Managing Fractures Safely on the Railway

Andrew Skinner: Head of Engineering, Great Western Railway

Andrew is a professional Traction & Rolling Stock Engineer with a career in this field. Following a degree programme as a sponsored student, he has undertaken technical roles in depots as well as managing depots and yards for the freight railway. Following a move into the passenger railway, he managed a multi-million pound project to roll out reliability modifications to a train fleet and has gone on with Great Western Railway to manage groups of depots and more recently head up the HQ Engineering function. Andrew is a registered professional mentor and a vice chairman of the IMechE Railway Division.

Steve Whysall: Principal Engineer, SPW Design Solutions Ltd

Steve Whysall has worked for TfL – Maintenance Engineering for 20 years. Steve is a principle structural and mechanical vehicles engineer and has been managing emerging mechanical safety failures across all London Underground’s rolling stock fleets. Determining safety and business risk, implementing mitigations, root cause and rectification through repair and redesign. He has been involved in the design review and introduction of new stocks, structural assessment of modern and legacy carbodies and overseen the design and implementation of a multitude of structural repairs across all London Underground fleets.

David Crawley: Managing Director, Xanta Limited

David Crawley joined London Underground in 1983 following work in British Aerospace on airframe design. He developed the processes and procedures for managing cracked components on London Underground’s rolling stock, investigating and designing repairs for many such examples. Later he held several senior management roles in London Underground and the Metronet Public Private Partnership consortium before founding and leading engineering consultancy Xanta Limited.

Simon Smith: Managing Director, Transforming Stress Ltd

Simon has developed modelling methods for the assessment of the quality and performance of welds and joints in structures for well over thirty years. He developed simulation techniques for creep crack growth during research at Nottingham University. He joined The Welding Institute in 1989 and led their development of modelling methods for the assessment of the performance of joints using Finite Element and Computational Fluid Dynamics. He contributed to the development of BSi documents BS 7608 ('Guide to fatigue design and assessment of steel products') and BS 7910 ('Guide to methods for assessing the acceptability of flaws in metallic structures'). His work has also been used by R6 and API570. Simon was a co-author of ISO/TS 18166:2016 ('Numerical welding simulation — Execution and documentation'). He now runs Transforming Stress Ltd, based in Cambridge.

Neil Dinmore: Principal Engineer - Structures and Materials, Rail Safety and Standards Board

Neil has nearly 30 years’ experience of rail vehicle mechanical engineering. He joined British Rail as a graduate Engineering Management Trainee, working subsequently for consultancies Atkins and Interfleet (SNC-Lavalin) before joining RSSB in 2018.

Graham Taylor: UK Programme Director, CAF Rolling Stock UK Ltd

Graham is a Fellow of the Institution where he holds several roles: Elected Board Member of the Railway Division, Vice Chair of the Qualification and Membership Board and the Institution's nominee on the Engineering Council, Quality Assurance Committee.

Graham has had a wide and varied career in heavy engineering since graduation and worked in sectors including Power, Oil & Gas as well as both new Build and Maintenance of passenger Rolling Stock. He has worked for major multi-nationals as well as SME’s and has experience in many corners of the globe. Most recently Graham has worked with CAF on the development of their facility in Newport and the introduction of new train fleets.

Will Marshall: Jubilee Line Fleet Manager, Transport for London

Following a career as an Aircraft Technician in the RAF, William has worked at TFL for 7 years as a Train Maintainer, Fleet engineer and Fleet engineering manager. principally on the 72TS (Bakerloo Line) & 96TS (Jubilee Line). Specialising in a single fleet, rolling stock fleet engineers and systems specialists at TFL carry out in reliability and safety management on behalf of the Fleet Manager. Providing a link between the depot operation and TfL Engineering.

Loucas Papaloucas: Principal Rolling Stock Engineer, Transport for London

Loucas Papaloucas has worked for TfL – Maintenance Engineering for 13 years. Loucas is a principle structural and mechanical vehicles engineer and has been managing emerging mechanical safety failures across all London Underground’s rolling stock fleets. Determining safety and business risk, implementing mitigations, root cause and rectification through repair and redesign. Loucas has been involved in the design review and introduction of new stocks, structural assessment of modern and legacy carbodies and overseen the design and implementation of a multitude of structural repairs across all London Underground fleets.

Paolo Mason: Data Scientist, PolyChord Ltd

Paolo Mason, PhD(Phys), CMath MIMA is a data scientist with extensive experience spanning civil nuclear, finance, food and railway. His interests include the Bayesian inference of degradation phenomena from sparse data and risk quantification through mathematical statistics. His studies contributed to the production of return-to-service safety cases and the evaluation of the cost and benefit of inspection on nuclear reactor components.

Rebeka Sellick: Director, SellickRail Ltd

Rebeka Sellick MEng CEng FIMechE FIET uses her 35 years of railway engineering experience to facilitate the transfer of new technologies and ideas into the railway industry. Her career has built on her Oxford University degree, and spans frontline railway vehicle maintenance and asset management optimisation, developing and delivering practical strategies. Rebeka specialises in identifying and enabling worthwhile new solutions to create a better railway.

Tomas Rosinski: Chief Operating Officer, Transmission Dynamics

First Class Honors in Mechanical Engineering (MSc) from University of Bristol with one-year secondment at the University of Sydney. Specialising in the design of bespoke instrumentation for acquiring data in harsh environments. Highly experienced in design and installation of measurement systems for Industrial Internet of Things applications. Responsible for leading the mechanical engineering and manufacturing team in design, analysis of the data, testing and implementation of advanced instrumentation for rail, wind, mining, and defence applications.