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May 2024

New Street Performance Fibre optics

resignalling challenges what do the statistics show? listening to the railway
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This month
Issue 310 | May 2024

03 08 10
Birmingham New Street Railway statistics in Great Evolution of CBTC
Phase 7 – open heart surgery Britain for the fiscal year – quo vadis? Part 2
in the Midlands April 2022 to March 2023 Karsten Rahn and Andreas Steingröver
Steve Bick and Andrew Cardiff David Fenner

Successful delivery of a complex scheme What can we learn from the statistics to The second and final part of the look at
in challenging circumstances. improve railway operation? CBTC performance, concentrating on
train-centric approaches.

16 21 28
Improving level crossing Fibre and Artificial Intelligence Adoption of the
safety using technology deliver infrastructure insight Future Railway Mobile
Paul Darlington Daniel Pyke Communication System
Shiv Mohan

Network Rail experience in the Fibre optic hydrophony and AI together What advantages and disadvantages can
deployment of new ideas at the offer a range of functionality that is FRMCS bring us?
road-rail interface. increasingly proven in service.

35 30 Our website,
for information
Industry news about the
Professional development: Institution and
results of the 2023 exam all its activities
34 worldwide.
Celebrating the success of candidates
around the world in the global gold News from the IRSE
standard examination for our industry.
Our sections,
40 IRSE activities
38 taking place near
you.
Your letters
London & South East Section:
Technical visit to Transport for London's 42
Hammersmith Service Control Centre.
Membership changes

1
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
The 100th president of the IRSE
My presidential theme is 'Power to the
people'. The message is that technology
is getting smarter and we are introducing
more automation in many areas, but that
engineers are still crucial.
We need smart engineers to understand
the capabilities and constraints of the
new technology in order to maximise its
potential. Just as importantly, we need
to understand where technology can’t
be trusted and what must be done to
compensate for any shortcomings.
Engineers who know ‘why’ we do things
and not just ‘how’ are more important
than ever, so that lessons from the past
are not forgotten. With more automation
there could be a tendency to use
processes without fully understanding
them, so we must work hard to retain
this vital knowledge in the industry.
I am excited by the possibilities of the
latest technology and look forward to
seeing how it can help us. To this end
I have organised a seminar on Artificial
Intelligence in Railways – to be held in
London, England on 14 June.
Cover story
Our cover this month shows
Birmingham New Street station, the
largest and busiest of the three main
railway stations in Birmingham city
centre in England's West Midlands. The
station is a central hub of the British
railway system and is a major destination
for services from stations including
London Euston, Liverpool, Glasgow
Central and Edinburgh Waverley via the
West Coast Main Line, the Cross Country
network, and for local and suburban
services within the West Midlands.
The station is named after New Street,
which runs parallel to the station,
although the station has never had
a direct entrance from that street.
Historically, the main entrance to the
station was on Stephenson Street,
just off New Street. Now the station
has entrances on Stephenson Street,
Smallbrook Queensway, Hill Street and
Navigation Street.
2
We have a programme with the
UK's leading experts in this field, and
opportunities reserved for you to tell
us about your projects. So, if you are
working on a railway application of AI or
machine learning, please do get in touch
at events@irse.org
Continuing the theme of people being
important – the title for the presidential
lecture series is 'Unsung heroes'. While
we all get excited about the latest
developments and technology, there
are areas that are just as important
that contribute a huge amount to the
safety and operation of our railways and
signalling systems.
New Street is the eleventh busiest
railway station in the UK and the busiest
outside London, with 30.7 million
passengers using the station between
April 2022 and March 2023. It is also
the busiest interchange station outside
London, with over 4 million passengers
changing trains at the station annually.
With passenger numbers more than
twice those it was designed for, a £550m
redevelopment named Gateway Plus
opened in September 2015, with a new
exterior facade and a new entrance on
Stephenson Street.
The lead article on page 3 covers the
recent resignalling of the station area.
The work was carried at the end of 2022
with the final closure of Birmingham
New Street Power Signal Box (PSB)
and one of the last remaining Westpac
Mk1 geographical relay interlockings
in the country.
They have their own challenges and can
be just as fascinating as the technology
we employ, and I’d like the lecture series
to shine a light on some perhaps under-
appreciated areas. I am proud to be an
IRSE Design licence holder and I want to
use my year to celebrate other engineers
that are ‘in the thick of it’.
The first lecture is highlighting the hard
working ‘marching army’ that goes into
delivering a major project. Richard Kirby
and Sam Etchell's paper, 'Workforce
challenges and successes in London
Underground’s 4 Lines Modernisation
Project' will feature in the next
issue of IRSE News.
Other lectures in my year will cover the
safe braking model, the asset engineer,
and safety & assurance.
Further exciting papers and events will
be publicised later. I look forward to
representing you throughout my year.
Jane Power FIRSE
IRSE President 2024-25
News
May 2024
New Str
eet
resignallin
g challenge Perform
s
what do
ance
the stati
stics show Fibre op
?
listening
tics
to the railw
ay
The compact station area significantly
constrains space to locate equipment
and the design and implementation
required much innovation and creative
signalling engineering.
Photo Shutterstock/
Clare Louise Jackson.
Projects

Birmingham New Street Phase 7 –

open heart surgery in the Midlands

Stephen Bick and Andrew Cardiff

Phase 7 of the extensive West
Midlands (England) resignalling
scheme covered the station area
of Birmingham New Street (BNS)
station. The work was completed
at the end of 2022 and resulted in
the final closure of Birmingham
New Street Power Signal Box (PSB),
with control transferring to the
WMSC (West Midlands Signalling
Centre) at Saltley.
Birmingham New Street station is
the UK’s busiest interchange station
outside London, handling over 140,000
passengers and around 1200 trains daily.
This is a train movement around every
minute. The interlocking (installed in the
PSB in the 1960s) was one of the last
remaining Westpac Mk1 geographical
relay interlockings in the country.
Problems such as silver migration were a
safety concern, and other assets such as
lineside cables and interface relays were
becoming fragile. The system wasn’t
flexible enough to make the most of the
limited infrastructure at the station and
with the footfall of passengers expected
to increase over the coming years,
signalling upgrades were needed.
The platforms at BNS are mainly covered
with a large shopping centre above
the station. The deeply urban nature
and the station’s structure significantly
reduce accessibility and space to locate
equipment. The layout of the station
is also restrictive, with one bay, twelve
through platforms, and four lines at
each end of the station. The complex
and tight layout result in signals often
protecting fouling points that are very
close to the signals. Passing a signal
at danger, even by a small amount, is
likely to infringe a fouling point and
cause disruption. It’s also frequently
necessary for two trains to occupy one
platform, and to split a train or join two
trains together.
To squeeze the track and platforms
into the limited space, signalling
design compromises have always
been required. For example, Automatic
Warning System (AWS) has never been
provided at BNS. Resignalling to modern
Standards has increased the challenges
of identifying and obtaining variations
from Standards in order to meet the
operational requirements.
Planning and delivery
Work on BNS phase 7 started in
2017 with a two-year single option
development stage, followed by a
>>>

Birmingham New Street station lies in the heart of England's

second most populous city, and at the centre of the rail network.
The station approaches can be seen in the middle of this photo,
wending their way under the new 'Grand Central' development.
Photo iStock/Ingus Kruklitis.

3
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
The challenges of access at New Street are clear in
this view from the west end of the station.
Photo Shutterstock/Clare Louise Jackson.
three-year detailed design, construction,
and testing stage. The early planning
and definition of the staging approach
was crucial to minimise disruption to
passengers and freight customers, and
required close cooperation between
all stakeholders including the many
Train Operating Companies (TOCs)
and Freight Operating Companies
(FOCs) involved.
Under the original programme a six-day
commissioning blockade of BNS would
have been required, along with four
29-hour blockades. A complete shut
down for such a lengthy period would
have caused unacceptable disruption.
So, the concept of staged interventions
was devised. This used Rules of Route
access and a full blockade between 25-
26 December 2022, together with early
closure on 24 December and a later start
to services on 27 December. Services
through and around the station ceased
for 72 hours while 352 staff implemented
the final elements of the scheme.
This approach involved 83 compressed
stages carried out over two years,
with rehearsals of the major stages in
order to reduce risk of disruption in
the final commissioning stage. Non-
disruptive access was used throughout,
which further complicated the
planning work required.
This stage working approach required
12 platform closures, with the affected
platforms segregated from the adjacent
platform to minimise disruption and to
maximise workforce safety. Through
constant reviews the team managed a
wide range of planned and unexpected
events. During 2022 more than five
million people visited the city during the
Commonwealth Games, doubling the
city centre footfall. The 70th anniversary
of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to
4
the throne and the resulting jubilee
celebrations saw another surge of rail
demand, as did travel around the time of
the Queen's funeral later that year.
The greatest challenge to the project,
however, was Covid-19, which
radically changed the way work could
be delivered. Strict health and safety
protocols had to be adopted to protect
the workforce and minimise the risk of
infection. Train ridership plummeted,
but the importance of services to and
through the station for key workers
and critical freight services remained,
and work had to continue with
minimised disruption.
Over the four years of detailed
design the project integrated over
300 improvements of varying sizes
that hadn't been detailed within the
original scope. This included on-track
additional walkways to allow drivers to
leave cabs safely.
Signalling technology
The Westpac Mk1 signalling was replaced
by a processor-based Trackguard
Westlock interlocking located in the
WMSC along with the new control
system. The Westlock manages Westrace
Trackside System (WTS) equipment
throughout the area, located in trackside
location cases or relocatable equipment
buildings, and connected over the Fixed
Telecommunication Network (FTN).
Manufactured in the UK, this was the
first deployment of this digital railway
technology in the West Midlands, and
introduced benefits such as faster
route setting, the ability to operate
with longer tail cables, and improved
immunity to traction interference,
with the extensive use of fibre-optic
instead of copper cables. Being
processor‑based the system is more
flexible should modifications or changes
be required, and it is capable of being
used with ETCS.
Several novel signal indicators and axle
counter developments were required
to accommodate reduced clearances,
compared to normal signalling. Thales
axle counters were used for train
detection and the signals replaced
with LED units. The sheer scale of the
project is such that 114 signals, 228 axle
counter sections, 30 location cases and
eight relocatable equipment buildings
were installed. Eleven km of cable
troughing protects 78km of power and
fibre cabling, together with 245km of
tail cables. For the power system 35
Functional Supply Points (FSPs), four
Principal Supply Points (PSPs), two
Distribution Network Operator Cubicles
(DNOs), and two 25kV ‘take offs’ from
the Overhead Line Equipment (OLE)
were also installed.
Plug coupling was widely used for the
points (requiring retrofitting of plug
coupled connections in many cases)
and new signals in order to allow rapid
changeover during rehearsals and the
main commissioning.
Special bespoke brackets were designed
to hold the mid-platform signals.
The brackets wrap neatly around
the bulkhead cladding fixing on the
structural concrete beams to provide
sufficient headroom on the platforms.
This required careful design to work
around the station lighting system to
ensure compliant illumination.
Cable management provided another
challenge, with hundreds of cables
from the equipment rooms fanning
out to equipment located around the
station. This required excavations on
each platform, often by hand, to allow

Left, the work involved setting up temporary signal structures on platform ends.
Right, these were used until the final installation could be put in place.
Photo Network Rail Media Centre.
Access was always going to be a challenge, but Covid-19 made management of the work site
even more complex. Photos Siemens Mobility.
cross-platform cable routes to be
installed. Most of this work was carried
out during short overnight possessions,
with the platforms reinstated,
cleaned, and reopened for passenger
use each morning.
Innovations
A number of new approaches were
taken, some for efficiency, and some to
meet the specific needs of the project.
26 Train Despatch Equipment Units
(TDEUs) were installed to show train
despatchers information about the
current status of the signalling in order
to improve the number of on‑time
departures. (In the UK 'train despatchers'
are railway staff working on a platform to
assist with train loading and despatch).
These innovative units were developed
to provide improved efficiency,
reducing risk of human error, and safer
train despatch.
Two 900-square-foot (84m2), climate-
controlled, equipment rooms were built
on site at the “A” end of the station to
optimise the use of restricted space,
to comply with the sub-surface fire
regulations, and to allow construction
while the station remained open
for passengers.
Each room houses the equivalent
signalling control equipment of four
traditional Relocatable Equipment
Buildings (REBs) along with separate
rooms for telecoms and E&P (Electrical &
Plant) equipment.
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
At the 'B' end of the station, space
was created by moving redundant
equipment. This allowed the use of more
traditional signalling REBs, although
some ‘double stacking’ was necessary to
fit everything into the space available.
In order to help drivers and signallers
fully understand the new signalling,
extensive use was made of simulator-
based training. Twenty-six signallers
used an interactive 3D representation of
the routes into the station to familiarise
themselves with the changes. A 3D
model of a train cab was created to
allow drivers to virtually learn the
route. This not only provided a safe
training system but also allowed
useful feedback to further improve
operational effectiveness. >>>
5
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Relocatable temporary signals at
platform ends were used in order to
facilitate the platform closures required.
These allowed the new signals to be
installed during each stage and enabled
rapid changes to the signalling layout.
The bases and posts were designed to
be modular and adjustable, allowing
them to be relocated around the station
for the following stages.
Conventionally in Great Britain signalling
tail cables are limited to 200m in areas
of 25kV overhead electrification to
reduce the risk of induced voltages
causing failures or false operation. This
meant a suite of signalling location cases
was required near to most signals. The
use of longer tail cables, which WTS
allows, enables the use of fewer lineside
location cases/REBs, making for a more
efficient design, particularly where
space is constrained. The cost savings,
compared to providing safe, accessible
location suites, were significant.
The pioneering use of long tail cables
for Network Rail, required extensive
modelling, site testing of induced
voltages, detailed analysis, and on-
site equipment trials to demonstrate
safe and reliable operation. This
saved the need for five location suites
and the methodology developed is
now being replicated on projects
across the country.
Thales axle counters were used, these
being the local Standard for train
detection. However, a number of
developments were introduced for the
Recoveries and new REB installation required extensive planning to ensure disruption to the
railway, and railway neighbours, was minimised. Photos Siemens Mobility.
6
complex and compressed BNS track
layout, with some clearances reduced by
half following analysis and site testing.
Reliability was enhanced through the use
of two-out-of-three, (2oo3) rather than
the traditional two-out-of-two (2oo2)
processor architecture.
Communication between the axle
counter processors was via fibre optic
links. A direct communication link was
also used between the axle counters and
the Trackguard Westlock interlocking,
the first time this had been done for
Network Rail, and this removed the
need for a relay interface. Duplicate axle
counter heads with diverse cable routes
were also used to allow automatic
changeover between heads should one
fail or suffer a cable strike.
Given the restrictive nature of the
site, localised modelling was used to
position key signals and indicators to
exceptionally fine margins in order to
achieve the requirements of the signal
sighting process and assess potential
‘read-across’ issues.
Control system technology
As part of phase 7, the BNS area was
recontrolled using a processor-based
Controlguide Westcad workstation
located at the WMSC. Train operator
staff are now co-located with Network
Rail signalling staff so that they can
work together to problem solve more
cohesively and proactively. This enables
reducing the impact of late running
services or platform changes by use of
the modern control system to increase
route reliability and platform flexibility.
A number of modifications were made
to vastly improve railway operations.
Although the system delivered in the
1960s allowed for some bidirectional
movement in the station area, this
was not possible on the approaches.
The phase 7 work created a bi-
directional loop for platforms 1 to 7 (the
Wolverhampton line) and Platforms 7 to
12 (via Five Ways and the Gloucester line)
in addition to connections to a number
of new sidings. This improves flexibility
and allows line speeds to be increased to
reduce journey times.
Extensive telecoms work was also
required. This involved designing and
installing three new nodes on the FTNx
IP telecoms network and ten existing
nodes were upgraded. A two-stage
approach was taken to create the
telecoms network to allow signalling
rehearsal testing 12 months before the
final commissioning, with a controlled
changeover to the final configuration. At
the West Midlands Signalling Centre the
existing analogue telecoms concentrator
was replaced with a digital system to
improve call handling.
Sustainability
All partners in the project committed
to deliver in a sustainable way, as they
were very aware of the large number of
railway neighbours that were likely to be
affected by work. One example was the
creation of a new, award-winning site
welfare/depot facility, around 2km from

BNS on an undeveloped site. Having
been cleared and improved, the new
depot was fully solar powered, saving
around 75,000kg of CO2 emissions
over three years.
Electric tools and equipment were used
to reduce emissions and to improve
safety by reducing the flammable
liquids on site. Battery-operated power
tools, mobile elevating work platforms,
solar powered welfare units, and solar
powered tower lighting all contributed
to the sustainability objective.
Delivery of the PSPs and REBs at
Monument Lane required a 1000t
crane lift over the main lines to
Wolverhampton from an adjacent park.
A temporary access road and pad were
constructed, which involved cordoning
off a section of a primary school playing
field. Siemens Mobility worked closely
with both the school and council, and
supported the school with construction
of a new sensory space and the city with
a donation to the charity “Trees for Life”
to support the planting of more trees.
Occupational safety
Getting everyone home safe every day
is a Network Rail commitment, so as
part of the safety strategy, and with
most of the work under cover and in
the confined station area, a plan had
to be implemented for preventing dust
inhalation. Tools with dust extractors
were used to protect the teams from
the inhalation of dust. Throughout
the Covid-19 pandemic even greater
protection measures had to be
implemented, so air-fed face masks
were used to overcome the hazards
from the dusty environment, which then
formed part of the project's Covid-19
protection measures.
Conclusion
There was no possibility of a lengthy
closure due to the geographical location
of Birmingham New Street and the
critical nature of the infrastructure to the
economy. By adopting a collaborative
approach, using detailed knowledge
of the existing infrastructure and
an innovative application of digital
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Above, the large geographical relay
interlocking was replaced by a computer-
based Trackguard Westlock installation at
West Midlands Signalling Centre, also home
to the Controlguide Westcad workstation
which now controls the area.
Photos Siemens Mobility.
Left, with work at the station complete
passengers and operators have noticed a
significant improvement in punctuality and
reliability of services through this critical area
of national infrastructure.
Photo Network Rail Media Centre.
technologies, the team successfully
delivered a major upgrade with
minimal disruption, despite a wide
range of challenges.
Passengers and freight operators are
already seeing an improvement in their
journeys through this central hub, with
fewer unplanned stops outside the
station and more on-time arrivals.
///
About the authors
Stephen Bick AMIRSE is project director
and Andrew Cardiff is a senior project
manager, both at Siemens Mobility's
Birmingham office.
Share your experience
IRSE News welcomes articles on
signalling, train control, telecoms and
related projects anywhere in the world.
Please email editor@irsenews.org and
share your experience of complex of
novel works with us.
7
Railway statistics
Railway statistics in Great Britain for the
fiscal year April 2022 to March 2023
David Fenner
In January 2024, the Office for
Rail and Road (ORR – Britain's
rail regulatory body) published a
compendium of statistics about the
railways in Great Britain covering
essentially the mainland of England,
Scotland and Wales and the major
rail operations of the national rail
network and London Underground.
The compendium is very much a
visual presentation of the data with
limited explanation of the underlying
information, although this is potentially
available by searching the many source
documents, most of which are hyperlink
listed in the final appendix.
Like many statistical analyses the results
can be seen from different perspectives
which may influence the importance
one places on them. In particular many
of the results in the document compare
the 2022 year ending in March 2023
with the previous year, and thus often
show significant growth. However, this
is from a low base as a result of the
unwinding of effects from the Covid-19
pandemic, which affected the year
ending March 2022.
Fortunately, some of the statistics do
look back over a longer period, which
supports a more nuanced picture. You
can also think about some of the topics
that are not covered and whether a true
comparison is being made. The ORR
appendix emphasises that all the figures
presented are prepared in accordance
8
with standards set by the Office for
Statistics Regulation (OSR) and thus
conform to statistical good practice.
I will summarise some of the principal
figures in the following sections.
In terms of rail usage, the picture is
mixed. There were almost 1.4 billion
passenger rail journeys in the year, a
rise of around 40 per cent. However,
this increase is from the very low base
recorded the previous year, and is still
some 300 million fewer journeys than in
2019/2020 pre-pandemic.
Passenger revenue was dominated by
trips in the London and South East area
at £4.2bn whilst long-distance intercity
operators were second at £2.8bn, and
regional operators at £1.4bn. Open
access operators contributed £0.2m.
The distance travelled by people
accumulated to 53 billion km, a 36 per
cent rise on the year whereas train km
fell to 461 million, a 3 per cent fall.
Not surprisingly the ten busiest stations
are all in London, with Liverpool Street
topping the table, displacing Waterloo
from its normal top spot to third, behind
Paddington. Two stations, Stratford
in east London and Farringdon are
perhaps stations one would be less
likely to consider as the busiest in the
country. Incidentally Liverpool Street
with 80 million passengers in the year
matched Heathrow Airport's busiest
ever year in 2019.
Rail statistics compendium
Annual: April 2022 to March 2023
Publication date: 25 January 2024 Next publication date: January 2025
Background: This annual compendium publication contains a summary of the statistical releases
published by ORR covering April 2022 to March 2023. Full copies of the individual releases and
accompanying data tables can be found on ORR’s data portal.
Sources: A range of industry bodies including Network Rail, passenger and freight operators and
Department for Transport.
All statistics are correct at the time of publication, but may change due to subsequent revisions.
1.4 billion passenger 3.8% of trains were
journeys cancelled
53.0 billion Fares increased by 5.7%
passenger kilometres
15.7 billion net tonnes
kilometres of freight UK rail income was £22.7bn
moved
Busiest station was London
Liverpool St with 80.4 million 409 train accidents
entries and exits
0.35 million complaints Total route length of
closed 15,846km (38% electrified)
67.8% of trains on time
(early or less than 1 2,578 mainline stations
minute late)
Author: L Al-Ajeel Responsible statistician: P Moran
Public enquiries: rail.stats@orr.gov.uk Media enquiries: Tel: 07856 279808
Rail statistics compendium: Annual (April 2022 to March 2023) | 1
Outside London the busiest stations in
Scotland were unsurprisingly in Glasgow
and Edinburgh with Glasgow Central
claiming top spot at just over 20 million
passengers. In Wales the top five
stations are all in south Wales between
Newport and Swansea, with of course,
Cardiff Central claiming top spot at just
over 10 million.
Interestingly the report claims that eight
new stations opened across the year.
Of these five are on the Elizabeth line,
which opened in May 2022, and three
of these were actually new platforms
at existing stations. That leaves three
genuinely new stations at Inverness
Airport, Reston, and Barking Riverside.
68.7 per cent of trains arrived within
one minute of schedule over all
stations on the network, a reduction
of five percentage points, whilst 3.8
per cent of trains were cancelled. This
excludes the P code cancellations made
before 22.00 the day before operation,
normally because of predicted resource
constraints. There were 54 days of
severe disruption, defined as a day when
more than 5 per cent of the national
train service was cancelled. There were
6.6 million scheduled passenger trains
across the year.

Inverness Airport station, one of the eight new
station openings described in the compendium.
Photo Siemens Mobility.
The picture for freight was less
impressive. Overall, there were
15.7 billion net tonne kilometres of
freight moved, a fall of 7 per cent.
However, it is worth recalling that the
year was influenced by shortages in
supply chains both as a result of the
hangover from the pandemic and the
war in Ukraine.
The primary freight traffics were
maritime intermodal containers
providing 35% and construction
materials providing 31 per cent of
traffic moved. Coal, once a staple of
rail traffic contributed 3 per cent and a
rise relative to recent years. 86 per cent
of freight trains arrived within 15
minutes of schedule, a drop of 7.6
percentage points.
Rail industry income was £22.7bn of
which 41 per cent came from fares
and 52 per cent from government.
Interestingly there is no mention
of the missing seven percent! Total
industry expenditure was £25.4bn, a
one percent rise driven mainly by the
cost of financing Network Rail debt.
Total investment in the rail industry
was £9.7bn, a rise of 15 per cent;
however, virtually all the rise was
expenditure on HS2.
In terms of safety, there were sadly two
workforce fatalities and eight public
or passenger fatalities in the year, the
lowest total since 2018. There were
236 fatalities as a result of suicide
on the main line network and 29 on
London Underground. In terms of train
accidents there were 409, of which
270 were on the main line network and
the rest on other railways (including
trams and metros).
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
time' events there were 293 shock or
trauma related and 99 related to manual
handling recorded.
The compendium concludes with some
statistics on carbon dioxide emissions.
Apparently, emissions per passenger
kilometre were 33g CO2e, a welcome fall
of 31 per cent and for freight 26g CO2e
per tonne kilometre and a rise of 2 per
cent. Total emissions caused by traction
amounts to 2212 kilotonnes.
So that is an outline of the statistical
summary presented by the Office for
Road and Rail covering rail in Great
Britain for the fiscal year from April 2022
to March 2023. If you would like to read
the compendium and make up your own
mind it can be found at irse.info/narwx
What do you think?
Do you think that information such as
Of the main line incidents, 14 accidents that published by the ORR is useful?
were considered to be potentially Do you think that we as an industry
high risk, that is to say in different use such information adequately to
circumstances the outcome could track trends, successes and more
have been much more serious. Of specifically areas where we need
the fourteen, five were level crossing to do more to meet the needs of
collisions, four were between trains, our stakeholders?
three were derailments, and the
remaining two were buffer stop Should we share more information
collisions. There were 266 Signals Passed like this, covering more parts of the
world, in IRSE News?
At Danger (SPAD), a 10 per cent increase
on the previous year, but the statistics Or perhaps you think such statistics
do not provide any details about their are just a distraction and fulfil no
relative severity. significant purpose for us.
From a health perspective there were 18 Let us know your views, email
cases of vibration related injuries and five editor@irsenews.org
carpal tunnel injuries. In terms of 'lost
The ORR compendium
presents a wide range of Regional rail usage (April 2021 to March 2022)
railway data in a highly Regional passenger journeys are based on the origin and destination named on a ticket and do not
graphical,easily understood, take into account any changes of train. It therefore produces slightly lower estimates than the total
journeys published in the passenger rail usage statistical release. Regional rail usage data from April
manner. The impact of
2022 to March 2023 will be published in February 2024.
Covid-19 is particularly clear Number of passenger journeys within and between regions, Great
in this extract.
Britain, annual data, April 1995 to March 2022
894 million regional
Source Office of Rail
passenger journeys on Great
Britain’s mainline in the year
and Road, under Open ending March 2022.
Government licence v3.0.
160%
Percentage change compared with the
previous year
Passenger journeys within, and to or from other regions (millions), GB,
632 million journeys annual data, April 2021 to March 2022
were made within
regions in the year 139%
ending March 2022.
262 million journeys
were made to and from
regions in the year 229%
ending March 2022.
England 7.4 Scotland 448%
England 6.4 Wales 301%
Scotland 0.02 Wales 291%
Journeys between regions Percentage change compared
(millions), April 2021 to March 2022 with the previous year
Statistical releases, data tables, an interactive dashboard, methodology and quality information is
available on the ORR data portal’s Regional rail usage page
Rail statistics compendium: Annual (April 2022 to March 2023) | 4
9
Metro train control
Evolution of CBTC – quo vadis? Part 2
Karsten Rahn and Andreas Steingröver
In the second and final part of
their article, Karsten and Andreas
talk about the differences
between wayside‑centric and
train‑centric train control
CBTC systems have increasingly
become the standard technology
for urban rail train control systems
and been deployed both for new
lines as well as for modernising
existing metro lines and
commuter rail lines.
However, the implementations from
different vendors differ, for example
with respect to internal and external
interfaces, moving block algorithms,
zoning concepts and integration with
peripheral systems. Nevertheless, the
basic principle to determine the position
of the train onboard, to determine
the next danger point either from the
position report of the preceding train
or from the status of the next field
element, and to supervise the respective
movement authority onboard, is
largely unchanged.
Evaluation of evolutions of
CBTC architecture
The basic architecture of a CBTC system
as defined in IEEE 1474.1 [1] allows for a
somewhat flexible distribution of CBTC
functions between wayside and onboard
control units.
The introduction of CBTC provoked
a big shift of wayside functions to
onboard computers compared to former
signalling system architectures based on
interlockings with signals and trip stops.
However, slight variations of the original
10
CBTC approach as specified in IEEE
1474 have already been presented by
various vendors.
The following sections cover the
whole span, from an ideal train‑centric
architecture with all functions
concentrated onboard, through to an
ideal wayside‑centric architecture,
with all functions concentrated at the
wayside. Some intermediate steps are
part of the ‘natural’ evolution of the
CBTC architecture as described in the
following sections.
Train-centric approach
One approach is to move as many as
possible of the functions to the onboard
CBTC control unit and thus in the
extreme case eliminate the wayside
CBTC control unit.
Ideal full train-centric approach
The ideal full train‑centric CBTC
approach aims to omit any logic on
the wayside. This also means that the
functions to secure the guideway by
setting of points and by reservation and
release of track sections are included in
the onboard logic [2].
The trains have an onboard track
database with description of the track
alignment including all the trackside
elements to be controlled. Each train
communicates directly with the trackside
elements, such as points or platform
screen doors, and with other trains
in the proximity.
To enable a movement, the train needs
to control and check the status of
trackside elements listed in the track
database as being necessary for the
envisaged train path. The positions of
the other trains in front and rear need to
be considered for safe train separation
purposes. A movement authority can
then be calculated purely onboard. As
the train moves the trackside resources
need to be released again, to make them
available for other trains. For example,
once a point has been completely
passed, it is released, and the following
train may then set it in another direction.
Figure 1 illustrates for this ideal
train‑centric approach the logical
communication links in solid coloured
lines. The different colours indicate the
communication to different types of
elements. Only the links for Train 1 are
shown. As can be seen, each train and to
some extent the trackside elements need
to establish multiple communication
links at the same time.
For example, a train leaving the
platform needs to continuously
communicate with the Platform Screen
Door Controller (PSDC) to check the
doors closed and locked status, and
with both the Passenger Emergency
Plunger Controller (PEPC) and to the
Staff Protection Key Switch Controller
(SPKSC) to check for the 'not activated'
status of each.
At the same time, the train needs to
communicate with the preceding train to
check where its tail end is (with a safety
margin) and with the following train to
provide its own safe tail end position.
The communication duration lasts
individually with each communication
partner as long as the train is in the
respective area of influence. For platform
elements this is until the train has
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Figure 1 –
Communication for
an ideal train-centric
approach.
TSRC

OBCU OBCU OBCU

TDB TDB TDB
➔ ➔
Train 2 POC Train 1

Platform A

SPKS

PSD

PEP
SPKSC PSDC PEPC Platform B

POC
Train 3 ➔
TDB
OBCU

Figure 2 –
Train-centric
approach with
platform controller.
TSRC

OBCU OBCU OBCU

TDB TDB TDB
➔ ➔
Train 2 POC Train 1

Platform A
Platform Contr.
SPKSC
SPKS

PSDC

PEPC

PSD
PEP
Platform B

Train 3 ➔ POC

TDB
OBCU

Key to Figures 1 -6. I/OC Input/Output Controller SPKS(C) Staff Protection Key Switch (Unit)
PEP(C) Passenger Emergency Plunger (Controller) TDB Track Database
POC Points Object Controller TSR(C) Temporary Speed Restriction (Controller)
PSD(C) Platform Screen Doors (Controller) VDB Vehicle Database
OBCU Onboard Control Unit WCU Wayside Control Unit

completely left the platform. For the
points on the train's path and for flank
protection points communication lasts
until they have been passed. However,
points may need to communicate to
several trains at the same time. For flank
protection points this will happen in case
of train movements on both tracks.
But this may also happen for train
movements following on the same track
at short headways, when the following
train tries to set a point in advance,
while the point is still occupied by the
previous train.
In this kind of ideal train‑centric
approach all trains need to be equipped
with CBTC, hence no mixed traffic with
unequipped or non-communicating
trains is possible.
It must also be ensured that all trains
operate with compatible onboard
track databases.
The trackside elements can be
continuously supervised by their object
controllers to achieve the required
safety and reliability. A separate wayside
controller is necessary to cater for
temporary speed restrictions. It may
cover part of the line or even the whole
line. It would need to communicate with
all trains in that area in case a temporary
speed restriction or other trackside
restrictions is set.
Train-centric approach with
platform controller
Typically, some of the individual trackside
elements such as platform emergency
plungers, platform screen doors and staff
protection key switches are all located
at the platform. Also, their functionality
is closely related to the movement
authorisation zone of the platform. This
makes it convenient to combine these
elements at the trackside by a common
platform controller. Thus, several
communication links are eliminated
by a simple logical combination of
different digital inputs. Also, the quantity
of individual signalling apparatus boxes
is reduced, whilst still minimising the
length of wiring to the passenger
emergency plungers, platform screen
doors and staff protection key switches.
Figure 2 illustrates the train‑centric
approach with the changes related to
the introduction of platform controllers.
The number of logical communication
links with the train is slightly reduced.
>>>
11
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
The vital controllers of the various
platform elements are collocated
in a common signalling apparatus
box, which also enables the use of
common resources for power supply,
communication, and access control.
Further on, there are synergies for
installation and maintenance with an
enhanced reliability. As several elements
are connected, a redundant architecture
becomes more economical and
improves overall reliability.
Train-centric approach with
element controller
Typically, in metro applications the
distribution of electronic devices along
the track is avoided so far as possible.
Especially in tunnel areas the space
is limited and access by maintenance
staff is only possible during the short
engineering hours at night or requires
interruption of passenger operation.
Therefore, any electronic equipment is
preferably concentrated in dedicated
signalling equipment rooms, mostly in
the station buildings for easy and quick
maintenance or repair even during
train operation.
Also, the operational area of the
uninterrupted power supply is limited
to the signalling equipment room, and
sensitive power distribution along the
track is avoided.
This applies especially for the most
critical point object controllers. In
a practical way they are integrated
together with controllers for other field
elements and therefore called field
element controllers. Figure 3 illustrates
this train‑centric approach with element
controller. The number of logical
communication links is reduced again.
As for the approaches before, the
element controller may translate the
physical status for the field elements
into logical status information for a
signalling function.
In the case of flank protection points or
for complex track layouts with multiple
points the logical control and status
may already be combined as part of
the element controller configuration.
The correct track elements can be
addressed by the moving train in
time as determined via the onboard
track database.
The control of the point machines via
long trackside signalling cables may
seem to be a weak point in the design
but they are fairly reliable in practice.
The protected signalling cables have a
negligible failure rate compared to the
more sensitive electronic point object
12
controller, which are preferred to be
located in the controlled environment of
a signalling equipment room with easy
access as mentioned before.
Train-centric approach with
wayside control unit
In metro applications there are many
components and services which require
data communication between the
various locations, i.e. the platforms, the
equipment rooms, the power stations,
and the control centre. Today, these are
mostly covered by fibre optic backbones
and IP-based wayside communication
networks. Hence, the trackside element
controller, which is a fixed installation,
can be easily integrated into this network
and does not require less reliable
connectivity via mobile communication.
This also enables the concentration of
the interlocking functions and handling
of restriction areas into one central
wayside control unit WCU.
Advantageously, data communication
is routed to a central wayside control
unit which collects all trackside status
information for provision to the trains.
In addition, the handling of temporary
speed restrictions or of other trackside
restrictions can be easily integrated.
Figure 4 illustrates the train‑centric
approach with wayside control units.
Now the communication from the train
to the wayside becomes a continuous
communication link, which thus reduces
frequent connection and disconnection
issues. The communication between the
wayside control unit and the element
controllers is provided via a wayside
communication network.
As in the approaches presented
previously, the wayside control unit
may combine the status of several field
elements, for example to include the
flank protection in a set direction over
a point or the movement authorisation
zone at a platform track set by platform
screen doors, or by an emergency stop.
Nevertheless, the direct train to train
communication remains unchanged
from the previous approaches for
maintaining safe train separation.
The wayside control unit handles the
status of all the field elements and thus
can provide this information to the
operation control centre. The traffic
controller in the operation control
centre has direct access and will be
able to invoke any restriction areas or
to manually intervene, for example to
command an override.
Wayside-centric approach
When looking in more detail from the
vehicle point of view there are different
limits of authority, which are implied by
the position of the preceding train, by an
unlocked point ahead or by a movement
authorisation zone set for several
reasons. The most restrictive is always
the one that is used.
In the fully train‑centric approach,
the trains communicate their position
to the following trains and vice versa
receive a limit of authority from the
preceding train. By contrast, in the case
of a system using wayside control units,
the information could be routed via
the wayside control unit and thus there
would only be communication between
the wayside control unit and all the trains
necessary, but not between trains.
With all the signalling information on
hand (the status of the field elements
and the position of the trains), the
wayside control unit can manage the
determination of the limit of authority
for each train via the most restrictive
related danger points.
Standard wayside-centric
approach
This is the standard CBTC approach
corresponding to IEEE 1474, where the
onboard CBTC part is responsible to
localise itself, to supervise train integrity
and to report vital position to the
wayside CBTC part. The wayside CBTC
generates the movement authority for
each train in range based on the status
of the field elements and on the position
reports of all tracked trains.
Accordingly, the wayside control unit
also requires a track database for the
specific configuration. Figure 5 illustrates
this standard wayside‑centric approach.
Direct train-to-train communication is
unnecessary and just the continuous
communication to the central wayside
control unit remains.
The wayside control unit has to track
all the trains which are in its area. A
simple algorithm determines the most
restrictive authority for each train and
communicates respective wayside
movement authorities.
If a secondary train detection system is
connected to the element controllers,
mixed traffic with non-communicating
trains becomes possible.
This is advantageous in degraded
situations, for instance in the case
of a failed onboard control unit, or
when unequipped trains need to be
operated regularly.
>>>
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Figure 3 –
Train-centric
approach with
element controller.

TSRC

OBCU OBCU OBCU

TDB TDB TDB
➔ ➔
Train 2 Train 1

Platform A
Element Controller

POC

POC

I/OC
SPKS

PSD
PEP
Platform B

Train 3
➔
TDB
OBCU

Figure 4 –
Train-centric
approach with
wayside control unit. WCU

Wayside Communication Network

OBCU OBCU OBCU

TDB TDB TDB
➔ ➔
Train 2 Train 1

Platform A
Element Controller
POC

POC

I/OC
SPKS

PSD
PEP
Platform B

Train 3 ➔
TDB
OBCU

Figure 5 –
Standard
wayside-centric
approach. WCU
TDB

Wayside Communication Network

OBCU OBCU OBCU

TDB TDB TDB
➔ ➔
Train 2 Train 1

Platform A
Element Controller
POC

POC

I/OC
SPKS

PSD
PEP

Platform B

Train 3 ➔
TDB
OBCU

13
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Ideal full wayside-centric
approach
Taking the evolution of wayside-centric
CBTC a bit further, even more onboard
functions can be shifted to the wayside.
This inherently fits with the overall
principle of metro operation with central
traffic control.
The onboard functions become simply
reading the antennas, reading the
odometer sensors and confirming the
train integrity, as well as the control
of traction, service brake, emergency
brakes and doors. The CBTC algorithms
and logic for localisation, speed control,
speed supervision and door control are
moved to the central wayside control
unit. The onboard part becomes a
simple controller which just handles
inputs and outputs.
Figure 6 illustrates the ideal
wayside‑centric approach. The
wayside controls and supervises all
trackside elements and also controls
and supervises all train movements.
Accordingly, only the wayside needs the
track database, but additionally needs
to hold a train database with all the
characteristics for each individual train.
Whilst not mandatory, but obviously
possible and advantageous, the wayside
CBTC algorithms can be executed
in vital cloud services for maximum
reliability, performance, and hardware
independence [3]. Minimum processing
time is achieved, because the onboard
controller just provides interfaces to the
train and the communication delay of
modern radio data communication is
limited to some tens of milliseconds.
Figure 6 –
Wayside-centric
approach with cloud
service.
OBCU
➔ ➔
Train 2
Train 3 ➔
OBCU
14
Mixed traffic operation is possible with
trackside secondary train detection,
which is compatible with this full
wayside‑centric approach. In an ideal
case the precise train detection could
be moved from onboard to the wayside
with respective trackside sensors.
Technologies like local positioning radar
or ultra-wide-band communication
would be suitable for this but would
require deployment of further electronic
devices at the trackside including
between stations or inside the tunnel.
Effect on radio data
communication system
In the analysis of the evolution of CBTC
with comparison of different approaches
only the logical communication
links have been considered. This is
appropriate, as modern mobile data
radio communication systems identify
each communication partner via a
unique address and thus can provide
communication between each of them.
A direct physical communication link is
limited to the distance and coverage of
the different radio units.
The distance to be covered by the
communication links between trains and
between trains and trackside elements
is, for metro applications, larger than
the direct sight distance. Successive
trains need to communicate with each
other over distances that are greater
than braking distances (typically 250m
or more). For setting a point in time, an
additional distance has to be considered.
Distances of 500m or more have to be
bridged by the radio communication as
a minimum. The commonly used radio
CBTC-App.
TDB VDB
Wayside Communication Network
Element Controller
POC
SPKS
technology in the 5.9GHz band normally
does not cater for this, especially when
the tracks are curved and have changes
in elevation, as is typical for metro
track topologies.
Accordingly, the radio communication
is propagated via trackside access points
or base stations. These are connected
to trackside fibre optic backbones,
which provide interconnection between
the access points or to a central
communication server. Effectively,
modern radio data communication
systems serve both CBTC approaches,
the train‑centric as well as the
wayside‑centric.
Effect on CBTC
performance values
The choice of CBTC architecture has
no effect on headway, as cycle and
communication times are similar for all
CBTC approaches. However, frequent
connection and disconnection to
multiple trains and trackside elements
may require additional time for the
train‑centric approach. As vital data has
to be exchanged, respective secure and
vital communication protocols must
be applied. These require additional
computation power and additional data
for communication and identification
of wayside elements as part of the track
database. Nevertheless, the processing
and communication times of modern
CBTC systems are a minor contribution
to the minimal headway as evaluated in
[R02]. Thus, no significant advantage of
any approach related to the minimum
headway can be concluded.
OBCU OBCU
Train 1
Platform A
POC
I/OC
PSD
PEP
Platform B
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Conclusion by central sources. A maximum References

The investigation of the different
approaches of CBTC architecture,
even on a general and somewhat
theoretical level, discloses advantages
of a more wayside‑centric approach.
This was derived from a somewhat
theoretical evolutionary process which
was executed on a CBTC system
approach. As in natural evolution, only
advantageous architectural or design
mutations will prevail. Here, slight
changes to the approach will stay if they
are beneficial.
The ideal wayside‑centric solution
survives with most favourable
characteristics and features. This fits
the general paradigm of urban rail
transportation and especially of metros
which rely on centralised traffic control,
where each train movement is stipulated
throughput on a railway line is only [1] IEEE 1474.1-2004 IEEE Standard
achieved when all train movements and for Communications-Based Train
passenger exchanges are coordinated. Control (CBTC) Performance
This is the reason for the implementation and Functional Requirements.
of central timetable and headway IEEE, New York.
regulation functions on metro systems.
[2] D Reuter, J Braband, J
Thus, a train‑centric approach which Günther, K Lennartz: Risk
we assumed as a starting point would Acceptance Criteria for FFB
still require a centralised overlay Radio-based Train Operation.
for automatic train regulation and Signalling+Datacommunication
timetable-based operation. 5/2001, Hamburg.
The wayside‑centric approach yields [3] S Steffens, W Valvoda: The
advantageous capabilities regarding development of the new DS3
reliability, availability, and maintainability. safety platform – from the
They are provided by various kinds of research project to commissioning.
fall-back including mixed traffic, multiple Signalling+Data communication
redundancy of cloud services and easy 6/2021, Hamburg.
handling of the central database of the
system configuration.
///

What do you think? What has your railway discovered Do you think there is a future for train-
when looking into the different centric architectures?
architectures for CBTC?
We'd love to hear your opinions
Do you agree that wayside- and experience, email and tell us at
centric CBTC is the preferred editor@irsenews.org
architecture for metros?

Aarvee Associates Ltd

UK Signalling
Design Services

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15
Level crossings
Improving level crossing safety
using technology
Paul Darlington
Jonathan Evans, Network Rail’s
technical head of level crossings
engineering, recently delivered
a presentation to the IRSE
Midland & North Western Section,
explaining how technology can
help to improve level crossing risk
management, together with some
of the level crossing engineering
solutions being developed
by Network Rail.
Railway level crossings in Great Britain
are among the safest in Europe and
on a railway which is one of the most
intensively used in the world. However,
level crossings still pose a significant
safety risk to the public.
Level crossings were provided when the
railway was built in Victorian times and
if a railway was built today, it wouldn’t
include level crossings.
The safest level crossing is a closed one,
but that is not easy as level crossings
connect communities, and rural
crossings in particular are increasingly
being used for leisure purposes and
more deliveries than ever.
Covid-19 has changed society. During
and since the pandemic people exercise
outside more and interest in nature has
increased. In July 2020, 46 per cent of
people responding to a survey by Natural
England said they were spending more
time outside than before the pandemic.
Visits to the RSPB website have increased
by 69 per cent year-on-year with 79 per
cent of users being new to the website.
16
The days of the same postal delivery
person using a crossing to access an
address are long gone. Shopping habits
have changed with people spending
more time at home and not shopping in-
store. As well as Royal Mail there are now
a huge number of delivery companies
all competing against time to meet
customer expectations.
In rural area tractors using crossings are
more powerful and faster, with drivers in
sound-insulated cabs.
Level crossings present a risk to trains
and members of the public, and trains
can also be delayed if there is a fault or
incident at a level crossing. Since 2009
Network Rail has invested over £200m
to close crossings, build bridges, identify
new safer rights of way, provide new
barriers, new warning systems, new
signage, and educate people how to use
level crossings more safely.
Over 100 level crossing managers have
been recruited and trained to gain a Clear signage at User Worked Crossings is
greater understanding of level crossings, essential for safe operation.
the people who use them, and the
surrounding communities. Network Rail says they are seeing
a similar number of level crossing
There are still far too many near misses
though and, sadly, there are still fatalities incidents despite having considerably
on level crossings. The challenges to fewer level crossings than five years
improving level crossing safety are that ago. This means there are more
there are more road journeys than ever, incidents per crossing.
an increasing population, a growing
public demand for leisure train travel and
Level crossing technology
more services likely to be introduced, Jonathan explained that he and his team
and more people using level crossings are part of the technical authority at
for leisure purposes. Network Rail responsible for engineering
approval. Colleagues across the wider
part of Network Rail, including the

level crossing safety teams, Route
Services, and partners within the supply
chain, all have a vital role in managing
level crossing risk.
When reducing risk at level crossings the
first option is always to consider if the
crossing can be eliminated. By replacing
the crossing with a bridge, diverting the
right of way or extinguishing it entirely,
has enabled Network Rail to close over
1,100 level crossings, but these have
been ‘the low hanging fruit’ and it is
becoming harder to close crossings. A
grade separated railway is expensive,
but Britain is a crowded island and even
if funds and resources were available
in many cases it is not easy to provide
grade separation.
There are still over 5,500 level crossings
on the GB network, with the majority
footpath and User Worked Crossings
(UWC). UWCs are those where the user
has to operate the gates or barriers for
themselves when they want to cross
the railway. They also usually provide
access to private land or property that's
effectively landlocked by the railway.
A passive level crossing is one where
the user is required to make a decision
on whether or not it is safe to cross.
Currently on the GB network 70 per
cent of all level crossings are passive
crossings, where users have to look
and listen for an approaching train, or
by calling the signaller for permission
to cross. This method increases the
workload of the signaller and requires
the user to contact the signaller
to correctly confirm the crossing
will be clear in order to allow them
to cross safely.
The remaining 30 per cent of level
crossings are provided with varying types
of warning systems to inform crossing
users when it is unsafe to cross. These
are known as active level crossings.
In terms of risk reduction, Jonathan
explained that since 2009 level crossing
risk, expressed in terms of Fatalities
and Weighted Injuries (FWI), has
reduced by around 37 per cent and is
currently sitting at around 11 FWI per
year. Compared to other European
railways, either on the basis of track
incidents per track kilometre or by train
kilometre, Network Rail are the second
lowest after Ireland.
However, level crossings still represent
around 6 per cent of the system risk
on the GB main line railway. In the
reporting year from April 2022 to March
2023, there were five fatalities at level
crossings, all of which were footpath
crossings, which demonstrates one of
the reasons why the focus on reducing
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
risk at these types of level crossings is using level crossings. Public attitudes
particularly important. In addition, near and expectations are changing and
misses at pedestrian level crossings is a people expect that risks will be designed
continuing trend that is not reducing. So out of level crossing systems. The
more has to be done. public expectation of what is safe
enough can also change when things
Health and safety strategy start to go wrong.
Leading Health and Safety on Britain's
Level crossing signs
Railway (LHSBR) is the rail industry’s
health and safety strategy. Developed Private crossings are generally found
by leaders across a range of rail sectors, when the railway crosses a private road
this strategy sets out the challenges and represent a particular area of risk.
and activities which need collaborative This is because often it requires the
approaches to deliver a better, safer, and user to follow the instructions provided
healthier railway across Great Britain. by the signage before crossing the
The strategy identifies 12 key risk areas track. So it is vital that these are clear
where safety and health performance and fit for purpose, and there is room
need to be improved, of which level for improvement. The Department
crossings is one. for Transport has worked closely with
Network Rail, the Office of Rail and
This requires the industry to research
Road (ORR), and the Railway Safety and
and develop emerging technologies
Standards Board (RSSB) to develop a new
leading to cost effective level crossing
set of signs for use at private crossings.
upgrades, and to collaborate to deliver
consistent messages to the public in The new signs have been user tested at
relation to level crossings. the Cannock Chase test site. The aim has
been to introduce a modern, simpler,
In response to LHSBR, Network Rail has
more helpful set of signs. Development
produced “Enhancing Level Crossing
of the signage has been very much a
Safety 2019 to 29”, which sets out the
collaboration between level crossing
overarching strategy to manage and
risk management professionals, human
reduce level crossings risk, enable
factors experts, and engineers. The signs
effective collaborations, and the
are heavily pictogram based, to mitigate
delivery of targeted improvements. The
users potentially not having a detailed
document also sets out Network Rail’s
understanding of English.
goals to reduce safety risk, increase rail
capacity and performance, and reduce Mandated by the Private Crossing Signs
operational and financial risk. The and Barriers regulations 2023, over the
four key areas are: risk management; next few years Network Rail will be
technology and innovation; competence installing the new signs at all private
management; and education crossings and public footpath level
and enforcement. crossings. The legislation currently only
covers signs in the English language and
Society is changing and there is an
work is ongoing with the Department
increasingly diverse population, with
of Transport to develop Welsh
potentially more vulnerable people >>>
language signs.
The specification of new level crossing signs is one of the initiatives to improve safety.
Image Department for Transport.
Sign identifier Description Sign diagram
Diagram 157
(Previously
Type: Supplementary Instruction sign
Applicable to: Station barrow crossings.
Diagrams and information for signs to be used at private level crossings.
SI3179)
Permitted variant: The appropriate variant
shall be applied as per the site-specific
See the Improving signage at private level crossings: revised sign designs consultation
for background information about the design of these signs.
method of operation.
Standard dimensions: W675mm x H300mm
Warning signs
Sign identifier
Diagram 101
Description
Type: Universal warning sign
Sign diagram
(previously UV01) MSL instruction signs
Applicable to: All user worked level
crossings. Sign identifier Description Sign diagram
Standard dimensions: W600mm x H530mm
Diagram 158
(Previously MSLs
Type: Instruction sign
Applicable to: User worked, footpath and
with Integrated
Diagram 102 Type: Warning sign
User Instructions
– they remain the
bridleway crossings with MSLs.
Standard dimensions: W650mm x H520mm
same, but
(Previously
CB01) Applicable to: Level crossings where there updated with
is overhead electrification equipment or a colour)
live rail.
Diagram 159 Type: Instruction sign
Permitted variant: The appropriate variant (Previously MSLs
shall be applied as per the site-specific with Integrated Applicable to: User worked, footpath and
electrical hazard. bridleway crossings with MSLs.
Standard dimensions: W525mm x H875mm
User Instructions
– they remain the Standard dimensions: W650mm x H520mm
same, but
Diagram 103
(Previously
Type: Warning sign updated with
colour)
BA02) Applicable to: Level crossings over lines
signalled for bi-directional movements
where trains can approach in any direction
Diagram 160
(Previously MSLs
Type: Instruction sign
on any line. with Integrated Applicable to: User worked, footpath and
Standard dimensions: W610mm x H200mm
User Instructions) bridleway crossings.
Standard dimensions: W275mm x
Diagram 104
(Previously
Type: Warning sign H1055mm
Diagram 105) Applicable to: User worked crossings.
Standard dimensions: W460mm x H60mm
Diagram 105 Type: Warning sign
(Previously
Diagram 106) Applicable to: Vehicular crossing gates.
Standard dimensions: 600mm diameter
19
17
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
The legislation focuses on defining what
the signs look like, but doesn't cover
how to use them. So, Network Rail has
produced Module A28 to the Level
Crossing Design Handbook, to set out
the application and positioning rules for
the signs. This was published in March
with a compliance date from April 2024.
Whistle boards
The ‘passive’ 70 per cent of all level
crossings on the network require a
user to stop, look and listen in order
to determine whether it is safe to
cross or not. At many crossings where
there is insufficient sighting distance,
whistle boards are provided, so that as
a train approaches it sounds its horn
and provides the crossing user with an
audible warning to mitigate the lack of
visibility. However, it can be difficult to
hear a distant train horn, particularly in
noisy environments, and train horns are
not sounded during the night time ‘quiet
period’ - between midnight and 6am.
Because of this issue the long-term goal
is to eliminate whistle boards for level
crossing purposes.
An incremental improvement is to
provide a supplementary audible warning
system, which detects an approaching
train and provides an audible warning at
the crossing. The Covtec system uses
a radar to detect a train and a wireless
comms link between a remote detection
unit and the crossing sounder. The
system uses ‘off grid’ solar power and is
independent of the signalling system. It
detects trains and sounds a recording of
a train horn at the crossing. It currently
has no specific safety integrity and
users are not provided with any visual
indication of whether or not it is safe to
A typical OSML application after completion.
18
Table 1 – Status of OMSL deployment on Network Rail Infrastructure.
System Name Detection Type
Ebigate 200 Axle counters
Vamos Electronic treadle
Vamos FAdC Axle counters
Wavetrain Acoustic detection
cross. Therefore whistle boards currently
have to be retained to guard against
system failure and of course this does
not assist users with hearing issues.
Overlay Miniature Stop Light
(OMSL) systems
For many years, some footpath, and
bridleway private crossings, have been
provided with an audible, visual, active
warning solution using ‘miniature’,
stoplights. These are called MSL
(Miniature Stop Light) crossings.
A user interface is provided in the form
of red and green lights and an audible
warning. The activation was traditionally
provided by the signalling train detection
system. The need to configure the
train detection system, makes a fully
integrated MSL solution comparatively
expensive and difficult.
So, to reduce the cost of
implementation, the OMSL concept
was developed. This makes the MSL
independent of the signalling system.
One of the advantages of this approach
is to allow for innovation in the form
of the type of train detection, such
as acoustic detection. There are now
circa 250 OMSL solutions across the
Status
In service
In service
Shadow mode trial
Shadow mode trial
network and they've made a significant
improvement to safety. Further systems
are regularly being installed.
Table 1 shows the current types of OMSL
in widespread use and those that are
in development.
The Wavetrain Acoustic Detection
System has been developed by a
Norwegian company. The basic principle
is that sensors are attached to the rail
and located at the level crossing, which
detect sound waves generated by an
approaching train passing through the
rails. With all the equipment located at
the level crossing, this avoids the need
to run cables to remote ‘striking in’ train
detection equipment.
The system also provides the potential to
deliver more consistent warning times,
irrespective of the speed of approaching
trains. Although with modern faster
accelerating trains this is not easy.
More traditional systems which rely on
fixed point train detection for ‘striking
in’, have to be positioned for the
maximum speed, and consequently
they can give extended warning times
for slower trains. Research has shown
that extended warning times can affect
crossing users' willingness to wait.

A single-track version of Wavetrain
OMSL is currently on shadow trial in the
East Midlands, and Network Rail hope
to get this into an operational trial later
this year. A shadow trial is one where
the system is essentially fully functional
in detecting trains but provides no
warnings to crossing users to avoid
any issues with it being incorrect
whilst still on test.
Originally, the lights for MSLs (as the
name suggests) were quite small. They
were based on automotive parts and
had a requirement for the lens to be not
less than 60mm diameter. Nowadays
MSLs for level crossing use are far larger
200mm diameter and comply with the
British Standard for road traffic light
signals. They present a much more
visible interface to the user. Network Rail
is also developing an interface box that
enables the larger units to be retrofitted
to older MSL systems to improve the
user interface.
Currently OMSL systems are only
suitable for locations with simple
approaches, usually without signals,
junctions, or stations within their
strike‑in distance. As more OMSLs
are rolled out, attention is turning to
innovations that will allow the provision
of OMSLs at more complex locations.
This does present challenges, but OMSL
interfaced with the signalling system
are on trial at several locations. An
interface with the signalling system can
avoid a prolonged warning leading to
impatience or misuse. It may also be
possible to develop a solution based on
measuring the speed of an approaching
train and initiate the necessary warning
at the optimum time.
Off-grid deployments of level crossing technology.
Power Operated Gate Opener
(POGO)
Care is needed when developing level
crossing technical solutions to ensure
that level crossing safety is improved and
not reduced. An example is the Power
Operated Gate Opener (POGO). This was
developed circa 15 years ago, as a way
of improving the safety and convenience
for crossing users by providing buttons
both sides of a crossing to open and
close the gates, and to reduce the
number of times necessary to cross the
railway. Normally a gated user worked
crossing would need to be traversed five
times when crossing with a vehicle.
The POGO appeared to be a good
idea, but unfortunately the early
implementations resulted in some near
misses. The user expectation was that
if the gate opened after a button was
operated, then it must be safe to cross,
whereas, in practice, the POGO system
had no knowledge of whether trains
were approaching or not, as the user
was still required to make a decision on
whether or not it was safe to cross.
POGOs were removed from use
but there have been a number of
developments that now allow the use of
POGO. The signage has been improved;
the operating buttons have been made
more prominent – together with a
yellow surround (as it was found that
some animals were capable of opening
the gates with their tongues!). POGOs
are now used in conjunction with an
MSL system with a link between the two
systems, such that once the MSL has
gone to red, the POGO system will not
respond to a request to open the gates.
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Power supplies
Many level crossings on the GB railway
are located in remote locations with
no convenient power supply, and an
active level crossing will need a power
supply. Even an IP telephone will need a
power supply. Network Rail is therefore
developing renewable power solutions
using off-grid power sources, such as
solar and small wind turbines, together
with methanol fuel cells to provide
continuity of supply when the weather
doesn't supply sufficient power. Several
systems are currently on trial.
Public crossing innovations
Network Rail is also continuing to
improve public road level crossings.
There have been a small number of
incidents over the years, where the
visibility of the barriers has been called
into question, resulting in a need for
improved barrier boom lighting.
New barrier boom lighting is being
produced with the output of the lamps
between 30 and 50 candelas, which
is about 15 times brighter than the
existing lamps, and the size is also being
increased to double that of the original.
Another development, aimed at
deterring weaving around half barrier
crossings by road vehicle drivers, is the
use of a retrofit barrier boom extension.
The red retro reflective extension
narrows the exit width by around half
a metre and makes the boom more
prominent. It is made from lightweight
plastic that doesn’t significantly
change the balance of the boom, and
if someone felt they were trapped on
the crossing could push the extension
out of the way.
>>>
19
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

The prototype extension has been The fundamentals of identifying objects

trialled in some non-operational
environments and has received
positive stakeholder feedback. Six level
crossings at a mix of place types have
been identified on the network that
will provide experience in a range of
different contexts, from straight, fast
roads to busy urban settings.
Obstacle detector operated full barrier
level crossings have been a big success
and Network Rail has been working
with a new supplier, IDS of Italy, to
develop a second generation of obstacle
detection systems.
To improve availability and simplify
the interface with the level crossing
controller, the new system involves
just three inputs and three outputs
and overcomes some component
obsolescence issues with the first
generation system.
The new system uses a radar system to
provide both the train protection and
people protection functions, dispensing
with the need for lidar equipment. Two
systems are currently in operational trial.
Retrofitted boom lighting is another approach
Artificial Intelligence
AI video analytics is being looked at
to support various things, including
automating data for level crossing
census from CCTV images. This has
the potential to reduce the cost of
obtaining census data and could make
it feasible to monitor crossing usage
levels much more regularly than today,
which potentially supports improved risk
management decisions.
within the crossing area is broadly similar
to the crossing clear assist capability,
but comes with the added challenge
of categorising what those objects
are, and that is not as easy as might
be first thought.
Future areas of development could
include a new generation of barrier
machines to improve the reliability and
performance of current systems, and
ways to detect open UWC gates and
to encourage users to close the gates.
Reducing the cost of level crossing
systems also remains a key area of
interest. This could possibly include
standardised interfaces and more use
of PLC based level crossing controllers.
Eliminating whistle boards is another
longer-term requirement.
Work is already under way in Europe to
interface level crossings with connected
and autonomous road vehicles, and this
is an area where technology can further
help to improve level crossing risk
management and level crossing safety.
Jonathan finished by explaining this is
another technology his team are also
looking at to reduce the safety risk of
level crossings.
///

ONE FIBER OPTIC TECHNOLOGY MULTIPLE RAILWAY INSIGHTS

Security Alerts Track Condition Monitoring

We reveal security insights: Empower maintainers to:
Trespass Monitor changing track condition
Digging Identify and treat track issues early
Cable Events Assess maintenance efficacy
Elephant Detection Deliver safe and available track

Flashover Location Landslide & Rockfall Alerts

Increase repair team efficiency
24/7 detection of landslide and rockfall
Reduce time to fault find and repair
Realtime actionable alerts
Reduce missed damage
Locate faults before a train does
Improve system reliability
Keep staff, passengers and freight safe

www.sensonic.com

20
Technology
Fibre and Artificial Intelligence deliver
infrastructure insight
Daniel Pyke
Humans are fantastic at interpreting
the world around us through our
five senses. We use two of these to
sense the vibrating world around us
through sound and touch.
From a high-pitched squeaking door
hinge showing it needs oil, to the
deep rumble of thunder telling us to
seek shelter, we instinctively interpret
noise and vibrations to help us
navigate the world.
Why don’t we listen to
railways?
Part of the challenge is that the railway
is long, sometimes remote, and often
inaccessible. The range of hearing
via the human ear or microphones is
quite limited and we cannot position
staff everywhere, for safety, cost,
and practicality reasons. This means,
historically, that we have been largely
deaf to this potentially rich data source.
Why should we listen
to railways?
Interpreting vibrations permeates our
everyday lives, entering our everyday
language. “That does not sound right”
may be heard when a car or home
appliances start making unusual noises,
which then is often followed by a repair
or replacement. So too an experienced
listener can hear and feel railway issues,
for example, a wheel flat on rolling
stock, a loose fishplate bolt in a length
of track, a bearing fault in a point
machine, or excessive arcing from a
vehicle pantograph.
An expert ear can often find issues
evolving long before they are found
by scheduled measurement or
maintenance activities.
How can we listen to railways?
A technique known as Distributed
Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is well
established securing international
borders and monitoring pipelines. The
technology allows us to extend the
range of vibration detection far beyond
the human ear, using fibre optic cables.
The technology uses standard single
mode fibre optic cables, often already
present as part of signalling or telecoms
infrastructure. The fibre optic cable
itself becomes the sensing element.
Up to 100km of fibre (around 80km
of rail route) can be measured by a
single sensing unit.
The DAS technique works by using an
eye-safe laser in the sensing unit to
Figure 1 – Schematic of distributed acoustic sensing.
Optical Impact sound
fibre
Altered
Backscatter
backscatter
send light pulses along the fibre. The
laser pulses are subjected to various
scattering processes along the glass fibre
due to their interaction with the glass
matrix. A small portion of the laser light
is scattered back towards the sensing
unit. It is this reflected portion of the
light pulse that is measured to derive
information. (Figure 1).
The scattering processes within
the glass fibre are affected by any
strain in the glass fibre such as that
caused by its movement or vibration.
This phenomenon is known as
Rayleigh scattering.
Vibrations of the fibre can be from a
passing train, or even the tiny vibrations
from footsteps nearby. If the propagation
time of the laser pulse is evaluated
together with other parameters of the
backscattered light, this can be used to
find both the location and the frequency
and intensity of the vibration of the fibre.
>>>
Scatter site
Light
pulse
21
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Listening vs understanding
Gathering huge quantities of vibration
data from along the entire length of a
railway is now possible. However, to
make it both useful and usable we must
also apply intelligent data analysis.
Was that noise a landslide? Or was
it a train passing? Is that someone
digging near the track? Or is someone
walking along it? Some fibre sensing
systems deployed in the rail industry
have resulted in excess false alarms.
However, by using train tracking
experience combined with real railway
data and track knowledge, together with
machine learning and AI models it is
now possible to ‘listen’ to railway assets
24/7 and categorise the events that
occur in real time.
Keeping a 'human-in-the-loop’ is
another aspect of optimising total
system performance, where situational
awareness can inform the best course of
action when an alert is received.
Using railway experience together
with the latest AI and machine
learning provides the ability to turn
vast quantities of vibration 'noise' into
actionable information whilst also
minimising false alarms. This delivers a
powerful information resource enabling
railways to make informed and efficient
decisions about safety, operations,
and maintenance.
Real railway examples presented in
this article only cover a portion of the
potential uses that could possibly be
realised in the future.
Figure 2 – A heatmap showing vibration change of an operational railway.
22
Distributed acoustic sensing
A sensing unit typically segments the
fibre into 6.4m sections meaning a
100km fibre run can be considered as
an array of over 15,500 vibration sensors
distributed along the entire fibre/rail
route. Every passing vehicle generates
track and ground vibrations allowing
infrastructure insight to be gleaned
from every train. Other infrastructure
events that generate ground vibrations
can also be detected, providing
continual monitoring combined with
comprehensive spatial coverage
along the route.
What can vibration reveal
about the railway?
There are many established and
potential use cases for vibration sensing
via fibre optic cable. Here I show four
applications that can benefit different
teams across the railway. It should be
noted that the same infrastructure and
sensing technology supports all these
applications, potentially at the same
time, increasing the value that can be
realised from the roll out of a single
unified technology to an often already
existing asset.
Track condition monitoring
A transformational application of
fibre optic sensing technology is in
monitoring the evolving condition
of the railway track asset over time.
This approach opens opportunities
to transition from a ‘find and fix,’
maintenance philosophy to a more
‘predict and prevent’ regime for
infrastructure maintenance teams.
With each passing train generating
vibration data from the asset, changes in
observed vibration patterns correspond
to changes in the rail infrastructure
performance. A digital twin/SonicTwin®
of the railway asset vibrations in use can
be compared to each train as it passes,
so changes in asset performance over
time can be measured and highlighted.
The example plot (Figure 2) shows the
evolving Sonic Track Index (STI) for a
length of track. The STI plot quantifies
a change in vibration energy and over a
defined timescale (days, weeks, months).
In this example a ~25m long section
of track has significantly increased in
vibration level over several weeks. Acting
upon this information the infrastructure
maintainer inspected this length of track
and discovered a cracked rail together
with an alignment fault, requiring
urgent replacement.
Under a standard maintenance regime
this track would have continued
to deteriorate until its next manual
inspection, potentially leading to a
broken rail in service, with obvious
safety implications, as well as larger
maintenance interventions to repair and
realign a longer length of track – if the
alignment issue was allowed to continue
to propagate along the track.
Many, indeed, most types of rail
infrastructure degradation and failure
result in increased vibration energy being
observed. It is sometimes said “quiet
track is healthy track.” Examples of track
issues seen in operational railways due
to increased vibration being measured
are shown in Figure 3.
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Figure 3 – Examples of track defects detected by increasing vibration.

Squat

Broken sleeper/tie Rail crack

Wheel burn

Broken rail/weld Loose bolts/joints Missing fasteners

Landslide and rockfall Figure 4 – Landslides and rockfalls are potentially life-threatening, but detectable, hazards.
A potentially life-saving application of
DAS is in the detection of landslides
and rockfalls. These natural hazards
are an increasing challenge for rail
operations teams as extreme weather
events become more frequent. When a
train meets a large rockfall or landslide,
it rarely ends well. Unlike the previous
application, here we are monitoring for
characteristic ground movements and
vibrations along railway routes in real-
time. Automated alerts, sent in real-time,
allow operations teams to respond to
landslides and rockfalls before a natural
hazard turns into a railway accident.
When a landslide or rockfall occurs,
ground vibrations are generated by the
moving rocks/ground. These vibrations
are detected by DAS and watched in
real-time by machine learning and
AI algorithms. If the characteristic loop’ allows detection rates to be further Security
vibrations of a landslide or rockfall are optimised, to exclude ground vibrations
Security is a wide-ranging topic meaning
seen, the system generates and sends triggered by known or planned events
different things to different people and
an urgent alert to the railway operations such as track maintenance activities,
four different security applications are
teams together with a precise location. e.g. tamping, or local construction work
highlighted here.
This enables the operations team to such as piling.
act, avoiding loss of life and damage Railways are regarded as critical
Alerts generated by this natural hazard
to infrastructure, rolling stock, and infrastructure by most governments,
monitoring system have already
the environment. and as such their continued reliable
prevented several railway accidents
To supply the highest levels of accuracy and continue to provide protection operation is vital to many worldwide
in addition to using algorithms and for railways in mountainous and economies. Threats to operation come
AI to classify vibration measurements challenging environments. Examples of in multiple forms including casual or
as a potential landslide/rockfall, alerts rockfalls and landslides from operational accidental trespass/intrusion, vandalism,
are verified by the railway operations railways together with the vibration petty theft, organised crime, terrorism,
team, who then initiate the appropriate data recorded and automated alarms and even up to the level of state
response. Keeping this ‘human-in-the- generated are shown in Figure 5. sponsored sabotage. The railway can
>>>
23
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Figure 5 – Examples of detected rockfalls/landslides, shown together with the automated
alarms generated.
be challenging to keep secure due to its
long, linear, nature and often isolated
or remote assets.
DAS can detect extremely small ground
vibrations and is sensitive enough to
detect the vibrations from human or
indeed animal footsteps.
As fibre optic cables are typically laid
underground or in ducts/troughs next
to the railway track, the covert and
comprehensive geographical coverage
this delivers enables security information
to be gathered across whole rail routes
rapidly. This can be particularly important
in remote and difficult-to-access areas,
where traditional security measures such
as patrols or cameras may be ineffective
or impractical.
Security applications can be both
reactive – responding to current and
evolving situations – as well as being
used pro-actively to measure trends,
assess the effectiveness of different
security strategies, or to gather
data to support planning and future
budget allocations.
Trespass
The use of DAS for listening for trespass
activity along vast lengths of critical
infrastructure is already well proven in
other industry sectors, such as the oil
and gas industry for pipeline protection
and the security sector for international
border protection. The application of the
technology to the railway brings similar
security benefits as well as potential
safety improvement applications in cases
where teams may be maintaining track
in remote areas.
As the fibre optic cables used as the
vibration sensing element are typically
found underground, they are both covert
and difficult if not impossible to avoid.
24
When trespassers' footsteps are
detected, security alerts are generated
automatically in real-time. These
notifications are sent to the rail
operations teams, delivering the alert
type together with accurate location
information so they can initiate an
appropriate response.
Security intrusion data is also recorded
and is available historically for analysis to
allow improved security planning and to
assess the effectiveness of preventative
security measures implemented, e.g.
fences, patrols or CCTV.
The variety of trespass threat is large,
and so risk profiles together with local
knowledge can be used to customise
the levels of activity needed to generate
an alert. Whilst a casual trespasser
taking a short cut across the track
may typically only endanger their own
life, someone accessing the tracks to
tamper with or sabotage them is a very
Figure 6 – Video image from security application demonstration. Inset bottom shows the
recorded vibration created by the footsteps, and the inset top shows geolocated location.
real risk. A recent example was when
two fibre cables were cut stopping rail
traffic across much of Germany, with
the effects and delays spanning many
international rail services.
Figure 6 shows a demonstration of
the security application in use on an
operational railway. The highlighted
alarms are automatically triggered when
a person is detected walking along the
track. An exact geolocation of alarms is
available in real-time to the operations
teams so they can direct a suitable
response. The lower inset graph shows
the data that has generated the alarm.
On the x-axis is distance along the track.
The y-axis shows time with newest
data at the top. Bright colours show
higher vibration intensity. The individual
footsteps and direction of travel are
clearly resolvable in the data stream as
the trespasser walks alongside the track.
Digging
Digging activities near or on the rail
infrastructure are also a key security
concern. Most commonly digging
activities are related to theft of cables,
but they can endanger rail operations in
other ways too, accidentally damaging
cables, earthworks, drainage, or other
track structures.
Figure 7 shows data from an operational
railway, (the green bands are trains in
motion). Digging activity was noted at
the highlighted location, continuing for
quite some time before the cable was
eventually reached and damaged.
Unlike many measuring systems,
because the light pulses are introduced
and the reflected light is measured at
the same end of the fibre optic cable,
the system continues to run and record
data up until the location that the
cable was damaged.
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Figure 7 – Example of digging damage on an operational railway in India.

Cable break
Time

Ongoing digging work

Detection of digging

Distance

This proves extremely useful for finding Figure 8 – Cable event demonstration.
the exact location of the cable/digging
damage and provides some capabilities
during degraded operating conditions.
The green part top/right is absent data
due to the cable damage.

Cable events
Whilst we have clearly seen where
digging has damaged cables in the
earlier example, different routes use
different cable management techniques,
potentially leading to cables being more
vulnerable to theft or even tampering.
Figure 8 shows a video still from a
demonstration, as cables are touched/
moved these generate vibration energy
in the monitored fibre optic cable
inside the cable trough, which can be
clearly seen in the inset graph. This
provides the ability to monitor for cable
disturbance delivering improved visibility
of security threats.

Animal intrusion
In an analogous way to detecting
trespassers footsteps, the movement
of large animals can also be detected
and monitored to alert rail operations
teams when required. Herds of animals
such as cows that may wander on
to the track can pose significant risk
to rail operations, particularly higher
speed passenger services, which can
be seriously damaged or even derailed
when they are encountered. Large
animals such as elephants also pose a
significant risk to rail traffic operations in
some regions due to their size, as well
as the risk of reputational damage from
harming iconic and endangered species.
In an equivalent way to the trespass
example earlier, wandering animals can
be detected and alerts issued to local
operations staff who can then initiate the
appropriate actions.
Catenary flashover location
Whilst the applications discussed thus
far have focused on items interacting
directly with the ground generating
ground vibrations, significant energy
events above the ground, such
as an electrical flashover of the
overhead catenary, can also induce
ground vibrations.
The loud noise of a catenary flashover
event is detectable by fibre optic
sensing allowing the exact fault
location to be quickly determined for
inspection and repair.
Overhead electrification sections may
be many hundreds of metres in length
with hundreds of components to
visually inspect for damage following a
flashover. The ability to pinpoint the fault
location to +/-10m rather than the many
hundreds of metres accuracy level of
traditional fault indication systems allows
accelerated inspections and repairs for
incidents with less risk to staff, and a
faster recovery of operational status.
Implementation
Fibre optic cables are robust, have a long
life, are immune from Electro-Magnetic
Compatibility (EMC) issues, and are
commonly used in railway signalling
and telecoms. They are a known mature
technology with both experience and
familiarity with trackside implementation
in the rail sector. One single unused
(dark) fibre in a cable bundle is all that is
required to gather vibration data along
its length. This means often no new
wayside equipment is needed if a spare
fibre is already present within a bundle.
>>>
25
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Figure 9 – Left, a fallen tree has led to four flashovers of the overhead catenary.
Right, the vibration energy accurately identifies the exact location of the fault.
A sensing unit can gather data from
up to 100km of fibre (~80km of track)
meaning there are few if any locations
out of reach of this measurement
technology. With the ability to turn
100km of fibre into over 15,500
vibration sensors along the railway, rapid
coverage of whole route infrastructure
information and performance can
rapidly be provided.
The Sensonic sensing unit is of a
standard 19-inch rack-mounted
design which can fit in existing or new
enclosures as appropriate. The unit also
has redundant power supplies for high
reliability levels and requires no specialist
maintenance in use.
To complete an installation, all that
is needed in addition to the fibre
connection is a simple power and
internet connection. Once connected
to power, internet, and fibre, the ability
to gather and start interpreting track
vibration data is activated.
Due to the enormous quantities of data
gathered and interpreted, up to 8Tb/
day/sensor, cloud data processing is the
preferred installation solution to enable
rapid scaling. However, alternative
offline local data hub solutions are
also available.
As algorithms and AI evolve, the ability
to remotely upgrade the detection
and monitoring analysis with the latest
updates and to expand functionality
with new use cases ensures railways
can be kept up to date with the
latest developments.
26
This simplicity of roll-out with both rapid
installation and scalability allows railways
to monitor and protect large lengths
of track, entire routes, and potentially
complete rail networks without needing
to install forests of wayside sensors and
supporting equipment.
Conclusion
DAS is a technology which supplies
multiple insights to different railway
disciplines from the same sensor source.
It uses standard fibre optic cables
running alongside the operational
railway turning them into a series of
sensitive vibration sensors. The use of a
standard, often pre-existing, fibre optic
cable as the sensing element lowers
barriers to adoption enabling rapid roll
out, as this is both a mature technology
and already often an essential part of
modern railway infrastructure.
The ability to combine a previously
untapped rich data source, together
with advanced artificial intelligence and
machine learning enables delivery of
improved rail infrastructure information.
Improved infrastructure insights are
an enabler of improved safety and
efficiency gains for the railway.
The railway applications
discussed include:
• Track condition monitoring.
• Landslide and rockfall alerts.
• Security alerts for: Trespass, digging,
cable events and animal intrusion.
• Catenary flashover location.
The use of distributed acoustic sensing
allows multiple disciplines of the
railway to listen intelligently to their
infrastructure assets, enabling them to
make better decisions.
///
About the author
Daniel Pyke is a Chartered Materials
Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute
of Materials, Minerals and Mining with
17 years of railway experience. He is
currently marketing lead at Sensonic,
a spin-out company from Frauscher
Sensor Technology. Sensonic pioneers
the use of AI-enabled DAS technology
to bring improved infrastructure
insights to global railways.
With experience in steel and materials
science, product development,
metallurgy, rail manufacturing, and
quality assurance and certification,
Daniel has worked from end to
end of the rail life cycle, from
manufacturing new steel rails, through
to characterising the remaining life
of well-established rail networks
and determining the cause of
failed components.
Daniel has a passion for educating
people about rail and he has produced
many railway articles to teach the next
generation of engineers.
More on this topic
Look out for an article on the Indian
railway's experience of detecting large
animals near the railway in the June
issue of IRSE News.
What do you think?
Are we quick enough to pick up
new technologies and use them to
the benefit of railway stakeholders?
Or perhaps you have experience
of using fibre detection to
improve your railway.
We'd love to hear from you, email
editor@irsenews.org
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

CONVENTION
TORONTO 2024
platinum sponsors

Toronto, Canada
26-30 August 2024
Join us in Toronto for a week-long programme of presentations and technical
visits including: Thales Rail Signalling facility, Metrolinx Crosstown LRT line,
Toronto Transit Commission CBTC system, Hillcrest OCC, Leslie Barns depot
and the Go Transit Willowbrook rail maintenance facility.

Delegates can book their partners onto the non-technical Guest Programme.
This offers a range of tourist activities in the local area including:
30,000 Island Lake Cruise, Black Creek Pioneer Village, Casa Loma
and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Limited spaces are available for an optional visit to Niagara Falls.

Delegates and guests will be invited to attend networking events in the

evenings which will include a dinner cruise on Lake Ontario, a visit to the
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With special thanks to our partners for hosting events.

Further details at: irsetoronto2024.info

27
Telecommunications
Adoption of the Future Railway Mobile
Communication System (FRMCS)
Shiv Mohan
Whilst GSM-R has been a disruptor for many
railways around the world, continuously increasing
requirements, obsolescence of 2G GSM architecture,
and changing technology will require railways to
adopt a new mobile communication system known
as the Future Railway Mobile Communication
System (FRMCS).
FRMCS is based on 5G and will support reliable and low-
latency mission-critical communications. Its main goal is to
provide high capacity, performance, reliability and optimised
cost of operation.
Development of the new rail radio system is being led by the
International Union of Railways (UIC), in cooperation with
key organisations such as the European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI), 3rd Generation Partnership Project
(3GPP), European Union Agency for Railways (ERA), UNIFE
(The European Rail Supply Industry Association), and the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Advantages
There are several advantages to the adoption of FRMCS. These
are wide ranging and include:
28
• Support massive and critical machine-type communication
and the Internet of Things (IoT).
• Create more intelligent and improved, data-driven
railway systems.
• Important step towards a full digitalisation of rail transport
increasing operational safety, performance, and efficiency.
• Supports a wireless railway world, leveraging cloud, IoT and
AI technologies.
• Decreases cost of ownership and obsolescence.
• Supports decarbonisation with smaller, lighter, and energy-
sustainable solution.
• High redundancy design with 99.99 per cent reliability,
meeting the security and reliability requirements of
railway services.
• MIMO (Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output) technology
and high-power terminal design extensively boosts
network coverage.
• Existing site infrastructure is mainly used thus
reducing capital cost.
• LTE (Long Term Evolution broadband) technology is used to
support up to 100Mbps data transmission, enriching railway
applications, such as intelligent management, intrusion
detection, precise positioning, and status monitoring.
Image Shutterstock/TierneyMJ.
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Challenges References and further reading

Despite all the above advantages, FRMCS technology is
still taking shape, so the railway industry is going to face
several challenges.
• Without a robust plan of migration to FRMCS, investment
is required to obtain continued support for the fast-
approaching GSM-R end-of-life support of 2030.
• Whilst 5G Technology is available commercially, the
technical specifications for FRMCS are still evolving. V1
of the functional and system requirement specification
was just published in June 2023 and Version 2 is
expected in Q2 of 2024.
• CCS TSI 2025 (Command, Control and Signalling
Technical Specification for Interoperability 2025) will
likely mandate FRMCS for ETCS, requiring all networks to
migrate to FRMCS.
• Development of technical competency and expertise to
meet the timeline demand.
• Supply chain readiness in terms of suppliers, integrators,
consultants, and contractors.
• Co-existence of FRMCS alongside GSM-R during the
migration to support the overlay approach. Will a single
user interface work?
• Deployment model for the cloud-based 5G network
between railway and non-railway providers.
• Dependency on a modernised IP- MPLS-based
transmission network
• Dynamic 5G transport slicing can be accomplished
with an end-to-end network slice orchestrator, but it
requires the transport network to interconnect with the
cloud gracefully.
• Financial readiness of different networks for fast adoption.
• Migration strategy to ensure that both onboard and
trackside equipment can be migrated without major
operational impacts.
While the railway industry is still getting ready to adopt FRMCS
and suppliers of GSM-R are confirming support until 2030,
time is ticking fast to get FRMCS commercially available before
GSM-R obsolescence starts to become a problem for railway
networks around the world.
Due to the many challenges, it is critical that the different
railway owners, suppliers, OEMs, integrators, and
consultants come together and meet the challenges with a
collaborative approach.
• Migrating from GSM-R to FRMCS in Great Britain by
Sam Daw, David Grace, and David Taylor, IRSE News 303,
October 2023. irse.info/irsenews303
• UIC website, irse.info/liq6v
And supplier websites including:
• Alstom website, irse.info/ukm5n
• Huawei website, irse.info/cdbkh
• Nokia website, irse.info/lhi0d
• Siemens website, irse.info/e08fw
• Thales website, irse.info/nbgve ///
What do you think?
Is FRMCS a real game-changer, using 5G communications
to unlock a vast array of digitalisation opportunities on the
railway, or just 'another fad'?
Let us know what you think, email editor@irsenews.org
Read more about FRMCS
at the UIC website.
irse.info/liq6v
About the author
Shiv Mohan CEng (UK), MBA, PMP, FIRSE is the Dubai tram
maintenance director at Alstom, leading the maintenance
joint venture (AEC-ALSTOM Engie Cofely) for the delivery
of the first tram project in the Middle East. He has over 20
plus years of experience in the railway industry, including
metros, main line railway, automated people movers, tram,
and monorail systems.
Shiv has a PMP certificate and an MBA in International/
Global Studies, along with experience in CBTC, software
assurance, and project planning. He is passionate about
innovation, diversity and inclusion, and social media
engagement in the railway sector.

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29
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Industry news
For more news visit irse.info/news.
Main line, freight and
suburban railways
East Coast Digital Programme
major milestone
UK: The East Coast Digital Programme
(ECDP) has successfully commissioned
ETCS between Welwyn Garden City
and Hitchin between Saturday 17 and
Tuesday 20 February. Later this year,
the first overnight test trains will be
operated, in preparation for the first
digitally signalled trains on the main line
to run from 2025.
In the first stage of the ECDP, digitally
signalled Great Northern passenger
trains have been operating since
November 2023 on the Northern
City Line between Finsbury Park and
Moorgate. Traditional signals are being
kept at the side of the track until all
drivers are trained and the old system
can be switched off.
Currently, a quarter of all the trains
operating between these stations are
using the ETCS system, with this number
increasing as more drivers are trained
on the system. It is expected that the
Northern City Line will be a ‘no signals’
railway from early 2025.
Feltham and Wokingham
resignalling progress
UK: In February AtkinsRéalis and
Resonate commissioned the final
phase of the Feltham and Wokingham
resignalling programme (Phase 5), which
has been underway for the last five years.
During the programme AtkinsRéalis has
used its Advanced Signalling Method
(ASM) and gained full Network Rail
product acceptance.
Resonate supplied the signaller
workstations and automatic route
setting system in Basingstoke Rail
Operating Centre (ROC).
30
The Phase 5 supply chain included
Global Rail Construction Limited part of
the RSK Group, Unipart Rail, MPI Limited,
Cleshar, Alstom, CHG, Morsons, and
Sunbelt Rentals.
The Feltham and Wokingham area is
a key rail network which feeds into
London Waterloo station, and for
many years was operating using legacy
signalling equipment and out-of-date
technology, impacting reliability and
performance. The £160m (€187m,
$203m) multi‑year programme has
re‑signalled and upgraded the whole
area with new digital signalling systems.
A video of the programme can be seen
at irse.info/6i5q0
Wigan to Southport level
crossing renewals
UK: VolkerRail and Siemens have
upgraded three level crossings, during
a nine-day blockade in February on
the Wigan to Southport line, at Pool
Hey (Automatic Half Barrier), Wyke
Cop (Automatic Half Barrier) and
Chapel Lane (Manual Crossing Gate).
All three crossings were renewed
and upgraded to full barrier obstacle
detection operation.
VolkerRail were the main signalling
and principal contractor, with Siemens
Mobility supplying the Trackguard
Westrace controller and object
controller interface, together with
Controlguide Westronic 1024 TDM at
Burscough and Parbold signal boxes.
The 'local' set up and testing of the level
crossing equipment was carried out by
VolkerRail with Siemens support.
Polish maintenance agreement
Poland: Alstom has signed a two-year
contract until the end of 2025, with
railway infrastructure manager PKP
Polskie Linie Kolejowe. The contract
is for post-warranty maintenance of
railway traffic control devices and
computer systems produced by Alstom.
This includes railway traffic control
systems, track vacancy system, and
power supplies. The agreement will
provide service support for 328 facilities
in 17 locations throughout Poland. The
scope of services includes maintaining
a modern reporting system, carrying
out periodic inspections, and ongoing
repairs, spare parts management,
reporting and training.
Belgian level crossing
improvements
Belgium: Rail infrastructure manager
Infrabel has announced an action plan
to enhance safety and punctuality.
The initiative is in response to a rise
in incidents at level crossings and an
increase in cumulative delays.
According to Infrabel data, while the
number of accidents at level crossings
slightly decreased last year, the impact
on rail traffic increased. Incidents such
as road vehicle intrusions and incidents
at crossings resulted in 12.5 hours of
cumulative daily delays, double the
figure recorded in 2021.
There were 31 level crossing incidents
in 2023, resulting in six fatalities and five
injuries. While this is a slight decrease
from the previous year, it remains
significant. The majority occurred due to
violations of traffic signals, particularly
during adverse weather conditions in
November and December.
Infrabel’s plans extend beyond
infrastructure improvements, and
includes education and outreach
programmes targeting road users’
behaviour. The company emphasises
the importance of respecting traffic laws
and exercising caution, especially in
hazardous conditions.
The action plan adopts a
multidisciplinary approach, focusing
on prevention, enforcement, and swift
resolution of incidents. Collaboration
with law enforcement, emergency

services, and other stakeholders
is integral to the plan’s success.
Additionally, public engagement and
awareness campaigns will play a crucial
role in promoting adherence to safety
protocols. Key measures introduced
under the plan include the introduction
of the emergency hotline number 1711,
to enable faster response to incidents.
Another measure is the continued
installation of new LED lights on barriers
to enhance visibility of level crossings.
At present, 20 are equipped with the
LEDs, and analysis by the Vias Institute
shows there is a positive trend and an
improvement in behaviour. The aim is
to equip a further 176 level crossings
over the next 10 years (including 20 this
year), targeting locations where there are
frequent instances of barriers being torn
down, and those located on busy roads.
Infrabel’s long-term strategy includes the
gradual elimination of level crossings,
with 12 crossings removed in 2023. The
company aims to prioritise locations for
removal based on risk and environmental
considerations, collaborating closely
with local authorities.
TEN-T guidelines for ERTMS
Europe: EFRA has welcomed the new
guidelines for ERTMS, ahead of the
European Parliamentary elections, but
say that more attention is required on
certain points.
On 14 February 2024, the European
Parliament’s Transport and Tourism
Committee adopted the revision of the
TEN-T Guidelines. This now allows for
adoption by the European Parliament
Plenary before the European Parliament
elections and the likely approval by EU
ministers and formal adoption.
ERFA (European Rail Freight Association)
says it welcomes that an agreement
has been reached; further attention
will be needed on certain points. ERFA
strongly welcomes the introduction
of clear infrastructure parameters for
freight trains, namely that infrastructure
should allow for 740-metre trains with
an axle load of 22.5 tonnes. Given that
over 50 per cent of rail freight crosses at
least one national border, they say it is
essential there is a European approach
to infrastructure Standards and that
exemptions are granted so to preserve
interoperability of the rail network.
They also believe that the introduction
of Operational Priorities within the
Regulation is a positive development.
The agreed text proposes that dwelling
times at borders do not exceed 25
minutes on average and that at least
75 per cent of the freight trains crossing
at least one border along a European
Transport Corridor arrive at their
destination on time or with a delay
of less than 30 minutes. This should
ensure a level of quality control over
infrastructure management.
There are concerns regarding the agreed
texts provisions on ERTMS deployment
and a lack of a strategy for on-board
ERTMS deployment. ERFA say the agreed
text only refers to trackside deployment.
The Regulation’s objective of achieving
a successful transition to ERTMS, and
a smooth decommissioning of class-B
systems, will only be possible for the rail
freight sector if there is a coherent and
business friendly strategy for on-board
ERTMS deployment and financing.
City and urban railways
Madrid Metro Lines 6 and 8
Spain: Ms Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the
president of the Madrid regional
government, has announced Madrid
Metro’s new strategic plan will include
the introduction of Automatic Train
Operation (ATO) on Lines 6 and 8.
She said that ATO is planned to enable
the headways to be cut to 2 minutes
with energy savings through better
uniform rates of acceleration and
braking, increasing operational flexibility
and cutting journey times. ATO will
enable five times the number of services
to be operated on Line 6 and the metro
will be able to bring trains into service
quicker to respond to peaks in demand,
cutting waiting times for passengers and
increasing the number of passengers
carried per hour.
The first line to be converted to ATO
will be the 23km circular Line 6 that
serves 28 stations. It is the busiest on
the Madrid Metro network and carried
110 million passengers in 2023, an
average of 618,000 every working day.
Following its introduction on Line
6, ATO will also be installed on Line
8 that runs from Nuevos Ministerios
in the city centre to Barajas Airport.
Alongside major infrastructure projects,
Madrid Metro is also undertaking the
largest fleet renewal programme in the
company’s history, with 80 new trains to
be delivered between 2026 and 2029.
Half of the new fleet will be small-profile
to run on Line 1, the rest will be built
to Madrid Metro’s large-profile loading
gauge for Lines 6, 8 and 11. They will
also include passive provision for ATO.
London's Elizabeth line’s 300m
journeys since opening
UK: More than 300 million journeys
have been made on the Elizabeth line in
London since it opened two years ago.
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
London Transport commissioner
Andy Lord said in February that this is
a “staggering achievement”, with up
to 4.7m journeys a week being made
on the £20bn (€23bn, $25bn) line. “On
December 14, demand reached 770,000
journeys on a single day, and there
were 4.7 million journeys made in that
same week. An estimated 38 per cent of
passengers using the Elizabeth line are
‘new’ – having previously not used rail.
Work is continuing to improve reliability
on the line, in particular on Network
Rail tracks west of Paddington where
there have been ongoing issues. On
7 December 2023 customers on four
Elizabeth line trains were stranded for
hours in the cold and dark, when power
lines came down outside Paddington.
The line, which extends from Reading
and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield
and Abbey Wood in the east, also
suffered a major failure on 22 January
due to a train fault at Farringdon.
Upgrades to the on-board computer
software have been completed, while
improvements to the line’s signalling
system should be finished by June.
When the first section of the line
opened in May 2022 it was £4 billion
over budget and three-and-a-half years
late. However, Transport for London is
now investigating whether to retro-fit
‘busyness indicators’ to train carriages
– similar to those on Thameslink trains
– to help passengers find a seat as the
line is so busy.
Delhi Metro Phase-4 Operation
Control Centre (OCC)
India: Delhi Metro commissioned
its new Operation Control Centre
(OCC) in February ready for its
Phase-4 Project. The OCC integrates
the entire control and command of
operations at one location at the Metro
Bhawan Delhi Metro Rail Corporation
(DMRC) headquarters.
The OCC provides remote visibility
of the entire metro system, including
rolling stock, stations, signals, tracks,
along with concourse and platform level
monitoring. The entire train operation
of DMRC, which includes a total
415km of track, 388 trains, 301 stations
and 40 interchange stations, will be
controlled from one building.
Commissioned on the third floor of
Metro Bhawan, the OCC will manage
the Red Line (Line-1: Rithala to
Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda) and the
Yellow Line (Line-2: SamaypurBadli
to Millennium City Centre Gurugram)
of the existing network. It will also
oversee train movement on the
31
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
upcoming corridors/lines of Phase 4,
namely Delhi Aerocity to Tughlakabad,
Rithala – Bawana-Narela-Kundli, Lajpat
Nagar-Saket G Block.
Previously the OCC for the Red and
Yellow Lines was operating from Shastri
Park Metro station and OCCs for other
operational lines were operating from
4th and 6th floor of Metro Bhawan. The
main objective of the new integrated
OCC at Metro Bhawan is to ensure
centralised monitoring and controlling
in the event of disruption or failures in
the metro system.
The OCC is manned by the chief
controller, traffic controllers, traction
power controllers, signalling controllers,
and auxiliary system controllers, who
manage and supervise the OCC 24 hours
a day, 7 days a week.
Montreal metro Blue Line CBTC
Canada: Montreal Transport - Société
de transport de Montréal (STM) has
awarded a CAD217m (£126m, €148m,
$160m) contract to Thales Ground
Transportation Systems Canada to
install and maintain CBTC on the metro
Blue Line, including a 6km extension
where early construction is underway.
The project is financed primarily by
the government of Quebec with some
support from STM. STM says installing
CBTC on the existing 9.7km Blue Line
as well as the extension is necessary as
the existing track-circuit-based system,
is obsolete and could not be used
on the extension.
The extension project will add five new
stations to the Blue Line, running east
from the existing terminus of Saint-
Michel to Anjou. The Blue Line project
office is currently evaluating bids for the
contract to construct tunnels and some
of the stations. The preferred bidder
is due to be announced this summer,
with completion in 2030 and the line is
expected to increase capacity by 15,000
passengers per day.
Research, development,
innovation and universities
University of Birmingham
Japan Railway East partnership
UK/Japan: The University of Birmingham
is joining forces with East Japan Railway
Company (Japan Railway East) to create
innovative rail technology and new ways
of working for Japan’s railways.
University of Birmingham provost
professor Stephen Jarvis and Japan
Railway East senior executive officer,
Shunzo Miyake signed a memorandum
of understanding at a special ceremony
at the University’s UK campus.
32
Japan Railway East experts will join
their counterparts in the Rail Innovation
Cluster at the Birmingham Centre for
Railway Research and Education (BCRRE)
– working with start-up companies in
the UK and Europe, and conducting
demonstration experiments in various
technical areas.
BCRRE is one of the largest railway
research and education institutions in
Europe, located within the University of
Birmingham. It is a leading partner of
the UK Railway Research and Innovation
Network (UKRRIN), which works with
the rail industry in the UK to deliver
world-class research, education, and
innovation to the world.
The Rail Innovation Cluster encourages
startup companies in the UK and
Europe to innovate in the railway
field – fostering innovation in
railway technology by leveraging the
University of Birmingham’s research
and development capabilities and
providing support through BCRRE’s
international network.
The partnership will also establish an
innovation hub at Takanawa Gateway
City, which opens to the public later this
year. There will also be an educational
programme for railway personnel and
joint research into railway-related fields,
such as digital transformation and
decarbonisation.
Companies
AtkinsRéalis achieve EDI
Platinum Standard
UK: AtkinsRéalis has become the first UK
engineering sector company to achieve
the Clear Assured Platinum Standard
accreditation for Equality, Diversity, and
Inclusion (ED&I).
Assessed by the Clear Company,
the ED&I accreditation is awarded
to organisations who promote ED&I
in every aspect of their operational
performance and have leaders who
pro-actively challenge everyone,
including themselves, to be
more inclusive.
With 450 organisations in the Clear
Assured community, around 280 of
which have been assessed, AtkinsRéalis
is one of three to achieve the Platinum
Standard, after receiving Gold in 2021.
The Platinum accreditation was
awarded based on AtkinsRéalis’
progress and impact with ED&I, and the
assessment identified:
Allyship: AtkinsRéalis has invested
significant resources in supporting
and educating employees about what
it means to be an ally (i.e. supporting
under-represented groups), how
to have difficult conversations, and
how to coach people to feel more
engaged and empowered.
Industry impact: They have made an
external ED&I impact by increasing
awareness of inclusive design, fostering
diversity of thought in the industry, and
pro-actively considering the needs of
future generations.
Inclusive recruitment: With committed
inclusive recruitment practices, resulting
in more diversity of talent and internal
progression, full employee recruitment
audits have been completed, leading
to role interviews better balancing
behaviour and competency assessments,
and the upskilling of hiring managers for
inclusive recruitment delivery.
Inclusive policies and procedures:
Substantial changes have been made to
policies to align with an evolving culture.
Employee-led policy revisions have
addressed issues such as flexible bank
holidays, faith differences, family leave,
and maternity pay, which improved
talent attraction and retention.
Siemens Mobility new factory
in Chippenham
UK: Siemens is to replace its current
rail infrastructure site in Chippenham,
Wiltshire with a new manufacturing,
engineering and R&D facility. The new
factory is expected to be operational
by 2026 and all 800 manufacturing,
research, engineering, and support staff
will move to the new site. Siemens say
the move will not cause any interruption
to its production.
The factory is being constructed for
highly efficient production and the
offices designed to provide a modern,
welcoming work environment to
enable collaboration and innovation.
The interior will provide many open
collaboration and meeting spaces,
better facilities, relaxation areas and
improved technology. The site, designed
to blend in with its surroundings, will
also undergo an ecological assessment
aiming for a 10 per cent net increase
in biodiversity through the planting
of native plants and the creation of
wildlife habitats.
Chippenham, the UK's largest dedicated
signalling and control facility is a hub
for designing, manufacturing, and
delivering signalling and control systems.
It was established by Evans O’Donnell
in 1897 and has undergone various
transitions, including being acquired
by the Westinghouse Brake & Signal
Company, before becoming part of
Siemens in 2013.
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

News from the IRSE

Blane Judd, Chief Executive

Excellent turnout for

Module A exam
We’re delighted to announce that 160
candidates sat the Certificate in Railway
Control Engineering Fundamentals
(Module A) on Saturday 23 March.
Thank you to the question setters, the
moderation panel, and of course the
staff team who covered the help desk
on that day. It was a very successful
event, and the results will be issued to
candidates as soon as possible. The next
exam day for all modules is Saturday 5
October and booking will open in the
next few weeks. While Module A is open
to all, those wishing to take Modules B,
C or D can only do so if they are already
an IRSE member. For more information,
please visit irse.info/irseexam
Seminar on Artificial
Intelligence in railways
A full-day IRSE seminar about Artificial
Intelligence (AI) will take place on
Friday 14 June at the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in
London. Looking beyond the hype
to real-world examples of AI used
in a railway setting, this seminar will
hear from industry experts including
academics, specialists, and government
advisors. With excellent networking and
sponsorship opportunities, the seminar
also counts towards your CPD. For more
information, see the advert on p33 of
this magazine, or visit irse.info/mpjgu
IRSE International Convention,
Toronto 2024
Places are still available for the IRSE
International Convention, which takes
place from 26-30 August in Toronto,
Canada. Younger Members who have
applied for a Hewlett-Fisher bursary
will hear about the outcome of their
application this month. We are able
to offer these bursaries because of
the generosity of Frank Hewlett, a
past member who made a bequest to
the IRSE in his will, and from a fund
established in honour of Alan Fisher,
a past President who died in February
2009. The full programme of events
is now available on the convention
webpage, irsetoronto2024.info
The visit of Agung Sarmawan MIRSE of the Indonesian Section on 6 March.
From left to right, Colin Porter, Polly Whyte, Rod Muttram, Agung Sarmawan,
Judith Ward and Monique Shockness.
Annual General Meeting
The IRSE’s Annual General Meeting
took place on 25 April at the Transport
for London offices, Endeavour Square,
London, UK, when among other
business the presidency of the IRSE
transferred from Steve Boshier to Jane
Power. For those who were not able to
attend in person or watch the livestream,
the session can now be viewed on
demand using our Vimeo service. For
more details about what took place,
please visit irse.info/agm. All new
Council members will be announced in
the June issue of IRSE News.
Indonesian Section office visit
On Wednesday, 6 March, we were
delighted to welcome Agung
Sarmawan MIRSE, chair of the IRSE
Indonesian Section, to the Global
Office in London. Discussions included
competence, training, benefits of
membership and licensing.
Successful audit of
Licensing Scheme
On 14 February, we successfully
completed an internal audit of the
Licensing Scheme. This was followed
by an excellent UKAS audit, which
took place on 3-4 April. UKAS is the
National Accreditation Body for the
United Kingdom. It is appointed by the
government to assess and accredit
organisations that provide services
including certification, testing, inspection
and calibration.
The result of the internal audit was
positive, with only two minor mandatory
actions. This left the team in a good
position to ensure that everything
was in place ready for the UKAS audit
visit. The scheme continues to run
efficiently thanks to the hard work of
the Licensing team in the Global Office
supported by the great work of the
Licensing Committee and its various
sub committees.
Official engagements
Chief executive of the IRSE, Blane Judd
has represented the Institution at several
key industry events. In April, he attended
the Rail Forum annual parliamentary
reception in London, hosted by
Pauline Latham OBE MP and the Rail
Forum Board. Also in attendance were
Rail Minister Huw Merriman MP, Shadow
Rail Minister Stephen Morgan MP and
Andrew Haines, CEO of Network Rail.
Blane also attended the IMechE
railway division lunch in March along
with Jane Power.

34
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Professional development
Results of the 2023 exam
We are pleased to announce the results of those who
sat professional exam modules on 7 October 2023 and
to congratulate all those listed, especially those who
have now achieved their IRSE Advanced Diploma in
Railway Control Engineering.
Thank you to everyone who has supported our candidates
throughout their studies by organising study groups and
workshops in-person and online, presenting to the Younger
Members and running the exam forum.
Thanks also to the examiners for the considerable amount of
time involved in setting, reviewing, marking, and moderating
the papers. And finally, thanks also to the volunteers and staff
who answered phone and email queries on exam day, from
05:00 UTC to 22:00 UTC, covering all time zones.
Without all these volunteers and staff, the IRSE professional
exam would not be the success it is.
The successful candidates for each module Module A (MA) to
Module D (MD) are identified in the tables below. In each case
‘P’ indicates a pass, ‘C’ a credit and ‘D’ a distinction.

Advanced Diploma in Railway Control Engineering results

The table below details the candidates who have now completed their exam journey by passing a total of four modules
(see irse.info/exam) and gaining their Advanced Diploma in Railway Control Engineering (the new name for the IRSE
professional exam).

Name MA MB MC MD Name MA MB MC MD
Narayanamma Bandi C Tsz Ki Lee P
Arjun Chauhan P Kin Cheong Li C
Tsz Hei Cheung P Samuel Loveless P P
Alex Daley P C P Daniel Stuart Oakes P
Kay Leng Desmond Khoo P P P Henry Pang C
Dominic Fleming P Devavrat (Dev) Shanbhag P
Dominic Hawes P P P Uday Singh P P
Hongyang He P Sean Tarpey P
Jennifer Kirk D P Rohit Yadav P P P
Jason Lau C Hau Chung Yip C C P
Ben Lauezzari P P

Other passes in modules

The table below shows those who have successfully passed modules in October 2023 but have not yet achieved sufficient
passes to complete the exam. Candidates will be able to compete their exam journey by passing a combination of modules,
see irse.info/exam

Name MA MB MC MD Name MA MB MC MD
Abdulla P Mohd Shafiq Bin MD Yusuf P
Diksha Achari C Marcus Bornstein P
David Adedeji P Matthew Bowman P
Mohammadsina Aeeneh C Johnathan Boyd D
Parisa Afshar P Adrian Bradley P
Aditya Ajaykumar P Gareth Bridle C
William Allen C Philip Brown C
Hamza Al-Sebai C Ewan Burns C
Mosaid Alshareef P Scott Cadzow C
Patrick Appelqvist C David Cargill D
Benjamin Avis P Satrajit Chakraborty C
Daniel Battley C Chin Ho Chan C
Ahasan Bhuiyan D Siu Lun Chau P
Ahmad Faris Bin Ismail P Saloni Chaudhary C

35
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Name MA MB MC MD Name MA MB MC MD
Maheswari Chekkapalli P Lau Tak Keung C
Ting Fung Cheung P Hongsin Kim P P
Ming Tai Chiu P Wing Fung Ko P
Chun Yu Chow P Terala Krishna Teja P
Debasis Chowdhury P Avinash Kumar P
Ratchanon Chulachan P Amit Kumar Paul P
Yat Kit Michael Chung C Abhishek Lall P
Josephine Cowley C Thomas Lange C
Agnes Darazsi C P Sundip Laroya C P
Sagar Das C Ngai Fung Lau C
Saurabh Deshpande P Tsz Chun Lau C
Pavan Subhash Devarakonda P Wing Lam Lee P
Isaac Dozen-Anane C Brendan Leis C
James Dupère P Francis Emmanuel Lemaire C
Kalyan Eedupuganti P Benny Leung C
Jonathan Ellerbeck C Chi Tak Leung P
Matthew Ely P Matt Licence P
Mohamed Fadel P William Liddall C
Qamar Farooq C Shoufeng Lin C
Umar Farooq D Joseph Little P
Ho Lun Fung P Ashley Loughlin P
Ollie Gardner C Kunanan Luekijna P
Jack Gascard C Muhammad Afiq Bin Makmon P
Yasin Geçer C Thomas Man P P
Can Berk Gencer P Rajeshkumar Mani P
Amirhadi Ghiasbeygi P Muthukumaran Mariyappan P
Jeremy Goode C P John Marsden C
Rakesh Guda C Ilango Mathialagan P
Prakash Gunti P Reece McGadie P
Chuyao Guo P Dusty Miller P
Aditi Gupta P Shane Miller P
James Haskard D Priya MK C
Viachaslau (Axel) Hil C Abdul Rahman Mohammad P
Niall Horan D Nicolas Moraga C
Caroline Horton C Tuvshen Morgan P
Ming Hei Hsia P Ryan Mullings P
Baihan Huang P Mayur Nahata P
King Him Hui P C Omkar Namnor P
Paul Hurley C Arun Narahari P
Mark Jackson P Paul Naylor C
Sourabh Jain C Yvonne Ng P
He Jia D Alaric Nickless P
Sobin John P Konstantinos Nikolaidis P
Callum Joiner P Kevin O'Callaghan P
Byron Jones C Jack O'Donoghue C P
Abhishek Jujjavarapu P John O'Neill C
Leung Ka Wai Dicky P Nana Osei-Bonsu P
Peddanulla Kambagiri P Christopher Owen C
Sanjib Karmakar P Nainardass P P
Mustkeem Kasana C Yacine Palagi C
George Keogh C Giuseppe Parente C

36
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Name MA MB MC MD Name MA MB MC MD
Jermain Parkinson C Alejandro Suarez C
Sowmya Parnasala D Muhsin Surmeli P
Amin Patel C Binu T P
Ganesh Patnala P Spoorthi T P P
Steven Perks P P Alex Taday P
Baptiste Pirlot P Ho Man Tang P
Prabhu Potuganti P Suphavee Tangphitayavet P
Worawut Poyen P Kaiyu Tong C
Michelle Price P Pok Lai Tsang P
Farzin Rabiee Malayeri P Yue Ting Tsang P
Raimi Radzi C C Hiu Tung Lo C
Narayanan Ramakrishnan P Simon Tuson P
Alisha Read C Nicholas Tzanos-Smith P
Joshua Read P Torsten Uhlig C
Bharath Reddyreddy P Prabhath Sagar Vakkantham P
Mohammed Ridouane P Dawid Van der Spuy D
James Riley P Tanay Verma P
Steven Rose C Thomas Vickery P
Said Sallam C Selena Zyle Villegas C
Sarini Samaranayake P Ashokraj Vinayagam C
Anton Selvadurai P Andrei Volentiru P
Muzammil Shadab P Natalie Walker P
Khaledur Rahman Sheikh P Aidan Walsh P
Neil Shineton C Ce Wang C
Hin San Shum P Craig Welsh P
Wai Kwai Shum C Wan Ting Wong P P
Emily Siddals C Ashley Wu P
Biru Singh P Anand Yadav P
Porapha Siriphakhamongkhon P Wong Ying Ho P
Caleb Srp C Jacob Younger C
Luke Styler P P Michael Zweimüller C

The next opportunity to sit the Certificate in Railway Control Engineering Fundamentals (Module A) or up to three of the Modules
B, C and D is Saturday 5 October 2024, for further details see irse.info/irseexam. The IRSE Younger Members are organising study
workshops, so keep an eye on irse.info/events for further details.

Find answers to your IRSE answers the easy way

Scan the QR codes below to go straight to the relevant page on our website

Our website,
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for information
everything you unique scheme
about the
need to know to help you
Institution and
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the ultimate an invaluable
IRSE activities
railway signalling, source of
taking place near
communication information about
you.
and control our industry.
qualification.

37
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

London & South East Section

Technical visit to TfL Hammersmith LONDON & SOUTH EAST SECTION

Service Control Centre

Report by Trevor Foulkes and David Fenner

In October 2023, 20 members and guests of the London &

South East (LSE) Section visited the Transport for London (TfL)
Hammersmith Service Control Centre (HSCC) which controls
the sub-surface tube lines in London.
The sub-surface lines are composed of the Hammersmith and
City (pink on the Tube map), the Circle (yellow), Metropolitan
(purple) and District (green). They are closely linked as at
various places on the network they interoperate with shared
track and junctions.
All are also only partially underground sharing significant
elements of above ground running, hence the mnemonic sub-
surface. The total route length covers 310km of track of which
only 40km is in tunnel, and there are five complex junctions.
The routes provide a peak rate of 32 trains per hour in the core
using 192 trains serving 113 stations. Recently the lines have
been, and indeed are still, in the process of transitioning to a
Thales Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC) system.
This is complicated by interactions with the Piccadilly line
around Uxbridge and the Jubilee line between Wembley and
Neasden, and even more so by the Chiltern national rail service
to Aylesbury. This uses Metropolitan line tracks between
Harrow and Amersham and will not be CBTC controlled
requiring the retention of lineside signals.
The afternoon started with an informative presentation by the
Control Centre’s management team during which the role of
the HSCC was outlined. This included line control and incident
management for the entire sub-surface railway including some
elements where there is interaction with other routes e.g.
Piccadilly line and Chiltern line, signalling control of the areas
so far transitioned to CBTC and engineering support for both
lineside and on-train traffic management systems. In addition,
support for the migration of further areas to CBTC is required
and training of new staff both for the sub-surface railway, and
others needing experience in CBTC management can be given
when practical.
The areas of control were described and which areas had
been moved to the new Thales signalling system, together
with the layout of the control room. Some of the reasons
were discussed for the times when the operators had to ‘step
in’ and take control when the normally automatic system
could not manage the issue. The current headcount is just
over 100 operational staff rising to around 120 when the
resignalling project is complete. To this must be added around
40 engineering and general support staff. The slides from the
presentation can be accessed at irse.info/t9nwx

38
 IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

First page.
Top, overview of 4LM.
Middle, service manager's desk for Metropolitan, H&C and Circle
lines. There will be a second similar desk for the District line.
Photos John Fissler.
Bottom, members inspecting the operating floor.
Photo Vivich Silapasoonthorn.

This page:
Above, left to right, CBTC equipment rack, Vehicle Control
Centre (VCC) racks and VCC 2 out of 3 rack.
Photos Trevor Foulkes.
Left, technician indication display screen. Photo David Fenner.
Below, members who attended the first trip shown outside the
Control Centre.

The group was then split into two sets to see the operational
floor and equipment room. We then reconvened for final To learn about meetings and
questions and discussions before retiring to a local venue for visits by your local section
refreshments and further conversation. visit our website.
As the visit was heavily oversubscribed, the Section was able
to organise a second visit to Hammersmith which took place
on 14 March 2024.
irse.info/nearyou

39
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
Your letters
Why ETCS Level 3?
Ever since the concept of ETCS levels
existed, Level 3 has been an elusive ideal
that many have considered the holy grail
of train control for mainline railways.
The two key benefits claimed for ETCS
Level 3 are a higher signalling capacity to
allow more trains to run and significantly
reduced trackside equipment to deliver
maintenance savings. However, the
industry is still far away from offering
interoperable products for ETCS Level 3,
and I also question the need to introduce
ETCS Level 3 in general. I would argue
that waiting for ETCS Level 3 is not just
vain but distracts from realising practical
benefits with what ETCS already has to
offer in the existing Level 2.
Let's start with capacity. Higher capacity
can already be achieved with the smart
application of ETCS Level 2. Once
genuine in-cab signalling without
lineside signals is achieved this allows for
the optimisation of fixed-block designs
for higher capacity (for example very
short sections at station exits where
train speeds are slowest). Alternatively,
the addition of virtual sub-blocks as
specified in the ‘Hybrid Level 3’ variety
of ETCS allows for higher capacity.
At least for all trains fitted with that
feature. In summary, there is basically
no additional capacity benefit of ETCS
Level 3 over a capacity optimised ETCS
Level 2 solution.
With regards to maintenance ‘savings’,
the only difference between ETCS
Level 2 without signals and ETCS
Level 3 is the removal of track
vacancy detection. However, this has
consequences on the overall operation
of the railway, particularly for handling
of degraded modes and mixed traffic
with ETCS-unfitted trains. Without
trackside train detection under ETCS
Level 3, a train that is not fitted with full
ETCS Level 3, or has a defective onboard
system, is uncontrollable and invisible
to the signalling system. Just like in
most contemporary CBTC applications,
retaining secondary trackside train
detection might be prudent, but what
about the maintenance savings from the
reduced trackside equipment? Almost
nothing, compared to ETCS Level 2
without signals.
40
The migration effort is enormous for
delivering ETCS Level 3, as all trains
operating on the Level 3 territory must
be fitted with ETCS Level 3. That is an
almost impossible challenge on busy
mainline railways with high traffic
diversity (which need the capacity
increase the most).
I strongly believe the industry should
stop being distracted by the ETCS
Level 3 ‘pipe dreams’ with questionable
additional benefits, and instead focus on
getting the most out of the capabilities
which ETCS Level 2 already allows for in
the Baseline 4 of the Standard, including
capacity-boosting radio technology
(FRMCS), provision for Automatic Train
Operation, and even the addition of
virtual blocks should a railway want to.
'Doc Frank' Heibel
Ed: In fact, Baseline 4.0 of the ETCS
standards and the 2023 TSI no longer
defines Level 3 as a distinct level. ETCS
Level 2 now applies regardless of the
method by which the interlocking/
RBC determines track vacancy. So that
allows for conventional track circuits/
axle counters or position reporting by
the trains, and hybrid approaches with
‘virtual blocks. The movement authority
to the train is the same in every case.
Cyber security and hazard logs
In response to Paul Cheeseman's
letter in the April 2024 IRSE News,
irse.info/irsenews309: As a rail cyber
security engineer, I see problems with
using the hazard log to capture cyber
security-related causes.
When looking at the cyber resilience of
the system, one starts by identifying the
critical information assets of a system.
We ask, what would be the impact if any
information in the system lost availability,
integrity, confidentiality or non-
repudiability. This is not strictly a cyber
security exercise .
It does not consider whether a cyber-
attack or other event could likely cause
such a loss. It is a resilience exercise to
be considered by all RAMSS and business
impact teams. Where there are safety
impacts identified, a hazard should be
considered by the safety team .
The safety team should ensure
acceptable controls are in place
considering non-malicious hazards.
The cyber security team is later
responsible for identifying feasible
threat vectors and associated likelihood
where malicious actions could cause the
impact scenarios. This threat modelling
is very complex, and the related cyber
risks are continuously changing, unlike
safety risks. So, the process to reach
them is different, and they need to be
managed in a separate assurance case
because you don't want to regularly
reopen your safety case. Furthermore,
safety controls are the primary controls.
From a safety perspective, the cyber
security controls do not exist to directly
protect safety, but rather to protect the
safety controls.
We cyber security engineers do usually
start with an IEC 62443-derived
baseline control set, ideally guided by
a code of practice and/or reference
architecture, and then do assessments
to determine where it is insufficient for
the specific implementation. But there
are a wealth of existing systems that are
unable to meet most of these standard
requirements. In these cases, careful
risk assessment and specifically tailored
mitigations are required.
Alexander Patton
Exception handling in
electronic interlockings (1)
In his article on exception handling in
electronic interlockings (IRSE News,
April 2024, irse.info/irsenews309),
Mukul Verma contrasts geographical and
free-wired approaches to interlocking
software architecture .
Mukul makes the point that if a
completely generic executive program
such as a programmable logic controller
is used as the basis for an interlocking,
then exception handling has to be
considered in the application data .
On first reading the article, I was
surprised to see the categorisation of the
original British Rail SSI as a geographical
interlocking. When SSI was developed in
the 1980s, one of the aims was to create
a free-wired electronic interlocking with

the flexibility to be adapted to a variety
of interlocking principles, and this was
achieved by defining a data preparation
language allowing Boolean logic to be
expressed in signalling terms.
However, he is correct to say that
exception handling is embedded within
the executive software. In fact, exception
handling of the types that he describes
is implemented at various places within
the system, in the trackside functional
modules (object controllers) as well as in
the central interlocking.
One opportunity that is not mentioned
in the article is the possibility for some
types of exception handling to take place
elsewhere to minimise the complexity of
the SIL 4 interlocking logic. For instance,
monitoring of the time a switch takes to
move may be a function of a condition
monitoring system, and an unexpected
track occupation alarm can be
Are your CPD records up to date?
IRSE members are
expected to maintain and
develop their professional
competence and support
others to do so
IRSE News is published monthly by the
Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE).
© Copyright 2024, IRSE. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means without the permission in
writing of the publisher.
Website
For latest information about IRSE events, news and
how to become a member, visit our website at
www.irse.org. We welcome all those who
are interested or involved in the fields of
railway control systems, communications,
data management or systems engineering.
Contributions
Articles of a newsworthy or technical nature are
always welcome for IRSE News. Members should
forward their contributions to one of the editors
listed.
If you have a view about something you’ve read
in IRSE News, or any aspect of railway signalling,
telecommunications or related disciplines, please
write to the editor at editor@irsenews.org.
generated in a train describer. A system
approach is required that considers the
likelihood and consequence of various
types of failure, the output generated by
the exception handling system, and how
this is acted upon (automatically or by a
human operator) to mitigate the risk.
Ian Mitchell
Exception handling in
electronic interlockings (2)
I write to say how interesting I found
the article by Mukul Verma on what
is essentially looking to guard the
guardians themselves. In essence ‘the
checks in place that tell you other
checks have failed!’.
As a senior operating manager on
BR at the time of the 1988 Clapham
Junction rail crash in London,
I believe it should be remembered
Recording continuing professional
development is easier than you think –
many of the activities you are involved in
throughout your professional life count as
CPD and can be recorded.
Visit our website to find out more
Chief Executive, IRSE
Blane Judd e-mail: blane.judd@irse.org
Managing Editor, IRSE News
Paul Darlington e-mail: editor@irsenews.org
Contributing Editors
David Fenner e-mail: david.fenner@irsenews.org
Ian Mitchell e-mail: ian.mitchell@irsenews.org
Ed Rollings e-mail: ed.rollings@irsenews.org
Assistant Editors
Allan Neilson (Australasia)
e-mail: allan.neilson@irsenews.org
Alexander Patton (Local Sections)
e-mail: alexander.patton@irsenews.org
Francis How
e-mail: francis.how@irsenews.org
London Office
IRSE, 1 Birdcage Walk, Westminster,
London, SW1H 9JJ, United Kingdom
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024
that a key Recommendation of
Sir Anthony Hidden’s Inquiry was
No 18. “That we should ensure that
the organisational framework exists
to prevent commercial consideration
of a business-led railway from
compromising safety”.
In today’s worldwide society of
technological and constant change it
needs remembering as having its root in
Clapham and similar wrong side failures
over the years, that business managers
push for cost reductions. It certainly
costs less if the installer, having installed
goes and has their break then returns
and checks the installation, but 'Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes' (who will guard
the guardians?).
Peter Rayner
irse.info/cpd
Production, typeset and layout
Mark Glover
e-mail: mark.glover@irsenews.org
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41
IRSE News | Issue 310 | May 2024

Membership changes
Elections Promotions
Fellow Member to Fellow
Navneet Kaushik, National Capital Region Transport Corporation, India Daniel Oakes, Omada Rail Systems, Australia
Sanjai Kumar, Rail Tel Corporation, India Santosh Vishala Hanumanthappa, Hitachi Rail, Australia
Timothy Whitcher, WSP, UK

Member Associate Member to Member

Samuthiraraj Balasubramanian, Arcadis, India Martin Allen, Siemens Mobility, UK
Mark Beeson, Universal Signalling, UK David Brown, Atkins, UK
Mustkeem, Railtel Corporation of India, India Gregory Scott Martin, Network Rail, UK
Howard Parry, Attic Engineering, Hong Kong Jeffrey Charles Roy, Babcock, UK
Samuel Randall, Network Rail, UK Douglas Turner Stuart, Network Rail, UK

Associate Member Accredited Technician to Member

Martin Atkinson, Metro Trains Melbourne, Australia Nigel Worrall, Quantum Rail, Australia
Satendra Singh Diswar, Hitachi Rail, Australia
Ben Elias, WSP, Canada Affiliate to Member
James French, London Underground, UK Gavin McDowell, Omada Rail Systems, Australia
Oliver Harris, Vertex Systems Engineering, UK Kwok On Wong, MTR Corporation, Hong Kong
Nathan Heaney, Aurecon Group, Australia
Daniel Marsden, Network Rail, UK Affiliate to Associate Member
Naga Naresh Naidu, Alstom, India Davis Kitagawa, Modern Railway Systems, USA
Binu T, Indian Railways, India
Barry Toms, Amaro Signalling, UK
Sander Willer, Mott MacDonald, Netherlands Professional registrations
Congratulations to the members listed below who have
Accredited Technician achieved final stage registration at the following levels:
Harry Holt, Thales, UK
EngTech
Peter Melville, Trackwork, UK
Adam Bird, Sigtech Solutions, Australia
Darren Case, ARTC Inland Rail, Australia
Harry Holt, Thales, UK
Peter Melville, Trackwork, UK
Past lives Ben Morris, Amey, UK
It is with great regret that we have to report Scott Quinton, Siemens Mobility, UK
that the following members have passed away: David Rayner, Network Rail, UK
Peter Holman, Trevor Lampen and Guy Whaley. IEng
Iain Johnson, Network Rail, UK
CEng
Hashim Abdullah, ASAP Mobility, Malaysia
Napob Arsusiri, Arup, Thailand
Ming Cheung (Dennis) Lau, MTR, Hong Kong

New Affiliate Members

Afiq Naufal Bin Azhar, Network Rail, UK Adam Lord, Network Rail, UK
Vivienne Beard, Aurizon Network, Australia Sara Maric, Aurora Engineering and Management Group, Australia
Gavin Bryant, TSS2 , UK Tyrell Mcdonald-carty, Colas Rail, UK
Satrajit Chakraborty, Alstom, India KaHo Mok, UK
Daniel Daher, Aurizon, Australia Omkar Namnor, Atkins Realis, India
Xinyu Dai, UGL PTY, Australia Chinenye Ijeoma Obidike, Australia
Noah Duckworth, Mosaic Rail, UK Jesus Prieto, Brazil
Jasper Giaroli, Aurizon, Australia Nathanael Tan, Extraordinary People, Singapore
Philippe Hartheiser, Phase 360, France Ce Wang, Sigtech Solutions, Australia

Are YOU at the right

grade of membership?
Have you changed role, taken on Why not visit our website at irse.info/membershipoptions
more responsibility, or just not and see if you should be looking for a change. If in doubt
changed grade for some time? email us at membership@irse.org – we're happy to help.

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