Hi,

It's a really good question. And one that's quite difficult to answer. It's important to remember that in rail engineering "Europe" is most definitely not a single place, every country (or occasionally group of countries) very much has its own practices and processes - particularly on the infrastructure (civils, stations, track and signalling) side. And most countries tend to be quite parochial in who they want to appoint, just as in the UK local suppliers are very much preferred (unsurprisingly since rail investment projects are often seen primarily as local economy boosters).

So although it may not directly answer your question, my experience is that entry into European markets tends to come very much from local offices winning work. What can work well is partnering with local rail engineering companies who are lacking in specific skills, but do have local credibility. Or find a small local rail consultancy where the owner is keen to sell out to you and retire! The two mainland Europe countries where I've done most work (under a previous employer) have been Spain and Greece, but in both cases we very much appeared as a local supplier, even though many of the actual engineering resources were based in the UK.

It's much easier breaking into e.g. India or Australia where the rail engineering is based on UK practice, so there is an active demand for UK resources. Although Australia has the issue that you can end up seconding resources there who never come back as they enjoy the sun too much!

Hope that helps a bit, it's a question I expect most of us who get involved in BD for UK rail companies have struggled with at one time or another,

Thanks,

Andy  

Andy,

Thanks for the reply. Your answer is very helpful in that it backs up my own experience as I have worked abroad in the past for different employers. My own experience mirrors yours so linking up with a local supplier still seems to be the best way to go.

The other side of the question, which I do not know the answer to, is where do you go to find the latest information re rail projects ie are there sites that would have this kind of information or organisations to join that could point me in the right direction.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Steve Limbert

Andy,

Thanks for the reply. Your answer is very helpful in that it backs up my own experience as I have worked abroad in the past for different employers. My own experience mirrors yours so linking up with a local supplier still seems to be the best way to go.

The other side of the question, which I do not know the answer to, is where do you go to find the latest information re rail projects ie are there sites that would have this kind of information or organisations to join that could point me in the right direction.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Steve Limbert

I guess first step is the three international trade magazines (I assume these days these are mainly web based)

https://www.railjournal.com/

https://www.railwaygazette.com/news

https://railway-international.com/

I'll admit I'm very out of date with the European rail conferences now, these always used to be good for keeping in touch and making contacts. I think RailTech is still the big one https://www.railtech-europe.com/ (Just realised that the last time I went to RailTech was 10-15 years ago!)