The Tyne and Wear Metro’s newest rail maintenance vehicle has been named after the music megastar Ariana Grande, adding a sense of fun to the serious tasks that it performs.
The Grammy award winning singer has millions of fans across the globe – and now her lesser-known namesake – the Metro rail grinder - is spearheading track engineering on the Metro system.
The maintenance vehicle has been christened ‘Ariana Grinder’ and is being deployed to keep Metro’s 77km of track in top condition.
We ran a competition with our workforce to come up with a name.
Known as a rail grinder, it is a road and rail going vehicle (RRV) used to keep the Metro rails in the correct condition to carry trains.
It grinds the top of the rails, removing defects and restoring the correct rail profile after wear and tear. This extends the service life of the rails and the Metro’s trains wheels themselves. It also helps keep journeys feel smoother for customers.
The vehicle will allow Nexus to carry out rail re-profiling work much more effectively and quickly than the previous manual method.
Stuart Clarke, Infrastructure Director at Nexus, said: “We’re delighted to have taken delivery of our new rail grinding vehicle, which is a game changer for how we undertake Metro track maintenance.
“We ran a competition to name it and the winning entry that was chosen was ‘Ariana’, after the singer Ariana Grande. It was bit of fun for our staff coming up with the name for a machine which has such an important job.
“The RRV allows us to get through a greater volume of rail profiling work. It’s a task that happens when the Metro system is closed to the public, so they don’t often get to see it.
“The grinder is capable of driving along the tracks, where it deploys a spindle which grinds the top of the rails. This makes it nice and smooth, eradicating any tiny imperfections in the steel.
“We have given it a first run out during our recent major renewal programme in South Tyneside and it went really well. We are already looking forward to using it on other parts of the Metro system. It’s a great investment in rail maintenance technology.”
The rail grinder is a specialised railway maintenance machine manufactured by Möser Maschinenbau GmbH, a German company that has been building rail‑processing equipment since the 1990s.
Rail grinders are widely used on mainline railways, light rail, tramways, metros, and industrial tracks.