Back in 1996, London and Continental Railways (LCR) was selected by the Government to build and operate High Speed 1 (HS1) – formerly the Channel Tunnel Rail Link – and to own and manage the UK arm of the Eurostar International train service (including the high-speed railway line running from the mouth of the ‘Chunnel’ to St Pancras International, the sparkling new terminal officially opened last November by Her Majesty The Queen).
Valued at GB pound 6 billion, HS1 is the UK’s largest-ever single construction project and, indeed, the first major new railway building scheme on home shores for over a century. The GB pound 3.3 billion, 39 kilometre track extension to St Pancras has now made it possible to run twice the number of Eurostar trains to Paris, Brussels and Lille at peak times.
High-speed connections from London to Paris now take just over two hours, while the journey from London to the Belgian Capital can be completed in well under that timespan.
Already, the increase in traffic has made St Pancras International and the nearby Kings Cross one of Europe’s busiest passenger interchanges, with over 50 million leisure and business commuters scheduled to pass through each year.
In effect, St Pancras International is now five stations in one with Eurostar, Midland Mainline and FirstCapital Connect (formerly Thameslink) all present and correct. As of next year, a further high-speed domestic rail service from Kent will also serve the station, which already harbours connections to six London Underground lines.
The redevelopment is hugely impressive. When the original station opened in 1868, The Barlow Shed – named after William Barlow, the engineer-in-chief to the Midland Railway Company – represented one of the great feats of Victorian construction. The roof is 700 feet long by 100 feet in height (its span is 250 feet), and held the record for the largest enclosed space in the world for many, many years.
Restoration has seen The Shed completely reglazed (with over 14,000 panels), while a glass extension has been built to house the extra-long Eurostar trains in their delightful new home. Where possible, the building has been restored by recycling the original brickwork, or sourcing base materials from the Midlands clay pits used by William Barlow’s construction team.
Catering for the commuters
An important London landmark demands a unique London feature, and on the station’s upper level where Eurostar trains arrive and depart sits just that. At over 90 metres, The Champagne Bar is the longest of its kind in Europe, offering travellers themed cocktails – ‘Saints Elixir’ and ‘Meet Me at St Pancras’ among them. Recently, it served as the venue for the launch event of The Security Institute.
Developer London and Continental Stations and Property has been quick to capitalise on passenger numbers at St Pancras International by including over 80,000 square feet of retail space. Set beneath the beautiful red brick arches of the Victorian building, one element of this – designated The Arcade – features an array of top quality names. Jewellers such as Oliver Bonas and Fossil sit alongside clothing courtesy of Thomas Pink and LK Bennett as well as several of Britain’s best loved and most respected brands for gifts and books (Hamley’s, Foyles and Wilton and Noble among them).
Major High Street retailers also abound in The Circle, which lies adjacent to the main entrance from Pancras Road. Boots, Monsoon, La Senza, Vodafone, WH Smith and Marks & Spencer sit cheek-by-jowl. Of course there are plenty of places to eat and drink, too, including Yo! Sushi!, Pret A Manger, The St Pancras Brasserie and The Betjeman Arms (courtesy of Geronimo Inns).
Just for good measure, The Arcade and The Circle are interspersed by a daily Farmers’ Market. Throughout last December, this area hosted a Christmas Fair so that travellers could pick up last-minute stocking fillers and treats for their loved ones.
Safety and security paramount
One of LCRs’ key aims is to make every station on the HS1 link safe and secure. St Pancras International is no exception. The HS1 build consortium involving Costain, O’Rourke, Bachy and Emcor Rail – CORBER for short – and Rail Link Engineering demanded a surveillance solution that would meet the highest levels of operational functionality and resilience for recorded video images.
In addition, seamless integration with the central Station Control System and other security sub-systems for alarm verification, incident handling and general management data was also a prerequisite. It was determined from the outset that the technical solution had to support 24-hour surveillance of both internal and external station areas from upwards of 450 cameras in background and real-time recording modes across 31 days of ‘capture’.
Developed and installed by specialist supplier Controlware Communications, the dynamic and ever-evolving technical solution includes a plethora of static and dome cameras, IP codecs, networked storage and an advanced managerial platform. The planning, staging and preparation elements took a month or so, the actual installation being timed to coincide with the station’s opening over two phases.
Phase One saw the opening of the Midland Main Line (MML) for fast domestic connections to the Midlands. Work began on the CCTV system in April 2006, and was completed in time for the MML platforms’ reopening in June of that year. Work on the installation and integration of the remainder of the CCTV solution, encompassing the Eurostar element, was finalised come last July.
IP surveillance in action
The entire CCTV system is based around products developed by Bosch Security Systems. These include the VideoJet 8008 and VIP-X transmission codecs, networked video recorders, RAID storage and the VIDOS management suite. In practice, CCTV images are transmitted across a dedicated virtual LAN that runs over the Station Data Network created and implemented by Bailey Teswaine (see panel ‘High-speed data network: the ‘central hub’ of St Pancras International’). This allows any user – or user group – with the appropriate privileges quick and easy access to live and recorded images. In the event of an emergency or network failure, control and monitoring functions may be managed from other locations on the network.
The surveillance network is scaleable to support future growth (in terms of cameras and storage requirements). Since the system operates over an IP backbone, granting access to new users is a simple procedure. Live and recorded video access is possible for users outside of the station.
The CCTV system is highly integrated with the station’s other management systems – including intruder alarms, electronic access control, Help Points, fire and building control systems. In practice, this means that the CCTV network knows when an alarm has been generated on another system (for example, when and where someone has triggered an emergency button at one of the Help Points). Once alerted, the IP CCTV solution is automatically aware of the alarm, reacting to it by initiating cameras to cover incidents and prompting high quality recording that captures both video and audio.
High quality, real-time video
VideoJet 8008’s hardware engine produces 25 images per second of pure MPEG-4 video in DVD quality. The 19″ rack-mount lone unit installed at St Pancras incorporates multiple encoders delivering eight full motion video channels, each channel generating non-multiplexed video.
The output video signal allows rendered images to be viewed on any standard PC by way of VIDOS or a web browser.
The central configuration of VIDOS allows smooth upgrading or expansion thanks to the addition of more cameras, encoders or workstations. For the St Pancras project, VIDOS has been designed to manage and control all of the cameras, monitors and recorders. The PC software employs graphical maps – or ‘sitemaps’ – for fast and intuitive user operation. It’s the central point to which all of the encoders stream video and alarm information.
The new surveillance solution has really improved safety and security levels. As if to prove the point, only last month this forward-thinking installation scooped the Best Project Award for Controlware at the IFSEC Security Industry Awards.
A fabulous and just achievement of which a certain Mr Barlow would be very proud indeed.
