Nestled along the fence line of the oldest depot in the world is a technological advance that puts UK rail ahead of the rest in mainland Europe.
The Longsight depot, just a short drive from Manchester city centre, has seen many sights since its first shed was constructed in 1842 under plans by the Birmingham and Manchester Railway Company to connect the two regional powerhouses.
Today it hosts laser scanners and 3D cameras that enable real-time ‘health checks’ of the 11-foot-high, nine-foot-wide Pendolino high speed trains as they glide through a ‘diagnostics port’, at five-miles per hour.
At ‘depot speed’ there is no sign of the characteristic tilting technique of the British incarnation of the Italian-designed trains, introduced to counteract the twists and turns of the West Coast Main Line, helping to reduce coffee spills and luggage slides for Virgin Train passengers travelling between London, the North West or Glasgow.
The end product, according to depot owner and fleet and infrastructure maintainer Alstom, will be a reduction in ‘impact minutes’ and costs, and an increase in the number of trains available to service operators.
With fleet availability all-important in keeping a clean sheet on cancellations, some train operators will ratchet services forward rather than allow a train fault to knock out a service. This means maintainers need to work at breakneck speed behind the scenes to keep the trains in motion and meet the schedule.
The timing is right for innovation. Rail is politically and economically hot in the UK. Manchester sits at the heart of the UK’s Northern Powerhouse, at the centre of the devolution agenda and will be a major destination point for High Speed 2.
Alstom’s ‘TrainScanner’ technology has already caught the attention of journalists from France, Greece and Poland, who were all on a recent site visit. With designs supported by research and development teams in Barcelona and Madrid, it means improving and changing the way they implement operations, planning and maintenance by moving to a condition-based system.
The French firm will be rolling it out to other depots across the world. Italy is next on the list – though not before an updated civil design of the port has been tweaked so it can be installed in Oxley, in the Midlands, later this year. That location gives Alstom comprehensive coverage of the West Coast Main Line and ensures a train from its 56-strong fleet will be seen every five days.
Alstom – which also looks after 106 trains on the London Underground’s Northern Line, carrying up to a million people each day – prides itself on providing answers to the more difficult questions across fleet and infrastructure, systems and signalling.
TrainScanner sits within its HealthHub, which has a suite of automatic monitoring systems to assess the status of rolling stock and infrastructure.
Central to this is the concept of predictive maintenance, which has seen the aircraft industry reduce maintenance budgets by up to 40 per cent.
Using a laser, camera-based system with a diagnostic process and prognostic analysis, TrainScanner can trace and anticipate the life of a component.
After the 11-car train goes through the scanner port, data is immediately downloaded and translated into performance measures.
Conducting real-time monitoring and knowing the precise condition of components, with a steady flow of information, means unscheduled stops can be replaced by a planned approach.
Trains can divert to a nearby depot to get the work done when it is required, thereby ensuring better reliability and availability from the fleet. Trains that usually travel 20,000 miles before requiring a check-up will instead be able to travel up to 30,000 miles and potentially beyond.
There is a long and proud history at the Longsight depot. But now there is also the start of something that puts the UK industry at the cutting edge.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Alstom, a sponsor of the Public Leaders Network.
