GETTING MORE FROM Y O UR R A I L W AY 21-23 NOVEMBER 1995 TO BE HELD AT THE WEMBLEY CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION CENTRE DELEGATE INFORMATION SEMINAR 1 - TUESDAY 21 NOVEMBER 1995 ORGANISED BY THOMAS TELFORD SERVICES LTD ON BEHALF OF THE TRANSPORT ENGINEERING BOARD, INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS PublishedbyICEPublishing,40MarshWall,LondonE149TP. DistributorsforICEPublishingbooksare USA:PublishersStorageandShippingCorp.,46DevelopmentRoad, Fitchburg,MA01420 www.icevirtuallibrary.com AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary ISBN: 978-0-7277-4336-7 ©ThomasTelfordLimited2011 ICEPublishingisadivisionofThomasTelfordLtd,awholly- ownedsubsidiaryoftheInstitutionofCivilEngineers(ICE). Allrights,includingtranslation,reserved.Exceptas permittedbytheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988, nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedina retrievalsystemortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopyingorotherwise,without thepriorwrittenpermissionofthePublisher,ICE Publishing,40MarshWall,LondonE149TP. Thisbookispublishedontheunderstandingthattheauthoris solelyresponsibleforthestatementsmadeandopinions expressedinitandthatitspublicationdoesnotnecessarily implythatsuchstatementsand/oropinionsareorreflectthe viewsoropinionsofthepublishers.Whilsteveryefforthas beenmadetoensurethatthestatementsmadeandthe opinionsexpressedinthispublicationprovideasafeand accurateguide,noliabilityorresponsibilitycanbeacceptedin thisrespectbytheauthororpublishers. CONTENTS • PROGRAMME • INTRODUCTORY NOTES (Mr Nock's paper unavailable at time of going to print) GETTING MORE FROM YOUR RAILWAY Tuesday 21 November 1995 TRAFFIC IMPROVEMENTS - Seminar 1 PROGRAMME Subject To Amendment Chairman: Sir Hugh Ford, Senior Research Fellow, Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine 0915 Registration and Coffee 1000 Official Opening - "Railways: a change for the better" Sir George Young Bt MP, Secretary of State for Transport 1015 L Opportunities from innovation Professor R A Smith Royal Academy of Engineering/British Rail Research Professor Presenter: A Jablonski, Director, Advanced Railway Research Centre 1030 2. Engineering the track as a component of an infrastructure system within London Underground Ltd M Gellatley, Infrastructure System Engineer, London Underground Ltd 1045 3. Developing a technology strategies for London Underground Tony Golborn, Technology Strategy Manager, London Underground Ltd 1100 Discussion 1120 Coffee 1140 4. The future of freight A Nock, Infrastructure & Rail Services Business Manager, Mainline Freight Ltd 1155 5. Implications of passenger demand forecasting MLampkin, Principal Consultant, Rail Operational Research (British Railways Board) 1210 6. Rail's place in a transport strategy WR Steinmetz, Director, Railway Technology Strategy Centre, Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine 1225 Discussion 1245 Close of seminar OPPORTUNITIES FROM INNOVATION Professor R A Smith Royal Academy of Engineering/British Rail Research Professor Advanced Railway Research Centre The University of Sheffield Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering Mappin Street Sheffield S1 3JD In recent years we have begun calling passengers "customers" and have started to believe in the importance of what they require from a train service. It is self evident, and does not require extensive opinion polling to establish, that customers need: • Regular, reliable departures, convenient connections and punctual arrivals. • Easy access to information of a journey, a less complicated fare structure, thorough and flexible ticketing and realistic fare levels. They need to purchase their tickets conveniently and without delay. • Once on-board, they require a comfortable seat, a view through a dean window, clean toilet facilities and refreshment opportunities appropriate to the length of their journey. They need a temperature and air conditioned environment, which is quiet and vibration free, and updated information on the progress of their journey. • Because their door-to-door journey time is important, they need integrated transport modes at either end. The providers of such a service need to appreciate what the customer wants, to have resources at their disposal to deliver an appropriate service and to make a reasonable return on their activities. It is not the purpose of this discussion to comment on the ability or otherwise of privatised railways to provide these services: rather the focus is on appropriate technology to satisfy passenger needs at a reasonable cost, thus balancing the equation between customer and provider. A first overview suggests that the technology is already available and examples can be found in operation in many parts of the world. But examples where this technology is provided at the market cost to the customer are much harder to find. Without exploring what the appropriate boundaries of economic calculations of transport systems should be; and they range from a Government provided free service which acknowledges the stimulating role of transport on economic growth, to a service for which the customer pays the whole cost at the point of delivering, it is clear that cost reductions of all elements of the system are a benefit. However, since an empty seat on a train represents a perishable commodity for which the providing costs have already been paid, we need also to concentrate our thoughts on maximising ridership of existing trains and maximising the potential of the infrastructure network: actions which also lead to reduced system costs. Professor R A Smith AH the above is almost too obvious to need stating. For many reasons, it hasn't happened to date, but we now stand at a turning point. We have lived, particularly in the last fifty years, through a period when the mode share of the train for both passenger and freight has decreased sharply in competition with the car and the truck. But the near saturation of our roads, the stagnation of our cities, the lack of parking spaces and concerns about atmospheric pollution are now making us realise that the near exponential growth in car ownership cannot continue into the foreseeable future. The advantages of environmentally friendly, and low stress rail transport are being recognised in many parts of the developed world, particularly in Western Europe and Japan, when shorter distances favour rail rather that air travel as in continental America. Looking beyond the short term difficulties caused by the particular form of privatisation which is being inflicted on the United Kingdom, let us speculate on some of the technologies which will modernise our system and enable providers to satisfy what may well be an increasing customer demand. We also note, in passing, that whatever the outcomes of the next few decades, they would be infinitely better if the Government of the day had long term inter-related Transport, Energy and Environment policies, preferably driven by experienced Ministers of more than of a few months standing. Let us take a speculative ride on a "mechatronic" inter-city train of the future. At the home of the "Informed Traveller", real-time information will be available via TV screen or computer, purchase of tickets will have been made from the armchair or desk, and heavy luggage may well have been collected hours in advance of the customer's departure time. A seamless transfer to the station will then be available: by car, bus, tram or bike, facilities will exist to drop the passenger as near as possible to the departing train. The station will be a commercial centre in its own right, with shopping and business opportunities in the surrounding complex (Even the rural station can be developed to be "a pearl on the necklace through the countryside"!). The internal environment of the station will be light and clean, have replaced the fumes, oil soaked tracks and human waste which currently delight the senses. Departures will be regular and frequent, the train consist will be flexible, because advances in high power/weight traction motors have allowed distributed drive through all axles, whilst lowering the mass of transmission required. The train set will have high availability and reliability, achieved by reduced mechanical complexity and duplicated electronic system, of modular design to allow for easy replacement. Maintenance of the train will be minimal; because it will have been designed to have a near-maintenance free short life. The short life is necessary to derive full benefit from emerging technologies: the current 30+ year lifetime of rolling stock means that a high proportion of the stock in use was designed 40 or more years ago! In an era of rapidly moving technological windows, this time span is far too long. The cost savings will be generated by life-cycle costings which allows for reduced maintenance and first-build cost will probably only represent a minor proportion of savings. The train will be designed to minimise its environmental impact: aerodynamics will reduce drag and noise, the suspension will be active and intelligent, to continuously match the train to the track, noise radiation will be reduced by enclosing the running gear, energy consumption will be minimised. Competing modes of transport, particularly the automobile will substantially improve their environmental performance, but on the basis of life-cycle energy consumed/passenger kilometre travelled, trains with high ridership ratios will have overwhelming superiority. Professor R A Smith The track over which the train will travel, will also be designed to minimise maintenance and maximum reliability. The benefits of reduced disruption to services will be extended to Sundays; which is the busiest day on the system for many countries other than the UK! It is unlikely that major changes of track alignments will be possible; but the "intelligent" train will be capable of running at up to 250 km/hour and will tilt on curves to maintain high running speeds throughout its journey. Line side signals will be few: the train will be guided by satellite allowing for short headways and near fully automatic train control. Data will move from train to control centre describing not only position and speed, but also the condition of on-board systems, to allow rapid maintenance by switching or replacement of redundant modules. Meanwhile, our customer will be relaxing. The concept of "quality time" in transit will be well established. In a quiet air-conditioned environment, the customer will relax, enjoy radio and TV, rebroadcast in the vehicle through the satellite link, will have opportunities to communicate outside the train (but in a less public manner than by using the very intrusive portable 'phone of the 1990's!) and will be able to sleep in a low-vibration and jerk free seat designed to best crashworthiness standards. The traveller will be comforted in the knowledge that the train will arrive on time: connections or appointments will be met. Interruptions from weather will be extremely rare: robustness and reliability have been designed in. It is possible that different parts of the train will carry customers of different persuasions, for example, pop-fans, sleepers, food addicts or talkers! The author contends that the technology required to deliver the above vision is, broadly speaking, available now. Some development work is needed on the systems and interactions which will enable our lightweight high-tech "mechatronic" train to travel on low maintenance track. The biggest engineering challenges are to cut costs and to achieve high reliability. The key requirements will be effective, simple engineering, modular construction with high inter-changeability between types and reduction of maintenance. Quantitative targets should be set by comparing our current performance levels with the world's best and agreeing on what improvements could be made to current best practice over the next ten to fifteen years. It is unlikely that this period will see the short term financial returns which are deemed necessary in the UK because of the relatively high investment levels needed to transform our "historic" railway; however, if adequate funding can be found, our railways will be well positioned to serve the country in the early years of the next century, and the future could indeed be very bright. ENGINEERING THE TRACK AS A COMPONENT OF AN INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEM WITHIN LONDON UNDERGROUND LIMITED M J Gellatley London Underground Limited Tel: 0171 308 2552 ENGINEERING THE TRACK AS A COMPONENT OF AN INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEM WITHIN LONDON UNDERGROUND LIMITED INTRODUCTION London Underground is a wholly owned subsidiary of London Regional Transport the Statutory body responsible to the Government for the provision of public transport services by Bus and Underground railway opened in 1863 and the worlds first deep level electric railway opened in 1890. The network serves 273 Stations and comprises nine lines The District, Circle, Metropolitan and East London are sub­ surface railways, the Bakerloo, Central, Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria, Jubilee and Waterloo and City (transferred from British Rail ownership in 1994) are deep level tube railways although all lines except the Victoria have surface sections outside Central London. Current assets relating to Civil, Track and Power which together formulate the Infrastructure System are as follows: Civils Assets Structures: Underbridges 318Nr Overbridges 267 Nr Cable Pipe Bridges 189Nr Footbridges/ Subways 406 Nr Culverts 81 Nr Viaducts 9 Km Pipe Crossings 391 Nr Tunnels Cast Iron 206 Km Concrete 33 Km Brick 25 Km Covered Way 103 Km Earth Embankments 96 Km Structures Cuttings 104 Km Retaining Walls 854 Nr Drainage Track Drains 220 Km Catch Pits 7350 Nr Pumps 700 Nr Core Capital Investment A significant volume of this spend relates to Civil, Track and Power as being essential support to the emerging Systems of Trains and Stations. These together with Infrastructure Systems are the three key areas under which the Business is now being managed within the Engineering Directorate for providing greater Customer Focus and improved Customer Services. BACKGROUND LUL had operated as a traditional railway with a number of Engineering disciplines each grouped around the individual recognised assets of Civil, Track, Power, Rolling Stock etc As a result the Chief Civil Engineer was responsible for all aspects of the asset from inception to decommissioning. In 1986 the first step was taken towards producing a more commercial approach by splitting out, maintenance and installation activities, from the specification design and procurement functions. This process established internal clients for the work and set the delivery functions up as a separate unit. This enabled the internal work force to be subjected to outside competition. In February 1989 following the appointment of a new Engineering Director reorganisation was carried out into separate line businesses, each with its own General Manager being accountable for the delivery of the train service, and for the bottom line accountability of operating the individual lines under a corporate umbrella. The prime purpose of this change being to signal greater customer focus. As part of this process the maintenance staff were transferred to the line from the separate engineering contractor business, the lines taking over the complete budget responsibility for the maintenance of the assets with the Engineering Standards laid