Infrastrucure presentation VZNERRAC PLENARY 11 Railway Infrastructure for the Twenty First Century John Amoore Network Rail and ERRAC

Delivering the vision By 2050 the majority of medium- distance passenger and freight transport should go by rail. This will require the development of appropriate railway system – high capacity, low maintenance, and reliable Resilient infrastructure Less damaging train track interaction Automated maintenance and Automatic Train Control Supporting sub projects - always changing high level statement high level requirements specific needs projects to deliver the specific needs

Contents Infrastructure needs –High capacity –Low maintenance –Reliable –Resilient –Automated New track forms A system for upgrading existing tracks

Shortcomings of traditional track forms The origins of modern track were developed for a different world Low demand Cheap and plentiful labour Less concern for safety Slow and lighter trains Today –Travel for business and leisure regarded as an essential freedom –The traveller has choices of mode

Needs for the future railway Railway has potential for less environmental impact, less congestion, safe, fast, providing a working or leisure environment for passengers and secure and efficient freight services Vision –In many ways today's railway fails to meet the vision of a convenient, uncongested, affordable transport mode –WHY? An 18 car TGV can transport 750 passengers, but train separation and dwell time at stations and bottle necks at nodes reduces passengers per hour per track to CAPACITY is a problem to address

Capacity Modern train control systems could permit trains to travel in convoy, but the limiting factor is not how close trains can run, but the maximum no of trains through a node. High throughput stations – multi platform, two or three level Reliable and fast switches Maintenance free track – slab or hybrid design Inspection, sensors and predictive maintenance

Capacity Maintenance free track – slab or hybrid design Inspection, sensors and predictive maintenance

Needs A high capacity railway will reduce congestion, but if we do not reduce infrastructure degradation rates, train operations will be severely reduced to allow time for maintenance AVAILABILITY is a major issue

Availability The major cause of low availability is the time lost to track maintenance. Other serious loss of availability is due to system failure, either through natural causes such as extreme weather events, or unreliable components Inspection, sensors and predictive maintenance for infrastructure and vehicles Improved train track degradation models to predict and optimise maintenance interventions Maintenance free track – slab or hybrid design

New track concepts Requirements Affordable first cost Low LCC Self monitoring 95% availability

Modelling tools for asset management

Needs If customers are to have complete confidence in a rail dependant transport system then the system must be resilient, recovering quickly from the most severe disruptive events, whether natural or system failures RESILIENCE is a major issue

Resilience A highly resilient infrastructure will be largely independent of ground conditions, flooding, rail buckling due to high temperatures and severe winds. Power and communications systems will include redundancy and may be housed within an integrated track structure. Losses due to inductive power supplies may be acceptable if the energy supply is carbon free and the improved resilience and longer life produces a lower whole life cost Non contact electric power

Needs The railway is a system of systems Hundreds of trains operate on thousands of kilometres of track on each national network. Understanding the condition of all the infrastructure assets requires the acquisition and management of massive quantities of data DATA MANAGEMENT is a major issue