East London Line Maintenance
Project Overview
Cleshar is the principal contractor for the Rail of London (RfL) Infrastructure Maintenance Contract (IMC2) awarded in April 2018 for the duration of 5 years. Cleshar is accountable for the majority of assets across the RfL London Overground, East London Line Routeway. This key arterial metro railway system into the heart of London has an exciting mix of old and modern infrastructure, such a Brunel’s Thames Tunnel (1843) and AZLM Axle Counter interlocking signalling systems (2010). The routeway operates to Network Rail Engineering and Operational Standards. We also inspect and repair civil and premises assets on sections of the West Anglia (WA) infrastructure.
Scope of Works
As RfL’s principal infrastructure maintenance contractor, we have accountability for routeway safety and reliability through first responder/fault rectification (24hr/365days), planned preventative maintenance/inspection activities and asset upgrades to combat obsolescence and asset wear. Our people are our business and we employee core maintenance teams augmented with specialist contractors where required to deliver faulting and maintenance capability safely and efficiently in the following engineering disciplines:
- Track and off track – mix of Sonneville LVT system/113A FB rail with ballasted concrete sleepers
- Signal and telecommunications
- M&E and lifts and escalators
- Low voltage/high voltage (25KV AC OLE and 750V DC conductor rail)
- Building services/New Cross Gate depot maintenance
- Vegetation and boundary management
- Operational property inspection (OPI STE5 and STE2). Civils structures inspections (STE4 and STE2)
- Fault response centre. 24/7/365 fault response co-ordinator
- NR access planning team with PICOP/ES capability to provide a one-stop shop for possession management
Innovations
Class-leading contract and operational performance with significant performance improvement since we took over from the previous maintenance supplier in April 2018. Our level of performance innovation has contributed to propelling London Overground into the best performing TOC in the UK in 2021 (fourth when we were awarded the contract).
The engineering teams are multi skilled, rather than the silo engineering model other delivery organisations use. This approach provides synergies across the business.
During the life of the contract we have introduced innovations such as a new asset management system, reliability growth plans that have addressed key asset legacy challenges, and improved performance through our predict and prevent continuous improvement philosophy. Benefits are measurable and demonstrable through key performance indicators.
Benefits / Project Outcome
- Proven value for money.
- Ability to absorb and deploy from our wider portfolio’s generating economies of scale for the client
- London-based contractor with extensive experience of metro railway systems
- Demonstrable collaborative behaviours between stakeholders to improve efficiencies (TfL, RfL, ARL, NR, Thales, Siemens):
- Year-on-year improvement in performance and reliability:
- Repeat zero public performance measure/zero lost minutes in a period and lowest yearly totals for each measure
- A 100% planned preventative maintenance periods and highest yearly maintenance volume completed
- Best-in-class L&E performance for service affecting failures
- Our contribution to line performance elevated London Overground to best performing Train Operating Company (TOC) in the UK in 2021. This was achieved by the delivery of reliability growth plans and strict adherence to planned preventive maintenance.