Q: Please briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience within the railway industry and this event?
Rebeka Sellick, Cordel (RS): Sustainable transport is my passion: over 35 years ago I joined what was then British Rail to work for a bigger, better, greener railway. I am delighted to have put this event together, with such a great speaker line up - so we can all learn from each other and be re-inspired, despite the recent funding setbacks.
William Powrie, University of Southampton (WP): I am professor of geotechnical engineering at the University of Southampton, leading research into railway track and infrastructure including mitigating the impacts of climate change.
Richard Thorp, HS1 Ltd (RT): I have been in the rail industry for nearly 30 years working from at all levels from maintaining and fixing signalling systems to my current role as Director of Engineering & Technology for HS1, leading engineering and asset management activities for the asset owner of the UK’s only High Speed. I own the HS1 sustainability strategy and have learnt a huge amount since our sustainability journey started about 4 years ago, both on reducing the impact of our activities, and adapting to a changing climate.
Ian Robinson, Alstom (IR): I have over 20 years’ experience in the rail industry as a traction and rolling stock engineer. For the last six years I have worked for Alstom’s Services business in a number of roles all of which have involved developing solutions to decarbonise Alstom’s fleets worldwide. This has included battery electric, bi-mode, hybrid, hydrogen and greener diesel projects and tenders.
Colin Musisi, Porterbrook (CM): I am a Chartered development engineer who works in the strategy and sustainability team. My role involves leading and supporting the innovation pipeline as well as reviewing and supporting some technical solutions that could provide incremental improvements to our assets, including reviewing and exploring the impact on rolling stock from a climate change perspective.
Keith Pullen, Levistor (KP): Over a 40-year career in I have focussed on research and development of clean energy and transport technologies. Involvement with the rail industry has been intermittent but has increased during the last 5 years given the increasing urgency to decarbonise all sectors. Significant involvement followed initiation and participation in an RSSB supported consortium project to examine the potential of flywheels to reduce fuel consumption in diesel multiple units (DMUs). Project included Deutsche Bahn, Turbo Power Systems and Sellick Rail.
Q: What, in your experience, has been the biggest roadblock for realising sustainable railways?
RS: The UK has not managed to create and maintain long term consistent railway asset planning and delivery. We do not have the kind of consistent coherent organisational structures that would facilitate system optimisation through engineering application and innovation.
WP: Bureaucracy and multiple contractual interfaces.
RT: The biggest issue has been releasing the right capacity to think about the problem from all angles. Resource=cost but we have found that educating ourselves and thinking strategically has really paid off. We have focussed on delivering initiatives that have positive business cases which helps to get stakeholders on side and build positive momentum. Making the time available to get the right advice, think how to use it and plan effectively has been vital.
IR: The biggest roadblock to decarbonising existing traction and rolling stock has been in realising solutions that are attractive to our customer base yet achieve a positive cost benefit analysis within the remaining life of the fleet.
CM: In many ways the challenge has been that the starting point is quite high. Rail is an inherent environmental success as it only contributes 1.4% of the UK transport emissions, in this respect its harder to encourage people to support making further improvements, especially when the country faces other challenges and financial pressures…but the challenge as a country and as a planet that we face is significant and requires action at all levels.
KP: There is much less research and development funding in rail as compared to sectors such as automotive and aerospace which affects the development of low carbon technologies for rail. Added to this, diesel taxes are very low so the return on investment is poor for technologies offering fuel consumption reduction. One way to solve this problem is to transferring technologies from one sector to another as is the approach Levistor has adopted.
Q: What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's event?
RS: I’m keen to learn about the great engineering that’s happening – and to explore the Sustainable Rail Blueprint. I want to understand what’s practical, whether the case studies are transferable and how much difference we can make.
WP: I will be interested to hear other perspectives on the climate change challenge and what is being done to address it.
RT: Adaptation is a big topic and one that is continually front of mind. We are worryingly starting to see the impact of a changing climate on our assets and learning how others are approaching this, and planning financially will be really interesting. A good way of testing if we are doing enough!
IR: I am excited to discuss how the rail industry can work together to build a strategy for sustainability that considers the whole life cost and impact of operating rail vehicles and how we can achieve this through a mix of new rolling stock, upgrading existing rolling stock and changes to maintenance and operation.
CM: The railway system is made of several components: infrastructure, rolling stock, signalling and comms. I think that it will be exciting to see the amazing progress and plans in the different specialisms and seeing where there is cross over and how we can tackle the problems together.
KP: Although sustainability is much wider than energy saving, this is the area I am more interested in. I am interested in the Transport for London talk on cooling the underground, I am aware that trackside flywheel technology can be used to reduce the problem being safe to deploy underground. I am interested in talks about retrofitting of DMUs and experience of batteries in the rail industry.
Q: What would you say are the technologies or applications to watch for the future?
RS: I’m particularly interested in technologies which could unlock system optimisations like using passenger trains to monitor the infrastructure; and then really expert management of railway data to enable asset management to become increasingly proactive and cost-effective.
WP: There is a lot of excitement about automation, robotics and AI and while these will all have a role to play, we must not neglect fundamental understanding of physics-based engineering principles.
RT: There are technologies in the energy sector which are very interesting. Energy consumption is obviously high on an electric railway, and understanding what is available and cost effective to modernise our energy distribution system is always of interest.
IR: Most currently available technologies will have a place in achieving sustainability targets for railways. The key thing will be selecting the most appropriate technology for the specific application. For example, the technology chosen for a new fleet on particular route could be hydrogen fuel cell, the retrofit solution for an existing fleet on the same route could be greener diesel.
CM: The continued advances in remote condition monitoring (RCM) for new and older assets will help us gain better insight into railway behaviour and failure modes to levels never seen before. This additional information will give us the opportunity to build in resilience and improve the reliability of the rail system.
KP: Clearly, I would argue electric flywheel technology which can be trackside for electrified lines and on vehicle for non-electrified lines. To date, the only viable electrical storage technology has been Li-Ion batteries and for some applications these are well suited. For many others, this technology is far from optimal for reasons of too low C rate or fire risk.
Q: Who else are you most interested in hearing from on the programme?
RS: Realising the concept of joined up smart electrification energy management really excites me – an optimisation that would provide significant long-term benefits.
WP: Improved forecasting and development of a holistic, systems-based approach to risk, mitigation, and resilience.
RT: I am particularly looking forward to the afternoon sessions on reducing & smoothing rail system electricity demand peaks and the new technologies that are being considered. The role of innovation and new ideas is crucial if we are to play our part in reducing consumption.
IR: I am very interested in hearing we can make railway operations more resilient to climate change and particularly what part rail vehicle maintenance and modernisation can play in this.
CM: I’m excited to hear from Rebeka Sellick who has had a great understanding of the railway and innovated at several companies from concept to delivery. Listening to her opening remarks and views of the future will be very interesting.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to join this event?
RS: Engineers should join this conference to be (re-)inspired about railways, to discover changes we can deliver – and to be challenged to create more sustainable transport.
WP: Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. Engineers will be at the forefront of addressing it and it is vital we keep ourselves up to date with the latest thinking, science and understanding.
RT: All engineers need to take some time out to listen to others’ ideas and points of view. As I said, making the time to learn and think differently about problems is important if we are to make a difference.
IR: Rail will be a key part in us all achieving our sustainability targets and I am confident that we will see major changes in how we operate and maintain our rail fleets. The fleets themselves will also change significantly with new types being introduced and existing fleets being modified extensively. It will be an exciting time to work in the rail industry and there will be many challenging and rewarding projects to be a part of.
CM: The railway has had a tough couple of years post-Covid, Engineers and rail management have an opportunity to continue to build on and make the system more reliable and more effective to run in what will be an environmentally more challenging future. This seminar will help them build better foresight using the latest insight.
KP: It is important to be informed about the latest thinking in sustainable rail systems since this is the topic of greatest importance in the rail industry as with all engineering sectors.
The Adapting Railways for a Sustainable Future seminar will be taking place on 30 April 2024 at One Birdcage Walk, London.
Join this seminar to embrace:
- Rebalancing – the role of rail in freight and passenger transport (cross-industry policy and corporate case studies/vision)
- Resilience – Climate adaptation – understanding challenges, threats/ opportunities (climate change – extreme weather and seasonal forecasting; threats – flooding and subsidence; overheated passengers and buckling rails; opportunities to mitigate challenges – local sourcing, on-shoring supply chain, new materials for light-weighting)
- Realisation – case studies of engineering solutions for trains, track and across the railway system (trains cool air conditioning and waste management, infrastructure – effective “green not grey” lineside drainage, net-zero maintenance depots, smart infrastructure monitoring and energy management)
To book your place, please visit the event website.