Rail upgrade gets moving
THE long-awaited £738m modernisation of the Core Valley Lines – to provide faster, more frequent and less polluting services to Cardiff – has started in earnest after Network Rail transferred infrastructure to the Welsh Government.
THE long-awaited modernisation of the Core Valley Lines has started in earnest after Network Rail transferred the infrastructure to the Welsh Government.
The £738m investment will result in new tramtrains and tri-mode trains using overhead electric supply and on-board batteries to provide faster, more frequent and less polluting services to Cardiff from Aberdare, Merthyr Tydfil, Treherbert and Rhymney.
The transfer of assets also covers the Cardiff Bay and Coryton lines and the City Line, between Radyr and Ninian Park.
The Welsh Government is now owner of the tracks, signalling, bridges and stations. The formal transfer process was triggered in late January.
The Government will give Transport for Wales and Amey Keolis Infrastructure Ltd (AKIL) the task of modernising and operating the infrastructure as well as running the train services, using the existing trains until the new ones are phased in.
The Government originally expected the transfer to happen in September. The six-month delay has compressed the time available for the engineering work. Tram-trains need to be in service by the end of 2022 to ensure the Government receives the European Union’s promised contribution to the modernisation in 2023.
The Rhymney and Coryton lines are scheduled for completion by the end of 2023. Their trimode trains will use overhead and battery electric supplies north of Cardiff Queen Street.
They will need diesel engines to continue providing through services to places such as Penarth and Barry where the infrastructure will remain owned by Network Rail and the UK Government, which has turned its back on further railway electrification.
TfW and AKIL have used the six-month delay to fine-tune designs for the new Core Valley Lines (CVL) infrastructure, reducing the risks of glitches when work is under way.
Karl Gilmore, rail programme director at TfW, said Network Rail had allowed access for preparatory works alongside the CVL over the past year. These works including clearing vegetation and tackling invasive species, particularly Japanese knotweed.
At Treforest, an infrastructure hub has been opened for distribution of construction materials across the CVL. Alongside Taff’s Well station, industrial buildings have been cleared and construction has started on a £100m tram-train depot and CVL control centre.
Passengers should start to see the first foundations for the electrification masts appearing this summer.
“A section of track in the vicinity of Taff’s Well will be commissioned first, to allow testing of some rolling stock,” said Mr Gilmore.
“In general, the Treherbert, Aberdare and Merthyr lines will be developed first, followed by the Rhymney line.”
However, TfW is considering whether to bring forward some of the work on the Rhymney line.
Mr Gilmore said some of the CVL engineering work would be carried out on weekday nights. Some would need closures of lines on weekends or for longer periods, with bus replacement services for passengers.
The work should cause less disruption to passengers and communities than the recent electrification of the main line from the Severn Tunnel to Cardiff, where road bridges over the railway had to be rebuilt to provide more clearance for the 25kV electricity supply.
The CVL’s overhead equipment will be electrically isolated under each bridge, where the trains will automatically switch to battery power before reverting to overhead power supply after the bridge.
This will avoid disruptive rebuilding of bridges.
It also means there is no need to install electrification equipment in Caerphilly Tunnel, which otherwise could have been closed for weeks or months.
Additional track will be installed at locations north of Bargoed, Abercynon and Porth for the frequency of trains to be increased to four per hour per direction on what is predominantly a single track.
Key challenges for TfW and AKIL are testing the new trains and power supply to prove that they are safe and reliable, and integrating the modernised CVL with Network Rail’s infrastructure, signalling and operational control.
The same processes are taking much longer than expected on the Crossrail project in London, and TfW’s board was alerted to the similarities in December.
The board “agreed the importance of learning lessons” from Crossrail.
An independent reviewer has told TfW its plans for the CVL are similar to Crossrail in some respects, but also said TfW has a strong team in place and there is time to solve outstanding issues.