GWML Electification

[Steadfast]

The B&H is shut overnight every week night and has been for the last 4-5 weeks, presumably due to electrification? It's notiacble when trains run via Swindon instead of Newbury because they depart the Mendips earlier and some arrive back later

 

Jo

[phil-b259]

Hmm, so what happens when the Heathrow link trains (of whatever sort) are using the Down Main instead of the Down relief due to engineering works and other forms of perturbation - or are the Relief Lines going to remain permanently open without ever needing to be relaid?

Is alternative access avalible from a side entrance?

 

It's not unusual to find what might be termed 'occasional use' platforms to have differing access arrangements to the rest of the station

[Zomboid]

I imagine the cost of extending the bridge against the of expected frequency of needing to use that platform was such that it was was considered an extravagance. Is the up main reversible at that point? I've seen that kind of arrangement used at seven kings on the GEML (down stopping trains used the up electric platform, up trains were on the down main). Or it could be like so many other stations around the country, with platforms on the slow lines only.

[St. Simon]

Hmm, so what happens when the Heathrow link trains (of whatever sort) are using the Down Main instead of the Down relief due to engineering works and other forms of perturbation - or are the Relief Lines going to remain permanently open without ever needing to be relaid?

 

Hi Mike,

 

I believe there will be access to the Down Main when the station is rebuilt, and I also believe that there is a side entrance to the platform

 

I also noticed yesterday that some new Dorman ILS signals have been installed and bagged up in the Didcot area ready for the first stage of the Oxford Resignalling project.

 

Simon

[The Stationmaster]

Is alternative access avalible from a side entrance?

 

It's not unusual to find what might be termed 'occasional use' platforms to have differing access arrangements to the rest of the station

 

Platform 1, the Down Main, has exactly the same access as the other platforms have had until now - from the booking office/footbridge area by steps at the end of the platform.

 

The only logic I can see for the additional footbridge is for passengers transferring off Hayes terminators onto Down Relief through trains (including those to LHR) so logivcally if the junction is closed or the reliefs are closed west of hayes those people would need to cross to the Down Main platform.

 

Hi Mike,

 

I believe there will be access to the Down Main when the station is rebuilt, and I also believe that there is a side entrance to the platform

 

I also noticed yesterday that some new Dorman ILS signals have been installed and bagged up in the Didcot area ready for the first stage of the Oxford Resignalling project.

 

Simon

 

Surely Didcot is already on TVSC anyway - or are additional routes being provided (plus of course 'my' gantry at the Reading end of the Relief Line platforms will be coming down to extend the platforms - serves me right for thinking ahead to possible electrification but not thinking about platform lengthening).

Edited October 20, 2016 by The Stationmaster

[St. Simon]

Platform 1, the Down Main, has exactly the same access as the other platforms have had until now - from the booking office/footbridge area by steps at the end of the platform.

 

The only logic I can see for the additional footbridge is for passengers transferring off Hayes terminators onto Down Relief through trains (including those to LHR) so logivcally if the junction is closed or the reliefs are closed west of hayes those people would need to cross to the Down Main platform.

 

 

Surely Didcot is already on TVSC anyway - or are additional routes being provided (plus of course 'my' gantry at the Reading end of the Relief Line platforms will be coming down to extend the platforms - serves me right for thinking ahead to possible electrification but not thinking about platform lengthening).

 

The reason for the additional footbridge is actually for safety, the amount of people they are expecting to be on the station (during and after rebuilding) would mean that in the event of the need to evacuate the station, the footbridge up to that station concourse would not cope, particularly if the station building itself was on fire! So the installation of another footbridge means that evacuation of the station is quicker, same reason an extra one has been installed at Ealing Broadway.

 

Didcot is already on TVSC, but a the signals on the avoiding lines are being renewed and one of them is being converted to a 4 aspect signal (or a 3 aspect distant, I can't remember which!), the rest of the signals in the station area are staying put I think.

 

Simon

[Fat Controller]

The reason for the additional footbridge is actually for safety, the amount of people they are expecting to be on the station (during and after rebuilding) would mean that in the event of the need to evacuate the station, the footbridge up to that station concourse would not cope, particularly if the station building itself was on fire! So the installation of another footbridge means that evacuation of the station is quicker, same reason an extra one has been installed at Ealing Broadway.

 

Didcot is already on TVSC, but a the signals on the avoiding lines are being renewed and one of them is being converted to a 4 aspect signal (or a 3 aspect distant, I can't remember which!), the rest of the signals in the station area are staying put I think.

 

Simon

A precedent was set for this when Ashford International was being built; the Fire Brigade insisted that part of the old Booking Hall bridge be kept as an emergency evacuation route.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Maybe these footbridges (doesn't West Drayton have a similar arrangement) are being provided (and paid for?) by the Crossrail scheme, which doesn't really bother what happens on the main lines and their associated platforms?

[The Stationmaster]

Maybe these footbridges (doesn't West Drayton have a similar arrangement) are being provided (and paid for?) by the Crossrail scheme, which doesn't really bother what happens on the main lines and their associated platforms?

 

I think that might well be the case Peter although I note Simon's comment about the Hayes bridge being extended later to the DML platform.  

 

And presumably there are going to be instances in the future when the Crossrail trains will have to use the Main Lines due to engineering work or perturbation (although they don't show it on their maps of the lines they will use).  Or perhaps they are just going to shut up shop if the Reliefs are closed for any reason - or maybe they don't think they ever will be closed?

[Edwin_m]

I seem to recall that diversionary use wasn't enough to justify adding new platforms on the Mains where none were provided before, so those stops will simply be skipped during diversions. 

[bensanchez43310]

Assuming no one has any ideas then

 

FLHH scrapped some HHA,s and repainted some for translator vehicle purposes, some have dellner couplers, were used to deliver GX 387/2's

[The Stationmaster]

I seem to recall that diversionary use wasn't enough to justify adding new platforms on the Mains where none were provided before, so those stops will simply be skipped during diversions. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised although that would be an interesting change from past policy where replacement 'bus services have been provided in such circumstances.  I presume they still are - and yes, an upcoming example is for Relief Line closures affecting Burnham & Taplow (which will I presume only be served by Crossrail in future) where alternative 'buses are being provided.  I can understand the situation where frequent and reasonably near alternatives are available - e.g Acton Mainline where no alternatives are provided and use of local 'buses and UndergrounD is recommended but it does seem an odd course to adopt at the stations further out.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

When the relief lines are closed, everything uses the mains.

 

The driver of the 10.45 Paddington - Oxford takes a good look back to check his train, as it calls at the down main platform at Hayes & Harlington.

 

[phil-b259]

An interesting snipit from Roger Fords e-mail preview which might offer further reasons for the slowness of the GWML work (my bold)

 

Mindless regulation threatens electrification

In 1956, British Railway’s Chief Electrical Engineer Mr S.B Warder made a bold and far sighted decision.  The pre-war Weir committee had recommended 1,500 Volt direct current electrification as the future standard. But with the French pioneering high voltage alternating current electrification for the re-equipment of their war-torn network, BR decided to follow suite for the electrification schemes proposed in the 1955 Modernisation Plan.

But high voltage had a particular drawback for a network built to a smaller loading gauge than continental railways.  Electricity has an insatiable desire to return to earth, and the higher the voltage the greater the ability to arc to the nearest earthed object.

To calculate clearances for the 25kV OHL BR took the International Union of Railways standard of 320mm as its starting point and soon discovered that raising bridges to provide this clearance would be prohibitively expensive. Reducing the voltage to 6.25kV where raising a bridge was unaffordable caused the early problems with ac electric trains.

In a series of tests, in conjunction with Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector Officer of Railway’s, Brigadier C A Langley, Stanley Warder investigated the possibility of reducing clearances.  The final test in  Crewe tunnel  confirmed that with a 50mm air gap 25kV would not flash over, even when subjected to the full blast from a steam locomotive chimney.

As a result, in August 1962, new reduced standards, were authorised, permitting clearances of 200mm at particularly difficult locations. This cut the cost of clearance works on the London-Liverpool/Manchester project by around 7%,

Two decades later, on the East Coast Main Line electrification, 200mm had become the new ‘Normal’ minimum clearance with a ‘Reduced’ minimum of 150mm.  Railtrack’s revised electrification Group Standard published in 2001 increased the ‘Normal’ minimum to 270mm while retaining the BR clearances as ‘Reduced’ amd ‘Special Reduced’.


Today
Three decades on and clearances are causing major problems. On 21 September this year the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Economy & Connectivity Committee took evidence from the ScotRail Alliance. Ahead of the hearing ORR provided the Committee with its latest review of the Scots’ electrification projects and one of the main reasons for schemes running late and over budget was the late identification of the scope necessary ‘to achieve a safe and sustainable railway through compliance with legal obligations and European standards’.

 By now I hope you can see the reason for my historical introduction. For ‘compliance scope’ read ‘electrification clearances’. ORR claims that this scope is important ‘as it affects the ability to run a safe and sustainable railway’.

As you might imagine, the relevant European Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) have something to say about electrification clearances.  Until 2015 the UK had a National exemption from the relevant European Energy (ENE) TSI.

However, when the relevant Network Rail standard (GL/RT1210) was reissued in April 2015 the requirements of the ENE TSI came into force under the UK’s interoperability legislation raising the normal minimum clearance to 370mm which is being applied retrospectively to on-going schemes.

This is how ScotRail Alliance Chief Executive Phil Verster explained what happened next to the September 21 hearing.
‘Network Rail attempted to keep costs down by saying that the new specification is really high and asking whether it could risk assess things in order to get a derogation and therefore not to have to comply. Last year, when all the shenanigans started and the cost issues became really clear, it became obvious to the ScotRail Alliance and to me that if we did not comply with the standards the ORR would not sign off the line to go live: if we had continued to debate the matter, we would have got late into the programme and built the railway only for the ORR to say that we could not run anything on it’.

Trapped in a three way bind between the Economic and Safety regulators and Transport Scotland, in March this year Phil instructed the EGIP Project team ‘Stop the debate and move to the new standard. The railway will have hundreds of years of life into the future, so fix this now’.


And it’s not just tunnels and bridges.  The distance between any live part of the OHLE or pantograph and any place a person might stand has also been increased from 2.75m to 3.5m (11ft. Having received a policy statement from ORR I’ll return to this requirement in a future column.


Risk
So how have we come to the situation where, after more than 50 years since those tests in Crewe, with the progressive reduction in clearances making electrification within our smaller loading gauge affordable, we are now back, not just to the clearances in UIC606 but another 50cm on top?

Why did not Network Rail see it coming and gain derogations to continue with the clearances in GL/RT1210 on the grounds that electrification has an excellent safety record and we don’t have the air-space of mainland European Railways? One Informed Source suggested that Network Rail could not mount a challenge because the records justifying historic clearances had disappeared in the sell-off of the British Rail engineering offices under privatisation.

What makes me genuinely angry about this ludicrous situation is that after the struggle to get electrification back on the agenda, and many readers signed up to my petition on the Number 10 website, the pass has been sold.

And that includes ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practical) seemingly going out of the window.  Interestingly, when I started a Twitter debate over the cost of the new clearances, I came under fire on the grounds that I was arguing for the UK to be ‘less safe’ than Europe, just to make electrification more affordable.

But this assumes that the Government will authorise electrification at any price.  Which they won’t.  And funding for the next Control Period is getting ever tighter.

I would risk a modest bet on Swansea not getting electric trains in Control Period 6 (2019-2024.  And given slightly better odds make it a double with Trans-Pennine electrification.

Meanwhile, I would be grateful if any reader can provide a reference for a passenger on a platform being electrocuted by contact or flashover with 25kV ac OHLE or a pantograph.

Edited October 24, 2016 by phil-b259

[corneliuslundie]

And of course our leaving the EU will not make any difference.

Jonathan

[phil-b259]

And of course our leaving the EU will not make any difference.

Jonathan

 

Please note which body is being obstructive here - It is the ORR, a body 100% controlled by our own Government.

 

Put it this way, the French would not let an arm of their own Government effectively sabotage electrification works by SNCF - regardless of what EU directives may say.

 

Not for the first time I find myself reminding people that our own gold plaiting civil servants have far more to answer for than the EU when it comes to 'interference' in UK standards / legislation and Brexit will make sod all difference to that..

[D1059]

Will this shenanigans with clearances mean the GWML will have to have remedial work done on bridges/masts/other structures etc  ?

 

An update on Wantage Road - when driving past this weekend I noticed signs out saying that the main road bridge is closed to traffic for several nights next week - putting up any final masts adjacent to the bridge ? 

[Zomboid]

Any bridges/ platforms which were designed before the ORR decided to retrospectively impose this would be at risk of needing rework.

[caradoc]

In my 30 years Control experience, the only cases of the public receiving a shock from the OLE occurred through their own deliberate actions, either dangling something from an overbridge or climbing on top of a train. I never heard of anyone on a platform receiving a shock. 

[Grovenor]

And it’s not just tunnels and bridges.  The distance between any live part of the OHLE or pantograph and any place a person might stand has also been increased from 2.75m to 3.5m (11ft. Having received a policy statement from ORR I’ll return to this requirement in a future column.

Which could be do-able with nice low platforms as common in Europe but in direct contravention of the RVAR regulations specifying stepping distances from platform to train.

tic

Regards

 

[Fat Controller]

In my 30 years Control experience, the only cases of the public receiving a shock from the OLE occurred through their own deliberate actions, either dangling something from an overbridge or climbing on top of a train. I never heard of anyone on a platform receiving a shock. 

I did hear about someone at Ipswich receiving a non-lethal shock; not directly from the catenary, but from some steel temporary fencing which someone had omitted to earth-bond.

[The Stationmaster]

I am trying to work out what it has to do with the ORR in terms of signing-off a scheme or the works as that is surely handled by a Notified Body rather than the ORR itself?

 

What on the face of it appears to have happened is that the ORR did not ensure there was an application for a derogation in accordance with the provisions of the 2012 act which introduced the new procedures.  Or if the ORR did seek such derogation it was refused by the relevant EU body?  Whichever happens to be the case the answer to that question needs to come from the ORR or DafT as the Ministry responsible for the ORR although my immediate suspicion is of a lack of competence and application within both of those bodies which seem to be far more interested in pursuing their own agendas rather than any to the benefit of the railway industry.

 

So the upshot is the network may not see the anticipated spread of electrification possibly due to a shortcoming within a Govt body while another part of that same Govt body is busy lumbering the network with new dual powered trains which may seemingly be unable on diesel power to match the performance of the diesel trains they are replacing.   I bet there's some back covering going on in Marsham Street now Uncle Roger is blowing it wide open.

[phil-b259]

What on the face of it appears to have happened is that the ORR did not ensure there was an application for a derogation in accordance with the provisions of the 2012 act which introduced the new procedures.  Or if the ORR did seek such derogation it was refused by the relevant EU body?  Whichever happens to be the case the answer to that question needs to come from the ORR or DafT as the Ministry responsible for the ORR although my immediate suspicion is of a lack of competence and application within both of those bodies which seem to be far more interested in pursuing their own agendas rather than any to the benefit of the railway industry.

 

Could it be that thanks to Railtrack and the various IMCs sterling work in destroying BRs vast accumulated knowledge (on the basis that everything BR had was irreverent / outdated / rubbish) the ORR suddenly found themselves without the necessary information to make a good case? Of course the sensible solution would be to re-learn that knowledge and this time ensure it gets kept rather than hiding behind a desk and insisting that nothing can be done thus making life extremely difficult for NR as it tries to get on with what another arm of Government has told it to do.

 

 

So the upshot is the network may not see the anticipated spread of electrification possibly due to a shortcoming within a Govt body while another part of that same Govt body is busy lumbering the network with new dual powered trains which may seemingly be unable on diesel power to match the performance of the diesel trains they are replacing.   I bet there's some back covering going on in Marsham Street now Uncle Roger is blowing it wide open.

 

Oh I'm sure they already have their excuses lined up - probably aimed at their favourite whipping boy when it comes to infrastructure issues rather than admitting the truth (particularly as it might reflect badly on the whole privatisation process - particularly with regards infrastructure). Someone needs to remind them 'Yes Minister' was a comedy - not a 'how to' instruction video.

 

Without BR I'm afraid its all too easy to dump the blame back on the industry - even with Roger doing his best to expose the Governments screw ups. BR may have had its faults but its nothing compared to the inhabitants of Whitehall who seem to be doing their very best in preventing BRs successors of actually doing the job they want to do.

 

The thing is railwaymen (which includes our female colleagues by the way) are generally proud and dedicated bunch - even today - who want to see the industry improve, yet time and time again we are let down by Whitehall. As Roger says we tend to a bit angry about that.....

[david.hill64]

I wonder who in ORR is technically competent to make the decision? I have spent the last 20 years working with railway safety and I am totally bemused by the actions of the ORR here. Possibly there is nobody in ORR with the competence to make engineering judgements and therefore they fall back to compliance with gold-plated standards to make a judgement. No blame attached to making things more safe than they need to be.

 

If there were any demonstrable evidence that the BR (for want of a better description) standards were lacking then it is easy to see why new standards should be enforced. The UK safety culture is has been different from the European (or Japanese) culture which relies more heavily on compliance with standards as evidence to prove safety rather than having to construct a well-reasoned safety case. We seem to be moving towards the European approach at a time when it is no longer necessary to do so. 

 

Let us not forget that UK rail has a very impressive safety record despite scoring poorly on EU safety assessments such as proportion of lines fitted with ATP.

 

We have a history of assessing risk and targeting spend to eliminate or mitigate those risks. There is not an infinite budget for rail improvement works and spending money unnecessarily on increasing electrification clearances means that other works will not happen. If it really is the case that the ORR has effectively thrown out ALARP, then I suggest we dust off Serpell as that is all that will be left of the railway.

[Arun Sharma]

David Hill's premise on the difference between UK and European safety systems pretty much hits the spot. Anyone who has driven [cars] in say, Germany will be aware that there is no such thing as an accident. Every incident is regarded by the Police as someone's fault and they will turn up on the spot and allocate proportional responsibility there and then. This then affects whose insurance pays - No "Knock for Knock" system in Germany.

This concept of blame stems from the European love affair with "Napoleonic Law" which is fundamentally different from English Common Law. In Napoleonic Law, pretty much all is forbidden unless specifically authorised - In English Common Law, pretty much all is permitted unless specifically forbidden. 

My personal loathing of all things EEC/EU stems from the above in that we have been on a slow descent into accepting some forms and the overarching concept of Napoleonic Law. Our policemen and safety regulators have been in the lead here - Firstly by charging folk with utterly trivial offences as a means of generating case law - in one sense it doesn't even matter if the cases are thrown out by the judiciary as nonsensical - the trivia sticks in the mind of those who have heard about it. Secondly, forbidding everything makes the de jure ultimate safety case! - And if you don't make a decision, then you can never make the wrong one....