Transport News Issue 1 - 2021 - Flipbook - Page 10
AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN STINSON,
ENGINEERING MANAGER
What is your role within Antagrade and what is a
typical day like in your role?
I head up the design team at Antagrade and look after all
aspects of design for our clients. I lead a small team
dedicated to design and can call upon other employees to
assist when required. There are also several self-employed
consultants with many years’ experience that we can call on
for their specialisms from time to time. To start a typical day,
I will review, revise, and augment the task list for my CAD
technician and have a quick telephone review with him
around 9. Typically, I will be putting together some tenders we
are submitting, along with aspects of the designs. The type of
designs we undertake usually involves modifications to
existing systems or infrastructure, therefore site surveys are
an important part of design developments. I will often have to
check in with the team during the surveys or review their
report from a night-time survey.
What projects has Antagrade been working on for
the past six months?
The main project we have been working on has been a new
substation for a depot in South Shields. This substation
provides traction power for the new depot. The depot will be
the centre for staff training and will also be used for train
maintenance, as well as stabling trains overnight to allow for
an earlier morning service from South Shields. Personally, this
involved me taking on the role as Technical Lead for Traction
Power on this project, coordinating the integration of the
various disciplines to ensure that the system could be
brought into service safely and acceptably.
We have also been working closely with Network Rail to
alleviate a backlog of HV relay testing. This has been helped
by reduced service levels under COVID-19 restrictions which
has enabled alternative feeding arrangements at times that
wouldn’t be possible during normal operations. Over the last
six months we have tested over 200 relays. We are also
working closely to rectify any faults or identify any issues.
10
What challenges has Antagrade faced over the
past six months, and how have you overcome
these challenges?
Obviously COVID-19 has been a major disruption to our
day-to-day activities. However, it is encouraging to see how
easily we have adapted to new working practices. It is
prescient that at the time when office employees are working
from home, broadband speeds have got to be at a level
which support remote working, and tools like Microsoft
Teams has been a great enabler of this change. The site
works have gone on largely unaffected as a lot of our
maintenance work involves small, dedicated teams who can
easily adapt working practices to be COVID-19 secure.
The main challenge has been in maintaining a healthy order
book. This has been challenging with regards to substantial
design projects. There are many factors that have led to this:
•Change of Network Rail control period from CP5 to CP6 in
April 2019 always leads to delay in a contract award
•Change in Network Rail framework contractors at the start
of CP6 also means that one of our major clients in CP5,
Kier, has been replaced by other framework contractors
such as Siemens who do more design work in-house
•COVID-19 has led to delays in contract awards or
decisions to divert capital investment budgets to cover
operating shortfalls
It is expected that there will be delays or reductions to capital
investment budgets, mostly as a result of the impact of
COVID-19 on passenger numbers, which consequently
influences revenue income. However, this presents us with
the opportunity to undertake more maintenance on
equipment previously identified for replacement.
What projects do you have lined up for the next
six months?
In terms of firm orders for design projects the order book is
rather bare. However, we are confident of undertaking
design, supply and installation projects for South Western
Railways. Also, we are hoping to win a contract for cable
doubling for Network Rail and some commissioning of
HV systems at Basingstoke ROC.