Jeremy Westlake became the chief executive officer (CEO) of Network Rail in October 2025 having previously been the company’s chief finance officer (CFO) for nine years. Before that he had two years as CFO for Alstom and five years with Rolls Royce, with three years as executive vice president, finance of the gas turbine supply chain and two years as CFO of its energy sector.

His time at Rolls Royce involved supply chain management, engineering, manufacturing, projects, and long-term product development. At Alstom he was involved in global rail projects and products. While Network Rail’s CFO he often deputised for the CEO. Thus, though Jeremy has a strong finance background, he also has significant experience of operational, engineering, and manufacturing roles.

Network Rail currently faces challenging performance, engineering, and financial targets as well as the transition to Great British Railways (GBR). Although this offers significant benefits, much about GBR and its implications for engineering is unknown. Rail Engineer was therefore delighted to accept Jeremy’s kind invitation to discuss GBR and other key issues.

Joining Network Rail

Before discussing specific issues, I asked Jeremy what he found to be the most surprising aspects of joining Network Rail to which the answer was stakeholders and regulation. In rail there is a need to engage with a much broader stakeholder base than the private sector which focuses on customers and stakeholders.

This is because the railway’s purpose is much broader than just making money. Hence, as well as customers and government, regional and local community interests must be considered.  What this shows is that the railway really does matter to a lot of people.

The other aspect was regulation. With his aviation experience, Jeremy was used to safety regulation but not the economic regulation, which is another difference between rail and the private sector. Such regulatory requirements, political interests, and a heavily unionised environment can make change quite difficult. Hence changes require a lot more to stakeholder engagement and the need to take the workforce with you.

In summary, Jeremy advised that:

“Getting change to happen in an organisation with so many stakeholders is both the challenge and the opportunity to learn and do things differently. You have to be more acutely aware of the breadth of your stakeholder base in this role than you would in a private sector role.”

Engineering and GBR

We next considered the opportunities that GBR presents for a better engineered railway.

Data being integrated rather than kept in different places will offer new opportunities, was Jeremy’s first response. He was confident that sharing data more freely would reveal opportunities that weren’t visible previously especially with the use of AI. We considered whether data sharing between Train Operating Companies (TOCs) had improved in recent times and if the Rail Data Marketplace had also increased data sharing.

Jeremy accepted that this may well be the case but felt that, to avoid artificial separation by corporate structures, it was important to have common data ownership of data on, for example, train positioning, asset management, and asset performance. This would ensure better use of data to produce, as an example, better timetables.

Jeremy also sees a world in which train operations can really serve infrastructure management through the better use of computer vision and train-mounted sensors to give a greater insight of what’s happening on the infrastructure.

Optimising train tyre turning regime is another benefit. While train operators wish to minimise this cost, more frequent tyre turning could extend track life. As track renewals is Network Rail’s biggest expenditure, optimising the tyre turning regime has huge potential benefits.

In respect of adhesion and fitting improved equipment, such large-scale fitment of double variable rate sanders for which GBR might be able to develop a whole system business case based, for example, on improved performance.

We also considered whether there was a need for an engineering strategy that considers these various issues to ensure that they are addressed on a whole system basis. Jeremy felt that an industry forum might be needed to get this going. He advised that where track and train have been pulled together into integrated business units, smarter questions have now been asked resulting in smarter trade-off decisions.

I asked whether there was a similar whole system engineering focus in shadow GBR to which the response was that it was early days yet as GBR’s engineering organisation is still being designed.

Finance

To minimise the whole life cost of train operations, the initial capital cost of trains and associated infrastructure investment needs to be balanced against whole life operating costs. Yet infrastructure enhancements are funded by Treasury spending review and trains purchased with private finance. I asked Jeremy for his views on this.

He considered that GBR’s funding structure will be easier to manage than before as GBR will have sight of the whole business case. However, he acknowledged that having infrastructure funded on a five-year cycle with train services and train procurement largely focused on typically a three-year spending review cycle is not perfect. Yet he considered that this would not be impossible to manage.

This arrangement meant that certain funding was ring-fenced. He felt that was important and it would be wrong to under-invest in infrastructure maintenance and renewal because of a revenue shortfall. He mentioned the consequences of German under investment in railway infrastructure and noted that some years ago a benchmarking exercise concluded that UK rail investment was much higher than other European railways. Yet those other European railways were under-investing.

Jeremy considered that the “Treasury are the smart guys” and that their ability to protect the railway should not be under estimated. I asked if that meant the Treasury would accept a good business case that showed an infrastructure investment which delivered significant operation cost savings and generated extra business through increased capacity. The answer was that it might, but that, however good the rate of return, pressures on other expenditures, such as defence for example, may make the proposal unaffordable.

Efficiencies

Network Rail’s ‘Delivering an Efficient Railway’ report for Control Periods 6 & 7 shows that over this 10-year period it will have reduced costs by 23% to deliver £12 billions of efficiency savings. I asked Jeremy how this was done. He advised that he had developed a fishbone approach which assigns initiatives into categories to identify efficiencies and then clearly communicate these opportunities. This approach also identifies mitigating factors to combat cost drivers and provides effective governance.

He also thought that these savings showed that Network Rail is working better with its supply chain and referred me to this report which showed that CP7 efficiencies in fishbone categories were:

• Engineering access – 9.4%
• Delivery – 24.9%
• Technology – 18.2%
• Commercial – 20.8%
• Design – 4.6%
• Workbank planning – 6.6%
• Scope efficiency – 2.0%
• Other – 13.3%

He felt that when he joined Network Rail, it was difficult to drive efficiency into their maintenance and renewals work. Yet now routine. Jeremy advised getting an organisation to have a methodology and culture to drive efficiency is one of the things he is proudest of during his time as CFO.

He stressed that this discipline would need to continue under GBR. Funding will always be constrained, while the railway’s ambitions and demands on investment are likely to exceed what government can provide. Efficiency, therefore, must remain part of everyday business.

Project costs

Though these efficiencies are impressive, I raised my concern about project costs based on my experience of the Airdrie to Bathgate project on which I was working when I retired from Network Rail. This project transformed a 22km cycle path into a two-track electrified railway with four new stations. On the existing railway it did 12km of double tracking, rebuilt four stations and delivered 58 stk electrification into Edinburgh. All this work was done for £375 million at 2010 prices.

My 2010 article on this project included a detailed list of deliverables which I asked CoPilot to price. I also sought advice from a contact who could benchmark these deliverables. This exercise concluded that, if constructed today, this project would cost between £2.2 and £3.4 billion. Applying a steel-intensive construction inflation to the Airdrie Bathgate project saw it delivered for a cost of £850 million in todays’ prices.

Having previously supplied this analysis to Jeremy’s office, I asked him for his reaction. Although he did not comment specifically on the Airdrie to Bathgate project, he felt that certain aspects of rail management have got more expensive than others. One such example is uncontrollable energy prices. Another is the cost of signalling equipment which has significantly increased.

He noted that different projects have different levels of complexity and that it is important to be careful when benchmarking. He felt that Network Rail achieves fantastic unit rates on certain types of projects though there were significant cost pressures. Jeremy also acknowledged the need to shorten timescales for planning, development design, approvals, and funding. He also accepted that there was a large upfront cost now before physical work can start. That’s why Network Rail developed Project SPEED which is creating a process and culture to address these issues.

Engineering access

Although changes in the engineering access regime have resulting in large savings, I asked how this was balanced against loss of revenue and disruption to passengers who may choose not to travel by rail in the future.

Jeremy advised that the schedule four regime that compensated operators for planned engineering work had a theoretical value of revenue loss. A lot of work was done to assess this which concluded that demand elasticity was nowhere near as great as had been thought. Hence the schedule four rates were significantly reduced.

He noted that travel patterns have changed with more leisure than commuter travel. As a result, instead of taking three-day blockages over bank holiday weekend, such blockages are done on different weekends as leisure travellers want to travel during bank holidays.

He advised that closing the railway for a period of time to avoid the need for frequent mobilisation and demobilisation enables work to be done in a shorter overall time but in a concentrated way. Network Rail has found that, provided passengers can plan around it, they prefer the railway to be closed for a shorter overall time but in a concentrated way. Hence if it’s cheaper and gives you much better customer satisfaction at the end of the day, there’s every reason to do more of it.

I then asked about the extent to which single line working had been considered, particularly in respect of freight traffic north of Preston on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). I advised that one of my contacts had advised Avanti that it should be possible to divide the northern part of the WCML’s single line sections to enable high-output plant to work on the adjacent line.

Jeremy stressed that this could only be done if it was safe to do so. He couldn’t comment on whether it was safe to use high-output plant in this way but was aware of the effectiveness of geofencing technology to keep personnel off adjacent live lines. He had worn, and tested, this himself.

Electrification

When we discussed electrification. I mentioned that I was curious to know why the Westminster and Scottish Governments have a different view. In a recent traction policy document, Transport Scotland considers that electrification is required for routes that have freight as well as InterCity or suburban services. In contrast the Westminster view is that due the opportunities provided by batteries, all routes must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Jeremy considered that there was an increasing opportunity to use battery electric trains that don’t require full electrification. On this we agreed, though I expressed the Scottish view that this did not apply to core routes with Inter City and freight traffic which have a very high-power requirement.

I also suggested that the case for discontinuous electrification was not that clear cut. This is due to the recently reduced cost of electrification, not-so-obvious costs associated with discontinuous electrification, and the higher cost of battery train operation. For example, Irish Rail considers that the best whole life cost option to electrify their Cork commuter route is full electrification. This is largely due to the work done by Network Rail to reduce its cost, in particular the use of voltage-controlled clearance technology to eliminate the need for most bridge reconstructions.

When we talked about that case for electric freight haulage, I referred to the recent Railway Industry Association (RIA) report ‘Growing rail freight: the need for targeted electrification’ which showed how electric haulage could grow rail freight as it would provide extra paths for both freight and passenger services. This report also demonstrated why battery-only freight locomotives are not feasible.

While Jeremy agreed that electric freight trains have better acceleration, he felt that it would never make economic sense to electrify a mainline route just for freight especially as electric diesel or battery hybrid locomotives can be used. Jeremy raised the power supply limitations on the northern part of the WCML and considered that the extra train paths provided would not justify the high cost of upgrading this supply.

Though our discussion did not reconcile the differing English and Scottish views on electrification, it was clear that the case for eventual full electrification of core routes needs more than the qualitive arguments that seem obvious to engineers. Hence, it would be good to see, in the public domain, the costs and benefits of both discontinuous electrification and full electric freight haulage on the WCML.

Asset reliability

I asked Jeremy why, over the past five years, there had not been much improvement on the total train delay minutes caused by infrastructure failures. He acknowledged that this was the case though pointed out that infrastructure failure rates fell dramatically over a long time and then became stubbornly stable for about five years. (Up to 2015, five-yearly average Network Rail delay minutes was 12.4 million, up to 2025 this average was 8.3 million).

He was glad to have been asked this question as asset reliability is currently one of the most important things for him. He felt that Network Rail needs to reinvigorate the focus on asset reliability especially as reliable assets are safe assets. He noted that even assets that fail in a safe condition present risk.

Hence, he is pushing hard on an asset reliability focus and felt it important to understand exactly why assets fail. Is it the design of the equipment? Is it the way that we maintain it? Is it the way that we protect it from heat? Jeremy considered that there is not a points or train detection systems failure mode that we do not understand so wondered why we tolerate asset failure. He noted that in aviation engines and other components are designed never to fail.

On a positive note, he mentioned that Network Rail has point machines that work brilliantly. As an example, he mentioned the HPSS Mark II that has been developed and assembled by Network Rail’s Technology Development Team in Weston-super-Mare. Though this had some initial failures it has been re-engineered and designed for serviceability and is now a brilliant asset.

He also considered that there is a need to standardise with best-in-class assets which reduces the training workload if there is a very mixed portfolio of assets.

Jeremy felt that the challenge was to understand what can be done system-wise to ensure we can predict and prevent failures as well as understand how to design the best asset. He suggested that this topic is worthy of an article. I responded that Rail Engineer would be glad to produce such a piece.

Innovation

On the subject of innovation, Jeremy considered that the railway was great at innovation and weak at adoption. He accepted that there had been some worthwhile innovations which, for example, have delivered efficiency savings and enabled red zone working to be all but abolished due to automated infrastructure monitoring.

Yet every time he talks to supply chain partners, they tell him how difficult it is to get products approved, adopted, and deployed on the railway. Though suppliers recognise the efforts made to improve this, they advise that it has not got any easier. He advised that anyone he asks says that rail is a slower adopter of technology than other industries.

Perhaps the primary reason for this is safety risk aversion. Another is how innovation is procured. Going to the market under public procurement rules makes it hard for companies to justify investment in their intellectual property with a resultant reduction in R&D expenditure.

Jeremy acknowledged that there is very strong and healthy university rail research which can still connect with our European partners. However, since Brexit we have lost our ability, for example, to fully participate in the Horizon programmes.

Though there’s a place for experimentation, at what point should there be a decision to standardise, which brings significant benefits? One aspect of the long-term rolling stock strategy will be more standardised fleet, and this philosophy also needs to be applied to rail infrastructure assets.

Jeremy’s message

My last question was what message does he have for railway engineers as they are about to become part of GBR?

First, think of the whole system, was his immediate response. This requires thinking that considers how service trains can monitor infrastructure and system cost optimisation across the wheel rail interface. Focus on the customer. Think about asset reliability and the data needed to run the railway better and cheaper.

Bringing train operations and infrastructure management together in integrated units offers great potential benefits and should encourage such thinking.

I found my hour with Jeremy Westlake to be quite thought provoking especially in respect of how GBR can benefit railway engineering. Perhaps this interview also indicates what engineers need to do to make GBR a success.

At the end of the interview Jeremy recalled advice he had been given at Rolls Royce that: “An engineer is someone who can produce what the customer can afford.” This certainly seems quite relevant for GBR.

Presentation

Jeremy is giving a presentation entitled ‘What engineers can do for GBR’ for the IMechE’s Railway Division in Glasgow on Wednesday 2 September. All members of the railway community are welcome to attend and can book their place using the QR code.

Image credit: Network Rail