Railway Challenge 2024: Last few spaces left for teams to register

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is delighted to invite teams of university students, apprentices and graduates working in industry to register for the next exciting season of this railway engineering competition.

With only a few places left for teams to register and take part in Railway Challenge 2024, now is the time to complete the registration form, download the competition documents and gather your team to start designing your miniature railway locomotive!

Participants will use their engineering knowledge on a project where they design and manufacture a miniature (10¼” gauge) railway locomotive in accordance with a strict set of rules and a detailed technical specification.

They will develop their business acumen as they share their work in the presentation challenges (business case, technical poster, innovation, design) and their practical skills will also be put to the test when they run their locomotive in the series of track-based events (auto-stop, ride comfort, energy storage, traction, noise, reliability, maintainability, refuelling).

Railway Challenge 2024 teams registered so far:

• Heriot-Watt University
• University of Sheffield
• FH Aachen & Reuschling
• Transport for London 
• Newcastle University 
• University of Derby/Alstom
• Network Rail and Colas Rail
• University of Birmingham
• University of Warwick
• Poznan University of Technology

We are also offering an ‘Entry Level’ option for the Railway Challenge. This is only open for teams from institutions which have not previously participated in the competition and the intention is that this provides teams with a stepping stone towards a full entry in a future year, where it may seem too daunting to both design and construct a locomotive within a single year.

Teams taking the Entry Level option are not required to manufacture a locomotive being only required to submit a design of their proposed loco. The design must follow all rules of the main competition, but Entry Level teams must also submit a CAD model to demonstrate the overall structure of their locomotive and a more detailed design of one chosen sub-system. Entry Level teams are still expected to compete in all the other presentation challenges.