Cohesive
Cohesive
Bold Rail Scheme Brings Cutting-Edge Tech and Connected Data to South Wales’ Historic Coal Valleys
This article first appeared in the Railway-News Magazine Issue 4 2024.
By James Frampton, Global Director for ComplyPro Progressive Assurance Solutions at Cohesive
If one rail programme could perfectly illustrate the meeting of old and new, then the Core Valley Lines (CVL) is surely it.
The project, part of the South Wales Metro Scheme, is designed to upgrade the ageing lines serving the rural communities of the South Wales Valleys (the lines to Aberdare, Coryton, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhymney and Treherbert). It will enable more frequent and fast services and support decarbonisation goals through electrification.
On the 37.5km Treherbert Line, the signalling system looks much like a museum exhibit. Known as a Token Exchange Signalling System, the equipment, dating back to the 19th century, depends on the train driver collecting a key then inserting it into a token machine at different points along the line to alert the signaller.
In contrast, the CVL programme to upgrade the lines is so cutting-edge that it was recently shortlisted for a Going Digital award – the awards that celebrate those projects which are best demonstrating the power of ‘going digital’ across the infrastructure lifecycle to improve project delivery and performance.
Instead of approaching the programme in a traditional way, with siloed execution and stand-alone sets of documents and drawings, Transport for Wales and Amey, the lead managing contractor and operator, were determined to work in an efficient, fully digital and data-centric way.
Deploying a carefully selected portfolio of infrastructure project delivery software and prioritising a collaborative, streamlined and co-ordinated approach, over 1,500 users who are working on the programme, spread across 40 organisations can readily and easily share project data – everything from surveys to designs and reports.
It has developed over 30 different ISO 1960-compliant automated workflows and, to support its engineering assurance, Amey has deployed Cohesive’s ComplyPro platform.
