INFORMED SOURCES e-Preview May 2021
INFORMED SOURCES e-Preview May 2021
This month’s column returns to two of my specialist subjects, traffic management and East Coast Main Line journey times. There’s also a bit of fun with Deltics, but with a serious purpose.
Traffic Management – here we go again
Union Connectivity Review’s Anglo-Scots rail aspirations
Alternative traction – DP3 explores potential
New train TIN-Watch
Informed Sources covered Network Rail’s original Traffic Management System (TMS) procurement programme in real-time following its launch in 2009. I won’t go into the messy detail, but comparison with the subsequent successful TM installation at Great Western’s Thames Valley Signalling Centre (TVSC) is unavoidable.
This would not have happened had not Network Rail Chairman Sir Peter Hendy lured David Waboso from Transport for London to take control of the Digital Railway programme. One of his first initiatives was the Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) Programme.
Instead of telling contractors what was wanted, ECI asked the industry ‘show us what you’ve got’. ECI resulted in a year’s evaluation of Resonate’s Luminate TM by Great Western. This resulted in a long-term deal for TVSC plus a second contract for the installation of Luminate at Liverpool Street IECC.
Commissioning of Liverpool Street is imminent. Meanwhile, the holy grail of TM, integration of the management of Crew & Stock, is due to be piloted on the GWML later this year. Connected-Driver Advisory Systems (C-DAS) should follow when the GWR Intercity Express fleet software can be enabled.
TM, together with the roll-out of the European Train Control System (ETCS,) was the basis of Network Rail’s National Operating Strategy (NOS). Central to NOS was the consolidation of signalling control within 12 Rail Operating Centres (ROC).
Statistics from that time showed that the largest signalling centres and IECC controlled over 50% of the network but represented just 25% of the cost of signalling operations. In contrast, mechanical boxes controlled 18% of the network but contributed 49% of signalling costs.
Consolidation of signalling into the 12 ROCs was scheduled see them controlling 80% of the network by the end of Control Period 7 in March 2029. This was forecast to generate savings of £250m a year at 2011 prices, with the number of signallers falling from 5,500 to 1,700.
Well, that was the plan 10 years ago. But With 5,500 signallers employed today and signal box closures well below target, the cost savings on which NOS was based have not been achieved.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has brought home the vulnerability of ROCs. For example, plans to consolidate Tyneside IECC into York ROC have been dropped.
NOS has been replaced by ‘21st Century Operations’. Driving this change of focus to operations is Network Rail Chief Executive Andrew Haines.
In a speech to last year’s Modern Railways ‘Golden Whistles’ wards he instanced how signalling doctrine could adversely affect operations. Shortly after he took over at Network Rail, Mr Haines visited West Hampstead power signal box where he was told that in line with NOS, control was to be migrated to Derby ROC.
As he put it ‘That didn’t seem to me to be an obvious, no-brainer decision, actually moving the core operation of the Thameslink core to Derby, effectively losing all the capability’.
When the Chief Executive asked to see the business case, the decision was overturned, ‘because actually there wasn’t really a business case in the first place’. It was simply a case of something being done ‘because we’d said we were going to do because there was a strategy to do it’.
While describing Luminate as a ‘good start’, according to Andrew Haines, ‘across the country, even our Didcot roll-out is far slower than it should be, given the real difference that some of these tools can make.
Note, ‘can make’. In the original concept responsibility for using TM was given to a new role – the ‘Dispatcher’. This brought together the roles of train controller and signaller – an explosive concept in railway Industrial Relations terms.
As Mr Haines confirmed, the capability of integrated TM means that ‘the time has come for a deep review of the structure of operations. We are still working in roles that haven’t changed for 100 years. This is even more imperative now as we try to roll out Traffic Management. Fundamentally, it only works if we bring together some of the key elements of signaller and train-running control’.
So the problem with TM generically is not which capabilities it has to offer, but the ability of staff to use the new technology effectively to improve operations and run a ‘better’ railway. On Great Western it is now being used to make 10,000 adjustments to the timetable each period. Most of the interventions are ‘tweaks’ to improve regulation in the critical ‘sub-threshold delays’ category.
New start
In December 2020, Network Rail’s Southern Region issued an OJEU Notice which apparently assumes that the original TMS procurement exercise never happened. According to the OJEU Southern is looking ‘to understand what the market can offer in terms of digital tools or systems that could help, or for supplier(s) who could work with us and our users to develop them’.
Meanwhile, Southern is taking over responsibility for the Thameslink resignalling programme. This includes the installation of Hitachi’s Tranista system at Three Bridges ROC.
So Southern already has an ‘understanding’ of available technology solutions. Similarly, we are approaching three years’ service experience of the fully integrated TM system at TVSC. When you’ve got existing suppliers with equipment in service, inviting people with zero experience of TM under UK conditions to come up with better ideas seems odd to me. It reminds me of the British Rail diesel locomotive pilot scheme back in the 1955 Modernisation Plan.
Anyway, I’ve got an interview lined-up hear more about Southern’s aspirations and hope to report back next month.
Faster services to Scotland
Since it was commissioned by the Prime Minister, Sir Peter Hendy’s Union Connectivity review (UCR)) is essentially a political document. From the news reports it seemed a bit ho-hum, but when I read it through carefully the following lines jumped off the page: ‘Higher capacity and faster journey times to and from Scotland from England and Wales and Newcastle by rail (East Coast Main Line)’.
ECML journey times have been an abiding preoccupation ever since I was at Finsbury Park with the Deltics, which had just reintroduced a 6hr headline London-Edinburgh journey time. Over the following decades I was fascinated by the way in which traction and infrastructure engineers together, chipped away at speed restrictions, saving minutes here and there, while preparing for the next leap forward with each advance in traction equipment.
It is all too easy to either over or under-estimate the significance of politics on railway policy. In 2015, the expectation was that the May General Election would be a close run thing and so even railways became a campaigning tool. During a visit to Stockton-on-Tees, then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced that he had asked the Department for Transport and Network Rail to begin talks to develop a business case for the infrastructure improvements ‘to make 140mile/h running on the East Coast a reality’.
‘New figures’ showed that 140 mile/h running between Newcastle and York, combined with ‘HS3’, could cut journey times between Manchester and Newcastle by a quarter. The ‘new figures’, actually came from a Network Rail study presented to the Department for Transport in October the previous year.
They looked forward to 2020 when 140mile/h capable Intercity Express Trains were expected to be running under ETCS cab signalling. The study investigated the infrastructure constraints on exploiting this potential.
Obviously, many of the enhancements assumed in the Study haven’t happened, not least 140 mile/h running. But I use data from the Network Rail study, plus earlier work by British Rail, to analyse those ‘faster journey times on the ECML. The answer is pretty much as expected.
West Coast
Meanwhile, when it comes to the West Coast, there is not a lot in the UCR itself. However, Boris Johnson told the Daily Telegraph on 10 March ‘With some bypasses, better track and signalling, as Sir Peter Hendy believes, we could run services from Glasgow to London in about three hours and carry more freight too'.
On a 2020 report on ‘High Speed Rail and Scotland’ the Greengauge 21 high speed rail policy research group looked at what could be done north of Crewe to reduce journey times. This included building two new sections of high speed line.
These would bring Glasgow London down to 3h 14 min. A possible high speed cut-off at Penrith was also mooted.
Of more immediate importance is the approaching 50th birthday of the Weaver Junction-Carstairs electrification scheme. Much or the signalling and electrification equipment is still ‘original’ and overdue for renewal. Remember that the southern end of the WCML had extensive renewals at the turn of the Century under the West Coast Route Modernisation.
A putative West Coast (North) Route Modernisation programme would include station remodelling at Preston and Carlisle, with faster approaches potentially saving a few more minutes. But all this work will need to be done before HS2 services start running to Scotland.
Battery and hydrogen limits explored
All the traction decarbonisation studies to date have tried to avoid upsetting the Department for Transport and its political masters by pussyfooting around the inconvenient truth that only main line electrification can save serious amounts of CO2 and that hydrogen and batteries will be a side show. The stock weasel phrase in the comparison diagrams is that only electrification can provide the power needed for ‘long distance high speed services and freight’.
Well, we know that fuel cell traction is powering 100 mile/h multiple units with a worthwhile range. And batteries are fine for shorter-distance shuttle services. But where does alternative traction run out of grunt?
With my English Electric Traction training, the answer was simple: build a prototype. When EE wanted to showcase a radical new diesel engine the company built Diesel Prototype 1 (DP1), the ‘blue Deltic’.
Some years later EE built a 23rd Deltic to demonstrate the 16CSVT diesel engine. That was DP2.
Time for DP3, which comes in two flavours: DP3 (Battery) and DP3 (Hydrogen). As with DP2 this is based on the Class 55 Deltic locomotive.
Removing the two diesel generator sets leaves an empty engine room plus 22 tonnes to play with. The tanks for fuel and steam heating boiler water provide further space and weight.
Design of the battery Deltic was relatively straightforward. First question, what is the energy capacity of 22 tonnes of lithium Ion batteries Next question; what is the volume of this mega-battery and will it fit in the engine room space? Yes it would.
Similar calculations for the volume of the fuel and water tanks and the weight of their contents provided more energy storage. Here volume was a limitation.
To determine the capability DP3(B) was coupled to eight coaches and run from King Cross at Deltic+8 timings. You’ll have to read the magazine to see how far it got.
What did I learn from DP3(B). With enough battery capacity you could go a fair way with a high power loco. But when you got there it would take a long time to re-charge the batteries which would cost around £1 million per loco at current prices.
Where DP3(B) is all about weight, with its hydrogen fuel cell sister the key issues are power and volume. So I had to get out the drawing board, which was more fun.
Since the Deltic engine was originally developed to power fast patrol boats, I found an off-the-shelf fuel cell stack designed for ferries. Enough of them to match the power output of the two Deltic engines fit comfortably within the empty Deltic engine compartment. Even better, they are half the weight of the original engines.
They may fit comfortably, but they don’t leave much spare space in which to store the hydrogen gas cylinders. And the fuel and water tank space is already full of the batteries from DP3(B). These are needed to reduce the peak loads on the fuel cells when starting or accelerating after a speed restriction.
With an engine compartment stuffed with fuel cells, gas storage was a bit of a headache. But I eventually came up with a supplier of gas cylinders similar to those used in the Alstom i-Lint fuel cell multiple unit. I crammed in as many of these cylinders as would fit in the remaining space.
DP3(H) also set off northward, but with the nostalgic addition of a plume of steam from the exhaust. The range was pretty underwhelming.
Of course, you could store much more hydrogen in liquid form, but that would be a much greater engineering challenge. And, anyway, the Deltic Preservation Society wanted ‘Alycidon’ back.
What has this bit of fun told us? That in terms of performance, the current battery and fuel cell multiple units represent the limits of their capabilities. They will have their place, but it will be a minor role.
Above all the lesson of DP3 is that future decarbonisation reports need to stop pussyfooting around and state bluntly that for ‘main line passenger and freight duties’ only electrification will serve.
New Train TIN-Watch
This month I’m inviting reading feedback on the monthly table of new train reliability, which is in danger of running out of control. When TIN-Watch first appeared in the February 2018 Modern Railways there were only a few fleets in the table. Naively, in retrospect, I expected these new trains with their remote fault monitoring, Train Management Systems and maintained by their manufacturers in shiny new depots, to have the usual shaky start, but then disappear off down the bathtub curve.
On this basis I selected 50,000 MTIN as the basis for promotion from the reception class to big school. With two exceptions, take a bow Hitachi and Siemens, this hasn’t happened and the Table now nearly fills a page with more fleets to come.
Clearly, I was too optimistic for once. In view of this, from next month the criterion for promotion will be 20,000 MTIN.
Equally, trains that were in the original table have now been in service for over three years so hardly count as new. I could adopt a three years cut off. But this would let some fleets off the hook.
While it pains me to be complicit with such mediocrity, I would appreciate readers’ views on whether the ‘new’ criterion should be that if a three-year-old fleet is above 10,000 MTIN MAA, it will leave the table. Just for reference, even the much maligned Networkers are over 15,000 MTIN MAA.
Roger’s Blog
In this world of virtual meetings and webinars, it’s fascinating the way some organisations can make the most of the technology and others can’t. For one recent event, the promoter decided that Zoom and Teams were old hat and came up with a new platform.
Well, after several false starts, when I finally logged in 5 minutes late, I was greeted by a blank screen interspersed with apologies for the delayed start. After a further five minutes, the presentation started with the speaker explaining that he too had been unable to log-in. And he kept on making this point for the rest of the time.
Contrast this with the Water Trak Zoom update on the use of fine water sprays to enhance adhesion. A slick presentation, with visual aids and plenty of opportunities for questions. After writing this I’m off to record our monthly Zoom sessions covering what’s in the May magazine. I like to think these have got more professional as lockdown has continued.
I’ve got a busy couple of weeks ahead in the virtual world. Between now and the end of April I’m booked into a Northern Powerhouse Rail presentation, an Alstom update on its hydrogen trains, a briefing on Southern’s new approach to TM and, finally, the Railway Industry Association’s three day innovation spectacular.
Oh yes, and for those who watch the Modern Railways videos, I’ve also booked a haircut.
After all that screen-bashing and note-taking, it will be time to start writing next month’s Informed Sources. No prizes for guessing the lead item: ‘A brief history of yaw dampers’.
Roger
