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Location. Station. patience. The mere mention of tardy trains, construction delays, or projects going over budget has people steaming Strategic benefits, local regeneration, disused mine shafts, at the ears. That means those running the railway need and great crested newts could all have a say in the location accurate information to do their jobs properly; and, if of a new railway station. Norrie Courts, Network Rail’s possible, they need it yesterday. Director of Stations, explains the factors that must be So, for Norrie Courts (p4) and his colleagues, who considered when choosing a new site. choose sites for Network Rail stations, they need to know all about roosting bats, crested newts, land procurement issues, disused mine shafts, and how a new station will affect timetables across the network. Page 5 Similarly, those working on the HS2 project must mull the minutiae to make sure the route runs as smoothly possible. In its route feasibility studies (p5-6), Arup Route feasibility, data & land access and makes use of everything from LIDAR mapping, aerial EIA mapping photography, environmental data, maps dating back to the 1600s, and even kayaks (to paddle out for their otter and Route feasibility, data and land access, and EIA mapping are vole surveys) to find the course of least disturbance and best tricky issues to navigate. Paul Cruise, Associate Director, financial sense – an undertaking that can involve analysing Arup, Nick Mitchard, Associate Director, Arup and Tammy 2,000 layers of data are per location. Strong, Senior Engineer, Arup, explain how it’s done. But how do you safeguard against having too much data – the plague of information that stifles decision-making? For Malcolm Taylor, Head of Technical Information at Crossrail (p 9-11), the management, visualisation, and careful selection of data are key in not only creating a Page 7 detailed picture of the Crossrail system, but in providing a clear blueprint to run and maintain the line. First of all, the data must be accurate. Imagine Canary The High-Speed juggle Wharf Tower lying flat on its side and being pushed below the ground across London – underneath some of the most Whether in South Yorkshire, Leeds, or Manchester, HS2 expensive real estate in the world. You can see why satellite encounters a tricky mix of challenges. monitoring that detects millimetre-scale terrain changes and feedback from ground surveys are so important. At the same time, data must be available at the tap of a finger and it must be accessible at varying levels of complexity, depending on who needs it. To achieve Page 9 this, Taylor and his colleagues have created a common data environment that provides 3D representations of Decoding Crossrail Crossrail’s inner workings. These countless layers of data can be peeled onion-like to reveal as much or little information of this virtual railway as necessary. For Crossrail to work, Malcolm Taylor said that: “Knowledge is knowing that and his colleagues needed to create Miles Kington a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is not putting it in a fruit a common data environment. Eoin salad.” It is thus with data. Redahan spoke to Crossrail’s Head of Technical Information about the challenge of creating a virtual railway. 2 Rail & Data supplement NEWS London’s Lost Tunnels In recent years, there have been numerous concerning incidents involving rail tunnels and construction works that have highlighted the need for environmental vigilance. One of these occurred in March 2013 when another in almost every major tunnel built Groundsure route the driver of a First Capital Connect train during the last 180 years, developed by from Moorgate to Welwyn Garden City Marc Brunel was based on a shipworm – a reported that water was flowing from the mollusc that shovels pulped wood into its Whitechapel Eastern Delivery roof of a rail tunnel between Old Street mouth then excretes a hard brittle residue Office Station and Essex Road Station on Network that lines the tunnel it has excavated, Rail’s Northern City Line. Moments later a rendering it safe from predators. Brunel’s piling rig’s auger broke through the cast iron design was improved and adapted by Peter lining of the tunnel below and landed on the W. Barlow in the course of the construction Liverpool Street King Edward tracks below. In February this year (2016), of the Tower Subway and then by James Street contractors drilled a hole through the roof of Henry Greathead for the City and South a London Underground tunnel just outside London Railway – known today as the Shepherds Bush Station. These two incidents Northern Line. occurred on known underground tunnels, Greathead’s shield incorporated Barlow’s Mount Pleasant Sorting Ofice but what about the lost tunnels from days cylindrical design and sharp steel blades gone by that cross the capital? with the use of compressed air and the Amongst the hundreds of miles of tube addition of cast-iron rings to line the tunnels tracks and railway lines lies a forgotten – adopted by today’s modern tunnel boring railway – the Royal Mail rail tunnels. machines. New Oxford Street The Royal Mail’s ‘secret’ railway was the Groundsure’s Geo Insight report first driverless electric railway in world, designed for Surveyors, Developers and with trains running for nineteen hours Environmental Consultants not only a day deep beneath the choked streets of identifies the location of existing and central London, transporting mail safe from proposed tube lines, but also historic and Rathbone Place Western traffic and weather. By the turn of the 20th abandoned railways and tunnels. Delivery Office century, congested streets and fog meant that mail transported between the main post offices and railway stations in London were severely delayed. It was suggested the Wimpole Street Old Western construction of the ‘Mail Rail’ was required Delivery Office and by 1913 the Post Office (London) Railway Bill was passed as an Act. The Mail Rail, which opened in 1927, once transported four million parcels and Bird Street Western Parcels Office letters a day along a network of 6.5 miles on 2ft gauge-lines, approximately 21 metres below the streets of London. The line ran from Paddington Head District Sorting Office in the west to the Eastern Head Paddington Sorting Office District Sorting Office at Whitechapel in the east, with eight intermediary stations along the route: Construction of the tunnels started in February 1915 from a series of shafts using the Greathead Shield System.