A new alliance has been launched to revolutionise S&C (switches and crossings) management and maintenance, delivering best practice solutions to improve reliability and reduce track worker risk.
The launch of the S&C Alliance, consisting of six companies and three specialist consultants, couldn’t come at a more important time for the rail industry.
S&C failures costs the network tens of millions of pounds each year in delays, not to mention the disruption to passengers, in addition to the cost of deploying rail maintenance teams to undertake repairs.
Tim Flower, Account Director at KONUX said: “This new alliance brings together more than 150 years of combined knowledge and experience in addition to a package of rail industry solutions to solve S&C reliability and maintenance challenges.”
At last week’s Rail Safety and Infrastructure RBD Community event at the University of Birmingham, where the S&C Alliance was launched, Nick Millington, head of Network Rail’s Rail Safety Task Force cited two greatest risk factors. These being; working on open railways and positional awareness. These risks are further heightened with high speeds and working in close proximity with S&C.
Prior to the formation of the S&C Alliance, DWG Infraco, Staytite, Interflon and Flexilube were already operating collaboratively at various Network Rail safety days across the regions as a means of showcasing a more comprehensive S&C maintenance and reliability solution.
Quickly realising the benefits of collaboration and the value of a shared message of wider capability, the beginnings of an alliance began to form.
The lightbulb moment in the formation of what the S&C Alliance looks like today really took affect during a meeting to discuss what a bigger collaborative offer could look like when Tim Flower, in addition to a highly respected and well known S&C specialist (who remains anonymous for now), Brett Nelson, S&T consultant and S&C/Track systems consultant, Darren Sharp joined the conversation.
To complete the collaboration, Emily Kent, co-founder of the award winning OneBigCircle has joined the S&C Alliance to provide the AIVR (Automated Intelligent Video Review) solution which is a rapidly deployable end-to-end system that offers instantly accessible video for visual review and Machine Learning.
Tim said: “When collaboration is done well, it is something to be celebrated. Collaboration is more than just words – it needs intention and the sharing of a common goal to do something better together. The S&C Alliance is the epitome of collaboration – the bringing together all things S&C to provide a full-service specialist solution covering all aspects of reliability and maintenance.
“Together we offer a highly effective, full spectrum solution incorporating intelligent data and engineering solutions that offers everything from fixing and maintaining S&C to extending the life of the asset as well as identifying potential problems and delivering corrective maintenance before a problem occurs.”
For more information and to contact the S&C Alliance, please click here.
Photo credit: S&C Alliance
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