The Santiago rail crash happened over 11 years ago, and the judge has now ruled on the responsibility for the crash. One of the factors was a failure to do a risk assessment of two changes to the project. The Safety Director who signed off the line as safe, without the required risk assessments, has been given a 2.5 year jail term. James Catmur was an assistant to an expert witness in the court case, making the argument that the failure to do the required risk assessments was fundamental. Come and hear about the accident, the court case, and what caused the accident. It has set a precedent that not doing a common safety methods for risk assessment (CSM-RA) can result in a criminal conviction.

Accident date (24th July 2013)

The Core Valley Lines Transformation is turning the railway around Cardiff and the local valleys into a modern, turn-up and go metro style railway, improving connectivity across the area. It is a vertically integrated, whole railway transformation, with the programme encompassing infrastructure enhancements, new rolling stock and operational changes. The project is implementing a unique solution to automatic power changeover (APCO), utilising discontinuous electrification, battery-hybrid BMUs and a RFID based track to train communication solution. Amey are the Managing Agent for the works, as well as being the Infrastructure Manager for the Core Valley Lines, working with the TOC to achieve the overall outcomes.

Matt will present an overview of the programme, highlighting both the organisational and technical nuances that make the Core Valley Lines Transformation one of the most interesting projects in the UK currently.

The East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP) is a landmark scheme that will introduce in-cab digital signalling on the southern part of the East Coast Main Line, between London King's Cross and Grantham.   The first part of the deployment, Northern City Line (NCL), went live with Level 2 ETCS overlay in November 2023. As we approach the one-year anniversary, we will hear from Vanessa Wragg and John Crossland about how the rail industry are taking a new, collaborative approach to ensuring the success of the live system.

Vanessa and John will give a talk about the ERTMS Technical Support Engineers; the UK rail network's first dedicated ERTMS support team. They’ll take a look at how the team was built from the ground up, where their expertise lies across the complex system of systems (including trackside, onboard, and non-ETCS interfaces), and what a typical day looks like as they investigate system events. In addition, they’ll also explore the qualities that make their team successful and will end with an open forum discussion should participants have any questions.

The Railway Challenge is a competition organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. It is aimed at attracting engineers to the railway industry and developing them in various engineering disciplines. The competition is held in Stapleford Miniature Railway, Leicestershire, over a weekend. The deliverable is a working 10¼“ gauge miniature locomotive, which is tested in a number of track-based challenges. Along with this, it includes some non-track-based challenges which are aimed to develop numerous core skills such as presentation skills and technical writing skills, which support engineers in their daily roles.

In this presentation, we will give an overview of the competition, our projects, difficulties faced, outcomes and finally how it helped develop us in our roles, irrespective of our discipline.

This talk will explore the origins of ERTMS/ETCS, how it came into being and its current state of development. The overall system architecture will be presented together with an overview of the main functions, including cab-signalling and ATO, and Packet 44 which allows bespoke features to be added to the generic interoperable function set. The performance and capacity enhancing capabilities of ETCS will also be discussed with consideration of the potential for ERTMS/ETCS to be applied to urban and metro railways.

The mTRAC (modular Train Regulation And Control) System is a TfL in-house developed Signal Control System which is specifically designed with the metro environment in mind. This has evolved from a small system covering the Heathrow Area on the Piccadilly line to a full signal control system replacement now commissioned on the Piccadilly line (PICU Project) and nearing completion on the Bakerloo line (BCUP Project).

This presentation will start with the story of the mTRAC system development from small beginnings in 2005 to the current full-line implementations in 2025. This will include a description of the current BCUP (Bakerloo line Control Upgrade Project) works, an overview of the system architecture and design, and a look towards the future development of the system.

London Underground was one of the world's early adopters of automatic block signalling and many of the principal operating and technical techniques used then are still seen today. This illustrated presentation looks at the development of the early track circuits, signals, power frames, point machines and trainstops designed in the United States and brought to Britain in the early 20th Century. It describes the initial use on the London Underground railways and later development showing how some of the equipment has survived until recent times and how it has shaped signalling development on the Underground.