UK to retain EU rail standards following Brexit. Or may be not...

Adlington · 9 Oct 2018

Whether on 31 March we'll see hard, or soft, or no Brexit, rules designed to promote common safety and technical principles across all European Union railways will need to be met by UK companies and suppliers, the Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB) said.

Requirements in EU law, such as in Technical Specifications for Interoperability, are still likely to apply during a transition period should a deal be reached. Under a no-deal Brexit scenario, TSIs would be adapted to work in the UK as domestic legislation, published as National Technical Specification Notices by the Secretary of State for Transport.

‘We have been working very closely with the Department for Transport over the past year to ensure that requirements derived from the EU framework are legally fit for purpose for application in the UK, with workable solutions in place, even in a potential no deal scenario’, said RSSB Director of Standards Tom Lee on October 4. ‘We want to ensure that day one post-Brexit, the UK standards framework is suitably aligned to the EU for immediate continuity and is legally robust, whilst providing for possible future divergence, if beneficial.’

https://www.railwaygazette.com/news...etain-eu-rail-standards-following-brexit.html

OTOH if you prefer an alternative view, you can find it on the internet too (it's the place where you can find any view you like....). Network Rail said:

Network Rail has confirmed that it will not implement European Union (EU) standards on all projects after Brexit. The rail body said that sometimes bypassing Eurocodes would enable it to carry out infrastructure works without “unnecessary cost”.

A spokesperson said: “We want the best of both worlds – trade that enables us to realise the benefits of low cost (standardised) supplied products together with the freedom to not apply Euro standards where they drive unnecessary cost into the UK railway.”

All is clear, isn't it?? o_O

RailUK Forums

NSEFAN · 9 Oct 2018

Adlington said:
Whether on 31 March we'll see hard, or soft, or no Brexit, rules designed to promote common safety and technical principles across all European Union railways will need to be met by UK companies and suppliers, the Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB) said.https://www.railwaygazette.com/news...etain-eu-rail-standards-following-brexit.html

OTOH if you prefer an alternative view, you can find it on the internet too (it's the place where you can find any view you like....). Network Rail said:
All is clear, isn't it??

Sounds like business as usual. We will use the same standards as our European neighbours, but obtain derogation to ignore bits of the standards where it suits us to deliver more realistic upgrades. As is the case now.

Network Rail will then do the required upgrades, having forgotten to obtain said derogation. As is also the case now.

MarkyT · 10 Oct 2018

There's no sense whatsoever in diverging from the European technical standards that all the major manufacturers, contractors and consultants now support after decades of effort, but I assume we will no longer be bound by EU requirements to make particular international freight corridors fully interoperable within the UK, which was practically impossible for the most part anyway due to our loading gauge and power peculiarities (away from HS1). There is an ongoing dispute over new platform heights on HS2, which might go either way, but in any case is largely irrelevent as there is no UIC gauge through route to the continent proposed, nor any realistic commercial service prospect for creating one in the foreseeable future, especially after Brexit.

Jonfun · 10 Oct 2018

The majority of our trains won't run a service in Europe, and the majority of our railway infrastructure won't see a train to or from Europe. Therefore, it's far better to use standards which are more relevant to UK operation than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and shoehorn in EU standards.

DarloRich · 10 Oct 2018

Jonfun said:
The majority of our trains won't run a service in Europe, and the majority of our railway infrastructure won't see a train to or from Europe. Therefore, it's far better to use standards which are more relevant to UK operation than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and shoehorn in EU standards.

on the flip side such an approach makes our railway even more bespoke. That costs us lots of money already.

Jonfun · 10 Oct 2018

DarloRich said:
on the flip side such an approach makes our railway even more bespoke. That costs us lots of money already.

Only if we make said standards more prescriptive. In theory a product which met EU standards would also meet the new UK standards, but also encourage competition from suppliers who could supply a product to UK standards but not EU standards (eg a British company who did not want to trade internationally).

co-tr-paul · 10 Oct 2018

Perhaps we can specify matching couplings on different stock....... !

Bantamzen · 10 Oct 2018

MarkyT said:
There's no sense whatsoever in diverging from the European technical standards that all the major manufacturers, contractors and consultants now support after decades of effort, but I assume we will no longer be bound by EU requirements to make particular international freight corridors fully interoperable within the UK, which was practically impossible for the most part anyway due to our loading gauge and power peculiarities (away from HS1). There is an ongoing dispute over new platform heights on HS2, which might go either way, but in any case is largely irrelevent as there is no UIC gauge through route to the continent proposed, nor any realistic commercial service prospect for creating one in the foreseeable future, especially after Brexit.

I certainly wouldn't rule out a case in future, the travel market is not static and travellers will explore new modes as demonstrated by Eurostar. A lot of people scoffed at the idea of getting a train from London to Paris or Brussels when the idea was seriously floated, yet they are becoming increasingly popular, especially now the terminal is closer to north and west facing ones. So the market for direct travel from further afield in the UK may start to emerge as years go on.

And Brexit really isn't going to have an effect on any of this this in the long run, the planned Curzon Street HS2 terminal in Birmingham allows for a potential international platform, and I believe both Manchester & Leeds could relatively easily be adapted to allow for a customs point if the need ever arose.

DarloRich · 10 Oct 2018

Jonfun said:
Only if we make said standards more prescriptive. In theory a product which met EU standards would also meet the new UK standards, but also encourage competition from suppliers who could supply a product to UK standards but not EU standards (eg a British company who did not want to trade internationally).

We already require a bespoke product to fit our gauge. That is unattractive to some suppliers. Asking them then to supply a train to a different set of standards may reduce interest further. In any event we will be asked to carry the costs of developing a product to meet UK standards. At present we pay for conversion of a common design.

As for a UK company not wanting to trade abroad, while that might be a Brexit lovers wet dream, it simply isnt realistic. if we want to sell pies to Europe we have to meet Europe's definition of a pie. Why make a company run two pie production lines? Wouldn't following the same standard as Europe be sensible and practical?

Western Lord · 10 Oct 2018

The supposed disadvantage of having to comply with EU regulations is a red herring and probably the least of the effects of Brexit. If you want to sell internationally you have to meet the standards of the country you are selling to, wherever that is. For example, you cannot sell a European specification car in the United States, European manufacturers have to build to US regulations, the framing of which we have no control over. It's not a big deal.

DarloRich · 10 Oct 2018

Western Lord said:
The supposed disadvantage of having to comply with EU regulations is a red herring and probably the least of the effects of Brexit. If you want to sell internationally you have to meet the standards of the country you are selling to, wherever that is. For example, you cannot sell a European specification car in the United States, European manufacturers have to build to US regulations, the framing of which we have no control over. It's not a big deal.

I have some experience of buying railway products internationally and some of the difficulties involved in making those products run on the UK network but I will bow to your experience.

underbank · 10 Oct 2018

DarloRich said:
if we want to sell pies to Europe we have to meet Europe's definition of a pie. Why make a company run two pie production lines? Wouldn't following the same standard as Europe be sensible and practical?

Except at the moment, the EU standards aren't the same as elsewhere in the world, so manufacturers who don't want to limit themselves to the EU already have to deal with multiple standards & requirements, so it's nothing new.

I worked in a design & manufacture company supplying electrical connectors to the worldwide oil & gas industry. We had to use different quality materials for different customers/countries, which inevitably meant our inventory costs were higher. But we managed perfectly well. Same way we managed with different measurement units as not all the World use metric.

Jonfun · 10 Oct 2018

DarloRich said:
We already require a bespoke product to fit our gauge. That is unattractive to some suppliers. Asking them then to supply a train to a different set of standards may reduce interest further. In any event we will be asked to carry the costs of developing a product to meet UK standards. At present we pay for conversion of a common design.

As for a UK company not wanting to trade abroad, while that might be a Brexit lovers wet dream, it simply isnt realistic. if we want to sell pies to Europe we have to meet Europe's definition of a pie. Why make a company run two pie production lines? Wouldn't following the same standard as Europe be sensible and practical?

I'm not sure you've correctly understood my post. If the UK standard was written such that something which met the EU standard complied with it, then companies could still offer their EU compliant product to the UK market. A UK manufacturer could offer a product which didn't meet the EU standards but did meet UK ones, increasing competition, and you might even find that the UK standards were similar to, say, Japanese standards, making it easier for a Japanese company to offer a suitable product too.

My local bakery makes their own pies. I don't know if there is a European standard for pies, it isn't my industry. But if there is, they have to comply with it. And if that standard costs them a lot of money to follow (perhaps they need specialist ingredients, or a particular type of machinery to make the pie) which they could do in alternative, less prescriptive way, a new UK standard could allow them to save money. They wouldn't need to follow the EU standard, because my local bakery doesn't intend to sell its pies beyond its own postcode area, let alone export them to Europe. If a business wants to trade internationally its products/processes need to meet the relevant standards, of course. But most UK businesses don't trade internationally.

cogload · 10 Oct 2018

Writing your own bespoke standards in an era where the supply chain crosses the continent is beyond dumb, will push additional cost onto the customer and is totally the opposite of the global free trading blah blah nonsense.

The EU in any trade deals as one of the three major standards writers (the other being the US and coming up on the rails; China) now exports it's own regulations. Ergo in the recent Japanese/ EU trade deal the EU basically imposed it's standards irrespective of UNICE on the Japanese automotive sector.

Even more amusing is of course is that the majority of manufacturers which supply the UK railway industry as a whole are European. So say signalling, you want a non complaint version of a European standard then you pay extra. Lots and lots of extra cash.

Jonfun · 10 Oct 2018

cogload said:
Even more amusing is of course is that the majority of manufacturers which supply the UK railway industry as a whole are European. So say signalling, you want a non complaint version of a European standard then you pay extra. Lots and lots of extra cash.

Which is why you make the UK standard less prescriptive, where judged appropriate, than the EU standard. Thus if something complies with the EU standard, it complies with the UK standard.

MarkyT · 10 Oct 2018

cogload said:
Writing your own bespoke standards in an era where the supply chain crosses the continent is beyond dumb, will push additional cost onto the customer and is totally the opposite of the global free trading blah blah nonsense.

The EU in any trade deals as one of the three major standards writers (the other being the US and coming up on the rails; China) now exports it's own regulations. Ergo in the recent Japanese/ EU trade deal the EU basically imposed it's standards irrespective of UNICE on the Japanese automotive sector.

Even more amusing is of course is that the majority of manufacturers which supply the UK railway industry as a whole are European. So say signalling, you want a non complaint version of a European standard then you pay extra. Lots and lots of extra cash.

Well said. Look at the source of much of the recent and pending new rolling stock. Although clearly with specialised bodywork for the UK these are predominantly European trains, built to TSIs and incorporating bog standard European major systems such as bogies, electrical, control and management systems. Even the Hitachi's have been fully developed in UK within a European technical and regulatory environment, so much of the approval work for derivative models, built here or in Italy for other mainland European orders will have already been done. European standards are flexible anyway, they necessarily allow variation from a standard way of doing things due to historical legacy in particular countries, such as our unique loading gauge and platform shape, and our legacy warning and protection systems, and traction power supplies. They can even allow development of new custom control systems within the 'platform' of ETCS for example, such as the limited supervision systems developed and widely applied by the Swiss (note non-EU), Germans, French, Belgians and Italians, all based on standard ETCS components, with extra plug in modules and software as required. If we move away now in any major way from TSIs we might as well change the gauge, abandon 'digital railway', appoint railway policemen for every milepost, and blow up the channel tunnel, for all the good it would do us.

Panupreset · 10 Oct 2018

co-tr-paul said:
Perhaps we can specify matching couplings on different stock....... !

Quite! My TOC is procuring new rolling stock. All types have couplers of EU standard. Just different EU standards. So one type cannot assist the other in the event of failure.

DarloRich said:
We already require a bespoke product to fit our gauge. That is unattractive to some suppliers. Asking them then to supply a train to a different set of standards may reduce interest further. In any event we will be asked to carry the costs of developing a product to meet UK standards. At present we pay for conversion of a common design.

As for a UK company not wanting to trade abroad, while that might be a Brexit lovers wet dream, it simply isnt realistic. if we want to sell pies to Europe we have to meet Europe's definition of a pie. Why make a company run two pie production lines? Wouldn't following the same standard as Europe be sensible and practical?

BMW/Mercedes/Audi/VW/Citroen/Peugeot/Renault all happy to make right hand drive cars for the UK. If the market with the variance is big enough a manufacturer will setup another production line or accommodate the variance in specifications.

A few months ago I got chatting to an engineer who had worked on the UK railway for a very very long time. He said that when BR raised OLE voltage to 25kV some clever people did a study to find out what clearance was required beneath a structure to prevent arcing. 1800mm was the answer they came up with and that was what was done. Our friends the EU came up with 3000mm some time later without and such study. That is why, he said, electrification projects run late / over budget sometimes,because NR has had to comply with the 3000mm and this sometimes means replacing a lot of bridges.

DPWH · 10 Oct 2018

Jonfun said:
...My local bakery makes their own pies. I don't know if there is a European standard for pies, it isn't my industry. But if there is, they have to comply with it. And if that standard costs them a lot of money to follow (perhaps they need specialist ingredients, or a particular type of machinery to make the pie) which they could do in alternative, less prescriptive way, a new UK standard could allow them to save money. They wouldn't need to follow the EU standard, because my local bakery doesn't intend to sell its pies beyond its own postcode area, let alone export them to Europe. If a business wants to trade internationally its products/processes need to meet the relevant standards, of course. But most UK businesses don't trade internationally.

Well, if you like pies to contain hormone-treated US beef, then a Brexit bonfire of regulations might be a good idea. This beef often comes with free faecal matter included.

DarloRich · 10 Oct 2018

Panupreset said:
BMW/Mercedes/Audi/VW/Citroen/Peugeot/Renault all happy to make right hand drive cars for the UK. If the market with the variance is big enough a manufacturer will setup another production line or accommodate the variance in specifications.

While I take the point the market for railway equipment is not comparable to the market for cars. How many tampers do we buy in the UK? How many Clio's? The issue is that we may well end up paying even more for equipment than we do now for equipment that matches a common ish standard with Europe. We pay enough now to make trains fit our gauge. Posters have no idea what goes on in the background. It is dull, boring and vital to making your trains run.

Panupreset said:
A few months ago I got chatting to an engineer who had worked on the UK railway for a very very long time. He said that when BR raised OLE voltage to 25kV some clever people did a study to find out what clearance was required beneath a structure to prevent arcing. 1800mm was the answer they came up with and that was what was done. Our friends the EU came up with 3000mm some time later without and such study. That is why, he said, electrification projects run late / over budget sometimes,because NR has had to comply with the 3000mm and this sometimes means replacing a lot of bridges.

I am afraid there is much more to it than that.

Western Lord · 10 Oct 2018

Panupreset said:
BMW/Mercedes/Audi/VW/Citroen/Peugeot/Renault all happy to make right hand drive cars for the UK. If the market with the variance is big enough a manufacturer will setup another production line or accommodate the variance in specifications.

The UK is far from being the only RHD market in the world! In any case virtually all cars these days are engineered to take RHD or LHD and they come down the same production line. Loads of LHD cars are built in the UK for export, like Opel Astras from Ellesmere Port.

Dent · 10 Oct 2018

Jonfun said:
Which is why you make the UK standard less prescriptive, where judged appropriate, than the EU standard. Thus if something complies with the EU standard, it complies with the UK standard.

So basically what you want is for the UK to have more lax standards, allowing trains that fail to comply with European standards to be used in the UK. This is a dangerous route to take.

AM9 · 11 Oct 2018

Dent said:
So basically what you want is for the UK to have more lax standards, allowing trains that fail to comply with European standards to be used in the UK. This is a dangerous route to take.

It seems that some are so keen to claim a dividend for leaving the EU that they are prepared to sacrifice all the hard-won performance, safety and reliability that the current international standards deliver very economically. Just for the illusion of being 'in control' of our laws.

HSTEd · 11 Oct 2018

Well HS2 has been desperately trying to derogate from the TSIs for years now......

With its obsession with idiotic 1200mm platforms.

mde · 11 Oct 2018

Western Lord said:
The UK is far from being the only RHD market in the world! In any case virtually all cars these days are engineered to take RHD or LHD and they come down the same production line. Loads of LHD cars are built in the UK for export, like Opel Astras from Ellesmere Port.

For how much longer? Their new owner has militant trade unions in France who would no doubt be delighted to absorb the production of what could be an uncompetitive plant… then it’d just be vans in Luton.

Steering firmly back on topic though - this is likely to be far more complex than a single press release can cover - the Government sees this as an exercise which will allow us to take back control (over many things where we never lost it as it would appear), but, it’s a a complicated minefield that I’m not sure they fully understand.

DarloRich · 11 Oct 2018

mde said:
For how much longer? Their new owner has militant trade unions in France who would no doubt be delighted to absorb the production of what could be an uncompetitive plant… then it’d just be vans in Luton.

Steering firmly back on topic though - this is likely to be far more complex than a single press release can cover - the Government sees this as an exercise which will allow us to take back control (over many things where we never lost it as it would appear), but, it’s a a complicated minefield that I’m not sure they fully understand.

Never a truer word spoken than the final sentence

WessexEclectic · 11 Oct 2018

AM9 said:
It seems that some are so keen to claim a dividend for leaving the EU that they are prepared to sacrifice all the hard-won performance, safety and reliability that the current international standards deliver very economically. Just for the illusion of being 'in control' of our laws.

If they are international standards why is membership of the EU necessary? No one is suggesting a withdrawl from UIC or OTIF and both the Norwegian and Swiss equivalents of Network Rail are members of the ERTMS user group. Bane NOR is also a member of European Rail Infrastructure Managers Association. God forbid if UK railways become more like the Swiss....

Jonfun · 11 Oct 2018

Dent said:
So basically what you want is for the UK to have more lax standards, allowing trains that fail to comply with European standards to be used in the UK. This is a dangerous route to take.

Why? Just because a standard is a European one doesn't make it the be all and end all. If that were the case, every country in the world would use European standards. We're not talking, ah, a circuit breaker costs too much so we won't put one there, we're talking situations where infrastructure isn't going to ever see a European train being built to reflect that.

DarloRich · 11 Oct 2018

Jonfun said:
Why? Just because a standard is a European one doesn't make it the be all and end all. If that were the case, every country in the world would use European standards. We're not talking, ah, a circuit breaker costs too much so we won't put one there, we're talking situations where infrastructure isn't going to ever see a European train being built to reflect that.

but, with respect, it isnt that easy. The railway already sees European trains running everyday. Where do you think tampers come from? The point is the cost of producing a new design to meet the UK standard AND loading gauge will be passed on to us as customers. It costs enough today to buy a UK loading gauge compliant version of a European machine.

You are also building in complexity that you don't need. Separate standards make it harder to bring existing equipment into the country for conversion to UK use. The existing standards mean that only one approval process is needed. Two systems means higher costs and longer times. It takes a long time now!

UK to retain EU rail standards following Brexit. Or may be not...

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