[Exteriors of a brand new British Rail Class 701 Aventra train being tested on test track at Alstom’s Derby train factory]
[Interiors of a carriage of the brand new British Rail Class 701 Aventra train tested on the test track at Alstom’s Derby train factory]
[View outside window of Alstom’s Derby train factory]
[Foyer inside Alstom’s ‘Train Zero’ laboratory building]
[Interiors of the ‘Train Zero’ laboratory, featuring large computer racks, with each series of racks testing 701 Aventra train]
[Alstom employee testing virtual driver’s cab inside ‘Train Zero’]
David Cox (interview): “So in here we are mainly testing one product and that’s called the Aventra train and that is actually delivered into six different projects. So we have the Elizabeth line which is the the London-based train, we’ve also got the London Overground train, East Anglia train, South West Rail and West Midlands. So they’re all the same type of train but we test in each individual project in here.”
[Passenger Information System (PIS) boards being tested]
[PIS boards and computer racks]
David Cox (interview): “Although this isn’t a real train, you can actually come in here and feel that you’re actually either stood on a train and you can hear and see the different aspects of the train or that you are on a platform and you hear the different interactions that we make to ensure that the passenger information system on the platforms are the same as is happening in real life.”
[Jabeen Yousaf, Test Engineer at Alstom, operating testing controls to open and close Elizabeth Line train doors]
Jabeen Yousaf (interview): “We have a physical door and we do have the physical screens which are called TFT (Thin-Film Transistor) screens. We do have an external front display as well which you can see here which is displayed at the front part of the train. So we are testing different systems and we integrate different subsystems into and test different things. So it’s TCMS (Train Control & Management System which is considered the brain of a train), PIS, CCTV. We can test the audio system, visual and other systems integrated together.”
[PIS TFT boards and computer racks]
Jabeen Yousaf (interview): “It feels satisfying to know that the system that we are testing here is robust and we can, we’re testing it thoroughly and finding as many defects or problems beforehand before it rolls out on the trains and we know that how we’ve tested here that we have been able to fix as many issues as possible before it rolls on the train on the actual fleet.”
[Ibtihaj Yousaf, Simulation Engineer at Alstom examining the ETCS (European Train Control System)]
Ibtihaj Yousaf (interview): “So we’ll have balises on the track. So they are little trackers that the train will go over. ETCS will read them and it’ll have information of where the next station will be, how far it is, how many doors to open, when to start braking. So that sort of stuff will come into the ETCS. It’ll process that information and at the right time it’ll apply automatic braking. When we get to the station it’ll apply automatic door release as well.”
[Computer racks in ‘Train Zero’ laboratory]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.