FH Aachen Railway Challenge Team
What’s New
Current team news from WordPress posts, followed by the competition history from Carla back to Emma.
Latest posts
News from the team.
Rollouts, events, workshop updates, press coverage and everything else can be added later as normal WordPress posts.
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Carla at the NRW Infrastructure Visit to FH Aachen
Carla represented fh2rail during a visit by NRW Minister Ina Brandes as the state announced a €60 million infrastructure funding commitment for FH Aachen.
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Carla at the Bahnhofsfest in Raeren
Carla left the competition environment for a weekend and joined the Bahnhofsfest in Raeren, where visitors could experience student railway engineering up close.
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Carla 2026 Rollout — Starting the New Season
fh2rail presented the 2026 version of Carla at FH Aachen’s Kompetenzzentrum Mobilität, marking the public start of our new Railway Challenge season. On 27 May…
Competition history
2026 → 2017
Only competitions are kept in this fixed history. Everything else belongs in the post feed above.
25–29 JUN 2026
IMechE Railway Challenge — Grand Champion 2026
At Stapleford Miniature Railway in Leicestershire, Carla and fh2rail won the 2026 Grand Champion title. The team also won Energy Storage, Maintainability and Ride Comfort and shared the Reliability award. The final published standings placed fh2rail first on 1820 points, ahead of Sheffield on 1781 and PUTrain on 1739.
1st
Overall · Grand Champion
1st
Energy Storage
1st
Maintainability
1st
Ride Comfort
1st
Reliability · shared
05–07 JUN 2026
Alpha Trains European Railway Challenge — 3rd overall
Eight teams competed in Bad Schussenried at the 2026 European Railway Challenge, organised by FH Aachen. fh2rail finished third overall, behind PUTrain from Poznań University of Technology and Team EAGLE from TH Nürnberg.
2025
2nd in Europe, 3rd at IMechE
Carla and fh2rail finished 2nd overall at the Alpha Trains European Railway Challenge and won the DMG Innovation, Design and Maintainability challenges. Two weeks later at Stapleford, fh2rail finished 3rd overall in the IMechE Railway Challenge and won Maintainability.
2nd
European Railway Challenge
3rd
IMechE overall
1st
Innovation · ERWC
1st
Design · ERWC
1st
Maintainability
2024
Carla’s first competition season
The newly built Carla made its competition debut at the second European Railway Challenge in Bad Schussenried. A few weeks later in England, fh2rail brought the completely new locomotive through a difficult first IMechE weekend and finished 4th overall.
2023
European runner-up, then 3rd at IMechE
The first European Railway Challenge was held in Bad Schussenried, where PUTrain won ahead of FH Aachen in 2nd. Three weeks later, FH Aachen & Reuschling finished 3rd overall at the IMechE Railway Challenge.
2nd
European Railway Challenge
3rd
IMechE overall
1st
Noise · IMechE
1st
Maintainability · IMechE
2022
IMechE Railway Challenge — Grand Champion again
FH Aachen & Reuschling returned to England and won the Grand Champion title for a second time with Molly. The team won Ride Comfort and Energy Storage and shared first place in both Traction and Reliability.
1st
Overall · Grand Champion
1st
Ride Comfort
1st
Energy Storage
1st
Traction · shared
1st
Reliability · shared
2021
IMechE Railway Challenge — remote challenge from Aachen
UK quarantine rules made the trip to Stapleford impractical, so Molly completed a remotely judged challenge at FH Aachen. FH Aachen still won the Auto-Stop and Innovation challenges.
2019
IMechE Railway Challenge — Grand Champion
On the team’s third IMechE appearance, the new locomotive Molly took FH Aachen to its first Grand Champion title. Aachen also won the Auto-Stop, Energy Storage and Ride Comfort challenges.
1st
Overall · Grand Champion
1st
Auto-Stop
1st
Energy Storage
1st
Ride Comfort
2018
IMechE Railway Challenge — 4th overall
Emma returned to Stapleford and FH Aachen & Reuschling climbed to 4th overall with 873 points. The team also shared victory in the Reliability Challenge.
2017
IMechE Railway Challenge — the first international start
FH Aachen entered the IMechE Railway Challenge for the first time with Emma. As the first non-UK university team in the competition, the Aachen entry finished 9th overall on 244 points and received the Judges’ Award for Outstanding Initiative.