Established in 2012, the IMechE Railway Challenge gives students, apprentices and graduates an opportunity to show their engineering skills and knowledge, plus their business acumen.
Participants are required to design and manufacture a miniature (101/4-in gauge) railway locomotive, with entries subjected to a number of track-based and presentational challenges.
Alstom competed in the
2017 Railway Challenge, but its team of graduate engineers began work on their entry back in 2015.
To complete their locomotive, the team engaged the support of Telford-based Proto Labs Ltd (
www.protolabs.co.uk) — a provider of rapid-manufacturing solutions and an approved supplier to Alstom.
The team needed to make two recessed brackets to hold the locomotive’s emergency stop button. Team member Cillian Lynch, who designed the assembly, proposed 3-D printing the parts. “3-D printing seemed the logical solution, as we couldn’t justify the cost of injection moulding tooling.
If 3-D printing didn’t exist, welding or machining would have offered a viable option — albeit one that would have been more time-consuming.
“As part of our project, we thought it important to demonstrate new cost-effective manufacturing methods that the rail industry can use.
"Looking to the future, we can see 3-D printing technology becoming increasingly prominent in train manufacturing, repairs and upgrades.”
The Alstom team received their printed parts just three weeks after placing the order; fabricated metal parts from other suppliers took considerably longer.
Their entry came first in the business case challenge, fourth in the design challenge, and eighth overall.
“As a first-time entrant in a field of 12 teams this was a good result — particularly as we were against teams that had been refining their entry every year since 2012.”