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Third rail - becoming a better option for electrification?
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old terminology!
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renegademaster
Established Member
"reasonably" could mean basically anything
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
You would not even have to go to the expense of removing the infrastructure immediately. Just switch of the current and then allow batteries to work their magic.
fortunately, in railway terms it is assessed in terms of value per fatality / injury avoided.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Since acronyms are being thrown around, BATNEEC was used before I left to live in the USA. Best Available Technology Not Entailing Excessive Cost.
In which 'excessive' is a variable term.
renegademaster
Established Member
*Fatality avoided in the confines of railway land. Deaths anywhere else as a result of a decision is fine for the ORR
All I've seen above, and in previous threads of a similar vein, is the Vladimir of Network Rail and the Estragon of ORR waiting for the Godot of Unobtainability.
Nothing's going to get done unless someone steps up and pushes it through. By all means do Merseyrail (The inner core tunnels are too tight for OLE, so battery power may knock that out), and all the lines west of Woking. But ordering battery trains for the diesel islands in Southern England needs to start now. Not in five years time. There has already too much dithering, bluster and so much dust has been swept under the carpet, it has almost reached the ceiling.
Nothing's going to get done unless someone steps up and pushes it through. By all means do Merseyrail (The inner core tunnels are too tight for OLE, so battery power may knock that out), and all the lines west of Woking. But ordering battery trains for the diesel islands in Southern England needs to start now. Not in five years time. There has already too much dithering, bluster and so much dust has been swept under the carpet, it has almost reached the ceiling.
Can you give an example of what you mean by "anywhere else" other than not on railway land?
renegademaster
Established Member
By not taking in the wider societal effects of the do nothing option
So nowhere you are able to define even as an example here.
renegademaster
Established Member
Can't see anything mentioning climate change, air pollution or road traffic incidents here
zwk500
Veteran Member
They're part of a business case though, so are reckoned against yhe costs of making 3rd rail safe
Does anyone have any stats on the number of trespass incidents, the number involving fatality by being hit by a train and number by third rail electrocution? I do know the majority of suicide attempts end in fatality, by being struck by a train. The number of fatalities in both trespass and suicided by electrocution, I believe will be a lot lower than fatality by being struck by a train. If that is the case, then we should not be barring any new third rail electification, but should stop runing more trains and building new routes, as the train would seem to be the greater risk of fatality than does the Third Rail.
renegademaster
Established Member
On the subject of airplanes.
America's FAA is good at taking holistic risk into account. When making the decision to ground planes because of terrorist attack , they have got to take into account the risk that everyone driving instead would pose if airlines are shut. Not just the risk posed in a narrow sector
America's FAA is good at taking holistic risk into account. When making the decision to ground planes because of terrorist attack , they have got to take into account the risk that everyone driving instead would pose if airlines are shut. Not just the risk posed in a narrow sector
The safety problem although relevant is not the main issue with regards to electrification of new routes. It's the power losses and speed restrictions which come with it. Fine for local suburban services around London but they are almost all electrified. What about other cities suburban rail you ask? Well with the rapidly developing battery technology this may make third rail in these areas defunct. Third rail is also useless for mainline railways which have speeds 100 plus and large amounts of traffic due to the extra power need and wasted in the case of third rail. So in the end the use case for more third rail is only really limited to small infill projects in the South.
These numbers aren‘t publicly available at the level of detail you want.
In 2022-23 there were 10 trespasser fatalities on the NR network. I’m fairly sure from memory (but don’t have the figures) that at least two of these were due to contact with the third rail.
HSTEd
Veteran Member
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I remember Network Rail seriously held up disclosure on an FOI request to get historical FWI data for railway electrification.
Let alone anything up to date.
Extract from H&SE Guidance (Regulation 7):
116 Electric railway and tramway operators, in conjunction with the Office of Rail
and Road, have developed standards and safety specifications for the construction
of those parts of their systems which use bare conductors at overhead and at track
level, together with safe systems of work.
Are the Electricity at Work Regulations really the problem?
WAO
116 Electric railway and tramway operators, in conjunction with the Office of Rail
and Road, have developed standards and safety specifications for the construction
of those parts of their systems which use bare conductors at overhead and at track
level, together with safe systems of work.
Are the Electricity at Work Regulations really the problem?
WAO
Limited as this would only be deployed on current unelectrified routes and the stock could not be transferred to top contact third rail systems. But those current routes will probably benefit more from battery technology which will be cheaper and safer to deploy in the future.
EMUs that can operate using both top and bottom contact third rails exist in other countries - are there loading gauge issues that prevent their use here?
No but I think you've answered the question yourself. Why would companies and the dft spend money on procuring new stock and technology, testing, training and not to mention fitting the new bottom contact third rail when battery technology or existing third rail stock exists. Not to mention the more expensive cost of running third rail over the long term compared to just fitting OHLE. Safety is not the sole issue third rail's use cases are so far and few between on the current uk rail network that laying down capital on another type of electrification equipment seems uneconomical really.
zwk500
Veteran Member
You would need to totally redesign the shoe gear for it. Possible, but at a price.
mike57
Established Member
Unfortunately recent projects have shown that installation costs are high, and tend to run out of control, and the supporting works, bridge, tunnel and platform canopy changes add further cost, including issues which only come to light once you start. OHLE may be the gold standard, and on routes where line speeds are 100mph+ (including an allowance for reasonable upgrades to 100mph+) then its also the right answer. However a cheaper and less invasive solution is needed for a lot of secondary routes if diesel operation is to be phased out. Batteries are another option, but add weight, and still have limitations. Realistically there are large sections of the network which will never see OLHE
Bottom contact exists in other countries, so why are we starting from scratch... Take a current design and use it. Go for a contact rail that has protection on 3 sides, possibly some form of extruded insulation, and make a kit of standard parts, with say 60, 30 and 10ft lengths with standard lead in and out ramps which bolt together. Mass produce these, with the mounts. Design a standard 3 phase HV AC / DC grid fed converter packaged in a container that can sit at the side every few miles, and in areas where grid feed is tricky link with a high voltage cable and maybe have a standard static battery module to provide peak power where grid supply is limited/unreliable. Reduce the 'custom' design element to a minimum. Think meccano kit. For the first phase dont try and mix with the current DC top contact system, there are huge parts of the network which are nowhere near current 3rd rail territory.
Use a higher voltage, (1000-1500v) dc to reduce losses, and set a realistic max current draw, we are talking max speed 90mph on rural and suburban services and in a lot of cases 75mph, probably 8 car max, and frequently 3/4 car. Have small batteries to avoid gapping and provide additional acceleration as well as short (5 miles at half power?) moves off the juice. This also means that complex conductor rail configurations at junctions can be avoided.
Set up a trial on a (mainly self contained) route to iron out issues. Then rollout on an area basis. Spec all new EMUs as dual voltage, modern electronics means this is no longer a problem. Long rural routes could have bigger batteries and powered islands typically in and around stations and maybe on long climbs, with less visual intrusion through sensitive areas. This solution could in my opinion be much cheaper to install and could deliver a way of dealing with the large number of routes off the main Inter City and big city metro systems. If the sparks effect revitalises a route then consider upgrade to OLHE and transfer the DC kit into a pool of spares to maintain and extend on other routes at some point in the future.
There will be limitations, but properly developed and delivered it could give a low cost quick to install solution. Set some very clear goals to avoid over engineering and scope creep.
In terms of disruption a custom installation train could probably lay significant amounts during overnight possesions, the routes that would be upgraded probably have no overnight service.
Do you not think that the same market forces that are forcing OHLE costs up will also factor in with any third rail rollout? Surely it is better to sort out the reasons behind the cost rather than give up and start again with a different form of power delivery, adding a third type which will drive up costs of units as well? I mean its all a moot point because third rail rollout over OHLE isn't going to happen, but in theory it would just make a complex problem even more so, especially given that much of the network's operations away from the south will usually run under wires at some point.
mike57
Established Member
My view is they will to a point, but there is far less civil engineering required with 3rd rail. If you go the meccano set approach a simple installation train, and mass produced bits could address a lot of the issues which seem to drive up OLHE costs. In an ideal world it would be 'self delivered' by the railway to avoid all the contractual issues that seems to bug OLHE (and other) projects. I see it as a lower cost lower spec solution for those lines which will never (OK never is a long time, not in the foreseeable future!) see OLHE. Whilst battery technology may progress a bit further it brings its own issues. Dual voltage units address the OLHE/3rd rail interface issues, and the small gapping/off juice battery means a decent gap can be left between 'Pan down' and 3rd rail pick up to avoid mixed DC/AC in a section, which I know can be a problem and also addresses complexity issues around junctions and means 3rd rail can be kept clear of level crossings. It may even be that supercapacitors are a better fit for this application, they have a longer life and less issues with overheating and fire and are better at absorbing regen power on braking.
And the logic of doing this in-between main lines / hubs that are all wired is because it's cheaper? We've seen before what happens when doing it on the cheap is attempted, cheaper does not always mean a better solution, sometimes it creates more problems than it solves.
Most of the major hubs / lines away from the south have wiring, so why would anyone consider a third solution when extensions to existing wired routes is all that is needed? As I've said earlier, this idea of third rail in-between wires is classic solution panic-buying, a "we must do something, this is something, we must do this" scenario. But frankly there is no panic, there will be DMUs operating for at least another three decades so there is plenty of time to work out economic solutions to the excessive costs that have built up over time. The simple reality is that the decision makers and bean counters have allowed costs to spiral. Get this under control with a long term plan to wire up all remaining main lines, get the engineering skills in place and at a level that large scale projects can be undertaken, and the many of the final branch sections can be done as add-ons to these bigger projects.
If the problems with OLE are contractual then the answer is to do more in-house, i.e. with less outside contracting, with its consequent arms length delays and costs of design and procurement, due diligence, costs of variations, commercial profit, limited choice of suppliers etc.
This does of course need a steady, sustained program of work, without feasts or famines. It does allow control of costs, evolution of methods, technologies etc. Some of this already happens, such as with OLE designs.
It was often said that third rail extensions could be largely done by the then BR maintenance gangs, as the SR sleepers were pre-drilled for the pots etc.
Perhaps this is all a consequence of privatisation and the loss of control by the Railway of its standards to outside bodies.
WAO
This does of course need a steady, sustained program of work, without feasts or famines. It does allow control of costs, evolution of methods, technologies etc. Some of this already happens, such as with OLE designs.
It was often said that third rail extensions could be largely done by the then BR maintenance gangs, as the SR sleepers were pre-drilled for the pots etc.
Perhaps this is all a consequence of privatisation and the loss of control by the Railway of its standards to outside bodies.
WAO
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