Student engineers to compete to build best locomotive at this year’s Railway Challenge

Eleven UK teams and one from Germany will compete to build the best locomotive at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Railway Challenge 2017

Twelve student engineering teams are gearing up to compete in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Railway Challenge in July at the Stapleford Miniature Railway near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

The competition will see 12 teams compete against each other to design and manufacture the best, most innovative, efficient and quietest small-scale locomotive. The teams competing this year are:

Alstom UK & Ireland   

University of Birmingham

Bombardier/Derby University

Brunel University

FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences

Manchester Metropolitan University      

University of Huddersfield (winners in 2013)

SNC-Lavalin (winners in 2012 and 2016)

University of Sheffield

University of Southampton

TfL (winners in 2014 and 2015)

WMG, University of Warwick

Philippa Oldham, Head of Transport and Manufacturing at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said:

“The Railway Challenge gives competitors a fantastic chance to test their engineering skills and get the hands-on experience of what’s needed to make a locomotive from start to finish.

“The competition is run along the lines of a real-life tendering process, and teams have to prepare a business case, finance, design, and build a locomotive from scratch.

“Each year the entries impress the judges with new innovations, of particular note are the solutions proposed for the energy storage and energy efficiency challenges. These are two big issues currently being faced by manufacturers and so solving these challenges could mean that these young engineers could help to revolutionise our modern railways.

“This year looks set to be a tight contest, with more teams than ever and three previous winners taking part.”

The competition comprises of a series of track based and presentation challenges, including a design report and an ‘Innovation Challenge’ which involves the production of an academic paper on the innovations in the loco. The track based challenges include: energy storage, traction, ride comfort, noise, maintainability and energy efficiency.

The locomotives that will be competing are designed to work on 10¼” gauge railway line and must be powerful enough to transport a 600kg load – including one of the Railway Challenge judges.

The competition will take place from Thursday 29 June to Sunday 2 July 2017 at Stapleford Miniature Railway in Leicestershire.