Following a competition within the Tyne and Wear Metro workforce the newest member of the maintenance fleet has been named – and its been named after US popstar Ariana Grande!
The new road and rail going vehicle (RRV) is a railgrinder and has recently been delivered to Gosforth Depot where it will be used to grind the top of the rails across 77km of track. It removes defects and restores the correct rail profile after wear and tear which extends the service life of the rails and the Metro’s trains wheels themselves.
It has been decided that the new vehicle will be named “Ariana Grinder” following an internal competition.
Stuart Clarke, Infrastructure Director at Nexus, said: “We’re delighted to have taken delivery of our new rail grinding vehicle, which is a game changer for how we undertake Metro track maintenance.
“We ran a competition to name it and the winning entry that was chosen was ‘Ariana’, after the singer Ariana Grande. It was bit of fun for our staff coming up with the name for a machine which has such an important job.
“The RRV allows us to get through a greater volume of rail profiling work. It’s a task that happens when the Metro system is closed to the public, so they don’t often get to see it.
“The grinder is capable of driving along the tracks, where it deploys a spindle which grinds the top of the rails. This makes it nice and smooth, eradicating any tiny imperfections in the steel.
“We have given it a first run out during our recent major renewal programme in South Tyneside and it went really well. We are already looking forward to using it on other parts of the Metro system. It’s a great investment in rail maintenance technology.”
The RRV has been manufactured by German firm Moser Maschinebau GmbH.