Design Unit
Balfour Beatty Rail Project’s design units specialise in Permanent Way, Power & Electrification and Signalling. Based out of York, Derby, Redhill in Surrey and Kirkby in Merseyside, they form an integral part of our service offering.
Our teams have wide experience in its core business of Design and Build (D&B) contracts and our success in this area has also resulted in demand for consultancy support services.
Sometimes we enter a project that has already been designed for the client by a consultant, only to find some of the designs need to be reworked to address buildability issues.
This is where we are able to differentiate ourselves from other organisations, offering consultancy based on experience of building what it designs. For our employees, it also means they have the satisfaction of seeing a project through to the end.
Virtual Reality Engineering
Our business is quite literally looking to the future with Virtual Reality Engineering (VRe) – an innovative design and planning service for clients that brings proposed and current projects to life.
Using 3D computer modeling techniques, a team of five electrification designers and modelers at Stephenson House, Liverpool, has developed the cutting edge approach that gives railway project designers a realistic vision of how the scheme will fit with its immediate environment.
The 3D animation is produced from a combination of stills, movie pictures and technical drawings to form an amazingly lifelike video presentation that helps project teams, clients, the general public and other stakeholders to “see” how the completed works will look.
VRe can be delivered as a DVD presentation with “fly throughs” showing project taking shape from start to finish. BBRP engineers can also work “live” in the VRe model with clients, giving them the opportunity to identify problems – such as new railway structures obstructing the view of a signal – at an early stage and put them right at the planning and design stage.
VRe utilises information from various engineering disciplines such as planning, permanent way, overhead line design, civils, signalling, construction and possession management and can also include public and environmental considerations.
