Most teenagers hope to leave college with good grades and friends for life.
But enterprising engineering student Jackson Hall will finish his studies at York College having invented a device that could save the rail industry millions of pounds.
Jackson was on a work placement with AGH Engineering, a design consultancy in the city, when he came up with an idea for a screen to stop rats and other animals chewing through electric cables.
Ageing signal boxes on the rail network often suffer from the problem, leading to power failures and delays to trains.
Network Rail has now installed his polycarbonate screen at two signal boxes in the Leeds area, and there are plans for the technology to be used in 63 others.
Jackson has also been offered a job with AGH when he finishes his manufacturing and engineering T-Level course – with the firm’s principal engineer Adam Wood praising his “impressive” invention.
Jackson said: “It’s nice to know that something that I’ve done has genuinely been invested in.”
Explaining how he solved the problem, he added: “Before, if just one of the boxes was damaged it was creating a short circuit that would stop trains being able to run on miles and miles of track.
“They have to get decommissioned and rebuilt, which is more money and time.”
AGH works with partners in the industry including Network Rail, and Wood cited a recent power failure at Leeds Station that had cost more than £1m in repairs and delay compensation.
