Rail Director Interview: Addressing the challenges of the rail industry

Managing Director Marc Winterton recently spoke to Rail Director Magazine about Park Signalling’s innovations and milestones and how the business continues to evolve and develop safety critical signalling, industrial control and asset monitoring solutions for the rail industry and beyond. 

As Park Signalling celebrates its 25th Birthday, in the same year that Unipart turns 50, Marc reflects on the business’ proud history and looks ahead to exciting plans for the future.

Read the full interview below.

Next year Solid State Interlocking (SSI) will be 40 years old. The founders of Park Signalling were instrumental in the development of SSI, a foundation which has enabled the team to continually develop innovative solutions to help manage system obsolescence and performance improvements.

“Roughly about 40% of the rail network is still SSI and if there is a problem on any signalling system in the UK at the moment one of the first people that will be called to solve the fault will be us,” said MD Marc Winterton. “We’ve got a maintenance contract with Network Rail and have some world-renowned experts in the field respected within the signalling community.”

Park Signalling was formed in 1999 by key staff from Alstom Signalling and since then has evolved into an industry-renowned highly motivated team of specialists, who together offer unrivalled signalling system knowledge complemented with in-house hardware, firmware and software design and build expertise.

“We support electronic and electro-mechanical legacy equipment, and our capabilities include providing problem solving and performance enhancing solutions,” added Marc. “In addition, we have designed and developed software and hardware products, which enable improved reliability and availability that leads to superior system utilisation and extends the life of existing equipment. We undertake system upgrades, enhancements and temporary installations, where other suppliers cannot or will not.”

It is the innovation side that particularly excites Marc, driven by an environment where colleagues have a voice in making suggestions, and by working collaboratively with partners to deliver technology and solutions that improve performance, reduce risk and optimise cost.

“As a Unipart Company, there is an embedded culture of engagement and continuous improvement that combines people and process excellence with technology and system solutions to create real differentiation for new and existing customers and industry,” he said.

Marc spoke to Rail Director shortly after having supplied five MT04 Technician’s Terminals into Rugby Signalling Control Centre which will enable signalling staff there to monitor and look for faults on the network; and days after the start of a trial with Network Rail for product approval for its Optical Data Link Module (ODLM).

Explaining the latter, Marc said: “This replaces the standard SSI Data Link Module with a physically compatible unit that transmits the SSI signal over optical fibres or copper cable, providing extreme immunity to electrical interference when optical fibres are used in preference to copper cabling. It is a direct plug and play replacement for the existing unit that is out there.

“For us it is all about safe delivery, whilst helping customers achieve significant efficiency and cost benefits. A new development we are launching in January is an advancement on our existing Technician’s Terminals which will allow signallers to prepare a planned possessions offline and then implement it with just a key stroke at the desired time. This will enable the maintenance teams to get more physical time on the rail rather than waiting for the signaller to implement all the signal changes and then give them permission to go trackside.”

Another success story for Park Signalling has been its Network Rail approved Digital Block Controller (DiBloC), which allows a section of single line railway to be controlled without the need for end to end cabling or on-board equipment.

“The product shares many of the same operational and safety concepts with traditional electric key token machines, which have been in operation on railways around the world for many years,” said Marc. “DiBloC is designed to communicate digitally (optionally wirelessly) through IP based systems and include provision for TPWS and section signal release.

“We see even more potential with this abroad, particularly in the likes of Africa where our version is a safer, more robust system, yet it still has the physical representation that the drivers are used to so there would be no retraining to operate the kit.”

As well as opportunities on global rail networks, Marc and the team have got exciting plans for DiBloC outside of rail and are seeing major interest in its application in safety critical industries including tunnelling and mining where the controlled movement of vehicles on single track routes is critical.

Indeed, the product has been an enabler to the safe construction of tunnels supporting the HS2 build project in London,leading to it being shortlisted as a finalist in the Health, Safety and Wellbeing Initiative category at this year’s New Civil Engineering Tunnelling Awards.

Park Signalling is part of Unipart Technologies Group (UTG) alongside Comms Design, Instrumentel, MetLase and Unipart Construction Technologies. UTG businesses design, develop and support performance improvement technologies that deliver customers savings in time, carbon and cost in sectors including rail, utilities, aerospace, construction, engineering and manufacturing.

“Collaboration between our business is key to Unipart being able to continually deliver performance improvement solutions for the rail industry.

“Whether that be with Unipart Rail where we collaborate on hardware and software solutions for global industry products including Track Circuit Assistor, or Comms Design, our radio partners within Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB) signalling systems that we collaborate with in Scotland on the systems that we are rolling out with Telent,” said Marc.

“Another example is Instrumentel who provide a range of on-board and lineside condition solutions for conditioning monitoring. At InnoTrans they launched ThermOptic Insight a new lineside product that measures and monitors the temperatures of different parts of the train’s engine, axels, auxiliary systems and identifiers, using thermal radiometry, optics and AI to detect temperature and wear, and reduce service failures and cost.

We are working in partnership with them to develop a product called GateLock which is a manufactured gate and post solution with an electronic locking system to be used at worker crossing on the Rail Network.

“Getting new safety critical products into Network Rail is what Park Signalling is all about, delivering safety on our railways. We are a Safety Integrity Level 4 based company which prides itself on safety critical systems.”

Coincidently while Park Signalling celebrates its 25th birthday in December, its parent company Unipart has turned fifty.

“Two very significant milestone and two that certainly should be celebrated,” said Marc, who explained how Park Signalling gets its name from the fact it was first based at Trafford Park in Manchester but is now based in Houldsworth Mill in Stockport.

“We are currently based over three floors now but will be moving in January to the first floor at Houldsworth Mill, which will be double the floorspace of the combined three floors that we currently occupy. This investment will provide space to grow the business and meet industry demands over the next few years.

“It will lead to more opportunities and will mean we can do more things in house. We have an environmental test facility, and we are also looking at including incorporating an Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) test facility there as well, so we don’t have to send our products to be EMC tested externally. There will also be better access to loading bays so we can move our products around a lot easier.”

Marc recently marked his first anniversary as MD, following his appointment at Commercial Director in June 2023, bringing with him more than 30 years’ technical engineering and commercial experience in digital and telecommunication technologies, for companies including Cable & Wireless, Globecast, Arcadis Consulting and Arup.

His is leading the ongoing development of Park Signalling’s specialist control systems and digital solutions for heavy and light rail networks and accelerating the extension of these performance improvement technologies into new industries and geographies, a challenge that he is excited about.

“Although our core business will always be servicing the UK rail sector, our aspiration and our strategy for the business, as already demonstrated with DiBloC, is to find opportunities in new territories and in other sectors.

Already we’re progressing a number of opportunities in the utilities sector where there is a real synergy between the safety critical control and asset monitoring solutions that we provide in the rail sector and the industry-wide challenges that the utilities sector faces to enhance the service life of critical communication systems and equipment.”

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time at Park Signalling so far and I look forward to working with our engineers, consultants and technology specialists to continue developing innovative new products for use in the rail sector and building on our expertise in obsolescence and digital control systems to support other industries in the UK and around the world.

Keep an eye on our LinkedIn page for some exciting announcements in the next months.”

The interview featured in Rail Director, October 2024 edition

Contact the Business Development team for further information on Park Signalling products and solutions.