Network Rail Kent Route and Southeastern have partnered up under one leadership team known as South Eastern Railway to improve efficiency.
The team will be overseen by Steve White as Managing Director and aims to make the railway smooth-running and make it more responsive with its united goals.
Southeastern is under public ownership and has worked with Network Rail, which has improved customer satisfaction to 86% and created consistently low cancellation numbers.
Joint planning between the two companies has already created more innovative and efficient solutions, which have made the railway more reliable.
Engineers can access the railway during the day without causing issues to services, and have allowed for a drone trial to help deter trespassers.
Over the next few years, South Eastern Railway plans to:
- Modernise rolling stock on the Metro service
- Recruit the next generation, creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce
- Invest over £40 million in its stations, particularly at Hither Green
- Fit thermal imaging cameras and AI CCTV to monitor tracks.
This united approach is another step in the government’s plan to overhaul the railways through the Great British Railways, which aims to focus on its passengers.

The collaboration highlights how Great British Railways will work in the future, including high standards which will be tailored to the operator to allow for better performance, coordination and efficiency.
“Track and train are two sides of the same coin but for too long they have operated independently of each other – leaving customers and taxpayers to bear the consequences of this illogical approach.
“Uniting track and train leadership in the South East is the first step in our journey to create a railway we can all be proud of; delivering the Government’s Plan for Change with better connectivity, leading to more growth, jobs and homes and ultimately to the creation of Great British Railways.”
Rail Minister Lord Peter Hendy
Responses
I just wonder when SouthEastern Rail is going to announce who has won the bid to build the new trains to replace the networkers?
Perhaps South Eastern Railway should start replacing the rest of the Class 465 and Class 466 Networkers and Alstom to continue on manufacturing more Aventra trains for Southeastern.
Perhaps with all this additional funding and excitement, some thoughts might be given to Passengers (from the former Brirish Railways era,) unlike presently almost “separate countries” operation in Kent getting from west to east.
So eliminate all the privatisation franchises boundaries.
So I (for simplicity, say) would wish to travel from Gatwick Airport to Margate via Tonbridge without travelling to London and without changing different trains. With no problem on physical tracks. There were so many cross country train services of old, including Saturday Specials, we were spoilt for choice. Nowadays we can spend almost more time waiting at change stations, than actually moving on the tracks.