Network Rail visit

Serving North & West Yorkshire

Visit to the Network Rail Integrated Electronic Control Centre (IECC), York

Wednesday 21st April 2004

On a Wednesday evening in April, seventeen people attended the Network Rail Integrated Electrical Control Centre in York. In two groups, we were shown round the control centre, which controls railway signalling for the East Coast route between London and the Scottish borders, as well as rail routes within West Yorkshire.

We had a rare opportunity to watch controllers at work, and understand how they use the technology to monitor the position of all train services at a given time. the emphasis was on the usage of the technology rather than the technology itself, but we had a fascinating insight into railway operations in general and how they are supported by computer systems in particular.

Generally routing of train services is under the control of the computer. A human controller will intervene by exception if, say a particular train is delayed and hence other trains can be allowed to proceed without waiting for the delayed train to pass. Large display screens show the layout of the tracks and the position of each train on the network in real time. The status of all signalling is instantly available to controllers allowing the situation to be assessed. There are also feeds from weather stations and notifications of incidents in a given area such as vandalism, flooding or trespass, allowing trains to be re-routed away from an affected area or slowed if it would be dangerous for them to continue on their original route.

As well as signalling, the centre also monitors power supplies to electrified routes, including the northernmost extremes of the London suburban rail network. Again, large graphical displays are used to give real time status information on the power supplies allowing remedial measures to be initiated quickly if problems are identified.

All those who attended agreed that this was fascinating evening. Thanks must go to the staff at the Network Rail IECC and Network Rail's Community Relations team for making this visit possible.

Nick Seddon