We have continued to make good progress on the electrical aspects of the overhaul and the fitting of ETCS to Tornado.  For ETCS we are working in partnership with SNC-Lavalin and Thales on system design and equipment provision. Thales has contracted Derby Engineering Unit (DEU) to carry out the installation and DEU is working closely with LMS to install all the wiring harnesses, enclosures and equipment on the engine and tender. The tender installation is approaching completion, and we are expecting to apply power to the tender ETCS installation for the first time during June. Work on the cab is also proceeding well, with enclosures now installed on the cab roof and first equipment mounted in the brake box under the cab floor. There is relatively little ETCS equipment on the engine frames – just the front combined AWS/TPWS and Balise antennas. The mounting frame for these is complete and has been trial fitted, and the wiring is all in place. This makes use of the existing conduit run for the AWS/TPWS wiring, and a spare one that we thoughtfully included from new, but had never used before, for the special low-loss Balise antenna cable.

Our ETCS power supply has been fully built and tested on the tender. The heart of this system is the ETCS I/O Panel, which is located on the front of the tender, just behind the handbrake. In service it will normally be enclosed behind a removable door. The I/O Panel receives power from all the available sources (Shore Power, Support Coach, turbogens and Axle Driven Alternator) and uses this to charge the dedicated 100Ah ETCS batteries, located under the rear of the tender. The batteries then power the ETCS. Based on experience with our existing Essential and Auxiliary Services supplies, we have incorporated into the panel design circuits to remotely monitor the individual battery voltages and indicators showing the state of the battery protection fuses.

To handle the increased load of ETCS we have designed and built a new Shore Power Supply. This incorporates solid state AC-DC converters and is able to deliver an output of up to 86A at 28V DC with mains input voltages between 80 and 264V AC. This allows all three battery systems to be charged from a fully discharged state and all the locomotive loads to be powered simultaneously.

On the engine, the new Turbogen Switch Box (TSB) electronics have been installed and will be wired up once all work on the frames has been completed. The Switch Box allows the output from the two turbogens to be directed either to the existing power supplies or ETCS. When a diagram includes running over an ETCS railway we will allocate one turbogen exclusively to power the ETCS equipment. The Switch Box also includes tachometers for each turbogen that will automatically connect them to their allocated loads once they are running at their design speed.

In the cab, we have had to remove all our existing electrical systems to allow the cab to be prepared for ETCS. We are refitting all the systems like-for-like, with some being renewed where the existing installation was life expired. The original Control Panels and their boxes (on the cab roof above the crew seats) were made of aluminium. They have given good service over more than 13 years, but both back boxes have suffered cracks and the panels themselves are worn and heavily contaminated by coal dust and oil. They are therefore being replaced with new steel panels and boxes, which should survive better in the harsh cab environment. We are also changing the arrangement for illuminating the panels. A new directed LED light box is being fitted in the centre of the cab roof. This will throw light directly onto the fronts of the Panels, and onto the adjacent new ETCS panels on both the Driver’s and Fireman’s sides.