SIGNALLING & TELECOMS
The Rail Operating Centres
• Cardiff • Derby • Didcot
• Manchester • Edinburgh • Glasgow • Gillingham • Basingstoke • Romford • Rugby • Three Bridges • York
The original plans called for 14 ROCs – the others were the existing centres at Saltley and Ashford. Network Rail further streamlined those plans to 12.
like 50 or 60: about 40 within the office space, seven signallers, some signaller trainers and the management team.
Traffic management
Christian Wyatt, programme manager for the transfer into the ROC, told RTM that the building allows the removal of outdated signalling locations and better integration of modern technology. He said: “It’s a fantastic environment for people to work in, with great collaboration between the train operators and ourselves. The future’s looking really rosy.”
He added that traffic management could be trialled at one of the Manchester workstations, potentially within the next 18 months. “We’re looking at the benefits that traffic management will bring and whether we can accelerate other areas in here at an early stage,” he said. “But traffic management is still at an early stage.”
Although Thales has won the first contracts to implement its traffic management solution at Cardiff and Romford, all the providers – the
other two are Hitachi and SSL – are bidding to provide their version at the other ROCs. You can find out much more about traffic management in the June/July 2014 edition of RTM.
Network Rail’s sponsor Andy Scott told RTM: “We’re not dependent on traffic management for what we do here – but when traffic management becomes available, we do have the flexibility to incorporate it.”
Security and resilience
Scott (pictured, right), who has been involved in the work to develop Manchester’s ROC since December 2011, was among the speakers at the ceremony to mark the launch. He explained how he has “lived and breathed” the project since then, as his role is to own the business case. “Our vision has been to create an efficient, effective, great place to work,” he said. “We’ve paid lots of attention to security and resilience, plus the people working in the building.”
Resilience is, of course, a major issue for such a key node in the rail network, and lots of measures have been built in to ensure the building is secure – not many of which Network Rail wants made public. But the building has the seal of approval following a resilience review by Arup using the Uptime Institute standards.
Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese is a big backer of the region’s railways. He said he had been “dying to have a chance to look inside” the new ROC as he’s been coming past the building so often.
rail technology magazine Aug/Sep 14 | 75
“I didn’t expect it to be quite so tough to get in!” he joked. “That’s the first lesson about it – ensuring that our railway network is secure is part of the job here.”
He praised the build team’s decision to use clear glass in the building’s atrium, instead of frosted as originally planned, because of the great views afforded into the centre of Manchester.
He said it seemed odd, thinking back to when the Northern and TPE franchises were let last time, that the assumption was for a ‘no-growth’ franchise. “The assumption was that railways Continued overleaf >
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