Notified Body Services
The Background
The Department for Transport appointed CORREL Rail as one of the first UK Notified Bodies (Accreditation Number 1144) for High Speed Interoperability and subsequently Conventional Interoperability, with a scope that fully covers all aspects of Traction and Rolling Stock (T&RS).
As the leading T&RS Notified Body in the UK, CORREL Rail were the very first to issue EC Certificates of Conformity and Type Examination for rolling stock in the EC. CORREL Rail continues to be at the forefront of developing the UK's understanding and application of the new Regulations through its involvement on national working parties, and particularly technical secretariat of the EU committee developing the unified Notified Bodies approach to assessment of rolling stock via the various modules and Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs).
The CORREL Rail coverage of HS TSI's includes Rolling Stock, Servicing, Energy and Command, Control & Signalling as related to rolling stock.
Unique Approach
CORREL Rail's systemic, database driven, approach to Independent Verification and Validation of T&RS, originally applied as a VAB to the Railway Group Standards, has equally been applied to the assessments necessary against TSI's, European Standards and other applicable Notified National Technical Rules.
The CORREL Rail assessment process (explained in the Mandatory Certification sheet) is transparent to any set of Traction and Rolling Stock requirement criteria, and therefore can just as easily be applied to European Approvals and validation against European, National, local or contract specifications, standards or Legislation.
All applicable TSI requirements have been codified against the detailed CORREL Rail Vehicle Breakdown System (VBS) code, stored in a database. Against any application, once the work scope has been identified in respect of the VBS a detailed clause by clause applicability, evidence and close out matrix is generated. This is used to drive the assessment forward, using semi automated reporting to pro-actively manage the process and inform the client of progress.
Other requirements, such as Notified National Technical Rules, Euronormes etc. can be similarly codified and the common backbone of the unique VBS enables a thorough requirements capture process, combining them into the applicable review matrix for each vehicle area or sub area. CORREL Rail has a significant number of highly qualified and experienced T&RS engineers who between them have over 350-man years experience in the industry. This range of experience covers design, systems integration, construction, project management, inspection, commissioning and maintenance including interfaces such as wheel/rail and test train/train operator.