The Watford Conference

sharing professional experience among friends

Upcoming Conference

The aim of the Watford Conference is to encourage the interchange of ideas across national boundaries and to develop and maintain the highest standards of coordinated design for railway-associated schemes.

 The annual gathering is a forum of about 80 professionals where the different representatives of each country can present the current developments in their works and show future projects for professional colleagues in an informal atmosphere. Intense discussions between and after the presentations allow further exploration and the exchange of ideas and experience. Contacts created at the Watford Conference facilitate continuous exchange of these ideas between members outside the annual meeting.

Excursions to recent projects as part of the conference schedule have the unrivalled benefit of hands-on experience combined with the possibility of discussing concepts with the responsible designers. Since the Watford became a travelling conference in 1989 it takes place in different countries, changing from year to year.

The conference is normally held over 3-4 days including the weekend. It is divided in two parts, one based on a fixed theme of actual and common interest and one for free presentations within the framework of station design, civil engineering within the railway, rolling stock, graphic design and management of the architectural and design process.


2019Mixed Themes
2018Mixed Themes
2017Transport systems and their consistancy in larger urban areas
2015Stations as turntables for mobility
2014Transformation
1013The value of design
2012Renewable energie in station and Network
2010Cooperation / Competition
2009Capacity
2008The future design for mobility and customer orientation
2007integration of railway design in (urban) landscape
2006
Improvement of Technology: How has an improvement on technology changed railway design and architecture?
2005What is the “state of the art”? – aspects of excellence in railway design
2004managing the process to quality
2003 branding vs. orientation
2002the interaction between old and new
2001reference projects, handbooks, guidelines, databases etc.
2000one passenger – one station – trains belonging to many companies
1999visual communication between the railway and society
1997station areas development
1996 genius loci
1995design of civil engineering works
1994accessability
Examples of themes