28.10.16
Ricardo consortium picked to install LU track switch prototype
A consortium led by Ricardo Rail has been chosen to develop the first installation of the new track switch Repoint, developed by Loughborough University.
The consortium, which includes Progress Rail, DEG Signal and MPEC Technology, will now move onto the next stages of design, build and trial before the first full-scale Repoint installation is rolled out across London Underground infrastructure in early 2018.
Neil Webster, RSSB’s innovation programme director, said: “Our continued support for Repoint reinforces our belief in the technology and its potential to deliver real, tangible benefits to the future of the rail industry.”
The switch, funded by RSSB, uses a unique ‘lift, hop and drop’ mechanism that removes the friction experienced by the slide chairs used in traditional point machines – resulting in faster operation moving a switch in under half a second, as opposed to four seconds for traditional designs.
Professor Roger Dixon, head of the Control Systems Research Group at the university, discussed the development of the technology in the April/May edition of RTM, where he explained that “what began with an idea” eventually led to a change that breaks with 200 years of tradition.
In his article, he argues that the cost-effective technology can help “make track switch failures a thing of the past”.