The Global Centre of Rail Excellence offered a glimpse of the future this week as it hosted rail innovation teams from across the UK at its South Wales site.
GCRE held an Open Day for teams taking part in the ‘Innovation in Railway Construction’ competition, funded by the UK Government’s Department for Business and Trade, through Innovate UK.
In October last year, UK organisations were invited to apply for a share of up to £575,000 for feasibility studies as part of the competition.
The first phase funding allows a study to be developed in partnership with the construction teams at GCRE to potentially deliver the innovations at the new £400m facility being constructed in south Wales. 24 projects were successful in the first round, involving over 50 organisations.
On Monday teams behind the projects made the trip to South Wales and got their first sight of where their innovations might be developed, taking a tour of the 700-hectare facility at the head of the Dulais and Swansea valleys.
The projects vary in scope from development of innovative concrete sleeper technology to new low carbon-acoustic barriers.
Head of Innovation at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence, Kelvin Davies, said:
“It was fantastic to invite the teams successful in the first round of the Innovation in Railway Construction competition to the Global Centre of Rail Excellence site and to show them the world class facility we are constructing.
“The Global Centre of Rail Excellence is a place where the most creative and pioneering rail innovations will be tested and developed – a place where outstanding and creative research and development is undertaken. So it’s natural for GCRE to be a home to this fantastic Department for Business and Trade competition – a real chance to imagine the railway of tomorrow.
“Today we have given the teams their first look around the GCRE site where their innovations could be developed and deployed, and I think they all really benefited from seeing the landscape up close and where they will be working.
“These first phase projects are being developed as feasibility studies, with the opportunity of further funding to develop the best ideas onto the next level. This is a unique opportunity and everyone at GCRE is looking forward to working with the projects as they progress.”
The funding delivered through Innovate UK represents phase 1 of a potential 2-phase competition, with a number of successful projects progressing in 2024 to fully develop their ideas and to deliver a demonstration on the GCRE site
When it opens, GCRE will be a facility providing world class research, testing and certification of rolling stock, infrastructure and innovative new technologies that will fill a strategic gap not just in UK rail, but across Europe.
Kelvin Davies added:
“What has been most encouraging about the open day we have held is to see the broad range of ideas and innovations being developed and the enthusiasm that fuels the teams behind them.
“Part of what makes the Global Centre of Rail Excellence such a unique idea is that it gives innovators and research teams space and world class facilities with which to develop, refine and adjust their concepts. Something they might not have been able to do anywhere else.
“Today really did reinforce GCRE’s role in shaping the future of the railway – in helping support the ideas and the new technologies that can help decarbonise our railway, encourage modal shift and help develop more affordable and cost-efficient rail infrastructure.”
GCRE was established in 2021 with a commitment of £50 million from the Welsh Government.
The UK Government is supporting the project with funding for research and development along with capital funding of £20 million.
GCRE recently launched a major public procurement to attract private funding for the project.
Notes to editors:
A link to the competition details are here: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/1351/overview/bdd3a659-97a5-4fd2-8450-0244297defdb
Projects start: 1st May 2023 for 3 months, leading to a Phase 2 activity in late 2023 / early 2024.
The successful first phase projects and the lead organisations are:
| A Composite Twin Track Cantilever (CTTC) for Smarter Rail Electrification | ASSOCIATED UTILITY SUPPLIES LIMITED |
| Accelerating ultra low-carbon reinforced concrete in railway construction | BASALT TECHNOLOGIES UK LIMITED |
| Flywheel Energy Storage for Innovative Railway Construction | EPSILON TEN LTD |
| Mimicrete GCRE – Self Healing in Railway Practice. | MIMICRETE LTD |
| Graphene enhanced concrete sleeper for lower embodied carbon | NATIONWIDE RAIL LIMITED |
| NAUTILUS – Novel asset management twin and instrumentation system – feasibility study | Cranfield University |
| Protecting trains, staff, plant and infrastructure through construction and operation: A feasibility study into the application of Universal Interlocking on GCRE | SKYBLUE ENGINEERING LTD |
| GreenGasRefuel GCRE | ULTRA LIGHT RAIL PARTNERS LIMITED |
| Low Carbon Acoustic Barriers – Demonstrating Innovation in Railway Construction | TILON C G LTD |
| INTERMODAL – INTElligent Real-time, MOnitoring & Detection video AnaLytics solution for rail construction | ROBOK LIMITED |
| Global Centre of Rail Excellence: Underpass | HYPERTUNNEL LIMITED |
| Automated semantic scene content extraction for Security, Safety, Construction and Maintenance | ARALIA SYSTEMS LIMITED |
| Feasibility of delivering and demonstrating a human-in-the-loop digital twin in the construction and maintenance of GCRE (Athena) | PAULEY GROUP LIMITED |
| Attaining Ubiquitous Railway Analysis (AURA) | FOCUS SENSORS LIMITED |
| COst-Reducing Dynamic Electrification gradient System (CODES) | FURRER + FREY GB LIMITED |
| Innovative CAntilever for Greener Electrification at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence (ICAGE GCRE) | FURRER + FREY GB LIMITED |
| Safe Rail Vibrations | EFFICIENCY UPS LTD |
| Cable CoPS: Using Fibre Optic Cable for Construction Perimeter Security | THALES GROUND TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS LIMITED |
| Feasibility of the Use of Tethered and Automated Drones for Rail | DRONE EVOLUTION LIMITED |
| Renewable Power System Control Approach for GCRE | ENERAIL LTD |
| Gravity sensing for rail construction feasibility study | SILICON MICROGRAVITY LIMITED |
| TRACD – Transforming Rail Construction using Data: Digital frameworks for material efficiency and reducing carbon emissions | COSTAIN LIMITED |
| Mobile Rail Panel Handler (MoRPH) | THOMSON ENGINEERING DESIGN LTD |
| Delivering telecommunications innovations in Railway Construction at the GCRE | INGRAM NETWORKS LTD |
