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Annual Report 2009 |
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At 31 December 2009 the membership was as follows: Corporate Members Babcock Rail Each Corporate Member is entitled to nominate a representative to the Management Committee. Each Corporate Member is entitled to nominate as many of their employees as they wish to be on the mailing list to receive the exclusive benefits and services of IoRW membership. Income from subscriptions and seminars has enabled IoRW to continue to maintain all the current benefits of membership.
Summary of activities in 20091. MembershipLloyd Sersa, in the Republic of Ireland, Progress Rail in the USA and Sky Blue joined as new Corporate Members in 2009. Lincoln Electric re-joined in 2009. Grant Rail became part of Volker Rail and First Engineering became Babcock Rail. 2. EventsTechnical Seminars Two Technical Seminars were held in 2009, the first was on 30 April at TWI, Cambridge, on Rail Welding Underground and Related Developments; and the second was on 11 November, kindly hosted by Tube Lines, Canary Wharf, London, on Rail Welding Metallurgy and Process Developments. These events continued to attract a high number of participants, and around 50 people attended each one. Business Briefings The IoRW Management Committee continued to benefit from Business Briefing events. These are designed to provide a forum for discussion with relevant experts on business matters such as Directives and legislation that affect the industry. Two such events were organised in conjunction with Management Committee meetings in 2009. Both were in the form of guided tours of members' facilities. The first was a tour of Tube Lines Operations Control Centre, Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London. The second was a tour of the Saint-Gobain Abrasives manufacturing facility in Stafford. Other meetings The Fifth Annual General Meeting was held in April 2009 and the IoRW Management Committee met three times during the year. All these meetings were well attended, with a high percentage of Corporate Member representatives present. 3. PublicationsNewsletter Three issues of Welding Lines were published in 2009 which included a wide range of relevant technical articles, company profiles and interviews with Corporate Members. Website Information on the IoRW (www.iorw.org) website continued to be regularly updated and it received over 60,000 visits during the year. 4. Training and competenceFurther progress was made in the development the Guideline for a Diploma in Rail Welding Engineering. The IoRW certification scheme for training organisations continued but at a much lower level as a result of Network Rail’s new scheme. 5. RAILSAFE 2The RAILSAFE Phase 2 project proposal on arc welding of rails continued to make progress. Six partners from five countries are involved. They are: TWI Ltd, UK; Ir. J.B. van den Brug Raadgevend Ingenieur, The Netherlands; European Welding Federation, Portugal; ISQ, Portugal; Swedish Welding Commission, Sweden; National R&D Institute for Material Testing, Romania. Progress was reported regularly at IoRW Management Committee meetings, at Technical Seminars and in Welding Lines. A European Seminar aimed at getting feedback on the project from a large European audience was held in conjunction with the IoRW Seminar on 11 November in London. The project has a duration of two years ending on 30 September 2010. More information on the project can be found at www.ewf.be/Railsafe2. Overview Through IoRW's constitution as a membership organisation, commercial or any other kind of bias is avoided. This has continued to bring about a spirit of consensus within the industry which has enabled technology and competence improvements. This will be carried forward into the future through the continued strong support of the membership. |
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