The Rail Engineer – Issue 118 – August 2014

AUGUST 2014 - ISSUE 118

this issueq PLCS AND RELAYSq NOT ALL BRIDGES ARE PERMANENTq POLYURETHANE SLAB TRACKq INTEGRATING PASSENGER INFO

SLIDING ON NITROGENMaking history at Rochester

SIGNALLING INNOVATIONAn ongoing challenge

CROSSRAIL ANGLIAThe devil is in the interface

A CHALLENGING WEEKEND

The IMechE Railway Challenge produced a first-time winner

TECHNOLOGY | DESIGN | M&E | S&T | STATIONS | ENERGY | DEPOTS | PLANT | TRACK | ROLLING STOCK

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partnershipCelebrating

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News 6Three trains and two trams.

Signalling Innovation - an ongoing challenge 30Clive Kessell reports from the Signalling Innovation Group.

PLCs and Relays - a logical approach 34A quiet revolution in the field of PLCs.

SafeGate - a secure solution 38Improving safety at user-worked level crossings.

Crossrail Anglia - the devil is in the interface 42Integrating Crossrail with the national rail network.

Integrating Passenger information 46Part 2 of Clive Kessell’s feature looks outside the UK.

Nothing to commend them 54Tunnels are, by their nature, overlooked.

Bridges - Lift or Launch? 60Nowhere is time more critical than on the railway.

Not all bridges are permanent 64What about the ones that appear - and then disappear, often overnight?

No place to hide 66A unique railway disaster in 1953.

Obtaining consent 74The importance of early consideration of environmental conditions.

Biodiversity 76The variety of all life on earth.

Contents

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62

Celebrating PartnershipCEO Mark Carne presents the Network Rail awards to recognise the work of its suppliers and contractors.

Sliding on NitrogenMaking history at Rochester

Polyurethane slab track

A Challenging weekend

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

Track & Drainage Rolling Stock/Depots in the October issue of the rail engineer.

Got a fantastic innovation? Working on a great project? Call Nigel on 01530 816 445 NOW!

See more at www.therailengineer.com

the rail engineer • August 2014 3

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Oh what a night it was - or, what an early evening at least. The annual Network Rail awards bash for its suppliers brought accolades for some of the smaller contractors and the smaller projects. The blockbusters were there of course, but it’s good to see that relatively modest projects can be given the credit that they’re due. Small is not necessarily simple. Sometimes size belies extraordinary complexity.

Having recovered from the presentations, Nigel explains why we’ve an article about a bridge which has no vertical clearance at all. Straight across a railway and no headroom. It’s not an unfortunate unit conversion problem between metres and millimetres. This bridge, with fully surfaced roadway either side, was completely intentional.

Railway engineers can be pretty audacious at times. Take for example the new Rochester subway - a mere 800 tonnes of concrete jacked up on beds of nitrogen and then shifted 36 metres over an Easter blockade. Collin Carr makes it sound simple, and maybe it was, but it goes to show that there were engineers who were at ease with their specialty.

It may be a wild generalisation but, really, most engineering is easy. Tricky at times perhaps. It’s the interfaces that cause the problems. With Crossrail the interfaces are many and complex. Network Rail is steering the overground portions of the scheme in and around the rest of their running lines - and signalling - and power - and everything else. Collin tells us just how this is being achieved.

The IMechE annual challenge to build a locomotive - a small one - from scratch and then test it in front of astute judges was just as tense as any television reality show. But this time there were no staged dramas, no clumsy editing. This time the cockups were real. The teams that subjected themselves to the vagaries of the weather and to the uncertainties of prototype mechanical bits and pieces were the

real heroes. Nigel’s verdict? Test the things out of sight first!

Over the past decades, or even generations, the railways haven’t been whiter than white when it comes to looking after the environment and it’s probably through luck that some railway corridors can be a haven for wildlife. Tertius Beneke of Network Rail introduces us to a new term - biodiversity, something that Network Rail takes very seriously. Mentioned 44 times, the message should sink in.

Robert Slatcher, a senior consultant at the environmental and planning consultancy Temple Group, has written us a piece on the importance of early integration of environmental considerations with detailed design. This is all the more important to keep up with the demanding timescales involved in DCOs (Development Consent Orders) when dealing with Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.

You’d think that pouring a pot of polyurethane onto fresh ballast might just create a sticky glob - hardly ideal for free draining track. But there are some clever people out there who can do just that, get away with it and indeed make a sound track supporting structure. Nigel has seen the lid taken off and can vouch for how well it works.

There’s been a quiet revolution going on in the field of logic gates. No longer will there be the click of relays, just the occasional twinkling light attached to a PLC circuit. Programmable Logic Controllers have been around for some time, but it’s only now that they’re appearing on the railway. Not that

they haven’t been tried of course - but it’s been acceptance that’s been the problem. No surprise there then.

The second part of Clive Kessell’s article on information for passengers errs on the slightly sinister. Here we have the possibility of media advisors working alongside information technicians just to make sure that what is said is understood. Then there’s the spectre of our journeys being changed in real time - fine if it’s to ensure an efficient diversion round a trouble spot, but what if someone just wants to get us to walk past a shop?!

Graeme Bickerdike’s contributions this month are a double negative - ‘No place to hide’ and ‘Nothing to commend them’ - the latter referring to tunnels, not his articles.

Until 1953 railway tunnel engineers may have had plenty on their minds, but they didn’t worry about blind tunnel shafts. They didn’t know what they didn’t know. That all changed on 28 April of that year and, to this day, engineers do know what they don’t know - and it’s unsettling.

Out of sight out of mind. That’s the plight of many tunnels with just a pair of portals to give some of them a special identity - Box tunnel and Shugborough for example. The rest? Holes in the ground. Nothing to commend them - or perhaps there is. Graeme makes a strong case.

OK, you’ve got two minutes - yes, just two minutes - to describe your new product and to get everyone’s attention. Now, that’s an innovative approach and worthy of the name of the Signalling Innovations Group attended by Clive recently. Oh that it was the general rule. A good idea boiled down to a few well-chosen words. Cut the flannel. Cut the waffle. Two minutes. Brilliant!

Just two minutes of your time

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Grahame Taylornow there’s a good idea!


This is obviously a time for trains, as five new ones (although strictly two are trams) made an appearance this month.

First are the new Class 68 locomotives that will be used by Chiltern Railways for use on its Birmingham to London Marylebone services from the end of this year.

The locos will be leased from Direct Rail Services, and the first loco in DRS colours arrived in January. Now, the Chiltern locos have been seen at the Spanish factory of manufacturer Vossloh.

In service, the new Chiltern-liveried locos will replace the existing Class 67s.

Next up are five new Class 66 locos for GB Railfreight. The first batch of a total of 21 locos that are on order with EMD arrived at the Port of Newport late in July. They were then taken to EMD’s depot at Doncaster.

GB Railfreight is purchasing these new locos, which will be delivered this year, in advance of new EU emissions controls which come into force from January 2015.

Meanwhile, Hitachi showed off mock-ups of two new rail carriages in London. Although similar, the new AT200 has sliding plug doors and 23 metre long cars

and is aimed at the commuter market, while the shorter 20-metre AT100 carriages have sliding pocket doors and bench seating for metro services. Both are reportedly based on outline designs for Hitachi’s unsuccessful bid to supply trains for Crossrail and, when orders materialise, will be assembled at the new Newton Aycliffe facility.

The world’s first trams with special racks for surfboards have just gone into service on Australia’s Gold Coast. Cousins to the Bombardier Flexity 2 trams already in use at Blackpool, the fourteen new Australian models are longer with seven articulated sections as opposed to Blackpool’s five. And of course there are also those surfboard racks…

Talking of trams, a new Russian design was unveiled at the Innoprom exhibition at Yekaterinburg. Quickly nicknamed the ‘Bat Tram’ due to its aggressively modern styling, the Uraltransmash model 71-410 (Bat Tram is easier!) has a 100% low floor, only 28 seats and a capacity of 220. As the press release said, “beauty is made of modern technological materials”.

Three trains and two trams

NEWSthe rail engineer • August 20146

NEWS

which is proposed to start in 2016 and be delivered in 2021.

TfL has sought to maximise the scheme’s benefits to customers while reducing costs by taking a new approach to procurement (ICE) that rewards innovation throughout the supply chain.

Adopting this method on the Bank project has delivered 45 per cent additional value through cost

savings and improved benefits. This has reduced the estimated final cost of the project by £61m and cut planned engineering closures by more than 22 per cent.

Now that work has been recognised by the project winning a major award. BSCU won the Integration and Collaborative Working award at the recent Constructing Excellence Awards.

The judges said: “Although all the entrants in this category deserve an award, it was London Underground who had taken collaboration to a new level. Theirs was an impossible challenge which could not be overcome with a traditional approach.”

Simon Addyman, BSCU Programme Manager, said: “It is testament to the significant effort that the whole supply chain has put into working as a single project organisation, to build on and deliver the value the innovative contractor engagement process produced.”

Major award for Bank

Bank Underground station will be rebuilt (issue 112 February 2014) under an Innovative Contractor Engagement (ICE) contract.

Located in the heart of the City of London’s financial district, the Bank/Monument station complex is the fourth busiest interchange station on the London Underground network with 98 million customers using the station in 2012/13. Transport for London

(TfL) is planning a major upgrade of the six-line interchange to increase capacity - the Bank Station Capacity Upgrade (BSCU) project.

TfL will be applying for a Transport & Works Act Order towards the end of the summer that, if granted, will give permission to do the work

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NEWS

Looking a little out of place in blue, Her Majesty the Queen posed with 100 orange-suited railway workers at the opening of Reading station.

The bigger, better station - completed a year ahead of schedule and within budget - now has two entrances, 15 platforms including five new platforms, new retail facilities and a new passenger bridge three times the size of the original footbridge.

The Queen met key members of the engineering team behind the project and unveiled a plaque marking the official opening.

The Reading station area redevelopment programme is part of the government’s £7.2bn investment to upgrade and electrify the Great Western route. Much of the electrification work will be carried out by a specially designed engineering train which will enable Network Rail to work without closing the line to trains. As part of her visit, Her Majesty named the engineering train ‘Brunel’ after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer who built the Great Western main line.

Royal Reading

Curzon Urban Regeneration Company will lead the development of over 140 hectares of land around Curzon Street. The redevelopment will create 14,000 jobs, 600,000 square metres of new employment floorspace and 2,000 homes, contributing up to £1.3bn a year to the local economy.

To accelerate this regeneration, the area’s Growth Deal, the agreement will deliver a further

£130 million and help bring forward work to extend the Midland Metro. The planned extension will bring tram services into the heart of the Birmingham Curzon Street area and link the HS2 terminus directly into the local transport system.

In a further boost for Birmingham, HS2 Ltd has announced that its construction headquarters will also be in the city. A suitable building to house 1,500 people has been located at 2 Snow Hill and the plan is to open the first phase in 2015. Although a few key staff will move from London, the majority of the positions will be new.

This announcement is not an indication of the site of the HS2 Academy. Four cities, Birmingham, Derby, Manchester and Doncaster are pitching for that and an announcement is expected from the Department for Business, Innovations and Skills “in the early autumn”.

Curzon Street complexCurzon Street station was originally just called ‘Birmingham’ and was the city’s main terminus station for trains to London, Manchester and Liverpool from 1838.

It was replaced by Grand Central station at New Street in 1854 and thereafter suffered a decline, losing even excursion passenger traffic in 1893 and struggling on as a goods depot until 1966 when the train sheds and platforms were demolished.

However, the main entrance building is Grade I listed. It is also the other side of the car park from Birmingham Moor Street station and will be the Birmingham terminus of HS2 when it starts operation around 2025.

As a first step, the Birmingham

THE STATE OF ISRAELMINISTRY OF TRANSPORT AND ROAD SAFETY MINISTRY OF FINANCE

Tender for Monitoring Land Transport Projects Entities in Israel

1. The Inter-Ministerial Tender Committee in charge of selecting engineering and management consulting companies for monitoring and supervising entities responsible for the execution of land transport projects and activities in Israel, hereby invites interested entities with international experience to submit proposals for the provision of consulting services to the Government of the State of Israel (hereinafter - the “GOI”), and assistance to the GOI in monitoring and supervising performance of planned projects and activities designed to be executed by different governmental and regional entities.

2. The period of the agreement between the GOI and each of the winning bidders shall be of 36 months. The GOI shall have the sole and exclusive option, upon prior written notice to the winning bidder, to extend the original term up to additional 24 months.

3. The GOI anticipates that international bidders will hire local staff for the execution of the services, or submit joint proposals with an Israeli entity.

4. The tender process includes thresholds, as detailed in the tender documents:Monitoring experience of the entity: monitoring of land transport projects which were carried out in the last 12 years and were valued at no less than USD 700 million in total, and at least USD 50 million individually. Professional experience of the experts: at least 15 years of relevant professional experience in construction and/or planning and/or management and/or monitoring aspects of civil engineering in the land transport field for the Project Manager, and at least 10 years of relevant professional experience in their field of expertise for the different international or Israeli required experts, including the Deputy Project Manager.Bid bond: Bidders shall attach to their proposals a financial guarantee provided either by a commercial bank or an Israeli Insurance company in the amount of 250,000 NIS (or the USD/Euro equivalent), valid for 150 days.

5. The total scoring of each submitted bid will consist of a quality scoring and a quantity scoring for the price proposal, all as detailed in the Tender Documents.

6. The tender documents and any updates thereto shall be available for online review starting on 8/7/2014, at the Ministry of Finance website. Interested entities are invited to request password by sending an e-mail to the address: [email protected].

7. Participation in this tender is free of charge.8. Questions and requests for clarifications may be submitted to the email address:

[email protected] no later than 31/7/2014 and proposals are to be submitted in person no later than 11/9/2014, all as detailed in the tender documents.

9. This notice contains general and preliminary information only, and terms and conditions as detailed in the tender documents will prevail in any case. Further conditions and requirements with respect to the tender process are as detailed in the tender documents. The Tender Committee reserves the right to change and/or revise the conditions of the tender, all in accordance with the provisions of the tender documents.

Respectfully, Yariv Nehama,Deputy Accountant General and Chairman of the Tender Committee

4.1

4.2

4.3

the rail engineer • August 20148

NIGEL WORDSWORTH


partnershipCelebrating

Every year, Network Rail holds an awards evening to recognise the best work carried out by its suppliers over the previous twelve months. This year was no exception, and around 500 people gathered at a London hotel on the south bank of the Thames to celebrate the 2014 Partnership Awards.

The evening was opened by chief executive Mark Carne who told his audience: “These awards are an important part of our calendar, and provide us with a chance to take a step back and look at what this industry, working in partnership, has achieved over the last year.

“This year we had a huge number of entries, the highest since the awards began six years ago. The standard was really high and the judges had a difficult job choosing the winners.”

That got the audience thinking, but Mark left everyone to enjoy their dinner before the awards ceremony proper.


Safety firstFollowing a good meal and pleasant

discussion, comedian Ed Byrne took the stage. He regaled listeners with amusing tales of his experience with the airline industry, being rail’s big competitor. One wonders if, next time he is at an aviation event, he will entertain them with stories of the inconsistencies of rail.

Still, it was a funny interlude and the Ed went seamlessly into the awards themselves.

Safety is reflected in everything that Network Rail does, so it was no surprise that the Safety Award came first. To present it, Ed called upon Richard Hardy, managing director of BRE Group (formerly the Building Research Establishment), who commented: “Safety is paramount to this industry and to achieve this, safety should be at the heart of every project, from planning through to commissioning. This award recognises teams and projects that have shown a continuous improvement towards improving safety within the workplace and on, or near, the railway.”

Richard then presented the award to Balfour Beatty Rail for the Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace capacity improvement project (above). This addressed the bottleneck of congestion between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace and was a major infrastructure project including station improvements, track and switches and crossings renewals and complex modifications to overhead line equipment.

Delivered under a formal alliance between Network Rail and Balfour Beatty Rail, the project’s alliance leadership team championed a strong safety culture and a focus on continuous improvement. They used various techniques including mobile site safety signage, monthly periodic safety stand-downs and safety ‘policemen’. All helped to achieve an industry-leading safety performance which is what won Balfour Beatty Rail this award.

Two companies were Highly Commended. Mission Room has developed, tested and introduced new technology into the railway to

enable 360-degree viewing of whole routes. This improves safety, increases site awareness and enhances operational efficiency by giving staff the ability to ‘visit’ a part of the track and then look around as though they are actually there.

ScotRail’s internal safety culture has been transformed by the introduction of two pioneering initiatives. ‘The Switched On’ awareness campaign and ‘The Professionals’ training package have enhanced employee engagement and created a strong sense of personal responsibility amongst operational staff which impressed the judges.

Engaging the communityNetwork Rail has over five million lineside

neighbours, so it pays to keep them sweet. Bob Winnington, national account director for the Institute of Customer Service, was asked to present the Community Engagement Award to Morgan Sindall for the Haymarket station capacity improvement project.

Scotland’s fourth busiest railway station, Haymarket required significant capacity improvement to accommodate the four million passengers who use it every year. The upgraded facility provides a new concourse, improved platforms and the redevelopment of the existing Grade A listed station entrance, thereby retaining its local heritage. Indeed, the project team worked collaboratively with Network Rail and First ScotRail to ensure the project delivered a lasting community legacy.

Two other entries were highly commended. One was to a Colas Rail and Morgan Sindall joint venture for Energlyn and Churchill Park station - a brand new station constructed for the local community

around a live twin-track railway line. The other was to Spencer Rail for Ipswich Chord, part of the strategic freight network and a new 1.2km double track railway that provides an essential connection between the East Suffolk Line and the Great Eastern Line, cutting journey times by at least 30 minutes.

Remembering our heritageTalk of the Grade A listed entrance at

Haymarket was a good introduction to the Heritage Award, presented by Andy Savage - executive director of the Railway Heritage Trust.

“Sensitivity to the rich railway heritage that surrounds us is an important factor for those undertaking projects,” Andy announced. “This award celebrates the conservation, restoration and promotion of this heritage, recognising the particular regard shown to Network Rail’s buildings and structures of national importance.”

Balfour Beatty Rail was the recipient for its masonry arch bridge strengthening work using XiSPAN (see article on page 62).

Network Rail owns and maintains the oldest masonry arch railway bridges in the world. A significant amount of these structures, many of which are over 100 years old, have exceeded their expected design life and are suffering the effects of aging, increasing the burden of ongoing maintenance.

To prolong the life of these vital assets, Balfour Beatty Rail and a team of industry experts worked with Network Rail to develop XiSPAN, an innovative, cost effective strengthening solution that was also sympathetic in preserving the aesthetic appearance of these historical structures.

Buckingham Group received the sole Highly Commended this time. Llandudno railway station has benefited from a complex but successful collaboration between Network Rail, Buckingham, Arriva Trans Wales, Rail Heritage, Conwy and the Welsh Government to deliver high-quality station improvements and a car park with minimum disruption to passengers.


01332 374000www.bbrail.co.uk

Balfour Beatty Rail, working in partnership with Network Rail, was delighted to receive three awards at the 2014 Network Rail Partnership Awards:

SAFETY AWARD - the Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace capacity improvement project alliance for championing a strong safety culture creating positive benefits to the safety of workers.

HERITAGE AWARD - masonry arch bridge strengthening using XiSPAN, an innovative engineering solution which offers real heritage and financial benefits across the whole railway.

BEST COLLABORATION - described as an industry model for a collaborative project, the East Kent Resignalling Phase 2 team comprised Atkins, Balfour Beatty Rail, Medway Council and Spencer Rail.

• POWER & ELECTRIFICATION • TRACK • SIGNALLING • ASSET MANAGEMENT • MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PROJECTS •

Proud winnersat the 2014 Network Rail

Partnership Awards

Draft NRPA ad.indd 1 25/07/2014 14:06:25

Sustaining the suspenseMaking a return to the stage, Richard

Hardy introduced the Sustainable Excellence Award. “With record growth, performance and investment in the network comes ever greater pressure to deliver outstanding value for money and service, and achieve the highest levels of both safety and sustainable development. This award recognises exactly that - organisations that clearly demonstrate sustainable and responsible ways of working.”

From amongst some strong entries in this increasingly-important category, it was ScotRail’s energy reduction strategy that had most impressed the judges.

Over the last 12 months, ScotRail has recorded the best environmental results in the company’s history, due to a diverse range of pioneering schemes across all departments. From wind turbines and rainwater capture at stations and depots to innovative eco-driving techniques and at-source recycling on trains, ScotRail is reaping rewards for its long-term commitment to creating a greener railway.

The judges also chose to highly commend Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd for Network Rail’s distribution centre at Ryton, which is believed to be Network Rail’s first ‘carbon negative’ building, and Signalling Solutions Ltd for the Bristol area signalling renewals and enhancements project that has its own nature garden and is part of the National Citizen scheme for young people.

Innovative awardAnyone who knows Network Rail chairman

Richard Parry-Jones will know how enthusiastic he is about innovation and new technology. So it was no surprise when he was invited on stage to present the Best Use Of Technology And Innovation Award.

“Investing in innovation and technology will help transform our knowledge of the railway making us better at targeting when, where and how we improve it,” he said. “It

will enable us to increase the number of faster, better trains we can run on our network.”

The award went to Capgemini UK plc (below) for Linear Asset Decision Support (LADS) which presents data from 14 disparate systems in a form that engineers can use. Such a consolidation of asset information will help Network Rail to make quicker, more informed and cost effective decisions about maintenance and provide a better understanding of how assets degrade and how effective work is.

Representing an industry first in terms of scale of deployment and level of integration with trackside operations, LADS will generate significant savings by improving planning of track maintenance and enabling better decisions in the field.

Dual Inventive was Highly Commended for its ZKL 3000 RC remotely-activated track circuit operating device which significantly improves workforce safety by allowing the remote activation and deactivation of additional protection for a line block without the need for staff to enter the track.

Also Highly Commended was MiPoint (MITIE and Reference Point Ltd) for collaboration with Network Rail on the Sentinel Enhancement Programme. The new card system enables checks of individuals’ identity, competences and medical state in real-time on most smartphones and tablets.

Personal developmentAn industry is only ever as good as its people,

and Ian Iceton, human resources director of Network Rail Infrastructure Projects, presented the award for Investing In People to Scotrail.

Having won the ScotRail franchise in 2004, the leadership team realised that major investment in training and development for staff would be required if they were to achieve the aim of improving rail services. Recognising that high standards of safety, performance and customer service would be required to reach its goals, they developed a long-term strategy that offered employees opportunities to build on their existing skills so that they could work better together to be more customer-focused.

The judges were impressed with ScotRail’s range of programmes; from apprenticeships to graduate development to accredited structured leadership programmes. Key achievements have included a 127% increase in employee engagement and 3900% increase in training days.

The judges also chose to highly commend Carillion Rail for the Crewe overhead lines training span and Emergency Planning College for the Network Rail incident management training framework.

Carillion and Powerlines recognized that the industry skill pool was too small, under-skilled and required a significant investment in people in order to deliver the CP5 electrification work bank. In order to rectify this, the companies have recruited new entrants to the railway industry who are now being trained at the purpose-built overhead line training span and classrooms at Crewe, Doncaster and Coatbridge.

The Emergency Planning College, creators of the Network Rail Incident Management Training Framework which was set up to create a holistic strategy to managing major disruptive incidents, was also Highly Commended.

Being efficientDriving Efficiencies, which has nothing to

do with driving but is all about efficiency, was the next award. It was presented by Jonathan Hook, global leader of engineering and construction at PricewaterhouseCoopers.


The award recognises organisations that have made real strides in their work to help create a more efficient railway, and it was presented to Carillion Rail for the Southampton to Basingstoke W10 gauge clearance project (above).

Carillion had a major role in taking around £18m out of the cost of this project, which formed part of the Southampton to WCML gauge enhancement. Between 2009 and 2014, Carillion has saved Network Rail a significant sum on the Southampton Tunnel and on the diversionary route by a combination of more-economic construction, reduced possession costs and less time on site. A good part of the funding for the work on the diversionary route came from the earlier savings on Southampton Tunnel.

Two other, highly-efficient projects were Highly Commended. Through efficiencies and other savings, AMCO Rail managed to grit-blast and paint nineteen bridges for the cost originally quoted for doing eleven, while Siemens Rail Automation developed a modular signalling solution to enable the cost-effective upgrade of secondary lines using proven technologies.

More people on stageCollaboration is now so much part of the

way that railway’s work that there is nothing unusual in it. However, there is a Collaboration Award and this was presented by the director general of the Railway Industry Association, Jeremy Candfield.

Described as an industry model for a collaborative project, Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Spencer Rail and Medway Council have been working together to deliver £150 million of works on East Kent Phase 2. This includes signalling renewals, platform extensions to accommodate 12 car-trains and even in a new station - all within a limited timescale.

Working with Network Rail as one solutions-driven team, the project has implemented innovative delivery approaches and achieved engineering savings while providing a successful solution. It was this successful dedication to collaborative working which won the team this award (above).

The Nottingham re-signalling project was a key collaborative project between East Midlands Trains and Network Rail. To avoid a years’ worth of weekend closures, Network Rail completed the work in 37 days during the

summer of 2013, meaning that Nottingham station was virtually closed for this period. This presented a major customer service challenge for East Midlands Trains, but it earned a Highly Commended from the judges.

So too did Signalling Solutions Ltd for the National ERTMS Programme Phase. The project’s aims were to examine the technical delivery of the proposed deployment sites, prepare for the demonstration of all suppliers’ equipment at ENIF (European Train Control System National Integration Facility) and propose solutions for the core challenges of implementing ETCS within the UK rail environment.

Projects large and smallThe three awards for individual projects

are always towards the end of the evening and highly anticipated. Many fascinating, innovative and challenging projects are completed every year, so to win one of the three awards is a real feather in the cap of the contractor involved.

First up was the award for Small Projects - those valued at under £3 million. Steven Carver, consultant in project and programme management at Cranfield University School


Plan Design Enable

Collaborative working delivers exceptional resultsEast Kent Resignalling Phase 2

Delivering a complex, multidisciplinary project in a short time-frame requires a different approach.

By working as one team, Atkins, Balfour Beatty, C Spencer Ltd with Network Rail and Medway Council are saving time and money on this major scheme that will improve reliability and boost capacity across East Kent.

• Signalling upgrades across 33 miles• New station at Rochester• Platform extensions to allow for 12 car trains at Strood and increased

operational fl exibility at Rainham

WinnerBest Collaboration2014 Network Rail Partnership Awards

www.atkinsglobal.com/rail

To fi nd out more about Atkins’ signalling expertise contact Steve Higham on 020 7121 2686.

of Management, announced that the winner was Story Contracting for Merseyrail Slab Track Renewal (above).

The project, to renew a life-expired slab track section of the underground Merseyloop tunnel, was logistically challenging as the plant and materials were effectively ‘locked in’ the tunnel as the works progressed to facilitate the continual running of train services into Liverpool City Centre.

Working in such unique conditions, the team developed innovative processes, products and machinery to create favourable working conditions. Despite a myriad of difficulties posed by working underground, the end result is a modern infrastructure that promotes comfort for passengers and extends the life-span of the railway.

The judges were particularly impressed by the focus on legacy, building in safety, ease of future work and innovation that went into each stage.

Highly Commended was CrossCountry Trains’ project to implement a new ‘Integrale’ resource management system (provided by ATOS Origin) in its control office, aimed at improving management of disruption and driving down the number of PPM and CaSL failures in CP5.

Medium-sized projects are defined as, at least for these awards, those valued between £3 million and £20 million. One of these was the rebuild of Salford Crescent Railway Station.

With 22 trains an hour for 18 hours a day, the original plan to re-build Salford Crescent station involved closing it for three months. The team from Buckingham Group Contracting, in partnership with Northern Rail, developed a possession schedule that kept the station open and delivered a quality product, on budget and months ahead of schedule, zero accidents and professional and timely issue resolution.

The Buckingham/Northern Rail team constructed a new ticket office at road level on University Road West, freeing up a large amount of space on the platforms, and linked it with the platforms by installing a new footbridge complete with lifts to make the station much more accessible to passengers. Removal of the old waiting room created even more space – it was replaced by new seating and platform canopies.

The platforms themselves were lengthened in both directions to give a staggered effect to encourage passengers to occupy their full length rather than congregate in the middle and the passenger information systems were renewed.

The Salford Crescent Station Redevelopment project has transformed the station, providing a brighter, pleasanter environment, better

access and facilities for passengers, and greater visibility of the station, encouraging use of rail. Throughout the project, the team adopted a ‘must-do’ attitude and fully embraced

collaborative working.


Rail construction services include: Stations and Passenger Area construction and refurbishment Rail engineering; civil & structural engineering Bridge Structures and Retaining Walls, including Piling Lineside Structures, Foundations, Culverts and Ancillary Struc-

tures Earthworks, Embankments and Cuttings Embankment construction, stabilisation and protection Railway track beds & ballast operations Major re-signalling schemes Platform construction and extensions

Troughing Route Station car parks; at grade, decked and multi-storey Depots and Trainwash facilities

All Operations are undertaken under a full, Network Rail approved, Prin-cipal Contractors Licence (PCL) and all appropriate Link-Up product code registrations.

Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd. Silverstone Road, Stowe, Buckingham MK18 5LJ

Tel: 01280 823355; E-mail: [email protected]

PROUD WINNER BEST MEDIUM PROJECT

NETWORK RAIL PARTNERSHIP AWARDS 2014

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In awarding this category to Buckingham Group Contracting, the judges described it as “exceptional work”.

Capgemini UK was Highly Commended for its LADS system which had already won the Innovation Award.

Seven large projects, those over £20 million, were shortlisted for the last of the categories. The ‘big names’ were out in force for this one, and many of the projects have already appeared in The Rail Engineer. North West Electrification (Balfour Beatty Rail), Doncaster to Water Orton (Carillion), and Reading station (Costain and Hochtief) will all be familiar to readers.

But the winner was - Ipswich Chord. Spencer Rail used its multi-disciplinary expertise to overcome huge challenges, including the worst winter storms in years, to complete this project successfully in the 20-month timeframe. The judges were particularly impressed by the impeccable planning of this project from start to finish and the complex interfaces with stakeholders.

The Ipswich Chord (below) is a new 1.2km double track railway providing an essential connection between the East Suffolk line and the Great Eastern line. The chord forms part of the strategic freight network, allowing capacity to increase to 24 freight trains per day clear of London. The new chord will cut journey times

by at least 30 minutes and the increased capacity on the railway will mean 750,000 fewer lorries on the roads.

The Spencer Rail team (above) was naturally delighted. To be named as Best Large Project really meant that the company had come of age and was fully recognised for its abilities to deliver even major projects. Meanwhile, Costain and Hochtief were Highly Commended for their work at Reading station.

Reactive engineeringSo that was the end of the competitive,

shortlisted part of the proceedings. Normally, at this stage, there is just one more award to go.

However, this year the audience was in for a surprise as Ed Byrne announced a Special Award for Outstanding Achievement.

Anne Marie Morris, Member of Parliament for Newton Abbot, took over the lectern.

“I am honoured to be able to present this award to a team that battled for over two months to overcome every obstacle thrown at it by Mother Nature. A team who worked tirelessly to rebuild the railway after the damage caused in Dawlish by the storms of February 2014.”

So she made a special award to the 300-strong project team which had reconnected Cornwall to the rest of the UK after the seawall at Dawlish had collapsed in storms, taking the railway with it.


We’ve had a record-breaking twelve months, supporting and enhancing the operational infrastructure of heavy and light rail networks. Our experience as a designer, principal contractor, framework partner and maintainer has covered every aspect of the operational infrastructure. Our industry-leading safety standards have been trusted to deliver complex projects, with multiple

stakeholders and strict quality, cost and time deliverables; this is reflected in our recent award-winning projects at Ipswich Chord, Gravesend Station and East Kent Re-signalling Phase 2. We would like to say a huge thank you to our customers and stakeholders, train and freight operating companies and our supply chain partners without whom these achievements would not be possible.

Best Large Project

Ipswich Chord(Network Rail Partnership Awards 2014)Partnership Awards 2014

Partnership Awards 2014

Partnership Awards 2014

RoSPA Bronze Award

Gravesend Remodelling & East Kent Phase 2(2014 RoSPA Occupational Health & Safety Awards)

Major Project of the Year

Gravesend Remodelling(Modern Railways Innovation Awards 2014)

Best Collaboration

East Kent Re-signalling Phase 2(Network Rail Partnership Awards 2014)

Community Engagement(Highly Commended)

Ipswich Chord(Network Rail Partnership Awards 2014)

Thank You

Awards

Spencer_online

Gravesend Remodelling www.thespencergroup.co.uk

Thameslink POSA (Proceed-on-Sight-Authority) Signal. Note ERTMS block marker (yellow arrow) behind.

Not all 300 were on hand, but certainly a number of them

filled the stage to have their photo taken and to celebrate their full-justified award (above).

Number oneAs things settled down after the rousing

reception which the Dawlish team had received, it was time for the main event - Supplier of the Year.

Mark Carne returned to the stage for this one. Before proceeding he thanked all of the suppliers which had made an entry. “Everyone here tonight has made a real difference to Network Rail and I’d like to take this opportunity to express my thanks and gratitude for everything you have done to help deliver a better

railway for a better Britain.”So then it was time for the big announcement.“When choosing the Supplier of the Year it is

easy to be attracted by the huge scale of some of the projects that we do and the breadth of capability.

“But what is really important for us is safety, customer focus and the ability to be responsive and collaborative. And that is why we have decided to award the Supplier of the Year 2014 to this company that has set high standards, a company that plays to its strengths.

“The Supplier of the Year 2014 is Story Contracting.”

There was uproar in the hall. Everyone was applauding and cheering as, for the second year in succession, Network Rail had proclaimed

one of its comparatively-smaller contractors as Supplier of the Year. It was a popular choice.

Story’s team gathered on the stage, shiny streamers blew about, and everyone celebrated another successful year at the Network Rail Partnership Awards.


Challenginga

weekend

Wearing sunglasses and a large-brimmed sun hat, London Underground’s head of train systems engineering is standing in the rain in a

Leicestershire field.

Close by, the professor of Railway Engineering at the University of Huddersfield is looking worried, the director of Future Railway is trying to get comfortable on a wooden seat, while the commercial director of Transport Scotland, looking dapper in a bow tie, is checking his watch.

It must be the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ (IMechE) annual Railway Challenge.

The Leicestershire field in question, near Melton Mowbray, actually contains the Stapleford Miniature Railway - a long-established and well-maintained 10.1/4” gauge railway that opens to the public twice a year. With almost two miles of track, no regular public visitors to inconvenience, and no infrastructure complications to worry about, it is the ideal venue for the IMechE.

0 150 300

SCALE (METRES)

HAVENBRIDGE

STATION

TOPCURVE

PLATELAYERS

TUNNELLAKESPILL WAY

BADGERSBEND

COLBY’SCULVERT

JENNY’SBRIDGE

RIVER EYE

LOCO SHED

CARRIAGESHEDs

HAVENCAFE

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

London Underground at the Energy Recovery Challenge.


Third occasionThis is the third time that the Institution has

run its Railway Challenge. Teams of students, graduates and apprentices from industry and academia are tasked with designing and building a locomotive which has to achieve set performance criteria. In addition, they have to present a business case and explain their designs to a panel of experts.

The specification is changed every year to prevent a successful team from simply wheeling out last year’s design. Previous challenges have included tests of ride comfort, energy recovery and traction performance, and this year a noise test was added.

Philippa Oldham, head of transport and manufacturing at the IMechE, explained: “The Railway Challenge gives students, graduates and apprentices a fantastic opportunity to test their engineering skills and to get a taste of a real business experience.

“The Challenge is run along the lines of a real-life tendering process, and teams have to prepare a business case, finance, design, and build a locomotive from scratch.”

This year’s technologyThe teams gathered at the Stapleford

Miniature Railway, in the grounds of Stapleford Park, in the middle of June. Four teams presented locomotives for scrutineering (technical checks) on the Saturday. Five entries had been planned, but one - from the University of Sheffield - had simply run out of time. Three of the teams had competed before - Interfleet, which won the first year, 2013 winners the University of Huddersfield, and the University of Birmingham - and there was one new team, from Transport for London but entered as London Underground.

All four used a power source to run one or more generators which in turn powered electric traction motors. However, there the similarity ended.

The University of Huddersfield’s entry looked most like a conventional railway locomotive and had two twin-axle bogies. One bogie was powered by the traction motors using a chain drive, the other was used for a mechanical energy recovery system.

Each axle on the energy recovery bogie had two cages on it with a mechanical spring between them. These cages could be locked to the axle using clutches, and the outer edge could be fixed to the bogie frame using a friction strap around the circumference. By altering the locking mode of each cage, energy could be stored and recovered. For instance, locking one cage to the frame and the other to the axle would wind the spring up as the axle retarded, storing energy in the spring. Reversing the lock and releasing the spring would cause the locomotive to move forward as the spring unwound.

Interestingly, this system made it possible to store and recover energy in either direction. It was a neat idea, although perhaps mechanically a little complicated.

Interfleet’s entry was a much more utilitarian shape, being a box which tapered at each end. It looked similar to that used in previous years and was the same frame, although heavily modified.

Team leader Emma Taylor explained that two vertically-mounted 5kW motors had replaced the four horizontally-mounted 750W devices used previously. The transmission was new and used bevel gears and a chain drive. A new control system stored energy during braking into super-capacitors.

New dampers had been added to the secondary suspension to improve ride comfort and a new outer casing was insulated from the frame to reduce noise transmission.

As in previous years, Birmingham did not use a petrol generator but had a hydrogen fuel cell. This was wonderfully quiet so the team was looking forward to the noise test.

Rob Ellis, the team leader, pointed out that although the outer shape was similar to previous years, being another tapered box, the interior was completely different. This locomotive doesn’t have a unitary frame, instead it is built using a modular system so everything could be easily changed as the design developed, a feature that team member Ivan Krastev was particularly keen to show off.

The Birmingham design used only two axles. This was explained as representing one bogie of a larger system rather than a complete locomotive in itself. The two axles had passive steering of up to 5 degrees to cope with the tight radii on the Stapleford track.

This year, the motors were nose-suspended. Rubber bushes had supplemented conventional springs to improve ride comfort and yaw stiffness had been increased.

Novel designThe new entry was London Underground.

It was even more of a functional box, strictly rectangular and looking quite large. In fact, it was too large and was outside of the gauge in the specifications - a confusion over static and kinematic gauging apparently. Whatever the reason, the team lost points for it.

The locomotive was smartly presented in blue and white livery - courtesy of vinyl offcuts from the Central line. Under the skin was a complete industrial petrol-driven generator, still in its frame, which powered the traction motors directly.

However, the novel thinking was in the braking system. In fact, as team leader Luke Foy explained, the locomotive had three braking systems - a rheostatic system for regular use, an emergency friction brake, and the energy-recovery system. This was quite novel for the competition and everyone was interested to see how it would work.

The University of Huddersfield sets off for the ride comfort run.


The basic design was hydraulic. A pump attached to one axle on the front bogie drove hydraulic fluid around a closed loop, as did a hydraulic motor on another axle on the rear bogie. This may seem to be a pretty pointless exercise, and in normal running the whole system just freewheels. However, when recovering energy, this hydraulic fluid is pumped into an accumulator which contains a diaphragm. On the other side of that diaphragm is nitrogen gas, pressurised to around 30 bar.

As the hydraulic pressure increases, so does the pressure in the nitrogen, storing energy. When the flow is reversed, the nitrogen expands, forcing the hydraulic fluid back out of the accumulator from whence it is channelled to the motor, propelling the train forward.

The team was made up of both graduates and apprentices, and all had played their part. In fact, while Fergal Stranney and his team had grappled with the hydro-pneumatic energy recovery system, which was an idea they had seen used on a smaller scale in a bicycle by the University of Michigan, one of the apprentices had been designing the emergency brake.

BookworkWhile scrutineering was taking place, representatives of the various

teams had to report to the station building to make their presentations. This challenge simulated a design team making a financial case for their products to be developed and to ‘sell’ the idea to a potential customer. Ten minutes was allocated for the presentation itself, using PowerPoint on a laptop to make the case, and then a further ten minutes for questioning from the panel of independent judges.

Three of the teams had done this before, one or two even included previous participants. However, London Underground, as the newbies, didn’t know what to expect. Long faces emerged from the meeting, and there was talk of at least getting one point for spelling the name of the team correctly.

The first day’s runningAfter scrutineering, the teams got in some much-needed testing on

track. Some had found time to try out their locos on other tracks close to home, others had done very little so every moment of running was crucial.

There were the inevitable teething troubles. The London Underground entry was alleged to have failed inside the tunnel and had to be rescued. In fact, it was in the cutting outside, but still, a few anxious moments ensued as the fault was traced to a loose pneumatic fitting.

Later in the day, the teams took part in the first challenge which was for ride comfort. An accelerometer was attached by the judges to each vehicle and then it was driven around the loop of the track around the far side of the lake. As the ride was likely to improve at slow speed, each team had a maximum time of 8 minutes to make the trip.

The University of Birmingham crossing Haven Bridge and (above) revealing its modular frame construction.


This caused the first drama of the weekend. Huddersfield set off to do its run and didn’t reappear. One of the clutch bearings, which fix the spring cages to the axles, had seized. As the loco has four such bearings, there were worried faces amongst the Huddersfield team.

There was no way the loco could return to the station under its own power, and with the seized bearing it couldn’t even be towed, so spanners were produced and time was taken. This meant that London Underground was delayed taking its run and, when the accelerometer fell off partway round, it was decided to postpone that element until the following day.

Sunday dawnsSunshine and showers was the forecast for

Sunday. The day started with the former as spectators either hiked to the Haven, site of the day’s tests, or went out on a steam-hauled passenger ‘special’.

London Underground had a trouble-free run for the Ride Comfort Challenge this time, but Huddersfield, who were making a second attempt, had a recurrence of their bearing gremlins. Taking over ten minutes to complete the eight-minute course, that was the end of their participation which was a great shame for the team which had won the year before.

The track was then made ready for the other Challenges. Locomotives would run out to the Haven and around the loop. They would then stop just before the bridge over the lake spillway. When instructed by the ride-aboard judge (David Clarke), they would speed up to no more than 15km/hr and then brake to a halt in front of judges alongside the lake just before the end of the loop. Once stationary, the train’s position

would be marked and it would be released, just using the energy recovered in braking, to see how far it went.

Depending on the system employed, the judges had to take initial and final readings to make sure that no additional energy was used and that the train hadn’t exceeded the 15km/hr speed limit. In the course of the day, both occurred and the offenders were sent back to do it all again.

Once the Energy Recovery Challenge was complete, the competitor ran forward to the start of the gradient up to the tunnel. From a standing start, the time taken to climb the hill was recorded and formed the basis of the Traction Challenge while noise readings were taken both at the start of the climb and at the top for the Noise Challenge. Again, a team could make a second attempt but each was limited to only 40 minutes to complete all three tests.

Interfleet were first to come around. Stopping as required, the energy recovery run went to plan. However, when released the locomotive only managed to move just over one metre using the recovered energy in the super-capacitors. The team was surprised, six metres had been achieved in testing. The judges consulted and there seemed to be a loss of energy while the loco was just standing still, and even a loss as it was moving before it started braking.

The team backed up to try again, and there was a slight improvement but only to two metres. Lots of head scratching ensued.

The University of Huddersfield experienced problems with its energy recovery system (right).


To make matters worse, a short shower of rain dampened the track. As the loco started up the hill, the team claimed that they experienced wheelspin which affected performance. Sanding is not allowed in the competition, but perhaps some dry towels could have been forthcoming?

Present in spiritThe sun was soon back out and, watching proceedings from deck chairs,

the Sheffield team was contemplating what might have been. Martin Evans, Sheffield’s team leader, explained that the project only really got started after students had returned the previous October. It had been decided to have all of the four years’ represented with two PhD students heading up the team.

By the time the design was done the undergraduates had to break off for exams, so build had only commenced about four weeks previously. Components had been delivered, but nothing was yet finished. Still, that would give them a flying start for the 2015 event.

The current design uses a petrol generator and an AC/DC converter to power DC traction motors. A separate third-year project was developing a spring-based energy recovery system for low speed running combined with a flywheel system for higher speeds. It will be interesting to see that combination on track next year.

Hydrogen or steam?Birmingham’s loco, which had been almost silent due to its fuel cell,

emerged from the loop sounding like a steam engine. The ‘chuff-chuff’ was, in fact, due to a failed motor. As there was no way to disengage it, it was getting worse all the time. A decision was taken to skip the energy recovery element as the running could cause further damage and to press on to the noise and traction tests. Even with the damage the loco was still very quiet and the team was hopeful of a good score.

Just one run was made up the hill and the team retired gracefully back to the station.

Much anticipatedSo that left London Underground. Everyone wanted to see how the novel

energy recovery system would perform. The loco came around with half of its top cover removed. The commercial

generator had a thermal cut-out installed and, in the confines of the metal body, it had been overheating. Taking the top off seemed like the best answer.

After going around the loop, the loco set off to do its energy recovery run. Stopping in front of the judges, pressure measurements were taken and the train released. Sixteen metres later, it slowed to a halt. Everyone was impressed!

But wait, the judges had recorded too high a pressure drop. Some extra stored energy had been used over and above that recovered in the braking run. The distance was disallowed. The team backed up to make another attempt.

This time, when the train stopped, it hadn’t recovered enough energy. Try again.

On the third attempt, caution reigned. Using less than the total stored pressure, a distance of just under 10 metres was recorded. It was a winning distance but, as points are allocated based on relative performance, the margin had been reduced.

And time was running out. Three attempts at energy recovery left time for only one hillclimb. It would have to count.

The start was faultless but would the missing engine cover affect the noise reading?

Towards the top of the hill, the thermal cut-out did its job and the train stopped. A mad dash from the driver to reset it and get it restarted did the trick, but time was ebbing away and the chance of a win in the Traction Challenge must have gone with it.

That brought the trials to a close. Every team had experienced mechanical trouble, some worse than others, and no-one knew who would win. London Underground had been impressive on energy recovery, but had stopped on the hillclimb and, they felt, blown the presentation. Birmingham had been unbeatable on noise but had missed out energy recovery. Interfleet had been generally reliable, but hadn’t impressed on energy recovery although at least they recorded a result for that test. It could be anyone’s contest.

Checking noise levels at the start of the Traction Challenge.


So who won?Teams, judges, officials and spectators gathered

in the marquee by the station building to hear the result. IMechE President Mark Hunt, who had been at the event all day, thanked everyone for attending and for the competitors’ hard work. He also thanked Lady Gretton and the Friends of the Stapleford Miniature Railway for their hospitality in allowing the IMechE to stage the Railway Challenge at such a fine venue.

Then it was time for head judge Bill Reeve to announce the winners. He also thanked the teams, and commiserated with Sheffield, before saying how pleased he was that every entrant had won something.

The University of Birmingham had once again showed the way in green technology with their fuel cell and that had won them the Noise Challenge.

Despite suffering the “odd little frustration along the way”, the University of Huddersfield had worked extremely hard to recover from an in-service failure - something experienced by all full-scale railway engineers. If possible the judges would have awarded the team a special award for perseverance, but in any case they had won the Business Case Challenge.

Transport for London, appearing as London Underground, was the newcomer this year. While it was “worrying that London Underground couldn’t build a loco to fit a loading gauge”, the team had entered a novel energy recovery

system. Mechanical systems seem to have the edge over electrical systems at low speed and it was no great surprise that the team had won the Energy Recovery Challenge. A little more of a surprise was that it had also won the Ride Comfort Challenge, and by a country mile.

Interfleet had been by far the most reliable entry. They still had problems, but had completed every challenge on time and were also winners of the Traction Challenge (despite the damp track).

It was all very close, but the overall winner, with all of the challenges and also a reducing score for reliability taken into account, was newcomer London Underground. Team captain Luke Foy thanked his colleagues, their employer

and the IMechE. He also thanked Hydac for the accumulator technology that had been used for the energy recovery system.

Then it was time for photographs, to break down the locos and put them back in their vans, and to reflect on the weekend. A lot of work had been put in by all of the teams, including Sheffield, and the result had been some impressive engineering. Once again, a lack of testing had been evident and it does seem that all of the teams need to get started earlier for next year’s event so that they can all complete all of the tasks set for them.

Now we need to know what will change for next year’s regulations, and encourage a few more teams to take part in this excellent Railway Challenge.

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The winners line up with Mark Hunt, Simon Iwnicki and Bill Reeve.


Why is innovation so protracted in railway signalling? So asks Ben Ford, the innovation support manager of Network Rail at the latest Signalling Innovations Group event held recently at Westwood near Coventry.

Maybe it’s the ‘safety’ thing, making engineers nervous about introducing new ideas and technology and thus resistant to change. Great ideas can alter the power balance in relationships and that can cause an initial resistance.

Perhaps signal engineers need to be braver and be more willing to share knowledge in a spirit of collaboration without compromising the respecting of other’s IPR (intellectual property rights). There is a need to listen to the voices of customers, business and ‘the system’.

Network Rail has identified nine areas where innovation could pay dividends. All of the expected headings are there: safety,

information, performance, asset management, people, organisation and so on, but where will the driver for these come from? Partnering across Europe is expected to yield €1 billion for R&D access, with the Shift²Rail programme keeping track of this. In the UK perhaps RIA should become the Railway Innovation Association?!

A number of myths about rail need to be exposed: are trains really greener? Consider the trends in aircraft manufacture, a carbon made aeroplane is just around the corner. Even the road lobby has made great strides forward, take a look at the Volkswagen XL1 (below).

All of this acted as an introduction to the latest gathering of S&T engineers, sales staff and management from both sides of industry with the objective of getting new ideas recognised and discussed by all organisations.

Good News and RealityAfter introductions from Ken Peters who

heads up the Signalling Innovations team within Network Rail, presentations on perceived Good News were there to set the scene. First off was Rail Media’s own Paul Curtis who extolled the virtues of Coventry’s innovative history. He encouraged everyone to use the press and other media to record the new ideas and practices that emerge from the considerable sums of money to be made available for innovation in CP5.

Neil Archer, a business analyst at Network Rail, told of the good work done by the Innovations team to date on signalling initiatives: » Signalling data exchange formatting (SDEF)

evolving into a language to describe ‘the railway’;

» Positioned video frames (PVF) for video modelling and signal positioning;

» SCC signal clearance calculator by reading track geometry;

» 3D image models using Omnisurveyor for signal sighting;

» Vegetation & Asset Identification to look for changes in the rail environment.

These, and others that have been described before such as plug-coupled cables (sometimes wrongly described as ‘plug and play’) and Class II power supplies, are all tactical efforts to reduce cost and make life easier for planners,

An Ongoing Challenge

CLIVE KESSELL

Signalling Innovation


engineers and ground level staff. An article on the Innovation Group’s work appeared in issue 109 of The Rail Engineer (November 2013).

A reflection on both reality and the challenge was given by Andy Smith, the Network Rail business improvement manager. In CP3, there was significant under delivery on signalling work at £2.2 billion. CP4 saw much the same level of spend at £2.4 billion but with a much greater delivery of Signal Equivalent Units (SEUs) and Level Crossing upgrades.

CP5 has even more finance available - £3.2 billion - but this is coupled with a 25.7% reduction in signalling renewal costs. This is going to need new products, new tools and new processes to achieve the target. Items such as object controllers, aluminium cabling, plug-coupled cable expansion and axle counter enhancement were listed. Added to this will be the ERTMS programme with all the benefits that will be gained in CP5, CP6 and beyond.

A quick win might be the elimination (or reduction) in SPTs (signal post telephones) - a topic dear to my heart - but no mention. Nonetheless the call for new ideas was there for all to hear and the audience was called upon to generate the necessary thinking.

Adding to this theme was David Clarke from Future Railway who related back to the declared Rail Technical Strategy of 2012 and its ‘four-C’ caption - cost, carbon, capacity and customer. Why is the predicted evolution of signalling not

happening? Is it the ‘Valley of Death’ - too much bureaucracy, overcomplicated organisation, need for proof of concept, difficulties of the business case?

Delivering the ‘Future Railway’ is attracting £375 million for research work in CP5, co-funded by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills within government. It is suggested that the focus for innovation must be technology transfer from other places, thus taking the novelty out of projects and de-risking the unknown elements.

An example from civil engineering is bridge clearance for electrification (even jacking up a brick arch is not unknown). From the rolling stock fraternity is the development of the independently-powered electric train, although even here, no-one was prepared to buy until the technology was seen as proven. Thankfully the project is now underway.

One might reflect on signalling comparisons. Other than ERTMS - and this has been a tortuous path for many railways, not just the UK - the evidence of imported technology has been mixed at best. The GE Transportation system deployed on the Cromer and Bedford to Bletchley lines had a difficult start with many ‘blockers’ emerging when it came to altering signalling principles and operating rules. In the future, these ‘blockers’ must be recognised at the start and dealt with before they do serious damage.

Engaging the ParticipantsA new element of this conference was the live

gathering of ideas from selected individuals by asking them to do a 2-minute presentation on their particular product or process. This yielded some novel concepts and a lesson for some in effective time management!

Some wide ranging ideas emerged: » Tim Gray from TRE (Hitachi Group) on how to

simulate, validate and control; » Gary Elliott from Trough Tec Systems on the

design and use of plastic cable troughing with theft and anti vandalism features such as lockable lids;

» Dave Collier from Pilz on the use of industry standard PLCs (programmable logic controllers) to replace relays in interlockings;

» Phil Mounter from Westermo on sustainable safe and secure data comms with associated networks for critical infrastructure installations

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giving examples of wireless distant signals, CASR axle counters, remote condition monitoring on the Edinburgh-Glasgow line, and dealing with the closedown of kilostream and megastream circuits under the BT Sunset programme;

» Dave Reed from Track Access on virtual track modelling services for projects, training and sighting;

» Dave Goater from Trans-Tronic on transformers of high quality materials and low in-rush current for Class II power systems;

» David Pearson from Unipart Rail on a self testing current rail indicator device for third and fourth-rail traction areas, i.e. a portable traction voltage indicating unit;

» Mark Challinor from Cablecraft with a level crossing cabinet with lockable fuse isolators, safe battery installation and plug coupler readiness, aimed at safety improvements and already in use at Llanelli;

» Dave Farman from Tew Plus on information gathering and analysis on how to avoid or minimise the effect of ‘what is your nightmare’. Examples are overhead line failure / derailment / signalling system shut down / flood / fatality

» Richard Bradley from FT Transformers with a coating product used on lineside cabinets that gives insulation resistance up to 20,000 volts and protection against vandal spray painting. It is already deployed on parts of the Wessex main line.

Like all engagement of this kind, some received more acclaim than others. One that caught the eye was the Pilz offering of a commercial safety PLC for signalling interlockings. Widely used in machine and process safety, these safety PLCs are initially aimed at the level crossing market, and it is claimed the product is inherently SIL3 (safety integrity level 3) but can be configured for SIL4 applications.

Advantages are that it is a decentralised control system, is scalable / expandable, it has Ethernet based communication built in and obsolescence is controlled by backward compatibility. The equipment meets trackside environmental conditions for temperature, vibration, shock, electromagnetic compatibility and complies with the various EuroNorms (EN standards) for use trackside and on board trains.

To date Pilz has co-operated with Network Rail in the development of an MCB-OD type (obstacle detection full barriers) level crossing simulator, and outside the UK has had its PLCs used in many level crossings and as a SIL 4 communications interface to replace TDMs (time division multiplexers) in Austria, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland.

The ultimate objective is to reduce system risk, design and installation time and make testing easier. It will in essence replace relay technology but not replicate it. The PLC code will be encapsulated and locked for repeat use. A system will be built up as a series of certified function blocks.

A challenge will be the ongoing ownership of the software that currently remains the property of the suppliers. The handling of records, storage

A wireframe view of Nottingham Station from Track Access.


and updates needs to be determined. Reaction so far indicates signalling engineers are cool towards such usage whereas asset managers welcome the opportunity to cost effectively replace relays. A slightly cynical view would be ‘no surprises there then!’.

Going forwardSo where did all of this leave us?

Innovation in railway signalling continues to be an uphill struggle. Despite the good work of Ken Peters and his team, getting acceptance demands a continual battle to convince the ultimate decision makers that adoption is the right way forward.

Lots of ideas emerge and in many instances products to go with them. Bringing these to fruition in the form of installed systems remains a challenge. It is not simply a case of excessive conservatism; there are many organisational and standards processes that need to be simplified.

It is also a question of scale; engaging in something big like ERTMS is bound to be a protracted process since the implications of getting it wrong will have repercussions for a long period of time. Some of the smaller scale innovations, as demonstrated at this

seminar, can bring worthwhile benefits in quick time and it is up to a broader-minded management to engage with these and reap the advantages.

Working with other engineering disciplines across both sides of the contractual divide is recognised as needing to be improved. Some of the more recent big projects have benefitted from this, such as the Reading remodelling and station rebuild. The same process will be used on the Staffordshire Alliance involving line speed upgrades, Stafford resignalling and Norton Bridge grade separation.

Tapas Haldar from Network Rail described the set up: a joint management team, no client and contractor separation, a ‘no claims’ agreement and delivery responsibility with no commercial risk. Maybe some signalling innovation may creep in as well with some of the ‘products’ that the Ken Peters team have already delivered.

All in all, it was an interesting day and it is to be hoped that the participating firms and engineers will be encouraged to continue with the innovative efforts that were demonstrated.

eco - rail®

Pilz discussed using industry-standard PLCs.


Now, here at The Rail Engineer we do try to be technical. After all, this is an engineering magazine and not some sort of Fisher Price catalogue explaining kit in terms of large red buttons. But there

are times when a little of ‘back to the beginning’ is called for - and more especially so when it comes to railway signalling. We’ve a wide range of engineers who pore avidly through this magazine and I suspect that some of them, maybe the civil engineers like me, may struggle with and, indeed, switch off when it comes to the intricacies of the grey boxes of twinkling lights that are food and drink to signalling engineers.

So the following couple of paragraphs come with no apology - except perhaps to those who know all about relays and PLCs and who might find the words a little too simple. Civils engineers can have their revenge at another time with esoteric discussions on Euler’s critical loads but, for now, here are some simple words which might help with the rest of the article.

“If this, then that”Firstly, what do relays do? This

is really simple. Pass a (smallish) current through the coil of a relay and (hopefully) there will be a satisfying clunk and a set of contacts - not connected to the circuit that fed the original current - will either make or break. With the types of relays often encountered by general engineers this allows a much larger current to flow

through the contacts to a hefty bit of kit - a level crossing barrier motor for example.

But a relay can also act as a logic gate where the second current is not there to drive something but is used to establish that the first current has occurred. This is going right back to the original logics of early computers. “If this, then that” in terms of programming language - the 1s and 0s of the binary system.

So, detecting an input from a treadle fixed to the rail and caused by an approaching train can then set off a range of downstream switching, all generated through the use of relays.

Life of RileyThis sounds a little, well, like an

old technology - tried, tested and thoroughly railway.

It’s pretty reliable, but of course susceptible to failure modes. It uses kit that is mechanical, bulky, delicate - in fact everything you’d expect in the 1960s. Relays live the life of Riley in their own, cosy, temperature-controlled relay rooms. They are very shy with only very few qualified technicians allowed to come anywhere near them and, of course, the relay rooms have to cater for these valued visitors as well. The result is that the kit for a level crossing has to include quite large lumps of infrastructure that largely house (warm) fresh air.

PLCs and relays - a logical approach

GRAHAME TAYLOR

Level crossing controller.


Just for a moment, let us pause and question why level crossings have been mentioned so many times in the first few paragraphs of this article. It’s because Network Rail is seeking to change the way that level crossings are controlled and, with the assistance of the Signalling Innovation Group under Tahir Ayub, senior design authority engineer, is aiming to move from the old relay technology to PLCs.

Inputs and outputs aplentyAnd at this point we have to go

right back to another beginning and explain in more simple words the meaning of PLC and what a PLC does. PLC - Programmable Logic Controller - they’ve been around now for many years and can be found looking after the operation of machines, factories and processes that potentially have multiple inputs and outputs. They are the modern(ish) equivalent to the logic gate provided by the relay mechanism.

They are, of course, much smaller, far more anonymous and silent. They will be found in some

of the inevitable, enigmatic grey boxes with twinkling lights. They are able to handle a large number of inputs and outputs all within the space of a modest circuit board. They are robust and so there’s no need for a cosseted lifestyle, no special rooms and no warm bath every ten years.

So why have relays hung on for so long? It’s not for a lack of will by generations of signalling engineers. “It’s something we tried twenty years ago” can be heard. But why now and not then? Bluntly, it

was very difficult. Not difficult to design a system, but difficult for any system to make it through all the validation and acceptance processes. It would have been scheme by scheme, design by design, component by component. Easier to bang in a relay set-up as that’s what’s acceptable.

All this was not helped by there being no SIL3/4 PLCs around in the commercial market. (That’s kit that has a SIL (Safety Integrity Level) of 3 or 4. SIL? - that’s another story!)

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Safety PLCsBut, over the past ten years or

so, devices have started to emerge from a number of suppliers driven by the need to use PLCs in more and more demanding applications. It has to be remembered that ‘out there’ are many industries that are just as safety critical as the railways - oil & gas, pharmaceutical and nuclear - and they are the ones that have pushed the development forward. Now there are devices that satisfy the requirements of the CENELEC standard IEC 61508-3, which sets the requirements for this new generation - this new category - of Safety PLCs. So far as the hardware is concerned this is all about the principle of composite fail safety through redundancy and diversity along with formal verification of software construction.

Procuring PLCs that conform to IEC 61508-3 effectively takes out a whole level of angst when pitted against any railway validation process.

Some suppliers have satisfied the requirements of EN 501208 and EN 51209 (which are railway standards for signalling control systems). There are now many opportunities that never existed only a few years ago. Since some suppliers have made kit to these CENELEC standards, some countries have used Safety PLCs

for level crossing applications in a large scale in Southern Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, and Japan. They’re even being used as communications interfaces between remote computer-based interlockings and relay interlockings as an alternative to TDMs (time division multiplexers).

Communications interfacesTahir and his team see that

there is a real way forward to achieve a number of tricky targets through CP5, to improve safety at level crossings and drive down

costs. The safety issues can be helped by incorporating new inputs - remember that PLCs can handle a large number. One such input can come from obstacle detectors (OD) on the crossing. Financially, there will be benefits because the PLC can talk to itself and find out how it’s feeling through internal self-monitoring circuits and firmware.

PLCs have communications interfaces which, in turn, give the opportunity for diagnostics, remote asset monitoring and pre-emptive maintenance. Development of applications using pre-certified software function blocks can dramatically reduce design time, enabling factory acceptance testing to reduce site acceptance tests and hence possession times during installation and commissioning.

Environmental considerations get a tick in the box through the use of modest (unheated) location boxes to house the devices, as well as extremely low power consumption. This, in turn, reduces the quantity of civils work and energy-expensive materials and may reduce land-take because of a much smaller footprint.

Opening up the marketBut we’re not quite there

yet, despite all these positive aspects. There’s still the matter of


EN 50121EN 50126

EN 50128 EN 50129

EN 50155EN 50159

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Scan the QR Code to download PLC Technology in Rail Signalling presentation

commonality of design, modular construction and openness of source code - in fact all the issues that, unless addressed, might lead to the delicate matter of vendor lock. Perish the thought, but it could be possible for a supplier to corner the market and have a monopoly. Of course, this has never happened in the past, but you never know and Tahir is committed to a model that ensures that it is Network Rail that pulls the strings rather than a monopoly supplier.

By opening up the various elements involved in the supply chain it is intended that more and more of the suppliers ‘out there’ who already make Safety PLCs or deal in PLC systems integration will be able to penetrate the railway market. And, as has been shown in the areas of Class II electrical equipment and aluminium cabling (that’s where you’ve heard of Tahir before!), by opening up the market there will be a spontaneous burgeoning of ideas and innovation further driving down costs or widening applications.

464 level crossingsSo, the project underway by the

Signalling Innovation Group is less about the gadgets - they’ve been around for years - it’s more about a process and methods, new system design, new testing processes, training and development, and configuration and control. This ensures that the supply chain is less restrained by railway processes and is able to come up with its own ideas within the framework that Network Rail would put in place.

The group has already engaged with a number of Safety PLC vendors, even going as far as

collaborating with and developing level crossing simulators using PLCs to prove the technology is not a barrier but that new ways of working are required.

The target is to convert/install 464 level crossings during CP5. This is a process that also involves going back to the beginning when it comes to examining the way that level crossings work - a matter of getting down to the basic logic steps unhindered by the limitations of the relay technology.

Going back to the beginning is something that we non-signalling engineers have to do on occasions.


Network Rail’s current hard-hitting advertising campaign is once again highlighting the importance of paying attention on and around user-worked crossings, but the onus to stay safe remains very much on the user rather than the network operator.

However, a solution could be at hand. Midlands based safety solutions specialist Bernstein Ltd recently showcased a full-size prototype of SafeGate, its solution for rail crossings, at Rail Live 2014.

The company, which has developed a range of products specifically designed for safety applications in the rail industry, believes that the introduction of enhanced safety initiatives could play a vital role in reducing the number of pedestrian deaths on UK level crossings.

Automated locking and warningsSafeGate has been specifically developed to help

improve security at user worked crossings. The system uses proven safety technology to hold the gate closed when a train is detected, securing the crossing. Warning lights and alarms located adjacent to the gate also advise people on foot when the danger has passed, adding another level of protection.

There are more than 6,100 level crossings in Britain and according to Network Rail’s latest figures, seven adults were fatally injured on the network in 2013 with 241 near misses. Bernstein believes SafeGate could have major implications for pedestrians using Britain’s level crossings and is currently working with leading control and safety consultant Hima-Sella to bring the product to market.

Bernstein managing director Robert Emms said: “We specialise in identifying safety problems that could be solved using our technologies and, having worked extensively in the rail industry, it became apparent that the number of pedestrian deaths and near misses on the UK’s user worked crossing network has remained fairly static for a number of years.

“Network Rail invests significant resources in raising public awareness of the dangers posed by crossings, but the responsibility to stay safe remains with the user. The widespread introduction of automated locking

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systems would remove the element of choice and could significantly reduce the number of people injured or killed on crossings every year.”

Having hit on the initial idea and developed the first SafeGate prototype, Bernstein approached long-standing customer Hima-Sella to discuss the best way to turn the concept into a reality. Working with a number of major train operators, Hima-Sella has established a reputation for developing high quality products that address a variety of safety issues whilst adhering to stringent industry safety standards.

Neil Reedy, Hima-Sella product manager, commented: “We were extremely interested when Bernstein first approached us regarding SafeGate as we could immediately see its potential. We are currently in discussion with Network Rail and are hopeful that SafeGate will make the transition from working prototype to becoming part of the standard specification for all foot crossings in the not too distant future.”

Selective door openingWhilst level crossing safety is an obvious example of

a railway associated hazard, rail users can be exposed to a number of other risks if not adequately protected. Bernstein was also involved in the development of Hima-Sella’s award winning selective door opening system

Tracklink III. This ensures that passengers are only able to alight from the train where it is safe to do so by controlling the opening of train doors in instances where the train is longer than the platform.

The system uses RFID technology to detect where the platform ends. A passive beacon (tag) is mounted on the platform or on the track sleepers to store data about the station. A train mounted reader accesses this information when the train pulls into the station and communicates with the train’s door safety interlocks which only allow doors located next to the platform to open - ensuring passengers are only able to alight where it is safe to do so.

The Tracklink III ‘reader’ is housed in an aluminium enclosure which has been modified using the Bernstein Custom service. Robert explained: “We were initially approached for help with an issue that Hima-Sella was experiencing with earlier Tracklink prototypes. It needed to ensure the sensor located underneath each carriage could detect the stationary tag whilst maintaining the required IP66 rating - this was not possible using a purely aluminium enclosure.

“We solved this issue by cutting out most of the top of the lid and fitting a flame retardant polycarbonate facia plate which allows the RF signal to penetrate and communicate with the tag.”

Protecting sensitive equipmentWhilst level crossing and platform safety may be fairly

obvious, the dangers caused by faulty trackside and train-borne equipment as a result of enclosure failure may be less apparent.

Sensitive electronic equipment located outdoors must be housed in enclosures that offer protection against a number of hazards - water ingression, insects and dust can all affect its operational capabilities, whilst obvious factors such as vandalism must also be addressed. Bernstein offers a wide range of IP68 rated, lockable enclosures that can be customised to meet specific requirements.

Robert continued: “As well as developing new technologies such as SafeGate, we are constantly looking at ways to improve our existing products to ensure they meet the changing needs of industry. The rail industry is continuing to experience increasing demand year on year and Bernstein is committed to a strategic R&D programme to ensure it can help the UK’s rail network to be amongst the safest in the world.”


Working togetherfor a safer world

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We get to the bottom of thingsOur name is synonymous with independent assurance: we inspected our fi rst locomotive in 1929 and have beenassuring products, processes and entire railways ever since. In the past year alone we have been appointed to provide Notifi ed and Designated Body services for major projects such as Crossrail and the Great Western Integrated Programme, and safety assessments for overseas clients such as Etihad Rail and the Taiwan High Speed Railway. In an industry where safety and performance are paramount, there are few names you could trust more.

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The £14.8 billion Crossrail project, probably one of the most prestigious railway engineering projects in Europe and possibly the world, has recently reached the halfway mark after work started five years ago - a very significant milestone.

In addition, it was announced in March this year that Crossrail services would be extended further west from Maidenhead to Reading, thus benefiting from the £900 million Reading station project which is now nearing completion.

Tunnel boring machine, Ellie, broke through into the Stepney Caverns in June this year which means that more than 80% of the tunnelling programme is now complete. The tunnel boring programme continues, but the emphasis is changing and the project is starting to focus more on fitting out these tunnels and the many stations along the route.

So, when completed, Crossrail will now run 132km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new twin-bore 21km long tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. With 24 trains per hour running through the core of the route, it will bring an additional 1.5 million people within 45 minutes of commuting distance of London’s key business districts. When it opens from 2018, Crossrail will provide new transport links with the Tube, Thameslink, National Rail, DLR and London Overground.

Key PartnerNetwork Rail is a key partner in Crossrail and is making

a significant investment in upgrading the network around the capital to ensure the project is delivered on time in 2018. Network Rail is responsible for the design, development and delivery of those parts of Crossrail that are on the existing network. Its work will integrate Crossrail with the national rail network, delivering faster, more frequent trains into central London from the east and west.

This work includes upgrading 70km of track, redeveloping 28 stations and renewing 15 bridges and, unlike the central tunnelling work, Network Rail will do all of this on an active operational railway, delivering vital upgrade works whilst minimising disruption to train services.

Earlier this year, Network Rail awarded a £157 million contract to Costain for the majority of the Crossrail works planned on the north-east surface section of the route between Pudding Mill Lane portal at Stratford in east London and Shenfield in Essex. It is known as the Crossrail Anglia contract and David Whiteford is Costain’s project director, working alongside Darren Coleman, Network Rail’s senior programme manager for this work.

Major station improvementsThe contract includes the design and construction

of major station improvements at Romford, Ilford and Harold Wood as well as general station improvements along the rest of the 25km route at Goodmayes, Forest Gate, Gidea Park, Chadwell Heath, Brentwood and Shenfield. Platform extensions will allow the new 205 metre long higher-capacity trains to operate effectively. Step-free access will be provided at the majority of the stations on the route which will require the installation of lifts at six stations to ensure compliance with disabled access regulations.

Other works will include various infrastructure improvements, such as extra train stabling capacity and turnback facilities, that will improve the reliability of passenger services. Some major track slews will be necessary, 50 new S&C units will be installed along with

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Design layout of Chadwell Heath turnback.

Crossrail Angliathe devil is in the interface!


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some 220 overhead line structures and over 20km of wiring. There are also many complex temporary-works schemes that are currently being developed involving lift pits and temporary retaining walls. Overhead electrification equipment will have to be relocated or renewed alongside signalling and passenger information equipment, so effective liaison with the many appropriate operating bodies concerned will have to be carefully managed to ensure that the interface working always continues to be reliable and effective.

Network Rail initially appointed Atkins to develop and design the Crossrail Anglia scheme in preparation for tendering and, subsequently, Costain has appointed Atkins to complete the numerous different designs required ready to start construction. Apart from extended possessions over the Christmas periods, Costain must deliver this work without disrupting normal services on this very intensely-used and critical part of the railway network.

Five borough councilsTo add a little more spice to the challenge,

the work involves detailed discussions and agreement with five different boroughs: Brentwood, Havering, Barking & Dagenham, Redbridge and Newham. Understandably, each borough has its own concerns, opportunities and priorities so managing these interfaces whilst striving to achieve a consistent approach across the route is quite a challenge and one that both Darren and David see as a top priority.

Alongside the interests of the borough councils, there are other initiatives that interface with the Crossrail Anglia project. For example, there is the Great Eastern Electrification upgrade that is being managed by Furrer and Frey which must be integrated into the project design. Also, there is a traffic management project underway which requires all the signalling throughout the route which is currently controlled from the Liverpool Street signalling centre to be connected to the new signalling centre at Romford. Signalling Solutions is responsible for this work and any signalling work associated with the Crossrail Anglia project.

Both Network Rail and Costain are realising the full benefit of CAD and BIM modelling. Jay Furlong, Network Rail’s design integration manager, was keen to show how 4D modelling helps the project team to understand exactly what is being built and what effect it will have on the surrounding area. For example, a redesign of a platform to include lifts and stairways as well as the station furniture such as cameras and public information screens, coupled with associated track slews to accommodate additional sidings, can play havoc with signal sighting.

However, the modelling process enables any inadequacy to be exposed at design stage and rectified accordingly. It also enables the construction team to plan each stage of the work knowing what the surrounding area will look like as a result of the work completed so far. As David pointed out, it had become an essential tool in the management of the myriad of interfaces such a contract presents.

Value of modellingWhen seeing these modelling systems in

action, it makes one wonder how engineers ever managed beforehand. It presents the engineer with a clear picture at every stage of construction before it happens. This must be of particular benefit for the key suppliers to Costain, namely VVB Engineering with M&EE and power expertise and Kelp Rail who are providing track and OLE support. Also, of significant importance, the modelling process provides Network Rail, the asset owner, with accurate asset management information that it can use for future maintenance.

Costain is at the stage where the team is now ready to move into its new HQ for the project at Romford and, in addition, site offices are also being constructed at Shenfield, Ilford, Gidea Park and Chadwell Heath. It is a further step taken to ensure that there is a presence and a consistent approach across the whole project. David has devoted a considerable amount of time to make sure that his team is equipped with the appropriate technology, iPads etc. to ensure that at any one time they know who is on site, that they understand what the site looks like beforehand so that they are aware of any hazards or additional risk that might arise.

In support of this initiative, all COSS briefings will be continually updated with the latest access points and any specific additional emerging information that they need to brief out. Alongside this line of communication to the workforce, there will be daily construction reports issued back to the centre from each site office to ensure that everyone knows exactly what the state of play is on site, at any one time.

Testing new trainsAlthough work will not be completed until

August 2018, Costain must ensure that, by November 2016, the route is fit to test the new trains that are currently being built by Bombardier in Derby. There are no planned station closures and the different designs presented by Network Rail to the boroughs are still being considered.

Understandably, the boroughs want to develop their own transport interchange plans to maximise the opportunity that this project presents to them. Coupled with this, the existing rail franchises using this part of the network will also want to ensure that Crossrail Anglia proposals do not undermine their own presence and ability to operate effectively.

This is certainly not a contract for the faint hearted. The myriad of individual engineering schemes may not, in themselves, be overly complex but, when one starts to consider the interaction that is currently and will continue to take place, the pulse starts to race. Not only are there five London boroughs to consider, all with their own concerns and priorities, there are system interface issues with rail, signalling, telecoms and power, both associated with this particular scheme and with other major projects that are currently underway.

It’s a real challenge for Darren, David and their integrated teams that fortunately, are already working in a collaborative partnership in accordance with BS11000 principles. There is no doubt that the BIM modelling techniques will prove to be invaluable as this project gets underway on the ground.

Ironically, this is one of the final contracts that Crossrail will let yet it will have to be the first to finish to ensure that the appropriate testing of the new trains is able to get underway. It’s a challenge that the project team seems more than prepared to meet.

Signal sighting plans for the London end of Shenfield station.


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QUALITY, SAFETY AND PEOPLE.

For many, passenger information is still screens and announcements at stations. However, much more is now happening; the advent of the internet and smart phones has made information available to a much wider audience. How many people are aware of this or even

capable of understanding it?

In June (issue 116), The Rail Engineer reported on a recent London conference and looked at progress towards integrating passenger information in the UK. This month it is time to turn the spotlight on what is happening in other parts of the world.

Unsurprisingly, other railways face problems similar to the UK. In Sweden, rail services are also deregulated and there can be up to 50 applicants for train paths. Competition between companies is considerable leading to missing links in the information flow. During the bad winters of 2010/11 many trains were left stranded with little information provision.

The public demand for co-ordination of services and a new business unit has been set up to improve co-operation between train operators and Trafikverket (the infrastructure company). Information will be available on the Travikverket website with automatic feeds to station message boards and announcements.

Reliance on local staff to direct people during disruption remains important but no personalised smartphone message service is planned. It will be left to the market to provide this.

Next door, in Finland, they struggle with data accuracy but targeted and personalised messages are planned. To achieve this, a

development programme using a sequence of customer workshop > internal workshop > quantitative questionnaire > prototyping > prototype validation with customers > technical road mapping is underway. The result will be a journey map to include many elements including social media information.

In Germany, Deutsche Bahn (DB) is experiencing an increasing demand for personalised information. This includes guiding travellers at stations, giving on board information, integrated smart ticketing and multi mode travel opportunities. The solution is ‘Touch and Travel’, with the vision of needing only two clicks to get across Europe. Smartphones will become the tickets and conductors will be equipped with readers to verify journey integrity. Users will be billed monthly.

The Amtrak service in the USA, although small compared to Europe, still managed to carry over 30 million passengers in 2013 and relies on smartphones to provide current train running information. 50% of train status requests come via an app and 10% of people use a smartphone for boarding information. Live phone support, particularly for the elderly, has to remain - as do station and on-train displays. Developing online systems has not been a trouble-free exercise and a total rethink on journey planning experiences is taking place.

Integrating passenger informationCLIVE KESSELL


Technical developments and visionAchieving these objectives will not happen unless investment and

technology keep pace. A key factor is the transmission capability between track and train.

Ken Cowley from Nomad Digital predicted that IP-based communication will become standard and this will lead to the mixing of media and travel info. An ‘on train portal’ should become possible to give real time journey information on late running and implications for connections, plus details of train facilities, for example the number of spare seats available in coach 4.

All will depend on near-constant communication to the train, implying that the public 3G and 4G networks coverage must be improved. Network Rail is already seeking options from the mobile industry as to how this might be done.

Getting reliable WiFi coverage to all parts of a train is never easy, different solutions having been tried for some time. Peter Hausken from Norway NSB described the experiences of a railway with 70% of traffic centred on

Oslo suburbia and the remainder in widespread remote areas. A hub train server with wired connections to other coaches is the preferred option as a radio alternative may need expensive repeaters since modern carriages tend to block radio signals.

Cellular connectivity is ok for voice but WiFi does not support 3G and 4G speech, so both GSM and WiFi is needed via the mobile operators. Coverage in remote areas is a problem as is handover of devices at high speed.

Capacity of the link means that bandwidth has to be restricted to passengers. Whilst 80Mbit is possible, a more likely limit is 1.5Mbit up to 100MByte, then 384kbit thereafter.

Staff usage for such as credit card validation, passenger counting and CIS updates must not be forgotten. The investment case is difficult to justify and must ultimately require increased ridership.

Directing passengersThe possibilities for the total directing of travellers was examined by

Alexander Gran from IVU Traffic Technologies AG, a company specialising in journey planning across all modes which is based in Berlin with a UK Birmingham office. A combination of live signs (2,500 existing already in London) and smartphone messaging may be the only way to communicate information to individuals in the right timescale.

Disturbance alerts are fine but what the passenger really needs is travel advice. IVU’s URA system aims to provide predictions using real time running inputs to work out the best routing options if a journey is disrupted. The validity of the prediction is crucial and begs the question whether no information is better than wrong information.

Overseas Experiences


Technology to simplify and create flexible ticketing is available now and Mohamed Bhanji from Via Rail in Canada set out the concept for Europe. A starting point has to be agreement between interested operators who would then progress to: » Network compatibility (schedules / minimum connection times); » Co-operation (affiliate / interworking / code share); » System compatibility (booking / ticketing / settlement procedures); » Legal and other factors (missed connections / baggage / special needs); » Business case (cost / benefit).The ticket would include details of the itinerary, passenger receipt

and boarding pass, the latter being customised for each mode. System experience in Canada has shown that travel fraud will significantly reduce.

The use of social media will increase and East Coast Trains are looking at the implications. Foremost must be the protection of the train operator’s reputation, thus impacting on the type and quality of information given out. A single source of truth is needed that could mean having professional social media advisors working alongside information controllers. The term ‘coversocial’ could become a tool of the future.

A more forward looking view on technology was given by Riccardo Santoro from FS Italiane. Open Data for On Train Operating was the theme. Interoperability of data internationally will be the requirement to foster a competitive, open-ended suppliers’ market to create smart ‘instrumented’ cities and regions.

Current offerings from multiple providers give only a partial view of mobility. The ultimate vision is a ‘Web of Transportation Elements’ with a single integrated domain using distributed data sources. In the short term, however, an integrated multi-domain with contractually combined major players may have to suffice, using a shared reference model and guidelines. Part of this might be a language translation service.

A similar vision was put forward by Niels van Oort from Delft University of Technology with the use of ‘Big Data’ to improve public transport in general. A paradigm shift from passenger to traveller, trip to journey and evaluation to prediction will result. GSM data, Crowd data and Passenger data need to combine for the required customer experience.

Modelling of people flows in Holland has shown potential savings of €50 million across five cities if the prediction of passenger preferences for speed, fares, times of operation, routes and frequency are combined to optimise the transport service.

The way forwardIt is worth repeating the earlier article. Opportunities for improving and

widening the current offerings are clearly there to be exploited but with this comes a massive increase in data handling and the risk that yet more embarrassing deficiencies will emerge. Empathy extends to those who deal daily with the challenge of giving out timely and accurate information, as anyone who travels regularly will see at first hand the problems being faced.

The proposers of innovation and new technology tend to start from an academic or research background and probably do not understand the realities of running an everyday railway. Getting it wrong and ‘fail safe’ are not scenarios that apply to information systems.

Aligning information with disruption is inherently difficult; often too many unknowns are there for accurate data to be processed. Building-in ‘cleverness’ such as journey planning is an admirable goal but will get nowhere unless ticket availability matches the options for changed routes and modes.

Overall, the conference provided a fascinating insight into what might become possible and it remains to be seen how it all pans out in the fullness of time.

e-ticketing at Grand Central Station.


This year’s Rail Vehicle Enhancements 2014 (RVE 2014) expo and forum, which will be held at the Derby Rams Stadium on Wednesday 15 October 2014, will be three times the size of last year’s event.

On that occasion, visitors to RVE 2013 benefited from a full day of events organised by Onyxrail with the support of the Rail Alliance. Sponsored by Rail Media, RVE 2014 promises to be bigger, better and broader with both an expanded Exhibition and a Forum where visitors can hear from leading figures in the rail industry. Once again, entry will be free.

RVE 2013 was filled with exhibitors at the cutting edge of technology from around the world. These showcased real time passenger counting, cab and saloon cooling and passenger information equipment. Other innovations on show included LED lighting, entertainment and advertising systems, interior and product designs, energy saving solutions such as hydrogen generators and driver advisory equipment. All of the exhibitors were kept busy with high levels of interest from visitors reflecting the rail industry’s clear and dramatic upturn.

More exhibits and a forumLaunching the show, Kevin Lane of Onyxrail

commented: “2014 is proving to be a good time to be in railways as the industry limbers up to meet the challenges of CP5. These include answering the increasing demands of passenger growth and the industry-wide desire to boost capacity. We also share a common objective of improving the quality of rail travel. Railways should be a positive travel experience and Rail Vehicle Enhancements 2014 will help us further develop this.”

Following the success of RVE 2013, the Rail Alliance, Onxyrail and Rail Media also plan a boost in capacity. This will expand the success and value of RVE 2014 for visitors and exhibitors alike. It looks like being a busy show. Most of the RVE 2013 exhibitors have already rebooked. Ian Walmsley, engineering development manager of Porterbrook Leasing, will be the compere for the Forum. RVE 2014 will emphasise the renewed

confidence in the rail industry and inspire visitors with the dramatic opportunities opening up across the expanding rail network.

Kevin Lane is looking forward to the show: “RVE 2014 will, I am confident, parallel the huge advances being made by the new rail industry which all of our exhibitors plan to sustain and develop. RVE 2013 proved to be a great success and we look forward to building on that.”

Entry is free and the show is open between 09:00 and 16:30 on Wednesday 15 October 2014 at Derby Rams Stadium, Pride Park, Derby.

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Over the recent Easter period, Spencer Rail completed a first in this country by successfully moving an 800-tonne pedestrian subway into its final position on a bed of compressed nitrogen gas.

The work took place at Rochester station as part of the second phase of the overall East Kent Resignalling Programme which will concentrate control of a significant portion of Network Rail’s Kent route into the East Kent Signalling Centre (EKSC) at Gillingham.

Network Rail’s prime objective for this project is to improve asset condition, provide capacity and capability enhancements and deliver operational savings within the project area. As a consequence, the scheme includes the total renewal of life-expired signalling on a section of the Chatham main line between the end of the Phase 1 project near Sittingbourne and the Victoria Signalling Centre control area near Longeld. This is in addition to the re-control and partial renewal and modification of existing signalling on the connecting routes.

Assessing asset conditionTo progress these objectives, Network Rail

procured the services of Vertex Systems Engineering to carry out an initial assessment of asset condition and undertake a whole life-cycle cost assessment comparing the various technologies considered appropriate for the scope

of the East Kent Phase 2 project. This programme of work was completed by March 2013.

A package of work, valued at £147 million, was put together by Network Rail as a collaborative contract compliant with BS11000. The collaborative partners for the project were Atkins for the signalling works and for the overall project design work, Balfour Beatty Rail for the trackwork and Spencer Rail for all the civils work which was valued at approximately £25 million.

This project, to upgrade the 33-mile stretch of East Kent’s railway network by replacing the old signalling equipment and increasing the capacity and capability of the region’s rail network, must be completed by Spring 2016.

Earlier this year Spencer Rail successfully handed over one of the most challenging aspects of the project which was the installation of the 800 tonne pedestrian subway mentioned earlier. The subway forms part of the new station that Spencer Rail is building at Rochester.

Designing a solutionSpencer Rail was responsible for early contractor

involvement in engineering a solution for constructing and installing a new subway as part of its contract to rebuild Rochester station. To facilitate the planning, Spencer’s team was initially co-located with the designers at the Atkins offices in Croydon.

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There was plenty of room to construct the reinforced concrete subway, which is 28 metres long, 7.6 metres wide and 4.0 metres high, alongside the railway embankment at Rochester and it was completed well in advance of the 96-hour Easter blockade.

So, all that was required was to determine how Spencer Rail, after excavating through the embankment the previous day, would slide the 800 tonne structure approximately 36 metres into its final resting place. A number of propulsion systems capable of sliding the subway into position were considered and, after careful evaluation, Spencer Rail decided to procure the services of Freyssinet. This was a big decision and Tom Kerins, operations director for Spencer Rail, was very pleased with the result. He emphasised that they made the right choice with Freyssinet which had been an excellent company to work with.

Remember your history?Now then, can you remember your engineering history? Eugene Freyssinet

was the person who invented and patented prestressing which, as we all know, helped to revolutionise the art of building - so clearly Spencer Rail knew that they had put their subway slide in good hands.

This slightly more modern Freyssinet Autoripage® technique has been designed for use when a structure is built to one side of the railway formation, after which the embankment is removed exposing the newly created ground level ready for the structure to be slid into its final position. Freyssinet has used this technique in Europe more than fifty times over the last ten years but it is the first time it has been used in this country.

Clearly, the weather was a key issue, especially when excavating the embankment and re-establishing the formation around the subway afterwards. C J Pryor was the subcontractor that supplied the earthworks plant and expertise and, although there was some rain, this phase of the work went well.

Continuous skidway installedFreyssinet installed 10-metre-long steel skidways two weeks prior to the

slide. These were lined, levelled and bolted together to form a continuous track either side of the subway. In addition, the construction of the subway box was modified by Spencer Rail in liaison with the Freyssinet design department to accommodate the Autoripage technique by adding 10 cantilever corbels, five on each side.

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The corbels measured 1.6 metres by 0.7 metres wide by 2.5 metres high. They formed the lifting points for ten 385-tonne capacity hydraulic lifting jacks which, complete with the Air Pad Sliding (APS) feet, were placed on the skidway and bolted to the underside of each of the corbels. In order to keep the support pressure uniform, the jacks were linked to a central control system.

This assembly of jacks created a lifting capacity of 3850 tonne, which was significantly greater than the required 800 tonne. However, the redundant capacity ensured that if one jack should fail, the others would cope with the added weight. In addition, it reduced the bearing pressure on the ground for each jack position by spreading the load over 10 points.

A floating subwayEach jack was fixed to a 1125mm square APS

foot. Nitrogen, an inert gas that is less susceptible to temperature change than air and therefore behaves more predictably, was then injected under pressure and contained within the footplate by a rubber seal. This meant the subway was effectively floating and that the coefficient of friction was reduced to 1% as it was pushed along the carefully laid skidways.

The push-pull jacks had a 1200mm stroke and they automatically clipped onto the skidway, retracted, re-clipped and repeating this movement throughout the sliding process. The jacks

were able to achieve a speed of 20 metres per hour which saved vital time during a blockade operation.

To make the process a little more challenging there were a number of cables on the embankment that could not be moved so they had to be supported on a temporary service bridge spanning the embankment excavation. In addition, a sheet piled box had to be constructed to accommodate a lift shaft that ran alongside an opening in the subway wall.

These all meant that the slide had to be carried out with a minimum of deviation. In fact, the maximum tolerance allowed was 10mm. This proved to be quite a challenge for Spencer Rail’s senior engineer, Anuk Perera, and site engineer Ryan Hughes. There was no hiding place for them and they had to get it right which they did with the subway sitting in its final resting place just 8mm off line. It might be easier to take the first penalty kick in a World Cup Final than to have this responsibility.

New TechnologyThere were no accidents or incidents throughout

the work and the views of the team involved are best expressed by Tom Kerins, operations director at Spencer Rail, who said: “Installing the subway was an extremely important and challenging aspect of the works at Rochester and it is testament to the expertise, forward-thinking and hard work of our team that we have completed the installation successfully. Moving such a large structure into place presented us with a number of logistical challenges but, by using innovative technology, it was completed without incident and ahead of schedule. It was the first subway slide of this type carried out in the UK using this technology.”

Now that the subway slide can be stored in the annals of engineering history, Spencer Rail is able to concentrate on the many other aspects of this project including the creation of a new ‘Access for All’ three platform station at Rochester. This, of course, includes the pedestrian subway and the decommissioning of the old Rochester station which is 500 metres away.

Over the next two years, apart from building the new station at Rochester, Spencer Rail will also be extending the platforms at numerous other stations, increasing their capacity from six to 12-car trains, and decommissioning eight signalling boxes throughout the East Kent region once the new signalling system has been installed.

This is all interesting stuff, but moving 800 tonnes of concrete structure a distance of 36 metres with less than 10mm deviation on a bed of compressed nitrogen has got to be a highlight in anyone’s career. It’s nearly as good as inventing prestressing - but not quite.


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GRAEME BICKERDIKE

Nothingt o c o m m e n d t h e m ?

Some people collect garden gnomes; others strap planks to their feet and throw themselves

down mountainsides on a surface that provides no friction. I see no appeal in skiing. But the wonderful thing about human beings is that we’re all

unique; each of us with strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Me, I have a darkness in my heart. Somewhere along the line I inherited an anorak that draws me to old railway tunnels.

There’s no accounting for it; neither apparently is there a solution to help me free the zip.


Tunnels are, by their nature, overlooked. It’s easy to appreciate the grandeur exuded by great station buildings or the landscape-defining viaducts that span our valleys. But tunnels? They’re cold and sinister; wet, filthy, miserable, featureless - not attractive qualities to a society besotted with the quest of transient celebrities to remain forever youthful, even if that involves looking like an alien. Perhaps that’s it: tunnels offer the perfect getaway from all that. No service.

Heritage is something we’re increasingly serious about. It’s been a slow-burn but we now understand that once it’s gone, there’s no bringing it back. The railway engineer’s mark should not be indelible but he often touched hillier parts of the country in magnificent ways. That should be appreciated. And yet, since their lines closed, many outstanding structures have been sacrificed at the altar of health and safety or for the development potential of the land they occupied. Workaday infrastructure continues to be opportunistically demolished where it realistically has nothing to offer. But can you imagine the outcry if developers tried to bulldoze the ruined foundations of an abbey or perhaps some castle earthworks?

Listing can be used to establish (though not permanently) a protective ring-fence around significant railway assets and many hundreds are now safeguarded in this way. The Railway Heritage Trust has, since the mid-Eighties, assisted with the conservation and upkeep of notable buildings and structures - both operational and disused - whilst other parties work to raise their profile by researching, recording and celebrating.

Case for the defenceYou’d struggle to find a listed tunnel though.

How do you get folk to take notice of something that offers very little in three dimensions? Indeed, so risk averse have we become that many agencies are probably keen that we don’t try at all. But we should. If you look beyond aesthetics and apply more substantive criteria - magnitude, impact, ingenuity, adversity - tunnels compare favourably with the greatest. The one under the Severn took five years longer to build than the Forth Bridge did and is getting on for three times its length, but it rarely troubles our consciousness.

Does that really matter? Perhaps to Peter Harris, Tunnels Convenor on the Panel for Historical Engineering Works (PHEW), the most authoritative body of expertise on civil engineering heritage and established to promote a broader awareness of it by the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1968. But Peter’s role is not an easy one. The PHEW database of more than 3,000 historical structures includes just 135 tunnels, despite Britain’s railway companies building more than 1,200 of them in 200 years.

“It’s difficult to make the case for one tunnel over another as most of them came with a similar set of challenges and solutions”, reflects Peter. “There are certainly tunnels which, in constructional terms, can be regarded as unique in some respect and there are obviously some with spectacular portals: Red Hill, Clay Cross, Bramhope, Primrose Hill. But convincing

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREEthe rail engineer • August 2014 55

people that an apparently ‘average’ tunnel can have a really compelling history is a battle that is usually hard to win. We should recognise more of these tunnels as having significant historical value than we do.”

Preserving a disused tunnel for the next generation to take for granted relies on promoting a practical use for it. Some options can be ruled out immediately if you’re seeking legitimate sources of funding (try Googling “disused Faenol tunnels”) which tends to leave just two: tourist attraction or cycle path, with the latter often becoming the former as the mile-long Combe Down Tunnel in Bath has. Keen to follow in that city’s tracks - and push the envelope in terms of length - is a village perched on a hill to the west of Bradford. However, securing a future for its tunnel will, as a first step, require Ministerial intervention.

In too deepQueensbury is dominated by Black Dyke Mills (yes, of

brass band fame), a vast monument to the textile industry around which the community was built. The mills’ owner, John Foster, played a leading role in promoting the Great Northern’s Halifax, Thornton & Keighley Railway as part of a strategically useful north-south route. Ironically, the line didn’t serve the village well as it passed 400 feet beneath it in a 2,501-yard tunnel, but the adjacent station - where a connection to Bradford diverged - was rare in having inner and outer platforms on all three sides of a triangular layout.

Blessed with a micro-climate that’s perfect for ducks, Queensbury has not been kind to its tunnel. Water is a theme that runs through its story, defeating the pumps at two of its seven construction shafts, forcing their abandonment. One was leased by the mill and its contents

piped to a reservoir there. Expected to take two years, 600 navvies made a living here for more than four, and it would have been longer had Major Beaumont of the Royal Engineers not arrived with a gang of Welsh miners and his new-fangled rock drilling machine.

Still wet in its redundancy, a combination of gradient and backfilled approach cutting mean that the south portal has spent much of the past ten years in a 30 feet deep lagoon, extending 1,000 yards into the tunnel. Scour from the penetrating water and the effects of freeze-thaw have brought an inevitable deterioration of the brickwork; ground movement - possibly a function of nearby mine workings - has caused the arch to bulge and crack in places. But that’s what you get when a structure goes without serious maintenance for 50 years. At least it’s not home to anyone…except during the Seventies when scientists slept in a hut close to No.3 shaft during experiments to determine the effect of elastic inhomogeneities on surface waves from earthquakes and tidal strains. As you do.

Those defects are small beer in liability terms, the tunnel being so far below the surface and pushed through self-supporting rock. Presenting the greatest issue for its owner, the Highways Agency (HA), are those seven shafts. No.4 shaft is, for example, 12 feet in diameter and 379 feet deep. Carrying the column of brickwork that forms its lining - weighing upwards of 560 tons - is a curb of large masonry blocks which transfer the load into the arch of the tunnel lining. Water ingress has an ongoing impact on its ability to withstand that load. Whilst inspection reports characterise current structural conditions as fair, focussing the Highways Agency’s mind on the long term is the presence of two properties within 20 feet of the shaft cap. And a similar story can be told at other shafts.

Tom Jones of Bradford Council briefs Transport Minister Robert Goodwill MP, Gary Verity from Welcome to Yorkshire, Gerry Sutcliffe MP and Councillor Val Slater on the challenges facing the Queensbury Tunnel.

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Back in 2009, British Railways Board (Residuary) - the tunnel’s then-custodian - commissioned a feasibility study from Jacobs on future asset management options. Its preferred approach was to carry out infilling works to the critical elements, notably the shafts and sections of tunnel beneath them. This came with a £5.1 million price tag but the residual risk level was very low, paving the way for the structure’s abandonment. Under the Highways Agency, the project’s reset button has effectively been pressed but HA does concede that “we have been making plans to carry out necessary maintenance work to the tunnel over the next five years, but this work is subject to funding and the ongoing prioritisation of all of our work.” Unless the tunnel’s condition has miraculously improved in the past five years, it’s fair to presume that the funding will have to be found at some point.

Powers that beMuddying the waters for the Highways Agency is the

sudden awakening of interest in the tunnel, prompted by the prospect of losing it to mass concrete plugs or similar. HA’s remit allows it only to manage the liability but an increasingly vocal body of opinion believes that if a chunky sum of public money is going to be invested in this black hole, the remedial works ought to be engineered such that taxpayers get some return. That means maintaining a through route so the tunnel can be brought back into use as host to a cycle path. Beyond the obvious benefits - commuting, leisure, tourism, health - campaigners see

this as a vehicle to re-energise Queensbury, its needs being generally overshadowed by the social issues in urban Bradford, three miles down the road.

Leading the charge locally is Norah McWilliam whose living room command centre offers views towards the tunnel. Perpetually positive, the “isn’t it a shame that…” culture is not for her; instead she is sufficiently motivated about the tunnel’s plight to stand up and do something, gathering support from both the community - which is plugging-in to what it could do for the village - and those holding key roles at a higher level. “This is a once-only opportunity to ensure a fantastic piece of our industrial past plays a key role in our transport future”, she argues. “We need to grab that opportunity with both hands.”

“Once-only” because the Highways Agency is likely to finalise the design for its works in the autumn after the water has been pumped out and a condition survey undertaken. If the concrete is poured as plugs rather than supporting arches, the fight will be lost along with the tunnel. So Norah secured a fact-finding visit from a man with influence - Under Secretary of State for Transport Robert Goodwill whose portfolio encompasses cycling. If his Department instructs HA to preserve a passageway through the tunnel, that’s what will happen.

Finding functionNever before had Queensbury Tunnel welcomed such

human diversity. But on 23rd June, two MPs, assorted Council officials, the Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, a representative from Sustrans which would play a central role in developing the cycle route, several historians, a Victorian nurse and a support team from central casting stood in front of a palisade fence and peered into the darkness. The tunnel played a plink-plop backing track of water on stone whilst the Minister was given a collective hard-sell on why it should be seen as an asset, not a liability. He was polite, attentive and non-committal as you would expect, but at least there’s engagement. “We need to see what we can do to try and capitalise on this fantastic asset and ensure that it isn’t lost to future generations”, Robert Goodwill told me. “We’ll need to get our calculators out and see what the actual figure for this is, but doing nothing isn’t an option.”

So it is possible to open eyes to a tunnel’s potential even if we are mostly oblivious to them. Should they be preserved for the sake of it when the railway has done with them? Not when there are schools and hospitals to invest in. But neither should they all be written off as burdensome - they only are from one viewpoint. If you take another look without the tunnel vision…apologies…lazy cliché there, they can fulfil valuable roles which bring preservation by default. Several dozen are already doing so.

We’ll know within months whether Queensbury is to join them. The Highways Agency has agreed to share the findings of its investigations with stakeholders and its Historical Railways Estate team is committed to actively maintaining a positive relationship with Sustrans which - like the Great Northern Railway before it - sees the tunnel as critical to a north-south link in its expanding cycle network. Over to you Mr Goodwill.

PHOTO: FOUR BY THREE

The Minister receives another briefing, this time from Mike Babbitt (second from the right), Sustrans’ Project Manager for Yorkshire & The Humber.

The north portal of the tunnel when it was operational.


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Dura Rail 210x148mm ad_v3.qxd:Layout 1 18/02/2014 12:19 Page 1 the rail engineer • August 2014 59

While installing, renovating or repairing bridges on the road network brings its own inconvenience, there are a number of workarounds that include contraflows, the use of alternative detour routes and other traffic management techniques. These are luxuries not as readily available on the rail network, and the installation or repair of bridging invariably requires a blockade - one that will be as short as it can realistically be.

To further complicate the issue, many rail bridge sites present the additional challenge of access. Rural bridges are often away from road access, and many urban bridges are in built-up areas where access is limited. When this is factored in with the need to deliver the project within a specific blockade, it becomes clear that planning, design, and time management are the fundamentals that underpin successful delivery.

Indeed, planning, design and time management - specifically time management with regards to delivery and installation methodology - are inextricably linked and each has an influence on the other.

Consider the installationSteel bridges offer several advantages over

concrete. Suitable for rapid installation, they can be prefabricated off site and can undergo full trial erection to avoid surprises during final assembly.

One of the key influencers in the design and manufacture of a steel rail bridge will be its installation. That may seem an over-simplification, but it’s often not fully appreciated how much the installation technique and specific site and time challenges have a bearing on

everything from the form of the bridge to its manufacturing detail. With rail bridges, which are usually of utilitarian design, function will almost always take precedence over form, and the nature of the installation will often dictate the design.

There are several installation options available, including build in-situ, crane installation, self-propelled modular transporters (SPMT), and launching. Launching is only used where no other method is suitable and the decision to launch or lift-in is usually dictated by whether or not a heavy crane can access the site, and whether there is actually room to launch the bridge.

However, even on the seemingly simplest of installations, if the bridge is to be launched the devil is always in the detail(ing). The location of splices, bolts and other elements, if not designed with enough of an eye on installation, could mean the structure may not travel over its temporary slide supports easily during launch, creating problems that could potentially result in damage, delay, or the need for rectification on site.

By considering in detail the launch methodology, these problems can be addressed at the design and manufacture stage and avoided completely. Something as simple as the

inclusion of a gap between splice plates on the underside of the bottom flange can make all the difference to smooth running during launch.

Planning well aheadEarly manufacturer involvement is critical in

ensuring the design process is steered along the most efficient and effective path to success. The aim is to avoid any unexpected late design changes, any unforeseen challenges on site that require additional temporary works, or even any possible cosmetic damage to the structure if the installation methodology does not suit the design.

Herein lies the potential for error if the manufacturer is not brought in to manage the launch process. The manufacturer will have considered the launch methodology and designed the bridge accordingly to suit a specific launch schedule, therefore it makes sense to hand over the launch management entirely to the manufacturer.

If launch is not feasible or suitable, and if crane access is not an issue, lift-in offers usually the quickest and simplest installation method. With speed of installation almost always the primary consideration, this becomes even more acute when the challenge is installing a bridge over multiple lines, as was the case with the Mallard Bridge in Doncaster.

BridgesLift or Launch?

When it comes to bridge installation, nowhere is time more critical than on the rail network.

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Doncaster dilemmaSo named as a mark of respect to the

legendary Mallard world steam speed record train which was built in the town, the challenge facing Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering was installing a new road bridge over the East Coast main line - a total of 17 lines of track, some of which are electrified - with as little disruption to the railway system as possible.

A steel solution was the only viable option for bridging the rail tracks as it would be quickest and could be installed with minimum disruption. Mabey Bridge worked closely with Balfour Beatty to deliver input on the value engineering, with the order to commence manufacture only given on the basis of value engineering completed.

While the bridge design is not necessarily complicated, the main consideration was the need for quick installation of the core steelwork so the design and manufacture of the steel sections reflected this. Mabey Bridge proposed and ran the installation scheme for the main girders. To deliver a final span of 180 metres, the bridge steelwork consists of three braced pairs, each 84 metres long and each weighing 210 tonnes. The lift plan was vitally important in minimising the amount of work over the railway during possession.

Prior to installation, the steel girder sections were manufactured at Mabey Bridge’s Chepstow facility with a full trial erection taking place in

the company’s yard. The components were then delivered to site by road before being bolted into full lengths to suit the proposed lifts.

The first braced pair was lifted-in during a 56-hour blockade over a weekend to minimise the risks and inconvenience presented to traffic. The remaining works were completed over a number of subsequent weekends. Following installation of the girders, the rest of the bridge structure could continue uninterrupted.

On completion of the bridge the Mayor of Doncaster, Peter Davies, was quoted as saying “Both the Mallard and the new bridge are

examples of engineering at its finest. I am proud of Doncaster’s railway heritage and it is fitting to honour it with this scheme.”

Regardless of the scope of complexity of the bridging challenge, the secret to a successful - and timely - installation and completion is to take a holistic view of the project and to ensure that there is a sequence in place that runs through design, manufacture and installation and, where all three fundamentals are related, within the thought process.

As with all things train-related, it’s all about making sure everything runs on time.

A Heart of SteelStrength, quality, reliability… steel is the perfect material for the rail network.

Our steel plate girder bridges are fabricated to handle the heaviest loads.Installation is achieved in difficult locations with restricted site access.

Visit www.mabeybridge.com for more information.

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Old bridges. What can you do with them? They are expensive to replace, costly to maintain, often difficult to access

and can cause problems such as speed and gauge restrictions. Masonry arches are worst. They suffer from spalling, bulging and general dilapidation. To cure their ills very often takes stitching, bracing, sheathing, anchoring or sleeving. All have their benefits, and their problems.

And some bridges are listed, so you can’t do any of that - at least not cheaply.

So masonry arch bridges are a problem. Network Rail has 25,000 of them. Many are over 100 years old, one of the oldest being the Whiley Hill bridge on the Stockton to Darlington railway.

It’s not a very exciting bridge to look at, but it was built in 1824 by George Stephenson, making it one of the oldest railway bridges in the world.

Venerable structureWhile George Stephenson was a forward

thinker, even he didn’t predict freight trains running at 80mph with 25 tonne axle loads over his bridge. So he hadn’t calculated for those stresses. The bridge has done a good job of coping with them for 190 years, but it was getting a bit tired.

Polyurethane

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

slab track


Fortunately, those clever people at Balfour Beatty had been working with more clever people at Heriot Watt University on a solution to just such a problem. The answer was not to uprate the bridge at all, but to make sure that the loads it was experiencing were no higher than those it was designed to withstand, all those years ago.

Most railway track in the UK sits on ballast - which is basically a bed of stones. As each stone can move in relation to its neighbours, although that movement is restricted to an extent by the interlocking of the sharp edges of the individual pieces of ballast, the force of a passing train goes almost straight down into the trackbed, and then into the structure under the track - the bridge.

There is a bit of spreading of that load through the ballast, so the loading is actually in the shape of a pyramid, but not much.

What is needed is a way to spread that load, to make the base of the pyramid larger, so that the point loading on the bridge is reduced. If it can be spread enough, then the bridge will be able to withstand it in its current condition, removing the need for all that expensive remedial work.

And it’s not just the expense. A major bridge reconstruction involves closing the railway, and the road underneath, and inconveniencing a lot of people.

Unifying ballastSo what did all of those clever people come

up with?They developed a way of turning the loose

ballast into a more unified structure. That doesn’t mean sticking it together, that’s been tried before. Glue is usually hard, and somewhat brittle. Sticking pieces of ballast together means that there is a lot of point contact, which causes high stresses, which breaks the glue, and you are back to square one.

The answer is to use a two-part polyurethane. This fills up the voids between the stones, turning the whole thing into a homogeneous mass.

Now back off the amount of polyurethane until it only fills around 20% of the voids. That is enough to stiffen the ballast, but it means that the track still drains normally through the remaining 80%. It also makes the whole system more flexible - still able to spread loads but also resilient enough to withstand the shock loadings of a passing train.

The trick is to apply just the right amount of the right grade of polyurethane, in just the right place.

After a lot of testing in the laboratory at Heriot Watt, the new product, now named XiSPAN as it was a derivation of the XiTRACK ballast reinforcement that has been used to bind damaged track together for some time, was ready for its first practical application.

Dermot Kelly, Balfour Beatty Rail’s senior project manager in charge of the development, explained the process. First of all, the quality of the existing ballast was checked, and found to be poor. So a large vacuum excavator was brought along to the roadway under the bridge, pipes run up, and the whole lot sucked away leaving the track propped up on jacks.

Fresh ballast was installed, up to 200mm below sleeper base. The polyurethane compound, mixed in the nozzles, was then pumped onto the ballast. It soaked away and then gelled about 15 seconds later.

More ballast was added, up to sleeper bottom, and the track aligned and tamped. Story Contracting provided the plant, and 1stinrail the track team.

And that was it. Job done. George Stephenson’s Whiley Hill bridge is good to go, if not for another 190 years, at least for some considerable time.

Troublesome tunnelSo what next for this interesting new

technique?Well, there was Toadmoor tunnel. It’s another

George Stephenson design, but is a little bit newer - it was only built in 1840. Just 128 yards long, it runs through an unstable hillside near Ambergate north of Derby.

With an elliptical bore, the tunnel is twin track. There is an invert under the track, tapering down to a low point in the middle of the six foot.

Due to tight clearances, the depth of ballast under the track is kept to a minimum. This means that, although there is an adequate amount in the six foot, there is almost nothing close to the tunnel walls. This arrangement causes its own problems - settlement in the middle and crushed ballast at the edges.

A model of the tunnel was built at Heriot Watt and tested at a simulated 80mph with 25 tonne axle loads. Once the correct grade of polyurethane had been formulated, the system was ready to go into the tunnel.

Once again the current ballast was in poor condition, so that was all removed. The existing rails and timber sleepers were retained - there are some interesting sleeper lengths in the tunnel due to its particular geometry.

Fresh ballast was brought in, and the track relayed in the usual way. Once all of the gauging checks had been completed - it is impossible to use a tamper - then the polyurethane could be applied. First of all the shoulders were treated, creating an edge beam which would retain the track. Then the ballast was excavated between the sleepers down to the level of the sleeper bottom and the polyurethane poured in, effectively consolidating the ballast from sleeper bottom downwards.

Finally, the top level of ballast was replaced.

All of this took just four Saturdays, and Toadmoor tunnel has now effectively been slab tracked. What is more, it is a resilient slab that drains as well as conventional ballast and which dampens vibration - which makes it superior to a concrete slab in some applications.

So what next for XiSPAN?

XiSPAN won Balfour Beatty Rail the Heritage Award at the 2014 Network Rail Partnership Awards.

Stephenson’s 1824 bridge at Whiley Hill.

The polyurethane fills only 20% of the voids.



Not all bridges areEvery year, the pages of The Rail Engineer describe many

fascinating bridge projects. New bridges, rebuilt bridges, heritage bridges, jacked-up bridges and even shotblasted-and-painted

bridges. But they all have one thing in common. They are permanent structures.

But what of the ones that aren’t permanent? The ones that appear and then disappear, often overnight?

These are the bridges that are used for temporary roadways. For access to a work site (not necessarily a railway one), a music festival or even a major golf tournament.

Can I have it wider?One of the leading installers of temporary bridges is Groundforce Bridge,

part of the VP group. Groundforce has a range of standard bridges for hire, all of which can be delivered to site as a flat pack and then erected in situ. The range is from a 4 metre long x 3 metre wide micro bridge to a 12.6 metre wide x 3.5 metre wide mega bridge.

However, even these aren’t enough for some customers. A recent contract with Buckingham Group for two bridges near Mill Lane, Islip, Bicester illustrate this perfectly.

Two bridges were installed on the access route to this site at the end of March. Both were 10.3 metre long x 3 metre wide access bridges. They had to span a stream which runs parallel to the railway at that point, hampering access.

Within a month of their installation, the phone rang. These bridges were too narrow, could they please be wider?

Two more bridges were sent down. After making sure that secondary elements of the design were in place such as levelled access and surfacing for abutments, one set of handrails was removed from each of the existing bridges and the new ones installed alongside, making each bridge six metres wide.

A third location now needs to be accessed, so that will be another pair of bridges over the same stream.

No headroomOne of the weirder requests was for a bridge over a railway, but with

zero headroom.A railway line runs parallel to the Royal Liverpool Golf Course at Hoylake.

Whenever the Open Golf Championship comes to that course (July 2014), the organisers provide a temporary driving range for the players to use for practise. The snag is, it’s on the other side of the railway line.

Network Rail closes the line for the duration of the event, but naturally wants that time to be as short as possible. Therefore, at 5am on the Thursday before the tournament, Groundforce gets access to install a bridge over the line. Although at ground level, the use of a bridging system protects the track and prevents traffic from imposing any stress on it.

So, at 5am, two 10 metre long x 3 metre wide bridges arrived on site on two flatbed lorries each with a Hiab crane and a total crew of four.

The installation was carried out installing segments of the bridge one at a time until the main frame was constructed, then laying the aluminium sheet decking on top. This process was repeated for the second bridge. Sandbags and timber abutments were used for levelling purposes and tarmac used to create a smooth transition from the existing road to the temporary bridge, along with minimising the approach and break-over angle for specialist vehicles to use the bridge.

The Bridge operational team worked with the Network Rail Site Engineer to ensure that the track owner was happy with the set up of the bridge, which was designed such that there was no contact between the bridge and any of the rails.

Once installation was complete by 11am, construction of the temporary driving range could begin. This was used by both players and the event organisers during the two weeks of the competition.

Then, the bridge disappeared again until next time.

NIGEL WORDSWORTH

permanent


Emergency teams search for casualties following the collapse of two houses on Temple Drive, Swinton, in 1953.

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Graeme Bickerdike looks back

at a unique railway disaster

and the implications it still has

for the industry more than 60

years after it happened.

Sara, Emily and Jean Salt; Fred and Clara Potter. Ring any bells with you? Why would they? Except these five souls were taken by the railway in the

most appalling circumstances imaginable. They weren’t on board a train; neither were they trackside. At 05:35 on the morning of Tuesday 28th April 1953, the houses they were sleeping in disappeared into a crater, consumed in an instant by the ground they stood on.

Temple Drive in Swinton, part of Manchester’s homogeneous suburbia, offers little to set it apart from thousands of other streets. You have to look deeper to see what’s different here. Back in 1909, 22 and 24 Temple Drive - a pair of semi-detached houses - were unwittingly erected above a buried shaft, sunk to expedite the driving of Clifton Hall Tunnel 60 feet below them 60 years earlier.

Physical evidence of the tunnel’s temporary construction shafts - eight in number - was lost behind the lining as bricklayers pushed forward with their work. The ground above was reinstated; memories then faded, plans were filed away or lost. To all intents and purposes, the shafts were gone. But the timber frame embedded within the brickwork underneath No.3 shaft - supporting the 200-ton column of wet sand that filled its former void - was decaying. Gradually the load was being transferred onto the lining. When it could no longer withstand this burden, the contents of the shaft burst through into the tunnel, catastrophically undermining the dwellings above.

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Temple Drive today.


A police officer living across the road was awoken by a sharp cracking noise. He rushed to the window in time to see the houses folding into the earth; another had its end wall torn off. A violent rush of air propelled debris skywards. All around was devastation. The Salts and the Potters didn’t stand a chance.

Knowledge gapThe tragedy on Temple Drive

left a legacy that still commands the attention of our engineers. Its immediate aftermath spawned a flurry of investigation as the railway sought to quantify the extent of its liability nationwide. There was nothing unique about Clifton Hall. Most tunnels of any length were progressed by sinking shafts and, job done, it was cheaper to dispense with them than make them permanent, except where ventilation needs demanded otherwise.

Typical was the now-disused Queensbury Tunnel to the north of Halifax, with its backstory of construction difficulties. As work got underway there, the intention of sinking eight shafts was revisited such that only seven were ever started. Two never made it to tunnel level. The position of the northernmost shaft didn’t change with the replanning

and was thus known locally as No.8 shaft throughout its operational life. This apparent discrepancy proved untenable given the events in Swinton. Staff were despatched to walk over the tunnel with a critical eye and an exchange of letters followed. On 3rd June 1953, the District Engineer wrote to the Chief Civil Engineer in York informing him that “the other filled-in shaft, although from local knowledge is known to exist, cannot be located on site, and there is no information on the original plans indicating its position.” He was wrong but didn’t know it.

The same uncertain story repeated itself many times over as records were dusted off and studied to mitigate what the Ministry of Transport inquiry report later described as “the danger which arises when vital knowledge is not readily available.” Its author, Brigadier C A Langley, recommended that “all tunnel records be reviewed and that any special features be brought to the notice of the maintenance and examining staff. It is also desirable that the position of disused shafts should be permanently marked in the tunnels themselves, so that these places can be particularly watched.”

Fast-forward through 60 years of sporadic hidden shaft projects and we discover that Network Rail’s 693

bores host 315 of them. Confirmed, located, evaluated. But it’s indicative of just how tricky it is to unpick history with confidence that there are another 223 suspected hidden shafts waiting to be found, based on the results of desktop studies. This is a mission that could keep consultants busy long into the future. Network Rail is determined it won’t.

Drawing a lineSo what is a shaft? What probably

comes to mind is a large hole in the roof of the tunnel extending upwards, with a chimney-like structure on the surface - known as a protection wall - topped by a grille to prevent anything substantial falling into it. But there’s more. Network Rail actually records four categories: » an open shaft as described above,

used for ventilation or aerodynamic purposes

» a blind shaft, discernible within the tunnel but with one or more caps preventing access

» a proven hidden shaft, invisible within the tunnel and at ground level but established beyond reasonable doubt through historical records etc and on-site investigations

» a suspected hidden shaft, indicated by documentary or local sources etc but not proven.

(Main picture) Now buried, the south portal of Clifton Hall Tunnel.

(Inset) The Ministry of Transport inquiry report into the tunnel’s collapse.


Brigadier Langley’s underlying intention was for the fourth group to disappear, consumed into the third as enquiries confirmed their existence. Considerable progress has been made over the past 15 years but the new Control Period (CP5) will bring a further acceleration in activity. There is real corporate and regulatory appetite to get the thing finished within the next five years or so.

Needle in a haystackNetwork Rail’s asset management

standards demand that every one of its tunnels has a Tunnel Management Strategy (TMS), comprising three parts: a desktop study, a risk assessment and an action plan to mitigate any intolerable risks. The first of these elements involves an exhaustive trawl of all known information sources, including those beyond railway ownership like the National Archives and Bodlean Library. This comes together to offer the deepest possible insight into a tunnel’s construction and subsequent history.

It can though be hit and miss in terms of shafts so a rule of thumb is applied whereby a hidden shaft is presumed to exist if no evidence of one is found for more than 300 metres, a figure that reflects general experience with spacings elsewhere. There is of course a recognition that some tunnels have more frequent shafts whilst others have none at all, perhaps due to their depth, landowner stipulations or the availability of machinery that negated a need for them.

The hidden shaft programme sits alongside the TMS, initially building on the desktop study. Depending on the confidence of an inferred shaft

location, a second phase can involve opening the geophysical toolbox to help narrow down the search. A range of techniques - ground penetrating radar, conductivity, resistivity, thermography, 3D tomographics - have all been tried in the past but the results have been patchy, often providing evidence of anomalies but only rarely pinpointing shafts. Aerial photography has also been used to look for depressions or wet patches.

(Above) A depression resulting from the collapse of a hidden shaft.

(Top left) The Clifton Hall inquiry recommended that signs should be provided to identify the location of all hidden shafts.

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The tendency now is to go directly to a third stage: low-cost drilling within the tunnel. This has delivered the best returns by far, even when the baseline information has been a little vague. Small holes are cored through the crown at perhaps 1.5m centres, allowing an engineer to see behind the lining with an endoscope. If anything is observed that requires further investigation, larger holes (upwards of 50mm) are opened to gain better visibility as part of a second phase, allowing the use of devices such as telescopic cameras or laser scanners. The results can be surprisingly clear and detailed.

The aim of all this is to obtain two corroborative but independent pieces of information which both point to the same place. This marks the tipping point where a suspected shaft becomes confirmed. With luck, archive drawings and written commentary - even newspaper articles describing the works - can be sufficiently detailed to provide this evidence without heading out to site, but at some point there is usually a need to venture into or over the tunnel.

Which way forward?Hidden shafts come in many forms, from fully brick-lined

- as if permanent - at one end of the scale to a rough hole through competent rock at the other. But by far the majority are in “altered ground”, featuring remnants of their temporary timber lining, voids and collapses of the loose/granular material surrounding the shaft. Many incorporate intermediate-level timbers, beams or brick domes that divide them into chambers; around half are backfilled, in whole or in part, perhaps with trees or assorted debris.

This make-up, along with its stability and the local geology, contributes to the risk assessment from which a shaft’s future management strategy evolves. The process drives an understanding of whether movement of the shaft is likely and what the potential impact might be at ground level and in the tunnel, any remedial action being prioritised on the basis of the route’s linespeed, traffic type and service frequency, as well as land use above.

Where a shaft is located on moorland, a reasonable course of action might simply be to inform the landowner, fence off the area and control the risk through inspection. Not only are most tunnels subjected to an annual detailed exam whereby every part of its structure can be touched, a walk over the top is also undertaken to check for ground movement.

Urbanisation changes the landscape literally and metaphorically. Not without reason, developers seek to extract maximum value from their land assets, sometimes resulting in houses being put up within feet of known shafts. Try following the line of Glenfield’s mile-long tunnel under west Leicester - with its 13 shafts - to see that played out. But what if there was no sign of a shaft when the builders moved in? What if 22 and 24 Temple Drive were not the only dwellings to be plonked unsuspectingly where they really shouldn’t?

Mitigation measuresOnly about one in ten hidden shafts require remediation,

usually in the form of ground engineering although the precise methodology varies according to circumstance. Each design is bespoke. With potential for the works to impose additional load on the lining, an initial stage can involve the provision of reinforcement, perhaps by improving the brickwork’s stiffness through cross-stitching and grouting, or spraying a concrete arch. An alternative approach has seen grout injected to form a saddle around the extrados of the arch (its upper/outer surface). Uniquely in Drumlanrig Tunnel, gauge constraints drove

Engineer Laura Pollard from Donaldson Associates measures the length of cored brickwork before confirming the presence of voids behind the lining.

What if 22 and 24 Temple Drive

were not the only dwellings to be

plonked unsuspectingly where

they really shouldn’t?


@StobartRailLtd

Andrew Sumner

t. 01228 882 300e. [email protected]

Gary Newton


Business Development and

Stakeholder Manager

Contracts and Estimating Manager

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ALL PHOTOS: FOUR BY THREE

the installation of steel frames, suspended at the crown below its hidden shafts and secured back into the rock using high-capacity cable bolts.

The shaft void itself can then be treated, resulting in it becoming a stiffer anomaly through a phased introduction of grout or lightweight foam concrete. There have been some extreme cases, notably at Corby where a shaft was dug out completely and a larger one sunk around it with segmental rings, the intention being to replace something that couldn’t be managed with something that could.

Reconstructive work is often required at the surface. When a shallow circular depression appeared in parkland above Blackheath Tunnel, a geotextile mattress - secured with gabion anchors - was installed at a depth of 4 metres to ensure any repetition could only prompt a gentle settling of the ground. Lengthy investigations found no sign of a shaft except water ingress in the tunnel, but logic determined there must have been one at some point.

A situation has not yet arisen where the available engineering options were deemed insufficient to deal with an emerging risk. The coming-together of circumstances that led to the Temple Drive collapse has not been repeated. But it could be, that’s accepted. Householders have been evacuated on one occasion - quite speedily - following ground movement associated with a hidden shaft, resulting in them spending a few days in temporary accommodation. Elsewhere, an almost-integral garage had to be demolished for remedial works, so close was one shaft to the adjacent house. And that’s what really strikes you about this: the pot-luck nature of it. The railway might have sunk these holes and chosen

to erase them, but it has had no influence over subsequent development, either close to them or on top: hospitals, roads, schools. That kind of risk is uncomfortable to manage.

Calling timeThere is an obvious operational imperative to

filling the knowledge gap created by hidden shafts. A substantial budget - into the tens of millions - has been committed to doing so which should establish a considerable ongoing workload for the consultancies and contractors asked to take part.

Sixty years have elapsed since, out of nowhere, events in Swinton forced the railway’s civil engineers to confront this liability, and yet we’re still talking about it. But not for much longer perhaps. “The urgency for wanting to close this out is accelerating”, insists Colin Sims, Network Rail’s Principal Engineer, Asset Management Technical Services. “Not because of any incidents; we are just of the opinion that it’s been hanging around for too long. We have an intention to find them all and we won’t close the file until we do.”

Work to investigate a hidden shaft in Cowburn Tunnel involved holes being cored at the crown of the arch to see what’s behind the lining.


Gaining permission to build a new railway can potentially take years between conception of the proposal and when the building work actually starts. In response to this, the Development Consent

Order (DCO) was introduced through the Planning Act (2008) to assist with planning for nationally significant infrastructure such as major rail, road and energy projects. It is a streamlined route to gaining the permission to build a new railway. The aim of the DCO is to speed up the process by bringing the consultation forward and combining all required permissions into a single consent.

There are other legislative mechanisms to grant consent for a new railway. One option, only open to Government, is a hybrid bill. Crossrail was consented using this approach and High Speed 2 is currently going through the hybrid bill process. Others, such as Network Rail or another private promoter, could seek consent through a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO). However, a project should be promoted as a DCO if the scheme satisfies the criteria of being a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP). For a railway proposal, this would apply if the new track would have a continuous length of more than 2km.Network Rail has submitted four DCO applications: » Ipswich Chord (granted September 2012) » North Doncaster Chord (granted October 2012) » Redditch Branch Enhancement Scheme (granted October 2013) » Norton Bridge Junction Improvement (granted March 2014).

Challenges and refinementsFive years on from the introduction of DCOs in 2008, the Department

for Communities and Local Government published a review on the NSIP planning regime. While the DCO scheme has been broadly hailed as a success, refinements have been introduced. These include the posting of good examples of draft DCOs on the Planning Inspectorate website, setting

agendas in advance of hearings so all sides can prepare, and allowing the appointment of two planning inspectors (to save costs if two rather than three will suffice). Going forward, it is also intended that further guidance and clarification will be made available on many topics.

DCOs do present considerable challenges to the planning process, such as the need for extensive consultation early in the process, the establishment of Statements of Common Ground, and agreement before the application is submitted, as far as possible, on all major issues. This creates the need to develop the design of the project to include environmental mitigation, requiring more integrated working between design engineers, environmental specialists and Network Rail.

The DCO process has a defined timetable from application submission through to final decision, and the option exists to receive assistance from the Planning Inspectorate to make sure milestones are met. Project proponents therefore have more confidence in planning for construction knowing when they will be able to commence works as DCOs are completed in a set time of 15 months.

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ROBERT SLATCHER


Covering environmental basesMajor infrastructure projects are often challenged on environmental

grounds. Therefore, there is a benefit in using an environmental team with the ability to act with independence from the design team, to challenge design and conventional solutions, and to ensure that opportunities through DCOs for more integrated mitigation and enhancement are fully realised.

Importantly, the independent environmental team is able to focus on minimising risks associated with environmental and social matters. These might slow down the consultation processes or even jeopardise acceptance of the scheme. Constructive challenge on design assumptions and approaches can lead to opportunities to solve several problems at once through innovative design.

For the relationship between environment and design to be effective, it is essential that an environmental presence is embedded in the project team. This champions sustainability and ensures that the consideration of environmental impacts remains an integral consideration throughout design evolution. A close collaboration between environmental and design teams also supports the environmental assessment process, which is enhanced by having a clear understanding of the scheme design and ‘real time’ opportunities to influence the scheme design.

It is recommended that lines of communication between environment and design are formalised in a manner which allows the client to have visibility of this key interface and well-documented decision-making. By creating a formal record of the interface, the project team can also produce proof of evidence of the environmental input into the scheme design. This can be very useful to support the final DCO application and in other submissions such as CEEQUAL.

Revisions to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations (2011/92/EU) were approved by the European parliament in March 2014. The revisions will lead to changes in the way EIAs, which are often required to support a DCO application, are carried out. This includes an expansion of EIA topics with respect to impacts on human health, biodiversity, land, contribution and vulnerability to climate change, and use of natural resources during construction and operation. There will also be clearer requirements for post-construction environmental monitoring, which could have significant cost and resource implications for Network Rail and its contractors.

Other revisions are either already in place for DCOs or will be conducive to the smooth running of the DCO process. These will require design modifications, mitigation and monitoring to be agreed at an early stage and incorporated into the consent.

It is specified that environmental statements must be prepared by ‘competent experts’. This strengthens the case for involving independent environmental teams. Whilst these EIA revisions will not come into force until 2017 and schemes that are scoped beforehand can continue under the current Regulations for the duration of the project, early adoption would be recommended. This is particularly relevant for NSIPs as larger projects work to longer timescales between scoping and application, even with the time saving that DCOs have achieved.

Case Study : Norton Bridge Junction ImprovementThis major upgrade of a West Coast main line junction presented

significant environmental challenges in relation to the volume of spoil generated by extensive cuttings, the need to construct three new watercourse crossings and embankments in the floodplain, and the presence of protected species such as barn owls, bats, badgers and great crested newts.

Coordinated environmental assessment and feedback into the design process enabled effective holistic solutions to be incorporated into the scheme. Spoil was designed to be retained on site to provide earthwork bunds to mitigate visual impacts on residential properties and to raise the flight lines of barn owls and bats over the railway to prevent the risk of collisions with trains. The bunds were shallow-graded to blend in with the wider landscape and to maximise the ability to farm the land post-construction.

Detailed flood modelling and consultation with the Environment Agency allowed the project to implement shorter span bridge crossings. The ability to agree this bridge design avoided significant visual impacts associated with the more extensive alternative design solutions and ultimately a six million pound saving in infrastructure costs.

The Department for Transport required the project to be completed by 2017. The presence of great crested newts and the need to translocate them prior to construction presented a major challenge to meeting this programme, as licences for translocations are usually not granted until a scheme has planning consent. Engagement with Natural England enabled a special early licence to be granted, which enabled the tight programme to be maintained. As a result, the newts were translocated in advance of the DCO approval to a purpose-built receptor site at a local Christian retreat and conference centre which included landscaped areas and walkways for visitors.

Robert Slatcher is senior consultant at the environmental and planning consultancy Temple Group


Biodiversity is the variety of all life on Earth. It includes all species of animals and plants - everything that is alive on our planet, and human survival depends upon it.

The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA), which was published in June 2011, demonstrates just how much nature provides for us in the UK. Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, lists many examples in Biodiversity 2020: A strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services. These include “the enormous value of inland wetlands to water quality, the value of pollination to agriculture, the health benefits of experiencing nature and, not least, how nature and wildlife enrich all our lives”.

The ground breaking UK NEA is a comprehensive account of how the natural world, including its biodiversity, provides us with services that are critical to our wellbeing and economic prosperity. However, the NEA also shows that nature is consistently undervalued in decision-making and that many of the services we receive from nature are in decline. The most recent analysis shows that over 40% of priority habitats and 30% of priority species are in decline.

This is a call to arms for everyone to halt this decline - for the benefit of our and future generations. In Network Rail Infrastructure Projects (IP) we are taking some bold steps to address this challenge, seek solutions and identify a way forward to not only halt biodiversity loss, but to ensure we deliver genuine, long-term benefits for biodiversity as part of what we do.

Major landownerNetwork Rail is the fourth largest landowner in Great Britain. It not only owns

22,000 miles of track but also over 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of land. This connects and passes through some very unique habitats, such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and many other statutory and locally designated nature reserves. Network Rail itself owns hundreds of protected sites which it manages in order to protect and enhance their unique attributes, whilst also balancing the need to manage an operational railway infrastructure.

In addition to sites designated for nature conservation, the extensive rail corridor provides a home to a significant number of plant and animal species. Many of these are protected by legislation and all offer a rich contribution to the biodiversity of the UK.

There are also several dedicated pieces of legislation, relevant to Network Rail, that enforce the protection of specific species and their wider habitats. For example the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 (NERC2006) places a requirement on statutory undertakers like Network Rail to “protect and where possible enhance biodiversity.”

The wider pictureOver the last few decades, UK biodiversity has been in steady decline.

Different methods and mitigation measures have been used to protect and enhance biodiversity as a part of development, but these have had varying degrees of success and a new focus is needed.

The introduction of the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) biodiversity metric gives developers an effective tool to quantify biodiversity in units. This Government issued metric is a first for the UK and allows this all-too-often poorly understood topic to be discussed much more readily within an industry context. It also enables us to set biodiversity targets such as No Net Loss or Net Positive and the ability to track progress against achieving these targets much more accurately and robustly than ever before.

At Network Rail, we are using the metric to quantify the impact that essential maintenance, renewal and infrastructure projects may have on existing habitats or species as well as quantify how much biodiversity our enhancements are creating in order to determine whether our efforts to halt biodiversity loss and deliver benefits are working.

In IP, we have taken the bold step to include a biodiversity target in our business plan that covers the next five-year Control Period “to make a measurable net positive contribution to biodiversity in the UK”. The target combines the use of the DEFRA metric to calculate biodiversity and thus measure our progress towards Net Positive as well as linking in the wider UK biodiversity agenda recognising the positive role and contribution Network Rail can have in this area.

Business performanceFor all the legal and moral motivators that are driving our Net Positive

biodiversity agenda, it would be remiss not to mention the business benefits of enhanced biodiversity and proper habitat management.

Network Rail has developed a company standard, NR/L2/TRK/5201 Management of Lineside Vegetation. Through the creation of a structure of lineside vegetation that allows the safe operation of the railway, this allows a diversity of habitats ranging from open spaces, important for insects and pollinators, through to scrub and trees.

The implementation of this standard brings with it the opportunity to retain a diverse lineside habitat whilst, at the same time, creating or improving habitats that may be in decline. Any such work will be done sympathetically and, wherever possible, with the involvement of the local communities which live alongside the railway.

The use of the DEFRA metric will enable the existing habitat to be classified and its condition assessed. The implementation of the lineside standard, in combination with our biodiversity Net Positive target, will help to improve the resilience of the network during the changing seasons and associated storm events but with a lineside that has an improved biodiversity.

Biodiversity

TERTIUS BENEKE

(The ideal state of our lineside vegetation)


DEFRA Biodiversity calculationsIn 2011 DEFRA published a technical paper proposing a metric to calculate

biodiversity and transform the uniqueness, condition and amount of habitat into a comparable unit measure.

DEFRA developed this metric to inform biodiversity offsetting schemes as part of its national pilot test on offsetting. However, we in IP are not using the metric during the final stages of a project when the unavoidable loss of biodiversity requires compensation. Instead we are using the metric during the early design stages to improve our efforts to avoid impacts on biodiversity and our design of biodiversity enhancements by evaluating how many biodiversity units we will be able to enhance during the lifetime of a project.

For us it is very clear that offsetting for IP is an absolute last resort and, even then, only when we can demonstrate that the loss of biodiversity is unavoidable. There has been a great deal of controversy over recent months regarding offsetting. At Network Rail, we fully appreciate and agree with concerns surrounding offsetting and recognise that it is important for companies to understand their approach to biodiversity and be able to justify how decisions are made and on what basis, and above all strive to achieve a Net Positive.

As a standard operating procedure, IP will be applying the Biodiversity Hierarchy which strictly enforces the process that many options are first considered and implemented before offsetting becomes available for consideration. We operate within a constrained railway environment with restrictions and limitations on tree and habitat planting and recognise that, in certain situations, offsetting has a role to play in achieving a Net Positive for biodiversity. Whenever it does so, our aim is that our efforts result in local community benefits from enhanced biodiversity.

The Biodiversity HierarchyThe Biodiversity Hierarchy is a hierarchy of decisions or options that will

be applied during the management of biodiversity for IP. Our goal is to avoid impacts on biodiversity and ultimately enhance biodiversity. The further down the pyramid, the least preferred the options are from a biodiversity and IP perspective.

(The Biodiversity Hierarchy) » Enhance - As part of the project the biodiversity in the affected area will

be enhanced to achieve a measureable Net Positive; » Avoidance - Harm to wildlife species and habitats will be avoided where

possible, for example through locating on an alternative site with less harmful impacts;

» Mitigation - Where harm cannot be wholly or partially avoided, it will be minimised by design or by the use of effective mitigation measures that can be secured by, for example, conditions or planning obligations;

» Compensation - Where, despite whatever mitigation would be effective, there would still be unavoidable loss, as a last resort, this will be properly compensated for by measures to provide for a Net Positive for biodiversity.

In IP, one of our major programmes, the Thameslink Project (TLP), has already implemented the Biodiversity Hierarchy and achieved the ambitious target of “Net Positive” for biodiversity. A £6.5bn enhancement programme of one of Europe’s busiest commuter routes, TLP has led the way by delivering Network Rail’s first net positive biodiversity offset scheme. Using the metric the TLP calculated its ‘biodiversity units’ and applied the hierarchy to review measures to retain as much habitat and replant the railway corridor where possible, with offsetting as a last resort.

Collaborating with the London Wildlife Trust and Lambeth Council, TLP has created new woodland and enhanced existing woodland at Streatham Common, a nature reserve in South London. The offset achieves a net positive for TLP, enhances the reserve for wildlife and adds to the enjoyment of Streatham Common by local communities.

TLP’s biodiversity offset is being undertaken because of the drive to be a sustainable programme and has sought to establish good practice in a very new field. As such it is named by DEFRA as a UK demonstration project in recognition of how, with careful planning, offsetting can enable development to continue and deliver benefits for biodiversity.

“We follow the mitigation hierarchy and are continually improving our biodiversity work to deliver positive outcomes for both the natural environment and people,” explained Amelia Woodley, Thameslink Environment Manager.

The challenge for IP is to take this good practice forward and embed it in the rest of our projects. The goal is to not only apply this to our major programmes, such as the Network Rail Crossrail Programme which will be one of the first to take this forward, but to implement this on all of our projects. In principle, wherever a project has an impact on biodiversity or where the opportunity arises to create and or enhance biodiversity, this method will be applied.

Our PeopleAs with any initiative, it will not happen without our people and our supply

chain working with us to achieve this. So far this objective has been received very positively and we have tremendous support from our staff. On TLP the programme has established transparent policies and procedures to support its staff and has partnered with its supply chain providing training on how to achieve Net Positive.

“Engagement with our staff and supply chain has been crucial to deliver a biodiversity benefit as a legacy to the communities in which we work,” said Shane McEntee, Carillion Environment Manager.

The real work now lies ahead in applying this approach consistently, giving our people the tools and training to deliver this effectively, working with our supply chain and learning from them, as well as learning from our own experiences, and ultimately having a refined and efficient process that delivers a net positive result for biodiversity.

Tertius Beneke is principal environmental specialist with Network Rail Infrastructure Projects


Alison Watson


HR Manager

stobartrail.com

@StobartRailLtd

Stobart Rail Infrastructure Engineering is one of

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An SHE Manager is required to provide expertise and direction ensuring the

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in the implementation of quality and efficiency improvement initiatives.

You will have sound influencing and persuading skills with the ability to adopt

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institution i.e. IOSH or IRSM. It is essential that you have proven experience within

the Railway Industry.

The successful applicant will be rewarded with an excellent package including

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SHE MANAGER, CARLISLE

Full job specifications available on Alison Watson, HR Manager:

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the rail engineer • August 2014 RECRUITMENT 78

We are winning more and more long-term, challenging rail contracts across the UK. We want you to join us and be part of a team which makes a difference to our industry. Help us to keep growing as a business and we’ll help you to grow your skills and career.

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the rail engineer • August 2014RECRUITMENT 79

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