On Friday, January 31, the Institution of Rail Signal Engineers (IRSE), the Tech Soc and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) are organising a full day seminar and evening networking event titled “Signalling the Future: Engineering and operational insights into ETCS and CBTC”. This is aimed at operators, suppliers, infrastructure...

Trough-Tec Systems (TTS) and Furukawa Electric have announced that following months of open discussion and substantial testing they have satisfied Network Rail that their Recycled-Polymer Cable Management products meets its revised, more stringent fire safety requirements. When Green Trough cable management systems was first introduced in 2012 to the UK...

Siemens Mobility has been awarded four significant contracts by HS2 Ltd and will join key contractors under the Rail Systems Alliance. Siemens Mobility will play a crucial role in the delivery and operation of the new 225-kilometre-long British high-speed railway that will connect London and the West Midlands. The contracts...

Construction of a 14,500-tonne box structure designed to take the new HS2 line under the A46 Kenilworth Bypass in Warwickshire has taken a major step forward, following the successful installation of 120 gigantic beams. The concrete beams, ranging between 13 metres and 24 metres in length were carefully lifted into...

Between 1994, when the railway was privatised, and the pre-Covid year of 2019, railway passenger numbers more than doubled. Yet over the same period the railway’s cost to the taxpayer increased by 270%. With high fixed infrastructure costs, increasing passenger numbers should have decreased its cost to the taxpayer. Thus,...

At around 19:26 on the evening of 21 October 2024, train 1J25, the 18:31 Transport for Wales (TfW) passenger service from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth, collided with train 1S71, the 19:09 Machynlleth to Shrewsbury passenger service, also operated by TfW. The trains collided approximately 800 metres west of the passing...

The Permanent Way Institution’s annual electrification conference was attended by around 150 delegates and was opened by its president, Mona Sihota. While there remains uncertainty about future electrification, both the Midland Mainline and the Transpennine Route upgrades are well underway, and existing electrification assets (which power around 80% of...

In 2009, the Great Western Electrification Programme (GWEP) was estimated to cost £1 billion. By 2015 the cost had risen to £2.8 billion. As a result, the programme was cut-back in 2017 with no electrification to Oxford, Bristol, or Swansea. This also led to a negative government perception of...

At the RSSB sponsored Vehicle/Track System Interface Committee seminar, RSSB’s Dr David Griffin and University of Huddersfield’s Dr Philip Shackleton explored how the industry might explore additional measures for the guidance of derailed trains. This work was commissioned to follow up a recommendation from the RAIB investigation into the...

The collision at Fisherton Tunnel, Salisbury in October 2021 was primarily caused by poor wheel/rail adhesion. That said, RAIB’s investigation pointed to numerous other factors arising from management and communication within and between organisations in the industry, as well as autumn leaf fall management and treatment. One issue was knowledge...

Nigel Keightly The Sekisui Chemical Company has manufactured synthetic wooden products made from Fibre-reinforced Foamed Urethane (FFU) since 1980.  First introduced on Japanese Railways 44 years ago, early installations of the product are still performing to specification. FFU is now widely used on railway infrastructure in 33 countries to support...

Bob Clarke In 1985, British Rail was moving to a market/business led structure in which sector managers had a budgetary control and were required to grow their business. For the Inter-City sector, journey time improvements were high on the agenda. Electrification of the East Coast Main Line (ECML) was underway...