Inside Buckland Rail’s ambitious expansion plans that are set to triple the company’s turnover
As a privately-owned, private equity company, Buckland Group has the capital firepower to focus investments into growing various manufacturing and service businesses, specifically in the rail, renewable energy and construction sectors. Its integrated rail services company, Buckland Rail, is comprised of WH Davis, Davis Wagon Services (DWS) and Yellow Rail. WH Davis and DWS have been a part of Buckland Rail’s portfolio for over 12 years, manufacturing and maintaining its freight wagon fleet, whilst Yellow Rail was acquired just two years ago. Specializing in the overhaul of bogies and freight wagons, along with the upgrading of passenger vehicles, Yellow Rail excellently enhanced Buckland Rail’s existing capabilities, skyrocketing the company to further growth and expansion.
To get under the bonnet of Buckland Rail’s operations, Transportation & Logistics International sits down with Noel Travers, Chief Executive Officer of Buckland Rail, who offers a deep dive into the company’s services whilst providing insight into what lies ahead in the company’s wider dynamic growth strategy.
“WH Davis, which has been operational since 1908, manufactures rail freight wagons including biomass hoppers, box wagons, intermodal wagons, and specialist containers, such as for the storage of low-level nuclear waste,” Noel begins. “The business has also recently undertaken a series of wagon repurposing projects, taking stored coal wagons and turning them into box wagons, reusing components where possible to create a much more sustainable solution to changes in traffic requirements.
“On the other hand, DWS is the biggest independent maintainer of freight wagons in the UK, with over 1900 wagons under maintenance contracts, with teams located across the country from Immingham to South Wales. The largest single contract is with Drax for its biomass hoppers, which are maintained, modified, and overhauled at our dedicated workshop in Ferrybridge.”
“Yellow Rail started out looking after passenger vehicles, but then moved into the freight market where it established itself as the partner of choice to many freight vehicle owners,” he continues. “Yellow Rail overhauls a large proportion of freight bogies at its site in Derby, and it has just been awarded a contract for the overhaul of bogies for Croydon Trams for Transport for London. With maintenance teams in various locations across the UK, Yellow Rail boasts extensive experience in the modification and upgrade of passenger vehicles at customer depots.”
With the acquisition of Yellow Rail, Buckland Group has expanded its capabilities, allowing the company to move beyond freight into passenger services.
“Yellow Rail takes Buckland Rail into the passenger market, which is an area we will be seeking to develop over the coming years,” Noel elaborates. “Whilst there are some overlaps in activity across the businesses, the acquisition of Yellow Rail allows Buckland Rail to provide a cradle-to-grave service for wagons to the rail freight industry. This is important as decommissioning and scrapping obsolete rolling stock has been an age-old challenge in the sector, especially now with the current sustainability pressures of metal and commodity prices. We can cover every aspect including new wagon concept development, wagon design, manufacture, approval, maintenance, overhaul, modification, repurposing and eventually scrapping. No other business in the UK can provide this full range of services and therefore the group has unparalleled expertise in this market.”
The evolution of Buckland Rail’s capabilities has assisted in empowering the success of other sectors, further solidifying its position as a full-service partner of choice for an increasing number of clients. To drive its sustained focus on delivery and productivity, particularly on the factory floor, the company has recently undergone a corporate restructuring, simplifying its boardroom operations to drive greater capacity and efficiency.
“The decision regarding the corporate structure for Buckland Rail was one that was left to me by the shareholders. There were clear benefits and synergies from the merger of all three businesses into one entity: Buckland Rail. However, all three companies benefit from significant brand awareness and more specifically in the case of WH Davis, there is a huge amount of heritage attached to the brand. Taking any action that would weaken or indeed destroy this brand’s value would be extraordinarily negligent,” Noel explains. “Instead, I’ve been able to create a group organization that allows the three businesses to operate independently under the group umbrella while benefiting from shared services such as procurement, finance and HR. Our group management team includes the individual managing directors from each business, who are now not only working to improve their own unit’s performance, but also play a role in making the sum of the three businesses greater than the constituent parts. There is a huge amount of knowledge and best practice sharing, and, where appropriate, adoption of group-wide processes that are allowing the business to improve its operational and financial performance whilst maintaining the individual identities of the three businesses.”
Of course, a company having a sense of place and community is vital for its long-term success, which Noel knows all too well. To further bolster the connectivity within the business, Buckland Rail is currently in the process of moving to a new, state-of-the-art headquarters – one that’ll unify Yellow Rail, WH Davis and DWS under a single roof.
“We’re moving to the historic Alstom Litchurch Lane rail manufacturing site, where we will become Alstom’s first commercial tenant,” Noel confirms. “This new site is 3.5 times larger than our current one and will provide Yellow Rail with a direct rail connection to the UK network, allowing it to start undertaking vehicle work on its own site rather than using the WH Davis site for this type of work.” 
On the topic of investments, digitalization has been a key focal area for Buckland Rail. The company has implemented a plethora of new technologies to innovate and digitalize its operations, thus providing even better solutions for its clients.
“Our approach to digitization takes two forms: digitizing our services (how we do things) and the digitalization of our products (making our products more intelligent),” Noel says. “Firstly, several DWS sites have gone paperless, instead using digital instructions and recording systems, which provides customers with instant access to the maintenance history of their fleets.
“In terms of the digitization of our products, we have a few systems under development by many different technology providers. Our strategy is not to develop our own solution, but to offer the range of available products to our customers and help them to decide the product that best meets their digital requirements.”
This constant pursuit of excellence has led to a multitude of major projects and frameworks for Buckland Rail.
“The recently awarded Framework Agreement with Irish Rail is hugely significant for WH Davis,” Noel says. “The agreement is for up to 400 wagons of different types over a ten-year period, with an initial call off for 150 intermodal wagons, which are currently being designed. The initial prototype wagon will be ready for testing next year, with series build commencing shortly thereafter. The contract gives the business a solid base from which to further develop its products and provides security for the business and its many highly skilled employees over the medium term.
“There is increasing focus on the structures of urban transport providers to ensure that they are delivering value for money for the public, which has helped us to secure some significant contracts. Yellow Rail has recently been awarded a contract for the overhaul of Croydon Tram’s bogies. This is significant for several reasons; not only is it our first contract with Transport for London, but it’s also our first passenger vehicle bogie overhaul contract and our first light rail contract. On the back of this win, we’re already seeing a lot of interest in the business and enquiries for similar services.”
2025 has been another strong year for Buckland Rail thus far. For the latter half of the year, the company is set to prioritize further optimization, future-proofing it for the ever-changing market.
“The challenges faced by the business in previous years, particularly as WH Davis struggled with a lack of orders due to a stagnant market, are very much in the past, and our financial performance this year is testament to that,” he shares. “We now need to optimize our processes to maximize the efficiency of our delivery and ensure we deserve the reputation of a business that delivers quality products on time and on budget.
“We’ll also complete Yellow Rail’s transition to the new site without disturbing production. This project is going extremely well, entirely due to the team managing the process and the flexibility of our staff in making it happen. Once moved, our focus will shift to generating the sales required to fill the new facility and drive the growth our shareholders have targeted the business with.
“DWS continues to operate extremely effectively and is very successful at navigating the perturbations thrown at it from the market. For example, the recent administration of the Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery in the Northeast has meant that business we were in the process of adopting has now moved elsewhere, but DWS has shown flexibility to support our customers as the wagons move to a new flow.”
Noel sees a bright future of opportunity ahead for Buckland Rail as it looks to diversify into new markets: “My goal for the future is to turn Buckland rail from a £35 million business to a £100 million turnover business. Initially, we can achieve this by maximizing the opportunities currently available to us and significantly increasing the pipeline of work within all three businesses. Whilst this can only take us so far, it should enable us to double the size of the business over the next five years. Further afield, we’ll explore possible acquisitions to fuel additional growth.”
Ultimately, synergy will be Buckland Rail’s biggest strength, Noel concludes, but the company is still open to new M&A opportunities should they arise. “We’re currently focused on optimizing the three existing businesses, but if the right acquisition opportunity were to present itself, we would certainly consider it. Overall, I’d like to see Buckland Rail as the premier player in the rail freight vehicle market in the UK and as an established service provider in the passenger market.”
At a time when the UK Government is pouring huge amounts of funding into improving the country’s transport networks, all eyes will be on Buckland Rail as it progresses into the future, upholding its stellar reputation as an ambitious and expansive infrastructure provider.