Earlier this year, Colas Rail UK’s Signalling & Telecomms (S&T) team completed works on the Gloucester Area Signalling Project (GASP). These works were essential to ensuring safety and increasing the reliability of the service as well as futureproofing the rail network spread across 240 sites.
Starting the project in 2023, the S&T team have been tirelessly working across the year to complete upgrades to the signalling systems, including track circuit upgrades and providing resilience to the existing infrastructure across the 32-mile radius.
GASP was comprised of three signalling elements, including:
- Replacing high-risk Single Cut Circuit areas to Double Cut Circuits, eliminating wrong side failures with the degraded cables
- Upgrading the original Aster S15/U Type Train Detection areas to EBI400 Location Cases (LOCs) Train Detection systems
- Overhauling the lead acid powered Low Voltage Direct Current Train Detection areas to the safer Medium Voltage Direct Current and EBI400 equivalents
Creating a Platform for Innovation
Starting with a safety conversation, Engineering Manager, Lewis Kirby raised a trip hazard with the original designs of the LOC platform.
Working alongside manufacturers FLI Structures, Lewis and our design team created a new LOC platform that is cheaper and more environmentally friendly to fabricate.
Mapping Out Safe Access
Early in the GASP project scope and given the radius of works, Assistant Project Engineer, Ammar Malik, conducted site surveys with the utilisation of Google Maps to create digital access points and benchmarked the risk level of each.
Full Circle Fabrication Facilities
Part of the GASP project scope included the fabrication and installation of LOCS, creating a turnkey solution led by our Signalling Graduates to fabricate 69 LOCs in-house at our workshop in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
To enable these LOCs to be safely installed on site, our S&T team completed civil engineering upgrades ranging from the platform bases, to retaining walls to ensure the newly installed assets are protected.
The GASP project also harnessed another innovation on site, with the Barnwood Junction welfare site powered by Hydrogen Towers as part of a trial in collaboration with AFC Energy and Sunbelt Rentals.
The S&T team also took time out of the project schedule to join forces with Network Rail and Gloucestershire & Wiltshire Steam Railway to create a communal space and play area for children as we continue to put the passenger first and care for our site neighbours.
First published: 6th November 2024