Uncontrolled When Printed Published on behalf of Rail Delivergy Group on 04 March 2017 RDG-GN037 Issue 1 Date January 2017 Guidance Note – Contingency Planning for Power Outages Synopsis This document provides guidance for railway undertakings on planning for and implementing contingency arrangements in the event of power outages. Authorised by --------------------------------------------------------- James Burt Chair, RDG Train Operators Emergency Planning Group Rail Delivery Group Limited Registered Office, 2nd Floor, 200 Aldersgate Street, London EC1A 4HD www.raildeliverygroup.com 020 7841 8000 Registered in England and Wales No. 08176197 Uncontrolled When Printed Published on behalf of Rail Delivergy Group on 04 March 2017 RDG-GN037 RDG Guidance Note – Issue 1 Date January 2017 Contingency Planning for Power Outages Issue record Issue Date Comments One January 2017 Original document Page 2 of 39 RDG Uncontrolled When Printed Published on behalf of Rail Delivergy Group on 04 March 2017 RDG Guidance Note – Contingency RDG-GN037 Issue 1 Planning for Power Outages Date January 2017 Contents Part 1 About this document ................................................................................... 4 1.1 Responsibilities ............................................................................................................................ 4 1.2 Explanatory note .......................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Guidance Note status .................................................................................................................. 4 Part 2 Purpose and introduction ........................................................................... 5 2.1 Purpose ....................................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Scope ........................................................................................................................................... 5 Part 3 About power outages .................................................................................. 5 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 5 3.2 Types of power cuts .................................................................................................................... 6 3.3 Likelihood ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Part 4 Government position .................................................................................. 8 4.1 Risk outline .................................................................................................................................. 8 4.2 National Plans.............................................................................................................................. 8 Part 5 Characteristics of power outages .............................................................. 9 5.1 Phases of a power outage ........................................................................................................... 9 5.2 Duration ..................................................................................................................................... 10 5.3 Generic impacts ......................................................................................................................... 10 Part 6 Electricity usage by the rail industry ....................................................... 14 6.1 Overview .................................................................................................................................... 14 6.2 Network Rail position ................................................................................................................. 16 6.3 Trains operations ....................................................................................................................... 16 6.4 Depots ....................................................................................................................................... 17 6.5 Stations ...................................................................................................................................... 18 6.6 Communications, control networks and systems ...................................................................... 22 6.7 Remaining business functions ................................................................................................... 23 Part 7 Business continuity planning .................................................................. 26 7.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 26 7.2 Plan structure............................................................................................................................. 26 7.3 General considerations for BCPs .............................................................................................. 27 7.4 Mitigating control measures ....................................................................................................... 30 7.5 Maintenance of BCPs and exercising ....................................................................................... 32 Part 8 Experiences and case studies ................................................................. 33 8.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 33 8.2 Power cuts directly affecting trains ............................................................................................ 33 APPENDIX A - Further information from Network Rail ........................................ 37 APPENDIX B - Glossary and Terms ...................................................................... 39 RDG Page 3 of 39 Uncontrolled When Printed Published on behalf of Rail Delivergy Group on 04 March 2017 RDG-GN037 RDG Guidance Note – Issue 1 Date January 2017 Contingency Planning for Power Outages Part 1 About this document 1.1 Responsibilities 1.1.1 Copies of this Guidance Note should be distributed by RDG members to persons within their respective organisations for whom its content is relevant. 1.2 Explanatory note 1.2.1 RDG produces RDG Guidance Notes for the information of its members. RDG is not a regulatory body and compliance with RDG Guidance Notes is not mandatory. 1.2.2 RDG Guidance Notes are intended to reflect good practice. RDG members are recommended to evaluate the guidance against their own arrangements in a structured and systematic way. Some or all parts of the guidance may not be appropriate to their operations. It is recommended that this process of evaluation and any subsequent decision to adopt (or not to adopt) elements of the guidance should be documented. 1.3 Guidance Note status 1.3.1 This document is not intended to create legally binding obligations between railway duty holders and should be binding in honour only. Page 4 of 39 RDG Uncontrolled When Printed Published on behalf of Rail Delivergy Group on 04 March 2017 RDG Guidance Note – Contingency RDG-GN037 Issue 1 Planning for Power Outages Date January 2017 Part 2 Purpose and introduction 2.1 Purpose 2.1.1 The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to enable railway undertakings to better understand, plan for and implement individual and joint business contingency arrangements in the event of a widespread power outage. It is not intended to be an emergency plan in itself, but rather to assist railway undertakings to put in place their own strategic level plans for widespread power outage. 2.2 Scope 2.2.1 This Guidance Note applies to all RDG Train Operator members. 2.2.2 It considers the impact and possible mitigating actions that could be undertaken by a railway undertaking during a widespread power outage, whether planned or unplanned. In terms of scale, it is intended to encompass everything from a localised outage lasting no more than a couple of hours through to a regional power outage extending up to 5 days. 2.2.3 While it does describe more major outages, the circumstances in which they might be experienced and the broad process and timescales for recovering supplies, it does not attempt to explicitly address how railway undertakings should prepare for these, nor suggest that they need to do so. The wholesale loss of the power-generating network nationally is the extreme end of the power outage scenario. All power stations would need to be started from scratch and it is expected that it would take up to 14 days to reinstate the power to its fullest extent. It is obvious that in this kind of scenario, there would be very major consequences for the functioning of the UK as a whole, with the resumption of rail services unlikely to be considered an immediate priority and resources hence directed elsewhere. Running any kind of rail service anywhere on the network in these conditions would be, to all intents and purposes, impossible. 2.2.4 It is therefore upon this middle ground - widespread power failures across large parts of the network, with other parts remaining unaffected - that this document is primarily focused, as it is here that maintenance of a service, potentially involving modified depot, train operations or station working, is possible and hence here that most