York Rail Operating Centre


York Rail Operating Centre is a Rail operating centre located at the south western end of railway station in York, England. The site is one of twelve that will control all signalling across the mainland of the United Kingdom. It was opened in stages from 2014 onwards, with responsibility for signalling becoming active in January 2015. The York ROC accepted the role of its predecessor, the adjacent York Integrated Electronic Control Centre, in December 2018.
Of the twelve ROC signalling centres that have been built across the regions for Network Rail, York is the largest and controls the London North Eastern region which includes the East Coast Main Line between London King's Cross and the Scottish Borders.

History

The centre, along with 13 others, was proposed in 2011 in an effort by Network Rail to combine train control, signalling and level crossing operations. In the project, 14 buildings would replace over 800 mechanical lever and power signalling boxes with Integrated Electronic Control Centres also being superseded in the new programme. Preparatory work on the site in April 2012 revealed the foundations of some ex North Eastern Railway roundhouses that were thought to have been built in 1864 and abandoned in 1960. Work on the building was started in September 2012.
The £26 million centre was opened in September 2014 with kitting out
taking three months so that the first signalling to be transferred there became operational in January 2015. As York ROC will be responsible for the East Coast Main Line from King's Cross to the Scottish Borders and the whole of the London North Eastern region,, it will take some time for all signalling to be moved there. The last manual signal box is due to transfer to the ROC in 2056 from Morpeth, which should also be the last signal box to be transferred on the entire network.
The ROC is expected to eventually house 400 signallers replacing over 1,000 signallers across the whole of the LNE region. The ROC was built on the former Engineers Triangle to the immediate north west of the station; this area was previously used to turn steam engines, a movement that was able to be retained in York by the installation of a reconditioned turntable to the west of the freight yard in York. The ROC at York includes a gym, training centre, welding centre and external rail facilities. As the site is also used for training, it is known dually as Network Rail York Campus and is equipped with a Workforce Development Centre which includes tracks both indoors and outside, with the three sidings outside running to in length.
The building is faced externally in brick, whilst the other eleven ROCs are clad in steel and concrete; one of the conditions imposed by the planning permission given to the project was that it had to be in a style befitting to the nature of the City of York. The building won the best design in the Commercial property section at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Pro-Yorkshire awards in 2015.
The ROC at York will consist of the largest route mileage on the UK mainland railway system. It will "fringe" Glasgow ROC to the north, Manchester ROC to the west, Derby ROC to the south west and Romford ROC to the south east.

Key signalling transfers

The ROC became operational in January 2015 and during the period from 2011 to 2016, many lines were converted to power signal boxes, which will in turn be transferred to the ROC at York at a later date. Network Rail have a rolling programme of signalling upgrades, but those transferred so far include;