A WORLDWIDE LEGACY
With a project portfolio spanning five continents, Colas Rail Chief Executive Officer JEAN-PIERRE BERTRAND and Colas Rail UK Managing Director IAIN ANDERSON tell RAIL how the company is committed to leaving a lasting legacy wherever it operates
As one of Europe’s leading suppliers of railway infrastructure services, it’s no surprise that Colas Rail has a hefty presence in the UK. From the Docklands Light Railway to High Speed 1, the company has designed and constructed every form of railway in this country and throughout Europe for several decades.
As a fully integrated company, Colas Rail is also a primary contractor for Network Rail’s renewals activity, in addition to being a dedicated freight operator.
In fact, in October, the scale of Colas Rail’s considerable clout in the UK market was reinforced when it was named sixth in the list of Network Rail’s top 20 suppliers in 2016-17, having completed more than £ 200 million worth of work for the infrastructure owner.
In recent years, its global reach has been extended beyond the UK and Europe to other countries, including in Asia, North Africa and South America, and to date Colas Rail has constructed some 3,000km of highspeed rail lines worldwide and delivered light rail and metro schemes in more than 50 cities.
Uniting these major projects is a commitment to leaving a lasting and positive legacy while always being led by the company’s values: safety, profitability, quality and respect.
But in order to do so, Colas Rail must first understand the diverse social and economic climates it faces in the wide range of countries where it operates before it can effect positive change.
This is ably demonstrated by two of the company’s major projects located in the UK and Morocco, where a major emphasis has been placed on aiding regional social and economic regeneration through the implementation of sustainable measures, such as recruiting local staff, upskilling employees and educating local school pupils.
In the West Midlands, Colas Rail forms part of the Midland Metro Alliance (MMA) which was created in 2016 to develop a light rail network over the next decade on behalf of the West Midlands Combined Authority, worth some £1.3 billion.
In addition to the economic and social benefits that will result from the new infrastructure and increased connectivity it will bring, MMA - in partnership with local colleges, job centres and other public bodies - offers six-week training programmes to unemployed adults in the area to give practical work experience of careers in construction and engineering.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 miles away in Morocco, Colas Rail is completing the construction of 200km of a twin-track highspeed line between Tangiers and Kenitra where it is responsible for all track work, catenary and operational logistics.
More than 95% of the company’s workers in Morocco were recruited locally and taught specialist railway knowledge at a purposebuilt training school established by Colas Rail. Over 30 of these individuals went on to undertake senior roles within the project and obtain formal professional qualifications.
Colas Rail UK Managing Director Iain Anderson says: “MMA is a fabulous programme of work which has allowed us to take a long-term approach and invest in the area. We’ve done some excellent work in training people who had been unemployed for a long time to help them back into jobs.
“It’s about leaving a lasting legacy and enhancing the social and economic environment around that piece of infrastructure, which is good for the area and enables us to operate a sustainable business.”
Colas Rail CEO Jean-Pierre Bertrand adds: “In Morocco, we’ve built Africa’s first ever high-speed line with the majority of the workforce recruited from the local area. There was a lack of existing railway knowledge, so we’ve trained 1,400 local people over three years with 85% of them being completely new to the industry.
“Obviously, Morocco is very different from the UK, but the basic principles of our approach remain the same and for both projects we have focused closely on developing links with local schools and
It’s about leaving a lasting legacy and enhancing the social and economic environment around that piece of infrastructure. Iain Anderson, Managing Director, Colas Rail UK
colleges or created them ourselves in order to secure a long-lasting skills legacy.”
As part of Colas Rail’s commitment to sustainability, the company is also working with industry to help fill the infrastructure skills gap in the UK, where it is estimated that over 180,000 new engineers will be required by the rail supply chain over the next five years.
This support is manifested by both its backing of the newly opened National College for High Speed Rail ( by providing catenary at its Birmingham campus), and its award-winning graduate scheme.
This scheme has supplied almost 10% of the company’s total workforce, and 25% of its management team, thereby developing future leaders who will continue to champion these values long into the future.
Successful applicants to its Future Leaders Programme embark on a two-year programme that rotates graduates nationally and internationally to work with senior managers in all Colas Rail divisions.
This includes placements in Morocco, where not only vocational training in highspeed rail can be given, but the powerful effects of the company’s legacy approach can be seen first-hand in an international context (see panel).
Meanwhile, the Midland Metro Alliance is also using the Future Leaders Programme as a template to introduce a bespoke talent programme across its alliance partner organisations.
Bertrand adds: “We were able to bring some of our graduates over from the UK to learn from the Moroccan high-speed rail project as we continue to develop our next generation of leaders and provide a sustainable approach. They are able to see the principle in action of being a local player to support local growth, by providing training in each country we operate in. This is not a short-term approach - it’s for the long term, and many years beyond the end of the project lifecycle.
We have focused very closely on developing links with local school and colleges or created them ourselves to secure a long-lasting skills agency. Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Chief Executive, Colas Rail