Great Western Electrification Progress

[davetheguard]

There are a handful of new headspans on the Chat Moss electrification which is used as a Pendo diversionary route and copes with a lot of power. They were only put in for heritage reasons (eg at Rainhill), but might suggest there's no need to replace them just for a higher power draw.

The main problem with headspans is, I believe, their vulnerability to de-wirements. You lose wires over all tracks, while if you have a cantilever mast instead, you just lose the wire over one track.

So more disruption, and it takes longer to repair the damage and longer to recover from delays.

 

[snowball]

Article in Rail Technology magazine:

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/why-great-western-electrification-is-behind-schedule

The opening paragraphs say:

Why Great Western electrification is behind schedule

The man in charge of upgrading and electrifying the Great Western route has offered fresh insight into the reasons for the delays the programme has experienced.

In a frank and engaging talk on the second day of Railtex in Birmingham, Patrick Hallgate, managing director of the Great Western Route Modernisation for Network Rail, discussed the time taken to get design and systems approvals for the new overhead line design, known as Series 1; the “teething problems” with the £45m bespoke HOPS (high output production system) electrification ‘factory train’; the extensive negotiations and discussions with the Department for Transport, First Great Western, lineside neighbours and councils; the failure of axle counters in the Thames Valley causing signalling problems since Easter; and a safety record he summed up as only “ok…not exemplary”.

He also said electrification of some key tunnels on the route has been a “head-scratching technical challenge”, due to the nature of the infrastructure, water ingress and the clearances.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Article in Rail Technology magazine:
http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/why-great-western-electrification-is-behind-schedule
The opening paragraphs say:

It lifts the veil a little.
18 piles a night is at least 5 times faster that the rate NR/BB is achieving on the NW project. Let's hope they keep it up.
I think we can deduce from the article that back-office issues are at least as responsible for the delays as the on-line kit.
Somehow I think the Bristol and Oxford area works (remodelling/resignalling) will cause the next round of delays.

 

[QueensCurve]

It lifts the veil a little.
18 piles a night is at least 5 times faster that the rate NR/BB is achieving on the NW project. Let's hope they keep it up.
I think we can deduce from the article that back-office issues are at least as responsible for the delays as the on-line kit.
Somehow I think the Bristol and Oxford area works (remodelling/resignalling) will cause the next round of delays.

18 piles a night is still painfully slow.

Going back to the heyday of British Rail, Weaver to Glasgow (>200 route miles) was electrified in 3.5y, Huntingdon to Leeds and Edinburgh (~400 route miles) in 5y..

Manchester to Parkside is about 20 route miles and was authorised in 2009 and not completed until December 2013. Something is going wrong.

 

[ainsworth74]

Yeah, we've forgotten how to carry out electrification. We haven't done electrification on this scale since the ECML wrapped up in the early 1990s. Prior to that BR had at least some sort of wiring project on the go almost constantly. Not always on a massive scale (such as WCML in the 1960s or ECML in the late 1980s and early 1990s) but there was always something going on (such as the GEML to Norwich in the early/mid 1980s).

We went a generation without a major electrification project and the people with the knowledge and skills to deliver such projects have retired, gone abroad or are too few and far between for the workload that is now in the pipeline.

If we can get through this period of re-learning how to actually wire up routes I'm confident we'll get faster and costs will start to match up with projections but we have to hope that the DfT (and more importantly the Treasury) keep the faith long enough for Network Rail to re-skill itself.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Yeah, we've forgotten how to carry out electrification. We haven't done electrification on this scale since the ECML wrapped up in the early 1990s. Prior to that BR had at least some sort of wiring project on the go almost constantly. Not always on a massive scale (such as WCML in the 1960s or ECML in the late 1980s and early 1990s) but there was always something going on (such as the GEML to Norwich in the early/mid 1980s).

We went a generation without a major electrification project and the people with the knowledge and skills to deliver such projects have retired, gone abroad or are too few and far between for the workload that is now in the pipeline.

If we can get through this period of re-learning how to actually wire up routes I'm confident we'll get faster and costs will start to match up with projections but we have to hope that the DfT (and more importantly the Treasury) keep the faith long enough for Network Rail to re-skill itself.

Not to forget that when MML kicks off we will have 4 concurrent major electrification schemes on the go (EGIP, NW, GW and Midland), with some more modest schemes close to starting (Chase line and Bromsgrove).
Pity about TP, which looks like being an extension of the NW project.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

18 piles a night is still painfully slow.

Going back to the heyday of British Rail, Weaver to Glasgow (>200 route miles) was electrified in 3.5y, Huntingdon to Leeds and Edinburgh (~400 route miles) in 5y..

Manchester to Parkside is about 20 route miles and was authorised in 2009 and not completed until December 2013. Something is going wrong.

'elf and safety guv

 

[ianhr]

'elf and safety guv

How many people died or suffered serious injury working on major electrification projects in BR days?

 

[DaveHarries]

Things already looking interesting for the start of August in the Bath area when the lines to Chippenham & Trowbridge are closed 01st - 31st August:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/BTH/2015/08/03/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Dave

 

[PHILIPE]

'elf and safety guv

And bureaucracy. Too many players involved in any Rail project since privatisation and DFT dithering.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Things already looking interesting for the start of August in the Bath area when the lines to Chippenham & Trowbridge are closed 01st - 31st August:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/BTH/2015/08/03/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Dave

Looks like my commute will be fun! At least I'll get a HST on the way home instead of a 150 for that period! haha.

 

[QueensCurve]

'elf and safety guv

I don't really think it is that simple. After all the ECML postdated the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974.

 

[HSTEd]

How many people died or suffered serious injury working on major electrification projects in BR days?

As far as I am aware, and I read the final report from the ECML electrification project - during said project there were no work related fatalities and precisely one serious injury.
A man fell from the roof of a wiring train when a cable snapped under tension - he landed with his back across the rail and ended up paralysed from the waist down.

He was then offered, and I believe accepted, an office job in York.


And as regards complaints about Headspans - you can have Mark 3 era electrification and Mark 3 electrification costs or you can have your enormously over-engineered gantries and enormously over budget costs.
Remember BR used to string the headspans between trains with the line still open, two men with ladders.
Then you can have men working on the top of a moving train while traffic runs on the adjacent line.

 

[Taunton]

And as regards complaints about Headspans - you can have Mark 3 era electrification and Mark 3 electrification costs or you can have your enormously over-engineered gantries and enormously over budget costs.

No, the budget for the project should reflect in the first place the cost of over-engineered gantries, if those are what is in the base design. To THEN go over budget is just ludicrous.

the time taken to get design and systems approvals for the new overhead line design, known as Series 1

It seems extraordinary to have actually started on implementation of a project, which is what has slipped, without even having systems approvals for the OHLE design in place. Whatever was being done in the years of pre-contract stage?

the failure of axle counters in the Thames Valley causing signalling problems since Easter

Am I right, that axle counters have been an unmitigated reliability disaster since their introduction in the UK.

 

[fgwrich]

Yeah, we've forgotten how to carry out electrification. We haven't done electrification on this scale since the ECML wrapped up in the early 1990s. Prior to that BR had at least some sort of wiring project on the go almost constantly. Not always on a massive scale (such as WCML in the 1960s or ECML in the late 1980s and early 1990s) but there was always something going on (such as the GEML to Norwich in the early/mid 1980s).

We went a generation without a major electrification project and the people with the knowledge and skills to deliver such projects have retired, gone abroad or are too few and far between for the workload that is now in the pipeline.

If we can get through this period of re-learning how to actually wire up routes I'm confident we'll get faster and costs will start to match up with projections but we have to hope that the DfT (and more importantly the Treasury) keep the faith long enough for Network Rail to re-skill itself.

I believe we really really were that close to losing almost all knowledge of how to carry out large scale electrification projects in this country - Indeed I was at a talk recently held by a member of FGW top staff, who revealed that FGW were so keen to get on with the project that they (in working with NR) have brought in the last remaining ECML Electrification Lead Engineer to work one day a week with them on the GWML project. He's retired, and from Yorkshire, but is giving FGW/NR the guidance they need so well done to FGW for that!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

How many people died or suffered serious injury working on major electrification projects in BR days?

Zero to very few

And bureaucracy. Too many players involved in any Rail project since privatisation and DFT dithering.

That is quite true

I don't really think it is that simple. After all the ECML postdated the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974.

Nothing is ever that simple but we are more obsessed these days. Plus I remember carriages where the electrification crew walked along on top stringing wires- that was ECML. You do not see that anymore. So 1974 is not really that relevant with all due respect.

 

[DY444]

Am I right, that axle counters have been an unmitigated reliability disaster since their introduction in the UK.

No. They have been an unmitigated reliability disaster in the Thames Valley because the ole contractors keep putting augers through the cables

 

[jimm]

Am I right, that axle counters have been an unmitigated reliability disaster since their introduction in the UK.

At yesterday's Cotswold Line Promotion Group gam, FGW managing director Mark Hopwood talked about axle counters, both his initial experience of them when they were installed on the WCML at a time when he was working for Silverlink - which he said was a nightmare, as the busiest main line in Europe wasn't exactly the best place to be trying out new technology - and more recent experience in the Thames Valley, where he said the key now was the quality of work on the initial installation and the setting-up of the kit. The Reading area installation is working very well but he said the installation around Slough was not of the same quality and Network Rail is still trying to sort out the issues there.

 

[Taunton]

Axle counters.

I was thinking back to what has been under discussion on another thread, the Severn Tunnel, where the 1991 accident was significantly contributed to by the failure of recently installed axle counters. So they are not "new technology". But the number of faults listed for the ones at Severn Tunnel in the accident report was extraordinary (they were installed outside each end of the tunnel, so were not influenced by poor conditions inside). And by the sound of things, on the WCML (see above) and now on the GW, things have not progressed much in 25 years.

 

[jimm]

Axle counters.

I was thinking back to what has been under discussion on another thread, the Severn Tunnel, where the 1991 accident was significantly contributed to by the failure of recently installed axle counters. So they are not "new technology". But the number of faults listed for the ones at Severn Tunnel in the accident report was extraordinary (they were installed outside each end of the tunnel, so were not influenced by poor conditions inside). And by the sound of things, on the WCML (see above) and now on the GW, things have not progressed much in 25 years.

Agreed, they are not new technology as such, and have been used for quite some time in certain specific locations for particular reasons, such as the Severn Tunnel where you wouldn't want to be leaving bits of the train behind, but WCML modernisation was the first attempt to use them on a large scale instead of track circuits.

 

[QueensCurve]

Nothing is ever that simple but we are more obsessed these days. Plus I remember carriages where the electrification crew walked along on top stringing wires- that was ECML. You do not see that anymore. So 1974 is not really that relevant with all due respect.

1974 was the date of the legislation.

It is common to blame "health and safety" for things taking a long time, but what really delays a project is if you have a fatal accident, or if you are subject to enforcement notices from the HSE. Better to be safe than take those risks.

 

[Ploughman]

I seem to remember that the use of the Flat top coaches was withdrawn after an incident near Neville Hill in the mid 90's.
Since then the use of MEWPS and other access platforms has been the norm.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

1974 was the date of the legislation.

It is common to blame "health and safety" for things taking a long time, but what really delays a project is if you have a fatal accident, or if you are subject to enforcement notices from the HSE. Better to be safe than take those risks.

I agree. I do think once we are "up to speed" and have fully trained teams, we carry on and electrify something each year for the next 30 years so we never again lose those skills. What happened after 1991/2 ish was just a crying shame.

 

[Noddy]

Zero to very few

I seriously doubt that somehow. And what about non-fatalities which were career ending?

H&S is a good thing. End of.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

H&S is a good thing. End of.

I 100% agree. My point was it is a factor (not the factor) in slowing things down since the 1970s and 1980s when electrification was faster.

 

[TheKnightWho]

I 100% agree. My point was it is a factor (not the factor) in slowing things down since the 1970s and 1980s when electrification was faster.

Was it, though? The ECML electrification programme took 7 years. 10 if you count the first lot too.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Was it, though? The ECML electrification programme took 7 years. 10 if you count the first lot too.

Good question - I would love to see hard data. Would it be apples to apples anyway? How would you measure - track kilometres electrified per year? Chat Moss was not easy terrain. Manchester - Blackpool likewise. Perhaps it just seemed faster back then.

 

[ainsworth74]

Perhaps it's less that it felt fast then but that the effect of time on the memory makes it seem like it was faster than it actually was when thinking about it now?

 

[WatcherZero]

Im sure there was a far larger personnel count dedicated to them in those days.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Perhaps it's less that it felt fast then but that the effect of time on the memory makes it seem like it was faster than it actually was when thinking about it now?

I remember when I first started using the WCML late in 1961, the wires had reached Crewe from Manchester and Liverpool, and were extending southwards towards Stafford.
The rest of the 150-mile main line route, most of it 4-track, was finished in March 1966 less than 5 years later.
A year later another 140 miles of double track via Northampton, Birmingham/Bescot and Stoke was finished.
They also rebuilt Stafford, Wolverhampton, New St, Coventry and Euston stations, and resignalled the whole route.
Mind you there was a lot of disruption, Manchester services diverted via the Midland and Birmingham via the GW.
Liverpool, North Wales, Preston and Glasgow had to grin and bear it.

Crewe-Glasgow, 240 miles of mostly double track, took 4 years (1970-74).