What is the South West London / Berkshire Signal Upgrade
This large scale reliability-boosting resignalling scheme was a project set to switch to 116 new digital signals across parts of the railway in South West London and Berkshire on the Windsor Line.
With work starting on August 19th 2023, a team of engineers worked around the clock for 14 consecutive days to complete a signal upgrade across part of the route. This included the completion of upgrades to seven level crossings across this huge project.
Following the completion of the work on the newly installed signalling, passengers are able to benefit from more reliable journeys with fewer delays on the Windsor Line (a key commuter route into and out of London).
Since 2019, Network Rail engineers have installed over 10km of new cabling (housed in 14km of refurbished cable ducting), 27 new under-track cable routes, seven level crossings have been upgraded and 116 state-of-the-art digital signals have been installed.
This £116m project will also see control of the upgraded part of the railway be moved to the Basingstoke Operating Centre, a purpose-built rail hub that is shared with South Western Railway (SWR).
Completion of Work
The re-signalling program will be concluded by early 2024. This work includes:
- renewal or upgrades to 13 level crossings
- upgrades to key signalling equipment covered by the Feltham Area Signalling Centre
- upgrades to key signalling equipment covered by Wokingham Signal Box
The Feltham Area Signalling Centre and Wokingham Signal box jointly cover 80 miles of railway route and 500 separate pieces of signalling equipment.
Significant Milestones
Speaking on the project in August 2023, Mark Killick (Network Rail’s Wessex Route Director) said:
“I’m pleased to say we’ve now reached a significant milestone of our wider Feltham and Wokingham resignalling programme with the switching on of 116 new signals on the Windsor Lines. These new digital signals replace old equipment that had become unreliable and harder to maintain and will improve the reliability of this stretch of railway and in turn help reduce delays for our customers. “
Rail BI are proud to be the Business Intelligence application that powered the initial cost estimation and scenario analysis activities that helped to determine the viability of this large scale project. To find out how our team can help you with cost estimations and rail upgrade projects, please contact one of our team today.
Image credit: Network Rail