90 Modern Railways April 2019 http://www.modern-railways.com
In Business
MECHAN MARKS 50TH YEAR
DEPOT EQUIPMENT specialist
Mechan has donated £5,000 to
Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital to kick
off its 50th anniversary celebrations.
The money was presented to
Alison Riley from The Children’s
Hospital Charity at an open day
held to mark the anniversary, which
gave guests a behind-the-scenes
look at the company’s workshop.
The funds were raised at a number
of events arranged by the company,
supplemented by donations
from clients, suppliers and parent
companies. Mechan has pledged to
continue its support of the charity
throughout the anniversary year.
The company was founded
in 1969 to serve Sheffield’s steel
sector, but following the sector’s
collapse in the 1980s Mechan
diversified, and its first set of rail car
lifting jacks were launched in 1990.
The firm is now owned by French
rail infrastructure group CIM.
Meanwhile, Mechan has
welcomed representatives from
Cairo Metro to its Sheffield
headquarters. Delegates fromEgypt’s National Tunnels Authority
and depot operator Colas Rail
visited to see their new bogie
drop undertake its final round of
testing. The equipment will be
used for removing and refitting
bogies on the metro trains
without decoupling. It is an exact
replica of a bogie drop installed
by Mechan during construction
of the Cairo Metro Line Three in
2010 and will be based in the
Sal Alam depot, where trainsrunning on the now operational
Al Thawra line are serviced.
Following successful factory
acceptance tests, Mechan
disassembled the bespoke bogie
drop ready to be shipped to Egypt
for installation in June. Mechan will
be providing ongoing maintenance
of the new bogie drop for Colas
Rail, making two scheduled
visits to Egypt per annum for the
next two years and providing a
five-year spare parts package.Bound for Egypt: bogie drop for the Cairo Metro in the Mechan factory.Bombardier sells wiring harnesses unit
BOMBARDIER HAS sold its assets
connected with the production and
installation of electrical components
systems and businesses in the rail
industry to Motherson Rolling Stock
Systems (MRSS), a subsidiary of
Motherson Sumi Systems (MSSL).
The sale includes components
such as wiring harnesses,
panel and cabinet build and
electromechanical assemblies atBombardier’s Derby site. MRSS
will enter into a lease agreement
for the part of the site currently
occupied by the business and will
continue to operate it with the
current employees. The transaction
is valued at £10.87 million and
is expected to be completed
between April and June. The
revenue of the business being
sold was £36 million during 2018.MSSL is engaged with the
manufacturing of wiring harnesses
for rolling stock, mainly in Europe
and North America, through
PKC Group, which it acquired in
March 2017. The latest agreement
extends the company’s partnership
with Bombardier to the UK.
Bombardier says the transaction
is another step in the company’s
transformation programme.Passenger
Transport
Monitor deal
FLASH FORWARD Consulting
has announced a new
alliance with PTI Services,
owner of online market
intelligence service Passenger
Transport Monitor (PTM).
Flash Forward was founded
by Alex Warner, formerly Chief
Executive of the Railway Study
Association, in 2012, and
provides a range of services for
the transport industry including
recruitment, customer service
reviews, market research and
analysis. PTI Services has been
providing research and analysis
reports since 1994, including
Rail Industry Monitor, and
offers an online subscription
service giving access to
financial and market data.
Under the new deal,
Flash Forward will provide
support for PTM in the form
of development resources to
improve the online product,
and manpower to supplement
the work of PTM’s current
owner, analyst Chris Cheek.
To mark the new partnership,
the Passenger Transport
Monitor website has been
redesigned and updated.
A programme of work has
been established to update
and expand the analysis
done, and the new partners
are working on a project to
make the available data more
interactive and dynamic.PLOUGHING ON WITH REFURBISHMENTS
LORAM UK is pressing on with a
contract to overhaul and re-engineer
Network Rail’s fleet of snowploughs.
NR has 12 pairs of independent
snowploughs, each of which can
plough up to a depth of eight feet.
The refurbishment work began
in January 2018 and is taking
place one pair at a time, with
four pairs completed so far. The
programme is due to complete
within the next 12 months.
NR says the work marks the first
time in 20 years the snowploughs
have received a full service
refurbishment, improving their
effectiveness for the next 15 to 20
years. Loram is carrying out the work
at its specialist facility in Derby. NR says
a programme to overhaul its Bielhack
ploughs will begin later this year.Derby-bound: DRS loco Nos 37606 and
37038 with snowploughs pass Stenson
on 6 February 2019 en route from Crewe
Coal Sidings to Derby RTC. Steve Donald090-091_MR_Apr 2019_in business.indd 90 11/03/2019 17:30