Britain’s rail freight sector could benefit indirectly from a new approach to rolling stock procurement, despite freight operations remaining outside the remit of Great British Railways (GBR). The UK government says GBR will take a coordinated approach to future passenger trains, infrastructure, depots and maintenance, ending the presumption that new trains should be privately owned and leased.
The strategy, published on 28 September, says GBR will assess public ownership, leasing and other financing arrangements for each new procurement. While its immediate focus is passenger services, the government says the strategy will provide greater certainty for the wider rail supply chain through a longer-term pipeline of investment.
Greater public control of train procurement
For more than thirty years, most passenger trains have been owned by rolling stock companies (ROSCOs). That model has seen rolling stock leased to train operators. Under the new approach, GBR will consider whether buying trains outright offers better value than leasing them, although existing leasing contracts will continue. This remains a long way from the extensive industry that once existed, providing motive power, freight and passenger rolling stock from locomotive, wagon and carriage works spread across the UK. In fact, it does not in any way guarantee that large-scale manufacturing could come back to Britain – even if the latest Prime Minister has vague notions of ‘re-industrialisation’.
The government says leasing and maintenance of trains currently cost taxpayers and passengers more than £4 billion a year. It also cites Office of Rail and Road figures showing that rolling stock companies paid more than £2.5 billion in dividends over the past decade. The new strategy follows a £1 billion investment in Alstom’s UK-made battery-electric trains for the Transpennine Route Upgrade. That company has manufacturing capability in the huge Derby campus – a legacy of that former railway manufacturing independence.
Supply chain benefits
The government says the strategy will provide the basis for a clearer, longer-term investment pipeline for trains and infrastructure. It will also give GBR a greater role in supporting UK businesses, skills and employment through procurement, while promoting more standardised ‘fleet families’ across passenger fleets. However, standardisation and homologation in the freight sector seems likely to remain driven by commercial imperatives – despite the recent upward revision of rail freight ambitions from the government.
For the supply chain, that could mean greater visibility of future work and less reliance on intermittent procurement programmes. The Railway Industry Association (RIA) has welcomed the strategy’s emphasis on repeatable procurement, refurbishment and coordinated infrastructure work, but says the forthcoming Fleet & Infrastructure Plan will need to provide the detail needed for companies to invest.
Freight rolling stock remains outside the GBR remit
RIA chief executive Darren Caplan said the strategy represented a move towards a more joined-up approach, but highlighted a significant omission. “Freight is notably absent,” he said, arguing that the ‘Fleet & Infrastructure Plan’ must support the government’s target to grow rail freight by 75 per cent by 2050.
Caplan said the plan should also identify the electrification, signalling and rolling stock requirements associated with that growth. “To support UK jobs, suppliers will need clarity on what is coming, when it is needed and how it will be funded if they are to invest with confidence,” he said. However, freight could benefit from the wider investment in infrastructure, electrification and network capacity envisaged by the strategy. More coordinated planning of passenger rolling stock and infrastructure could also reduce conflicts between individual projects and provide a clearer picture of future network requirements.
ROSCOs face a changing market
The government’s approach represents a potential change to the role of Britain’s three major ROSCOs — Angel, Eversholt and Porterbrook — which together own more than 70 per cent of the country’s trains, mainly in the passenger fleet. The trade union RMT said the three companies paid £390 million in dividends to shareholders in 2025, taking their combined dividends to £2.4 billion over the past decade.
“The government’s commitment to explore publicly owned rolling stock for the new trains in the future is welcome,” said Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of the trade union RMT. “In a cost-of-living crisis we need action now.” The union is calling for a levy on ROSCO profits to fund a 3.4 per cent reduction in fares.
Details yet to come
The strategy does not, however, propose eliminating private ownership or leasing. Instead, GBR will assess the relative value of different financing models for each future passenger fleet. For manufacturers and other suppliers, the more immediate issue may be whether the promised longer-term pipeline materialises into funded orders.
RIA says that will depend on the “Fleet & Infrastructure Plan”, which is expected to provide indicative volumes, timescales, electrification priorities, procurement opportunities and funding status. Its publication could therefore determine whether the government’s new approach produces the greater market visibility sought by the rail supply industry — and whether freight eventually receives a more explicit place within that planning.