Network Rail Consulting’s US subsidiary, Network Rail Consulting Inc, has won a $73.2m (£57.5m) contract to provide systems engineering services to California’s High-Speed Rail Program.

The Program is the first dedicated high-speed railway in the USA, and will feature trains travelling at two hundred miles per hour between the Los Angeles basin and San Francisco. Branches to Sacramento and San Diego will be added later. It will eventually total eight hundred miles of railway with up to twenty-four stations.

Construction is already under way, and Network Rail Consulting Inc will directly support the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Rail and Operations Delivery Branch until May 2029.

Network Rail Consulting will support services including asset management, rail engineering support and oversight, design and construction operations and maintenance oversight, network integration and program compliance, start-up and commissioning, Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) certification, rule of applicability, system safety and security, and track, systems, and trainsets contracts commercial support.

The company will receive support from international consultants, Egis and Ricardo, and from six local California companies, C2PM, D.R McNatty & Associates, Inc., GCM Consulting, Inc., Intueor Consulting, Inc., LOR Consulting Group LLC, and NSI Engineering, Inc.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has overall responsibility for planning, designing, building and operating the high-speed network, and, in conjunction with regional partners, is working towards implementing a statewide rail modernisation plan. This will involve investing billions of dollars in local and regional rail lines to meet the State’s transportation needs in the twenty-first century.

More information about the California High-Speed Rail project is available here, and more information on Network Rail Consulting’s services and capabilities is available here. People wanting further information can email Sam Clarke, [email protected]

Network Rail Consulting is a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Network Rail, and was established in 2012 in order to ‘benchmark’ Network Rail’s capabilities in the international market, and to help staff development through international experience.

Network Rail Consulting is classified as a public corporation and is funded through its commercial operations. Its board of directors comprises Jeremy Westlake (non-executive chair), Nigel Ash (global managing director), Andrew Noble (finance director), Ian Dobbs (non-executive director), Neil Reynolds (non-executive director) and Mark Prior (non-executive director).

It has subsidiaries in Australia, Canada, and the USA; and operates from offices in Boston, Brisbane, London (HQ), Jeddah, Melbourne, New York, Riyadh, Sacramento, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto and Washington DC. It sells Network Rail’s expertise to international clients, including advisory services, strategic planning, major projects, systems integration and project and programme management, railways operations, including timetabling and operational modelling, and asset management and maintenance.

Network Rail Consulting Inc’s Chief Executive and Network Rail Consulting Global Managing Director, Nigel Ash, said “Having been involved in the development of the California High-Speed Rail Program since 2015, we’re delighted to have the opportunity to continue our support to the California High-Speed Rail Authority to help deliver this important investment that is poised to be one of the most transformative infrastructure programs in U.S. history.”