Honeywell Building Solutions has installed building management, security and life safety systems at Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon.
The security product manufacturer had installed building management at York’s National Rail Museum, which delivered cost savings. Shildon wanted to replicate this return on investment and believed a single source supplier would bring advantages. The £11m Locomotion site has been developed between the National Railway Museum and Sedgefield Borough Council to celebrate Britain’s railway heritage, on the site of the pioneering Stockton and Darlington Railway. The museum houses 70 railway vehicles from the UK national collection and incorporates historical buildings, alongside workshops and a new office, and retail and catering outlet.
What they say]
"The integrated system in place at Locomotion allows staff to concentrate on core activities rather than controlling and monitoring the different building management functions on site," says Jamie Watt, Honeywell account manager for the project. "The EBI effectively centralises all the relevant information from each system. Overall, this increases safety and improves efficiencies by reducing unnecessary waste and lowering costs over time." HBS has supplied, installed and commissioned the building management system (BMS), with security, fire and public address and voice alarm (PA/VA) systems across the site.
"The ongoing partnership between the National Railway Museum and Honeywell ensures that the systems at Locomotion are successfully maintained, providing peace-of-mind for staff and visitors alike," says Andrew Scott, the Head of the National Railways Museum. In the interest of sharing information and centralising vital building management and security functions, these applications work in tandem via a single, common platform – the Honeywell Enterprise Buildings Integrator (EBI). EBI enables on-site operators to monitor functional performance of the entire building control system, by individual area or across the whole site. EBI also integrates with other building management functions such as alarm monitoring and historical logging functionality. It is also used to centrally control the operating times of the lighting to coincide with on site events.
Real-time data from the EBI interfaces with an ‘EcoWall’ supplied and installed by Honeywell. This interactive public display reinforces the museum’s status as a good ‘green’ neighbour by pulling information from the BMS to illustrate the operational efficiency of the wind turbines, solar panels and rainwater harvesting systems that are installed at the museum. The BMS uses six Honeywell controllers to control boilers, domestic hot water services, underfloor heating, over-door heaters, comfort cooling, extractor fans, lighting and exhibition power and lighting. Temperature control is particularly important when preserving the construction materials of the historic vehicles. These could be seriously damaged by rapid fluctuations in temperature or humidity. The fire protection system is an eight-loop analogue addressable system with a 1-64 zonal display 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 alarm.
Sensors are supported by infrared smoke beam detectors, which have to be disabled when a locomotive enters the museum under its own steam. A PA/VA system with 50 speakers across eight fire zones ensures voice and alarm communication throughout the premises. Public address messages or background music can be restricted to particular areas of the building, while alert and evacuation messages can be programmed for immediate or delayed broadcast during phased evacuation. The whole system is connected to a remote monitoring station to alert the fire service when necessary.
