feature
Clive Kessell reports...
GSM-R
on the
West Coast
Base assembly
Main Line
internal service ducts.
Surprisingly, GSM-R has been around in one The GSM-R system was gradually installed Portsmouth re-signalled sections being two
location of the UK for a number of years. and commissioned, being completed in of them. Rather than build separate GSM-R
Readers may recall that in the late 1990s, January 2005 and costing around £100M. systems for these localities, it was decided
the WCML route modernisation was intended Nortel had been chosen as the radio to provide an IVRS facility tagged on to the
to be the first deployment of ERTMS Level 3. infrastructure provider and various other firms Stoke MSC using the Network Rail FTN
This ultimate in signalling technology would supplied smaller elements of the system. transmission facility then being rolled out.
have meant huge cost savings, as it would Marconi did all the design work and system These have been in use from 2003 and 2007
do away with most of the lineside signalling integration and became responsible for the respectively, thus making good use of the
hardware and cable infrastructure. No more maintenance. However, with Level 3 now WCML switching centre already in place.
track circuits or axle counters, no more colour abandoned, this was a radio network without Since the IVRS is for emergency use only,
light signals, truly a vision that would any immediate use, something of an traffic levels are very low and the radio
revolutionise train control principles. embarrassment to Railtrack and its successor. system is much underused. However, it has
It was not to be, as the Alliance Partnership No trains had been fitted with GSM-R enabled a difficult emergency problem to be
consisting of Railtrack and GEC-Alsthom realised mobiles, there being disputes among the overcome.
quickly that this was a step too far. The TOCS as to who should pay for this.
technology was just not developed and the The future for the WCML system
safety assurance processes would have made it The problem of Axle Counters What to do with all this radio capability is a
nigh impossible to implement in the timeframe and the IVRS question inherited by Network Rail. The
proposed. The revised signalling plan for the WCML pragmatic solution has been to integrate the
Huge logistic problems existed with the envisaged the use of axle counters in place WCML system into the new UK GSM-R
various junctions en route and what to do of track circuits and these were duly network. The Old Dalby MSC, which was
with trains that operated on the line for short introduced firstly on the North Staffs section. always an overkill provision, has been
distances at these crossing points led to the The pros and cons of axle counters is still decommissioned and some parts used to
idea of 'conventionally signalled islands', a argued fiercely and is a subject for another construct the second national MSC at Didcot,
very unsatisfactory compromise. Quietly the article. However, one disadvantage of axle thus complementing the Stoke MSC already
plan was ditched and a conventional counters is that the traditional use of track in existence.
signalling system has eventually been circuit shorting clips by train crew to put With all the London – Manchester section
deployed. This is designed to be capable of signals back to red in the event of an BTSs in place it is a matter of conjecture as
upgrading to ERTMS Level 2, which may yet emergency, is no longer possible. to why the GSM-R roll out has not included
come about. Pressure from the train unions for an the WCML in the earlier stages of the plan.
alternative solution meant that something Certainly, other sections of the route remain
The need for GSM-R had to be done. A robust means of to be equipped, the north end of the
However, Level 3 needs a bearer system communicating an emergency situation to Birmingham loop and the whole line north
and a partner in the Alliance was Marconi, signallers was one idea and here was a radio of Crewe.
then still aligned with the GEC group of system in place that would be ideal. So Maybe there are just too many other
companies. They were also given the task of emerged the Interim Voice Radio System things going on with this project that
providing the GSM-R radio. Much better (IVRS) using the GSM-R infrastructure already another complication is not required until the
progress was made with this and the whole in place. As a result, around 4000 rugged majority of the route works are completed.
route from London to Manchester, including (yellow) hand portable radios have been Fitting the trains with mobiles will also have
the spur to Birmingham, was duly equipped. purchased from Sagem and Selex (for which to be undertaken, principally involving the
The provisioning included a complete cable Marconi, now renamed telent is the UK Pendolinos and the London surburban fleet.
and transmission infrastructure to support agent). Other suburban trains in Manchester and
the 180 base stations, spaced at between 2- These sets are issued on a personal basis Birmingham will follow but in time all trains
3 km apart, so as to give the required radio to drivers who can call the signaller quickly using the route, even for short distances, will
coverage. As with many continental railways and reliably should an emergency occur. In require a GSM-R radio.
that have adopted ERTMS, the radio system addition to the North Staffs (Stoke) area, As all trains will eventually be fitted under
has to be fully resilient, and if one base other axle counter sections have since been the national plan, this is not the logistics
station fails, then the adjacent ones still give introduced at Ledburn, Bourne End and problem that it was back in the 1990s.
the required radio signal strength to trains. Watford, so the IVRS has a real practical use Eventually the IVRS as a separate entity will
An MSC was located at Stoke and a second over much of the London – Manchester be phased out and GSM-R proper will fulfil
one was deployed at the BR test line site at route. the need of this as well as taking over from
Old Dalby, where it was intended that the Axle counters have been deployed in other the old NRN and CSR systems. As the adage
Level 3 system would be fully tested out. places as well, Bournemouth and goes, 'all's well that ends well.'
october 2008 | the rail engineer | 39
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