We would like to congratulate all our finalists on getting to this stage – the standard of entries has been higher than ever. Finalists wishing to book their tables can do so by clicking here or contacting a member of the team on: 0161 833 6320
UK Train Operators - Brand Reputation & Customer Advocacy
Chiltern Railways
Grand Central
London Overground
Virgin Trains
Virgin Trains East Coast
Apprenticeship Development Scheme
National Training Academy for Rail – Centre for excellence
NTAR, with its state-of-the-art facility based in Northampton, acts both as a UK flagship and an international centre of excellence for skills development and collaborative working in traction and rolling stock – addressing a skills gap that would otherwise become a barrier to both maintaining and growing the workforce.
Digital Rail, Network Rail and Arup – Future on Track
The ‘Future on Track’ initiative led by Digital Rail and its partners is an outstanding student placement initiative, developed to encourage the brightest and best 14-17-year-olds to consider a career in the rail industry.
NG Bailey – Training investment
NG Bailey’s industry-leading apprenticeship programme is backed by an investment of £3m a year in training and development. It has trained 5,700 apprentices and 10% of its employees are ex-apprentices.
Torrent Trackside
Torrent Trackside has been recruiting and training apprentices for over 40 years. It recognises the importance of developing young people’s skills and the part they have in addressing skills shortages within the industry.
Transport for London
To deliver the major reforms around apprenticeship, TfL reviewed its apprenticeship strategy taking into consideration both the emerging external position and the agreed strategic direction of the organisation.
TSP Projects – Enabling future generations
TSP Projects is passionate about investing in and enabling, future generations of designers and engineers, more than trebling its number of apprentices in the last three years.
Collaborative Working
Amey – World-class collaboration
Amey has been setting the standard for world-class industry collaboration through the S&C North Alliance with Network Rail and a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Leeds Beckett University.
Balfour Beatty – Crossrail assets
Working together with Network Rail, Balfour Beatty is rebuilding the station straddling the Greenwich and Bexley border and reconfiguring the track to accommodate the Elizabeth Line.
Cardiff Area Signalling Renewals Project – Improving Wales
January saw the completion of the biggest single-phase signalling commissioning undertaken by Network Rail alongside contractors on Cardiff Area Signalling Renewals Project, and has brought significant improvements to Wales.
IP Signalling Southern – Network Rail
Driven by the complexity of the project, Network Rail undertook principal contractor role on the CASR project, driving collaborative working through every stage of the project and working alongside suppliers in one office, with a one-team approach.
National College for High Speed Rail – Official launch
Collaboration has been at the heart of the development of the National College for High Speed Rail. The entry outlines how it has involved a wide range of stakeholders to successfully launch the college in 2017.
Northern Hub Alliance – Ordsall Chord
The Ordsall Chord links Manchester’s three principal mainline railway stations for the first time in history, facilitating far more services across the city and the north of England.
Unipart Rail/VolkerRail – OLE innovation
VolkerRail and Unipart Rail have transformed overhead line electrification by developing new, innovative solutions around pre-fabrication build, facilities and tracking of multi-assets.
Wessex Capacity Alliance – Waterloo capacity
The Wessex Capacity Alliance was set up to deliver enhanced capacity into Waterloo. Alliancing methodology has been used throughout the programme to achieve maximum efficiency and value for money.
Cost Base Reduction
ABB – RATS
ABB implemented Network Rail’s Rationalised Autotransformer System advanced protection and control scheme to significantly reduce circuit breakers on the Great Western Railway, reducing costs and ensuring fast fault clearance.
APM Structural Innovation Ltd – Improved safety
Safest Catch provides the client with improved safety on sites and huge cost saving benefits.
Great Western Railway – All-in-one system
GWR revolutionised and enhanced an all-in-one system that would not only drive down costs by around £300,000 a year, but would also improve efficiency without compromising safety.
Network Rail – Signalling Innovations Group
Network Rail’s Signalling Innovations Group create faster, smarter and safer ways of working, helping groups within the railway industry to significantly reduce the costs of projects.
Siemens Rail Automation – Dynamic Route Setting system
Siemens’ new Dynamic Route Setting system is both significantly cheaper and faster to install than traditional ARS systems, delivering benefits such as simplified route-setting and level crossing stop/non-stop facilities.
Turbo Power Systems – Innovative power supply
The replacement of motor alternator equipment with an innovative power supply will provide potential savings of over £1m to the operator, 15% in efficiency improvement and over 4kW energy saved per journey.
CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility
AECOM – Supporting autism
AECOM Nottingham supports the local autistic community with trips, visits and fundraising.
GoMedia Services Ltd – On-board entertainment
GoMedia works with rail operators to develop free on-board entertainment to increase passenger satisfaction and generate additional revenue streams using wi-fi infrastructure.
Heathrow Express – Community spirit
In the last year, Heathrow Express has worked with Paddington Partnership and Business in the Community to reignite its commitment to the local community in Paddington and improve staff morale.
McNicholas – Incentives
McNicholas adopted community-based incentives carried out alongside its normal project work to ensure that the local community not only benefits from it being there, but also remembers the long-term positive legacy of the project in both a reputational and tangible way.
Network Rail and Learn Live
Learn Live brings the world into the classroom to inspire and aspire the next generation through engaging and interactive live broadcasts.
Siemens Rail Electrification – West Dulwich
Siemens Rail Electrification team’s work on Sussex PSU West Dulwich sets a benchmark of how a rail electrification project and community need combine to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
Design Innovation
Abtus Ltd – Max
With network efficiency being increasingly critical, Abtus developed the ‘Max’ for identification and measurement of Cycle Top faults, which currently account for approximately one-third of all temporary speed restrictions.
Andreas Vogler Studio – AeroLiner3000
AeroLiner3000 is a new design for a fully compatible high-speed double-decker train for the UK network. It can run on HS2 as well as on all PG1 gauge infrastructure.
Aspin Group Ltd – R2R 4x4 SIV
Aspin leads the way in high-quality foundation, civil, geotechnical and structural engineering products and services for the rail, highways and infrastructure sectors. The innovative R2R 4x4 SIV overcomes a ban on link trolleys.
GoMedia Services Ltd
GoMedia works with rail operators to develop free on-board entertainment to increase passenger satisfaction and generate additional revenue streams using wi-fi infrastructure.
Resonate - TTP Editor
Resonate, Network Rail and Chiltern Railways have collaborated to design and create a digital timetable editing tool at Marylebone station. TTP Editor will improve train performance and reduce signaller workload.
Senceive Ltd – FlatMesh range
Senceive is at the forefront of smart infrastructure with its world-leading FlatMesh range. As a technology-driven organisation, it pushes innovations to meet the rapidly changing built environment.
Southco Manufacturing Ltd – VISE ACTION
Southco’s E3 VISE ACTION Compression Latch improves operational safety and saves cost through a more efficient maintenance procedure.
Turbo Power Systems – At-seat power supply
TPS designed an innovative, compact and highly efficient at-seat power supply that provides reliable and greener power to passengers to charge their laptops, mobile phones and tablets.
UK Rail Leasing Ltd – Tightlock
UKRL’s innovative design allows for the simple, safe and efficient operation of ‘Tightlock’ equipment on a traditional freight locomotive, enabling the move of electric units without need for translator vehicles.
Virgin Trains East Coast – Groundbreaking testing
VTEC’s project aim is to replace the traditional ultrasonic axle testing with a groundbreaking new in-service method using Eddy current testing and surface wave methods.
Digital Pioneer
ABB – RATS
ABB implemented Network Rail’s Rationalised Autotransformer System (RATS) advanced protection and control scheme to significantly reduce circuit breakers on the Great Western Railway, cutting costs and ensuring fast fault clearance.
Go-Ahead Group – KeyGo
Go-Ahead introduced KeyGo, the first UK national rail account-based ticketing product outside London using the ITSO key smartcard to align with the industry approach to smart ticketing.
GoMedia Services Ltd
GoMedia works with rail operators to develop free on-board entertainment to increase passenger satisfaction and generate additional revenue streams using wi-fi infrastructure.
Great Western Railway – Paperless staff management
GWR works with Sirenum to create a system that combines a real-time paperless roster and competency management system all into one place. It provides global and easy access and improves workforce safety with the customised modules.
MPT – Digital engineering
The MPT Trafford Park Line team has taken digital engineering to the next level by using collaborative BIM tools to leverage value from design through to construction and handover.
Network Rail and Learn Live
Learn Live brings the world into the classroom to inspire and aspire the next generation through engaging and interactive live broadcasts.
Network Rail – ORBIS project
A digital track decision support tool was designed to overhaul the way Network Rail analyses track data, leading to dramatic reductions in the levels of speed restrictions imposed on the railway.
TXM Plant & TXM Rail – TRACS
TRACS is the solution TXM Rail has developed for managing physical assets on the railway infrastructure.
Virgin Trains East Coast
VTEC has delivered a game-changing transformation of training and development technology, leading the way as it prepares its business for the Digital Railway.
Worldline – Alexa Skill
UK train travellers can work out complex timetables, and choose cheapest and quickest services, just by talking. Wordline’s pioneering Alexa Skill offers an exciting vision of tomorrow’s rail customer engagement.
Electrification
AECOM – Patchway Tunnels
AECOM supports Patchway Tunnels track lowering with intelligent Infrastructure monitoring.
Balfour Beatty and Network Rail – Crossrail West Outer Project
The Crossrail West Outer Project has achieved outstanding performance in delivering complex OLE to support the development of the wider Elizabeth Line project.
DW Studio – CGI animation
DW Studio worked with Network Rail to help deliver an important topic to a nationwide audience. Stylised CGI animation was used to deliver a series of engaging public information videos on electrification.
Furrer+Frey – OLE Scanner
OLE Scanner has been successfully used for the first time in the UK to produce a digital twin of the OLE installed in Crossrail tunnels, saving hundreds of man-hours.
Rail Electrification Alliance – ECML Power Supply Upgrade
Delivered by the Rail Electrification Alliance, Network Rail’s ECML Power Supply Upgrade Project is one of the only electrification schemes in CP5 to have met its regulated milestone.
Siemens Rail Electrification – West Dulwich
Siemens Rail Electrification team’s work on Sussex PSU West Dulwich sets a benchmark of how a rail electrification project and community need combine to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
Environmental & Sustainability
Alstom – Widnes
Alstom has opened the biggest and most sophisticated centre for train modernisation and training academy ever in the UK.
Balfour Beatty & Network Rail – Thameslink
Resource efficiency in the Thameslink Programme has been a key driver on the project, with dedicated targets set by both Network Rail and Balfour Beatty’s rail division.
Network Rail – Blackburn depot
Part of the Northern Programmes portfolio, the Blackburn depot is a first-class facility and carriage sidings which left a positive legacy in the area by working with the local community during construction.
Network Rail – Awareness through film
The Track Safety Alliance has produced two films raising awareness about Great Crested Newts and Japanese Knotweed within the Network Rail Infrastructure Projects (IP) track department, the TSA and further afield.
REGENESIS and WMTS – Depot clean-up
The two companies carried out remediation work at a traincare depot in the south of England to bring the site back within acceptable limits of environmental regulation, all without any disruption to mainline or depot train movements.
Siemens Rail Electrification – West Dulwich
Siemens Rail Electrification team’s work on Sussex PSU West Dulwich sets a benchmark of how a rail electrification project and community need combine to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
Transport for London – Carbon reduction
TfL incorporated carbon reduction as a fundamental success criterion for driving design improvements on a large infrastructure project to make station capacity upgrades more sustainable for the future.
Turbo Power Systems – Major efficiencies
TPS has been lowering the industry’s carbon footprint and providing major power conversion efficiency through more innovative and greener products, all while delivering £1m potential cost savings.
UK Power Networks Services – Polyfibre-reinforced concrete
An innovative engineer at UK Power Networks Services suggested using polyfibre-reinforced concrete to make the use of steel reinforcement bar redundant – eliminating the pollution caused when delivering it.
VolkerFitzpatrick Leadership Champions – Anglia Route Collaboration
Creating a strategy to deliver core sustainability goals on a £140m programme takes agility, skill and focus. Making small changes has transformed communities, improved value and left a legacy.
Infrastructure Planning
Alstom – Widnes
Alstom has opened the biggest and most sophisticated centre for train modernisation and training academy ever in the UK.
Balfour Beatty – Abbey Wood station and Crossrail West Outer
Balfour Beatty has meticulously transformed Abey Wood station into Crossrail’s southern terminus, as well as achieved outstanding performance in delivering complex OLE via the Crossrail West Outer project.
Network Rail – Queen Street station
Network Rail renewed the life-expired concrete slab track in the Glasgow Queen Street station tunnel ahead of electrified rolling stock being introduced in 2018 – a vital enabling project within the wider central Scotland electrification strategy.
Network Rail VolkerFitzpatrick – Cambridge North
Cambridge North station, the new city fringe transport hub devised by the county and district councils funded by the UK Government, was managed by Network Rail and built by VolkerFitzpatrick.
Northern Hub Alliance – Ordsall Chord
Hailed as a success story, the Ordsall Chord, delivered by the Northern Hub Alliance (Network Rail, Siemens, SkanskaBAM and Amey Sersa), is at the heart of the Great North Rail project.
Thameslink Programme – London Bridge
The Thameslink Programme will help London’s rail network meet the significant future demand challenges it faces. The London Bridge project is the most crucial and complex aspect of this overall programme.
Marketing & Communications
CrossCountry – Internal comms campaign
CrossCountry conducted an innovative internal communications campaign to engage with, and reassure, employees throughout negotiations with the DfT to secure an extension to the franchise agreement.
Heathrow Express – Holiday Hacks
Heathrow Express grew off-peak passenger journeys by targeting leisure passengers with a low-price message while protecting peak revenue. The early booking ‘Holiday Hacks’ campaign delivered an ROI of 8.9.
Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail – Choose the train
Iarnród Éireann is the national rail carrier for the Republic of Ireland. In 2016, it ran an engaging, disruptive and ultimately successful campaign to encourage students to choose the train.
Network Rail – Thameslink awareness
Network Rail coordinated a high-impact travel demand communications campaign, supporting the August 2017 Thameslink blockade to deliver 85% awareness with 20% behaviour change, whilst positively enhancing the reputations for Thameslink Programme partners.
Northern – Buy Before You Board
Northern’s Buy Before You Board campaign was developed to raise awareness of the requirement to buy a ticket and to generate digital tickets sales. Both objectives were definitely achieved!
Young Rail Professionals – National entity
YRP has grown as a national entity as a direct result of consistent marketing, brand promotion and communication of projects, such as Rail Week, all undertaken to inspire railway talent.
Mobile Technology
Colas Rail – Route Knowledge
Route Knowledge is an innovative project using smartphones, GPS and mapping technologies to visualise and record route and traction retention across Colas’ plant and freight businesses.
FindMyLost – Social lost & found
FindMyLost is the first social lost & found for business and consumer, the only platform that allows you to get your lost item back wherever you are, at any time.
GoMedia Services Ltd
GoMedia works with rail operators to develop free on-board entertainment to increase passenger satisfaction and generate additional revenue streams using wi-fi infrastructure.
Network Rail and Learn Live
Learn Live brings the world into the classroom to inspire and aspire the next generation through engaging and interactive live broadcasts.
Resonate – TTP Editor
Resonate, Network Rail and Chiltern Railways have collaborated to design and create a digital timetable editing tool at Marylebone station with mobile capability. TTP Editor will improve train performance and reduce signaller workload.
Team Technologies – GoldSTAR Mobile
GoldSTAR Mobile was designed to provide rail staff with a secure, portable, reliable, responsive and cost-effective tool in which they can access season ticket-related data and processes.
TXM Plant & TXM Rail – TRACS
TRACS is the solution TXM Rail has developed for managing physical assets on the railway infrastructure.
Virgin Trains – Amazing Apps
Virgin Trains has developed a creative suite of mobile technology called Amazing Apps, which enables its people to resolve customer problems at source and thus improves the overall customer experience.
Virgin Trains East Coast – Seatfrog
Seatfrog, an exciting new mobile app, is the brainchild of VTEC and the Australian start-up company Seatfrog. Think of it like eBay, but for trains!
White Hart Carw Gwyn Ltd – PicData
Tired of wasting time and money searching for site photographs? PicData stores and retrieves all your photographs by GPS location, date and identification tags displayed on a digital map – simple.
Operator of the Year
Chiltern Railways – Creating journeys that improve and inspire customers’ lives
Chiltern Railways runs regular services from London Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street to stations in Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire and the West Midlands.
Heathrow Express – Customer satisfaction
In 2017 Heathrow Express transformed customer service and grown passenger journeys by 9%. This spring, the National Rail Passenger Survey awarded it the UK’s top overall customer satisfaction score.
KeolisAmey Docklands – Service excellence
KAD is continually assessing and reviewing every aspect of the organisation to ensure it is doing everything it can to deliver service excellence through consistency of performance, reliability and customer service, while balancing the demands of growing customer numbers across its network.
MTR Crossrail – Transforming the railway
Since commencing operations of the TfL Rail route in May 2015, MTR Crossrail has completely transformed the railway, boosting performance, safety and customer experience across the route.
Pre Metro Operations Ltd - Stourbridge Shuttle
Pre Metro Operations Ltd is a TOC which has developed and implemented the Stourbridge Shuttle, a highly innovative and successful service using light technology on the rail network.
Outstanding Projects – Large (Over £20m)
Alstom – Widnes
Alstom has opened the biggest and most sophisticated centre for train modernisation and training academy ever in the UK.
Balfour Beatty and Network Rail– Crossrail West Outer Project
The Crossrail West Outer Project has achieved outstanding performance in delivering complex OLE to support the development of the wider Elizabeth Line project.
IP Signalling Network Rail – CASR Project
Completed in January 2017, the Cardiff Area Signalling Renewals Project was the largest single-phase signalling commissioning undertaken by Network Rail and contractors. The project has brought significant improvements around the Welsh capital.
Network Rail – Bromsgrove Corridor
The Bromsgrove Corridor project was much more than a ‘plain vanilla’ signalling renewal. It combined the renewal of signalling equipment approaching the end of its serviceable life with improvements which have transformed the rail service to Bromsgrove with the increased 3 TPH service, all with minimal disruption to users.
Network Rail VolkerFitzpatrick – Cambridge North
Cambridge North station, the new city fringe transport hub devised by the county and district councils funded by the UK Government, was managed by Network Rail and built by VolkerFitzpatrick.
Rail Electrification Alliance – ECML Power Supply Upgrade
Delivered by the Rail Electrification Alliance, Network Rail’s ECML Power Supply Upgrade project has achieved its regulated milestone, to time and within budget.
Northern Hub Alliance – Ordsall Chord
Hailed as a success story, the Ordsall Chord, delivered by the Northern Hub Alliance (Network Rail, Siemens, SkanskaBAM and Amey Sersa), is at the heart of the Great North Rail project.
Taziker Industrial Ltd – Tay Rail Bridge
The 4.4km-long Tay Rail Bridge is Taziker Industrial’s largest and most challenging project to date. The company’s multidisciplinary nature provided the best value and quality solutions during the works.
Thales & Weidmuller – London Underground resignalling
Thales is resignalling four London Underground lines. The lines must operate throughout the project and the new systems must last 40 years. Weidmüller enclosures are helping Thales meet these requirements.
Thameslink Programme – London Bridge
The Thameslink Programme will help London’s rail network meet the significant future demand challenges it faces. The London Bridge project is the most crucial and complex aspect of this overall programme.
Outstanding Projects – Medium (£3m-£20m)
Spencer Group – Penzance depot and Finsbury Park
Spencer Group is responsible for the £19m Penzance depot enhancement works project and the £20m Finsbury Park phase 2b project.
Story Contracting Ltd – Repair and track slab works
Story Contracting undertook repair works for over a year on the Settle-Carlisle line following a massive landslip in 2016, and renewed more than 1.2km of track slab across the Mersey Loop underground line in Liverpool over a five-month period.
Network Rail – River Witham
River Witham was a four-span £7m Underbridge reconstruction built in the heart of Lincoln during a nine-day blockade in August 2017.
Balfour Beatty – MPV contracts
Balfour Beatty has successfully delivered Kent and Sussex Multi-Purpose Vehicle contracts for Network Rail since 2013 to tackle the seasonal infrastructure performance challenges that the organisation faces every year.
Outstanding Projects – Small (Under £3m)
AECOM – Patchway Tunnels
AECOM ensured the safety of staff undertaking track lowering work in the confines of a tunnel through ‘live’ monitoring of tunnel stability.
Kier Infrastructure and Overseas Ltd – Ashtead level crossing
Kier renewed the Ashtead level crossing to increase reliability. It was completed with zero accidents and received positive feedback from the transport secretary.
Young Rail Professionals – Rail Week
Rail Week is a pan-industry collaborative effort led by Young Rail Professionals aimed at celebrating rail, bridging the sector’s looming skills gap and inspiring the next generation of rail professionals.
Network Rail – Signalling Innovations Group
Network Rail’s Signalling Innovations Group projects may be small in scale, but they have a huge impact, creating safer, smarter and faster ways of working within the industry.
Network Rail – Tail lamp camera
Network Rail’s Signalling Innovation Group developed the tail lamp camera, a small project with a huge impact. It has created safer, smarter and faster ways of working across the industry.
Rhodar Ltd – Asbestos removal
Rhodar undertook a complex project that required innovation at every stage, from collaborative planning, design and development, through to procurement and removal of all asbestos in a HST maintenance shed.
Virgin Trains – Smarter Working
Virgin Trains’ Smarter Working project represents a groundbreaking suite of software tools that have boosted employee productivity, mobility and collaboration, making it more responsive to customer need.
Virgin Trains East Coast – Platform X
Platform X was created as a way to harness ‘open innovation’ to inspire and connect VTEC to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and in doing so help solve real business challenges.
Passenger safety
Northern – TravelSafe
In the Arriva Rail North franchise agreement, which went live on 1 April 2016, there was a committed obligation to ensure a team of 55 full-time TravelSafe officers.
Hammond ECS Ltd – Mountbridge
Hammond’s Mountbridge platform system overcomes passenger train interface issues on existing platforms by allowing adjustment in platform height and over sail, minimising the stepping distance between the platform and train.
KeolisAmey Docklands – Your Time for Safety
Your Time for Safety has delivered significant benefits for KAD’s customers and workforce. This was the result of a clear strategy and framework that firmly places safety as its number one priority.
Southco Manufacturing Ltd – VISE ACTION
Southco’s E3 VISE ACTION compression latch with bistable cap alerts when a panel is not closed. A flip-open cap refuses to close and stays open at 90 degrees if latch is open.
Trans Data Management Ltd – Help Point
TDM’s Help Point is designed with passenger safety in mind, reliability and usability being key objectives. It was developed to meet the needs of the passenger and the aims of the operators.
Virgin Trains East Coast – Right Time Right Way
At Virgin, they shake things up. ‘Right Time Right Way’, supported by Close Call, shifts the focus from when things go wrong to VTEC’s everyday safety successes.
Product and Service Innovation – Product
Abtus Limited – Max
With network efficiency being increasingly critical, Abtus developed the ‘Max’ for identification and measurement of Cycle Top faults, which currently account for approximately one-third of all temporary speed restrictions.
DILAX – Citisense
DILAX Citisense software manages, aggregates and evaluates classic passenger counting data; takes additional internal and external data into account; identifies, analyses and interprets relationships between these data; and determines predictions.
Hammond ECS Ltd – Mountbridge
Hammond’s Mountbridge platform system overcomes passenger train interface issues on existing platforms by allowing adjustment in platform height and over sail, minimising the stepping distance between the platform and train.
Network Rail – Challenging existing methods
Network Rail’s Signalling Innovation Groups develop tools and systems as a continued commitment to improvement and innovation. Challenging existing methods has resulted in safer, smarter and faster ways of working
Pandrol – Re System
Pandrol’s ‘Re’ System is an innovation aimed at extending the life of track components and simplifying the installation process. The result is a faster, more cost-effective installation, with fewer components to handle.
Rail Electrification Alliance – Air insulated switchgear
To deliver Network Rail’s ECML Power Supply Upgrade project, the Rail Electrification Alliance turned to a new air insulated switchgear solution, new to the UK rail network.
Siemens Rail Automation – Futureproofing
Siemens has introduced an innovative, network-based, signalling object control technology that enables the railway to be upgraded in a way that increases performance, reduces costs and futureproofs the signalling system.
Train Bits & More – Slimline power socket
TBM has delivered an innovative slimline power socket with a USB slot to allow transport operators to install passenger power points in almost any carriage space.
Turbo Power Systems – DC-DC power module
TPS created an innovative DC-DC power module (100kW/200kW) that provides 96% to 98% efficiency of power conversion and robust galvanic isolation between input/output stages of large rail power conversion systems, ensuring required protection for all associated equipment.
Zipabout – Transport data aggregation
The company created a groundbreaking transport data aggregation and communication platform which enables rail operators to gather and process passenger behavioural information, deliver individually personalised communications, predict service disruption and optimise network capacity.
Product and Service Innovation – Service
Aspin Group Ltd – R2R 4x4 SIV
Aspin leads the way in high-quality foundation, civil, geotechnical and structural engineering products and services for the rail, highways and infrastructure sectors. The innovative R2R 4x4 SIV overcomes a ban on link trolleys.
GoMedia Services Ltd
GoMedia works with rail operators to develop free on-board entertainment to increase passenger satisfaction and generate additional revenue streams using wi-fi infrastructure.
Network Rail and Learn Live
Learn Live brings the world into the classroom to inspire and aspire the next generation through engaging and interactive live broadcasts.
Network Rail – Tail lamp camera
Network Rail’s Signalling Innovations Group’s tail lamp camera was developed through continued commitment to improvement and innovation. Challenging existing methods has resulted in safer, smarter and faster ways of working.
Plowman Craven – Vogel R3D
Vogel R3D is a high-accuracy rail surveying solution that uses drones to remotely capture 3D data of the rail environment without the need to access tracks.
Unipart Rail and Freightliner – Operating depot stores
Unipart Rail and Freightliner have developed a completely new way of operating a depot store based on delivery of parts to the point of use that increases operational efficiency and saves significant costs.
Virgin Trains – Mobile EPOS and Station of the Future
Virgin Trains implemented the first full-function, mobile EPOS solution in the UK rail sector, as well as redesigned station layout, aesthetics, services and technology use across stations to increase staff-customer interaction.
White Hart Carw Gwyn Ltd – PicData
Tired of wasting time and money searching for site photographs? PicData stores and retrieves all your photographs by GPS location, date and identification tags displayed on a digital map – simple.
Rail Research and Innovation Implementation
FirstGroup – Track circuit tool
FirstGroup led and supported development of a track circuit actuator risk advisor tool to minimise service disruption due to TCA failures and adopted the output, reducing train delays and cancellations.
Freyssinet – ElevArch
The company created a cutting-edge system designed to avoid the unnecessary demolition and reconstruction of historic masonry arch bridges as part of electrification schemes throughout the UK.
GOBOTiX Ltd – VUES
Vehicle Underframe Examination System (VUES), an automatic railway vehicle inspection system, uses an array of multi-spectral cameras to detect and report physical/thermal changes and anomalies.
National Skills Academy for Rail – Skills Intelligence Model
The SIM does two things brilliantly: it assesses the characteristics of today’s industry workforce (for age, gender, regional spread, skill level and work type) and then accurately forecasts the future required workforce.
Siemens and South Western Railway – Variable stiffness bushes
Working alongside Network Rail, Siemens designed and introduced variable stiffness bushes for SWR’s Class 444 and 450 units. The bushes maintain passenger comfort while significantly reducing track damage.
Recruitment Excellence
Colas Rail – Future leaders
A quarter of Colas Rail’s leaders hail from its Future Leaders Programme, and the graduate & apprentice programmes the company runs are equally as important to closing the skills gap facing the industry.
MPI Ltd – Trainee Installer Programme
The MPI Rail recruitment team has worked tirelessly on finding the right candidates for the Trainee Installer Programme. Since 2012, over 50 individuals have progressed through the scheme.
National Skills Academy for Rail – Skills Intelligence Model
The SIM does two things brilliantly: it assesses the characteristics of today’s industry workforce (for age, gender, regional spread, skill level and work type) and then accurately forecasts the future required workforce.
National Training Academy for Rail – Centre for excellence
NTAR, with its state-of-the-art facility based in Northampton, acts both as a UK flagship and an international centre of excellence for skills development and collaborative working in traction and rolling stock – addressing a skills gap that would otherwise become a barrier to both maintaining and growing the workforce.
Network Rail – Future on Track
The ‘Future on Track’ initiative led by Digital Rail and its partners is an outstanding student placement initiative, developed to encourage the brightest and best 14-17-year-olds to consider a career in the rail industry.
Torrent Trackside – Apprenticeship training
Torrent Trackside has been recruiting and training apprentices for over 40 years. It recognises the importance of developing young people’s skills and the part they have in addressing skills shortages within the industry.
Transport for London – Apprenticeship strategy
To deliver the major reforms around apprenticeship, TfL reviewed its apprenticeship strategy taking into consideration both the emerging external position and the agreed strategic direction of the organisation.
Signalling and Telecommunications
Comtest Wireless – NetProbe Analytics
NetProbe Analytics is a powerful software platform for troubleshooting GSM-R and signalling issues. It provides the capability to simplify and automate labour-intensive tasks and automatically produce engineering and management reports.
Fenix Signalling – Banbury depot
Like in most industries, the success of railway engineering projects is built on the relationships between the different contractors and suppliers involved. To achieve the required level of quality sometimes involves going the extra mile – or, in the case of Fenix Signalling at Banbury depot, several thousand miles.
Linbrooke Services Ltd – Bromsgrove Corridor
Linbrooke delivered the Bromsgrove Corridor resignalling telecoms, improving efficiencies by providing a highly resilient, scalable telephone concentrator and a compatible large bandwidth, high-speed IP/MPLS/Ethernet network, designed to facilitate the digital railway and ERTMS.
Siemens – Transformational resignalling
Bromsgrove Corridor resignalling was not simply a renewal between Birmingham and the south west: the scheme transformed rail services to the town of Bromsgrove and implemented new Digital Railway forerunner technologies.
Siemens Rail Automation & London Underground – 36 TPH
The Victoria Line delivers a world-class 36 TPH service – that’s one train arriving at each station every 100 seconds during peak periods, a result of three major upgrade programmes.
Subcontractor of the year
Aspin Group Ltd – R2R 4x4
Aspin leads the way in high-quality foundation, civil, geotechnical and structural engineering products and services for the rail, highways and infrastructure sectors. The innovative R2R 4x4 SIV overcomes a ban on link trolleys.
Cabfind – Taxi service
With years of experience working with rail organisations, Cabfind is the UK’s leading managed taxi service, providing mobility solutions to get people to the right place at the right time.
Hammond ECS Ltd – East Croydon station
Hammond ECS Ltd’s approach to innovation, safety and sustainability enabled the main contractor BAM Nuttall to successfully complete two platforms as part of the East Croydon station regeneration programme.
Vector Foiltec – Carlisle station
Vector Foiltec successfully handled the renovation of the Carlisle train station roof. The station remained open during works and is a project which was categorised as “emergency works” by Network Rail.
Track Technology
Abtus Limited – Max
With network efficiency being increasingly critical, Abtus developed the ‘Max’ for identification and measurement of Cycle Top faults, which currently account for approximately one-third of all temporary speed restrictions.
Aspin Group Ltd – R2R 4x4 SIV
Aspin leads the way in high-quality foundation, civil, geotechnical and structural engineering products and services for the rail, highways and infrastructure sectors. The innovative R2R 4x4 SIV overcomes a ban on link trolleys.
Furrer+Frey – OLE Scanner
OLE Scanner has been successfully used for the first time in the UK to produce a digital twin of the OLE installed in Crossrail tunnels, saving hundreds of man-hours.
Network Rail – ORBIS project
A digital track decision support tool was designed to overhaul the way Network Rail analyses track data, leading to dramatic reductions in the levels of speed restrictions imposed on the railway.
Network Rail – Western Pandrol Knocker
Western Pandrol Knocker is a simple manual method of protecting track workers from flying Pandrol clips, initially developed by maintenance delivery staff and innovated by Jafco Tools Ltd.
Senceive Ltd – FlatMesh
Senceive is at the forefront of smart technology and amongst the world leaders in wireless RCM due to its FlatMesh platform.
TXM Plant & TXM Rail – TRACS
TRACS is the solution TXM Rail has developed for managing physical assets on the railway infrastructure.
Traction & Rolling Stock
Furrer+Frey – Temple Mills depot
Furrer+Frey has electrified all eight roads of Temple Mills depot with its innovating moveable overhead conductor-rail system, which enables safe access for train maintenance.
GoMedia Services Ltd
GoMedia works with rail operators to develop free on-board entertainment to increase passenger satisfaction and generate additional revenue streams using wi-fi infrastructure.
Turbo Power Systems – Innovative power supply
The replacement of motor alternator equipment with an innovative power supply will provide potential savings of over £1m to the operator, 15% in efficiency improvement and over 4kW energy saved per journey.
Training & Development
Colas Rail – Future leaders
A quarter of Colas Rail’s leaders hail from its Future Leaders Programme, and the graduate & apprentice programmes the company runs are equally as important to closing the skills gap facing the industry.
Mott MacDonald – Leader training
The Railways Division Team Leader Training fosters the development of a collaborative community. It applies a variety of innovative learning methods to develop the leadership and management skills of technical experts.
MPI Limited – Trainee Installer Programme
MPI’s Trainee Installer Programme was initially introduced in 2012 to bring local labour to projects and increase the skilled labour pool within the signalling installation sector.
Rail Delivery Group – ERTMS Experience Exchange
The ERTMS Operational Specialist Experience Exchange is a unique cross-industry collaboration aiming to maximise the lessons learned from the Cambrian route. It allows qualified managers from other railway undertakings to learn and drive ETCS.
Virgin Trains East Coast – Project AURA
VTEC has delivered a game-changing transformation of training and development technology in the rail industry. This innovative project has introduced new technology that is groundbreaking for UK and world rail.
Young Rail Professionals – Development opportunities
To enhance and inspire its members, Young Rail Professionals delivers networking and professional development opportunities including technical seminars, presentations, site visits and networking socials across the UK.
Workforce Safety
APM Structural Innovation Ltd – Safest catch
APM’s new containment initiative product, the Safest Catch, is designed to reduce the risk of staff being struck by falling debris during masonry maintenance works.
Balfour Beatty – Close Call
Balfour Beatty has significantly improved its methods to make the workplace safer in full support of the rail industry’s initial Close Call procedure.
Colas Rail UK – CARL
Safety is at the forefront of everything Colas does, and CARL (Call, Action, Report, Learn) is an app designed to reinforce positive safety behaviors and culture changes with staff, subcontractors and customers.
DADM Enterprises – The After-Hours Safety System
The After-Hours Safety System automates procedures through the use of geo-fencing and telecommunication technologies. The innovation monitors the safety of workers and contractors who are exposed to isolation and is also applicable to remote workers.
Fugro – RILA technology
Fugro’s RILA technology is a remote, train-mounted survey system delivering Band 1A accuracy data of the rail corridor. It directly addresses workforce safety by removing surveyors from the live railway.
Keolis Amey Docklands – Safety framework
The company developed a framework for a programme of activities to promote the importance of safety and increase incident reporting to engage the KAD workforce, which ultimately delivered a robust safety culture across the business.
Network Rail – Tail lamp camera
Network Rail’s Signalling Innovations Group developed the tail lamp camera to push towards an improved commitment to safety. It removes staff from the live railway environment for faster, smarter ways of working.
S&C South Alliance – Focus on Safety
The S&C South Alliance developed the Focus on Safety campaign, which has transformed the organisation’s safety performance in 2017 by achieving an improvement of over 80% compared to 2016.
Taziker – Big data
Taziker Industrial’s normalisation of big data and data visualisation can enable visibility of incident trends in order to improve workforce safety.
Virgin Trains East Coast
At Virgin, they shake things up. ‘Right Time Right Way’, supported by Close Call, shifts the focus from when things go wrong to VTEC’s everyday safety successes.
Young Rail Professional – Female
Network Rail – Jo Meaney
Jo’s drive, steely determination and faith in her abilities has allowed her to reach a high point in her career at a young age. She is a positive influence and role model to her peers.
SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit – May-Ann Lew
May-Ann is constantly exceeding expectations and driving towards excellence – in her day-to-day work, within her numerous societies and committees, and in her mentoring and coaching of younger engineers.
Weston Williamson + Partners – Ivana Plechacova
Ivana is a passionate and dedicated architect whose aptitude and enthusiasm for new techniques is inspirational. Her wide-ranging skills, including 3D modelling and visualisation, have led to significant bid wins.
Young Rail Professional – Male
Northern – James Brooke
James is one of the standout young people working in Northern. His hard work, dedication and commitment to excellence mean that he has become a role model to young people across the industry, making him a worthy candidate for this award.
Transport for London – Gregory Strong
A young engineer who has demonstrated an objective and pragmatic approach that is achieving cost savings, even with the business expanding and customers expecting high standards.
Weston Williamson + Partners – Tim Bergin
Tim has the leadership and problem-solving skills required for the complex rail industry. He has an aptitude for finding simple solutions to complex problems through working with multidiscipline teams.
