Hour delay if new Wem rail crossing needs repair
Rail bosses have said it could take up to an hour for engineers to arrive if problems occur once a rail crossing in Shropshire becomes automated.
But they have assured civic leaders that it would be the trains that are stopped and delayed instead of motorists trying to cross Soulton Road in Wem.
Representatives from Network Rail held a behind-closed-doors meeting with members of Wem Town Council, Wem Rural Parish Council and Shropshire Council at Edinburgh House yesterday.
The company also agreed to look into the possibility of building a footbridge over the crossing so pedestrians can cross when the barriers are down.
The signal box at the site will close and the barriers will be controlled from 120 miles away in Cardiff from October 14.
Councillors had raised concerns that the town would be in "chaos" if the barriers were stuck down and there was no one there to fix the problem, but they said yesterday's meeting answered a lot of questions.
Councillor Pauline Dee, Shropshire Councillor for Wem, said: "There were conflicting theories on whether the barriers would be down or up if there is a fault but Network Rail said the barriers would be up so I am not worried that it could take up to an hour to fix it.
"Of course they will want to keep the trains moving because they get fined."
Peter Broomhall, chairman of Wem Rural Parish Council, said: "They answered all our questions and put our mind at rest.They were quite positive about the possibility of a new footbridge. They alleviated most of our concerns."
Robin Basu, Network Rail community relations manager for Western Region, also told the meeting that the crossing keeper will stay at the site for one week once it is automated, to make sure it is running smoothly. If there are any problems they will be able to override the automatic settings.
Councillor Dee said she would have liked it to be longer than a week on recommendation from the Office for Rail Regulation.
Mr Basu said: "The meeting was extremely useful for us to alleviate concerns and clarify how the new system actually works.
"We would not introduce a system which was less safe than the one it is replacing and the new level crossing is as safe as a human supervised crossing." When asked about the possibility of installing a footbridge he said it is not normal procedure when there is a road crossing but said Network Rail would look into it.
Mr Basu will meet with councillors again in November to assess how the new technology is working.
Network Rails answers to concerns about the level crossing:
1. How does the new obstacle detection system work?
The new system automatically detects whether there is a vehicle or pedestrian on the crossing before a train approaches and will stop it.
The system combines two separate technologies, namely Radar and Lidar. Radar scans a defined area of the crossing for obstructions, for example, vehicles and pedestrians. It self-tests before every operation. It is also resistant to direct vandalism including graffiti. If it was completely dislodged, it would fail its start-up test. Lidar is capable of detecting smaller objects closer to the crossing. The Lidar would detect people who fall while using the crossing or who stand anywhere on the crossing surface. It uses lasers that cannot be interfered with through vandalism.
2. Crossing at complicated roads
With crossings with particularly high levels of road traffic and cars, Network Rail is looking to install Barrier Protection Management (BPM) sensors.
These are inductive loops submerged in the ground and are similar to those found at car park barriers and make sure that a barrier does not close on a car beneath it.
BPMs protect barriers by detecting vehicles under the barriers and preventing them from lowering onto vehicles and themselves being damaged. BPM is not essential for the safe operation of the crossing but useful when vehicles have queued over a crossing.
3. Reacting to failures
An alarm on the signallers' desk will alert the signaller who will revert the protecting signals to danger to stop trains.
Then the local mobile operations manager, based at a nearby maintenance depot, such as Shrewsbury, will be called to site to manually operate the barriers, allowing traffic to move over the crossing.
While this is happening maintenance teams will be on site looking into the problem. The equipment also has a battery back-up supply of four hours in the event of power loss.
If the loss persists then a back up generator will be taken to the site.
