Adaptable Carriage installed on ‘Innovation Hub’ train

42 Technology has installed its innovative Adaptable Carriage seating system into a real train carriage for the first time as part of its Innovate UK ‘First of a Kind’ project.

The system has been installed on Porterbrook’s Innovation Hub which will be launched next week at Rail Live 2019 (19-20 June) at Quinton Rail Technology Centre, the dedicated rail testing and trialling site near Stratford-upon-Avon.

Innovation Hub is a four-car Class 319 train that has been repurposed as a technology demonstration suite to help fast track the development of rail innovations to improve passenger services and network efficiencies. Adaptable Carriage will be one of more than 30 featured innovations on show and the only motorised seating system.

Innovation is the life-blood of the rail industry, but while there is no shortage of new ideas Porterbrook is acutely aware of the challenges our suppliers face in demonstrating and testing new products.
–Mary Grant, CEO of Porterbrook, the rolling stock leasing company.

Innovation Hub has been specifically designed to help address this and in direct response to feedback from Porterbrook’s inaugural suppliers conference last year where attendees highlighted the inability to showcase products within a real train as a critical barrier to success.

As well as the Innovation Hub demonstration, 42 Technology has confirmed it is now finalising a second Adaptable Carriage demonstration unit ready for full integration into a rail car body chassis. The updated system design features a more advanced, key-operated control unit to automatically reconfigure seats between passenger and cargo configurations, uses off-the-shelf rail certified seats, and will go on display at 42 Technology’s offices in St Ives, Cambridgeshire within the next few weeks.

The Adaptable Carriage system has also recently been demonstrated to HRH The Duke of Kent as one of a series of 42 Technology innovations he was shown when visiting the company’s offices and development laboratories in mid May to help mark its 20th anniversary.