A University of Sheffield team has used first-class engineering skills to win a prestigious competition for future railway engineers.
The engineering students built their own miniature locomotive and competed in a series of trials against teams from across the world – and they won the Grand Champion prize – only the second UK university to win that coveted title.
Led by the International Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the competition requires that teams of young engineers design and build their own 10¼” gauge locomotive and compete in a series of both on and off-the-track trials.
These trials are designed to test their business knowledge, design talent, and practical engineering skills.
The focus is on helping young engineers develop practical skills beyond their degree programmes and set a solid basis for their future careers in engineering.
Another objective is to encourage more young people to pursue a career in rail.
The teams each had to design and build a miniature locomotive according to detailed technical specifications. The locomotives were then tested live at a competition weekend at Stapleford Miniature Railway in Leicestershire.
Several categories of winners were then selected, and an overall Railway Challenge champion – the Sheffield team – was crowned.
The Sheffield team also came first in a series of individual categories, including innovation, for which Sheffield put forward a new system for tackling leaves on the line – a vexing problem that causes delays and cancellations every autumn.
The organisers introduced four new challenges in this year’s competition, and Sheffield was the only team to successfully implement design solutions for, and compete in, all four of them.
Foremost among these was the “Auto-Stop” challenge.
The team scored a record performance in this one, which required the train to coast up towards a stop mark and bring itself to an automatic, controlled stop in exactly 25metres.
When it came to the locomotive heading out onto the track for its competition run, we were all a little nervous as we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs over the team’s 10 year history. But we have aimed to learn what we can from every experience and have put a lot of time and effort into this locomotive, which made it very rewarding to see the hard-work and lessons learned pay off as it performed near-flawlessly in every challenge.
Charlotte Currie, Team Principal of the Railway Challenge Sheffield team
Responses
I recall tests of a hydrogen fuel cell moco on the SMR some years ago now. It’s very reassuring to see UK Universities at the forefront of technological advances, especially in a industry which was once such a key part of our economic landscape. Now our government should stop pussyfooting around for fear of acolytes of division and doom and their delusional dogma, do right by those generations who will be needed if oir economy is to have any sort of future and rejoin Erasmus forthwith.
Lord Gretton is to be commended for making his garden railway (!) available for events such as this with real purpose.