Introduction
9th COURSE ON VEHICLE / TRACK INTERACTION
18th – 20th September, 2007
Emmanuel College,
Cambridge
We regret that there will be no VTI Course for the time
being. We apologise to anyone who may
have thought of coming to the course this year or in future years but shall now
be disappointed. In particular we
apologise to those regular participants who may already have fixed the dates in
their mind. We are grateful to them and
to the hundreds of others who have supported the Course since it was
established in 1999. We are indebted to
the contributors, all of whom are eminent in their field yet gave their time
and expertise for little or no payment, and to the sponsors (in particular
Loram Maintenance of Way Inc) whose financial support made it possible to offer
a course of excellent quality at a very modest price.
The VTI Course appeared to be filling a need for training
and education in this area that was not being filled otherwise, at least in the
UK. Dr Grassie can provide a course covering a
wide range of vehicle/track interaction, with attention to both theoretical
background and practical problems on a variety of railway systems. He would be delighted to provide a quotation
for such a course in the UK
or elsewhere.
Dr Grassie also welcomes clients for his “real”
job of providing a paid consulting service in this area and providing equipment
to measure corrugation and software to assist with track maintenance (see www.railmeasurement.com) . Dr Grassie has often provided both an
explanation of and solutions to problems in this area in a day or two that have
baffled others for months and filled shelves with large reports of questionable
value. An unfortunate result is that
most clients then believe that the problem must have been easy yet do not
question why others spend so much time at great cost concluding little except
that more work is required.
For organisations that have sent several participants to the
VTI Course in the past, a separate course could be quite economical, but there
may be no substitute for the ducks, the brief experience of education and life
in a Cambridge College, the pubs and even (for those naughty few) climbing over
the gates in the early morning hours. We
shall certainly miss the event, and shall also miss meeting old friends and
making new ones (and a key was actually provided for access
“out-of-hours”).
July 2007
Course programme
The draft programme for the Course , including the names of those
who will be leading the sessions will be posted in due course , www.vticourse.org.