CABLES
“We’re going to fix a number of areas that needs rectifying.”
The pause for the Olympics has been part of the plan from the start of the work, al- lowing the event to be incorporated into the programme. At this point, the pro- ject will stand down and go into ‘support mode’, working with the maintenance or- ganisation.
“If there are any issues arising, Network Rail as a company will be able to respond to it, regardless of which parts are involved. We’re doing that to make sure that any re- sponse is as fast as it could possibly be,” Woods said.
This break in the programme will not affect reliability during the Olympics, as the main thrust of the work, from Liverpool Street to Stratford, will already be complete. This means that the greatest number of passen- gers will benefit from the new cables along the majority of the Great Eastern line.
Limiting disruption
Such a large project will no doubt run into a few challenges, and these include the level of disruption that necessarily accompanies the re-wiring and structural work, as well as managing the logistics of a large work- force in tight time periods.
Woods said: “What we’re doing is extreme- ly disruptive. With some exceptions, we can’t work with trains running nearby to where we’re working. We can put some of the civil structures in – foundations, parts of some of the big steel structures – but that’s about as far as we can go without shutting down the railway.
“On the whole, we have to do this by taking out all four tracks at a time. There are some areas where we can take two at a time, de- pending on how close various parts are, but we have to isolate. We turn off the power. All the trains, especially passenger trains, are electric, so it means that services can’t run and we recognise that that’s extremely disruptive, especially over the weekend.
“Unfortunately, there’s no other way we can get in there to wire, because we do have to switch the power off to change the wires. These things are running at 25,000 volts, so it’s got to be off. That’s a big issue.”
This is one reason why the wires have been in place for so long without any upgrades, as the level of disruption is just too high to manage regular renewals effectively.
Woods explained that they had investi- gated alternative options, but working on weekends and during holidays turned out to be the best approach.
He continued: “One option, theoretically, could be to block the whole of the Great Eastern route and do it in all one big go. We did actually explore how feasible that would be, but the amount of disruption to the passengers is just unimaginable.
“If you consider blocking something like the Great Eastern for four months, it’s just huge. People have got to get into work and services have got to get in, so we’ve taken the conscious decision to go in at the week- ends, get extended midweek nights wher- ever possible to get the most done that we can and try to minimise disruption to the travelling public. That’s one of the biggest challenges.”
Commenting on the practical difficul- ties involved with managing this project, Woods added: “Of course you have the logistics within that of bringing 200-300 people plus all the machines, into the pos- sessions where we’ll be working over
a
weekend, or over ten days over Christmas.
“It’s a huge logistical operation to get this done.”
Clive Woods
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit
www.networkrail.com
rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 12 | 77
© Network Rail
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