Refurbishing loco for Taieri Gorge Railway
Hillside
Hillside Engineering Group workshops have been in action since 1875 when they were oriented around the development of the rail industry; a time of great foresight and huge investment. A number of sites had been set up around New Zealand to assemble components which had come from the United Kingdom, manufacture items or undertake repairs and overhaul of the assets as they were building up in the railways infrastructure.
Refurbishing loco for Taieri Gorge Railway
Over time, the number of workshops dwindled; technology caught up in terms of productivity - modern assets are more productive. The size of the rail fleet has been reduced even though the work the fleet is doing is greater. Two workshops still operate – Hillside in Dunedin and Hutt Workshop in Petone, which is operated under contract to Toll Rail as part of United Group Rail.
Hillside peaked in the 1940s when it employed 1,000 people working on a 20 acre site. While the area is slightly smaller now, at about 18 acres, the layout has remained unchanged and is primarily orientated around refurbishment and rebuilding of trains. What has changed is that the workshops are undertaking quite substantial new build projects and new manufacturing.
Site numbers had dwindled throughout the 1980s and 1990s until about four years ago, when the numbers rose to about a hundred - with approximately 210 – 215 people budgeted for this year. Site manager Kevin Kearney says this has been an exciting process with 60 people being brought on in about 18 months – a lot of them immigrants mainly from South Africa, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and United States. It was a tight labour market at the time and while demand is great for the industry, it means the demand for labour is even higher now.
Passenger carriage being refurbished
Development at Hillside has revolved around building up new products, working closely with Toll Rail's design team in Wellington – the Professional Services Group. They are going through a process of concurrent engineering development of products. Lots of working drawings are established part way through the programme rather than at the start so that it's an iterative approach to finessing final aspects of design. The design and manufacturing team work together to establish very close links.
Who Works There?
Worker
A range of industries is represented in the workforce: foundry operation, shop machine operation, fitting, maintenance and diagnostics, fabrication, traditional boiler makers, welding. Hillside operates a modern apprenticeship system and aims to develop National certificate Level 4 trades people under New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) competency recognition. 20 people are engaged at Level 2 in 2007 with 12 – 14 apprentices doing Level 4.
Work at Hillside emphasises numeracy skills and some apprentices go back to do school level maths.
Kevin notes that Hillside is trying to create an opportunity for young people to have a crack at engineering. The company runs careers seminar days with polytechnics and industries, where they'll have a key speaker talking about the engineering industry. The aim is to get students sufficiently interested so that they'll follow up the information and perhaps seek work experience or a placement opportunity. Hillside is very involved in the Dunedin engineering cluster, an important recruitment group.
Welding a carriage
While railways have traditionally had a male workforce Hillside currently has two women involved in heavy fabrication areas.
Engineers as well as trades people are needed, plus project managers (who often come from a trade background) and finance and clerical staff. Procurement is a specialist area as this involves spending lots of money nationally and internationally on components or self assembled manufacturing products.
Because there is heavy electrical work, detailed small electronic work and big mechanical stuff a whole range of good all round people is needed. Vehicle and prototype development consultant Albert Bossward says "we need people with a passion for the industry because it is really interesting. You can say trains aren't interesting but have anyone standing next to a large coal train that goes past with four 3,000 horse power locos on and they're impressed!"
Passenger Carriages
Auckland passenger train
The latest project, developed and grown since April 2004 has been building passenger carriages for the Auckland Regional Transport Authority. This started as a couple of train sets and is now up to forty with the prospect of growing the project further, as there had been a 33% increase in regional transport authority passengers. This growth has been quite phenomenal and has increased with the rise in petrol prices in mid 2006. Based on this success the demand for rolling stock should be there for a few more years.
These passenger carriages were designed to fit the needs of a commuter system with frequent stops. They have quarter point entry doors allowing for faster passenger entry and exit rather than the traditional two doorways. The push-pull operation is an example of new technology in New Zealand - here the locomotive is at one end with the driver's cab at the other. This permits the loco to push the train in reverse while the driver is operating it at the other end.
Hillside is also able to modify the traditional British rail carriages used here – they can be rebuilt or just converted to quarter point entry for busy stations. They are presently putting forward a proposal for providing rebuilt passenger trains into Auckland and Wellington by completely rebuilding vehicles from the United Kingdom – including purpose built ventilation systems and train management systems.
Hillside is presently working on a contract from the Greater Wellington Regional Council for the Wairarapa Connection. This is very similar to the Capital Connection which runs at the moment but the placement of doors will differ; due to the distance covered and reduced number of stops there is no need for fast exits and doors will remain at the end of the carriage. These carriages will have more comfortable seating, luggage racks and toilets.
A proposal is being put forward for multiple units for Wellington and Auckland to purchase. This includes diesel and electric options and the whole traction system proposals that would go with it. This is major future specifying – not just buying a train out of a catalogue.
The Wellington City Council and Greater Wellington Regional Council have recently endorsed plans to acquire twelve new electric trains for the Johnsonville line.
New Ballast Wagons
New ballast wagons
A new wide track ballast wagon has been designed at Hillside to allow for more efficient ballast laying. The existing fleet has a very low capacity so each of the wagons is very small by comparison with the new ones, with about a quarter of the capacity.
As well as greater load carrying capacity the door mechanism and controls are such that they're variable controls – they can deliver exactly the right amount of ballast on to the track. The older models basically just dumped while this version is much more accurate.
Another aspect improving productivity is the technology applied to remote control. One person can essentially operate the whole train to deliver ballast out of multiple wagons by remote control. According to Kevin , this is a magnitude step up in terms of ability to undertake the work, due to the speed in which ballast can be replaced and track reinstated.
Freight
A lot of work is done on containers and freight handling, with the consequent information provided on freight handling such as tying down loads on to trucks and trains.
In the past work has been done engineering conversions to high rail equipment, where road vehicles are adapted to run on rail, although this is not being done at present.
International
Albert Bossward: "We don't have high speed technology but we're utilizing our system to the absolute limit and we push our equipment harder than most other people do – so it's a living railway where we maximise our assets probably better than most. It's a 24/7 live operation; they're moving all the time so there's no dull period".
Hillside is uniquely placed to work with overseas manufacturers because they have more knowledge of control systems than most railways. This is because of New Zealand's steep hills, curved tracks and the fact that we load our trains to the locomotive's limits. It is very rare for locomotive manufacturers to get such intense information about their own systems.
International locomotive manufacturers give their software to Hillside for fine tuning. According to Albert "This is like letting us inside their company secrets, that's how much they trust us".
A lot of unique work is done on locomotive control systems although not all the time; every couple of years another big fine tuning project will come up.
As well as specifying systems the company has previously specified a unique portable remote control system that is patented and now being copied. So rather than just buying remote controls Hillside is helping to develop them.
Continuing Work
Crust breaker teeth
There are other things Hillside is involved with which are unique to the site and based around the foundry. The casting process and casting technology is applied to the industry. Hillside makes bolsters , side frames and bogies for the rail industry. There are also a number of consumable products for sub-assembly components which they provide for other industries, for example the Aluminium Smelter – these being for the aluminium piped reduction processes that occur there. Stainless steel knife gauge valves are exported to Australia – Hillside manufactures them, then casts and machines the body.
There is a physical testing laboratory on site which supports metallurgical processes at the site as well as destructive and non-destructive testing.
A computer modelling process helps the team design methods to support the best solidification process.
Fitting out of carriages is a major job and will include design from manufacture elements. As a product develops the team takes the lessons learnt from it, for example how fibre glass panels fit. It incorporates changes to the design then makes the process more efficient to get a better quality product.
Process improvements are an important part of the workplace and the company recognises improvements people come up with, for example in health and safety. Applying technology in this area can save time and costs as well as eliminate risks.
Working on refurbishment of carriages
Retrofitting of old locomotive systems is part of the continual work load. The company is always maximising the asset value of these locos by upgrading and retrofitting. Albert comments that it 'cutting edge' OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) development going on.
Loco and carriage refurbishment is also carried out for organisations such as the Taieri Gorge Railway, which is a major tourist attraction in Otago.
Plans for the future revolve around rolling stock for freight transport and building for passenger transport in New Zealand. With the relationship already developed there are potential opportunities in Australia.
Carriage being refurbished
Vehicle dynamics type testing and research is conducted by Hillside. They are asked to validate any new vehicles introduced into New Zealand in the track environment for both themselves and other companies. This includes extensive dynamic testing with the research car, with assessments and informal reports are provided to Land Transport New Zealand (LTNZ).
The design crew has a mixture of tertiary qualification as well as those from a trade background coming through the ranks. They have to be project focussed and realistic – when committed to a contract they have to deliver. They have a lot of experience working to tight deadlines, high specifications and tough auditing by clients. They have to deliver the product to world standards and be critiqued by rail experts.
The team decides the compliance standard because they are effectively self regulating. They must justify what they've done to LTNZ and then defend it to peer review. There is no rule where they can look it up and say they've done the job, so in almost all judgements they have to defend the compliance judgement. There are international standards but different rules in each country so they are subjected to everyone's definition. There is a lot of professional judgement that is continuing and ongoing in the rail industry in New Zealand, more so than in many others due to this self regulation. The staff manages and makes judgements on fire standards and crash worthiness and continually do risk assessments – all under the compliance banner they provide.
Hillside Engineering Group looks to continue with the work it has been doing, as well as pursuing opportunities to negotiate new contracts to provide locomotives and carriages.