Getting better each year: the 2024 Railway Challenge

At last year’s Railway Challenge, the chief judge, Bill Reeve announced that without doubt it had been the best challenge yet. This year he said the same thing, and the scores showed that this was no mere repetition. Indeed, this year’s challenge was the first in which all the locomotives present were operational and set out to complete the circuit. Unfortunately, however, one was unable to complete it.

This event is run by volunteers and staff from the Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Their contribution is much more than the challenge weekend as it requires many hours developing the competition, judging paper-based challenges beforehand, and supporting the teams. For example, a virtual team networking day was run in December to introduce the challenge, offer technical advice, and describe common pitfalls and good practice.

The competition takes place over three days on the Stapleford Miniature Railway on the Gretton Family estate near Melton Mowbray, operated by the Friends of the Stapleford Miniature Railway (FSMR). This 10 ¼ inch gauge, 1/5th scale railway which is 3km long, has a balloon loop and a station with sidings that have hard standing for the competing locomotives. The main track challenges are done on Sunday which is also the spectator day.

Although the FSMR is not normally open to the public, it has occasional open weekends such as that on 24 to 26 August for which details are available here.

For the winning team from the University of Sheffield, it was certainly their best challenge yet. Of the 12 challenges to date, Sheffield had competed in nine of them, taking fourth place on three occasions and coming second in 2021.

While most teams have a university or business leader, the Sheffield entry is managed by the student-led Railway Challenge at Sheffield (RCAS) club. This has about 30 undergraduate students from all years across multiple engineering disciplines. As a result, its final-year students have significant experience of the challenge.

New challenges

As regular readers may recall, Rail Engineer has reported on the Railway Challenge since the first event in 2012. Our feature in Issue 203 (Jul-Aug 2023) has a detailed description of the locomotive specification, the on-track and paper-based challenges, how the locomotives are deemed fit to run, and the challenges are assessed. This feature focuses on the 2024 results and what was new for this year’s challenge.

The challenges in the first 2012 event were ride comfort, traction power, and energy recovery (distance moved using stored energy). In addition, the teams were judged on their design philosophy and business case presentation.

In 2014, noise and reliability challenges were introduced where teams points were deducted for any failures or significant late running. A maintainability challenge which timed the removal and replacement of a powered wheelset was introduced in 2015. 2019 saw the introduction of three new challenges: an auto stop challenge which required the locomotive to stop at a precise location automatically; an innovation report; and the production of a technical poster.

This year saw the removal of the noise challenge as almost all teams had battery locomotives, hence the noise measured was largely that of the FSMR’s coaches they hauled. It also saw the introduction of a further four new challenges. However, these were optional and teams were invited to enter one or more. Only a team’s best optional challenge score was included in the overall result. These were:

• Autocoupler challenge to design, implement, and demonstrate an automatic coupler system.
• Aerodynamic challenge to simulate the locomotive running at high speed to demonstrate its aerodynamic performance.
• Location Announcement challenge to design an audio-visual announcement/display system that announces key locations around railway.
• Remote Data Recording and Monitoring challenge to transmit locomotive performance data to a central location.

A new option for the 2023 challenge was an entry level competition for teams aspiring to enter a working locomotive. This required teams to undertake the presentation challenges of producing a technical poster, design and innovation reports, and a business case presentation. They were also required to use Computer Aided Design (CAD) to demonstrate that a key feature of their locomotive design is fit for purpose.

As well as not having to enter the track-based challenges, the rule that no more that 40% of a team can have previously participated in a Railway Challenge does not apply to the entry level teams. Although there were no entry level teams in 2023, three such teams entered the Railway Challenge this year.

New teams

As can be seen from the 2012 to 2024 results table, almost all the teams entering a locomotive were regular entrants. These were the Universities of Aachen (7), Birmingham (8), Huddersfield (10), Sheffield (9), as well as Transport for London (9) and a joint Alstom/ University of Derby team (8). In addition, the University of Warwick and Newcastle University respectively entered the challenge for their fourth and second years.

While regular entrants often re-enter the same locomotive, this is usually modified to address lessons learnt from the previous challenge. In addition, new challenges and amended competition rules require teams to alter their locomotives.

This year, for the first time, there were three entry-level teams. These were from Herriot-Watt University, Siemens Mobility, and, from India, the Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in West Bengal. All aspire to enter a locomotive next year, though for IIT Kharagpur this is a particular challenge as freight costs will be about the same as the cost of their locomotive.

New infrastructure

One of the challenges for the organising committee is attracting more entrants. However, although the Stapleford Miniature Railway is ideal for the Railway Challenge, its layout needs to be enhanced to realise this vision. To date, the maximum number of entries has been 11 locomotives on site which is about the maximum number that the railway can accommodate. To accommodate an increased number, two constraints need to be addressed. These are the lack of space around the station to work on locomotives and the need to increase the number of locomotives that can undertake challenges on the railway’s loop.

To provide more space at the station, a siding from the present headshunt to a new turntable has been constructed. This will eventually have provision for 20 track spurs. These will have hardstanding with several able to accommodate two locomotives and so will provide sufficient space for 24 teams to work on their locomotives with the flexibility to change the order of despatch if required.

Professor Simon Iwnicki, who proposed the Railway Challenge in 2010 and has chaired the organising group ever since, explained that this work has been generously supported by Network Rail which surveyed the site and provided an initial layout for the turntable, as well as donating ballast. The FSMR has also actively supported this project for which various volunteer weekends have been organised which have included Railway Challenge teams and Railway Division young members.

Currently, two locomotives an hour can undertake the track challenges on the railways 1.2km loop. As a result, the maximum number of locomotives that can be tested during the Sunday track challenge day is 12. As the balloon loop provides an out and back layout from the station, the number of locomotives that can be tested is limited to two trains an hour. To increase the railway’s capacity and flexibility, it is proposed to provide a holding loop close to the balloon loop together with a chord that could provide a continuous circuit. One issue with this proposal is that a river bridge may have to be rebuilt as one of the chord’s turnouts would have to be placed on it.

The results

With 15 challenges to evaluate for the 10 locomotives and three entry level teams, the judges themselves had a challenging task especially as the award ceremony started immediately after the last on-track challenge run.

The award ceremony was hosted by chief judge, Bill Reeve who advised that the judges considered that this Railway Challenge has seen the most impressive set of entries in all the years of the competition. He was also impressed by the teamwork shown at the event and stressed that this really matters as railways only work well when all the operators help each other. The judges felt that the teams from the Universities of Warwick and Sheffield had done a great deal to help their fellow teams and so had awarded them additional discretionary points.

Prizes were first awarded to the entry level teams. Siemens Mobility Limited were the overall winners and Herriot-Watt University won the CAD challenge. Bill particularly wished to thank the IIT Kharagpur team members who, coming from India, were the longest-travelled entrant ever.

With so many challenges it took some time to present all the prizes. These were as follows:

• University of Sheffield – Auto stop; Reliability (joint first); Innovation; Autocoupler; Location announcement and Remote data recording.
• University of Derby / Alstom – Ride Comfort; Energy storage; Traction; Reliability (joint first).
• Pozan University of Technology – Maintainability; Aerodynamic.
• Transport for London – Design; Business Case; Technical poster.

With the University of Sheffield team having won six of the challenges, it was perhaps no surprise when Bill announced that they were the overall winners of the Railway Challenge. He noted that this was the team’s ninth year at the challenge and during this time they had learned much. He considered them to be worthy winners as from their arrival on site they had impressed the judges with the consistent quality and intelligence of all aspects of their design, presentation and operation. As a result, Sheffield scored 1,724 points out of a possible 2,000.

In second and third place were respectively the University of Derby / Alstom and Poznan University of Technology. Bill noted that the top three teams had very creditable and very impressive results.

New for 2025

Advance notice has been given that next year it is proposed that there will be:

• An energy efficiency challenge.
• The option for drivers to ride on their locomotives.
• An increased number of carriages hauled, from two to three.
• Locomotives that are fully bi-directional for both operation and coupling.

In this way the IMechE’s Railway Division is continuing to develop this successful competition which to date has seen 89 teams experience the Railway Challenge. While this concerns small scale locomotives, what the teams face are real world challenges of project and supplier management, producing a workable design then building, testing, and running it. Working as an effective team which, as one sponsor noted “doesn’t want to murder each other by the end of the event”, could also be considered quite an achievement.

By providing over 1,000 young engineers with this experience in a risk-free supportive environment, the IMechE’s Railway Division has provided an invaluable service to the industry. Indeed, Bill Reeve advised that past participants, who are increasingly filling quite senior roles within the railway industry, say that the Railway Challenge experience was the highlight of their training.

When reporting on the Railway Challenge, it is always a pleasure to experience the buzz at Stapleford and see the effort and enthusiasm displayed by the teams. It is also impressive to see how the FSMR, Railway Division volunteers, and IMechE staff ensure the success of this event and its smooth running. The contribution of the event sponsors whose financial contribution made the event possible must also be noted. These were: AtkinsRealis; Angel Trains; CAF; RSSB; and Network Rail.

Image credit: Institution of Mechanical Engineers