HOW TO BE INVISIBLE…!
…not literally, obviously, but Carillion is developing processes whereby track renewals and then handbacks are carried out with minimal disruption and with passengers often unaware that work has even taken place. STEFANIE FOSTER reports
To become invisible is a superpower that most people crave at some point in their lives, but few ever have the chance to find out just how satisfying that feeling can be…
As a contractor on the railway, that ability is what everyone strives for - the point at which client, drivers, passengers and freight operators are unaware of the presence of diggers and hi-vis the previous night, but just enjoy a better railway the next morning. It’s Utopia. It’s also not impossible. Plain line track renewals are a bread and butter job on the railway - replacing all the rail, ballast and sleepers of plain line for Network Rail. That’s not to say that it’s easy - in fact, the nature of NR’s High Output Ballast Cleaner is such that all the worksites with less site complexities such as platforms and tunnels are now done by the big yellow machine, leaving the tricky jobs to the track gangs under contract. That means jobs that involve short possession times, tunnels, viaducts, bridges, platforms - anywhere where access is challenging.
Carillion is halfway through a five-year programme of track renewals for Network Rail’s Infrastructure Projects, covering a vast area of London North Western North (based in Preston), London North East (Doncaster) and East Midlands (Peterborough).
About 450 Carillion staff work on the contract, delivering more than 100 separate projects a year. Each must be walked, plotted, planned and delivered in a microcosm of the larger projects on the network.
Simon Bennion, operations manager for the LNW North section (which runs from Crewe North to Gretna), says rigorous planning is paramount because of the volume of work involved.
“We deliver about 22,000 yards of track renewals per year on my patch, which breaks down into roughly 40 jobs.
“We are delivering week on week. Every week we are doing core track renewals from each depot, which takes a lot of pre-planning and NR working with us at delivery level to make that happen.
“The regimented approach to the planning stage sets this apart in terms of most projects, where there is a lot more lead-in to each project. With track renewals it’s week in, week out, 52 weeks a year.”
Each of the three depots needs a different strategy to take into account the possessions available to them. On Bennion’s patch, they are constantly delivering work on the busy West Coast Main Line in 12- or 13-hour possessions, which means the strategy is all about handing back on time.
Our mantra is ‘don’t have any accidents, don’t overrun, don’t overrun and don’t overrun’. Simon Bennion, Operations Manager for the London North Western North section, Carillion
It is his toughest area, although other areas have similarly challenging routes.
“It’s about delivering to spec on time, every time we go into battle,” he explains. “It’s the toughest patch because it’s the WCML. Our mantra is ‘don’t have any accidents, don’t overrun, don’t overrun and don’t overrun’. It’s almost biblical.
“This team prides itself on delivering core track renewals in shorter blocks than everywhere else on the network, on time and to plan. It’s tough, but it’s about working closely with the client to ensure that everything is in place so that we can do it. All the pieces of the jigsaw make it a success - everybody knowing their part of the delivery, because if one piece falls down you don’t deliver. It’s as simple as that on the WCML in the North.”
On the East Midlands patch, down in Peterborough, while timely delivery is still the driving force, the increased length of the possessions (to around 29 hours) means that the team has the opportunity to aim for the Holy Grail - high-speed handback.
Renewals Manager Ali Gartshore says: “We work from King’s Cross to Grantham on the LNE and St Pancras to Chesterfield on the Midland Main Line, plus all the crosslines as well. It’s a big area.
“When we do a renewal, we normally hand back at 50mph, but we’ve started getting better at doing follow-up work within the core.”
Senior Supervisor Richard Decamps concurs: “Traditionally, everywhere in the country, you hand back at 50mph. That’s the way it’s always been done. But we’re now looking at high-speed handback. At Christmas, we handed back a job at Langley at 125mph. The standards have become a lot stricter, which has made people more risk-averse to doing this. We are targeting a greater number of 80mph handbacks where the site conditions allow, with an aim of making this the norm in the future.”
Handing back the railway to NR and train operators at reduced speed allows time for the new ballast to settle. How can that settlement time be reduced, or even (in the case of Langley) removed?
Says Decamps: “The machinery we use now consolidates the ballast better, which means we can hit higher tolerances.
“To get high-speed, when we put new rail in at the weekend, we put it up in sections, join it and then clamp it. We then have a midweek possession for follow-up work, where we weld it.
“When the rail is clamped, you have to have a speed restriction. What we’re doing now is completing some of the welding during the weekend works [removing the need for clamps]. We’ve also started doing something called back-hole drilling, which is like a hybrid joint. We put plates and clamps to clamp the rail, as well as a pair of bolts to hold it.
“Because technology has improved, we’re able to hand back at higher speed because of those improved clamps. Essentially, we’re doing some of the follow-up work at the weekends.”
Carillion is also using another ingenious bit of kit to enable high-speed handback - the Dynamic Track Stabiliser (DTS). When you rip track up, dig out all the old ballast and put in new ballast, the ballast has lots of air in it and needs compacting to ensure that the track returns to the correct position within millimetre accuracy. Every time a train runs over the track, the ballast begins to settle, hence the need for lower speeds in the first instance.
However, the DTS runs over the track and shakes it down with the equivalent power of 1,000 trains running over it, reducing the settlement period to the space of a weekend.
Handing back at high-speed means fewer delays for train operators and fewer fines for NR, which has to pay compensation to operators for all speed reductions and delays on the network.
Says Decamps: “With Langley, we went back at full line-speed. To a train operator, that means we’ve gone in there, renewed all the track and they haven’t even seen us. That’s what everyone wants - the invisible contractor. You do the work, they don’t know you’re there, and there’s no restriction afterwards.”
And when all the hard work is done, the team watches the first train through to make sure everything is working as it should.
Decamps concludes: “When you’ve been working hard and everyone is pulling together, you hand back and the train goes through - that’s when it’s really good. People won’t leave a job in a mess. That’s the railway.”