IRR expert attends Parliament event to mark 20 years of rail investigation body
The Director of the University’s Institute of Railway Research was honoured to attend a Parliamentary event in Westminster to celebrate 20 years of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB).
Professor Paul Allen’s invitation from the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety came in the light of the long history between University of Huddersfield rail experts and the RAIB.
The independent body was formed in 2005 to investigate accidents and incidents on mainline railways, metros, tramways and heritage railways throughout the UK. Its creation was a recommendation following an inquiry into the major Ladbroke Grove rail crash in 1999, which saw two passenger trains collide, killing 31 people and leaving over 350 injured.
Rail researchers from what was then the Rail Technology Unit, before it relocated to Huddersfield to establish the Institute of Railway Research (IRR), trained the first ever tranche of RAIB Inspectors in the field of railway vehicle dynamics. These skills remain embedded as a core competency within RAIB operations, providing current and future Inspectors with the critical knowledge of how railway vehicles interact with the track and the fundamental mechanisms of derailment.
In supporting the RAIB, Professor Allen’s team has also worked on a number of derailment investigations involving both freight and passenger train services, offering vital expertise, experimental facilities and computational modelling tools to aid in the understanding and identification of causal factors in accident investigations. As a founding partner of the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN), the IRR forms a core group of academic institutions that provide the RAIB with access to a wide range of specialist resources and capabilities, from human factors to digital systems, civil and infrastructure engineering and materials science, to name a few.
Professor Allen commented: “It was an honour to be invited to Westminster for such a key rail industry event, providing the opportunity to join fellow railway professionals and friends in celebration of the pioneering work carried out by the RAIB over the past 20 years. Their learning and resulting industry recommendations from each and every accident site have contributed to making the GB railway one of the safest in the world. I am proud that the IRR team has been able to play a part in this journey, as we continue to work alongside our railway administration to help ensure future safety for its users.”
The reception was held in the Terrace Pavilion in the House of Commons, and was hosted by Carolyn Griffiths, who was appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport to create and lead the RAIB in 2003, and commissioned the IRR to train the first inspectors. It also involved Andy MacNae MP, President of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, and a keynote speech delivered via video link by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State for Rail.
Since it was founded over a decade ago, the IRR has built up a reputation as a world-class centre for railway engineering research and innovation, working closely with industry and academic partners to deliver impactful research for a safer, more reliable and cost-efficient low-carbon railway.
Awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for innovations in research and development that have brought significant improvements to the railway industry, the Institute leads the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network’s (UKRRIN) Centre of Excellence in Rolling Stock.
With a team of over 30 dedicated academic research staff, the IRR has received £14m of investment in state-of-the-art full-scale test facilities and has extensive capabilities in the simulation and testing of rail systems, with a focus on vehicle-track dynamics and pantograph-catenary interaction dynamics, combined with expertise in smart maintenance, traction and braking system optimisation and rail technology development.