Firstco brings expertise to bear on Channel Tunnel Rail Link (5th March 2007)

Firstco, one of the UK’s leading technical consultancy, project management and systems integration specialists, is working on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) in the run-up to the opening of the new St Pancras station to take the Eurostar services.

Firstco’s chairman, Mark Calnan, explained: “In particular, our function is to commission the managing process for the control and communications systems being used on the CTRL.”

Firstco, which recently opened subsidiary companies in Dubai and Mauritius, has some ten years’ experience in this field, including:

• Providing specialist input to the project leaders for controls and communication systems and systems engineering.
• Ensuring the systems requirements of the stakeholders (user, operator and maintainer) are fully understood.
• Helping to clarify the briefs to enable the sub-project teams to move forward with their definition and detailed designs.
• Assisting in interfaces with specialist client and supplier systems teams and the existing rail stakeholders (such as train operating companies and Network Rail).
• Supporting and facilitating progress of the sub-project teams by aiding communication, identifying possible solutions providers and opportunities for rationalisation and challenging thinking.
• Designing, commissioning, testing and project managing the delivery and integration of station and tunnel control systems into a single control room graphical user interface (GUI).

Last year, BAA Heathrow Airport Ltd’s Rail and Tunnels team selected Firstco to implement the control and communications systems for the extension of the Heathrow Express rail service into Terminal 5 at Heathrow – which is scheduled to open in March 2008. These systems include the PLC and SCADA systems that are used to control the new Terminal 5 assets, as well as extensions to the existing tunnel control systems for tunnel ventilation, fire, train information, public address, CCTV and utilities.

And, thanks to Firstco’s application of ‘Value Assured Engineering’ (VAE), the Heathrow Express station at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 has seen an initial systems budget of £25m reduced to an anticipated final cost of £19m – thus saving some 25 per cent on the overall cost of the project.

According to Firstco’s managing director, Bill Martin: “This application of VAE, combined with Firstco’s use of superior products and the latest technology, has ensured the success of the project at every level.”

Firstco’s chairman, Mark Calnan, added: “The concept of VAE emerged from the collapse of the tunnel at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 in 1995. Clients and contractors worked together to solve the engineering challenges rather than spend time in court trying to determine ‘blame’.

“We strongly believe in being part of a team, including clients and contractors. Importantly, we have demonstrated that this team-based working environment actually brings success – both in engineering and budgetary terms.

“This is the philosophy that we are bringing to our work with the CTRL,” he said. “We are looking forward to demonstrating its value there too, as the systems are put in place to enable the CTRL to cut the London to Paris rail journey to just two and a quarter hours when the Link is opened later this year.”