Leeds University has announced it is investing £10million to developing the UKs first dedicated centre for high speed rail travel.

Leeds says it will offer the ‘complete system’ to High Speed Rail engineering.

The new centre will include a test facility to test the new trains.

Leeds Uni hopes the new centre will offer the equipment for braking, senors, digital systems and performance and hopes to increase the safety level of high speed rail.

Leeds is located correctly for High Speed Rail as it is at the centre of HS2s Yorkshire hub.

The HS2 stock depot is also located east of leeds.

Professor Lisa Roberts from the University of Leeds, said “This is a timely investment in this Institute, supporting not only the development and construction of the UK’s high speed network, but also positioning the region and the UK as pioneers in modern high speed rail technologies. We now have a genuine opportunity to forge ahead and be a global leader in a high speed rail market that is expanding rapidly across the world. We now have a genuine opportunity to forge ahead and be a global leader in a high speed rail market that is expanding rapidly across the world.”

The UK is investing £12billion a year into its railways. High Speed Rail is expecred to be an investment of around £380 billion by 2022.

The new institute will focus on:-

1. Design and construction of rolling stock – this will include testing of tack under speed to make sure the trains are correctly designed.
2. Development of new techonologies – such as low cost titanium
3. System maintenance
4. Digital engineering – including robotics
5. Economics – such as new pantographs

We look forward to seeing what new centre brings to the north of england.

• Visit the University of Leeds Website
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