ETCS Roll-Out on ECML South Confirmed

[LNW-GW Joint]

If it's not going to make any difference to the service the passenger experiences, what is the actual point of it?

The press release quotes Network Rail as saying it will be 42% cheaper over the lifetime of the system.

£1 billion technology investment to bring railway into 21st century

New funding for a more reliable and sustainable rail network.

www.gov.uk

As well as the many passenger benefits, the ECDP will deliver a much-needed financial boost to the industry and, over its lifetime, is 42% cheaper than the current system.
It will also help the government towards its net zero goal by decreasing carbon emissions by 55,000 tonnes – the equivalent of more than 65,000 one-way flights from London to New York.

It will however be a long time before we can judge such a saving, which is based on the elimination of the need for lineside equipment and its maintenance.
I'm not sure how the net zero progress is calculated, as the system does not in itself decrease diesel operation.

 

[snowball]

Articles in the railway press have claimed that the transition to ETCS is necessary because the coming wave of necessary signalling replacements could not otherwise be afforded.

 

[MarkyT]

If it's not going to make any difference to the service the passenger experiences, what is the actual point of it?

There will be maintenance savings, and the closer running ability, while not really creating any spectacular capacity benefits, will allow trains to recover from perturbation more quickly. 'Closing up' will be available more affordably at any station platform, reducing minimum reoccupation times, and less restrictive, as well as fully protected junction signalling arrangements, will be possible. Where a temporary speed restriction is imposed, the capacity of the railway for the duration is not reduced as is the case for colour light signalling, spaced for the highest speed trains. The continuous supervision of movement authority and speed also provides significant safety benefits over what can be achieved with AWS and TPWS.

 

[Sonik]

The tech isn't really 'off the shelf' yet. There's on-going development in Europe for an automatic coupling and brake line connection standard for freight vehicles. I expect better completeness and length determination will be a side benefit. In the meantime I disagree with you that the train detection is 'extraneous equipment' it is the required infrastructure for continuing to run the freights that run today. Front loading a project to force all freight companies to renew or modify all their equipment at their expense with a risky cutting edge technology is likely to force a lot of freight off the railway. Modern processor-based systems are fairly easy to alter too so if there's a sensible saving to be made by subsequently removing much of the fixed train detection, once all trains used on the line section are suitable, then it can and no doubt will be done.

NR and others have been considering the issue of equipping rolling stock for some time, ECML was selected because most of the passenger fleet is new, and therefore already equipped. Also recall there is a grant scheme for FOCs to equip locomotives. Equipping freight is regarded as a key enabler for ETCS because these trains travel over a wider area than typical passenger stock.

The bigger issue IMO is detection of completeness (to eliminate need for track based occupation detection) because AFAICS that will impose significant additional requirements on the FOCs however achieved. So a staged introduction as you describe is probably very sensible, even if it does cost slightly more in the interim.

There is always the possibility to re-balance costs (infrastructure savings vs FOC additional costs) through TACs but that's probably best left until technology and costs are better understood.

 

[zwk500]

There will be maintenance savings, and the closer running ability, while not really creating any spectacular capacity benefits, will allow trains to recover from perturbation more quickly. 'Closing up' will be available more affordably at any station platform, reducing minimum reoccupation times, and less restrictive, as well as fully protected junction signalling arrangements, will be possible. Where a temporary speed restriction is imposed, the capacity of the railway for the duration is not reduced as is the case for colour light signalling, spaced for the highest speed trains. The continuous supervision of movement authority and speed also provides significant safety benefits over what can be achieved with AWS and TPWS.

This is not quite true - the total throughput of trains will still be less, as trains cannot cover the distance as quickly. However the disruption will be reduced dramatically as the restriction information is more precise and carried on-board so no 'talking by' needed.

 

[MarkyT]

I've often wondered about this. Easy for multiple units but the issue is freight, perhaps we will see a return of 'brake' vans, purely for detection purposes.

Or EOT (end of train) devices as employed in various parts of the world. Combined with a tail marker or light, the contraption fastens on to the rear of the last wagon and has a brake line connection to apply brakes if it falls off. Some have a radio-controlled additional valve incorporated which can control the brake line remotely from the cab to improve speed of application. Might plausibly also include a balise reader.

It is York to Edinburgh was re-signalled at electrification. So is twenty years newer than The South end which was not touched at the time. Kings Cross PSB needed rewiring as all the cabling was shot. No alterations were allowed for fear of causing a fault on wiring.

So much of the south end is getting on for 50 years in service, fully depreciated by now and ready for renewal, which is where much of the budget will no doubt come from.

 

[Trestrol]

Obsolescence is a big problem in railway signalling. The thing is the newer stuff becomes obsolete quicker. It's relatively easy to get a 1930/40s relay serviced but a 10-15 year old circuit board is a different story. Companies now want to sell you the latest new piece of equipment. Not to mention software upgrades which cost a fortune. Things need to modernise but it can end up costing a lot of money.

 

[MarkyT]

Obsolescence is a big problem in railway signalling.

No doubt.

The thing is the newer stuff becomes obsolete quicker. It's relatively easy to get a 1930/40s relay serviced but a 10-15 year old circuit board is a different story.

Sometimes it's the components. There might be expertise available to fix or even make new replacement boards, but that discontinued early chip or weird transistor simply isn't available anymore. It is not unknown for the heritage sector to be approached to help source vital pieces of older equipment.

Companies now want to sell you the latest new piece of equipment.

I think that was always the case!

Not to mention software upgrades which cost a fortune. Things need to modernise but it can end up costing a lot of money.

Part of the justification for ETCS was to avoid proprietary interfaces so a network couldn't become locked in to a particular manufacturer. In the old days if you had (say) an Ebicab ATP system fitted to the infrastructure then you also had to have some of the same manufacturer's equipment on every train. If a supplier unilaterally decided to stop supporting a particular vintage of equipment, rail authorities might be forced into a major replacement on both track and train. Now ETCS interfaces between track and train are open and non-proprietary, and in theory even any kind of legacy ATP system can be emulated in the standard ETCS on-board system, sometimes supplemented with special modules for the particular track transponders. Unfortunately, there's no standard defined for the interface between interlocking and lineside equipment.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2022 ==

This is not quite true - the total throughput of trains will still be less, as trains cannot cover the distance as quickly. However the disruption will be reduced dramatically as the restriction information is more precise and carried on-board so no 'talking by' needed.

If a conventional section is designed to achieve (say) 2 mins technical headway at normal line speed, trains proceeding at half speed will take around twice as long to clear each block. As planning headway is usually a fair bit higher than technical headway, the effect shouldn't normally be a problem apart from very slow restrictions imposed over a long distance. ETCS completely decouples block boundary positioning from braking distance and sighting concerns, so in a temporary speed restriction scenario with short blocks, the signalling can close trains up to a greater extent.

 

[eldomtom2]

But I think lineside-based signalling is essentially a Victorian concept and the fact that this is being replaced by cab signalling on a classic main line is transformational.

So is the basic concept of metal wheels on metal rails - well, in fact that's pre-Victorian. I think you can see how describing block signalling as "Victorian" is highly disingenuous.

 

[D365]

The trouble is that the ECTS equipment will likely need to at least be able to implement a brake demand automatically, to pass the safety case. It is do-able, but may need some modification (such as an attachment point), which is probably do-able, however. Whether part of it will be removable is another matter.

Some modification is an understatement! But rest assured that there are some very clever engineers on the job.

No chance of ETCS being portable - installation designs are specific to each type (and variant) of a driving vehicle.

 

[HSTEd]

The obvious way to fit freight trains for train completeness is to move to ECP braking. But that will cost significant sums per locomotive and on the order of $5-7,000 per freight wagon so fitted.

And it's surprisingly difficult to find out how many main line operating freight wagons there are.
But I don't think its totally absurd that it might work out cheaper (For society) to pay for freight fitment with that than continue to install and maintain lots of train completeness checking hardware in the middle of nowhere. All that hardware does increase the complexity of the scheme and thus consume commissioning and design resources after all.

But honestly I am just terrified we will end up in a years long chicken-and-egg.

EDIT:

I'd misremembered and added an extra zero to the retrofit cost!

 

[zwk500]

If a conventional section is designed to achieve (say) 2 mins technical headway at normal line speed, trains proceeding at half speed will take around twice as long to clear each block. As planning headway is usually a fair bit higher than technical headway, the effect shouldn't normally be a problem apart from very slow restrictions imposed over a long distance. ETCS completely decouples block boundary positioning from braking distance and sighting concerns, so in a temporary speed restriction scenario with short blocks, the signalling can close trains up to a greater extent.

ETCS does completely decouple the blocks from braking distance, but it does still cover a physical area, and a MA cannot be granted into a block that is still occupied. Therefore, if a train is taking longer to clear the block section then it will take longer before the next train can be authorised into it. The braking curve supervision ensures there will still be a concertina affect. I do 100% agree with you that the impact will be much much less than nowadays.
Each block for ETCS adds cost as there's another train detection position and interlocking element, so blocks will still be spaced to achieve the headway required to operate the service intended, rather than all being the absolute minimum technically possible.

 

[MarkyT]

ETCS does completely decouple the blocks from braking distance, but it does still cover a physical area, and a MA cannot be granted into a block that is still occupied. Therefore, if a train is taking longer to clear the block section then it will take longer before the next train can be authorised into it. The braking curve supervision ensures there will still be a concertina affect. I do 100% agree with you that the impact will be much much less than nowadays.
Each block for ETCS adds cost as there's another train detection position and interlocking element, so blocks will still be spaced to achieve the headway required to operate the service intended, rather than all being the absolute minimum technically possible.

That makes sense. ETCS block length will undoubtedly be an economic decision on a case-by-case basis. I hope they'll add a few more than the absolute minimum, to build in some resilience. Once virtual fixed block is readily available then the costs for each extra section will be reduced.

 

[whoosh]

No doubt.

Sometimes it's the components. There might be expertise available to fix or even make new replacement boards, but that discontinued early chip or weird transistor simply isn't available anymore. It is not unknown for the heritage sector to be approached to help source vital pieces of older equipment.

Legend tells of eBay scavenges for Pinball machines for relays for some types of rolling stock.

Certainly plausible!

 

[MarkyT]

The obvious way to fit freight trains for train completeness is to move to ECP braking. But that will cost significant sums per locomotive and on the order of $5-7,000 per freight wagon so fitted.

And it's surprisingly difficult to find out how many main line operating freight wagons there are.
But I don't think its totally absurd that it might work out cheaper (For society) to pay for freight fitment with that than continue to install and maintain lots of train completeness checking hardware in the middle of nowhere. All that hardware does increase the complexity of the scheme and thus consume commissioning and design resources after all.

But honestly I am just terrified we will end up in a years long chicken-and-egg.

EDIT:

I'd misremembered and added an extra zero to the retrofit cost!

I'd caution that axle counters are very reliable, established technology, require little maintenance and only sip power. They obviously don't go home to a nice depot where they can be tested and serviced every night though, so any reduction in their numbers would be welcome. Their rail-mounted sensors and cabling are quite vulnerable to damage as well.

 

[Trestrol]

No doubt.

Sometimes it's the components. There might be expertise available to fix or even make new replacement boards, but that discontinued early chip or weird transistor simply isn't available anymore. It is not unknown for the heritage sector to be approached to help source vital pieces of older equipment.

Its not just that but maintaining the test equipment so the repaired item. I have seen some very antique computers and test sets used at a repair of railway equipment.

 

[D365]

The obvious way to fit freight trains for train completeness is to move to ECP braking. But that will cost significant sums per locomotive and on the order of $5-7,000 per freight wagon so fitted.

Please define ”ECP”.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2022 ==

This will achieve absolutely nothing in performance improvements unless the DFT also cough up the money to either retrofit the 91s with ETCS or to replace them. They’ve not funded the former to my knowledge and things have gone quiet on the latter.

There remains an aspiration to replace the IC225s with either additional Hitachi or CAF units.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2022 ==

There's a program to retrofit 66s with ETCS. I'm not sure about any other freight locos.

EMR's 170s will also need retrofitting unless there's a plan for TFW 158s to move to EMR for the Norwich route.

Other freight vehicles will follow on from the Class 66 first-in-class.

The Ansaldo ETCS on TfW Class 158s will not be compatible with ECML ETCS.

 

[DanNCL]

There remains an aspiration to replace the IC225s with either additional Hitachi or CAF units.

Yes, but things have gone quiet on that one lately. As things stand no order has been placed, and no firm timeline for removing the 91s can realistically be set until an order for new trains has been placed.

The Ansaldo ETCS on TfW Class 158s will not be compatible with ECML ETCS.

It can be modified and doing so would likely be a lot cheaper than an entirely new ETCS installation on 170s or EMR’s existing158s that were not designed for ETCS and therefore don’t already have passive provision for it.

 

[MarkyT]

The Ansaldo ETCS on TfW Class 158s will not be compatible with ECML ETCS.

It can be modified and doing so would likely be a lot cheaper than an entirely new ETCS installation on 170s or EMR’s existing158s that were not designed for ETCS and therefore don’t already have passive provision for it.

There's a project underway to upgrade Cambrian ETCS infrastructure to the latest baseline and solve some other hard and software problems that have come to light in this very early installation. I don't know if any mods are required on the trains to allow them to use the new infrastructure. I think there's supposed to be a backwards compatibility clause, i.e. more modern trains can run on older baseline ETCS, so I'd guess the trains would need to be tackled first. New TfW units destined for the line will presumably come with the latest baseline already installed.

 

[D365]

There's a project underway to upgrade Cambrian ETCS infrastructure to the latest baseline and solve some other hard and software problems that have come to light in this very early installation. I don't know if any mods are required on the trains to allow them to use the new infrastructure. I think there's supposed to be a backwards compatibility clause, i.e. more modern trains can run on older baseline ETCS, so I'd guess the trains would need to be tackled first. New TfW units destined for the line will presumably come with the latest baseline already installed.

BIB: correct. As for the Cambrian 158s/97s, I am not sure if the onboard will require substantial hardware reengineering, or whether software updates will be sufficient for compatibility with later baselines i.e. ECML.

Note that DRS and Colas Class 37s will be fitted with Siemens Trainguard as a follow-on to the Class 66 Freight programme.

 

[Jonny]

If they're getting rid of lights on sticks, anything running on the Line will need ETCS. Which also raises the interesting question around Peterborough, as to whether all the freight will be fitted with ETCS or if they will have a hybrid Overlay system.

It wouldn't be the be-all and end all, note that Hong Kong has blue lights to supplement existing signals. When the blue light is lit, the driver is to follow in-cab signalling. The only issue would be similarity to TPWS indicators in RETB areas, so a solution might be double blue (similar display geometry to double yellow) if a single blue is not acceptable when ETCS is live and the signal is disabled. Of course, you could always have such a signal also meaning "danger without ETCS".

https://railsigns.uk/photos/p_hk1.html gives a good description of blue aspects in Hong Kong, albeit relying on a picture of a "blue" aspect.

 

[MarkyT]

It wouldn't be the be-all and end all, note that Hong Kong has blue lights to supplement existing signals. When the blue light is lit, the driver is to follow in-cab signalling. The only issue would be similarity to TPWS indicators in RETB areas, so a solution might be double blue (similar display geometry to double yellow) if a single blue is not acceptable when ETCS is live and the signal is disabled. Of course, you could always have such a signal also meaning "danger without ETCS".

https://railsigns.uk/photos/p_hk1.html gives a good description of blue aspects in Hong Kong, albeit relying on a picture of a "blue" aspect.

The UK already has some overlaid hybrid signalling areas, retaining signals and legacy train protection to cope with some trains not having ETCS. The Thameslink core through central London is so equipped, and a project is underway on the GWML.

 

[Annetts key]

Hmm, “outdated Victorian infrastructure”, unless it there’s some actual really old mechanical signalling, it definitely won’t be Victorian signalling equipment…

“With cutting edge digital signalling technology”, err, what cutting edge digital signalling technology? The U.K. railways don’t do cutting edge digital signalling technology. Most of our signalling technology is based on older signalling technology. The very last thing you want is cutting edge digital signalling technology, as that may well not have all the gremlins ironed out…

Oh, and digital signalling technology has been around since the days of British Railways… (see Solid State Interlocking).

Please sir, when can we have a transport Secretary who actually knows something about transport systems?

 

[Agent_Squash]

“With cutting edge digital signalling technology”, err, what cutting edge digital signalling technology? The U.K. railways don’t do cutting edge digital signalling technology. Most of our signalling technology is based on older signalling technology. The very last thing you want is cutting edge digital signalling technology, as that may well not have all the gremlins ironed out…

To be fair, isn’t Crossrail / Elizabeth line the first fully ‘digital railway’ in the world? Even Mark Wild basically came out and said too much was digitised.

Shapps doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but it’s not like the railway in the UK can’t innovate.

 

[Annetts key]

To be fair, isn’t Crossrail / Elizabeth line the first fully ‘digital railway’ in the world? Even Mark Wild basically came out and said too much was digitised.

Depends on what you mean by digital.

A electromagnetic relay is a digital device. A conventional relay has two states (* some specialist relays have three states, but they are still digital): energised and de-energised. It’s a binary digital device. Hence a route relay interlocking is a digital system.

If by digital, you mean computer controlled, as in computer based (that is there is still a human signaller that inputs each route), that describes the British Rail Solid State Interlocking (SSI) system (first full installation was at Leamington Spa in 1985). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_State_Interlocking.

BR then introduced Integrated Electronic Control Centre (IECC) systems (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Electronic_Control_Centre).

If you mean a computer based signalling system which has an automatic route setting (ARS) system, yet again, this is nothing new. That technology has been in use in this country for many years already.

In terms of train protection systems, we already have the Great Western Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system which uses digital computers and digital data transmissions. And we already have an ERTMS system. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europ...ystem_in_Great_Britain#Current_implementation

Digital describes a technology that generates, stores, and processes signals or data in terms of two states: typically represented by values of a physical quantity such as voltage (two different voltages or polarities such as positive and non-positive), magnetic polarization or physical position/state. One state is typically expressed or represented by the number 1, or logic high and the other by the number 0 or logic low. Thus, signals or data transmitted or stored with digital technology is normally expressed as a string of 0's and 1's.

Note that a digital signal does not have to have only two states, but it has to have a limited, fixed and defined number of states.

 

[Railsigns]

https://railsigns.uk/photos/p_hk1.html gives a good description of blue aspects in Hong Kong, albeit relying on a picture of a "blue" aspect.

The more detailed descriptions are on this page: https://www.railsigns.uk/overseas/hongkong1.html

 

[zwk500]

It wouldn't be the be-all and end all, note that Hong Kong has blue lights to supplement existing signals. When the blue light is lit, the driver is to follow in-cab signalling. The only issue would be similarity to TPWS indicators in RETB areas, so a solution might be double blue (similar display geometry to double yellow) if a single blue is not acceptable when ETCS is live and the signal is disabled. Of course, you could always have such a signal also meaning "danger without ETCS".

https://railsigns.uk/photos/p_hk1.html gives a good description of blue aspects in Hong Kong, albeit relying on a picture of a "blue" aspect.

Read my post 'If they're getting rid of lights on sticks'. L2 Overlaid on signals is perfectly possible, but thsts not what's being proposed.

 

[HSTEd]

Read my post 'If they're getting rid of lights on sticks'. L2 Overlaid on signals is perfectly possible, but thsts not what's being proposed.

My reading of the press release was signals only abolished south of Peterborough.

Please define ”ECP”.

"Electronically controlled pneumatic" braking, a system with a power and data base running the length of the train that allows independent electronic control of all brakes in the formation, and data passage between vehicles and the locomotives. The air brake pipe is retained solely as a method of continuously refilling the reservoirs in the vehicles. It's been deployed on some heavy haul railways in Australia, South Africa and North America but the up front cost of mass retrofit has held it back elswhere.

With such a system you can provide continuous train completeness checks, transmit multiple working data and any number of other things.

 

[zwk500]

My reading of the press release was signals only abolished south of Peterborough.

Ah, good spot!

 

[dazzler]

Read my post 'If they're getting rid of lights on sticks'. L2 Overlaid on signals is perfectly possible, but thsts not what's being proposed.

From the original post by LNW-GW Joint:

Conventional colour light signals are due to be removed from much of the route, although they will be retained between Peterborough and Stoke Tunnel to facilitate the operation of unfitted trains on east-west services crossing the ECML.