electrification focus
programme could start in earnest and the
current economic conditions may prove
challenging. Even being very optimistic, it
could take up to two years to agree any
initial funding, following which a two year
scheme development period would begin,
with design and specialist high output plant
being specified and procured.
Other considerations will be the work
involved in modifying structures such as
bridges to allow electrical clearances to be
achieved. Similarly some of the older
signalling systems will need to be
immunised against 25kV electrification,
which will all require implementation in
parallel with the overhead wiring. To be
realistic, it is unlikely that any of the new may need to be applied include the four providing the specialist plant and project Marylebone
electrified routes will be in service until the mile, three hundred yard long, Severn management. station, could well
middle of the next decade at the earliest, Tunnel, which will present challenges in There were no other principal electrification be electrified as
but this assumption could be proven wrong designing overlaps within the tunnel contractors operating in the UK at that time part of the ten
if the price of oil continues to rise constraints as well as having salt water and this one project alone absorbed virtually year programme.
dramatically. ingress pollution problems to overcome. all the available electrification resource. Two
decades later, the teams used on this project
GWR World Heritage Site status Can the Industry deliver? have largely disappeared, and current
Other challenges that lie ahead include The last major project in the UK to install electrification projects are now suffering from
the Great Western Mainline, which holds comparable amounts of new overhead line the legacy of this valuable resource never
World Heritage Site status, where any new electrification was the East Coast Mainline having been replaced.
electrification will need to be sympathetic to Project, which constructed over 2000 km in However, with proper strategic planning,
the historical value of the route. That said, a period between 1985 and 1990. British allowing the development of new designs,
Brunel, had he been born a couple of Rail engaged two contractors to undertake high output specialist plant and the training
generations later, might well have been an this work, which were Pirelli Construction of sufficient new resource, the Electrification
early pioneer of electrification on the GWR! and Balfour Beatty, with BR carrying out Industry will certainly rise to the 5000 km
Other examples where specialist solutions much of the design work as well as Challenge.
Furrer+Frey AG
Overhead contact line engineering
Design, manufacturing, installation
Thunstrasse 35, P.O. Box 182
CH-3000 Berne 6, Switzerland
Telephone + 41 31 357 61 11
Fax + 41 31 357 61 00
Furrer Frey
®
www.furrerfrey.ch
Overhead contact lines
october 2008 | the rail engineer | 29
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