First European Railway Challenge
The first European Railway Challenge was born out of curiosity: Knowing the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Railway Challenge, we asked ourselves: wouldn't it be nice to such a fine gathering of young engineers on the European continent? This was before the pandemic hit, after the third participation of the FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences and Westf?lische Lokomotiv-Fabrik Reuschling GmbH & Co. KG in the competition.
Obviously, it was tough to win teams for the European Challenge during these times, since it definitely requires face-to-face meetings in a lab or workshop - unthinkable in universities. I almost ran out patience recruiting teams when the TH Nürnberg team under the supervision of Martin Cichon approached us, presented their concept last summer and kept word last year - enabling us to run a first challenge with three teams:
We also received significant support by DMG e.V. Ausschuss Fortbildung , Verband der Bahnindustrie in Deutschland (VDB) e.V. (German Railway Industry Association) and Knorr-Bremse Rail Vehicle Systems as well as sponsorship by European Union Agency for Railways which kept us going and led to the first European Railway Challenge in Bad Schussenried from June 2 to 4, 2023. This track was selected because it operates on the 10,25" track gauge, which is popular in UK and thus yields locos able to operate in both competitions.
The railway challenge comprises of several individual challenges, covering diverse areas:
In each of these individual competitions, marks are awarded depending on the performance of the team in a dedicated test run of approximately half an hour duration.
Due to the small starting field, helpful hosts at SEV Kürnbach and a very good track layout, it was possible to spend a lot of time debugging the individual locos and to run them (partly with four locos on the track at a given time). All this framed by an amazing and helpful atmosphere between the competing teams.
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The teams made most of it, completing their locos in time for an endurance run and trial runs of the challenges on Saturday followed by the actual challenge on Sunday.
The first locomotive to run was team EAGLE's ADLER [sic!] which showed a remarkable capability in its first appearance at the Railway Challenge, finishing second place in Maintainability, Traction and Reliability while also winning the business case challenge.
They were followed by the PUTrain locomotive which has impressed the jury by its reliability and design - winning both these challenges together with the Traction and Auto Stop Challenge. The PUTrain team attended the UK event twice without being able to run in the competition, so their performance was amazing to the team.
The third and final starting position was taken by Molly, the FH Aachen entry to the competition and grand champion of the IMechE Railway Challenge in 2019 and 2022. The team didn't quite finish its reengineering of the locomotive control system, which resulted in a performance below the team's expectations. It was still possible to win the Maintainability, Ride Comfort, Energy Recovery and Innovation challenge, but the reduced reliability put quite some stress on the team.
After a great weekend with friendly competition, PUTrain was announced winner of the first European Railway Challenge, with second place award to FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences and Westf?lische Lokomotiv-Fabrik Reuschling GmbH & Co. KG and third place to TH Nürnberg.
We look forward to have the second European Railway Challenge in June 2024 with more teams (there are more interested groups around Europe!). In case you want to know more, visit railwaychallenge.eu. If you want to support us (financing for 2024 is not secured...) financially please contact the author for sponsorship options!
Thanks are due to
Rail Project Consultant
1 年This is fantastic to see Raphael Pfaff! Fingers crossed these successes translate to good results at this year's IMechE Railway Challenge in a couple of weeks time!
Professor am KIT
1 年Incredible highly motivated teams of young people motivate us for good lectures and interesting research topics. Thank you Raphael Pfaff for the great idea and Initiative.