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 By Rhodri Clark
 
Electrification of Great Western rail line to take half the time thanks to German technology
   15 Jul 2013 06:00       

A train packed with hi-tech machinery promises to cut the time, cost and disruption of  electrifying the Great Western line. Rhodri Clark, the first journalist to view the equipment, reports from German
     
Electrification could be achieved in half the time Electrification could be achieved in half the time
 

Passengers on the Swansea to London line would be facing years of delays and travel on substitute buses if the line^s forthcoming electrification followed tradition.

Weekend after weekend, lines would shut for a swarm of orange-clad rail workers to install masts and electricity cables.

With 17,000 new masts required along 235 miles of railway, the work ^ and the disruption to people^s travel ^ would drag on for years.

That would be too high a price to pay, literally and metaphorically, on such an important transport artery.

Network Rail has therefore ordered German manufacturer Windhoff to assemble a pioneering ^factory train^ which will allow it to carry out much of the work on weekday nights, usually with no impact on rail passengers.

Residents of Swansea and Bridgend should be especially grateful for this technology. Without the cost reductions it brings to the electrification process, the future electric trains from Paddington would probably stop at Cardiff.

Stringing an electricity supply above a railway line involves at least six tasks, from creating foundations for the masts which hold up the wires to the final measuring and testing.

The new factory train packs the kit to handle each of those processes onto 23 rail vehicles.

Strung together, these vehicles would be 500 metres long.

In practice, the module that handles piling and foundations will go out first. Modules for erecting steelwork and cables will follow later.

All the materials and components will travel on the factory train too, as will the personnel and their mess facilities. A mobile concrete plant on the train will mix concrete for mast foundations on the spot.

Once the staff have learned the ropes, they should create foundations for 30 masts every night.

The other processes will match that speed.

The cherry on the cake is a safety system which allows the adjacent track to remain open to trains, which won^t even have to reduce speed to pass the construction workers.

^The benefit of this new Windhoff high-output system is manyfold,^ says Robbie Burns, the former Army officer overseeing the Great Western electrification for Network Rail.

^Firstly we^ll be able to build the electrification system reliably, to a higher quality and quicker than before.

^We will be able to operate on one line with passenger trains running in service on the adjacent line, and thus avoid closing the railway and inconveniencing passengers while we^re constructing the overhead line.

^We^re able to do the work with fewer people, and those people will be kept safe by the protection measures on the production train.^

Aiming to start electric services between London and Cardiff in 2017 would be pie in the sky without the factory train, which is expected at least to halve the time electrification takes.

Network Rail is spending almost ^40m on the factory train and expects the investment to pay for itself quickly, after electrification begins in January. Network Rail will not have to negotiate and create road access to scores of places along the railway for delivery of materials and workers.

Pre-mixed concrete starting to set before it reaches the worksite will be a thing of the past. Much less of the time when a track is closed for work will be lost in setting up equipment and materials or clearing them away.

Some of the factory train may also be deployed on the Valley Lines electrification which follows the main line scheme, bringing at least some of the benefits to Valleys commuters and shoppers while the work is undertaken.

Network Rail and its contractor Amey have already recruited some of the 200 workers who will operate and maintain the kit. Although the factory train will be based initially at Swindon, Welsh people are among the early recruits.

Once electrification reaches South Wales, Network Rail will open a depot in Cardiff or Newport, bringing more job opportunities. Some of the men and women who install the masts and wires will transfer to Network Rail^s maintenance teams, using their knowledge from the construction phase to keep the equipment in good order.

 

 

 

Rhodri Clark explains the factory train in action

 

MOST of the factory train is at various stages of construction in the Windhoff factory in Germany.

Last week Network Rail managers saw for the first time the initial modules, for piling foundations for masts, being tested on a disused track near the Dutch border.

A crane arm swings out from the leading vehicle and grabs a steel tube, which will form a pile.

Nobody is seated in the crane^s cab. The crane is operated by an engineer standing near the tube, clutching the super-sized cousin of a TV remote. Staff may prefer to use the controls in the cab on winter nights, especially when wind and rain drive in from the Bristol Channel.

The grab turns the tube upright, places it in the required position and begins to vibrate it while pushing it into the ground. Normally this will be enough to drive the pile home, but another vehicle in the factory train carries a giant hydraulic hammer, for locations where the pile needs firmer persuasion.

Today the crane arm is working to the right of the train. We have to imagine another track to the left where a London express races by, or heavy coils of steel from Port Talbot move inexorably towards a dock or factory.

What if the crane operator pushed the wrong button on his remote, causing the arm to swing out in front of a passing train?

No chance, I^m told. An electronic barrier will stop the crane swinging to the wrong side or moving one of the tubes out of the vital safety envelope

I'm looking forward to seeing this example of Four Sprung Duck Technique. Hopefully, it will stick around after the main electrification programme is done and dusted, to continue on a rolling programme until the whole network is electric.

ERIT:

I'm also looking forward to this thread being merged with the similar one in Frequent Posters.

On test at the Windhoff factory in Rheine, Germany.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23317641

This is the electrification "factory" train. Due to arrive at the new Swindon electrification base in October.

Coming to a Great Western line near you..love to see one of these on SVB or Phd!

I have moved this to here as I felt it was being swamped by the news out of Waterloo (in the wider picture...no pun intended!) and that it deserved a wider readership.
chuffed




Edit note: Topics moved and merged here, in the interests of clarity and continuity. Chris.

I had already put an article about this on the wider picture yesterday, and moved it earlier this evening to Frequent posters as it had got swamped by all the 'hot' news out of Waterloo. Can I suggest to duty mods that they have a look and edit these posts. I won't be offended if mine get deleted !

Sorry Chuffed - I did a quick scan of the forum and didn't spot your post.  Mods please merge or delete my post.

I think it merits its own thread. It's a cracking piece of kit, and I can't wait to see it in action - hopefully later this year. It would be good to hear reports of progress and see a few piccies.

This was also featured in a report by Paul Clifton on BBC South Today yesterday (Monday 15/7).

As linked to in the other 'HOOP' thread that's also running at the moment: 

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=12669.0

I'm wondering why this thread was started in the 'frequent posters' section anyway, there's nothing unusual or contentious about the subject matter is there?

Paul

The two topics have now been moved and merged here.  ;)

Hope it's not too noisy as it going pass my house at least twice, have do some very drastic pruning to see it in operation.

ElectricTrain do you know if we a getting indivdual wire/post per tack (4), headspans or girders to hold wires.

I am not certain you will see the HOOP through Taplow, the Hayes (Stockley Park to Maidenhead electrification is a Crossrail project the HOOP has been purchased for GW electrification which is West of Maidenhead.  To the outside world it all looks to be one railway, lift ain't that simple, both projects have their deadlines to meet, DfT have said they want electric trains running between Reading and Oxford by the end 2015!!!!

Headspan is almost certainly out of favour for all new electrification, my guess it will be a mix of masts with cantilevers, portals and things called twin track cantilevers, the current requirement is for what is called "mechanically independent registration" which basically means if their is a rip down on one road its does not effect the other roads, also with headspan if a span wire in insulator parts company the contact wire goes out of registration then there is high risk that whole lot can come down across all roads when a pan get ensnared

Looks like Network Rail and their contractors (Amey?) will need to get a move on then! Most of the civil engineering required for electrification clearances between Reading and Oxford is either complete or under way - though the station footbridges at Goring and Cholsey are still to be replaced. Also I thought that the Reading flyover wasn't due for completion until 2015.

There are a few foundations in place west of Pangbourne and a load of electrification and signalling components stored at Moreton Cutting east of Didcot. Foundation locations have been marked out for much of the way between Didcot and Tilehurst.

I will also be interested to see what electric trains DfT plan to run by the end of 2015. The class 319s originally mooted for the GW suburban services won't be refurbished by then and if transferred in their current form will go down like a lead balloon. I have my doubts if these will be used as they'll take up too many paths on the main lines with their 100mph top speed - not much better than the turbos.  What's required is 110mph performance like the class 350s on London Midland. Perhaps the new dual-voltage units recently ordered from Bombardier by Southern will end up with us but I would have thought that would depend on the Desiro City units for Thameslink being delivered - and they aren't due until 2016.


This appears to have been installed at Reading New Junction and around Reading station.  Headspans are used in the new depot sidings but speeds are low there.

End of 2016 I think you'll find.  That might make all the difference in terms of stock cascades!

I think initially F(a)fT wanted 2015 which I think was Politically driven even 2016 is tight but I'm sure the project team will get something working.

Headspans as I said are out of favour for new electrification they are not a complete no no, depots and sidings headspans offer the most cost effective means and there will always be areas on the running line where headspan may still be installed the Route Electrification Engineer will want some convincing though that headspan is the best choice

The electric LTV service is due to start until December 2016.

We won't be seeing 319s on LTV either. They don't do 110mph, nor do they have SDO or provision for fitment of ERTMS!

The description of the HOOP train does lay it on rather thickly.

In the 1980's BR had electrification trains capable of installing 4-5 masts per hour with a maximum of 8 in 25 minutes. It also had factory wiring trains (of UK designed and adapted ex-501 cars!).

Network Rail now enjoys the advantages of advanced IT, robotics and German brain power which no doubt compensates somewhat for the halving of productivity from a possession when compared to BR.

OTC

It is true BR did have electrification construction trains, they were not "factory trains" as the HOOP is portrayed to be.

BR's foundation train, basically a train of cement mixers that were loaded from a batching plant in the construction depot, the train in latter years had a excavator although many foundations were hand dug during the week next to the open railway (rules were different in those days).  The foundation train would run out on a weekend night or mid week and drop the re-bar in an pour the concrete around a polystyrene former, in later years holding down bolts were cast in for bolted base masts.

BR then had a train with a crane, an adapted 12 Tonne PW crane that lifted the masts in place where they used a polystyrene former this was melted out with acetone and the mast grouted in.  For large portals the 75 Tonne breakdown cranes were used, it was all Mechanical & Electrical Engineers Dept in those days

BR's wiring these were indeed converted rolling stock the roofs were flatten off, so the linesmen could walk along as the train moved along, the problem with these trains is they did not have any guard rails there was a risk of falling off, which did happen, needless to say elf n safety did not like these.  During the construction of North Pole the use of wiring trains was not allowed by the depot construction contractors caused a panic for the BR construction engineer at the time.

So yes BR did have construction trains, long gone now they would have evolved I guess if we as a nation had not just stopped electrifying railways 30 years ago

If I remember correctly, several carriages of which ended their days languishing in Hinksey Yard towards the latter part of the 1990s?

They might have been from an OLE maintenance depot they had similar trains not quite as long as the construction ones.  Willesden, Soho, Romford, Rugby, Longsight, Crewe, etc etc etc

A mistake I hope we do not repear when the current programmes end! Surely,  the aspiration must be for a wholly electrified railway one day?

I whole-heartedly agree with FTN that we should set our national sights on an electrified railway for everywhere except the lines with extremely low use.  A major part of that will involve either complete wiring of ports and other bulk loading points for freight, or locos with 'last-mile' diesel engines built in, so that they are not running 95% of the time under the wires on filthy oil (or even clean oil).

The problem with this aspiration is that it involves something called 'vision', which is sadly lacking in our politicians and the people who elect them* who often cannot/will not see beyond either the next election or their nasal extremity. 

*Except me, of course, who has clarity of vision and a firm grasp of economics and taxation. :P

Ports and the like must be about the worst places for 25 kV OLE. Apart from the bulk loading equipment, and most cargo being in containers, there are cranes, big fork-lifts and similar elevator-loader vehicles, tall trucks, etc. You'd never make a safety case.

If you don't want to uncouple the mainline loco I suspect a big old diesel to haul the lot would work - an auxiliary engine would need a helluva torque.

Nothing new in OLE in to ports and container handling yards.  There used to be big on at Willesden and Stratford.  Its all how you set the head shunt up

OK - I stand corrected. I guess it just means using the right kind of handling machines, but then modern ports are designed pretty much like complete factories anyway.

* Me too

I would like to see a national infrastructure agency set up to keep as many decisions as possible out of political hands. Though a national agency, its remit would include large-scale local transport schemes that do not involve buses. As well as national railways, I would tell it to make sure we are able to generate all the power we need, sort out problems with airport capacity, and maintain sea defences. I can see the obvious problem, in that the government is the body who will pay for it all on our behalf, and all of these aspects of national life have a political element to them, as the HS2 and Heathrow third runway debates show.

But I would tell the infrastructure supremo to hang on to the HOOP kit at the end of this programme, and draw up a timetable for doing the whole country. This is urgent - as each class of vehicle comes to the end of its life, it should be replaced with electric, not diesel. So keeping the HOOP going will mean the progressive cascading of diesel stock and introduction of electric vehicles, planned to avoid diesel under wires as much as possible. This would also include conversion of third rail systems to 25kv AC OHL. I say this is urgent because, if we start now, we may never have to develop and buy any more diesel rail vehicles.

Would you not see the national infrastructure agency you propose having to take account of schemes that involve buses though? One would imagine some overlap with trolleybus, guided bus etc. Even "ordinary" bus schemes may well be relevant to some of the pies your agency could have its fingers in.

I deliberately excluded buses to avoid the possibility of a repeat of the Avon Metro fiasco. Not having the choice of bus as the motive vehicle would preclude downgrading any planned scheme to save money, in the way that the proposed tram system for Bristol has been value-engineered down to a Bust Rabid Transit route - in truth, a thinly disguised road building scheme.

I don't deny your logic at all FTN.

What I am suggesting is that not taking into account of (as opposed to actively promoting) schemes that involve buses would deprive your proposed national infrastructure agency of the crucial integrationist element that, by its very definition, would be essential to ensure that it operated effectively.

And believe me, I speak with as much distaste as you of the BRT substitution agenda when I say that.

Indeed. Nuclear Power, Now! As far as new build goes, I'm a WIMBY.

And as for rail electrification on a wider scale than currently funded/proposed - think how much more we could do by ditching HS2.



*Welcome in my back yard

A "National Freight Spine" is being electrified on the back of the GW electrification; Reading / Basingstoke, the re-electrification Basingstoke / Southampton and the extension of the GW electrification North of Oxford through to Coventry and Nuneaton.  Part of the reason for electrification of EWrail is part of the National Freight Spine.

Hopefully Network Rail will deliver the current schemes to time and budget and the ripple effect will take hold which as already happened to a degree with the proposed electrification of the TV Branches

Many thanks for the details  from your rich experience.

OTC

The Network Rail electrification RUS already proposed a nationwide rolling programme of wiring, and it is currently being updated to reflect that plans have since moved on, and that various CP4 and CP5 projects are being carried out or firmed up for delivery, such as the MML and EWR.  As main routes become complete the BCR improves for many secondary links, it's all explained in the existing RUS, but I reckon the update will be likely to include far more detail.

The DfT inspired order for 204 DMU vehicles was cancelled whilst in progress as a result of being overtaken by electrification plans, with most commentators assuming that was the end of major DMU orders.

I don't think the situation is as bleak as sometime suggested...

I understand what you mean Paul, and in many respects the railways are doing well in what is turning out to be a tough time for individuals and businesses.  However, without ignoring economics, a vision of what the railways could be if piecemeal party politically schemes did not hamstring their development would give a sense of direction and a goal. That would end the feeling that any growth is incidental to a strategy rather than at the core of it.  The RUS always makes good reading (no irony intended), but look at Crossrail and HS1 to see how political expediency delays and prevaricates over what most people agree are sensible projects for the country.

Yes we could electrify all the lines so that as a country we were not so dependant on oil. But then with the growth in traffic the West Coast Main Line, the East Coast Main Line and Probably the Midland Main Line would have such appalling reliability statistics that there would be an outcry and there would be no room for freight.

Then when oil becomes so expensive that it rules out road transport we would not be able to move goods or people around the country so the economy would collapse even though we had electrified all the lines.

Think how well we coped when there was a fuel strike in 2001?

No truer words ever spoken! 40% of railway in UK is already electric, yet 60% of journeys are on electric trains. That number includes the less-than-ideal third and fourth rail systems, and it is difficult to see any new project other than a tramway being electrified at anything other than 25kv AC. EMUs and electric locos typically are expected to last 30 years, with a midlife refurb. So on the day a new train goes into service, we have a good idea of the day it will retire. There is typically a 10-year lead in for new schemes - the GWR electrification was announced in the early 1980s, only to be cancelled and re-announced and cancelled again before being actually started. There was no reason for this other than political inertia. My idea would at least mean that any government tampering with the masterplan would have to say why.

The argument about whether or not to electrify the railway has already been won. As a one-time flier of light aircraft, I understand more than most how the fuel efficiency of a vehicle is affected by the fuel it needs to complete the journey.
Steam was brilliant in opening up mass transit. It still is, but is unsustainable economically. Diesel was the saviour of the railway, being more flexible and more efficient than coal, but electric is surely the future. The HSTs use two diesel engines to generate electricity to drive the train. That is efficient compared to cars, but hugely inefficient compared to a real electric railway.  Not only do you not have to carry the fuel for the journey with you, so lessening the load, but you can generate the power source away from the cities by the best available method. HOOP is the answer to the conundrum, but the conundrum is not the question.

I bought a new car under the auspices of the then trade in scheme for old bangers. My car was just 10 years old, and did 40 mpg on a certain journey to north Wales, something I thought was brilliant compared to my previous vehicle. The new one did 60 mpg for the same journey, and had it been powered by electricity all the way would have been even better.

Diesel has no long-term future in any kind of transport, let alone public transport. A diesel-powered electricity generator at Avonmouth makes much more sense than importing diesel to power a train, if only because it is more efficient than a wind farm, more likely than a biomass plan where we import some wood from the USA and pretend that the ship emitted nothing  on the voyage.

Totally agree


It depends how you define efficient.  If you mean the proportion of energy you get then it is not.  But if you mean CO₂ per kWh then wind beats diesel easily.  If you want to talk about cost per kWh then do you mean at today's electricity and diesel prices or future prices?  All very difficult to determine.


That never made any sense to anybody other than a politician.  I know some politicians are said to have brains the size of planets, but I have never seen much evidence of it myself.

It might also make sense to a civil servant, with a first class degree in ancient Greek literature, who is put in charge of energy policy.

You could say that the electric railway is actually (largely) steam-electric; it's just that unlike unlike the diesel-electric system, the locos don't carry the generators round with them. It's the same principle as Brunel's atmospheric railway - put the heavy plant beside the tracks, and transmit power to the locos as they need it.

Edit: typo

.......and electric trains have steam's great advantage of massive short term overcapacity. Just as a steam loco could start/accelerate/climb with late cut-off (i.e using full boiler pressure for much of the expansion), electric motor currents and powers may exceed continuous ratings by 60 - 70% for short periods. Thus even a humble class 73, max rating 1420kW could give 2350kW for a short time. You'll sometimes see motor ratings as continuous, sometimes as 1-hour. SNCF quotes them for 7.5 minutes! The limit of course depends on the temperature the windings' insulation can stand.

Even an MTU Diesel must run out of puff when it reaches its set maximum output.

OTC

Apologies if it's been mentioned before the other advantage of diesel is that electric trains are generally quiteter think HST coasting. Plus they don't spew out CO2 and particulates behind them.

Also we will have to bite the bullet and install 6 tracks to Reading/Didcot fortunately due to the broad gauge and space used for old  sidings 6 tracks pass my house puts me 1 track width nearer the trains.

An update, from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33425743):

I have a Cousin working at the HOOB as a design engineer.  His view is that many of the problem are caused by starting working before having a good survey of the current state of the infrastructure.  He finds he is still designing things that should have been settled before the work on the ground started as they go along.

It is rumoured that running the bi-mode IEP trains off the electric for a longer time period and distance that agreed with Hitachi will involve very expensive penalty payments to them. 

The wrong sort of railway, maybe? It seems incredible that basic information about the railway was not available before work commenced, especially with the amount of work done trackside for signalling. I suppose detailed soil surveying etc isn't straightforward when there is a live railway running. Would setailed surveying have reduced the overall cost, though, or made electrification less likely? Could there have been a decision made quietly somewhere not to look too closely until work had got to the point of no return? Discuss.

As the BBC radio program eluded to far too much faith was placed in the factory train, the old n bold OLE engineers who questioned it were politely told they were out of touch with modern railway engineering practice.

In the UK we have an acute shortage of experienced OLE engineers in all its aspects from the civil engineering (foundations, tunnel and bridge fixings), the catenary systems to power distribution.   The GWEP power distribution is scarily complex compared with what has been done before certainly in the UK if not the world.

Very expensive, or just reflective of the additional maintenance and other costs that will be required on the numerous diesels that will now be required to operate for much longer periods.

I honestly don't know and I don't think he did either,

I think his view was that if they had known the extent of the work that needed doing then the pre-start estimate would have been higher, but less than the bill will turn out to be.

the thing with construction projects IIUI is that it is delays that come with a big price tag.    You can end up paying to do a job but not completing it because the bank is unstable or the signalling cables are in the way.  You then have to pay for a redesign and then you have to pay for the job a second time.

The impression I got was that the planning stage was rushed and incomplete. 

I should add that my cousin is a civil rather than electrical engineer.  It was info on things like the state of the embankments that they are sticking the masts in that he said was lacking.   Part of that of course could simply be due to the age of the network and the dubious and unrecorded practices of the navies 175 years ago. 

When BR was allowed by DfT to electrify a route BR managed it in in-house, it procured / built the traction and rolling stock, it carried out / managed contracts for the infrastructure works dealt with all the industrial relations and public relations in the main it kept pretty close to programme.

Today we have a lot of fragmentation, ultimately DfT commission the electrification of a route and then fund NR to carry out the infrastructure works, DfT let the contract for the rolling stock the programme is set politically and then it is left to the TOCs for the new trains and NR for how it impacts on the Ops and maintainers to deal with the industrial relations.

Add in the mix the ORR wanting old infrastructure renewed while still running trains 20 hours a day 7 days a week