Wigan to Bolton electrification officially given go ahead

[CdBrux]

In todays electrification schemes that has almost become the norm but wasn't the case historically and the industry needs to leverage the time advantage of electric traction in support of modal transfer and get the sparks effect mojo back.

I can guess having a modern feel to the rolling stock is much more important than a 5 mins time saving to the consumer making the choice

 

[ic31420]

I was on a 323 yesterday for the first time in a while.

When these go onto the Bolton line they'll be a step back for the passengers. (From the 331s a bit like when the 175s where stolen away)

Okay they'll be better than the diesels on the Wigan line. But with their lack of air con and dated feel and 3+2 (not helped by the Northern refurb part of my thinks they felt more modern in their gmpte garb) they're clearly an older unit.
The unit I was on had multicoloured lights (why can't thye just order the same colour rating tube) and 5/6 failed double glazed units (obviously an issue with the hopper window shaped units) they just felt poor and a shadow of their formerselves.

It's a shame the saloon lighting didn't get upgraded with the refurb.

Has the electrical traction refit a few years back slowed them down? They don't feel as zippy?

 

[Ken H]

I was on a 323 yesterday for the first time in a while.

When these go onto the Bolton line they'll be a step back for the passengers. (From the 331s a bit like when the 175s where stolen away)

Okay they'll be better than the diesels on the Wigan line. But with their lack of air con and dated feel and 3+2 (not helped by the Northern refurb part of my thinks they felt more modern in their gmpte garb) they're clearly an older unit.
The unit I was on had multicoloured lights (why can't thye just order the same colour rating tube) and 5/6 failed double glazed units (obviously an issue with the hopper window shaped units) they just felt poor and a shadow of their formerselves.

It's a shame the saloon lighting didn't get upgraded with the refurb.

Has the electrical traction refit a few years back slowed them down? They don't feel as zippy?

Why cant they fix failed double glazing units. They just need dismantling, drying out and resealing, surely? There must be some spares somewhere.

 

[CdBrux]

Isn't the purpose of doing ground surveys that they are up to date? I.e. something might have changed.

I don't know how it works in rail constrauction but in my fairly low margin manufacturing industry "something might have changed" is not a reason just to send more money, we would evaluate the risk from those with local knowledge what the chances are that something might have changed and then determine if we re-do fairly recent work. Why not just do a couple of surveys at the area considered most likely to have changed and if nothing did change then the risk is probably quite low and could be considered worth to take.
How much money are we talking about for a full new survey?

 

[Ken H]

I don't know how it works in rail constrauction but in my fairly low margin manufacturing industry "something might have changed" is not a reason just to send more money, we would evaluate the risk from those with local knowledge what the chances are that something might have changed and then determine if we re-do fairly recent work. Why not just do a couple of surveys at the area considered most likely to have changed and if nothing did change then the risk is probably quite low and could be considered worth to take.
How much money are we talking about for a full new survey?

depends how stable the geology is. But they would have found the unstable bits on the initial survey (one would hope) so they could just resurvey those.

 

[Greybeard33]

I agree with all of that, but the increase in passengers only follows if the frequency is increased and if the journey times are reduced. That is not always a given following electrification. There is something in improved ambience too.

It seems unlikely that this project will deliver an increased frequency between Wigan and Bolton, because of the difficulty of finding paths on from Bolton to Manchester. But maybe the higher performance of EMUs might enable more calls at Moses Gate, Farnworth and Kearsley, which currently get only 1tph? That would certainly increase patronage.

 

[The Planner]

I acknowledge that and said the direct costs (ie hiring buses, its planning and support staff) would have to be absorbed by the project but Schedule 4 was designed to incentivise the reduction in engineering access so was set artificially high to do that. Using elevated costs makes business cases harder to justify and reduces how many stkm your budget can deliver. Sch 4 suited Railtrack plc as the more costs it could capitalise the easy it was to flatter its profitability but non profit making companies don't need to do financial engineering. Also many TOCs factored in income streams from sch4 in there franchise models.

What we need now is true cost of delivering these projects so we can get on and deliver electrification and to support net zero. Of course the panacea here would be for the govt to be bold and just tell the industry to get on with it. Whilst I don't believe that will fully happen my monies on MML and TRU getting go ahead in late Autumn as part of the spending review along with some freight infills.

Bus costs are part of Schedule 4 to an extent, TOCs are compensated for one bus per cancelled train. Sch4 still does do what its intended to do, some work gets blown out the water due to its cost and its massively regionally skewed.

 

[Bald Rick]

In todays electrification schemes that has almost become the norm but wasn't the case historically and the industry needs to leverage the time advantage of electric traction in support of modal transfer and get the sparks effect mojo back.

ah, but generally the network is much busier now, so finding the space in the timetable to allow the reduced journey time is much more difficult. Generally, you need to wait for a complete recast, as with GWML.

one would hope they would squeeze a relaxation of the line speed out of electrification.

how? Adding electrification does nothing to all the existing constraints on linespeed. It can actually make it worse (See GWML)

 

[AM9]

ah, but generally the network is much busier now, so finding the space in the timetable to allow the reduced journey time is much more difficult. Generally, you need to wait for a complete recast, as with GWML.



how? Adding electrification does nothing to all the existing constraints on linespeed. It can actually make it worse (See GWML)

Just idle musing, but would the faster acceleration make a slight uplift viable on a stretch of line where nobody has previously bothered because the slower DMUs couldn't even reach the current limits?

 

[Ploughman]

One reason for re doing the designs is because the tracks involved are likely to have moved due to tamping or other work that disturbs the track position.
I would expect that a tamper would have been through any site on the mainline at least once in 2 years.

 

[td97]

New surveys? Is it any wonder that costs are so high, its 6 and a half miles.................

because some rule says so) the findings of the survey be now not valid?

The railway is not a fixed asset. Each passing train, each vehicle over a bridge etc. all causes minute movement in the track/bridge/platform which over many months & years all adds up.
Most likely routine maintenance has been performed since the last surveys which has renewed sections of track bed or sleepers or rails.
Also tamping as mentioned above.
When designing to mm accuracy, up to date surveys are absolutely essential.

 

[Bald Rick]

Just idle musing, but would the faster acceleration make a slight uplift viable on a stretch of line where nobody has previously bothered because the slower DMUs couldn't even reach the current limits?

possibly. But that would still need a lot of technical work to assess it.

 

[YorkshireBear]

This won't be a full suite of surveys, I can almost guarantee that unless they missed areas last time, there will be no more ground investigations. Like I say, assuming they did it right first time. As others say, especially ok a line like this, it's the maintenance Tamps which will throw everything out.

The NR standards on surveys also define how long they are valid for.

 

[The exile]

I can guess having a modern feel to the rolling stock is much more important than a 5 mins time saving to the consumer making the choice

And that frequency is likely to be far more significant than the odd minute or two shaved off the train journey time. Indeed, a speeded up journey with the same departure time from origin may result in passengers at intermediate stations no longer being able to get there in time to catch the train!

 

[CdBrux]

The railway is not a fixed asset. Each passing train, each vehicle over a bridge etc. all causes minute movement in the track/bridge/platform which over many months & years all adds up.
Most likely routine maintenance has been performed since the last surveys which has renewed sections of track bed or sleepers or rails.
Also tamping as mentioned above.
When designing to mm accuracy, up to date surveys are absolutely essential.

If routine maintenance can change things by a few mm and this could affect the design, what then happens after the electrification is complete and then more maintenance changes things by a further few mm? The electrification design presumably has to cope with this, so therefore I'm not following why it wouldn't cope with any few mm changes in the last 4 years since the design was made?

 

[WesternBiker]

Back on the cost issue, I noticed today Rail Gazette International's article about electrification in Norway:

NORWAY: Infrastructure manager Bane NOR has awarded NRC Norge a NKr760m contract for installation of overhead electrification equipment on the lines around Trondheim

The contract covers the 34·7 km Trondheim – Hell – Stjørdal and 74·4 km Hell – Storlien lines, as well as the 5·8 km Stavne – Leangen line which bypasses Trondheim.
This is the fourth and final contract for the electrification scheme. Work on the substations is underway, and bridge rebuilding will begin shortly. The project also involves lowering 900 m of track in two tunnels.

That's equivalent to £64m for around 120km, and includes some significant civil engineering. Now, clearly that's mostly single track in rural areas and probably not that many bridges, though construction access might be challenging in some places, and - of course - it's in the perilous waters of international comparisons.

(Great headline btw - "Railway to Hell to be electrified"...)

 

[civ-eng-jim]

If routine maintenance can change things by a few mm and this could affect the design, what then happens after the electrification is complete and then more maintenance changes things by a further few mm? The electrification design presumably has to cope with this, so therefore I'm not following why it wouldn't cope with any few mm changes in the last 4 years since the design was made?

The track can move (or be moved) more than few mm. A track renewal, for instance could have positioned the track even further away from it's surveyed position than a maintenance tamp. Yes, there are maintenance allowances built into the wire height and track position, but one shouldn't be eating into those tolerances at design stage. If you were to keep assuming tolerances were built in, at some point it would turn messy! Additionally the level of detail of the survey is commensurate with the required level of detail for the design so certain features may not have been picked up in the GRIP 3 survey. Less common now, but I remember doing GRIP 3 designs (for track) to Ordnance Survey mappping.

At GRIP 3 design, the national gauging database will most likely have been used to determine the level of intervention required at overbridges but it can't be used for design. A topographical survey of the track and a laserscan of the bridge would be required for this, particularly if it's proposed to lower the track (as is potentially the case for the A6 Manchester/Chorley Road bridge)

For the platform extensions, it would have been unlikely that a detailed platform gauge was carried out at GRIP 3.

Bridges, hopefully won't have moved but various bits of kits gets added to the railway.

 

[furnessvale]

The track can move (or be moved) more than few mm. A track renewal, for instance could have positioned the track even further away from it's surveyed position than a maintenance tamp. Yes, there are maintenance allowances built into the wire height and track position, but one shouldn't be eating into those tolerances at design stage. If you were to keep assuming tolerances were built in, at some point it would turn messy! Additionally the level of detail of the survey is commensurate with the required level of detail for the design so certain features may not have been picked up in the GRIP 3 survey. Less common now, but I remember doing GRIP 3 designs (for track) to Ordnance Survey mappping.

At GRIP 3 design, the national gauging database will most likely have been used to determine the level of intervention required at overbridges but it can't be used for design. A topographical survey of the track and a laserscan of the bridge would be required for this, particularly if it's proposed to lower the track (as is potentially the case for the A6 Manchester/Chorley Road bridge)

For the platform extensions, it would have been unlikely that a detailed platform gauge was carried out at GRIP 3.

Bridges, hopefully won't have moved but various bits of kits gets added to the railway.

Apart from the issue of tamping/lining, what you are describing is survey work that has not previously been carried out. It is perfectly acceptable that such work is now done.

What shocked people, including myself a former per way engineer, is that previously completed survey work now had to be redone

 

[civ-eng-jim]

Apart from the issue of tamping/lining, what you are describing is survey work that has not previously been carried out. It is perfectly acceptable that such work is now done.

What shocked people, including myself a former per way engineer, is that previously completed survey work now had to be redone

That wasn't the gist I got from my skim through the postings, just that "new surveys" would be required without really contemplating what that entailed.

 

[Bald Rick]

If routine maintenance can change things by a few mm and this could affect the design, what then happens after the electrification is complete and then more maintenance changes things by a further few mm? The electrification design presumably has to cope with this, so therefore I'm not following why it wouldn't cope with any few mm changes in the last 4 years since the design was made?

after electrification, when maintenance is done that can move the tracks it has to be checked against the wires....

Back on the cost issue, I noticed today Rail Gazette International's article about electrification in Norway:



That's equivalent to £64m for around 120km, and includes some significant civil engineering. Now, clearly that's mostly single track in rural areas and probably not that many bridges, though construction access might be challenging in some places, and - of course - it's in the perilous waters of international comparisons.

(Great headline btw - "Railway to Hell to be electrified"...)

not quite. the €72m quoted is just for the contract for the OLE installation. It is one of four contracts, the Civils work is in another package of unquoted cost. As is the project management and all the other costs involved.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

not quite. the €72m quoted is just for the contract for the OLE installation. It is one of four contracts, the Civils work is in another package of unquoted cost. As is the project management and all the other costs involved.

A competitive £0.5m /stkm then

 

[td97]

What shocked people, including myself a former per way engineer, is that previously completed survey work now had to be redone

A track survey expires after 6 months, see NR/L2/TRK/3100. After that period a design verification survey is required to validate the original survey.

But after 4+ years it's sensible to do it all again for the purpose of detailed design and construction.

 

[edwin_m]

after electrification, when maintenance is done that can move the tracks it has to be checked against the wires....

Also some of the infrastructure monitoring trains check the position of the wires relative to the tracks, so if the track (or the wire) has moved then it will be flagged up for attention. You can't monitor the position of wires that have been designed but not built...

 

[WesternBiker]

after electrification, when maintenance is done that can move the tracks it has to be checked against the wires....

not quite. the €72m quoted is just for the contract for the OLE installation. It is one of four contracts, the Civils work is in another package of unquoted cost. As is the project management and all the other costs involved.

Thank you very much for the clarification...

A competitive £0.5m /stkm then

...so still interesting (if rather less dramatic)!

 

[childwallblues]

I can guess having a modern feel to the rolling stock is much more important than a 5 mins time saving to the consumer making the choice

Why should Wigan to Bolton be any better off than Chat Moss services which do pretty well with a mix of 319/323s?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It's quite possible that the NR design criteria have moved on in the 4-year gap since Grip 3, necessitating a new or updated survey.
There has been talk of reducing the strict standards enforced by ORR in previous schemes (reducing clearance work), and things like the improving the piling works (using a wider range of pile sizes).
All based on "lessons learned" from the CP5 schemes.

 

[Halish Railway]

It's quite possible that the NR design criteria have moved on in the 4-year gap since Grip 3, necessitating a new or updated survey.
There has been talk of reducing the strict standards enforced by ORR in previous schemes (reducing clearance work), and things like the improving the piling works (using a wider range of pile sizes).
All based on "lessons learned" from the CP5 schemes.

Would they move away from Bonomi series 2 electrification to Siemens SICAT?

 

[hwl]

It's quite possible that the NR design criteria have moved on in the 4-year gap since Grip 3, necessitating a new or updated survey.
There has been talk of reducing the strict standards enforced by ORR in previous schemes (reducing clearance work), and things like the improving the piling works (using a wider range of pile sizes).
All based on "lessons learned" from the CP5 schemes.

The reality is that the design criteria will move on again in the near future, Whether this is in time for Wigan - Bolton remains to be seen. There may well be some cost built as a trial project to allow redesign for cost saving if changes are approved (contestability etc.).

There are two key areas for change on different time lines:
a) foundations - BR sizing and approaches (smaller) revalidated, this should roll out fairly quickly.
b) Southampton Uni clearance project - this may take a while longer

 

[59CosG95]

The reality is that the design criteria will move on again in the near future, Whether this is in time for Wigan - Bolton remains to be seen. There may well be some cost built as a trial project to allow redesign for cost saving if changes are approved (contestability etc.).

There are two key areas for change on different time lines:
a) foundations - BR sizing and approaches (smaller) revalidated, this should roll out fairly quickly.
b) Southampton Uni clearance project - this may take a while longer

I know in recent months the electrical clearance has been revised from 660mm to 600mm for live-to-earth conductors too, so there may be a small cost saving with that.

 

[Ken H]

I know in recent months the electrical clearance has been revised from 660mm to 600mm for live-to-earth conductors too, so there may be a small cost saving with that.

Who does so much stuff need to be live? When clearances are tight, could they not use a non conductor for the catenary wire? When they first did Metrolink in Manchester, the span wires in the centre were polypropylene so they didnt need insulators.
And why dont they anchor the overhead to bridge soffits? It could save a mast and maybe allow lower clearances under the bridge, as the wires would move less.
I'm not an overhead engineer - I'm just designing overhead with crayons!