Our projects

The Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE) is a regeneration project in the South Wales valleys, on the site of an old open-cast coal mine, which will provide a unique site for testing of rail innovation.

Concretene was involved as part of an Innovate UK-funded call, featuring 12 different rail technologies – from electrification and track replacement to signalling, security and communications. These were chosen to receive a share of the government funding and develop their product for a showcase for the project and demonstrate the potential for GCRE to provide world-leading test facilities and bring much-needed regeneration to a deindustrialised part of the country.

Over the course of a year, we worked with Cemex Rail to deliver a lower-carbon concrete sleeper and cast 60 for installation at the site. These used 3.75kg less cement per sleeper (7% CO2 reduction) and met the testing standards of Cemex and Network Rail for G44-type sleepers.

The sleepers were installed by local contractor KGJ Price and on the demonstration day, more than 200 guests from rail industry, government and press visited to see the scale of the site and the breadth of innovation on display.

Performance data