The recent announcement by Siemens Mobility to invest £100 million in the building of new premises in Chippenham was well received and duly reported by press releases on 4 March. Some of us were lucky to be invited to the associated press conference where the guest of honour was...

Rail Engineer has previously published articles on cyber security, and it is a subject that will be undoubtedly covered many times in the future. Protecting data and keeping systems safe is still not universally recognised as something we should all be doing, and instances of hacking with damaging and...

GGP Consult is a privately owned consulting engineering company established in 1994. We are based in the UK on the outskirts of Hull, where our purpose-built offices overlook the famous Humber Bridge. Over the years, we have expanded to include GGPGeo and GGP Survey, with an additional office in...

Railway engineers looking at the exhibits in the National Railway Museum (NRM) at York must surely be impressed by their predecessors’ achievements. An example is the museum’s 98-tonne Merchant Navy class steam locomotive which was built in 1949. This is sectioned to reveal how Britain’s last steam locomotives were...

Great Britain’s railway level crossings are among the safest in Europe and operate on a network which is one of the most intensively used in the world. However, they still pose a significant safety risk to the public, and trains can be delayed if there is a fault or...

Jonathan Evans, Network Rail’s technical head of level crossings engineering, recently delivered a presentation to the IRSE Midland & North Western Section, explaining how technology can help to improve level crossing risk management, together with the level crossing engineering solutions being developed by Network Rail. Jonathan explained that his...

The ‘Practical Track Challenge’ run by the Permanent Way Institution (PWI) aims to give office-based professionals an understanding of the practicalities of track work. This year’s challenge was the seventh such event with the first one being held at the Didcot Railway Centre in 2017. Since then, the event...

The impressive grade-B listed Ayr Station Hotel was built in 1885 in the French-Renaissance château-style and was an integral part of the station with the travel centre inside the hotel’s north wing. In 2010, it was purchased by a Malaysian businessman who abandoned it after it closed in 2012....

A 175-year-old Perthshire railway tunnel has been given a new lease of life in a £6 million project delivered by Network Rail. Trains travelling through Moncrieffe tunnel, south of Perth, will now be running on rails supported by recycled plastic sleepers. More than 3,690 new plastic sleepers were laid during engineering...

On 20 February, the Government published its Draft Rail Reform Bill. This proposes the creation a new Integrated Rail Body (IRB) that brings together decisions on infrastructure and train operations. The IRB would become Great British Railways (GBR) as proposed in the Williams-Shapps report that was published in May...

Ministers yesterday (Tuesday 20 February) put forward their plan for the future of the railways, publishing a draft Rail Reform Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The draft Bill sets in motion a plan to deliver punctual and reliable services, simpler tickets, and a modern and innovative railway that meets the needs...