Rail Live 2018
NIGEL HARRIS rounds up the different elements that combined to make Rail Live 2018 a spectacular success
NIGEL HARRIS gives full details on the success of the two-day event at Long Marston and looks forward to next year.
Wow… just… WOW! Rail Live 2018 has now passed in truly spectacular style - and what a powerful and inspirational experience it proved to be.
On June 20/21, the sun shone as more than 5,000 people passed through RL2018, some of them arriving on our dedicated passenger trains from London Paddington right onto the show’s private platform. From there it was less than five minutes’ walk into Rail Live.
After a solid year of very hard work, during which some seemingly impossible problems were overcome, the joint RAIL/ Rail Alliance team succeeded in its aspiration of creating an international air show-style ‘expo’ event for Britain’s rail industry.
A big British air show would host a display by the RAF’s Red Arrows aerobatic team to highlight pride, achievement, skill and engagement, accompanied by bespoke facilities on the ground for commerce, networking and business.
In similar style, Rail Live offered an operational display of state-of-the-art battery, bi-mode and hydrogen passenger and freight trains/locomotives, to demonstrate how environmentally friendly and more sustainable traction types are being not only very rapidly developed, but also deployed in the UK.
We even had the Network Rail helicopter to illustrate how high-tech non-intrusive aerial surveillance improves safety, boosts efficiency, and even generates revenue.
NR’s Plain Line Pattern Recognition train - which is unique in the world - also visited and was open for display. This heavily instrumented train can do everything a foot patroller can do - but at 125mph.
More about all those features and more later - because the heart, soul and very core of Rail Live is (and always will be) its defining display of world-class infrastructure plant and equipment that has been its mainstay from its launch, a decade ago.
Staged at the unique Quinton Rail Technology Centre (QRTC), at Long Marston near Stratford-upon-Avon, since 2013 and developed each year since, Rail Live’s 2018 display of yellow plant and machinery of all kinds was worth a staggering £ 500 million - yes, that’s half a billion pounds worth of some of the most sophisticated railway construction and maintenance equipment available.
And all of it was available to examine closely at the show, including dozens of demonstrations. A unique strength of Rail Live is that it does not only display plant and equipment, the ten-acre railway site used for display enables machines to do their work in an appropriate environment. There are running lines, sidings and earthworks on which this equipment can actually be put to work in a real railway environment, rather than sitting on an exhibition stand or standing in a show field.
Rail Live had everything - from a full range of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and hand tools, to small road-rail vehicles for gang transport or patrolling, through to tampers, ballast cleaners and large cranes. One spiderlike machine looked as if it had come straight out of Thunderbirds!
A wide range of consultancies, engineering companies and manufacturers were all represented among the 179 exhibitors who took outside space at the QRTC. Additionally, there was a 3,000m2 temporary 300-seat convention centre and exhibition building in which 60 exhibitors and sponsors had stands - including Porterbrook, Eversholt Rail Group, Hitachi, Talgo, the Office of Rail and Road, British Transport Police, Rail Accident Investigation Branch, RSSB, the Rail Delivery Group and many more.
More than 30 British Transport Police officers gave operational displays, including counter-terror capture of armed assailants by armed officers with dogs, the removal of protesters from a train roof, and the removal of protesters who have chained or super-glued themselves to trains or railway property.
There were three general purpose and explosive detection dogs also showing delegates how they support the railway. And the stars of this particular show were the team of Constable Phil Healy and his now nationally famous explosives detection dog Mojo, who were among the first on the scene after the Manchester Arena bombing of May 2017 (they spent two hours searching the blast site, immediately after the explosion, seeking secondary devices which would have put police, fire and paramedics at risk of great harm). RL2018 was Mojo’s last public appearance and he is now retired - so Phil Healy brought along his successor, 16-monthold black Labrador Harry.
These dogs are amazing. We’ve known Mojo for nearly a year now and seen quite a lot of him - yet never once have we heard him (or Harry, for that matter) bark. Their training is incredible - watching Mojo logically working his way across the stage, seeking a filter that had been in contact with explosives and so only faintly carried its aroma, was impressive indeed. He scanned back and forth and suddenly froze, all four legs splayed and staring intently at what he’s found, but without actually touching it.
“At Manchester, Mojo made two very significant finds,” Phil told me. “I cannot say what they were, but I knew instantly they were important because of the way he reacted. He was a few metres away when he suddenly almost did a handstand and just froze, staring with great intensity at his ‘finds’. He did a wonderful job and I could not be prouder of him - he made a great contribution to the investigation.”
The two-hour search immediately after the blast was a ghastly experience for both Phil and Mojo, and both were significantly affected. Shortly afterwards, Mojo’s coat started falling out and vets diagnosed posttraumatic stress, which had triggered alopecia.
“He wouldn’t leave my feet for months afterwards,” recalls Phil. “Neither of us wanted to be there that night and neither of us will forget it. Thankfully he’s as right as rain
now,” he said as Mojo chased a ball around the NR helicopter.
One of the other BTP PDs was Astra - a Belgian Malinois. In the morning, she was gently resting her head on my knee in the show office and affectionately seeking (and enjoying) ‘a bit of fuss’ as we chatted to her handler, Officer Andrew Graham.
Astra looked every inch the friendly family dog. Yeah, right! In the afternoon, as a BTP attack dog, she was a key part in the anti-terror demonstration. Watching her race after and bring a suspect down with her jaws clamped to his forearm, she was a very different dog indeed.
In the exhibition building, more BTP officers and civilian staff showed the gear which every BTP (men and women alike) have to wear - and when they are fully fitted up, they are 3½ stones heavier in weight. Imagine running in that lot - which of course, they have to do.
Other special features included NR’s Plain Line Pattern Recognition train, which is unique in the world. We don’t hear enough of these world-leading technologies that our rail industry has evolved. The technology used was originally pioneered in the food industry to detect inconsistencies in pizza topping placement. Here, on the PLPR, it is the only technology of its kind in use in the world.
Leading passenger innovation at RL2018 was Porterbrook, which displayed its innovative Class 319 EMU Flex bi-mode conversion platform.
The 30-year-old Class 319s are now offlease with no current role as an EMU. So, Porterbrook’s engineers are ‘upcycling’ them as bi-modes, and a so-called ‘engine raft’ was on display alongside a ‘wrapped’ Flex train, which will be heading for Northern when complete. The raft features a diesel engine driving an alternator which will provide traction current on non-electrified routes.
Further passenger prospects for a more environmentally friendly future were represented by Vivrail’s prototype battery train, converted from one of the fleet of former London Underground sub-surface trains that it is already converting and upcycling at its QRTC works into ‘new’ DEMU units.
Looking further into the future, Birmingham University and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers demonstrated a working hydrogen (fuel cell) locomotive in 10¼in gauge, and gave rides over a 100-metre temporary track.
This attracted significant attention, not least from Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling. Owing to a Parliamentary vote on Brexit he was unable to give the keynote address on June 20 in the National Rail Convention, but he returned for 90 minutes on June 21 for a quick tour, showing special interest in the hydrogen locomotive. He visited numerous exhibitors stands, which also included a trip on the Vivarail battery train and a discussion about the Porterbrook Flex project.
Freight was represented by Rail Live 2018 sponsors GB Railfreight and Direct Rail Services. GBRf exhibited freight stalwart 66732 The First Decade 1999-2008 John Smith - MD, while DRS displayed a Stadler bi-mode Class 88 (88004 Pandora), which can run both ‘under the wires’ and on non-electrified tracks.
GBRf played a yet bigger role in another unique feature of the show - the dedicated passenger service from Paddington that ran directly into the show via the Honeybourne branch connection to the national network. Two Class 73/9s (73962 Dick Mabbutt and 73963
Janice) left Paddington on June 20 at 0714, hauling the London Transport Museum’s main line-certified 4TC set, and arrived at QRTC’s Rail Live 2018 private platform at 1014. It returned to London, departing at 1445, although
passengers were transferred to GWR services at Evesham due to a failure on the 4TC.
Next day ( June 21), the ‘73/9s’ worked the ‘Rail Live Limited’ (calling only at Reading), comprising a quartet of Riviera Trains Mk 1 coaches. Having established the viability of a passenger link directly into RL2018, we shall be talking to NR and train operating companies about making this a regular feature, but using new trains where possible, thereby making the journey itself part of the Rail Live experience.
We shall also investigate running dedicated trains directly into the site from Manchester and Birmingham - although I can make no promises as this is very much merely a ‘sparkle in our eye’ at the moment. But with the industry having demonstrated impressive collaborative working, I would like to say that I am at least optimistic.
I have to put on record my sincere thanks to NR, GBRf, London Transport Museum and Riviera Trains for really pulling out the stops so that these dedicated trains could run. They added considerably to the Rail Live experience - thank you so, so much to all the people who made this happen. You all know who you are, and we deeply appreciate your enthusiasm and support.
We were delighted with Rail Live, and as a result next year will be even better. We will enhance those aspects that worked and we’ve learned the lessons where things didn’t go as planned. Did we achieve what we wanted? We certainly made a good start in creating the unique event in our mind’s eye.
I was going to leave the last words to Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Head of Rail Mike Noakes and NR Chief Executive Mark Carne, who supported our aspirations from the start. But we’ve already quoted them, so please take a look at pages 12-13.
We are already working on Rail Live 2019 - and the RAIL/ Rail Alliance teams are happy to have these solid foundations on which to build.
Put June 19-20 2019 in your diary. We’re only just getting started!