Proposals to be sought for radical train of the future

Frazer-Nash will shortly be calling on UK Industry to propose innovative ideas for improving trains as part of the Future Railways Programme. These ideas will be put forward as part of a project to improve trains across the country.

The Engineering consultancy has just been appointed to manage the Radical Train project on behalf of the Enabling Innovation Team (EIT). This Enabling Innovation Team has been set up by the rail industry in order to support embedding innovation as part of everyday business and to stimulate innovators to meet the challenges of the UK industry.

The purpose of this project is to develop a Radical Train demonstrator which will show how a significant step change in the performance of trains on UK railways can be made and to develop radical train systems and sub-systems which might also have international market potential. Throughout the project Frazer-Nash will be encouraging companies and universities across the UK to put forward their innovative ideas. These will then be assessed and a minimum of three short listed to be taken forward to demonstrator stage with part funding from EIT.

Ahead of the launch of the competition, interested parties can find out more about the work of EIT at http://www.futurerailway.org/eit plus read into the Railway Technical Strategy (RTS) and download a copy from http://www.futurerailway.org/RTS An animation of what the Future Railway could look like can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWCRny4ufYM Full details of the competition, including contact information, will be posted on the EIT website in the next few weeks along with further updates on this and other EIT projects.

David Clarke, Director, Enabling Innovation Team (EIT) said, “The Radical Train challenge is an exciting opportunity to seek out and demonstrate game-changing innovations to the UK railway, proving not only that the idea can become an innovation, but also that there is a real benefit to implementation.”

Speaking about the project, Richard Jones, Business Manager for Rail at Frazer-Nash said, “This is a unique opportunity for innovative companies, and not just those within the Rail Industry, to put forward their ideas for radically improving trains in the UK. We are delighted to be managing this exciting initiative and we are looking forward to launching the competition and receiving some inventive proposals.”