Prizes & Awards

Colin commenced his S&T career in 1968 as an Engineering Scholar in the Manchester Division of British Rail and shortly afterwards joined the IRSE as a Student member in October 1969.

He began his contribution to the Institution’s work in the 1970s by serving on the IRSE Student and Graduate Committee. He transferred to become a Graduate member in December 1974 and was awarded a Thorrowgood scholarship in 1975.

He transferred to Member In March 1981 and shortly after was elected to become a Member of Council in 1983. At that time all membership and financial records were recorded, updated and reported manually and it was during this period that Colin Id and implemented the Institution’s first computerised membership records system.

He transferred to the grade of Fellow in February 1986 and by then he had also led the Institution’s first computerised financial records system which he then implemented when he was appointed as the Institution’s Treasurer in 1986 in which capacity he served until 1993.

In 1991 he was appointed Chairman of the special Licensing Sub Committee that was set up by Council to devise and develop the IRSE Licensing Scheme to assure the competence of S&T staff following the Clapham accident. The Scheme was launched to the signalling industry In January 1994 and Colin was instrumental in achieving its wide application in the years that followed.

He has served at various times on most of the main Committees of the Institution including Management Committee, Finance Committee, Membership and Registration Committee and Licensing Committee. He was also one of the founding Directors of IRSE Enterprises Ltd. when the Council decided to set up Its wholly owned subsidiary trading company In February 2005.

He was elected to become the IRSE President in 2003 and served on Council as a Past President until 2006. He was then appointed to become the Institution’s Chief Executive and General Secretary in this capacity he served until 2015.

In April 2007 he was made an Honorary Fellow and in June 2015 was awarded the President’s Medal for his outstanding service to the Institution.

In July 2015 he was appointed Chairman and Senior Engineer of the Licensing Scheme in which capacity he has continued to serve until June 2024.

He has served on Council since 1983 either as a full Council member, President, or as the Institution’s Treasurer, Secretary, or Licensing Scheme Chairman. Altogether this totals more than 41 years of continuous outstanding service to the IRSE.

Brandon is the Director of Engineering for UK Projects within GTS Canada. In this role, 150 engineering staff report to Brandon spanning System Engineering, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Test Engineering and historically Data Communication Systems all dedicated to moving block signalling solutions within London’s Urban Rail. As an extended member of the Executive Committee for GTS Urban Rail Solutions (URS) Canada, he has monthly sessions with the executives for GTS URS and is included in monthly Leadership meetings hosted by the Chief Technical Officer for Engineering across all Business Units in GTS.

He will be very influential in encouraging the business to sponsor individual membership of the IRSE, taking the exams and using the licencing scheme. He has expressed interest In the IRSE for the ability to join the wider community and knowledge base.

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As the director of Railcenter, Henk plays an essential role in training signalling experts in the Netherlands. He has set out the strategy to train all levels (mechanic, engineer, tester, etc.) and has facilities available for all systems. Not only conventional techniques but also ERTMS. He gives the rail center the space to also experiment with innovations and to carry out integration tests in the existing systems. he also actively supports IRSE's activities by making the facilities available for IRSE activities. For example, he facilitated the IRSE ITC in a technical visit. This sponsored the IRSE activities and will continue to do so.

Sanyawit Aphichatapong is currently a Deputy Chief Signalling Engineer for the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). His responsibilities include on-going signalling systems design and commission for SRT. He contributed to the design and commission of the current SRT Signalling Systems where he introduced ETCS Level 1 to the national mainline network and the Red Line Commuter system in 2018. He is in an influential position In his career to support activities of the Thailand Section and help providing services to IRSE members In Thailand.

Hedley has been the strongest supporter for the development and evolution of Module A of the IRSE examination (The Certificate) for a number of years. He was presented with a Merit Award In 2021 In recognition of his work, it was felt that his contribution both before and since has been much more significant than Is recognised by a merit award. He has encouraged and cajoled numerous members to write exam support materials, and where he has struggled to find someone, he has written material himself. In addition, he has masterminded the preparation of questions for module A by exam question setters, including himself, and re-organised the structure of the questions to simplify preparation and presentation of relevant reading material. He leads the review, moderation and marking process for Module A, and has led the evaluation, selection and introduction of a new online question system for the exam. He has not been alone in doing all this, but we feel that is role in leading the evolution of this particular exam is a very worthwhile activity and fully justified Council ratifying him for the award of Honorary Fellow.

The IRSE received Engineering Council approval in 2000 to register members for professional registration (EngTech and IEng) and later in 2003 (CEng). Non-standard route applications, those who do not follow the accredited degree programs, are assessed on an individual basis by the Individual Case Panel (ICP). Colin has had a large part in these assessments and joined the ICP through his academic background at the University of Birmingham since 2009/2010. Colin has been invaluable to the Institution. Functioning completely behind the scenes, invisible to all but a very select few in Membership & Registration, but many members of the Institution owe their professional registration to Colins evaluation work.

Colin has also been involved in the set up and teaching of the Master of Science (Safety and Control Systems & Railway Systems Engineering and Integration) and the equivalence of the Safety and Control Systems MSc to the IRSE professional exam.

Colin Joined the IRSE in 1995 as a Companion and was awarded Fellow in 2011.

Derek has been an active member of the institution’s examination committee since 1969 - that's over half a century of service.  He has contributed to the setting of hundreds of exam questions and has undertaken the marking of thousands of written answers from candidates who have sat the examination. 

Derek has attended hundreds of committee meetings, and his energetic and cheerful demeanour is appreciated by his fellow committee members.  Not to mention his valued contribution to committee discussions informed by his extensive experience in the signalling industry. 

Currently Derek is one of the examiners aligned with the examination's Module C 'Principles of railway control and communication systems' and his work for the committee continues unabated. 

The examination committee is extremely grateful for Derek's valuable contribution to their work and hopes that a Merit award will extend this recognition to a wider audience.

Rod has supported the London & South-East Section since its inception in 2018 as a committee member. He has arranged presentations, technical visits and supported the work of the committee. 

He is also a member of the IRSE's International Technical Committee and written up some of their reports. 

He has made Presidential Presentations and presented papers at Aspect and Conventions. 

He also supports the IRSE as a Council Member

Frazer has worked tirelessly for the Scottish Section over the past 10+ years and in particularly organised the Section Annual Dinner event single handily taking over from Peter Allan our previous Dinner Organiser, while carrying out the Section Secretary duties. He is also essential for our Local IRSE Exam study group following passing his own exams to obtain Member status and passes on his experience and knowledge during these study group sessions on an annual basis to the members applying for said exams. Couldn’t recommend a better candidate for the award in terms of humility and hard work rolled into a Section committee member all the while still doing the 'day job' in the background.

Micheal has been a key member of the IRSE Irish Section committee since its creation in 2014. Micheals position on the committee is Events Organiser. His positivity, can-do attitude and attention to detail has meant that the Irish Section has excelled particularly in the area of social and technical events. Over the years, Micheal has been a key driver in the organisation the annual dinner dance, technical papers, technical visits, Rivval Golf annual event and IRSE presidential visits.

Byron began his career in 2014, joining Transnet (Operator running mainline services in South Africa) as a graduate in the signalling design office in Durban South Africa.  After 2 years he completed the training program and was appointed as a Signal Design Engineer.   

During his time at Transnet, he was involved in the design, delivery and testing of various projects. These projects included the design and stage works for the replacement of slow speed turnouts with highspeed turnouts resulting in track circuit and signal placement changes.  The relocation and redesign of a local control panel at Duffs Road to the centre of train control in central Durban. The reconfiguration and rationalisation of the track and signal layout between Phoenix and Stanger, which was to cater for the replacement of the Route Relay Interlocking with CBI interlocking. He was also involved in the testing and commissioning of the Majuba rail link project which included checking and validating contractor interlocking designs as well as the testing and commissioning of the systems.  

After 8 years at Transnet Byron was appointed as a Senior Signal Engineer for Equipment Engineering Services at Transport for London.  For the past 1.5 years he has supported Signal Operations and been involved in various projects across the network ranging from obsolete asset redesign including legacy relays, asset failure monitoring (relating to the introduction of the UNISTAR point machine on the LU network), Points Heater monitoring system modification and install, special investigations for signalling equipment that has failed in service, testing of equipment that is no longer supported by the internal production department and design of bespoke test equipment. 

The outputs from the monitoring installed on the UNISTAR point operating equipment have provided valuable information to support improvements in the overall reliability of the system. 

Over the last 10 years of work Byron has achieved the following Professional Registrations, Professional Engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa, Associate Member with the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers.  He is also registered with the following technical institutions, The Institution of Engineering and Technology and The Signal and Electrical Engineers’ Technical Society (TechSoc). 

I first joined the railway as a Year-in-Industry student on the Network Rail IT industrial placement scheme, working in IT Project Management to deliver a new signalling design tool. After this I returned to finish my degree in Computer Science & Mathematics at the University of Manchester, including a final year project to collect and analyse real-time train running data to predict train performance.

I then returned to Network Rail on the IT graduate scheme, completing a number of placements around the business including operational performance, group strategy and IT project management. At the end of the graduate scheme I settled into a permanent role as an Assurance Analysis Specialist – analysing the safety and sustainability data for major infrastructure projects in the North of England. I gained a passion for safety that I have taken through my work since.

During my four years in the role, I simultaneously studied for an MSc in Railway Systems Engineering and Integration at the University of Birmingham, and in the process brought together my passions for safety, signalling and technology with the writing of my dissertation which was entitled ‘Digital Technologies and Their Effects on Workforce Safety’. In the dissertation I researched a number of recent accidents and incidents across the railway, and investigated how technology (including ETCS) could have prevented these.

After graduating from my master’s degree, I became a Project Engineer working in Industry Partnership Digital Railway, working predominantly on the TRU ETCS project. After two years in the Digital Railway team I joined the TRU ETCS team directly as a Senior Project Engineer. In this role I have furthered my interests in safety and sustainability by writing reports on the impact ETCS has on them, in support of the business case for ETCS on TRU. I have also worked on requirements engineering, reliability and performance, as well as general project engineering duties. In the last four years as a Senior Project Engineer I have quickly learnt a lot about signalling engineering, project engineering and ETCS implementation in and around Great Britain.

Jennifer gained distinction in module C and a pass in module D in October 2023’s exams, having previously gained a credit in Module B in October 2022 and a credit in the Certificate (module A) in March 2022.

Scott is currently the Principal Signalling Engineer in Network Rail’s Route Services Engineering & Asset Management team.

He has 15 years’ experience in railway signal engineering, starting with Network Rail in 2008 on their Advanced Apprenticeship Scheme for Railway Signal Engineering before graduating to frontline signalling technical grades then into to a senior technical support role.

Following on from this frontline technical experience Scott then progressed into engineering management, holding signalling maintenance engineering positions in London and then Motherwell. Scott then moved into his current role in asset management last year.

Scott completed the Certificate in Railway Control Engineering Fundamentals (Module A) and Railway safety and systems engineering (Module B) of the Advanced Diploma in Railway Control Engineering. His aspirations are to pass the two remaining modules (C & D) in the October 2024 exam intake to complete the Advanced Diploma in Railway Control Engineering (IRSE Professional Exam). Scott is working towards Professional Registration at the level of Chartered Engineer (CEng) through the IRSE.

• The 15 IRSE members who have been awarded the Hewlett Fisher Bursary to attend Convention 2024 are: 

• Davis Kitagawa AMIRSE
• Rohit Yadav MIRSE
• Yuk Fei Poon Affiliate
• Glenn Mitchell MIRSE
• John Carter Affiliate
• Tiffany Wong AMIRSE
• Anastasia Ivanova AMIRSE
• Rushan Pun Affiliate
• Spoorthi R Affiliate
• Hanumesh Pujar Affiliate
• Harry Morgan Affiliate
• Wessel van den Brink AMIRSE
• Pavitra Utla Affiliate
• Jack Neil  AMIRSE
• Ben Stockton Affiliate