Strategic Rail Forum

Chairman: Martin Brennan

Your Institute is introducing some changes, making us more open and relevant to you, whichever sector of logistics or transport you work in.

We are replacing the four Faculties with eight Professional Sectors. These Professional Sectors will provide specialist activity for a particular area of interest whilst continuing to offer opportunity and involvement across the profession.

What you need to do...

We are now asking all members to update their details and tell us which Professional Sectors and Forums they want to belong to as soon as possible. You can do this in a number of ways - online through ‘My Membership', complete the Member Selection form that you will shortly receive in Focus, or complete the form included on the Current Awareness Bulletin over the next few weeks.

Please note, you can now belong to as many Professional Sectors and Forums as you wish.

Should you wish to make your selections online, please remember that you will need to create your password to login if you have not already done so. A short guide to making your selection online is available here.

Not a Member of CILT? Click here to find out how the new Professional Sectors and Forums are relevant to you.

Strategic Rail Forum

The committee of this extremely active Forum is a technical group consisting of rail experts from private and public sectors. It reacts to national rail policy issues, producing technical papers and reports concerning the rail industry. The Forum also contributes to the national policy debate on light rail and London Underground and provides specialist rail input to the Public Policies Committee. This page provides some communication with the 5,000 CILT(UK) members who have registered an interest in rail issues.

Committee Members

Recent Activity

The Committee meets eight times a year and normally alternates between themed and general meetings.

So far in 2009 there have been themed meetings on Crossrail, passenger behaviour at stations and on competition with air transport. The fourth themed meeting in November will be about the UK government's plans for high speed rail.

The 2009 CILT Rail Lecture in memory of Sir Robert Reid was given by Dr Malcolm Reed on 22 April 2009 on the subject of 'Scotland's Railways'.

During 2009, the Committee has contributed to the Institute's submission on Delivering a Sustainable Transport System (DaSTS) (click here) as well as the specific response on the DaSTS Logistics Perspective (click here). We have also responded to a DfT/EU consultation on Interoperability (click here), the Network Rail/ATOC/RFOA report 'Planning Ahead' (click here), the Network Rail Electrification Route Utilisation Strategy (click here) and ATOC's 'Connecting Communities' report (click here). Submissions in previous years can be found under the heading 'Responses and submissions' below.

The Chairman of the Strategic Rail Forum has appeared before the Transport Select Committee to give evidence. Examples can be found in the Select Committee reports on Passenger Rail Franchising (click here) and Rail Policy (click here). The Forum is also planning to give evidence to the Select Committee's inquiry into Priorities for Investment in the Railways, announced on 27 July 2009.

The Strategic Rail Forum is supporting the 3rd Annual CILT(UK) Rail Conference 'Managing Out of the Recession' on 19 November 2009 organised by the Waterfront Conference Company.

The Railway Engineers Forum is an informal liaison group with representatives from the Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Engineering & Technology (Railway Professional Network), Institution of Mechanical Engineers (Railway Division), Institution of Railway Signal Engineers, Institute of Railway Operators, Permanent Way Institution, Railway Civil Engineers Association and the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport. The objective is to promote cross institutional interest in railway engineering and operational matters and concerns. It organises multi-disciplinary conferences and produces statements on topical railway subjects. The REF publishes a monthly combined events list of the meetings of all the Institutions, where these are of cross disciplinary interest. It is currently chaired by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Click here to link to the IMechE webpage on the REF. Clike here for REF events.

The Institute's profile is maintained at a high level by the submission of independent views from a group which has a wealth of experience. Members can benefit by looking at the SRF's submissions and understanding the intricacies of the issues.