Exercise "Avon Express" was a live, multi-agency exercise which took place in and around the Severn Railway Tunnel. Exercise participants included Avon and Somerset Constabulary, Heddlu Gwent Police, British Transport Police, Avon Fire and Rescue Service, Avon Ambulance Service, Welsh Ambulance Service, the Avon Medical Mobile Team, Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust, Monmouthshire County Council staff, South Gloucestershire Council staff, the WRVS, First Great Western, Network Rail and, of course, RAYNET (Gwent, South Glamorgan and Bristol Groups).

RAYNET were invited to participate by Network Rail, and provide a two-way radio communications link between locations in the tunnel area, Silver Control (Sudbrook Pumping Station) and their regional office in Cardiff. RAYNET were also allowed to have an operator aboard the exercise train, so that attempts could be made to communicate with him to/from the Pilning RVP.

The exercise took place overnight on Saturday and Sunday 17/18 September 2005, and was based on the "Severn Tunnel Joint Agency Major Emergency Arrangements". The exercise allowed the participating agencies the opportunity to validate key elements of the multi-agency response to a major incident in the Severn Tunnel.

RAYNET's role was to provide a two-way radio communications link between key locations that could be used in the event of a failure of the railway's National Radio Network (NRN) and mobile telephones. A previous communications exercise in July 2005 had already proved that radio links could be made satisfactorily, by RAYNET members, between tunnel-area locations that were not active for "Avon Express".

The exercise commenced at around 0150hrs after an exercise train had entered the tunnel and was stopped approximately 2.4 miles from the English portal after a simulated derailment. There were also "volunteer casualties" on-board "suffering" varying degrees of injury, and these were detrained within the tunnel as a test of the emergency services' evacuation procedures.

Having successfully established a communications "network" between all RAYNET locations outside the tunnel, communications were also established with the RAYNET operator on-board the exercise train. This was done using 1297MHz radio equipment, with messages passed directly between the train and Silver Control.

As a follow-up to this exercise, a communications test at the Box Tunnel (Wiltshire) was arranged so that members of the North Wiltshire RAYNET Group could gain experience with a major tunnel in their area. (A report can be found here.)

[GW7BSC]