Bolton-based Booth Industries has opened a 600 m2 factory unit to build more than 300 tunnel cross-passage safety doors which it is to supply for the High Speed 2 project under a £36·5m 10-year contract. ‘The skills required to deliver this project are highly specialised, including modelling the effect of a 200 mile/h wind load created by trains as they pass the doors at high speed, destructive testing for fatigue and fire-testing in furnaces’, said Managing Director Mike Jenkinson.
Mors Smitt’s Burton upon Trent factory is to supply AWS/TPWS and automatic power control systems for the Aurora trainsets which Hitachi Rail is building for East Midlands Railway. Forbo Flooring Systems in Ripley is supplying carpet designed to be easy to clean, hardwearing and simple to maintain.
Network Rail is undertaking a preliminary market consultation to help with developing its detailed requirements for Command Control & Signalling system works for Control Period 7 and beyond. NR is aiming to broaden the CCS marketplace in the UK, and is seeking input from any supplier with experience of ETCS design, construction and commissioning anywhere in the world. A Market Engagement Event is planned for December 20.
Teleste is to supply Alstom with more than 2 000 LED door displays for the refurbishment of Avanti West Coast Pendolino fleet.
Hannah Kingsley has been appointed as RSSB Chief Financial Officer with effect from January 1. She joins from Network Rail where she is currently Finance Director for the Anglia Route, and before that, held several roles at the Rail Delivery Group including Director of Commercial Service & Assurance and Head of Commercial Finance, and at Network Rail as Financial Controller for several of their business units.
Main contractor Geoffrey Osborne has completed a £5·2m upgrade at Maidstone East station, which includes a more spacious entrance and concourse with a waiting room, café and ticket office. Work is underway to increase parking and pedestrian access, including better lighting and CCTV.
A full-size mock-up produced as part of the development of the Stadler Class 777 EMUs for Merseyrail has gone to the National College for Advanced Transport & Infrastructure in Doncaster where it will be used as a learning aid and design tool. ‘Our level 4 Cert HE & level 5 Foundation Degree students were involved in the build which has recently been completed’, said Andy Gregory, Senior Curriculum Lead, Rolling Stock. ‘It has given the students a chance to look at the design and layout of the carriages and explore how these affect capacities, including disabled areas, areas for cycles and larger standing areas that are needed for urban rail lines. With the mock-up having fully operating doors and situated against a platform, they can see how access can be designed to make this easy for wheelchair-using passengers.’
The Rail Freight Group has appointed Martin Bignell as its Scottish & Northern Representative.