OREANDA-NEWS. Network Rail Consulting, a wholly owned subsidiary of Network Rail – the owner and operator of Britain’s railway infrastructure – has appointed Jason Wassermann as its new regional director for the Middle East.

Mr Wassermann is a chartered civil engineer with over 26 years' international commercial experience and a proven international business leader with a strong record of accomplishment within both the private and public sectors.

Jason began his career at British Rail in 1990 as a civil engineering management trainee and spent a number of years as a permanent way maintenance engineer before joining Carillion in 1995.  Whilst at Carillion he was director of contracts and director of resource management before joining Siemens Plc in 2004.  During his time at Siemens he was initially projects and operations director before progressing to managing director - rail control and information business, with 200 staff and a portfolio of 60 contracts worth over ?120m. Most recently, Jason has been the head of nuclear at Capula Limited since 2014, leading the systems integration team in delivering complex safety critical programmes across the nuclear industry.

Commenting on his new appointment, Jason said: “I'm looking forward to helping take Network Rail Consulting into a new and ambitious period of growth. Network Rail Consulting has a well-established consultancy team in the Middle East and my aim will be to extend the breadth and depth of the services that we offer our clients in the Gulf region.”

Network Rail Consulting’s managing director, Nigel Ash, said: “Jason brings a wealth of international commercial experience and rail industry knowledge that will be invaluable in growing our business in the region.” 

Network Rail owns, manages and develops Britain's railway - the 20,000 miles of track, 40,000 bridges and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations (the largest of which we also run). In partnership with train operators we help people take more than 1.65bn journeys by rail every year and move hundreds of millions of tonnes of freight, saving almost 8m lorry journeys. We employ 36,000 people across Britain and work round-the-clock, each and every day, to provide a safe, reliable railway.

About the Railway Upgrade Plan

The Railway Upgrade Plan is Network Rail's investment plan for Britain's railways. It makes up two-thirds of Network Rail's ?40bn spending priorities for the five years to 2019 and represents the biggest sustained programme of rail modernisation since the Victoria era. It is designed to provide more capacity, relieve crowding and respond to the tremendous growth Britain's railways continue to experience; passenger numbers have doubled in the past 20 years and are set to double again over the next 25 years - so we need to continue to invest in building a bigger, better railway.