We have spread our ‘PWI wings’ all over Britain and Ireland in the last few months. It is
exciting to see the growth of PWI registered Members to over 420 and student/apprentice numbers over 900.
TECHNICAL AND SAFETY
The last couple of months have not been good for railway safety, although thankfully nobody has been injured. There was a runaway trolley collision, a temporary road/rail access point left in place and hit by a train and a trackworker near miss. Our colleagues in the Rail Accident Investigation Brach (RAIB) do thorough investigations, which we regularly discuss at the Technical Board. We liaise very strongly with them and welcome Jonathan Graham to all our Diploma courses to explain the importance of learning from mistakes and failures.
In Wales, at Cardiff University, we were involved in the Joint Board of Moderators (JBM) accreditation. It was good to see several students who had joined PWI as they were interested in railway careers, as engineering folk see us as a place to get involved. We are also working hard with our Corporate Member employers such as Network Rail (NR), Transport for London (TFL), SPL and Balfour Beatty (BB). to work towards our target of 140! Thanks must go to Liz and Charlotte for their quick responses to get people going!
PEOPLE
In the last Journal I mentioned degree apprenticeships offered by English Universities, such as BEng Railway Engineering courses, and how important it is to develop engineers through this route which leads to Incorporated Engineer status. PWI reviewers are being trained to carry out the End Point Assessments in August for degree apprentices at London South Bank University. This is a first for the railway industry, and it is good to see that nationally, there are over 50 new starters a year. We are already helping them prepare through support and the Knowledge Hub, as well as working with Sheffield Hallam University to support their first cohort in November 2024.
We continue to have exciting developments in the PWI Technical Education and Training provision, with many recent requests (Figure 2).
The Advanced Track Technician Course at Derby and the Midland Railway is progressing well and will be extended this autumn to include bespoke events for Network Rail.
We were pleased to deliver our new DC Electrification 3rd and 4th Rail course to Network Rail Graduates in May at Milton Keynes. This was a great group who were fascinated by the history and development of these systems, which are fundamental to the Southern England Railway.
The key element of the coursework is to plan a 3rd Rail extension to an existing electrified route and evaluate all the necessary requirements and interfaces.
A first for Scotland!
The first Practical Trackwork Challenge in Scotland took place in March at the Bo’ness Railway near Falkirk. This was well attended, with 38 delegates from PWI Corporate Members (Figure 3). It was good to see participants from Mott MacDonald, Jacobs, HS2, ORR, RSSB, TfL, and Network Rail. Exceptional technical, plant and machinery and supervisory support was given by Story Contracting, Swietelsky Babcock, Railcare, McCulloch, Systra, and Network Rail. It was good to see a range of companies also explain their products at the event.
Now for Ireland!
Firstly, hopefully many of you know that Irish Gauge is 1600 mm or 5 feet 3 inches and is the same all over the island. We delivered the PWI Track Engineering Diploma Module 1 for Irish Rail in May with many subtle changes for their railway. Bob Langford did a superb job liaising with the local people to give good examples, whilst delivering the classic standard track engineering theory.
The Irish PWI Seminar held in Dublin in May was titled ‘Railways in Ireland: Performing today and planning for tomorrow’. The plans and projects for railways across the whole of the island were impressive with Irish Rail and Translink working together on innovations.
TECHNICAL QUALITY AND VALUE
The PWI is committed to promote railway innovations that deliver asset life improvements. We are indebted to Andy Moore from Getzner who has exhibited at PWI Seminars about under-sleeper pads which are now almost, but not exclusively, standard in the UK. All forms of ballast mats, mass spring systems and structural mats are incredibly useful to spread complex rail loads. The full presentation is on the Knowledge Hub PWI NE March 2024 and I recommend you to watch it.
AND FINALLY……
A special mention for Scott Aston IEng MPWI who spoke on behalf of the PWI at the Network Rail Track Maintenance Conference in May. He talked about the opportunities he took, the support he recieved from the PWI team and how smooth he found the Professional Registration process.
Scott started working on the railway in 2009 and now works for Network Rail as a Senior Gauging Engineer in Wales and West, having previously worked for Colas, Balfour Beatty and Babcock.
In 2023 he used the PWI Experiential Learning Route from HNC and passed his Incorporated Engineer Professional review. Scott is proud of his success and gave us a few laughs about his ‘journey’ and is now looking forward to the next challenge, becoming a PWI Chartered Engineer.
