Published relatively quietly during party conference season, Great British Railways’ (GBR) new Rolling Stock & Infrastructure Strategy could easily have passed under the radar. It should not.

Published: 2 October 2026
Authors: Tom Guile

The strategy sets out how GBR intends to approach the design, procurement, financing and maintenance of passenger trains over the coming decades. Its message is straightforward: trains, track, power, signalling, depots and maintenance should no longer be planned through separate processes and timescales. They should be treated as parts of a single, integrated railway.

That may sound like an organisational change, but its commercial implications are far-reaching. GBR intends to act as a stronger national customer, move away from highly bespoke train procurements, take a more active role in whole-life asset management and preserve greater choice over who maintains trains later in their lives. Traditional financing models will no longer be assumed to be the default, with direct state ownership, leasing and other arrangements instead considered for each new fleet.

Why is the strategy significant?

GBR is being created through the government’s rail reform programme to provide a unified directing mind for passenger train operations and rail infrastructure.

The strategy starts from the view that, since 1993, responsibility for different parts of the railway has been divided between separate organisations, contributing to disconnected decisions, poorer outcomes and reduced value for taxpayers. GBR considers that this has resulted in unnecessary fleet diversity, limited commonality and constrained depot and maintenance arrangements, while creating an unpredictable pipeline of work for rolling stock manufacturers and rail supply chains.

GBR’s answer is not simply to purchase new trains. It intends to manage the national fleet as a long-term portfolio, considering replacement, refurbishment, life extension and redeployment alongside power, signalling, depot capacity and maintenance readiness.

This matters because new trains, and much of the infrastructure supporting them, may remain in service for 35 or more years. Decisions taken during the next procurement cycle will therefore shape the railway, and the market supporting it, for decades.

Fewer bespoke trains and more “fleet families”

One of the most significant proposals is the introduction of “fleet families”. GBR’s future orders will be structured around a smaller number of families aligned broadly to intercity, regional express, commuter and metro services. Trains within each family may vary in layout, capacity, performance and onboard facilities, but will share common design principles, capabilities and interfaces. Greater commonality should make trains easier and less expensive to procure, operate and maintain.

Rather than specifying highly prescriptive technical requirements, GBR intends to focus on the outcomes and capabilities it requires. This should give manufacturers greater flexibility to develop solutions, while allowing greater use of existing platforms instead of developing new bespoke products.

For manufacturers and their supply chains, the fleet-family model should provide greater certainty around future requirements and a more predictable market for trains, refurbishment and long-term support. GBR's proposed Fleet & Infrastructure Plan should reinforce that visibility. Businesses are therefore likely to place increasing emphasis on proven platforms, modular products, interoperability and whole-life value.

The move towards standardisation will also affect how businesses compete. Proven platforms, modular products and the ability to demonstrate interoperability, adaptability and whole-life value are likely to become increasingly important.

Passenger requirements will, however, continue to shape individual specifications. Future trains and major refurbishments are expected to place greater emphasis on accessibility, level boarding, reliable connectivity, cyber resilience, flexible internal spaces and ease of maintenance. Those requirements will need to be designed in from the outset, with implications for vehicle architecture, software, data interfaces, power consumption and long-term support.

A battery-led transition away from diesel

GBR identifies the replacement of ageing diesel fleets as one of the railway’s major long-term challenges. That should come as no surprise: around 4,000 diesel and diesel-hybrid passenger vehicles are expected to reach the end of their operational lives over the coming decades.

The proposed solution is progressively to replace those trains with battery-electric units, supported by full or “discontinuous” electrification. Delivery will, however, depend on the necessary power and infrastructure being available, including grid capacity, power connections and charging facilities.

The commercial opportunity, therefore, extends well beyond the manufacture of new trains. Battery systems, charging infrastructure, power electronics, energy storage, monitoring technologies and depot adaptations will all be required to support the transition.

This transition will not happen overnight. Existing diesel fleets may need to be retained, refurbished or redeployed where funding for replacement stock or required infrastructure is not yet available, creating meaningful opportunities for businesses supporting legacy fleets in the meantime.

A new model for maintenance and whole-life support

Whilst GBR recognises the value of manufacturer-led maintenance, it will no longer assume that this is the preferred long-term solution where more efficient or cost-effective alternatives exist. Instead, maintenance may remain with the manufacturer, move in-house, transfer to a third party or be delivered through a hybrid model. To make that choice credible, future procurements are expected to address:

• knowledge transfer and training
• access to technical documentation, drawings and manuals
• access to software diagnostics and historic data
• the treatment of tooling and software interface
• parts availability and obsolescence
• intellectual property and technical rights.

This may significantly affect long-term revenue models. Manufacturers may continue to benefit from early-life maintenance work but face greater pressure to facilitate an eventual transition to alternative providers. Conversely, independent maintainers and specialist suppliers may gain access to opportunities that have historically been difficult to compete for, introducing a greater degree of competition than the market has typically seen to date.

Data will be central to this model. GBR intends to make greater use of remote condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and train-generated data, both to manage fleets and to monitor infrastructure condition. Suppliers will increasingly need to address who can access that data, the format in which it is made available and whether diagnostic tools and interfaces can be used by an alternative maintainer.

GBR also proposes a more coordinated approach to parts, inventory, logistics and obsolescence. It does not plan to centralise every purchase but intends to combine demand where this would improve resilience, reduce duplication or create a more stable market. This may offer suppliers larger and more predictable opportunities, although it is also likely to increase commercial scrutiny as GBR uses its purchasing power across a national portfolio.

The strongest rolling stock propositions are, therefore, likely to combine early-life reliability with transparent, transferable and sustainable support arrangements throughout the asset lifecycle.

A different approach to procurement and financing

GBR intends to act as the single coordinated buyer for new fleets, replacing the existing model of operator-led purchasing, overseen and controlled by the Department for Transport, with a single national market interface. Procurement will focus on whole-life value rather than lowest initial price, with more standardised fleet families expected to be procured on a repeatable basis.

Future procurements will also place greater emphasis on social value, including investment in UK jobs, skills, innovation and resilient supply chains.

More significantly, the strategy opens the door to a move away from the post-privatisation model, under which trains are typically owned by rolling stock companies and leased to operators. GBR will consider direct ownership, leasing and other arrangements for each new fleet, with state ownership pursued where it offers the strongest outcome. Existing fleets are, however, expected largely to remain leased.

What should businesses do now?

Nothing will change immediately, and implementation will depend on funding, business cases and future procurements. Nonetheless, businesses should assess the implications now rather than wait for individual opportunities to emerge.

Those operating in the sector should consider whether their business models are suited to a market characterised by more standardised fleets, greater focus on whole-life value, increased maintenance competition, wider access to technical information and data, battery-electric traction and greater scrutiny of social value and supply-chain resilience.