project wareham news - swanage railway · 2016-01-18 · project wareham news no. 13 jan 2016...

PWN – No 13. Jan 2016

Project Wareham

NEWS No. 13 Jan 2016

Welcome to Project

Wareham Newsletter No. 13

Photo: Andrew PM Wright

Welcome

As many readers will be aware the Company

Chairman Trevor Parsons issued an internal

statement to the Swanage Railway on 22nd

December stating that the Trial Service to

Wareham could not commence in 2016. To

say that this is a huge disappointment to

many of us is an understatement. However

we must remain focused on what we have yet

to accomplish: and that is what we intend to

do!

In this edition you will find an update on the

rolling stock issues, and a report on our

recent meeting with Tim Shoveller, the

Managing Director of South West Trains.

Progress too on signage, the Road Rail

Interchange and of course Norden gates

Level Crossing.

Very much part of the overall plan is another

surge of administration. The Safety

Management System (SMS) which underpins

almost every aspect of the Railway has been

reviewed to ensure that it is fit for mainline

running; to say underpins is probably not

quite true as it actually

overarches most of our processes. This

document will be the crucial element of our

application to the Office of Rail and Road for

our Non-Mainline Safety Certificate.

Beneath the SMS are the Departmental

Standards, and a great deal of work is now

being undertaken to ensure they are also fit

for purpose. Grateful thanks here to Martin

Trott, David Rawsthorn, Nick Lloyd and James

Cox.

Frank Roberts

Senior Project Manager

Project Wareham

Our Diesel Multiple Units (DMU)

As you will be aware, the Swanage Railway’s

Class 121 ‘Bubble Car’ and our newly

acquired three car Class 117 DMU have been

located at Arlington Fleet Services, in the old

London & South Western Railway works at

Eastleigh.

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Project Wareham


The most challenging element of the

overhaul has been the wheelsets where strict

standards for mainline operation exist and

where specialist work is required by a very

limited supply of competent contractors.

Following the arrival of the DMUs at Eastleigh

in September 2014, considerable time was

spent approaching wheelset contractors who,

due to already busy order books, were unable

to take on the Class 117/121 overhaul work.

Early this year we were fortunate to make

arrangements with Chiltern Railways (who

also operate Class 121s) to participate in a

contract with ZF Services UK Ltd for the

overhaul of their

wheelsets. Our components were

subsequently despatched to ZF’s sub-

contractors, Knorr

Bremse at Springburn in Glasgow last

summer where they have been subject to

detailed inspection. Unfortunately, as a result

of this our axles have been declared scrap

and will need to be replaced. ZF have notified

us that the lead time for the delivery of the

new axles is 16 weeks and 28 weeks for the

associated axle bearings.

This is, primarily, due to the relatively small

order for non-standard equipment and the

specific need to order imperial sized bearings

– which have to be manufactured in the USA.

By the time the components are assembled,

fitted to the DMUs in Eastleigh, tested and

then moved to Swanage it is almost certain

that summer and perhaps autumn will have

passed us by, following which there may well

be some snagging issues and also a period of

crew training.

We are not alone with rolling stock issues.

Tim Shoveller at a recent bi-annual Liaison

Meeting confirmed that the work on the Class

458 units, which operate on the

Reading/Windsor lines, and which are being

converted from four to five car units is only

now coming to an end; well over two years

late! FER

Bi-annual Liaison Meeting with South

West Trains.

On 8th January the Swanage Railway met with

Tim Shoveller, the Managing Director of

South West Trains. Tim continues to be very

interested in our progress to-date, despite so

much going on

within the South Western Franchise at the

moment.

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Project Wareham


You may know that the formal bidding

process for the franchise commences in April,

with submissions due in July, and then the

company appointed will take over the

operation next spring. As our local Train

Operating Company (TOC) we have sought,

and secured, a good working relationship.

Tim and others within have been keen to

offer support and it is essential that this

continues even if Stagecoach is not the

company operating the franchise when we

run our first service to Wareham.

The twentieth anniversary of the first

privatised train service, run by Stagecoach

South Western Trains Ltd on 4th February

1996, occurs next month and a number of

events are planned by SWT to mark that date.

Another matter that SWT and Network Rail

are now considering is major engineering

works across Waterloo, much of which is

driven by the extension of the main Suburban

platforms (1-4) to accommodate 10 car trains.

Standby at Christmas time; and before! FER

Norden Gates Level Crossing

I have been surprised at the number of

people who have stated that the Level

Crossing (LX) was commissioned back in

November; what did take place two moons

ago was the Schweizer barrier and control

equipment was signed for by Signal &

Telegraph Manager Tony North.

Now, a lot can happen in a couple of weeks

and one unlikely occurrence was the arrival of

Storm Frank. My planning is usually very

good, but not

even I had put that in the programme. The

strong winds did inflict damage across the

country, and for us ripped off most of the

skirting on one of the two longer barriers

(this is the ‘fencing which opens out

underneath the barrier as it lowers. We are

now in consultation with Schweizer who will

arrange for repair under warranty.

A number of people asked why two of the

Road Traffic Lights ( more commonly known

as ‘Wig Wags’) were turned away from the

road for a couple of weeks. Basically they

were installed with extender arms so that they

would protrude over the pavement. However

there is only dropped kerb here, and it has

been agreed that there is a risk that tankers

could encroach onto the pavement here, and

collide (and damage) the Wig Wags; they

have therefore been fixed directly to the

poles without the extenders!

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Project Wareham


This panoramic and rather wet view of Norden

Gates, shows the Country Side ‘Wig-Wags’ now

Items definitely in the plan are the various

tests being carried out by many people and

led by Tester in Charge Dave Fry who is

setting a very good tone as the works

proceeds. There have

been one or two matters to address, but

there have been no show stoppers to date.

The new

road signs associated with the LX will be

installed during the week commencing

Monday 18th January, and the fencing will be

completed too.

Today the Independent Competent Person

John Tilly and I have met to discuss the final

weeks of work. An essential element of this

will be the final testing which will commence

on 8th February and then the training of the

first members of staff that will take place at

the start of March as arranged by Mike

Whitwam. I am therefore confident that the

LX can be commissioned on Friday 18th

March!

Frank Roberts

Project Manager

Norden Gates Level Crossing

without the extender arms!

Photo: Peter Milford

Project Closeout

Whatever the term that you might be used to,

there are many matters that must be

addressed during the final stages of any

project with the aim of securing a

professional handover. One aspect is a

Health and Safety File which must be

provided as directed by the Construction

(Design Management) Regulations 2015.

PWN – No 13. Jan 2016

Project Wareham


Over the next few months the various project

managers will be ensuring that all planning

documentation, drawings, financial matters

and equipment is handed over to the

appropriate Swanage Railway manager. FER.

Thank You Too!

A member of the Swanage Railway Trust

recently contacted me to complement the

team on how easy the Project Wareham News

is to read.

Part of the reason for this is the minimal use

of railway jargon, which many non-technical

folk may find difficult to understand. Thank

you for the compliment! FER

The Token Block Signalling

Project

Corfe Castle’s new Signal Box having been

commissioned in May 2011, the next big

project to be tackled by S&T Dept. was the

Norden to Worgret Jct Electric Token-Block

Signalling System. It was the first major

element of ‘Project

Wareham’ to be delivered, eliminating the

two Train-Staff Sections previously in force:

between Norden and the then SR/NR

Boundary at Motala (SR’s Section) and

between Worgret Jct and Motala (NR’s

Section).

This is the 4th Token Section to be introduced

on the SR but it is subtly different from the

others. Swanage-Harmans Cross and

Harmans Cross-Corfe Castle are conventional

Key Token Sections with Token Instruments at

each of the controlling signal boxes. The

Corfe Castle-Norden Section is wholly

controlled from Corfe Castle Signal Box and

has a ‘No-Signalman’ Token Instrument at

Norden, tokens from which are released by

Corfe Castle Signalman. For the new Norden-

Worgret Jct Section, signal boxes do not exist

at Norden or Worgret Jct. Thus the Token

Instrument at Norden is remotely released by

Corfe Castle Signalman (as is the Token

Instrument for the Section to Corfe Castle).

Clearly we did not want to site the far Token

Instrument where the Token Section ends at

the Junction points, so there are in fact two

Token Instruments for the far end of the

Token Section, located one on each platform

at Wareham Station.

The System was constructed over 2012 and

2013 with the co-operation of NR and their

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Project Wareham


contractor for the Poole-Wool Re-Signalling

Project, Signalling Solutions Ltd. The System

requires no less than 10km of multicore cable

to connect the

three Token Instruments – the cabling is

partly owned by SR and partly by NR. There

are electrical signalling interfaces between

the two companies at Wareham and on the

Branch Line near Bridge 4 over the River

Frome. These interfaces enable the SR to

provide information about token-releases at

Wareham to the Poole to Wool Panel at NR’s

Signalling Control Centre at Basingstoke,

which on 19 May 2014 took over control of

the re-signalled main line. NR passes

information to SR about the occupancy of the

track circuits on the Branch Line for display in

Corfe Castle Signal Box.

On 8 September 2014, NR passed the

ownership of the Branch Line southwards

from Worgret Farm Bridge 2 to Dorset

County Council who then leased it to the SR.

That spelt the end of Motala as the SR/NR

Infrastructure Boundary, so the trap points,

ground frame and cabin were ceremonially

removed soon afterwards. Interestingly that

means that NR own one signal, one AWS

magnet, two-and-a half track circuits and one

treadle on SR infrastructure.

After a somewhat frantic signing of four SR-

NR Interface Agreements at the end of

January 2015, our Independent Competent

Person (ICP), Dick Spencer, was able to issue

his ‘Pre-Commissioning Statement of Safety

Verification’. This enabled our Tester-in-

Charge, Dave Helliwell, with the co-operation

of NR’s Test and Commissioning Engineer,

Pat Butler, to formally

test the whole system and sign it into use at

14:08 on 5 February 2015. Just 2 hours later

the ‘Rail Minister’, Claire Perry, MP, travelled

by Special Train from Poole to Corfe Castle

and back – the first train to use the new

Token System.

So, where are we now? Whilst the System has

been used successfully to signal onto and off

the Branch two Charter Trains and several

Ballast Trains during 2015 we are still waiting

for the ‘Final Statement of Safety Verification’

to be signed off and this depends primarily

upon the production, updating or completion

of:

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Project Wareham


Risk Assessments for the various crossings

in the Section and the acceptance of any

recommendations for action by SR.

The Hazard Directory for the Branch Line.

Remedial measures on a number of snags

raised against NR regarding their

equipment on the Branch Line.

NR’s Final Records for the design of their

signalling equipment that interfaces with

the SR.

A Final Inspection and Walk-Through by

our ICP.

It is hoped to clear this final hurdle by the

end of March 2016.

Not surprisingly there have been some

challenges in this Project, which has put the

SR in the ‘Big League’ of Heritage Railways

possessing a fully signalled link onto the

National Network:

Personally handling the Project as both

Project Manager and Project Engineer.

Working with no less than four ‘opposite

number’ Project Managers on the NR side

over the period of the Project since

September 2011.

Accommodating the rigorous demands of

certain NR Signalling Specifications,

Standards and Protocols.

Having to design a unique system that

utilizes three standard Electric Token

Instruments that were in our possession,

but adapted to a remote-release role. As

part of the system we managed to

procure a set of Token-Transfer

Equipment to facilitate re-balancing the

tokens at Wareham from one platform to

the other.

Accommodating the snakes and lizards

that inhabit the Sites of Special Scientific

Interest that abut and span the Branch

Line. Actually this was not the problem it

could have been since a ‘Letter of

Consent’ was readily obtained from

Natural England and our cable-laying

contractor was able to complete the

trench-digging work within the permitted

time slot while our ‘little friends’ were

active.

Finally I would instance two personal

highlights:

The fact that our Rail Minister was the

‘Distinguished Passenger’ on the first

passenger train to use the newly

commissioned Token System.

PWN – No 13. Jan 2016

Project Wareham


The receipt of a Christmas card from my

good friend Andy Emmerson, now the

Deputy Editor of the journal “Institution of

Railway Signal Engineers News”, in which

he wrote “Congratulations on your

remarkable – and highly successful –

project management works. I think this is

utterly brilliant!”

Mike Walshaw

LX Project Scheduler

On 17th December an Officer’s Special conveyed

guests from Dorset County Council and members

of staff to the River Frome. It is seen here passing

Embankment 4, onto which has been deposited

2,235 cubic meters of spoil, and several trainloads

of spent ballast! Photo Andrew

PM Wright

Reflections on the PWay

programme of work for

Project Wareham

Our PWay staff have done a lot of work since

I came into the Project as PW Advisor last

March. They have replaced hundreds of

sleepers, ditto tonnes of ballast, and nearly ¾

mile of rails.

That is before we count the tree and shrub

clearance, cess creation, fencing, level

crossing renewal, etc... Their task has been

to upgrade the section of track inherited from

Network Rail. But is it that simple? What level

of upgrade is required, or desirable?

Firstly I ask you to consider whether the name

“Permanent Way” is actually a misnomer?

Unless we are talking about concrete slab

track, what we unthinkingly speak of as

Permanent Way is very far from that. The

track structure, of rails, on sleepers, resting

within a bed of crushed stone has been found

to be both resilient, and adaptable, and when

it is distorted by traffic, or

ground movement, it is usually straight-

forward to put it back where we want it.

There is another problem associated with the

permanence of the track, and that is the

difficulty of defining exactly when it is life-

expired, or indeed, when it becomes unsafe.

Yes, there are numerical limits for many

obvious factors like rail depth, but we rarely

PWN – No 13. Jan 2016

Project Wareham


reach these limits (certainly not the limits of

all components simultaneously), and when we

do get borderline the rate of wear is usually

so slow that there is no clear “OK yesterday,

unacceptable today” moment. I believe this

situation actually contributes to the idea of

“Permanent” when the opposite is true. With

every component of the track slowly

deteriorating over many years you may begin

to understand that assessing the point where

“something must be done” is extremely

difficult.

Indeed it is something of a black art to decide

when the increasing need for maintenance

activity switches to a consideration of a

renewal intervention. And then which bits?

Or the whole track structure?

It is also worth noting that top quality track

needs very little maintenance whereas poor

track deteriorates faster and faster as it gets

worse. The only problem is that getting track

into the quality end of the spectrum either

requires a lot of man-hours, or a very

expensive machine and a lot of design work.

Against this background Barry Light and I

could have produced a huge list of work to

be done between Motala and bridge 2. The

wish-list we

actually produced was pretty big and had a

cost of over £440k. What proportion of the

DMU costs does that represent?! Refining

and replanning has achieved a significant cost

reduction with limited impact on scope, but

there have been several quite important

items of pointwork that have had to be cut

right out of the scheme, being currently un-

affordable. The expanding cost of the DMU

refurbishment, and some cost over-runs in

other areas of the Project, have recently put

even further pressure on the PWay

Department to cut costs by any means

possible.

A final 900t ballast train has been cancelled to

save money following an unexpected offer of

700t for just the cost of its transport – but as I

write that offer may have evaporated into

thin air! To

compound our difficulty a quotation for the

final (and only) tamping of the line has come

in much

more expensive than expected. Without

more stone, and the tamper, we cannot get

onto the virtuous circle of better quality

leading to less maintenance.

We WILL sort it out, probably with a bit more

manual work and extended timescale as a

PWN – No 13. Jan 2016

Project Wareham


result. Meanwhile my explanations of the

impermanence of track will hopefully improve

understanding that there is an element of

mortgaging-the-future when the track does

not get the right attention. If a DMU cannot

run there is no service; if the track is in poor

condition there are increased long term costs

that could also, eventually, prevent a service

from being operated. I am glad

to say that I am assured that the funds I have

requested are still available to enable a

quality result to be achieved.

Jim Wheeler

Honorary Permanent Way Advisor

Document Storage

All projects generate a huge amount of

paperwork and Project Wareham is no

exception, and it is extremely important to

ensure all essential documents are safely

stored electronically for future reference.

Currently all documents relating to PW are

stored in appropriate sub folders contained in

an

overarching principal PW folder on the server.

Documents stored include amongst other

things,

minutes from PW meetings, project design

drawings and legal documentation from

Dorset County Council including copies of the

Licence to Alter and Grant Agreement in

relation to the works at Norden.

A comprehensive document storage index

has been compiled to ensure documents can

be located quickly and easily.

Once the project is handed over at the end of

March 2016, relevant folders will be sent to

the appropriate departments in the railway,

together with a copy of the document

storage index.

Nichola Watts

Project Administrator

Meet Will Fooks and Ken Orchard

From time to time we have introduced

various characters who have worked in

support of Project Wareham. Following a

round of interviews, three trackmen were

engaged in 2014, to support the additional

works and their posts have been funded by

the Coastal Communities Fund.

PWN – No 13. Jan 2016

Project Wareham


Ken and Will, and also Jamie Rudge who was

featured in an earlier edition of the PW News,

have given a massive boost to the Railway’s

Permanent Way Department since their

arrival. The work rate and the list of

achievements has been phenomenal, as can

be seen by those who

have had a chance to travel up the line to the

River Frome.

Will Fooks originated from Bushey which is a

hamlet on the other side of the Purbeck Hills

in the Rempstone Estate. He had spent a

number of years working for different firms in

the local area, and even lived in Swanage for

18 months, but apparently the rush hour was

too much for him!

He relishes the outdoor work, day or night as

was seen when he joined the rest of us and

got stuck into the overnight replacement of

the level crossing surface at Norden. Since

his arrival he had completed a number of

courses including chainsaw operation and

first aid. I asked what he enjoyed most and

he replied everything, but

especially the people in the team, the banter

and as mentioned the outdoor activity.

Will and partner Haley have a two year old

son, and another baby is on the way in

March; we wish them well with the birth.

I first met Ken when he offered me a brew,

and he always seems to get stuck into the

normal track works, then take command of

the kettle too! He has always lived in

Wareham and has spent time as a manager in

a local packaging firm. He also has

experience working trackside for Balfour

Beatty being based at their Eastleigh Depot

for 8 years. Seeking some variety away

from the railway he supported a Purbeck care

home providing building maintenance.

Ken explained that he wanted to return to the

railway and has had a thoroughly good time

since joining the Permanent Way team. He

has noticed a real difference between the

Branch and the mainline, returning to

bullhead rail (and taking some out during the

907yd relay in flat bottomed rail!), steam

engines and lots of stories of how the railway

was in the past. He sort of gave his age away

when he said he could remember the kids

going by train to Swanage Grammar School!

Ken is married to Cheryl.

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Project Wareham


Wherever the PWay gang are spotted, there is

usually a good deal of good work going on,

and I take this opportunity of thanking all of

the team, including those who come and

assisted for a day or two at a time. Well done

for all of your efforts, your help and your

support.

Photo Caption: Will Fooks and Ken Orchard ready

for action with the PWay Van. Photo:

FER