The effects of climate change have been identified to have occurred throughout earth’s long history, but now there is a completely new driver of that change. Human activity is widely acknowledged to be causing acceleration of climate change. Environmentalists have highlighted the loss of diversity in plants, animals and birds: it is no great exaggeration to say that we are witnessing a mass extinction event.

These issues have been in debate for more than three decades, but as momentum built to recognise and act on the realities, COVID 19 struck. The human world went into lockdown and in a way all else took a back seat. We are thankfully now moving fully out of the pandemic, and we should all hope that the whole of humanity continues on that path.

The pandemic has seriously set back the economies of all countries, and work patterns have changed. In the UK passenger numbers on the railway have begun to recover, but are not yet to the levels prior to the pandemic. The realities of the national economy reeling from the pandemic, reshaping following BREXIT and now with the energy price impact itself exacerbated by the Ukraine war, the funding for rail from government cannot continue at the scale of the last 25 years.

Whatever you personally believe the rights and wrongs of the current tension between employers and employees to be, money is at the core. It is obvious the disruption to and interruption of train services has a very negative impact on the confidence of our customers. People wanting to make a journey will be discouraged from considering rail in future due to bad experiences today. Freight customers will judge the railway on the same basis, if consignments are delayed and unreliably dealt with, freight customers will use alternative haulage providers.  

These challenges are daunting. I am not setting out deliberately to depress your mood, rather I am wanting to take these facts and give you my view of how our industry might proceed. Of course much of what I have set out above is way beyond our control or even our influence, we can only act in response. 

Climate change presents more to think about than I can comprehensively tackle here. There are however two points of priority for the railway. First is climate change adaption and resilience. Extreme heat, damaging drought, more frequent serious flooding, higher windspeeds, rising sea levels threatening more coastal erosion and storm damage are all a reality now. Each is trending to worsen the stress on the railway, each will require measures to protect the existing infrastructure. Much of our railway was specified against standards developed to operate in a climate with cold snowy winters, but with largely benign spring, summer and autumn months. The railway we have is fit for the way the UK was, not the way the UK is. Whilst there will be lots to do that requires physical change and site specific enhancement, I am convinced that a change in attitude towards maintenance alongside a change in what maintenance is called upon to deliver will lift the condition and resilience of the railway. That improved condition will bring with it increased reliability and better service delivery and that will retain customers.

The emphasis across many sectors, including rail, has been to squeeze the money available for maintenance and increase investment spending seeking enhancement and expansion. We must rebalance that equation. The loss of revenue and the reduction in government support demands a rethink of the investment plans for our industry. The capital investment plans must shrink. That shrinkage will be painful as scope of enhancement is axed. But it must also be matched by change in the way capital works are contractually and programme managed. The UK is the most expensive country in Europe in which to deliver infrastructure 

works. The model that prevails can be seen in Crossrail, HS2 and in NR Route Modernisation programmes. This is not just a railway issue, it is an issue across industries. The model must change.

Reducing what is spent on investment must sit alongside an increase in what is spent on stewardship of the assets already in place. It is that expenditure which protects performance, protects resilience and protects revenue.

The second climate change issue is the all important point about reducing carbon emissions by the transport industries. The modal shift from road to rail must not be solely about passenger journeys. I argue the more important traffic to modally shift is freight, specifically container traffic. The potential is great and whilst gauging improvement is needed in limited locations, a renaissance of the rail freight industry will deliver carbon reduction through very large reductions of lorry traffic on the motorways and roads. 

The railway contribution to carbon reduction will only be maximised by traction decarbonisation. Roll out of electrification across the network remains the only viable option. Government commitment to support the level of investment to achieve elimination of diesel trains has stalled. This is understandable. As the economic shocks that have hit since 2020 are absorbed and reacted to, it would be naive to think the scale of investment needed will be easily accepted. The priority now is to address the cost of capital investment programmes and reshape the plans to achieve a more incremental approach.

PWI Climate Change Adaption and Decarbonisation Committee has a remit to allow better debate within and between PWI members. Please get involved and join the debate about how our industry might
rise to the challenges.