When Hitachi Rail Europe was building the UK’s first brand new train factory in more than a century,  industry-leading MxPro multiprotocol fire panels from Advanced were the obvious choice to protect the state of the art facility and its half billion pound investment.

The Newton Aycliffe site, which created more than 730 jobs, was built to construct new InterCity Express trains for Great Western and LNER. replacing existing rolling stock that was almost 40 years old. The £5.7 billion order comprised 122 five and nine-carriage trains in total.

Advanced’s benchmark MxPro 4 fire panel range was specified for its flexibility, reliability and ease of use. The fully integrated five-panel network will cover all areas of the new manufacturing facility and comprising 942 components in total, including over 200 smoke detectors and 150 sounder beacons, as well as an aspirating system. The MxPro 4 panels at the site are connected with a high speed, fault-tolerant network, interfaced with a PC-based graphical control system, and supporting Apollo fire devices. This setup makes allowance for subsequent updates and expansion of the system.

MxPro is the fire industry’s leading multiprotocol fire solution, offering customers a choice of two panel ranges, four detector protocols and a completely open installer network that enjoys free training and support. MxPro panels can be used in single loop, single panel format or easily configured into multi-loop, high speed, 200 panel networks covering huge areas and thousands of field devices.