26th ANNUAL WHEEL RAIL INTERACTION CONFERENCE

Biography: I was born and raised in Romania where I lived for the first 23 years of my life. In 1991, following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, I left Romania and settled in the UK, in the North Eastern city of Newcastle upon Tyne, where I lived for 10 years. During my time in Newcastle I did a variety of clerical and catering jobs before going to University in 1996. In 2000 I graduated with a BEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. In September 2000 I started working in the railway industry as a Graduate Engineer with White Young Green (WYG) Consulting in Leeds, Yorkshire. The following year I moved to Yorkshire where I’ve been living ever since in various locations. I started my railway career as a track geometry designer at WYG where I progressed to becoming a Senior Engineer with experience in track survey, design and design implementation using tamping machines. In 2003 I was sent on a 3 months secondment to the £9bn West Coast Route Modernisation Project where I worked on the implementation of Absolute Track Geometry. 3 and a half years into the 3 months secondment, in 2006 I left the Project to work closer to home as the Area Track Geometry Engineer for Network Rail, managing the track quality for the Great Northern Area of what was at the time the London North East Territory.. In 2008 I moved into Track Asset Management in the newly formed London North East Route of Network Rail as a Senior Asset Engineer, supporting the local Maintenance Delivery Units with all issues related to track geometry and track quality. In 2015, after the departure of the Route’s Rail Management specialists I decided to step in and take the challenge of moving from track geometry and track quality into Rail Management. My team of two Asset Engineers and I as the Senior Asset Engineer look after all aspects of Rail Management in the London North East Route, from Rail Testing and Lubrication to Welding and Grinding and more recently Rail Milling. For the past couple of years in my new role I’ve been working with our HQ on the introduction of Rail Milling technology and the trials of Eddy Current measurement of Rail Contact Fatigue in Network Rail.