The Railway Competition took place on June 23-25 at the Stapleford Miniature Railway. The competition is organized by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The locomotive of students from Poznan presented the greatest reliability, and the team set a record for replacing the energy source.

Students from the Public Transport Engineers with the PUTrain won 12 international Railway Challenge competitions, obtaining the title of Grand Champion. The competition is organized by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The locomotive of Polish students was distinguished by its reliability, design, and applied innovation - photovoltaic panels on the roof of the locomotive.

The competition requires university teams to design and manufacture a minature  (10 ¼ inch gauge) railway locomotive to compete on the track in the following events:

• Auto-Stop - checking the ability of the locomotive to stop automatically the hauled load in a controlled manner
• Ride Comfort  - measurement of vibrations while the locomotive is running
• Energy storage - measurement of the length of the locomotive's journey with the sole use of stored energy
• Traction - checking the ability of a locomotive to accelerate the load from a standing start
• Noise - measurement of noise
• Reliability - an assessment of the locomotive's reliability in meeting scheduled times and not causing excessive delays
• Maintainability - assessment of the speed of replacing the locomotive's power source and setting the wheelsets
• Business Case- evaluation of poster and business plan
• Design – evaluation of the technical report
• Innovation - evaluation of a scientific article on the applied innovation

The PUTrain team also received 1st place in two competitions: reliability and replacement of the locomotive's power source, setting a record for the speed. Polish locomotive made by the students presented the highest level of reliability during the last run, pulling wagons with passengers with a total weight of 10 tons.

Bill Reeve emphasized the highest level of participants since the beginning of the competition. Out of 11 teams, as many as 7 managed to complete all the competitions.

The director of Scottish Railways and chief judge of the competition, Bill Reeve, summed up the achievements of the Polish team: " "PUTrain showed an impressive performance across the whole range of challenges”.

The photo gallery HERE