The Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE) has launched a new rail showcase zone at its South Wales site, offering organisations of all sizes a unique opportunity to demonstrate their products to an industry audience.
This announcement marks the first phase of the GCRE Benefits Scheme, with the Bronze Tier now available for industry partners to sign up to.
While the full GCRE facility, set to become a world-class centre for rail research, testing, and innovation, is still under development, GCRE has already installed a 450-metre Road Rail Vehicle (RRV) line. This line, which includes 1,000 metres of dedicated showcase space, can now be utilised for product demonstrations.
The new bronze benefits package at GCRE is priced at £2,500 per annum. It provides a five-metre showcase zone for teams to highlight their products, with charges applying for any additional space required. The package also includes a branded information board and tailored visits for clients and customers to the GCRE site.
Once fully operational, GCRE plans to launch further tiers of its benefits scheme, ranging from bronze through to platinum.
GCRE Ltd Chief Commercial Officer Kelly Warburton said: “This is another exciting milestone for GCRE. The bronze tier we are launching takes our partnership with companies we work with to the next level. It utilises the features we have at GCRE to offer companies the chance to showcase products on a track environment. The launch of the bronze tier is an opportunity for organisations of all sizes to bring products for showcasing at GCRE to help in their own R&D and commercial journeys. With frequent visits from across industry and around the world, showcasing at GCRE is a cost-effective way for clients to present their products to new markets. Our showcasing offer represents an opportunity for organisations of any size to bring their products to site, to put them in a rail environment and to showcase their ideas to the industry and help them engage across the supply chain. GCRE has the potential to be transformative for the rail industry and it’s great to be able to launch this new showcasing zone for companies to benefit from the audience that GCRE has already established.”
The launch of the bronze tier builds on the recent success of the Innovation in Railway Construction programme. This competition, which commenced in 2022, was funded by the Department for Business and Trade in the UK Government and delivered by Innovate UK. It saw twelve teams install their projects at the GCRE site for testing and demonstration.
Kelly Warburton added: “It has been fantastic for GCRE to host the Innovation in Railway Construction programme over the last couple of years and to see the teams involved bring their ideas to life. Many of the teams that installed products at the site saw tangible commercial benefit with new interest in their products and their companies. Launching the bronze tier of the benefits scheme opens up important opportunities for rail and the supply chain to promote and sell their fantastic products to a wider audience. Putting them in situ, in a representative environment and allowing people to see how it works will be commercially valuable for those companies and in turn show what we can do at GCRE.”
