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Thursday 5 Jul 2018

London Bridge station welcomes students for Year of Engineering

Region & Route:

| Southern

More than 140 A-Level students from low higher-education uptake areas in the North-West of England visited London Bridge station last week, as part of an initiative to encourage young people to take up engineering as a career.

The initiative was part of the Year of Engineering,and was organised by Network Rail in partnership with Mott MacDonald, on behalf of a number of National Collaborative Outreach Programmes (NCOPs).

The students were given a tour of the newly upgraded station, guided by Thameslink Programme staff including current project managers. The tour included a close-up look at the various engineering features of the station including its unique bridge deck supporting Vierendeel Truss and station concourse, which is now the largest in the UK.

London Bridge station, Britain’s fourth largest, was officially declared open by HRH the Duke of Cambridge on 9 May following a five year rebuild which saw the entire station completely refurbished, the track layout remodelled and a new rail underpass on the approach to the station, all of which means 30% more trains can use the station than before.

During their trip to London the students also visited an exhibition at the Institution of Civil Engineers promoting engineering, and then spent an evening at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers hearing from high profile speakers and asking questions at a panel event.

The students were also set a task of designing a brand-new high speed railway line and associated stations over the three-day residential course which resulted them achieving  a PWI award and a Gold Industrial Cadets award; an important step towards a career in engineering.

Simon Blanchflower Programme Director for the Thameslink Programme which is responsible for the reconstruction of London Bridge station, said:  “It’s been a pleasure to participate in this important initiative as part of the Year of Engineering and welcome over 140 students to London Bridge station.

“Giving one of the tours myself it was great to show them the project’s achievements and talk about some of the challenges we overcame as one of the UK’s premier civil engineering projects. I hope it’s been valuable to the students and that we will be able to welcome them into our industry in the not too distant future.”

Miraan Jothinath, a Graduate Mechanical Engineer at Network Rail, who helped organise the station visit, said: “it’s great to have been able to welcome these students to London Bridge station. They represent possibly the next generation of engineers who’ll be putting together huge infrastructure projects like this in future and it’s been a pleasure to have them.”