Funding has been secured for a world-leading railway research and innovation centre at Goole’s emerging rail village as part of a £106 million package.
The University of Birmingham, supported by Siemens Mobility, has been awarded £15 million by the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund to support long-held plans to establish such a facility beside the huge manufacturing plant.
Working with fellow academics from the University of Huddersfield, the Centre of Excellence for Railway Through-Life Engineering is expected to open in 2025. It will provide cutting-edge facilities to support the build, service, maintenance, and modernisation of railway rolling stock with a focus on robotics, sensing, and automation.
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Industry is pumping in £60 million and The University of Birmingham will add a further £16 million. It will also cover a Centre of Excellence for Railway Testing, Validation and Customer Experience in South Wales - revealed last week.
The Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education is Europe’s largest specialist railway research, education, and innovation centre; with the university faculty the lead institution for the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network.
Professor Clive Roberts, BCRRE director, said: “We are delighted to continue and strengthen our relationship with Siemens Mobility both as one of the lead partners for the University of Birmingham and UKRRIN. With the new factory and centre of excellence underway we are determined to build, grow, and innovate the UK railway system.
"As a global leader in railway research and education, we work with partners across the world to develop their workforce and their technical and operational capabilities and it starts on our doorstep. We champion SMEs and work closely with supply chains to introduce new ideas, new ways of working and cross sector collaboration.
"With this new funding our aim is to have the capabilities and tools for through life engineering from conceptual design all the way to end of life with a focus on robotics, sensing and automation."
Siemens Mobility is investing £200 million in he 67-acre site at Goole, creating 700 skilled jobs. April saw the components facility opened, where gearboxes, traction motors and other parts for trains and tram fleets across the UK are maintained. Trains for the UK market will be built at the new factory, starting with new Piccadilly line tube trains for London, with manufacturing due to begin next year.
Sambit Banerjee, managing director of Siemens Mobility UK Rolling Stock and Customer Services, said: “This is fantastic news, not just for Goole but the rail industry as a whole. Our vision was always much more than just building a train factory, we want to have a full rail village for the industry and to create a lasting skills legacy in Goole. Bringing academia, with the University of Birmingham and University of Huddersfield, and industry together in one site is exactly the kind of opportunity that will continue to foster collaboration and innovation across the UK rail industry as well as support the economy.”
The new build will be located next to the Rail Accelerator for Innovation Solutions and Enterprise (RaisE) business centre. It launched more than a year ago on Tom Pudding Way. The build will start later this year.
Cllr Anne Handley, leader of East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said: "I am delighted to hear that Goole is one of just two sites in the country that has been chosen to be the home of world-leading railway research and innovation facilities.
"This is an exciting and significant project that will create jobs in the research and development sector, including administration and office roles as well as technical jobs; while for the next generation, so those children in primary and secondary school, it will give them the opportunity of a brighter future in innovation and technology in rail."
