Trains cancelled (again!)

Sat 3 Feb, 00:03 (last edited on Sat 3 Feb, 00:05)

Malcolm, I'm very tempted to write some reminiscences.  

Mrs Thatcher was famously opposed to the railway; she once confronted a group of senior managers by telling them that they couldn’t be any good otherwise they’d be working for much more money in the private sector. (I got a standing ovation at a conference in Australia by introducing her as ‘Our Beloved Leader … Attila the Hen … The Avon Lady from Hell’). I remember meeting the then Western Region Operating Manager in the building overlooking Reading Station; he commented that he was the fourteenth Operating Manager since Brunel, and he was now on his fourteenth Minister of Transport.

Thatcher automatically judged the private sector as superior to anything the public sector could manage, so it was ironic that in one very hot summer the newly-introduced InterCity 125s were running at 18% locomotive availability (built by the private sector, of course). There’s a long straight and level stretch of track from York to Darlington – it had been used as a test track in the golden days of steam – and a 125 broke down about halfway. The guard came on the intercom: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that both engines have broken down and it will be at least an hour before a rescue locomotive can come from Darlington. The good news is … think how much worse it would be if we were flying.’

If I’m telling that story, I also have to tell the tale of the Great Western guard whom we videoed for a training film for new guards. (There’s a lot to be said for peer-on-peer mentoring). This one looked as if he’d started when Brunel was a lad, had the kind and wrinkled face you’d want in your grandfather, and was a natural with the camera). I asked what advice he would give to someone just starting; after some well-chosen words on responsibility and trust, he said ‘And I’d tell them to be very careful about their language. Just after the war there was a little girl lost and handed in to the guard, so I took her into the guard’s van, calmed her down, let her play with my gold watch … and then I made my great mistake. I wanted to know how to recognise her mother, so I said “What’s Mummy like?” and she said “Guinness and Canadian soldiers.”’