MORE than 8,000 rail industry people from 47 countries visited Railtex 2009 – up by 22 per cent on the previous event in 2007.

This year, some 62 per cent of visitors were of manager level or above and, when exhibitors are added to visitors attending, the number of industry participants at the show rises to 10,730.

Exhibitors totalled 373 from 18 countries, and included leading suppliers for all sectors of railway technology.

The seminar theatre facilities were the venue for a series of thought-provoking daily addresses by leading rail industry figures, organised by Railnews.

The speakers – Colin Walton, Pete Waterman and Richard Brown – were introduced by Railnews managing director Cyril Bleasdale, who also led question and answer sessions.

Among organisations with a major stand presence were the Department for Transport and Network Rail.

In collaboration with Corus, sections of track in the exhibition hall were also provided to enhance the display of new rail-mounted equipment and products.

Other draws to the exhibition included a programme of meet-the-buyer sessions organised on behalf of UK Trade and Investment and the Railway Industry Association, and a popular informal Networking Reception sponsored by Rail Alliance.

Railtex 2009 was opened by rail minister Lord Andrew Adonis, with major contributions from Simon Kirby, Network Rail’s director, infrastructure investment, Jeremy Candfield, director general of the Railway Industry Association, and Lord Tony Berkeley, chairman of the Rail Freight Group.

It was the ninth Railtex show organised by Mack Brooks Exhibitions and the first to take place at Earls Court since 1999.

Exhibition manager Michael Wilton said: “The upbeat mood at the exhibition and the positive response from the industry to Railtex are both very pleasing.

“It was also a measure of the event’s success that we drew the visitors that exhibitors expected to see.

“Planning is now well under way for our next UK rail show, Infrarail 2010, and we hope that many of those who took part in Railtex will be joining us in Birmingham next year.”

Infrarail 2010 takes place at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, from 13 to 15 April 2010.


Workforce must be in place for end of recession – Walton

BOMBARDIER Transportation’s UK chief Colin Walton urged rail companies to ‘dig deep’ to ensure that they have the skilled workforce required when the recession ends.

Mr Walton, chief country representative for train builder Bombardier Transportation in Britain and Ireland, was speaking at the first day of Railtex 2009 at Earls Court in London.

He told delegates at the Railnews-sponsored seminar: “The recession is biting and people are facing a lot of stress. But this is the time we should dig deep to ensure that we have the skills needed for when the recession ends.”

Mr Walton, who is chairman of the East Midlands region of the Prince’s Trust, also spoke of his excitement at being involved in a special six- week pilot initiative with the Prince’s Trust to provide entry skills for 10 young people in a programme called ‘Get into Rail’.

The rail industry suffered from cyclical problems, he added, with big schemes such as electrification projects needing skilled people for a while and then not requiring them. But currently people were needed across the whole of the industry, to work in depots, on trackside and cleaning trains.

Freight traffic ‘not suitable’ for HS1 – Richard Brown

EXTOLLING the virtues of a high-speed rail network for the UK, Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown drew on the experiences of constructing and operating HS1.

“Only 12 houses had to be demolished to make way for the route through densely populated urban areas and unspoilt countryside needing to be protected – and we’ve proved it can be done,” he said.

“The community was behind us on environmental, economic and travel benefits of the project and, unlike road construction, we suffered no disruptive protests from ‘Swampies’,” he told a packed audience.

Mr Brown emphasised the economic and regeneration benefits being felt from mainland Europe’s extensive high- speed network, and stated firmly the need for expansion of the UK’s mere 70 miles over the next 40 years.

Answering a myriad of wide-ranging questions from the floor, Mr Brown explained that the major benefits of high- speed rail are to be gained through exclusively passenger operation, and that the mixed traffic railway should be contained on existing routes from which freight traffic can readily access ports, terminals and markets.

While technology undoubtedly exists for ultra-high speed, he felt that the business and economic case is not strong.

“Japan’s Shinkansen runs at a 300 kph maximum due to careful consideration of business and economic factors, and I think that 300-320 kph will be the optimum speed in the UK,” he said.

Asked about stopping frequencies of new high-speed services, Mr Brown said he suspected that a host of towns would vie to tap in to the benefits of the routes, but that constant high speeds over long and uninterrupted distances should be the priority.

Pay rail apprentices, not training companies – Waterman

PETE Waterman, the pop music impresario and railway entrepreneur, used the Railnews seminar to make an impassioned plea for the Government to make money available directly to apprentices, rather than to ‘a myriad’ of specialist training companies.

He said it cost £45,000 a year to employ and train apprentices, who are desperately needed for the future rail industry.

Mr Waterman, who runs a rail engineering company in Crewe – and has proposed it as the basis for a National Rail-way Skills Academy – said that training providers are paid £7,000 for one-day-a-week courses, while employers who trained got nothing and had to pay apprentices for the remaining four days. 

With additional costs, such as tax and national insurance, that meant a total of £45,000 per apprentice per year.

With the exception of Network Rail and what Mr Waterman called its “utterly brilliant” apprentice training scheme at Gosport, Hants, few railway industry companies can afford to employ apprentices, he said.

In the past year, with the exception of Network Rail, only 38 apprentices had been taken on across the entire rail industry – but there were 729 companies being paid by the Government to carry out apprentice training, he told the audience.

Mr Waterman commented that the Government was spending £3.5 billion a year on training through the Learning and Skills Council, adding: “This money should not go to the myriad of companies set up to do the training.

“It should go to the people who deserve it – the young apprentices.”