Chris Tindall, Technical Principal – LRT Rolling Stock, Mott MacDonald
Chris has worked in Light Rail rolling stock for the last 21 years. Currently working as a Technical Principal in the LRT Rolling Stock department, Chris has experience in all aspects of vehicle procurement, from initial feasibility, specification drafting, and tendering, to design review, testing and acceptance.
Chris also has considerable experience in vehicle maintenance, asset condition assessment, vehicle modifications, and reliability/fault finding. Chris has worked extensively across all UK light rail networks and also on a large number of foreign projects in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.
Chris will be speaking at our seminar, Light Rail: Making City Rail Travel More Sustainable, and recently sat down with us to share insights from his journey in the industry.
How did you start your career in the rail industry?
I began my rail industry career at Mott MacDonald in 2005 as a graduate engineer and have since developed my knowledge and experience to a point where I am now LRT Rolling Stock Technical Principal.
Tell us a little about your career experiences to date
During my career, I’ve worked on every UK light rail system and many projects around the world, including in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America.
I enjoy challenging and innovative projects, with recent achievements including serving as lead technical advisor on the implementation of an onboard energy storage operation for the West Midlands Metro project.
What does an average day look like for you?
Multiple meetings with clients across a number of different time zones, drafting of client deliverables, and travelling to site to meet clients and conduct project activities (testing, inspection, etc).
Why did you want to present at a RailEI technical seminar?
To expand the industry’s wider understanding of tramway interfaces.
What’s the best bit of advice you have for someone looking to work in the rail industry?
Take every opportunity to work on-site and witness things first-hand. This will provide valuable experience and understanding of operations, maintenance and interfaces which would otherwise be difficult to achieve.
What are some of the biggest challenges of your current role?
My role involves working on challenging and innovative client projects, often implementing solutions that are unique to the market or market ‘firsts’. This requires a different approach to implementing known solutions for which there are already precedent solutions.
What do you enjoy most about your current role?
The challenge of delivering the client’s requirements for challenging projects.
Seeing a project through from initial feasibility to specification drafting, design review, testing, and acceptance into service is very rewarding.
Our sincere thanks to Chris for taking the time to sit down with us and for his support of this Seminar.
