The reintroduction of passenger services on the Northumberland Line (NL) (formerly known as the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne (ABT) line) has been an aspiration of Northumberland County Council(NCC) for many years and accords with key local and regional policy, principally in terms of promoting economic growth across South East Northumberland.

What We Did:

MRC Engineering were contracted to undertake the GRIP 3 Option Selection Report for the Operational Communications and SISS alterations needed to support the planned passenger service on the Northumberland Line in line with the track and Signalling changes. MRC Engineering also undertook the role of Telecoms Design CRE on the scheme for the design phases.

Project Overview:

The scheme was the creation of a new Passenger Service to Ashington from Newcastle Central Station, it also involved the creation of 6 new Stations to support the new Passenger line.  The Track and SIgnalling alterasyion needed to support the new Northumberland Passenger serivce,  siginificantly impacted the lineside operational communications network. This required that a full lift and shift of the Legacy and FTN cables (Copper and Fibre) to be undertaken prior to the line being installed. The scheme also requried the intial design to accommodate new SISS systems for the new stations.

Our key deliverables:

• GRIP 3 OSR

• Relocation of Main ECM FTN/FTNx Fibre, Lineside FTN Copper Cabling, Lineside Legacy cabling. Signalling Control Circuits

• IP CCTV

• PA System

• CIS System

• CRE Design

Project key deliverables / challenges:

• Minimal Impact to Operational Network