Modern Railways 2014-01

The restored train shed at King’s Cross. Robin Leleux

Welcome to the January issue of Modern Railways, which was due to hit the

bookstalls just before Christmas. We traditionally enjoy strong sales at this time of year, as people pick up a copy of the mag as they pass through stations en route to families and friends for Yuletide gatherings.

Train journeys in this season are always a bit special. I well remember travelling in the early eighties from my � rst job, deep in the marshes of south Essex, to stay with my parents in the Chilterns over Christmas. Fenchurch Street was a dingy and not particularly welcoming place back then, especially in the o� -peak: it was no hardship to leave it for Tower Hill. Then it was west on the District in the dying days of the R stock, the predecessor of today’s D stock (itself on the way out now with the advent of modern S stock). The curious � aired bodysides of the R stock at running board level stick in the mind - along with the wooden � oors where the slats were � lled with cigarette butts (in those

pre-King’s Cross days, smoking was allowed).

A quick change at Embankment, north on the Bakerloo and then all aboard a ‘115’, with its overheated saloons and comfy high-back seating. Diesel exhaust would belch from the tunnels under Lords cricket ground as we ground our way out of Marylebone, past Gerrards Cross and up into the hills, a welcoming rural � reside awaiting.

More recently, Modern Railways’ contributors have enjoyed some splendid rolling Christmas dinners courtesy of our pals on the railway. In my mind, the magni� cent vaulted ceiling at Norwich cathedral is forever associated with soft arti� cial light and the mu� ed sounds of dusk on a December afternoon, as I would make a pilgrimage to see it prior to settling in to roast turkey and all the trimmings in the comfort of a Mk 3 bound for Liverpool Street.

That experience can sadly no longer be enjoyed, as the Norwich dining cars have entered the history books. But the trip we have made

in more recent years - late lunch coming out of Exeter on the up working of the 19.03 Pullman diner - can still be done. And what a joy it is, to see the soft winter scenery of the Berks & Hants slipping by the window while enjoying good company and � ne wine in the excellent care of the Plymouth dining car crew.

In 2013, the Modern Railways Fourth Friday Club met for a Christmas drink in the convivial surroundings of the Parcel Yard at King’s Cross, the hostelry carved out of former o� ces and parcel rooms during the restoration and expansion of the station. The view over the train shed from the pub is particularly pleasing, with the gracious curves of the arches supporting the roof plain to see now that the brick has been cleaned and new lighting installed.

What a triumph the restored King’s Cross is, fully deserving of the Chairman’s Special Award it was given in the National Railway Heritage Awards (pp82-3). The station shows how the industry

has come on in the past 30 years: compare it to the unappealing face of 1980s Fenchurch Street with which we began our journey and we can see how the railway has changed. Bolstered by rising tra� c, nowadays we have a con� dence in our future that was lacking back then.

There is some festive cheer in that thought. Let me take this opportunity to send season’s greetings to all our readers (with a special mention for one of the youngest in the fraternity, � ve year-old Rufus Hughes of Oban). And as you enjoy your Christmas, spare a thought for those that have given up time with their families at this special time of year to work on the engineering sites set up over the holiday up and down the railway. Well done, lads and lasses, it is thanks to you that the e� orts to modernise our system make such great strides at this time of year. All the best for 2014.

James Abbott, Editor

Merry Christmas! Welcome

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4 Modern Railways January 2014 www.modern-railways.com

Contents

Features 38 A franchise to modernise

Roger Ford interviews FGW MD Mark Hopwood

44 Rolling stock mods Tips for ensuring your project is a success

52 Virgin Trains’ COO moves on Chris Gibb re� ects on a career in railway operation

58 Depot developments Investment in new rolling stock maintenance depots

60 The new Neasden gets a lift A modernised home for LU’s S stock

62 Success fuels success Roger Ford gives the rundown on � eet reliability

74 Building a railway for the future Peter Wilkinson charts a way forward for the industry

78 The railway in 2043 Speakers at the RSA gaze into a crystal ball

82 Celebrating a rich heritage Winning buildings in the National Railway Heritage Awards

Regulars 3 Welcome

Christmas message from the Editor

6 RailtalkModern Railways’ editorial view

34 Blood and Custard A sideways look at railway life

36 Forum Readers comment on topical issues around the railway today

88 Moving Wheels Rolling stock news

90 Trackwatch Our monthly look at changes on the national network

92 In Business and small ads Latest happenings in industry

94 People Recent appointments

95 Alan Williams Our caustic pundit comments...

98 Crossrail Update Shaft sunk near British Museum

38

62

52

60

5www.modern-railways.com January 2014 Modern Railways

O� cal journal of the Railway Study Association

January 2014 Volume 71 Number 784

Editor: James Abbott Email: [email protected]

Design: Matt Chapman

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ISSN: 0026 8356

Contents

Cover: ‘165’ at Slough. Paul BiglandInsets: c2c drivers; ‘Western’ on freight

duty. Brian Morrison / Nigel Gibbs

News 8 News Front

Sub-surface lines resignalling problems; � rst Class 350/4 runs on the Chat Moss line; Folkestone Harbour line up for closure

18 Rail Freight Colas orders ‘70s’; GBRf uses a ‘Western’

20 Infrastructure News Christmas work, including Gravesend, Peterborough, Waterloo; Colas

buys Amey Tampers

24 Informed Sources A round-up of rolling stock orders to expect in CP5; Wilkinson’s

ROSCO jihad; train driver licencing

84 Europe View Keith Fender presents a round-up of news from across the Channel

VIEWS AND ANALYSIS ON TODAY’S RAILWAYJANUARY 2014 £4 20 www modern ra lways com

THAMES VALLEYON THE EVE OFELECTRIFICATION■ New or second-hand EMUs?■ IEPs to provide inter-city services

RELIABILITY ROUND UP: SWT’S 159S’ THE MOST DEPENDABLE TRA NS IN BRITAIN

COLAS RAIL ORDERS CLASS 70S ■ METROPOLITAN RESIGNALLING PROBLEMS

‘WESTERN’ FOLLOWS GBRF S DELTIC DEBUT

800 NEW VEHICLES NEEDED IN CP5DO TRAIN DR VERS NEED LICENCES?

On the Cover 62 Reliability round-up

38 Thames Valley on the eve of electrifi cation

24 800 new vehicles needed in CP5

32 Do train drivers need licences?

18 ‘Western’ follows GBRf’s Deltic debut

19 Colas orders Class 70s

8 Metropolitan resignalling problems

98

All aboard for a fast ride: passengers join a ‘222’ at Bedford bound for St Pancras on 5 July 2013. Fraser Pithie


Railtalk

Well done East Midlands Trains. The winter timetable that came in on

9 December 2013 saw a train introduced between London and Sheffi eld that achieves the two-hour target: the 09.58 off St Pancras is booked into Sheffi eld at 11.58.

That is a great psychological boost. The timing of most expresses in the new schedule is 121 minutes, a fi ve-minute improvement on the previous timetable (see table). That is a signifi cant time saving with a

worthwhile fi nancial impact: even on commuter routes, shaving a minute off timings is noticeable in the farebox, so fi ve minutes on an inter-city line is big potatoes.

How has it been achieved? Incrementalism in the good old-fashioned British Rail style: lop off a few seconds here and a few seconds there, and before you know it you are making considerable progress. Ambition on the part of the operator has been complemented by a keen desire to help at Network Rail, which has spent £70million

upgrading key sections of the Midland main line.

At Elstree tunnel for example, an irritating 100mph section fl anked by two 110mph sections has had its speed limit upped to 110mph. This work has allowed the speed profi le to be fl attened out.

The programme of work has included the upgrade of almost 160 miles of track. On some parts of the route trains are able to run at 125mph for the fi rst time ever, permitting drivers to take full advantage of the 125mph

capability of the rolling stock on the line. Other work carried out as part of the investment package includes the replacement of a number of level crossings with bridges, minor re-signalling and work to realign parts of the track.

David Horne, Managing Director of EMT, said: ‘The fact that our services can now run at 125mph on parts of the network for the fi rst time ever is a major achievement and marks the culmination of many years of work by our stakeholders, staff and industry colleagues.

Tighten it up

Happy to get the job done: engineering staff unveil differential speed boards on the Midland main line.


Railtalk

‘With major investment in signalling and track now delivering faster, more reliable

journeys and with electrification just around the corner, this marks the start of a new and

exciting chapter for train services in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.’

Phil Verster, Route Managing Director for Network Rail, added that the investment is ‘bringing significant social and economic benefits to the region through faster journeys and improved reliability. We are working closely with East Midlands Trains to complete the final stages of this programme of investment’.

Well done them. It takes us back to the glory days of 30 or 40 years ago, when each new timetable would herald a journey time improvement on one line or another. The celebrated case was of course the East Coast, with projects like the curve easing at Offord yielding precious seconds in the schedules. British Rail knew all about the elasticities of shorter journey times and was determined to capitalise on every little improvement.

Nervous breakdown In the present era things have changed. After the nervous breakdown of Hatfield, performance was understandably given pride of place over speed. As one annual timetable followed another, on many routes it was just a question of marking time. Generous (over-generous?)

recovery margins became the order of the day. Don’t rock the boat: concentrate on delivering an unambitious timetable reliably.

Now Hatfield was more than a decade ago, and it is time we raised our sights a little. Delivering the same old, same old all the time becomes boring: our operators are better than this. As Franchising Director Peter Wilkinson points out in his lecture to the Railway Study Association (p74), we need to give staff something to aim for.

The Public Performance Measure figures show that on many routes the reliability nut has been cracked (although we may have to exempt the West and East Coasts from this statement, which is quite a caveat).

So now is the time for a little more ambition. We need to root that padding out of the timetable. We need more Elstrees and Offords. We need to enthuse staff with a succession of journey time improvements, from one timetable to the next. We need to shout those improvements from the rooftops, in order to draw more customers to the railway. And we must achieve all this while continuing to deliver reliably, day in and day out.

As the old soul musicians used to say, time to tighten up.

Services to London Average journeytime in Dec 2012

Average journeytime in Dec 2013

Fastest journeytime in Dec 2012

Fastest journeytime in Dec 2013

Sheffield 02:17 02:10 02:06 02:00

Chesterfield 02:06 01:59 01:54 01:48

Derby 01:43 01:39 01:32 01:28

Nottingham 01:53 01:48 01:39 01:31

East Midlands Parkway 01:37 01:34 01:28 01:22

Loughborough 01:33 01:30 01:19 01:17

Leicester 01:18 01:17 01:08 01:05

24-hour ‘Night Tube’ at weekendsTHE Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and the Managing Director of London Underground, Mike Brown set out on 21 November their vision for the future of the tube, including a new 24-hour ‘Night Tube’ service at weekends, and new station staffing arrangements.

From 2015, the new ‘Night Tube’ network is to run all night on Fridays and Saturdays, initially on the Piccadilly, Victoria, Central and Jubilee Lines and key sections of the Northern Line. The ‘Night Tube’ has been made possible because significant parts of the network have been successfully modernised, says LU.

This network will later be expanded to other lines, and LU says it will dovetail with existing 24-hour and Night Bus services to give passengers an extensive and integrated service.

In a separate measure, tube station staff will no longer be based in ticket offices, but in ticket halls, on gate lines and on platforms,

‘ready and available to give the best personal and face-to-face service to customers’, says LU, adding that fewer than 3% of tube journeys involve a visit to a ticket office.

Staff equipped with the latest mobile technology, such as tablet computers, will be able to monitor and manage stations on the move, says LU. The new station staffing proposals have now been shared with LU staff and with recognised trade unions for consultation. Coupled with the introduction of the Night Tube, they would mean a net reduction of around 750 posts.

Currently, LU employs a total of around 18,000 staff, which includes around 5,500 station staff.

LU says it is committed to delivering the reduction in operational staff numbers without any compulsory redundancies.

When implemented, the savings delivered by these proposals would equate to around £50million per annum, or around £270million over the term of the Transport for London Business Plan to 2020/21.

Waste heat from tube to warm homesA DEAL announced on 15 November will capture waste heat from London Underground tunnels and an electrical substation to help warm homes via a district heating system and cut energy bills.

The project is a partnership between Islington Council, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, UK Power Networks and Transport for London.

Islington Council’s Bunhill Heat and Power heat network, which already supplies more than 700 homes, will be expanded to capture waste heat from a Northern Line ventilation shaft and a sub-station owned and operated by UK Power Networks. The expansion will also see at least a further 500 homes connected to Islington’s heat network.

FOLKESTONE HARBOUR CLOSURE PLANTHE Secretary of State for Transport has opened a consultation exercise on formal closure proposals for the Folkestone harbour branch line.

Network Rail has concluded that expenditure on maintaining it is not appropriate as there is no prospect of any traffic which

cannot be handled effectively elsewhere.

The one mile branch provided connections with the ferry service operating from the harbour. The last regular timetabled train was in 2001, but the branch has been used subsequently by charter

services, the majority for Venice Simplon Orient Express (VSOE).

The final charter operation was in March 2009, with alternative facilities for VSOE provided at Folkestone West.

The line has been ‘permanently out of use’ since 21 December 2012.

In July 2013, Shepway District Council granted outline planning consent for the redevelopment of Folkestone seafront, including the harbour area. The plans for the redevelopment do not include retention of railway or ferry facilities.

Hastings DEMU No 1001 arrives at Folkestone Harbour station on 21 December 2008 with a charter working. Driving car No S60118 Tunbridge Wells leads. Brian Morrison

MORE DOO ON LODRIVER-ONLY operation (DOO) on London Overground has been extended to cover the routes between Stratford and Richmond/Clapham Junction.

As DOO was already in operation on the Watford Junction-Euston and East London Line Overground routes, this development leaves only the Gospel Oak to Barking route with both a driver and a conductor ‘while technical adjustments to rolling stock

and further consultation’ are undertaken.

The change will generate £5million in savings, said a TfL board report.

Extension of the Gospel Oak-Barking line to a new station at Barking Riverside continues to be explored by TfL and the DfT. If funding were available, says a TfL report, this would support the largest housing development in London, with planning permission for 10,000 new homes.


News Front

SUB-SURFACE SIGNALLING UPGRADE DELAYA LONDON Underground investment programme report says that progress to date on the new signalling system for the sub-surface lines showed that ‘there remain signifi cant challenges to deliver the capacity uplift ... by 2018 within the overall programme funding’.

The report, covering the second quarter of 2013-14 and made public in November, says the programme team was engaged in discussion at a senior level with the signalling

contractor (Bombardier) to ‘expedite the technical solution and the delivery strategy in order to maintain the integrity of the required benefi ts and the overall completion date of 2018’.

Demonstration of the Automatic Train Control (ATC) system at the Old Dalby test track was not achieved by the August 2013 ‘key date’ in the contract with Bombardier, says the report. Following LU review and challenge Bombardier

acknowledged that this would not be achieved until at least June 2015, the LU report says. It adds that LU believes this could lead to a similar delay in contract completion, taking it beyond the Department for Transport target date of 2018.

This would lead to signifi cant LU exposure in excess of the programme funding, says the report. A range of options were being considered to maintain delivery of the upgrade by 2018.

The fi rst phase of the upgrade of the sub-surface lines (the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan) is to replace the rolling stock on all lines by 2016. The second phase is planned to increase capacity (to 32 trains per hour) and reduce journey times, with the new ATC signalling system and associated control centre, revised track layouts at key junctions, and increased electrical power supply.

Davies calls for Stansted four-trackingAIRPORTS Commission Chair Sir Howard Davies has called on the Government to consider seriously an £800million scheme to four-track the West Anglia route between London and Broxbourne in Hertfordshire.

In a letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Sir Howard argues that there are substantial strategic arguments in favour of enhancing this rail corridor, which is used not only by Stansted Express services but also by London commuters and regional trains to Cambridge. He says pressure on the route is set to grow in light of the Mayor of London’s Development Plan, which foresees substantial housing

and business growth along the Lea valley.

The Airports Commission chief says plans to expand Stansted Airport may be hampered by poor rail connections to the capital and notes ‘the long (and often unreliable) journey times on the Stansted Express remain a deterrent to full service carriers looking at the potential for using the airport’.

A new version of Transport for London’s Business Plan confi rms that a scheme to add a third track from Coppermill Junction (where Stratford and Liverpool Street lines merge) to Angel Road station, plus a fourth track loop at Tottenham Hale, is currently being worked up. But Sir Howard

appears to back a more ambitious programme to provide four lines all the way to Broxbourne Junction (where the line to Hertford East branches off ) which has an estimated cost of £800million. ‘The costs of this proposal are high but it is clear that the case for investing merits urgent consideration,’ states his letter to the Chancellor.

In his Autumn Statement on 5 December, George Osborne agreed to widen the scope of the East Anglia Main Line study, recently commission by the government, to include options for improving access to Stansted, a move welcomed by Sir Howard. Dan Harvey

OXFORD-CAMBRIDGE TECH TRIANGLE STUDYAS PART of a pledge of government support for high-technology business, the Department for Transport has announced that it is developing proposals for the construction of a new railway line from Bedford to Cambridge. ‘This would build on the ongoing work on the East-West Rail project and complete the London-Cambridge-Oxford tech triangle’, says the DfT. Thameslink and Crossrail will dramatically improve access from London to other ‘tech clusters’, and to Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports, said the DfT.

Gearing up for five cars: ten five-car sidings are being built at London Overground’s Silwood depot in south London in readiness for lengthening of today’s four-car fleet. On 26 November the 11.44 LO service from Clapham Junction to Highbury & Islington passes the site of the new sidings, which are due for completion at the end of March 2014. Bill Turvill

SILWOOD SIDINGS PROGRESS9www.modern-railways.com January 2014 Modern Railways

News Front

STORM BATTERS RAIL NETWORKTRAIN services in Scotland, the north and east of England, and north Wales were severely affected by a major storm and tidal surge on 5 December, with wind speeds in excess of 100mph recorded.

Services in Scotland and north of Carlisle and Newcastle were suspended on 5 December with other services in the north and east of England affected by speed restrictions, and by closures as line blockages occurred.

High winds caused significant damage on routes across Scotland, with overhead power lines and equipment damaged in north Clydeside, Inverclyde and Ayrshire, and trees and debris on lines at locations across the central belt, and in the northeast and southwest. Glasgow Central station was evacuated after two panes of glass on the station roof were broken in the storm.

Services on some eastern and southern England coastal routes and almost all North Wales routes were disrupted, as a result of tidal flooding and other difficulties.

The tidal surge on 5 December closed the North Wales Coast line,

and on the following day a shuttle service between Rhyl and Holyhead was instituted by Arriva Trains Wales and Virgin Trains. This was expected to continue for at least five days, with the Llandudno branch served by a twice per hour shuttle.

At Mostyn, between Prestatyn and Flint, the surge demolished a 200-metre stretch of a stone wall which stands between the railway and sea. Excavators were brought in to remove an estimated 1,000 tonnes of rock from the wall which the sea had deposited on or beside the running lines. More than 150 tonnes

of ballast had been washed away. A temporary speed restriction will be required at Mostyn until significant work can be done on the coastal defences.

Some trains on the Wrexham-Bidston line were cancelled or replaced by buses on 6 December after a lorry struck a bridge at Penyffordd.

The Conwy Valley line was likely to remain closed for at least a week. The track was undermined, more than 10 miles south of the coast, when the tidal surge swept up the Conwy river.

On the other side of Snowdonia,

Arriva Trains Wales was operating a temporary timetable on the Cambrian Coast line. In early November, engineers had discovered movement in the foundations of Pont Briwet, the rail and road bridge between Penrhyndeudraeth and Llandecwyn, as a consequence of works to construct a replacement bridge alongside. The railway was closed and buses replaced trains between Pwllheli and Harlech. A weight restriction for road vehicles on Pont Briwet resulted in a lengthy diversion, with buses scheduled to take 20 minutes between Penrhyndeudraeth and Llandecwyn, usually a two-minute train journey.

The Rhyl-Holyhead shuttles were testament to the flood defence improvements carried out by Network Rail and others between Llanfairfechan and Rhyl, where there are long stretches of railway beside the sea. Although streets in Rhyl were flooded, the tidal surge brought no repeat of the inundation west of Rhyl in 1990 which left about 6,000 residents temporarily homeless. At the time, some of them criticised British Rail for inadequate coastal defences. Rhodri Clark / Ken Cordner

Tree blocking the Edinburgh - Glasgow route at Lenzie on 5 December. Courtesy Network Rail

No trains on the Cumbrian Coast. Storms batter the sea wall at Redness Point on 5 December 2013. Dave McAlone


News Front

EUROSTAR SALE COULD HELP FUND BATTERSEA TUBEA NEW national infrastructure plan containing information on over £375billion of planned public and private sector infrastructure investment has been published by the Government, alongside an announcement that the insurance industry will invest £25billion in infrastructure.

The plan says the Government has now identified further assets with the potential for sale, which could include London & Continental Railways’ property assets and the Government’s 40% shareholding in

Eurostar. SNCF (French Railways) is the majority shareholder in Eurostar.

The Government also announced that it will provide a further £50million for a full redevelopment of the railway station at Gatwick Airport, a proposal by the Airports Commission, subject to satisfactory commercial negotiations with the airport.

A new study will also be set up into southern rail access to Heathrow airport.

The plan confirms that a government guarantee has now

been agreed for the £1billion Northern Line extension to Battersea. This follows a commercial agreement between the Greater London Authority, Transport for London and the developers of the Battersea power station site. An application for a Transport and Works Act Order was made in April and a public inquiry on the application commenced in November.

A new court for infrastructure ‘to avoid unnecessary delays in the planning process for major projects’ was also announced.

Autumn statement cuts regulated faresAVERAGE rail fare increases in England in January will be 3.1% instead of 4.1%, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s autumn statement announcement that regulated fares, including season tickets, will only rise by inflation in January, instead of the previously announced Retail Price Inflation +1%.

The Mayor of London also announced a cap on average increase in Transport for London fares at RPI for 2014.

Network Rail debt to go ‘public’?

THE Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has warned that a review by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) could see Network Rail’s debt reclassified as public sector.

At Network Rail’s creation, the Government succeeded in arguing that the new company’s debt should be kept off the Treasury’s books. ONS has been reviewing that classification, with revised guidance in the new European System of Accounts coming into force in September 2014.

In the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, the classification of Network Rail was described as ‘a statistical decision by the ONS which could be applied retrospectively back to 2002’. A decision on the classification of Network Rail ‘would not change the industry structure

or affect the day-to-day operations of the rail network’. It would provide an opportunity make longer term changes aimed at providing a ‘more sustainable’ funding and financing model for the business.

Network Rail debt would continue to be backed by government, in effect improving its credit rating.

In its report on the economic and fiscal outlook, published on 5 December, OBS notes that Network Rail’s current £30billion debt is likely to increase on average by around £3billion of borrowing a year on current spending plans.

A change of classification could increase Public Sector Net Debt by about 2% of Gross Domestic Product and Public Sector Net Borrowing by 0.2% of GDP on average. Roger Ford

ORR WARNS ON SHORTFALLPREVIOUS underspends on maintenance work, deferred plans to renew infrastructure, and other factors including engineering works overruns are contributing to delays to rail passenger and freight services, according to the Office of Rail Regulation’s (ORR’s) latest analysis of rail performance in the Network Rail Monitor.

More than half of delays on the network are caused by problems attributable to Network Rail, says ORR. While the company has made progress in reducing delays associated with civil engineering assets, such as bridges, approximately half of the delays attributed to Network Rail are a result of infrastructure failings. Asset failures are also on an increasing trend – particularly those related to track faults,

telecoms failures and cable faults.Network Rail acknowledged that

it was not hitting ‘tough regulatory targets on performance’, but added that when it comes to a choice between running a train that is delayed or cancelling it to protect punctuality, ‘our approach is to run the service because that is in the passengers’ best interests.

‘The real issue here is capacity and a largely Victorian infrastructure being pushed to its limits. Asset failures make up a small proportion of why trains are late; track accounts for just 5%. Our railway is congested and any incident has massive knock-on effects. We believe our regulator needs to help us to address this capacity issue rather than focus exclusively on one narrow punctuality target’.

NEW SLEEPER FACTORY OPENS A NEW concrete sleeper factory at Doncaster was officially opened by the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick McLoughlin MP, on 9 December.

The £13.9million plant has the ability to produce around 400,000 concrete sleepers per annum, around 40-50% of the total required across the country each year.

The factory has four mould lines each capable of producing G44 sleepers (designed for 30-tonne axle weight with a maximum speed of 140mph) or EG47 ones (a shallower design, used mainly on the third rail network). Pandrol cast-in shoulders are positioned on the base of the moulds and the concrete poured on top, meaning that the finished sleepers are upside down. Before the concrete is poured, strands of heavy duty steel are strung down the length of the moulds and tensioned to a force of 7.5 tonnes.

After being left to set overnight, the following morning the concrete strength is checked. A high-speed saw is then used to cut the sleepers into individual units, which are turned over and the rail fastenings attached before being moved outside to the storage yard.

Sleepers are moved from the stockyard onto trains by a large gantry crane, which can load trains in either of the 350-metre long sidings. Once the new sleepers have been offloaded at the worksite, the wagons are backfilled with old sleepers. The used sleepers will return to the factory for offloading, ready for processing by Network Rail – this may involve a variety of operations including reuse on quieter routes, or onward sale to third parties.

The plant, which has a contract to provide 400,000 sleepers per year to Network Rail for the next 10 years, is operated by Trackwork Moll, a new

company jointly-owned by Trackwork of Kirk Sandall and Leonhard Moll Bretonwerke of Munich. The old sleeper factory alongside the East Coast main line at Tallington is set to close at the end of January. Richard Tuplin

The new sleeper factory at Doncaster. Richard Tuplin

The Secretary of State signs a concrete sleeper. Richard Tuplin


News Front

NW ELECTRIFICATIONRUNS UP TO DEADLINE

AT 23.03 on Sunday 8 December, First TransPennine Express’s Desiro No 350401 became the fi rst electric train to work under the new electrifi cation between Castlefi eld Junction in Manchester and Newton-le-Willows Junction. Having left Siemens’ Ardwick depot at 22.56, the set travelled to Wigan North Western on a proving run for the completed overhead wiring, before testing the return line on a journey back to Manchester. With both runs proving successful, the train ran back to Wigan and on to Preston, where it was due to replace the hired London Midland Class 350/2 set on driver-training duties.

Earlier, No 350401 was the fi rst electric unit to visit the newly-electrifi ed Ardwick depot in the evening of 28 November after running from Crewe. The LNWR depot there is being used as the base for acceptance trials for the 10x4-car sets for First TransPennine Express. En route, the unit became the fi rst of the class to visit Manchester Piccadilly.

On the previous day, Nos 350402 and 350403 were delivered to Crewe for commissioning. After a day spent testing all the electrifi ed roads at the depot, No 350401 completed its acceptance trials

before being accepted into the FTPE fl eet on 2 December.

Meanwhile, work to complete ‘snagging’ of Phase 1 of the Northern Electrifi cation programme, the 15-mile Chat Moss line between Castlefi eld Junction in Manchester and Newton-le-Willows Junction, was still under way in the fi rst week of December, after Network Rail fi nally accepted the off er by operators to take extended overnight possessions in an eff ort to meet deadlines.

Some industry insiders were concerned at news of registration problems on the overhead between

Castlefi eld Junction and Ordsall Lane Junction, which was wired almost a year ago in December 2012. Network Rail has made it clear that lessons have been learned from the problems encountered on this project (p6, last month).

As Modern Railways closed for press, First TransPennine Express was expecting to run an inaugural special train over the route on 12 December, but testing of the route with an instrumented Pendolino set, prior to accepting the route for diversionary use by Virgin Trains, was expected to be deferred until after Christmas. Tony Miles

The very fi rst electric train to run over the Chat Moss route. At 23.08 on 8 December unit No 350401 runs through Eccles station on the fi rst provingrun between Ardwick and Wigan. (Our photographer comments: ‘the camera was set at 256,000ASA and just about froze the train!’). Tony Miles

Shrewsbury timings disappointTHE paths off ered by Network Rail for Virgin Trains’ proposed service between Shrewsbury and London Euston have been criticised by business and council leaders.

With Virgin aiming to launch the new direct link in May 2014, it is understood that a one train per day service would leave Shrewsbury at 16.03 and arrive in London Euston at 18.32 on weekdays, with the northbound train leaving Euston at 11.33 and arriving in Shrewsbury at 13:50. This is not of use for one-day business journeys in either direction.

On Sundays a similar path is off ered for the southbound train, with the return service at 18.50.

Telford MP, David Wright, told The Shropshire Star newspaper: ‘If these timings are confi rmed I’m very disappointed. I would have preferred a train up and down during peak

times, which would better serve the business community. We’re going to have to press very hard for the service to be expanded. I am worried that with these times they might claim lack of usage and stop it altogether’.

Virgin Trains has made it clear that the proposed paths are the only ones off ered by Network Rail. The company told Modern Railways: ‘The most important thing is to get services established to Shrewsbury, which we are hoping will be the case from May 2014. At the same time we will continue to work with NR to try and fi nd other viable pathways that could give us more trains to Shrewsbury and get Blackpool on our network map’.

But according to industry insiders, the prospect of any direct service to Blackpool is ‘not good’. Tony Miles

RAIL NORTH AND DFT AGREE WAY FORWARDRAIL North - the grouping of local transport authorities formed to develop proposals for devolution of responsibility for rail services to the north of England - has struck a deal with the Department for Transport (DfT). Announced on 25 November, it covers the renewal of the Northern and TransPennine rail franchises, with the two continuing as separate businesses. The process for replacing the franchises will

begin in 2014, and successors are planned to be in place in February 2016.

The partnership with the DfT is founded on a shared set of principles, says Rail North. These include ‘ensuring that new infrastructure, such as the Northern Hub, is used in the most eff ective way, and that priorities are clearly defi ned for future investment in the network and rolling stock’.

COLAS WINS HAULAGE CONTRACTCOLAS Rail has signed a freight haulage contract with Network Rail with a core value of approximately £90million. Colas will provide haulage services mainly in the West and South.

The requirements of this new work and growing demand in the freight business will be met by an order for 10 new Class 70 locomotives just confi rmed (see ‘Rail Freight’ this month).


News Front

HS2 HYBRID BILL PUBLISHEDTHE parliamentary bill for phase one of the new High Speed 2 railway between London and Birmingham was published on 25 November.

The hybrid bill is intended to give the government the powers to construct and operate the railway. It will also give those affected by the proposed line the opportunity to petition Parliament, both for and against the proposals, and

have their case heard by a committee of MPs. The environmental statement for Phase One was also published. It sets out in detail the likely significant environmental effects of the scheme.

Once Royal Assent has been achieved, it is expected that construction of the line from London to Birmingham will begin in 2016 to 2017, allowing the line to open in 2026.

EUSTON CROSS CROSSED OUTTHE Secretary of State’s conclusions on alternative proposals for HS2’s London Euston terminus, the link between HS2 and HS1, and other HS2 ‘design refinements’ were published in November, alongside the HS2 hybrid bill.

In May 2013, the HS2 Design Refinement Consultation (DRC) sought views on 14 changes to the proposed HS2 route announced in January 2013.

In the DRC, the January 2012 proposal for rebuilding Euston station was replaced by a revised plan to keep 13 of the existing 18 platforms (in the area of today’s platforms 1-15) for conventional rail services, with 11 new platforms for HS2, at a lower level, to the west of the current station. The Secretary of State has decided to confirm this revised design.

Some consultees suggested alternatives to the revised Euston design - the ‘Euston Cross’ proposal by Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw (Modern Railways, May 2013); a ‘double deck down’ design; and proposals terminating HS2 at Old Oak Common.

The Secretary of State says HS2 Ltd has examined the Euston Cross proposal at a high level: ‘From their analysis it is clear that this would be a substantially more expensive proposal – broadly estimated at a net additional cost of £4billion to £6billion. The construction of an underground railway station between Euston and Kings Cross would be technically challenging and add many years to the construction programme. If parts of the new station had to be constructed using an ‘open box2 method, as HS2 Ltd’s engineers believe, then parts of the Somers

Town Estate would need to be demolished to make way for the temporary construction works. Such a strategic rethinking of HS2 would require a substantially greater justification in terms of future passenger demand east of Euston than we consider to exist. For these reasons, the Secretary of State is clear that Euston Cross is not a realistic alternative to the revised Euston scheme.’

An Old Oak Common terminus is rejected by the Secretary of State on grounds of additional journey times for most HS2 passengers travelling to central London, the lack of resilience for HS2 if Crossrail services were disrupted, and the additional land take required.

The Secretary of State has also decided to reject proposals for a higher capacity link between HS2 and HS1, believing the single-track link as proposed would be sufficient to accommodate reasonable predictions of demand, both domestic and international, for the foreseeable future. He approved the DRC’s modified proposal, aiming to improve capacity at Camden Road junction, with widening of about 200 metres of the North London line.

DRC decisions on Northolt and Bromford were published earlier (Modern Railways, December 2013, p16) to complete the safeguarding of land along the whole length of the HS2 Phase One route.

Other proposals confirmed include those relating to the Heathrow Junctions; the Colne Valley viaduct; maintenance loops; Calvert infrastructure maintenance depot; Chelmsley Wood curve; Water Orton; Washwood Heath; Leeds Junction; Manchester Junction.


News Front

RRailway Study Association

Developing railway professionals

S A

www.railwaystudyassociation.org

Wednesday 8 January - ‘Old fashioned problem solving in a modern railway’, talk by Jo Kaye, Director, Strategy & Planning, Network Rail.

This will be in the New Theatre in Houghton Street at the London School of Economics & Political Science, London WC1, starting at 18.00.

Wednesday 22 January - ‘The future of railway investment in South Wales’, talk by Professor Stuart

Cole, University of South Wales.This will be at the Network Rail offices in The Mailbox,100 Wharfside Street, Birmingham at 17.30 for 18.00.

Simon Feast, Publications Officer writes:I can confirm details of The RSA Three-Country Study tour for 2014. The

guiding theme of the tour will be: ‘Managing across Boundaries: delivering a seamless service in a competitive environment’. It will be in two parts. Part 1 will take place between Wednesday 12 March and Saturday 15 March, starting in Paris and finishing in Brussels. Part 2 will be held in

London from Thursday 27 March to the morning of Saturday 29 March.

The programme of speakers and visits in all three countries will focus on the ways in which the railway industry in Europe, for reasons of

economics, politics and geography, has to manage a range of interfaces and relationships in every service it provides. Further details can be found on the website and will feature in a circular to members. The Study Tour

will incorporate the Annual Dinner on Thursday 27 March 2014. This will be held at the Paddington Hilton Hotel. We are delighted that Clare

Moriarty, Director General, Rail Group at the Department for Transport has accepted our invitation to be the Guest Speaker. Further details and an

application form are contained in the December circular sent to members or from the email address below. The details of all the Birmingham and

London sessional meeting dates for 2013/14 are available on our website. If you wish to keep up to date with developments you can follow us on

Facebook or Twitter using the links on our website.

An application form to join the RSA can be downloaded from the website at www.railwaystudyassociation.org, and membership benefits include 12 issues of Modern Railways, a regular speaker

programme, as well as study tours.

You can contact the RSA by e-mail at [email protected] or by post to Steven Saunders, Hon

General Secretary, PO Box 375, Burgess Hill, RH15 5BX. Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope for a reply by letter mail.

Hear the speakers, ask the questions andthen read all about it in Modern Railways!

RAILWAY STUDY ASSOCIATION

INTRODUCTORY OFFERDiscounted subscription rate for your first year of membership:£30 if aged under 45 years, £45 for 45 years and aboveIncludes full personal membership for one year, and supply of 12 copies of Modern Railways magazine.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS1. Offer valid until 31 July 2014. 2. Offer open to new applicants only (must not have been a member in past five years). 3. Proof of age to be provided upon request. 4. Discount applies to first year of membership only; thereafter full annual rate payable if membership is retained. 5. Application form must be completed in full, either for online application (see our website) or paper copy submitted by post. 6. Offer applies to UK addresses only.

SCOTRAIL TENDER DRAFT ISSUEDA DRAFT invitation to tender for the replacement ScotRail franchise was issued to the five shortlisted bidders on 19 November. Transport Minister, Keith Brown, said that ‘unlike previous DfT led procurements which have focused on price, the ScotRail franchise competition includes a heavy emphasis on quality’.

‘35% of the evaluation marks are available for improvements to current services’, he said, ‘reflecting the rail priorities which the people of Scotland have told us are important.’

Abellio, Arriva, First Group, MTR and National Express are to submit their proposals for the franchise in the spring. The winning bid will be announced in autumn 2014 before the new franchise begins in April 2015.

Mr Brown said the passenger experience would be ‘at the heart’ of the Government’s considerations, with the specification focused on ‘innovation, connectivity, value and benefit for communities throughout Scotland’.

Peak fares will not rise by more than inflation and off-peak fares will be regulated at RPI minus 1% - Mr Brown believed the continuation of this policy ‘will continue to

encourage more people out of their cars’. Government is also looking for an innovative approach to developing Wi-Fi and smart ticketing, and says it should be possible for disabled passengers to travel more ‘spontaneously’ than current systems allow.

There is also strong emphasis on supporting tourism, including with ‘viewing carriages’ on main scenic routes. Initially this would require modified coaches, for example with seats aligned with windows, in existing trains.

Improved journey times are also an aim, with a new ‘inter-city’ network linking Scotland’s seven cities, with upgraded rolling stock with at least Wi-Fi, additional power sockets and ‘appropriate’ luggage storage.

Direct employees of the new franchise will have to earn ‘at least’ the living wage and every train should have at least two members of staff. The franchisee will also be required to put in place apprenticeship schemes for more than 100 new recruits in customer service and engineering.

Bidders are asked to provide any proposals for deeper ‘alliancing’ with Network Rail in their bid as part of their delivery plan. Though this will

not be part of bid evaluation, alliance proposals will contribute to the price score, where cost savings or extra revenue from the alliance (capped at £15million in any financial year) are included in a bid. Transport Scotland expects an alliance would optimise performance, improve delivery of franchise obligations and drive down unit costs - reflected in a reduction in subsidy level.

Cost savings or potential revenue gains from alliancing will have to be identified and bonded separately from other savings or revenue adjustments. Where

Network Rail provides a high level of confidence in the proposed savings, Transport Scotland ‘may’ reduce this requirement.

As well as ‘scenic trains’, the franchisee should work with local partners to develop tourist services and act as ‘a showcase for Scotland’, such as through serving local or Scottish produce in catering services. Improved ‘scenic opportunities’ for passengers would include further lineside vegetation clearance. Roger Fordn Two new EMU fleets specified - see

‘Informed Sources’ this month.

STRANRAER AND BERWICK OPTIONS

Bidders for the new ScotRail franchise are are asked to submit priced options for increased services between Edinburgh and Berwick-upon-Tweed, and for alternative timetables for services between Glasgow and Stranraer.

The Berwick service would incorporate potential new stations at Reston and East Linton.

For the Stranraer line, proposals must have minimal or no marginal cost; Stranraer, Barrhill, Girvan and Maybole should have an increased

number of services but need not have direct services to Glasgow. At present there are 15 trains per day to Girvan and six to Stranraer. Connections with direct services to/from Glasgow may be at Ayr, Kilmarnock ‘or other appropriate stations’, with waiting time not exceeding 15min. Services north of Ayr must not be adversely affected.

A priced option for calling at a proposed new Winchburgh station, east of Linlithgow, is also requested.

Cambrian frequency studyA NEW report commissioned by the Welsh Government claims that commuting on the Cambrian main line (Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth) could treble if additional workings were to supplement the current two-hourly service frequency.

Currently the first Cambrian arrivals in Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury are at 09.25 and 09.26 respectively, too late for commuters who work customary hours. The report recommends two extra units are allocated to the line. Rhodri Clark

Class 158 units dividing at Machynlleth on 14 March 2013 before continuing to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli respectively. Rhodri Clark

First tram in Princes StreetSUCCESSFUL testing of a tram took place between Haymarket and York Place in Edinburgh in the early hours of 5 December.

The first tram to be tested in the city centre travelled at walking pace and was accompanied along the

route by engineers who undertook a variety of checks as it passed.

Councillor Lesley Hinds, the city’s Transport Convener, said: ‘We’re ready for more frequent testing along the length of the route in the New Year’.

TRAFFORD CENTRE METROLINK PLANTHE proposed 5.5km route for a new Metrolink line to the Trafford Centre shopping centre in Manchester shopping was discussed by transport leaders in Greater Manchester on 6 December. This follows the preparation of a report into the new line, which will leave the existing Eccles line at the Pomona stop, and which will be used to assess the budget required and accompanying business case.

From Pomona the route runs alongside the Manchester Ship Canal and passes through the

Village area of Trafford Park before crossing the Bridgewater Canal and terminates at the Trafford Centre. Stop names are to be determined but they are planned to be close to key facilities, including Wharfside for Old Trafford, the Imperial War Museum North, Trafford Park Village, Parkway, EventCity and the Trafford Centre.

An option to extend the route to the planned Port Salford retail park via the Salford City sports stadium is also being evaluated. Tony Miles


News Front

LOW MOOR MOVES FORWARDDEVELOPMENT of a new Low Moor station has taken a major step forward, after work undertaken by West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (Metro) and Network Rail with RSSB.

The curvature of the proposed new platform design is ‘slightly outside’ Network Rail standards, and a case to demonstrate that trains could stop safely has received a Certificate of Deviation, meaning plans for the new station can proceed.

Low Moor station will be on the Caldervale line between Bradford Interchange and Halifax.

Metro now expects to submit a planning application in January. Subject to approval, detailed design work will start later in 2014, with the aim of starting construction early in 2015 and having the station open for business in the December 2015 timetable.

NETWORK RAIL TRIES OUT PARCEL SHOPSNETWORK Rail has announced a trial of a parcel collection and delivery service at stations to capitalise on the online retail market. It says this is designed to generate additional revenue which can be reinvested in the railway and to provide a convenient and accessible service.

Following over 12 months of research, Network Rail has decided to test the concept at Milton Keynes Central station - 3,000 of its employees are based nearby, and the location is close to a number of key delivery operations.

This will be followed closely by trials at London Paddington and Woking, with other stations to follow throughout 2014 once the concept is proven, creating up to 4,000 new jobs.

The new business initiative is called Doddle and is a joint venture with entrepreneur Lloyd Dorfman CBE, best known for creating the foreign exchange group Travelex.

The Doddle dedicated parcel shops would be open seven days a week, early until late, allowing people to choose how, when and where they send and receive parcels. There will be an easy-to-use website and advanced

touch point notifications through a mobile app, SMS and email.

The service would be available to every retailer, e-tailer, parcel carrier and shipper, creating a network of single points for the collection, return and sending of parcels.

Peter Louden, project director, said: ‘Our initial conversations with both leading retailers and carriers have been extremely positive with many indicating a desire to become an early adopter. They are excited by the fantastic locations and the guaranteed footfall which is expected to increase by 30 per cent by 2020.’

‘Positive result’ in suicide prevention campaignFIGURES obtained by BBC Radio 5 Live show that, whilst the number of people choosing to end their lives on the railways continues to increase, between April and October 2013, 313 people thought to have been planning to take their lives on the railways were stopped from doing so after someone intervened. The statistics formed part of a programme, ‘Life on the Line’, broadcast on 25 November.

Network Rail and the Samaritans launched a five-year partnership in January 2010 to reduce the number of suicides on the railways. Overall rates of suicides have generally been declining for the last ten years, but the number of suicides on the railways in the UK has remained above 200 a year.

5,000 staff have now been through a Samaritans programme which teaches staff about suicide, what signs to look out for and how to help those who may be at risk. In the past year rail suicides led to about 5,000 hours of delays for passengers and Network Rail paid out £33m to train companies to compensate them for the subsequent disruption.

Neil Henry, chair of the rail industry’s National Suicide Prevention Group told 5 Live that the programme is about more than just saving money: ‘This is people’s lives we’re talking about, rather than a balance sheet. What’s important is that the programme is having an impact on reducing suicide’.

The programme concluded that despite the interventions of Network

Rail staff and others, suicide on the UK’s railways remains a serious problem. Last year 238 people took their lives in front of trains, an increase of 20% since 2010 and Mr Henry explained the importance of the training scheme: ‘We are seeing a rise in suicides, as is society nationally. The training scheme gives people confidence of how to approach people, what to say and what not to say’.

Signs and posters giving contact details of the Samaritans are being rolled out across the network and additional fencing is being installed at key stations in a plan to make spontaneous actions more difficult, particularly on platforms which are rarely or never used by service trains on high speed routes. Tony Miles

BATTERIES READY FOR CLASS 379 TEST BEDVALENCE BATTERIES PROVED IN LABORATORY TESTSLITHIUM Iron Magnesium Phosphate battery technology from Valence is the first to meet the requirements of the independently-powered EMU demonstrator project, following testing at the Valence lab in Texas.

Network Rail and its industry partners - including the Enabling Innovation Team, Bombardier and Greater Anglia - are testing the potential for an independently powered electric multiple unit (IPEMU) to run on short, unelectrified branch lines.

Network Rail’s IPEMU senior engineer James Ambrose said: ‘It’s taken a lot of hard work to get this far. As well as testing the batteries under simulated journey conditions, we’ve needed to get

the donor train gauge cleared for the routes the train has got to run on and gain a certificate of rolling stock/infrastructure compatibility.

‘Now it’s over to Bombardier in Derby, who will be converting a Greater Anglia 379 to run on a test track and test the batteries further under live conditions.’

Other battery technologies, including hot sodium nickel salt, continue to be reviewed.

Bombardier’s IPEMU Engineering Project Manager Marc Phillips said, ‘Developing a battery technology in close collaboration with our supplier chain and with Network Rail has underpinned progress to-date; the lab testing put confirmation to our theoretical simulation

work; and the Bombardier engineering team has been extremely active in developing in parallel the necessary changes required to convert a Greater Anglia 379 to provide a test bed to allow the concept to mature on train.

‘In addition to this Valence our battery supplier have embraced the requirements needed for this rail application and their knowledge and experience in applications for other industries has advanced our integration of a battery technology into this industry demonstrator.’

The batteries were tested under simulations designed around potential live running routes in Anglia. These included

intensive branch line round trips with 8 hours of continuous running, an extreme range test, extreme performance (high speed) test and extreme temperature test.

The IPEMU project is a partnership between Network Rail, Department for Transport, Enabling Innovation Team, Greater Anglia and Bombardier. Data gathered d will be used to determine what form any future IPEMU will take, be it a straight battery unit or hybrid.

This IPEMU could be used to bridge ‘gaps’ in otherwise electrified railways, or be used on branch lines where it would not be cost-effective to put up overhead wires.

CHESTERCOLLISIONThe Rail Accident Investigation Branch is investigating a Voyager train’s buffer stop collision at Chester on 20 November. The wheel slide protection system, sanding equipment, and prevailing adhesion conditions are among issues to be considered.


News Front


Rail Freight

Upgrading Felixstowe to Nuneaton

Over Christmas, Network Rail’s engineers were due to undertake a programme of works

as part of the construction of the Ipswich chord. This new 1.1km double track railway links the Great Eastern main line and the East Su� olk line and will enable cross country freight trains to access Felixstowe without the need for reversal at Ipswich yard. This o� ers faster journey times for freight tra� c, and improves performance and capacity on the main line at Ipswich by reducing con� icting moves accessing the yard.

The new chord is being funded by the Strategic Freight Network, with a €12million contribution from a European TEN-T grant, and the work should be concluded by the end of the control period in March 2014.

The chord is of course only one part of the works necessary to equip this route for freight. Gauge clearance, to allow 9ft 6in high containers on standard wagons, is already complete, but the capacity

of the route is presently quite limited. Plans for the next control period aim to increase capacity, and include works at Ely, Peterborough and Leicester as well as associated improvements along the route, coupled with planned resignalling. Feasibility work is now underway in the early GRIP stages, to con� rm what works are necessary and a� ordable in the next control period.

It is fair to say that this is not wholly straightforward. Firstly, views di� er on what the scope of works should be. The original Freight Route Utilisation Strategy assumed that the upgrade would be su� cient to accommodate growth from the port, with existing tra� c continuing to run via London. Yet the Cross London Route Utilisation Strategy assumed a greater level of tra� c would be diverted that way, a view shared by many including Transport for London. So the development work is presently considering di� erent scenarios to encompass a range of possibilities.

Recently we have also seen the new port at London Gateway open for business, with the expectation of signi� cant rail use over time. These trains must use the North London corridor – and so perhaps increase the need to divert other tra� c if capacity is to be available for all. In the short term, we may also see shipping lines switch between these and other ports with corresponding impact on rail provision, although this is likely to settle as overall demand for imports, and rail distribution, increases.

The decision on routeing has far reaching impacts. For example, when considering the use of released capacity post-HS2 it matters whether tra� c from Felixstowe joins the West Coast at Willesden or Nuneaton, and there will be similar considerations in HS2 Phase 2 in due course. It also impacts on the decisions around the HS1/2 connection and the capacity of the North London line. Upgrade works need to be integrated with these decisions too.

The Felixstowe to Nuneaton corridor is also a poor � t for Network Rail’s devolved structure, crossing four of the company’s routes (Anglia, East Coast, East Midlands and London North Western). The physical works are divided between di� erent project groups and di� erent funding streams, including the £240million allocated for the East Coast, Electric Spine / Midland main line electri� cation, and Strategic Freight Networks. Each project will need to seek the best value solutions and consider the needs of all stakeholders, many of which are focused on passenger service provision on the north-south lines of route. Maintaining freight outputs in such a complex array of projects and governance structures is going to be challenging and will, as a minimum, need some direct freight sponsorship from within Network Rail.

Of course, rail freight operators have existing access rights for tra� c via London, and may not all

GB Railfreight turns to heritage tractionGB Railfreight has hired preserved Class 52 diesel hydraulic D1015 Western Champion to meet a traction shortage, pending the delivery of its new Class 66s.

GBRf has already had Deltic No 55022 Royal Scots Grey on long term hire for EMU moves in the Glasgow area. Using these heritage locos on short distance, light weight and often ad hoc moves releases Class 66s for heavier trainload work. D1015 is owned by the Diesel Traction Group

and is the only main line registered Class 52. It was initially used on a Wellingborough-Scunthorpe infrastructure train but has now settled down to working a regular 23.13 Wellingborough-Mountsorrel light engine move to collect 6F02, the 03.45 Mountsorrel-Wellingborough. It then handles the 6D02 11.21 return and heads back to Wellingborough light.

The loco had been on GBRf’s safety case for a while, having been

used to haul one of the GBRf annual sta� specials from Paddington to Minehead in 2009.

GBRf Managing Director John Smith said: ‘the loco was needed as tra� c had increased during the time the company’s new “66s” were being built’.

Since its DTG ownership, D1015 has worked freight trains before, with English, Welsh & Scottish using the loco in 2002 on Cornish branches serving china clay trains. Colas has

also used D1015 to move track machines.

‘47s’ too GBRf is also to hire Class 47s from HNRC and Riviera Trains to tra� c � ows while its new Class 66s are built.

HNRC Nos 47703 / 715 and Riviera Nos 47815 / 843 are the � rst locos to be prepared at Barrow Hill. The loans will be on a short term basis and none are expected to be repainted into GBRf livery Pip Dunn

Classic traction: D1015 with working 6D02 from Wellingborough to Mountsorrel, near Kettering North Junction on 19 November 2013. Mick Alderman


Rail Freight

wish to switch to the cross country route, even if upgraded. Freightliner for example uses electric traction for many of its services today, and would need to switch to diesel. This may, or may not, be part of the company’s future traction strategy, and certainly it appears lukewarm over plans to haul electrically from Southampton. But when the rest of the intermodal network is electri� ed, with Gospel Oak to Barking and the Electric Spine being the priority projects, this route is likely to become a high priority.

It is worth remembering that 42% of all containers which come into or out of Britain do so via the port of Felixstowe, and almost a third of them go out by rail today. So the upgrade of this rail route is of economic importance to the country as well as to those using local road routes which would otherwise be clogged with lorries. This is a critical chance to create a � t-for-purpose corridor to meet the future needs of the railway and the port. We need to get it right for the long term.

An opinion column of the Rail Freight Group, www.rfg.org.uk

New Bacon Factory CurveThe new curve will allow container trains fromthe port of Felixstowe to proceed towards theNorth via Ely without any need to reverse in Ipswich.

IIIB PROMPTS FLURRY OF LOCO ORDERS THE imminent introduction of an exacting European Union diesel engine emissions standard, the IIIB requirement, is stoking activity in the diesel loco market. Belatedly realising that the harsh standard could choke off environmentally-friendly transfers of freight from road to rail, the European Commission has partially deferred implementation of the standard.

A formula has been developed in which further restricted builds of non-compliant locos, such as the Class 70 and Class 66, are permitted. The quota is related to the number of the class already in service.

The only new-generation locos that are IIIB compliant are the Vossloh Class 68 and bi-mode Class 88 ordered by Direct Rail Services, but they are Bo-Bo designs of limited capacity for heavy haulage.

Colas orders ‘70s’ In November, GE Transportation announced an order to supply 10 Class 70 PowerHaul locomotives to Colas Rail. Entry into service is planned for 2014.

Stephen Haynes, Managing Director of Colas Rail Services, said the order ‘demonstrates our commitment to signi� cantly develop and grow our freight haulage business’.

Colas would bene� t from ‘a signi� cant increase in tractive e� ort’, enabling it to haul heavier trains up steep gradients with reduced fuel consumption. The increase in capacity would ‘allow us to serve an expanding portfolio of customers and contracts, delivering the highest levels of service’.

The � rst Colas Class 70 is No 70801: this is already in the UK,

being formerly No 70099, a demonstrator loco built in Turkey which was shipped to the UK for tests. It was moved by No 56094 from Cardi� Canton to Landore on 1 November.

Driver training on the loco – which is still in green livery but with yellow front ends now added – should start when the loco has been released from the Swansea depot. This is likely to be at a private railway.

Nos 70802-805 have been built in Erie, Pennsylvania in the USA and should be shipped in the New Year, and they are expected in January. Nos 70806-810 will then be built and follow later in the year.

23 Class 66sThe European Commission has agreed that a further 23 Class 66

locos may be built, notionally 10 for the UK and 13 for Continental Europe (although this is merely a paper distinction as GBRf has obtained UK certi� cation for former Dutch locos, proving that cross-border transfers are feasible). GBRf has already ordered eight of these (p20, October issue). These will be the � rst Class 66s to be built in EMD’s new plant in Muncie, Indiana – the earlier Class 66s were built in the now-closed London, Ontario locomotive building plant.

GB Railfreight has indicated it is to take more than the eight Class 66s it already has on order from EMD. The extra locos would allow hired traction – Class 47s and the preserved Class 52 and 55 – to be returned to their owners. Pip Dunn / James Abbott

CLASS 68 ON TEST IN VALENCIAA VOSSLOH Class 68 for DRS has been seen on YouTube undergoing testing in Valencia in Spain. The unpainted loco, still in white undercoat and unnumbered, was

� lmed running up and down the test track.

DRS has ordered 15 Class 68s. No 68001 is currently in Velím in the Czech Republic undergoing

testing. In July, DRS said delivery of No 68002, the � rst ‘68’ due in the UK, would take place in October, but now it is not expected to arrive in Crewe until early in 2014. In

addition to the diesel ‘68s’, DRS has ordered 10 Class 88 bi-mode locos from Vossloh (p86, October 2013 issue), with the � rst of these due to arrive in the UK in 2015. Pip Dunn


Infrastructure News

PETERBOROUGH BEFORE REMODELLING

PETERBOROUGH AFTER REMODELLING

1 2

Down March

Up March

2 Way Goods

3

4 5

Down FastUp FastUp Slow

Up FastUp Slow

Up StamDown Fast

Down SlowShunt Spur

Down Slow

1

Down March

Up MarchMarch Ind

2 Way Goods

2 3

4 5

6 7

Down FastUp FastUp Slow

Up FastUp Slow

Up StamDown Fast

Down Slow

Down Slow

WHEN Peterborough station re-opened after the Christmas break it was due to have three new operational platforms, increasing operational flexibility, reduced congestion and elimination of most conflicting passenger and freight train movements.

A new Platform 3 (the existing Platform 3 becomes Platform 2 and existing Platform 2 becomes Platform 1) will allow London-bound trains to call at the station on the Up Fast,

without having to weave on and off the Up Slow. With the exception of Platform 1 which is no longer operational – track, signalling and point work onto the Up Slow have been removed – all other platforms have been extended and a new island platform built.

The new island Platform 6 and 7 will serve trains on the East-West route to and from East Anglia without them conflicting with main line East Coast services. The freight loop serving the

same route is also being restored and will be longer to prevent long freight trains fouling other lines and causing delays to passenger services.

Passenger lifts are also being installed at the station for the first time, although these will not be fully operational until May 2014. The former parcel bridge is also being extended to serve the new platforms 6 and 7.

To allow the commissioning of the new platforms and new

signalling systems the station was due to close after the last train on 24 December 24 and not reopen until 28 December. On 27 December road replacement services would operate between Grantham, Peterborough and Huntingdon. Hull Trains was diverting its Hull-London King’s Cross services on 27 December south of Doncaster via the Midland main line and terminating at London St Pancras. Steve Knight

With a driver relief taking place, a freight train heading to Felixstowe blocks access at the north end of Platform 5 on 22 November 2013. The new station layout is intended to eliminate conflicting movements such as this. Steven Knight Media

The new platform alongside the Up Fast at Peterborough taking shapeon 22 November 2013. Steven Knight Media

CHRISTMAS COMMISSIONING AT PETERBOROUGH


Infrastructure News

AMEY TAMPERS GO TO COLASCOLAS Rail has expanded its Rail Services operations by acquiring Amey’s on-track tamping machines business in a £5million deal.

Stephen Haynes, managing director of Colas Rail Services says: ‘The acquisition of the Amey on-track plant business provides signifi cant synergies with our existing extensive on-track plant business, allowing us to provide an enhanced service to Network Rail’. The £5million deal comes following an Amey decision to focus on asset management, rail projects, metro services, track renewals, signalling and electrifi cation.

Although moving away from tamping – a very small part of Amey’s overall rail business – the company says it remains fi rmly committed to the rail market. Amey will continue to operate rail mounted vehicles to support its high-output and conventional track renewals work and electrifi cation projects.

SCALABLE RIF SAVES DELTA BLUESDELTARAIL’S IECC Scalable signalling control system was commissioned in the Edinburgh Regional Operating Centre (ROC) on 15 October 2013. This controls six remote Solid State Interlockings (SSIs) that remain in the Glasgow Cowlairs signal box equipment room.

Using Internet Protocol (IP) over the fi xed telecommunications network (FTN), the Remote Interlocking Interface (RIF) has enabled remote control of SSIs for the fi rst time. With around 400 SSI installed in the UK, the company says this technology enables cost eff ective, effi cient and secure re-control.

DeltaRail’s chief executive offi cer Anna Matthews says: ‘IECC Scalable’s

RIF off ered a unique and industry-leading solution to the challenge of re-controlling the Glasgow Cowlairs SSI from Edinburgh. Now the project has been launched, and has proved an instant success, there is no reason why IECC Scalable’s RIF cannot be deployed for similar SSI re-control projects across Britain’s rail network’.

Replicating the solution in other ROCs would support Network Rail’s goal of greater operational effi ciency through increased centralisation, maintains Delta. Network Rail plans to centralise control of the British network into 12 ROCs, removing over 800 signal boxes. DeltaRail already has signifi cant experience

in the re-control of remote relay interlockings (‘Row erupts over Traffi c Management System contracts’, p24, last month).

Ms Matthews comments: ‘The potential is huge. Britain has a large installed base of SSI and relay interlockings that, following the success of the Edinburgh project, we now know for certain can be reconfi gured to operate under the control of IECC Scalable, where ever they are installed. Others had advised Network Rail that this technology would not work, which is odd as it is used in safety related and high integrity applications across the world; including the oil and gas, military and banking industries’.

New rail for SupertramSOUTH Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive is set to receive £5million to replace life-expired sections of rail within street running elements of the Sheffi eld Supertram light rail system. The funding was announced by Transport Minister Baroness Kramer on a visit to the city on 4 December, when she visited the site of the planned Tinsley viaduct which will form part of the £28million Bus Rapid Transit scheme that will improve bus links between Sheffi eld and Rotherham.

SHREWSBURY - CREWE COMMISSIONINGOVER the weekend of 12 - 14 October, Siemens Rail Automation commissioned the Crewe to

Shrewsbury Modular Signalling Pilot Programme, with control of the line now being undertaken

from Network Rail’s Regional Operating Control Centre in Cardiff .

This pilot scheme has nearly all the confi gurable scenarios with which most rural or secondary routes can be re-signalled, making it an ideal test bed for the modular signalling concept. Covering 30 miles of bi-directional signalling, the project included seven level crossings - fi ve of which have now been converted to manually controlled barriers with obstacle detection (MCB-ODs) - and two complex fringes.

Siemens’ Trackguard Westrace Mk 2 interlocking is at the heart of the scheme. Features include object controllers, plug-coupled cables,

axle counters and lightweight signals.

In the last fi ve years, the concept of modular signalling has been developed by Siemens (formerly Invensys Rail) and others - principally Signalling Solutions on the Ely to Norwich line. Working in close partnership with Network Rail, the modular signalling systems enable secondary lines to be cost-eff ectively upgraded, providing a positive economic case for investment. Modular gantry: new signals on the Crewe - Shrewsbury route.

WIDENINGTHE NET

The new Lines 2 & 3 of the Nottingham Express Transit light rail system are due to open in 2014. They will cross the railway lines at Nottingham station on this new bridge, photographed on 14 November 2014. John Tedstone

23www.modernrailways.co.uk January 2014 Modern Railways


Informed Sources Roger Ford

Captain Deltic turns his crystal ball up to 11 to try and determine future demand

Since this is the Modern Railways annual traction and rolling stock issue, it is time to up-date the table

of prospective orders. Particularly so this year, since 1 April marks the start of a new fi ve-year Control Period (CP) when the requirements in the Department for Transport’s High Level Output Specifi cation (HLOS) will determine the need for additional rolling stock.

When the HLOS for the Control Period now ending (CP4) was published in 2007, the then Labour government pulled a round number out of the air and promised 1,300 new vehicles. As the table shows, the eventual total was 915 vehicles and several of these orders emerged during the fi ve years.

Mega-fl eetsDuring CP4 procurement of three large fl eets was underway. These were the Inter-city Express Programme (IEP) plus new EMU fl eets for the two London infrastructure projects, Thameslink and Crossrail. Both IEP and Thameslink are being procured through Private Finance Initiative long term Total Train Service provision deals.

These complicated fi nancial transactions are taking an age to close. The successful bidders, Agility Trains (Hitachi) for IEP and Cross London Trains (Siemens) for Thameslink, have struggled to line up the multiple banks funding the deals. Both the Great Western tranche of IEP and Thameslink are now signed off . IEP Tranche 2 (East Coast main line) is expected to reach fi nancial close in the early part of this year.

Scarred, or, rather, scared, by this experience, which has the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee ‘sceptical’ whether the new Thameslink fl eet will be ready for the full service in December 2018, DfT and Transport for London, the joint sponsors of Crossrail, decided that the new fl eet would be publicly funded. An announcement of the winning bidder is offi cially due in the second quarter of this year. Informed sources suggest it may be brought forward.

Political But this is a highly political contest. Bombardier, CAF of Spain and Hitachi are shortlisted, Siemens having withdrawn after being selected because the company had

enough on its plate with Thameslink. That wasn’t the wording used in the Siemens announcement, you understand.

A recent visit to Bombardier suggested that while winning the Crossrail order is still seen as vitally important, it is no longer a matter of life and death to Derby. The engineering and design expertise in the Litchurch Lane factory is an integral part of Bombardier Transportation’s global organisation.

And, as with most modern EMUs, Bombardier’s new Aventra is a modular design capable of being confi gured as a high capacity suburban unit for Thameslink or a 115/125mph interurban express. It will be an eff ective competitor in the South West Trains and First Great Western procurement exercises just starting.

For Hitachi,the addition of the InterCity 225 fl eet replacement to the East Coast IEP fl eet has eased the immediate pressure to fi ll the company’s new North East assembly plant at Newton Aycliff e. Hitachi’s challenger to the Aventra and Siemens Desiro is the AT100E. In addition to Crossrail, the AT100E will also be chasing the smaller contracts in the table.

Procurement policyOffi cial Government policy is that, in future, train operators should buy new trains, not civil servants. However, the fi rm orders already in place for delivery during CP5 were initiated by either DfT (Class 387) or Transport for London (Class 378).

In the case of the Class 387 fl eet, DfT used Southern’s existing procurement team to act as its agent, but it was still a Government scheme. This was a prophylactic order against the delayed delivery of the Thameslink fl eet. The dual-voltage 110mph Class 387s will provide additional capacity pending delivery of the new Thameslink trains and will then be available for cascade – also likely to be DfT directed.

SWTCurrently, the only contract out to tender is the SWT requirement for a nominal 30 fi ve-car EMUs to provide additional capacity under DfT’s CP5 HLOS. In August 2013 there was a temporary frisson of excitement when the Notice in the Offi cial Journal of the European Union was withdrawn and reissued a few days later.

There were two main changes. The fi rst was a simplifi cation of

CP5 rolling stock market uncertain

The London Overground fl eet is expanding. This Class 378 was shot at South Kenton. Tony Christie


Informed Sources

Section III of the OJEU, covering legal, economic, financial and technical information. Where the original document specified a number of detailed requirements, the revised version reverted to the stock phrase ‘Information

and formalities necessary for evaluating if the requirements are met: As set out in the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire’.

Deleted was the requirement for ‘Proof of experience in supplying passenger rolling stock to the

UK, including support activities, in the last ten years’. According to informed sources there was concern that this could have been seen as disadvantaging potential new entrants to the UK market. I suspect that when the list of pre-

qualified bidders is released we will find the usual suspects, Mr B, Mr H-san and Herr S.

A more significant change to the OJEU was the fact that both new build ‘or an existing fleet’ will be considered. It was assumed

ROLLING STOCK ORDERS AND REQUIREMENTS 2009 - 2019

Operator Class Type Vehicles Supplier Status

Control Period 4 - 2009-2014

Southern 377 EMU 48 Bombardier Delivered

Southern 377 EMU 44 Bombardier Delivered

London Midland 350/2 EMU 148 Siemens Delivered

ScotRail 380 EMU 122 Siemens Delivered

London Midland 172 DMU 69 Bombardier Delivered

Chiltern 172 DMU 8 Bombardier Delivered

Virgin West Coast 390 EMU 106 Alstom Delivered

National Express East Anglia 379 EMU 120 Bombardier Delivered

Southern 377 EMU 130 Bombardier Delivering

Southern 377 EMU 40 Bombardier Ordered (1)

London Midland 350/3 EMU 40 Siemens Delivering

TransPennine Express 350/4 EMU 40 Siemens Delivering

Total 915

Control Period 5 2014-2019

Inter-city Express Programme (Great Western main line) 800/801 EMU 369 Hitachi Ordered

Inter-city Express Programme (East Coast main line) 800/801 EMU 497 Hitachi Ordered (2)

Thameslink 700 EMU 1140 Siemens Ordered

Southern (3) 387 EMU 116 Bombardier Ordered

Southern 387 EMU 140 Bombardier Option

LOROL (4) 378 EMU 57 Bombardier Ordered

Total, (less option) 2179

Orders pending (Provisional numbers)

Crossrail EMU 600 Tendering (5)

SWT (HLOS build) EMU 150 Tendering

Known requirements

Merseyrail EMU 175 Pending OJEU

ScotRail (EGIP) (6) EMU 88-96 Pre-emptive OJEUs

ScotRail (Alloa/Dunblane) (6) EMU 66-96 (7) Pre-emptive OJEUs

Great Western EMU 120-160 Direct Award Franchise requirement

Transport for London (8) EMU 120 -144

Maximum total (excluding Crossrail) 821

Cancelled

Inter-city West Coast (First) (9) EMU 66 Alstom/CAF Cancelled

Inter-city West Coast (Virgin) (9) 390 EMU 126 Alstom Cancelled

CrossCountry e-220 DEMU Bombardier Abandoned

1 Option to 130 vehicles order 2 Subject to financial close 3 110mph dual voltage. Additional Thameslink capacity pending new fleet 4 Lengthening existing fleet to five-car5 Shortlisted: Bombardier, CAF, Hitachi; Siemens withdrew from shortlist.

6 OJEUs issued by two bidders for franchise7 Depends on formation - see text.8 Greater Anglia, Gospel Oak-Barking, Euston-Watford 9 Cancelled Inter-city West Coast bid commitments



previously that the requirement was for new trains but the revised wording suggests that one of the rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) tipped SWT the wink that it might have something interesting and economic up its sleeve.

Invitations to Tender were issued in November. Delivery of the dual-voltage units will run from July 2016 to July 2017.

FGWAs you can read in my interview with First Great Western Managing Director Mark Hopwood in this issue, DfT has tasked FGW with starting procurement for a fl eet of EMUs to replace the Turbostar DMUs on the Paddington suburban services following electrifi cation. There are 37x3-car and 20x2-car Turbostars – a total of 151 vehicles. The nominal quantity for the new order is 30-40 four-car units.

LOROLAlso in the South East, London Overground (LOROL) will require additional EMUs for the electrifi ed Gospel Oak-Barking line (GOBLIN). This project is at an early stage of development. Network Rail is working up GRIP Stage 3 and has been asked by DfT to investigate ways of reducing the current £90million estimated cost.

On the proposed electrifi cation schedule, new rolling stock would not be required until 2017. In the absence of a rolling stock policy, let alone a plan, it is impossible to predict what stock might be available for cascade by then.

On its own GOBLIN would need only fi ve units. But Transport for London sources suggest that, rather than cascaded stock, this requirement could form part of a larger new build.

In 2015 TfL is due to add the current Greater Anglia inner suburban routes from Liverpool Street station to Enfi eld Town,

Cheshunt (via Seven Sisters) and Chingford to the LOROL network. Replacement of the existing Class 315 EMUs with new rolling stock is under consideration. That adds from 24 to 30 units.

Next, the LOROL Class 378 fl eet is currently being lengthened to fi ve cars. This could provide too much capacity on LOROL’s Euston-Watford service. So a new build of four-car EMUs would allow the lengthened fi ve-car Class 378s to be cascaded to the main LOROL network.

Merseyrail Merseyrail is progressing the potential replacement of the existing fl eets. These come off lease in 2018 and procurement is at an early stage.

Brave heartsPublished on 19 November, the draft ScotRail franchise Invitation to Tender (ITT) included the rolling stock requirements for Transport Scotland’s two electrifi cation schemes. The Edinburgh-Glasgow route via Falkirk High is being wired under the Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Project (EGIP). Edinburgh-Dunblane, plus the Stirling-Alloa branch is following on as part of the HLOS for CP5.

Transport Scotland offi cials estimate the requirements at 22-24 four-car units with 23m long vehicles for EGIP plus a similar quantity for the Edinburgh-Dunblane-Alloa service. They have already been discussing the new train requirements with potential franchise bidders, train manufacturers and ROSCOs. ‘We are clear what train we want’ I was told at the press briefi ng.

As with the SWT and FGW bids the timescale is quite tight (see box). Precautionary OJEU Notices have already been issued by Abellio and National Express Group among the short listed franchise bidders.

This urgency is refl ected in the ITT which emphasises that

for the EGIP fl eet, assurance of complete introduction to passenger operations by December 2017 is ‘critical’. In addition, delivery, testing, commissioning and introduction to passenger service may need to align with Network Rail’s delivery of the electrifi cation and other infrastructure works. The 2016 peak service could, presumably, be met with refurbished Class 380 Desiros.

According to the ITT, the second fl eet must be in service ‘and fully operational’ for the December 2018 timetable. While the size of the two fl eets is expected to be similar, the Stirling-Alloa lot could be formed as three- or four-cars depending on ridership growth forecasts in the franchise bids. Delivering new three-cars early could cover the 2017 seven-car requirement for EGIP.

Small fl eets In passing, I note that the replacement Essex Thameside franchise ITT includes provision for bidders to propose new or cascaded rolling stock. This gains bonus points in the quality evaluation. However this has not been included in the table.

Note that individual prospective orders are relatively small, which is a good thing, provided Gresley-Stanier syndrome is curbed and standard designs bought off the shelf. For the ROSCOs a fl eet of low risk standard EMUs in the £200-300million price range is the optimum size when going to the banks for the necessary funding. Another reason for sticking with the usual suspects when it comes to manufacturers.

Underground In addition to main line rolling stock, London Underground is blowing the dust off its deferred procurement of replacement trains for the Piccadilly Line. Here, Gresley-Stanier syndrome is rampant with LU engineers specifying the new-generation ‘Evo’ deep-tube concept.

Potential bidders are already promoting their own takes on LU’s decades-old dream of breaking the mould. An Invitation to Tender is expected in 2014 for just over 500 vehicles.

Slim pickingsOverall, apart from the three mega-projects, prospects for new rolling stock orders in CP5 are slim, with under 1,000 main line vehicles identifi ed to date in addition to the Crossrail fl eet. Further requirements may emerge as more Direct Award franchises are let in 2014, but these are unlikely to involve substantial numbers.

EGIP ROLLING STOCK DELIVERY REQUIREMENTS

December 2016 Start of Edinburgh-Glasgow electrifi ed services with a minimum of one seven-car EMU each way during the peaks but to the existing diesel timings. This service is to be operated with a minimum of two trains in service plus one spare. While 23m long vehicles are specifi ed the ITT says that units can be either new build or recently refreshed to ‘as new’ interior and exterior standards. Minimum capacity is 273 Standard Class seats and 291 seats overall.

December 2017All EGIP services operated by new seven-car electric trains providing a basic four trains per hour service pattern as at present, but with journey times improved ‘as far as practicable’ given timetabling constraints.

Bidders will have to commit to minimum, maximum and average journey times.

December 2018 New electric EGIP timetable introduced with 42-minute headline journey time including three intermediate stops – assumed to be Haymarket, Falkirk High and Croy. This is subject to completion of the separate Glasgow & Edinburgh–Dunblane/Alloa-Stirling electrifi cation.

Current timetabling work indicates a 44-min peak period Edinburgh-Glasgow journey, with 42 minutes in the off -peak. Subject to completion of redevelopment of Glasgow Queen Street station, the new EMUs will run in eight-car formations.

Aventra: Bombardier’s new-generation EMU that is being off ered for the Crossrail contract. Courtesy Bombardier

Informed Sources

What did the ROSCOs ever do for the railways?

On 6 November, using what, for a even a seconded civil servant, was notably intemperate

language, Franchising Director Peter Wilkinson served notice on the rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) that they are too expensive, risk averse and could be replaced by Government buying new trains. Suddenly, it was as if the Competition Commission Report in April 2009 had never happened.

As in that fi rst round of ROSCO wars, the casus belli was the lease rentals for the ex-British Rail fl eet covered by the Master Operating Lease Agreement (MOLA), with which the ROSCOs were sold. This is known as the MOLA fl eet.

Addressing a meeting of the Railway Study Association in London, Mr Wilkinson claimed that the current leasing rates for the MOLA fl eet rolling stock were ‘far too high’, given that most of the capital investment had long been written off . ‘How come the ROSCOs get away with the price of second

hand trains? It’s got to stop’ he declared.

As for future rolling stock investment, Mr Wilkinson wants to see the ROSCOs taking more risk, rather than ‘passing it back to the Government’ through demanding long term usage agreement and Section 54 protection. ‘If necessary we will have to get the Government to buy more trains’ was one solution, because ‘we’ve got to get this market to work’.

RiskI found this attack deeply worrying, not least because the ROSCOs are the only sector of the privatised railway that has invested serious money in the industry. At the last count, Angel, Eversholt and Porterbrook had, collectively, invested £8billion in new stock and enhancements to the MOLA fl eet since the ROSCOs were sold in November 1995.

Before going on I should declare a personal interest. I have been the independent rolling stock advisor

to four bidders in the acquisition of ROSCOs, starting with the original privatisation.

My primary role was to validate the future service life of the MOLA fl eets. This was crucial because bidders were not buying assets, but cash fl ows from the rentals. So it was important to have an independent view on how long each class would continue earning money.

Dragging my original paper analysis charts out of the archive, I fi nd, for example, that I had advised my principals that the assumption in the sales documents that IC125s would have their leases renewed up to 2008-09 was ‘optimistic’. As for Pacers remaining in service after 2004-05, forget it.

Perhaps I was too cautious. Only one of the four bids I have advised has succeeded. Mind you, fi rst time round, ‘our’ bid was pulled three days before the off er was due to go in, because the chairman of the bank backing the consortium had decided the deal was too risky.

Profi teersIn November 1995 the ROSCOs were sold for the modern equivalent of £2.4billion with two going to management buyouts (MBOs). This was above the expected £2.1billion and the City view at the time was that bankers Hambros, acting for the Government on the sale, had done remarkably well to dispose of all three at a higher than expected price.

In August 1996 Stagecoach acquired Porterbrook for £475.5million, creating a number of millionaires in the MBO. Stagecoach would later sell on the business to Abbey National for £1.4billion. Angel and Eversholt have similarly been bought and sold over the years.

With the undeserving rich trousering millions it would not have been surprising had the DfT’s civil servants been resentful of the way the artifi cial construct they had devised to transfer the British Rail rolling stock fl eet to the private sector was being perverted. This

Wilkinson revivesDfT’s ROSCO jihad

HST: life-extended by ROSCOs. A hired-in East Midlands HST works the 12.10 East Coast service from King’s Cross to Leeds through Harringay on 28 September 2010, led by Class 43 power car No 43058. At left is a Class 313. Brian Morrison



resentment first emerged in the 2004 White Paper ‘The future of rail’.

According to the White Paper, the Government at the time believed that the markets in rolling stock financing and maintenance were ‘not working in the way they were expected to’. As a result ‘there is a case for looking to see how (their) operation can be improved’. A ‘longer term strategy’ for the rolling stock market would be developed to support this (cue hollow / hysterical laughter).

This opening shot culminated in DfT claiming a £100million rebate on the ROSCOs’ MOLA fleet rentals – or else. When the ROSCOs stood firm, DfT downed the ante in stages. When that didn’t work they referred their complaint to the Office of Rail Regulation which rapidly passed the parcel to the Competition Commission.

CompetitionThis enquiry was not about the ROSCOs’ behaviour but whether the rolling stock market contains any feature or combination of features which would ‘prevent, restrict or distort competition’. As a Competition Commission chum pointed out subsequently, ‘you can have a market which isn’t competitive without anyone having been naughty’.

And the Commission duly concluded that the real problem was that DfT’s artificial market was not working. As for the rapacious ROSCOs, they had, in fact, not exploited their market dominance to rape and pillage DfT’s budget.

Fear of regulatory retribution may have had something to do with this restraint.

Versailles And there it should have ended. But to judge by Peter Wilkinson’s threats, DfT regards the Competition Commission report much as the Germans regarded the Treaty of Versailles in the 1930s. Far from DfT having lost its case, the Competition Commission had focused on, er, competition, instead of sorting out the ROSCOs – who everyone knows are ripping us off.

And note the revival of that old canard of high prices charged for written down assets. One of the more ludicrous features of the first ROSCO war was DfT’s commissioning of an industrial valuation company to determine what the MOLA fleet was worth. But an old boiler or earth mover is not the same as a rail vehicle in today’s malfunctioning market.

IndifferenceLet’s go back to first principles, since DfT appears not to understand the basis on which the MOLA fleet leases were established. In the 2004 White Paper DfT argued that returns earned from leasing the MOLA fleets were based on the premise that there was a high risk that the ROSCOs would find themselves with rolling stock they could not lease once new trains entered service. ‘This is another instance where assumptions made at the time of privatisation have not generally come to pass’ claimed the White Paper.

Talk about air-brushing the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia. At the time of the sale it was the opposite way round. The big fear was that the availability of cheap MOLA fleet trains would stop franchises replacing them with new rolling stock.

My old chum, John West, late of GATX, was advising DfT on this issue and came up with ‘indifference pricing’. The aim would be to make operators ‘indifferent’ as to whether they ran old trains or acquired new stock. Since new trains were more attractive to passengers, buying new would boost revenue.

Fig 1 shows how it was done. The cost breakdown reflects the situation at the time.

Initially, it seems to have worked. But gradually the MOLA fleet has got relatively cheaper, and now we have Walmsley’s law. This states that if a MOLA fleet train costs x to lease, then the refurbished and life extended version costs 2x. A new train costs 4x, unless it is IEP – which costs 8x.

One reason why the MOLA fleet got cheaper was that, apart from a 3% a year reduction in maintenance costs in the initial leases, ROSCOs assumed that when leases were renegotiated at the end of a franchise, trains would be let at lower rental. For example, in the case of a London commuter EMU fleet, the assumption was that at

the end of the first lease in 2003, the rental would fall by 25% for the next seven years to 2010 and to 50% of the original rental for the final seven years before the trains were scrapped in 2017.

InvestmentSo, pace Peter Wilkinson, capital investment doesn’t come into it. Or rather it does, but not the investment made by British Rail back in the 1980s when the trains were built.

Remember that in my consultancy role I wrote off the IC125 fleet as a revenue stream from 2007-08? Well some of these trains are going to run past 2020. And the fact that, for many of us, they are still supreme in front line service is because the ROSCOs have invested in re-engineering and refurbishing them. In modern money, Angel has invested £90million in its IC125 fleet since 2006. Porterbrook has spent the same again.

That’s coming on for £200million. This level of capital investment in the MOLA fleets has dug DfT out of a hole. But capital investment has to earn a return. ‘How come the ROSCOs get away with the price of second hand trains?’ Er, because DfT underwrote the business case for re-engineering in the franchise plans, that’s how.

Take the ‘long written off’ Class 455 fleet. Porterbrook – with

FIGURE 1: INDIFFERENCE PRICING

0Existing train - BR Existing train - ROSCO New train - ROSCO

2

4

6

8

10

12

Who

le lif

e co

st - u

nits

■ Adjustment■ Residual value■ O� lease■ Insurance■ Finance costs■ Leasing Charge■ Repayment of capital■ Operator costs■ Maintenance

Constant improvement: Porterbrook has recently fitted new wheel slip protection equipment to the Mk 3s operated by Greater Anglia, pictured here inside Crown Point depot. Tony Miles


Informed Sources

DfT’s agreement, not to say encouragement – is spending £45million on re-tractioning the SWT fleet as part of the HLOS requirement to provide additional capacity into Waterloo in Control Period 5.

At current finance rates that adds just over £13,000 per year per vehicle to the lease rental, about one twelfth the cost of a new EMU vehicle.

RiskAnd the ‘455’ re-tractioning brings us to the claim that ROSCOs are risk averse and demanding long term usage agreements and Section 54 protection before investing. Section 54 is designed to reduce the risk where trains are funded towards the end of a franchise, by requiring the next franchisee to continue the lease.

Now the current SWT franchise runs to February 2017. DfT’s Rail franchise schedule shows a Direct Award agreement taking SWT to franchise replacement in 2019. Surely a case for a S54. But no, Porterbrook is shelling out £45million with no assurance that the replacement franchise in 2019 will want to retain the Class 455s.

Or take the current Class 377 fleet for Southern, the franchise due to disappear into Thameslink, Southern & Great Northern in July 2015. This means that the last

Class 377 units to be delivered will have leases as short as 15 months. Porterbrook is funding this £350million deal. Now that must require a section 54. No.

In fact Porterbrook has only two Section 54s – both dating back to the days of the Strategic Rail Authority which effectively said ‘you’d better have one’, even though the ROSCO didn’t think them necessary. But what about the other ROSCOs?

Well Eversholt’s got two Section 54s: the Class 395 fleet, which is pretty-well route specific, and the Class 380s, where the ScotRail franchise would have been ending as the new trains started entering service.

Angel asked for a Section 54 in 2013 in connection with the proposal for a refurbished fleet where delivery would be after franchise replacement and the service date was a bit elastic. But if you are spending £2-3million per four-car unit on refurbishment, the banks funding the investment need some confidence that they will get a return.

So really, Mr Wilkinson could have said, ‘We depend on the ROSCOs to continue investing in the ex-BR fleet and I sometimes wonder how DfT gets away with the low rentals of what we might consider “second hand trains” but the customer sees as new, thanks

to the quality of the refurbishment and re-engineering’.

Better marketsBut he didn’t. Which could be bad for the industry. Two demonstrators were unveiled in 2013, Angel’s re-tractioned and refurbished Class 317 and Eversholt’s Class 321.

In the case of Angel it was a case of the market working. The demonstrator is one of the Greater Anglia Class 317 units taken off lease by franchisee Abellio when Stansted airport traffic went south. Angel argues that if the company wants to get the trains back on lease they need to be attractive to the market – and have backed this commercial belief with the thick end of £7million.

But as Peter Wilkinson’s speech showed, DfT doesn’t really believe in the market if it thinks that the Government buying new trains is the way to get the market working. And just to really confuse matters, here is a written exchange in parliament.

Graham Jones (Hyndburn, Labour):To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to the answer of 25 November 2013, on the Manchester-Burnley railway line, if he will require that Northern Rail provides modern and quality rolling stock for the Manchester-Burnley rail route as a condition of accepting the proposal to be considered.

Stephen Hammond (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport; Wimbledon, Conservative): It is not the Department’s policy to specify age or other characteristics of rolling stock. This is a matter for train operators. It has been proposed that the Manchester-

Burnley service will be funded by Lancashire county council for its first three years of operation. If this is agreed, the Department’s policy is that it will be for the council to decide whether to accept the terms offered by Northern Rail.

It is, of course, easy to make mock of such confusion, but we need to consider the message being sent out to the banks who fund private sector investment in the railways.

Consider the situation in the aircraft industry.

List price for the new generation Airbus A320NEO or Boeing 737 MAX is around $100million. Current versions are a bit cheaper and, of course, if you are Ryanair or EasyJet, you negotiate a substantial quantity discount.

Airbus is building 42 A320s a month. Boeing is about to ramp up from 38 to 42 a month. So in 2014 these two manufacturers will build more of these aircraft than the total number of new vehicles for the five years of CP5 identified in the table above. The order backloads for these designs are 4,200 for the Airbus and 3,400 for the Boeing. And, of course these are only part of the two companies’ product lines.

So if you’re a capital finance director at a major bank, which market would you rather put your money into? Aviation, which, while it can be volatile, is a genuine market with commercial customers and known residual values; or Britain’s railways, where Government is anti leasing and, while rightly claiming that the market doesn’t work, lacks the self knowledge to realise that the market can’t work when cascades are centrally directed, seemingly at random, by government itself?

Good as new: Angel’s ‘317’ demonstrator. Bill Turvill



Clapham revolutionised competence testing and certifi cation in the signalling profession

As I write we are approaching the 25th anniversary of the accident at Clapham on

12 December 1988 which left 35 dead and many more injured. The cause was a loose wire which came in contact with a relay terminal causing a track circuit to show ‘unoccupied’. The bare metal at the end of the wire had neither been snipped off at the insulation, nor wrapped in insulating tape.

Unless you were around at the time it is impossible to appreciate the wave of self recrimination which swept through the signalling profession when the report of the public inquiry was published in September 1989. The profession, which saw itself as the primary guardian of rail safety, had caused a major fatal accident through sloppy procedures in a safety critical activity.

Having checked for loose wires across the network, the next task was to check the instructions for such jobs. Forty years after nationalisation it was found that diff erent practices still existed within the Regions. A new set of standardised procedures resulted.

With these in place, it was possible to test competence against a common standard. And in 1994, the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE) launched its Licensing Scheme for Signalling & Telecommunications (S&T) staff undertaking safety critical work.

IRSE based the scheme on aviation industry practice. Licence categories associated with testing and maintenance naturally came fi rst, followed by installation, project engineering and engineering management.

In the past 20 years the scheme has been in use on the national rail network, London Underground, the S&T supply industry and abroad. Note the year when it was introduced – it was just in time to give newly-privatised employers the assurance that their employees and the contracted staff who would be working on their infrastructure were competent.

IndependentCentral to the scheme was the licensing of engineers and technicians independently of their employer. In a fragmented industry this provided license holders with independently certifi ed proof of competence in specifi c skills which they could show to potential new employers. Today, there are around 6,000 S&T licence holders and just under 30 Assessing Agents ranging from Network Rail and London Underground to the contractors and specialist providers.

One reader reminded me that the Sentinel card already provides access to the railways. Currently over 300,000 people are eligible but only around 80,000 cards are active at any one time. However this is not

the same as a licensing scheme, which includes a log book.

Licensing has to keep up with technology and I can see a busy time ahead for IRSE and its Assessment agents as installation of the European Train Control System ramps up in the coming years. Is fi tting ETCS to a train or locomotive a traction engineering or an S&T job?

I would argue that a Venn diagram of the disciplines and activities in such work would show a massive overlap. This will have to be refl ected in additions to the scope of the IRSE Licensing Scheme. It would be illogical to have unlicensed ‘rude mechanicals’ (like me) inter-acting with licensed S+T fi tters at the brake interface, say.

Staff ordWhich brings us to the question raised in my analysis of the Class 47 SPAD (signal passed at danger) at Staff ord (‘Informed Sources’ November 2013). How does a depot manager know that a fi tter is competent to work on, say, a Class 66, and what jobs that competence covers? And, how much experience does the applicant have of doing this work – which is recorded in the IRSE Scheme’s log-book.

It has always puzzled me why the rest of the railway has not adopted similar formal competence management and certifi cation arrangements. The Staff ord incident only emphasises that sooner or later

this chicken will come home to roost.Obviously, a competence-based

licensing scheme and logbook is the solution. And over the years the IRSE has off ered to extend its licensing scheme to other disciplines, or run similar schemes, or help others to set up their own systems of competence certifi cation. Other than London Underground electrifi cation staff who use the IRSE scheme, the approaches have come to naught.

Reasons for not adopting licensing have included that it is all too diffi cult and bureaucratic, too expensive and too restrictive. Well, the latter is true, in that licensing restricts people being taken on to carry out tasks for which they are not adequately qualifi ed.

So how did the IRSE Scheme get off the ground and fl ourish, since the same arguments could have been made 20 years ago? Simply the industry’s shame and the pressure of the critical public inquiry. Had the Staff ord SPAD ended in disaster, extension of licensing to other disciplines might even now be under way. Will it take another major accident with many casualties to convince all sections of the railway industry which employ people to undertake safety critical activity that they should emulate other safety critical industries such as nuclear, aviation, marine and even domestic gas fi tters, which all have some type of formal competence certifi cation system for staff undertaking safety critical work?

Licensing – time to follow signallers’ lead

Class 47 No 47843, the loco involved in the Staff ord SPAD, on Crewe depot. Jack Boskett



New licenses and certifi cates answer some questions raised by the Staff ord SPAD

How can operators recruiting drivers be sure that someone is competent, current on the traction

involved and has the necessary route knowledge?

A reader wrote in reminding me that The Train Driving Licences and Certifi cates Regulations 2010 (TDLCR), which have covered new-entrant drivers operating international services through the Channel Tunnel since October 2011, have been extended to new entrant domestic drivers in the UK from 29 October 2013.

TDLCR bring into UK law the requirements of the European Commission Directive 2007/59/EC. This is aimed at making cross border train operation easier. Related aims

are the creation of a more fl exible labour market for train drivers with common standards across Europe and increasing public confi dence in the rail system.

In the UK driver licensing is being introduced progressively. It will not apply to all existing drivers until 29 October 2018. Drivers working on metros or only in engineering possessions will not need licences.

According to the Offi ce of Rail Regulation (ORR), which is responsible for licensing, TDLCR will assess physical and psychological fi tness and general driving competence against EU-wide minimum requirements. It will establish a ‘single certifi cation’ model for training and competence management of drivers by train operators and infrastructure

ALLOCATION OF COMPETENCE

LICENCE General knowledge ■ Principles of operation■ Understanding of risks■ Safe behaviours

CERTIFICATEInfrastructure ■ How the infrastructure works■ Route knowledge■ Operating rules■ Emergency procedures and degraded working■ Language skills

Rolling stock■ How the rolling stock works■ Carrying out checks and test prior to departure■ Driving safely■ Dealing with malfunctions and emergencies

DRIVER LICENSESCOMING IN


Informed Sources

managers and ‘reinforce management of driver skills and knowledge as a key part of an operator’s safety management system’.

ORR also claims that the new Regulations will allow recognition in Great Britain of the validity of licences issued by other member states. This sounds a touch naïve. Given the diff erences in signalling practices, speed signalling versus distance to run, for example, plus cab layouts and safety systems, for example, I would suggest that a formal conversion programme would be required, possibly refl ected in a national endorsement on the licence.

Certifi cateIn addition to the licence, which is valid for 10 years, drivers will also have to carry a certifi cate describing the rolling stock they are competent to drive and the infrastructure

they can drive on. Certifi cates will be issued and owned by a driver’s employer.

Since most driver training and assessment is carried out by train operators, ORR will certify driver training and assessment arrangements as part of the operator’s overall safety management system assessment. The train operators will need to demonstrate technical and operational competence and suitability to organise training courses. Independent training providers, outside a safety management system, will be able to apply to be a recognised trainer. In addition to issuing licences ORR will also inspect and monitor train operators’ arrangements for driver training, competence management and fi tness.

During the 10-year validity of a licence there will be medical assessments every three years. Competence will be assumed on the basis that a driver continues to be employed under a safety management system that ensures that drivers remain competent. That sounds a bit circular to me.

Withdrawal of a license will depend on a ‘recognised doctor or psychologist’ reporting in writing that a driver is no longer fi t to drive trains or if a trainer declares that the driver no longer has the necessary skills, knowledge or general abilities.

When a driver leaves an employer, their certifi cate is no longer valid. Drivers employed under contract, where work for a particular operator may be intermittent, can have their certifi cates ‘reactivated’ and reissued if they return within 12 months. This is conditional on the employer

being satisfi ed that the driver is still competent.

Come 2018, experienced drivers applying for their fi rst licence will normally be considered to have met the training and assessment requirements if they have maintained their general competence through their current employment. ORR points out that routine reassessments of general knowledge are not required if the driver continues to work under a safety management system that ensures drivers remain competent. More circularity. Reassessment

may be needed after an accident or incident, or after a person has not been employed as a driver for a ‘signifi cant period’.

To keep their certifi cates valid, the driver’s competence must be regularly assessed. It is up to the employer to decide the frequency of assessments, but TDLCR specifi es at least every three years; or after the driver has not driven the relevant rolling stock or on the relevant route, for more than one year. Routine medicals are required at least every three years and annuallly over age 55.

AND FINALLY…

After a particularly busy year, which started with the West Coast main line franchise competition fi asco and never slowed down, it is time to wish readers a joyful Christmas and a happy new year. Special thanks must go to informed sources and the readers who take the time to correct and educate. My gratitude also to the drivers and signallers in Britain, France and Italy who in 2013 sped me safely and reliably by train on business and pleasure. Leaving Zurich at 13.34 local time and opening our front door in Welwyn Garden City at 22.40 was a reminder of just what rail can achieve.

Get your licence, and you could be driving here one day: ScotRail Driver Team Manager Martin Wyber shows a youngster around a DMU cab. Courtesy First ScotRail

Driver’s eye view: the Paddington approaches. Cleek Railway Solutions

Close to scene of tragedy: Thames Turbo and HST near the site of the 1999 Ladbroke Grove rail accident. Cleek Railway Solutions


Blood and Custard

CROSSRAIL VISION ANDREW Dow sent us this little sketch map that his father drew in mid-1941 to accompany an article he wrote in a London evening paper proposing cross-London connections. His father George worked in railway publicity departments before rising to become a Divisional Manager in Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent.

His cartographic work is said to have been an inspiration to celebrated tube map designer Harry Beck.

‘Some of the lines may seem familiar to you, now that they are being developed, over 70 years later’ writes Andrew. ‘His proposal pre-dated the official proposal which is often credited with being the genesis of Crossrail.’

George Dow’s 1941 sketch map.

FULL OF WIND

It is interesting that the scandal of the non-performing Fyra trains has penetrated the Dutch national consciousness to the extent that the Amsterdam edition of the Metro has the representative of manufacturer Ansaldo-Breda telling the Dutch Railways man ‘See, I told you Fyra could go at incredible speeds’ as they are blown away by the St Jude’s storm, without further explanation. Our thanks to reader John Batts for this one.

Maybe the Cumbernauld News is relocating the town to the USA with that usage of ‘train station’....

Scottish referendum outcome decided?

Look at this exciting impression of a Crossrail train from HM Treasury’s National Infrastructure Plan. We wonder, is it a Dutch EMU or a US warbonnet diesel?

OSBORNE GOES DUTCH

PLEASE DON’T FLUSH THAT!Our thanks to reader Martin Ward for this picture of the drollery on the toilet lids on East Midlands Trains.

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41

IN S OC A I N W TH

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Forum

We welcome letters for ‘Forum’. Please send them, ideally by e-mail, to:

[email protected]

Modern Railways, Transport Writing Services, PO Box 206, Tunbridge Wells North TN1 2XA

Please supply your postal address, even if writing by e-mail. Please note that we may edit letters for publication. Views expressed in this letters feature are not necessarily those of the editors or publishers.

WIG-WAGS May I enlighten John Hurdley (‘Forum’ last month) as to why we have wig-wag lights at level crossings. The wig-wags were common on the Continent and elsewhere at the time the decision was taken to install full barriers instead of the ‘creaking anachronisms’ (John Peyton, Minister of Transport) of level crossing gates. The automatic half barrier (AHB) followed, again modelled on Continental practice, not long afterwards.

As the barriers, despite having red and white bands, with skirts at full barrier crossings, were less conspicuous and, unlike many of the gates which they replaced, always remained open until the passage of a train, the road traffi c signals which heralded their closure needed to be more arresting than the conventional road traffi c light signals at road junctions. A fl ashing light of whatever colour is more noticeable than a steady light; hence, for example, their wide use at sea and on motorways.

Experience at the few level crossings which were fi tted with conventional red, amber, green or just red and green steady lights showed that, because the light was normally green for long periods, drivers failed either to notice their presence or that they had changed from green to red. Brightside Lane in Sheffi eld was a notorious example. Up to the time of the accident at Hixon level crossing (6 January 1968) the wig-wags consisted of only a pair of alternately fl ashing red signals mounted on a black backing board which had a narrow, often dirty, white border. Post-Hixon a third, amber, light was fi tted to give the same message as at conventional road traffi c lights, namely that the red lights which were mandatory stop signals were about to show. While there had always been road traffi c signs warning vehicle drivers that they were approaching a level crossing these had been relatively unobtrusive.

The same applied to the whole of the appearance at the crossing itself because this had been the view of the industrial design consultant

at the time. I took the opposite view and considered that the whole appearance should shout ‘level crossing’ in the way that the old gates had done and which seemed to be sorely missed. Hence the backboard of the signal was edged with red and white bands to replicate those on the barriers, if installed, and the conspicuity of the signage improved.

As Mr Hurdley correctly says, many drivers seldom come across a level crossing. All the more reason, therefore, for it to announce its presence boldly when it is closed to road traffi c. Cost is not an issue; both conventional road and level crossing signal-lamp heads are essentially the same, they are mounted on the backing boards in the same way and they both have three signal heads.

Perhaps I could suggest that the written test for learner drivers should include several questions in a section on level crossings, especially emphasising that the fl ashing red lights are mandatory stop signals and not warning lights. In that way the population as a whole would become less ignorant of the meaning of the wig-wags and learn to observe them.MAJOR C. B. (‘KIT’) HOLDEN OBe BSc(eng) fiRSe cMilt

(formerly Assistant Chief Inspecting Offi cer of Railways, Health & Safety Executive), Forres, Moray

In answer to John Hurdley’s question last month about standard traffi c lights at level crossings, the answer is quite simple. With normal traffi c lights an emergency vehicle, with its blue lights on, can treat a red traffi c light as a Give Way sign. However they are not allowed to pass a wig-wag at red. I know this because I asked the question myself as I also wondered why level crossings were not fi tted with normal traffi c lights.

You fi nd wig-wags at level crossings and also outside fi re and ambulance stations. They enable the emergency vehicles to go straight out into the road without the risk of hitting another emergency vehicle.

The only crossing I know of that has normal traffi c lights on it is

Ramsbottom on the East Lancashire Railway. Their primary purpose is to stop the traffi c, on a busy road, to enable the gates to be closed.IAN DOBSON Tingley, West Yorkshire

RAILFREIGHT DEVELOPMENTSRecent comments in ‘Forum’ expressing scepticism about prospects for some railfreight fl ows deserve closer scrutiny.Long-term viability for Teesdock fl ows essentially depended upon securing traffi cs with additional forwarders, such as Containerships, Samskip/Eimskip, Bertsch AG and others. Similarly, the extremely poor loadings for the whisky trial indicates that a much stronger commitment from the whisky producers and hauliers is required before a sustainable rail business can be seen, but equally the rail off er has to be attractive!

Some readers may have been surprised to see Paignton mentioned for a possible railfreight terminal (p20, November), but in the late 1990s I became aware there was a substantial daily volume of dairy products moving from Paignton to Liverpool, plus, not too far away, another useful volume of foodstuff s moving from Okehampton to Warrington, which together would have made up a great daily train. Compared with the road alternatives, the rail option would have struggled to match the triangulation and return load logistics, which come as second nature to road hauliers. Nevertheless, Tesco’s rail business started out in the late 1990s as a single wagon fl ow from Daventry to Dundee, using wagons which had brought bottled water south from Inverness, and we all know how that has blossomed!

All these examples suggest the need for a greater business development ethos within the railfreight community, as distinct from ‘selling’ and responding to the occasional invitation to tender. Even so, with the best will in the world, not every prospect will turn into a great new piece of traffi c, what matters is that there is a steady stream of such work and don’t be too surprised if unexpected locations become involved .DAVID HODGSON(formerly Market Manager Consumer Goods with English, Welsh & Scottish Railway), Cambus

DOO DWELL TIMES I write regarding the statement from ‘Redrock’ that he has not noticed any

appreciable diff erence in dwell times compared to driver-only operated (DOO) trains (p36, last month). As a resident of Clapham Junction, I use South West Trains and Southern services to Waterloo and Victoria on a nearly daily basis. If we take a common train such as the Class 455, there is a considerable diff erence in times of opening the doors. On Southern DOO trains the doors open as soon as the train stops, whilst on South West Trains with a guard, it takes between four and six seconds to open.

Now as someone born and bred in Southern territory, I have been led to understand that dwell times are measured in seconds to avoid hold ups, so whilst four to six seconds does not sound a lot, it must make inroads in the peak periods. A 4-Vep would have been nearly completely unloaded in that time at Waterloo in the slam door days. PETER HARRISON London SW11

With reference to the letters from ‘Redrock’ and Dick Hassard last month regarding the value of guards, I think both may have missed the point.

What I see all too often is the guard busily trying to collect fares when the train pulls into a station. They invariably fi nish off their transaction and keep the passengers waiting until they have. It can seem like an eternity to passengers waiting to alight, and indeed can be almost 30 seconds in extreme cases. Not all guards are the same - some anticipate stations and ensure they are ready for action when the train stops. Perhaps some re-training is the answer.HARRY L. BARKER North Berwick, East Lothian

MARLOW LINE With reference to your excellent Crossrail update last month, please could I point out that the new platform 6 at Maidenhead mentioned on p57 will be a west-facing bay for Marlow line trains. It will be too short and at the wrong end for Crossrail!

As I understand it the up relief line will be diverted through platform 5, allowing platform 4 to be used for reversing Crossrail trains. There will also be reversing sidings beyond the station.

It is not yet clear how the Marlow line will be operated post-electrifi cation. A refurbished four-car unit such as a Class 319 would be able to get into platform 2 at Bourne End but would be too long to clear


Forum

the junction for Marlow on platform 1. A 3x20m unit would just squeeze in but 31x series units are already long in the tooth. There are currently no two-car 25kV AC units.RICHARD PORTERWebmaster and Membership Secretary, Marlow-Maidenhead Passengers’ Association

CLASS 315S IN WALES Railfuture South Wales warmly welcomes the proposed electrification of the Valley lines radiating from Cardiff (November Modern Railways pp11 and 64). We understand that at present it is most likely that redeployed Class 315 or possibly 319 units will be used.

Without wishing to go into the relative merits of using new, old or tram trains, it seems strange that if it is the current intention to use three-car Class 315 units at 61m length, at least one new platform on the network is currently being built to 55m. I speak of one of the new platforms at Cardiff Queen Street, which is a bay platform to serve the Cardiff Bay shuttle. For the sake of six metres, surely it would be much cheaper to build the extra length that the authorities are presumably predicting will be needed now than to add this short length in seven years’ time.

Additional platform lengthening will probably be needed on most City Line platforms to accommodate three-car trains, as these were built in the 1980s for two-car trains. They are currently plenty long enough for

the traffic on offer (as Ian Walmsley observes in ‘How green are the Valleys?’) – it seems somewhat extravagant to pay possibly millions of pounds to extend these platforms when there is little likelihood of the patronage growing to use the platform extensions.JULIAN LANGSTONRailfuture South Wales

ALTERNATIVES TO HS2 David Cable (letter, November 2013 Modern Railways) says that, unless he has overlooked something, he does not recall seeing comprehensive costings of enhancements to existing lines from London to the Midlands and North. Well I can tell him that he has overlooked an awful lot.

There have been several reports issued since the High Speed 2 project was set in motion in January 2009. The January 2012 update to the previous Strategic Alternatives Studies included an intensive examination of the Rail Package 2 and 51M proposals which opponents to HS2 have been proposing.

The HS2 Strategic Alternatives Final Report was issued on 28 October 2013. Once again, it goes into the issue at great length.

The anti-HS2 brigade has latched on to those alternatives achieving a slightly better benefit to cost ratio than HS2 itself. But what none of the alternatives does is to produce the increased and released capacity that HS2 does, no matter how much the present routes are tinkered with. All of the alternatives will cause many

years of disruption that will make the West Coast upgrade look like a minor hiccup. The fact is that HS2 is the only realistic option for dealing with the continued increase in passenger numbers on our railway network.JOHN BRANDON By e-mail

SPARKS EFFECTAmish Patel (p3, November issue) is not quite correct when he says that the financial case for electrification projects is twofold. In addition to reductions in fuel costs and reductions in track maintenance costs, one must include reductions in rolling stock maintenance costs but then add on new fixed infrastructure operation and maintenance costs. Not included is the somewhat subjective ‘sparks’ effect which may contribute additional revenue.RICHARD BROWN ceng fice fcilt

Birmingham

LINESIDE TREES Rail closures in the South in the St Jude’s storm will have cost the nation dearly. This is due to serious lineside neglect since the days of steam when growth was cleared regularly, due to fire risk. The only line unaffected was HS1, where there are no trees near the track. The transition can be seen in the numerous rural photographs in over 400 albums published by Middleton Press, where the pictures are in date order at each location.

The lives of train drivers should not be put at risk and service

cuts should not prevent essential journeys. In Canada, a tree cutting train has been evolved with long reach arms: any need for men to climb dangerously on lineside banks is eliminated. It includes chipping equipment and transfer belts to load the waste onto an adjacent train of hoppers.

The train carrying the waste could run to a biomass power station, where the material could be dried and processed. VIC MITCHELLMiddleton Press, Midhurst, West Sussex

SHEFFIELD IN UNDER TWO HOURS We read in the November issue that St Pancras - Sheffield times are now just a shade over two hours. The way to get this already-impressive figure below the headline two hours is contained in another article in the November issue, describing the scope for enhancements at Market Harborough.

Here there is currently a 2.3 mile section of 75/60/85 mph right in the middle of a 20-mile section of otherwise 100 or above. By shifting the track to use the former London & North Western alignment, this could largely be eliminated. As the article explains, there are several other benefits to be gained here, so it really is a no-brainer.ADRIAN BEASLEYTenby, Pembrokeshire

What will serve an electrified Marlow branch? ‘165’ at Cookham, 21 June 2010. Paul Bigland


New trains, new signalling, Crossrail: FGW has a challengeon its hands in its new franchise, reports ROGER FORD

That negotiations between First Group and the Department for Transport over the terms of the new Direct Award Franchise Agreement ran pretty

close to the wire suggests that untangling the existing franchise, with its massive back-loaded premium payments and equally massive revenue support, took some time. But there was also much to be agreed on the detail of what Managing Director Mark Hopwood and his team are expected to deliver over the next couple of years.

A quirk of European procurement rules meant the initial agreement runs for only 23 months, with a new contract to be negotiated

in 2015 for the remaining period to the nominal start of the new replacement franchise in July 2016. DfT has to give 12 months’ notice when placing Single Tender Awards running for more than two years.

So while FGW now has the stability of the new Franchise Agreement, considerable uncertainty remains over what happens next. But does it matter?

Note that in the DfT press release announcing the Direct Award there was no mention of ‘July 2016’. Consider the highly polished ambiguity of this sentence: ‘A further contract will be negotiated before a long-term franchise is let’.

Massive taskGiven the massive task facing the franchise in running the railway while Network Rail presses on with the Great Western Route Modernisation (GWRM), it seems to me that this, surely deliberate, ambiguity gives DfT time to create an innovative approach to the franchise, refl ecting the many risks inherent in a route modernisation which dwarfs the West Coast in complexity.

Bidding for a new franchise to be let in July 2016 would be a serious distraction for the FGW management. As I argued in ‘Informed Sources’ last month, better by far to have the same team running Great Western through to the end of the route modernisation in 2018.

By then Hitachi Super Express Trains (SET) built under the Inter-city Express Programme (IEP) should be running under the wires with new signalling, overlaid with the European Train Control System.

A FRANCHISETO MODERNISE


These individual programmes are a series of interlocking phases. And then there is Crossrail.

Some have suggested that the agreement is a 23-month holding operation. But discussing the deal with FGW Managing Director Mark Hopwood makes it clear that with these new Direct Awards, Franchising Director Peter Wilkinson expects operators to keep driving the railway forward in terms of delivering real short term passenger improvements.

New trainsThus under the Direct Award FGW is tasked with working with DfT on the ‘delivery’ of a fleet of electric trains for the Thames Valley commuter routes. This will release the existing Class 165/166 Turbo diesel multiple-units.

But note that DfT says that these will go ‘to other areas of the franchise where they are needed’,

boosting capacity. In part this reflects the fact that the Class 165-166 fleets are captive because they exploited the more generous loading gauge on the Chiltern and Great Western systems.

But for FGW to keep an extra 151 DMU vehicles is an achievement, if not unexpected. Since he took over FGW, Mark Hopwood has proved adept at spotting DMUs coming off lease at other franchises and swooping in to snap them up for his business.

As for the size of the new electric fleet, Mr Hopwood notes that in the Thames Valley the scope of electrification has been extended progressively since the initial announcement that the wires would run to Oxford and Newbury. Now the Windsor, Henley and Marlow branches are to be wired and the ‘electric spine’ in the Control Period 5 High Level Output Specification will add Banbury-Oxford-Reading.

This leaves a rump of diesel services in the Thames Valley. West Ealing-Greenford becomes a shuttle service in 2015. There will also be the North Downs (Reading-Gatwick) service and ‘possibly’ some residual DMU operation on the North Cotswolds.

OHLE to Westbury?Newbury-Bedwyn remains on this list of DMU operations, even though extending the wires to Bedwyn would simplify commuter operations. FGW raised this issue with the DfT and the Department has now asked Network Rail for a feasibility study of extending electrification beyond Newbury, possibly to Westbury.

Of course, once you have a rolling programme of electrification, creeping incrementalism starts – as we are seeing in the North West. Should the wires reach Westbury, then it would be a relatively short distance to continue northwards to Bathampton Junction, where the Swindon-Bath line is reached – giving a diversionary route for electric services from Bristol.

IEP timetable In addition to the Networker Turbos, a small number of IC125 diagrams serve the Thames Valley and these are also likely to be replaced by EMUs. The draft timetable supporting the IEP business case has yet to be integrated with the specification for the replacement franchise. The number of IC125 replacement EMUs will be determined by this definitive timetable for the new IEP services.

Crossrail further complicates procurement. On the current schedule, Crossrail does not plan to start running to Maidenhead until December 2019. This means that the number of EMUs required to operate the FGW Thames Valley commuter services will increase as electrification extends and then, having peaked, will be cut back as Crossrail takes over.

But allowing for these known unknowns, and assuming no further electrification, Mark Hopwood estimates FGW’s EMU requirement at 30 to 40 four-car units. There is also the option of refurbished cascaded stock.

Class 319When he announced the go-ahead for the GW electrification, then Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis emphasised that the business case depended on the use of cascaded Class 319 EMUs from Thameslink to reduce the overall cost of the scheme. This remains an option.

Mr Hopwood adds that, as with most other commuter services, FGW has to cover a range of inner and outer-suburban duties. On the main line you want a high performance outer-suburban EMU while the Marlow and Henley branches could be better served with inner-suburban units.

With the former requirement in mind, Bombardier and Siemens are promoting 115mph versions of their respective new generation EMUs, Aventra and Desiro. Siemens’ modelling has shown that its Desiro Express could run within the current IEP timetable, with consequent benefits for capacity.

This gives new trains the edge. And there is also the matter of perception. Given the skills of the interior design companies and the refurbishment contractors, I don’t support the view that passengers would see refurbished Class 319s as old BR stock.

FGW power car at Swindon. Tony Miles


But equally, in terms of performance and reliability plus other benefi ts such as regenerative braking, refurbished Class 319s come a poor second to new trains. The decision on new build or refurbished, or a combination of both, is down to the DfT.

And a decision is needed soon. On the present electrifi cation schedule, substitution of Networker Turbos with EMUs is expected to start at the end of 2015. Note that the arrival of the Class 387 interim fl eet on Thameslink is to release 116 Class 319 vehicles in that timescale (p69, last month).

IEPIrrespective of what succeeds the 23-month agreement, the current FGW team is already deeply involved in the Inter-city Express Programme.

FGW has been appointed as the formal ‘relevant operator’ in the IEP contract, committing the franchise to ‘crack on’, as Mark Hopwood puts it, with a number of supporting roles within the Programme.

These include fi nalising the design with Agility and Hitachi, recruiting drivers, and starting the driver training programme, plus procuring IEP

TABLE 1: GREAT WESTERN IEP FLEET DELIVERY DATES

GREAT WESTERN MAIN LINE

Vehicles Type acceptance date

Bi-mode fi ve-car 5 2 February 2017

Electric eight-car (1) 8 20 October 2017

Train No Delivery Date Max sets available

Bi-mode servicedates fi ve-car 1 25 May 2017 0

4 16 June 2017 2

5 22 June 2017 2

6 30 June 2017 4

one per week to

36 8 February 2018 32

Electric servicedates nine-car (1) 37 15 February 2018 0

38 22 February 2018 0

39 1 March 2018 2

one per week to

57 6 July 2018 18

(1) Eight cars changed to nine to re� ect change of � eet composition following Swansea electri� cation decision.Now the � eet will comprise � ve-car bi-mode and nine-car electric units only. Source DfT

A Class 165 Thames Turbo unit bound for Paddington passes the electrifi cation storage depot east of Didcot on 19 October 2013. Ken Brunt


/ Network Rail Alliance Chief Executive, and Jim Morgan, Network Rail Infrastructure Director, that they jointly consider revised possession agreements to allow accelerated renewal.

Then there are the TOC’s own schemes, headed by the new £10million multi-storey car park at Bristol Parkway. There is also the £4.6million allocated to Great Western in Control Period 5 under the National Stations Improvement scheme. A further £1.5million is available if matching funding can be secured from local authorities.

Crossrail In addition to managing its contribution to the GWRM, FGW also has Crossrail at its London end. The new Agreement requires FGW to work with Crossrail to deliver the project.

From early 2015, the Greenford branch will terminate at West Ealing and there are also substantial station upgrades to manage at Ealing Broadway, Maidenhead, Hayes and Southall. Operationally, too, the new Crossrail service creates extra work.

Whereas at its eastern end Crossrail is taking over the existing Shenfi eld line services, FGW doesn’t have a discrete Paddington-Maidenhead service group to transfer to the new operator. So FGW will be responsible for radical reconstructive surgery to its timetable as Crossrail takes over the former Greenford paths out of Paddington plus Heathrow Connect.

Country endCritical to the success of a franchise are its relationship with the local authorities on the route. In the case of FGW, announcements on new arrangements it has put in place with local authorities to improve train service provision are imminent. Further investment in stations is also part of the new agreement.

When the franchise was let in 2006, the initial timetable was criticised for taking trains out, meeting only the basic Service Level Commitment (SLC) and even cascading some rolling stock away. But restoring the timetable has meant that for several years now FGW has been running a sizeable number of trains over and above the SLC requirement in the last franchise agreement.

Some of those trains were funded by FGW ‘because we felt it was the right thing to do after the 2006-07 shenanigans’, others by local authorities. When the new CrossCountry and South West Trains franchises cut back services in the West of England, DfT funded FGW to fi ll the gaps.

Service improvements depend on local authorities backing aspirations with funding and Mark Hopwood points to Devon, Cornwall, Oxfordshire and, most recently, Wiltshire as examples. Such improvements include the Devon and Cornwall branch lines, where Mr Hopwood claims that by the end of the last franchise all were at ‘best ever’ service frequencies. He instances Newquay, which increased from three trains a day to seven, with associated ridership increases.

Now, with the new Direct Award franchise, funding for all these additional services has been consolidated into the base specifi cation. And that includes the leases on the various DMUs the franchise has acquired over the years.

At a time when DfT is considering reversing the former Strategic Rail Authority’s policy of fewer, bigger franchises, Mark Hopwood is proud of the way in which the regional services acquired with

the absorption of the former Wessex franchise have fl ourished within FGW. He points to the latest Association of Train Operating Companies report showing that of the 10 fastest growing Community Rail lines in the country, six are ‘on our patch’.

Improvements continue, with two new services introduced with the December 2013 timetable

change. These were a half-hourly service from Paignton to Newton Abbot and restoration of the Melksham service with seven trains a day between Swindon and Westbury.

Regional authorities continue to discuss further improvements with FGW and under the new franchise FGW has allocated more staff to this

Set to terminate at West Ealing in 2015: a ‘165’ on the Greenford local service arrives at South Greenford on a working from Paddington in July 2008. Brian Morrison


activity. There has also been a signifi cant change in the funding of such schemes, with responsibility devolved from local authorities to Local Enterprise Partnerships, and Local Transport Boards. FGW expects that it will be able to do more.

Local authorities are always pressing for line re-openings. As Mr Hopwood says: ‘Everyone likes

to talk about re-opening railway lines, but of every 100 proposed 99 don’t have a chance of going anywhere’. Even so, FGW has two that are ‘top of the list nationally and well advanced’. These are Tavistock and Portishead, the latter being Phase One of the Metro West scheme for the Bristol area (p70, August 2013 issue).

Existing fl eet In addition to the new trains, there are the existing fl eets to be managed. FGW has acquired fi ve former IC125 Mk 3 buff et cars which are being stripped out and converted to Standard Class interiors. As Table 1 shows, the IC125 fl eet is going to have to remain in frontline service for another four or fi ve years but has just reached the point in the overhaul cycle where ‘a quite demanding programme’ of heavy maintenance will be required. The additional coaches are to support this programme by covering for vehicles out of service and will subsequently provide additional capacity.

Most of the FGW IC125s are on a dry lease, where the operator is responsible for maintenance. FGW has retained the technical capabilities to do this work in house. The heavy maintenance on power cars, for example, is carried out by FGW at Laira depot, which was one of the Level 5 facilities created by British Rail at the end of the 1980s to replace the previous practice of vehicles returning to works for their heavy overhauls.

Three other fl eet issues feature in the new Agreement. The Night Riviera stock is gaining two vehicles, one with berths, the other seated. Given that these will be going into works for some major attention, FGW is looking at what can be off ered in the seated vehicle, such as reclining seats.

And the day after the Direct Agreement was signed FGW declassifi ed one of the two fi rst class sections in the Class 166 DMUs to provide more capacity. As this fl eet goes through refurbishment to comply with the Persons with Reduced Mobility - Technical Standards of Interoperability requirements, one fi rst class section will be changed to standard class confi guration, leaving 16 fi rst class seats per set.

Finally, FGW has signed up to extend wi-fi to the IC125 fl eet and is currently working out the detail with DfT. The Class 180s are already fi tted.

PeopleOver the last fi ve years FGW has increased its workforce by over 400, in the form of extra train crew and maintenance staff for the additional DMUs, plus more gate-line staff and customer ambassadors at Paddington, Bath and Bristol. This expansion is set to continue.

As Mark Hopwood explains, ‘the reality is that we are going to be running this railway for the next few years in quite diffi cult circumstances. So what we want to do is improve the customer experience as much as possible at stations and on trains’. This includes more customer ambassadors supported by better information technology.

FGW has kept a tight grip on revenue protection in recent years. While it is not a requirement of the new Agreement, this will be ramped up. One proposal is that where there are gate lines, these will be staff ed up to the last train, both improving revenue protection and giving a staff presence to reassure late night travellers.

So, far from being a quiet interlude between franchises, FGW’s Direct Agreement gives Mark Hopwood one of the most demanding franchises to run. ‘While it’s a two-year deal, it’s a two-year deal with an eye for the long term’, he says, and as I close my notebook he adds with a grin ‘apart from all that, there’s nothing going on here’.

Right away: train dispatch at Swindon. Tony Miles

DMU passes Sydney: Class 158 at Bath, 5 August 2010. Ken Brunt


Gareth Race, Head of Rolling Stock Enhancements with Interfl eet, suggests ways to maximise the chances of success

For those of us involved in rolling stock modifi cation, the UK rail industry is an exciting place to be. The hive of activity around the accelerated re-franchise

programme, a series of regulatory enforced changes and an ongoing stream of more general upgrades and modifi cations provide a diverse and stimulating range of project opportunities.

Whilst I’m not going to list all such projects here, it’s worth mentioning a few examples to demonstrate the scale and variety on off er. The re-franchising process is a good starting point, as it often leads to signifi cant and complex projects ranging from system installations such as Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) and Wifi through to more complex interior refurbishments, vehicle reconfi gurations and catering modifi cations.

Remote condition monitoring (RCM) systems are being more widely recognised as a method for improving vehicle reliability and operational performance. New build projects, such as the Inter-city Express Programme and Thameslink, and infrastructure electrifi cation projects increase competition for the re-lease of rolling stock.

This leads to projects on existing rolling stock, ranging from corrosion repairs to re-tractioning. From a regulatory perspective, many of the legacy fl eets are in the process of being modifi ed to support compliance with the Technical Specifi cation for Interoperability for Persons

with Reduced Mobility (PRM TSI), with measures ranging from adding door sounders to replacing toilets. On top of this, the industry is facing its most signifi cant national change, arguably ever, with the introduction of the European Rail Traffi c Management System, or ERTMS.

This is all extremely positive news for everyone in the industry involved in implementing such modifi cation programmes. As we look forward at planning how to undertake such projects, we need to ask ourselves what makes the diff erence between a successful and unsuccessful project? All of the examples cited above are major undertakings costing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds each and all representing a hugely signifi cant workload. So how do we ensure they are completed successfully and represent long term value for money whilst ensuring the minimum of disruption to the passengers and freight that our industry transports?

I’ve identifi ed ten key factors which support the implementation of such projects and ultimately allow us to deliver successful projects.

Ten key factors 1. Stakeholder understanding and engagement is essential.Every project, large or small, has a number of parties with vested interests in all or part of the outcome. These range from design teams and

approvals bodies, through owners, operators and unions, to Network Rail, the Offi ce of Rail Regulation or the DfT. As a general rule, the bigger the project the more signifi cant and diverse the number of stakeholders will be.

Some stakeholders will fully understand their role within the larger project, some won’t, but all will have their own varying needs and desires. Bringing them all together at the right times to agree a common understanding and approach can be a signifi cant challenge. Nevertheless, ensuring all stakeholders are engaged with the project, with everyone able to have their say and no party feeling left out is essential for success. The absence of such engagement can often be a fundamental reason for a project’s failure.

2. Project management is not a waste of money.If no one owns a project then there is no single person responsible for managing a smooth transition through a project’s various stages. Without this, cracks can appear through which successful projects can disappear!

Far from being a waste of money, a good project manager is often the ‘glue’ which holds a project together. They will ensure that the project teams understand what is required from them, and are in a position to deliver their elements of a project without having to worry about broader and often (to them) irrelevant issues. The project manager is able to take a more holistic view without being involved in the daily details, to understand the impacts that a decision from one part of a project can have on another. The bigger and more

Rolling stock modsENSURING A SUCCESSFUL PROJECT

Windows being cut during modifi cation of a former buff et vehicle into an HST seating vehicle at Wabtec Scotland. Tony Miles

More details on 4thfriday.co.uk or call 01892 863358

You too can join the Fourth Friday Club!The Modern Railways Fourth Friday Club is a convivial meeting place for railway industry executives, giving the opportunity for valuable networking and

a chance to hear an after-lunch speech from one of the industry’s leading � gures.

Roger Ford of Modern Railways (below right) gives a pre-lunch starter speech in

his own inimitable style. After lunch at the January meeting, the Golden Whistles awards for excellence in railway operations will be presented.

Formerly with Eurostar, Richard Morris is now running his own consultancy, PIMS, and is presently working for the Department for Transport. He has enjoyed a long career on the railways and is an engaging speaker on railway operations.

FREE FIRST-TIME TRIAL FOR RAILWAY INDUSTRY PERSONNELIf you have not attended the club before, your � rst meeting is free! E-mail [email protected] to secure a place.

FRIDAY 24 JANUARY 2014, GRAND CONNAUGHT ROOMS, 61 GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON WC2Speaker: Richard Morris

FEATURING THE GOLDEN WHISTLE AWARDS FEATURING THE GOLDEN FEATURING THE GOLDEN FEATURING THE GOLDEN

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The January meeting will feature the Golden Whistle Awards, an awards scheme

run jointly by the Institution of Railway Operators and the Fourth Friday Club. Modelled on the successful Golden Spanners, the ‘Whistles’ reward excellence by drawing on the statistical data compiled by various bodies on the railway.ADDED VALUE! Morning conference

session on railway operating issues,free to Fourth Friday Club members.

Papers from Network Rail and others.FourthFridayClubwww 4thfriday co uk


complex a project becomes, so the bigger and more complex become the range of issues and the more important this role becomes.

Ultimately, the Project Manager is the person who ensures that all the other nine points in this list are considered and managed.

3. Structured review processes mean no surprises.Whilst this is really part of the overall stakeholder engagement process, it’s worthy of a section of its own. Reviews can be about any part of a project, from high level contract reviews through to detailed design reviews where details are presented and discussed.

Having a structured and controlled review process is about ensuring ongoing stakeholder engagement through the lifecycle of a project. It’s about ensuring that there are ‘no surprises’, giving the various stakeholders the opportunity to discuss their individual requirements before it’s too late for the project to capture, consider and action. It also gives multiple stakeholders with similar interests the opportunity to understand the broader project and the impact of their views on the project and others.

This process should significantly reduce the risk of issues being raised when it is too late for the project to capture them without significant cost and timescale impacts.

4. Understanding the core requirements prevents grey areas.For a project to be seen as successful each element of work associated with the delivery of the project across its lifecycle has to be covered by someone. During the early phases, strong planning ensures that these elements are identified and divided up between those who are best placed to manage and deliver them. Any areas which are not allocated often cause conflicts during later phases of the project and

ultimately may tarnish the reputation of an otherwise excellent project.

Once you understand that all the broader building blocks are in place, each individual element of a project then has to be considered. At a task level, knowing what you’re trying to achieve and by when is key. Understanding what inputs and outputs are required and expected, and ensuring that the output of one phase is the right input to the next is essential. Tools such as Gantt charts support this, as they provide visual representations of the links between different project elements and the information which is passed. They allow users to quickly and easily understand how tasks are linked, and analyse how a change in one task can impact a broader project structure.

5. Taking a whole lifecycle approach can reduce costs and increase success.Projects are often viewed as discrete activities with value for money seen to be defined as the provision of the cheapest solution across each element of a project. It’s important to realise however that expending a little extra effort during one phase of a project can create significant savings in other areas.

As an example of this, let’s assume we’re installing a complex system onto a vehicle which has lots of individual cables. The cheaper way to design and manufacture the wiring is ‘point to point’, with each cable terminated at its ultimate final location only. This however can often lead to a lot of wiring being completed during installation, with mistakes being hard to rectify and maintenance being almost impossible. An alternative approach is the

Seating being fitted to a Class 180 DMU during refurbishment at Wabtec Scotland. Tony Miles

Powerpoints being fitted to a Class 180 DMU at Wabtec Scotland. Tony Miles


use of electrical harnesses. This increases design and material manufacture costs, but significantly reduces installation time and risk, and makes for an easily maintainable plug-and-play type system which can provide significant overall benefits to the project.

6. No modification is perfect first time. With all complex modifications, there will always be errors, changes and unexpected conflicts which do not become apparent until the first installation is completed. For more complex and intrusive modifications, vehicle variants and build tolerances often mean that no two vehicles are ever the same. Planning for, and undertaking, a first-in-class modification helps to manage this risk.

Completing a first-in-class modification allows the design to be proven, tested and optimised before it is applied to a fleet of vehicles. This does mean a slightly longer timescale, but often this is recouped through improved designs, less fleet revisits and rework costs and more efficient and repeatable, higher quality installations.

7. Don’t forget that we are a working railway. Once you’ve got over the hurdle of installing a modification, any new system has to be operated and maintained. This leads to requirements for lifecycle support including updated maintenance documents, operations manuals, training, and spares. Without consideration of these elements during the planning and delivery phase of a project, the operator of the vehicles is unable to make best use, if any, of the new or modified system.

A further challenge associated with undertaking modifications can be obtaining access to vehicles which are required daily by the operators to provide their service. Long term heavy maintenance type work can often be planned for,

but one of the challenges of delivering smaller on-depot modifications is that the maintenance cycles are often quite dynamic.

The key message here goes back to my previous points on planning and stakeholder involvement. Working together to understand what can and can’t be achieved to ensure that projects are delivered efficiently and effectively but with the minimum disruption is the aim. Investing, up front, in more efficient designs and undertaking first in class installations can all help to improve the repeatability and reduce the impact of installations on the operator.

8. Have a robust change-control process. Change happens. Projects are dynamic, and whether it’s a change in personnel, a design modification or a programme delay, change is part of every project.

The key is to ensure that a robust control process is in place to manage change, such that the overall impacts of the change on the project are understood and analysed before decisions are made. This means that the impact of the change across the entire project (stakeholders, core requirements, lifecycle, compliance) need to be considered, reviewed and managed before any are implemented.

9. Ensure good contract and risk management Ensuring a strong project structure and framework, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities becomes more important as the scale of a project increases. The traditional view here is that contracts exist to protect the buyer, but increasingly it’s being recognised as a mutual activity that protects both buyer and seller alike. More and more often collaborative approaches are being adopted, adding value by promoting (amongst other things) closer engagement and shared risk with all parties

working in the interests of the project rather than themselves. The principals of collaborative working aim to deliver better value for money across entire projects.

10. Don’t forget the basics - Quality, Safety and EnvironmentWhen all is said and done, it is the delivery of a safe, environmentally sustainable and high quality outcome which is the ultimate project aim – of course on time, and on budget.

Everybody wants and expects quality, irrespective of the product they purchase or supplier that they purchase from. What is imperative is that we deliver this quality in both a safe and sustainable way, balancing the needs of our clients with the needs of the individuals involved within the projects and the wider needs of society. The true test of a successful project is looking back in 10 years time and seeing that everything’s still working as intended.

Reducing overall costs Now I know what you’re all thinking – this all sounds great, but it all leads to an increase in project costs. The key message that I hope has come across is that if we are looking at discrete elements of a project then yes, implementing these 10 points will increase costs in some areas, but taking the holistic view they should reduce overall project costs by promoting value for money across a total project.

Clearly there is a scale factor here; however all of these points are equally as important (if not simpler to deal with) on small modification projects as they are on the large ones.

This saving is brought about through more efficient use of resources, improved planning and control, and by promoting balance across a total project. A by-product of this is that this reduction in cost can be completed with an increase in overall quality and a reduction in risk.

Universal access toilet in Abellio Class 156 modified to meet PRM TSI.

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Chris Gibb, in an interview with Tony Miles, re� ects on a career that has taken him froma junior clerk to Chief Operating O� cer at one of the country’s most proli� c operators

Surprising many in the railway industry by announcing his retirement at just 50, Chris Gibb’s � nal duty as Chief Operating O� cer of Virgin Trains took him to Birmingham

Moor Street station to join the West Midlands Railway Service of Remembrance, where he laid a wreath on behalf of Virgin - describing it as one of his most important duties.

As he prepared to head o� to Virgin’s Birmingham HQ to ‘hand in his phone and keys’ before joining Network Rail as a non-executive director, the self-confessed ‘lifetime railwayman’ gave a last interview to Modern Railways’ Tony Miles.

Chris Gibb re� ected on a career that has taken him from a junior clerk to Chief Operating O� cer at one of the country’s most proli� c operators.

Tony Miles - What got you started, and were you interested in trains from a young age?Chris Gibb - I started my interest in trains because my grandfather lived in Harpenden and I often

used to go and stay with him. Sometimes he’d take me to Welwyn North to watch the Deltics, and at other times he’d take me down to Harpenden to watch the busy Midland main line. That was what sparked my interest - from the age of six onwards. I’ve always loved the railway and I’ve had a fantastic career on it since leaving school at 17. I’ve gone from junior clerk to being a Director of Network Rail (from next week) so I’m delighted with that.

What was the interest? Did you want to be an engine driver or were you more fascinated by how it all worked?The railway is an amazing jigsaw puzzle, and people don’t appreciate how many pieces have to all interlock together to make everything happen. I’ve always found that fascinating, and as the railways have been privatised I’ve been very much involved in all of that - the way it was privatised and the way it’s changed since. So I understand the jigsaw puzzle well, and that’s the secret to having

VIRGIN TRAINS’ COO MOVES ON

Chris Gibb brie� ng journalists at Virgin Trains’ Euston o� ces in June 2008. Tony Miles

a senior management job in today’s industry - knowing why things are set up, the way they are and how to make things change. Hopefully I’ll be able to use some of that knowledge at Network Rail.

You went through BR Management Training?I was a BR management trainee at the age of 21, and I did a year’s BR management training based in The Grove in Watford (now a posh hotel). I was fully trained to be a signalman, I was passed out as a signalman and worked boxes on my own quite regularly in my early 20s. I’ve been a fully trained guard as well and I’ve worked as a guard. So I’ve done a fantastic collection of things.During my management training year I even did things like sorting the post on a Travelling Post O� ce, just a memory now but a fantastic memory for me.

Is that experience missing from the railways now? That range of skills, like being in a signalbox and what you gained through all the other roles you had isn’t there in the next generation?I can see now - perhaps after some years of not doing it - that quite a number of companies are investing in the long-term future by recruiting new people into the industry from university and training them in all sorts of things - including lending them to other companies for a while to learn what the other companies do. I do see an increasing trend of people moving around the industry and working for di� erent parts of it. Network Rail is doing that, within Virgin we’ve been recruiting school leavers recently, paying for them to go through university, and employing them during the university holidays as on-board sta� so they get customer experience as well. So I can see that another generation of

younger managers will come through, given time. The railway is fantastically upbeat and optimistic now compared to times during my career when I came close to being made redundant - like most railway people did in the late 1980s when the possibility of closure and redundancy faced pretty much everybody in the railway. Today’s generation has largely forgotten that - it isn’t happening at the moment, it’s expanding almost day by day and that’s fantastic.

You would recommend the railway as a career then?Without any reservation I’d recommend it as a career. I’ve loved every bit of my career, I’ve done some really awful jobs, but I’ve learned a lot in them

and made a lot of really good, lifelong friends and that’s a fantastic thing. I’d go back and do it all again from the age of 17!

So what was the worst job you had?One of my � rst jobs was keeping signalmen’s personnel records. So every time a signalman got inspected or passed out on another grade of signalbox, I had to write it down on their card. Obviously this was in the days before computers, and it was staggeringly boring, but it taught me everything there was to know about what signalmen did and how the world of signalmen was constructed.

I didn’t do it for very long - I moved on to issuing free passes for sta� which was equally interesting

Chris Gibb’s � nal duty as COO of Virgin Trains was at the West Midlands Railway Service of Remembrance at Birmingham Moor Street on 8 November 2013. Tony Miles

An 11-car Pendolino climbs north towards Shap at Scout Green on 26 May 2012. Colin Irwin


and fascinating. At the time everybody in the railway was entitled to a number of free passes every year, and it was me that issued them, so I exercised quite a degree of power over many of my colleagues!

Are there things you miss from the BR days? – Are there things we’ve lost?There were things that I personally loved. For a while I was a junior manager in the South West of Scotland: Ayr to Stranraer and Kilmarnock to Gretna Junction was my patch. There were two managers, myself and a very experienced chap called John Campbell and we ran the railway, we did freight, passenger, signalling, operations, PR, marketing, we spoke to the coal mines, we spoke to the customers, we did absolutely everything. It was a true vertically-integrated railway, and as one individual junior manager that was a fabulous place to be. It was great experience for me.

I worked every kind of signalbox available in that area, as well as re-railing coal trains in collieries and all sorts of things like that. It was a very

rewarding and ‘good experience’ job, but when I look at how ScotRail has prospered now and the expertise that is put into running a dedicated passenger operation in Scotland, I can see the bene� ts of the disciplined railway structure that exists today, compared to the ‘jack of all trades and master of none’ situation that existed at that time.

The truth was that it was in dreadful decline. In my time in South West Scotland we’d lost the sleeper from Stranraer to Euston, we’d lost the newspaper tra� c, we lost the parcels tra� c - the whole night-time railway that had been thriving up until the mid-80s disappeared completely in about six months. Night-times went from being the busiest time of the day to being the quietest in a matter of months, which was tragic.

How did the move to being in charge of ‘making trains run’ take place?I was in the job in Scotland in 1990 at the age of 27, and I couldn’t see any future. A lot of people were being made redundant and really it was a case of just waiting for older people to retire. I would have

been there a very long time, so I decided to move to Swindon to what was then just being rebranded from ‘Provincial’ to ‘Regional Railways’ and joined Theo Steel and John Pearse in Regional Railways, which was a fantastic era. Regional Railways was really going places: it was a very innovative organisation and I worked for some fabulous people in Swindon. The little team that I was there with has subsequently produced four managing directors, and had a big say on how the railway has developed.

In that role I was responsible for the Cardi� -Portsmouth and Cardi� -Manchester routes and for making them work. So I designed the timetable, planned how they were going to operate, drove the performance and drove the revenue. Again it was a very vertically integrated railway and was a great experience. That took me through to privatisation: that bit of the railway was bought by Prism - obviously it completely changed with Railtrack taking the infrastructure at that point and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of the private sector, but Prism turned out to be a great bunch of people: Giles Fearnley, Len Wright, Dominic Booth, David Weir were all great people to work for. It was a great organisation, much maligned but very, very successful. The Prism team sold out to National Express two weeks before the Hat� eld accident - their timing was good because the railway went into a meltdown after that.

Virgin Cross Country MD, Chris Gibb thanks staff at Birmingham New Street Station for their work, on the last day of the franchise, 10 November 2007. He then saw off the last Virgin Cross Country service, to Manchester Piccadilly. Tony Miles

Passengers leave and join a Virgin Trains Pendolino, forming a London-bound service on Platform 5 at Crewe on 26 March 2013. (Distorted by the fast shutter speed, the departure screen was working correctly!) Tony Miles

A Virgin Trains Pendolino heads north past the Network Rail infrastructure materials base at Basford Hall, near Crewe, on 26 March 2013. Tony Miles


I stayed there through changing Wales & West into Wales & Borders and Wessex, and later joined Virgin ten years ago in 2003. MD of CrossCountry was probably my dream job - the kind of job I’d always wanted, I had � ve fabulous years at CrossCountry and loved every bit of it. I moved on to do something di� erent in West Coast, drove it through the VHF timetable - which was just as rewarding in a di� erent way - and I’m retiring at what I think is the top of my game and at the top of Virgin’s game as well. Tony Collins and I have decided that it’s a good time to go out: performance is on the up, we’re on the cusp of a new deal with the DfT, and it’s time for our protégés to take over and run it through the next phase of its history.

You’ve run trains through from what Alastair Darling called the ‘boxes of fresh air’ on rural lines through to 11-coach Pendolinos, rammed full on a peak Friday evening service. Some very interesting things and maybe a fondness for some of those isolated rural lines?I’ve fondness for it all and having worked in Scotland, England and Wales I’m very fortunate to have had a taste of everything. My retirement dos have stretched from Glasgow to London and all parts in between, which is fabulous. It’s all been di� erent, and it’s just left me with a lot of experience around the whole country which I think will be very useful when it comes to Network Rail. Having

worked absolute-block signalboxes in Scotland I know what the signalmen are still going through. I learned to be a signalman in Stirling North box, which is amazingly still there, and I remember the signalman telling me in 1984 that I’d better make the most of it ‘because the box would be gone soon’. There is still no formal plan to replace that box!

Do you � nd yourself standing on bits of the network having little reminiscences?Of course I do. You see all sorts of trivia, for instance, I hear an announcement on a station in Cornwall by the recorded information system, which we installed in the early days of Prism. It was called ‘Project Inform’ and it brought passenger information to every station on Wales & West, which was a huge undertaking and made a very big di� erence to what customers experienced. The announcements were done by two real people; one was a lady from the booking o� ce in Truro called Ruth, she did the English announcements, and a man called Eryl did the Welsh. You can still hear their voices across Wales and the West Country via that information system, which is still alive and well nearly 16 years after we installed it. There are lots of things and, like any railwayman with a long career, wherever you go you bump into people you know. My wife dreads going on a train with me because wherever we are in the country we’ll bump into somebody I know, which is a great thing.

After an initial ‘disconnect’ between businesses at privatisation there has been a coming together more as part of ‘the railway’ but also perhaps a better loyalty of sta� , as often seen during your time at Virgin where we’ve even found them bringing out pictures of their Chief Operating O� cer at training events and so on. Helping them to feel part of that big organisation, but also their role as part of a bigger team, has perhaps been a big step?I think the industry has matured: it was privatised at a great hurry, for very questionable motives at the time, and it took a long time to get it to settle down. I think that would have been the case for pretty much any industry - especially if it was completely restructured in the way the railway industry was. I think now that maturity means we can compete as well as cooperate. Here we are on Moor Street station and the relationship between Virgin and Chiltern is a good example of that. We’re cut-throat competitors for a lot of things - you only need to look at the tone of their advertising to see that that is true - but when one of us has a problem we’re the � rst people to carry each other’s customers - and we can do that in less than 60 seconds now.

I think that’s a really good test of how that all works. We have a good relationship with the senior team at Chiltern and even though we’re competitors we work very closely together. That


can actually be said about most train companies and most relationships in today’s railway - which is good.

Did it make you sad in 2012 when your report into the WCML had to conclude that bits of it were in such a poor state?Yes it did, because that should have been obvious earlier and we should have been able to make progress on those things earlier than we did. Fortunately it wasn’t rocket science and it didn’t need ten years of heavy engineering work and major investment. It needed some real attention to detail: that has been forthcoming over the last 12 months and we can see a di� erence. My last full day at Virgin, November 7th, saw a PPM of 97.5%, and we’ve met our target for the last 11 weeks, so that’s pretty good and I think we’ve turned the corner. There are other train companies on other routes that are now behind us in the league table and I think people will focus on those in the next few months.

So it has proved that the six month secondment was a good decision at the time?Yes, but all I did really was go out in the night and listen to what people were saying about what was wrong. I listened and absorbed it, and then did something about it. I think that’s always the solution; if you’ve got a problem go and talk to the people that know. Don’t just decide to employ a team of consultants, just go and listen to the people that probably have the answers. In this huge industry there are always people that know what the problem is. People said to me, ‘I’ll ask

you in 12 months’ time what’s come out of your work’: here we are 12 months on, and it’s made a real di� erence. It wasn’t just down to me though, it was a team e� ort, the arrival of Dyan Crowther as Route Director, the new appointment of the area directors, all of that has made a big di� erence.

The three area directors on the WCML live and breathe the day-to-day performance and that’s what you need. They ring us and tell us what’s going on just seconds after there’s a problem and that � lls me with con� dence. It’s a seven-day railway, not one you can do Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. If a freight train breaks down at 3am something has got to be done about it there and then, or it’ll still be there in the morning peak.

What have been the highlights in your 15 years as an operator?There are a few, it’s incredibly hard to make a choice, but I think an evening shift as the running foreman at Glasgow Central during the Glasgow Fair fortnight, when most of the population of Glasgow went to Blackpool and we ran as many trains as we could from Glasgow to Blackpool. All sets of Mk1s with a loco at each end and every train had to be coupled and uncoupled in Glasgow Central, often by me. I had � ve or six locos at the bu� ers at midnight with no drivers to move them anywhere. An unbelievably busy few days: but the feeling of satisfaction when you went home at half past midnight after a shift like that, and the relationship that I built up with the train crews in Glasgow at that time, was fabulous and very rewarding. Completely di� erent to what I’ve experienced later in my career where it can often

take you months to change something. A long shift like that at Glasgow Central was fabulously rewarding.I think I’d also single out one other moment, which was taking the Queen on a Pendolino from Euston to Milton Keynes. I’ve met quite a few members of the Royal Family in my career on the railway and they are great supporters of the rail network. Welcoming the Queen at Euston station, escorting her onto a Pendolino, exchanging a few words with her and the Duke of Edinburgh was truly unforgettable. She shook me by the hand, and I’d been told she rarely shook anybody by the hand but if she does this is what you have to do, and so I shook her by the hand and I’ll never forget that.

Did she understand the principle of the tilting train?Well, her husband seemed to be well versed on that, because he asked me, ‘Young man, will the train tilt?’ and I said, ‘It certainly will’ - and it did!

What would you like to see the railways do in the next 10 - 15 years, what are the challenges for the industry now?Stay safe, we’ve recovered from a low point of about 11-12 years ago at the time of Southall, Ladbroke Grove, Potters Bar and Hat� eld; those horrendous accidents. We’ve recovered from that position and we now have a reputation of being safe. We’re the safest railway in Europe at the moment by some measures, and I desperately want us to stay there. That only happens by hard work by a lot of people behind the scenes, often who get little recognition for it. That e� ort needs to

Over 100 miles of new lineside fencing between Rugby and London Euston is part of a Network Rail

package of projects worth nearly £40m, aimed at improving the reliability of the infrastructure and punctuality of train services by targeting some of

the most common causes of delay. Network Rail


continue and every single member of sta� in the industry needs to stay focused on that. If we’re not safe everything else is pretty irrelevant; we won’t get sustained government investment if we’re not running a safe railway.

Then we need to adapt to the opportunities of HS2, that absolutely needs to be part of the national network, and I’m very con� dent that David Higgins is going to make some great progress with it. That’ll be for the next generation of railway people, but what the current generation does will put it in place, and that is so important for the future. HS2 will a� ect every bit of the railway, in rolling stock cascades, in connections, the entire national timetable, the image of the railways in the UK. So it’s absolutely fundamental that we get all that right and we get past the ‘people who are for and against it’ stu� . I live two miles from the route of HS2 so I shall watch that in my retirement over many years to come, but it’s so important that we get it right. It’s great that we have so much support for the railway in this country now compared to earlier in my career, and that’s the opportunity that we all have to grasp. I’ll play a part in that on the Network Rail board from next week.

The routine jokes ‘I’m late because I was on a Virgin Train’ have � nally fallen away too, but it took some time?Well, 170,000 signatures on the Downing Street petition [urging the government to reconsider changing the operator of the West Coast main line in summer 2012] - wow, that left us completely breathless at the time. It was incredible that that happened, and what a year since then! It’s great

to retire, for me and Tony, in this way, rather than handing over the keys to CrossCountry as I did six years ago, almost to the day.

Will the next few days feel odd, if you wake up and hear news of disruption on the West Coast somewhere and you have to remember it’s not your problem?Well pretty much every morning for the last 17 years I’ve got up at half-past � ve in the morning and looked at my pager or Blackberry and I won’t need to do that now. Whether I can get out of the habit of waking up at half-past � ve I don’t know, we’ll see!

I’ve loved my job right up to the last day, but it’s time to move on and do something di� erent, and time to make way for the next team of people. This is the team that has been working for me and I’ve every con� dence in them for the future. Of course I’ll watch with interest, I’ll continue to be an avid reader of Modern Railways, and I shall perform my new role to the best of my ability and do something which is completely di� erent to what I’ve been doing. A non-exec role is not about bossing people around, it’s about encouraging, holding people to account, that kind of thing - and it’s a very di� erent role to being a Chief Operating O� cer.

What will you be doing in the weeks you aren’t with Network Rail?I’m going to spend time helping my kids with their Latin homework, as I’ve tried unsuccessfully already. I’ve found that maths for a 14-year-old is way beyond my capability and with an 11-year old as well I want to spend some time with them before they leave the nest, and I’ve got a great opportunity to do that. I’m doing a lot of cycling and I want to do more of that, to keep � t and enjoy the Warwickshire countryside. I’m also planning to do the Trans-Siberian Railway next year, so that’ll take a bit of planning. I’ve cycled a few of the Tour de France stages and if I can get back to being � t enough I’ll ride a few of the big mountain passes

that I’ve done before. Once you’re over 50 you qualify as a veteran in cycling!

The turn out from people across the industry at the retirement events you and Tony Collins held was impressive too, people from what would be seen as great rival businesses were there in force?Ivor Warburton was there in London, he interviewed me for the BR Management Training Scheme and I got through that interview. Chris Green was there and I worked for him in Scotland and at CrossCountry and there were a lot of other � gures from my personal past. The turn out at all of the events has meant I’ve had a great send o� from a fabulous bunch of people. I’ve discovered there’s a whole circle of retired railway people who never really stopped work and who’ve invited me to join that, so I look forward to that as well. I’ll be the youngest member!

So, will we see you working in a signalbox on a heritage railway?Not just yet, I’m not at that age! Also I think there would be a con� ict with Network Rail, they probably wouldn’t allow me to work a signalbox at weekends!

This was my choice to retire at this age, some people say it’s very young, for me I’ve worked at it since being a teenager and so I get to go a bit earlier than some others.

As you go into the o� ce for the � nal time, is it a deep breath?Yes, I’ve got all the bits of kit I have to hand back in a minute. Of course it’s a big change and I’ve thought about it a lot. I’m very fortunate to be able to do it and I fear future generations won’t be able to retire in their 50s, let alone their 60s, but for my generation it’s something I can do and I’m doing it. I’ll be out enjoying the network on my ‘leisure only’ pass and I’ll probably be spotted on a lot of platforms because I’m discovering it’s the kind of thing retired railway people do…

No 390040 heads south down Shap towards Greenholme with the 12:51 Virgin Trains service from Edinburgh to Birmingham New Street on 26 January 2013. Colin Irwin


VolkerFitzpatrick successfully completed the construction of the new 6,500 sq m Reading train care depot for Network Rail in July, as part

of the Reading area redevelopment scheme.The £36million depot, which VolkerFitzpatrick

began constructing in November 2011, has been built to the west of Reading station to free up the depot’s previous location for new rail routes to increase rail transport capacity. Built with enhancements to the original plan to allow for future stabling and servicing of electric trains - including pantograph removal equipment and high-level access - the new depot provides capacity for 147 vehicles, both diesel and electric.

The 210 metre long, 37m wide depot shed has been built with three through roads for light maintenance and a single road for heavy maintenance, main stores, a workshop, plant rooms, a signalling room, a three-storey production management offi ce with 17 associated buildings, and a 30-space car park.

Other works included a new access road and associated drainage works, site drainage including interceptors, pump chambers, soakaways and holding tanks, fuel farm, driver’s walkway and lighting, under-track crossing and duct routes, a substation and troughing routes.

This project also saw the fi rst overhead wires installed for the Great Western electrifi cation programme. 2,000m of overhead line was installed on 211 head spans from the east sidings to the west sidings, along with depot ballasted track involving overhead line

MECHAN EXPORTS AROUND THE GLOBE

Mechan is working with Associated Engineers, its partner in Hong Kong, on two new projects for rail operator MTR.

24 jacks with a 20-tonne capacity each are being manufactured, plus four bogie turntables for the new Wong Chuk Hang depot on the South Island Line (East), due to open in 2015.

A bogie drop is also to be provided by Mechan for the Shek Kong maintenance facility that is being constructed to serve the High Speed Rail link, connecting Hong Kong with Shenzen and Guangzhou. Both orders are scheduled for delivery in the summer of 2014.

Meanwhile Australia’s Downer EDi Rail has taken delivery of a pair of ten tonne bogie rotators from Mechan, via its local distributor, Unique Rail.

The rotators (pictured), which are the heaviest Mechan has ever produced, will be used at Downer EDi’s Newport depot in Victoria to maintain up to ten diff erent types of locomotive.

This broad remit required design modifi cations to increase lifting capacity and add extra bolt holes to the structures.

Mechan exhibited at the transport industry trade fair, TRAKO, in Poland in the autumn, hot on the heels of its most recent order from the region. The fi rm has been commissioned to supply 30 railcar lifting jacks to the PKP depot in Warsaw.

electrifi cation (OLE), piling, construction of OLE structures and bases and OLE bonding.

The depot boasts new Mechan jacks for train lifting - seventeen 15-tonne jacks were supplied as part of a contract with Volker Fitzpatrick for the depot equipment, which also included an Engine Removal Table.

Airquick’s largest ever rail project has provided the train wash and 22-point controlled emission toilet facilities, and 24 point fuelling, plus oil, coolant and compressed air systems. Jewers Doors has provided the Swift bi-folding doors

designed to close safely around the overhead line electrifi cation equipment.

Depot Personnel Protection SystemRail safety specialist Zonegreen installed its SMART Depot Personnel Protection System (DPPS) at the new Reading depot to control the movement of trains and help safeguard staff . SMART DPPS allows vehicles to be moved in and out of maintenance areas quickly and effi ciently whilst protecting employees working in the vicinity.

Zonegreen believes SMART DPPS is the most advanced, reliable and tested product of its type. It can be combined with the fi rm’s Depot Manager software to off er a complete depot overview and a fully traceable system.

Great Western modernisation and Thameslink projects are attracting a surge of train depot investment, reports Ken Cordner

DepotDepotDepotDEVELOPMENTS


R&D IN WASHER TECHNOLOGY

Garrandale Rail has been awarded two of the largest contracts ever placed in the UK for depot equipment with a single supplier that will run over the next two years. The company says: ‘This has endorsed Garrandale’s position as the UK’s premier supplier of depot equipment and the preferred choice of train operators and civil contractors’.

Garrandale says it has applied the disciplines of its specialist engineering division (with experience in nuclear / aerospace / medical / oil & gas) to provide innovative solutions in rail and vehicle depot equipment. The company’s research led to the development of a water recycling system which, through the installation of a series of filters, would clean the water that was being stored ready for re-use in the cleaning process.

The entire cleaning cycle is now carried out in three stages: the first, which includes the

application of the detergent, uses fresh water. The recycled water is then used in stage two, for rinsing away the detergent. The final rinse then uses fresh water to ensure a streak-free finish. Waste water is collected from the apron after every cleaning cycle, filtered and re-used. This provides significant savings over cleaning systems which use fresh water for every cycle, without any increase in washing times.

Garrandale CEO Malcolm Prentice says: ‘It has been a good year for Garrandale, with open orders for over £13million on its books and many accolades which have included recognition from Rolls Royce and Toyota, which were instrumental in Garrandale being awarded Derbyshire Best Business 2013. Garrandale is now operating on 60 sites across the UK and the customer base is increasing all the time’.

It has also recently been commissioned to protect workers at a new state of the art maintenance facility in Auckland, New Zealand, for a new fleet of 57 electric trains, built by Spanish manufacturer CAF.

DPPS has previously been installed in Wellington, New Zealand. It combines powered derailers, road end control panels, train detection equipment, warning signals and personal datakeys to protect staff and infrastructure.

Inter-city Express ProgrammeElsewhere on the Great Western, and also the East Coast main line, Volker Fitzpatrick is again busy, with the refurbishment and new build for Hitachi of some of the depots required for the maintenance of the new fleets of Inter-city Express Programme trains.

Work at West London’s North Pole depot - the former Eurostar facility, due to open for its new role by early 2015 - is progressing well, and construction of the depot at Stoke Gifford near Bristol (in the triangular site south of the Severn tunnel to Bristol Parkway route) is also underway.

After preparatory work, new build depots in Swansea - on the Maliphant sidings site close to the station - and Doncaster are to commence construction in the course of 2014.

ThameslinkWith the Thameslink rolling stock project confirmed, signature by Siemens and VolkerFitzpatrick of a contract to build two new train maintenance depots was announced in July 2013.

As Siemens’ construction partner, VolkerFitzpatrick had already begun designing, constructing and commissioning the two depots at Hornsey and Three Bridges. The depots are being built simultaneously by two in-house specialist project teams.

The Three Bridges depot is split into east and west-side facilities either side of the London to

Brighton main line. It comprises a five road, 12-car, maintenance building with associated stores, workshops and offices, eleven train stabling and servicing roads, two under-bridge widenings, two carriage washing machines, a wheel lathe and all associated depot infrastructure. It is due for completion in 2015.

The new Hornsey depot, which is expected to be completed in 2016, is being constructed within a live operational environment adjacent to the East Coast main line and the existing Hornsey depot. The project comprises the co-ordinated redevelopment of two separate areas of existing infrastructure, including the existing operational

depot and the sidings immediately to its north. The work involves the widening of two existing bridges, a new three road, 12-car, maintenance shed, two carriage washing machines, offices and all associated depot infrastructure. Alterations to the existing depot are being undertaken in close consultation with the train operating company to minimise disruption throughout the project.

Smith Bros & WebbOne of the oldest names in the vehicle washing business has received a cash injection of £1million which will reinforce its position as one of the leading forces in the market.

Smith Bros & Webb designs and manufactures its own wash equipment under the brand name of Britannia, providing vehicle washing and controlled emission toilet (CET) systems for over 60 years.

Today the Alcester-based company has over 500 installations in the UK in the commercial vehicle, bus and rail sectors, 150 around the globe and a nationwide network of engineers to both install and maintain the equipment.

In the rail sector, the Britannia train washing system can be designed to accommodate any type of rolling stock and will efficiently wash anything from one single car to up to 200 carriages per hour.

LEFT: Gogar depot, serving the new Edinburgh tram network, is using a double girder 6.3 tonne travelling crane to maintain the fleet of 27 trams and load a Unimog track maintenance vehicle. The overhead crane is essential for access and maintenance of the roof pantographs and to service the pods on the roof containing air-conditioning and other key electrical equipment. Courtesy Street Crane Company

Zonegreen’s SMART DPPS in action at Reading depot. An operator controls movement in and out of the maintenance facility. Zonegreen

A Class 165 enters the new Reading depot on the day of its official opening

by the Secretary of State, Patrick McLoughlin, on 19 July 2013. Ken Brunt

You’ll believe a train can fl y - though the slightly eerie sight of a 240-tonne train rising slowly into the air, on synchronised jacks that lift it under its wheels, is perhaps more Thunderbirds than Superman!

Main works are complete on the upgrade of London Underground’s Neasden depot - at 64 acres, the Underground’s largest site. The

new depot is to provide light maintenance facilities for all 58 of the Metropolitan Line’s eight-car ‘S8’ trains, and is also expected to carry out heavy maintenance for the entire S-stock fl eet of 191 trains (including the seven-car ‘S7’ trains for the Circle, Hammersmith & City and District Lines). 23 Jubilee Line trains are also stabled at the depot.

The S-stock trains are revolutionary when compared with the Metropolitan Line predecessors, the A-stock trains introduced from 1961 but to a mid 20th century design. The new trains are equipped with air-conditioning

and relatively complex walk-through inter-car connections: all axles are motored, with IGBT driven AC asynchronous electric motors and regenerative braking. Knorr-Bremse’s EP2002 braking system employs data bus links along the train to improve brake eff ectiveness taking into account a wide range of parameters.

So Neasden depot, last extensively refurbished in the 1930s, has had to be transformed to meet the new trains’ maintenance requirements. The trains will remain in fi xed formations for routine maintenance, and two 170-metre depot sheds have been newly built to help cater for this.

As the S-stock bogies are not mechanically retained under the trains, synchronised eight-car lifting from under the wheels has been

adopted, using tailor-made equipment from Windhoff .

Trains enter an apparently normal depot shed, are stopped precisely in position, and raised by jacks that emerge from the fl oor, lifting under the wheels.

Maximum lift is to a height of 1.75 metres, though 1.4 metres is adequate for bogie exchange, and the 9.25t jacks can be mechanically locked at various diff erent levels for diff erent maintenance procedures.

The train wheels are lifted on the outer fl ange, leaving part of the rail in place, so that bogies and a small robot shunting vehicle can run unimpeded beneath. Car body stands with 95kN capacity are also provided for safety assurance.

THE NEW NEASDENGETS A LIFT

S-stock train raised on the Windhoff jacks that emerge from the fl oor in the new lifting shed. Ken Cordner

Roger Ford sees a relentless focus on reliability delivering results

In the beginning was the National Fleet Reliability Improvement Programme (NFRIP), established through

the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) to do what it said on the tin. The January 2004 issue of Modern Railways made this fl eet-by-fl eet reliability data publicly available for the fi rst time.

This went down very badly indeed. Train operators, manufacturers, not to mention ATOC, took considerable umbrage.

It didn’t help that I turned the raw data into league tables. What was meant to be a non-judgemental internal aid to encouraging best practice had been perverted into a competition.

In 2005, we formalised the competitive aspect with the introduction of the annual Golden Spanners awards at the November meeting of the Modern Railways Fourth Friday Club. That was not universally popular either.

But at the sharp end, depot engineers and managers realised

that the Spanners gave high profi le public recognition of their labours. As the annual awards continued, the coveted spanners took pride of place in display cabinets in depot receptions and offi ces.

Now an accepted part of the railway year, the ninth event in the series on 22 November 2013 was attended by 325 people who saw16 Gold, Silver and Bronze spanners presented. And in line with the Spanners philosophy of continuous improvement, in the morning Modern Railways had organised a technical seminar on train reliability.

Industry Since the fi rst Spanners were awarded, the industry approach to reliability has changed. In its 2007 White Paper, setting out the High Level Output Specifi cation (HLOS) for Control Period 4, the Government had called for an overall Public Performance Measure (PPM) of 92.6% to be achieved by 2014, together with a reduction in

the number of delays of more than 30 minutes by 25%.

In response a new cross-industry body, the National Task Force (NTF) was established. This meets 10 times a year to review progress and agree what areas of activity need attention on a national basis.

Within the NTF, Fleet Challenge, chaired by Christian Roth, Engineering Director of the South West Trains / Network Rail Alliance,

is responsible for managing the rolling stock contribution to the Government’s targets through improved reliability. And within Fleet Challenge, NFRIP has been superseded by ReFocus, which in my view lacks the focus of NFRIP, but continues to produce fl eet-by-fl eet reliability data.

That said, ReFocus made the data more meaningful. NFRIP had been based on Miles per 5 minute delay

Success fuelsSUCCESS


Golden Spanners Review

COLOUR CODING EXPLAINED

In the tables, there is a traffi c light system for performance. Moving annual averages (MAA) can be volatile. If an outstandingly good period replaces an absolute disaster a year ago, the MAA will move up and vice versa. To compensate for this ‘noise’ in the statistics, where MTIN has deteriorated by 5% or less compared with Period 7 2011-12 the fl eet, is colour coded yellow.

Table colour coding

Green Improvement on previous year

Yellow Fall on previous year by 5% or less

Red Fall on previous year by more than 5%

In the summaries the ‘Red Rating’ is the percentage of fl eets which fall below the 5% band.

Deltic haulage: Roger Ford of Modern Railways is mine host at the Spanners.

Britain’s most reliable train. SWT Class 159/1 approaching Wimbledon West Junction on 12 February 2008, en route to Salisbury. Brian Morrison

(MP5MD). But out on the working railway, TRUST records a Technical Incident Number (TIN) when a train has been delayed for three minutes.

So in 2011-12 the measure became Miles per TIN (MTIN). On average this cut the equivalent MP5MD by around 30%.

CP4 improvementFilling display cabinets at depots is fi ne, but what has Fleet Challenge done for the passenger? Interviewing Chairman Christian Roth in October 2013 – I noted two Golden Spanners in his offi ce – he told me that Fleet Challenge analysis shows that since the start of the current Control Period 4 (CP4) in April 2009, overall fl eet reliability has increased by 30%.

There was a meeting of the NTF the day after our meeting.

Christian Roth was expecting to report that the improvement

should reach 35% by the end of CP4 on 31 March 2014.

Over the last two Control Periods (CP3 and CP4), Mr Roth quotes an improvement in rolling stock reliability of 40-45%. He believes this degree of improvement is unique to rolling stock, adding ‘You don’t have it in Operations or Network Rail’.

Of course, Fleet Challenge is all about continuous improvement. The expectation for CP5 (2014-19) is a further 25% rise in MTIN. The following analysis suggests that this is achievable, although three large new fl eets will be climbing the reliability curve.

Continuous improvement Comparing this year’s tables with those in the January 2013 review, one thing stands out. In 2013, in only two categories – new EMUs and DMUs – were the top rankings solid green. In EMUs the top seven had improved, while for DMUs the number was eight.

This year the number of fl eets before the fi rst yellow or red line are: ■ ex-British Rail EMUs – eight; ■ ex-BR DMUs – 10; ■ new generation EMUs – nine; and ■ Inter-city – fi ve.

Many of these year-on-year improvements are 20% or better.

This suggests that success breeds success. As I saw on a visit to Bombardier’s Central Rivers depot last year, a decade after the Voyagers entered service the daily pursuit of improved reliability and effi ciency is as relentless as ever. And this is a common feature on my depot visits.

Ex-BR DMUs excelThis is at once the most encouraging class and the most controversial. The 174,560 MT N MAA achieved by the SWT Class 159/1 fl eet is indeed eyebrow raising.

It is also a function of moving annual average (MAA) calculations. After three failures in Period 1 (April 2013), the 8x3-car units ran fl awlessly up to Period 7, on which the Golden Spanners awards are calculated. Diagrammed mileage is around 105,000 miles per period, so the longer the fl eet runs without a failure, the MTIN will trend towards infi nity.

Some train operators are convinced that South West Trains manages its reliability data to get such MTIN fi gures. Given that SWT

Spanner winners

Once again Modern Railways celebrated the endeavours of the train maintenance teams, depots and ROSCOs at this year’s Golden Spanners awards held at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London on 22 November 2012



SPANNERS HIERARCHY

Gold Most reliable fl eetSilver Most improved fl eetBronze Fastest Incident Recovery.

All awards based on the moving annual average at Period 7 2013-14.

TABLE 1: EX-BR DMUS

Primary DPIMAA

P 7 2013-14MTIN

P 7 2013-14MTIN MAA

P 7 2012-13MTIN MAA % change

South West Trains Class 159/1 8.6 107480 174560 63769 173.7

South West Trains Class 159/0 16.8 290999 120490 82080 46.8

South West Trains Class 158 9.3 83641 75541 49808 51.7

London Midland Class 150 11.1 13140 13205 8959 47.4


East Midlands Trains Class 158 13.7 7524 9011 6805 32.4


First ScotRail Class 156 8.9 8809 7594 7571 0.3

First Greater Western Class 153 10.0 5030 7550 6372 18.5


Arriva Trains Wales Class 150 10.8 6128 6450 6896 -6.5

Northern Class 153 17.8 4964 6446 5565 15.8

Arriva Trains Wales Class 158 11.8 6529 6152 3774 63.0

Northern Class 156 14.9 5844 5936 4568 29.9

Greater Anglia Class 156 10.6 4937 5826 6003 -3.0

Greater Anglia Class 153 11.1 14743 5756 5709 0.8

Arriva Trains Wales Class 153 23.0 6357 5719 5736 -0.3

First Greater Western Class 158 10.3 5878 5658 6494 -12.9

Northern Class 150 15.3 8064 5595 3985 40.4


Northern Class 158 16.8 5294 5403 4330 24.8

Northern Class 155 15.4 5783 5173 4378 18.2


EX-BR DMU

Ex-BR DMU Bronze: (left to right) prize presenter, former Regional Railways chief Gordon Pettitt; Cliff Gleave, Porterbrook; Angus Thom, First ScotRail; David Buckley, Angel.

Ex-BR DMU Silver: (left to right) prize presenter Gordon Pettitt; Adrian Hugill, Angel; Matt Prosser and Richard Pierce, ATW.

Ex-BR DMU Gold: (left to right) prize presenter Gordon Pettitt; Andy May, SWT; Mark Hetherington, SWT; Danny Berry SWT; Mark Oakley, Porterbrook.

Sprinter Gold: (left to right) Chris Wright, London Midland; prize presenter Gordon Pettitt; John Armes, Angel Trains; Rob Sheffi eld and John Vickers, London Midland.



Engineering Director Christian Roth is also Chairman of Fleet Challenge that would be quite some risk when in your industry role you are exhorting your peers to up their game.

That said ReFocus does not audit the data with the same rigour as Rebeka Sellick when she was running NFRIP. But having visited Salisbury depot I think the reliability stems from a combination of dogged persistence in bottoming out faults and trying to ensure that they don’t happen again, plus the depot’s location.

If a driver reports an incipient fault, the depot will take the initiative and tell Control that the failing unit will be swapped when it stops at Salisbury. Note that Control is told, not consulted.

This can be regarded as an unfair advantage. On the other hand, taking early action to prevent a Class 158 or 159 DMU falling down in the Waterloo peak is good practice.

SterlingBut we must not let the Salisbury effect distract us from some sterling performances in this category. Note that at the bottom of the table the performance of the First Great Western Class 150s means

we fall tantalisingly short of every fleet being over 5,000 MT N. And to put the overall improvement into context, FGW’s performance would have placed the Class 150 fleet 17th out of 23 in last year’s table.

For the second year running Arriva Trains Wales’ Class 158s take the Silver Spanner for most improved fleet. They certainly know their heritage DMUs at Arriva Trains Wales, as we shall see when we come to Pacers.

Finally Bronze, for the shortest delay per incident (DPI), went to another Class 158 fleet, this time ScotRail with 8.8 minutes.

Top Sprinter Every year I award a wild-card Golden Spanner. The aim is to recognise some of the fleets which

tend to be overshadowed in their categories.

This year the Spanner went to the most reliable Sprinter (defined as Classes 150 through to 156). And the winner was London Midland’s Class 150 fleet.

Yes, LM has only 3x2-car units, but this works both ways. Yes, a small fleet is easier to manage: but equally, one failure really hits the MAA.

Overall this is probably the most encouraging table in the review. These trains are going to have to run forever, or until the bulk of the network is electrified. This continuing improvement – with the prospect of future gains as part of re-engineering for life extension – augurs well for the regional services which depend on these workhorses.

SummaryRed Rating 9.7%Minimum MTIN 6,000Expected MTIN 7,000Aspirational MTIN 10,000

PacersThere is not much to be said about the trains that local authorities love to hate but can’t afford to replace. All but one fleet became more reliable and the fall from grace of the FGW Class 143s should be temporary. An MTIN of 11,675 in Period 8 had the MAA back over 5,000.

While there is still a Champagne Challenge outstanding for the first Pacer to reach 10,000 MT N, Captain Deltic’s New Year’s Challenge to the Pacer maintainers is to get every fleet over 5,000

TABLE 2: PACERS

Primary DPI MAA

P 7 2013-14 MTIN

P 7 2013-14 MTIN MAA

P 7 2012-13 MTIN MAA % change



First Greater Western Class 143 10.8 8569 4916 5982 -17.8

Northern Class 144 15.6 4364 4726 3876 21.9

Northern Class 142 14.6 5023 4608 3640 26.6

Sprinter champion: refurbished London Midland Class 150 No 150107 at Malvern Link on 31 May 2013, working a Birmingham New Street to Hereford service. Steve Widdowson



TABLE 3: EX-BR EMUS

Primary DPI MAA

P 7 2013-14 MTIN






Southern Class 456 8.2 28587 22215 22041 0.8

Southern Class 455/8 7.0 18645 19809 14521 36.4

Southern Class 442 8.3 36207 18945 17943 5.6

First Capital Connect Class 319 16.0 12115 15025 14533 3.4


Greater Anglia Class 315 7.2 11738 12256 12567 -2.5

First Capital Connect Class 321 14.8 21054 11829 15405 -23.2

Southern Class 313 11.6 21502 11745 9415 24.8

First Capital Connect Class 317/1 10.0 6581 10139 12085 -16.1

First Scotrail Class 318 5.93 10107 9902 10251 -3.4

First Capital Connect Class 313 9.2 8244 8401 11292 -25.6

Greater Anglia Class 317/6 10.2 8632 7731 7857 -1.6

Merseyrail Class 508 4.0 9672 7566 6457 17.2

Merseyrail Class 507 5.89 4400 7043 6060 16.2


Northern Class 321 18.0 4295 5894 4812 22.5

Northern Class 322 24.9 12793 5455 4338 25.8



EX-BR EMU

INTER-CITY TRAINSETS

Ex-BR EMU Bronze: (left to right) prize presenter Michael Mitten of sponsors Houghton International; Harry Bird of Angel Trains.

Inter-city Silver and Bronze: (left to right) prize presenter David Hartland of Brecknell, Willis; Piers Wood, Alstom; Ben Faulkner, First Great Western; David Buckley, Angel; Andrew Skinner, FGW.

Inter-city Gold: (left to right) prize presenter David Hartland; Richard Ellis-Edwards, Neil Reynolds and Stacy Thundercliffe of CrossCountry; Conor Cairns and Gary Knight, Bombardier Transportation.

Ex-BR EMU Silver: (left to right) prize presenter Michael Mitten; Steve White of Siemens; Tony Brown, London Midland; Andrew Burchell, Eversholt.

Ex-BR EMU Gold: (left to right) prize presenter Michael Mitten; Stuart Boatfield, Porterbrook; Dave Campbell, SWT; James Hilder, SWT; Neil O’Connor, South West Trains; John ‘Billy’ Smart, SWT.



MTIN and start embarrassing the Sprinters.

Ex-BR EMUs – mixed fortunesWhile these mainstays of the commuter business followed the trend of the best fl eets building on success, once you got below the top eight there were some spectacular reversals of fortune. A third of the remaining fl eets saw reliability fall by 16% or more.

Both Greater Anglia and First Capital Connect have been struggling. For example, the MTIN for the FCC Class 321 fl eet is a third of the Silver Spanner-winning London Midland Class 321s.

In the early days of the Spanners, Bletchley depot dominated this category, its Class 321s proclaiming their successive wins with Golden Spanner symbols under the driver’s cab side window.

When Bletchley closed, maintenance was transferred to the new Siemens depot at Northampton and the Class 321 fl eet dropped off the Golden Spanners radar. However, when it comes to the Spanners, Siemens’ train maintenance supremo Steve White and his depot teams make the New Zealand All Blacks look

laid back. Depots even compete for the Golden Laptop!

So we should not be surprised at the Class 321 not only winning silver with a 40.4% improvement, but taking second place overall in the category.

DC dominant Equally driven is the Wimbledon depot team, which produced a 25% improvement to get the Class 455 above 50,000 MTIN to take Gold. I have a soft spot for these units, with their English Electric traction equipment including the legendary EE 507 traction motors and camshaft controllers.

Now, under a £45million programme, they are to receive new Vossloh Kiepe three-phase drive traction packages. The rationale behind this move is that it will extend maintenance periodicity, allowing Wimbledon to maintain the new fl eet being procured by SWT.

Bronze, for the second year running, goes to Merseyrail for the Class 508 with a miserly four Delay Minutes per Incident. This is the lowest DMI of any fl eet and makes an interesting comparison with the fi gures for New Generation DMUs.

As with their DMU counterparts, the ex-BR EMUs are also going to have to run forever and all three ROSCOs (rolling stock leasing companies) have re-tractioning schemes underway. In theory solid state control and AC motors should

be signifi cantly more reliable than even thyristor controlled direct current motors, let alone camshafts. But we shall see.

SummaryRed Rating 27%Minimum MTIN 6,000Expected MTIN 11,000Aspirational MTIN 17,500

Inter-city – generally positive While I am often accused of comparing apples with oranges, analysing the Inter-city category is more like trying to draw lessons from a costermonger’s stall. There are several distinct sub-categories: the 125mph New Generation DMUs; the IC125 fl eets; two high speed electrics, one tilting; and a couple of loco-hauled fl eets, one electric, one diesel.

I did try moving the Voyagers in with the New Generation DMUs but then other operators complained that CrossCountry has an unfair advantage because its doors open and shut only twice a day. Try to compare IC225 with the Class 390, and Virgin people are on the phone pointing out that their train reliability is already mere noise in the Network Rail infrastructure failure statistics. At least the IC125 depots get on with it, competing among themselves for bragging rights and doing a great job.

So the continuously improving Top Five is headed for another year

by the two CrossCountry Voyager fl eets, noting that the Class 221s are running with tilt disabled. Third place is taken by the Greater Anglia fl eet of Class 90 hauled Mk 3 coaches with an impressive 26,500 MTIN.

For me, the outstanding performance in this class is East Coast’s Craigentinny depot which has really got a handle on its re-engineered IC125 fl eet, a 47% improvement taking the MTIN MAA up to 18,930. When these power cars were re-engined and re-engineered the operator went for the full house Brush technical upgrade package and it shows.

As a one time diesel engineer, I still thrill to the purposeful bass-baritone exhaust note of the MTU 4000 series engine as an IC125 approaches. Is this really a train approaching its 40th birthday?

Craigentinny also maintains the three CrossCountry IC125s: these slipped back this year, but still come second in the sub-category.

While Virgin professes not to care, there is a needle match with East Coast over IC225 vs Pendolino. Admittedly the needle comes from the East Coast folk, who delight in pointing out that they have the more reliable fl eet. That said, the Pendolinos have a much more intensive operating life and I remain neutral on the issue, only pointing out that by Period 8 Virgin was leading 12,336 MTIN MAA to 11,913 MTIN MAA.

TABLE 4: INTER-CITY TRAINSETS

Primary DPI MAA

P 7 2013-14 MTIN



CrossCountry Class 220 15.5 27581 37931 36622 3.6

Cross Country Class 221 15.4 27227 32552 28804 13.0

Greater Anglia Electric-loco Trainset 16.8 33716 26709 22507 18.7


East Coast HST Set 47.4 33683 18930 12878 47.0

CrossCountry HST Set 21.2 22066 16907 19062 -11.3

Virgin Trains Class 221 20.0 31934 16665 14851 12.2

Hull Class 180 28.3 74642 15550 13568 14.6

Grand Central HST Set 19.3 42120 13733 15595 -11.9

East Midlands Trains HST Set 11.3 21898 12801 14636 -12.5

East Coast IC225 33.9 10659 12026 9771 23.1

Virgin Trains Class 390 18.9 18207 11852 10750 10.3

Grand Central Class 180 25.4 7576 8621 8028 7.4

First Greater Western HST Set 13.2 9232 8531 8037 6.1


Chiltern Diesel loco+ trainset 22.9 3116 2854 3781 -24.5

Central to an award-winning operation: maintenance underway

on CrossCountry Voyagers at Central Rivers depot. Tony Miles



Finally we come to the Class 180s, another Alstom delinquent starting to show that reliability is as much a matter of nurture as nature. Since April 2013, Alstom has been responsible for managing the fleets under a four-year £40million contract with the three operators.

This includes overhauls, engineering management and all spare parts. Alstom is also fitting remote communications, ‘baselining’ hardware and software to a common technical specification and re-writing the maintenance manuals.

Hull Trains tops this remedial class with a commendable 15,550 MTIN MAA but FGW, the franchise which bought the Class 180s, continues to struggle.

However, by more than doubling reliability over the past year the FGW fleet takes Silver and with a DPI of only 9.9 minutes adds Bronze to its collection.

I am reminded by Tony Miles that a contributory factor in this disparity is that the Hull Trains units are providing a true limited stop inter-city service while the FGW fleet is on the Paddington-Oxford-Hereford route with frequent station

stops. The low DPI would suggest that failures are minor and quickly resolved.

SummaryRed Rating 25%Because of the variety of fleets there are no yardsticks for Inter-city.

New DMUs Bombardier Turbostars provide the bulk of the New Generation DMU Category, with singleton fleets from Siemens and Alstom, plus the ex-BR Networkers, included originally to provide a benchmark for the post privatisation fleets. At the top of the table we have one of the closest finishes, with Trans-Pennine Express’s Siemens Class 185 Desiros pipping Chiltern’s Class 172 fleet to Gold by just 321 miles.

London Midland’s Class 172 Turbostar fleet has now shaken down, more than doubling reliability to take Silver. The fleet nearly carried off the Bronze award as well, but last year’s Golden Spanner winner, the Southern Class 171 fleet, added a bronze to the Selhurst depot display cabinet with a DPI of only 6.2min.

But note that reliability of the Southern Class 171 fleet fell by 27.3% year on year to a still commendable 18,263 MTIN MAA. On future depot visits I must check fleet performance beforehand and discuss with the experts how even the top performers can slip back.

Referring back to the Class 180s in the Inter-city category, note that the Alstom-maintained Class 175 fleet is now a model citizen. This confirms my view that the Metro-Cammell

TABLE 5: NEW GENERATION DMUS

Primary DPI MAA

P 7 2013-14 MTIN



FTPE Class 185 12.2 30015 22809 18600 22.6

Chiltern Class 172 6.4 47250 22488 18673 20.4


Southern Class 171 6.2 21312 18263 25111 -27.3

CrossCountry Class 170 23.8 23551 18038 14834 21.6



FTPE Class 170 10.5 8112 13381 14935 -10.4

LOROL Class 172 27.2 8537 12894 16964 -24.0

London Midland Class 170 15.4 21376 12604 12735 -1.0

Chiltern Class 165/0 8.7 10149 9719 7456 30.3

Chiltern Class 168 9.5 8927 9625 8024 19.9

First Greater Western Class 165/1 8.8 9631 9608 9235 4.0

First ScotRail Class 170 8.8 10737 8330 9897 -15.8


NEW GENERATION DMU

New Generation DMU Bronze: (left to right) prize presenter Ann Saundry of Key Publishing; Simon Green, Southern Railway; Bob Downer, Porterbrook.

New Generation DMU Silver: (left to right) prize presenter Ann Saundry of Key Publishing; Steve Sweet, Bombardier; Michael Townsend, Kacper Tchórz, Chris Wright and Simon Jeavons of London Midland; Jen Gladding, Porterbrook.

New Generation DMU Gold: (left to right) prize presenter Ann Saundry of Key Publishing; Kevin Clark, Siemens; Paul Staples, TransPennine Express; Richard Denham, Eversholt.

Tip-top TPE: unit No 185149 leaves Grange-over-Sands on a Barrow-In-Furness to Manchester Airport working. Tony Miles



-built Juniper were not bad trains, but suff ered from appalling after sales service.

TurbosAs mentioned above, as with New Generation EMUs, the Networker Turbos (Classes 165/166) were put in this category to provide a benchmark as British Rail’s ‘new generation’ stock from the fi nal years before privatisation. Note that Chiltern and FGW Class 165s bracketed the fi rst of the New Generation DMUs, the Class 168 which broke the 1064 day order hiatus. Note, too, that the spread across the three fl eets is just over 100MTIN MAA.

SummaryRed Rating 33%Minimum MTIN 10,000Expected MTIN 15,500Aspirational MTIN 20,000

New EMUs show the wayFinally, we come to the only category where new train procurement is active. Whether success in the Golden Spanners infl uences bid evaluation is debatable. In theory it should, but experience tells me that the train in the glossy brochures is always more attractive than the fl eet you are operating with its known problems.

What we do know is that these fl eets are continuing to show major improvements in reliability. Indeed, discounting the two minor falls, in the top 18, only two fl eets failed to show double fi gure percentage

TABLE 6: NEW GENERATION EMUS

Primary DPI MAA

P 7 2013-14 MTIN




London Midland Class 350/2 31.3 99718 98220 78953 24.4

London Midland Class 350/1 37.8 84742 81130 71403 13.6



c2c Class 357 13.2 29872 48175 43604 10.5

Northern Class 333 67.3 133593 43131 19805 117.8

Southeastern Class 375 8/9 14.5 46200 40366 33474 20.6

Southeastern Class 395 13.4 26504 39836 36857 8.1



Southern Class 377 9.0 46671 33492 35287 -5.1

Southeastern Class 375/3,6&7 10.7 22885 27560 23066 19.5




London Overground Class 378/1 20.1 21838 17496 12169 43.8

Northern Class 323 19.2 35655 16998 6357 167.4

Heathrow Connect Class 360/2 5.3 31273 15689 18826 -16.7

London Overground Class 378/2 22.7 22494 13813 14225 -2.9


Southeastern Class 465/1 8.2 11785 12551 12751 -1.6

London Midland Class 323 13.9 15982 12490 13728 -9.0



Southeastern Class 465/0 7.1 10114 11069 10988 0.7

First ScotRail Class 334 5.9 11007 9653 9825 -1.8


Moment in the limelight: Class 458, seen here at Richmond, will be hard put to maintain its top of the table position while the Class 458/5 mods programme

is assimilated - but for the time being it reigns supreme. Tony Miles



improvements. These were the First Capital Connect Class 365s (4.1%) and the Southeastern Class 395s (8.1%). Paraphrasing President Bush, do the Japanese have a word for ‘keizen’?

At the very top, SWT’s Wimbledon depot has driven up the Class 458 reliability by 25.8% to 133,359 MTIN MAA to hold off Siemens’ Class 350/2 for a second year. But, as the Top 10 EMUs table shows, if you want a reliable train Siemens is the EMU of choice.

ContinuityAs Steve White pointed out when we chatted after the awards, Class 350 No 350310 will be the last of the Desiro UK EMUs to be delivered when it comes next year. Siemens has won orders for nine fleets since 2003, each fleet building on the lessons learned from its forebears.

Table 6 emphasises the benefits of continuity in procurement over a decade. As does the presence of the Class 455 in the Top 10. The latter’s traction equipment was the result of 30 years during which English Electric had an exclusive contract to supply traction equipment to first the Southern Railway and then the Southern Region of British Rail.

On these cold numbers, the civil servant responsible for signing off the award of the Thameslink new train fleet to Siemens should not lose much sleep. But with Siemens withdrawing from the Crossrail bidding, the choice of supplier

will be that much more nerve wracking.

Not that German quality delivers the goods that work out of the box any more than any other manufacturer. ScotRail’s Class 380 Desiro fleet is a ‘bitser’, bits of the new Desiro City above the sole-bar and bits of the Desiro UK below.

Service entry was delayed by technical issues and the fleet has now been in service for three years. A 50% improvement has the fleet up to 22,633 MT N MAA.

But compare this with the Greater Anglia Bombardier Class 379s which entered full fleet service eight months after the Class 380. Delivered early, they really did work pretty much out of the box and recorded 39,269 MTIN MAA in Period 8.

Silver oldieGordon Pettitt, the last manager of Regional Railways under BR, was one of our guests at the Spanners Awards and, appropriately, presented the Ex-BR DMU Awards. ‘Bet the New Generation EMU awards really get you smiling’, I told him.

It was Mr Pettitt who initiated procurement of the Class 323 fleet. He wanted to break the duopoly of BREL and Metro-Cammell and newcomer Hunslet TPL obliged with the winning bid.

Formed by a breakaway group of Met-Camm engineers and managers, the company linked up with Dutch firm Holec for the three-phase drive traction package. That was the last new train order before the 1,064 days hiatus during

The 2013 Golden Spannersevent was sponsored by

Pre-lunch real alesponsored by

TOP 10 EMUS

New Generation EMU Bronze: (left to right) prize presenter Roger Ford of Modern Railways; Neil Moriarty and Mark Chestney of Heathrow Express; George Staines, Siemens.

New Generation EMU Silver: (left to right) prize presenter Roger Ford of Modern Railways; Neil Foster of Porterbook; Lee Kinsey, Alstom; Jeff Briston, Northern Rail.

New Generation EMU Gold: (left to right) prize presenter Roger Ford of Modern Railways; Piers Wood of Alstom; John Denyer, SWT; Bob Downer, Porterbrook.

TABLE 7: TOP 10 EMUS

P7 2013-14MTIN MAA Manufacturer

South West Trains Class 458 133359 Alstom

London Midland Class 350/2 98220 Siemens

London Midland Class 350/1 81130 Siemens

South West Trains Class 444 64240 Siemens

South West Trains Class 450 54004 Siemens

South West Trains Class 455 50224 BREL

c2c Class 357 48175 Bombardier

Northern Class 333 43131 CAF/Siemens

Southeastern Class 375 8/9 40366 Bombardier

Southeastern Class 395 39836 Hitachi

Morning conference: the 2013 Spanners had added value with five technical papers before lunch. Steve Turley of Perpetuum explains how condition monitoring has cut Southeastern’s rolling stock maintenance bill.

Instant death plus a $200 fine if you tamper with the overhead line: David Hartland of Brecknell, Willis raises a laugh in the after-lunch speech.



the privatisation process. Hunslet became consultants Transys Projects, recently acquired by Vossloh.

Despite strong competition from the Class 333s, a CAF / Siemens co-production, it was the Class 323 fleet that brought Northern its Silver Spanner. This was a tribute to Alstom Train Care which maintains the fleet at its Longsight facility.

Bronze went to the Heathrow Connect Siemens Class 360/2 fleet. However the low DPI was matched by the lowest MTIN MAA in the Siemens EMU stud.

NetworkerTime for the annual look at the Southeastern Networker fleet, the first to be re-powered. It is hard to draw any conclusions from this closely spaced performance between the new Hitachi and original GEC Alstom traction packages, except for the small Class 465/2 sub-fleet.

Finally, were I Alstom Transportation’s UK President, I would look at the ScotRail Class 334 Juniper EMUs, one place above

the Wooden Spanner, and be on the phone offering a management contract.

SummaryRed Rating 7.1%Minimum MTIN 15,000Expected MTIN 30,000Aspirational MTIN 80,000 ConclusionOverall, this year’s results show that Fleet Challenge really is delivering improved reliability.

As a result, qualification for the élite club has now moved up from 40,000 to 50,000 MTIN MAA.

Next year could see the old order changing as the Class 458s become 458/5s and the Class 455s begin their re-powering programme. This will be the tenth Golden Spanners awards so we are already planning how to mark this anniversary.

Golden Spanners photography by Tony Miles

2013 GOLDEN SPANNERS AWARD WINNERS

Award Class MTIN/%/DPI Operator Depot Maker Owner

Ex-BR DMUs

Gold 159/1 174,000 MTIN South West Trains Salisbury BREL/Cummins/Voith Porterbrook

Silver 158 63% Arriva Trains Wales Machynlleth BREL/Perkins/Voith Angel

Bronze 158 8.8min delay First ScotRail Haymarket and Inverness BREL/Cummins/Voith Angel/Porterbrook

Gold 150 13,204 MTIN London Midland Tyseley BREL/Cummins/Voith Angel

Ex-BR EMUs

Gold 455 50,224 MTIN South West Trains Wimbledon BREL/EE Porterbrook

Silver 321 40.4% London Midland King’s Heath BREL/Brush Eversholt

Bronze 508 4.0min delay Merseyrail Birkenhead BREL/GEC Angel

Inter-city

Gold 220 37,391 MTIN CrossCountry Central Rivers Bombardier/Cummins/Alstom

Voyager Leasing(Lloyds/RBS)

Silver 180 60.3% First Great Western Old Oak Common Alstom/Cummins/Voith Angel

Bronze 180 9.9min delay First Great Western Old Oak Common Alstom/Cummins/Voith Angel

New Generation DMU

Gold 185 22,809 MTIN TransPennine Express Ardwick Siemens/Cummins/Voith Eversholt

Silver 172 125.4% London Midland Tyseley Bombardier/MTU/ZF Porterbrook

Bronze 171 8.4min delay Southern Selhurst Bombardier/MTU/ZF Porterbrook

New Generation EMU

Gold 458/1 133359 MT N South West Trains Wimbledon Alstom Porterbrook

Silver 323 167.4% Northern Rail Longsight Hunslet TPL Porterbrook

Bronze 360/2 5.4min delay Heathrow Connect Old Oak Common Siemens Heathrow Airport Holdings

NEARLY £10,000FOR CHARITY

The Railway Children, the charity that helps street children found at railway stations across the globe, is supported by the Golden Spanners. The 2013 raffle raised £9,524, thought to be the highest per capita rate of money raising at any railway industry awards ceremony.

TABLE 8: 50K CLUB

P7 2013-14 MTIN MAA 2012-13

South West Trains Class 159/1 174560 63769

South West Trains Class 458 133359 106049

South West Trains Class 159/0 120490 82080

London Midland Class 350/2 98220 78953

London Midland Class 350/1 81130 71403






Peter Wilkinson, Director of Rail Franchising, told theRSA that partnership is the key to a successful future

Franchising has changed the face of Britain’s railways. As we consider the character of franchising going forward, it is important to be clear about what it has, and hasn’t,

achieved. The railways have enjoyed a lengthy period

of passenger growth since privatisation in the mid 1990s. But I don’t put this entirely down to privatisation – rather, it is a refl ection of the sharper market focus provided by privately run train operating companies (TOCs) leveraging the benefi ts provided by a period of sustained economic boom between 1998 and 2008.

But what we have also seen in that period is a large increase in levels of passenger satisfaction – and I believe that is down to franchising. I think the TOCs should be complimented for what they have achieved in customer service.

The growth in demand has brought challenges about how we accommodate all the extra people who want to travel by train. We have witnessed investment rise in the railways as a response.

Is that a result of franchising? Not really. Franchises have largely been treated as facilities in which capital has played the lesser part – something which is not the fault of the TOCs, but is a refl ection on the design of the franchising model. This is one of the fl aws that I would like to correct.

Partnership I would like to hear less talk of contracts and franchising, and more about engagement and partnership. As part of this, I want the supply chain to be energised. There are a few big companies at the top of the chain, such as Balfour Beatty and

Carillion, but many hundreds further down: I want some of those lower down to rise up and become big players.

For me, all players are valid ones. Some people talk about tension between franchising and open access. But I think companies such as Hull Trains, Grand Central and Heathrow Express are off ering a good service which provides value for money in the eyes of their customers – so there must be something right with that model.

In the same way, the freight operating companies (FOCs) off er a valuable service. They eat what they kill and could be considered the most truly private part of the railway. We must ensure

that policies for the passenger railway don’t mean the FOCs wither on the vine – they are a vital part of the industry.

As for Government, I want to see clarity in what we are trying to procure and effi ciency in our procurement methods.

ChallengesPeople talk a lot about capacity constraints in our industry. I would say that the railway is not yet full – it is becoming full, but we have some leeway still.

As for punctuality, on which there was understandably so much attention because of the post-Hatfi eld performance shambles, I think now we are in the ballpark of where we need to be. I don’t think Government should be in the business of buying a lot more improvement in the punctuality and performance of railways that are

FOR THE FUTURE

0Working-agecouples with

children

Working-agecouples without

children

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Working-agesingles without

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Pensionercouples

Singlepensioner

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Perc

enta

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CAR OWNERSHIP DEMOGRAPHIC

BUILDING A RAILWAY

The futuristic station at Reading, 25 June 2013. Fraser Pithie


already achieving exemplary levels of performance. Rather we should target investment on those areas that need to reach these levels, including the infrastructure– we really do need to stop the wires falling down. But on the operating side we have largely achieved our goals.

Incidentally, I have no problem with companies making sensible profi ts out of running the railway. Profi ts are what motivate fi rms and it is through profi ts we create the capacity to employ people and invest. There should not be super-profi ts but make no mistake, sensible profi t is good for rail, good for passengers, good for government and taxpayers. I want to see sensible earnings, rewarding eff ort.

Another important question concerns the skill base. In the next fi ve to ten years, most of the ex-British Rail trained technical and engineering people will have left the industry. We have to have a plan on where we are going to get skills commensurate with our future needs.

We have to keep up investment, recognising the role the railways play in powering our economy. We have to keep abreast of technological developments and foster innovation. And we have to play our part in building a sustainable economy that respects the environment.

Growth We can expect further growth in both freight and passenger traffi c.

Anyone who suggests capacity should be reserved for passengers should remember that if we constrain rail freight artifi cially, freight will end up on the roads and we will notice the diff erence with extra traffi c congestion.

Big companies such as Amazon, e-Bay and Tesco are already worried about congestion and looking to reserve land next to railway lines in preparation for a shift to rail distribution.

Remember parcel bays? We might need them again. Some logistics companies are looking at ways of fl attening seats in passenger vehicles so that they could carry merchandise in the off peak. It is an interesting idea. I want the railway industry to get ahead of the curve and use the available passenger train capacity in the off -peak to innovate and contemplate serving the same day and overnight parcels market, using stations and infrastructure where sensible to achieve this.

Passenger traffi c too can be expected to go on growing. The last few years have witnessed a divorce between GDP and passenger demand: the economy has been in trouble, but the line on the passenger graph has kept going up.

Why is that? One factor is that people in their twenties and thirties are moving to metropolitan areas and not buying cars – they are planning their lives around public transport. We don’t see that happening to the same extent in Continental Europe, where the cities are often not as dense as those in the UK and where people may be keen to support domestic car manufacturers.

Another factor is the high cost of housing in the UK. People are prepared to commute long distances by train in order to be able to buy cheaper houses.

Speed I am an apostle for speed. The rail industry seems to have lost its way on this. Think: how often do you sit at junctions or wait to get into stations? We need to achieve far greater effi ciency in the timetable and speed has a part to play in this.

I want the agenda to return to speed, as it provides for ambition. Also, speed means capacity. Speed everything up and you turn the trains round more quickly and get another diagram in.

So on our great inter-city main lines, the Great Western, West and East Coasts, I want to see lots of 125mph running. And why not on other routes too, such as the Midland main line, the Southampton line and trans-Pennine? There is a commercial rationale for it.

In 2017 we shall start receiving Inter-city Express Programme trains – they will be capable of 140mph. We should aim to exploit that capability.

I also want to see the speeding up of regional trains, there is a real case for this. Imagine if it didn’t take you fi ve hours to get from Peterborough to Liverpool by train!

Timetable We need a re-think about the timing of Britain’s railways to benefi t existing passengers and attract new markets onto rail, in particular the car-dominated non-central-London market. We need:n reduced journey times, from improved

connections and new fast long distance expresses timed to maximise the potential of the existing infrastructure;

n increased frequencies, especially at busier times;

n an opportunity to take a fresh look at overlooked markets that could be served by rail such as non-London routes where current road fl ows are strong;

n greater fl exibility to tailor supply to demand, thereby avoiding unnecessary costs by providing a consistent, regular and symmetric service pattern, seven days a week, from start to fi nish of service;

n improved service recovery;n opportunities to expand the freight market;n increased access to the infrastructure for

maintenance and a reduced need for disruptive engineering work.

This will mean some investment in infrastructure, driven by the requirements of the timetable, to allow cross-platform interchange to take place at stations where the existing track layout does not allow this.

Imagine if we rethought our approach to the timetable, so that the Public Performance Measure documented not only arrival times, as it does now, but also effi ciency of connections. This would change the game – we could aim for a Swiss-style timetable, with cross-platform connections. A standardised, repeatable and symmetric timetable is what is needed.

Network Rail and DfT will be working with operators to examine the opportunities that such a re-think might provide and we could pilot this through a forthcoming franchise competition.

FundingSince privatisation, there has been revenue growth of £2.3billion (mostly from increased passenger numbers rather than higher fares). This increase has been more than off set by three factors: n a £1.7billion increase in train operating costs,

which have grown in tandem with the growth of passenger numbers;

n £1.5billion extra cost associated with funding Network Rail’s regulatory asset base (its borrowing to fi nance capital projects); and

n £0.5billion in additional rolling stock charges, again refl ecting increased demand.

We have, however, reached the point where the operating railway is paying for itself. It is infrastructure provision that requires subsidy – and

FUNDING BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS

Net cost to Governmentper passenger mile (p)

Ratio of taxpayer tofarepayer funding (%)

Long distance 7.3p 25 : 75

London and South East 4.8 19 : 81

Regional 31.1 61 : 39

0

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Financial Year

RAIL SUBSIDY (2011/12 PRICES)

PASSENGERS

NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE TRAIN OPERATORS

FRANCHISED RAIL INDUSTRYNetwork Rail + franchised train operators

GOVERNMENT OTHERFare income: £7.2bn (58%)

Operating costs £2.5bnFinancing costs £1.5bnAmortisation of capex £1.7bn £5.7bn (49%)

Staff costs £2.2bnRolling stock costs £1.5bnOther costs £2.2bn £5.9bn (51%)

Net funding: £4.0bn (32%)

INDUSTRY INCOME AND SUBSIDY: £12.5BN

INDUSTRY EXPENDITURE: £11.6BN

Other income: £1.3bn (10%)


that is right and proper, as this is providing for the nation’s future transport needs.

The rail industry received £1.3billion of ‘other income’ in 2011-12, an increase of 5.1% compared to 2010-11:n train operators received £0.7billion from car

parking, property rental, catering and other sales. n Network Rail received £0.6billion from its stations

and property portfolio, and charges to freight and open access train operators.

There has been a big increase in the amount that the passenger is putting into the railway vis à vis the

taxpayer, as a result of a policy of above inflation fare rises. Now passengers are funding 60% of the industry’s costs.

Sustainability I firmly believe sustainability is fundamental to rail’s long term success. It must be embedded throughout the industry: it’s a core requirement, not an optional extra.

We want ambitious, innovative proposals in bids coming into the Department to deliver environmental improvements, support economic growth and bring communities together.

Community Rail Partnerships are worthy of mention. CRPs are not of marginal importance: they are providing real service and deserve to be supported.

There are today over 50 CRPs putting real money, real people-power and real innovation into rail. CRPs have re-opened local rail services and transformed long decaying assets into vital community resources.

Take Accrington station for instance: a superb station rebuilding project that has used local materials to produce a truly ‘green’ building. Or the work at Huddersfield, where a solar panel has been installed on the roof of the old water tower, providing power for the station. I want more of this WHERE THE MONEY GOES

0

18%

24%

31%

32%

10 20-10

Wales

Scotland

England

GB total

-3%

Government funding as a

GOVERNMENT FUNDING AS PERCENTAG

Will we see the railways playing a larger role in small consignment freight delivery? Just over a year ago, a trial night service ran into London using the former Great Western motorail vans. Here No 86701 is seen at the head of working 4Z86 from Rugby to Euston after arrival at its destination on 1 November 2012. Guy Houston


sort of thing: I don’t believe the big companies have all the answers.

Reshaping the Government’s approach When we look at the current system of franchising, we have to ask, where is the passenger in all this? Or the workforce? We have tended to think that one franchising model fits all, there has been little sense of ‘partnership’.

Government all too often over-specified the railway: there has been lots of ‘tell’, with little ‘ask’ and an air of ‘we know best’. The franchising system has been unable to react to changing markets and has not created conditions that foster innovation or investment. There has been little sense of ‘local’, with too much detail specification from the centre.

We must change all this. The passenger must be at the centre of every aspect of design and the workforce properly supported.

I want less ‘tell’ and more ‘ask’. We need contractual relationships fit for the

specific railway circumstances. Real innovation needs to be properly recognised in bids. There is scope for new alliances and partnerships and we need to localise the railway.

Thinking out of the box We need a far more pro-active approach to innovation. For example, instead of the barriers being shut until your ticket opens them, why not have them open and only close if you don’t present your ticket? Such a system already works in Japan.

Are there other approaches to Revenue Protection we could take which don’t get in the way of people encumbered with luggage and small children?

Partnership We need a new kind of partnership – at all levels, across all interfaces – between workforce and passengers, DfT and the industry, industry and the supply chain.

The workforce has a big part to play in moving the industry forward, and that includes the trade unions. I celebrate the fact that we have characters like Bob Crow of the RMT union on the railway, you need people like him to challenge the conventional wisdom – they are not always wrong. What the

unions have to do is recognise that the world is changing, and they should be thinking ahead to where we will be in 20 years’ time. I am in favour of setting up company stakeholder boards, with union representatives on those boards, as they have in Germany and elsewhere.

I also want an end to ‘them’ and ‘us’. With the TOCs and Network Rail, it often seems as if one side is competing with the other to get one over the other lot. Delay attribution has become a mini-industry in its own right. Delay attribution has a place (I think we could do with a bit more delay attribution in the operation of airports to incentivise people) but there are limits. That is why I am in favour of partnership developments such as the Wessex alliance.

I also would like to say a word on behalf of the civil servants in the Department, who I think are often unfairly lambasted. Civil servants have put in a lot of work to move this industry forward: for

example in March this year we published an eight-year programme of franchising that features high levels of investment. This investment is justified by business cases developed by civil servants in the Department.

People across all facets of the industry have much to offer. If we all pull together we can make a success of the railways.

Details of Association Membershipcan be found on page 14. Hear thespeakers, ask the questions and thenread all about it in Modern Railways

28%

32%

37% 61%

39% 57%

30 40 50 60 70

percentage of total income

GE OF TOTAL INCOME

PASSENGER INCOME£7.2BN

GOVERNMENT FUNDINGOF INFRASTRUCTURE

£3.9BN

OTHER TRAIN OPERATORS INCOME(CAR PARKING, PROPERTY RENTAL, CATERING ETC)£0.7BN

OTHER NETWORK RAIL INCOME(STATIONS, PROPERTY ETC)£0.6BN

NET GOVERNMENT FUNDINGOF TRAIN OPERATORS£0.1BN

WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM

1002004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

120

140

160

Amou

nt (£

)

RAIL FARES HAVE INCREASED BY MORE THAN INFLATION

All other tickets Season ticket Inflation (RPI)

In a break from tradition, the Railway Study Association President Richard Morris asked three senior railway people to present their ideas of what our national railways will look like 30 years from now. JOHN GLOVER reports

Will demand for rail services exceed capacity in 2043? Former Virgin boss Chris Green saw this as the main concern for rail. This

was certainly not the main issue in 1983, but the priority must now move from providing better train services to investing in additional infrastructure for future expansion.

An historic growth in demand has been aff ecting all sectors of the rail business. Long distance passenger journeys have doubled in the last 15 years from 59million to 122million and

are forecast to double again by 2043. This was not just the result of increased train frequencies since privatisation – it is also the result of a sudden growth in the UK population, which has now risen from 51million in 1961 to 62million in 2011, and is forecast to reach a record 73 million by 2035.

In Greater London, population actually fell to 6.8million in the 1980s, but then rose to 8.2million in 2011 – and is forecast to reach an unprecedented 9.2million by 2031. All these extra people will be looking for transport in a congested city.

The capacityUrban and arterial roads are already near capacity at peak times and there is little chance of a road building programme to match this future wall of demand. Motorists are also being deterred by rising costs – notably those of fuel and insurance – which seem set to continue. Indeed, road traffi c has fl attened in the last decade for the fi rst time, whilst rail demand has continued growing despite the recession. The second age of the train may fi nally be upon us.

But the rail network is fi lling up too. Britain now has one of the busiest mixed traffi c railways in Europe, and there is a limit to how much more can be squeezed onto it. There were 580 daily InterCity services in 1994, but this had risen to 1,178 in 2012. Each extra express can prevent the growth of commuter and freight services – and vice versa. It is a zero sum game.

THE RAILWAY

Relief railway: unit No 395017 Dame Sarah Storey passes Km post 84 at Tutt Hill on HS1 forming train 1J34, the 13.12 St Pancras to Dover, on 5 June 2013. Brian Stephenson

79 January 2014 Modern Railways

Incremental solutionsMr Green predicts a three stage plan over the next 30 years to allow rail to continue meeting this welcome demand, starting with a few remaining quick fi xes and then moving on to create ever more infrastructure:n using the existing network more smartly;n expanding the infrastructure to segregate traffi cs; n building new ‘relief railways’ such as Crossrail.

Smart RailwayThere is an opportunity for the rest of this decade to run the existing railway even more smartly. This means automating the railway to squeeze more trains onto the timetable. Most of the technology exists already, and the Smart Railway can be created by harnessing European Rail Traffi c Management System (ERTMS), Automatic Route Setting (ARS), Automatic Train Operation (ATO), and condition

monitoring of both trains and infrastructure to avoid failures.

The Smart Railway will also need to become a Right Time railway. Franchises that pretend that trains are ‘on time’ if they are up to fi ve or ten minutes late are just wasting space that could be allocated to additional services. But Right Time precision can only be achieved with ultra reliable equipment – trains, track and signalling. Every train will have to hit every junction punctually, Japanese style.

At the same time, timetables will have to be re-cast to be capacity-led. This will mean creating regular interval timetables on each route. With these, all traffi c, including freight and open access passenger services, is off ered fi xed interval slots. This will maximise the trains that can be run on a mixed railway. It may mean buying out some existing rights to train paths, but the majority will benefi t from the additional slots.

Expand and segregateThere will be a limit to what even the Smart Railway can achieve, and planning needs to start for additional infrastructure to expand physical capacity. This may require further four-tracking of some main lines. Unlike Manchester, the main line from London to Leeds is still 50% double track; the Midland could be a continuous four-track railway from London to Sheffi eld carrying additional freight traffi c via Corby and the Erewash Valley. The Great Western may well need to extend its four tracking to Oxford and Swindon.

This will still leave bottlenecks on the main lines awaiting grade separation, such as Colwich on the West Coast, Newark on the East Coast and Stratford – where freight trains regularly cross all four of the Great Eastern / Crossrail tracks on the fl at.

Longer and faster freight trains can only be squeezed onto the main lines by investing in longer loops and higher entry / exit speeds. The West Coast north of Preston is an example of a route that is overdue for this type of upgrading. Elsewhere, the need is to create more priority freight corridors, such as the electric spine from Southampton to Sheffi eld via the proposed East – West line. A future candidate must surely be an electric double track freight railway from Felixstowe to Nuneaton where passenger services are built around the freight trains.

Relief railwaysBut it will never be possible to shoe-horn all the potential demand that is coming rail’s way onto the existing railways. The Government had to build motorways to relieve the ‘A’ roads in the 1960s – and it is going to have to build similar relief railways in the next 30 years as Britain reaches the limit of the mixed traffi c railway. The rationale will be the same – to relieve congestion – and it would help public understanding if we called them ‘relief railways’ to emphasise their prime purpose.

Encouragingly, a number of relief railways are already built, being built or planned. High Speed 1 has provided much needed capacity relief on the Kent commuter network, whilst also allowing new high-speed commuter trains to be introduced. The net result has been a huge growth in traffi c by all sectors.

In London, Crossrail 1 is under construction and this much-needed urban relief railway will add 10% capacity relief to central London in 2019. Indeed so popular is this congestion relief scheme that politicians and business leaders are already promoting a Crossrail 2 for 2029.

The wide support for new urban relief railways needs to be translated into a better understanding for their mainline brother – High Speed 2. It will just not be possible to force more trains onto the existing mixed traffi c lines in 15 to 20 years’ time. Demand is likely to keep rising as population expands and roads congest. Rail will be trying to deliver more express, commuter and freight services on the same tracks – and if we want to keep our existing network expanding, we need to siphon the fast long distance services off onto this new relief spine line to the Midlands and the North.

It would be a tragedy if the Second Age of Rail ended with the network being unable to meet the demand that is fi nally fl ooding towards it. High Speed 2 will be needed in the next decade as much as the M1 was needed half a century ago.

Y IN 2043


What will future customers want?’ This was the question posed by the former East Coast Chairman Elaine Holt, who more recently

has been working on a bid for the Crossrail operating concession. 2043 may seem a long way ahead, but in terms of the life of most railway assets it is not far away.

The railway is a customer service business. Passengers want excellent service and value for money: the industry must get it right fi rst time. Customer needs have changed and will continue to change. But rail lags behind.

Railwaymen are very good at looking back, sometimes a long way back. She reminded the RSA that the fi rst section of London Underground opened 150 years ago, 50 years had now passed since the publication of Dr Beeching’s Reshaping Report and that the Railways Act 1993 which brought in privatisation was 20 years in the past. ‘These were important stages in railway history from which there is a lot to learn.’ But there is a need to address the opportunities and challenges for the future.

What, then, are the drivers of change?

DemographicsTable 1 shows how much the population is changing.

People are getting older; note the hugely increased numbers of pensioners by 2035. The population is also getting more obese. Together these mean problems of mobility, accessibility, train interior design, station design and service operation. These will also aff ect business growth rates and hence crowding. What needs to be done to make rail services attractive?

TechnologyAdvances in information technology are remarkable, and they are not stopping where they are. The McNulty Report had this to say:

‘In determining the retail off er, train operating companies should take into account the need to better match trends in demand, the capability of modern retail technology and the societal trends for the automation of purchases’.

Ten years ago, the internet was limited and mobile phones resembled bricks. Both have become more accessible, with eff ects on industry / customer relationships. Technology has the ability to enable and control every stage of a customer’s journey. Travellers will also have high and growing expectations.

‘In response’, said Ms Holt, ‘the railway needs to develop a personal touch’. People are much happier to serve themselves than they were. There are huge opportunities for mobile web access, wearable technology and social networking. Digital

connections can enable people to make better use of travelling time, and they might know more about what is going on than the on-train staff .

Impact on railWhat will be the choices available to the passenger in future? Do they have to pay more for slower, more crowded and inconvenient transport? Or for increasingly worse experiences caused by congestion, lack of performance and extended journey times?

It seems that intermodal operations involving more than one form of transport will become more important. For these to succeed, good connections and improved information is critical.

European Union and national legislation will reward low carbon transport choices, from which rail can benefi t.

It will become more important to manage demand eff ectively through pricing. Is it really feasible to keep increasing fares in the same way as we have done for the next 30 years? In Ms Holt’s view, the answer was a resounding ‘no’.

The infrastructure choices are to build new roads, more airports, HS2 and other rail, but with little guarantee of any of them happening.

What does the passenger do in response? Travel less? Pay more? Give up the car? Or give up with public transport? Or will the country just grind to a halt?

Future railwayRail in 2043 will she hoped be busier, more customer focused, more innovative, and embracing modern technology. Rail should go from strength to strength and is well placed to deliver in future. There is a need to grasp opportunities and to think ahead.

There is a need to reach high safety standards and the high quality services that customers will expect. That leads to an improvement in innovation and strategic thinking to ensure rail is successful for all involved.

This will be a society which is older, larger and stuck in some very large traffi c jams but is connected to the digital world at every opportunity.

TABLE 1: DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGEPOPULATION IN MILLIONS

2010 2035 Growth

People under 16 11.6 12.2 5%

Working age 38.4 44.1 15%

Pensionable age 12.2 19.9 63%

UK population 62.3 73.2 17%

Obesity - BMI over 30 15 26* 73%

*By 2030Sources: ONS, NHS

MID-CENTURYCUSTOMERSOlder, heavier - and more of them

MID-CENTURYMID-CENTURYCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSCUSTOMERSMID-CENTURYCUSTOMERSOlder, heavier - and more of them Older, heavier - and more of them Older, heavier - and more of them

21st century Frith: passengers at Paddington, 7 February 2007. Paul Bigland

ABOVE: York’s � rst proper station, designed by GT Andrews and dating from 1841, has been the subject of a radical transformation into modern o� ces. This involved � lling the space between the wings where the tracks once were, and cleaning and repairing the nineteenth century facades. The remains of the original train shed, covering the cycle racks, has been moved outwards. This signi� cant piece of restoration and adaptation wins the Key Publishing Modern Railways Restoration Award. Michael Papps

LEFT: Crystal Palace station’s innate charm had lain shrouded and unappreciated for years: its lofty roof and broad sweeping staircases now amply accommodate the new lift shaft, receiving the London Underground Operational Enhancement Award. Richard Horne


National Railway Heritage Awards

Celebrating arich heritageRobin Leleux, Chairman of the Panel of Adjudicators, describesa selection of the 2013 National Railway Heritage AwardsRobin Leleux, Chairman of the Panel of Adjudicators, describesa selection of the 2013 National Railway Heritage AwardsRobin Leleux, Chairman of the Panel of Adjudicators, describesa selection of the 2013 National Railway Heritage Awards

Dedicated to encouraging and rewarding best practice in the restoration and continued upkeep

of our rich heritage of railway and tramway buildings and structures, the annual National Railway Heritage Awards were presented by Loyd Grossman OBE FSA on 4 December.

The competition’s leading Ian Allan Publishing Award went to the distinctive Ouseburn viaduct near Newcastle. Starting life in 1839 with laminated timber segmental arches, 30 years later the timber was replaced with wrought iron to the same design - now sensitively strengthened by steel members. Duncan Wheeler


National Railway Heritage Awards

Restoration Award Winner

ABOVE: The total refurbishment of King’s Cross, with complementary new work, won a Chairman’s Special Award for an outstanding entry. At last Lewis Cubitt’s simple station of two glazed semicircular train sheds can be fully appreciated inside and out, with light once more playing on waiting trains. Robin Leleux

LEFT: Helen’s Bay, Co Down was originally a private station built for the Marquess of Du� erin & Ava, and the main building now houses Deborah Harper’s beauty parlour. Her � rm’s restoration and conversion e� orts brought it the Railway Heritage Trust Conservation Award. Derek Young

At Inverurie, the Cocoworks co� ee house has tastefully converted station premises and gains the Supporters Award for small projects. Oliver Doyle

Many surviving water cranes moulder away without a use, but now that at Hudders� eld has been imaginatively restored and converted into o� ces for the Association of Community Rail Partnerships. With community funding involved, this attracted the Network Rail Partnership Award. Keith Hodgkins

Many London Underground stations include work in wrought iron, brass or tile. Skilful and thorough remedial action after a bus struck the entrance subway at Monument station earned the First Group Craft Skills Award. Malcolm Wood

EUROPEEUROPEEUROPEEU MOUNTS LEGAL ACTION AGAINST GERMANYIn late November the European Commission announced that it had started legal action against Germany via the European Court of Justice for DB’s (German Rail’s) alleged failure separately to channel and account for funds between its train operating companies and infrastructure manager DB Netze. The three speci� c issues raised by the EU are that DB (and the German government as owner / regulator) is:■ failing to ensure that public funds from

government bodies designed for infrastructure funding are only used for this purpose and not channelled to operating companies;

■ failing to ensure that DB Netze income for track access is only used to fund the infrastructure management business; and

■ failing to ensure that funds paid for subsidised public service obligation (PSO) services are discretely accounted for.

Infrastructure manager DB Netze and the operating companies such as DB Regio are within the same wider DB group. This legal action may cause DB more concern than previous enforcement action concerning the acceptability of its ‘holding company’ model as it could strike at the heart of the two most pro� table parts of DB’s rail business, namely infrastructure manager DB Netze and regional operator DB Regio. The latter is the largest regional train operator in Germany and has the bene� t of several large legacy contracts that will not come up for retendering for several more years.

In 2012 DB Netze Fahrweg (ie tracks) had an income of €4.7billion for track access charges alone producing an EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) � gure of €894million, a margin of 19%. DB Regio (excluding Arriva / non German operations) had an income of €8.9billion and an EBIT of €882million (a margin of 9.9%).

The only other DB operating company that made more than a 9% margin was the DB station management business, also part of DB Netze (DB Netze Personenbahnhöf), with an EBIT of €230million on turnover of €1.1 billion (20.8% margin).

These � gures suggest that the infrastructure management business is very pro� table and possibly that it is setting prices much higher than costs. Germany’s state governments, which fund regional services, feel that they are contributing a disproportionate amount to DB’s pro� ts.

Previous legal action in Germany brought by DB Regio’s competitors have challenged some of the aspects of DB Netze station usage pricing. Until they were struck down by regulators, higher charges were imposed on all services calling at stations served by InterCity trains - on the basis the stations were of higher quality. This rule applied to stations served by a single weekend IC train that otherwise were purely regional stations and no way di� erent to any other comparable regional station in terms of quality. Industry suspicion was that some of these once a week IC calls were chosen, less than accidentally, on routes where regional services had been lost by DB Regio - thus

increasing station usage prices for hundreds of trains a week operated by competitors.

Legal cases currently underway in Germany could result in DB Netze having to reduce charges and crucially refund payments made in previous years as a mixture of regional train operators and the federal states or their transport authorities are seeking to get what they see as historic overcharging repaid.

Until 2011 DB Netze had applied what it termed ‘regional factors’ to any line that would not be pro� table at standard access rates - in e� ect this was paid by the federal states as in almost every case the main, or only user, was regional passenger services funded on a per train km rate by regional government. The use of regional factors was outlawed by German regulators in 2011/12 and this has led to multiple legal claims, with some federal states claiming more than €100million each.

HIGH SPEED SERVICES BETWEEN FRANCE AND SPAINIn late November SNCF (French Railways) and RENFE (Spanish National Railways) announced that through high speed services from Paris, Lyon and Toulouse to Barcelona would start on 15 December. One train pair would be operated by RENFE between Madrid and Marseille.

The Paris to Barcelona journey time of 6hr 25min is less than 10 minutes faster than the service operated during 2013 with TGV Duplex trains running between Paris and Figueres Vilafant,

where a connecting AVE train took passengers to Barcelona.

Until now only two train pairs have operated between Paris and Figueres, both operated by SNCF. RENFE has equipped ten Class 100 AVE trains (themselves derived from the TGV and built by CAF / Alstom from 1992) with French safety systems and 1,500V DC capability. This is so that they can operate on the Perpignan to Nimes / Toulouse historic lines. On both the French and Spanish high speed lines 25kV AC supply is used.

TALGO FROM MOSCOW TO KIEVRussian Railways (RZD) and Ukrainian Railways (UZ) have announced that new 20-car Talgo trains will enter service between Moscow and Kiev from October 2014. RZD has seven sets of Talgo rolling stock on order: four 1,520mm only trains for the Moscow to Kiev route and three which will be � tted with 1,435 / 1,520mm gauge changeable axles (similar to the 1,435 / 1,668mm gauge axles used in Spain). The gauge-changeable stock will be introduced on Berlin to Moscow overnight services in 2015/16.

CROATIACROATIACROATIA200 NEW LOW FLOORTRAMS FOR ZAGREBZagreb tram operator ZET operates an extensive network of 19 tram routes serving over 250 stops.


Europe View Keith Fender

In the period 2005 to 2010 ZET bought 140 new � ve-section 32-metre trams built in Croatia by the Crotram consortium led by domestic rail engineering company Končar. The 70km/h � ve section trams are designated NT2200 by ZET and have asynchronous motors and IGBT converters.

The new trams enabled the replacement of many older Yugoslav or Czechoslovak trams delivered in the 1970s / 80s and also second hand ex-German vehicles obtained after Croatia became independent in 1991.

Following delivery of all 140 � ve-section trams a further 60 shorter 21-metre three-section NT2300 versions are now on order from Crotram; these are now entering service. In the long term ZET plans to use Crotram vehicles for most services, with a small � eet of older vehicles refurbished for peak period use.

FRANCEFRANCEFRANCESTEALTH CLOSURE PROGRAMME?Despite being part way through what infrastructure manager Réseau Ferré de France (RFF) describes as an unprecedented €13billion renovation of the classic rail network, the prospect of wide scale line closures in rural parts of France has become apparent.

Train services on many French regional routes are notoriously sparse and more often than not

provided by buses, also owned and operated by SNCF, resulting in train � eets that are not intensively used supplemented by under utilised buses! Rail infrastructure manager RFF has an interest in operators running trains rather than buses, as this gives it the chance to collect track access charges.

Recent developments in the Auvergne region illustrate the problems well. RFF and SNCF announced jointly in late October that the Laqueuille to Eygurande section of the through line from Clermont-Ferrand to Brive / Limoges would be subject to permanent speed restrictions and was unlikely to remain open after June 2014. RFF said that as the line was used by fewer than nine trains a day (which appears to be the minimum RFF requires to justify the long term retention of a line) it was uneconomic to spend around €7million replacing 21,000 life-expired sleepers. The line is currently used by three trains most weekdays and two return Intercités train pairs at weekends (which are often in practice replaced by coaches between Ussel and Clermont Ferrand). However SNCF also runs four or more TER buses on the route in each direction on weekdays!

The fact that services on the line cross a regional boundary between Auvergne and Limousin may be a factor, as many TER services across France are self contained within regions - so the sections that cross regional boundaries have fewer services.

The existence of regional boundaries combined with sparse services and poor condition track requiring heavy investment has led to the withdrawal of services west from Verdun in Lorraine to Châlons-en-Champagne, with little prior notice that these services were due to end on 14 December 2013.

The Auvergne region seems likely to su� er more than most from the possible closures. Other routes at risk, all in order to avoid expensive maintenance, are the Millau to Neussargues section of the route south from Clermont-Ferrand to Beziers and the central section of the line from Clermont-Ferrand to St Etienne. Politicians in Auvergne have reacted to the Laqueuille to Eygurande closure announcement

opposing it, however unless they choose to assist RFF with funds for repair and then specify trains rather than buses are operated, their objections are unlikely to have much impact.

The minimum train service requirement suggested by RFF in its public statements of nine trains per day is substantially less than required by German infrastructure manager DB Netze in neighbouring Germany, where a minimum frequency of two hourly services for 16 hours a day (ie eight train pairs) is required to justify any substantial repair work and for any re-opening schemes.

In Germany DB Netze has the option of allowing others to take over such lines if they are willing to invest and lease the line. This has happened to some regional lines, and is currently under discussion for the 39km Meissen - Döbeln section of the Leipzig - Dresden secondary route. In a situation similar to the Laqueuille to Eygurande line, DB Netze wished to avoid renewals expenditure on the Meissen route - the di� erence in the German case is the line has 18 passenger and seven freight trains daily! If RFF follows the German model in terms of setting minimum daily train paths used, it will be possible to identify many lines with fewer than nine trains daily - potentially removing a signi� cant amount of the French network in the process.

ALSTOM TO SELL STAKE IN TRANSPORT BUSINESS Reacting to lower sales than in the previous 18 months, along with lower forecast sales in the immediate future, Alstom announced in November that it was looking to sell a minority stake to either industrial partner companies or � nancial investors during 2014. It is also likely Alstom will make further use of its network of factories in lower cost countries in future.

Alstom, in common with all the other major train building companies, has embarked on a cost control and rationalisation programme this year. Siemens announced 10,000 job losses earlier this year, across all divisions not just transport, whilst Bombardier

One of the � rst NT2300 three-section trams in central Zagreb on 2 October 2013, having just passed one of

the 140 � ve-section NT 2200 vehicles. Keith Fender

Gone already: a regional service in the north of France. The photo shows SNCF X73500 DMUs at Verdun on 11 May 2010. Passengers changed trains at Verdun (in Lorraine), taking services west to Châlons-en-Champagne (in the Champagne-Ardenne region); this was due to cease operation on 14 December 2013. Services east to Metz remain (the train on the right in this picture) - possibly as they operate wholly within the Lorraine region. Keith Fender


Europe View

and Stadler also closed factories or reduced sta� numbers in Germany and Switzerland respectively during 2013.

GERMANYGERMANYGERMANY€1BILLION NEWTRAINS STAND IDLE DB Chairman Dr Rüdiger Grube in an interview with German news magazine Wirtschaftswoche publically admitted that the new InterCity double-deck push-pull sets being built by Bombardier, for use from December 2013, will be unlikely to be in service before June 2015 due to approval delays. The trains, which comprise 160km/h Twindexx double-deck coaches and Class 146 Traxx locos, are essentially identical to many in service already in Germany (with both DB Regio and LNVG / Metronom) yet Bombardier told Modern Railways that changes in the standards required by the EBA approval body made quick approval very unlikely. It also seems these changes have a� ected production timescales too. The EBA has been criticised by manufacturers previously for changing technical standards after series production of trains has begun, causing expensive and time consuming retro� tting of changes.

In the same interview Dr Grube talked about EBA delays leading to €1billion of new trains sitting in sidings awaiting approval - this may relate simply to the amount DB has paid so far, so in reality the � gure is probably higher. The German rail market is structured so that for many new regional trains the introduction date is the timetable change date, normally in December. This has the e� ect of making delays in the provision of new trains, for whatever reason, very obvious.

Currently awaiting approval alongside the � rst Bombardier InterCity double-deck Traxx + Twindexx sets are:■ 16 Velaro-D Class 407 ICE 3 EMUs from Siemens

in a contract worth €550million. These were originally due in service in December 2011 - DB has suggested some might be in use by June 2014 and testing is now underway in both France and Belgium.

■ 56 Coradia Lint DMUs from Alstom, in a contract worth €325million, due in service around Cologne from December.

■ 83 Class 430 S-Bahn EMUs for Stuttgart. Bombardier obtained approval for these and DB put them into service in May ahead of a July 2013 contractual deadline - they were then taken out of tra� c after a few weeks due to, as yet unresolved, issues with retractable door steps. This contract is worth €452million.

■ The � rst Class 245 Traxx ME diesel locos that were due to enter service in Bavaria in December 2013 are at least six months late, awaiting approval. Each loco costs €3.1million and 13 were due to enter service in Bavaria from December 2013 with all 20 on order in use by December 2014.

■ The only major non-DB � eet due to enter service in December - 35 Stadler Flirt EMUs for Veolia Verkehr, which is taking over regional services between Munich and Salzburg - is also delayed by a mix of approval and some production delays. The Veolia contract with Stadler is worth around €200million. Veolia has agreed to hire trains temporarily from both DB Regio (which

has lost the contract) and Austrian Railways (ÖBB) which luckily has a major depot at the eastern end of the route!

DB LONG DISTANCE FLEET REFURBISHMENT UNDERWAYDB’s long distance business DB Fernverkehr is now introducing refurbished InterCity coaches back into service as part of a multi-year programme to refurbish 770 IC day coaches at a cost of around €250million which started in 2012. The work is being undertaken ‘in-house’ by DB workshops in Nuremburg, Kassel and Neumünster and should be completed in 2015. DB intends to continue using large numbers of loco-operated coaches for long distance services until they are replaced by the new ICx EMUs currently on order from Siemens for series delivery from 2018 onwards.

IRELANDIRELANDIRELANDDUBLIN RESIGNALLING PROGRESSIarnród Éireann has issued a Notice in the O� cial Journal of the European Union for Phase 3 of the City Centre DART Re-Signalling Project which comprises Connolly station to Sandymount, with permanent way and overhead line changes at Grand Canal Dock for the installation of a turnback facility. When complete, the City Centre Re-Signalling Project will allow an increase from 12 to 20 trains per hour in each direction on the route between Howth Junction and Grand Canal Dock and is planned to meet future demand for rail transport by increasing the capacity and frequency of trains through Dublin city centre.

Resignalling of the route between Connolly and Sandymount will include the replacement of life-expired three-aspect signalling using relay interlocking with a modern multi-aspect system based on solid state interlocking. Track circuits are to be replaced with axle counters.

Siemens’ S7 Fail-Safe Programmable Logic Control (PLC) equipment will replace relay based level crossing controls at the Lansdowne Road and Serpentine Avenue level crossings to allow more time for road users to cross the railway.

Phases One and Two of the scheme are virtually complete. The fourth stage will cover

One of the 16 Velaro-D trains built by Siemens for DB on test at Hannover Hbf on 21 October 2013. The Class 407 trains might enter service – in Germany only – in June 2014, according to recent comments by DB to the German media. Keith Fender

Veolia was the � rst open access operator to o� er regular services in Sweden - using older coaches and traction supplied by Hectorrail. Loco No 242532 (Siemens ES64U2) is seen leaving Stockholm on 24 July 2012 with the 15.38 Veolia-operated service to Malmo. Keith Fender


Europe View Keith Fender

the Connolly station area itself. Funding has come from the capital investment programme for transport, funded by the National Transport Authority. Tim Casterton

SWEDENSWEDENSWEDENMTR TO JOIN OPENACCESS COMPETITORSHong Kong based operator MTR Corporation has announced it will start inter-city services branded ‘mtrexpress’ in Sweden in 2015 from Stockholm

to the major west coast city of Gothenburg. The services will be in competition with Swedish State Railways (SJ) which currently operates around 30 services a day on the route and several other private operators, as inter-city rail operation in Sweden is now fully liberalised.

The ‘mtrexpress’ service will be much more ambitious than any of the current competitors as 15 trains daily on the 454km long route are planned using six brand new Flirt EMUs ordered from Stadler Rail in Switzerland at a cost of £58million. The new trains will be � ve coaches long with a top speed of 200km/h and will be � tted with an ‘especially high-quality interior’ for comfortable long distance use, plus a bu� et car. Stadler says they are especially designed to operate in severe Nordic winter weather using technology proven in Stadler Flirts used in both Norway and Finland.

Separately, Siemens has sold two Vectron AC 6,400kW locos to German leasing company Paribus Capital, which will lease them to Swedish open access inter-city operator Skandinaviska Jernbanor. This company started operating services, branded as Blå Tåget (Blue Train), between Stockholm and Gothenburg in December 2011. The new 200km/h locos, taken from a small batch Siemens had already constructed as demonstrators in order to ful� l orders immediately, were expected to be in service in Sweden in December 2013 and will replace the 140km/h Traxx locos that have been used by Skandinaviska Jernbanor until now.

TURKEYTURKEYTURKEYMARMARAY LINKOPENS IN ISTANBULThe Marmaray link rail tunnel under the Bosphorus waterway separating Europe and Asia in Istanbul was formally opened on 29 October – the date was chosen as it is the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish republic. Amongst the invited guests was the Prime Minister of Japan, as Japan has funded over $1billion of the estimated US$4.6billion construction cost via loans to the Turkish government.

This new line is 13.3km long – all in tunnel, although the under sea tunnels under the Bosphorus are just 1.4km long. The under-sea section of tunnels was constructed by prefabricating them on land as concrete tubes and then sinking them into a channel cut into the sea bed. The tunnels are as deep as 60 metres below sea level, which is currently the deepest immersed tube tunnel in the world. During construction large amounts of archaeological remains were found, some dating back 6,000 years; unplanned archaeological excavations delayed completion of the project by several years.

The Marmaray link rail tunnels connect to existing rail lines on both sides; these are being completely rebuilt to enable a very frequent commuter service to be operated on the 76km route between Halkali in Europe and Gebze in Asia. Korean company Hyundai Rotem has delivered 440 new EMU cars formed as 34x10-car sets and 20x5-car sets for these services. All these trains were built in Turkey at the Hyundai Rotem ‘Eurotem’ joint venture factory in Adapazarı (jointly owned with TCDD company TÜVASAŞ) east of Istanbul. The trains are initially being used to operate shuttle services (between Kazliçeşme, in the western suburbs and Üsküdar just east of the Bosphorus) whilst the upgrading of the lines to Halkali and Gebze is completed.

The rail link only opened for test running on 4 August (with the Turkish prime minister driving the � rst test train) and only limited services will start running in November as construction and commissioning work is still not completely � nished. The link has already been used, as reported previously in Modern Railways, for the delivery of a new Siemens-built high speed train from Germany to Turkey – this was the � rst time a train built in Europe had been delivered to Asia by rail.

The link is the � rst standard gauge rail line between Europe and Asia and through freight trains from Turkey to Europe are planned. Freight to and from neighbouring countries such as Iraq, Iran or Syria is possible in the future. Container trains to and from Pakistan are already under discussion and could start operating in the next few years – containers would need however to be transhipped in Iran as the line from Pakistan to Iran is built to Indian broad gauge (1,676mm).

TCDD Marmaray link EMU No E32012 supplied by Hyundai Rotem Eurotem stored at Sirkechi station in Istanbul on 8 October 2013, prior to the opening of the Marmaray link. Theo Steel


Europe View


Moving Wheels

GOOD-AS-NEW ‘317’ OFFERED TO OPERATORSANGEL Trains unveiled a re-engineered Class 317 EMU with AC motors to an audience of rail operators and politicians at an event held at Bombardier Transportation’s depot in Ilford on 28 November.

Malcolm Brown, CEO, Angel Trains, made it clear that Angel hoped to be able to re-traction all nine Class 317 EMUs currently off lease and to refurbish them internally for use on new electric services in the Manchester area. Angel has spent £7million on the test bed unit but would expect series refurbishment to be at a lower equivalent price per vehicle.

The test-bed train - unit No 317722 - has had its traction and braking systems completely replaced. The train is fitted with four Bombardier MJ280-8 AC asynchronous axle hung traction motors (used by Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and other operators), replacing the former DC motors.

The unit has been fitted with two TC-1420 traction converters, a Bombardier product proven in service on hundreds of metro trains in Delhi, India. Each traction converter is fitted with a bespoke ‘for the UK’ filter system to remove stray electrical currents that might otherwise lead to a short circuit.

Regenerative braking is fitted using Faiveley equipment comprising one master unit (on the MSO) and slave units on each of the other three vehicles.

Bombardier is currently testing the traction package at its laboratory at Västerås in Sweden and says that modelling suggests the train will be able to accelerate from 0 to 100mph in around a minute less than current trains (177 seconds vs 223 seconds now), whilst the re-generative braking should result in 40% less power being used to operate the train.

Angel says this improved performance could save five minutes from a London Liverpool Street to Cambridge journey, although for test running in 2014 the unit will have to be ‘tuned down’ so it can operate in multiple with Abellio’s other Class 317s without imposing too much stress on the couplers between the units. The unit’s weight is unchanged by the modifications.

Only two of the four vehicles (the MSO and adjacent DTSO) in the train have been refurbished with new interiors; the other two remain in the 1999-vintage Stansted Express format (the ‘317/7’ batch of trains

were rebuilt in 1999/2000 from the original Class 317 ‘BedPan’ EMUs built at York in 1981/82).

The refitted cars have what Angel calls a ‘metro’ layout with more standing space in the door areas, created by removing the former Stansted Express luggage racks and

widening the door area space (but not the doors themselves) by moving the partition screens into the saloon area. Handrails and grab rails are provided for standees.

Other layouts are possible depending upon the use an operator might plan for the units. Angel is

offering the refurbished ‘317’ as a three-, four- or five-car train. The fully refurbished train will offer compliance with the 2020 disability regulations. Wi-Fi, at-seat power sockets, retention toilets and passenger counting systems will all be available as options. Air conditioning is fitted (but the hopper windows have been retained on the test vehicles).

The number of seats is unchanged; the seats are the same design as used on the latest Bombardier Electrostar EMUs but with a blue fabric finish. The new interior is designed to be much easier to keep clean when compared to the old Stansted Express interior, which has multiple locations where dust and dirt can accumulate. By making the door area wider the opportunity has been take to provide easy access for maintenance staff to clear leaves and other litter from the inner ends of the doors by simply opening a hatch inside the train. Angel believes this will reduce the number of trains experiencing door problems.

Angel Trains and operator Abellio, which will use the train in service for six months early in 2014, intend to measure passenger reaction to the new interiors. Customer surveys, to be prepared in conjunction with Passenger Focus, will compare passengers’ opinions of the two ends of the train.

Angel is discussing the potential use of the off-lease units in the North West of England. Refurbishment of the nine trains would take around 20 months. The bigger opportunity would be the refurbishment of the other 63 trains in use with Abellio and First Capital Connect. Keith Fender

Exterior of unit No 317722 at Ilford, 28 November 2013. Bill Turvill

Interior of old Stansted Express-style trailer in unit No 317722. Keith Fender

Interior of Angel vehicle with new ‘metro’ style layout. Note extra space for standees around the doors, using space formerly taken up by luggage stacks. Keith Fender


Moving Wheels

ILFORD WINS ‘365’ WORK IN WOLVERTON HIATUS EVERSHOLT Rail has awarded Bombardier Transportation a two-year contract worth in excess of £30million to undertake the enhancement and heavy maintenance of its fl eet of Class 365 trains which are leased to First Capital Connect (FCC).

The work to upgrade the fl eet, which carries passengers on FCC’s Great Northern route, will be undertaken at Bombardier’s Ilford site in Essex.

Eversholt Rail had originally placed an order to maintain Class

365 trains with Railcare. However, the work was put out to re-tender after Railcare entered administration on 31 July 2013.

Reaching this agreement enables work on the Class 365 fl eet to resume, with a view to recovering the programme as quickly as possible and delivering the fi rst refreshed train to FCC. Eversholt Rail took the opportunity to include under-frame heavy maintenance within the scope of the contract to maximise the availability of the 40x4-car fl eet.

The fi rst train is expected to enter service by early 2014. Additional accessibility work will be undertaken from spring 2014 to bring the trains in line with the 2020 disability regulations. The following improvements will be made (and retrofi tted to those trains already refurbished):■ two wheelchair bays installed;■ a new wheelchair-accessible

toilet in each four-car unit;■ a new fully automated passenger

information system with audio and visual announcements;

■ call for aid installed at wheelchair and toilet areas.

Mary Kenny, Chief Executive Offi cer of Eversholt Rail, said: ‘We are pleased to have selected Bombardier Transportation. This means that we can continue with our programme to refresh the Class 365 trains, enabling passengers to enjoy the benefi ts of the improved fl eet. We will continue to look at future opportunities to work with Knorr-Bremse Rail Services, the new owners of Railcare’.

WABTEC BUYS 20 CLASS 60S FROM DB SCHENKERWABTEC has tendered to buy 20 Class 60s from DB Schenker, although the deal has yet to be signed off . If the deal is ratifi ed, Wabtec will acquire Nos 60002 / 013 / 021 / 026 / 028 / 029 / 033 / 038 / 041 /046-048 / 055 / 056 / 061 / 076 / 085 / 087 / 095 / 096 and is understood to be looking to re-engineer them for the railfreight market in the UK, where the IIIB emission requirements for new locos is likely to improve the market for second-hand locos.

Wabtec has been cagey in confi rming the deal, although DB Schenker insiders have said that Wabtec was the successful bidder.

In September 2010, DBS off ered 20 Class 60s for sale, but did not sell any of them. One of those, No 60001, has since been overhauled and returned to traffi c with DBS.

If Wabtec decides to re-engineer the locos, it could opt for a straightforward overhaul with reliability modifi cations but retaining the existing Mirrlees engines. It could

opt to replace the engines with a diff erent design, either from MTU or GM. This would be more expensive and also increase the time before the locos could be made available for the market.

All 20 locos have exceptionally high engine hours – four have over 20,000 hours since their last overhaul – and the condition of them varies, with No 60033 having been withdrawn as long ago as April 2006 with a major engine defect. Brush Traction of Loughborough,

which built the Class 60s for BR in 1989-91, is now owned by Wabtec. The company has other sites at Doncaster and Kilmarnock.

Which railfreight companies would be interested in taking the Class 60s is open to conjecture. Ten locos are rumoured to be going to GB Railfreight, while Network Rail has also been suggested as a possible customer.

DBS is understood to be unlikely to off er any more Class 60s for sale in the foreseeable future. Pip Dunn

CLASS 57/6S HEAD FOR OVERHAULThe four GM/Brush Class 57/6s leased by Porterbrook to First Great Western and used for hauling sleeper trains are being

overhauled by RVEL at Derby. Wabtec Brush at Loughborough will overhaul the bogies. The fi rst of the locos to be stopped for the

work was No 57603 Tintagel Castle. It will have a body and engine overhaul and ‘G-exam’ at Derby and should be ready to return to

traffi c in mid-January. The fi nal loco to be overhauled should be completed in the middle of 2014. Pip Dunn

MK 3S AT WOLVERTON

Knorr-Bremse Rail Services has begun overhaul of Abellio Mk 3s at Wolverton. The fi rst vehicles to arrive from Norwich were carriages Nos 12035 and 12148, which were tripped from Centre sidings into the works at 17.00 on 29 October by the works shunter, No 08649 (on the left here). Cleek Railway Solutions


Trackwatch

A DIGEST OF THE MAIN CHANGES ON NETWORK RAIL AND LU INFRASTRUCTURE IN OCTOBER 2013; COMPILED BY MIKE BRIDGE.

AngliaBetween Ipswich and Needham Market (2:6C)In connection with the project to create a new double track chord (the future West or Bacon Factory Curve) between the Up Main and Down Main lines to the north of Ipswich Station and the Up and Down East Suffolk lines, run offs from the existing OLE over the Up and Down Main lines have been provided and energised at the future Europa Junction (ELR:LTN1, 70M 37ch). The project is due to be commissioned in March 2014.

Kent Northfleet (5:7, 5:49C)The facing crossover between the Down Main and the Up Main lines at 21M 48ch (installed in connection with the provision of sidings to Lafarge Cement) has been electrified with conductor rail to allow Down direction electric trains to run into the Up platform.

London North EastBetween Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace (2:14A, 2:14B)In connection with the Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace Capacity Enhancement project, the previously installed crossover from the Up Slow No.1 to the Up Slow No.2 line at 2M 64ch near Finsbury Park has been made fully operational to all traction. The current Platform 1 (out of use) at Alexandra Palace has been commissioned. It will not be brought into timetabled use until December.Between Haywood (CCTV) and Shaftholme Junction (2:40A)In connection with the construction of the North Doncaster Chord, due for completion in March 2014, a new facing connection (future Haywood Jn) has been laid in the Up Knottingley Line at 67M 75ch (approx). The new points are secured out of use C&P in the Reverse position (for a through route to Shaftholme Jn) until further notice.Peterborough (2:16A)In connection with the Peterborough Station Area Capacity Enhancement project, Platform 3 (future Platform 2) has been extended at the Huntingdon end by 60m (65yds) to provide a new operational length of 308m (337yds).Level CrossingsThe following alterations to crossings have taken place:Between Marshgate Jn and Shaftholme Jn (2:18A)

Barrier Bank (FP) crossing at 157M 05ch has been closed. Between Selby and Hambleton West Jn (2:37B)The gate box at Sandhill Lane (MCG) (1M 42ch) has been decommissioned and the crossing renewed as MCB-OD type. Thorpe Gates (MCB) at 2M 27ch and Thorpe Hall RC (MCB) at 2M 41ch have been decommissioned and renewed as MCB-OD type.

London North WestNuneaton Station Area (4:11B)Signalling alterations have been commissioned between Nuneaton South Jn, Abbey Jn and Canal Farm Jn which bring the Up Relief line into use and allows the Nuneaton North Chord to be used in the Up direction. Both the Up Relief line (between 10M 50ch on the Down Arley line and 97M 36ch (approx.) on the Up Trent Valley Slow line) and the Nuneaton North Chord (between Midland Yard Jn and Canal Farm Jn) are bi-directionally signalled. Between Stafford South Junction and Stafford Station (4:12B)In connection with the Stafford Re-signalling Project, lines have been cleared at Stafford Down Salop Sidings to make way for site offices, car parking and storage areas to be built. Sidings 7, 8, 9 and 10 have been recovered and Sidings 3, 4, 5 and 6 have been recovered to within 20 metres (21 yards) of the existing OLE. The existing buffer stops have been relocated and the OLE on Sidings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 has been isolated pending recovery in January 2014.Between Todmorden, Burnley Manchester Road and Hall Royd Junction (4:33B, 4:37B)In connection with the project to reinstate the former Todmorden West Curve, intended to provide a direct service between Manchester Victoria and Burnley, a new trailing crossover has been installed between the Up L&Y at 19M 16ch and the Down L&Y at 19M 20ch. Both sets of points are secured out of use in the normal position until further notice.Platform extensions Extensions have been provided at the station platforms below: Salford Crescent (4:48B); Platform 1 extended by 60m (66yds), new operational length 158m (173yds); Platform 2 extended by 39m (43yds), new operational length 153m (167yds).

ScotlandCowlairs SC Recontrol (1:7L, 1:9A)In connection with EGIP Cumbernauld Electrification works, Cowlairs Signalling Centre has been abolished and control of the area

transferred to two new workstations (Cowlairs No.1 and Cowlairs No.2) located at Edinburgh Signalling Centre.

Cowlairs No.1 Workstation controls the E&G lines lines from Queen Street HL to Greenhill Jn (excl) and from Cowlairs South Jn/Cowlairs West Jn to Sighthill West Jn (excl). Signals in this area prefixed ‘CQ’, ‘CC’, ‘CE’ (E&G lines) and ‘CG’ remain unchanged.

Cowlairs No.2 Workstation controls the Stepps lines from Sighthill West Jn to Garnqueen North Jn (including the Railcare Arrival/Departure lines) and the Perth Lines onwards to Greenhill Jn (excl); from Gartcosh Jn to Gartsherrie South Jn (excl); the Springburn lines from Springburn to Barnhill (incl); from Cowlairs East Jn (excl)/ Cowlairs West Jn (excl) to Cowlairs North Jn and the Maryhill lines from Cowlairs North Jn via Maryhill Park Jn to Anniesland Bay platform/ Knightswood North Jn (excl).

Signals on these lines prefixed ‘CE’, ‘CS’ and ‘CN’ remain unchanged. Signals on the Down Springburn line from Sighthill West Jn to Barnhill and on the Up Springburn to 2M 20ch (approx.) and previously prefixed ‘CC’, have been prefixed ‘CS’.

There are no permanent way alterations.Between Larbert North and Stirling (1:15) The track and signalling alterations associated with the remodelling of Stirling Middle Jn to allow simultaneous working of Up and Down trains to and from the Stirling Alloa and Kincardine lines have been brought into use.

The Up Sidings have been abolished and the related former connections in the Up Main and with the Kincardine lines removed, together with former connection between the Down and Up Kincardine lines to the south of Platform 6. The Kincardine lines have been slewed; the Down Kincardine line to a new connection trailing in the Up Main line at 118M 07ch (approx.); and the Up Kincardine line to a new trailing connection with the Platform 10 Bay line and onwards over a new loop southwards (the Up Passenger Loop) to a new trailing connection at 117M 41ch in the Up Main line. Standage in the Up Passenger Loop is 565m (618yds).

The former facing crossover between the Up and Down Main lines at 118M 06ch (approx.) has been abolished and a new facing crossover brought into use with connections at 117M 73ch in the Down Main and 117M 78ch in the Up Main. A new Engineer’s Siding has been

brought into use parallel with the Up Passenger loop and connected to it by a crossover, trailing in the UPL at 117M 78ch. Access to the Engineer’s siding is by means of a Ground Switch Panel.

Signalling alterations include the recovery of all mechanical signals and their replacement by LED type colour light signals. All new or altered signals remain controlled by Stirling Middle SB and are prefixed ‘SM’. The Up Kincardine line is bi-directionally signalled through Platform 9; the Down Kincardine remains bi-directionally signalled from Causewayhead Jn. Between Thornton West Junction and Clunybridge Junction (1:13)Westfield branch has been taken out of use. The connection has been secured to prevent access.Level CrossingsThe following alterations to crossings have taken place:At Strathcarron (1:22E); Strathcarron (AOCL) at 45M 77ch has been upgraded to (AOCL+B).Between Georgemas Jn and Wick (1:20E); Newfield (UWC) at 159M 78ch has been closed and the telephones and equipment recovered.

SussexBattersea Park (5:2R)The Down Atlantic line from the trailing connection to the south of the former Platform 1 (see Trackwatch for September) at 7M 17ch (one half of a trailing crossover between the Down and Up Atlantic lines), together with the connection, have been abolished. The Up Atlantic line has been reopened, together with


Trackwatch

Platform 2. The Up Atlantic line has been remodelled to provide a buffer stop which will allow turn back moves onto the Down Atlantic line through the remaining crossover connection, trailing in the Up Atlantic at 7M 20ch. Platform 3 (the Down Brighton Slow line platform) has been extended by 35m (38yds) to provide a new operational length of 201m (220yds),Gatwick Airport (5:15B)Further works have been undertaken in connection with the project to provide a new loop on the Down side and the construction of an additional platform. A new left hand trailing connection has been provided on the Down Fast line at approximately 26Mm 78ch towards Three Bridges. The connection is secured out of use until further notice, Platform extensions Extensions have been provided at the station platforms below: Between Balham and Crystal Palace (5:4)Streatham Hill; Down Platform (Platform 2) extended at the Country end by 24m (26yds), new operational length 208m (227yds).Gypsy Hill; Up Platform (Platform 1) extended at the London end by 49m (54yds), new operational length 206m (225yds); Down Platform (Platform 2) extended at the London end by 45m (49yds), new operational length 204m (223yds)Between Streatham and Sutton (5:22)Mitcham Eastfields; Up Platform (Platform 1) extended at the London end by 19m (21yds) and at the Country end by 6m (7yds), new operational length 185m (202yds); Down Platform (Platform 2)

extended at the London end by 11m (12yds) and at the Country end by 18m (20yds), new operational length 189m (207yds).Carshalton; Up Platform (Platform 1) extended at the London end by 28m, new operational length 202m (221yds); Down Platform (Platform 2) extended at the London end by 40m (44yds), new operational length 219m (240myds).Sutton; Up Platform (Platform 3) extended at the Country end by 37m (40yds), new operational length 220m (241yds); Down Platform (Platform 4) extended at the Country end by 43m (47yds), new operational length 227m (248yds).Between Clapham Junction and Selhurst (5:4)Wandsworth Common; Up Platform (Platform 2) extended at the Country end by 46m (50yds), new operational length 228m (249yds); Down Platform (Platform 1) extended at the Country end by 34m (37yds), new operational length 216m (236yds).Balham; Both platforms (Up, Platform 2 and Down, Platform 1) extended at the Country end by 42m (45yds), new operational length 226m (247yds).Streatham Common; Up Platform (Platform 2) extended at the Country end by 37m (40yds), new operational length 205m (224yds); Down Platform (Platform 1) extended at the Country end by 39m (43yds), new operational length 208m (227yds).Norbury; Up Platform (Platform 2) extended at the Country end by 17m (19yds), new operational length 218m (238yds); Down Platform (Platform 1) extended at the London

end by 34m (37yds), new operational length 235m (257yds).Selhurst; Up Platform (Platform 2) extended at the London end by 43m (47yds), new operational length 252m (276yds); Down Platform (Platform 1) extended at the London end by 26m (28yds), new operational length 223m (244yds).Between West Croydon and Epsom Downs (5:22)Waddon; Up Platform (Platform 1) extended at the Country end by 44m (48yds), new operational length 202m (220yds); Down Platform (Platform 2) extended at the London end by 44m (48yds), new operational length 204m (223yds).Wallington; Up Platform (Platform 1) extended at the Country end by 41m (45yds), new operational length 201m (220yds); Down Platform (Platform 2) extended at the Country end by 46m (50yds), new operational length 206m (225yds).Epsom Downs; Platform 1 extended at the London end by 43m (47yds), new operational length 211m (231yds).

Wales & WesternBetween Crewe Junction and Gresty Lane (4:22A, 4:23A)The signalling and track alterations affecting the working of the lines between Shrewsbury, Crewe Junction and Crewe, Gresty Lane (excl.) have been brought into use. Control of signals and other equipment in the area has been transferred to a new workstation (known as Shrewsbury North workstation) in the South Wales Control Centre (SWCC) at Cardiff. The signal boxes at Crewe Bank (CB), Harlescott (HT), Wem (WM), Prees (PS), Whitchurch (WH) (already switched out from 2011), Wrenbury (WY) and Nantwich (NH) have been closed. The area re-controlled fringes with Crewe Jn SB (CJ) at 32M 10ch (Up)/32M 10ch (Dn) and with Gresty Lane (GL) at 2M 60ch (approx.).

Signalling alterations include the replacement of all existing semaphore signal arms and conventional two or three aspect colour light signals by new Variable Message Signage (VMS) modular signalling positioned on collapsible lightweight posts located in new positions and with altered signal spacing. Bi-directional signalling has been installed between Crewe Bank and Nantwich but has not been brought into use at this stage. Signals in the re-controlled area are prefixed ‘SC’ and the method of working trains has been changed to the Track Circuit Block system.

Track alterations include: Motorising the entrance and exit

points to Crewe Bank Up Goods Loop, controlled from the SWCC and plain

lining the catch points at the loop end of the entrance crossover. Crewe Jn SB continues to control movements to and from Crewe Bank Down Siding.

Abolition of the ground frames at the Wem emergency trailing crossover (21M 76ch), the Wem emergency facing crossover (21M 72ch) and the Nantwich emergency crossover (4M 07ch). The connections have been motorised and are controlled from SWCC.

Level crossings, formerly (MCB), at Harlescott (30M 29ch), Wem (21M 55ch), Prees (18M 39ch), Wrenbury (8M 52ch) and Nantwich (4M 19ch) have been converted to (MCB-OD) type supervised from SWCC. Supervision of the (AHBC-X) crossings at Shrewbridge Road and Newcastle Road has been transferred to SWCC and telephones have been provided at the unnamed Farm Crossing (UWC) at 19M 36ch and Young’s Farm Crossing (UWC) at 8M 23ch.Keyham (3:8B)Up Siding No.2 has been recovered. The hand points at each end of the siding have been replaced with plain line. The Up siding No.1, adjacent to the Up Main line platform, has been retained.Taunton (3:6D)Three downside sidings, adjacent to the former Down Minehead Bay (platform 1) at the Exeter end, have been refurbished and brought back into use as the Taunton Tamper/Loco Sidings. The sidings are numbered 1 next to the bay platform, then 2 and 3 and are accessed by a hand point leading from the Down Bay line.Woodborough (3:11B)The Down Goods Loop Spur and its associated position light signal have been taken out of use pending recovery.

WessexBetween Southampton Parkway and EASTLEIGH (5:28A, 5:29)Further works in connection with the extension of the Up Slow Line between Southampton Parkway and Eastleigh have taken place. One end of a new crossover has been installed in the Up Fast Line at the Country side of Eastleigh station at 73m 45ch. The new points have been secured out of use until further notice.

Information has been grouped according to the main Network Rail ‘Routes’ in October 2013. All details can be subject to subsequent amendment. Books and Diagram Reference Numbers (in brackets) relate to the latest relevant Quail Track Diagram books including the recently published 3rd edition Book 4 London & North West obtainable from Trackmaps at www.trackmaps.co.uk.

Earthworks at Bicester in November 2013, showing the chord line for future Oxford - Marylebone services taking shape. The photograph

was taken from the Bicester North route, while the Bicester Town line is behind the steel pilings on the right of the picture. Tony Parkins


In Business

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MODERN RAILWAYS ON YOUR IPADHAVE you asked for an iPad or other tablet device for Christmas? If you have then I’m sure you’re looking forward to exploring all of the features of your new ‘toy’, but did you know that you could also enjoy each issue of your favourite magazine at your convenience? Check out the Key Publishing website for further details!

NEW UTU2Railway Vehicle Engineering Ltd of Derby has converted a former passenger vehicle into a new Ultrasonic Test Unit � tted with Sperry equipment for detecting rail � aws: the new UTU2 replaces an older vehicle and means that Network Rail is able to deploy four of these specialist vehicles across the network. Network Rail’s Patrick Bossert, Director Asset Information; Diana Savvides, Team Organiser Data Collection Services and Sarah Capper, Head of Asset Information, inspect the interior of the new UTU2 vehicle with RVEL Managing Director, Andy Lynch.

No hassle with ex-Rowe Hankins MDAMANDA Jones, the former managing director of rail systems engineers Rowe Hankins, has set up a new manufacturing consultancy. HFZ Consulting will advise on business growth, quality systems implementation, � nancial control and manufacturing. Ms Jones explained: ‘HFZ stands for hassle free zone. Our approach is based on practical

experience building teams and motivating them to achieve higher performance’.

On her watch, Rowe Hankins, a supplier of equipment such as wheel � ange lubrication systems and non-intrusive current monitors giving early warning of electrical insulation degradation, upped its turnover from £4million to £6million.

PB WINS TRANSPENNINE WIRING DESIGN AWARDTHE Parsons Brinckerho� consultancy has been awarded the design engineering contract for the � rst phase of electri� cation on Network Rail’s North Trans Pennine route from Manchester to Leeds and York. The company is already working closely with Network Rail on other major schemes in the north west including the Northern Hub upgrade and North West Electri� cation programmes.

The � rst phase of upgrading the route, known as Trans Pennine West, will see the railway electri� ed from both Manchester Victoria and Manchester Piccadilly stations through to Stalybridge, and includes the introduction of electric rolling stock to serve a number of existing and proposed new routes. As part of the Lancashire Triangle, this project will deliver capacity and journey time improvements for both passenger

and freight services across the north west region.

Parsons Brinckerho� says the design team will integrate into one programme the track, overhead line equipment, signalling, telecommunications, electri� cation, civil engineering, stations, and environmental elements of the project.

The scope to be delivered by Parsons Brinckerho� covers a variety of activities. These include electri� cation and journey time improvements between Manchester Victoria and Stalybridge, re-signalling of Ashton Moss North to Denton Junctions, operability improvements at Ardwick depot, a resilience study of the existing electri� cation system between Ashburys and Newton-for-Hyde stations, and pre-feasibility options for Miles Platting Junction to Newton Heath depot.


In Business

KNORR-BREMSE RailServices has begun marketing the services of the former Railcare facilities at Wolverton near Milton Keynes and Springburn near Glasgow that it acquired from � nancial administrators in the autumn.

The company says the RailServices facilities can undertake major ‘whole train’ and systems refurbishment projects which improves existing rail stock. Both the Springburn and Wolverton facilities o� er bogie shops, wheel overhaul shops and paint shops.

The types of service o� ered by RailServices include; vehicle overhaul, refurbishment, upgrade, re-livery and incident repair (on all EMUs/DMUs, coaching stock and locomotive types).

In addition, a range of � exible service types is available to customers, including: component repair and overhaul, wheel set refurbishment, bogie overhaul, gear box and transmission repair and overhaul, peripheral equipment repair and overhaul, rail plant and equipment repair and overhaul and supply chain support and management using the latest in logistics techniques.

Paul Goodhand, Managing Director of Knorr-Bremse in the UK commented, ‘RailServices not only has the capacity but also the capability to deliver support and solutions for customers. This capability is made possible by the two hundred plus highly skilled and experienced employees who work at the two RailServices sites, supported by their four hundred plus Knorr-Bremse employees based at our other facilities in the UK. Together they are working to support customers through delivering a wide range and choice of systems and service solutions’.

KNORR-BREMSE RELAUNCHES WOLVERTON AND SPRINGBURN

Door mechanism checks feature among the services o� ered by Knorr-Bremse RailServices.

One-o� repair: an o� beat project undertaken at Wolverton was repair of the Class 455 damaged when a cement mixer fell on the line at Oxshott in 2010. This is the � nished unit in March 2013, which incorporated a vehicle from the prototype Class 210 DEMU No 210002 to replace the most-seriously damanged car. Tony Christie

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People

BOUNDY IS GO-AHEAD’S NEW COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTORSARAH Boundy has been appointed as Go-Ahead Group’s Corporate Communications Director. She has been covering the role since the departure of Samantha Hodder who left last summer to be a director of Sydney Trains, Australia.

Ms Boundy has worked in the transport industry for more than ten years, most recently as Head of Communications and Publicity at one of Go-Ahead’s rail companies, Southeastern, where she was part of the executive team.

Promoted: Sarah Boundy.

SIEMENS RAIL AUTOMATION MDPAUL Copeland has been appointed Managing Director of Siemens Rail Automation UK. Mr Copeland joined Invensys Rail in February 2013 as Vice President, Delivery for Northern Europe, taking full responsibility for project delivery, and after the integration of the company

with Siemens became Director, Engineering and Delivery.

He has over 35 years’ experience in the civil engineering and rail sectors, in the UK and overseas. He takes over the reins from Nick Crossfield, who has chosen to pursue opportunities outside the business.

VOLKERFITZPATRICK’S NEW RAIL MDCHRIS Evans has been appointed as the new Managing Director for VolkerFitzpatrick’s rail division.

Mr Evans, who is a chartered civil engineer with an honours degree in civil engineering and a Diploma in Business Management, has 30 years’ experience in working on construction projects. His project

portfolio includes international and national projects such as the Second Severn Crossing, the Kap Shui Mun bridge in Hong Kong as well as being project director for Blackfriars station and bridge project and Crossrail’s Liverpool Street and Whitechapel station tunnelling projects.

MTR appoints ATO specialistMTR has appointed Neil Walker as European Business Development Executive. He will report to Jeremy Long, CEO, European Business; he joins MTR from Bombardier.

During his 14 years at Bombardier, Mr Walker led programmes including the London Underground Victoria Line upgrade programme for new trains and new automatic train operation (ATO) and signalling systems.

MTR says his expertise in financing and introducing new rolling stock and railway signalling

systems will be valuable for its London Overground and Stockholm operations, and the newly announced MTR Express Stockholm-Gothenburg open access service, all of which will see new rolling stock added over the next three years.

MTR is shortlisted for the Thameslink franchise and the Crossrail concession. In both cases, the successful bidder will need to introduce entire new fleets of rolling stock between 2015 and 2019, with new ATO signalling systems.

No response from British Transport Police Chief Constable Andy Trotter to my November piece

about unacceptable behaviour on the railway. No defence of the policy of (rightly) using Railway Byelaws to pursue enthusiastically those who don’t have a ticket, but (wrongly, to my mind) seeming to take no action to invoke Byelaws concerning drunkenness, the use of obscene language and the like.

Could it be because there is no acceptable explanation for such selective application of the law? Lots of support, however, from readers who, like me, are fed up with this worsening aspect of rail travel.

To be fair, parts of the industry have belatedly woken up to this problem, albeit in a fragmented and half-hearted way. ‘Keep Calm and Don’t Drink’ declares a notice which has appeared on York station, bearing the imprimatur of all the train operating companies (TOCs) using the station, plus the BTP. Between 18.00 and 21.00 they have ‘prohibited the possession of intoxicating liquor from the stations and trains on Saturday evenings’. It contends – as we already know – that ‘it is an off ence under Byelaw 4 (2) for any person to be in possession of intoxicating liquor on the railway’.

It’s a start. But of course almost

impossible to implement. York is an open station, with at least three separate entrances, all well-used. Lots of people change trains there and most are unlikely to see notices at the entrances, anyway. And many of the trains, from as far afi eld as London, the West Country, Liverpool or Scotland, start their journeys hours earlier and will almost certainly carry people who have purchased alcohol, perhaps in bars on stations or even from the buff ets on the trains themselves. Can you really discriminate between diff erent passengers on the same train in this way? Surely it is either ‘dry’ or it isn’t!

Certainly such a ban would have had no alleviating eff ect whatsoever on the unpleasant East Coast trip to which I referred, because the rowdy element were already on board, complete with their six-packs and (ineff ectual) BTP minders. And why just on Saturdays, and only until 21.00? That implies that it is okay at other times. If it is an off ence, it is surely an off ence at all times, just as the laws applying to smoking or travelling without a ticket are.

‘Possession’ perhaps needs to be replaced by ‘consumption’ because it would seem unnecessary to penalise those legitimately merely carrying alcohol in their shopping or on the way to some celebration. But then it needs clear system-wide ‘no drinking’

signage to give BTP offi cers and railway staff alike the authority to curtail such behaviour.

Back in November I mentioned the drunken antics of passengers portrayed in the Channel 5 series on First Great Western. That it is indeed a system-wide problem not confi ned either to FGW or Saturdays has been amply confi rmed by the more recent Sky series ‘All Aboard: East Coast Trains’ which depicted similarly inebriated passengers at Newcastle and elsewhere – and the state in which they left the trains on which they had travelled. As many readers have pointed out, this would not be tolerated by any airline, in an airport or indeed in most other privately owned areas to which the public is admitted, so why on the railway?

Part of the answer, yet again, is the lack of ownership that has come with the fragmentation of railway privatisation. Nobody is sure who should take the initiative, or even whether they have the authority to do so. Back in August, shocked by some of the scenes in the First Great Western series, reader Tony Parkins wrote to the Offi ce of Rail Regulation asking the offi ce to take action to give greater protection to staff and passengers alike. Not an unreasonable request, you might think, given that ORR, as part of its role as ‘independent safety and economic

regulator for Britain’s railways’, has clear responsibility for the health and safety of both rail employees and passengers.

But as so often on our administration-bound, Balkanised rail network, ORR ducked the issue and promptly shifted responsibility back to First Great Western. Three months later, Mr Parkins eventually received a reply – of sorts – from ORR, relaying comments from FGW, which apparently has a ‘Violence at Work’ policy. (Really? Shouldn’t that be an ‘Avoiding Violence at Work’ policy?)

Anyhow, this apparently ‘covers how employees should deal with diffi cult customers and specifi cally customers who are under the infl uence of alcohol and drugs’, and is supported by ‘confl ict avoidance training for all front line staff ’. It acknowledges the existence of Section 4 of the Railway Byelaws, but has a ‘hands off policy’ in relation to employees physically removing any person from their trains or stations, although it has asked the BTP ‘to be proactive’. So basically, all about what it does for its staff and not a mention of the rights or expectations of the majority of its customers!

Disappointingly, the letter ends ‘ORR is satisfi ed that the arrangements described by FGW form part of a system for ensuring so far as is reasonably practicable a

DVT No 82216 at the rear of the 14.01 York to London service on 29 October 2013, at Grantham. The vehicle was turned out in a livery to mark the Sky series about the East Coast. Ian Lyall


Alan Williams

safe place to work for its employees and travelling environment for its passengers’. So I am afraid ten out of ten for smugness, nought out of ten for caring about the majority of the travelling public.

Of course, it has to be recognised that FGW, along with the other main line TOCs, would have a major conflict of interest if they came down too hard on drinkers because they all do very nicely thank you from the sale of alcohol from their buffet cars – as do others from similar sales from buffets and bars on stations – although airlines seem to manage to balance the two.

But ORR need have no such considerations, so how can it possibly be ‘satisfied’ when other parts of the industry have identified the problem, it has been highlighted in two major television programmes, and the figures from Passenger Focus so clearly illustrate the concern amongst such a large proportion of rail users?

Both ORR and DfT in its franchise awarding role need to take this growing problem much more seriously. By erecting the sign at York, the BTP and half a dozen TOCs have at last recognised the problem and the existence and validity of the Railway Byelaws to deal with it. So come on sleepy ATOC / RDG. Let’s see some concerted action from you, the ORR and DfT requiring BTP to do what your members and others pay well over £200million each year for, namely uniformly imposing all the Railway Byelaws, every day across the network, not just those which happen to suit you or line your members’ pockets.

And on the subject of lining pockets, you have to admire the bare-faced effrontery

of the Department for Transport! The figures in its prospectus for the new East Coast franchise make uncomfortable reading for the ‘there is no alternative to privatisation’ brigade. Because it is clear that, since publicly-owned Directly Operated Railways took over the franchise when National Express pulled out four years ago, despite the notoriously unreliable infrastructure all along the route, East Coast is carrying 2,500 more passengers a day and on average East Coast carries significantly more passengers per train than Virgin on West Coast (224 compared to 166). Punctuality has improved. Revenue has increased markedly because, against the trend elsewhere, there has been a ‘significant increase’ in the number of passengers travelling First Class.

And most importantly, this success means that it has been returning over £200million a year – well over half a million pounds every day – to the Treasury. Much, much more than most other current franchises. That, says Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin in his introduction, means that East Coast is ‘ready to be transformed by the private sector’. Is he having a laugh? Sadly, no.

Ask the Department and it will tell you that continued state control would ‘restrict investment and growth’. But in reality, the Department has already imposed a large chunk of investment on East Coast in the form of its much-derided committee-designed Inter-city Express Programme trains. Any new franchisee will have to work hard to outstrip the growth figures of the last few years. And by the way, if state ownership is so bad, why is it okay for the state railways of France, Germany and the Netherlands to run so many of our franchises and to bid for new ones?

The truth is that Mr McLoughlin is rushing through this re-privatisation just ahead of the next general election for no other than purely political reasons because the Tories cannot stomach the thought of a publicly-owned service being successful – and to their enduring shame, the Liberal Democrats appear to agree with them.

Once again, the best interests of the national railway system are being compromised by short term political interests because, doctrinal beliefs apart, there is no need to rush because nothing much will actually change on East Coast until IEP arrives some years hence, and there is a timetable change to go with the new trains.

In contrast, renewal of the Northern franchise, on which many trains are literally bursting at the seams thanks to a mixture of constant overcrowding and old age, has quite unnecessarily been postponed until February 2016, well after the next general election, so the much-needed renewal and expansion of its British Rail-era fleet cannot even begin until then. Of course, cynics greater than I might observe that, since much of the Northern patch is entrenched in Labour territory, McLoughlin and Co probably couldn’t care less!

Something else that hasn’t gone down too well in some quarters is the suggestion from DfT that would-be

East Coast franchisees consider introducing a third ‘premium

economy’ level of travel, a ‘no frills’ service somewhat cheaper than the present Standard Class. The suggestion was immediately seen by the media and others as merely an excuse for the downgrading of some existing Standard Class to a new Third Class, with even more seats crammed into each coach at elfin-sized seat pitch, and the upgrading of the remainder to a new, more expensive ‘Club’ class with a few more frills than now (that wouldn’t be difficult!).

Then enter stage right (as in ‘of Genghis Khan’) the Institute of Economic Affairs with a suggestion that trains should be introduced equipped either only with tip up seats that can be locked out of use during peak periods, or even with no seats at all! The IEA is of course the same loony right wing think-tank that managed to persuade either gullible or biased (or possibly both) BBC News Editors that HS2 will cost £80billion by the simple expedient of adding to the bill just about every other transport development proposed in the country. Presumably this was

the latest desperate attempt by the anti-HS2 IEA to prove that further investment in rail infrastructure is not necessary. I am now waiting for them to suggest double deck cars so that no more road building is needed!

Luckily the IEA ramblings were quickly dismissed by Ministers as ‘bizarre’, not what is wanted by commuters in the real world, and as ‘a step backwards’. But daft to most minds though it may be, the suggestion still got lots of media coverage, and you can be sure that many people will now believe this is a serious suggestion from the rail industry. Perhaps it is time to think about regulating think tanks!

Although those bidding will now presumably have to go through the motions of looking at the possibility of introducing a third class if only to assuage DfT, most seasoned operators seem to think the idea fraught with difficulty. Keeping two classes separate yet providing the right number of seats for both each day is bad enough in a permanently formed train like an HST, IC225 or


Alan Williams

future IEP. Trying to juggle three classes would seem to add another level of diffi culty. And it is not just about physical accommodation. Each of the two present classes usually actually encompass a fair range of seat prices on any particular train, so exactly what advantages would be achieved by carving the same accommodation into three, save for perhaps squeezing a few more seats into Economy Class?

Far better to recognise, as the French have done, that if you want an eff ective third class, catering for the mass market end of the business is best done with a separate train. From last April, SNCF introduced Ouigo, a no-frills, single class high speed service running from Marne-la-Vallée, the TGV station to the east of Paris, to Marseille and Montpellier and calling on the way at Lyon St-Exupéry, Valence, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence and Nimes. Travel is in entirely refurbished, reliveried double deck TGVs with seats at closer spacing than usual. There is no catering on the train – you have

to bring your own. Luggage space per person is limited, although you can buy more space if you need it. Ticket prices range from €10 to €85, depending on the time of journey and how far you book in advance. There is a single fl at fare for children, tickets are only bookable on line and check-in is a minimum of 30 minutes before departure. All very budget airline, but despite some initial teething troubles around booking arrangements, it seems to have been successful, with SNCF announcing the sale of the millionth ticket in September, less than six months after the launch. It estimates that 50% of Ouigo passengers have switched from conventional TGV services – a smaller percentage than it expected – but that 25% of riders are new to the railway.

But how might this translate to British services? Both SNCF and Greengauge 21 in the UK have talked of a low-cost high speed cross-channel service, possibly originating from the underused stations at Stratford International

or Ebbsfl eet. On the conventional network, it would seem to be a possible opportunity for open access operators in the future as IEPs enter squadron service on East Coast and Great Western routes and redundant HSTs are released for use on other services. But the real question, which even SNCF has yet to answer, is whether a low-cost, no frills service can generate suffi cient additional ridership and thus revenue to more than off set that lost from conventional services on the same route.

Somehow, in Britain at least, I doubt it.

Regular followers of this page will know that for the past few months I have been poking the

somnolent ATOC and the seemingly invisible Rail Development Group with the proverbial columnular stick. So I suppose it is not surprising that the two, now that they have sort of merged, seem to have woken up. Following my mention last month, spokesman Daniel Golding insists that ATOC has never said that Boxing Day services are ‘impossible to provide because of Network Rail engineering activity’ – despite my having a clear note to the contrary. Now as some of you will know, I have been banging on about the lack of Boxing Day services for some years (yawn), and while I certainly didn’t make it up, this comment does indeed date from a few years back.

So I am happy to tell you that the bang up to date offi cial ATOC/ RDG excuse (sorry, reason) for not providing train services on Boxing Day is that ‘trains in some areas will be running on Boxing Day but operating all services would require the entire network to be staff ed for a fraction of the passengers that normally travel. This would come at signifi cant expense and taxpayers would pick up much of the cost’.

Oh dear! If ATOC/RDG/Whatever had bothered to actually listen to what consumer groups are saying, or to read the December column before publicly getting their knickers in a twist, they would have sussed that nobody, not users, not Passenger Focus, not even me over all the past years, has remotely suggested the need for ‘all services’ to run over the ‘entire network’ at ‘signifi cant’ cost to the taxpayer.

Rather, just a core service, like that provided this year by Southeastern, Southern and now Chiltern at no cost to the public purse or presumably to them, otherwise they wouldn’t

be doing it. Instead of trotting out a new excuse for inaction because the previous one demonstrably no longer stands up, the new ATOC/RDG empire, which claims to ‘develop policies which benefi t rail users and taxpayers’, to ‘work in partnership with common purpose’ and to ‘ensure a co-ordinated approach to business service provision’ (stop laughing) should be telling us, in simple terms, some very good reasons why on Boxing Day 2014 other TOCs cannot provide basic core services like those provided by Southeastern, Southern and Chiltern at NO cost to the public purse. Nobody, at the moment at least, expects provision of service on long distance routes, or on secondary and rural branch lines. But on the question of provision of services around major conurbations where there is a clear need, it is beginning to look as if ATOC/RDG (please, please, fi nd a better name!) is trying to defend the indefensible.

DfT could help by giving some guidance instead of sitting on its hands. It will have to come off the fence soon enough anyway, as the beginning of the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern megafranchise approaches. Will it merely replicate the existing Southern franchise requirements, or extend them, as would seem to be sensible, to include the northern half of the Brighton – Bedford Thameslink core route as well? Surely it cannot accede to ATOC negativism by ditching what has already been established?

Oh, and by the way. All that stuff about not being able to run trains because of the amount of engineering work is surely amply disproved by Southern, which is managing to provide a service at Christmas 2013 despite major engineering possessions at no fewer than three separate locations.

As to cost, while ferreting around for the origin of the statement that ATOC claims it never made, I found another from Network Rail dating from 2008 and dutifully recorded at the time claiming that nowadays most major signalling centres remain open over the Christmas period anyway to facilitate the working of engineering trains. With NR now driving hard to establish just a dozen or so Regional Operating Centres to control virtually the entire country, it would seem that practically the ‘entire network’ will be open over Christmas within the next decade, trains running or not. Yet another excuse required from ATOC members, I fear!

[email protected]

Chiltern is one of the Boxing Day enthusiasts. Class 67012 at Hatton with a Chiltern Mainline service on a sweltering 18 July 2013. Fraser Pithie


www.modern-railways.com

Crossrail Update

Tucked away behind Southampton Row near Holborn tube station is one of Crossrail’s less

conspicuous enterprises, but one that is crucial to London’s new railway.

The Fisher Street shaft will provide ventilation for the Crossrail tunnels as well as an emergency escape route. Construction of the shaft was completed at the beginning of December - Crossrail Ltd says work was finished more than eight months ahead of schedule after resequencing works allowed the early completion of permanent

waterproofing and the shaft’s concrete lining.

But the Fisher Street venture is more than a ventilation pipe. Western tunnels contractor BAM/Ferrovial/Kier (BFK) and subcontractor Barhale have built the 15-metre diameter shaft to support construction of a crossover between the train running tunnels below Red Lion Square at Holborn. This will involve mining some of the largest underground caverns on the Crossrail project, which when completed will allow Crossrail trains to switch from one track to another.

Altogether 7,000 cubic metres

of material was excavated as the shaft was dug and lined. Crossrail and contractors worked with UK Power Networks to relocate electricity substation equipment, a requirement before tunnel boring machines Phyllis and Ada could pass under Holborn on their journey between Royal Oak and Farringdon.

In a further development at Fisher Street, Camden Council has approved Crossrail’s plans to build 30,000 square feet of residential space above the shaft. Architect HOK has designed an eight-storey development with 22 one-, two- and three-bedroom flats.

The computer-generated visuals depict a distinctive gold coloured building with angled roofs and windows which would not be out of place in Barcelona but may prove more surprising just around the corner from the British Museum. Crossrail says the design of the over-site development will ensure the upper levels are set back, leaving space between the new apartments and the existing listed buildings. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2017.

Canary Wharf growing placesAt Crossrail Canary Wharf station sub-contractors have begun fitting the ethylene tetra fluoro ethylene (ETFE) semi-transparent pillows that fit into the spaces between the timber lattice roof. This idea is borrowed from the Eden Project in Cornwall - the lightweight pillows will be kept inflated with a weak jet of air piped around the birch glulam frame.

Underneath will be a rooftop garden on top of the new Canary Wharf station/retail complex. Spaces will be left unfilled in parts of the lattice to allow trees to grow up and through the roof. At either end of the garden area pavilion structures have been built - one will contain a restaurant, with the other likely to house a community facility.

The garden and three of the four retail levels at Canary Wharf are expected to open in 2015 but while the station levels will not be required for another three years, progress on site is at an advanced stage.

At track level the 240-metre long island platform is virtually complete. Pre-cast concrete segments of platform have been craned into place via a hole the height of the Canary Wharf structure and assembled as a kit on site. Contractors were completing the final section of platform in late November. Behind hoardings the narrow gauge trains which supply concrete segments and personnel to the tunnel boring machines heading west shuttle to and fro.

Workers have begun fitting woollen insulating material to the ceiling ready for the installation of the public address system. This should prevent reverberations within this concrete cathedral which could otherwise render announcements unclear.

Upstairs the ticket hall level is almost finished too. Floors and walls have been fitted and final lighting and ceiling panels are going up. The ceiling consists of slats which leave the mechanical and electrical systems within view of those below, an industrial look used in many high street stores. This design has been selected because it should allow easy maintenance of wires and pipes with minimal risk of workers accidentally damaging the station finish.

Ealing Broadway plans lodgedMeanwhile, Crossrail Ltd has submitted proposals to upgrade Ealing Broadway station to the London Borough of Ealing.

If approved the plans will see the existing entrance and ticket hall replaced with a more spacious, glass-fronted structure. New lifts and staircases will make it easier for passengers to get around the station.

The entrance area will be twice the size of the existing one, allowing a wider gateline and the current dated facade to be replaced. Staircases to platforms 1 and 2-3 will be redesigned, platforms will be extended to accommodate 10-car Crossrail trains and waiting facilities will be overhauled.

More radical - and expensive - plans for the station had previously been proposed with suggestions that a large oversite development could have helped finance the installation of escalators and other improvements. However, the current scheme increases station capacity and provides step-free access while remaining affordable. Crossrail Ltd says it could be completed by the end of 2016. Dan Harvey

Shaft sunk nearBritish Museum

The Fisher Street shaft will facilitate construction of a crossover between the

running tunnels.

+44 (0) 1923 635 000 [email protected] www.signallingsolutions.comSignalling Solutions Limited, Bridgefoot House, Watling Street, Radlett, WD7 7HT

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Modern Railways 2014-01

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Transcript of Modern Railways 2014-01