A 22nd century solution to a 21st century problem
Siemens and Network Rail collected this year’s Infrastructure Project of the Year accolade at RAIL’s National Rail Awards for their successful Birmingham New Street Phase 4 & 5 renewals. PAUL STEPHEN reports
Birmingham New Street is the sixth busiest station in the UK and the busiest outside London, with some 42.3 million entries and exits registered between April 2016 and March 2017. It is also the busiest interchange station outside London. Nearly 170,000 passengers change trains at New Street on a daily basis, owing to its status as a major hub on both the cross-country network and the West Coast Main Line.
But with increasing demand for public transport, it is forecast that rail travel between London and Birmingham will double in the next 20 years. Action was required, to prepare the station to accommodate that future growth and to keep pace with demand.
A complex multi-disciplinary feat of economic and strategic engineering, the Birmingham New Street Phase 4 & 5 renewals represented the start of a portfolio of renewals across the local network.
The £47 million project has also been described by Network Rail as “a 22nd century solution to a 21st century problem”, due to its use of renewable, interchangeable and expandable infrastructure that will make allowance for the future requirements of HS2 and NR’s Digital Railway programme.
And it was a worthy winner of National Rail Awards Infrastructure Project of the Year, with the prize going to Network Rail and Siemens.
Commencing in 2015, the two-year scheme focused on the renewal and remodelling of track and signalling equipment at four major junctions controlled by Birmingham New Street Power Signal Box (PSB), which itself handled 80% of daily total services to the city. Control of the operational railway is also gradually being transferred from the PSB to the West Midlands Signalling Centre at Saltley, as further phases are completed.
Much of the existing equipment was around 50 years old, and managing levels of traffic that were unimaginable when the system was commissioned in the 1960s.
Five years of development enabled many alternative approaches to be considered for the renewals work, and it was recognised by NR and Siemens early on that an innovative, collaborative partnership was the only way that the project could be delivered to such a demanding schedule.
A Collaborative Management Team was set up comprising representatives of NR, Siemens, S&C Alliance and other sub-contractors. A series of inter-organisational working groups was also established to collaborate on areas of the programme including safety, route access, design, social and environmental sustainability, commercial behaviours and constructions.
A Project Charter meant promotion of a culture of openness, transparency and honesty - to ensure that a true ‘one-team approach’ was adopted by the programme’s 200+ full time staff, and to drive collaboration, innovation and outstanding performance.
The combined team felt this project spirit would decree that all participants would win or all would lose based on the project’s outcomes, and that mistakes were seen as an opportunity to improve rather than attach blame or finger point.
The scheme itself was executed in three stages, moving south to north so that surrounding stations could remain open throughout construction and to minimise disruption.
In just two years, the project achieved the resignalling of five ELRs (engineers’ line references) and the incorporation of new telecoms nodes that had never been installed before. Meanwhile, 80 trains per hour continued to operate from 12 of Birmingham New Street’s 13 platforms.
Over those two years, every project milestone was met, ensuring that the full functionality of the revised and resignalled network could be delivered on time.
The combined team achieved half a million