The objectives of the Shift2Rail / Europe’s Rail research programme include the doubling of capacity and halving of life-cycle costs. If these could be achieved it would make a substantial contribution to the competitiveness of rail transport. A key challenge in rail technical research lies in the selection of innovations that are likely to achieve a positive business case, as well as a positive financial case for individual actors in the system. However, there are number of significant challenges in operationalising methods to assess schemes such as Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in order to deliver useful information to guide rail technology selection. These include obtaining data on key aspects of costs to populate the base case scenario and translating results from engineering testing into cost impacts in the CBA. This paper uses examples from projects undertaken under the Shift2Rail / Europe’s Rail research programme to highlight areas of best / novel practice and sets out ideas for future development.