Railway Technical Centre

The Railway Technical Centre (RTC) in London Road, Derby, UK, was built by the British Railways Board in the early 1960s to be its technical headquarters. British Rail was able to announce that "The Railway Technical Centre at Derby is the largest railway research complex in the world."

The RTC centralised the technical services provided by the regional Chief Mechanical & Electrical Engineers (CM&EE) to form the Department of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering (DM&EE). In addition, it housed the newly formed British Rail Research & Development Division (R&DD) which reported directly to the Board. The latter is well known for its work on the experimental Advanced Passenger Train (APT-E). At that early stage this was a concept vehicle, and in time the DM&EE applied the new knowledge to existing practice in the design of the High Speed Train (HST), the later prototype APT-P and other high-speed vehicles.

The Research Division was the first to move into the purpose-built accommodation on London Road. This was formed initially with personnel from other departments around the country, including the Electrical Research Division from Rugby, the Mechanical Engineers Research Section, the Civil Engineering Research Unit (Track Lab), and the Chemical Research Unit, while the Scientific Services Division occupied the former LMS Scientific Research Laboratory building across the road known as Hartley House. The embryo RTC site (mainly Kelvin House and the Research Test Hall) was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in May 1964. Later additional buildings were added: Trent House and Derwent House, the Advanced Projects lab, then Stephenson House, Lathkill House and finally Brunel House.

In addition to the research employees, the RTC became the headquarters of the DM&EE. This brought together engineers from the regional departments, together with its Drawing Offices, the Testing & Performance Section and the Engineering Development Unit workshop (EDU) from Darlington, the Workshops Division (which later became BREL) and it was also home to the Board's Central Purchasing Department. Strange to relate but the layout of equipment within the new workshop was as near as possible the same as the original. Following this came the Plastics Development Unit from Eastleigh, which, among other innovations, was responsible for the design of the High Speed Train's streamlined cabs as well as the prototype Mk3 coach doors.

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