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This 125mph train is fitted with LASERS. Sadly no sharks, though

Network Rail's New Measurement Train - not new, but still pretty nifty

Horsepower at the ends, workhorses in the middle

The two tech carriages are divided into “development” and “production” with the former using systems which are being tested – although the data is live and used – and the latter housing systems which are tried and trusted.

It’s Sheldon Cooper’s holodeck fantasy.

The train is equipped with a Track Geometry System, laser track scanners, a high resolution video camera on the front complete with frame grabber, Unattended Geometry Measurement System, overhead line inspection systems, and the Plain Line Pattern Recognition (PLPR) system.

Measurement train NETWORK RAIL

Chris Ball, an on-train technician who has been working on the NMT for ten years, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the NMT's systems, possible faults it might spot – and its history.

There is also a Radio Survey System which checks the coverage for the 950MHz GSM-R system used to communicate between train drivers and central control. Despite GSM-R being 2G and dating back more than a decade (the Ericsson R250S Pro, launched in 2000, was GSM-R compatible), the system only went live on the British rail network this year.

Not surprisingly, data transfer uses something more modern and there is a system which aggregates public mobile network signals with an onboard store. This forwards, via FTP, the collected geo data at 1MB per mile while the image data recorded by the NMT is kept on two 2TB hard drives and taken off at the end of a shift. One drive can hold data for up to 440 miles of track. To give you a sense of perspective here, the NMT covers 115,000 miles a year.

Compared with typical video, 52TB doesn’t sound like a lot. Yet with lives potentially at risk from damaged rails, with the evidence needed to commission a repair being held in just a few kB, it’s important that the data is safe and extracted properly. In extreme circumstances the crew of the New Measurement Train have the power to emulate Jenny Agutter's red petticoat, shutting down the railway and ordering an immediate fix. In the last ten years of service this has happened less than ten times.

Measurement train NETWORK RAIL

Laser scanning gives precise measurement of the rail head, checking thirteen parameters for shape and movement as the train rolls over.

The LR3K Track Geometry System looks at the shape of the railhead, the profile of the track and the twist of the track as the load of the rain rolls over it. It’s measured to a 14mm tolerance, which over hundreds of miles at 125mph is some going.

Network Rail has modified the standard L3K system, adding gyroscopes and accelerometers to meet more parameters than other railways are happy with.

This modified system gives data for differences in elevation between the two edges of the rails, track gauge, alignment (35m & 70m), twist (3m), left and right top, mean top, curvature, dip angles and cant deficiency (PDF, 20 pages, readable slide deck with pictures.

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