Railway Technical Centre (geograph 5341159)

The Railway Technical Centre (RTC) in London Road,

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

, England, was the technical headquarters of the

British Railways Board British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

, and was built in the early 1960s. British Rail described it as the largest railway research complex in the world. The RTC centralised most of the technical services provided by the regional Chief Mechanical & Electrical Engineers (CM&EE) to form the Department of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering (DM&EE). In addition, it housed the newly formed

British Rail Research Division The British Rail Research Division was established in 1964 directly under the control of the British Railways Board, moving into purpose-built premises at the Railway Technical Centre in Derby. The intention was to improve railway reliability a ...

which reported directly to the Board. The latter is well known for its work on the experimental Advanced Passenger Train (APT-E). At that early stage this was a concept vehicle, and in time the DM&EE applied the new knowledge to existing practice in the design of the

High Speed Train High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...

(HST), the later prototype APT-P and other high-speed vehicles.

History

Opening

The Research Division was the first to move into the purpose-built accommodation on London Road. This was formed initially with personnel from other departments around the country, including the Electrical Research Division from Rugby, the Mechanical Engineers Research Section, the Civil Engineering Research Unit (Track Lab), and the Chemical Research Unit, while the Scientific Services Division occupied the former

LMS Scientific Research Laboratory The LMS Scientific Research Laboratory was set up following the formation of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923. In 1929, the Company President, Lord Stamp read a paper ''Scientific Research in Transport'' to the Institute of Tr ...

building across the road known as Hartley House. The embryo RTC site (mainly Kelvin House and the Research Test Hall) was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in May 1964. Later additional buildings were added: Trent House and Derwent House, the Advanced Projects lab, then Stephenson House, Lathkill House and finally Brunel House.

Department of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering

In addition to the research employees, the RTC became the headquarters of the DM&EE. This brought together engineers from the regional departments, together with its Drawing Offices, the Testing & Performance Section and the Engineering Development Unit workshop (EDU) from Darlington, the Workshops Division (which later became

British Rail Engineering Limited British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) was the railway systems engineering subsidiary of British Rail. Established in 1970, the maintenance arm was split as British Rail Maintenance Limited in 1987, and the design and building of trains was ...

) and it was also home to the Board's Central Purchasing Department. Strange to relate but the layout of equipment within the new workshop was as near as possible the same as the original. Following this came the Plastics Development Unit from

Eastleigh Eastleigh is a town in Hampshire, England, between Southampton and Winchester. It is the largest town and the administrative seat of the Borough of Eastleigh, with a population of 24,011 at the 2011 census. The town lies on the River Itchen, ...

, which, among other innovations, was responsible for the design of the High Speed Train's streamlined cabs as well as the prototype Mark 3 coach doors.

Test tracks

When research and testing required stretches of real railway line, the Research Division used the

Old Dalby Test Track The Old Dalby Test Track is a railway in the United Kingdom which is used for testing new designs of trains and railway infrastructure. It runs between Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire and Edwalton, on the course of the Midland Railway's route betw ...

, and at

Mickleover Mickleover is a large suburban village of Derby, in Derbyshire, England. It is west of Derby city centre, northeast of Burton-upon-Trent, west of Nottingham city centre, southeast of Ashbourne and northeast of Uttoxeter. History The earli ...

in Derby and The High Marnham Test Track, the former LD&ECR from Shirebrook to Tuxford where one of Network Rail's RIDC is located.

RTC today

At privatisation, most of the facilities were taken over by commercial railway engineering companies, and it was marketed as the
rtc Business Park
renting space to a range of small consultancy firms. The only facility which is still used for railway research is the moving-model aerodynamic test facility. The former RTC site is used by LORAM to carry out repairs and maintenance on railway vehicles. It was also used by Rampart Carriage & Wagon Services (RC&WS) which went into liquidation in 2013. A large part of the site is used as storage and an operating base by LORAM and

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

, whose rolling stock on site forms part of Network Rail testing trains. Usual traction on these trains is either

Colas Rail Colas Rail is a railway infrastructure and rail freight company primarily active in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of the French industrial group Bouygues. Colas Rail was originally created as ''Seco Rail'', named after its then-pare ...

British Rail Class 37, class LCR
London and Continental Railway
) took over the site in 2013 in response to a demand from the local community to retain RTC’s position as a key employment site and preserve its status as a core asset for Derby’s internationally-acclaimed engineering business cluster

References

* ''British Railway Research 1864-1965'' by S.Wise,C.Eng.,F.I.Mech.E.,M.I.M. (Edited by A.O.Gilchrist and with a biographical note by E.S.Burdon)

External links

TrainTesting.com - Personal Website of a former RTC employeeOld Dalby and Mickleover railway test tracks

departmentals.com- The RTC Business Park Website-LCR London and Continental Railway
{{authority control British Rail research and development Engineering research institutes History of Derby Rail transport in Derby Science and technology in Derbyshire