John Holland partners with Strukton Rail

John Holland Executive General Manager- Rail Steve Butcher and Strukton Rail CEO Jacob Zeeman today announced that the companies would joint venture on the upcoming tender for the network, to ensure regional NSW is more connected than ever before.

“We have a decade-long record of ensuring passengers and freight can move around regional NSW safely and reliably, and now we want to take this to the next level. We want to drive innovation on the network in order to boost regional economies,”

Mr Butcher said

This partnership will help us to better connect our regions with global leading-edge technology.”

John Holland has operated and maintained the Country Regional Network since 2012. In that time:

• Lost time due to speed restrictions has been cut by 50 per cent on passenger and grain lines
• 99 of 103 temporary speed restrictions were removed within the first three years
• More than 1.5 million sleepers have been replaced along the network
• More than 7,000km of track has been resurfaced
• 155 level crossings have been upgraded

As Europe’s largest rail maintenance contractor, Strukton Rail is responsible for maintaining rail networks in the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, and Denmark and providing rail technology solutions to major network operators such as Deutsche Bahn, London Underground and Network Rail. The company is a leader in using AI technology to drive better decision making and assurance on railways and is providing support to major rail operators in Australia such as Rio Tinto’s Project Tempo.

Strukton Rail CEO Jacob Zeeman spoke of his excitement for this partnership and believes it provides the opportunity for a new era of rail technology and innovation to be deployed in regional NSW to further enhance the rail network operations:

“Rail started its technology journey in asset management over 20 years ago and has a proven record of reducing maintenance costs and providing guaranteed availability in rail networks across Europe.”

We are also keen to embed innovative solutions into the future operations of CRN, such as our locally developed Digital Twin solution, WillowRail which was featured in Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s vision keynote at the Innovate Conference last month in Sydney.