Electrification

How many times have we looked at clever innovation and wondered why on earth no one thought of doing it before? Often the simplest of ideas seem to lead to the most elegant of engineering solutions. The truth is, of...

Headspans were necessary but now improved resilience is needed Generally, the railway electrification schemes that first emerged in Britain, before the introduction of more recent AC designs, relied on fairly heavy equipment. Multitrack supports were generally...

As the world, and the railway, goes more and more digital, the big growth industry seems to have been in the production of cable. Offices are festooned with cables linking computers, servers, storage devices, alarms, CCTV cameras, printers, scanners and...

Guest writer: Neville Haide It is a good question, and one that needs to be answered and better understood by a wider audience within the rail industry. The perpetual transformation of electrical energy into thermal energy...

Guest writer: Caroline Bacher Since 2007, Network Rail has steadily been replacing the overhead line equipment (OLE) on the Great Eastern line from London Liverpool Street, first to Chelmsford and then on to...

Guest writers: Graeme Brindle and Nathan Sealy Much has been discussed recently about the state of electrification in the UK, and how it is being delivered at a much higher cost than on the...

Guest writer: Danny Aisthorpe With the need to electrify significant parts of Great Britain’s rail network to meet rail decarbonisation targets, the industry continues to design and develop innovative solutions that will...

In this digital age, railways are harvesting increasing volumes of data (‘Big Data’) on the performance of their assets but converting raw data into meaningful information remains a challenge for many organisations in the industry. One...

Take a look at a typical section of overhead line equipment (OLE) and you will see a mass of wires, masts and crossbeams. But, look a little closer, and you will see all the other pieces that...

Guest writer: Steve Cox The UK has a clear target to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Rail is already a naturally low-carbon means of transport, responsible for less than 2.5 per cent of total transport...