S&C North Alliance win Infrastructure Excellence award at the Rail Business Awards

03 Mar 2017

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A powerhouse partnership between rail infrastructure consultants, AmeySersa and Network Rail has won the ‘Infrastructure Project Excellence’ award at the Rail Business Awards 2017.

The award was presented to S&C North Alliance for their delivery of the UK’s first 125mph line speed handback of a switches & crossings (S&C) project on the East Coast Main Line in September 2016.

Typically, after engineering work, a temporary speed restriction is put into place to allow the ballast to settle, which can cause disruptions and delays to passenger journeys. After two years of making incremental increases to the handback speed after engineering work, the S&C North Alliance delivered the UK’s first S&C 125mph line speed by maximising the use of technology, precision engineering techniques and partnership working to embed a progressively assured ‘right first time’ approach.

Neil Johnson, Alliance Director at S&C North Alliance, said:

“I’m immensely proud to receive this award and to be recognised for a project that was such an important milestone for the Alliance. The award is a real testament to the hard work, commitment and attention to detail shown by the team throughout the project”.

Steve Featherstone, Network Rail’s Programme Director for IP Track said:

“Being able to hand back switches and crossing projects at line speed means better track quality, significantly less disruption and better passenger journeys. To receive this prestigious award against tough competition from across the industry is a fantastic achievement”.

In what proved to be a successful evening, Amey was also recognised as ‘highly commended’ in three further categories:

• Tom Perrin, Civil Engineer for Amey’s Rail Civils design team in the ‘Young Professional’ category for his work in Amey’s design team.
• Amey’s partnership with world-leading technology firm VTOL in the ‘Technical Excellence’ category for its unique Flying Wing drone which will change the speed by which any railway asset can be inspected. This reduces the requirement for inspectors to be on the live network, bringing enormous benefits for safety and cost savings for the industry.
• KeolisAmey Docklands in ‘Customer Service Excellence’ for its community ambassadors.

The awards which celebrate business, customer service and technical excellence in the UK rail industry, took place at the London Hilton on Park Lane on Thursday 23rd February. The evening was hosted by the RT Hon Michael Portillo.

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