Description
The 2011 annual railway seminar organised by young engineers was held at the University of Nottingham between 21 and 23 September with 54 delegates in attendance. With the current world economic climate in mind, the focus of this year’s seminar was centred on success stories in the railway industry whilst under pressure in terms of time, cost and quality. A key aim of the seminar was for delegates to learn about these success stories and take away some of the ideas from them to apply to their own work.
The seminar began on Wednesday lunch time with delegates having to opportunity to visit one of three technical sites: Brush Traction in Loughborough, East Midlands Trains’ Etches Park depot in Derby and Garrandale in Derby. All three of these visits were highly informative and interesting with delegates – many of whom were new to the industry – being able to experience one of the many different practical sides of railway operations. A social and networking event was organised by the Young Members Committee on the Wednesday night at Nottingham’s Tenpin bowling lanes.
Quite unexpectedly all three prizes on offer for the evening were won by female delegates – a great showing considering they were massively in the minority! Congratulations to Sarah Guilfoylefrom Network Rail who won an indoor skydiving experience for the highest score and Anna Holloway from RSSB who won a bottle of Champagne for getting the most strikes.
Congratulations, possibly, also go to Rachel Johnson from the RSSB who won a split pin for achieving the lowest score in a game.
周四上午看到的研讨会开关键note presentation by Neal Lawson from First Capital Connect on the subject of how to undertake rail upgrade projects whilst keeping the passenger both informed and happy. A response to the keynote was provided by Phil Hufton from London Underground who spoke about the same subject from an Underground perspective. Both speakers agreed on one key point: it is not easy! The rest of Thursday morning saw a number of other speakers from companies such as Network Rail and Tubelines who touched on the subject of innovation. A perennial delegate favourite, Felix Schmid from the University of Birmingham, returned to present again this year with a subject of rail maintenance practices – past, present and future.
The afternoon was given over to the practical engineering challenge which was developed and run by Scrapheap Challenge legend Richard Gibbon. This year’s challenge required delegates to design, build and test potato-flinging trebuchets before pitting their designs against each other to score the most points through hitting a number of targets. The most surprising point to come out of the afternoon is that engineers don’t appear to read or take heed of instructions even if they have paid for them! Following the engineering challenge a new element of the seminar was introduced to the delegates: a group discussion and presentation exercise. A tough challenge was set for the nine teams: they had to develop and present proposals for a new fleet of rolling stock to replace Thomas the Tank Engine and friends on the Isle of Sodor! The exercise required the teams to work in their own time and discuss the content over the reception dinner before presenting their ideas on the Friday morning.
正式的研讨会接待晚宴held on the Thursday night in the grand setting of the university’s Trent building. A drinks reception was followed by a welcome address and railway-orientated grace from Professor Rod Smith, this year’s president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and long-time railwayman. This year’s after dinner speaker was Terry Morgan CBE, Chairman of CrossRail Ltd. Terry spoke about his many varied experiences throughout his career as well as some of the aspects of the CrossRail project and how it is set to benefit not only London but also the UK as a whole. The night was rounded off with the obligatory trip by some of the delegates to some of the local watering holes in Nottingham – but only for one or two mind!
Friday morning began with a short period for the teams of delegates to finalise and submit their sealed new trains proposals for the Isle of Sodor before being split into two groups for presentations. It was enormously encouraging to see all of the delegates getting involved with the work and the presentations were a good mix of thoughtful, informative and entertaining. Some of the ideas that were proposed were truly innovative and even revolutionary – ranging from bogies as an optional extra to shipping in Greek labour on Sundays at a knock-down price, and from a pantograph that act as both a normal pantograph and a wireless power receiver to a dedicated section of the passenger compartments for livestock! After a short break, the delegates heard from another four speakers including Graham Cross from Chiltern Railways who spoke about the company’s Evergreen project approach to both their fleet and the infrastructure that they operate on which is possible due to the their long term franchise. Steve White from Siemens spoke about how both building and maintaining trains offers the ideal opportunity to develop the next generation of rolling stock – illustrated by the evolution of the Desiro UK platform to the Desiro City via the Class 380.
The seminar culminated in the post-lunch Question Time session where questions were submitted to a panel consisting of Bill Reeve from Transport Scotland (who is also this year’s Railway Division Chairman), Mark Robinson from Chrome Angel Solutions, Steve White from Siemens and Farha Sheikh from the Department of Transport. The panel were chaired by Ian Flynn from London Underground and were subject to some very searching questions over the course of the session with different opinions being voiced by the various members depending on their standing in the industry. The panel deemed the best question of the session to be “Should the UK rail industry seek to encourage a more competitive market place in the quest to achieve better value for money or should it seek to protect the country’s dwindling manufacturing industry?” – a particularly thorny one that the panel managed to answer with diplomatic aplomb!
In all, the three days spent at the University of Nottingham were informative, thought-provoking, challenging and ultimately sociable and enjoyable. The feedback that has been received so far has been overwhelmingly positive although there are always areas that will be worked upon for improvement. Thank you to all those that attended; the organising committee has already begun planning next year’s event!