Signalling intent at Waterloo

Network Rail is investing £800m to improve and increase the capacity of London Waterloo, Britain’s busiest station and one of the country’s most used railways, with a programme of works from 2015 to 2018.

Central to the project’s success is a major signal and control panel upgrade at Wimbledon Junction in South London. The upgrade involves the complete redesign and reconfiguration of existing signalling to accommodate the 30 per cent increase in capacity that will help London Waterloo accommodate passenger growth well into the middle of the 21st Century.

The Wessex Capacity Alliance (WCA) comprises five partner organisations; AECOM, Colas Rail, Mott MacDonald, Network Railand Skanska. The Wessex Capacity Alliance (WCA) selected L.B. Foster to design, implement and commission the new signalling and control panel project at Wimbledon Junction.

Chris Mayhew is Programme Systems Integration Manager at Skanska UK. Chris explains: “The Waterloo and South West Upgrade project is one of those major infrastructure investments designed to future proof services for a generation. “It’s so far reaching - from redeveloping Waterloo station into a modern, 21st Century transport hub, introducing longer platforms and longer trains - to the application of new technology to make trains more efficient and improve punctuality. That’s where L.B. Foster fits in. The new control panel changes are mission critical to this project.”

L.B. Foster’s team has been faultless. They have been involved in every decision and every redesign, delivering creative solutions to complex challenges. Whenever we have called upon them to respond they have responded and delivered over and above expectations.

Our role in the renewal project involved modification and rectification work to the Control & Indication Panels at Wimbledon Area Signalling Centre.

Senior project manager, Nigel Dobney, says: “We’ve built positive relationships with all members of the Wessex Capacity Alliance. That has helped us to understand the scope of the project better. We developed a robust installation strategy that instilled confidence in WCA that the panel works would be delivered and installed in a professional and timely manner.

“The overall scope of the brief changed so much that it’s almost unrecognisable, but that’s where our expertise, experience and innate understanding of the control panel and signalling environment kicks in. We’re working with legacy systems that we know as we’ve had experience working on similar systems over the years. This familiarity has been invaluable in developing the blueprints for the new configurations.”