We have reached an important milestone in UK rail reliability.

Having recently been rewarded with a contract extension for ScotRail’s iconic Class 385 fleet, we have now extended all our maintenance contracts in the UK.

It comes at the perfect time. As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the modern railway in the North East of England, Hitachi Rail is pleased to be continuing in the proud tradition of rail investment and innovation. We are a trusted partner to UK railways.

A massive thank you to all our customers for their vote of confidence in our maintenance services. Extending all our maintenance contracts ensures that Hitachi will continue to play a major role in the daily operations and reliability of passenger journeys across Wales, Scotland, and England well into the next decade. This also generates over £500 million in benefits to the UK economy every year, through our extensive use of local supply chain and over 1,000 highly skilled jobs.

This is not only a testament to the quality of our trains and our award-winning maintenance workforce but also demonstrates the confidence our customers have in our partnership.

So how have we done it?

Integrated Partnership

Our customers have a choice, so partnership is paramount. The ability to work constructively, making both long-term and day-to-day operational decisions in true partnership, is critical.

An excellent example of day-to-day collaboration is in Scotland. Through the ‘Team Scotland’ partnership with Network Rail, Transport Scotland, and ScotRail, our teams are fully integrated, sitting next to each other in the same office. This approach means we quickly resolve and manage challenges together.

Meanwhile, these long-term maintenance partnerships create a sandbox environment for innovation. Having the train manufacturer involved beyond the train leaving the factory, creates ample opportunities to update or install the latest innovation across the lifetime of the fleet.

For example, this setup enabled Hitachi to deliver the groundbreaking ‘UK-first’ intercity battery trial or the highly successful digital infrastructure monitoring on the East Coast Mainline.

Investment

Creating an ‘award-winning’ maintenance business in just over a decade has required significant investment in infrastructure, digital systems, and people.

Hitachi invested hundreds of millions of pounds, not just to build new depots in Doncaster or Bristol but also to upgrade and modify some of the UK’s oldest train maintenance facilities in London and Edinburgh.

In parallel, we invested in our digital systems to optimise our maintenance performance across the UK. On-board data and monitoring systems allow us to capture information about the train in real-time, while infrastructure systems such as MRX (automated laser measuring system) obtain data and information from the train as they pass through maintenance depots.

Using this data, we have moved from a reactive approach to maintenance, to a predictive and preventative regime. This has increased train availability and reliability.

Introducing digital maintenance has also meant investing in our depot workforce. These teams are the backbone of our business, so digitally upskilling was vital to reap the benefits of digital maintenance. We are continually working to attract leading experts and recruit talented graduates to bring their fresh perspectives on our working practices, with recruits from the armed forces providing incredible transferable skills and talent.

As a global business, we are also fortunate that we can draw upon expertise outside of the UK to drive constant upskilling and learning. Hitachi Rail engineers from the UK, Italy, and Japan share expertise, best practices, and knowledge. This collaboration is essential to delivering continuous improvement.

Continuous Improvement

If we want our customers to continue choosing us as their maintenance partner, we must remain committed to continuous improvement.

That’s why I’m so proud that at Hitachi Rail, innovation is in our DNA. For me, the prospect of identifying areas for enhancement with our customers in the coming months and years is deeply satisfying part of the job.

This could range from further integrating digital asset monitoring solutions like HMAX to capitalise on the UK’s first-mover advantage in digital railways, to leveraging the stability of long-term maintenance partnerships to retrofit battery technology on existing trains – creating the quickest pathway to have battery trains running in the UK. In so many ways, we really are at the cutting-edge of delivering new technologies.

Ultimately, the UK rail maintenance market presents unique opportunities for innovation and growth, but these can only be realised through trusted partnerships.

And it’s through these partnerships – as well as our market-leading research and development and ongoing commitment to invest in cleaner, greener, more sustainable technologies – that Hitachi Rail stands ready to build on the UK’s rich rail heritage, deliver the solutions of the future and maintain the UK’s position as a world leader in rail innovation in the decades to come.

Here’s to the next 200 years!