ROLLING STOCK AND TRACTION
He said: “Across the whole portfolio of what EIT is doing, they’re open to both. They have an open door policy, so anybody with a great blue sky idea at any point can talk to them. But that’s outside the scope of this particular project. Within this project we’re open to ideas that meet the challenge of the RTS – particularly the 4 Cs challenge: customers, cost, CO2 and capacity.
“But that’s not in any way a restriction; that’s just a framework to start to trigger ideas. We’re absolutely open to ideas that fall outside that framework as well.”
The competition opened in mid-March, and an open event has been held to ensure all interested parties get the information they need to submit good ideas, and to ensure the assessment criteria is well-understood.
A consortium building event was held on 12 April at the National Space Centre in Leicester.
The deadline for submissions is coming up fast – Friday, May 3. Details on how to apply are at the end of this article.
After that, Jones said, the aim will be to whittle the entries down to between three and seven, roughly, to go forward with by May 24.
Jones said: “There’s no hanging about! This has a real dynamic about it, and the EIT is really putting the pressure on to keep this moving.”
Funding for the whole Radical Train portfolio is expected to be around £4m, split between the bidders and the EIT. The bidders also get to keep all of the intellectual property rights and will share some of the associated benefi ts from developing the innovation with the EIT.
The judging will be split between Frazer-Nash’s technology specialists, the EIT
itself, and the industry steering group. Jones said: “That means there’s a technology view, there’s an EIT view to really stimulate progress, and there’s the ‘feet on the ground’ view from the steering group.”
Asked about innovation more generally in the industry, Jones told us: “My personal opinion,
as an engineer working in the industry, is that there is a lot of pent-up ambition out there to really push things forward.
“When you sit in a room with engineers, they want to make things better and push things forward and they want to use better technology – this is key to making best use of their skills. Radical Train provides a great opportunity for that to happen, without the normal fi nancial constraints.
“The important thing is that the competition creates a discussion and a movement in the industry.
“Radical Train is, I sense, quite different in that it’s really out to produce something people can interact with.
“Let’s assume it’s physical artefacts – there’s probably enough money in there to make a mock-up of a carriage, for example, maybe using new materials or whatever it might be. Radical Train is seeking to produce something inspirational, that lets people see what is possible.”
Richard Jones FOR MORE INFORMATION
E:
radicaltrain@fnc.co.uk W:
www.futurerailway.org/eit
rail technology magazine Apr/May 13 | 41
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