We were delighted to be joined by Julie Gregory for\u202fa very interesting\u202fsession\u202fabout\u202fher career from researching anvil clouds at the Met Office Hadley Centre to becoming the Regional Head of Climate Resilience and Sustainable Growth at Network Rail. Her talk was followed by a lively discussion, focussing on Network Rail\u2019s strategy around climate change adaptation, changing career paths,\u202fand\u202fpart-time work.\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Julie obtained her MSc from the University of Reading and\u202fthen\u202fjoined the Met Office Hadley Centre in the atmospheric processes team, focussing on anvil clouds and their representation in models. While she enjoyed the research and working with her colleagues, she quickly realised that a pure research path was not for her as she prefers to work to clearer and shorter-term deadlines than\u202fthose\u202ftypical\u202ffor\u202fpure\u202fresearch. She moved into a consultancy role at the Met Office which involved a lot of science communication about anthropogenic climate change. She then\u202frelocated\u202ffor personal reasons and got a position as Weather Strategy Manager with Railtrack (now Network Rail). One of the key focus areas was managing risk from leaves on rail tracks, which form a compacted, insulating layer making the tracks slippery and sometimes causing trains to disappear from the signalling system. The team used weather forecasts to plan for and mitigate these and other\u202frisks (e.g. by delaying\u202froutine\u202fmaintenance works to run special rail-cleaning trains and increasing staff availability when needed).\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some ten years later in 2017 Julie became Senior Sponsor for the Southwest Rail resilience programme. Her role involved leading five climate resilience projects, assessing risks and making the business case\u202ffor\u202fgovernment investment\u202finto making the railway future-proof to the risks posed by climate change such as sea-level rise and extreme rainfall. This brought more of her research background into her job. In 2024, Julie moved into her current role revolving around sustainability for Wales and Western Region. Her team focusses on biodiversity and wildlife corridors, decarbonisation, weather\u202fresilience\u202fand climate change adaptation. While weather resilience has long been recognised as a priority area at Network Rail, a stronger\u202ffocus on climate adaptation has developed more recently over the past decade or so, with increasing urgency over the last three years. Options for climate change adaptation include raising electrical equipment above flood levels, taking a catchment-based approach (e.g. managing floods upstream of the railway) and making decisions on where and how to invest in more resilient infrastructure (e.g. making key routes future-proof, assessing future risk during a new assets lifespan and building accordingly, \u2026).\u202f\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Julie mentioned that as a parent, she has tried a variety of part-time working options.\u202fOne challenge\u202fshe found\u202fwas progressing her career\u202fwhile working part-time. Some barriers\u202fincluded\u202fsenior staff\u202fsuggesting\u202fthat\u202fcertain roles were \u201cnot possible\u201d on a part-time basis.\u202fAt other points in her career she felt she was not yet\u202fin a position\u202fto apply for more senior roles while her children were small.\u202fShe is now part of one of the inclusivity\u202fnetworks at Network Rail, where she advocates for career opportunities and career progression for part-time employees.\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Q&A\u202fSession:<\/strong>\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n During the Q&A session, participants were\u202fvery interested\u202fin strategies around climate change adaptation at Network Rail. The other focus of the Q&A session was on part-time work and career paths.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n It became clear in the discussion that there is a difficult balance between the funding available for climate adaptation and assessing\u202fworst-case risk: While it would be great to adapt everything to the worst case, this is not\u202ffeasible\u202fin practice.\u202fConcerning\u202fheat-stress,\u202fJulie explained that at\u202fhigh temperatures\u202f(e.g. 40\u00b0C),\u202ftrains need to run at reduced speed due to the stress-resilience of the tracks. Adapting\u202fthe tracks for increasing temperatures\u202fis challenging, because the tracks\u202fstill\u202fneed to work for low\u202ftemperatures during winter. Another question was around assessing potential risks from climate change to long-lifetime assets given that climate projections typically end in 2100. A lot of assets have a much shorter life span, but it is important to try to estimate the risk when new long-term assets are built (e.g. buildings, sea walls) and to make them as future-proof as possible.\u202fJulie explained that adaptation management plans get updated every 5 years which is\u202fapproximately in\u202fline with e.g. the IPCC report frequencies.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another point\u202fwas around renationalisation of the train operating companies, which will make it easier to coordinate efforts around climate change adaption\u202facross the entire experience of railway use\u202f(e.g.\u202ffrom\u202fplanting trees for natural cooling and to increase biodiversity\u202fto\u202fdesigning or adapting station buildings to be better suited for high temperatures). There are also efforts to implement Circular Economy principles, including reducing landfill and reusing ballast (the stones supporting the tracks) by cleaning it when it gets clogged by fine particles.\u202fAnother interesting\u202fpoint\u202fwas\u202fon\u202finternational collaboration to share knowledge and learn from other countries:\u202fThere are some international networks (e.g.\u202fUIC<\/a>) and knowledge exchange partnerships.\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n Julie says that part-time working options have improved\u202fduring her\u202f25 year\u202fcareer at Network Rail\u202fand a lot of male colleagues are now also working part time. However,\u202fgender imbalance is still an issue with about 80% male employees in the Rail industry. She mentioned that it is\u202fvery helpful\u202fwhen male colleagues and managers set an example of working part-time or\u202fmentioning that they\u202fare\u202fleaving\u202fearly for childcare etc, because it makes it more normal for everyone.\u202fAnother topic of discussion was around\u202ffemale employees in management roles often being told to be more assertive and having\u202ftargeted training to follow\u202fa\u202fmore\u202f\u201ctraditional\u201d\u202fmanagerial style, however Julie and other participants agreed that being authentic and genuine is\u202fhelpful because colleagues will often appreciate\u202fand respect\/trust\u202fthat management style more.\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n On\u202fup-skilling and moving from pure research into an operational career, Julie mentioned that you often do not need to have the full background (be it climate science or rail operations) because\u202fpeople bring their expertise to the team and upskill each other, and you can learn a lot of things quickly.\u202fFor example, when she first started, Julie went through the\u202fdaily\u202flogbook\u202fof weather-related cancellations\/issues on the network\u202fto get\u202fa picture early on.\u202fShe also\u202ffound that her research background was\u202fvery helpful\u202fin quickly summarising and understanding complex information, and she also found it particularly useful in the rail industry when working with engineers.\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n Links\u202fshared by participants:\u202f<\/strong>\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n BBC News Article on\u202f\u201cExtreme heat set to disrupt train services across region\u201d (13 August 2026)<\/a>\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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