Industry Leading
Railway Dynamics
Software

Cost-effective analysis of railway dynamic performance and safety through simulation.

Latest news: SNC-Lavalin has rebranded to AtkinsRéalis.

The entities of the SNC-Lavalin Group (such as SNC-Lavalin, Atkins, and Faithful+Gould) have been brought together under a single brand: AtkinsRéalis. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, and this is a new milestone in our growth. For more details please visit the AtkinsRéalis website.

Rest assured, Vampire Pro is still developed and supported by the same team of industry experts. Working together under our exciting new brand makes it even easier than ever to tap into the full expertise you need.

Overview

Vampire Pro by AtkinsRéalis is an industry-leading railway dynamics simulation package that has been developed and optimised specifically for the railway industry, enabling cost-effective analysis of rail vehicle performance and safety through simulation.

Vampire Pro is used by railway organisations, administrations, companies and accademics throughout the world and has demonstrated its capabilities against various international benchmarks.

Vampire Pro enables users to build dynamic models of rail vehicles and study the response of the vehicles to measured track geometry and other user-defined inputs and external forces.

Proven Pedigree

The Vampire package was formed in the late 1980's from the combination of an extensive suite of analysis programs developed, tested and validated by British Rail Research. The package has been continuously developed ever since and is now known as Vampire Pro.

AtkinsRéalis acquired the rights to develop, support and license Vampire following the decision by Resonate, the previous developers of VAMPIRE®, to withdraw from vehicle dynamics consultancy and freeze their version of VAMPIRE® at its 2018 version (Version 6.60).

AtkinsRéalis released its first version of Vampire Pro (Version 7.00) in April 2020 and the latest release (Version 8.00) was released in June 2022.

The Vampire Advantage

Value: Vampire Pro is a powerful and adaptable tool but one of the most affordable railway dynamics simulation packages.
Recognition: Vampire Pro is recognised throughout the world as the leading railway dynamics simulation tool.
Licensing Flexibility: AtkinsRéalis offers a range of licensing options to support business and user needs.
Economics: The time and effort required to carry out assessments in Vampire is typically shorter than other railway dynamic simulation tools, reducing the cost and timescale of your projects.

Vampire Technical Benefits

Fast Simulation: Vampire simulation speed is often 10 times faster than general purpose Multibody Simulation (MBS) packages, allowing many simulations to be performed in a short time frame.
Rapid Model Building: Typically, it is at least 4 times faster to build a model in Vampire than in some other MBS tools.
Easy to Learn: A 3-day training course is enough for users to be confident to build their own models and perform simulations using all of the advanced Vampire Pro features.
Intuitive User Interface: The intuitive Vampire Pro front end allows quick and efficient management and execution of the simulation.
All in One: The Vampire Pro package offers a suite of over 30 programs under a single front end, eliminating the requirement to procure and use other software packages to create, analyse and present results.
Automation: Vampire Pro allows simulations to be automatically repeated for varying input conditions, supports third-party programs and can be driven from other applications.
Standard Tools: Vampire Pro exports graphs, videos, and data in standard Windows formats to greatly speed up the creation of reports.
Extensibility: Vampire Pro can be extended using User Subroutines allowing the user to create bespoke simulations, such as development of control systems.

Benefits of Licensing from AtkinsRéalis

Vampire Pro is developed and supported by AtkinsRéalis' Dynamics, Gauging and Testing team and provides the following benefits to our customers:

World Leading Expertise: Our team is the largest railway dynamics team in the UK and one of the best in the world, comprised of many developers and support staff with decades of Vampire experience.
Continued Development: AtkinsRéalis is committed to developing Vampire. AtkinsRéalis has already released three versions of Vampire Pro since it took over development and is now working towards the next release.
Expert Support: Vampire Pro is supported by team of expert railway dynamicists, covering the use of the software as well as providing technical assistance on vehicle modelling and simulation issues.
Training Courses: AtkinsRéalis provides training courses both on railway dynamics and the use of Vampire Pro.

Demonstrations

Vampire Interactive Vehicle Builder Tutorial

A complete vehicle model can be created from scratch in under 15 minutes using Vampire. In this video one of our principal consultants, Alan Minnis, will show you how this is done using the Vampire Interactive Vehicle Builder. This performance can also be achieved using the text based vehicle file.

Click on the video to watch

News and Events

Vampire Pro 8.00 Released - July 2022

We are pleased to announce the release of Vampire Pro 8.00, a major release in the Vampire development cycle providing a significant enhancement to the capabilities in modelling the wheel-rail interface, along with a small number of maintenance and bug fixes.

Vampire Pro 8.00 provides a brand-new additional Vampire creep law that solves the contact solution in-line rather than through pre-calculated contact data tables. This new creep law is suitable for use in short analysis sections where increased accuracy of the wheel-rail contact conditions is critical. The advantage of this approach over pre-calculated tables is it can take into account variables in the contact calculation that arise during the simulation that a pre-calculated table can only approximate. This makes the simulation more accurate as it can account for track gauge changes, changing rail profiles and wheelset angle of attack to name a few variables.

The benefits of the new In-Line creep law include:

Improved accuracy for simulations under dynamically varying conditions.
Improved accuracy for switch & crossing simulations and transitions to tight curves.
Ability to simulate vehicles with different wheel profiles on axles running over track with varying rail profiles.

Development of this In-Line contact creep law will also allow future development in areas such as improved track modelling and the incorporation of other in-line methods such as Vtech CMCC’s CONTACT solution.

Existing customers can download the latest release in the members area. For new customers and enquiries, or if you cannot access the members area, then please contact the Vampire team using the contact details below.

Vampire Virtual User Event - 14 June 2022

A big thank you to all those who presented at and attended our second Vampire Virtual User Event. It was a great success and good to see such a large cross-section of the Vampire community. Recordings and slides for all the presentations are available here. We hope to see you again at future events both virtual and in person.

Vampire Virtual User Event - 16 July 2020

A big thank you to all those who presented at and attended our first Vampire Virtual User Event. It was a great success and good to see such a large cross-section of the Vampire community. A full recording of the event and all the presentations are available here. We hope to see you again at future events both virtual and in person.

More News

Members Area

To access the latest Vampire software releases and download other supporting files and information please login to the Vampire area on our clyx.net portal. You can also raise online helpdesk calls for the Vampire team through the portal.

Members Area