Just the ticket or why one good turn deserves another!

In the beautiful Staffordshire countryside lies 16.9km of preserved, standard gauge heritage railway better known as the Churnet Valley Railway. Noted for its nostalgic steam train rides and themed days out, it’s also now the destination for many KOREC customers keen to see the latest Trimble GEDO technology demonstrated…

In the beautiful Staffordshire countryside lies 16.9km of preserved, standard gauge heritage railway better known as the Churnet Valley Railway. Noted for its nostalgic steam train rides and themed days out, it’s also now the destination for many KOREC customers keen to see the latest Trimble GEDO technology demonstrated on a track.

Following the restrictions imposed by lockdown on our usual demonstration area, we were delighted to have permission to base ourselves so centrally at the railway’s Kingsley and Froghall station where, over the course of the year, we have held many demonstrations for customers as well as training days for the KOREC rail team.

Trimble GEDO + GNSS on the Churnet Valley Railway

Of course, one good turn deserves another so we’re in the process of surveying the entire track to provide Churnet Valley Railway with a full survey, including 3D geometry, that will be particularly useful for any future maintenance work.

KOREC’s Matt Barwell (left) carrying out the survey

Whilst previously the Churnet Valley team undertook ad hoc surveys using traditional methods, KOREC’s Matt Barwell and Trimble’s Matt Moss decided that with the pick of the Trimble portfolio, by far the most time efficient method would be to use Trimble’s GEDO IMS + GNSS system which enables track survey and subsequent track design based on absolute coordinates with valid alignment elements. The R-series GNSS receiver was operated in conjunction with the GEDO IMU allowing them to shoot in control via the GEDO Profiler, which was used to measure distance and height offsets between the track and any reference point/object adjacent to the track.

The two Matts were extremely appreciative of the system’s time efficiencies having already surveyed around 8km of track (4km in each direction) in just 5 hours.

KOREC then processed this data and turned it into a DXF CAD ready drawing should Churnet Valley need it for any future maintenance.

We are delighted that our most recent visit to this scenic site resulted in a GEDO sale to Volker Rail for use on the Transpennine Route Upgrade East. More details soon!

www.korecgroup.com/rail