Q: Please could you briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regards to the rail industry?
Michael Clark (MC): My experience in the rail industry is relatively recent. It began in late 2018, when I was asked to head up the Williams Review Secretariat and help run the Review for Keith Williams. Following that I moved in late 2020 on secondment to work for Andrew Haines on early consideration of implementation of the white paper. Currently, my role is strategy and transformation director in Andrew’s Great British Railway’s Transition Team looking at how we design and set up the new Great British Railways, as a key part of the DfT’s Rail Transformation Programme.
Dick Fearn (DF): I have served in the railway industry in both Britain and Ireland for 48 years since first joining the former British Rail as an operations trainee in 1973. After rail privatisation in the mid-1990s, I became Managing Director of the South Eastern TOC and subsequently Network Rail Zone Director Midlands. I moved to Dublin in 2003 to become Chief Executive of Iarnrod Eireann/Irish Rail, the vertically integrated, national railway company of the Republic of Ireland.
Since retiring from full time executive roles in 2013, I have returned to the UK and continued to serve the rail industry in a non-exec capacity. I am currently the independent chair of the Western Route Supervisory Board and I was a member of the Critical Expert Panel for the Williams Rail Review.
David Shipman (DS): I’ve been working in rail for my whole career, 24 years now, both in the supply chain and for Network Rail. The past six years have been spent leading the Signalling Innovations Group, a small team of specialists that delivers a vast range of signalling and multi-disciplinary technology developments and supports projects and other teams with expertise in product introduction, system development, design review and assurance activities, to name a few.
Paul Burkitt-Gray (PBG): I am a project planning manager at Transport for London, currently on secondment to the London Underground Operational Readiness Team which delivered the Northern Line Extension into revenue service on 20th September this year. I entered the railway industry five years ago through an apprenticeship with TfL, during which I worked on placements across the business including London Underground rolling stock refurbishment, London Overground civils, Crossrail communications systems, and the 4LM signalling project. Since June 2021 I have been chair of the IMechE Railway Division’s events committee.
Rebeka Sellick (RS): Over 35 years in the railway industry (so far), I’ve been lucky to have a huge variety of roles including hands-on frontline train maintenance, shift management, consultancy, team leadership, strategic direction, policy development, R&D and innovation. My current paid work is as Director, SellickRail (supporting SMEs and corporates to bring decarbonising engineering innovations to UK rail); and I volunteer as an elected Railway Division Board member at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Q: Do you think that the priority of capacity has been trumped by comfort due to COVID-19’s impact on customer use of the railway?
MC: Good question: from the research I’ve seen it seems to be too early to tell (what with the impact still developing) what the near-term effects on demand and customer behaviours will be, which would also need to be read against changing exogenous factors, too. Certainly, it’s a question we need to keep at the forefront of our mind, although I suspect we cannot address in such a binary fashion. For me this points to a wider ‘new normal’ for us, which will be operating and planning the railway amidst considerable uncertainty and puts further emphasis on elements of Williams-Shapps, such as greater customer focus; better understanding of the railway as an integrated system; and improving our ways of working to become more agile and adaptable.
DF: Passenger rail volumes have only recovered so far to circa 60% of pre-pandemic levels overall. Such low levels would be financially unsustainable for the network and the industry must now make every effort to rebuild the pre-pandemic levels of patronage. I think the provision of all-day service quality and capacity will be an essential component in attracting passengers back to the railways, particularly as greater post-pandemic working time flexibility will mean less focus on the former peak commuter times and the greater importance of all-day service frequency and capacity.
DS: I think certainly that the focus on capacity is going to have to change, and more effort will be needed to make the journey more attractive to customers, both in terms of comfort and convenience. For many commuters working away from a fixed office has become more normal, and if we are to entice them back to commuting we need to make that journey a better part of the working day through the facilities and features we provide, and equally to attract the leisure travellers we need to consider what makes the train more attractive than the personal car. Comfort and convenience have to come at the right price however.
PBG: National Rail and London Underground passenger numbers are still averaging below 2/3rds what they were pre-pandemic, while road congestion is often above 2019 levels. It’s vital that we attract people back to the railway if we don’t want this to be the start of a long-term decline, and that requires providing comfort and convenience that exceeds what’s offered by car travel. But we mustn’t make the mistake of allowing short term thinking to prevent essential capacity investment that will pay off over future decades either.
RS: No: of course comfort is important, especially when defined in the widest sense of attracting customers to rail – empty trains don’t benefit anyone. But railway investment in capacity is needed to provide long-term lower-carbon solutions for long-distance transport in particular, where rail currently has a small market share and hence great potential.
Covid-19 and climate change should be pushing us to invest in capacity, particularly for freight (which reduces CO2 emissions by up to 75% compared to road). On average, each freight train replaces 76 lorries, relieving the HGV driver shortage, as well as improving air quality (producing up to 10 times fewer small particulates and 15 times less nitrogen oxide for the equivalent road-hauled mass).
Q: In light of the William-Shapps Plan for Rail, what do you think should be the engineering priorities for the next year?
MC: This is an exciting time for engineering. If necessity is the mother of invention, the current difficult rail/economic context post-Covid, alongside the strategic opportunities offered by Williams-Shapps, should stimulate innovation, new ways of working and great ideas. The railway will be looking to engineers to push forward thinking on how we can do things better and more efficiently today, but also how we sustainably prepare the railway for coming challenges: leading the way to net zero, improving customer experience; and becoming digitally enabled.
DF: The most significant change for the railways in Britain in the Williams-Shapps plan is the formation of the new national rail body to be called Great British Railways. The key purpose of this new body is to bring the industry together under a single ‘directing mind’ and to foster close functional coordination of effort throughout the network. The greatest priority for rail engineers in this context, in my view, is to ensure they refocus their activities to foster much closer coordination of effort with operators in the delivery of services for passengers and freight customers.
DS: In many ways, the priorities don’t really change. We can’t keep delivering the same engineering solutions using the same methods while expecting to reduce costs and timescales. The Williams-Shapps plan was taking shape before Covid came along and exacerbated things, so the need to engineer a more affordable and sustainable railway, through doing more innovative things in more innovative ways, is more important than ever.
PBG: The first priority for railway engineering must always be safety. That means keeping our passengers and staff safe from infection during the ongoing pandemic. It means keeping our maintenance regime from slipping when there are pressures on cost and resources. And it means ensuring vital knowledge and collaboration isn’t lost to the disruption of reorganisation as we transition to the Great British Railways structure.
Q: How do you think rail engineers could help to rebuild passenger confidence in sustainable transport?
MC: Two key things stand out: continuing to do a good job in ensuring the network works well, helping to push reliability and performance; whilst also exciting people about new and better connections, and the future technology of railways. Rail has a special and positive place in Britain’s national psyche and often, engineering has underpinned that achievement – engineers can help sustain the railway as we recover and demonstrate the exciting future it has at the heart of Britain’s transport system.
DF: Train service performance delivery, in terms of punctuality, reliability and capacity, is one of the most critical factors in a passenger’s hierarchy of needs. Rail engineers have a major responsibility, jointly with operators, to ensure these needs are met in our efforts to restore passenger confidence in rail.
DS: For me, the key aspect is providing a complete journey, not just a part of it. We need passengers to choose not to make an end to end journey by car, and given that we can’t run a rail service door to door we need the journey across more than one mode of (sustainable) transport to be as seamless as possible, both in terms of physical interchange and timing. Rail engineers need to build a railway that forms part of the integrated journey, rather than considering a self-contained rail network.
PBG: The fundamental question for passengers is whether the railways are affordable and attractive, both for choice of travel and in supporting rail transport on the political agenda. Engineers have to take the lead in making this possible, in every aspect of the railways from specifying new trains for passenger comfort, planning maintenance to minimise disruption, and reducing costs by pushing innovation while ensuring we learn from past experience.
RS: Railway engineers need to facilitate modal shift by delivering the comfort that attracts and retains freight and passenger customers. People forget that electric cars won’t solve congestion problems – and will still produce tyre particulates – and rarely consider the energy and carbon costs of short road vehicle life-cycles compared to rail.
In parallel with improving the cost-effectiveness and carbon footprint of the railway, engineers need to engage with policymakers to help improve public understanding and confidence. We should engage with 20-minute neighbourhood thinking, to help create communities where walking and cycling and public transport are normal - and driving a car when you don’t need to is seen as antisocial behaviour.
Q: Regarding new technologies in rail propulsion, what would you say are the ones to watch for the future?
MC: An answer I look forward to learning from people more expert than me! I’m interested though, in how we translate good ideas and emerging technologies into a coherent and commercially viable proposition across the network.
DF: Innovation to achieve much lower costs in railway electrification technology, to ultimately enable all-electric rail operations network-wide, is the big challenge for rail engineers in my view. We risk the motor industry attracting passengers away from rail and into low cost electric cars if we don’t move more quickly on this issue.
DS: Not my specialist topic, but I feel that electric traction is still going to be the primary approach to greener trains, but with a focus on reducing expensive lineside infrastructure, especially to get the benefits onto lightly used secondary lines or even supporting re-openings. So we’ll probably be looking at batteries primarily, I know hydrogen is generating excitement too but it still feels a way off being a major contributor at this stage.
PBG: Innovation in applications of battery technology is what I find most exciting. Battery capacity and prices are only going to improve as the automotive industry moves to electric power. Batteries are by far the simplest way to achieve zero-emission operation on lines where electrification will never be financially viable. But they have far more potential than that – optimisation of train power consumption using batteries can enable more trains to use existing electrification installations, and reduce the cost of electrifying new lines.
IMechE Railway Division’s “Batteries Included” seminar next year will explore these possibilities and the latest developments in battery technology on the railways.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to join this year’s face to face Refocusing the Railway seminar?
MC: TThere’s never been a more vital time for engineers to contribute to the success of the railway and help shape its future – refocusing the railway provides an excellent opportunity to consider how we can work all together to achieve that.
DF: Face to face opportunities, like the Refocusing the Railway seminar, are going to be a very important element in successfully regaining the initiative, post-pandemic, in the rail industry. The support of the rail engineering community will be absolutely essential to that success.
DS: If we’re serious about getting passengers back on to the railway, we need to understand the railway from a passenger’s perspective. That’s always been both important and often overlooked, but even more so now. The working and travelling environments have changed, and attending events like this in person gives a real opportunity to be a passenger while getting there and away again afterwards, and gives a better perspective on what refocusing needs to, well, focus on. And not to forget, after 18 months of primarily working from home for so many of us, it’s just great to finally get back to meeting people in the flesh!
PBG: At this time of rapid change on the railways, the Refocusing the Railway seminar offers engineers the opportunity to not only keep up to date with the latest developments in railway engineering, but also play a role in shaping the future direction of the industry.
RS: AThis seminar gives us a timely opportunity to get up-to-date on the great things that are happening, to understand how Great British Railways are being created post-Williams-Shapps, and to help shape GBR to enable us to deliver a better railway. Bringing our expertise and experience, delegates will build on cross-disciplinary learning and engage with policy-making during the day, to inspire each other – and to provide Refocused engineering input to policymakers.
The Refocusing the Railway: Engineering in a post-pandemic Williams-Shapps world seminar will be taking place on 20 October 2021 at One Birdcage Walk, London.
Join this seminar to:
- Engage with the latest thinking on the Great British Railway and what it means for cost-effective engineering and innovation across the industry
- Hear how railway engineers continue to assure delivery of a safe service and rebuild passenger confidence in sustainable transport
- Explore the emerging mix of new and supplementary traction power
- Consider anew how road and rail complement and/ or compete, particularly for freight
- Discover what’s new and on the horizon – for passenger comfort, rolling stock design, infrastructure and maintenance
- Contribute to what’s next - how could the IMechE Railway Division help refocus the railway to enable better engineering?
To book your place, please visit the event website.