The Rolling Stock and Infrastructure strategy sets out a new policy for future train procurements. For the first time, GBR will assess whether direct public ownership, leasing or other financing arrangements offer the best value for taxpayers and fare payers. The Government’s decision to take back public control over the railways aims to create a more joined up system that puts passengers first, delivers better and more reliable services, and leaves the fragmentation of the past behind.

For more than three decades, most passenger trains have, by default, been owned by rolling stock companies and leased to operators. Now, GBR will take a take case-by-case approach to new trains and consider whether private or public ownership gives taxpayers the best overall value. Leasing and maintenance costs for trains costs taxpayers and passengers more than £4 billion a year, and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) reports that yearly dividends from rolling stock companies totalled more than £2.5 billion over the last 10 years.

Trains will continue to run. “This transaction will be a catalyst for further growth in ridership and revenue,” Brightline Florida CEO Patrick Goddard said in a statement. “We are grateful to our creditors, advisors, vendors, teammates, and guests for their confidence throughout this process, and we look forward to the bright future ahead.”

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[Brightline has been the only completely private daily passenger railway to begin operations in the US in many decades. However, the line has dozens of level crossings, and Florida drivers have ignored signs and warnings at them, resulting in over 200 deaths, and many service delays.]

In his interview with Rail Engineer, Network Rail’s CEO, Jeremy Westlake, explains how GBR will also benefit rail engineering. This includes better sharing of data, optimised tyre turning to increase track life, and better use of service trains for infrastructure monitoring. He also considers that the new integrated regional business units’ whole system approach is already delivering significant benefits.

Creating GBR is a huge task. Its Bill is currently receiving detailed Parliamentary scrutiny and should receive Royal Asset this year. GBR is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2027. By then, two key strategies will have been published. The Long-Term Rolling Stock and Infrastructure Strategy (LTRS&IS) is to be published very soon. This will be followed a year later by the Long-Term Rail Strategy (LTRS) which will specify GBR’s strategic objectives over a 30-year period.

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The demonstration clearly showed the degree to which autonomous track maintenance machines have already developed, as well as the opportunities this technology offers. Further specific steps are set to follow, in order to systematically exploit this potential and continuously increase the value it offers.

In their everyday work, infrastructure operators and construction firms face increasing cost pressures, a lack of qualified personnel, and growing demands in terms of safety, quality, and efficiency. It is with these challenges in mind that Plasser & Theurer is pursuing its vision of an autonomous track maintenance machine. The aim is to create an all-round, intelligent system that integrates, automates, and independently shapes the entire maintenance process, from performing work to documenting it.

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The star of the show of this article is (no, it is not Guangzhou Metro Line 3) the latest MLIT Urban Railway Congestion Survey. Instead now you are armed with the perspective of what those crowding percentages mean in a global context. So to start, the MLIT’s survey provides charts of each metropolis with three general data points: crowding, ridership and scheduled service capacity. Average crowding (thick red line) is shown as a percentage and calculated as explained in my previous article. Ridership (green line) and scheduled service capacity (dotted blue line) are both an aggregate sum indexed to 100 on conditions in Year 50 of the Showa Era (1975) or peak Japan.

The charts show an average of crowding (thick red line), ridership (green line) and scheduled service capacity (dotted blue line) metrics from a collection of the busiest urban railway sections serving Japan’s three major metropoli. Data is shown, from left to right, for Greater Tokyo or Kanto (31 sections), Greater Osaka or Kansai (20 sections) and Greater Nagoya (8 sections).

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One of the rules of thumb in his book with Dan Gardner (a Canadian, he was quick to point out) is “think slow, act fast”. It has the ring of a self-help or leadership airport paperback, however it is actually robust advice for building any major project. Acting fast is a privilege reserved for teams who have first taken the time to work through the idea, implications and desired outcomes slowly. That time affords the ability to develop understanding and competence, testing things out through simulation and experimentation.

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North American freight railways do a brilliant job of the main thing that matters for freight, which is low cost per tonne. Freight shippers generally don’t care if it takes a little longer, whether it arrives a few hours earlier or later in the day, or how comfortable the ride is. They want it to get there cheaply. The way to do that is to pack as much cargo into each train as possible. North American freight trains make European freight trains look like toys. A typical European freight train is about 1,500 tonnes and 750 metres long. North American freight trains can be well over 20,000 tonnes and four kilometres. On an intermodal train, it works out to nearly ten times as many containers per train as in Europe. Technology allows the crew in front to control locomotives distributed throughout the train so that the couplers at the front aren’t pulling the train’s full weight. North American freight railways have undertaken massive reconstruction of their network over the past decades to increase clearances so that trains on most main lines can handle two containers stacked on top of one another. All of this means two people in a locomotive cab can move an incredible amount of cargo. Since labour is often the largest cost or close to it, that’s an immense efficiency difference.

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Known as Freight-on-Transit, the concept involves taking parcels from distribution facilities to selected public transport stops on the outskirts of a city. They then travel by bus, tram or train before being collected at another stop for delivery by cargo bike, another small vehicle or a courier on foot.

Interest in the approach is being driven by the rapid growth of online shopping, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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But; China has reached the point where it can export and scale every physical and digital stack needed to create a railway—from a freight bogie or metro car to a 350 km/h train, signaling architecture, Train Standards, and an entire operating railway architecture overseas.

I believe this has implications for how China’s planning its hardware infrastructure, humanoids, robotics and biotech 出海 roll-out in the next 5-10 years: Total ownership of the full vertical stack, “open sourced”, investing in the material base, yet flexible and adaptable to the region.

Here is a running list of Chinese made trains I pulled...

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The flight marks the transition of the Viceroy programme into the final stage of sea trials, following testing of the vessel's hydrofoiling performance and other systems throughout 2026.

The prototype has a wingspan of 65ft and is powered by 120kW motors. REGENT said testing over the summer focused on increasing the vessel's speed while operating on hydrofoils ahead of the crewed flight.

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