Innovation Platform

Innovation Platform will inspire visitors with the inventiveness and ingenuity in rail. This exhibition highlights emerging ideas and extraordinary achievements from across the rail industry.

Showcasing the latest and greatest in rail innovation, Innovation Platform celebrates the creative by focusing not only on the technology itself, but by giving just as much attention to the context in which objects were developed.

Through imaginative problem-solving and original thinking, the railways are progressing, armed with technologies designed to improve all aspects of the industry. The Innovation Platform will show the very best of these to those who will feel their benefit most greatly—you!

To explore the breadth of these developments, we’re giving you, our visitors, a look at the latest technology over two years, split into three thematic seasons. We are now in the second season: Decarbonisation.

Decarbonisation

One of the key objectives of Britain’s rail industry over the next 30 years is to decarbonise the sector, significantly reducing the output of harmful greenhouse gases that pollute the atmosphere. This season showcases cutting-edge objects designed to achieve this, including a hydrogen fuel cell from the UK’s first hydrogen-powered train, 3D-printed low-carbon concrete and a model of a shunting locomotive powered by batteries rather than diesel.

What themes are we exploring?

Autonomous Technology: June–December 2022
Decarbonisation: January–December 2023
Communities: January–June 2024

Previously on display

Autonomous Technology

June – December 2022

In this theme we explored objects that function independently, executing tasks without having to be controlled by humans. Devices designed to think and act like humans will soon have a dramatic impact on our railways.

Exhibits included the Actiwheel:

The ActiWheel is a computer-guided wheelset which doesn’t use traditional axles. Instead, every wheel is given its own motor so it can function independently. A computer-based system controls these autonomously, responding to real-time track data to prevent cracks, noise and damage to rails.

Prometheus Drone

September – October 2022

Inspired by Ridley Scott's 2012 film Prometheus, this small aircraft has folding arms so it can be lowered into very tight spaces under railways, which need regular inspections to ensure the ground is stable in areas previously used for coal mining.

The Prometheus drone takes away the need for people covered in PPE to do the inspections and provides a safe alternative that doesn’t put workers at risk of falls, structural collapse, hazardous gases, fire and explosions.

dRIVERLESS TRANSPORT

June – September 2022

Our display about self-driving vehicles revealed how autonomous vehicles could safely navigate their environment. Here's what we said:

No matter where you’re travelling to or how far you’re going, railways will only take you part of the way. Driverless transport is being developed to transfer passengers to and from stations on the first and last legs of their journeys. This would help make rail travel seamless. Solving what is known as the ‘first/last mile problem’ is key to the success of our future railways as the industry competes with private car ownership.