Designing a safe and efficient depot – HS2 Washwood Heath

At the Rail Partners ‘Train Depots for Today and Tomorrow’ event, Matt Spence, who was speaking on behalf of Dr Stuart Smith, Ergonomics & Human Factors Lead at HS2, talked about the concept for the forthcoming HS2 depot partly on the site of the former Metro-Cammell factory at Washwood Heath in Birmingham. It will be the operational base and maintenance hub for the HS2 fleet and will also be the location of the HS2 Network Integrated Control Centre (NICC).

A huge site, it will be a 24/7/365 depot with most activity at night. At the Birmingham end there will be 16 stabling roads each capable of accommodating 400-metre-long trains (one unit or two, 200-metre units coupled). It is planned that trains will be driven between the main line and the sidings in ATO mode. At this end of the depot, train cleaning and servicing activities will take place and there will be a building with train simulators and other facilities for the circa 200 drivers, and cleaning and servicing staff.

At the east end of the stabling sidings are fans into two tracks leading toward the maintenance depot that will have six roads plus a wheel lathe building and two external sidings each capable of accommodating one 200-metre-long unit. The NICC will be between the sidings and the maintenance building and will house typically 100 staff, and the maintenance building will accommodate approximately 250 staff.

A design for everyone
Matt discussed the core principles for the depot: a design for everyone to benefit and enjoy, a design for a sense of place, and a design to stand the test of time. The concept design has been carried out with human factors involved at all stages so that the depot can deliver its operations effectively whilst ensuring safety, equality, inclusivity, health, and security. Matt said that RSSB research had indicated that 20% of total harm to the UK rail workforce takes place in depots and sidings and there is a death in a depot approximately every 2.5 years. The aim is to design out risks rather than try and mitigate them.

Matt outlined how human factors have been involved all through the delivery, along with assurance of concept design with an inclusive design approach. People were at the heart of the design approach, which acknowledges diversity and differences, particularly recognising and challenging previous limitations to roles based on mobility and ability.

HS2 is also designed for how people will actually use the depot: ‘work as done’, not ‘work as it’s imagined it’s done’. Much use was made of Day in the Life Of studies, taking account of movements of people, equipment, waste, and vehicles.

A particular issue is access to the stabling sidings where ATO will be in use. Train servicing crew and train managers will need to travel from the ‘Cleaners and Drivers’ (C&D) building to the stabling platforms to get to the trains. In conventional depots, access would be by board crossings to get to a train, with cleaning kit, etc. At Washwood Heath, there will be an underpass from the basement of the C&D building, running underneath the stabling roads, with access to each platform via stairs or lift. Trolleys will be available to move cleaning kit which will be stored in the basement.

Risk management

Cleaners will collect waste from the train in their trolleys and then drop the waste into chutes on each platform into larger waste collection trolleys in the underpass. Tugs will move the filled waste trolleys from the underpass. Thus, there will be no crossing roads, no risk of being struck by a train, and reduced manual handling of waste.

There will also be protection and isolation systems on each stabling road platform for train presentation crew. These will minimise the hazard of a train moving with cleaners either on board or trying to get on or off to undertake cab end cleaning activities. The platforms will, of course, be designed with appropriate lighting, surfaces, drainage, and edge protection to minimise risk.

One of the gaps in the concept stage was lack of information about the train design. For example, location of sand, water, and effluent points and visibility from the cab to see ground signals beyond the ATO area (see Visibility of Ground Signals below). These and other details of the train design will be critical for the detail design of the depot. There will also be challenges in managing a site operated by multiple organisations, e.g: HS2, the Train Maintenance supplier, and other contract organisations, each of which might have different organisational cultures and safety behaviours.

Finally, Matt said that there are, and will continue to be, cost pressures for both CAPEX and OPEX.

Visibility of ground signals

On a recent IMechE visit to Scandinavia, delegates travelled on a section of railway north of the Arctic Circle. In these areas, snow can be ‘quite deep’ and the Infrastructure Manager has installed their ground signals some 1 – 1.5 metres above ground level. Mounting ‘ground’ signals at an appropriate height to minimise visibility issues would seem to be a simple solution to the issue raised by Matt in his presentation.