Q: Please briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience within the railway industry and how this relates to the Railway Gauging and Clearance seminar
Tim Shakerley (TS): As a chartered mechanical engineer and a product of BR’s Engineering Management Trainee scheme, I have 32 years of experience in the rail sector and 22 years at Freightliner, the UK’s leading Intermodal rail operator. My roles within Freightliner were leading the engineering team for 20 years, including the introduction to service of a locomotive and circa 15 new wagon designs, as well as supporting and leading strategy for the business and latterly as Managing Director of the rail business within Freightliner.
Gauging is such a critical issue for new vehicle design – particularly with design of freight equipment where the desire to go “anywhere” is critical. 9’6” containers with their inherent rectangular profile leads to an immediate incompatibility with arched Victorian tunnels that makes this especially challenging.
Rory Dickerson (RD): I’ve worked as an engineer in Traction & Rolling Stock at Network Rail for about ten years, I volunteered to be one of the leads in developing the content of this seminar. Whilst I’m not regularly involved in gauging myself my colleagues are; however, I did design some of the electrical systems on an OTM which returned from testing a slightly different shape to when it went out, and was briefly involved in some work resulting from the recent introduction of some rolling stock with longer than normal front-end overhangs.
David Johnson (DJ): I am presently the Technical Director of D/Gauge, responsible for all technical aspects of our portfolio of gauging-related software and systems. I have been in the rail industry for 45 years, starting in British Rail Research and involved with gauging in particular for the last 30. I have developed many of the gauging tools currently used by the industry – analysis software (such as ClearRoute, PhX and Rift), measuring systems (such as LaserSweep and the Structure Gauging Train and the original National Gauging Database. I have been co-author of many of the industry’s gauging standards and am currently chair of the Vehicle / Structures Systems Interface Committee, having been a member since its inception over 20 years ago.
Mark Ward (MW): Principal Engineer within Network Rail Technical Authority Track Team with approximately 19 years’ experience in the gauging discipline, working with suppliers, devolved Regional teams and industry to deliver improvements to process and standards.
Rebeka Sellick (RS): As a career railway engineer, I’m passionate about making our railways greener, better-used and more efficient. When I was Engineering Director at ATOC, 20 years ago, I helped set up the industry-wide Systems Interface Committees to enable engineers to optimise across contractual divides. Cost-effectively establishing, maintaining and developing reliable space envelopes for the biggest, longest, fastest possible trains to safely operate was key to the Vehicle-Structures Systems Interface Committee – and to this Gauging and Clearance Seminar. Nowadays I focus on helping railways to make more effective use of data, as Development Director of Cordel.ai
Q: What is the top challenge facing your industry at present?
TS: Rail freight is becoming increasingly important as a mode of transport of goods for congestion and environmental reasons. But new entrants are often put off by a perception of inflexibility and complexity. Gauging is one such hurdle – it the last 18 months we have failed to find gauging solutions as an industry in a timely manner to support new to rail traffic flows.
RD: With respect to my understanding of gauging, I think the top challenge is data. It’s perhaps an easy answer to give, but to get good decisions from data, every previous step needs to be effective from the interpretation and use of wisdom, back through data access and management, collection, and planning.
DJ: The biggest challenge, as I see it, is for the industry to be able to get on with delivering a working railway against a background of political interference and uncertainty that are crippling it. We have a wealth of innovative minds capable of delivering a low carbon transportation system just waiting to be given the challenge.
MW: Affordability of gauge clearance projects against the background of reduced income in the post-pandemic environment. We need to look at how we can fit larger freight and new passenger vehicles into the available space through use of new and innovative techniques, minimising infrastructure intervention and disruption.
RS: Climate change is the biggest challenge for the planet, with transport typically quoted as 25% of the carbon cost. The railway could deliver more low carbon transport, but we need to win over the public and politicians – customers and policymakers. Part of our winning story is to invest in data and automation to drive slicker engineering decision-making – including Gauging and Clearance.
Q: How would you say your industry has evolved since the development of gauging standards and launch of the new Railway Gauging Data Solution (RGDS)?
TS: Evolution has been limited. At the end of the day, rolling stock decisions are made at the design stage and rolling stock assets have a 30 – 40 year life. To enable the true “go anywhere” vehicles, wagon design is traditionally conservative – bulk wagons are routinely built to the static freight gauges or assessed to the W10 gauge over the appropriate routes because the pace of change for infrastructure clearance is too slow. Rail freight is a commercial enterprise with comparatively short commercial contracts and so bespoke and tailored wagon designs are few and far between. RGDS has not really had sufficient maturity or deployment to benefit freight noticeably yet.
DJ: The NGD was a solution of its time, and served to enable us to develop new trains and generate new freight flows that were not possible without this asset knowledge. The RGDS holds promise of better-quality data which is connected to other data. In time, this will lead to more automated train pathing and allow humans to focus on the bigger challenges associated with transport logistics.
MW: There has been an increased focus and reliance on both the infrastructure and vehicle models, requiring more accuracy from both to ensure efficient use of available infrastructure.
Q: What other developments are going on in your industry that may have an impact on the development of future approaches to gauging and clearance?
TS: Pressure to improve gauging clearance for the rail network will remain high for the Freight industry. Traditional route clearance has been focussed on key intermodal corridors – this prohibits development of new to rail flows and concentrates traffic over a comparatively few corridors. There is lots of initiatives and innovation to open new markets for distribution – but gauge clearance will constrain the pace of that innovation.
RD: I think the main new development is Probabilistic Gauging. A more considered approach to existing data with some informed assumptions, rather than a worst case, should create more opportunities for new and existing rolling stock on the network.
DJ: Gauging, since it was computerised, has been constantly evolving to capture and use space that was provided in the early days of the railway era when structures were built much bigger than actually required. As this computational power increases – such as is now available using Cloud Computing – analytical techniques that allow us to safely use the available space even more efficiently are becoming possible. Probabilistic Gauging, where we literally perform tens of thousands of simulations to work out what is likely to go wrong rather than assuming everything will go wrong at once will significantly reduce the cost of gauging once railway engineers develop a modernised mindset about what ‘safe’ means.
Our marriage to ‘freight gauges’ is probably also ‘on the rocks’, in so far as any gauge will be more restrictive to train operation than analysing the swept envelopes of individual trains will be. As wagons get more track friendly, their swept envelope becomes larger (basic physics) and trying to include these in new gauges will become unaffordable. The simplicity of gauges largely satisfied a non-computerised past world, and today represent the Cretaceous period as the last remaining dinosaurs of gauging. The passenger industry has addressed its growth by building appropriately sized trains in harmony with the infrastructure. The freight sector needs to do the same to effect the modal shift from road that it seeks.
MW: Probabilistic Gauging provides an opportunity to deliver efficiencies in the world of gauging analysis and compatibility with more representative clearances than the current methodologies available. This will lead to less infrastructure intervention and faster introduction of new and cascaded vehicles into service.
RS: Probabilistic Gauging is an exciting opportunity, I agree. We hope that seminar participants will get involved in the panel discussion in the afternoon and contribute to moving this concept forwards to reality.
Q: What will you be presenting at the Railway Gauging and Clearance seminar and how will this benefit participants?
TS: Keynote presentation – will set out those goals and why the “technical” development of gauging and approaches is important, actually simplicity and pace is key.
RD: I’m one of the chairs along with Rebeka Sellick. Gauging isn’t a speciality of mine, so I brought in some experts!
DJ: I will be presenting Probabilistic Gauging, something I have been working on for over 20 years yet still has an air of mysticism about it within the railway community. Its principles are well established in other engineering disciplines (nuclear, aviation and automotive, for example) to achieve risk-based safety decision making. I hope to explain that it is not something that generates more clearance but is a means of more accurately determining operational clearance requirements which – in turn – allows safety factors developed in the 1950’s to be relaxed.
MW: I will be presenting an overview of the themes on our internal gauging standards, this will give participants a preview of where we are going and how we will achieve required changes.
RS: I’m presenting the new Railway Gauging Data Solution that will go live in August, replacing the NGD (National Gauging Database). RGDS will deliver quicker turnarounds and provide live information with built-in quality assurance for trusted data. RGDS will set the railway up for flexible future innovation with easy interfaces for wider connections.
Q: Which other speakers and presentations are you looking forward to hearing at the forthcoming seminar?
TS: All of them – I am a bit out of touch with the developments in gauging so this will be useful for CPD as well as to keep pace.
RD: I’m looking forward to all of them and, in particular, how they will fit together on the day. We’ve tried to cover the whole cross-section of the speciality, ranging from vehicles in infrastructure, data to legislation, and everything in between.
DJ: I am particularly keen to hear end users’ perspectives on what they want from gauging, and thus understand how our current knowledge can deliver their aspirations.
MW: Tim Shakerley and Richard Moody will be interesting as they present the perspective of current customers and future direction of travel for the wider industry.
Q: Why is it important for engineers and industry to come together at this event and share best practice?
TS: Gauging is seen a s a dark art and history tells us it is not well understood. We need to demystify the processes and procedures and try and give the industry better knowledge and the toolkits to help development of improved network access.
RD: Gauging is a complicated topic that needs to be well understood from the technical practitioner to the programme manager level, in the civil engineering and track domain, as well as the rolling stock domain.
Cases where mistakes are made can be expensive and high profile – SNCF reportedly had to spend €50 million modifying 1300 platforms when it was discovered the new TER trains would be too big, caused by the operator sending incomplete gauging information. Already this year in Spain, Renfe’s rolling stock manager, and the head of Adif’s technology inspectorate were dismissed, when it was realised CAF trains at an advanced stage of design would be too big to fit through tunnels. Official gauge data did not reflect the reality and, although no metal was cut, the trains will be delayed.
Whether or not the data exists is one thing, realising its importance, and what it means to different parts of the rail industry, is another. This event is an opportunity for engineers to hear about this topic from a diverse range of perspectives, whilst having the opportunity to share their own.
DJ: As an industry, we have fallen victim to ‘silo working’ as we strive to deliver the myriad of outputs that individual businesses require in a poorly integrated railway. Events such as these break down commercially driven barriers that prevent the growth of knowledge and best practice that has served us well in the past and from which future growth of the industry will be delivered.
MW: Participants will hear from a wide range of organisations involved, current industry organisation can lead to silo thinking or assumptions around what other parts of the industry need, this event will help to break down some of the barriers and enable some good networking, with the potential for sharing of new ideas both ways.
RS: The Gauging and Clearance Seminar gives us the chance to bring everyone up to speed with what our customers need. The IMechE space should enable speakers and participants from across the railway to share and optimise what are currently delivering and developing – and to collectively explore what we can and should make possible in future.
The Railway Gauging and Clearance seminar will be taking place on 28 March 2023 at One Birdcage Walk, London.
Join this seminar to:
- Discuss the engineering challenges and implications of the loading gauge of the Great British railway
- Preview this year's developments, including the up-issue of Network Rail’s key gauging standard NR/L2/TRK/3203 and the launch of the new Railway Gauging Data Solution (RGDS), to replace the National Gauging Database (NGD) from August 2023
- Contribute to a panel debate on how to further maximise effective network clearance, with potential evolution from dynamic to probabilistic gauging methodologies – and what value we could add for GB rail
To book your place, please visit the event website.