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| 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 08:39 #18137 | |
BarryM
2158 posts |
Latest industry news courtesy of Railway Gazette International. http://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/news/single-view/view/signalboxes-to-go-as-nr-accelerates-control-strategy.html Barry Barry, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 09:41 #18143 | |
Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
Sims are just going to get bigger and bigger! Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 09:54 #18145 | |
broodje
184 posts |
I can't wait for the Scotisch border - Invernes sim Peter 
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| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 10:00 #18146 | |
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Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
" said:I can't wait for the Scotisch border - Invernes sim Peter ;)Schhhh it's a secret- don't tell anyone..... Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 10:39 #18147 | |
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Albert
1315 posts |
I am sure that there are great sims in development. It does not really matter me where in England they are located. Inverness is maybe a little quiet.
AJP in games Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 11:12 #18148 | |
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Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
Inverness is not in England! Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply The following users said thank you: peterb, stuartpalmer |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 12:26 #18154 | |
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y10g9
895 posts |
Well that is if they let geoff make them. but they would be fun though may be a bit hard on your own now 
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| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 22/07/2011 at 12:29 #18155 | |
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UKTrainMan
1803 posts |
May need to introduce and even slower speed than the current slower speed for one person to cope solo...!
Any views and / or opinions expressed by myself are from me personally and do not represent those of any company I either work for or am a consultant for. Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 23/07/2011 at 22:47 #18237 | |
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daverail01
32 posts |
New Sim - UK
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| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 25/07/2011 at 20:28 #18335 | |
DaveHarries
1285 posts |
There is a serious point on all this. Firstly, NR have not mentioned what will become of southwest England as Bristol will be abolished. On another forum it was recently posted that the entire southwest may either be worked from Basingstoke (which takes control of much of Salisbury - Exeter in 2012 and all of Poole - Weymouth inclusive in 2013) or, worse, the SW may get worked from the TVC at Didcot. However I have heard from the same forum that the idea was put about of having a SW signalling centre at Exeter. As I have it the timetable for the encroachment of regional signalling in Wessex, Thames Valley and Great Western is: Wessex 2012 - Exeter to Salisbury 2013 - Aldershot to Farnham, Poole to Dorchester 2014 - Yeovil Pen Mill 2016 - Eastleigh (Panel 1), Farncombe, Guildford, Salisbury 2017 - Basingstoke, Eastleigh (Panel 2 & 3), Woking, Feltham (Panel 3 & 4) 2018 - Wimbledon (Panel 4 & 5), Feltham (Panel 1 & 2) 2019 to 2024 - Brockenhurst, Clapham Yard, Wimbledon (Panel 1, 2 & 3) 2024 onwards - Bournemouth, Haslemere, Petersfield, Havant, Marchwood, Wokingham, School Road Thames Valley 2011 - Slough IECC 2012 - Swindon 'B' 2013 - Slough Panel, Colthrop, Kintbury 2014 - Swindon 'A' 2016 - Oxford 2018 - Greenford 2024 onwards - Westbury Great Western 2012 - Ley 2015 - Bristol PSB 2019 to 2024 - Gloucester, Liskeard to Penzance and branches, Plymouth PSB 2024 onwards - Cotswolds, Exeter, Crediton, Paignton, Exmouth Jcn, St Andrews Jcn, Worcester area, Malvern lines I am afraid that I fear the worst for the future smooth running of our railways. Network Rail may have to learn the hard way of forgetting that classic saying which is not to put all your eggs in one basket. When it comes to railway signalling I would rather my eggs were in several baskets instead of in a bank vault. I, meanwhile, am taking photos where possible with the aim of making a signalling archive website. Dave Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 12:47 #18429 | |
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postman
47 posts |
With the forthcoming modular resignalling between Gresty Lane and Crewe Bank ( Shrewsbury ) by early Jan 2012 a dvd like the one in Ely to Norwich signalling would be a good idea for someone to film this as time is running out on these manual boxes and once gone no dvd or little photos to cherish for the history books.
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| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 12:52 #18430 | |
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DaveHarries
1285 posts |
I already have photos of the Shrewsbury boxes, along with Wem, Prees, Whitchurch and Wrenbury. No interiors for any of them though. Crewe Bank is nothing special (merely a concrete box). Dave Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 14:27 #18432 | |
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broodje
184 posts |
" said:To be honest, most western European countries already have big, regional signal boxes. I can't see it is all worse here as it is in the UK. It is a shame the mechanical boxes will disappear, as well of the older stile signalpanels. But you'd have to admit that it is not very practical to have boxes with 4 or 5 levers on a stretch of track with 1 or 2 trains an hour which need 3 persons a day to operate. In fact, I find it amazing such boxes still exist in a country like the UK. Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 15:20 #18436 | |
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nezza
102 posts |
what we must remember is that modernization has given a major boost into what can be done now compared to many years ago
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| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 15:46 #18442 | |
GeoffM
6376 posts |
There is a phrase, "putting all your eggs in one basket", which could apply here - except that 14 centres in the UK isn't exactly overdoing it. I've been fortunate enough to visit a couple of dispatching centres in the US which had opposite philosophies with distribution or centralisation of dispatching. Firstly, the BNSF one in Fort Worth, TX controls the vast majority of their trackage in the US. In this case virtually everything that moves on the rails relies on this megacentre being online all the time. Yes, the building is supposed to be hurricane, bomb, and everything else proof. Secondly, a Norfolk Southern one in Fort Wayne, Indiana (purely a coincidence with similar names!) which is one of several controlling NS trackage. I vaguely recall being told this one controlled about a fifth of their trackage. From there they theoretically have the option of taking control of an adjacent centre should that centre have to be evacuated. Is one better over another? Probably a debate with no conclusion. SimSig Boss Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 18:57 #18467 | |
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DaveHarries
1285 posts |
My point about "putting all your eggs in one basket" is this. Lets take East Anglia for an example. In Summer 2012 the Ely - Norwich line is to be resignalled with control being assigned to Cambridge in place of the boxes at Shippea Hill, Lakenheath, Brandon, Thetford, Harling Road, Eccles Road, Attleborough, Spooner Row and Wymondham South Junction: these boxes will all be abolished and, with perhaps the exception of a couple, later demolished. I had a very pleasant trip on 09th July this year after Network Rail's AOM for East Anglia gave me a signalbox visit permit for Dullingham, Attleborough, Spooner Row, Eccles Road and Harling Road. Due to the fact that I decided to add a call to Kennett to get some exterior photos of the box there (I would never have got in: it was a Saturday and the box was switched out with all signals left at clear) I didn't do Spooner Row or Harling Road. So I got Dullingham, Kennett, Attleborough and Eccles Road done in the time I had. The signalmen I met were very friendly and the condition of the boxes (especially at Attleborough) was excellent. The signalmen were happy for me to take photos and, for the four calls made, I got 121 photos for my East Anglia signalbox collection. The signalman at Dullingham told me (and this was confirmed by the duty signalman at Attleborough) that, although the control on the Ely - Norwich route will pass to Cambridge, it is planned for Cambridge PSB itself to close within a few years which will leave all of East Anglia under control of a new PSB at Romford, Essex. Here is where the "putting all your eggs in one basket" expression comes in: does it not occur to NR that, if this scheme comes in, a failure at Romford would quite probably paralyse all train movements in East Anglia? There would be no trains moving in such circumstances because there would be no local control left. Also, when it comes to locations for problems with trackside equipment, there is no substitute for local knowledge. Dave Last edited: 27/07/2011 at 19:07 by DaveHarries Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 20:17 #18479 | |
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broodje
184 posts |
yes, I do see that. But because you only have 14 centres in the country it becomes viable to build a 15th spare one. This box has the equipment to take over other (failed) boxes. Also, you can protect your signal boxes a bit cheaper and easier by installing 1, or even 2 fallback systems of the various components. But as Geoff said, you can try to limit your fall-out zone to an as small area as possible, or try to minimize the chance such an fall-out happens at all. The slight problem you can have (and in fact this happened last year in Utrecht, the biggest railway station in the Netherlands) is that you have installed the back-up UPS in the same room as the main UPS. When your main system catches fire you instantly have to shut down all operations due to a sudden lack of power (how strange...). Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 20:23 #18481 | |
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DaveHarries
1285 posts |
Or, as with Cardiff earlier this year, the main power source fails and the kick-in of the backup one causes a power surge. Dave Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 27/07/2011 at 21:57 #18493 | |
postal
5264 posts |
Or as with York on 26/03/11. So now we are into the risk management game. You have to decide how much extra cost you want to bear in the normal day-to-day operation as compared with the costs of a catastrophic situation. The sad fact is that when you count up the direct costs of a total wipeout for a number of hours to the business, they are less than the ongoing costs of keeping a distributed system going.
“In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 31/07/2011 at 15:47 #18817 | |
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Firefly
521 posts |
Eggs in 1 basket? The whole of the UK upper airspace and all of the lower airspace around Stansted, Luton, Heathrow and Gatwick is controlled from a single control centre in Swanwick. There are long term plans for the whole of Europe including the UK to be controlled from Maastricht, however that's many years off. If the worst case scenario happened and a meteor landed on Swanwick nothing would fly over the UK until the contingency plans were implemented. The ATC simulator suite at Whitley can be brought online and can take control of the airspace albeit with reduced capacity. It would take a while to get things up and running again, not least because you'd have lost 25% of your controllers but the infrastructure is there and ready to go. Now, if the airways can cope with this risk then surely the railways can manage the risk sensibly? On the railways there are fewer and fewer areas where you can take local control of the signalling. Prior to SSI all remote interlockings had a local control panel. This enabled a signaller to go to site and operate the signalling from the local panel in the event of a loss of the link with the Control Centre. Following the introduction of SSI, local panels are no longer installed so we could already face huge problems if a complete signalling centre was lost. (Particularly since station staff can no longer act as hand signallers and point operators). All that the railway needs to do is to ensure that they have a suitable fall back facility to take control if the main centre was lost. The way things currently are we could not move control of an SSI interlocking from one control centre to another without involving an awful lot of cable running and testing. My best guess is that you could probably cobble something together within a week. Until that time it's ticket working and point winding. FF Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 31/07/2011 at 19:17 #18821 | |
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Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
" said:
What does Prestwick do, did that close with West Drayton. " said:
Oh for heavens sake! Can't these people leave us alone? Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 31/07/2011 at 21:38 #18827 | |
Splodge
716 posts |
Prestwick is still open, and shares the airspace with Swanwick, though Swanwick may still do the upper airspace. Prestwick would still allow a measure of contingency, however, but capacity would be reduced.
There's the right way, the wrong way and the railway. Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 31/07/2011 at 21:44 #18828 | |
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Firefly
521 posts |
Quote:The whole of the UK upper airspace and all of the lower airspace around Stansted, Luton, Heathrow and Gatwick is controlled from a single control centre in Swanwick.Sorry, should have said English and Welsh not UK. Prestwick do handle Scottish airspace. (All, levels I believe) Quote: Oh for heavens sake! Can't these people leave us alone?lol, it's all about a single european sky and making it easier for aircraft to go from A to B without having to follow set airways. It's a way off because countries will not give up control over their sovereign airspace lightly. Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 01/08/2011 at 06:16 #18832 | |
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Zoe
252 posts |
Prestwick also includeds the former Manchester Area Control, this was relocated from Manchester in 2010.
Last edited: 01/08/2011 at 17:38 by Zoe Log in to reply |
| Re: 14 Regional Operating Centres. 01/08/2011 at 21:54 #18881 | |
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Firefly
521 posts |
Indeed It's a bit bizaar calling Scottish when operating a southbound flight from Manchester. FF Log in to reply |