HGI’s venture into the rail industry was a timely one and in 2001, the Company won contracts to supply a significant quantity of generators for two major Railtrack investment projects.

Working with two Yorkshire-based, American-owned companies (Thrall Europa and Wabtec Rail), HGI designed and supplied ultimately some 200+ generators for use on the MRA Side-tipping ballast wagons (with Thrall) and the HQA HOBS (High-output Ballast System) Auto-ballaster (with Wabtec), the latter going on to become a significant feature in the construction of CTRL (Channel Tunnel Rail Link).

Both designs were an iterative process, further developing HGI’s understanding of the rail-dynamic environment and resulting in two highly sophisticated and very different machines to meet the demanding requirements of these radical new vehicles.

Through a process beneficial to all involved, HGI further extended their understanding of the needs of the rail customer and the result produced two machines which dramatically increased productivity in ballast handling for the end user.

The involvement and exposure associated with these projects brought further benefit to HGI when in 2002 the Clark Chapman (Cowans Sheldon) Company approached HGI with a requirement to power its own revolutionary track placement system – the RDT (Rail Delivery Train). This vehicle system would deliver and position 32 pieces of CEN60 rail, each up to 216 m long, laying simultaneously either side of the train and again, with systems powered by a Harrington Generator.

Later that year, HGI were approached by Railtrack East Anglia with the result that the Company went on to supply four more 100kVA 650V mobile sets in a variation of the original 2000 LNE specification.