Institution news
The fh2rail team, who won Railway Challenge in 2022, have done so again winning the 15th IMechE Railway Challenge.
Coming in at second place were the Railway Challenge at Sheffield (RCAS) team from the University of Sheffield with the PUTrain team from Poznań University of Technology landing third place overall.
Open to teams from institutions which have not previously participated in the competition providing teams with a stepping stone towards a full entry in a future year, the Entry Level winners are ISTrain from Instituto Superior Técnico at the University of Lisbon. The ISTrain team impressed by winning several of the presentational challenges open to Entry Level teams including being outright winners of the Computer Aided Design and Business Case challenges. They also won the best Entry Level awards for the Innovation and Technical and Aesthetic Poster challenges.
For the third year running a team from outside of Europe has taken part with Monash University's Monash Railway Express joining us all the way from Melbourne, Australia. Returning as Standard Level competitors this year alongside the Guided Ways Railway Challenge (GWRC) team from ESTACA, France after competing in last year's Railway Challenge Entry Level competition, Monash Railway Express won the best Design award and finished fourth overall - a highly impressive achievement for a team competing for the first time in the Standard Level category.
For the second year running, we have run optional 'Ride-on locomotive challenge' which sees drivers riding on the locomotives rather than operate them from a coach behind the locomotive, this challenge was won by RCAS from the University of Sheffield who also won the Auto-Stop and Remote Data Recording challenges and were co-winners of the Reliability challenge alongside Network Rail, FH Aachen's fh2rail, Monash University's Monash Railway Express, TH Nürnberg's Team EAGLE and Poznań University of Technology's PUTrain.
Railway Challenge 2026 Entry Level winners - ISTrain, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon.
Well done to all of the teams who took part in the 2026 Railway Challenge and thank you to our sponsors Angel Trains, Ansys, RSSB, our supporter Network Rail as well as the Pamela and David Rollin Foundation.
The full list of Railway Challenge 2026 competition category winners are listed as follows in addition to the overall results including track, optional and presentational challenges:
Overall winners
- Grand Champion: fh2rail, FH Aachen
- Runner-up: Railway Challenge at Sheffield, The University of Sheffield
- Third place: PUTrain, Poznań University of Technology
- Best Entry Level team: ISTrain, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
Main on-track challenges
- Auto-Stop: Railway Challenge at Sheffield, The University of Sheffield
- Ride Comfort: fh2rail, FH Aachen
- Energy Storage: fh2rail, FH Aachen
- Traction: PUTrain, Poznań University of Technology
- Reliability: Network Rail, PUTrain, Poznań University of Technology; RCAS, The University of Sheffield; Monash Railway Express, Monash University; fh2rail, FH Aachen; Team EAGLE, TH Nürnberg
- Maintainability: fh2rail, FH Aachen
Optional challenges
- Autocoupler: PUTrain, Poznań University of Technology
- Aerodynamic Drag: PUTrain, Poznań University of Technology
- Ride-on Locomotive: Railway Challenge at Sheffield, The University of Sheffield
- Location Announcement: Team EAGLE, TH Nürnberg
- Remote Data Recording: Railway Challenge at Sheffield, The University of Sheffield
Presentational challenges
- Design: Monash Railway Express, Monash University
- CAD: ISTrain, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
- Business Case: ISTrain, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
- Technical and Aesthetic Poster: Standard Level category - Monash Railway Express, Monash University; Entry Level category - ISTrain, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
- Innovation: Standard Level category - Team EAGLE, TH Nürnberg; Entry Level category - ISTrain, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
Table 1: Raw scores for the track challenges
Table 2: Team rankings for each challenge together with overall ranking and scores
