Calling any p-way engineers!

Morning all,

I'm hoping there are a fair few infrastructure engineers on here that can give me a hand with something...

I work for Volker Rail on the Metrolink extension programme in Manchester (Oldham Rochdale line) as a student Track & Civils Engineer. One of my assignments requires me to write a report on 2 super red top 1/8th mile sections of track; ironically, at no point on my University course was the phrase "super red top" even mentioned, never mind defined! Therefore, I wondered if you could shed some light on it?

Apparently Leeds station is a shining example of it...? Does anyone have the following information for Leeds station?

• ELR
• Mileage
• Track ID
• Linespeed

Any information or technical data/Standards etc would be invaluable and greatly appreciated (I have access to the NR Standards database by the way).

Cheers!

A Super Red is an 1/8th Mile of very poor Track Geometry, namely top faults such as twists and combinations of cyclic tops.
You'd need to see the trace from a Track Recording Vehicle to understand, Hydro is your man for that, failing that, a bloke called Old Timer.

It's covered in TRK001 and since they mashed that up, it's probably in Part E which is installation, maintenance and intervention limits.
If you can't pin it down give me a shout and i'll have alook.

Track standard TRK/001 is the basic starting point for all of this. It will tell you what a "Super Red" site is (basically an 1/8th of a mile of track that seriously exceeds the target Standard Deviation (SD) value for that linespeed. It will also tell you what the SD values for each linespeed bracket are.

Leeds is situated on ELR's DOL2 and HUL4 (changing halfway through the station), and the track ID's vary depending on the line (for instance Platform 5 is 3605). It's 185m 70ch from Kings X (DOL2 side), and 20m 50ch from Selby (HUL4 side).

Thank you for those detailed responses. I have been reading TRK/001/C01 which provides fairly good information on geometry and gauge clearance. There are a few tables and charts in there which I'll find useful I think.

I've also been in touch with our Document Controller to arrange access to NESA, as responses to this thread were few and far between until about 20 minutes ago! Still, NESA will still be very useful in the future and I should have access by the end of the week.

Hydro, I have PM'd you .