Colette Lowe

Said the following about Route One Rail:

“Route One Highways established a rail division in 2012 as part of a natural progression from their highways activity. Without a contract in the pipeline the company took a huge risk to invest and create a rail team with the sole purpose of bringing collaborative working to the sector to provide an all-round better service.

Months of designing and implementing new management, auditing systems, as well as rail specific training for rail personnel, Route One is now a link-up (by Achilles) approved contractor working on the CP5 Central and Northern Frameworks – a huge achievement for the company who had no guarantee of work.

The company’s big break came after their Sales Manager Ashleigh Wilson secured a contract with AMCO. Recognizing the synergy between the two companies’ way of working to offer sustainable solutions where quality and safety come first, Route One were given the chance to demonstrate their worth with a small contract worth only seven thousand pounds.

Demonstrating their competence Route One have since had the opportunity to demonstrate possession and non-possession works, working under strict time constraints, not to mention the knowledge of strict penalties, to great success.

Ken Jones, contracts manager RCDP CP5 Portfolio at AMCO says: “We have used the services of Route One on a number of critical schemes recently in the AMCO/ RCDP portfolio and have been pleased by the collaborative approach and flexibility that is a clear foundation of the company.

Both under pressure during complicated disruptive possessions and under high street conditions, Route One has always been proactive in design and delivery development for all our schemes providing innovation cost effective solutions.

From the initial communications to the delivery on site, they have been very supportive and soon became part of the AMCO site family team.

More importantly the collaborative approach of the company is supported by a great safety culture and a can do attitude.

We will be pleased to extend our current relationship over the AMCO portfolio during the forthcoming years.”

After only twelve months of working with AMCO, Route One have successfully secured the confidence and trust of the company to a point where they have just confirmed two further Network Rail bridge refurbishments in York as part of the CP5 Framework.

Another huge success to come out of the Route One rail team is their recent work with Story Contracting. After working with Story to develop an innovative solution to provide an alternative method of crossing the railway rather than the high-risk level crossing identified within the top ten high-risk level crossings in the North of England.

The solution was a Story Contracting developed overbridge solution - a first for the railway in the UK. Route One installed Safetrack, which is a combined waterproof and anti-slip surfacing, in two consecutive seven-hour windows. No train delays or disruption to the rail timetable were experienced throughout the period of works.

The success of this innovative and collaborative project enabled Story to secure the prestigious Network Rail Partnership Award for Best Project and now offers Network Rail the opportunity to replicate the design solution in other regions.

Earlier this year possession times were reduced when working with Carver Engineering Services, to lead an essential maintenance strategy of removing an 80 tonne bridge deck in Pontefract for waterproofing in situ at the Carvers factory in Doncaster before installation and additional waterproofing works on site.

Peter Lees, sales and project engineer at Carver Global Engineering Services says: “Over recent years Carver Engineering Services has developed into one of the countries premier bridge and structural steel fabricators, in support of this Carver has carefully chosen only the best suppliers as its business partners, amongst these suppliers are Route One.

Route One have provided unsurpassed service to Carver on many bridge contracts supplied to the rail industry and they have always complied fully with Carver staff whilst working safely under 18001 and 14001 standards.

Carver plans to continue using the service and co-operation of Route One who can always be relied on to safely complete a quality job on time, on budget.”

Building on this confidence within the rail sector Route One now work with Murphy Group, Story Contracting, Carvers Engineering Services Ltd, Buckingham Group, Construction Marine Ltd, and Bam Construction providing solutions to meet the needs and demands of the rail environment, trackside or otherwise.“