Railways | Great North Rail Project

Northern delights

We’ve been delivering designs for rail upgrades in the north of England for nearly two decades. Now part of the £1bn Great North Rail Project, the work is stimulating regional and national growth. 2 I Mott MacDonald I Northern delights Northern delights I Mott MacDonald I 3

To Scotland Preston and beyond to N Blackpool Six fast trains per hour instead of five. Preston Blackburn

Rochdale

Liverpool to Manchester Four fast trains per hour instead of two.

est Coast Main Line Bolton Journey time reduced by up to 10-15 minutes. W

Wigan Central

Manchester Victoria

Earlestown Manchester Roby Huyton Traord Park Piccadilly Ordsall Liverpool Freight Terminal Lime Street Chord

Liverpool To Manchester To Stockport Airport South Parkway

To Chester To Crewe Electrification scheme Existing electrified track Existing track Roby-Huyton four tracking North of England rail upgrades Ordsall Chord (see separate case study)

Due to be delivered by 2022, the The Great North Rail Project (GNRP) started life as At Manchester Victoria Station, where terminating opportunities systematically to identify the best a modest rail enhancement scheme for routes in trains were hogging valuable space, we concluded interventions. The tool considers factors such as Great North Rail Project will bring and around the city of Manchester and adjacent that extra capacity would be best achieved by allowing track geometry, signal sighting, gradient, acceleration, new opportunities to the north areas of Cheshire. It has evolved into more than trains arriving from Blackpool, Wigan and Liverpool air resistance, ecology and track construction, and £1bn of improvements covering a much larger part to continue onwards beyond Manchester. This allows their capital costs to be compared. of England by allowing hundreds of the north of England to remove bottlenecks required an extra platform to be built at Rochdale, more trains to run every day with and smooth out services through new signalling, where the trains would be turned around. Designing Osiris also presents the business case for our choice of telecommunications, power, rolling stock and numerous in features to easily convert this ‘terminating’ solution in graphical form. It proved extremely popular improved connectivity and journey structural and infrastructure enhancements. platform to a through platform saved £2.5M. with our client and was subsequently used on other GNRP times between towns and cities. projects. Its clarity and transparency gave confidence To date, we’ve been involved with designing around Osiris – assessment tool of the underworld that the best value solution was being implemented. two thirds of the GNRP, covering traditional railway Where journey time improvement (JTI) was the main roles as well as structural engineering, architecture, aim, we used Osiris, our in-house assessment tool On the route between Manchester and Rochdale, drainage, town planning, ecology and sustainability. named after the Egyptian god of the underworld, Osiris helped us identify that the most critical issue to validate our solutions. Developed on the GNRP’s was the structural capacity of bridges and the ability The Ordsall Chord has been a particularly complex Manchester to Preston electrification project, the to sustain higher forces from faster trains. At Bolton project involving design of the world’s first assymetric tool enables us to scrutinise the factors affecting station, the tool identified that a fifth platform would network arch bridge (see separate case study). JTI in a single co-ordinated way. It audits all the be the best intervention to achieve the required JTI. 4 I Mott MacDonald I Northern delights Northern delights I Mott MacDonald I 5

Delivering journey time improvement

With rolling stock Opportunity Electrification of Electrification would allow electric trains to run in the north of the Manchester on the route, which are faster, quieter, cheaper to to Preston railway operate and less polluting than diesel trains. England coming included: to the end of Electric trains need an overhead line electrification • Design of three traction its life, coupled (OLE) system, depicted on an engineering drawing called a Major Feeding Diagram (MFD). The diagram switching stations with the need to shows how current will be drawn from substations • Altering Bolton station’s improve journey and limits the distances it needs to travel. MFDs platform canopy to can undergo many changes over the course accommodate the times on the 41km of a project, particularly when interconnecting overhead line projects, such as on the GNRP, are still evolving. • Rebuilding Chorley route between station to accommodate Manchester Solution new electric trains • Track replacement, and Preston, By being flexible and proactive, we identified where changes in the MFD might occur and realignment and there was an planned how best to accommodate them. We new signalling • Making changes opportunity also suggested where neutral sections (which prevent the current drawn from different to the track bed to make some substations interacting) should be located. to accommodate significant electrification These, in many cases, were more pertinent to • Early development changes. our designs than to interfacing GNRP projects of staged signalling and, identifying these locations, helped maintain solutions to support design momentum on our project without affecting Farnworth tunnel others. With engineers working on widening MFD designs from Mott MacDonald’s offices, lines of communication were clear and constant.

Our approach also involved strategically identifying where points should be located, so that sections of track could be switched off for maintenance, Project while key routes remained operational. We also Manchester to Preston proposed an auto-transformer system on the route. electrification This balanced current flowing in the overhead line with that returning via the track to help control voltage in Location the OLE system, helping it function more efficiently. and Lancashire, England

Outcome Client Experience on this type of project allowed us to take Network Rail more direct design control of MFD development. Our proactive attitude helped identify MFD Expertise issues that would otherwise lead to delays Permanent way, overhead line, civil engineering, traction power and keep the GNRP programme on track. distribution, telecommunications signalling design 6 I Mott MacDonald I Northern delights Northern delights I Mott MacDonald I 7

Opportunity Outcome Good neighbours Removing bottlenecks Imagine encountering a bus stop on a motorway. This is There were advantages for our client to split the approximately what non-stopping trains had to contend cost of this project across two spending periods. It Many of the challenges on between Liverpool with at a busy junction just before Huyton station, which also maximised the use of railway possessions on the GNRP arise from work interrupted the flow of trains between Liverpool and the network and limited disruption to passengers. carried out on one part and Manchester Manchester. Huyton only had two platforms, so fast Changes made on the route have improved services of the network having a trains were frequently being held up at the junction between Liverpool and Manchester. knock-on effect on another. due to waiting trains at the station blocking the path. This impacted where and when ongoing infrastructure Solution improvements, particularly Since it was not feasible to move the junction, nor to power supply, could be the station, the track at Huyton was doubled to four made. A high degree of with the addition of two new platforms. This meant co-ordination and excellent that stopping trains didn’t need to interact with non- lines of communication stopping ones and the bottleneck would be removed. were needed to keep Four-tracking had to be continued further west to abreast of developments Roby, where two further platforms also had to be built. on neighbouring schemes. Because of the way upgrades elsewhere on the route were planned, the fourth track would not be needed Instead of putting our until later, so the project was delivered in two stages. project on hold until decisions were finalised, we were proactive in either pre-empting decisions on interfacing schemes or suggesting options which would work best for us and would also fit our neighbour’s objectives.

We have done this in the spirit of working towards the greater good of the entire GNRP. This practice has helped many of the project’s constituent parts stay on programme and budget, and for the public to feel the benefits of the upgrade sooner.

Project Huyton to Roby four-tracking

Location Merseyside, England

Client Network Rail

Expertise Permanent way design Opening opportunities with connected thinking.

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