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Oops, Railtrack has discovered it will need temporary control centres on the WCML
Quick recap. There were two planks in the original West Coast Main Line signalling strategy, radio transmission based moving block signalling and control of the route between London and Crewe from a single super signalbox called the Network Management Centre (NMC).
Scratch moving block, but the NMC is still go and in January Railtrack got so enthused by its potential they ordered the contractor Union Switch & Signal to accelerate the project. According to the Modern Railways West Coast Route Modernisation Special Report in June, construction was due to have started at the NMC's Saltley site in September this year, with commissioning scheduled for the end of 2001.
Well, that's what I wrote. And no one corrected me. But, in August, out of the blue, Railtrack issued an invitation to tender (ITT) for what are termed ‘Interim Control Centres' (ICC) for the West Coast Main Line south of Crewe and is now considering bids. While the ITT indicated a maximum of nine ICCs, five installations have priority and will be responsible for Crewe , Rugby , Stoke, Nuneaton and Wembley
So, what's going on?
For starters, instead of work starting at Saltley in September, at a briefing on 19 September, Railtrack announced that it had ‘recently' issued the invitation to tender for the design and construction of the NMC building. ‘The successful company will start work at Saltley before the end of the year. The site is due to be completed by December 2001', said a spokesman.
Now, there is a slight difference between an NMC ‘commissioned' at the end of 2001 and the ‘site completed'. To me, ‘site completed' means a large empty building smelling of fresh paint waiting for equipment to arrive. So the NMC is seriously late.
This is confirmed by the requirement for the five ICCs to be operational in time to support the June 2002 timetable. They are then expected to remain in service ‘for at least three years'. Note that 2002 plus three years equals 2005 when the new European Train Control System Level 2 signalling system is due to be operational.
Where has the time gone since January? Well, it may be coincidence, but US&S was main contractor for a $130million control centre for the New York subway network. In May, problems with the contract forced the customer New York City Transit to issue a letter of default. Subsequently, Siemens took over the management of the project.
Apart from that, should we be surprised by this new development? Not really.
Also in the June Special Report we noted that while the WCML was being resignalled the new interlockings would be progressively linked to the NMC while remaining under the control of the local signalbox. But since the NMC would take over control in 2005, local control facilities would remain as-is pro tem.
Previously resignalling would have included local control through an Integrated Electronic Control Centre (IECC) which provides Automatic Route Setting (ARS). The US&S kit, which impressed Railtrack so, includes ‘decision tools' which provide the same functions as ARS.
So, in the absence of IECC, as the new interlockings were interfaced with the computer systems at the NMC, Railtrack intended to use the decision tools to determine optimum routing strategies which would then be telephoned to the ARS-less local operators to implement.
Hmm, perhaps I should have flagged up the inherent improbability of telling someone by ‘phone how to regulate trains and set routes through Watford or Rugby in the rush hour.
Anyway Railtrack now appears to have come to the same opinion. It is also suggesting that the ICC might be retained long term for emergency stand by duties. This is supported by the requirement for similar functionality to an IECC, plus enhanced communications. Strangely, Railtrack is leaving it to the contractor to decide whether ARS should be provided.
Three front runners should be in the frame for the ICC. AEA Technology, which as BR Research developed the original IECC, tell me that the latest version of ARS is the bee's pyjamas. My compact chums down the road in Ware, Vaughan Harmon have a PC based ‘pocket IECC' available ‘straight from the crate' as do Westinghouse, my somewhat larger chums in Chippenham. Both can offer full ARS.
Also invited to bid were US&S, Alcatel, Adtranz and Alstom. Siemens is focusing its resources on its CBI pilot scheme on the Dorset Coast . The first ‘production' application could be the Coventry resignalling which might include an ICC.
One challenge facing the bidders is that they don't know what interlockings their kit will have to interface with. Railtrack can't bear the thought of buying the entirely adequate SSI and has three Computer Based Interlockings in the approvals process. It seems likely that the WCML will have a mix of SSI and CBI, but don't ask me which.
And talking of CBI, you will recall that this column has been deeply cynical about the ability of Ansaldo's ACC interlocking at Manchester South to get through the Railtrack safety acceptance process by June 2002. ‘Rubbish', said Railtrack, ‘no probs, it's working at Roma Termini'.
Yes, but when you consider the time taken by Vaughan Harmon to get approval for their simple processor based interlocking on the Cromer resignalling despite experience of the UK market and the cautious timescales adopted by Adtranz and Siemens, similarly experienced, for their modest CBI pilot schemes on the Dorset Coast and at Horsham, you realise that whoever thought it was a good idea to give Ansaldo Manchester South as a pilot scheme was the sort of person who wins the VC – posthumously.
And at the briefing on progress with the West Coast Route Modernisation in September General Manager Tony Fletcher was tight lipped on the subject of approval of the ACC. While the associated T72 point machine had just been approved the ACC itself is clearly struggling through the process.
Given that the ACC was working in Rome Fletcher said ‘we should not be going through a 15-18month acceptance process here'. ‘If Railtrack want it they had better do something about approval' was the message.
To which one can only say that the world isn't like that any more. That engineers can't sign off something as safe because it works somewhere else. In a world of safety cases, safety regulations and the new offence of corporate killing, there are no short cuts.
Tony, through no fault of his own, is yet another manager in the situation of ‘if I wanted to get there I wouldn't start from here'. There's a lot of them about.