We’re improving the way we work to become more efficient and save money across our railway.
More savings
We’ve become more commercially minded as an organisation. We’re doing our part to spend money wisely, attract private investment, and make sure more money is left for other public priorities like schools and hospitals.
And it’s already bearing fruit. In the past five years, we’ve saved £4bn by finding new ways of working.
Taken alongside the next five years, this means that within the current decade, we’re on track to reduce our costs by 23% and save taxpayers and customers more than £12bn. That’s the same amount as it would cost to build 24 new hospitals.
We achieved these enormous savings through better technology, more efficient supply chains, smarter ways of working and lower operating costs.
Great British Railways
We’ll work with our partners to unify the railway through Great British Railways – a single organisation that will bring track and train back together. Reshaping Britain’s rail industry will give you more efficient and more reliable train services.
Together we’ll grow passenger numbers and move more goods on the railway by making rail the easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective way to travel.
Plus, new industry partnerships will accelerating innovation and give our people more power to make smart decisions.
Case study: Werrington tunnel
We achieved a British engineering first in 2021 by sliding an 11,000-tonne curved concrete tunnel into place under the existing railway as part of the East Coast Upgrade.
We first built the curved box next to the existing railway before moving the structure into place beneath the East Coast Main Line, which runs out of London King’s Cross. We connected the new track inside the tunnel to the existing lines and installed a new signalling system over a single weekend.
The Werrington Tunnel carries freight trains under the busy East Coast Main Line. It means your journeys are no longer delayed by freight trains crossing the tracks.
Our world-class engineering made sure we completed the work in a fraction of the time it would have taken otherwise.
Case study: efficiency in electrification
Electrifying our railway helps us give you a greener and higher performing railway. It also helps us lower the cost of running and maintaining the railway.
We’ve worked hard to make the process of electrification more efficient. In total, we’ve delivered more than £1bn in efficiency enhancements since 2019.
For example, we coated the underside of a bridge in Cardiff with a material that’s highly resistant to electricity. This allowed us to safely install electrical cables underneath without demolishing the bridge. Using this technique saved £40m. Applying this technique across all electrification projects could reduce costs by up to a third.
