With over 155 years of experience in the rail industry, Downer is a leading provider of end-to-end transport solutions across Australia and New Zealand.
Through its Rail and Transit Systems (RTS) business, the company is a trusted supplier of rollingstock asset management services, with proven capability in the design, manufacture, maintenance, and overhaul of both passenger and freight fleets.
Its team of more than 200 engineers partners with operators, governments, and industry leaders to deliver smarter, safer, and more sustainable transport networks.
These engineers are problem-solving, innovating and delivering every single day, with up-to-date knowledge of time to supply and cost of supply thanks to Downer’s control and integration of the complete supply chain.
With so much knowledge to share, Downer decided to offer its expertise to the wider rail industry via its Engineering Consulting Services.
To find out more, we spoke to Julian Tullett, Executive General Manager of Engineering and Technology with Downer’s Rail & Transit Systems.
A competitive advantage
As someone who has worked in rail for 38 years and spent 25 years in consulting, Tullett knows the industry inside out.
He has held lead roles on several major global projects, becoming a trusted advisor to clients, and has a passion for customer satisfaction, technical excellence and delivering complex programs with the highest levels of assurance. At Downer, he directs a multidisciplinary professional engineering team delivering specialised technical and assurance services across heavy rail, light rail, and freight applications.
His team is responsible for supplying engineering expertise to Downer’s Rail & Transit Systems, which is in turn responsible for the daily operations and maintenance of some of Australia’s largest passenger fleets, as well as delivering Downer’s rapidly growing Engineering Consulting Services to the wider rail industry.
He said Downer has a distinct advantage over other consulting businesses in Australia and New Zealand because its engineers are on the ground, working in the rail industry daily.
“We don’t just advise a solution,” he said. “We know what a solution will take to actually implement, because we do it.
“We also manufacture rollingstock within our sites, so our engineers speak with operations, commercial and safety every day.
“We thrive on complex integration projects and technical challenges.”
By contrast, he said a consultancy that is not directly involved in the industry is at more of a distance from what’s happening day-to-day.
“It’s totally different for us,” he said. “Everything we do, we remain current. Our team is at the forefront. At any point in time, we are tendering, designing, manufacturing, maintaining and operating rollingstock, and that’s either existing or brand-new.”
According to Tullett, this means that there’s no guesswork with Downer.
“Say a client wants to know how much a project would cost – we’re not making estimates based on work we did ten years ago,” he said.
“We are running trains, and we stand behind our costs for 30 years. We really do know the cost and value of projects and how to bring them into service with budget certainty.
“We keep winning major contracts, and that’s because we are the best – technically and competitively.”
Another factor that Tullett said sets Downer apart is its scale, with more than 26,000 employees in total, including 200 experts in rollingstock engineering.
“The breadth and depth of our knowledge of the trans-Tasman rail network is unmatched,” he added.
He said the way the company is structured also helps when it comes to consultancy. Nationally accredited, its employees work as a matrix, agnostic to boundaries and siloes.
“We can pull people in from various areas of the business that have transferable skills when needed, and a lot of our work, even internally, is almost on a consultancy basis,” he explained.
“If we are coming up with a solution, we know we have to do all the engineering, the testing, the paperwork, and get the final sign-off.
“There are not many organisations that will let you into that entire process, whereas our people know that coming up with an idea here means someone else getting that cleared under Rail Safety National Law.
“Other consultancy companies don’t necessarily think about how much ideas will cost or how they might be implemented safely.”
On the cutting edge
Tullett said Downer is on the cutting edge when it comes to new technologies, with its XDNA company specialising in Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions.
“We really are on the verge of a step change in the rail industry, and Downer has fully embraced this,” he said.
“We’ve had great success with AI and augmented reality, and we’re using generative AI on our consultancy projects to drive and speed up the overall systems engineering process.”
Downer is also a big supporter of decarbonisation initiatives and is working with global technology partners to bring innovative solutions to the market.
“We will be at the forefront of rail decarbonisation technology in the coming months and years,” he said.
“We have partnered with world-leading battery suppliers, and we’ve got some pretty impressive projects in the pipeline. Watch this space.”
Strong partnerships
Tullett said Downer has built strong connections across the rail industry over the past 155 years – from operators to regulators to suppliers and partners.
“Our relationships with international technology partners have taken us decades to build, and they really help us stand out from the competition,” he said.
“When a client asks us about their options around new technology, how much it will cost and how long it will take, we know the answers.
“Our knowledge of the supply chain and our partnerships allow us to bring technologies into Australia, but also to give a wider consultancy approach and offering.”
With thriving operations across multiple states in Australia as well as in New Zealand, Tullett said Downer also has a deep understanding of what governments want when it comes to rail.
“We’re tuned into political and wider aspirations,” he said. “One of the major ones in Victoria – and other states seem to be following this – is local content.
“That means we’re thinking about how we ensure we buy Australian goods and services, getting our supply chains focused on what state governments want to achieve, how they want to spend their money and how they want to develop locally.”
He said Downer is proud to be investing in developing its Australian workforce and supporting local suppliers.
“A great example of this was Victoria’s High Capacity Metro Train (HCMT) fleet, which Downer designed, built and maintains, as part of the Evolution Rail Consortium.
“We managed to achieve 60 per cent local content. It’s so important to have that local touch.”
From paper to physical networks
Downer’s Engineering Consulting Services has shared insights and advice with teams across many major projects.
“We’ve got a team of people assisting with the introduction of new light rail, because the only new rollingstock that has been introduced under the new Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) framework for bringing trains into revenue service was HCMT, which we did successfully,” Tullett shared as an example.
“We also designed and developed a battery electric locomotive for different applications across rail operations and we’ve got a team in Auckland, New Zealand using our unique experience in assurance and requirements compliance and pulling the evidence together to get that verified and certified in the rail industry.”
He explained that in rail, as much work goes into the “paper network” as the physical train network.
“The paperwork side is very much our wheelhouse as well as the physical network – we’re experts at getting appropriate safety cases and external signoffs.”
Although Downer is a large company, Tullett said there’s no job too small.
“We’re happy to support the rail industry, even if it’s just a few hours of advice,” he said.
“Varied work gives our team exposure to different types of scenarios, allowing them to upskill and become better engineers.
“So it helps us, and it helps the industry – it’s a win-win.”
