Reanimating UK Rail: how to bring growth back
Britain’s rail sector is in a state of flux. In this interactive live broadcast, we assess the outlook in the wake of the scrapping of the remaining legs of High Speed 2, ongoing pressure on day to day operating budgets, question marks over plans to establish a ‘guiding mind’ for the industry, and an uneven picture of devolution.
Regulatory Control Period 7 is around the corner, but a clear framework for funding and delivering enhancements across the network remains absent. While the UK government has control over the industry’s finances to extent arguably never seen before, there seems to be little clarity on how or when the industry will return to the era of surging growth seen prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. But away from DfT and Treasury control, there are signs of hope, including in parts of the rail freight market and in the devolved regions including Scotland, Wales and Liverpool.
In this interactive live broadcast, we’ll be asking how the UK rail industry can navigate through a period of great uncertainty, how the sector can win back the trust of policymakers, how far a general election might change the outlook, and how predicted growth might be accommodated now the huge increase in network capacity promised by HS2 will no longer be available.
November 22, 2023 9.00 - 10.00 GMT
Key topics to be covered will include:
- Implications of the HS2 and Network North announcements
- The outlook for infrastructure management and operations on the cusp of CP7
- Securing the freedom to incentivise growth, with or without GBR
- Growing rail freight and logistics without HS2
- Should UK rail suppliers redouble their export efforts?
- Successes of devolution
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Mark is the Managing Director of Great Western Railway.
Starting his career at Reading station in 1989 he worked for British Rail, Railtrack and several train operators including Thames Trains, First North Western, c2c, Silverlink, Gatwick Express and WAGN.
Appointed to the MD’s post at First Great Western in 2008, Mark initially had to work to restore punctuality and reliability which had fallen substantially prior to his arrival as well as addressing some serious financial challenges. He worked with government to build the case to add substantial carriages to the business to address capacity shortages.
He subsequently worked collaboratively with the DFT and Network Rail to develop the enhancements to support the introduction of new electric trains, the Crossrail project, substantial rebuilding of key stations including Reading. He steered the business through substantial change as the railway has seen delivery of these projects and substantial quantities of new rolling stock have been put in to use on GWR to benefit customers with existing rolling stock often retained and cascaded to support other parts of the business. This work culminated in the delivery the December 2019 timetable which added frequency and reduce journey times on most GW routes.
He was asked to step across to sister business, South Western Railway, in 2020 to address serious performance, partnership and contractual issues and returned to GWR in January 2021 having addressed the key SWR issues.
Mark has worked in UK Rail for over thirty years and has experience at the front line and in more strategic roles. He has chaired the UK rail industry National Task Force and sits on the Rail Delivery Group Planning & Production Board.
He was awarded a CBE in the 2021 New Years Honours List, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and a Fellow of Institute of Railway Operators. Mark holds other honorary posts within the heritage and mainline railway community.
Maggie Simpson is Director General of the Rail Freight Group, the representative body for rail freight in the UK. Since joining in 2005 she has worked to promote growth in rail freight and to support member companies of the Group in their activities. She is also a Trustee of the Railway Benefit Fund.
Prof Andrew McNaughton is Professorial Fellow of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Southampton and Chair of Network Rail (High Speed) Ltd, the infrastructure manager and operator of the HS1 railway. He acts as independent Advisor to the UK Government on cost efficiency of electrification and the Transpennine Upgrade programme.
From 2009 to 2018, Andrew led the operational, engineering and environmental design and specification of HS2 and acted as Principal Witness in Parliament. He was Chair of the World Inter City & High Speed Rail Committee 2016-19.
Andrew developed a 40 year Fastrail Strategy for the New South Wales Government and acts as Strategic Advisor to the Governments of the Czech Republic and Slovakia on new line and conventional route upgrade development.
Andrew is an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham for Asset Management and lectures at Cambridge University on client impacts on capital cost.
Between 2000 and 2009, Andrew was Chief Engineer of Network Rail and chaired its renewals and enhancement investment panels. He chaired the EU Rail Research Advisory Council, the European Rail Infrastructure Forum and was Vice Chair of the EU Transport Advisory Group. His railway career started in 1973.
Julian Worth has spent 43 years in the rail freight industry in a wide variety of roles, including Managing Director, Transrail Freight, and Marketing Director, English Welsh & Scottish Railway. He now works with a range of organisations in the private and public sectors, providing strategic advice on rail-based logistics. He also writes on rail freight matters and speaks at conferences in the UK and abroad, with a particular emphasis on supply chain decarbonisation and modal shift. Julian is Chair of the CILT Rail Freight Forum and is a member of the Freight & Logistics and Strategic Rail Policy Groups, plus the Public Policy Committee. He is a Fellow of the Institute.
Nick is Executive Editor of Railway Gazette Group. He has covered global rail technology and policy stories for Railway Gazette since joining the title as News Reporter in 2006. Nick has visited more than 50 countries to report on rail and metro projects, and he has become a familiar face within the rail sector by presenting Railway Gazette Group’s flagship Interactive Broadcast series, and by chairing and moderating blue-chip events across the industry, including the UNIFE General Assembly and the World Congress on Railway Research.
Nick has been an active supporter of the campaign to develop a domestic high speed rail network in the UK, and a member and advocate for the Young Rail Professionals networking association, which seeks to promote rail careers to the next generation and boost diversity within the industry. He is a regular commentator on public transport issues in mainstream media channels, including BBC television and radio, Sky News, and broadsheet newspapers.
Born in Rochdale, UK, Nick graduated with a BA (Hons) in History from the University of York in 2002. Before joining Railway Gazette Group, Nick spent a year working in a specialist school for children with learning difficulties in rural France, and he was a digital journalist and editor covering the energy and financial services sectors for market analysis company Datamonitor.