"The cupboard" is just south of Cambridge station, 1 signal outside.
The Cambridge resignalling is about 40 years ago now, I wouldn't be surprised if bits of it are life expired.
I hope that the people planning the signalling work at Cambridge are paying attention to the Cambridge South proposals. The new station is further south but track capacity between Shepreth Branch Junction and Cambridge is critical to making Cambridge South work operationally. The cupboard is used frequently already, particularly by trains terminating in the south end bays, that option becomes more important when trains are stopping at Cambridge South too.
Yes.
The cupboard looks to be staying as Rules of the Plan has what looks like ARS route codes for it for a change from Panel to Workstation based operation.
Same as above.
Yes but there are far older signalling installations north of Cambridge although the irony of the modern railway is an installation like Cambridge is deemed life expired but a big mechanical box at Shrewsbury nearly 3 times as old is still in use.
Mechanical boxes essentially last for ever if you have some people with the relevant skills to maintain them and hand-manufacture various obscure parts that aren't otherwise available. Relay interlockings from the 1980s tend to suffer from wire degradation which isn't really repairable without pretty much replacing everything.
Correct so one could question why NR are obsessed with getting rid of mechanical boxes when the replacement may only last 40 years at best and probably less given the use of computer based solutions is likely to lead to even earlier obsolescence.
Labour savings. But only if they can get the capex down - currently the whole-life cost isn't much cheaper than continuing to pay the signallers.
Assuming they have the signallers in the first place. Capital expenditure seems to becoming easier to find by the day compared to signalling staff as we have seen on this board in recent weeks with threads about panel and signal box closures and probably likely tro get worse, at least in the short term.
News to me. Not heard that, nor had any emails at work about it. The Bury line is included in the scheme though.
Because mechanical boxes consume vast quantities of enormously expensive labour?
Then why haven't they included all the mechanical boxes up the Kings Lynn branch in this scheme as far more economic to do it under the umbrella of this scheme. Or is it that the business case doesn't stack up.
Guess your referring to relay based interlockings and there is nothing wrong with them but granted modifying for changes to track layouts is very expensive but i believe Cambridge station is already SSI given the extensive changes that have taken place to the station and stabling sidings since the PSB was first commissioned. By the way Cambridge box was first to use panel processors to reduce the vast amount of wiring that was needed between the panel and the relay room below and more than likely that computer kit is obsolete. And there in lies the rub with computer kit over its mechanical peer group its becoming obsolescence far quicker and thus needs replacing more frequently than mechanical kit ever did.
and with VDU based systems you end up needing more (highly graded) signallers because is screen watching time so its not necessarily as inefficient as you suggest. Biggest problem is the skills to look after the mechanical interlockings are very thin on the ground now.
Hard to tell without the planning documents - but it is well known that the output of the signalling industry is inadequate to the task of even maintaining a steady state output of resignalling projects. Largely as a result of decisions dating back to the Railtrack era.
I was referring to the tendency of the rubber insulated wiring used in many of these schemes to become extremely brittle over time - this is a well known technical issue that has hopefully been solved in more modern projects.
Possibly because then it includes major Level Crossing works, or would require new interlocking at Cambridge that is programmed to be moved to the ROC in not too many years time anyway? (Total guess, btw)
Thank you. Will be good to have 90mph back at Croxton when its converted to MCBOD. The annoying 40mph TSR has been on over 15 years now.
even more farcical then that NR are spending money sticking up new colour lights again then. New signals now need vast steelwork for structures to comply with modern standards and really NR should hold back on any resignalling scheme that is largely like for like until ECTS is ready to roll out although as usual several railway administrations in Europe are already building it out so not sure why we are dawdling again.
New signals on simpler infrastructure don't have to be so huge with the lightweight integrated designs available today. Instead of having ladders and raised platforms for maintenance access, they fold down like a street light pole for occasional access. There is no day-to-day maintenance required with LED heads and their self-cleaning lens coatings.
Well the current resignalling between Balham and Pourparts Jcn has seen huge structures installed to carry two modern lightweight LED heads as they might be light but the staff that have to access them are a lot heavier. These have needed numerous full line closures to install the foundations and then erect the steelwork. Conversely though KX remodelling has largely used the lightweight signal structures so there is inconsistency. Only Denmark has embarked on a system wide ETCS L2 which was driven by the need to modernise signalling in advance of electrification but plenty of other countries have installed it when modernising route section especially when they are recipients of EU funding so a scheme like this should be going straight to L2 rather than spending a heck of lot extra on all the line signals. The fact that they haven't here as well as many other areas suggest the technology isn't as cost effective as its being portrayed despite 100's of millions being spent on retrofitting existing rolling stock with the necessary train borne equipment.
I'd forgotten Denmark, but even there, the programme will still take many years to complete.
Well if you want early adopters, the Swiss standard gauge network was the first in the world to become fully ETCS equipped in 2017. They did this by adapting their preexisting train protection systems to use active Eurobalises, and then migrated the system to a new standard mode known as Level 1LS (limited supervision), included in the latest baseline and which the Swiss got incorporated into the international standards. In parallel, they equipped their fast new lines with Level 2. The genius of this approach is that it allowed older trains to be modified economically, which could thus operate on the L1LS lines forming the majority of the classic network but not on L2 lines. Modern trains with L2 capability, including those from other countries, can go anywhere however with the LS mode supported in the latest baseline. The eventual aim is to shift to L2 networkwide by about the middle of the century, by which time all the older rolling stock should have gone. Of course Switzerland, like Denmark, is a small country, little bigger than a UK Region.
I know there is an issue with relay room wiring degradation and ironically RRIs installed in the late 70's and 80's have proven more vulnerable than earlier installations from the 60's. It would have been more sensible to replace the RRIs with processor based interlockings which allowed migration to ETCS in due course and keep the current lineside kit
That's what usually happens when individual relay rooms within a larger scheme have to be renewed early due to wiring degradation. There's a style of installation known as 'interfaced SSI' where all the existing external equipment and cabling is retained and wired up to TFMs (trackside functional modules, the processor-based system's input and output) housed in the relay room instead of distributed in cabinets along the lineside. Some manufacturers' wiring was better than others. GECs Victoria scheme was noted for early degradation at multiple sites, which is why it became a major resignalling priority. Feltham, by contrast, is older but designed and built by Westinghouse with a different type of wire and has not suffered from anything like the same scale of problems. The electronics used in the very old schemes for remote control and train describer subsystems are more likely to become a major headache with a dwindling spares pool and inability sometimes of getting 1960s circuit boards repaired.
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