What Moves Us

In this special episode of What Moves Us, Liam Henderson, Chair of the Rail Innovation Group, is joined by Head of Initiatives Deb Carson to mark the group's tenth anniversary and the launch of its report, Small Voices Big Impact: 10 Years of Innovation.

The report gathers a decade of insight from the group's community, tracing the road small companies have travelled since the first events back in 2016. Liam and Deb reflect on how much has quietly changed. The biggest shift is that rail no longer argues about whether it needs innovation. That case is won. The harder question now is deployment, getting proven ideas through the system and into everyday operation.

They work through the four barriers that still hold innovators back: industry structures that are hard to navigate, limited access to the decision makers who can sponsor a project, procurement that was never built for new solutions, and sales cycles so long that a product can date before anyone adopts it. They sit with the "valley of death" between a promising trial and mainline use, and argue that small suppliers deserve to be treated as partners in solving rail's challenges.

That sets up the mission for the next ten years. Innovation is now taken seriously in rail. The harder job is getting it adopted, and routes to adoption are where the Rail Innovation Group is doubling down for the decade ahead: clearer, faster, more consistent ways to carry a proven idea through the system and into everyday use. As Liam puts it, we are halfway on the journey.

 

Report link: https://www.railinnovationgroup.com/research

 

In this episode Johannah and Liam are joined by Karen Camilleri, Founder and Managing Director of Camilleri Appointments.

The Rail Innovation Group spends most of its time on how new ideas and technology reach rail. Karen works on the other half of that question, the people. She has recruited senior leaders across transport since 2008 and set up her own firm in 2019, placing directors and heads of function into rail, bus, aviation, ports and ferries. Her argument sits close to home for us: the richest source of innovation in an organisation, technology aside, is its people and the range of thinking they bring.

The conversation gets into why so many strong candidates are staying put while Great British Railways and bus franchising take shape, and what that reluctance to move does to culture and fresh thinking. Karen makes the case for hiring on skills over sector, for bringing people in from outside rail, and for challenging a brief rather than filling it. She also talks about the brave leap of going solo, her work for women in transport, and why the hardest experiences tend to teach the most.

 

Links: camilleri-appointments.co.uk, womenintransport.com

In this episode Liam Henderson and Johannah Randall are joined by Heerum Fleary, founder of TickEat and one of the Rail Innovation Group's newest members.

Helping smaller businesses find their way into rail is the heart of what the Rail Innovation Group does, most often with digital and technology companies. Heerum does the same job from a different corner of the supply chain. She spent more than twenty years buying food and drink, much of it across travel, and TickEat, launched in 2015, puts that experience to work for smaller brands trying to get their products onto trains. The work is close and practical, from Meet the Buyer events and dinners on a static train in York, to masterclasses and a CPD-certified rail accelerator called Track to Go.

The conversation gets into how a supplier earns a buyer's trust and where onboard catering is heading. It also lands on something we think about a lot. Heerum finds rail open and straightforward to work with, which runs against the experience many technology innovators describe, and Liam and Johannah dig into why the food and drink route in seems to run smoother. She also lays out what is coming, including a travel innovation hub fitted out with real onboard kit.

 

Links: tickeat.co.uk, railinnovationgroup.com

 

This episode of What Moves Us welcomes Gregory Meyers, founder of TreeStock and the Rail Innovation Group's newest member. TreeStock builds digital twins of individual trees, using applied AI, lidar drones and satellite imagery to capture species, health, biomass and timber volume across whole forests.

For rail, the case is direct. Millions of trees line the network, and a single storm can bring them down across the tracks at real cost. Gregory explains how mapping each tree could model wind blow risk, picking out which ones threaten the line before they fall. He also sets out the longer game, a goal to map every tree on the planet by 2030, and why so much tree surveying today still leans on methods that have barely changed in five hundred years.

Before the interview, Deb, Johannah and Liam look back at the launch of the Rail Innovation Group's tenth anniversary series. It was a female founders event, held high above the city at the BT Tower. 

The discussion turns on a stark figure, that female founders attract only about two per cent of all venture capital, and on a finding that flipped the premise of the event. Plenty here for anyone working where rail, data, investment and the natural environment meet. 

Our year-end episode brings the team together for a quick look back and a clear look ahead. We reflect on how the Skills Beyond Scale work shaped 2025, and we revisit highlights including the Heathrow Express Supplier Challenge and a growing, engaged community. We outline plans for 2026: a milestone year marking the Rail Innovation Group’s tenth anniversary!

Featuring the Rail Innovation Group leaders: Liam Henderson, Deb Carson and Johannah Randall

Liam is joined by friend of the pod, OpenTransport Initiative's Hayden Sutherland, to unpack three fast-moving themes from Rail Live in Madrid. They compare what was promised on stage with what is actually being built, digging into where agentic AI is useful, where it struggles with complex, high-stakes choices, and why good visual UX still beats long conversational lists. The pair link this to the hard graft behind the scenes, from data quality and APIs to cross-sector standards and interoperability, with a wry metro mishap reminding us that a capable human still matters. For startups, the takeaway is clear. Do fewer shiny demos and invest in richer, trustworthy data and integration so your product scales beyond an MVP.

railinnovationgroup.com

opentransport.co.uk

terrapinn.com/conference/rail-live/index.stm

 

In this episode, we sit down with Chris Jones from Heathrow Express—the team behind the 15-minute airport express—to hear how they’re throwing open the doors to new suppliers.

Heathrow Express is inviting startups and SMEs to help solve three real-world challenges:

• easing the pain of staff travel through airport security,

• showcasing and strengthening the premium passenger experience, and

• cracking the “last mile” connection beyond Paddington.

These aren’t theoretical ideas. They’re live problems waiting for practical, scalable solutions.

It all leads to the Heathrow Express Supplier Challenge on 9 December—a one-day, Dragons’ Den-style event where innovators will pitch directly to Heathrow Express and Heathrow Airport decision-makers. Expect a hands-on day: a ride out from Paddington, live pitches at Heathrow, and evening networking with the people who can actually make things happen.

If you build digital tools, passenger tech, or data-driven services and have ever thought “we could make rail run better,” this is your moment.

🎟️ Find out more and register here: Heathrow Express Supplier Challenge on Eventbrite

Tune in, get inspired, and get ready to step onto the platform.

In our latest episode, Johannah and Liam are joined by Rail Innovation Group member Pipcall's Johan Gericke and end user Miles Allcock. We dig into the upcoming requirement for trackside verbal communications to be recorded across the supply chain, not just by Network Rail control rooms. Johan explains what the rule means in practice for contractors and suppliers, and how mobile call recording can close the gaps when personal or site mobiles are used on track. Miles shares how access to recordings can protect everyone involved in safety critical work.

This episode covers the tech that makes this solution workable in the field: cellular call recording rather than VoIP for clearer, more reliable audio, and the “phone-within-a-phone” set-up.

Show link
Pipcall guide: Call recording for safety-critical communications in rail: https://www.pipcall.com/resource/call-recording-for-safety-critical-communications-in-rail

In this episode, we speak with Tara Walsh, Project Manager for the Innovation Acceleration Forum within Network Rail’s Capital Delivery team. Tara shares how the Forum helps streamline the path from promising idea to practical adoption: supporting innovators with open conversations, clear feedback, and guidance through trials, product acceptance, and procurement.

We explore how technical and non-technical voices work together to assess whether a product solves a real problem, saves time or money, and is truly scalable and sustainable. Tara offers insight into the challenges of rolling out innovations across a large, complex organisation—and why success isn’t just about flashy tech, but about doing the basics well and understanding the business need.

Plus, we unpack the cultural shift underway in rail, where teams are beginning to ask: What else can we do? and How can we do things differently? Tara’s top tip for innovators? Keep it sharp, relevant, and focused—don’t bring a like-for-like solution and expect to impress.

In this episode, Johannah and Liam speak with Philip Pozzo di Borgo-Oliver, Managing Partner at Eureka!Europe, a consultancy that helps organisations build the internal capability to innovate—whether they're early-stage start-ups or established corporates.

We explore the journey from idea to implementation: how to embed innovation culture across a business, how to overcome or manage projects through the business cycles that stall progress, and whether your organisation is innovating to create something new or simply to remove internal barriers. Philip brings sharp insights into Innovation Engineering, and shares his observations on the UK rail sector—highlighting how political uncertainty can undermine morale and momentum for change.

If you've ever wondered how to turn a "Eureka!" moment into a real-world result, or how to nurture innovation in systems not built to move fast, this one’s for you.