Huw Kane is Service Group Manager for Rail at GHD, where he leads the company’s rail infrastructure advisory services. He has extensive experience in railway project development and has worked with the Department for Transport’s Rail Infrastructure North & West Directorate for eight years.
Sam Sherwood-Hale spoke to Huw Kane about GHD’s expanded role supporting the Department for Transport’s rail infrastructure investments across Western, Wales and Wessex regions, and how the company’s whole-system approach addresses the growing challenges of climate resilience and digital transformation in Britain’s ageing railway network
SSH: GHD has just been selected as part of a Costain-led consortium to provide specialist technical and commercial advice to the Department for Transport, specifically supporting their Rail Infrastructure North & West Directorate across Western, Wales and Wessex regions. This is a two-year contract with potential extensions, building on eight years of work you’ve done in the north. Tell me about this project – what does it involve day-to-day, and what does winning this contract mean for GHD?
HK: In Western, the current focus is on major projects at Old Oak Common (interchange with HS2) and Oxford (station upgrade to accommodate East West Rail and other service enhancements). The Spending Review in June 2025 confirmed funding for other schemes, including the reopening of the Portishead Line in Bristol and the construction of new rail stations at Wellington and Cullompton in the Southwest.
In Wales, attention is on significant projects in Cardiff, including improvements to Central station (led by Transport for Wales) and Cardiff Crossrail. There will also be an upgrade to the Core Valley Lines and enhanced connectivity across Wales, improving links such as the Borderlands Line through Wrexham and connections between Cardiff and Bristol.
This contract enables us to contribute our technical and commercial capability to the department’s goals of strengthening the UK economy by improving transport networks, enhancing connectivity, and supporting reliable, affordable, and lower-carbon transport options. For GHD, this aligns with our core purpose of delivering lasting community benefit.
GHD and the Costain consortium will provide advice in two main areas:
- Supporting scheme development to meet government objectives and value for money.
- Informing client team decisions under the SRO assurance regime.
This includes guidance on cost, delivery efficiency, and programme evaluation, delivered either through ongoing engagement with the department or via independent review tasks.
SSH: This contract represents a significant expansion of your relationship with DfT’s Rail Infrastructure North & West Directorate, moving from eight years of work in the north to now covering Western, Wales and Wessex regions. Can you tell us how this broader geographical remit changes the scope of challenges you’ll be addressing, and what specific regional characteristics in Wales and the West make this work particularly complex compared to your northern experience?
HK: A key difference is that the TransPennine Route Upgrade is a major programme progressed through an enterprise arrangement with a shared set of stakeholders. In contrast, the investments in Western, Wales and Wessex are a portfolio of medium-sized projects with varied funding arrangements and timelines. That said, many challenges remain consistent, such as the need for a system-led approach to drive efficient delivery, a clear focus on outputs and benefits, varied interfaces and dependencies, and complex stakeholder engagement.
SSH: What will you be doing on a practical level? The Rail Infrastructure North & West Directorate has a very specific mandate to assess investment proposals and provide technical and commercial advice across these regions. Given your consortium’s role in supporting this directorate, how will you be working with them to evaluate the viability of major infrastructure projects, and what’s your approach to balancing the commercial realities with the technical requirements when advising on these investment cases?
HK: The railway system’s capacity and performance depend on the interplay between infrastructure, rolling stock, personnel, and processes – changes in one element influence the others and the overall outcome. Projects must operate within the wider network’s infrastructure and operational constraints, which affect what can be achieved within project boundaries.
Our technical and commercial advice factors in these interdependencies through operational planning to assess requirements, scope, interfaces, constraints, schedules, and costs. This enables decision-makers evaluate impacts, balance benefits and costs, align with strategic goals, and make a strong case for effective and affordable public investment.
Our advice on the TransPennine Route Upgrade supported the wider deployment of in-cab digital signalling to increase capacity without additional infrastructure intervention. This resulted in a lower-carbon railway, a reduced asset base, and less maintenance demand. When coupled with the future roll-out of Driver Advisory Systems, the wider deployment of in-cab digital signalling will support better service operation through earlier movement authority updates, improved fuel efficiency, and faster recovery from disruption.
The financial environment places significant pressure on public investment, making it essential to maximise value for money within clear affordability limits. Balancing benefits against available funding remains key.
SSH: Climate resilience appears to be a central focus for the directorate, and your contract specifically mentions assessing climate change impacts on geotechnical behaviour and flooding. With the increasing frequency of extreme weather events affecting rail services, how will your team be helping the directorate develop strategies that ensure long-term infrastructure resilience whilst maintaining operational performance across these diverse geographical areas?
HK: Greater exposure to flooding, high winds, and heat events, combined with an ageing asset base, is affecting railway performance nationwide. Improving climate resilience requires a sustained focus on asset reliability, targeted through the regulatory settlement for operation, maintenance and renewal. However, resilience works are increasingly being integrated into enhancement schemes, whether to address a backlog of renewals affecting asset condition or, as in the South West Rail Resilience Programme, to strengthen the existing railway’s capability to mitigate climate-change impacts.
Our advice supports the transition to a greener railway within net-zero objectives. This includes guidelines on the following:
- Framing enhancement requirements using historic and projected climate data.
- Conducting asset vulnerability assessments against performance and safety thresholds.
- Evaluating scope and cost for whole-life cost analysis.
- Applying scenario-based benefit modelling, passive provision strategies and criticality-based prioritisation.
SSH: GHD has previously highlighted the urgent need for rail reform and the challenges facing the transition to Great British Railways. How does this contract position you to support that transition, and are you helping the directorate prepare for this restructure whilst simultaneously delivering on current infrastructure enhancement projects?
HK: Rail reform is handled separately from this contract, though enhancement schemes share the aim of creating a simpler, more affordable, and sustainable railway, and face many of the same challenges. The current industry structure – shaped by EU interoperability regulations and the separation of track and train after privatisation – has resulted in divided responsibilities and commercial incentives, alongside cultural barriers to integration.
This fragmentation makes system-wide improvements, such as digital signalling, more difficult, as they require coordinated efforts across infrastructure, fleets, training, and operations. Our advice draws on both our UK and international railway experience and the knowledge of our people from pre- and post-privatisation contexts. By focusing on desired industry outputs – what the scheme aims to achieve – we can identify barriers to success and possible ways forward. Not all railway challenges are resolved by infrastructure solutions alone.
SSH: Your ‘whole railway, whole system’ approach seems particularly relevant given the directorate’s need to coordinate with Network Rail and multiple train operators across these regions. Can you explain how this methodology helps deliver the kind of integrated solutions the directorate needs, and what specific outcomes you’re hoping to achieve over the two-year contract period that will demonstrate the value of this comprehensive approach?
HK: We advise the department with a focus on achieving strategic objectives and their associated benefits, encouraging proactive problem-solving across the industry. We work with train and freight operators, Network Rail, and other stakeholders to reach these goals.
As an objective partner, we provide impartial guidance to the department and industry. Over the past eight years, we have built productive relationships based on open communication, recognising industry constraints, duty-holder responsibilities, and contractual commitments. We hope this collaborative approach will help deliver positive outcomes within the Wales and Western portfolio, as outlined in its business cases.
SSH: GHD have shared insights with us before about rail resilience challenges. How will that experience play out specifically on this contract?
HK: Outside this contract, GHD supports Network Rail’s earthworks and geotechnical asset management through our Digital Twin Optimisation work. This integrates the following:
- Photogrammetry and LiDAR for high-resolution terrain and slope mapping.
- Geological and geotechnical data, including soil composition, slope geometry, and historical failure records.
- Real-time sensor inputs monitoring moisture, movement, and stress conditions.
- Visualisation platforms that produce accessible, interactive models for engineers and stakeholders.
This integration enables predictive modelling, remote inspections, and proactive maintenance planning. Deployment at Watford Tunnel approaches, as part of Network Rail’s Major Earthworks Management Strategy, delivered the following:
- Fewer site visits through remote monitoring and digital inspections.
- Better decision-making using real-time data for slope stability assessments.
- Improved delivery through enhanced coordination and risk forecasting.
DTO supports the management of more than 190,000 earthworks assets across the UK rail network, many of them more than a century old and increasingly vulnerable to climate-induced failures. In this contract, we can apply these insights to the enhancement portfolio through constructive challenge on requirements and emerging scope at major business-case decision points.
