Philip Haigh
ETCS signalling.
SIGNALLING has changed little since
Victorian times.
That’s a claim contained in a short Network Rail video - East Coast Digital: The Time is Now - about its forthcoming project to install digital signalling on the southern part of the East Coast Main Line.
On one level it appears ridiculous, suggesting that over 100 years there’s been little progress in railway signalling. On another, it’s true that trains remain controlled today according to the colour of light shining through a coloured lens.
Set aside the recent move to light emitting diode (LED) signals, that shining light has switched from an oil lamp to an electric bulb. The coloured lens was once (and sometimes still is) moved mechanically. Then it became fixed with its corresponding bulb energised depending on electric currents.
From the driver’s perspective, signalling has remained lights on sticks. That changed with High Speed 1’s opening from 2003, which used cab signalling. The Cambrian Line followed in 2010, marking Britain’s first foray into European Train Control System (ETCS) installation. As on HS1, Cambrian drivers receive information about how far their trains can move from a screen in their cab.
That means that a decade has passed since NR’s first ETCS installation. It reinforces the fact that ETCS is not new. Speaking in a Rail Industry Association webinar on June 30, Siemens Mobility Chief Engineer Andy Stringer noted that NR’s video could have been made 20 years ago for the West Coast train control system project.
Digital Railway, as NR calls it, has a record of over-promising and under-delivering. Claims that it could deliver a 40% increase in capacity caught headlines but convinced few, with little solid evidence behind them.
A House of Commons Transport Select Committee report in 2016 noted: “Rather than claims of up to 40%, we expect to see a more sophisticated assessment of the likely capacity gains that look at different investment scenarios and their associated costs, benefits and risks.
“It is important that the Department for Transport and Network Rail make a realistic assessment of how much extra capacity each system within the Digital Railway programme can deliver to meet growing demand.”
So, what does NR’s planned ECML scheme deliver? I don’t think anyone knows in terms of capacity.
When the DfT trumpeted its £350 million funding for the London-Stoke Tunnel ETCS project on June 22, Transport Secretary Grant
Shapps said: “Upgrading this country’s conventional signalling system and giving drivers technology fit for the 21st century will boost train performance, cut delays, improve safety and support the supply chain.”
Shapps didn’t mention capacity improvements. Siemens is closely involved with NR’s digital railway project, yet Stringer told the RIA webinar that he didn’t know what extra capacity it would bring to the East Coast in terms of trains per hour.
That switch away from capacity as the driver of ETCS is wise and comes as the railway has begun to understand better what ETCS can deliver. Some of this understanding has come from simulating what it might do. Many train operators use driving simulators, so it’s not a big step to use them to see how ETCS might deliver a different railway.
LNER has done just this, as Head of ERTMS Paul Boyle told RIA’s webinar. (Quick explanatory note: ETCS is a part of ERTMS - European Railway Traffic Management System.)
It took three drivers (he was one of them) and put them through six scenarios to see the difference between running under conventional signals and under ETCS. The scenarios included a 30mph emergency speed restriction, a signal clearing late, a level crossing closing late, and trains switching from a fast to slow line at Huntingdon. All involved braking and then accelerating, and all delay trains.
In every case, the drivers braked from 125mph more sharply under conventional signals, quickly bringing their train’s speed down. This has the effect of increasing the length of the emergency speed restriction, for example, delaying their train more than was needed.
When they followed ETCS instructions, the drivers braked later and there was less variation between individuals. They also accelerated more quickly once they’d passed the restriction. Overall, with ETCS, their trains passed the speed restriction between 17 and 24 seconds faster than under conventional signals.
Boyle’s team found the effect of a signal clearing from red even more marked. Part of this saving comes from ETCS’s on-board equipment knowing instantly when clearance arrives. By contrast, the driver under conventional signalling has to wait until he can see his signal.
In this scenario, weather plays its part, with drivers being forced to brake more sharply in fog because their signals are less visible. They start slowing when they see a double-yellow signal and then look for the next signal. If it appears as a single-yellow they continue braking because they must assume the next signal is red. They cannot accelerate until they
see that final signal showing a proceed aspect.
In fog, Boyle’s trio were barely above 10mph before they saw the signal clear. In good weather, it was around 30-40mph. By contrast, running under ETCS allowed acceleration to start from 80mph and weather had no effect. Driving with ETCS saved from 1min 5secs in good weather and 1min 50secs in fog.
Boyle paints a convincing picture of the savings that ETCS can bring through its ability to recover more quickly from the incidents that drivers see every day, particularly on a busy railway such as the East Coast Main Line.
The London end is particularly busy - Boyle argued that only 30% of northbound LNER trains were on-time when they passed Huntingdon, from 100% leaving King’s Cross ‘right time’. ETCS could help boost this figure and so help LNER’s overall punctuality.
But you can’t make the case for ETCS on improved punctuality alone. There’s another reason for NR to redouble its efforts to bring
ETCS into use. Put simply, it can’t afford not to.
NR’s and the wider industry’s failure to get to grips with ETCS earlier has created a tidal wave of signalling renewals which threatens to drown it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this - back in 2014, NR was talking about decommissioning Peterborough’s 1972 power box by 2020 in favour of East Coast ETCS.
Network Rail estimates that it can deliver ETCS amounting to 3,000 signalling equivalent units (SEUs) per year, but only 1,800 SEUs of conventional renewals. If it sticks with conventional signalling, it exceeds its 1,800 SEU limit in 2027 and grossly exceeds it until 2039. And based on its £830m funding per year in Control Period 6 (2019-24), it busts its budget every year from 2025 to 2039.
ETCS bridges the track-train divide. It will need suitable kit on every train that might find itself on ETCS tracks.
The estimate to fit trains is £957m. So far, there’s funding to fit passenger stock (£108m),
“From the driver’s perspective, signalling has remained lights on sticks. That changed with High Speed 1’s opening from 2003, which used cab signalling. The Cambrian Line followed in 2010, marking Britain’s first foray into European Train Control System (ETCS) installation.”
freight (£103m) and on-track machines (£92m). There’s no money so far for heritage locomotives (estimated at £43m), and there’s another £195m needed for freight and £426m for remaining passenger stock.
NR Head of Technical Policy and Strategy Pat McFadden reckons there’s positive noises coming from the DfT. It will need to foot the bill because it’s NR that wants to switch to ETCS. The sooner that missing money appears, the more certain the overall ETCS project will become.
Switching to ETCS allows NR to deliver more signalling overall because there’s no lights on sticks to design and install - hence the higher, 3,000 SEU, annual limit. It’s managed to squeeze the resultant ETCS work profile under this limit, but still busts its budget from 2026 onwards. This has prompted NR to launch its research and development ‘Project 190’, with the aim of reducing costs per SEU to under £190,000.
Even then its troubles are not over because, as NR Chief Control, Command and Signalling Engineer Martin Jones told the RIA webinar, it still needs a vast amount of disruptive access to switch to ETCS.
The whole is more than a signalling project. ETCS radically changes the way the railway runs. To be successful, it must change the way the railway and its staff think. And it must change the way passengers see the railway for the better.
NR East Coast Digital Programme Director Toufic Machnouk told RIA’s webinar: “If we don’t take steps in the next two years to make people go ‘wow’ - if it’s just a different and expensive story - it’ll be finished in two years.”
NR’s failure to deliver overhead wiring on time and budget to the Great Western Main Line hugely damaged electrification’s prospects.
To do the same with ETCS risks more than the railway’s reputation. Failure will leave the railway reliant on signalling that NR admits it can’t keep running without a huge increase in funding. And failure will do nothing to convince politicians that NR deserves more money.
ETCS is a high-stakes game. Britain’s railway cannot afford its failure.