‘Tomorrow’s Train Design Today’ finalists revealed

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Three agencies have been put forward to receive additional funding to help shape the future of train design in the UK.

42 Technology, Priestman Goode and Andreas Vogler, in partnership with the German Aerospace Center DLR, have been chosen from an initial 48 entries to receive a share of £2.2 million to develop their innovative rolling stock design concepts.

The funding has been made available through the ‘Tomorrow’s Train Design Today Competition’, which has been led by Future Railway in association with the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

The competition is split into two strands, focussing on medium and long-term rolling stock design.

A shortlist of 10 designs was announced in August last year. Entrants were given until January to further develop their concepts, and the final three were selected following a series of interviews.

David Clarke, RSSB director of innovation, said: “The Tomorrow’s Train Design Today Competition produced some very high quality proposals which are targeted at improving the rail sector and help to achieve the goals of the Rail Technology Strategy.”

Paul Priestman, director at PriestmanGoode, added: “With increasing numbers of people being priced out of cities and moving to the suburbs, the pressure on our trains, and commuter trains in particular, is forecast to continue.

“Passengers are already facing cramped conditions. It’s imperative that we find a long-term solution to tackle the big issue of rail overcrowding, to alleviate pressure on the system, improve passenger experience, quality of life and value for money.”

Three other entrants – Automotive Trim Developments Ltd, Seymour Powell and Transport Design International (TDI) – were highly commended.

4 COMMENTS

  1. It seems that we Brits are not bad at designing new trains but because there are no British-owned train builders, we have to leave it to foreign-owned companies to build them and rake in the profits.

  2. The question of who owns a company often comes up. True, a foreign owner takes the profit, but that is usually only a few percent. The important thing is where the work is done. The UK workforce gets paid and in turn pays taxes, the supply chain gets paid and pays taxes, and that’s a much bigger contribution to the UK economy than the loss of a few percent of profits – some of which may be reinvested in the UK factory anyway.
    Similarly, it’s a shame when a train or other item of equipment is built outside the UK. Then we lose the wages (and taxes) of the workforce which assembles it. But if the UK content is high, then at least the UK supply chain benefits to an extent,
    So let’s not get hung up on ownership. Let’s concentrate on where the WORK gets done. Go for items completely made in Britain or, if it is manufactured abroad, for a high UK content of component parts.
    It is items which are completely designed and built abroad solely from foreign components which are the loss to the UK economy.

    • Whilst agreeing that we should always go for component manufacture and final assembly here in the UK, that will not always be possible. Bombardier’s supply chain includes manufacturers both here in the UK and throughout Europe, including their own factories in Sweden (traction motors) and Germany (bogies). Hitachi will also have a similar supply chain, with major components being manufactured in Japan. Although I am no expert on the stock market or big business practices in general, I cannot see the corporate headquarters of such companies only taking a few percent of global profits as surely, without extremely healthy balances in their banks in Quebec and Tokyo, their major shareholders would soon be pulling out. My original moan was recalling the times when both locomotives and rolling stock were built in either BR Works or by British private companies. However privatisation in the 1980s and the lengthy hiatus of new trains orders resulted in BREL eventually being acquired by Canadian conglomerate Bombardier and other train builders also being either snapped up by foreign buyers or ceasing trading altogether. Therefore unless some large UK investors or multi-millionaires purchase majority shareholdings, we have to accept that train building will continue to be controlled by foreign-based multinationals.

  3. I understand the dilemma about where tax revenue is spent and the need for strategies to max the return to the whole country that stumps up with the coin.

    So now imagine the tax payer frustration of the Australian tax payer forking out around 10 Billion pounds to buy 12 submarines …. from Japan! In this situation, any secret IP, plus the construction work AND the profits are not for Australians. Elections in around 18 months but alas I fear the contracts will be well and truly signed.

    So think yourselves fortunate that a good percentage of the rail work will be done in the UK.

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