Model Railway
Professor CLIVE ROBERTS and Dr STUART HILLMANSEN introduce UKRRIN’s lead University partner, the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education
Taylor Woodrow’s new high-accuracy method of dynamic envelope modelling.
The Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) is the largest institution of its kind in Europe. With more than 145 researchers, academics and support staff plus an annual roll call in excess of 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students, its size and capabilities place it at the very heart of the international research landscape within railways.
But scale isn’t everything, and it is through the strength of its multidisciplinary research and problem-solving ingenuity that it has cemented its reputation as a global thought leader.
Renowned for its expertise in power systems, energy use, future fuels and digital technologies in particular, it has continually demonstrated considerable prowess in translating conceptual ideas into tangible improvements on the railway since its creation in the 1970s.
RAIL readers will have seen an example of this in July 2017, when a team of students from BCRRE scored highly in the annual IMechE Railway Challenge, an event held at the Stapleford Miniature Railway near Melton Mowbray, and which brings together small teams of engineering students from universities and industry to build small locomotives ( RAIL 831).
The BCRRE team narrowly missed out on the top spot by entering the UK’s first and only operational hydrogen fuel cell-powered locomotive.
The 10¼-inch gauge locomotive had been in development since 2012, when researchers realised that there was a need to demonstrate new autonomous propulsion systems in railway traction as a more environmentally friendly alternative to diesel.
It has taken six years since then for industry to catch up, with Alstom confirming on May 14 that it would bring a full-sized hydrogenpowered train to the UK market by converting Class 321 electric multiple units owned by Eversholt Rail ( RAIL 853).
Meanwhile, in digital systems, BCRRE has formed a strategic partnership with Network Rail in data integration as the track authority prepares to roll out its Digital Railway programme across the network from the start of the next Control Period (CP6: April 2019March 2024).
BCRRE is also supporting NR to make investment decisions in Traffic Management Systems and is developing future models for European Train Control System (ETCS) in-cab signalling.
Dr Stuart Hillmansen, a senior lecturer in Electrical Energy Systems, says: “We identified digital systems as an area for development more than ten years ago, and have been growing our capabilities ever since. Our work with hydrogen is also something we’ve been doing for a long time, so it’s good to see it being considered now as a possible alternative to diesel trains.
“I think this just goes to show how good we are, here in Birmingham, at anticipating the future challenges the railway will face, and in setting the agenda.”
The level of innovation achieved at BCRRE has also enabled its international portfolio to expand as it continues to form research
There are lots of Digital Railway technologies that we already have the knowledge to build and put to good use, but we just need to get them out there. Professor Clive Roberts, Centre Lead, BCRRE
collaborations and forge close links with manufacturers and operators from a diverse range of countries, including France, Germany, the USA and China.
It has created an international MSc programme in Railway Systems Engineering for students from across the world, and for which BCCRE has sponsored students from Ireland, Norway, Turkey, the USA, Australia, China, and Malaysia.
Students from Singapore have also been taught postgraduate modules since September 2016, when BCRRE signed a wide-ranging collaboration agreement with the city state’s largest multi-modal land transport provider SMRT.
Under the agreement, BCRRE additionally provides strategic, technical and managerial education to graduates and employees at the SMRT Institute while, in May 2017, it took a step further by inviting 20 SMRT engineers to take part in four research projects being undertaken at BCRRE that focus on condition monitoring of different assets, and the effect of dynamic loads on power systems.
Hillmansen adds: “We are proud of our international links, such as those we enjoy with SMRT (Singapore), SNCF (France), Federal Railroad Authority (USA) and Central Japan Railways, and taking forward research previously developed in the laboratory.
“As a group, we’ve always done a lot of research with real-life applications that the industry can use as there’s no point doing theoretical studies for trains on the move that has no practical use.”
In February 2018, BCRRE’s preeminence in rail research was further secured when it officially became the lead university partner of the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN), which brings together UK universities with the wider rail industry (see pages 2-5 of this supplement).
The newly established network will enable industry to access purpose-built facilities and research skills at four Centres of Excellence created within the universities that cover rolling stock, infrastructure, digital systems and testing. There is also a coordination hub run by RSSB and the Railway Industry Association (RIA).
In return, the universities are given access to industry experts, and students are provided with more opportunities to work on real world projects while helping bring ideas from conceptualisation to commercialisation much faster than before.
Although it’s just one of eight universities that form the four Centres of Excellence within UKRRIN, it was BCRRE that led the original bid for £ 28.1 million funding for the network from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund.
That funding has since been boosted by £ 64m from UKRRIN’s 16 industry supply chain partners, including Siemens and Bombardier, and non-financial support from Network Rail, Transport for London and HS2 Ltd.
BCRRE hosts the Centre of Excellence in Digital Systems and £16.4m is subsequently being invested in a new 3,000 sq m building on the University of Birmingham campus, where solutions will be developed in areas such as cybersecurity, data integration and smart monitoring, future train control and introducing innovations onto the railway.
Construction began on March 1 on the Centre of Excellence Digital Systems, which will feature new facilities to enable the entire UK rail network to be simulated, and where hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing can take place for signalling, control and traction systems, and communications technologies.
Professor Clive Roberts, Centre Lead at BCRRE, is in no doubt that UKRRIN will help accelerate the passage of new products from the drawing board to market, and help make the UK a global leader in rail innovation.
He says: “We took the initiative to help bring together this university partnership with industry by making the bid for funding because historically it’s always taken quite a lot of time to get new ideas on to the railway.
“There are lots of Digital Railway technologies that we already have the knowledge to build and put to good use, but we just need to get them out there. It’s an area which we’ve worked on for more than 30 years and we could become world leaders in railway technology, but we must grow our capability.”
Dr Hillmansen adds: “The really great thing about UKRRIN is that it will provide a pathway for the implementation of good ideas by applying them to industry. The industry has traditionally been quite conservative in this respect, and the hydrogen train is a prime example of something that has taken a long time.
“UKRRIN can help make that happen much faster. If we were taking hydrogen from year zero again, I don’t think it would have taken ten years to get a viable product to market. This way we bring the right testing framework and the right people together to accelerate the introduction of new technologies under the UKRRIN umbrella.”
If you want to find out more, BCRRE will be exhibiting at both Rail Live (Quinton Rail Technology Centre, June 20-21) and at InnoTrans (Berlin, September 18-21).
If we were taking hydrogen from year zero again, I don’t think it would have taken ten years to get a viable product to market. Dr Stuart Hillmansen, Senior Lecturer in Electrical Energy Systems, University of Birmingham