30 Years of QTS

Having just celebrated its 30th birthday, QTS is now well known for its rail infrastructure work. Not so well known is the origin of the initials that make up its company name which show the company’s origins. To find out more, Rail Engineer was glad of the opportunity to meet the company’s founder Alan McLeish and Engineering and plant compliance manager, Adrian Phillips at QTS’s base in Drumclog, South Lanarkshire.

Alan was 32 years old when he founded the company. As a teenager he had a job as a seasonal gardener and soon started working in forestry when he qualified as a tree surgeon. Doing this work, he developed his love and understanding of the natural world. Based in Ayrshire, he did a lot of tree surgery work for local Councils in the early 1990s. It was then he became aware of the business opportunity of rail vegetation clearance.

Quality Tree Surgeons
With a small loan from his mum, Alan took the plunge and founded Quality Tree Surgeons in 1992 to do rail vegetation work. Initially, he hired the required plant and in 1997 bought a Road-Rail Unimog. In 2000, QTS acquired Rench Farm at Drumclog, a remote site in the moors 20 miles south of Glasgow. It then had more than 40 employees and became a limited company. This move provided a much-needed base, helped the company expand its rail infrastructure work, and gave everyone a strong direction.

Alan explained that, when QTS moved to Rench Farm, it had separate divisions for construction, civil engineering, and rail. Of these, the rail business had strong growth whilst the other divisions were not so profitable. In 2011, he took the decision to wind up the construction and civil engineering divisions. Staff were then given the option to transfer to the QTS rail business. As a rail-only business, the company then went from strength to strength. This was helped by QTS getting its Principal Contractor’s licence from Network Rail around this time.

With the acquisition of Rail Electrification Ltd in June 2021, QTS added electrification to its portfolio. 

Over its 30 years, QTS has grown from its original roots in tree surgery to a company undertaking all forms of rail infrastructure work that has seven offices nationwide, almost 600 employees, and a turnover of more than £100 million. Of this, vegetation work accounts for less than 20% and civil engineering is more than 50%. The remaining work consists of fencing, drainage, plant hire, electrification, isolations, and training.

Alan believes that the key reason for QTS’s success is the importance it places on investing in people to attract, retain, and reward talent. He advises that the company’s board have all worked their way up internally within the business. This ‘hands on’ experience also gives the company the agility that he considers to be essential. This enables QTS to invests millions of pounds each year on plant innovation which is one of Alan’s personal passions.

Plant innovation
It was clear from our discussion that Alan and Adrian work very much as a team to develop innovative rail plant, particularly for vegetation work. Alan has much experience of vegetation clearance equipment mounted on large forestry machines and the two work together to overcome the challenge of mounting such kit on on-track plant. Adrian explained that in planning these machines, there is a lot to consider, including ensuring that each machine fits within the railway loading gauge and can provide a stable platform when operating on the relatively narrow track gauge.

Over the last 30 years, QTS has developed various unique items of on-track plant for vegetation clearance work, including the original Mega Chipper. Also, part of the fleet are Forwarders, a Compactor, and a Baler. In forestry work, a Forwarder is a vehicle that carries felled logs clear of the ground to an unloading point or is used together with other machinery. The rail Forwarder that has been developed by QTS features the power of the Mega Chipper V2 mounted onto the back. This allows the Forwarder to chip 150m3 per hour.

QTS’s first Mega Chipper was developed in 2015 and has a 27-inch chipper powered by a 300hp engine. Feedback from its operators was used to produce the Mega Chipper V2 which was introduced in 2021. This has a 460hp engine which has an output of 150 cubic metres per hour and so can chip a 40-foot tree in under 60 seconds. It also has a metal detector which stops the machine if, say, a Pandrol Clip is about to be fed into the chipper. For smaller vegetation clearance work, QTS has several Road Rail Unimogs which have been adapted to carry a front-mounted Ducker Chipper.

Forestry management
Where it is acceptable to do so, the Mega Chipper can spread chips to a 100mm depth. However, where chipping is not permissible, the vegetation Compactor comes into its own. This was introduced by QTS in 2020 and is secured to a standard trailer with ISO twist locks. It is the only plant of its kind currently operating on the UK rail infrastructure. The Compactor works in conjunction with a Liebherr Road Rail Excavator with a tree shear attachment that can remove vegetation up to 400mm in diameter up to eight metres from track without need for manual felling with no impact on lineside ground or drainage.

The Compactor has moveable sides which open to receive vegetation from the excavator and then close to compress it to an in-gauge load before more vegetation is received. In this way, it can hold 10 times the volume of a traditional trailer. Once the Compactor has moved the removed vegetation off site it can be processed with whole tree chippers and potentially used as biofuel. This process is a better option than noisy chainsaws as it significantly reduces the impact on lineside neighbours.

Another well-proven forestry management technology that QTS has adapted to rail is its Baler. This has a powerful compactor and fast-rotating bundling system which can produce around 20 bundles per hour that are typically three metres long, 600mm in diameter, and weigh 400 kilogrammes.

These can be safely left on site to support wildlife, in particular mosses, lichens, and insects. Alan is certain that this is a world-first as he has been unable to find such a rail baler anywhere else. When this joins the QTS fleet in 2023 it will reduce the time and cost of vegetation clearance by eliminating the need to dispose of cleared vegetation off site where chipping is not possible.

QTS has also developed a Weed Control Unit which holds 3,000 litres of water with a separate tank that injects chemicals into the spray nozzles. It can spray up to 6 metres up a cutting or down an embankment and has two hand lances for spot spraying. Except for such spot spraying, the machine can operate under live OLE.

For drainage work, the Rail Mega Vac has been developed. This has a 120-metre hose reel that can jet 300 litres of water per minute at 138 bar. Waste and debris that has been jetted into catch pits is then extracted with a vacuum that exhausts 3,000 cubic feet per minute to a large capacity waste system that can hold three cubic metres of waste and seven cubic metres of water. The Rail MegaVac is used in conjunction with a CCTV mini crawler system to survey each drainage pipe.

Long reach plant has also been developed. The Road Rail Mega Crane can lift 810kg at its maximum reach of 28 metres, whilst the Road Rail Gallmac Mobile Equipment Platform (MEWP) has a capacity of 350kg at an 11-metre reach. This makes it suitable for ash die back as such trees are not structurally safe for climbing.

Social value
QTS’s innovative plant fleet is the result of an investment of millions of pounds each year. Yet for Alan, investing in people is also crucial. This includes supporting the communities in which QTS operates by, for example, sponsoring young athletes and involvement with various local and national organisations including Women in Rail, Darvel Football Club, and Ayr Rugby Club. From 2018 until earlier this year, QTS was the principal sponsor of the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative in which teams of pupils work to understand the social issues affecting their local community.

In each school, there is a competition in which teams compete for to a £3,000 grant for their chosen local charity. Engaging with young learners is also a real focus for QTS. Earlier this year, the business hosted its inaugural ‘Future of Rail’ event at its Drumclog HQ, in partnership with AmcoGiffen, Carnell, and Scotland’s Railway. Over 150 Ayrshire and Lanarkshire pupils attended the first day of the event which was designed to encourage young people to consider careers in the rail industry. The youngsters saw some of the QTS plant in action and had the opportunity to speak to other young people working for AmcoGiffen, QTS, and Network Rail about their routes into rail.  

In 2022, QTS launched its Rail Skills Academy, in partnership with East Ayrshire Council and the Young Person’s Guarantee. The unique programme, delivered by QTS Training, is designed to help such youngsters acquire railway competencies. These included PTS and track induction as well as small tools and first aid.

In August, 10 youngsters successfully completed this programme of five weeks of classroom training and four weeks of on-site work experience. Five then joined QTS and five joined other contractors. The second cohort of young people graduated in October and were again all helped into finding employment.

In recognition of such partnerships in both England and Scotland, the company’s work with businesses across the UK, QTS became the first dedicated UK rail company to receive a Social Value Quality Mark in April 2022.

Training
QTS Training was launched in 2009 and is a National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) gold-rated provider of railway safety critical and on-track plant training. It is also certified by various other industry bodies such as the prefabricated access supplier’s and manufacturers association (PASMA) and the Construction skills certification scheme (CSCS).

In February, a bespoke rope access training centre was completed at Rench Farm and then approved for use by the industrial rope access trade association (IRATA). This new facility complements the existing training facilities which include a 700-metre double line railway training track, an underground confined space chamber and tunnel system.

In addition to the training provided at Rench Farm, QTS also offers training in Nottinghamshire and its first standalone site in Knottingley. It offers over 150 courses, not all of which are railway specific. These cover on-track plant, railway safety roles, health and safety, rope access, confined spaces, construction, and personal development.

This year, QTS was also awarded the highest accolade by Investors in Young People as it secured the platinum award, one of only eight businesses in Scotland recognised at this level.

YouTube
A tour to see the offices, workshop, training facilities, rail infrastructure, and the various types of on track plant at the extensive Rench Farm facility showed how much QTS has achieved in its 30 years, which includes the 23 years since QTS established its base there.
The board room has a model of the recovery of the Class 66 locomotive which had to be cut up on site when it went down a hillside after it derailed at Loch Treig. Though this was 13 years ago, this recovery of this locomotive is still remembered as a particularly challenging job, as can be seen on the QTS You Tube channel (search Loco Recovery QTS).

The QTS YouTube Channel also shows the on-track plant featured in this article in action. When an unsafe hotel building closed the Ayr to Stranraer line for many weeks in 2018, advantage of this closure was taken for the Mega Chipper v1 to clear a six-metre-wide strip either side of the line along 25 miles of track in eight weeks. A more recent video shows the Mega Chipper v2 clearing vegetation along 32 miles of track for the Glasgow to Barrhead and Kilmarnock electrification project.

Electrification work is featured in other YouTube videos. One shows the electrification of 800 metres of sidings using portals spanning six tracks at Hitachi’s Newton Aycliffe plant. Another shows new OLE portal structures being installed at Morpeth in connection with the recent embankment stabilisation work.

Clearing drains with the Railboss RRBO1 on-track machine is the subject of another YouTube video. Another shows a novel technique that doesn’t involve on-track machines. This was the installation of tactile studs at Crainlarich station using a small multi-hole drilling trolley developed in Australia.

Alan also mentioned another novel job which was the recent use of a helicopter to help renew five kilometres of fencing in a remote area on the West Highland line above Loch Long to prevent livestock getting on the line. The helicopter delivered 20 tonnes of material in 21 lifts.

With the award of Network Rail Scotland’s £100 million Geotech framework contract in 2019, QTS will be undertaking further challenging jobs in remote areas which will make the best use of their specialised machinery and well-trained staff.

In its 30 years, QTS has come a long way since it was Quality Tree Surgeons. As Alan says, it has now morphed into Quality Technical Services. It seems clear that key to QTS’s success is its generous investment in plant innovation and people, and in particular the development of young talent. Alan McLeish is surely right in his firm belief that investment in people and innovation across the rail sector will continue to create more jobs and promote positive socioeconomic change throughout the UK.

Rail Engineer is delighted to announce that Alan McLeish was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2022 RailStaff Awards on Thursday 24 November. Alan faced strong competition, but his contribution to the industry over the past 30 years, as well as his dedication to the people who work for him, wowed the judging panel. Congratulations Alan!