Locomotive separation

My compliments to David Clough for the feature on the allocation of AC locomotives in 1987 ( RAIL 833). It brought back some longforgotten but happy memories.

I remember those meetings well - I chaired them. I was either InterCity Manager Traction & Rolling Stock or InterCity Business Planning Director at the time of the meetings, and remember very clearly the imperatives from an InterCity perspective.

Like many of these issues, the technical detail has long since escaped me (I wasn’t big on them at the time either - I had Ray Loft working for me, and he was the expert). But the politics between the Sectors, the Board, the DfT and the required separation of assets was very clear - my job was to get a deal done, which was done with a bit of smooth talking and arm twisting.

The point about the potential for better reliability and availability not being taken into account was deliberate. It was an act of absolute faith on (most of) our parts that separation and specialisation of the fleets would improve availability as maintenance became more specific to the individual fleet needs.

It was the hidden upside that we believed would result - and from memory, the availability did improve significantly and largely filled the “gap” that we all knew existed. All good fun. Richard George, Group Managing Director, Rail & Transit Engineering, SNC-Lavalin