Maintenance for today and tomorrow

The management of ageing assets is one of the biggest challenges facing engineers. Respondents in a recent RS and Institution of Mechanical Engineering (IMechE) Maintenance Engineering report ranked ageing assets as the biggest driver of unscheduled downtime ahead of mechanical failure and lack of skills.

Ageing assets are a particular challenge in the railway industry. In terms of rolling stock, for example, the trains running on the London Underground Bakerloo line are more than 50 years old. Transport for London (TfL) and the Mayor of London’s office report that as a result, they are “increasingly unreliable, with maintenance becoming ever more challenging and costly.” This is affecting service levels: with the number of trains available at any one time in decline, frequency during peak times has recently fallen from 22 to 20 trains per hour.

Much of the railway infrastructure is even older. Network Rail, the public body that owns and manages most of the railway network infrastructure, has 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts across its estate, many of which were built during a period of huge network expansion in the mid-19^th century. Barmouth Viaduct, for instance, is a 770-metre-long wooden bridge constructed in 1867.

Recent renovation of this Grade II* listed monument took four years and cost £30 million – indicating how tough it is to maintain these historic structures and ensure they’re fit for the needs of modern rail. “The challenges of ageing infrastructure, especially in densely populated areas, are quite extreme,” says Professor Paul Plummer, director of the University of Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education.

Challenging economic circumstances make the problem even tougher. “Thinking about the management of assets over their whole life, and in a holistic way, is key,” continues Plummer, “but that becomes challenging when the industry is resource constrained, as it has following COVID-19 with a loss revenue.

“It becomes about making difficult trade-offs and choices about what’s the best use of limited money rather than how to optimise the whole life of an asset. It’s hard, but not impossible.”

Ageing infrastructure is not the only challenge facing those responsible for maintaining the railways. The climate emergency is also an issue, with the resulting increase in extreme weather already having an impact. “The increasingly extreme and variable weather conditions we have are a huge challenge for a railway that, in many cases, was built hundreds of years ago and in a very intensive land use environment,” states Plummer.

“Extreme weather events are another challenge as they are having a significant impact on our ability to run services, especially with an ageing fleet and infrastructure,” says Tricia Williams, Managing Director of Northern Trains, the second largest train operator in the UK. “We’ve seen more storms in the last few years than previously, so we’re shifting to think of storms as something that will happen more frequently and plan accordingly.”

How do those responsible for maintaining UK railways respond to these challenges?

One option is to integrate digital technology that supports more efficient and effective management of the rail network. Remote monitoring systems, for example, indicate when a section of track is expanding too much during periods of high temperature. Network Rail can then introduce speed restrictions as slower trains exert less force on the track and therefore reduce the likelihood that rails will buckle.

Digital technology can also transform supply chain management by minimising the risk that vital parts are not available when required. According to the latest findings from RS and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), almost half of procurement professionals are worried about managing risk and their concern is understandable given the disruption to supply chains over the last five years. At the same time, cost pressures and budget restrictions make avoiding unnecessary spending vital. The right technology addresses both sets of challenges by optimising the maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) supply chain.

Whether an organisation is able to realise the potential of digital technology depends, however, on its level of maintenance maturity – and this varies widely. The RS and IMechE research found 42% of organisations still have a reactive strategy, “essentially running equipment until it fails. Not surprisingly, this is higher among those organisations stating they have a low maintenance maturity.” Only 11% of organisations have made predictive maintenance their top priority strategy, “suggesting this remains some way off for many.”

Another obstacle, exacerbated by ageing assets, is poor quality data. “It’s all very well to say we should have better data, but you can’t create that out of nothing,” says Plummer. “Equally,” he continues, “there’s certainly opportunity to improve here and to be using much more real-time data on the condition of the assets rather than [information] from the inspection that might have been six days or weeks ago.”

Many real-world examples where digital technology is successfully deployed involve collaboration. Network Rail, for instance, worked with the University of Sheffield Rail Innovation and Technology Centre on research using forward-facing cameras on trains “to measure how the train moves relative to the tracks, creating a 3D map of the tracks ahead.” This allowed them to better understand what normal movement looks like and, conversely, what movement may indicate a fault with the train or the track.

By collaborating with trusted suppliers, organisations can also access digital supply chain solutions. This kind of partnership can be particularly valuable for organisations in the rail industry given the levels of historic infrastructure and ageing assets. “You may need completely different sets of spares and obsolescence can be a factor,” states Gregson. “Supply chain reliability is therefore foremost. You need a supplier who can ensure the availability of spares so you can get the fix done quickly and keep downtime to a minimum.

“You need suppliers you can trust to provide critical parts but nurture a more holistic view of what you need from them too,” he adds. “Build relationships with suppliers that have industry knowledge and expertise and you’ll gain access to the added value and innovations a partner can offer.”

For more analysis of the UK railways, download our 2025 Rail Industry report.