Who are we?
Started in 2023 as a Heriot-Watt University newest student engineering team, HW-Rail and have since transitioned to a joint team with Network Rail Scotland representing the future of the Scottish Rail Industry. Competing in the IMechE's Railway Challenge competition, which every year challenges students to design, build and run a small 10 1/4" gauge locomotive. We look to provide members with valuable experience of an engineering project through a challenge based team environment, we also hope to work with industry to show students the opportunities a career in the rail industry can provide.
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What is the Challenge Like?
The locomotive is judged on similar criteria to the real thing, through dynamic testing on factors such as ride comfort, acceleration and speed, regenerative braking and refuelling speed. There are also paper based challenges such as design, business and innovation reports to be written, so it provides great experience of all aspects of a real railway engineering project.
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More information on the challenge can be found on the IMechE website.
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How can I Join?
Sound interesting? We're currently recruiting for new members throughout the team, including senior leadership roles so head to the join the team page to see the roles available and apply!
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Who do we work with?
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ESME Track at Almondell (Used with permission from ESME)
ESME
We work closely with the Edinburgh Society of Model Engineers (ESME), who provide us with a great sounding board for advice on the complex challenge of building a miniature locomotive. ESME are the oldest model engineering club in the world and have been provided a place for like minded individuals to work on all sorts of model engineering projects since 1894, and we're delighted to work with them as we start our own model engineering adventure.
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The society has a great base in the form of the Almondell Model Engineering Centre, just a few miles away from Heriot-Watt's Riccarton campus. They operate both 5" and 7 1/4" gauge tracks and we're hoping (through some clever dual gauge engineering) to use their track as a test track for our locomotive, allowing us to fine tune and iron out the kinks in our locomotive before the final competition.
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You can find more information about the society on their website.
Partnership opportunities
If you work for or represent a company in the rail industry that would be interested in working with the team through sponsorship or industry links (site visits, talks or placement opportunities etc) then we'd love to hear from you!
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Contact us to let us know how you'd be interested in partnering with the team and we'd be happy to discuss further details of what we can do for your business and how you can help the team.
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