Rail Turnouts 2025: Driving Innovation in Track Infrastructure
Cold Forge Products was proud to be an active participant at Rail Turnouts 2025, held on 25 March in Perth.
We were represented by our MD Andrew Carroll, Sales Manager Steve Burt and Design Engineer Tomos Luker.
This dynamic workshop brought together the rail industry’s leading engineers, project managers, and suppliers to share critical insights into one of the most demanding rail assets—turnouts.
Cold Forge was especially honoured to be acknowledged in ARTC’s Hunter Valley case study, presented by Luke Pleasance and Gus Carfi from ARTC and Cris Fitzhardinge of RISSB, which highlighted our involvement in solving the complex issue of broken rails.
Our Design Engineer, Tomos Luker and our Managing Director Andrew Carroll contributed to a multi-tiered solution that included:
1. A containment solution: Cyclic replacement of Switch & Stock based on MTBF data
2. Short-term solution:
- Designing a strengthening plate to support the known weak spot with the design of the long turnout fishplate.
- Representing $680K of the maintenance budget and $2.32M in savings over 5yrs
3. Long-term solution: A new turnout design that eliminates the root cause
The day also featured rich contributions from many of our customers and partners including: Dr Elias Kassa, Monash Institute of Railway Technology, Michael Clarke of Queensland Rail, and industry leaders like voestalpine, Vossloh Australia, and Progress Rail, reinforcing the need for collaborative innovation in turnout design, maintenance, and asset management.
Thanks to the organisers, presenters, and all attendees—Cold Forge is proud to help shape the future of turnout technology with high-performance, precision-engineered components.
