A COUPLE OF INNOCENT QUESTIONS?

How is the PWI seen within the wider railway industry community?
And is that perception what we’d wish it to be?

A recent conversation with a (non-PWI member) railway acquaintance led me to answer those two questions respectively: “too narrowly”, and “definitely not”. My friend’s killer question – “Why would I join the PWI, my work doesn’t relate to track?” – underlines the challenge the PWI still faces in getting over its key messages.

• Railways are an engineered system.
• Railway infrastructure is roundly half of that system.
• The PWI seeks to inform, educate, and represent all those who work in and around railway infrastructure engineering.

In the paragraphs below I’ve expanded on those messages, setting out to answer my friend’s question, and explaining why those who work with railway infrastructure should join the PWI.

SO, WHY WOULD I JOIN THE PWI, THE INSTITUTION FOR RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE?

WHAT IS RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE?

Each of the major railway infrastructure subsystems: earthworks and drainage; structures and buildings; track; power supply; signalling and control; data and telecommunications; and electrification is an engineering specialism in its own right. And our industry needs people who are competent in each of those fields. However, railway history has taught us that to work safely, effectively, and efficiently those people must be aware of the critical interfaces between their own specialism and others, and of the risks to be controlled at those interfaces. All should be sufficiently aware of how the railway functions to keep the overall system safe. Fostering that awareness is one of the PWI’s main objectives and we seek to achieve it by offering our members opportunities to grow their knowledge and understanding of interfacing disciplines and of the interfaces themselves. That marks us out from some other professional engineering institutions.

Looking back through previous Journals, browsing the Knowledge Hub, and looking at our programme of Section meetings leaves me in no doubt about the wide scope and excellent quality of the technical information we provide. Bridges; tunnelling; earthworks and soil mechanics; track manufacture, installation, and maintenance; railway plant; data collection, processing, and management; electrification; work management systems; project management; and logistics and planning are all subjects well represented. Importantly, this information is presented in the context of the railway system, and in a way intended to inform those from other disciplines, as well as those working within the subject discipline. Making technical information accessible is very important to us!

WHAT ABOUT TRAINS AND THE INFRASTRUCTURE?

To fulfil its mission, the PWI must also offer its members opportunities to develop their understanding of the whole railway system and the way it operates. The Institution offers a storehouse of knowledge covering four of the critical infrastructure-train engineered interfaces: the wheel-rail system; the train-structure system (notably at the train-platform interface and including all aspects of “gauging”); the track-vehicle system (determining the forces and displacements that arise when track geometry and stiffness interact with vehicle suspensions); and the pantograph-catenary system.

ISN’T RAILWAY OPERATION IMPORTANT TOO?

The construction and commissioning of HS2 will add significant capacity to our national railway network and the push for decarbonisation is likely to drive big changes in transport demand too. Infrastructure engineers should be able to engage in technical discussions on how network capacity is to be used, on how transport demands are to be met, and on the consequent impact of traffic changes on the infrastructure.

Train operating disciplines such as timetabling and resource diagramming can be unfamiliar to those involved in railway infrastructure engineering, though those disciplines effectively shape the infrastructure we are called on to provide and determine the level of service offered to passenger and freight customers. Operating disciplines should also work closely with engineering in determining the detail of asset management strategies and plans. It is after all important to provide sufficient time for the maintenance work that is itself driven by the characteristics of traffic on a particular route. The Institution of Railway Operators (IRO) is the home of expertise in timetabling and resource diagramming and the PWI is seeking ways to share discipline perspectives between the two Institutions’ memberships.

HOW DOES COMMAND AND CONTROL FIT WITH THE PWI?

Whilst there is work to do on the PWI’s coverage of command and control (including signalling), a 2020 joint PWI seminar with the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE), Institution of Engineering Technology (IET), and Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) covering all aspects of automatic train operations (ATO) gave participants from all four institutions a view of the broader infrastructure issues raised by automation and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to railways. ATO is in many respects a mature technology. It was pioneered from 1968 on London Underground’s Victoria line where the running tunnels provide a highly constrained and controlled infrastructure environment. It is notable that many of the difficult questions facing ATO in the 21st century are not about train control technology itself, but about how external risks from a more varied and open infrastructure, flooding or escaped livestock for example, are to be identified, assessed, and controlled under automatic operation. This requires input from all infrastructure engineering disciplines!

The presentations from the joint seminar, together with the questions and answers arising are freely available to PWI members. Building on its success and broadening the knowledge available to our members, we intend to hold further joint events with our fellow professional institutions: the next is planned for Autumn 2021.

ISN’T AI DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC?

The broad application of AI to engineering has already been the subject of much research and development, particularly in the field of autonomous vehicles. Frameworks of decision-making principles have been established and the role of ethics in machine-made decisions is certainly better, if not yet completely, understood.

Historically, the identification and control of risks within the railway industry has tended to be “bottom-up” within specific disciplines, and this may go some way to explain the weakness in risk controls at subsystem interfaces that have been exposed by serious incidents over the last 25 years. Whilst the “top hazards” (derailment, collision, and fire for example) that might arise from the use of AI will be those we are already familiar with, the ways in which AI might create real incidents are likely to be very similar across engineering disciplines and subsystems. So, to make best use of experience and learning from the application of AI we will require effective dialogue across engineering disciplines, and a broad commonality of approach in the way AI is evaluated, assessed, and deployed. The PWI is alert to this requirement and is well-placed to facilitate it.

AND WHAT ABOUT PROJECTS?

As we look (with hope) to the 2022 opening of Crossrail and continue to lament the cloud cast over English electrification schemes by the Great Western Main Line, it is difficult to argue that all is well in the engineering and management of significant UK railway projects. That said, the success of Thameslink (after some initial operational hiccups) and its underlying approach to systems engineering, the commissioning of Corby to Bedford and several Scottish electrification schemes, the steady progress on East West Rail, HS2s move into its major construction phase, and the success of a series of smaller (though still substantial) projects including the reconstruction of Kings Cross station throat and the construction of Werrington dive-under give cause for some serious optimism!

It is clear that the UK can deliver large, successful railway infrastructure projects on time and within budget, but the jury is still out as to whether this can be done consistently.

Despite “lessons learnt” exercises and informative National Audit Office (NAO) reports on projects from the early 2000s, lessons were not learnt. Looking at more recent reports on Crossrail by both the NAO and the Greater London Transport Authority it is evident that the complexity of railway systems engineering, and the scope of its proper assurance were not well understood by a very senior project team at critical stages in the project’s development and delivery. It is hopefully now evident to all that delivering a modern operational railway system is much more than an aggregation of several smaller engineering projects, and that details (especially at subsystem interfaces) really matter. The complexity and interdependency of railway infrastructure is not due to a single engineering discipline but to multiple disciplines, with many interfaces which are critical for both technical compatibility and construction programming.

Again, the PWI’s ongoing role here is to collect and share with its membership knowledge and experience from across engineering and construction disciplines within the railway sector, and from outside the industry where relevant. Previous project review presentations have laid the groundwork and, in addition to Journal articles, we intend to hold a seminar in 2022 presenting experience and understanding drawn from recent railway projects.

CONCLUSION

I hope I have explained why the PWI is different to some other professional engineering institutions and is of particular value to those working in the railway infrastructure sector. I hope too that you can use my answers, bolstered by your own experience, to persuade colleagues and acquaintances within our industry to join this Institution and to share their varied railway knowledge and experience with other PWI members, for the good of both individuals and the collective industry.