Officers release CCTV clip of Tube attack

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British Transport Police have released CCTV footage of a man slapping a Tube employee in the face in an attempt to trace the attacker.

Investigators have made video footage of the assault public after an initial appeal for information uncovered no leads.

On March 29, two men were walking from Totteridge and Whetstone station platform through the ticket hall at 8.30pm when they approached the member of staff at the ticket barriers.

One man used his Oyster card to pass through, before the other man began to confront the London Underground (LU) staff member.

The man then lashed out at the woman, slapping her in the face, before both men ran off through the barrier and out of the station.

One of the men, Edmund Hammond, 37, is believed to live in Tottenham, but may have links to Barnet, Colindale and Edgware.

Detective constable Steve Ajayi said: “This was a completely unprovoked attack and left the victim with bruising to her cheek and nose, not to mention causing her considerable shock and emotional distress.

“Members of staff should be able to go about their daily routine without the fear of violence like this. Our investigation is continuing and I’d appeal for anyone who recognises the men in the CCTV footage, or know the whereabouts of Hammond, to come forward.”

Aidan Harris, LU workplace violence unit manager, said: “This was an unprovoked and cowardly attack, and I urge anyone with information to contact the police immediately.

“Our staff have the right to carry out their vital work without fear of being attacked and we will always seek the harshest penalty possible through the courts.”

‘Snake charmers’ aid bridge repaint

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Queensland Rail has used ‘snake charmers’ to scare off venomous visitors during a repaint of the South Pine Bridge.

Solar-powered snake repeller units were used to deter brown snakes as staff carried out maintenance work at the site.

The Eastern Brown Snake is considered by some to be the second most toxic land snake in the world.

Queensland Rail Network SEQ acting group general manager Rory MacManu, said: “Brown snakes in the area posed a very real danger to our staff and site visitors.

“The snake repeller units are solar-powered and emit an ultrasonic pulse, which snakes apparently feel as a vibration transmitted through the ground, making them alert to possible danger.”

The Caboolture line, Sunshine Coast line, and Queensland Rail Travel’s long-distance trains all cross the South Pine River at the border of Strathpine and Bald Hills.

The project had been delayed by three weeks because of floods.

Mr MacManu added: “The team put four separate coats on the bridge, and much of that work had to be hand-painted with a brush.”

Coleraine-Londonderry line to close for up to nine months

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A railway line between Coleraine and Londonderry is set to close for up to nine months for £17 million worth of track engineering works to be carried out.

Contractors McLaughlin & Harvey and McCann BAM Rail JV are to carry out the major track upgrade between July 29 and April 2013.

In a contract worth £16 million, McCann BAM Rail JV will be responsible for a full track relay between Coleraine and Castlerock as well as between Eglinton and Londonderry.

McLaughlin and Harvey Ltd will deliver track safety improvement works involving track re-railing between Umbra and Eglinton in a contract worth £1.3 million.

Both contracts form a major part of Translink’s Coleraine to Londonderry track renewals project which is being funded by a £50 million investment from the Department for Regional Development.

Eugene O’Brien, head of track at Translink NI Railways, said: “This project represents a significant investment in the line for the future. Passengers will notice train journeys are smoother and more comfortable; trains will be quieter and the overall performance and safety of the line will be maintained at a high level.”

A temporary bus service will be put in place for the duration of the track works.

The project will also include installation of new drainage, new ducting for signalling cables, overhaul of the Bann Bridge and reconstruction of Pottagh Bridge.

Ansaldo STS awarded multi-million dollar Australian contracts

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Ansaldo STS Australia has been awarded contracts worth $362 million to supply an automated train management system in the country’s Pilbara region.

The first contract worth $317.5 million, which has been awarded under the Rio Tinto Iron Ore – Ansaldo STS Framework Agreement (RAFA), is for the development and delivery of an automated train management system for Rio Tinto Iron Ore’s 1,500km heavy-haul iron ore rail network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The automated heavy-haul railway, to be completed in 2015, will be the first of its kind in the world.

The highly-specialised modular signalling solution, which is being developed and implemented by Ansaldo STS, includes the introduction of a centralised Vital Safety Server for the safe and flexible management of train movements and an on-board driving module, which enables the complete automation of the trains’ operation.

Additional features of the Ansaldo STS solution include complete reuse of wayside infrastructure and minimisation of disruption to train operations during deployment.

The other contract awarded to Ansaldo STS under RAFA, which is worth $44.7 million, involves the delivery of the next in a series of staged upgrades for capacity and efficiency enhancements to Rio Tinto Iron Ore’s long-distance heavy-haul rail network.

Under the new contract Ansaldo STS will complete upgrades to Rio Tinto’s locomotive control systems so that the network can support the introduction of Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) braking. Ansaldo STS will then complete the installation and system integration of the ECP braking on Rio Tinto’s heavy-haul rail fleet.

The introduction of ECP braking will significantly reduce delays of Rio Tinto’s iron ore trains as they travel continuously from mine to port along the 1,500km remote heavy-haul rail line.

Ansaldo STS Australia has been designing and delivering signalling and communications solutions for heavy-haul mining railways for more than 15 years.

The company employs 700 people across Australia and has offices in Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Perth and Karratha.

Olympics dress rehearsal confuses commuters

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Closed entrances and one-way systems annoyed commuters travelling through key London stations yesterday as Network Rail went through its crowd management practices ahead of the Olympic Games.

A queuing system was imposed at London Bridge at the same time the station’s Hay’s Galleria entrance was closed.

The disruption was compounded when King’s Cross station was evacuated during rush hour after a train broke down on the Northern Line.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “We appreciate that today’s (July 10) rehearsal is frustrating for some commuters and that it takes some people longer to get through the station than normal.

“We would like to reassure people that today’s test is crucial to make sure that large numbers of people can use the station safely during Games time.”

More than 130,000 people travel through London Bridge every morning.

Network Rail has predicted that July 30 will be the station’s busiest day, with an additional 69,000 passengers expected to travel to watch the equestrian event at Greenwich Park.

GLA Conservatives transport spokesman, Richard Tracey, branded London Bridge’s Olympic test event an “utter shambles”.

Mr Tracey said: “These test events are supposed to inform the public how things will run during the Olympics. To work well they require joined up thinking and co-operation of all stakeholders. And yet to have one of the station’s principle exits, the Hay’s Galleria over bridge, closed for escalator maintenance on a test event day seems a bad omen for the co-ordination London’s going to need if it is to run smoothly under the pressure of Olympic traffic.”

Farringdon platform extensions

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In the last few years of employment with Network Rail, I spent a large proportion of my time dealing with standards for track engineering. In addition to dealing with the company’s own track standards and working with RSSB and other stakeholders on Railway Group Standards, the work included representation of the company, and on occasion the UK, at relevant European standards meetings.

One of the regular challenges from standards users was the suggestion that standards, whether company, Railway Group or international, restricted innovation and commercial activity to an unacceptable degree. The answer to such views was the same then as it is now. Standards are not there to be an obstruction to anything, their purpose is to offer guidance about how best to achieve the desired outcomes. Applied properly, standards assist people to avoid past mistakes and the traps inherent in conducting complex operations. Standards are intended to help people and organisations benefit from collective wisdom and experience.

Non-compliance

To misquote the old saying, standards are there for the guidance of wise men and the mindless obedience of fools. Both Network Rail and RSSB have established ways for dealing with non-standard situations.

When it is clearly impossible or impracticable to comply with a standard, then the way to deal with a commercially driven standard is usually within the gift of the company or standard owner. The commercial risks of the possible options are assessed, and the most acceptable alternative selected. When the issue is a safety matter, the way to proceed is less obvious but must still be based upon the risks involved. RSSB will agree derogations or temporary non-compliances (TNCs) against standards where it is possible to agree an alternative approach to that specified but which still delivers a safety level equivalent to ordinary compliance. Companies such as Network Rail will employ a similar process.

The Group Standard derogation/TNC process is administered on behalf of the industry by RSSB standards committees. These are cross-industry bodies that reflect the broad interests of all stakeholders. Each committee specialises in a particular area, such as infrastructure or rolling stock.

Because the circumstances that lead to the need for a TNC or derogation are usually driven by unique or unusual factors, they are usually dealt with individually on a case-by-case basis. Whilst this may seem bureaucratic to some, in fact, if the procedures are managed and used correctly, it makes for a very flexible system. It will allow even the most arcane set of circumstances to be dealt with so as to deliver an economic, practical and safe outcome.

Of course, if it becomes clear that a particular set of circumstances is not as unusual as originally thought, resulting in a requirement for an excessive numbers of TNCs or derogations, that does call the standard concerned into question. In such cases the standard owner should doubtless review the document and revise it appropriately.

The essential approach to compiling standards and administering the TNC and derogation processes is a risk-based one. For Group Standards the major consideration is safety risk, of course, but even here there is a requirement to consider economic factors too. For company standards, commercial or financial risks will be considered a bigger factor, whilst safety still remains a top priority. Thus a Group Standard might lay down generic requirements for a track fastening to ensure that they are safe while the company standard might specify specific fastening types. Other types might comply with the Group Standard requirements but be rejected by the company on the basis of commercial considerations such as first cost or whole life cost.

Farringdon for example

Perhaps that still sounds complicated, but in fact it works. RSSB has many examples of projects which have, by agreement, successfully implemented solutions that do not comply with the relevant standard. One such example is the recently completed project to extend the platforms at Farringdon Station in central London.

The object was, as regular readers of the rail engineer will know, to provide for 12 car trains on the Thameslink route as opposed to the original 8 car capability. Farringdon is an old station in a cramped location in a cutting. It is Grade 2 listed, which makes matters more interesting, and finally and completing the list of challenges nicely, it is used by both mainline trains and those of London Underground (LUL).

As Network Rail senior project engineer Paul Mitchison explained, the consequence of all these factors was that it was just not practicable to construct the new station in total compliance with either Railway Group Standards or LUL’s somewhat different standards.

A critical question affected by standards was the choice of location for the platform extensions. At the north end of the station is one of the steepest gradients on a British mainline railway, 1 in 29. To the south there is a curve with a radius down to 200 metres. Normally the Railway Group Standard would require that a station site would be selected to avoid both these features.

This was not practicable in this case and so it was decided to assess the risks of each problem, both to aid the decision about whether to extend to the north or to the south, and to allow a derogation from the standard to be successfully applied for for the chosen solution.

By involving the standards committees from the outset, and communicating closely with them throughout the process, the project was able to obtain the required derogation for the construction of the platform extension on the curved site at the south end of the station. It was demonstrated that the infrastructure standard requirements for platform gauge could be met even on the tightest curvature present.

Unfortunately, the operational standard requirement outlining the stepping distance from train running board to platform edge could not quite be met.However, it was successfully argued that, as the non-compliance was small, this was a much smaller risk than that of having platforms on a 1 in 29 gradient. Additionally, it was shown that the situation would be improved in future.

The new Class 700 rolling stock for Thameslink was to have lower running boards than the Class 319 and 377 units to be replaced, meaning that their stepping distance was going to be much improved and possibly even compliant with the standard. The problem was thus going to reduce in severity significantly as the new units came into service.

Close columns

Another potential non-compliance issue concerned the columns supporting the train shed roof. In certain areas of the platforms it was not feasible to maintain a 4.5 metre clearance between these and the nearest rail. This meant that the Railway Group Standard required hefty collision protection structures around the columns; impractical and excessively costly to provide in the circumstances.

Discussion with the standards committees led to derogations, on the basis that the platform structures themselves gave adequate collision protection to the columns for the prevailing situation. The fact that trains would be passing at relatively low speed made it easier to reach agreement on this.

A third question arose over the matter of minimum headroom in public areas of the station. The Railway Group Standard headroom requirement was impracticable to achieve in certain areas of platforms 3 & 4.

The Grade 2 listing was obviously one constraint, and additionally the Transport and Works Act enabling the works made no provision for the alterations needed to increase the headroom.

The time and cost implications of obtaining the necessary consents and carrying out the works were prohibitive by anybody’s measure. Again, a derogation was granted, this time on the basis of the installation of “flow-by” structures at relevant points, to direct pedestrians around the areas of low headroom. Given that modelling had shown that the pedestrian flow capacity of the areas concerned would remain adequate with these structures in place, the derogation was granted.

Quite a number of other civil and track engineering standards issues were successfully managed in analogous ways by the project, RSSB and LUL, as were others affecting S&T and M&E engineering.

Despite the complexity of the project, the shared use of the station and the Grade 2 listing, all of the standards issues were successfully resolved, and in November 2011 the final “sign-off” was agreed by both RSSB and LUL. The extended station was opened for public use on time in December 2011.

Heritage operator fined after chairman’s legs are crushed in track accident

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A Heritage railway operator has been fined £5,000 after the company’s chairman had his legs crushed by a length of track as it was being moved by crane.

Telford Steam Railway will also have to pay costs of £3,000, following a prosecution brought by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) for criminal breaches of health and safety law.

On July 2, 2011, staff and volunteers of the Telford Steam Railway were installing rail on an extension to the line near Lawley Common, Shropshire, when a 450kg length of rail struck Paul Hughes as it was being moved from a wagon to the trackside by crane

Mr Hughes suffered extensive injuries to both legs.

An investigation by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) into the incident found that none of the staff or volunteers involved in the work had received sufficient training, or been provided with appropriate personal protective equipment. In addition, no planning had taken place, and the railway crane being used was unstable, defective and not certified.

David Keay, ORR’s head of inspection, railway operators, said: “There are hundreds of heritage railways in Great Britain, and the vast majority are run in a safe and professional manner. However, in this instance, those working on the Telford Steam Railway put their lives at risk, attempting to move a 450kg length of rail with an unstable and defective crane, without training or planning.

“We will not allow such an inexcusable and casual approach to the safety of those working on Britain’s railways.

“Safety is the rail regulator‘s priority, and this year we will be inspecting heritage railways across Britain to ensure they are being operated safely.”

On July 10, Telford Steam Railway pleaded guilty to one charge under section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Network Rail seeks transparency with new punctuality figures

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Network Rail has released punctuality figures revealing exactly how many of Britain’s trains have arrived at their stations on time in the last 10 years.

Just under 70 per cent of trains pulled up within a minute of their scheduled arrival time in 2011/12 – an improvement on the 46.9 per cent that turned up on time 10 years ago.

Network Rail believes that by making ‘right-time’ data available to the public it is fulfilling its promise to improve transparency within the company and the industry.

The latest figures are the most detailed of any released by the transport industry in the UK or Europe.

Network Rail punctuality figures for the last 10 years

The research is also more stringent than the UK’s standard punctuality measure, the public performance measure (PPM), which considers trains to be on time if they arrive within five minutes for a short-distance service and within 10 minutes for a long distance.

Robin Gisby, Network Rail’s managing director, network operations, said: “We are committed to improving punctuality as far as possible but as the numbers of passengers and trains continues to increase, it becomes ever more difficult to do.

“We will be open and honest with the public about our performance and the capacity constraints we’re working under, identifying the investment needed to tackle these constraints and continue to grow and develop the railway into a service of which the British people can be proud.”

Anthony Smith, Passenger Focus chief executive, said: “Publishing ‘right-time’ information is an important and welcome move by the rail industry. Passengers have always been suspicious of punctuality statistics that allow trains to be up to five or 10 minutes late and still count as on time.

“We welcome the commitment to go further in the future by publishing train by train information as well.  Passenger Focus looks forward to working with the rail industry to find out how passengers would like this information presented.”

Freight trains were not speeding before fatal crash

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Two freight trains which collided in Oklahoma killing three crew members were not speeding, according to a preliminary accident report.

On June 24, two Union Pacific freight trains travelling eastbound and westbound near Goodwell collided, sparking a diesel-fed fire.

Three of the four crew members onboard received fatal injuries.

The other crew member survived after jumping from the locomotive just before the collision.

The National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) found that event recorders from the lead locomotives of both trains were severely damaged during the collision and could not indicate whether the trains were travelling within the 70mph speed limit.

However, the initial data retrieved from the the rear locomotives of both trains, as well as recorded data from the signal system, indicated that the eastbound train was travelling about 64 mph and the westbound train was travelling about 38 mph at the time of the collision.

On the eastbound train the three lead locomotives and first 24 cars derailed along with the two lead locomotives and first fix cars of the westbound train.

The damage is estimated at $14.79 million.

 

First Capital Connect completes peaks challenge

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Four employees from First Capital Connect (FCC) have raised more than £11,000 for Railway Children after braving severe downpours to complete the Three Peaks Challenge by Rail.

Managing director, Neal Lawson, Bedford driver, Martin Barter, and revenue protections team members, Glen Merryman and Rebecca Vandyke, climbed the three highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales over the course of three days.

Throughout the trip the team endured flooding and winds of up to 60mph.

The event, which took place between June 21 -23, set off on a chartered train from Euston Station to Snowdon, followed by a trek on Scafell Pike, and finally to Ben Nevis.

The team were unable to reach the summit of Scafell Pike after being turned back due to the severe conditions.

The entire course covered a total ascent of just over 300m – the equivalent of one and a half marathons.

Neal Lawson, FCC managing director, said: “The hikes were extremely challenging, particularly the conditions on Scafell Pike, but the feeling of accomplishment for all of us was indescribable.

“On behalf of my team, I would like to thank everyone who sponsored us for what is an extremely important cause.”

Lindsey Gardner, events assistant at Railway Children, added: “The Railway Children Three Peaks Challenge by Rail is our flagship event, and brings so many members of the rail industry together.

This year’s top fundraising team was the team from First Capital Connect, who raised the magnificent total of £11,000.

“Every day thousands of children wake up scared, vulnerable and alone on the streets, they are there because there is no-one left to turn to. Fortunately there are people who truly care for these children and want to give them a safe place to sleep, and the love and care that any child deserves.”

To donate to Railway Children click here.