Railway points

Tender description

Network Rail is seeking to engage with suppliers who can provide either S&C layouts or S&C components. The aim of this engagement is to allow Network Rail to develop tender documents that have been informed by the market prior to issuing a call for competition. Network Rail owns, operates and maintains mainline railway infrastructure in Great Britain. There are approximately 20 000 S&C layouts (‘points’) in the network. The average life expectancy of an S&C layout is 40 years, but this is dependant on a number of factors such as volume of traffic. The safe and reliable operation of these layouts is critical to the operation of the network, hence the supply chain for S&C layouts and components must be reliable and produce high-quality products to detailed Network Rail designs. Whilst the focus of this engagement is on the materials themselves, consideration will also be given to other factors that improve the reliability of the layouts.