The customer

Shildon in Co Durham is the world’s oldest railway town. Its part in Britain’s railway heritage is celebrated in ‘Locomotion’, a new £11m museum developed by the National Railway Museum in partnership with Sedgefield Borough Council, on the site of the pioneering Stockton & Darlington Railway. Opened in 2004 by Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in whose constituency it is located, some 200,000 people have visited the museum to date – many more than originally expected.

The museum comprises a mixed development of historic buildings and workshops alongside a new 557m sq building that houses approximately 70 railway vehicles from the UK National Collection. Highlights include the original Sans Pareil, built to compete in the famous Rainhill Trials, the ground-breaking Advanced Passenger Train Experimental, and a magnificent NER Snow Plough. Visiting legends include Flying Scotsman and City of Truro. Proper storage has saved assets in the national collection for the nation; without it, they were at risk of ruin from the elements or were inaccessible to the public.

The new building also contains offices and technical facilities, a retail outlet and catering facilities.

The issue

The project team wanted to provide an ambient, safe and secure environment for both the national collection and the visiting public. It also sought operational efficiencies.

The solution

Honeywell Building Solutions supplied, installed and commissioned the BMS, fire and security management systems in place at Shildon. In the interest of sharing information and centralising vital building management and security functions, these different applications work in tandem via a single, common platform, a Honeywell Enterprise Building Integrator (EBI).

Building management

For its part the BMS controls boilers, domestic hot water services, under-floor heating, over-door heaters, comfort cooling, extractor fans, lighting and exhibition power and lighting. This is achieved through six controllers from the Honeywell XL5000 range, installed at strategic points of the building.

The Honeywell PC based front end monitoring system (the EBI) monitors the BMS system via a user-friendly graphical interface. Graphic displays of the site, floor layouts and control system are provided for the on-site operators, giving them an overall picture of the performance of all the different building functions in any selected part of the building as well as in the whole of the building.

This greatly assists management of the systems leading to lower operating costs, reduced risk and improved efficiency.

The EBI also provides alarm monitoring and historical logging functionality, and is used to centrally control the operating times of the lighting etc to coincide with events at the site. Tailoring building management functions in this way stops unnecessary wastage – and cost.

Indeed real-time data from the EBI interfaces with an EcoWall supplied and installed by Honeywell in conjunction with the National Railway Museum. This interesting feature of the museum is a direct benefit of the integrated BMS and helps to confirm the Museum’s status as a good green neighbour. It uses information from the BMS to provide an interactive display showing just how the renewable energy sources installed on site (wind turbine, solar panels, and rain water harvesting) work, and how, in turn, Locomotion is helping to conserve the environment.

The Honeywell EBI also allows for a communication link between Shildon and York.

Life safety management

The fire protection system is an eight loop analogue addressable system with a 1-64 zonal display panel and a fully functional repeater panel. This is located remotely from the central control room, so enabling incoming fire fighters to quickly determine the source of the alarm. Sensors, addressable analogue detection devices, are supported by eight sets of Fireray 2000 infrared smoke beam detectors. Not unnaturally these have to be disabled when locomotives enter the museum under their own steam! The whole system is connected to a remote monitoring station to ensure the turnout of the local fire brigade when necessary.

Part of the fire protection system is a public address (PA/VA) system with over 50 speakers across the eight fire zones. This ensures voice and alarm communication throughout the premises to all visitor and staff areas alike. This is complete with amplifiers, standby amplifiers, message units, control inputs, fire alarm interface, remote microphone, end of line monitoring units and a power supply unit - all of which are designed to enable the system to be modified to meet any given circumstances.

The main benefit of this particular system is that PA messages or background music can be restricted to particular areas of the building, while alert and evacuation messages can be set for immediate or delayed broadcast, also on a zone-by-zone basis. For phased evacuation, separate messages may be broadcast to different zones simultaneously.

Toilets for the disabled are fitted with alarms also supplied and installed by Honeywell.

Business benefits

The Honeywell automated system in place at Shildon empowers staff; it frees up a huge amount of time that would otherwise be spent controlling and monitoring the systems on site.

Installation of an integrated solution provides a complete picture of museum operations and with this, complete control of the premises. Sharing information ensures that the vital building functions are centralised and automatically performed on the basis of all the relevant information within the systems. This holistic approach increases safety and improves efficiency. It also mitigates risk and public liability. Without it, information would stay within narrow silos and not be completely utilised, response rates would slow and facts blur in an emergency.

Efficient information management lifts productivity and lowers costs overtime. Its also supports trend monitoring; temperature, for example, which is particularly important when looking after historic vehicles constructed of a combination of materials which can be seriously damaged by rapid fluctuations in temperature or humidity.

Bob Ormston, the National Railway Museum Estates Manager, likes the benefits that come with a single source supplier. He lists economies of scale, agreed competitive rates, contract conditions and services, product and system familiarity, all of which, he says reduce downtime in the event of failures, new works and replacements.

He says: “The successful partnership between the NRM and Honeywell will ensure that the systems at Locomotion are successfully maintained providing peace of mind for all, staff and visitors alike.”

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