Specialist, flexible, problem-driven: Rowe Hankins has spent four decades earning a reputation as the rail industry’s go-to for custom electro-mechanical solutions. Here’s how the company works and where it’s heading.
Rowe Hankins is a UK-based designer and manufacturer of specialist on-train and trackside products, that’s been serving the world’s railways for four decades. Working closely with rolling stock manufacturers, fleet operators, track owners and infrastructure contractors, the company has built a global reputation for engineering quality, technical expertise and a problem-solving approach that sets it apart from standard component suppliers.
Rowe Hankins designs, manufactures and supports a range of rail products across a number of core areas, each developed in direct response to industry need.
Paul Briscoe, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Rowe Hankins, said:We're very much problem solvers, that's how most of our products have been developed. Our non-intrusive current monitor was designed specifically for Network Rail, for example. Our earth leakage detection unit came out of a requirement for Crossrail, while our overspeed protection system developed for the Sheffield tram network is a more recent example. Each solution started not as a catalogue item, but as a question: 'can you design a solution?'.
What Does Rowe Hankins Offer?
Speed Sensors and Tachometers
Speed sensors and tachometers form one of the company’s highest-volume product lines. Supplied to train builders and maintainers across the network, these devices do far more than measure speed. They’re used to detect direction of travel, feed data to driver displays and link into on-train data recorders (OTDRs), which are the industry’s equivalent of a flight data recorder. Without them, trains cannot operate.
What distinguishes Rowe Hankins’ offering is the degree of customisation available.
Paul Briscoe, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Rowe Hankins, said:We're very flexible on what type of design you want. Tell us what length nose you need, what connector type, what cable length and we'll design it to fit. You shouldn't have to adapt your installation to suit a standard product.
iWFL Systems
Rowe Hankins’ intelligent wheel flange lubrication (iWFL) system is a trainborne dispensing technology that uses GPS, speed and inertia sensors to apply biodegradable lubricant precisely at curve zones. Combined with a top-of-rail friction modifier (ToRFM), it reduces wheel wear, friction, noise, derailment risk and energy consumption by 10-15%, enhancing both safety and service life of rail infrastructure.
AC and DC Earth Leakage Detection Units
Like the rest of the company’s product portfolio, the AC and DC earth leakage detection units were developed to address specific problems brought to the company by customers. This is a pattern of development that has shaped the company’s identity since its R&D function was established in 1994.
The Detect & Protect Range
The company’s new Detect & Protect range completes the core product offering, addressing two of the most critical risks to electrical infrastructure: undetected cable damage and power surges. Its non-intrusive current monitor (NIC) – so called because it detects current via magnetic field rather than direct connection to the cable – monitors circuit health continuously, alerting engineers to degradation before it becomes failure.
Complementing this, a surge arrester module (SAM) provides protection against sudden voltage spikes, including lightning strikes and tripping at the point of surge to protect downstream equipment. The range has already been supplied in significant volumes across Network Rail infrastructure in both the UK and Australia.
Servicing, Testing and Overhaul Facilities
Alongside its manufacturing capability, Rowe Hankins operates a specialist service facility offering overhaul, testing and repair of electro-mechanical and electronic equipment, extending the working life of products that the industry’s tight budgets and ageing fleets depend on.
This includes circuit breakers, contactors and on-train monitoring and recording (OTMR) systems. Its facility houses a DC current injection system capable of 2,000A continuous output, and a 5,000A function. A dedicated circuit breaker tester capable of measuring trip times down to one millisecond is also available.
Paul Briscoe, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Rowe Hankins, said:For an industry contending with ageing fleets and acute obsolescence pressures, the ability to extend the working life of critical components is a significant offering. We've worked with London Underground for years, overhauling large circuit breakers that would otherwise have been written off, stripping them down, replacing worn components, re-greasing, re-torquing, testing etc and putting them back into service for another five years or more. But there's a wide range of components we can support there, everything from overhauling braking systems and pressure switches through to contactors and on-train monitoring and recording (OTMR) systems – the range is broader than people might expect. If it comes through the door and it needs overhauling, chances are we can turn it around. We have the facilities, we'll source whatever components are needed, and we'll get it back out working.
What Makes Rowe Hankins Unique?
Where competitors supply a standard unit and leave the customer to make it work, Rowe Hankins designs to the requirement as well as providing off-the-shelf solutions. This principle applies whether the customer needs a speed sensor with a non-standard nose length, a custom cable termination arrangement, or an entirely new device to solve a problem not yet addressed.
Paul Briscoe, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Rowe Hankins, said:We're not really an off-the-shelf product supplier, but rather a solutions provider. If someone comes to us with an issue on their train that needs a specific solution, we'll design the product for it. That's how most of what we make came to exist.
This approach demands early involvement, and Rowe Hankins works hard to be specified at the point of train design rather than called in at the point of failure. This is a distinction that matters enormously in a sector where retrofitting the wrong component to ageing rolling stock carries a very real operational and financial cost.
The company therefore positions itself as a long-term partner rather than a transactional supplier, and backs that up with ongoing technical support, refurbishment services and product updates well beyond standard end-of-life.
Quality accreditations, including IRIS certification and ISO 9001, underpins this engineering rigour that the company applies across its development and manufacturing processes.
How Rowe Hankins Is Evolving
The rail industry’s current challenges, which include ageing fleets, obsolescence, tightening maintenance budgets and a growing focus on predictive rather than reactive maintenance, are creating new demands that Rowe Hankins is positioning itself to meet.
The company is actively expanding into larger project-based work, recognising that longer-term contracts offer both commercial stability and greater scope to apply its engineering capability. New technology partnerships are opening doors in areas including LiDAR-based obstacle detection and train management systems, while a collaboration with ZTR on automatic engine start-stop systems for freight applications signals growing interest in the freight sector.
Looking further ahead, the intersection of condition monitoring and artificial intelligence (AI) is an area the company is watching closely – an emerging space where its existing expertise in current monitoring and sensing could find new applications.
Paul Briscoe, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Rowe Hankins, said:We have to move with the times. Diversifying into bigger projects and new solutions gives us a better vision for the future, and it means we can keep offering customers something genuinely useful, whatever the industry needs next.
To find out more about Rowe Hankins’ products and engineering capabilities, visit its Railway-News supplier profile.
