Back On Track: Great British Railways’ New Direction For Trains

Published relatively quietly during party conference season, Great British Railways’ (GBR) new Rolling Stock & Infrastructure Strategy could easily have passed under the radar. It should not.

The strategy sets out how GBR intends to approach the design, procurement, financing and maintenance of passenger trains over the coming decades. Its message is straightforward: trains, track, power, signalling, depots and maintenance should no longer be planned through separate processes and timescales. They should be treated as parts of a single, integrated railway.

That may sound like an organisational change, but its commercial implications are far-reaching. GBR intends to act as a stronger national customer, move away from highly bespoke train procurements, take a more active role in whole-life asset management and preserve greater choice over who maintains trains later in their lives. Traditional financing models will no longer be assumed to be the default, with direct state ownership,