Tuesday 22 Mar 2005
GROUNDBREAKING NEW MEASUREMENT TRAIN WINS AWARD
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National
Network Rail is celebrating after winning an award for innovation in engineering at the Railway Forum / Modern Railways Innovation Awards ceremony last night. The development of the pioneering New Measurement Train was recognised by the rail industry as a significant engineering breakthrough and of huge benefit to the railway.
Network Rail Chief Engineer, Andrew McNaughton said: “Winning this award pays tribute to the innovation, creativity and hard work of our engineers.
“The New Measurement Train provides valuable information to our engineers on asset condition. The increased data flow obtained from the train allows our engineers to start a shift to a ‘predict and prevent’ mode of work, instead of the ‘react and repair’ situation we had been used to.”
Mr McNaughton continued: “The award recognises a truly international effort with world leading technology from Great Britain, France, Germany and the USA.”
Adrian Lyons, Director General of The Railway Forum added: "Network Rail's New Measurement Train is a project that has reached maturity and is now at the leading edge of track measurement. It reflects an innovative approach to what is a critical engineering challenge and provides an essential tool that is of benefit to the whole industry."
The New Measurement train is able to travel at up to 125mph allowing it to slot in between timetabled trains and is key to the delivery of the company’s objective to replace manual inspection with mechanised measurement.
The train, as well as producing video recordings of the infrastructure and the wheel/rail interface, provides six foot gauging data and information on track geometry. On board there is also a fully equipped conference facility for up to 12 delegates.
This is the eighth year of the Railway Industry Innovation Awards scheme. The awards recognise the great amount of innovation which is taking place on Britain's railways.
About Network Rail
We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.
Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.
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