Informed Sources e-preview by Roger Ford (view all archives)

INFORMED SOURCES e-Preview June 2011

Make the most of this month’s Informed Sources, because by the time you are reading this the McNulty Review will have been published, possibly heralding the end of railways as we know it – or perhaps not. But this month is all about technical stuff, starting with the first detailed description of Hitachi’s latest version of its Super Express Train (SET) for the Intercity Express Programme (IEP)

Hitachi’s budget SET gains weight and power

Crossrail rejects ETCS option

FLEXX Eco – home-grown bogie taps international market

First of all, a clarification. Last time I wrote a straight technical description of the SET, people assumed that I had, as DfT puts it ‘seen the light’, and realised that the Department’s vision for the IEP was the greatest advance in railway engineering since Bulleid’s ‘Leader’ – or the Fell locomotive for diesel heads.

Wrong! For me a technical description (which I like to think is my forte) is an analysis, neutral but informed by experience, of how engineers have sought to meet a particular requirement.

SET design

Hitachi’s initial design, what I term SET I, featured in the April 2009 Informed Sources. SET II, (March and April 2010 Informed Sources) saw a number of evolutionary changes.

Now we have SET III, which is a radical re-design in response to Sir Andrew Foster’s value for money review of IEP. By far the most radical, and yet most obvious change, has been the elimination of the separate power house for the bi-mode units.

One of DfT’s quirkier requirements was the diesel powered Auxiliary Generator Unit (AGU) for the electric IEP units. And, with SET III the bi-mode simply adds more underfloor AGUs powering the electric traction equipment.

Thus the five car bi-mode, has a diesel power pack under each of the three intermediate vehicles. A 10 car bi-mode would need five power packs.

Electric traction design has also changed. Each SET I driving pantograph car was equipped with the most powerful transformer that would fit under the floor. Perversely, this rating was dictated by the full length car Bi-mode.

This rating meant that the five car electric and bi-mode needed only a single pantograph transformer car at one end. No space here to go into why, but the five car SET III units now has a smaller transformer at each end and the full length 10 car SET would need three transformers.

Weight

This has added weight. The five car SET III bi-mode with three underfloor diesel power packs, each weighing around 8 tonnes, now weighs more than the original SET I bi-mode with four passenger vehicles and a diesel power house.

So where has the weight come from, over and above the extra transformers and diesel power packs? From all over, it seems, including the addition of window blinds, additional tables, more and heavier seats, partition doors, and additional power sockets.

Doors

Another fundamental change from SET I is moving the doors from the vehicle ends. SET bodyshells are 25m long, giving greater end-throw on curves compared with existing 23m vehicles. SET I required retractable steps to satisfy stepping distances.

Hitachi is a firm believer that equipment you don’t fit can’t go wrong and retractable steps are a known offender.

So, with SET III, the doors have been moved inward by 1.9m. In terms of stepping distance this puts them in a similar position relative to the vehicle centre as the Mk 3 coach, avoiding the need for retractable steps.

Moving the doors towards the vehicle centre allows the standard toilets and other facilities, such as the conductor’s office and ‘bike and bulk’ storage, to be located in the end space

Packaging in the five car is pretty inefficient in terms of seating capacity. The eight car electric SET is a better example of the train’s potential. It provides a Kitchen in the end of the First Class driving car, similar to Pendolino, plus a café bar in one of the Standard Class vehicles.

For diesel heads, I include an analysis of the potential power units. Hitachi is anxious to give the Cummins QSK19 some competition and is talking to MTU about its new 1600 Series engine. This is a Vee-12 with a nominal rating of 885 hp versus the 750hp of the QSK 19. The challenge will be fitting the upright Vee-form engine under the 1290mm floor height. The QSK is a ‘flat’ six.

While DfT’s risible ‘essential’ weight targets for IEP were never on, and the five car bi-mode weighs 800kg/seat compared with 730kg/seat for a high density FGW 2+8 IC125, the eight car electric SET III registers 670 kg/seat. This is about the same at the Series 100 Shinkansen of 1985.

Crossrail signalling strategy

It’s all right building Paris RER-type cross London metros with signalling capable of handling 24 trains/h. But they also have to run into the national railway at each end.

Crossrail, for example, intends to adopt a Communications Based Train Control CBTC) signalling system for the lines it is building ‘as it is technically and operationally proven and is successfully used by many metro systems around the world’. But what will happen when a train leaves the Royal Oak portal onto the Great Western Main which will have been resignalled with the European Train Control System (ETCS)?

Exiting Crossrail under ATO, and with another train 2.5 minutes behind, a train’s on-board computer will have to ‘arm’ the ETCS system, initialise the location by collecting data from a couple of Eurobalise, shake-hands with the ETCS Radio Block Centre and receive the movement authority for the route ahead and show this on the Driver Machine Interface. On then can the CBTC ATO switch off.

A simple question to the Crossrail press office on this subject had Programme Director Andy Mitchell himself on the phone by return. And soon I was admiring the view over Docklands from Crossrail’s 28^th floor offices in Canary Wharf.

Crossrail’s signalling strategy was formulated last year when the submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review was being developed. This was make-or-break time for Crossrail, with sundry dire rumours of cut-backs to save money.

In a bold move Crossrail decided to base the critical CSR submission on extending the programme, reducing risk, and, as a result, cutting cost. Clearly signalling is a key risk, not least the interface with the GWML.

Crossrail could have adopted ETCS, like Thameslink. But then there was a very real risk that the opening date could arrive with Crossrail still struggling to get ETCS working with Automatic Train Operation and interfacing with platform edge screen doors.

So the CSR submission not only proposed putting back the start of passenger service by a year, but also took out much of the signalling and interface risk by initially running Crossrail itself as a self contained 24 trains/h metro service under CBTC and ATO, when it opens in December 2018.

Remember that Crossrail is also responsible for building and signalling the Eastern leg through Docklands and under the Thames to Abbey Wood. Thus the initial high capacity service would run between Westbourne Park, outside Paddington through tourist London, both commercial centres, through a regeneration area and into North Kent.

From day one this self contained operation would be providing a return on the investment in Crossrail. The business case was ‘markedly superior’ to those for the other options. Politicians would also gain from the halo effect of a world-class, brand-new metro relieving pressure on transport in Central London and strengthening the Capital’s attractiveness as a financial centre.

It was a winning strategy. The proposal was successful and the go-ahead for Crossrail was a highlight of the 2010 CSR statement.

Emphasising the key role of signalling in the project, Crossrail’s target is to let the CBTC contract in August 2012. This will enable the signalling system to be specified in detail so that it can feed into the procurement of the new rolling stock fleet where the order is due to be placed by the end of 2013. Both tender invitations will be issued this September.

Meanwhile from December 2018, Westbourne Park will be Crossrail’s Western terminus and will be fitted with turn-backs capable of handling 24 trains/h. Abbey Wood will have a similar track layout. Six months later, the Shenfield leg will be connected to Crossrail.

As for the interface with ETCS. The five miles between the Western Portal and Westbourne Park will be what is termed a ‘neutral section’, dual signalled with both Network Rail ETCS and Crossrail CBTC. Here trains will switch between signalling systems on the move. But only when ETCS is up and running will Maidenhead and Heathrow will complete Crossrail.

From ASB to FLEXX Eco

I enjoyed a real trip down memory lane in February, when Bombardier gave me an update on what they call the FLEXX Eco bogie, and I still think of as the B5000. When I sat down with Eddie Searancke, Head of Product Management in Bombardier’s Bogies business unit, it was 20 years, almost to the day since he took me through the technical detail of the new B5000 bogie during its launch at the RFS works at Doncaster.

Developed by British Rail Research at Derby under Advanced Multiple Unit programme, the bogie concept was brought to market by RFS as BR’s industrial partner. But instead of taking the BR Research drawings and converting them into metal, RFS decided to take the principles as the basis for a completely new design.

Eddie recounted how RFS made 12 prototypes. Test running starting in 1991 but then came privatisation. Trials were curtailed, the Licence cancelled and RFS went into receivership.

In May 1994 Bombardier acquired the RFS bogie business from the receivers. Bombardier had already bought Procor at Wakefield in anticipation of new rolling stock business in the UK.

Under Bombardier management, the B5000 programme revived. Trial bogies were supplied to German Railways and another pair Norway. Subsequently Bombardier built four very high speed versions of the B5000 for DB and Japan Railways East. These were funded under a yet another joint innovation scheme.

Testing took place under an ICE and a Shinkansen respectively. Maximum speeds during these tests were 392km/h in Germany and 275km/h in Japan under a Shinkansen.

B5000’s time came in 1998 when it was selected for the Bombardier Voyager Diesel Electric Multiple Unit. In addition to the 272 bogies for the Voyagers there are now256 under the subsequent Meridian fleet.

These are clocking up 4 million fleet kilometres a week, with around 1.5 billion kilometres run in total. Some individual bogies have covered over 3.5 million km.

Current contracts, for what is now the Bombardier FLEXX Eco, include 186 bogies for the Class 172 Turbostar DMUs for LOROL and London Midland. But the Derby conceived, Doncaster designed bogie is now a totally international product built at Bombardier’s Siegen works in Germany.

After 15 years the ‘free issue’ trial in Norway has brought in business. Bombardier is currently supplying 122 FLEXX Eco bogies to Norway to retrofit existing coaches. Reduced energy consumption from the 5.4 tonnes per vehicle weight saving, plus the reduced maintenance of the modern design, should pay-back the investment in five to six years.

But the big news was confirmed as I was writing the article. Siemens is to supply German Railways with up to 300 seven car ICx intercity trains, with Bombardier as development partner and supplier. Each train will have four trailer vehicles which will run on FLEXX Eco bogies.

Supplying the ICx trailer bogies will also require further development. In Europe there is a trend towards longer vehicles to save weight, cost and complexity. The ICx vehicle will be 28.5 metres long, taking the potential gross weight above the current 16 tonne maximum axle load of the FLEXX Eco. An up-rated version of the bogie is being developed to accept a 19 tonne axle load.

I find it fascinating that a bogie conceived in the late 1980s has now come into its own. And we should not forget that if politicians and civil servants had not played stop/go with rolling stock investment in the UK, a steady demand could have kept a UK B5000 production line open and ICx might have run on British built bogies. Meanwhile, here’s a thought SET III trailer cars will have inside frame bogies. No – better not go there

And finally

Talking of BR Research, I got it wrong in last month’s Informed Sources special on IC125. My claim that the Mk 3 coach body-shell, with its unsurpassed combination of lightweight and structural stiffness, was designed without the benefit of Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was instantly challenged by my old chum Philip Crook.

Philip was sure that the Mk 3 was an early application of NEWPAC – an FEA programme developed by British Rail Research. And he was right. In 1969 the first application of NEWPAC was indeed the Mk 3 bodyshell.

So that is why when, over 40 years later, submitting the Mk 3 to a modern FEA analysis revealed only four locations which might be problematic over a 60 year life.

Roger’s blog

Well, as you can read in this issue my two hour session with Hitachi on the SET was indeed fruitful. Sincere thanks to my long standing chum Koji Agatsuma, not just for the briefing but for handling the inevitable supplementary queries.

On the way home I met Tolu Solanke who is researching a history of the Class 89 that will put the locomotive in the context of traction procurement in the 1980s. His questions threw up several ‘unknown knowns’ – things I had forgotten I knew!

At the beginning of May I escaped from the desk for the beefing at Crossrail signalling. Despite being sent a map, I still got lost in Canary Wharf.

Last week was the McNulty press briefing, and this week I’ll be transferring Sir Roy’s findings and recommendations to text and spreadsheet, trying to make sense of what is expected to be a seminal document.

At the end of May, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond is taking part in a function to publicise energy saving features which have been retrofitted to East Midlands Trains’ Meridian fleet. I’ll try to slip an Exocet question or two through his PR countermeasures.

Having kept May quiet, visits-wise, for family activities, June sees the return to the usual tempo, starting with a celebration of the 25^th anniversary of Network SouthEast. The next week it’s the Railtex Exhibition plus the annual Railfreight Conference. And the week after that Interfleet, the sole surviving privatisation MBO, are having a reception on the Monday, I’m meeting Eversholt Rail for an update on the ROSCO’s plans under its new owners on Wednesday and it’s the Innovation Awards at the Fourth Friday club.

Must stock up on notebooks and click pencil leads.

Roger