Rail Crime Solutions

With vandalism costing the UK rail industry an estimated £264 million per year (Network Rail Media Centre 2007), there is a need to protect infrastructure from the risk of malicious damage. And under its duty of care as a public service provider, the rail industry also needs to protect the perpetrator from the risk of injury as a result of interfering with equipment.

Vandalism occurs mainly at the trackside where there is perceived to be less security. Track vandalism accounts for about 80 per cent (Railway Crime Safety Performance Report) of total incidents of general vandalism on railway infrastructure. Current initiatives against railway crime are therefore focused on offences near and on the line itself.

There are numerous trackside installations vulnerable to vandal attack, from signalling and location cabinets to relay rooms, material stores and under track cable crossings. As well as implementing preventative measures, such as surveillance, in its campaign against rail crime, the rail industry is also taking steps to harden equipment to make it resistant to attack.

Enhance

Manufacturers continue to develop and enhance the choice of high security access covers, cabinets, doors and modular buildings for protection of vital railway infrastructure. Systems are available for every conceivable security application, engineered to meet the specific risk assessment issues of the rail network.

While vandalism is a key problem, so is theft. Thieves target cable stores, signalling and relay room equipment for scrap from cables, and will even rip out steel infrastructure for its scrap value. So there is a need all round to scrutinise the specification of location cabinets, access covers, access doors and enclosures to ensure they provide the right level of protection against assessed risks of vandalism, theft and injury to the public.

Third-party approval

In the absence of a security standard for the design and manufacture of engineered security products like cabinets and access doors, railway engineers must rely on third-party approval. As well as having the rail industry’s PADS approval, products should also come with a reliable system of third-party certification specifically assuring their security performance.

As in other utilities sectors, rail specifiers are increasingly adopting the internationally respected LPCB (Loss Prevention Certification Board) approval system. LPCB-certificated products must resist rigorous testing regimes for attack times and tools employed in the attack. Products are graded according to a security rating – from low to very high risk (1 to 6) – indicating the severity and duration of attack they are designed to withstand.

Very importantly, LPCB approval involves regular audits to ensure that the product continues to comply with relevant standards (and any revisions). The audit confirms that the product on the market is exactly the same as the product that was originally tested and approved. Approved high-security doors are now viewed as essential for buildings, such as relay rooms, housing sensitive installations such as control circuitry, cables and power supply for signalling.

Some rail users and specifiers are adopting LPCB security rating 4 or equivalent as a security standard for doors to relay rooms, unmanned buildings and other buildings housing critical equipment, power installations or valuable supplies. High-security cabinets, doors and housings incorporate a range of vital security features, such as internalised base flanges for concealed bolt fixing, shrouded and hardened hasp and staple locking, totally hidden hinges, and three-point stainless steel shoot bolt locking on doors.

Risk assessments

Diligent suppliers will visit site and carry out detailed risk assessments to match the appropriate product to needs. This is important in terms of avoiding under-specification of product, which could leave security and safety compromised. Equally, it ensures the optimum and therefore the lowest cost solution, avoiding unnecessary over-specification of product.

Innovative manufacturers are coming up with solutions to new security issues as they arise. Lately, stainless steel doors to location cabinets have become a target for thieves. The author’s company has been the first to solve this problem by supplying wraparound heavy-gauge mild steel cabinets with a post-galvanised finish, to add a high security and durable protective ‘skin’ to the existing installation.

One major benefit of this is the logistical ease it offers in enhancing the security of vital equipment. The upgrade can be achieved without disconnecting services and dismantling the existing housing, eliminating downtime of track services and potential delay to train services. The new enclosure needs minimal installation work – just the laying of a concrete base to bolt to.

For total assurance of the performance of a security product, installation should be by fitters with relevant rail industry competence – COSS, Lookout and PTS certification – as well as specific experience in security installations.

Durability

Finally, the long-term integrity of a physical security performance is reliant on its structural durability. Rail specifiers must pay attention to the protective finish provided on steel products and scrutinise any claims of longevity made by the manufacturer. In this era of sustainable design and changing climactic conditions, suppliers should be asked to demonstrate the predicted service life of their products. Very importantly, this service life data should account for local ‘weathering’ factors, primarily atmospheric corrosivity.

Steel protective finishes should provide demonstrable longevity to meet modern design life criteria, factoring in local atmospheric corrosion rates as required under modern legislation. Steel fabrications galvanised to BS EN ISO 1461: 1999 (Standard for Hot Dip Galvanised Coatings on Fabricated Iron and Steel Articles: Specifications and Test Methods) benefit from the protection of a hot-dip galvanised zinc coating applied after manufacture. As well as ensuring a complete, uninterrupted protective finish, the hot-dip galvanising process can be controlled to produce different thicknesses of coating and therefore different degrees of durability according to need.

BS EN ISO 1461: 1999 requires that fabricated steel should have a minimum 70 microns galvanised coating but many specifiers are insisting on greater coating thicknesses for longer service life. For a recent rail contract at Basingstoke, Network Rail specified a 140 microns hot-dipped postgalvanising on steel stagings and associated products for extra-long life performance.

The Galvaniser’s Association Zinc Millennium Map of UK atmospheric corrosivity defines five categories of corrosivity for evaluating the level of protection required on steel. The rail industry is increasingly specifying higher grades of post-galvanised coating on trackside security products for extra assurance of system performance.