It has been announced that Mark Hopwood CBE, Managing Director of GWR, has become a Patron of the Transport Benevolent Fund CIO, known as TBF.
“I am delighted to be joining the team of TBF patrons. The railway is a family, and it is important that we come together to offer support when needed,” says Mark.
TBF Patrons include leading figures in the major transport groups and the trades unions. They offer a deep understanding of the importance of staff welfare in operating a successful business.
Michael Gibson, TBF’s Ambassador for the South West, Wales and GWR in particular, says: “TBF is delighted to have Mark on board as a Patron. He is a great advocate for the charity and supports TBF visiting GWR sites to engage with staff and promote the benefits of being a TBF member when life doesn’t quite go according to plan. We are most grateful for the help and support offered by all of our Patrons.”
TBF is a not-for-profit membership charity that embraces everyone in Great Britain engaged in the public transport industry and related services. Membership costs just £1.25 per week, which is less than 20p per day, and covers the prime member, their live-in partner and dependent children. If need, hardship or distress arises, TBF offers a wide range of health, welfare, and financial benefits.
The charity currently has just under 68,000 members, and, to illustrate the relevance of the charity’s work, during the quarter January 1st to March 31st 2026, it paid out £895,541 to members.
It is becoming increasingly popular for TBF membership to be paid for by the employer as part of the employment package, helping to improve members’ work-life balance and reducing staff turnover.
It is easy to join TBF, visit www.tbf.org.uk and sign up. Once logged in, members can personally access their account online via the membership portal.
Image credit: TBF (Michael Gibson (left) from TBF welcomes GWR’s Mark Hopwood as a TBF Patron).
Despite the findings of the Transport Select Committee’s (TSC) report ‘Rail Investment Pipelines: Ending Boom and Bust’, the Government does not accept that rail investment has systemic “boom and bust” cycles. The TSC considers that, (in England) electrification is a particularly acute case of this phenomenon and that laying off skilled teams due to the “pause” of the Midland Main Line will inflate the cost of later schemes. In contrast, it found that the Scottish rolling electrification programme delivers better value and stability.
In response, the Government agrees that “…electrification remains a key tool for rail decarbonisation,” and that the objective is decarbonising rail traction in the most cost-effective way. Such comments demonstrate a lack of engineering expertise. Only considering decarbonisation ignores how electric traction offers powerful, low-maintenance, lightweight traction with consequent cost, performance and capacity benefits. Unlike self-powered units, electric trains do not have the constraints of storing energy or onboard power units of a limited size. As a result, electric trains are the only practical form of high-powered net-zero traction.
Furthermore, the Government considers that, with improved battery technology, the optimal solution will vary by route despite this constraining future rolling stock cascades. Hence it does not consider a rolling electrification programme to be an effective way of achieving the decarbonisation objective.
Despite recent advances in battery technology, Battery Electric Multiple Units (BEMU) are not a universal solution. BEMUs are more expensive to purchase and operate and the discontinuous electrification they require has not-so-obvious costs of feeding isolated OLE sections and pantograph control. Furthermore, batteries cannot power freight trains and are not suitable for high-speed EMUs whose power requirement is proportional to the cube of their speed.
For these reasons, Transport Scotland and Scottish Rail Holdings consider that intercity lines with freight traffic should eventually be fully electrified. The BEMUs being procured by ScotRail are thus deemed to be a transitional solution. Furthermore, Scotland considers that a rolling electrification programme is essential for skills retention. For this reason, electrification is cheaper in Scotland.
In Ireland, Cork has ambitious plans for a fully electrified commuter railway which will not use BEMUs. This is partly because the voltage-controlled electrification technology developed by Network Rail has reduced the cost of electrification. Our feature explains the benefits of the city’s plan for a high performing electric railway.
Electrified freight trains benefit both freight and passenger traffic. On the West Coast Main Line (WCML), diesel hauled intermodal trains struggle to achieve 45mph up the gentle 1 in 335 gradient from Watford to Tring. Further north, such trains top the summits of the WCML’s northern fells at just over 20mph. Mixing such slow trains with fast passenger trains destroys capacity.
Sadly, it will be a long time before HS2 carries passengers as our feature on the project’s reset describes, but at last the project now seems to be under control.
With the cancellation of HS2 Phase 2a and no possibility of significant infrastructure enhancements on the congested WCML for many years, a medium-term capacity enhancement option could be increased electric freight traction. This could be done by, for example, electrifying the London Gateway branch and increasing power supplies. This would also support Great British Railway’s (GBR) legal duty to promote the use of rail freight.
The IMechE Railway Division’s technical tour saw some interesting light rail systems in France and learnt how the electrification of Cork’s railways was a part of the All-Ireland Rail Strategy which aims to double Ireland’s rail passenger traffic by large-scale electrification and other interventions. It is to be hoped that the forthcoming GBR long-term strategy will have a similar vision. We also report how the Railway Division’s Future of Rail competition was won by a young engineer who developed a phone app for freight train maintenance.
Our feature on the Railway Industry Association’s innovation conference describes the innovations on display and what is being done to promote innovation. The conference’s hackathon was won by 16-year-old Mikey Whiston whose article explains how his app considered the machine truth of rail ticketing.
This conference also showed various applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which the railway must embrace including the advanced Claude Mythos AI cyber model that can find system vulnerabilities, as we explain. However, as we show, AI has various issues. We also describe the launch of GBRX’s rail industry AI plan which explains why the industry needs the development of strategic capability to exploit the technology. Another GBRX document – ‘Pioneering a better railway for people’ – outlines its strategy to accelerate the adoption of new technologies.”
But it is wrong to focus only on innovation. GBR needs an informed engineering strategy, of which innovation is a part, to make best use of both emerging and existing technologies. For example, it needs to be recognised that on a mixed traffic railway the key capacity constraints are infrastructure configuration and different types of trains. Despite over-exaggerated claims for it, ETCS signalling offers little capacity benefit. In contrast, the use of electric freight locomotives, with twice the power of diesels, could significantly increase capacity.
An engineering strategy could also usefully address issues such as gauging, minimising wheel/rail wear, and adhesion. Malcolm Dobell’s feature on the Adhesion Research Group includes work to inform the business case for fleet fitment of equipment to mitigate low adhesion. His report on the work of the Vehicle/Track System Interface Committee notes that, after 200 years, the complex vehicle track interaction is still not fully understood.
An engineering strategy would also need to consider the future roll-out of ETCS and replacement of the soon to be obsolete GSM-R system. Clive Kessell reports on the slow progress of the East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP) and the need to reduce its cost. He also attended RIA’s Signal and Telecoms member interest group which covered various topics including the excessive cost of ECDP’s ETCS for which inappropriate assurance processes may be a factor.
To understand current systems, it is useful to look to the past. We have two such articles, one on railway telecoms since 1900 and another on the signalling of London Underground’s sub surface lines which is now being replaced by the Four Lines Modernisation (4LM) project.
Stabilising a WCML embankment with a deep-seated rotational failure at Harlesden without disrupting services was a particular challenge. We describe how this was done and how 440 digital twins of WCML earthworks are being used for monitoring and to predict failures.
As always, this issue of Rail Engineer includes some great railway engineering features. But an engineering strategy which recognises railway engineering and operational realities is needed if railway engineers are to maximise customer benefits in the most cost-effective manner.
On 19 May, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander announced updated HS2 costs and timescales following a project reset led by HS2’s CEO, Mark Wilde. The headline figures were that:
HS2 will cost between £87.7 million and £102.7 million at 2025 prices.
Services between Old Oak Common and Birmingham will commence between 2036 and 2039 with three trains per hour.
HS2 services from Euston to Manchester, Glasgow, and other destinations via Handsacre Junction will commence between 2040 and 2043 with 10 trains per hour.
At a Transport Select Committee hearing, HS2 CEO Mark Wilde advised that he was confident about this cost and schedule as he had been given the time to do a proper reset which had been subject to thorough, independent checks. He also explained how HS2 Ltd had been reorganised to remove 300 back-office roles while strengthening and empowering delivery teams to ensure the project is built to cost and schedule.
The Transport Secretary’s statement also described the measures taken to bring HS2 under control. It also included various political comments such as that “the previous government spent most of HS2’s budget without laying a single metre of its track,” which shows a lack of understanding of how new railways are built.
She advised that to date £49 million had been spent on HS2. She also noted that two thirds of the cost increase was due to underestimation and inefficiency with the remaining third due to inflation.
Screenshot
Poor cost control
In Issue 215 (Jul-Aug 2025) Rail Engineer reported Alexander’s announcement of the HS2 project reset in June 2025. This feature also summarised the Stewart Review of how the Department for Transport (DfT) assures the delivery of major projects with reference to HS2. In summary, this showed that HS2’s costs had been driven up by a failure of cost control with a lack of a culture to reduce costs, schedule prioritised over cost, changing scope requirements, environmental decisions, and cost estimate optimism. Amongst his recommendations was the need to renegotiate HS2’s main works civils contracts.
A further HS2 review by Sir Stephen Lovegrove was published at the same time as the recent HS2 reset announcement. This endorsed the Stewart Review’s conclusions and specifically considered lessons for the Civil Service. In essence, this showed that HS2 did not have an effective client as the Civil Service did not have the required capability for this role and so “failed to recognise the scale of the remaining intrinsic risk in the project.”
Lovegrove was also critical of HS2’s weak control environment. He found that HS2’s board did not effectively challenge its executive, in part because the board was not provided with adequate information. Lovegrove also found that both the Civil Service and HS2 placed too much reliance on consultants.
2040s completion
With the main HS2 civil works commencing in 2020, it will have taken over 20 years to complete the 205km project to enable its trains to provide services to Manchester, Glasgow, and other destinations on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). This compares with eight years to build the 232km TGV Atlantique and 472km Madrid to Seville high speed lines.
In addition to the project control issues, the Stewart Review also shows how consents and political decisions have delayed the project. Other factors delaying the project include the Spending Review cap and Euston station.
The 2025 Spending Review capped the annual HS2 spend to around £7 billion per year for the next five years. As a result, the project will take longer to complete. This defers benefits and will increase in total project cost by an estimated £6 billion. The 28km section of HS2 from the Delta Junction outside Birmingham to Handsacre Junction has been paused because of this cap.
Work on HS2’s Euston station started in 2015 and was paused in 2023 to keep expenditure within the Spending Review cap. By then the station design had not been finalised despite multiple redesigns. It was then proposed that the station would be funded by private finance. The current intention is that HS2 Euston will be part funded by a tax increment financing-style mechanism.
While the initial HS2 service will be between Old Oak Common and Birmingham, operating a full HS2 WCML service from Old Oak Common would result in significant overcrowding on the Elizabeth Line which is unlikely to be acceptable. Hence, as indicated in Alexander’s statement, it is likely that HS2 WCML services will require the completion of HS2’s Euston station.
Credit: David Shirres
HS2’s scope
In her statement the Transport Secretary refers to HS2 being a vanity project with trains faster than passengers want. Hence, she wished “gold plating” to be removed from the project. Yet, as the Stewart and Lovegrave reports show, HS2’s high cost is primarily due to poor project control. Furthermore, significant costs were added to HS2 after additional tunnels and other requirements were added to the project during the Parliamentary Bill stage.
In response to her request, HS2’s Mark Wilde recommended that the maximum line speed be reduced from 360 to 320 km/h, that Automatic Train Operation (ATO) be removed, and that the ETCS specification be reduced. He estimates that these three measures will save up to £2.5 billion of project costs. In respect of the reduced speed, he advised that there would be no operational cost saving as additional staff costs from slower running would be comparable with energy cost savings.
Though HS2’s 360 km/h speed and ATO are said to be examples of HS2’s gold-plating, such decisions should be judged against the requirements of the full Y-network to Manchester and Leeds that was originally planned. It is disappointing to hear senior figures advise Parliamentary committees that they did not know why decisions were taken to gold plate the project despite there being various Government publications explaining these decisions at the time.
Furthermore, at the TSC hearing Rail Minister Lord Hendy advised that it was “astonishing that HS2 was predicated on ATO, a system that has not yet been invented.” This statement seems to relate to the use of ATO with ETCS which Thameslink has been doing since 2019. Hendy also advised that 320km/h trains could be tested on HS1 which is not possible as HS2 trains will have ETCS signalling which is not used on HS1.
ATO was specified to enable HS2 to operate 18 trains per hour to make the best use of its expensive infrastructure. It is now not needed for the current requirement of 10 trains per hour. In respect of speed, with only Phase 1 built, only 138km of HS2 will have 360km/h running. Hence, the decision to reduce maximum speed to 320 km/h only increases running time by three minutes.
To accommodate 10 trains per hour HS2 Euston station will have six platforms, though there will be passive provision for the construction of additional platforms for future expansion of services.
HS2 trains
Rolling stock was not mentioned in the HS2 reset statement. The £2 billion contract for 54 x 200-metre HS2 trains was awarded to a Hitachi/Alstom joint venture in December 2021. At the time it was expected that the first trains would be produced in 2027 with passenger services starting between 2029 and 2033.
It is understood that production of these trains has been deferred by a few years to take account of the reset HS2 programme. Yet it seems likely that all these trains will have been built well before HS2 WCML services start in the early 2040s. As there will then be more trains than those required to operate the initial Old Oak Common to Birmingham HS2 service, it is to be hoped that they can be used on the conventional network prior to then.
As reported in Issue 219 (Mar-April 2026), the eventual use of 200-metre HS2 trains on WCML services is problematic as they have fewer seats than the current WCML Pendolino trains. Yet this won’t now be an issue until HS2 trains join the WCML in the early 2040s. By then the Pendolinos will be life expired.
With only HS2 Phase 1 built, its time saving of around 20 minutes is comparable with the current time savings on Pendolino tilting trains on a London to Glasgow journey. A decision on the specification for a replacement fleet will be required in a few years’ time as these trains could provide the required longer trains and may need tilt to minimise journey times.
There has been speculation that the existing HS2 train contact will be varied to provide longer trains although as described above this will not now be an issue until the 2040s. The recent letting of a construction contract for Washwood Heath train depot indicates that HS2 train length will not be changed as longer trains would require a change to the design of the depot which is now being built. A recent TSC hearing was also advised that there were no immediate plans to vary train order. However, the train contract still needs to be varied in respect of the production delay and removal of ATO.
On track
When the HS2 train order was placed in 2021, it was thought that these trains would be carrying passengers to Manchester and Glasgow by 2033, and that only three out of 10 HS2 trains per hour would go to Birmingham. Now it is clear that it could be 2043 before WCML HS2 services commence.
The reasons for this delay and HS2’s cost increases are well documented. It is to be hoped that lessons about the management of major projects have been learnt by Government and the Civil Service.
Yet there are positive messages from HS2’s sad saga.
The Transport Secretary’s statement provides a firm commitment to complete HS2 from Euston to Handsacre Junction despite the high costs in the HS2 reset. It also seems clear that the HS2 project is now under control as HS2 CEO Mark Wilde uses his experience getting the Elizabeth line opened. This includes a staged approach to simplify the day one railway and a new HS2 organisation structure with improved delivery capacity, culture, and capability as well as setting HS2’s relationship with Government.
Hence HS2 is now at last on track. It is also delivering great railway engineering which, as earlier railway engineers did, will leave a lasting beneficial legacy.
Earthworks monitoring equipment has been installed in a cutting by the Mytholmes tunnel portal on the heritage Keighley and Worth Valley Railway (KWVR). This is the DYWIDAG Smart Guard system which continuously monitors tilt detection to provide instant alerts with real-time camera alert confirmation. Alerts are transmitted on the low frequency 868MHz band which can transmit to half a metre of sodden earth.
In addition to the Smart Guard system this site also has rain sensors, a total station to provide high-accuracy displacement measurements of multiple targets, vibration sensors to identify dynamic influences on earthworks, and a GNSS tracker to detect ground movement over time.
This monitoring equipment could be seen from a special steam train which carried over a hundred invited guests from Keighley as part of the ‘Track to the Future’ event which DYWIDAG held on the railway in April to showcase its infrastructure monitoring technologies. The train’s destination was the end of the line at Oxenhope where the railway has an exhibition shed. Here DYWIDAG and its partner companies were exhibiting their products surrounded by preserved steam locomotives. The event was opened by the company’s UK managing director, Peter Assinder who described the company’s infrastructure monitoring systems. He stressed that these could not have been developed without the company’s partnerships with those present.
These included Worldsensing’s wireless connectivity, Osprey’s sensors, Consult Red for the development of intelligent AI systems, Mistras Group for acoustic monitoring, and Geokon for instrumentation.
This proved to be a fascinating day which brought together those with expertise on this topic for a day of informal discussions and insights. No doubt much was learnt about the benefits of its Infrastructure Intelligence monitoring platform, for instant reliable alerts. It was certainly an education for your writer.
On 28 April, the Science Museum’s Information Age Gallery hosted the launch of GBRX’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan. This was opened by GBRX’s Managing Director Toufic Machnouk whose key message was that AI will not simply happen in the rail system as this requires the development of strategic capability and the creation of new pathways for adoption.
Toufic welcomed Sir Tim Lawrence, chair of the Science Museum Group, who stressed that the museum’s mission is to preserve the past while helping society understand the future. As an example, he referred to the Marconi 2LO transmitter beside him which carried the BBC’s first daily radio broadcasts in 1922, bringing the information age into British homes.
Turning to AI, he recalled hosting the UK premiere of ‘The Thinking Game’, a film about a chess prodigy who used AI to model the human mind to understand diseases like dementia, shows how AI can consider the deepest questions of human health, cognition, and identity.
Next to speak was Rail Minister Lord Peter Hendy, who was unable to attend in person and so spoke live from Parliament which, he quipped, was another museum. He noted that the rail system’s longevity of assets, processes, and careers makes change difficult. He advised that GBRX’s AI Action Plan builds on the Government’s Transport AI Action Plan and that he was pleased to see real AI projects happening, while urging the industry to move fast.
AI Incubator
GBRX has established the AI Incubator Accelerator (AIIA) to accelerate the adoption of AI by helping the sharing of guidance on what works and building the capabilities that the industry needs to deploy AI at scale. AIIA will do this by:
Working with partners to develop solutions.
Providing targeted technical expertise for AI projects led by others.
Providing advice including learnings from elsewhere in the rail sector.
Sharing effective practice and supporting skills development.
Dr. Sarah Schlobohm, GBRX’s director of AIIA, explained that AI is not one thing but a messy ecosystem of techniques such as machine learning, optimisation, robotics, generative models, and classical algorithms. AIIA supports the implementation of AI pathfinder projects to overcome real world barriers and reach adoption and is to lead the following pathfinder projects. These take account of delivery and readiness across the rail industry and were showcased at the event by teams from across the industry:
Passenger and customer experience.
Network operations.
Network planning.
Rolling stock asset management.
Infrastructure asset management.
Organisational processes.
Simplified ticketing.
In respect of the first pathfinder project, Dr. Schlobohm highlighted the pressing challenge of the UK’s labyrinthine fares system which has more than 400 ticket types and showed how ‘k means clustering’ can group similar fares to help simplify the system. She also gave a demonstration of a prototype Passenger AI Assistant which has been produced with input from the Rail Delivery Group which can plan journeys in natural language, identify railcard eligibility, suggest cheapest travel days, and provide real time station information.
Toufic closed the presentations by recalling that Tim Berners Lee’s original proposal for the World Wide Web was described as “vague but exciting”. He said it was also not clear how AI will shape our world. Yet it was clear that the rail industry must grasp the opportunities it presents and that this won’t happen by accident.
He noted that everyone present at this Science Museum event was surrounded by the work of people who shaped earlier periods of change. He then stressed that similar persistent leadership from within the industry will be needed to take full advantage of what AI has to offer.
Artificial Intelligence in Rail: The Industry Action Plan is available to view by following the QR code.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to dramatically change and improve society and railway engineering, but there are risks and hazards associated with its use. Like any tool, AI needs to be understood, deployed, and used by competent people.
The first thing is to understand what AI is and is not. AI systems behave like a human brain, using multi-layer or deep neural networks, which are then taught or allowed to learn what to do. Machine learning (ML) is a part of AI, and uses algorithms to enable systems to learn and make decisions based on data. Unlike traditional programming, where absolute instructions are programmed into the system, ML allows AI systems to learn and make predictions from the data, without being programmed for each task.
AI systems are not automated systems in the traditional sense. Automation has been used for a long time in engineering, using processors and engineering techniques with operations programmed and validated by human engineers. Some systems are sometimes referred to as being AI, but are actually ‘automation based’ with limited intelligence and are not true AI.
AI ‘mistakes’
AI is here and has already made dramatic changes to society and industry, often improving efficiency and decision-making. However, like any technology, AI isn’t perfect and mistakes and unexpected behaviours occur, including being bias, errors, and even fantasy. It may also not always be obvious that AI has made an error, as the written text or visual output may be very good.
Credit: iStockphoto.com/ ea_creative
In the US, a car dealer customer service chatbot agreed to sell a new vehicle for one dollar and made it a legally binding offer. Exploiting a weakness in the system, a user had instructed the chatbot to agree to all requests. The absence of proper safeguards allowed the user to receive customer service far in excess of that intended!
When submitting legal documents to a court, a lawyer used an AI system to conduct research and the tool provided fake case references, which the lawyer then presented. As a result a judge issued an order requiring that anyone appearing before the court must indicate if AI had been used for any submission, in order that it could be checked for accuracy.
At the UK’s AI Safety Summit, a simulated conversation between an investment management chatbot and employees at an imaginary company was presented. During the conversation, the chatbot was told about a surprise merger announcement and warned that this constituted insider information. The bot still performed the trade and, when asked whether it had prior knowledge of the merger, denied it.
An AI-generated summer reading list included non-existent books paired with real authors. It was found that the list was part of licensed content provided by another publisher, which admitted it used AI to generate the list but failed to check it. The incident exposed risks of overreliance on AI in journalism, prompting the publisher to remove the section from digital editions and to reaffirm the need for editorial checks.
Rail-specific errors
Conwy Castle in North Wales was built between 1283 and 1287 and is protected by an unbroken 1,400-yard (1.3km) ring of town walls. Five hundred and sixty-one years later in 1848, the Chester to Holyhead railway line was built to pass through Conwy. Rather than demolish sections of the medieval walls, a gothic style archway was built for the line to pass through the wall.
An AI generated description of the town wall originally suggested that when the wall was constructed between 1283 and 1287 the archway was incorporated ready for the railway! In all fairness, your author recently made an AI enquiry about the railway archway at Conwy and it correctly answered that it was constructed in 1848, so it would appear that it has learned.
An AI image generator typically uses a trained Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to generate very realistic images based on the textual input provided by the user, and some remarkable images can be created. The systems are trained on vast amounts of data and learn various aspects, characteristics, and patterns in the images provided in the dataset. However errors or mistakes can arise and some of these examples have concerned rail.
The terrible rail accident in Spain in January resulted in an image of the incident appearing on LinkedIn. This showed the devastation of the crash site, and the emergency workers hard at work trying to rescue and treat the injured. Many commented on the quality of the stunning image while thoughtfully paying respect to those involved in the incident. Others commented that the images didn’t look quite right as, for example, the overhead electric catenary equipment was of the wrong type, on the wrong side of the line, and was still in place despite the incident. It was identified that the image was not real and was AI generated, and some commented that the image was misleading and that it may be upsetting/distressing for anyone involved in the incident.
More innocently on LinkedIn, some rail workers posted AI generated caricatures of themselves hard at work in a rail environment. The images are excellent and of very good quality. But look closely and on some there are errors in the background, such as overhead electric catenary equipment and telegraph pole routes installed on the same route. On others the track didn’t look right and, for example, points were missing. These are only small issues and didn’t really affect the message intended to the majority of viewers, but could have been avoided with robust, independent, human checking.
IEEE standards
The world’s largest technical professional organisation is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) which, while based in the USA, is a global community for technologists and engineers, dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. To improve AI in engineering and society the IEEE Standards Association (SA) has identified a number of issues with AI, and published standards and guidance for its design and implementation.
The issues identified include unfair or discriminatory outcomes for certain individuals or groups due to inherent biases in the AI, such as inadequate data sets from a narrow sample of ethnicities and genders, or a lack of proper screening. Other AI issues include users being encouraged to perform actions for which they might not provide consent, such as being convinced to purchase a product or service they may not actually need or can afford.
AI may be able to read and interpret human emotions and intentions without the user’s prior consent or understanding. This can lead to an invasion of privacy and further data exploitation or manipulation. AI can, by-design or unintentionally, influence the user so they form an unnatural attachment to the system, leading to misuse and overreliance on the technology.
Suffice it to say, AI systems may misinterpret or misdiagnose emotions, leading to incorrect conclusions or recommendations. This can be particularly harmful, for example in mental health diagnoses or treatment situations.
Credit: iStockphoto.com/IR_Stone
Ethics
The IEEE has created guidelines to ensure AI technologies align with human values and rights, with principles to help guide the design and implementation of AI. The standards and training aim to promote the ethical development of AI and that the AI technologies align with human values and rights, emphasising transparency, accountability, and privacy.
Other measures include documenting decisions, maintaining audit trails, and enabling redress for affected users. The IEEE supports transparency and urges developers to disclose system functionality and decision processes. Protection of privacy and security is paramount and AI systems should prioritise data integrity, confidentiality, and user control, ensuring AI supports human dignity rather than undermining it.
Benefits
When deployed and used correctly AI can bring huge benefits to the rail industry, such as improving safety, efficiency, and customer experience.
For example, using high resolution CCTV, AI could identify and highlight incidents on platforms and detect animals on or near the track. Rail has access to huge volumes of data which is time consuming to analyse, and humans can easily get bored and miss things. AI can reliably analyse huge volumes of data, both real time and historic, and make predictions for human decision making to improve efficiency and customer experience.
It is unlikely that AI could be used for a safety critical application above Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 1 for some time, or even ever. However an AI assisted ‘auto reverse’ function is already used at Westbourne Park on Crossrail for turning back trains in the reversing sidings. The driver selects ‘auto reverse’ and walks back through the empty train. By the time the train gets back to Paddington (about a mile away) the driver is back in the other cab ready to form the next eastbound departure. The important thing is that the signalling control is achieved using conventional high safety integrity SIL 4 architectures. AI just provides assistance and surveillance of the track at the turnback to ensure no staff or trespassers are harmed by the moving train.
Another example of AI analysing data and making recommendations is assisting the production of railway safety cases. Railway safety projects can generate thousands of pages of documentation, such as hazard logs, risk assessments, safety requirements, and verification reports. When producing a safety case, every compliance claim needs to be verified against documented and traceable evidence.
Engineering safety experts can spend hours searching for relevant clauses across multiple standards and suffer from information overload, and there is a limited number of experts with the required knowledge. Generic AI tools are powerful and could help, but are not designed for regulated assurance activities. Generic AI use Large Language Models (LLM), which predict the next most likely word based on patterns in training data. LLMs can generate plausible text, but not guaranteed truth. The answers provided could sound right, but may be wrong and without showing where the information came from.
Documentation loaded into the generic public AI system could contain proprietary system designs and commercially sensitive information, and the public AI service could use the data for training. So, private confidential data could easily leave the control of the client or contractor.
Generic AI systems have no knowledge of the standards a project needs to meet, and many of the standards are copyright controlled and are not publicly available. AI can help in this scenario, but specific AI purpose-built tools are needed for regulated environments, and which provide standards knowledge, traceability, and are loaded with the correct regulatory information with links to source documents. These systems must ensure the input data remains secure and that the output assurance is supported with real evidence, with an audit trail for queries and responses.
Credit: iStockphoto.com/antoniokhr
Vibe coding
Using a certified railway safety assurance professional company for sourcing AI tools also reduces the risk of vibe coding. Vibe coding was the Collins English Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2025 and is an AI-assisted software development tool where a user describes a project in simple terms and vibe coding generates the source code. The coding involves accepting AI-generated code without reviewing its internal structure. It is said that vibe coding allows even amateur programmers to produce software without extensive training and software skills. However there is also a lack of accountability, maintainability, and the increased risk of introducing security vulnerabilities.
The BBC carried out an investigation and reported that such platforms have increased in popularity in recent months, and are an example of how various professional services could be done quickly and cheaply by AI. But the BBC reporter found that the system they investigated hacked into their computer.
The reporter asked the AI tool to help build the code for a computer game based on the BBC News website. The AI assistant added a small line of code into the program, which allowed access to the reporters computer and, shortly afterwards, a notepad file called ‘Joe is hacked’ appeared, and the desktop wallpaper was changed to an image of an AI hacker.
Most hacks involve a victim downloading a piece of malicious software or being tricked into handing over login details, but this attack was able to be carried out without any involvement from the victim. A zero-click attack, as it’s known. The BBC said that it’s estimated that the free AI agent has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people and now has deep access to many computers.
Summing up
It is clear that AI could revolutionise the rail industry, making it more efficient, safer, and more responsive to the needs of passengers and operators. However, it will also create many challenges and problems, and the mistakes and failures of AI discussed in this article stress the importance of robust design checking, testing, verification, and validation by competent humans.
Users should consider sourcing AI systems which are certified to IEEE ethical standards or provided by railway safety assurance professionals, like any other tool, users must make sure they are competent to use the technology. If not, they should engage a professional expert.
The rail industry faces many challenges with cyber security being one. With everything being increasingly connected, cyber security applies to all engineering disciplines and the risk of breaches could dramatically increase following the release of Claude Mythos.
Claude Mythos is a very advanced AI cyber model which can find vulnerabilities in many systems – including those used in rail – very quickly and cost effectively. It has only been released to the ‘good guys’ in order to help fix their systems, but what happens if it falls into the hands of ‘bad actors’, or they develop their own AI cyber-attack tools?
The system has been developed by Anthropic, a research body with the objective of investigating the safety, operation, and societal impacts of AI. Claude Mythos has been withheld from public release due to its unprecedented ability to find and exploit software vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities in software systems means weaknesses or faults which allow security breaches.
In the software and cyber security industries these are known as zero-day vulnerabilities. They are security flaws that are unknown and which can be in place for years. Zero-day vulnerabilities are very dangerous because they can be exploited by attackers before the vendor becomes aware of the issue and has any opportunity to fix the problem. It has been established that Claude Mythos is capable of quickly and cheaply identifying and exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and browser. The vulnerabilities it finds are often subtle or difficult to detect. Many of them are 10 or 20 years old, with the oldest found so far being a now-patched 27-year-old bug in OpenBSD, a security operating system.
It has been reported that it has discovered thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities in systems, without human intervention beyond an initial prompt, and generated working breaches. The cost-per-finding is reported to be under £40.
Zero-day
Zero-day attacks can be used to disrupt operations, install malware, or obtain data. Even publicly known vulnerabilities can be dangerous for an extended period, as security patches can take months to develop and deploy. The rail industry is at particular risk as it has many old applications and is not known for moving quickly on some issues.
Outside of rail, examples of zero-day exploits include the Stuxnet worm, which used four zero-day vulnerabilities to damage Iran’s nuclear programme in 2010. More recent examples include the SolarWinds hack in 2020 and the ProxyLogon attack on Microsoft Exchange Server in 2021. In 2022, spyware Pegasus was found to exploit zero-click vulnerabilities in messaging services such as iMessage and WhatsApp. These exploits allowed attackers to access users’ devices without even requiring any user interaction.
Credit: iStockphoto.com/SefaOzel
Claude Mythos, unveiled in April this year, is a general-purpose AI large language model that has extensive capabilities in software coding, analysis, and cyber security. What could take cyber criminals months or years of work to exploit weakness can be achieved overnight. Claude Mythos’s outstanding feature is its ability to quickly and autonomously identify and exploit zero-day vulnerabilities in major operating systems, web browsers, and critical software infrastructure, by chaining them together and bypassing security measures. Users with no formal security training have been able to prompt Claude Mythos to generate fully working exploits overnight.
Project Glasswing
Due to the potential risks of misuse, access to Claude Mythos is restricted through Project Glasswing, a programme involving 12 partners and over 40 organisations responsible for critical software. Confirmed partners include Amazon Web Services, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and the Linux Foundation. Anthropic has also committed $100 million in usage credits and $4 million in donations to open-source security organisations to support defensive cyber security measures.
Understandably, Claude Mythos has raised global security concerns, with governments and financial institutions warning about its potential misuse. Anthropic emphasises that the model’s capabilities could be dangerous if used maliciously, and that the company is working closely with regulators and cyber security experts to ensure it is used responsibly.
In the UK, Ofcom has written to broadband providers to highlight concerns about the “rapid increase in AI ability”, specifically relating to Claude Mythos as representing a fundamental shift to security capabilities. The AI Security Institute, a research organisation within the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, said Claude Mythos represented “a step up over previous frontier models in a landscape where cyber performance was already rapidly improving”.
When it comes to personal use of applications, operating systems, and browsers, sometimes people do not want to upgrade to the latest release, as they are used to their existing system and do not want to learn yet another version. This can be a big mistake as very often new versions of software are released to fix security vulnerabilities. Similarly, companies and organisations need to be aware of the security risk of an employee or volunteer potentially working on sensitive information on a home IT system, which may not be secure.
Rail
George Bearfield, professor of Railway System Safety at the University of Huddersfield, Institute of Rail Research (IRR) has written a blog on the issue and says that the immediate concern for a Claude Mythos type attack against rail today is not a train accident, but a mass rail outage.
The vulnerable systems are likely to be ticketing systems, passenger information, depot and train fleet maintenance systems, traffic management, workforce management, energy billing, station retail, cloud-hosted applications, and supplier management systems. These are the systems that modern railways have come to depend on and without these the result may be stranded passengers, collapsed timetables, and disruption to maintenance and new works.
Safety signalling systems are understandably a concern, but George says if a week of timetabling is lost to a nationwide ransomware zero days event while the industry is debating exclusively about signalling, then it will have misread the threat.
Railway safety-critical systems such as signalling have structural defences which most of the Claude Mythos type attackers may not have considered. Like with any security measure, attackers will go for the weakest defence. So the safety risk sits slightly downstream of the availability concern of other railway systems. Safety-critical rail systems are built on principles of diversity, redundancy, and fail-safe design, so a vulnerability in a competently engineered interlocking or rolling stock design should not translate directly into safety risk.
George recommends that the rail industry should do three things to manage the Claude Mythos risk:
First, the GB rail sector, working through RSSB, the ORR, DfT, and the NCSC, should be making an urgent, coordinated approach to Anthropic and its peers for defensive access to Claude Mythos. If direct access is not feasible, the next best thing is a rail-sector analogue to be established. Other industry sectors are now moving, and rail should not be debating this for months.
Second, each operator, infrastructure manager and major supplier should urgently produce a clear inventory of the third-party and cloud-hosted systems on which their ability to run services depends, and establish which of those providers are inside the Glasswing programme or its successors.
Third, existing rail cyber risk assessments need to be revisited in light of what is now known about AI-accelerated adversary capability, with an honest output even if its uncomfortable. This is a properly executed risk-based approach. Some safety cases will need supplementing, and some procurement assumptions will also need to change.
Credit: iStockphoto.com/Vertigo3d
Conclusion
Claude Mythos represents a step change in AI capabilities and cyber security. It highlights the dual-use nature of advanced AI, where the same skills that allow for rapid vulnerability detection can also be exploited for attacks. Anthropic’s work and its Project Glasswing strategy aims to give defenders a ‘head start’ while mitigating risks. The rail industry needs to be part of this. Everyone is also encouraged to always ensure their applications, browsers, and operating systems are up to date with the latest releases.
Historically, security measures have benefitted defenders more than attackers. There have been examples where new technology has enabled attackers to identify vulnerabilities at an increased rate, but defenders eventually catch up and sufficiently secure the defences. It is expected that the same will happen with Claude Mythos – eventually. Once the security landscape has caught up, AI language models should benefit defenders more than attackers, increasing the overall security of the software ecosystem.
The advantage will belong to the side that can get the most out of the tools. In the short term, this could be attackers, but in the long term, it is expected that defenders will be more efficient in directing resources, and use AI such as Claude Mythos to fix bugs before new code is deployed. Let’s hope this is the case and that the transitional period is not too disastrous for the rail industry.
Nexus has been running the Tyne and Wear Metro for over 40 years. The trains have changed, the stations have been modernised, and passenger expectations have shifted enormously. Now, the control technology running behind the scenes has caught up.
There is a version of infrastructure renewal that gets a lot of attention. New trains, station redevelopments, electrification schemes. The kind of work that passengers notice and politicians announce. Then there is the other kind. The work that happens in control rooms, relay rooms, and equipment cabinets that most people will never see, carried out by engineers who largely prefer it that way. This is a story about the second kind.
Sella Controls, a HIMA Group company, has completed the renewal of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system for Nexus, the passenger transport executive responsible for operating the Tyne and Wear Metro. It is not a glamorous headline – but it matters considerably. The SCADA platform is the operational brain of the network. It is how control room staff see what is happening across the traction power infrastructure, how they respond to faults, and how they make the thousands of small decisions every day that keep services running on time. When that system is ageing, unsupported, and increasingly difficult to maintain, the risks compound quietly. The Nexus SCADA renewal was a considered, well-planned piece of infrastructure investment, and it has been delivered well.
Why it was needed
The Tyne and Wear Metro has been running in some form since 1980, and over the decades its importance to the North East has only grown. Rising passenger numbers placed increasing demands on the teams responsible for keeping the network running. As journey volumes climbed, the ability to supervise and control critical operational assets became a priority, not just a convenience. However, the legacy SCADA technology was not keeping pace. Spare parts were scarce, software was no longer receiving updates, and the system simply could not give operators the real-time visibility that modern railway operations require.
Nexus went to market for a modern, flexible solution, supplied by a contractor with proven competence in SCADA, a track record in complex systems integration and migration, and a demonstrated ability to deliver programmes of this kind. Sella Controls was one of several established providers assessed. In the end, it was not just the technical capability of the TrackLink Traction Power Management System that won the contract – the approach mattered too. Nexus wanted a partner willing to work closely and openly throughout the programme, not just a supplier delivering to a specification. That commitment to genuine collaboration was central to the winning proposal.
What Sella Controls brings to the table
To understand what was involved, it helps to know the network. The Tyne and Wear Metro covers five metropolitan boroughs: Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland. It serves 60 stations across its route and operates on a 1500VDC traction supply. A 33kV incoming feed is stepped down to 11kV, and that 11kV network distributes power across the system. Local substations contain transformer and rectifier equipment to provide the DC traction supply and an auxiliary three-phase supply for station services. That includes lighting, lifts, escalators and fire alarms, meaning the scope of the system extends considerably beyond traction power alone.
Sella Controls was commissioned to replace 47 sites across this network. Each site received a TrackLink RTU panel, sized appropriately from small, medium, or large depending on the substation’s requirements, and fitted with an integrated uninterruptible power supply to keep the unit available every hour of every day.
The RTUs feed live data into the TrackLink SCADA platform, which gives infrastructure controllers a continuous real-time view of the network and actively calculates the live power load. Operational staff can see the state of the network as it changes and make decisions on the basis of what is actually happening, rather than working from incomplete or delayed information.
“This project is a major investment in new technology for our Metro control room and is vital for Metro’s long-term future,” says Paul Welford, major projects director at Nexus.
“It is a project which has been meticulously planned over the last two years to ensure the least possible amount of disruption to our customers. Sella Controls have provided us with amazing support during the transition to this new digital technology.
“The SCADA system is essential for the safe and effective operation of Tyne and Wear Metro. It enables us to remotely manage the high and low voltage power supplies and other key things like lighting, lifts, escalators and fire alarms. It will allow us to resolve infrastructure issues more effectively, which will mean less disruption for our customers.”
The system also does more than watch. Nexus operational staff have access to a fully equipped training simulator at the Nexus Learning Centre, where teams can get familiar with the platform and rehearse fault scenarios without any risk to live operations. For maintenance engineers, the platform provides network-wide analytics accessible from their own workstations, with the ability to filter right down to individual device level. That changes the nature of maintenance work. Rather than responding to failures after the fact, engineers now have the tools to spot developing issues early and act before they become service-affecting problems.
The system architecture has also been designed with future growth in mind. The electrical live model at its core means enhancements such as remote securing can be incorporated without requiring significant rework, protecting the value of the investment as operational requirements evolve.
For Nexus, the result is a genuine step change in what the operational team can do. Control room staff have a clearer picture of the network than they have ever had, fault conditions surface faster and with more context, with the interface being built around how operators actually work, rather than asking them to bend their processes around the system’s limitations.
“We recognised very early in the pursuit process what the Nexus team wanted from a delivery partner,” says Chris Elliott, sales director, global account management rail, Sella Controls.
“We believed our strongest differentiator was our overall engineering competence, experience, and proven track record in delivering this type of project, alongside the technical capability of the TrackLink Traction Power Management System.
“I firmly believe we delivered on the commitment we made during the tender assessment process, providing a flexible approach, working in partnership with the client, and executing the project on time and to budget.”
Delivering on a live railway
The hardest part of a project like this is rarely the engineering. It is the sequencing. You cannot take a live control system offline, replace it, and bring the new one up. The railway is running. Services depend on that operational visibility.
Nexus awarded the contract on the basis of an 18-month programme covering design assurance, build, test, and commission, with decommissioning of the legacy assets to follow. To meet that timetable, Sella Controls put together a dedicated delivery team and managed the programme end-to-end, working closely with all external suppliers to keep the work on track.
The system was commissioned progressively, section by section, with each stage signed off before the next began. Factory acceptance testing, site commissioning, and the final migration were all planned around the reality of a railway that could not stop running. The fact that the Metro kept running reliably throughout is a good measure of how carefully the project was managed on both sides.
Benefit to passengers
Passengers will not notice the new SCADA system. What they will notice, over time, is a more reliable service and faster recovery when disruption does occur. When a fault develops on the traction power network, the speed at which operators can identify it and respond directly affects how long people wait on a platform. A well-designed SCADA system does not stop faults from happening. It gives the people managing the network the tools to deal with them quickly. On a network carrying more than 30 million journeys a year, that matters. For maintenance teams, the improved access to asset data also opens up more intelligent ways of planning work, reducing both cost and disruption over the life of the system.
Collaboration that delivers
Projects like this do not succeed on technical merit alone. On a live operational railway, with real consequences for disruption, what actually makes the difference is the quality of the working relationship. Sella Controls and Nexus approached this programme with a level of transparency and shared ownership that is not always seen. Problems were raised early. Decisions were taken jointly. Both teams stayed focused on what the project needed to achieve rather than what was written in the contract.
That matters because the hard moments in any complex systems integration do not follow a schedule. They turn up during testing, during commissioning, when reality diverges from the plan. When the working relationship is built on honest communication, those moments get resolved rather than escalated. The Metro got a better system for it, and both organisations came away with a clear understanding of what had been built and why it works.
Sella Controls brings over 100 years of combined expertise in Traction Power SCADA control, and that depth of knowledge is what allows us to deliver complex system renewals with confidence. As part of the HIMA Group, we can draw on safety and control systems competence from across the globe, which means clients anywhere in the world benefit from the same level of engineering rigour that we applied here on Tyne and Wear Metro.
Built to last and to grow
The TrackLink Traction Power Management System is not a closed system. Its open architecture and modern interface standards mean Nexus has a platform to build on as operational requirements develop, not just a replacement that kicks the problem down the road. Projects like this rarely make the front pages. But the Nexus SCADA renewal is a good example of what infrastructure investment done well actually looks like, delivered on time, on a live railway, by people who understood what the operator needed. It is the kind of work that keeps a city moving.
“Sella Controls brings over a hundred years of combined expertise in Traction Power SCADA control, and that depth of knowledge is what allowed the delivery of complex system renewals with confidence,” says Chris.
“As part of the HIMA Group, the business drew on safety and control systems competence from across the globe, which means clients anywhere in the world benefit from the same level of engineering rigour that Sella Controls applied here on Tyne and Wear Metro.”
The drive towards electrification is creating new opportunities but also increases the complexity of infrastructure projects. New traction power systems, substations, protection equipment, and control systems must all work together seamlessly before a railway can enter service. Ensuring that happens safely and efficiently is at the heart of WJ Project Services.
Established in 2007, the company specialises in the installation, testing, commissioning, and energisation of electrical systems across the rail sector and beyond. While much of the industry’s attention focuses on the design and construction phases of projects, WJ Project Services specialises at the point where infrastructure must be proven and handed over for operation.
Founding Director, Ashley Jordan
“Our focus is on solving problems and giving clients confidence that systems will perform as expected,” explains Founding Director Ashley Jordan. We’re a highly skilled engineering business that can look at a problem, analyse it, develop a solution, and then implement that solution safely and efficiently.”
Since becoming part of the Amcomri Group in 2023, the company has gained access to broader engineering capabilities while maintaining its specialist focus. The arrangement provides the best of both worlds, says Ashley.
“Being part of Amcomri has opened up many opportunities, while still allowing us to operate as a focused specialist business.
“We’ve got the security and support of a larger group, but we’re still agile and able to respond quickly to our clients’ needs.”
Beyond testing and commissioning
Although best known for its work on rail electrification and traction power systems, WJ Project Services’s expertise extends across a wide range of electrical infrastructure.
The company works on both high- and low-voltage systems, carrying out installation, retrofit modifications, testing, commissioning, protection and control upgrades, SCADA integration, and final entry-into-service activities.
Its engineers are authorised to undertake switching operations on Network Rail infrastructure and private networks, carrying out isolation and earthing, safety documentation, energisation, and commissioning activities on some of the railway’s most critical assets.
“We install, test, commission and undertake the final entry-into-service or energisation testing associated with those circuits,” Ashley explains. “We employ technically skilled and competent engineers who can support everything from installation through to the point where the equipment enters service.”
The business also supports Network Rail in a less visible but equally important role, providing training, mentoring, and assessment services for maintenance teams and electrical staff.
When asked what differentiates WJ Project Services from its competitors, Ashley highlights the company’s collaborative approach.
Rather than operating as a standalone contractor, WJ Project Services often embeds engineers directly within client organisations, becoming an integral part of project delivery teams.
“We tend to embed quite heavily within our clients’ teams,” he says. “It’s much more of an ‘alongside’ relationship than simply working for somebody else.”
That philosophy is reflected in the company’s reputation for taking ownership of complex projects and reducing risk for clients.
“We want to be known as the company which takes away problems from the client,” Ashley adds. “We’re there to support first and foremost, and collaboration is absolutely integral to how we operate.”
Delivering major projects
One of WJ Project Services’ greatest strengths is meticulous planning and preparation. Commissioning activities frequently take place during short possession windows where there is little room for error. Every stage of testing, switching, and energisation must be carefully planned and executed. According to Ashley, success depends on understanding every aspect of the job before arriving on site.
“Our attention to detail is one of the things we’re most proud of,” he says. “Every commissioning activity is planned step-by-step. We look at the job from every angle, understand the potential pitfalls, and work through them before we get to site.”
That approach was recently demonstrated on the Core Valley Lines programme in South Wales, where WJ Project Services supported the commissioning of electrification infrastructure into Cardiff Bay.
“The whole commissioning was delivered successfully ahead of time,” Ashley explained. “The railway was energised and trains were running on Sunday morning. That comes from understanding the infrastructure, understanding operations, and planning every stage of the work.”
Over the years, WJ Project Services has contributed to many of the UK’s most significant electrification and power supply programmes. Its engineers have worked on schemes including the West Coast Main Line Power Supply Upgrade, Great Western Electrification, and the East Coast Main Line power supply works.
The company has also expanded its activities in Ireland, where it has been involved in innovative projects designed to support future railway electrification. One example is a pioneering battery storage project delivered for Drogheda, which Ashley describes as a significant milestone for the industry.
“It was a first-of-its-kind project,” he said. “That battery storage system changes the way future electrification can be implemented. Projects like that demonstrate the experience we have and the value we can bring to emerging technologies.”
As the company has grown, it has adapted to changing market conditions. While previous control periods were characterised by a small number of large-scale programmes, today’s rail industry often requires the delivery of numerous smaller projects simultaneously.
“We used to be involved in two or three major schemes at a time,” Ashley explained. “Now we’re often supporting 12 or 15 smaller projects. The challenge is different, but we’ve adapted to it.”
Like many organisations across the rail sector, WJ Project Services recognises that attracting and developing skilled engineers is one of the industry’s biggest challenges. The company therefore continues to invest heavily in training, mentoring, and developing the next generation of talent.
“We’ve got graduates in the business, we’re bringing in new engineers, and we’re training people to become commissioning engineers,” Ashley says. “There simply aren’t enough people being brought through the industry at the moment, so it’s important that we invest in developing those skills ourselves.”
The emphasis on training extends beyond technical competence. WJ Project Services believes that practical experience, mentoring, and exposure to real projects are essential for creating the highly skilled engineers the industry requires.
Confidence through competence
Although rail remains at the heart of the business, WJ Project Services is increasingly applying its expertise to adjacent sectors.
The company is actively developing opportunities within energy infrastructure, renewables, private networks, data centres, and other electrical engineering environments where commissioning and power systems expertise are in demand.
Rail currently accounts for around 75-80% of the company’s activities, but Ashley believes diversification will strengthen the business while continuing to support the railway.
“We’ll always see rail as our core market,” he said. “But we’re also moving into energy, renewables, and other sectors where our skills are transferable. The experience we’ve developed in rail gives us a really strong foundation.”
As electrification, decarbonisation, and energy transition continue to shape the future of transport infrastructure, demand for specialist engineering expertise is likely to increase.
For Ashley, the company’s role remains straightforward.
“Clients bring us in when the work is complex or when they need confidence that systems will perform as expected,” he says.
“That’s what we provide: confidence, technical capability, and the ability to deliver.”
