Atkins Ltd are the primary contractor for a major Network Rail upgrade project on the Feltham & Wokingham signalling system. Both areas were last re-signalled in 1974 and the infrastructure is now suffering from severe degradation, obsolescence and unreliability.
The Feltham and Wokingham Resignalling Programme (FWRP) comprises of the total restoration of the signalling systems with the work is being executed in six stages between 2021 and 2024.
Phase one was commissioned at Easter 2021 and covered works around the Strawberry Hill and Twickenham areas.
HICSE was sub-contracted to provide designs for alterations and modifications to the Train Describer (TD) and the Control and Indication components of the Wimbledon Panel. Alongside this, HICSE also provided TREsure assurance of the Mortlake SSI Interlocking to ensure compliance with Network Rail regulations.
The project team was based in the Plymouth Office, consisting of Richard Belli, Graham Stiles, Matt Mogridge and with technical support from Mark Tremlett and Bill Wraight.
The Covid-19 Pandemic presented its own unique challenges for the project, with the requirements and design stage conducted entirely from ‘home offices’. The integration and testing stage required limited numbers to work from the Plymouth office whilst ensuring that all aspects of the design life cycle were carried out and communicated to stakeholders Atkins, Network Rail, Resonate and Alstom.
Throughout this complex project HICSE supported Atkins in achieving a full working system, ensuring the legacy system integrated with new signalling control systems and that any changes did not impact existing systems such as the WARS IECC Automatic Routing Setting (ARS).
A key component of the design was to allow for ‘over and back’ testing and ensure that the existing TD link to Feltham could be smoothly switched over to a new link to Basingstoke ROC, whilst maintaining availability on a live railway system. A series of site visits in early 2021 proving the link, and its ability to transfer TD information relating to the modified railway infrastructure, gave confidence ahead of the Easter Commissioning.
Overnight on Saturday 3rd April Richard and Matt visited Wimbledon ASC to update and test modifications to the TEML41 Control system as part of the Feltham Phase 1 Commissioning Activity.
Feltham Phase 1 Signalling was signed back into use on 6th April 2021. After Network Rail and South West Railway ran 2 route proving trains across the area with no significant issues found, the network commenced service at 0500 7th April 2021.
Published 26/04/2021
