Balfour Beatty Vinci JV is using Esri UK’s Site Scan for ArcGIS drone flight management and image processing on its section of the High Speed 2 project. Esri UK said drones are saving around £20 000 a year on monthly construction progress surveys compared to surveys and updating CAD models, and £30 000 a year by enabling a single drone operator to undertaken 3D volumetric measurements of aggregate stockpiles in 20 min rather than needing a full day to physically measure stockpiles.
East Midlands Railway and West Midlands Trains now offer app-based season tickets using Trainline’s sTickets time-limited barcode technology, which obtained Rail Delivery Group accreditation in May. Each operator can retail mobile barcode season tickets via its own app for any route that has been enabled for sTicket technology, including sections of Govia Thameslink Railway, Northern and TfW routes.
LNER is seeking start-ups and SMEs to join to its FutureLabs 2022 accelerator programme. Topics include: showing passengers that rail is the transport mode of choice by making it even more enjoyable and seamless; helping rail achieve net zero by 2050; delivering a safer travelling environment for all; exploring future tech. Applications close on August 5.
Stuart Hillmansen has been appointed as Professor of Railway Traction Systems at the University of Birmingham.
Network Rail has directly awarded ZF Services (UK) Ltd a £467 000 contract for the overhaul, commissioning, health checks and storage of ZF manufactured gearboxes fitted to 13 Windhoff Multi-Purpose Vehicles and five Plasser & Theurer tampers.
Cold liquid applied resin waterproofing, surfacing and protection specialist Triflex UK has launched a webpage dedicated to rail infrastructure products for ramps, walkways, platforms and roofs. ‘We can share our capabilities, showing projects at familiar main line stations such as Edinburgh Waverley and London Euston’, said Sales Director Tony Mills.
All of Greater Anglia’s West Anglia services are now operated by new Alstom and Stadler trainsets, following the withdrawal of the last inherited Class 317 EMUs at the end of July. Greater Anglia has now taken delivery of 131 out of the 191 new trains on order, and its last Class 321 EMUs are to be withdrawn in the first half of 2023, with the unrefurbished trains going sooner.
Responding to the House of Commons Transport Committee’s call for the government to reassess the Integrated Rail Plan, Logistics UK’s Director of Policy Kate Jennings has urged the Department for Transport to publish a rail freight strategy that includes ’a detailed assessment of how IRP will achieve greater capacity for rail freight’.
Aberdeenshire company Mackie’s 35 g chocolate bars will be included as part of Caledonian Sleeper’s in-room offering for Double and Club rooms, with the chocolate and crisps range available on the room service and Club Car menus.