Gail Everton

Said the following about S&C North Alliance:

“In September 2016,the S&C North Alliance, a partnership between AmeySersa and Network Rail made UK rail history on the East Coast Main (LNE) line at Belford Northumberland by reopening the line immediately after renewing a switches and crossing (S&C) turnout at 125mph.

Expanding on these techniques, in February 2017 the Doncaster-based operations team re-opened the same London to Scotland line at 125mph at Sandy after renewing a much more technically complex track layout, consisting of three crossovers and one turnout.

Using innovative techniques, world-first technology with a relentless focus on right first-time quality, the team has paved the way for making high speed hand-back the norm. The Alliance’s work deserves to be recognised both for engineering achievement and innovation, better passenger journeys and LNE Route savings of more than £700k in schedule 8 compensation payments.

To make an S&C 125mph hand-back a possibility, the Alliance team – as both designer and installer - reviewed every step of the track renewal process in detail to work out how best to achieve the narrow tolerances required. This resulted in a series of incremental improvements that helped to deliver the first 125mph hand-back at Belford and the attempt to replicate on the more complex layout at Sandy a realistic and safe goal.

Precision engineering and effective use of technology

To re-open the line at 125mph, a number of advanced engineering techniques were used to install the track to its exact designed geometry and ensure the ballast was effectively consolidated to provide a solid base:

• 3D dozing to excavate to formation level and placing the bottom ballast to within an agreed tolerance of its absolute design co-ordinates. This technology is a more effective and precise way of excavating as it saves the tamper from undertaking large alignment shifts which can undo the consolidation of the bottom ballast. Over digging production wastes are also minimised, resulting in less spoil, less ballast and fewer ballast wagons used.

• Use of the Variomatic Bomag roller to uniformly compact the bottom ballast. The Bomag provides an objective measure of the load bear ability (stiffness) of the track bed – a previously unavailable quality control measure.

• Placing the track panels to within 5mm of their absolute design position using GPS – rather than expecting the tamper to make large alignment adjustments.

• The world first use of Parallel Dynamic Track Stabilisation (DTS) at Sandy, Following the successful used of combined DTS tamping at Belford, two 09 4×4/4S Dynamic Tampers were used in parallel to tamp two crossovers. The two machines worked simultaneously to lift the crossover rails at the through bearers on both sites of the crossover in parallel. This ensured track quality and mitigated the risk of leaving the bearers unsupported or distorted by the uneven movement. This bedded in the track and ballast without the usual traffic-settling period, by applying forces equivalent to 200 high speed trains passing over the tracks consecutively.

• Fully welding and stressing the track for the line speed within each core weekend.

The result

The Alliance team handed back fast lines at their line speed of 125mph immediately after the engineering work was completed, with the slow lines handed back at line speed of 70mph and 80mph. The full expected volume of work was delivered:

• Seven point ends, one points conversion and one abandonment

• installed four new location boxes, one UTX and 320m of cable route

• 185 welds and 20 stressing pulls (including 155 welds and 5 stressing pulls within the core weekend work)

• 18 OLE adjustments

• All work was delivered safely, with no accidents or injuries on prep, core or follow up work

• On budget; £3.4m vs £3.4m

Benefits

Quality, performance and long term savings

The installation must be completed to a very high standard and right first time. Track installed to a higher quality has greater longevity, improved reliability, performs better and has a lower life cost overall.

By reopening at its full line speed of 125mph immediately after the work, passenger delays associated with temporary speed restrictions are eliminated. Critical on busy routes like the East Coast Main Line.

For our customers, allowing the trains to run to their normal timetable immediately after engineering work has enormous financial benefits. Savings in schedule 8 compensation payments are around £700,000

Completing the work right first time is ultimately much safer for the workforce, by removing the need for workers to complete corrective trackside work.

Our customers said

Rob McIntosh, Route Director, LNE:

“When you reflect on not just what was achieved last weekend but over the last year it's fantastic. I have been clear about my priorities; RTH, volume and hand-back speed in that order. You have responded brilliantly dealing with each in turn. Thank you and well done”“