De-conflicting and increasing capacity at Darlington
PWI Yorkshire Section meeting (Hybrid)
20 June 2024
no thanks where you go thanks for that Ben um well welcome all and welcome those online um I’m glad to see we’ve got somebody in the room you know it was uh a bit odd when I realized it was the England match but hey ho um I guess I’m standing here feeling slightly a fraud um being with the permanent way Institute and being a charted structural engineer I know very little about track know even less about signaling but and that’s why today’s presentation is going to very much focus on the station itself I won’t leave the track out completely because apparently that’s not a good thing um but we’ll we’ll go on that now Ben was kind enough to send me a few notes about presentation skills um which which was interesting um most of which I’ve completely ignored um but the one that struck me was start by telling the audience through things you want them to take away from the meeting and I thought that’s an interesting one so I thought right head head down I think the three things for me and I should say probably put my slopey shoulders on all opinions expressed are mine they’re not necessarily company opinions but they’re my opinions I think Darlington is a very good example of how contract uh strategy can affect the outcome of a project so I guess point one I’d say is take away when you’re letting projects or involved in the project think very much about the contract strategy the second thing is Darlington and I’ll come on to the history and everything in a minute is actually a grade two star listed building and when you’re dealing with Heritage most people or a lot of people feel oh I’ve got to put back you know something that reflects exactly what’s there at the moment and I must do this I must do that and quite often that’s not the right approach when you get into the discussions with English Heritage and we’ve had quite a few they’re looking very much for a bold statement that enhances what is there rather than tries to replicate it so that’s I guess that be number two don’t be afraid of English Heritage and then the last point is Darlington station was built a long time ago and the reality is it’s had very little done to it over the last 140 years so actually when we now talk about minimum viable product think about what that really means and actually think about is it worth spending more money now to get something that you then don’t have to go back do major refurbishments on in the future because that will cost you ultimately more money so those are the three the three takewi um I’ve said press the button nothing happens let me just across to the sure on the right screen let me yeah so first firstly why why is this work being carried out well the project is a is a jointly funded uh project between DFT via Network Rail and uh the teas Valley combined Authority its aim is to address the capacity issues that exist at Darlington um and to unlock basically the The Wider the issues that we’ve got with the saltburn lines coming through and everything having to cross the East Coast Mainline to get in and out the station so it’s to to to free up capacity um this is the existing layout I told you I wouldn’t leave you track boys out of it um as you can see um we’ve got the saltburn lines coming up and if you’re on either the up or down saltburn you want to come into the station you have to cross both of the East Coast Mainline tracks similarly if you’re on the up main coming down from Newcastle as it were and you want to go into the station again you’ve got to cross the down way to get into the station so it is actually the layout as such is causing quite a bit of capacity issues on the East Coast Mainline and so the aim is to to separate this out to make it better for all concerned that was born out there was a Capacity Analysis undertaken well it’s published in 2019 so I’m guessing the analysis was T undertaken sort of 2018 into early 19 and it basically said they enough capacity yeah know you can read the conclusion there you’ll see it on the slides but fundamentally it was like you need to do something about this you need to basically separate the saltburn Darlington and sunon Darlington Services out so that’re not interacting with the East Coast Mainline um so where do we go from there after much deliberation and apologies for the quality of this particular slide this was the we’ll call it the first iteration of uh the revised track layout as you can see double tracking from saltburn through into what was effectively two new bay platforms being constructed and then an island platform meaning that the upline the up main could be basically diverted into the platform without having to cross the down m with that obviously there are uh a few few issues um because you you’ve got to then join and get people from these Bay platforms and the uh Island platform in and out of the old station and at the same time tvca were looking to actually improve the whole Darlington area uh velop a new multi story car park enhancements to the west of the station to create for anybody knows Darlington as you come up I think it’s called Victoria Road it’s not the nicest entrance way but you’ve got this great grand Portico that sits there and you sort of think oh this could look a bit better you know it make make something of it so there was there was uh ideas to do that as well and this was the plan for the if you like the station area so um you can see in a sort of a a mauve um reconfiguration works on the Portico to the west of the station basically North is to the right on the page um what is known as the northern ramp improvements on that in the light green you have uh areas which tbca we’re going to work on to enhance the the areas either side of the station the blue is the new building that’s been put up by tvca which basically forms the a large multistory car park and then what will become the new main entrance to the station uh with ticket Halls waiting areas etc etc in the red you’ve got the new platforms um and in the sort of the other green I’ll call it uh you’ve got a foot Bridge link um to link both sides of the station together and then in the sort of orange you’ve got alterations to the area in the central the Central Station the central part of the existing station um to facilitate circulation up and down from the foot bridge to try and open up the space a little bit um the challenge with that is obviously the large sort of yellow blob is the existing station building and to get the height to get across the East Coast Mainline basically the proposition was that the new foot Bridge has to punch through the roof of the building now you know these things aren’t entered into lightly but it’s the only sort of option out there and that’s what probably makes this uh one of the most challenging projects I think I’ve been involved with and I’ve been involved with a few um but this one is is quite unique in that respect how are we going to deliver this project and this is this is where I come back to to thinking about contractual strategies is my first point I was saying the takeaway what we have here is effectively the contractual arrangement I haven’t put the DFT on um but they sit obviously at the top of the screen so Network rail have got contracts with bam nuttle with the central Ro Systems Alliance crsa and with alone and Bam nle have a contract with us to deliver the design for the station works so Bam are doing the station upgrade works crsa are doing the track works alom are doing the signaling works so far that seems reasonable but a bit odd um it gets slightly odder because we’re all at different stages in our design process we’re ahead uh we started es5 back last year Central rail Systems Alliance started their es5 a little behind us but not not by enough to be a major concern Al was still in ES4 so they’re a whole stage back and we’re trying to push detailed design out the door and you can see straight away that’s an area for potential conflict conflict is probably a bit stronger word challenge around the interface and managing the interface and then I’d say with all of that all of these people bam ourselves crsa alom we’re all used to working in the ra environment so we all understand micr station we all use projectwise all of the tools very familiar to us we exchange data amongst ourselves all the time it’s bread and but to us on the other side you’ve got teas Valley combined Authority who appointed Wilmont Dixon construction to undertake the building works for the new station building so for the Gateway building the car park and The Concourse but not fit out the concour that’s part of our scope now W Dixon are a buildings contractor you know you wouldn’t recognize him as a rail contractor and so they had a challenge oh you must build everything in accordance with network rail standards I mean to be be honest when I do a design my team does the design I wouldn’t put my hand on my heart and say we followed every single net ra standard there’s a plethora of them and we know the ones we use regularly they hav’t a clue and it also means that whilst you’re trying to talk at if you like the low level any formal instruction and requirement has to go up one side of the tree across the top and down and when we’re talking about working with pace and things like that where the whole idea is to accelerate the process that is a massive break that’s on the process because it takes forever and whilst if you like within the rail team the rail side of the team we tend to be quite accommodating if you’re in a buildings World there isn’t that cooperation all the time so that was that was that’s quite a challenge and that’s why I think it would probably have been a lot better if Network rail had managed everything um be and brought in perhaps different contractor to do the the car park and that somebody that’s probably more akin to systems and processes used used within the rail environment interface management uh challenge bam were appointed not only appointed as lead design organization their principal contractor and their principal designer so they have three different hats to wear they have the cem um for for the main works but then you have crsa and elstub who have their own cems and discipline cres Etc but it’s quite difficult to do the ldo role if you have no contractual link to the other parties because you need to drag them to the table and if they don’t want to come you’ve got no you’ve got no stick to beat them with not that I advocate beating people with a stick you understand but metaphorically speaking um and then again you’ve got Wilmont Dixon sitting down on the at the bottom almost completely different under Darlington Bar Council tvca how how have bam basically gone about trying to to manage these interfaces um they’ve set up regular interface meetings they’re held every two weeks we hold one with Wilmont Dixon and we hold another with the if you like the rail team uh because we as Acom have interfaces with both we I get to sit in on both ones um everybody is meant to be using a common data environment now what that normally means from the interface with with Wilmont Dixon we take their models we run a conversion because that’s the other issue whilst we all tend to use micro station they’re using Revit and good oldfashioned AutoCAD so you you have to run conversions and then you have to load them in and we we encountered another little issue here a 26 mil issue being the difference between snake Grid in the area and O Railside or working in snake will Dixon working in OS the number of times you look at a level and think is that right what’s it in it’s on an interface or is it properly you know is it properly labeled absolute absolute Nightmare and has been the cause of some of the gray hair you see here um the next slide program now I could have put you up all I could have had Gant charts going all the way around the room probably out down the corridor um we did a we did a session in a hotel here in York um the integrated program and literally we had a big meeting room and the programs went all the way around the wall bottom line this has to be opened by the time Darlington celebrates its B centinary uh at the end of this year sort of September 2025 um and that’s been the driver for all of this um and it’s it’s a challenge it is a challenge um we we started our es5 design in February 23 site started sort of the back end of 23 um on working on what is known as underbridge 98 smithf road which is just to the south of the station some works there early in 24 those you’ve been to Darlington you seen they’ve been putting hoardings up um and now they’re starting to strip out the uh this the uh Central Area um but latest programs show we are still hitting that date and that that is the one key so so let’s let’s talk a little bit about the existing station um the Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened in 1825 and it was one of the first Freight and passenger um lines in the country it’s on the picture you see there it’s the green line um there was no station um on the line until we believe 1833 but then in 1844 there was a a purpose built station and it’s a place known as um North Road station so not and it’s not where Darlington station is now at that point or by that point I should say the red line was in in existence and that’s the cross line part of the what was the GN between sort of Newcastle and York and by 1843 there was a station actually Where The Red Square rectangle is shown now um by all accounts it was wasn’t the most prestigious of buildings um we have no pictures or anything but it was described as little more than a Timber shed so I think that gives you a flavor for for what it was like it was developed or designed by a guy called John Green um and apparently the driver for the second iteration of the station there was a visit by Queen Victoria in 1849 um where she was basically not amused by the state of the station um I think she was quite blunt about its condition um so second station was developed on the site um by a guy called Thomas prer and that was designed in 1861 um by this time anyr had for formed there’s a sort of merge of various little local companies rail companies in the area and he was actually I think their first permanent architect within within the station part of um it was a brick build so it one up from the timbered it was a brick build but the platform was only 47 yards long so not really that brilliant for for for anything modern um it had one platform it was a single platform uh but it had three the station building itself had three ranges North Central and South Housing the various waiting rooms toilets etc etc um and so I think it was a if you like the Forerunner but then come as the rail network I mean it was an exciting time for Railways you know the the Lake Victoria and everything was expanding left right and Center so the capacity was blown within you know a couple of years really um and so in in 1885 um a guy called William Bell who’ taken over from John Brer as the architect for NE came up with with a new iteration um for the station opened in 1887 and this is the bit I mean about what does minimum viable product look like back then he deliberately designed it so that he hoped that nobody would have to go back in a very long time to the modernizing and I think he’d seen the the expansion of the Railway and it was like well this is the third station on here in in best part of 40 you know just over 40 years is I don’t want to do this again in my lifetime I want to put something out there that lasts so I think that’s quite quite an important thing to look at it should be said that the existing station does actually Encompass part of the second iteration part of the East wall the central part of the East wall in the station the bit just under the where we’re going to punch a hole through the roof um is part of the the second iteration um all of Works interestingly enough as we’re doing now were carried out with the station operational which again back then is I suspect was quite a challenge just a few pretty pictures um this was off of one of the record drawings um you can see very traditional looking brick built but focusing in the in the Middle top on the Central Area because that’s the bit where we’re going to interfere later on um but you can see on the far side this Grand Portico entrance symmetric passage ways platforms on one side you had the toilets on other SES Refreshments luggage etc etc so very symmetrical station um and then this is really to chart the if you like the interventions over the years so top one 1885 what you see are quite narrow passageways um between the sort of central area and the first major intervention there was there was a a minor intervention in 1907 um where basically they’ just enlarged the parcel office at the end of the north range by by erecting a a a sort of a a Timber shed um first major intervention was to widen the passageways to allow better access to and from the trains now we’re not quite sure why but obviously they must have been having issues getting people on and off or through or people were feeling constrained so they literally took out the central passages nothing happened then between 1909 and 1934 and in 1934 the Central Area was again targeted for opening up further and for the introduction of something called a pimer which was a very early automatic ticket machine um which you can see down on the bottom of the top part of the slide um so that was quite Innovative and again it’s it’s sort of opened up that Central Area even more and it pretty much stayed like that there were interventions in the 50s when the South Range the south end of the South Range was redeveloped to put a telephone exchange in um in the 60s the waiting rooms were basically refurbished um but the next if you like major intervention was 1978 when they introduced well they basically almost closed the Central Area back up again with the introduction of a purpose-built single story ticket Hall some refreshments Travel Center various bits and pieces and then a couple of retail areas and it’s really interesting because these works I believe took place in 1978 and the station was listed in 1977 and when you look at the quality of the works you think how did they get away with that it’s not quite in keeping with what you would expect so I personally believe it was probably designed beforehand it got listed they R ahead anyway but who knows there was one final intervention in in 1986 so in 1909 when they they put the timber shed on the end of the north range to expand the parcel room um they actually decided to knock that down in 1986 and rebuild the Gable wall of the north range North Gable of the north range um according to the 1887 drawings so to restore it and I thought I just have two or three slides here showing the lovely 1970s building um dominating what was the Central Area a view looking south of platform 4 and the final one from outside um showing from from what was the long stay car park looking across the East Coast Mainline at the building itself um when you first look at it you think why is that a grade two stylistic building it’s not exactly attractive um but I think when you’re inside it you look at the steel work or the RW iron work um the way in which the roof is the shape and consider its importance in the history then then that is clearly why it’s white is a listed building I said earlier we had to do a lot of uh negotiation discussion collaboration with historic England and we actually did a a sort of a study so in our initial sorry wrong white yep no um in our initial talks with historic England they were Keen to see a really strong design so this this idea is let’s not try and replicate let’s be let’s be bold um and as part of the ES4 um an optioneering study was produced uh for discussion the key issues was was to have an open feel on the bridge to try and use it to give an better views of the existing station building to open up that view um and to use materials which were not mimicking but were to representative or reflective of the materials within the building so oh went too far because I know that that’s not number one option one was a cork screw design now I have to say apart from being contemporary I’m not quite sure how this reads against the idea of the history of Darlington the history of the station the rail environment you know we tend not to do much with cork screws apart from on a Friday night but you know that is that is what was option number one and there’s an example there of one in practice um looking at the lights it looks like it might be New York and somewhere like that option two now we’re starting to to move into the railway buiild was to take inspiration from the new auma trains you know it’s an Ln operated station and so they wanted to to try and reflect the sort of slight curvature and the angles from The Zuma train um you can see in the impression that they were looking at doing a a massive amount of glazing and structural glazing to interface with the the existing station building um take it we leave it option three was they thought oh we might try and reflect some some track and I’ll put a picture of track some track up there because that is to me that that’s a good reflection I then look at the sketch below and I think yeah I’m not quite sure how it reflects um we tend not to have track going in and out like that because trains fall off but that’s Architects for you there’s none in the room I’ll take it um but that was that was an idea put forward and then uh so hands up in the room which was the winner sorry the second one yeah and the winner was theuma um now You’ you’ll see in some of the pictures later on but you can see on the middle there the sort of shape the angular shape reflecting the exact angle of the front of the isuma Terin you’ve got the curves top and bottom to again reflect the sort of curvature you see you can see on the section that it’s sort of rounded so it’s narrow at the top and and bulges out as it comes around a little like the shape ofuma um and actually historic England loved the idea so we were on to a bit of a winner there is um I’ll show you some pictures later on but every time I look at it I think it does not look like an auma train to be I’ve tried standing on my head laying down it still doesn’t look like an auma train for me the auma Train’s got squ curved front but then everything else is nice and rectangular Windows all the way down the side it’s it’s it’s sort of like yeah it’s a bit of a mind stretch um so just to to as a refresher memory refresher this was the original scope um and I won’t Linger on it but it’s just to to say for the building Bridge multi story car park three platforms bico North and ramp now that’s obviously with any any project going through nowadays we we’re subject to to funding challenges um not of surprise money’s type we’ll know that and between ES4 and the start of ES five there was an interim stage undertaken which looked at what could be done to reduce the overall costs so removal of platform 7 the second Bay platform was it was considered to be sort of if you like not necessary for now um it was very much it would become more important if NPR goes on um so that that came out all the works on the Northern ramp came out it functions now it functions quite well it didn’t necessarily need doing and the works on the Portico um as I said at the start you know the Portico is a nice it’s a nice piece of building the area around it isn’t so good but the Regeneration of the area around it is still within tvc’s plan so I think we’ll get that uh the vision as you come up to it will still be there by the time we got round to signing a contract for es5 um further challenges that come in um set in the CRT from Network rail requiring us to reduce the overall width of the bridge um originally it had a 4 meter wide walkway we’re down to a 3 m wide walkway with a number of passengers expected through there not a major problem um they asked us to Ry and simplify the design of the canopies and the waiting room because the Architects had taken the the shape from the foot bridge and tried to replicate it in other areas and everyone felt was a little bit over the top so we looked at that and to try and use a cheaper cladding now interestingly enough when we proposed some Alternatives they actually didn’t work out to be any cheaper the only one we did change was the roofing material um here we have the current uh proposed track layout not much different to what I showed you before except you will notice that the twin track goes runs into the single bade platform of platform six we still got the platform five um and we’ve got uh a couple of extra Loops Goods Loops in there if needed so very much keeping to the ethos that we had originally but with a slightly different um layout and then just to take you through the different areas this is the reduced scope so you can see the port too’s gone Northern ramp’s gone we got ABC d a anything in green is tvca anything in yellow is the BAM Acom scope in a little bit more detail um in the Central Area basically we’ve got accessible access to the foot Bridge so we’ve got twin lifts give us resilience um we’ve got pair of escalators again gives you some resilience and we’ve endeavored to open up the central area again because I think in the 19 sort of 34 area it probably came as open as it was going to be and I think the 78 sort of additions really closed it in again so the idea is to try and open that up a little bit um and make it feel more um welcoming to people just slightly more detail um taken off of one of the architectural the S5 drawings so you’ve got your escalators coming down the foot Bridge comes down to a a a sort of split stair at the bottom um so you can hopefully go to the right part of the platform twin lists the area in the sort of light blue I’ll call it um is an existing ATM room which we can’t touch um now interestingly enough and I’ll come on to this in in a little while it might not look like that in the final final scheme of things but just hold that thought um the new platforms one new Bay One new through minimum width 3 mters to allow sufficient space for ramp and wheelchair at the bottom pair of lifts can coverage is not full length of the platforms it’s only part length of platform something that Ln are not overly happy with and are currently have they tell us they have secured some funding to to look at platforms over the full length we’ll wait and see on that one there is actually passive provision for an escalator it’s not actually needed at the moment but if NPR takes place and platform 6 becomes a through platform and not a bay um they will need an escalator there’s a waiting room at this southern end of the where platform 5 and six are still concurrent and then as you go down to the end of platform 5 there’s a waiting shelter um so and here we have sort of an Architects um view the top part brings you from the vertical circulation and you can see in the in the windows top there there’s sort of a zomer shape reflected come down it’s little difficult to see on here but we’ve got some diagonals on the seating which are an architectural feature again reflected with a curve at the bottom to to generate the isuma effect the canopy at the top was did have various openings in it to reflect the curvature again but they’ve all been taken out as part of the value engineering and then if you can imagine over here and I appreciate those on the uh those online can’t see you have the waiting room it’s actually turned around from what you see on the on the uh slide there and again curves and everything to to to reflect the whole of Zuma stance finally we should probably um look at the area C which is the fit out so wil Dixon building the building we’re fitting Out The Concourse and in it there’s a large waiting area in the retunda the curve part the end uh there’s a booking Hall um there’s obviously a new Gate line fully accessible toilets including you know changing places um gender neutral this and and the whole the whole range required under the scope uh lifts and escalators to take you up to the foot Bridge again pairs in pairs for resilience um there’s a first class Lounge on a sort of mezzanine level um near to the foot Bridge there’s two retail areas they’re not massive by retail standards but there’s two in there there’s fully accessible I’ve been to shouldn’t say that accessible staff facilities um and there’s rest points along the accessible groupe um so we’ve tried to cater wherever we can um for all the requirements for the PRM NSN um there’s just a slight uh dra again the quality that isn’t as good as what was um so we won’t linger finally this the multistory car park you’ve got 672 spaces various electric charge points uh wav spaces there’s cycle parking uh three new cores each with evacuation lifts um the the interesting thing was when will Dixon designed the station they didn’t uh the car park they didn’t think it was going to be part of the station authorization and so they have been caught a little on the back foot because their stairwells and everything aren’t quite compliant and so I thought I’d finish or almost finish I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear um we’re taking a journey now I’m actually going to do it backwards so I’m going to start from the platform and leave the building um so this is a a view of platform one you can see the you can see the stairs the split stairs escalators behind the lifts over in the corner and you can see the new foot bridge and how it sits into the bay within the roof um the sort of copper colored told it something rust is the color matching the sort of color of the brick work um the station clock isn’t going to be there that’s its old position it’s a mistake on the render it’s actually going to be moved a long one because where it is it would be in danger of being vandalized think that ski too so a view up the escalators um and again you can see the one of the original AR uh trusses we’ve kept in place we’ve had to take some out to extend the roof through um but we’ve managed to try and retain as many features as we can from the top and this is with the glazing up there this is where you probably get a view that most people will never have had of darington of a sort of closeup of the roof um as you go across the foot Bridge again you’re up close and personal to some of the detailing that you’ve only ever seen from from ground level um and it is really very nice you know it’s a very very nice bit of Steel work as you leave out the building and go across where platforms five and six are towards the uh Gateway building it’s open youve got glazing to keep People Protected from the the elements and actually on the external sides of the bridge you’ve got two walkways to enable cleaning of the glazing a maintenance and you’ve got an exoskeleton and the exoskeleton is what is being used to give the effect of the auma train so when you get to the other end there’s a little link into the new station building you can see the escalators there and you can see in the distance uh the sort of concourse area little bit of color contrast as you go along little bit green wall um to try and break it up otherwise I think it’s going to feel like a very odd Long Walk concourses you’re going to think well where am I you know um into what I think is probably I actually think this could be a really nice area it’d be a very nice place to wait again the amount of green wall has been cut right back um we still have a little bit of uh feature lighting for The Architects um lots of display screens and this is where one of the retail areas is and actually what you can’t see is the booking Hall is just at the end there um and that’s now possibly being revamped to incorporate an assistance uh waiting area as well and that’s the end of the slides I probably should just briefly say something about where we are with the construction um the demolition is well under way of the Central Area the platforms are being constructed um all the pre-cast units are going in they’re making really good progress the piling will be start starting shortly uh underbridge 98 is ongoing crsa are gearing up for some of their first track moves and El them are working out some of their signaling staging um and that’s it thank you very much and I’ll take any questions thanks Phil okay questions uh the West entrance you got me in the west entrance presumably go down to the existing Subway to get across the existing platform yes so you come in through yeah you come in through the Portico you go down the steps down one to the platform and up two if you go into the new platform you go up one into the so you use it exactly exactly like you were using the gate line now if you wanted to go save platform one and then you go through that Central area and then take the escalators or the stairs to go up to go across the foot Bridge from the PRM perspective was it ever considered to extend the foot Bridge all the way across to the Western entrance to avoid going down one across up on the platform and up again to get all the way over no quite simply I think it would have been a well outside of this sort of scope and the costs would have been phenomenal if if you think about the fact that we’re currently punching through the barrel roof on one barrel you’d have to take out the you’d have to take out one two three faces and I suspect you would struggle to get the room because if you think where that the passageway comes up you haven’t got a massive amount of of space there to get in some ver circulation and not destroy the flow going up to the gate line so yeah I don’t think that was ever considered I never thought it would be easy to do that or cheap but it’s just the PRM element of it going down across up one then up another one to get to the new platforms yeah I I think the I think what will happen is I think prms will be encouraged to use the new entrance because obviously they’ve got parking facilities there they’ve got you know an easy atg grade walk through to particularly to platforms five and six because you can come out at that level and just walk around onto the platforms or wheel ground onto the platforms you’ve got the lifts to go up to the foot bridge if you do want to go across so I think there will be a shift away from using that as as the main entrance gaining some places yeah it swings and roundabouts we we you know we’ve looked at Journey times and this you know the whole nine yards to try and ensure that there will always be winners and losers in in the whole journey times thing um we’re actually looking at a timetable change just because of the increased um times to get to the new platforms so yeah should but in terms of your question now they’ve not been that wasn’t y for second b side so yes sorry yeah so yeah I should have made that more clear when when platform 7 was descoped the the requirement is to provide a passive provision for platform 7 now there there has been I’ll be honest a lot of debate as to what that actually means um but but yeah there is space nothing that we are doing as in bam Z anything precludes the introduction of that new platform and all the space at the end where the foot Bridge comes down and and there’s big attenuation tanks drainage they’re all kept outside of any potential platform 7 Development question online relating to 90 miles hour PSR on the up and down Main at Darlington South whether there any changes to speed profiles on the existing infrastructure We Got The Darlings and TM at the back of the room shaking her head I was say can I pass I’m pass that one I don’t isre speed in that area the business case to increase the speed when almost everything stops anyway yeah it’s probably yeah not not huge okay the next renewal good stuff Tim existing Ray platforms two and three what happens to them they stay they stay what they were going to be used for I’m not sure I suspect perturbation I suspect they might go in there for maintenance well you know because I think there’s a c in there at the moment um although we are looking at installing a new C um on the six serving six for for watering only not flushing out um but no the plan is that they stay so it may become somewh that is used either end of the day for stabling and yeah yeah servicing not necessarily they Northern trains split the trains darling Bishop daring true so currently the Serv currently the services tend to run through Darlington serving the bishop Orland branch and then which they they can still do but that will be a that will remain as a constraint because you I don’t think that I don’t in honest answer I don’t know um but I suspect that they’re going to just r through so the bay the bay platform won’t become the default destination for things coming from the middleb direction there’ll still be through Services well yeah through to Bishop well structurally how does your foot Bridge uh you punch through through the roof how do it standing I hope very well we we introduce you the structural engineer session so so the bridge itself is actually a two span continuous taking you from the vertical circulation in the Central Area V appear just outside the East wall through to appear um a vertical the vertical circulation on five and six and then it’s a single span from the vertical circulation on five and six through to the link into the uh New Station building it’s sitting on um what we call tree columns um again architectural license but you’ve got basically four arms and a central column there is no connection at all between the bridge and the new roof um the existing roof the existing roof sorry yeah um that’s one of the issues because obviously having cut this great big hole in it we’ve got to make it watertight so that was quite a challenge and we’ve done that with quite how to describe it it’s a sort of platforms on the outside of the bridge which follow the shape of the roof and it’s then flashed down onto the roof in various ways it meets at the point I don’t know how familiar you are but there’s you’ve got a curve and then you’ve got slight upstand some glaze in before it then goes into sort of a turreted you know pitch section so it comes in at that point and just sits dressed onto it so the idea is it doesn’t touch it whatsoever um the reason we’ve gone for the two span two continuous span is the in discussions with the contractors um they actually want to slide the bridge into place um and so you need the second span to act as your back span during the sliding operations originally when we did the ES4 design we’d assumed three simple spans and we’d assumed that the one within the station would be lifted into place and You’ basically take out a whole Bay of the roof literally all the way across um but in discussions with various people it was sort of decided the least interference with the roof the better so we’re actually cutting out a hole on on the west side and on the east side because you’ve got the interaction of both ends and then they’re going to La Land the bridge current plan is the bridge gets landed outside of the station on the week before Christmas to be slid into position over uh a Christmas possession it looks as if it’s a PL actually inside uh and something totally different outside it’s amazing what you can do with smoke mirrors it’s actually a fabricated plate GS all the way through um with a composite deck uh using um you know what I call crinkly tin yes um to to and and a conrete slab um the sort of if you like the dressing around it that you see is um something called Rock panel it’s um reconstituted bassal um platting panel which is fixed to give you the the smooth shape and actually that that’s all the way across inside the station we’ve gone with I won’t say conventional parapets because they’re not but if you like parapets not enclosed because obviously the roof the station gives you that enclosure but across the exterior parts of the foot Bridge you’ve basically got goalpost frames up and over to support the curtain Walling and the roofing and they just sitting down through onto the plate gers which are sort of I think they’re around a meter deep um to give you the sort of an 1100 sort of upstand once it’s clad round all the way across than um architectural statements often only work when you go the whole hog 100% to what extent of the cutbacks destroyed the concept or is it still there I think it’s still there um I’m not a fan of Architects just just um because I really struggle to see the isuma training in it when when you look at it in the 3D render it looks like something out of Star Wars you know looks like a a tip jet fighter whatever they would called um but that’s still maintained across the whole foot Bridge you could see it in the vertical circulation on the tops so it’s still there and the only place it’s really been scaled back was on the canopy and if I’m honest it was you’d only see it almost if you were laying on your back on the platform looking up so I’m bearing in mind that most of us don’t do that I don’t think it’s I don’t think it’s lost anything you know again it’s reflected in the waiting room at the end so I think I think there’s sufficient theme there that it that the original has not been lost okay any more questions online looking like there any more forth coming so uh really interesting presentation I noted down your your three points that you were looking to get across at the start so we could come back and test at the end um so I think you certainly explain how a complex Contracting strategy can affect the outcomes and I I got involved a little bit myself in trying to un Make how we uh work around not having to rebuild a partly built car park because the stairwell wids weren’t quite in line with Railway standards uh uh I you certainly Illustrated the point that grade two star listing doesn’t necessarily mean you need to replicate what’s there uh and then making a statement uh is is the right thing to do and you also talked about thinking longer term uh and I think we that came through in the in the design and and how the development’s progressing as well so um really interesting great to see how it fits with a new building uh and you gave us a bit of history as well in terms of how the station’s developed so uh if we can say thanks to Phil in the usual way that’d be great uh and uh for those online thank you for being uh obedient in keeping cameras off and microphones on mute hopefully you found it interesting and don’t don’t give away the score on the football quite just yet um for those in the room uh you can help us pop the uh room back to its usual uh uh shape and form that’ be great uh and we will head over to the yorkt for anyone that’s interested once we’re all packed away so uh thanks all and uh we’ll see you again uh third th St in July