Great Western Railway by Mark Hopwood, Managing Director – 15 January 2026

Mark thanked us for the invite even if Woking is a little out of his area, although there are some GWR overlaps with the SWR area.  He reminded us that he was interim MD for SWR for around a year in between longer term SWR MDs.

Mark is a life-long railway enthusiast from as early as two years old as his grandparents assured him.  His mother did not drive so public transport was key, in particular travelling by train.  When visiting his grandparents in Wales, his grandfather used to make him recite all the stations in Welsh before he was allowed to enter – it sounds as though this was a welcome challenge rather than a chore.  At grammar school in High Wycombe he was involved with the model railway club getting into trouble when the club ran a very successful exhibition making quite an amount of money.  The school were not pleased that the club had not allowed for any of the proceeds to go to the school.

He originally joined the railway as summer relief with his ‘proper’ railway career starting in 1989 when he was sponsored by BR into higher education, working at all sorts of jobs during the holidays.  Memories and anecdotes of those early experiences working on the railway were both entertaining and interesting.  With privatisation, Mark worked for a year for Rail Track then moved to First North Western before moving back southwards, joining GWR in 2008 where he has been MD ever since.  He is also interested in aviation.

The main part of the talk commenced with an outline of what would be covered including airport development at both Gatwick and Heathrow as well as rolling stock overview and fleet renewal, and the battery train trials.  The background for GWR includes high speed, commuter, regional and branch lines services as well as the Night Riviera sleeper service – all of which have important aspects.  There are over 80 million passenger journeys with numbers rising, and over 7000 staff are employed.  This figure too is slowly growing with increased service provision.  GWR operates the Heathrow Express which is not part of its contract with the DfT but a separate contract directly with the airport.

The business context is that GWR is currently operated under a government contract with First Group which has now sold its US operations whilst increasing its bus services in the UK.  First Group also runs Avanti, Lumo and Hull Trains and has won the contract with TfL for the London Overground as well as a number of other services.  Network Rail currently takes care of the railway infrastructure but GWR and NR are now working more closely together.  A total of 199 stations are operated by GWR with approximately 80 more served by the company.

The Great Western Electrification Project (GWEP) includes 93 bi-mode diesel electric trains providing a 25% increase in capacity.  It was commented that it was funny how people criticise new trains and are now nostalgic for the older HSTs!  On electric mode the Class 93s are much better, but not quite so reliable in diesel mode.  There are 30 all electric Class 387s often run in double or triple formation, with some additional stock with signalling modifications used on the Heathrow Express services.  Other rolling stock mentioned were the diesel HSTs – now gone, Castle Class 255s – now withdrawn; DMUs included Class 150s, 158s, 165s and 166 turbos – all getting quite old; not forgetting the Class 57 locomotives used on the sleeper service and for rescue operations.  With fewer locomotives available, the fleet of Class 57s has been enlarged.

Mark next spoke of the introduction of the Class 175s with 26 currently on lease as the 27th had been damaged.  These have been cascaded from Transport for Wales.  Unfortunately, they had been stored for the last 2 years in the open air which resulted in deterioration in their condition making it difficult to get them going again.  One example was the testing of the automatic fire equipment which has to be done periodically.  The test rig for this had disappeared from the depot when the unit went into store so a new one had to be built from scratch which was one of the reasons for the delay in getting them back into service.  These are the sorts of issues that could be avoided with a better and more coordinated rolling stock plan.  This fleet will work in Devon and Cornwall being maintained at the Laira Depot.

Next came the Regional Fleet Renewal Programme with a simple chart showing the Classes, type of power and the year of build from 1987 to 2017.  One of the weaknesses is the curtailment of the electrification programme causing further challenges here.  Battery technology will help in due course but Mark is well aware of the poor environmental effects of continuing and extended use of diesel rolling stock.  Other issues that will continue to improve are accessibility and provision for growth, as current rolling stock has its limitations.  Customer experience can also be improved eg with better provision for on-board cycle storage.

 

Then there is the increasing cost of maintaining older rolling stock.  With some interesting photographs of Class 150s undergoing extensive corrosion repairs, Mark explained just how expensive this is with serious engineering work required, let alone refurbishing the interiors.  The point was well made that while new trains are expensive, it becomes increasingly costly to repair aging rolling stock thus helping the argument for eventually replacing rather than refurbishing the old.

The options diagram encapsulated some of the possibilities around the GWR network where there is room to expand and improve services eg where workers are moving out of city centres because housing is much cheaper in outlying areas, thus creating an opportunity for the growth of commuter services eg the Devon Metro with possibilities about rolling stock including MMUs and BEMUs to cover where electrification is not in place.  Options in Cornwall might be 2 and 3 car BEMUs but some local authority funding would be required to put the necessary rapid charging infrastructure in place on the branches.  A number of other examples were shared covering other areas of the GWR network with some exciting prospects going forward.

Mark reported on the success of the fast charging battery train trial.  GWR bought out Viva Rail from the receiver, at the same time offering work with GWR to all of the staff who had been working on it.  The experiment has been successful as illustrated by the photograph of a delighted team at the end of the ‘200 miles on a single charge’ trial.  This is technology that is likely to be very useful on unelectrified lines particularly branch lines where it would probably be too expensive to electrify in any other way.

 

Gatwick Express and the North Downs Line followed next.  Background information illustrated how the case for investment was made in the 1990s but the economy has changed which meant that the company has had to ‘make do’ with the rolling stock available.  The turbos will be replaced as part of the Regional Fleet Renewal Programme.  There have been some issues with Gatwick but the airport is ‘bouncing back’ with plans now in place to improve the services to help those passengers who need to arrive there for early flights or who fly in late at night.  GWR is working with Network Rail to improve routes, infrastructure and to have more trains, especially necessary as the proposed Northern Runway plans are aiming for 54% of passengers to use public transport.

With regards to the Heathrow Express, while the Elizabeth Line has helped provide a good service for Londoners, access from areas outside London are not so well served.  Mark illustrated this point with a simple map showing how rail access to Heathrow could be improved,  The funding model for this is unclear, but he believes that air passengers are natural rail customers.  A number of European airports have good railway links but it takes a long time in the UK to resolve some of these issues which is frustrating.

 

Mark finished the presentation by considering renationalisation with GWR’s franchise coming to an end fairly soon.  There will be little visible change initially but that will come in time.  The current structure has been in place for quite a long period so there will be much to do to combine operations and manage the necessary changes.

Questions and answers covered a number of subjects including different classes of rolling stock, how these are cascaded, lessons learned along the way.  A fine example was something learned by local engineers when servicing a particular class that was not included in the official instruction manual.  Unfortunately, this knowledge was disregarded initially causing some problems.  Other questions concerned electrification or other options; who pays for which infrastructure improvements; Heathrow expansion; Gatwick expansion where some small changes could make a big positive difference; and the staff who have to make it all work.  Mark answered all questions with knowledge and understanding.

The vote of thanks was given by Alan Nichols who highlighted Mark’s ability to tackle problems and find solutions, with no avoidance of difficult questions and with honest answers.  A very interesting and entertaining evening.