Using Technology to Monitor Train Tracks during A27 Southerham to Beddingham Improvement Scheme
In order to ease congestion on the busy A27 between Southerham and Beddingham roundabouts in East Sussex, a road improvement scheme was instigated to widen the existing carriageways and to remove a dangerous level crossing.
Summary of works
Client: Sir Alfred McAlpine and Carillion
Contract name: A27 Southerham to Beddingham Improvement Scheme
Start date: May 2006
Completion date: January 2009
The removal of this crossing necessitated the construction of a new road bridge over the Lewes to Eastbourne Network Rail operation lines.
ITM Monitoring, now SOCOTEC Monitoring UK Ltd, was contracted to install a comprehensive track monitoring system capable of monitoring the track during the construction of the bridge abutments. It needed to be operational all year round and provide data to various asset engineers. In order to achieve this, over 100 transverse and longitudinal radio tilt meters were fixed to both the rail and sleepers and logged wirelessly using a custom built radio datalogger.
All of the data was transmitted back to ITM Monitoring via GPRS and displayed in our web-presentation software package, ARGUS. Through this software we are able to show both calculated data from the sensors themselves and critical cant and twist measurements used to verify track condition. Manual track surveys were also performed to provide critical information on track position.
