SSL signalling upgrade scrapped

[Deleted]

Personally with metronet still losing money and with the boris incharge and the credit crunch
I cant see the new Hammersmith control centre being finished, maybe hammersmith and edgware road cadins will go into baker street but i just cant see ATO being introduced within the next 12 years on the sub surface lines

[towerman]

Now the SSL signalling system is being re-tendered,wouldn't it make sense to change it to Seltrac?Would save a lot of hassle.

[Deleted]

I think Seltrac should be used (if its as good as they say it is ?)

[Deleted]

Ive heared that if Seltrac is used it would be a good standard and would assist in resignalling a lot faster and signal cabins could be closed in half the time does any one know if this is true ?

[tubeprune]

Nov 8, 2008 20:21:54 GMT towerman said:

Now the SSL signalling system is being re-tendered,wouldn't it make sense to change it to Seltrac?Would save a lot of hassle.

There are those in LU who regard the Seltrac system as a "a nuisance" because of all the cabling on the track. In the early days, some pressure was put on Tubelines to use a different system but they declined. The main reason for the re-tendering of the SSL re-signalling was to get a better price than was being offered by Westinghouse/BT under the Metronet umbrella. My spies tell me that, technically, anything other than Seltrac would be the preferred option.

My question is: Are the drawbacks of having Seltrac on the SSL, with all its cables on the track but making it compatible with the Jub & Picc, greater than the problems over the interfaces between having two incompatible systems over the joint sections.

[tubeprune]

Nov 8, 2008 20:40:58 GMT @daves67 said:

I think Seltrac should be used (if its as good as they say it is ?)

It has its good points - close headways are possible and it has a long history of development and use around the world. However, its centralised architecture means that if it goes wrong, long sections of line lose everything and stop. Hence a back up system is being provided with axle counters to do train detection.

Nov 8, 2008 20:53:31 GMT @daves67 said:

Ive heared that if Seltrac is used it would be a good standard and would assist in resignalling a lot faster and signal cabins could be closed in half the time does any one know if this is true ?

No, it's not true. LU has its own signalling system which has all sorts of special requirements in wiring, interlocking, detection, relay operation and protection, to mention just a few. It has been developed through a 100 years of bitter experience and they are reluctant to let anything go without cast iron guarantees that all the protection systems will be retained. So LU's version of Seltrac is loaded with all sorts of special requirements and this has slowed its installation.

In fairness, anyone trying to put a new signalling system on an old railway is bound to run into difficulties these days. That's why railways used to do it themselves. The in-house people knew what they were doing and didn't have to rely on outside contractors to learn all about their system before starting work.

In my view, signalling is one area where in-house maintenance and renewal is more cost effective than contracting out.

[programmes1]

The latest publicity I have seen states that the Hammersmith control centre will open Dec 2009! but I have been told it's more likely to be 2014.

[upfast]

Nov 9, 2008 16:15:22 GMT programmes1 said:

The latest publicity I have seen states that the Hammersmith control centre will open Dec 2009! but I have been told it's more likely to be 2014.

And the rest!

Later the better with any luck! ;D

[singaporesam]

Whether LUL gets Seltrac or not depends on if they employ a consultant to write the spec and which Consultant they choose. Some seem to have a rather high hit rate for Seltrac winning....... Some also have a very good record of advising LUL on NOPO every time there´s a strike.

On the subject of the BT/ Westinghouse combination and whether Westinghouse´s distance to go system works have you seem this:
www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_299460.html

[Deleted]

Nov 9, 2008 23:48:37 GMT @singaporesam said:

Whether LUL gets Seltrac or not depends on if they employ a consultant to write the spec and which Consultant they choose. Some seem to have a rather high hit rate for Seltrac winning....... Some also have a very good record of advising LUL on NOPO every time there´s a strike.

On the subject of the BT/ Westinghouse combination and whether Westinghouse´s distance to go system works have you seem this:
www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_299460.html

The new Singapore system will be radio based moving block. Westinghouse have quite a few successful DTG installations in Spain in the last few years.

[ribaric]

Nov 9, 2008 10:05:52 GMT tubeprune said:

My question is: Are the drawbacks of having Seltrac on the SSL, with all its cables on the track but making it compatible with the Jub & Picc, greater than the problems over the interfaces between having two incompatible systems over the joint sections.

I think your answer is implicit in the question... and I agree. Interfaces of this complexity smack of bad planning and are a legacy for future anxt.

[singaporesam]

Equally, putting all your eggs in one basket has a number of drawbacks, and given the and signaling companies have been bought , used and sold in recent years, there´s an awful lot of risk in sticking with one, especially if it isn´t based in the UK.

[Ben]

If the long term aim is to adopt ATO on every line, then surely its only common sense to design one system for all, and as lines become due for resignalling in the future (be it 5 years or 50) adopt that system?

I'm sure not much can be done now, but planning for next time wouldn't hurt? I thought everything now was built with a planned obsolescence?

[Deleted]

Nov 8, 2008 17:19:43 GMT @daves67 said:

Personally with metronet still losing money and with the boris incharge and the credit crunch
I cant see the new Hammersmith control centre being finished, maybe hammersmith and edgware road cadins will go into baker street but i just cant see ATO being introduced within the next 12 years on the sub surface lines

The C Stock were ATO-ready (had the selector-key slot for it, for example) when delviered back in the 60s - and it didn't happen then.

[programmes1]

Nov 11, 2008 13:23:56 GMT @tubeflight said:

Nov 8, 2008 17:19:43 GMT @daves67 said:

Personally with metronet still losing money and with the boris incharge and the credit crunch
I cant see the new Hammersmith control centre being finished, maybe hammersmith and edgware road cabins will go into baker street but i just cant see ATO being introduced within the next 12 years on the sub surface lines

The C Stock were ATO-ready (had the selector-key slot for it, for example) when delviered back in the 60s - and it didn't happen then.

I believe all stocks of the time C/72M1TS/72M2TS/73TS had ATO provision some of the 72'sTS even had where the identra would have went I think because the design was based on 67TS. I know that the 72M2 TS even had the auto position and buttons on the console although covered up 73 TS was similar and even had prog on the selector barrel I think for auto reversing in sidings?

[singaporesam]

Making most electric trains work in ATO isn´t that difficult. In San Francisco they sort of managed to make the old Boeing SLRVs work with Seltrac. The issues are normally variability in response to commands and undocumented wiring modifications.

The usual reason for wanting new trains with new signaling is for improved train performance so that a higher system capacity can be realised. So.......................... If the signaling is upgrade is scrapped, why replace the recently refurbished and very reliable D stock with the yet to be proven S stock ??

[Deleted]

Perhaps it comes down to the PPP contractural agreement - if it states D stock replacement then the penalties for not doing so might be prohibitive? Given that Metronet went into Administration though, I'm not sure what the current situation would be with the contracts. I suppose if the signalling upgrade can go back to square one, it might be possible to do the same with the trains.

However, the D stock is at the end of the S stock delivery schedule, so taking a pessimistic (realistic) view replacement won't be complete until 2017/8-ish, by which time the D stock will be as-near-as-dammit 40 years old. That's perhaps a little early for retirement by some standards*, but not unreasonably so.

While the A stock is going on past its 50th birthday, if I were the chief rolling stock engineer I would be happy enough to take delivery of replacement stock in 2016, as at some point around then the 'bathtub' reliablity/failure curve of the D stock would probably be turning upwards. The passenger environment might be good for another 5-10 years after that because of the refurb, but if the bits below the floor start failing that loses relevance.

With the first train due in the New Year, there will be 6 years of testing and service experience with the S stock on the other sub-surface lines. That should be more than enough time to get S stock reliability to at least as good as D stock, hopefully better. You would hope that

The other thing in favour of early-ish replacement of the D stock is the nail in the coffin for the 1983 stock - narrow doorways with single-leaf doors. I would think the S stock should have improved dwell times - at least a few seconds at minimum - at busy stations. This would cut a minute or two off end-to-end journey times, before any gain due to improved performance of S stock compared to D.

* Milan's Peter Witt trams, and 38 stock on the IoW are the two that spring to mind. Replacement of the D stock at 38 years old is around the same as 59/62 stock.

[singaporesam]

Hmmm, the point about doors and dwell time is interesting, this was the main source of the business case for replacing the top tracks on the D´s as this enabled the opening time to be shortened to the best that is physically possible. The case just couldn´t be made on derailment of the door leaf alone.

As to whether S stock will actually be better and improve dwell is not so clear cut . It really comes down to four things :

1) width of the door way - anything less than 1550 doesn´t allow three abreast so is not much better than the current 1100

2) % of door opening per length of train ,

3) Speed/ acceleration profile of the doors

4)Control system lag between pressing of door buttons and the doors opening. Old fashioned Door valves are generally a little quicker than modern EDCUs.

There are quite a lot of other variables at play and I really seriously doubt that the end to end journey time will be improved by very much. All though I do accept that it would be a relatively easy task to convince most people that it would be.

[Chris M]

And I'll add another variable

5) internal layout - how quickly passengers can move through the train. Look at the North London Line at Stratford, for example, where the narrow gangway restricts the speed at which pax can board.

Even if the doorways are the same width, and the doors operate at the same speed, S stock having two doors should mean that in terms of point 3 they win over the D stock. I'm no mathematician but I think 1 door moving at x metres/second means the gap through which pax can board increases at x m/s, two doors moving apart at x m/s means the gap increases at 2x/s?

Assuming the layout seen on the mockup is the layout that will see service, S stock should be a hands-down winner regarding point 5.