RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted December 31, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 31, 2011 Wasn't Leicester MAS the first full-blown scheme done by ML Engineering? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted December 31, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 31, 2011 Wasn't Leicester MAS the first full-blown scheme done by ML Engineering? Don't know about that Ian but it was the first (big?) scheme to have a 'tracker ball' type route setting system although it was only there as an alternative to the NX panel as it was still regarded as rather experimental. And ML had done quite a bit of work on the WR prior to then but never an entire scheme as far as I know (in fact up to then the WR hadn't let any complete schemes as far as I know - some part, if only the panel, came from a different contractor and a lot of the work was done in house including all the circuit design. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camberwell Green Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Canterbury and a few down that way abolished over Xmas, a train passing through Ely today was reported as carrying "redundant signals and stuff" The full list being Faversham (EY), Margate (GE), Ramsgate (HE), Canterbury East (CB) and Shepherds Well (SH). All replaced by two workstations in the "new" East Kent Signalling Centre. Faversham is particularly interesting as I think it was the last AEI-GRS supplied turn-push panel in operation on NR. The recovery trains should indeed be on their way to Whitemoor with some of the old signals and location cases for processing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Leceister defo this holiday 2 new panels at Derby EMCC called Kettering and leceister have taken over Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 The full list being Faversham (EY), Margate (GE), Ramsgate (HE), Canterbury East (CB) and Shepherds Well (SH). All replaced by two workstations in the "new" East Kent Signalling Centre. Faversham is particularly interesting as I think it was the last AEI-GRS supplied turn-push panel in operation on NR. The recovery trains should indeed be on their way to Whitemoor with some of the old signals and location cases for processing. Is the East Kent Signalling Centre at Ashford IECC, or elsewhere? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted December 31, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 31, 2011 Is the East Kent Signalling Centre at Ashford IECC, or elsewhere? Its at Gillingham, in the very building built for the scheme back in 92 by Network SouthEast. Due to privitisation the scheme was put on hold and when the North Kent lines were done control passed to Ashford as the 'new' Gillingham box was being used as a document store (in contravention of its planning aproval, which had required CPOs to be served on some residents gardens). Besides Ashford box is now full up because of the decision to put the HS1 control centre and the north kent scheme in the building has taken up most of the spare capacity (origionally intended to control Ashford - Hastings - Tonbridge and Maidstone - Ashford - Canterbury) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Max Stafford Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I know nothing about the practicalities or the technology behind these state of the art signalling systems but I have this annoying gut feeling that across the whole gamut of our civilisation, we have built systems that are completely centralised and utterly dependent on a technology that is ultimately very fragile with no real back-up if the wheel comes off completely and no skills base in that back up either. I see how over dependent my own trade has become on shaky technology that has made most of my tasks more laborious in my personal experience. I hope you understand what I'm waffling on about; I just don't feel comfortable about any of it. I'm off to take my pills now. Dave. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted December 31, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 31, 2011 I know nothing about the practicalities or the technology behind these state of the art signalling systems but I have this annoying gut feeling that across the whole gamut of our civilisation, we have built systems that are completely centralised and utterly dependent on a technology that is ultimately very fragile with no real back-up if the wheel comes off completely and no skills base in that back up either. I see how over dependent my own trade has become on shaky technology that has made most of my tasks more laborious in my personal experience. I hope you understand what I'm waffling on about; I just don't feel comfortable about any of it. I'm off to take my pills now. Dave. Alas Dave you are pretty much on the button with those remarks. There have been two serious failures (that I know of) in 'large area control centres' both of which resulted in what I would consider needless disruption for either technical reasons or simply because the sort of 'boots on the ground' back-up we once had couldn't be put in the place because the feet to fill the boots are no longer there. I was recently talking to an NR local supervisor about 'box closures and asked what would happen to him when they went? - simples, his job would go too. I might be accused of being old-fashioned when it comes to trying to keep trains running (instead of simply shutting the shop as seems the modern fashion - although I know that might be changing from things I've been told) but I do wonder about some of the technology too? A couple of signalling design engineer's (who are both 'youngsters') I worked with in my post 'big railway' days have expressed misgivings about the telecoms 'cloud' technology which seems to have become the el cheapo way of linking the large control centres to what is out on the ground. Their view is that nobody truly understands how it makes 'decisions' about control and indication signal routing once it is up and running - the logic behind it is that it uses whatever route it can find to ensure that happens. But I am aware (as is HMRI) of at least two instances where faults occurred out on the ground because the signal from the control centre was 'lost' and in one case at least it occurred because a telecoms or computing type person took out a logic card (or whatever it was) - it seems probable the same happened in the other case as well. Now my railway upbringing was that if anyone is going to do anything connected with safety of the line, especially the signalling system, they don't do it without the Signalman's permission and he doesn't give such permission unless it is absolutely safe to do so. I know as well as anybody who can read certain accident reports that such a system wasn't entirely foolproof but at least it was a system, and what's more a system where a particular action could be linked to particular known effects; I wonder how good that might be when you pull the plug out of one corner of a 'cloud'? Possibly I'm still being old-fashioned, maybe I'm a signalling luddite, but unless everyone and every potential action is in a provable safety loop which they and everybody else understands and can - when asked - explain without being given 'tick the box' answers then I remain a sceptic. And one final story on this theme - some years ago I was involved, as a train operating co rep, in the presentation of a US based system which was going to be used on the WCML and which was based on moving block and GPS/satellite technology. Fabulous stuff with trains travelling at 150 mph on 2 minute headways and all the rest of such great ideas. But all I needed to do to stump the evangeliser was ask what happened if so & so broke, was obscured by whatever, was hit by increased solar activity .. and several other very basic questions. And in my post 'big railway' days when I did some Independent Safety Assessment work on part of the system (albeit by then much simplified and using lineside signals) I was amazed to find that some of the decision criteria intended to be built into the software were being based on incorrect information which had been input to the project by so called 'railway operators' who clearly had never been involved in freight train operation and didn't understand what they had written - ISA is a good thing! And perhaps that's my ranting done for this year? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 The dispatching center, called "the Bunker" by some, is Union Pacific's rail traffic control headquarters, where the movement of over 850 trains and nearly 23,000 miles of track all across the country is controlled and monitored. It was built in a former freight depot building in 1989, and employs over 750 people, around 60 of whom are dispatchers who work in the "bunker" itself, watching a series of 172 screens that is two football fields long, that show every switch and signal track on UP's lines. The headquarters for Union Pacific is located nearby in downtown Omaha.Union Pacific allready have centralised signalling http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/union-pacifics-control-center/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted December 31, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 31, 2011 The dispatching center, called "the Bunker" by some, is Union Pacific's rail traffic control headquarters, where the movement of over 850 trains and nearly 23,000 miles of track all across the country is controlled and monitored. It was built in a former freight depot building in 1989, and employs over 750 people, around 60 of whom are dispatchers who work in the "bunker" itself, watching a series of 172 screens that is two football fields long, that show every switch and signal track on UP's lines. The headquarters for Union Pacific is located nearby in downtown Omaha.Union Pacific allready have centralised signalling http://virtualglobet...control-center/ Yes maybe but such low traffic density is not the usual thing on large parts of the British network where trains are running on 3 minute or shorter headways at speeds up to 125 mph mixed in on some routes with freights of several thousand tonnes trailing load running at 60 mph when they're really motoring on a complexity of routes/route options which makes UP pale into insignificance. Clapham Junction - admittedly controlled in two halves - sees roundly 2,000 trains per day, Cardiff - controlled from a new signalling centre - sees 900 trains per day with a complete mix of train types from heavy freight through to HSTs. If a signalling centre such as Cardiff goes down - which it has - the resultant delays can hit thousands of people, a 3 hour power failure at Cardiff in March resulted in 223 trains being cancelled and over 5,000 minutes of passenger train delay while a failure due to lightning damage in December led to yet more cancellations and delays and that was followed by a more localised failure a week later. So if nothing else the wide area control centres need really robust power and transmission kit or minor problems will quickly spiral into major headaches affecting thousands of travellers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 One issue with the ROCs which was discussed while I was at Signalling School was that in the future few signallers will have proper route knowledge. Maybe not a huge issue for normal running, but for things like Line Blockages and T3s it starts to become more relevant. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grovenor Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Wasn't Leicester MAS the first full-blown scheme done by ML Engineering? Did ML not do Stoke on Trent for the original West Coast modernisation long before Leicester? Keith Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Max Stafford Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 I would suggest that if we go down this road, such facilities and systems should be hardened in the same way military Command and Control facilities are. Dave. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted December 31, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 31, 2011 Did ML not do Stoke on Trent for the original West Coast modernisation long before Leicester? Keith If so, then they had been "forgotten" by DS&TE, because GEC and Westinghouse were the only names in the frame as far as big schemes were concerned in the 70s and 80s. Given my limited involvement with signal engineering, it must have been a Southern signal project engineer who told me, although I did visit ML with one such chap in the '80s. ML's TI21 had "rescued" GEC when the jointless TC problem arose on the Victoria scheme, and GEC's in-house solution failed in early service, so I think Southern House was well-disposed to them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted January 1, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 1, 2012 I would suggest that if we go down this road, such facilities and systems should be hardened in the same way military Command and Control facilities are. Dave. The original cable network planned for large area signalling control centres (e.g. the Swindon 'bath tub) was to be provide with duplicated cable routes on direct line of route to the area controlled (i.e. basically a main control/indications fibre optic cable laid each side of the formation) plus a pre-designated set of alternative routes if the main route was totally crippled for any reason (e.g. Swindon - Paddington area was probably going to be via Gloucester, Birmingham, Banbury and High Wycombe with - again, a duplicated fibre optic cable route throughout which would of course be shared where appropriate with other control centres). This was no doubt going to cost big bucks but in some cases it was intended, so I was told, to use existing fibre optic routes laid in much earlier for rental to telecoms companies so it would only be necessary to provide new cable on one side. Then I look at the recent Reading work where a great big new cable route has been installed over a bridge east of Reading and instead of being taken along the outside of the structure like the old route it is sitting in the Six Foot between the Up Main and Down Relief LInes - and that route will one day carry the control and indication 'signals' for the entire GWML east of Reading. Be interesting to see what transpires if a passing freight train happens to suffer a broken axle and do a spot of 'ploughing'. What seems to be happening now - from a very non-technical viewpoint - is that control and indication stuff in some cases will not use dedicated cable routes as such but will head off via the telecoms network 'cloud' and pop out of it at the right place. Thereby avoiding lots of cabling costs. I do wonder if this will be rather like the 'dedicated BT lines' we had for NST® circuits on the Central Wales Line which turned out to be dedicated to BT's routing system and nothing else. When we finally got folk tracking down the reliability (lack of) problems it was discovered that the token circuits were anything but 'dedicated' and went wherever BT took them thus if the local exchange couldn't get a direct line from Pantyfynnon to, for sake of argument, Builth Wells it took the first electronically available route and if that happened to be via Glasgow then so be it (for some reason Glasgow and Manchester seemed to be regular favourites!). I really do wonder if this internal network 'cloud' idea is going to be something similar and thus reminiscent of the internet in picking the first clear route that it can find and working forwards from there to finally reach its destination? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 yes much of it goes on the SDH cloud which runs on rings so there is a diverse path, if it can't go clockwise it will switch to go anti clockwise. it is dedicacted in that it is owned by Network Rail and not leased back from Global Crossing which took over most of BRT. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted January 1, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 1, 2012 yes much of it goes on the SDH cloud which runs on rings so there is a diverse path, if it can't go clockwise it will switch to go anti clockwise. it is dedicacted in that it is owned by Network Rail and not leased back from Global Crossing which took over most of BRT. Simple question then - is the SDH cabled and maintained to signalling standards or is it to telecoms standards? (I did realise it was internal, sorry for not making that clear). It is my understanding from a couple of incidents that the people dealing with it are not qualified in signalling system safety procedures and do not apply them - which seems odd if the SDH is carrying signal control data (some of which might be safety critical if it is using control centre interlocking to operate remote locations?). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 SDH runs on fibre and is treated as a telecom bearer normal TMTH and SMTH rules still apply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
caradoc Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Paisley Signalling Centre closed on Sun 25th Dec and from Tue 27th Dec control was transferred to 2 new workstations in the West of Scotland Signalling Centre. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmsforever Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 A worrying future dont trust centralisation look at NHS computer failures wonder if these computer boxes will talk to each other and wether the operators will have real knowledge of the areas they will eventualy control.Now a signalman knows all of his contrlol zone and its possibble problems but with cost cutting the norm I do worry for the future. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted January 1, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 1, 2012 A worrying future dont trust centralisation look at NHS computer failures wonder if these computer boxes will talk to each other and wether the operators will have real knowledge of the areas they will eventualy control. Not wishing to get political but what NHS computer failures ? The major one I was aware of was many years ago in Wessex, since then the "failures" have been under investment which is not the same thing, the present systems work fine, but there is no funding to grow them, I know there are a couple of Trusts which have difficulties with some systems, but don't assume it is the computer systems that are always at fault. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted January 1, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 1, 2012 One issue with the ROCs which was discussed while I was at Signalling School was that in the future few signallers will have proper route knowledge. Maybe not a huge issue for normal running, but for things like Line Blockages and T3s it starts to become more relevant. I put this to the project manager who happens to be an ex senior boss of mine and he admits this is the major stumbling block at present. The Ivensys traffic management system allows for control to be moved from one box to another in cases of disruption but that then means Signallers (or traffic managers?) with no local knowledge being faced with drivers quoting local features as they are frequently more accurate than mileposts, which will slow down response somewhat. These TM systems are great on new build lines with AHB's or even these new full barrier auto crossings but how does it calculate whether someone from deepest darkest #####shire who may or may not have had a few bottles too many can safely take a herd of cows across in a minute? We have 10 frequently used crossings and a load of infrequently used ones, that tend to go mad at harvest time, and that is going to require at least two people to answer in reasonable time when it's busy. We have to remember that a large number of people interacting with the railway aren't versed in clear communication, or neccesarily English, and they aren't neccessarily going to hang on the phone more than 30 seconds before deciding to go anyway. Access for routine maintainance is getting much harder as the teams are often responding to faults too. This combined with them having to have a damn good reason to do anything Red zone, ie line open, means they tend to take any small block they can which also means the number of calls from techs is only going to keep rising to boxes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 From staff I know who work on track, the amount you're able to do Red Zone has decreased dramatically, even in the two years since I worked in p-way - anything more than an inspection now requires a line blockage at the very least. The issue of crossings is something which will not go away and there's a huge push to improve crossing safety at the moment - lots of stuff on NR's intranet has appeared on this subject recently. It is one area where traditional manned crossings seem to have certain advantages. Local knowledge is an issue even in 'traditional' power boxes - one of my trainers said often drivers would just look around and name something close and he'd not know where exactly they were! One example was the driver of a failed train who said "I'm just behind McDonalds"! That was when he worked at Wimbledon! We had a little incident today which was dealt with very quickly by two manual boxes - train approached me with red lights displayed on the front (as well as the rear!), I could very easily get the next box to stop him. As a result he only lost three minutes and departed from there with the correct head lights displayed. Any box which controls a large area would miss this potentially - it may seem like a minor incident but in an area with a complex track layout, the wrong lights could be enough for a lookout to miss a train and not be able to give a work group sufficient warning. A lack of 'eyes and ears' on the ground is a subject which I have heard many people raise with increased centralisation being proposed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
6Y99 Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 It's a bit concerning that the train had ran as far as your block post till that was noticed it must had been passes by oncoming trains and they never reported it is poor as well really Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I'm not going to comment on that... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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