause of an equipment failure.

Sometimes, OEMs or repair companies may not have the incentive or skills to carry out the required forensic engineering and non-destructive/ destructive testing process, and specialised investigation companies should be considered.

Good OEMs and repair companies should welcome an independent thirdparty investigation. As with any design or development activity, independence is key in making sure nothing is overlooked or taken for granted. Experienced test organisations will also have access to calibrated and specialised test equipment, together with the knowledge and experience of the harsh railway environmental issues, vibration, electrical noise, electromagnetic interference, highvoltage transients, temperature variations and safety requirements.

Improvements in the performance of signals are largely attributed to the progressive introduction of LED signal heads, although LED technology has caused some reliability problems of its own especially in the proving interface with a system designed around incandescent lamps. For points, the introduction of master-class and supplementary

FEATURE drive set-up training, together with the implementation of improvements to address emerging issues following the Grayrigg accident, have all had a positive impact on reliability.

Track circuit performance has improved with the introduction of moulded tail cables, the development and upgrade of TI21 audio frequency equipment, upgrading older installations with duplicated tail cables, and master-class initiatives to share best practise and improve competency with maintaining insulated rail joints.

Predict and prevent A predict and prevent, rather than find and fix, maintenance strategy is the objective of many infrastructure organisations, including Crossrail and Network Rail. Key to this is remote condition monitoring (RCM), which is an umbrella term for a number of remote monitoring strategies including points and track condition monitoring using analogue sensors, as with the Network Rail Intelligent Infrastructure (II) programme, or event monitoring of signalling control logic using systems such as Balfour Beatty AssetView. These systems are used to monitor and report condition and defects so that action can be taken before failures occur.

Communication links, and the power to provide monitoring systems in remote rail route areas, can be difficult. However, the oil industry, which has even greater challenges than rail with remoteness and with the only communication links being

via high latency satellite, has implemented these systems so it can be done. One example where this will be useful in rail is the remote monitoring of such unpowered equipment as gates at farm crossings, which could be met using wind and solar technologies.

One of the business benefits in oil with the use of RCM and II was to reduce the need for maintenance staff to enter hazardous areas, exactly the same requirement as rail. Their experience was that these tools quickly become an essential maintenance and faulting aid, so good resilience to failure and high

availability of monitoring systems needs to be provided at an affordable cost. In Great Britain, the cost is normally justifiable financially against the savings in train delay attribution penalties, but there are also reputational and efficiency benefits.

The key to intelligent infrastructure data is to: harvest, transport and extract information, then transform it into a business benefit service. Organisations that have successfully delivered II strategies include train operators, which have reduced man-hours’ maintenance by 50 per cent and failures by 70 per cent.

Good use of both RCM and II is being made in rail, with systems in place to monitor a variety of assets including cable insulation, point motor and track circuit voltages and currents, power supplies, radio and transmission systems, strain gauges on structures and earthworks, and sensors on trains.

One of the first uses of RCM in rail was to monitor point machine power consumption, drive load and switch movement. For cost-benefit simplicity, this is usually confined to operating current, which can be monitored from the control point. However, analytical systems have now been developed which can not only identify defects with point operating equipment, but also those with the track formation that supports the switch and crossing. There is mounting evidence that this is a significant factor in point mechanism stress and leads to excess wear and failure, but some quantifiable data is needed to support this.

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FEATURE documented and approved, and that the asset is monitored to check that the change has not adversely affected reliability. RCM systems can help to provide the necessary data, acting as decision support tools.

Train monitoring

Reliability-centred maintenance Until a few years ago, the common practice in engineering maintenance was for most equipment to be subject to a fixed, planned, preventative maintenance cycle designed to maintain the asset in its optimum condition, or to manage the rate of degradation to a level that was acceptable. These maintenance cycles were mandated in standards and normally fixed, no matter where the equipment was located or how often it was operated.

Reliability-centred maintenance, on the other hand, links maintenance with usage and performance. It identifies historic maintenance tasks that cannot be demonstrated to be beneficial to asset performance, so they can be eliminated or, at least, performed less frequently. It also considers possible additional maintenance tasks and frequencies for assets that are used intensively or are of strategic importance.

Some people may think, wrongly, that this process is just about decreasing maintenance and saving money. However, it is really to ensure that the maintenance resource is utilised more efficiently. Rather than being based on a set time or mileage, the frequency of servicing is now adjusted to match the criticality of the asset, which in some cases could result in additional maintenance.

If one asset with mechanical moving parts is used hundreds of times a day, and an identical asset is used, in another location, only occasionally, do they require the same inspection and maintenance frequency? Logically, the answer is no - the more intensively operated asset may require additional inspection and maintenance interventions.

Of course, the caveat to this is that assets that are used very infrequently must be maintained sufficiently to ensure they do not seize up and fail on the rare occasions that they are needed. (Think here of snowploughs, “Thunderbird� rescue locomotives, rail-mounted cranes and points controlling a lightly used route - all are only rarely called upon but must function perfectly when required.)

In very simple terms, using a risk-based approach focuses maintenance resources onto those areas where they are needed most, which in itself will bring financial benefits by saving the excesses of overmaintenance and avoiding the penalties of under-maintenance Whenever the maintenance tasks or frequency are modified, it is essential that the change is formally assessed,

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

Automating inspection, testing and reporting has very important benefits in terms of both safety and reliability. The safety of track workers, and avoiding the need to have them out and about when trains are running, is a no-brainer, and using technology appropriately and correctly allows defects to be detected sooner than by visual inspection, allowing actions to be planned sooner and resulting in better reliability.

Trains that monitor various aspects of track condition have been used for many years in one form or another, and the New Measurement Train (NMT), a converted 125 mph HST with five coaches including testing and analysis vehicles, has been a great success. Whilst measuring track condition was the primary task, the train is also capable of limited contact wire checking. GPS and tachometers give positional information to a general accuracy of two metres and guaranteed accuracy of 16 metres.

On the West Coast main line, particular care has to be taken to ensure that clearances are maintained for the class 390 tilting trains. Lasers and thermal imaging cameras are mounted on the train and the high-speed cameras are synchronised and capable of taking photographs at 70,000 pictures per second, so at 125mph this

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gives a picture of the rail every 0.8mm. The downward pointing cameras look at the inner, outer and top sections of the rail for aberrations including rail burn and other heat-related defects.

Overhead contact wire and pantographs Overhead electrification lines are still monitored using test coach Mentor (Mobile Electrical Network Testing, Observation and Recording) that was introduced in 1973 and is limited to a maximum of 100mph line speed.

Equipment to monitor overhead contact wires has also been fitted as required to dedicated service trains, but what is really needed is for monitoring equipment, both for overhead contact wires and other infrastructure assets, to be fitted to in-service trains. While some train operators are keen to be involved with such innovation, the fragmented nature of the GB rail industry does not help, and it very often comes down to how such innovations to improve reliability are funded.

Pantographs, and the thin carbon strips they carry to draw current from the overhead contact wire, are usually subjected to manual inspections during scheduled maintenance. However, with pantographs in constant use and operating under all weather conditions, defects can quickly accumulate. Remote monitoring technology enables the identification of vehicles that are at greater

risk of inflicting damage to the network’s wires due to general wear and tear. This can instigate early preventative action and, ultimately, extend the life of both the wires and the pantograph equipment carried by the trains.

PanMon, developed by Ricardo Rail, is a lineside-located system that provides high-definition images of each passing pantograph through a combination of radar, laser, video and photo technology, together with a contactless optical uplift monitoring system.

Using specialist pattern-recognition analysis software, the system automatically interprets the data to provide ongoing condition reports of each passing pantograph. This includes identifying the remaining thickness of carbon strips or any damage to the pantograph’s head, aerofoils or end horns, which can affect a vehicle’s ability to maintain good contact with overhead wires.

Reliability by design - diversity and redundancy A significant number of failures that delay trains are due to signalling and telecommunications assets. The fail-safe requirement of such assets doesn’t help reliability, however. On an extremely busy network, having numerous trains sitting stationary when failures occur is, in itself, a safety hazard, as are the resulting overcrowded platforms.

New control and communication systems should be designed with better

reliability standards than older systems, with diversity and redundancy built in.

Processor-based systems with hot standby and double or triple redundancy are now available and in service, and they are also able to have any failed critical components replaced while the system is still operational.

Telecommunication networks, which are now based on packet-routing internet protocol, are able to provide connections for radio, control and electrification systems even if cables are cut or equipment fails. Care has to be taken with the design of such systems to make sure any common elements, such as power and diverse cable routes, are properly designed. There have been occasions where a network designer has allocated two diverse fibres, but these have ended up in the same cable which has then been cut. Similarly, duplicated transmission systems have been fed from the same (failed) power system.

Such networks have, for some time, been provided with extensive centralised monitoring, reporting and management capabilities, enabling faulting interventions to be accurately planned and executed.

Similar capabilities are now being provided in new signalling systems.

One remaining, and contentious, issue is - how far are remote interventions permitted to go? It already takes place in some telecoms systems, for example to configure and allocate transmission paths within switches and routers, and similar

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remote interventions may be possible in signalling control systems, once the security and independent testing requirements have been addressed. Properly executed, such interventions could contribute to reliability, safety and cost savings.

Redundant power, in the form of duplicated supplies and/or uninterruptable battery backed supplies, is also required for all essential control and communications assets.

Sometimes, an interesting problem with diverse and redundant systems is getting access to enable the replacement of ‘failed’ components. Technicians can be called out to equipment ‘failures’ which are not service affecting but need either track or equipment possessions. However, to the operator, there is no failure, as trains are running normally and he has not lost any functionality, so he may be happy to carry on running as normal and not allow access. The risk is that, in the event of a second breakdown, the system could fail totally, stopping trains from running. This has already occurred on at least one occasion.

Keeping staff competent Another difficulty with reliable and complex systems is that, when they do eventually fail, the maintenance teams may be ‘rusty’ having not worked on the equipment for some time. This is when remote diagnostic and intelligent selfreporting systems come into their own.

They need to be designed with intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces so the staff with the correct competency can be quickly deployed and guided.

Training and demonstration reference systems on which staff can train and maintain their familiarisation and competencies can help, and such systems can also be used to soak test any upgrades or modifications before they are installed on the live railway. This will also contribute to reliability.

Planning for when things may fail is also important. Comprehensive action plans need to be in place that deal with escalation, communications, and the use of diversionary routes. They also need to cover access to spares and experts, both within rail, other industries and OEMs.

What next to improve reliability?

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 are the next generations of technology to automate and improve reliability that are likely to be adopted in the rail industry.

Defining Reliability Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) is a reliability term used to provide the amount of failures per million hours for a product. It is often the most commonly specified requirement and important in the decision-making process of procurement. Some organisations may also use Mean Time Between Service Affecting Failure (MTBSAF) or Mean Time Between Downing Event (MTBDE), which describe the expected time between two consecutive downing events for a repairable system.

Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) is the time needed to repair a failed hardware module.

Nowadays, repair generally means replacing a failed hardware part. Thus, hardware MTTR could be viewed as mean time to replace a failed hardware module and, in a railway system with many distributed assets in locations difficult to access, this can be a difficult but very important metric. MTTR also depends on having the correct spare products readily available so that a replacement can be installed quickly.

Mean Time Between Replacements (MTBR) is usually used for non-repairable components or subsystems in a repairable system. For example, a lamp or battery in an asset is replaced after every ‘T’ hours of operation or replaced at failure.

Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) is a basic measure of reliability for non-repairable systems and is the mean time expected until the first failure of a piece of equipment.

MTTF is a statistical value and is meant to be the mean over a long period of time and a large number of units. Technically, MTBF should be used only in reference to repairable items, while MTTF should be used for non-repairable ones. However, MTBF is commonly used for both repairable and non-repairable items.

Failure In Time (FIT) is another way of reporting MTBF. FIT reports the number of expected failures per one billion hours of operation for a device. This term is used particularly by the semiconductor industry and component manufacturers and can be quantified in a number of ways.

IIoT is about the worldwide proliferation of embedded sensors, data analytics and networks such as the Ethernet in manufacturing, while Industry 4.0 is something a little more specific. The IIoT may be an industrial response to a consumer-facing trend (the generic Internet of Things), while Industry 4.0 is more particular to manufacturing industry.

However, the two terms refer to similar concepts.

Industry 4.0 originates from the German government, which used it to denote a potential fourth industrial revolution, following the previous three that centred on the introduction of water/steam power, electricity and IT. Germany established an Industry 4.0 working group in 2012 to focus on initiatives such as the refinement of embedded systems (used successfully by car manufacturers) and industrial production.

While it is focused on manufacturing, there are elements of Industry 4.0 which rail can adopt.

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This vision for both Industry 4.0 and IIoT is to emphasise real-time communications and automation.

The implementation of the IIoT can greatly improve connectivity, efficiency, scalability, time and cost savings for industry, while interoperability and security are the two biggest challenges.

Businesses will require their data to be secure, as the proliferation of sensors and other smart devices could, if not implemented correctly, result in security vulnerabilities.

Companies that have embraced the IIoT have seen significant improvements to safety, efficiency, reliability and profitability, and it is expected that this trend will continue as IIoT technologies are more widely adopted in all industries.

Thanks to Trevor Bradbeer, specialist signal engineer at Balfour Beatty, for his contribution with this article.

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www.moore-concrete.com Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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PAUL DARLINGTON

From Blame

to Better Understanding

Grayrigg.

O

ver the past 40 years, there has been a welcome, steadily declining trend in train accidents with passenger or workforce fatalities.

However, while it has now been ten years since a fatal train accident, the risk remains ever present. It is important that the causes, consequences and key lessons learnt from investigations into the accidents do not, become overlooked.

It is also interesting that, over the years, there has been an evolution from blaming individual errors to identifying the reasons why such errors are made. This article provides a summary of some of the major accident reports, some of which I helped to investigate, together with the resulting improvements and mitigation measures to prevent repeat occurrences.

Poor maintenance The accident at Potters Bar, at 12:55 on Friday 10 May 2002, was due to missing or loose nuts that were designed to hold the stretcher bars in place and keep the point ends to gauge. This resulted in the points moving underneath a train, which then derailed and mounted the platform at nearly 100mph, with seven people being fatally injured. Poor maintenance was established as a factor, with maintenance at the time undertaken by a number of large private maintenance contractors. Following this accident, a decision was taken by Network Rail to bring all track maintenance in-house.

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The Grayrigg accident on the West Coast Main Line, at 20:15 on Friday 23 February 2007, was due to the absence of bolts holding stretcher bars in place on a set of ground-frame operated points, which caused a Virgin Pendolino service to derail as it passed over.

The fundamental failure was due to deficient setup adjustment together with poor maintenance. The whole of the train derailed, with several coaches falling down the embankment, and one passenger was fatally injured.

On the tenth anniversary of the accident, an RSSB report stated: “Lives were also saved 10 years ago at Grayrigg thanks to the train’s crashworthiness and the use of laminated glass in the windows. Research shows these prevent people from being ejected from the train.�

Potters Bar.

FEATURE Since these two accidents, the industry has made significant progress regarding the guidance and training given to staff, and new patrolling diagrams have been introduced that more accurately reflect the work required with the timescale for the patrol. This has been supported by more detailed measurements being taken of the track and much improved data capture within a new asset maintenance database model.

It was identified that neither fixed nor adjustable stretcher bars had ever been designed with the correct engineering understanding of the forces to which they would be subjected. After much investigation and development, a new design of tubular stretcher bar has been designed to address a number of failure modes. This is being progressively introduced across the rail network.

At 12:23 on Tuesday 17 October 2000, a derailment occurred at Hatfield when a rail, in which there were multiple cracks and fractures due to rolling contact fatigue (RCF), fragmented as a high-speed train passed over it. RCF consists of multiple surface-breaking cracks, which are caused by high loads where the wheels contact the rail. With repeated loading and the ‘right’ conditions, the cracks can grow, eventually resulting in the failure of the rail.

The issue was known about prior to the accident but it wasn’t adequately managed and the investigation established that

Hatfield. there was a serious problem with the experience and working knowledge of staff engaged with the maintenance of the track.

The subsequent mitigation put in place throughout the network, including 1800 emergency speed restrictions, caused significant train delays over many months and resulted in Railtrack suffering severe reputational damage. This contributed to Railtrack being placed into administration and Network Rail being created as its replacement.

There is now a much better understanding within the industry of the RCF failure mode and how to manage it through rail grinding. Improved technology, including the introduction

of PLPR (Plain Line Pattern Recognition), ultrasonic testing and eddy current testing, gives engineers a much clearer picture of the condition of the rail than has ever been possible before.

As a result of the lessons learned and new techniques introduced since Hatfield, there has been a reduction in broken rails from a 40-year run rate of around 750 failures per year to a recent eight-year run rate of only 150 a year on a much busier network.

Earthworks and radio At 18:55 on Tuesday 31 January 1995, an accident at Ais Gill on the Settle to Carlisle route was initially relatively minor, after a train ran into a landslide and derailed,

Hatfield.

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Clive Kessell with an early NRN portable. injuring the driver. It escalated, however, due to a failure by the respective control offices to correctly action the emergency NRN (National Radio Network) call that the driver sent immediately after the derailment.

At the time the derailment occurred, a train was approaching Ais Gill on the opposite line, but was still seven minutes running time away. Owing to a lack of adequate training and a failure to protect the train, no emergency call was made to the driver of this second train to stop it, nor were detonators laid to warn him to the derailment. Consequently, it struck the derailed train, resulting in 30 injuries and the death of the conductor who had incorrectly focused on the welfare of the passengers on the train rather than fulfilling his duties in providing detonator protection against approaching trains.

The Health and Safety Executive investigation only dealt in passing with the details of the landslide, noting only that the area had no history of events and that there was no sign of any landslide evident when the line was inspected earlier that day, and focused on the deficiencies with the use of the communication system.

From the ensuing enquiry, the Railtrack Zone Controls were better aligned to NRN areas and controllers were trained to react to NRN calls, even if off their ‘home’ patch.

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A number of other improvements were made, including dedicated emergency telephone numbers allocated to signal boxes, better recording and time stamping of radio messages, plus the need for controllers to regularly practise emergency scenarios.

These steps proved beneficial as, two years later, the NRN prevented what would have been a very serious accident. A points failure at Macclesfield had caused a southbound train to cross to another line under verbal instruction from the signaller.

A misunderstanding of the instruction by the driver led to the train proceeding

northwards ‘wrong line’ to a ground frame location some miles away. The signaller noticed that the train was running head-on into the path of a southbound express. A quick call to Railtrack control resulted in an emergency call being broadcast which resulted in both trains being stopped within sight of each other.

Another example on the Settle-Carlisle line determined that a freight train derailment was caused by excessive speed by measuring the time between the train being logged as entering section and the emergency NRN call being received.

FEATURE Radio technology has advanced dramatically and GSM-R has become standard throughout the rail network. This allows communication directly between the driver and controlling signaller, and all trains in an area when a Rail Emergency Call (REC) is initiated, thereby providing much faster and better-targeted communications.

In addition, remote monitoring equipment designed to detect movement that could result in an earthworks failure is being developed for use across the network. The management of train operations during times of extreme weather has also significantly improved, partly in response to RAIB recommendations, which should help reduce instances of trains derailing from striking a landslide.

GSM-R The investment in GSM-R has already prevented what could have been an even worse accident. At just before 07:00 on Friday 16 September 2016, a Londonbound passenger train operated by London Midland struck a landslip at the entrance to Watford Slow lines tunnel. The leading coach of the eight-car train derailed to the right and the train came to a halt in the tunnel, about 28 seconds later, with the leading coach partly obstructing the opposite track.

About nine seconds later, the derailed train was struck by a passenger train travelling in the opposite direction. The driver of the second train had already

received a radio warning and had applied the brake, reducing the speed of impact.

Both trains were damaged, but there were no serious injuries to passengers or crew.

The landslip occurred during a period of exceptionally wet weather. Water from adjacent land flowed into the cutting, close to the tunnel portal, and caused soil and rock to wash onto the track. The site had not been identified as being at risk of a flooding-induced landslip, even though one had occurred at the same location in 1940, also causing a derailment. Drawings from the 1940s relating to a structure subsequently constructed to repair the

slope were held in a Network Rail archive, but were not available to either Network Rail’s asset management team or the designers of a slope protection project which was ongoing at this location at the time of the accident. As a consequence, the project had made no provision for drainage.

The RAIB has made six recommendations.

Four recommendations addressed to Network Rail relating to the improvement of drainage, improvement in the identification of locations vulnerable to washout, access by the emergency services, and to expedite a project intended to identify all

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and testing of signalling works, including the development of the Signalling Maintenance Testing Handbook (SMTH) and Signalling Works Testing Handbook (SWTH).

Amongst other recommendations was one to “ensure that overtime is monitored so that no individual is working excessive levels of overtime” which led to criteria being developed to define acceptable levels of working and a process to monitor it. This is currently being refined with the development of a new standard on managing the risk of fatigue.

SPAD risk

Clapham. drainage assets. One recommendation has been made to the Rail Delivery Group, in conjunction with RSSB, to promote a review of the circumstances when bogie or infrastructure design could provide derailment mitigation. One recommendation has also been made to Siemens, the manufacturer and maintainer of the trains, to address issues relating to the securing and location of emergency equipment which came loose in the driving cabs of both trains when they collided.

Signalling wrong side failures The catastrophic events at Clapham Junction at 08:10 on Monday 12 December 1988 were a consequence of a culture of complacency towards safety at the time.

The report into the accident records: “The appearance of a proper regard for safety was not the reality. Working practices, supervision of staff, the testing of new works… failed to live up to the concept of safety. They were not safe, they were the opposite.”

The accident occurred due to a newly installed signal that was displaying a green aspect when the section ahead was occupied by a train. As a result, a train passed the green signal and collided with the rear of another train. Shortly afterwards, it was struck by an empty train travelling in the opposite direction.

The direct cause of the wrong side failure was identified as errors by a signalling technician who had installed new wiring within a relay room as part of re-signalling works, but left old unsecured wiring in

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place a little over two weeks prior to the accident. This had then been disturbed during unrelated work within the relay room the day before the accident. The faulty wiring caused the signalling relays to operate incorrectly and for the signal to wrongly display a green aspect.

The report identified that the root cause was a combination of characteristic errors - poor working practices that should have been picked up by proper supervision - and uncharacteristic errors that had arisen from constant, repetitive work and excessive levels of overtime (the technician had only one day off work in the previous 13 weeks) that had “blunted his working edge”.

As a result of the findings of the report, new processes and instructions were introduced relating to the installation

Signals passed at danger (SPAD) have, until recently, been one of the major risks of a train accident. The signalling system is designed to ensure that trains are kept separated and a red (danger) signal could mean that the signal section ahead is occupied by another train or that a conflicting route is set. Over the past 30 years, 54 people have lost their lives and over 1,000 have been injured, when a driver fails, for whatever reason, to stop at a signal at danger.

As technology has developed, the industry sought ways to mitigate the risk of a SPAD. This led to a number of initiatives including AWS (Automatic Warning System) and multiple aspect colour light signals. However, none of these physically prevented a train from passing a signal at danger.

By the 1980s, European railways had begun to introduce Automatic Train Protection (ATP), a system that automatically controls the speed of a train and forces it to stop at a signal at danger. Virtually all investigation reports

Clapham.

FEATURE intervention brings a train to a stand, but the driver resets and continues without speaking to the signaller) or the driver isolating the equipment on the train. This led to a steam-hauled passenger train reaching the conflict point moments after a high-speed train had passed at Wootton Bassett in March 2015.

Operating errors

TPWS transmitter loop. into SPADs note that ATP would have prevented the accident from occurring, or supported recommendations that ATP should be introduced.

ATP was thought to be an expensive and complex option and, although two trials were introduced from the early 1990s on the Great Western main line and Chiltern lines, alternative, more cost-effective solutions were explored, which led to the development of TPWS (Train Protection Warning System) by Railtrack.

Following the two accidents at Southall and Ladbroke Grove, the respective inquiry chairs published a joint report into train protection systems. This report supported the “currently accelerated programme” for the fitment of TPWS, but noted that “its benefits are plainly limited and, despite the substantial expenditure that it represents, TPWS will still permit a proportion of ATP-preventable accidents to occur”.

The authors of the report saw TPWS as an interim “better than nothing” solution pending the introduction of the European Train Control System (ETCS) that provides ATP functionality. This was anticipated to be rolled out from around 2008, initially as part of the West Coast main line resignalling project.

At the time, concerns over TPWS mainly related to its perceived lack of effectiveness at speeds over 70mph, but the system has been developed further with the introduction of TPWS+ to take account of those initial restraints. TPWS is now a well-established and effective form of SPAD mitigation, fitted at signals in accordance with risk-based criteria, and it also functions as mitigation to prevent buffer stop collisions and over speeding. With ETCS yet to be introduced, however, the industry TPWS Steering Group is continuing to consider yet more improvements to TPWS installations in order to further reduce the risk of SPADS. Alongside the technical solutions designed to reduce the consequences of SPADs, the industry has taken significant

steps forward in better understanding the human behaviour that can result in a driver failing to stop at a signal at danger.

As recently as the Purley SPAD in 1989, it was apparent that there was a view that the driver was solely responsible, despite it being concluded in 2007 that there was “something about the infrastructure of this particular junction”. The tendency to ‘blame’ the driver for a SPAD meant that many latent failings regarding signal sighting, and the ability of the driver to read some signals that were regularly passed at danger, were not adequately considered as part of the investigation.

Managing SPAD risk and its mitigation has been a major success since 2000.

There is now much better understanding of how drivers can perceive and sometimes misinterpret signals, which is now considered at the design stage along with consideration of the signal overrun risk assessment process. The introduction of LED signals has also enhanced the readability of signals and there is a greater emphasis on driver training with initiatives such as ‘defensive driving’.

TPWS protection is, however, vulnerable to driver misuse, with occasional instances of ‘reset and go’ (where a TPWS

There are three accidents of note that resulted from errors made by either the signaller or driver that resulted in a collision between two trains. At Seer Green at 08:14 on Friday 11 December 1981, a signaller talked a train past a signal at danger into a section occupied by a previous train that had stopped out of course in heavy snow to clear branches from the line.

At Morpeth, at 22:20 on Friday 13 November 1992, the signaller talked a second train past a signal at danger into an occupied section, mistakenly believing he was talking to the driver of the first train.

The circumstances at Stafford at 00:40 on Saturday 4 August 1990 were different, in that the driver had been signalled legitimately into an occupied platform under permissive working signalling controls but the driver failed to slow the train sufficiently. The driver, who died in the collision, was subsequently found to have worked excessively long hours and to have consumed alcohol.

After Seer Green, rules governing the speed of trains when travelling cautiously through sections were amended and a new instruction that “the driver must always be able to stop within the distance he can see the line to be clear” was introduced.

Subsequent events, particularly involving

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Hockham Road. and observation of the task. The RAIB report also identified the need to provide improved information to signallers to enable them to judge the time for a train to reach a crossing. There is much work ongoing in all aspects of signaller competence, which includes reviewing the best practice from industry research, benchmarking with other industries, better safety critical communications, and the increased use of simulators with improved levels of assurance.

Unfortunately, trains strike vehicles on level crossings relatively frequently, on average two or three times a year. One of the most recent was on 3 January 2017 at Marston Automatic Half Barrier (AHB) crossing. As is often the case, the train remained upright and did not derail, and there were no reported injuries to anyone on the train. The car driver, however, was fatally injured.

engineering trains travelling within possessions, have resulted in further work to redefine travelling at caution or not under the protection of fixed signalling.

Following the Stafford incident, a greater emphasis has been placed on the implementation of monitoring procedures to restrict working hours, together with statutory standards relating to drink and drugs for safety critical staff introduced within British Rail in January 1992.

Level crossings At Moreton on Lugg at 10:29 Saturday on 16 January 2010, the signaller became distracted by a work-related phone call and made the mistake of lifting the barriers at the crossing before the train had passed. The train struck two cars, resulting in the death of a passenger in one of them.

The investigation report was critical of the lack of any engineered safeguards at Moreton on Lugg, and potentially elsewhere, that allowed this to happen and subsequently ‘approach control’ was introduced at a number of level crossings nationally to prevent a similar type of occurrence. Approach control ensures that, once lowered, the crossing barriers cannot be raised by the approaching train operating the train detection system.

There are still several hundred user-worked crossings on the network which depend on signaller-user communications for their safe operation. An example of what can happen when this is not effective occurred at Hockham Road in April 2016, when a train struck a tractor on the crossing.

This is managed primarily, with regard to signallers, by regular competence assessment and assurance via supervision

Ufton Nervet.

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At Ufton Level Crossing at 18:12 Saturday on 6 November 2004, a car was deliberately driven onto the crossing with the intent of being struck by a train. In this case, the impact did result in the leading wheelset of the train derailing to the lefthand side. Normally the train would have braked safely to a stop. However, less than 100 metres from the crossing was a point connection to a loop line. The derailed wheelset was turned into the loop, resulting in the leading vehicles of the train overturning.

Following the report into this accident, the industry’s level crossing risk assessment process, the All Level Crossing Risk Model (ALCRM), was enhanced to include the consideration of post-collision potential at each crossing. In the event of a crossing being identified as high risk, further solutions must now be considered to reduce or mitigate the risk. The relatively high number of fatalities (seven people) was found to be partly due to passengers being ejected through windows that pre-dated the requirement for safety glass to be installed on railway vehicles.

Recommendations were made to address this.

The report recommended that a programme of research be undertaken to assess the benefits and practicalities of installing seat belts in passenger vehicles. This research concluded that the advantages in the fitting of seat belts in reducing the likelihood of ejection from the train were more than outweighed by the possibility of becoming trapped with a loss of survival space due to structural intrusion.

FEATURE ejected. Effectively, trams are considered to be road vehicles, so the lessons learned from the Grayrigg accident were not applied to them.

The provision of speed control mitigation systems and safety glass for light rail tram systems may be recommendations of the ongoing investigation. This would have cost and weight implications for light rail networks, which would need to be balanced against the risks involved.

However, the cost of fitting laminated glass to trams during build should not be too significant.

Understand not blame Tebay.

Runaway vehicles

Light rail

The accident at Tebay at 05:56 Sunday 15 February 2004 involved a rail-mounted trailer loaded with scrap rail being dislodged from the wooden blocks being used to stop it from moving. It ran away for over three miles, down a steep gradient, before running into a workgroup who had no warning of its approach.

While hard hats are now mandated across the network, at the time they were only required on the local Network Rail North West Route as a trial. However, one of the workers commented when he was in hospital that he only survived as he was wearing his hard hat when he was bending down and was struck by the trailer.

The trailer was found to have been poorly maintained, with its hydraulic brakes disconnected due to a fault. Network Rail introduced a new code of practice in September 2004 to help develop additional control measures for road-rail vehicles and rail-mounted maintenance machines, which was developed in consultation with the industry, equipment users and suppliers, trades unions and the Health & Safety Executive.

Despite this, a similar type of runaway of rail-mounted plant occurred at Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen in November 2014, fortunately in this instance with no serious consequences. To provide an additional level of protection, and instigated by the local workforce in Cumbria, a treadlebased Vortok Rearguard system has been approved and is now in use. This is fitted to the rail near to worksites and is designed to provide a minimum of 10 seconds audible and visual warning in the event of any rail-mounted plant or vehicle approaching.

At about 06:07 on Wednesday 9 November 2016, a tram derailed and overturned on a curve as it approached Sandilands Junction, in Croydon. Seven people lost their lives in the accident and 51 people were taken to hospital, 16 of them from suffering serious injuries.

The investigation into the accident is still ongoing, however analysis of the on-tram data recorder shows that the tram was travelling at a speed of approximately 73km/h (46 mph) as it entered the curve, which had a maximum permitted speed of 20km/h (13 mph).

Trams generally operate on ‘line-of-sight’ principles, with drivers being required to control their tram so it can be stopped short of a visible obstruction. Unlike the heavy rail train network, there is no requirement on light rail tram systems for advance warning of speed restrictions, nor is there a requirement for speed control systems.

Initial indications are that a number of passengers with fatal or serious injuries had been ejected, or partially ejected, from the tram through broken windows, both in the body-side and the doors. The windows were made from either 4mm or 6mm toughened glass, unlike the safety glass fitted to main line trains which prevents passengers being

Historically, there has been a tendency to blame an individual for their failings and not to take account of the factors that could have led to a person making a mistake.

Over time the concept of ‘human factors’ has been introduced, which allows a better understanding of any latent conditions that can have an influence on people’s actions.

This has led to improved training and assessment of people, and initiatives such as defensive driving, and many more to mitigate the true causes of accidents.

The understanding of risk and its application in providing targeted, proportionate mitigation has developed significantly over the years. From its initial use in relation to signals and level crossings, it is now being applied to assets and other operational scenarios, which has contributed to the welcome reduction in accidents.

The industry now has a better understanding of why accidents have occurred and are more likely to be aware of the actions required to prevent a recurrence.

To support this important requirement, RSSB now highlights individual historical accidents within its Rail Safety Review publication. This should be essential reading for all engineers and managers in the industry.

This article is based in part on “Historical Train Accidents Lessons Learnt” by Roger Long, senior investigator at Network Rail.

Lewisham freight train derailment.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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PLANT AND EQUIPMENT

MARK PHILLIPS

Modified MEWPs

go underground T

he Four Lines Modernisation (4LM) programme is a major Transport for London (TfL) project to upgrade the four sub-surface lines of London Underground - the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. This enhancement will bring not only new trains, power supplies and track improvements, but also, and crucially to enable line capacity improvements, a new signalling and control system.

All four lines are now operated by one class of train, Bombardier’s S Stock, and they will soon also have one integrated signalling and control system - a communications-based train control (CBTC) system being provided by Thales.

This will bring many benefits in terms of capacity as trains will be able to run faster and much closer together than today, thereby enabling improvements in journey times and train frequency to be realised.

The basis is that the trains and the control centre ‘talk’ to each other so that each train knows where it is at all times and the control centre knows what other trains around it are doing.

The train communicates with the control centre by radio. As radio waves don’t travel well along tunnels, transmission has to be more-or-less by line of sight.

Radio antennae will therefore be mounted in the tunnels every 150 metres, on average.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

So, installing CBTC in the Underground means installing radio antennas in the tunnels - approximately 450 of them - all linked by cables back to the control centre.

The method originally envisaged for the fixing of the signalling equipment in the tunnel areas was to use mobile scaffold

towers. These would obviously have to be continually erected and dismantled, configured for access to the required parts of the tunnel profile at every one of the 450 antennae locations, and all within the very short possession timeframes available.

As this approach introduced some challenges, London Underground and Thales turned to specialist plant supplier Total Rail Solutions (TRS) which proposed to use mobile elevated work platforms (MEWPs). With their ability to easily reach any required part of the tunnel profile, the advantages were immediately apparent.

PLANT AND EQUIPMENT and either accepted or rejected by the approver. In this case, all three parties worked simultaneously in close partnership to formulate and design the practical modifications needed, achieving their goal in a remarkably short space of time.

Forward vision

That is, providing suitable MEWPs could be modified for the special constraints of the London Underground and be approved for use on its infrastructure.

Dee McGinn, senior project manager of automatic train control for TfL, emphasised that MEWPs introduce some safety benefits and improve efficiency by allowing teams to achieve more in the limited time available during possessions.

Modified MEWPs The rail-mounted MEWP selected for this work is the Promax RR14 EVO. This machine had been previously approved and in use on Network Rail. Danny Bliss, 4LM’s health, safety and environmental manager for railway systems delivery, explained to Rail Engineer how he had worked closely with Luke Hersee, head of operations for TRS, and with LU’s plant approval team, to identify the modifications needed to enable the Promax RR14 to operate in the tunnels.

Work on this process commenced in April 2017 and full approval was achieved by 28 June, largely due to the very focussed collaboration between the parties involved. A traditional process would be iterative, whereby modifications needed are first identified by the user, after which designs are produced by the plant supplier and then assessed

Four significant alterations have been made to the standard Promax RR14. These are the design and installation of a blind spot camera system, enhanced fire suppression, an operator crush protection system and the use of EcoPar fuel.

The camera system is essential. When used in an unrestricted situation, the body of the MEWP can swivel through 180º, so it can always be transited with the operator/driver facing the direction of travel. When operating in a tunnel, the machine cannot swivel fully and will have to be reversed either to or from the work site. So without the camera system, the driver would have no visibility in one direction of travel.

The camera is therefore provided on the far end of the machine from the driver and its image is displayed onto a monitor screen at the driver’s position in the operating platform. The camera and screen system was devised and installed by TRS.

Firetrace fire suppression To operate in London Underground’s tunnels, MEWPs, and other plant, have to be fitted with fire suppression systems. The area to be protected is fitted with patented Firetrace detection tubing and connected to a cylinder containing an extinguishant.

Once the detection tubing is installed, it is pressurised with nitrogen which has the effect of holding the extinguishant safely inside the cylinder. Should a high temperature or fire occur, then the pressurised tubing will burst and the extinguishant will be deployed directly from the burst hole onto the fire.

There is therefore no complicated electrical equipment, such as sensors or valves, involved in the Firetrace system. The fire melts the tube, the extinguishant floods out of the hole directly onto the fire and puts it out. It’s really pleasingly simple.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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PLANT AND EQUIPMENT

A special operator crush protection system was designed and installed by the MEWP manufacturer, Promax. Also known as an anti-entrapment system, this is again a modification necessitated by the tunnel environment. It is an additional frame, built onto the operating platform, describing a greater envelope than that of the operator and other persons on the platform and linked to the platform controls.

Should an attempt be made to raise the platform to a height, or traverse it to a side position, where a person could become crushed between the platform and the tunnel wall, the crush protection frame will make contact first and immediately cut the power to the platform, preventing any further movement.

EcoPar fuel

Specifications and progress Following all these modifications, TfL issued its Certificate of Technical Performance for Rolling Stock, a Plant Approval Certificate and a Use of Plant Safety Plan for the Promax RR14 MEWPs to enable and authorise them to be used on the project. These documents explain clearly all the safety checks, methods of work and maintenance requirements to be followed by all personnel involved in the use of the plant. A reading of the three documents, especially the Use of Plant Safety Plan, gives a good impression of how effective the co-operative approval process was.

The platform can accommodate three people along with tools and materials and has a maximum safe working load of 400kg. The maximum working height from rail level to the underside of the basket is 12.1 metres, if the load in the basket is restricted to 300kg. The working height is less (approximately 9.5 metres) at the full load of 400kg.

The gross weight of the machine is 12.5 tonnes. The MEWP must be brought onto and removed from the track at Road Rail

Access Points (RRAPs). These have to be provided at places where track curvature and cant is minimised. Curvature must be less severe than 80 metres and cant must not exceed 120 mm. Also, the track gradient must be less than 1 in 25 at the RRAP. A machine controller must always accompany the machine.

Another requirement specified by TfL is that the MEWPs must always work in pairs at any particular location. This is so that, in the event of a machine breakdown, the second machine is available for recovery of the failed machine.

A total of eight MEWPs have been modified for use on the 4LM programme.

The availability of permanent and temporary RRAPs at suitable locations to give more flexibility for access to work sites is also being studied.

With 450 antennas to fit, as well as the many cable runs needed and other associated equipment, in a limited space of time, the new Total Rail Solutions RR14 MEWPs will please a lot of people.

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Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

KG 240 KG 160

12

Tot Kg 400

10 8 6

60˚

EcoPar is a natural-gas-based lowcarbon fuel. It contains no sulphur, no aromatics and no benzene and can be used in conventional diesel engines without the need for any modification. It is especially beneficial if used in areas of poor air ventilation as it almost completely eradicates harmful diesel particulates.

Compared to the use of conventional fuel, it is estimated that carbon monoxide emissions are reduced by up to 76 per cent, carbon dioxide by 30-50 per cent, nitrous oxide by up to 26 per cent and carcinogenic emissions by up to 90 per cent.

The 4LM programme is championing the use of EcoPar by fuelling the MEWPs with it. There is an aspiration within the

business to widen the use of this fuel as far as possible, once the benefits of its use in the MEWPs’ engines have been successfully demonstrated.

Credit for the introduction of this major innovation will be justifiably attributable to Total Rail Solutions. Apart from its current contribution to productivity on the 4LM programme, the use of EcoPar fuel may well be a longer-term legacy.

600

Crush protection

4 2 0

Max+- 200

66

-2 -2

0

2

4

6

8

Lower arm free for arm angle >= 60˚ Locked front axle

10

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TotalPlant Rail Solutions: The Right For The Right Job

talTotal Rail Solutions: Rail Solutions: The Right Plant For The Right Job

e Right The Right Plant Plant For The ForRight The Right Job Job Total Rail Solutions (TRS) is the UK’s leading TRS are qualified to manage your project provider of fully managed safety critical rail from start to finish, supplying all the plant services. Offering the full range of Plant, labour and support services needed plant solutions from concept to delivery, Tel: 01962 to achieve a successful outcome for your Tel: 01962 711642 711642 TRS are able to supply ALL the resources E-mail: project (no matter how big or how small) info@totalrailsolutions.co.uk E-mail: info@totalrailsolutions.co.uk www.totalrailsolutions.co.uk you need in one location. be it time, specification, budget. www.totalrailsolutions.co.uk

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www.totalrailsolutions.co.uk

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PLANT AND EQUIPMENT

Piling excellence CHRIS PARKER

V

an Elle is an award winning British contractor that has been delivering geotechnical solutions to the industry for more than 33 years. It has grown gradually and now has a directly employed workforce of over 550 and a turnover of £84 million in 2015/16.

The business is now the UK’s largest company specialising in ground engineering and uses the latest plant, technologies and innovations to deliver value-engineered solutions to the market.

A recent open day attracted around 30 companies to Pinxton, Nottinghamshire, including Network Rail, Murphy, Carillion, Capita Symonds and VolkerRail. Rail Engineer was there to find out what had drawn them.

Skilled staff In common with all other concerns, Van Elle’s business and reputation hangs on the quality of its staff. Rail technical and innovation director Andy Howard explained that Van Elle’s philosophy is to employ direct rather than through agencies, to pick people with the required capabilities and attitudes and to train them fully. Evidence of Van Elle’s seriousness about training was clear to all, as a new training academy was under construction adjacent to the guests’ marquee.

Health and safety is also a key focus for the company, and the strapline “Think safely, Act safely” aims to convey this to staff and clients. Hazard reports are seen as positive, showing that people in the company are taking safety seriously as well as opening up safety issues to the senior management team so that they may be appropriately resolved. The company is a POS (Plant Operators Scheme) member, a CSCS (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) Platinum Award winner and a Network Rail principal contractor license holder.

Van Elle believes in positive engagement with its staff, its clients and also with the community. It has a specific involvement with education, partnering with a number of local and regional

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

educational establishments. This year will see the launch of the inaugural “Van Elle Challenge” as part of which several educational establishments will attempt to solve some real problems that the industry has encountered in its work.

Mark Williams, Van Elle’s group development director, outlined the company’s history in rail engineering and, in particular, on-track works. Although involved as a company within the rail sector for over 15 years, the Rail division began to evolve in 2010 when the VolkerFitzpatrick Birmingham New Street management team suggested that Van Elle should deliver the same products and quality of service on the rail infrastructure that it currently did on platforms.

Success on subsequent projects led to the formation of the company’s specialist Rail Division in 2013. Van Elle now owns and operates one of the UK’s largest fleets of state-of-the-art Colmar road/rail vehicles (RRVs). The Rail division now has

around 70 direct employees, although the group has over 160 PTS accredited staff in total. Work undertaken ranges from GI (ground investigation); anchor, soil-nail and pile installation for OLE (overhead line equipment); platform extensions; embankment and trackbed stabilisation through to the lifting and erection of structures.

Extensive fleet The plant owned is extensive in number and variety, including sophisticated piling rigs, drills and hybrid ancillary attachments - Van Elle has also invested in Europe’s first rail mounted volumetric concrete mixer. This should soon clear the Network Rail approvals process, enabling the company to deliver up to 7.2 cubic metres of mixed concrete when fully laden although it’s material components can be replenished on site by rail, or taken by rail to a road-rail access point (RRAP).

Many of the company’s latest plant purchases and developments were on display with a number being shown in action. Several of these demonstrations were undertaken on the rail test track,

PLANT AND EQUIPMENT

claimed to be one of the UK’s longest private examples, where not only is the innovative plant built and tested, but also employees are trained and mentored.

The first new machines shown, however, were two new road mounted piling rigs, Soilmec STM20s that take only about 20 minutes to set up after arrival on site.

Next up were their two brand new Colmar T10000FSCG tracked roadrail cranes. One was in a static display showing how it can lift sheet piles up to 14 metres in length over a 15-metre radius.

The other gave a working demonstration of its capabilities, first erecting an OLE mast on a piled base from on-track and then showing how its caterpillar tracks can be widened and lowered onto the ballast shoulders (suitably protected as required) to increase the capacity of the crane at greater radii, enabling it to pick up an Unwin Super Kitten mini piling rig which would be used for mini piling platforms or working under live OLE. Throughout the day, all the demonstrated lifting and drilling operations were controlled by a trackside operator (crane controller) using an Athena DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) system, manufactured by dBD Communications.

This ensured full safety and communication with the experienced RRV Operators.

Piling on the innovation A special piling mast, developed especially for the installation of the company’s unique trackbed stabilisation solution Smartpile, was also remotely controlled whilst mounted upon one of the new Colmar T12000FS RRVs. Smartpiles were developed by Van Elle’s dedicated R&D team in response to Network Rail’s requirement to stabilise tracks in areas of particularly poor ground conditions. The concept is to drive piles through the track ballast between the sleepers, through any weak layers below the track, into better ground. Piles applied like this, in a designed pattern appropriate to the site conditions, can stiffen the track and eliminate stiffness variations, improving the quality and durability of the track geometry without

the expense or disruption to trains that would be caused by conventional remedial methods.

Using this concept should also be quicker and less costly than techniques such as formation treatment, allowing more track to be treated in a given possession and without time consuming ‘wet works’ and curing times. Network Rail had proven the concept during trials, but had not been able to find a satisfactory practical means of applying the concept under real conditions. Once involved, Van Elle developed and proved the Smartpiles and the special piling attachment to drive them, and the company is now one of three contractors to have secured a share of the £45 million framework contract to install them on track stabilisation sites across the network.

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PLANT AND EQUIPMENT New techniques Another solution demonstrated was the formation of bored, concreted OLE piles. Firstly, a cylindrical casing is rotated and advanced into the ground enabling the material within to be augered out and removed from site. The void is then filled with concrete and a steel cage with a specific bolt design to enable the OLE stanchion to be easily mounted on top.

Where even this technique cannot penetrate the ground, uniquely, Van Elle was the first geotechnical engineering contractor to have the technology and equipment capable of drilling through difficult ground conditions (other than reinforced concrete/heavy timber) using the rotary-percussive Elemex solution from Atlas Copco. The bespoke RRVmounted remote-control mast, VE-SPA, uses a specially designed rotary percussive hammer drill to advance the cutting shoe, whilst the pile’s 16mm thick casing is driven to design depth. The arising from the drill is brought to the surface and discharged neatly through a nozzle on one side of the drilling rig such that they can be collected in bags or a skip as required.

The rig requires a very high volume of compressed air at a pressure of 14 bar, so Van Elle worked with Atlas Copco in Sweden to develop a compressor specifically for the task. This delivers up to 1,560 cubic feet/minute from a very quiet unit (the size of a Transit van) that can be pulled to site by an RRV on a rail trailer. As well as being able to penetrate virtually any ground conditions, a major advantage of the Elemex solution is the unequalled accuracy it delivers with minimal vibration and ground disturbance.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

200 such piles were installed at Eden Brows in Cumbria, on the Settle to Carlisle line, to depths of up to 20 metres, with vertical tolerances of less than 25mm, to stabilise a problematic slip failure that had previously closed the line.

Unseen plant Of course, much of Van Elle’s plant was out working and so not seen on the open day. This included the company’s Llamada P160TT continuous flight auger (CFA) piling rig, the largest CFA rig in the UK, and two smaller P140TTs. In addition, Van Elle has recently bought two new Juntan PMx22 driven piling rigs and the UK’s first Soilmec SR95 rig with true CSP capability for installing cased CFA, conventional CFA as well as rotary piles. The company has many Movax side-grip vibratory piling hammers, but has recently also acquired Daedong alternatives that are one third lighter, more manoeuvrable and offer greater control and increased offsets for installation.

Extensive capabilities Van Elle can also design, fabricate and supply specialist concrete products, making these at the Pinxton site utilising its own on-site concrete batching plant. Some examples were displayed alongside the plant demonstrations.

They included Van Elle’s proprietary modular foundation system, Smartbase, which is suitable for all kinds of rail and road structures, whilst its Smartfoot product is regularly used for the foundations of commercial and industrial structures, as well as both private and social housing, where contamination, high water tables and excavation is difficult or speed is of the essence.

The company is also capable of working on specialist offshore, nearshore, coastal and inland waterways projects. It specialises in piling and has the capability to deal with this in restricted access situations as well as open access sites.

Rail projects or sites that Van Elle has been working on recently include the Eden Brows project, Walsall/ Rugeley electrification, Stockley near Heathrow, the Great Western outer track infrastructure project and Great Western electrification. Most recently, the company has started work on Lot 1 of the Midland main line electrification (MMLE) alongside Carrilion Powerlines, using brand-new Colmar T12000FS RRVs that, again, are a world first and deliver more power and efficiency.

Having seen all of the equipment and technology on show, visitors to the open day were left in no doubt as to why Van Elle is a multi-award winning company, having collected, for example, the NCE 100 Awards’ Technology Trailblazer title in 2016 as well as Specialist Contractor of the Year 2015 from Construction News.

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FEATURE

t c u d via

m a s h e e r o o g Sh der nt

n u

e m h s i b r r jorefu a m

A

n essential and significant infrastructure asset in the very well-used southern railway coastal route between Brighton and all points westward is the 16-span Shoreham viaduct, which carries the railway across the tidal estuary of the River Adur.

The present viaduct, which was completed in 1892, has a superstructure of early steel simply supported on concretefilled cast-iron caissons. With its marine situation, it has needed much maintenance attention over the years, the most recent being in 2004. In addition, during World War II, Shoreham viaduct was damaged by bombs on at least three occasions.

Now, however, Network Rail has commissioned a very comprehensive refurbishment to give it a new extended lease of life. BAM Nuttall is the principal contractor, managing the project which is to repair and replace areas of the steelwork suffering loss of section through corrosion, along with comprehensive grit blasting and repainting of the entire structure.

Preliminary work The main works commenced in April 2016 and will be completed by December 2017. However, prior to the actual refurbishment work, an ancillary major task was carried out, between August and October 2015, to remove a redundant gas main attached to the south face of the superstructure. This enabled

MARK PHILLIPS

approximately 100 tonnes of dead load to be eliminated from the structure - prior to the addition of alternative, but essential, dead load in the form of the extensive steel plating repairs to cross and main girders throughout!

The removal of the gas main was accomplished by working in midstream from a barge provided by Jenkins Marine and over the soft, silty shore areas by using a load-spreading paving of 100mm thick Durabase mattresses.

Assessing its condition Mott MacDonald, the consulting civil engineer for the work, prepared outline design proposals based on the available preliminary data concerning corrosion and section loss.

Two previous heavy maintenance packages have been carried out on the viaduct in recent years, firstly over one half of the structure during the 1990s and secondly on the remainder of the structure in 2003/4. Records of girder conditions from these works were used to estimate the scale and scope of works necessary for the current project.

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However, once the structure was fully scaffolded and access became available, Mott MacDonald was able to conduct a comprehensive and up-to-date corrosion survey and use the results to refine the exact specification required for every individual cross girder, main girder and component throughout the viaduct.

There was a considerable variation in what was required where. Therefore, to simplify the specification of the work as far as possible, a suite of repair categories was devised and drawn up in detail. For example, in the design schedule for repairs to the cross girders, there were eight different specifications, dependent upon the location and extent of corrosion loss.

So, although all 69 cross girders throughout the structure are essentially identical, each end of each individual cross girder has been designated with its own specific repair type, from 1 to 8, depending on what is required.

This approach has targeted the work required to the structure, which has required collaboration between all parties to assist with the planning of the work, the ordering of materials and the pre-fabrication of the steelwork repair plates.

FEATURE One innovation at Shoreham viaduct is the use of a biometric security system.

Everyone who works on the site has their details, which includes a copy of their index fingerprint and a scan of their CSCS (Construction Skills Certificate Scheme) card, logged into the system. Entry to the site is via a turnstile, which only responds to a biometrically recognised fingerprint.

(Top) The gas main still in place.

(Bottom) Cross girder repair.

Another sophisticated feature that BAM Nuttall has introduced is a wireless emergency fire and first aid point. If the fire alarm is triggered, the turnstiles revert to free wheel, allowing safe and quick egress. The system prints out a list of all who have entered the site, thereby enabling a roll call.

Possessions not required

Access and protection Underslung scaffolding across the entire structure was designed and installed by Hadley Scaffolding and provides easy access to every part of the superstructure being repaired and painted. Optima Scaffold Designs checked the safe loading and structural performance of the scaffolding.

Mott MacDonald assessed and checked the viaduct’s structural capacity to take the additional loading from the scaffolding.

The entire scaffolding is covered by shrinkwrap cladding to minimise the effects of wind and wet weather and to contain the grit and scalings from blasting, essential as the Adur estuary is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Approval for the method of work to safeguard the SSSI was sought from several authorities, including the Environment Agency, Natural England, West Sussex County Council and the Marine Management Organisation.

It is striking that almost all the repairs are being carried out without the need for track possessions, although these formed part of the original design. However, an innovative approach to the repair of those cross girders suffering bottom flange corrosion resulted in a reduced requirement.

Because of the extensive nature of corrosion to some of the cross girder bottom flanges, and the consequent difficulty of achieving a good seating surface for the addition of conventional strengthening plates, an alternative solution has been devised by Mott MacDonald.

Heavy angles are being attached to the cross girder web, slightly above the bottom flange, running horizontally in those locations where there is a need for strengthening.

In order to fit these angles, it is necessary to curtail some of the stiffeners running between the top and bottom flanges.

This alteration to the stiffeners cannot be done whilst the structure is carrying live load. After the new horizontal angles are installed, along with replacement stiffeners and web repair plates where required, the cross girder can once again go back into service.

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It was originally envisaged that, during this particular repair option, track possession would be required in order to avoid the live loading. However, BAM Nuttall came up with a solution to avoid the need for possessions for this situation. Paul Hyland, site agent for the works, and Bianca Millar, section engineer, explained to Rail Engineer that, by using small Mabey adjustable props (see above), it is possible to support the top flange whilst the stiffeners are being removed and replaced.

Track closure is, however, still required for repairs to the main girder bottom flanges in locations where the corrosion is in the area of the cross girder connections. These particular repairs are quite elaborate. The cross girder is detached where it is connected to the bottom flange of the main girder and then reattached once additional strengthening plates to the main girder have been installed.

Sequence of repairs Operations are carried out simultaneously from work preparation areas on both the east and west banks.

Firstly, all loose corrosion is removed by jet washing and hydro-grit blasting and the existing steelwork prepared for receipt of the new repair plates, which are fixed using tension-control bolts. Then, with all the new steelwork in place on a particular cross girder, that unit is thoroughly flash grit-blasted and given its full surface coating treatment, consisting of four coats.

In this way, work progresses systematically across the viaduct. The same sequence also applies to the main girder repairs and to the cross-bracing between the caissons. The steelwork repairs are being carried out by Four Tees Engineers and the blasting and painting

by Bridgecoat.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

Some unusual fauna inhabit the viaduct.

The site health and safety induction process includes a warning to beware the false widow spiders. These are related to the black widow species and, whilst by no means as dangerous, can inflict a meaningful bite if disturbed by the unwary.

It is not thought that there have been any serious incidents to the workforce, but one cannot help wondering what the spiders made of the grit blasting.

Once this major overhaul of the structure is complete, there should be no need for any further significant maintenance for 25 to 30 years, at which time it will probably be due for a “straightforward” clean and paint.

Renewing the steelwork as described is not simply repairing the structure but also strengthening it. Once complete, this will allow the Route Availability to be raised, allowing wider categories of rail traffic to use the viaduct.

A notable feature of this project, with its myriad detailed steelwork repairs to be specified and managed, seems to be the achievement of “buildability”. Close collaboration between Mott MacDonald as designer and BAM Nuttall as contractor has optimised the repair process, saving both time and money while delivering all that was asked of them.

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FEATURE

PETER STANTON

IMechE

Rail Electrification

2017

T

he Institution of Mechanical Engineers Railway Division has an enviable reputation for the organisation of technical conferences and seminars related to the rail industry. The most recent one held at the Birdcage Walk headquarters in London was ‘Rail Electrification 2017: Addressing the Challenges and Designing for the Future’.

This seminar was, in effect, the latest in a series of biennial occasions which started at the time of the resurgence of United Kingdom railway electrification; working on a theme of mobilisation and also tracking progress as proposals and designs were developed and implemented.

While being watched by impressive paintings of George and Robert Stephenson, an audience of rail professionals heard a broad review of the state of play and also technical presentations on the progress and the ups and downs of the current national electrification plan. Presenters came from a wide spectrum of UK and mainland European companies and organisations.

After the pause…

To set the scene the keynote address was given by Peter Dearman, electrification advisor to Bechtel. Peter is a long-term electrification engineer, being intimately involved with the subject from British Railways days to the current privatised structure.

Peter presented a “Status Update on Electrification in the UK after the Pause.” To refresh memories, the “Pause “ occurred some two years ago when the government decided to call a stop to electrification design and construction works in view of the emerging costs and timescales which were not in line with the original forecasts. Three questions were posed: has the industry taken on board the messages on costs, is the purpose of cost reduction really served at all by scope

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

deferral, and what is the real safety or business case for electrification? To qualify and amplify the questions, Peter also asked whether exceeding direct requirements was simply over engineering.

To tackle these questions, it was necessary to examine a bit of history relating to railway electrification in the United Kingdom. The huge 1955 railway modernisation programme was rather a mix, but there was wide-scale electrification approval with Euston-Manchester-Liverpool being authorised. However, costs were out of control

FEATURE

and the programme was delayed; the Minister of Transport at the time (who was also chairman of Marples Ridgeway, a road builder) halted the job.

British railways reacted to the challenge and, in the few years between 1967 and 1971, the whole process was addressed; engineering was simplified, design was mechanised and the implementation model was completely changed. The cost per kilometre was halved and delivery times reduced by a third. This led to many schemes being implemented with the East Coast being finished a year earlier than plan and under budget!

Fast forward to the twenty-first century - a major UK electrification programme was agreed; industry was slow to mobilise and ran late and way over budget: the Minister called a halt. (Sound familiar?)

The seminar proceeded to look at various angles - running from an operator’s point of view through design and innovation issues, touching on safety and risk assessment and also including a view from the rest of Europe in terms of a French company comfortably fitting into the UK arena.

An operator’s view Before looking at the technical issues, there was a fascinating insight to the view of the operator - in this case Govia Thameslink Railway. Gerry McFadden, engineering director for the train operator explained that, with five hundred and twenty five trains and a huge change focussed round Thameslink, energy consumption was a major concern.

Gerry reviewed the progress of electric traction engineering, from the early days of the operating company to the present new generation of class 700 Desiro City trains. Overall trains have become heavier, with axle weights creeping up and greater ‘hotel’ loads. There had therefore been an effort to get weight back down, but perhaps not enough had been done early enough about regeneration. This had not been recognised as the energy (and money) saving option that it really was. The technical details are complex and enthralling but, in summary, by the time regeneration was properly acknowledged, consumption was reduced by around 20 per cent – and it could have been done earlier.

Standards and systems The subject then moved on to design issues and associated developments in constructability and compliance. Firstly, Network Rail’s professional head of contact systems, Phil Doughty, described the move in overhead contact system (OCS) design from the type of equipment installed as part of the West Coast main line route modernisation, to the development of what has become known as the UK Master Series (UKMS). This single design range has emerged from Series Two, developed for use at up to 100mph on the northern schemes, and Series One, 140mph with twin pantographs and introduced as part of the Great Western project, providing clear and consistent rules and guidance on the application of standard designs.

In addition, UKMS has introduced a third standard, to provide the best option for multi pantograph operation at 125mph. The system comprises a single set of components, assemblies, technical sheets, general arrangements and foundations that can be allocated as appropriate and are arranged to be compatible with both legacy and TSI-compliant pantograph configurations.

It was relevant to note that, although the scope of UKMS is currently limited to new electrification schemes, there is scope to include retro-fitting to earlier mark one and mark three equipment if required.

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FEATURE

Rob Daffern from Furrer+Frey continued the design theme, looking at an overhead contact system for high-output construction. Series One was designed as just such an OCS, to be installed mid-week on two tracks out of four with adjacent line open (ALO) working - easy to install and therefore easy to renew. Rob commented that Series One was intended to maximise installation efficiency and build quality, reduce the supply chain complexity and achieve economy by standardisation. High output is not necessarily about getting the cheapest or the lightest, instead it is “the simplest overall solution to cut through the complexity of real life”.

Reviewing the lessons learnt from the Great Western project, Rob suggested that the contract scopes and goals should be more closely aligned, there should be more time for feedback from early trials, focussing on the whole ‘factory’ process, and stronger management of change.

It takes innovation Railway engineering cannot stand still - innovation is always needed to go forward. Steve Cox, engineering and technical director of Alstom Transport, looked at how the industry is suffering under the influences of rising costs, milestones missed and aims to reduce HSE risk. Capital costs are rising and a focus on reducing life cycle costs needs to look at cost of development, the costs of BIM (although the benefits are acknowledged), the impact of any single source of supply and an increase in equipment costs. Steve headlined a simple equation from his company: Innovative Equipment + Innovative Plant + Integrated Process = Efficient Delivery at Reduced Cost.

As an example of controlling capital costs, Steve highlighted Alstom’s patented modular ‘CLever Cantilever’ which delivers a reduced number of components, high adjustability and lower weight.

The equipment has gained Network Rail Product Acceptance and can even be integrated into the Network Rail MK ranges, allowing upgrade through maintenance.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

Design and safety were subjects for Gary Keenor, group engineer for Atkins and contact system specialist for Great Western Electrification. Having introduced himself in terms of ‘How to be an Engaged Designer’, Gary explained that there is a heavy responsibility for safety in a design. He then presented an absorbing study on the facets of electrical safety and working in and around live electrical equipment on the railway infrastructure, with parallel emphasis being placed on the modern addition of an extra conductor in the form of the Auto Transformer conductor.

Foreign practice To round off, Sebastien Lustro, rail electrification director of TSO Catenaires, explained how systems are dealt with in France. The company has three design offices, its own training centre and a large fleet of rail related plant and machinery.

Sebastien explained that a continuous programme of high-speed line construction had resulted in TSO having regular electrification work.

The example given was TSO’s work on the new 350km/h, 600km Tours – Bordeaux high speed line. Basic design was delivered by SNCF and then applied to the route to meet specifications and project requirements for this new part of the French high-speed rail system. Of particular interest was

FEATURE

the initial structures installation which, with the formation down but no track in place, was road based from lorries and road based plant using poured foundations. Structures were planted with small part steelwork installed, final adjustment and wiring being undertaken when the rails had been laid. The scale of the project and the construction work was striking and the insight to this level of railway building with accompanying electrification was valuable in view of the future high-speed route developments in the UK. As a contrast, the more elderly French electrified systems are now in serious need of update and restoration to modern standards. The route from Paris Austerlitz to Bretigny has equipment dating from before the 1930s and has reached unacceptable levels of poor reliability and high running costs. This 1,500-volt system requires complete replacement and an innovative scheme was essential, incorporating OCS renewal with minimal disruption on this high density line that carries 500,000 passengers a day.

The existing inventory of multiple types of poles, masts and gantries, tensioning devices and corroded structures on a system with no compensation on the catenary (messenger wire in mainland European parlance) added to the challenge of bringing this high density route up to modern reliability standards of performance.

TSO is approaching the OCS renewal task with a new high-performance type for 1,500 volt DC, a simplified design with a reduced number of components and reduction of sections from 1800 to 1400 metres.

A requirement is also the ability to migrate to 25kV AC at a later stage. The contract will run for eight years, be BIM compliant and all works under possessions at night must hand back to operation every single morning.

TSO is thus involved with two completely contrasting projects, which together gave an enthralling view of the challenges faced by our close neighbours.

A coded map of the route to be electrified showed incremental parts, not necessarily adjacent, leading to mixed traction and even an inability to take electric trains to the maintenance depot under energised wires, a point underscored by a photograph of a Class 57 hauling an EMU. The introduction of the new system requires the coordination of driver, maintenance and station staff training, station improvements, testing and compatibility assessments as well as a complex juggling act of coordinating infrastructure availability and rolling stock storage and stabling.

At the time of the presentation, Rishi was pleased to be able to point to the introduction of electric services, mobilisation of sites away from the home depot, Class 387 compatibility with Series one OCS at 110mph, operation through to Maidenhead and driver and technician training undertaken. Further work remains, of course, but there is a confidence that the programme can be achieved.

Of course, GWR isn’t the only railway with a new fleet and new electrification. Phil Hinde, principal engineer, rolling stock and depots at Crossrail, spoke on ‘Power for the trains, a rolling stock engineer’s perspective’.

Phil gave a very useful overview of the Crossrail scheme: reminding those present that the scheme was, in fact, much more than building a new railway in the core. It also involves massive alteration to the existing railway out to Maidenhead and Shenfield, routes which have to stay open while provision is being made for the new services.

The new Class 345 train was described, including the features necessary to comply with the disparate existing and new infrastructure configurations, designed and constructed to the principles and project requirements for the programme.

Consultation One of the recurring topics at the conference was the question of wire heights and their relationship with the infrastructure, looking at clearances between live elements and standing

Don’t forget Crossrail!

The discussion then returned to the Great Western programme. Rishi Ravindran, depot engineering manager at Great Western Railway (GWR), spoke of the work necessary in preparing for electrification coupled with the delivery of a new fleet of Class 800 trains.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

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FEATURE surfaces (issue 149, March 2017). There was intense debate as to how the industry should react to the appearance of requirements to achieve standards which were not easily or financially achievable, and where the historical alignment showed there had been no incidents relevant to the enhanced requirements in the UK over the years.

The problem doesn’t only come about due to the current standards regime. There is a legacy element where previous electrification schemes have taken approaches to configuration which do not fit well with today’s rolling stock.

Examples quoted were extremely high wire heights in Ilford depot and steep wire gradients at overbridges; severely challenging modern pantograph overheight protection. On the other hand, there are also bridges and other locations where the wire height is too low, carrying a risk of pantograph well flashover. A potential challenge could also be from the increased fault currents at 12kA and harmonic resonance.

All these are conditions that have to be managed, but they are indicative of the need to bring parts of the industry together in consultation, to ensure that project requirements are clear and can be met in a suitable timescale. Rolling stock and infrastructure engineers need to work together to: »» Strengthen the professional focus on OCS power; »» Ensure infrastructure knowledge is up to date; »» Improve local feedback to HQ engineers; »» Fill any gaps in standards; »» Prioritise fuel consumption data supplied by rolling stock manufacturers; »» Realise energy is as much a system capacity constraint as track or signalling; »» Recognise that more trains place more stress on equipment; »» Integrate the system.

As a valuable finale to the presentations, Roger White, director of the Rail Electrification Consultancy, presented a most absorbing paper dealing with issues on earthing, bonding, traction return and, in effect, system integration - but in this case the integration between the electrical engineering and the fixed mechanical and civil engineering structure. Roger clarified what is earth in an electrical sense and visited the hazards experienced through earthing and bonding hazards, with touch potentials and step potentials all receiving attention.

A very useful run down on segregated and integrated earthing and bonding followed, with illustration of functional and historical preferences. Earthing and bonding issues had led to some serious and spectacular incidents involving equipment that was either degraded or not of suitable design; sometimes impacting on neighbours and stakeholders. A series of crosssection diagrams, illustrating potentials in and around the ground on electrification systems, gave pause for thought.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

The debate continues The seminar was rounded off by a panel of experts drawn from the day’s participants, and a lively debate ensued. The future of electrification, seen as a good thing by those present, may not look that way to others. However, if the cost is trebled, there won’t be a future. Also, the imposition of apparently unnecessary standards is a downward influence the industry could well do without - perhaps a challenge should be mounted by the experienced and knowledgeable professionals forming the panel.

The last word goes to Peter Dearman, who opened the conference. “In all this remain some painful realities. Fossil fuel will not dominate the energy market forever; its time is now short. Price and availability will begin to become a problem from 2050.

Major cities are banning diesels, how long before that ban is complete: 30 years? That is less than the life of a single train fleet. Sniff the air in an HST front coach or on a platform as a class 66 hauls past and wonder when the public backlash will surface.

If we kill off electrification, what will our response be?

Thanks to the IMechE and all the team members who put the day together and enabled such a wide ranging educational and discussion event.

13th September 2017 – LONDON SUMMIT PROGRAMME 08.00 Registration, Refreshments and Exhibition

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

09.00 Welcome from our Host - Colin Wheeler

13.15 Managing Safety and Complacency on 4LM - Sarah Tack, Head Of Safety For The Ground Transportation In The UK, Thales

09.05 Keynote - Paul Maynard MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Rail, Accessibility and HS2 09.25 Keynote - Francis Paonessa, Managing Director Infrastructure Projects, Network Rail 09.45 Q&A with Keynote Speakers SAFETY CULTURE AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 09.55 Bridging the Behavioural Gap: A Psychological Approach To Rail Safety - Nicola Ujen, SHE director, Costain 10.15 Repeated Causality Events: Why are we Making the Same Mistakes? - Ian Prosser, Chief Inspector of Railways and Director, Railway Safety, Office of Rail and Road (ORR) 10.35 Developing a Safety Culture - Mandy Geal, Founder, Learning Partners 10.55 Implementing Occupational Health And Training The Staff Of The Future - Emma Head, Corporate Health & Safety Director, HS2 11.15 Q & A With Panel 11.25 Refreshments / Exhibition TECHNOLOGY IMPROVEMENTS 11.45 Using Technology to Improve Safety and Reduce Costs - Lex Van Der Poel, Director, Dual Inventive 12.05 High Output Track Renewals, Infrastructure Projects - David Underwood, Project Manager, Network Rail 12.20 Freight Wagon Maintenance and Loading - James Collinson, Managing Director, NCB

13.35 A Brand New Railway: What Methods are being used to Train Staff - Martin Brown, Director, Health and Safety, Crossrail 13.55 Application of Investigation Techniques to Manage Risk - Simon French, Chief Inspector, RAIB 14.15 The True Cost of an Incident and what Lessons we Learn - Pino de Rosa, Managing Director, Bridgeway Consulting 14.35 Q & A With Panel 14.45 Refreshments / Exhibition FUTURE OF SAFETY 15.05 A New Way of Looking at Stressful Situations in the Work Place - Mark Wingfield, Speaker and Trainer, MAX Training 15.25 The Digital Railway: Improving Track Safety Without Lineside Signals, Joint Presentation - Pat McFadden, STE Development Director, Network Rail and Tom Lee, Director of Standards, RSSB 15.45 The health & safety Laboratory’s approach to managing health for the future - Matt Coldwell, Occupational Hygienist, Health and Safety Laboratory 16.05 Q&A With Panel 16.15 Wrap Up and Thanks

12.35 Q & A With Panel 12.45 Lunch / Exhibition

Purchase your tickets now at www.railsummits.com

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FEATURE

LESLEY BROWN

SIEMENS SUCCESS IN USA

I

n recent decades, there has been a noticeable revival of rail in the US and Canada. The volume of passengers is rising, the number of rail routes and networks growing, infrastructure and rolling stock are being modernised.

In line with this development, over the years Siemens has steadily built up a multifaceted business in rolling stock with a portfolio comprising light rail vehicles (LRVs) for both the inner and outer city, trams, locomotives, and, most recently, rail passenger coaches. All these activities are centred around a flagship 60-acre plant in Sacramento, north of San Francisco.

Purchasing the Sacramento facility in 1992 was an important move, enabling the company to develop and nurture skills. Today, the plant employs a workforce of around 800 and boasts full manufacturing capabilities that include design, engineering, testing, subassembly and final assembly.

Putting down permanent roots and investment in expertise over the years appear to have paid off. Today, Siemens is the only constructor in North America to manufacture welded bogies, it is the market leader in LRVs, and has recently landed some milestone vehicle contracts (see box) including a major tram order for San Francisco.

Boosting network capacity and efficiency Famous for its tramway the world over, be it in film, TV, fiction, or daily life, San Francisco is stepping up a gear.

Part of the Muni public transport network, the tramway comprises six lines, extends over 36.7 miles, and is served by 151 trams manufactured by AnsaldoBreda (now Hitachi). Ridership currently stands at 730,000 passengers daily.

Yet the popular system is already over capacity and the fleet more than two decades old. Furthermore, with upwards of 130,000 new households and 310,000 new jobs expected in and around the city within the next 20 years, boosting the network

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

capacity and efficiency is a must. Upwards of 80,000 additional tram riders per day are anticipated from 2040.

A streetcar named S200 Under construction at Siemens’ Sacramento plant, the order for 215 two-car S200 trams followed contracts signed with San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Agency (SFMTA) in 2014 (175 units) and 2015 (40 units). The whole order, placed following a competitive tendering process, is worth an estimated US$830 million (£642 million). Rollout will take place over 2017/18.

“It’s important for us to learn from previous procurements to avoid repeating mistakes, one of which was that we didn’t buy enough

FEATURE tram cars last time round,” commented John Haley, director of transit at SFMTA. The S200 has been developed from the constructor’s S70 model, of which over 1,300 vehicles are currently operating across North America. Each two-car unit has capacity for 203 passengers and the new model will eventually replace the entire current fleet, thus serving to both upgrade and expand the Muni system.

“What’s exciting is that out of the total units on order, the first batch of 64 will expand the existing fleet,” Mr Haley enthused. “Of these, nine will be delivered, and possibly even enter commercial service in 2017, which will have a major impact on crowding.”

Reaching out Despite some impressive rolling stock orders (see box), Siemens Mobility isn’t resting on its North American laurels. While building trains, trams, and LRVs remains at its core, the constructor took a strategic decision in 2009 to develop vehicle service, maintenance and repair activities. To consolidate this move, 2015 marked the opening of a new 60,000 square-foot facility (near the flagship Sacramento plant) solely dedicated to growing these segments.

Why diversify? “To smooth the gaps between rolling stock orders that might or might not come,” explained Peter Tuschinski, VP strategy and development, Siemens Rail Systems Division.

“In response to changes in the market, it’s evident to do more in the rail services space

such as maintenance, technical support, spare parts, digital services and upgrading,” said Chris Maynard, head of customer service. “With a service life of at least 30 years, but with technology changing so fast, rolling stock has fallen into the technology game. The challenge today is how to get different generations of trains talking to each other and so operating as one, rather than separate fleets.”

Perhaps keeping one step ahead of the game is another reason for the company’s staying power in North America. “Most of the OEMs out here don’t do services like this, just as we didn’t some years ago,” Chris added.

Digitalisation - getting trains and tracks talking While continuing to multiply its rolling stock and rail service contracts across North America, Siemens is also determined to stay ahead of the digital game. “We are spending considerable time and money on digital services, which is probably one of the biggest emerging markets,” Chris Maynard reported.

Through the power of digital technologies, going forward Siemens plans to ramp up the added value it offers customers. This may take the form of energy efficiency, regenerative braking, eco-driving and vehicle analytics for rolling stock. Systems for infrastructure are on the cards too, as Chris

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FEATURE

Maynard explained: “For the railroads, we can put in a box at level crossings that talks to other track equipment and enables remote inspections.”

April 2017 marked the launch of Digital Rail Services, a new business that will use smart sensors and advanced software platforms to put intelligence behind billions of data points created on the country’s rail systems.

By bringing infrastructure and vehicles into the digital era through this ‘Internet of Trains’, Siemens says it is looking to help operators reduce unplanned downtime, improve operational efficiency, enable improved business planning and performance, as well

as generate energy and cost savings.

“Today, rail vehicles send between one and four billion data points per year and rail infrastructure can send billions of messages just inside a specific system,” said Simon Davidoff, head of Siemens Mobility Digital Services in North America. “With our Digital Services business, we’re taking not only experience from our global rail footprint, but also our extensive company-wide digital expertise to turn billions of data points into action. This includes the ability to detect malfunctions well before they can cause problems and information that helps improve arrival times and punctuality for riders.”

Together with Siemens, the City of Atlanta and Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) will be among the first transport actors to take digital steps by putting big data to use from its existing fleet to improve operations and safety.

High speed ahead Last, but by no means least, Siemens has high-speed rail in its sights too. Yes, it will be making a play to build trains for the California project, if and when it takes off.

In anticipation, the constructor has already purchased land to extend its Sacramento facility. Watch this space…

Current workload for Siemens Mobility in North America

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

Calgary Transit: modernisation of

Metro Transit: 5 S70 LRVs for

32 SD160 LRVs - signed in 2013,

Minneapolis-St Paul - signed in

delivery ongoing.

2015, delivery from 2019.

Amtrak: maintenance of 70 ACS-64

All Aboard Florida: servicing and

locomotives for 15-year period -

maintenance of Brightline trainsets

signed in 2014.

for 30-year period - signed June

Amtrak: construction of a traction

2015.

power feed-in station plus a new

New York City Metropolitan

Sitras SFC Plus static frequency

Transit Authority: installation

convertor in New Jersey - signed

of CBTC in New York subway -

in 2014, completion scheduled for

signed in August 2015, installation

mid-2017.

ongoing.

Brightline: 5 Charger locomotives +

Southeastern Pennsylvania

20 passenger coaches for operator

Transportation Authority (SETPA):

All Aboard Florida - signed in 2014,

construction of 13 ACS-64 electric

delivery from 2017.

locomotives, supply of spare parts,

Amtrak: 92 Charger SC44 diesel-

and provision of operation and

electric locomotives for multi-state

maintenance training - signed in

(Illinois, California, Michigan,

2015, rolling stock delivery from

Washington, Maryland, Missouri)

early 2018.

project - signed in 2014 & 2015,

Sound Transit, Seattle: 120 S70

delivery from 2017’

LRVs - signed 2016, testing starts

San Francisco (SFMTA): 215 S200

in 2019.

LRVs - signed in 2014 (175 units) &

San Diego Metropolitan Transit

2015 (40 units), delivery from 2017

System (MTS): 45 S70 LRVs - signed

Denver Regional Transportation

2016, delivery from end 2018.

District (RTD): 29 SD-160 LRVs -

Charlotte Area Transit System

signed 2015, delivery from 2019.

(CATS): 6 S70 LRVs - signed in 2016.

Sensing Solutions for Railway Applications Please come and join us at the RVE Expo. This is the only UK exhibition and conference specifically focussed on Rail Vehicles and Enhancements at the Derby Velodrome on Thursday 5th October.

Speak with our Telemecanique sensor experts who will be on hand to demonstrate how our sensor technologies can help improve your efficiency and productivity.

Discover why we have become experts in rail sensor solutions and specialists in demanding applications.

Find out more www.tesensors.com

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FEATURE

International insights

from the Caucasus

T

he Strategic Partnership 1520 is an annual international forum which considers common technical and commercial issues for rail businesses operating on the Russian-gauge network. This year, the twelfth forum was held in the Caucasus mountains at Rosa Khutor which, together with its railway line, had been built for the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics and is now a thriving mountain resort.

Although the forum is primarily concerned with 1520mm-gauge railways, it offered an international perspective well beyond this with speakers from Cuba, France, Germany, India, Iran, Poland and Sweden.

International projects and exports RZD International, an engineering company within Russian Railways, has recently undertaken significant projects in Iran, Serbia and North Korea. In 2015, it won a contract worth €1.2 billion to electrify the 495km Garmsar to Inche Bourun line in Iran, which will increase its annual freight traffic from 2.5 to 10 million tonnes. In Serbia, it has reconstructed 372km of railway with numerous bridges and tunnels that raised line speeds from, typically, 30km/h to 120km/h.

The company now has prospective projects for large-scale infrastructure repairs in Cuba, the operation of a 1,537km

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

line in Brazil, line speed enhancements in India and new lines in Indonesia (200km) and Vietnam (242km).

With government support, Russian train builders are increasing their exports, although they cannot compete in Northern Europe and North America due to sanctions.

DAVID SHIRRES

Transmashholding has a plant in Kazakhstan to build locomotives for use there and export to Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan.

In 2015, the company won a €45 million competitive tender against Alstom and CAF for refurbishment of 222 Budapest subway cars and, in an €88 million contract, has supplied 27 DMUs to Serbia.

Sinara Transport Machines, a manufacturer based in Ekaterinburg which partners with Siemens in Ural Locomotives, currently has contracts worth €196 million to supply Cuba with 74 four-axle hydraulic locomotives and 80 two-axle rail buses.

FEATURE This corridor was only recently completed with the opening in March of a railway bridge over the river that forms the border between Iran and Azerbaijan. As a result, containers can now get from Mumbai to Moscow in 22 days - twice as fast as the sea route through the Suez Canal.

Digital Russian Railway

Cuba, India and Iran Presentations at the forum gave an interesting insight on the development of these very different railways. Eduardo Davila, Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Transport, described the problems faced by the country’s aging 4,226km railway network and rolling stock. He advised that, with Russian cooperation, Cuba plans to increase rail traffic between 2016 and 2022, with freight rising from 15 to 22 million tonnes and passengers from 13 to 42 million.

In contrast India’s 66,687km rail network is the world’s fourth largest. Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain described plans to extend this by 7,900km by 2030 and to electrify 24,400km by 2021. This includes the construction of two dedicated freight corridors totalling 3,360km and a combination of high-speed lines and speed improvements on what Gohain described as the golden quadrilateral and its diagonals. These are the rail links between Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

Over the next five years, India plans an investment of €114 billion on its railways, of which 15 billion will be spent on the redevelopment of 400 stations.

The president of the railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saeed Mohammadzadeh, described the development of various international freight corridors through Iran and, in particular, the North-South Corridor which is the sea route from Mumbai to Bandar Abbas and the standard 1520mm gauge railways through Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia to Moscow and Helsinki. 1,915km of this route is through Iran.

Many presentations featured the challenges and opportunities presented by digital technology. Although these were often similar to those in the UK, there were new ideas and applications specific to Russia. Presentations from Siemens referred to UK practice with mention of unmanned Thameslink trains (something lost in translation) and an illustration of train departure indicators at Euston showing the available space on trains.

Senior Russian Railways vice-president Sergey Kobzev explained the objectives of the company’s digital railway project and how this compared to European and US practice. In Russia, it has three parts: customer applications, traffic requirements (control and infrastructure maintenance) and IT services.

Various speakers stressed the importance of cyber security and the need for open data, especially for customer applications.

In his presentation, Michael Peter, CEO of Siemens Mobility Management Business Unit, offered a solution to these apparently conflicting requirements in the form of a “data diode”.

Oleg Valinsky, Russian Railway’s head of traction directorate, described various rolling stock digital innovations, including embedded diagnostic systems, the remote control of shunting locomotives, the use of augmented reality as a maintenance

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FEATURE aid, infrastructure monitoring by service trains and driver information ranging from gradient profiles to dynamically reconstructed timetables. Providing drivers with such real-time updates of their train schedule, together with other initiatives, are saving around 450 million kWh each year.

With each modern train generating, typically, a terabyte of data each year, effective data mining is essential. One such solution is the Siemens Railigent platform, which offers a smart monitoring, data analysis and forecasting service for asset management. In February, a data processing and analysis centre using Railigent was opened at Podmoskovnaya depot in Moscow, with the intention of improving train and infrastructure reliability and gradually moving to condition-based maintenance.

The new Silk Road China and Russia have signed agreements on a “belt and road initiative” for economic development along enhanced transport corridors, from East to West, through Russia and Central Asian countries. A key part of this initiative is the development of railway corridors to attract containers currently carried on ships.

First vice-president of Russian Railways, Alexander Misharin, advised that the company’s priorities for this are electronic consignment notes, unified train lengths, improved logistics and infrastructure improvements at border crossings. China shares these priorities, as increasing container transit traffic was part of its development plan.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

In 2016, rail transit routes carry containers equivalent to 155,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) from China to Europe, with half this traffic carried in the reverse direction. This is twice the number of containers carried in 2014. 68 per cent of this traffic is via Kazakhstan with the remaining 32 per cent travelling over the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Currently, container trains travel 700km per day. The intention is to raise this to 1,000km by 2020 and 1,700km by 2030.

Misharin commented that, with increasing trade and China’s promotion of overland container traffic, it was possible that a million TEU could be carried by 2020. A significant factor is the growth of e-commerce from the Asia-Pacific region, which is currently worth a total of €930 million with the main players being China (€674 million), Japan (€101 million), South Korea (€57 million) and India (€22 million).

The respective rate of growth for these countries is 33, 7, 11 and 130 per cent.

FEATURE

He announced that, by 2030, Russia plans to have extended the Kazan highspeed line to Ekaterinburg and to have constructed further high-speed lines to St Petersburg and Sochi. However, he did not announce any date for the start of construction for the high-speed line to Kazan. Whilst the line is in an advanced stage of development, it would seem that arrangements for its funding have still to be finalised.

Making the pie bigger India’s rapid rate of growth is an indication of the need for its ambitious railway expansion programme To respond to this growing e-trade, fast transits are required. The proposed 7,761km high-speed rail line between Moscow and Beijing, which is expected to be operational by 2030, will deliver these, giving a 33-hour journey time between the two cities. Misharin also suggested that Russian Railways will require 300km/h cargo trains carrying 600 tons of goods.

These will have wide doorways through which aircraft style containers can be loaded.

Currently, rail carries less than one per cent of the container traffic between Asia and Europe. Misharin considers that there is the potential for Russian land corridors to carry 25 per cent of high-value goods traffic.

High speed to Kazan In 2013, Vladimir Putin announced the plan to build a 762km high-speed line between Moscow and Kazan, which will be part of the high-speed line to Beijing. The €268 million design contract for this line

was let to a Chinese consortium in 2015.

Currently, design of the 230km section between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod is finished, with the remaining designs 42 per cent complete.

The line will have a bespoke ballastless track system and will require 211 overbridges and 113 underbridges - a total of 150km will be over man-made structures. The line’s estimated cost is 16 billion euros and 373,000 workers will be needed to build the line which will require 4.4 million cubic metres of reinforced concrete and 354,000 tonnes of steel. 85 per cent of raw materials, supplies and equipment for the line will come from Russia.

The line is designed for 360km/h operation and will reduce the Moscow to Kazan journey from its current 14 hours 7 minutes to 3 hours 30 minutes. Misharin advised that, with 20 per cent of Russia’s population living in territory adjacent to the new line, it had been estimated its cumulative benefit to the Russia economy by 2030 will be €280 million and increase regional product growth by 60 to 75 per cent.

In his closing speech, Oleg Belozerov (pictured), president of Russian Railways, noted how the forum had focused on digital technologies, human resources and logistics. He felt that cooperation was the only way to deliver global projects as the intention should be “to make the pie bigger” rather than seek individual advantage. He encouraged the development of complex railway projects abroad that could make a significant contribution to each country’s national economy.

He felt that, with 20 agreements being signed and an attendance of over 1,090 participants and 107 speakers from 337 companies in 24 countries, the forum had been a great success.

There were also 145 journalists present.

This one was particularly impressed by the way Russian Railways has adopted new technologies and its development of transport corridors. With its vast size, few economies can be so dependent on their railways as is Russia. For the future, Russia is set to be at the centre of a new Silk Road, which will be an engine of growth for the Eurasian economy.

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 2017

89

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For more information and to search and apply, visit our website or email your CV and a covering letter (quoting reference RE0917) to cv@fnc.co.uk.

Due to the nature of the work that Frazer-Nash undertakes we will require successful candidates to gain UK security clearance.

Our market sectors aerospace • transport • nuclear • marine • defence • power and energy • oil and gas Our offices UK: Basingstoke • Bristol • Burton • Dorchester • Dorking • Glasgow • Gloucester • Plymouth • Warrington Australia: Adelaide • Canberra • Melbourne

SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY

FNC_RE0917 130 x 190mm.indd 1

www.fnc.co.uk/careers

Rail Engineer | Issue 155 | September 10/08/2017 2017 13:08:15

Unlocking capacity and improving reliability Helping your passengers travel when they choose – safely and reliably.

As the need for capacity increases, Siemens’ digital solutions allow optimal use of infrastructure. Trains can run more frequently, data can be used to predict and prevent failure and disruption, and control centres can make decisions that improve service across the network. Passengers are given the latest information to streamline their journeys.

siemens.co.uk/digitalrailway