Monday 31 Mar 2008
MEDIA INVITATION - EAST MIDLANDS CONTROL CENTRE
- Region & Route:
Who – Rt Hon Ruth Kelly MP, Secretary of State for Transport What – Official opening of the new Network Rail East Midlands Control Centre (EMCC) Where – EMCC, Bateman Street, Derby When – 10.45am, Thursday 3 April, 2008
Network Rail’s East Midlands Control Centre (EMCC) in Derby, a key element in providing localised control of train services in the East Midlands will be opened by Rt Hon Ruth Kelly MP, Secretary of State for Transport as part of the £250 million, six-year investment programme to provide renewed signalling across the region.
Since construction began in November 2006, £15 million has been invested in turning a derelict, brownfield site in Derby, into a modern facility, which will eventually control the signalling and operations for the entire East Midlands rail network. This will result in an improved service to rail customers.
The EMCC building is the first of its kind in the UK. It has been built to a modular design, enabling Network Rail to provide modern facilities at an efficient cost, and is the first of a number of similar control centres planned around the country. It is Network Rail’s greenest ever building, incorporating solar water heating to reduce carbon emissions and rainwater harvesting to save a million litres of water every year.
Network Rail is investing £250 million over six years to renew the signalling in the East Midlands. The first two phases of the signalling – at Leicester/Nuneaton and Alfreton – is already complete and will be followed by further schemes at Chesterfield, Toton, Long Eaton, and Nottingham. As each phase is completed, operational control will transfer into the EMCC, which will ultimately control over 350 route miles of railway across the region and employ 240 staff. The first Network Rail employees transferred to the centre on 1 March, and will be joined in May by colleagues from East Midlands Trains where both teams will work together to control the railway operations.
Notes to editors
• The East Midlands Control Centre (EMCC) has been designed to meet the latest building regulations and environmental standards with a view to reducing carbon emissions and saving energy • It will have the benefit of solar water heating to reduce the amount of fossil fuel used to generate hot water, reducing CO2 emissions by over 1.2 tonnes per year • The building environment will be monitored and controlled by an advanced computerised building management system to constantly monitor and adjust all aspects of the building environment to ensure maximum energy efficiency • It will have a rainwater harvesting system that will collect rainwater to use in flushing toilets – with a projected saving of approximately 1,000,000 litres of water every year
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