Jeff Doherty

Said the following about ScotRail Fleet Technical Team:

“The ScotRail fleet Technical team are helping to deliver a step change in the rolling stock performance and customer experience on Scotland’s Railway. The whole team is listed in the attached summary document including a more in depth summary of some of our key successes this year and upcoming challenges.

1. The Fleet Technical team are involved in one of the most diverse portfolios of rolling stock in the UK.

2. Over the last year our performance and enhancement programmes have been undertaken on 314s, 318s, 320s, 334s, 380s, 385s, 156s, 158s, 170s, HSTs – also temporarily introducing Class 365s. The team have a growth mindset and aren’t phased by working on new fleets, a must for a team working on at least 10 different train fleets.

3. The team are also responsible for leading the development of the UKs first dedicated cycle carriages (Class 153s).

4. After the successful delivery of 7 Class 320/4s, ScotRail introduced a further 5 in the last year. These units are converted to 3-car Class 320/4s from 4-car Class 321 trains. The conversion was undertaken locally at Wabtec’s Kilmarnock site. The conversion includes a complete overhaul of the train to bring it in line with ScotRail’s Class 320 trains: with the coaches being painted in ScotRail livery, new lino being laid, LED lighting and cycle storage being installed.

5. The team have spearheaded the Fleet Reliability Action plans on all fleets, over the last 3 years we’ve increased our MTIN performance by:

a. >30% on the Class 318

b. >20% on the Class 320

c. >40% on the Class 334

6. The team have led fleet upgrades include delivering:

a. Wi-Fi installation on all our fleets to improve our customer offering.

b. Remote downloadable CCTV on all our fleets

c. Installed automatic passenger counting on key routes

d. Retrofitting power sockets to our legacy fleets.

e. Class 156 WSP fleet installation delivered from inception to installation in less than 8 months.

f. Installation of Class 156 remote monitoring delivered from inception to installation in less than 8 months.

7. Research & Development – we’ve trialed innovative & smart technologies on our fleets

a. We trialed a digital displacement pump (Artermis pump) on a Class 170 unit to investigate the benefits (e.g. reduced fuel usage).

b. We’ve successfully partnered with Porterbrook and others to secure RSSB funding to investigate the use of on train smart data to reduce sub-threshold delays – Project IDD (IntelliDoor Dwell).

c. In partnership with ERG we’ve successfully trial installed the UKs first bio reactor toilet. The toilet has been fitted for 117 days and hasn’t required to be emptied yet.

d. Facilitating the complex Superfast Wi-Fi In-carriage for Future Travel (SWIFT) trial between Edinburgh and Glasgow, Network Rail, ScotRail, Cisco and telent came together to design and build a multi-disciplined rail-specific trackside wi-fi network.

The Fleet Technical team is built on a diverse team of professional engineers, including apprentices, graduates and qualified engineers. The team have a collaborative attitude and passion for engineering, but ultimately making our product better for the travelling customer. The link between our engineering work and customer experience is embedded in everything we do. All the above examples are under pinned by this principle. All of the above examples demonstrate our ability to work effectively with other teams and organisations to deliver our projects.“