A novel overhead cantilever for more efficient rail electrification

Only 38% of the UK rail network is currently electrified, with new overhead electrification required on 13,000km of track by 2050 to meet the Government's ambitious decarbonisation targets to achieve Net-Zero.

This corresponds to 450km/year of overhead line equipment project delivery by Network Rail (NWR), but even before operational disruption caused by COVID-19, rates have stagnated around 250km/year.

This has created a 45% annual electrification shortfall due to:

1. Proposed electrification projects being deferred/cancelled through unacceptable project risks to budgets and timescales
2. In-progress projects experiencing significant time and cost over-runs, evidencing these risks

Circa.75% of OLE project costs are rail operations required to configure and install the critical assemblies suspending the overhead wires, which are either:

* Planned: according to guidelines on surveying, installation and registration time requirements
* Unplanned: in response to failed installations

However, whilst cantilever-based approaches have been shown to have potential for significant cost-savings in many scenarios by reducing complexity at system-level, no existing cantilever assembly exhibits the inherent scalability to simultaneously address both of these fundamental operational bottlenecks.

Incumbent Network Rail-approved cantilevers all require high-precision bespoke manufacture of individual assemblies, currently only produced in Europe on very long lead-times. When dimensional errors frequently occur, leading to failed installations/registrations in their allocated location, integration partners are forced to wait for replacements creating lengthy and costly programme delays. Risks are exacerbated by other cantilever errors such as damaged or missing parts.

Even without complications, bespoke component costs and preparation/registration timescales remain far from optimal.

In response, Associated Utility Supplies are developing a completely new OLE cantilever concept addressing all aspects of cost-effective electrification. Based on a novel cantilever geometry enabling a step-change in adjustment, flexibility and OLE standardisation, targeted innovations stimulate a disruptive market opportunity in the UK and globally.

Working in partnership with the University of Huddersfield and their Institute of Rail Research (IRR), this project now aims to realise and prove a full-scale pre-approval prototype cantilever assembly in an off-rail environment.