DRIESCHER and the megaproject " Crossrail " in London

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Permanent track installed through Limmo shaft heading towards Canary Wharf
Photo by Elektrotechnische Werke Fritz Driescher & Söhne GmbH

Crossrail resp. Elizabeth Line is a rail transport project in the london area for a length of 180 km regional express line between Reading in the west and Shenfield in the east, which is come to pass in operation section by section by the end 2019.

Centerpiece of the project is a new railway tunnel, which will interconnect the Paddington Station in west London with the station Stratford in east London.

20 meters beneath the surface, next to the existing Paddington Station, currently under construction, a completely new station. The new stop is part of a broader project, which is to relieve the chronically congested roads of the British capital.

The DRIESCHER Company developed in Moosburg a new switchgear type for the application of the driving power to the trains, which is used in this project. The project, due to the largely underground route, requires highest standards of availability, security and low maintenance. In a word: “the highest quality”. There were also special requirements such as environmental regulations, spatial condition and fire protection which required a solution that could be worked out simply and solely by DRIESCHER.

As part of a factory acceptance test, took place at DRIESCHER Moosburg, this switchgear was inspected. Based on a previously developed individual test plan, a series of type tests according to standard 62271-1 and 62271-200 were carried out in the presence of the customer. A particular challenge represented the 5 m long 400 mm2 high-voltage cable, through which the switchgear is to be connected later. To perform the tests with cables connected, a special construction was realized.

Among other things, there was carried out an extensive partial discharge measurement. Therefore Driescher called in an expert of the company Omicron, who informed the customer in detail about measuring processes and measuring results.

Permanently high partial discharges within the switchgear, can cause harmful effects on the lifetime of the insulating materials. Undesirable partial discharges, for example, lead to a reduction in the dielectric strength, thus reducing the operational availability and cause a huge maintenance.

With help of partial discharge measurements possible material and manufacturing faults can be identified and corrected. The measurements were made in accordance with standard 62271-200. Therefore at first a pre-stress voltage of 1,3 x Ur (Ur = rated voltage of switchgear) was applied for 10 s. The partial discharge activity was measured at a test voltage of 1,1 x Ur.

After successful factory acceptance test, DRIESCHER Moosburg is a selected supplier of Transport for London (TfL). We are pleased to be instrumental in the major project “Crossrail” in London. Production of other medium-voltage switchgear (27.5 kV and 1250 A), which are also used in the project are now manufactured after a successful sampling under high pressure until the end of the year.

For more information visit: http://www.driescher.de/