Funding awarded to innovative rolling stock research projects

The first four of eight rolling stock projects have been awarded funding as part of the ‘Radical Train’ competition.

The contest, which was launched by the Railway Safety Standards Board’s (RSSB) Enabling Innovation Team (EIT) earlier in the year, invited organisations to submit designs and concepts that could transform train production in the UK.

Judges looked at the potential improvements each of the concepts could bring to operators and passengers, as well as the their potential place in the international market.

Around £2.5 million of funding will be made available for the successful entrants, of which eight have now been shortlisted from 56 original entries.

The first four projects to receive funding are:

• Revolution VLR Consortium (Very Light Rail) consisting of TDI (Europe) Ltd (Transport Design International), Unipart Rail Ltd, Warwick Manufacturing Group centre HVM Catapult, Trelleborg PPL Ltd , Allectra Ltd and GKN Land Systems for their low carbon, very-lightweight whole passenger railcar demonstrator.
• Holdtrade Ltd, Transnet, Huddersfield University and HBA Ltd for their radical freight bogie concept.
• Thales and NewRail for their active adhesion monitoring project.
• A confidential investment in emissions reduction and fuel efficiency technology.

David Clarke, Director of the Future Railway Enabling Innovation Team, said: ‘We are delighted to announce these four investments which bring a mixture of new technologies and organisations to the UK rail sector.

“We’re looking forward to the winners demonstrating their proposals to show how they can deliver a tangible benefit to both the UK rail sector and to the economy through exports.”