IMechE Malaysia Railway Seminar Successfully Held in March 2022

Jointly organised by the IMechE Malaysia Branch, IMechE Monash University Malaysia Student Chapter and IMechE Universiti Malaya Student Chapter, a Railway Seminar was held on 29 March 2022.

This seminar welcomed all IMechE members with free of charge admission and saw more than 60 participants from across both east and west Malaysia.

IMechE Malaysia Branch member, Barry Gardner took the lead in preparing the seminar, planning for the contents, and sending invitations to vastly experienced speakers in the railway industry around the world. He has worked with the event organising committee for several months in preparation for the event. Initially, it was planned as a physical seminar, but was switched to online due to the prolonged ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia.

The organising committee was led by YunHang Mok, the current President of IMechE Monash University Malaysia Student Chapter, as the event director. Both the student chapters from Monash University Malaysia and Universiti Malaya met regularly via online platform with Barry and the IMechE Malaysia Branch Committee Members, namely Eddie Lim and TzeLing Lew, throughout the preparation period.

Thanks to the speakers from various countries, the participants were exposed to various aspects in the field of Railway Engineering as below:

• Barry Gardner based in Malaysia on “Rail Safety”
• Chandran Kumar based in Egypt on “Rolling Stock”
• Dave Horton based in United Kingdom on “Battery Train”
• Gary Moore based in United Arab Emirates on “Klang Valley MRT – Kajang Line to Putrajaya Line System Migration”
• Jack Tan based in Malaysia on “Signalling, Screen-Door Interface”
• Noel Devan based in Malaysia on “Kuala Lumpur International Airport Ekspress Engineering”

Both the student chapters cooperated well, and successfully made the online seminar a successful and fruitful program. It largely benefited the IMechE members, particularly to those with interests and curiosity to the field of Railway Engineering. A future follow-up railway technical talk may be in the plan based on the great interest demonstrated by the participants.