Retired Railway Officers Society s1

No. 1582 RETIRED RAILWAY OFFICERS’ SOCIETY www: rros.org.uk [email protected] Minutes of Meeting held in the Milldale Room at the former Midland Hotel Derby on Monday 6th August 2012

Present: President: Theo Steel Hon Secretary: Richard Malins Hon Treasurer: John Sellar Thurstan Adburgham Ray Diver Mike Johns Mike Robinson Don Anderson David Dixon Clive Kessell David Russell John Birkby Derek Doling Graham King Andrew Salisbury Chris Blackman Doug Eastman Don Love Larry Shore John Bladen Richard Ekins David Maidment Dennis Simmonds Colin Boocock John Ellis Ernie Marchant Les Singleton George Bowden Alan Englert Alan Marshall Bob Smalley John Burge Les Giles John Meara Mark Smith Joe Burnett Mike Godwin Peter Newbould Peter Stanton Ken Burrage Hugh Gould Ian Osborne David Stimson Rod Campbell Malcolm Grant Peter Owen-Jones Alan Taylor Brian Clementson Ken Green Gordon Pettitt Roger Taylor John Craik Stan Hall Andy Pitt Mike Tyrrell David Crathorn Maurice Holmes Mike Pipes Malcolm Vince Alan Cribbens Richard Horne Ron Puntis Jim Ward John Crone George Brian Redfern Ken Watson Houldsworth John Cronin Val Hughes Derek Richards (G) Martin Williams Reg Davies Rowland Jackson Trevor Rimmer Michael Wright Bob Wyatt

1. Minutes of the Meeting held on Monday 2nd July 2012. The President welcomed members to the oldest surviving railway hotel, designed by Francis Thompson for the Midland Railway in 1840. It is understood that there is now a John Ellis House in Derby, but as the RROS Past President of that name worked on every region of BR except the LM, it is named for the Chairman of the Midland Railway in 1841. He then showed a picture of himself in the Olympic Park at Stratford the previous day, where the carriage washer at Thornton’s Field once stood. The minutes were approved but subject to some corrections in the record of Peter Leppard’s talk: the signalling equipment on the trains is maintained by T&RS engineers, not signal engineers, the issues therefore being that T&RS engineers have had to learn a new discipline and some risk is transferred from Network Rail to the TOC (Bob Goundry was asking about that, not delay attribution which he says is too new-fangled a process for us to understand); the 3 NR class 97 locos for special and engineering trains are ex class 37; the RETB had no worked points at all (except around Machynlleth) as it was all done with self-sprung points.

2. News of Members. The President reported with regret the deaths of three members: John Batty aged 88 on 28th June, Funeral at Barham Crematorium, Kent on 11th July. He was the Assistant Chief Internal Auditor at the BRB and Treasurer of the Society 1988 – 91. Norman Thorne, latterly Divisional Operating Manager at Doncaster, on 11th July aged 87. David Fletcher on 25th July in Bodmin Hospital aged 78, LM Operator and last DM at Nottingham. Funeral in Bodmin crematorium on Monday 13th August and afterwards on the Bodmin and Wenford Railway. And one non-member Douglas V Ellison on 11th July aged 89, the funeral in Worthing on 3rd August attended by 5 RROS Past Presidents. A former Engineering student under Bulleid after Cambridge in 1943 and then SR cadet in 1948, he was best known as Chief Planning Manager of the Southern 1960 - 69 under David McKenna. Members stood for a few moments in silent tribute to their memory.

3. Welcome to Members recently Elected. Andy Pitt and Alan Cribbens were attending a meeting of the Society for the first time as members. Andy said it was a pleasure to be erected (echoing the President’s introductory error of speech), to renew and extend old friendships, while Alan said he didn’t do jokes but was pleased to be in such distinguished company.

4. Proposed New Members. The details of the following applicants’ careers were shown in the Agenda and their election was approved: Name: Address and Telephone Number: Sponsors: Richard Workman Brown Hylda, Hindhead Road Theo Steel Haslemere, Surrey GU27 1LR 01428 645771 John Wilson John Francis Chumscote House, Thorpe Mandeville Ken Burrage Banbury OX17 2HW 07846 921455 Mike Tyrrell

5. Pension & Travel Facilities Matters. John Mayfield had sent his apologies, with nothing new to report on pensions while John Meara reminded members that the old style Bite cards have now expired, and asked that any problems with the new administration arrangements for staff travel be advised to him as he has a meeting with RST shortly. “Grandchildren” reminder cards are now available from him, Mike Tyrrell or on the website. 6. Any Other Business. John Burge has acquired a stock of 110 ties from the former Derby School of Transport, in red, blue and green, which were being sold in aid of charity for £1 each, having languished in his attic. They will also be available at the next London meeting.

7. Talk by David Horne, MD of East Midlands Trains. The President introduced David as another of his one-time protégées who had worked as a student at booking offices in the West of England. David’s subsequent railway career took him into the Stagecoach empire and he has been at EMT since the outset of the franchise, the second that Stagecoach owns wholly. It was awarded in 2007 and will run until 31st March 2015, a date recently confirmed by the DfT, having passed their performance assessment. It has 2,032 staff, 88 stations, 10 HSTs, 27 Me- ridians and 57 class 15xDMUs, bringing together the former Midland Main Line TOC and the eastern part (about 30%) of Central Trains. There are depots at Leeds Neville Hill (for HSTs), Derby Etches Park (Meridians) and Nottingham Eastcroft for the DMUs. The use of East Midlands in the title has been welcomed locally as it gives the railway there some regional identity for the first time. There was a commitment to £90m of investment, a lot in the fleet. The Meridians were without a purpose-built depot and only half a train could be accommodated at a time in the existing shed at Etches Park, so £20m was spent on new facilities there. This included a wheel lathe to obviate sending units to Tyseley or Toton, and £30m has been spent refurbishing these 7 year old trains. The inheritance from Central Trains of class 15x unit types has been rationalised, and a refurbishment programme for classes 153/6/8 is almost complete. The work was all done in EMT’s own depots, rather than send the units away to firms such as Wabtec at Doncaster. This gave the staff ownership of the trains and has helped to drive up availab- ility. 23 or 24 of the fleet of 27 Meridians are now in service daily and miles per casualty has improved. Performance generally has also improved with the PPM rising from 83% to 93%. This success was accom- panied by an enhanced timetable, introduced in December 2008, increas- ing the basic MML service from 4 trains per hour to 5, the extra path being used to serve Corby. Also by concentrating the Meridians, with their higher power to weight ratio compared to HSTs, on the Sheffield service it had been possible to speed that up significantly. Further improvements in journey times through smaller scale infrastructure projects are planned by Network Rail, the aim being to get the standard time to Sheffield via Derby down below 2 hours. 125 mph running will form part of that. Two new stations have been built, both rather different in concept. East Midlands Parkway was a scheme already some years in gestation, aimed at railhead traffic via the adjacent M1, and to relieve pressure on car park space at the city centre stations in Nottingham and Derby, opened in January 2009. It has been effective both in abstracting that traffic and attracting new business. Stagecoach also uses it to support Brian Souter’s successful Megabus enterprise, with feeder services from Yorkshire towns like Harrogate using the train for the congested or more costly operational leg into London. While the yield to EMT from the low Megabus fares makes it a marginal activity, this traffic is largely using spare capacity on trains. Corby station too had a long reopening history, having for many years held the title of the largest town in Britain without one. The new-build station there opened in mid-2009 and is doing well, but it should be admitted that new business is not huge and the case was really one of socio-economic benefit. To serve it EMT acquired 4 extra Meridian units (class 222 ex-Hull Trains) for the 5th path into St Pancras. There are limited workings to and from Derby via Oakham, and the President had recommended the 16.34 return as a means of traversing the famous Harringworth viaduct. A further £10m has been spent on other station improvements, and while EMT only has a corner of the Mid- land Railway’s London terminal they are proud of a presence at St Pan- cras. The 4 platforms there are seen as adequate for the foreseeable fu- ture, and not a capacity constraint. There is scope to expand the length of trains in the 5 tph service and the HSTs have a 45 minute turn-round which could be reduced. The main constraints lie elsewhere, at places like Leicester. An area of innovation is in driver-led initiatives on such topics as level crossings where EMT has had its share of incidents, as well as some dramatic ones like the 158 colliding with a collapsed footbridge at Barrow-on-Soar or the Meridian derailed at 100 mph with a collapsed final drive bearing. Developing a disciplined incident response requires both preparation and training and in the age of 24 hour news coverage and social media dissemination of information this is a new challenge. The internet is a fast moving scene and one must keep up with Facebook and Twitter. Staff responded well to the opportunities offered and there are training sessions with simulated occurrences, and while they do not have a driving simulator they have a virtual train for similar purposes. The other main challenge has been financial. Due to the recession bid revenue has been ahead of actual since 2008 and they are now £100m a year down on the originally predicted level of income. Growth that was foreseen has slowed and revenue has flat-lined for some of that period, so there is no convergence yet between planned and actual. There is no decline in traffic levels but yield has suffered. As a result they have had to adopt a lower cost model for the franchise, with the loss of 160 jobs. Catering in standard class has been outsourced to Rail Gourmet, and the fuel hungry Meridians have been converted to Eco-Mode which in effect allows one engine to supply all the train auxiliaries when at a stand. An HST has been leased to East Coast. They have also pursued a recession marketing policy, as applied by InterCity in the 1990’s with promotions like Red Dot Days, anywhere for £10 a day from particular stations. At present, the Olympics are going well, their own drivers’ strike having been averted, more a matter of local ASLEF issues than national ones. In the longer term there are developments before and after the end of the franchise. Line speed improvements on the MML should be ready in 2013/4 and this period also sees the major project to resignal Nottingham station, requiring a 36 day closure next summer. This will mark the final closure of Trent power-box, most of its area of control having already passed to the new centre at Derby, and will bring about a radical layout change, removing conflicts and allowing speed improvements that will save 60 seconds per train and frequent delays. Stan Hall observed that he was involved in commissioning Trent with no such major possessions and wondered whether, even with revenue loss compensated for, there will be reputational damage for the railway. David agreed this is a con- cern as there were comparable issues when Lincoln was resignalled. Derby itself will be similarly remodelled at a later stage, as a precursor to electrification. EMT has supported local stakeholders in the campaign to secure the scheme, although despite being a long held aspiration, plans are still at an early stage. 125 mph will remain the maximum line speed and it is not clear what rolling stock will be used. It would be practicable to apply the “Project Thor” model to the Meridians and thus provide a dual mode train that could use the existing overhead to Bed- ford and further electrification as it extends, but as yet the only proposal for that is on Cross-Country with the similar Voyagers, although the MML case is just as good. Alternatively a new train could be ordered, but whatever the decision it should be a matter for train operators, not the DfT. Maurice Holmes proposed a vote of thanks to David for such a com- prehensive exposition of the achievements and challenges that face those running the railway in the contemporary environment. ------No. 1583 Agenda for Meeting To be held at 13.45 in the Gascoigne Room at the Union Jack Club, Sandell St, London SE1 on Monday 3rd September 2012. 1. Minutes of the Meeting held in Derby on Monday 6th August. 2. News of Members. 3. Welcome to Members Recently Elected.

4. Proposed New Members. Mike Tyrrell will propose and Philip Wiltshire will second that DAVID BRUCE MACDOUGALL be elected an ordinary member of the Society. Bruce was born in Scarborough on the twenty eighth of December 1951 and joined BR on the Eastern Region as an Engineering student in 1969. He held various posts on the ER, including Signal Engineer at Sheffield until 1978 when he went to Hong Kong to work for the MTR. On his return in 1986 he was with Westinghouse as Standards Engineer, rejoining BR in 1989 as Resident Engineer on the Chiltern and later Paddington re-signalling schemes. In 1992 he became Signal Engineer Maintenance for Regional Railways NE, transferring to Railtrack in 1994. He retired as Principal Signal Engineer at Network Rail in 2004. Theo Steel will propose and John Ellis will second that DAVID JOHN WILSON be elected an ordinary member of the Society. David was born in Norwich on the first of September 1955 and began his career as an engineer in Norfolk before joining Siemens in 1988 to start their UK Rail Transportation business. He held various positions there, retiring from the post of Managing Director for Rolling Stock in 2012. Chris Mew will propose and Reg Pugh will second that GORDON WILLIAM JAKES be elected an ordinary member of the Society. Gordon was born in Merton on the twenty first of March 1949 and joined BR as a graduate civil engineering trainee in 1970. After posts with the Divisional Civil Engineer in Bristol he moved to the RCE at Euston in 1977 followed by the LM Regional Investment Manager. In 1992 he was New Works Manager for Regional Railways NW and Project Manager for the Manchester Airport rail link. He was with Railtrack NW 1994-7, then moving to Halcrow and later Parsons Brinckerhoff as Principal Railway Consultant, retiring in 2003.

5. Pension and Travel Facilities Matters. 6. Any Other Business. 7. Talk by Bob Ingram of DP World on the Thames Gateway Port. Meetings in 2012: 21st September Visit to Bluebell Railway, 1st October, 5th November, 16th November Members Luncheon, 3rd December. Richard Malins, Honorary Secretary: 7 Orient St, London SE11 4SR Tel/Fax: 020 7582 2395 Mobile:077 7338 9123 Email: [email protected] Vale Press: 01386 858900