Dick Hardy: 1923-2018
Tributes have been paid to the life of career railwayman Richard H N Hardy, who died on February 18 aged 94. Known as Mr Hardy by his staff and ‘Dick’ to his friends, the former LNER and British Railways senior manager was universally hailed for his man-management and footplate expertise, as well as being an acclaimed photographer and writer on the subject.
Born in Leatherhead in Surrey on October 8 1923, Hardy had an affection for railways from an early age.
After moving with his family to Amersham in Buckinghamshire in 1934, he began a lifelong passion for railway photography on the Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Line that adjoined his childhood home.
Privately educated at Marlborough School, Hardy joined LNER in 1941 as a premium apprentice at Doncaster Works, where he gained thousands of miles’ experience ( both officially and unofficially) on the footplate of some of LNER’s premier locomotives.
His choice of footwear in the workshop earned him the nickname ‘Cloggy Dick’, before he passed his four-year accreditation and transferred to Kings Lynn, where he became acting shedmaster on the former Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway aged just 22.
A move to Liverpool Street to be technical assistant followed in 1948. This enabled him to return to Amersham, where he met his wife Gwenda, with whom he had three children.
Hardy was moved for a brief stint as Assistant District Motive Power Superintendent at Cambridge and then Shedmaster at Woodford Halse on the GCR.
Demanding roles were then handed to him as relief shedmaster first at Ipswich and then at Stewarts Lane in 1952, where he became renowned for boosting morale among drivers and leading from the front.
In 1955, another promotion came calling to Stratford, where together with his boss T C B Miller, Hardy would be responsible for 3,000 staff and 500 locomotives. Hardy was not afraid to embrace modernisation, and personally escorted Her Majesty the Queen around the newly opened diesel depot in 1960.
Progression then came to Locomotive Engineer for the entire Eastern Region, and then to Lincoln as its traffic manager, where he had the unwanted task of enforcing some of the closures made by Beeching.
In 1964, Hardy landed the top job of Divisional Manager at King’s Cross and then Liverpool in 1968. Here, he would end up on the footplate on BR’s final steam-hauled passenger train, joining the crew of ‘Black Five’ 45110 on its historic last run between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Victoria.
With more than 60,000 hours notched up on the footplate, Hardy was overlooked by BR for a higher management role and was instead moved ‘sideways’ to oversee the recruitment of engineers from an office in Euston. This was to be his final role before retiring in 1982.
Former General Manager of BR’s Southern Region and fellow rail enthusiast Gordon Pettitt tells RAIL: “In his last role in BR HQ he had responsibility for the development and succession planning of engineers across all the functions from middle to senior management. At the end, he knew everyone individually and their strengths and weaknesses - the perfect role for a senior manager ‘better at people than at policy and finance’.”
In retirement, Hardy chaired the Steam Locomotive Owners Association (SLOA) for many years, and played an important role in early policy making for the return of steam to UK main lines. As well as being a director of the Ffestiniog Railway, he could often be seen on the footplate and firing up locomotives including 70000 Britannia, which was appropriately renamed Richard Hardy upon his retirement from SLOA in 1993.
“At our last meeting, less than six months ago, it was steam engines and the people around them that we talked about,” recalls Pettitt. “His long-term memory was as sharp as ever, and I and many others will miss Dick very much for the strong bond of friendship we have enjoyed for so many years.”
As well as writing extensively for RAIL’s sister title Steam Railway, Hardy also wrote four books: Steam in the Blood (1971), Railways
in the Blood (1985), Beeching: Champion of the Railway? (1989), and A Life on the Lines: A
Railwayman’s Album (2012). His remarkable power of recollection granted him celebrity status through his railway visits and talks, while his photographic and written portfolio will now form his most enduring legacy.
Pettitt adds: “I spent a day with him after we had both retired, looking at photographs he took in the early days of his career in the Doncaster works and subsequent postings around the network.
“Almost all the photographs were of locomotives or trains, but what I remember most were the captions in his beautiful handwriting, with all the names of the people in the picture and the stories he told me about them. These photographs and negatives now belong to Barry Hoper’s Transport Treasury and form part of social as well as railway history, accessible to all as he intended.”
Chairman of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust Graeme Bunker describes it as an honour and privilege to have been able to enjoy Hardy’s company, adding: “Dick was a true railwayman - the safety and quality of operations came first, whether it was front line services or in
He knew everyone individually and their strengths and weaknesses - the perfect role for a senior manager ‘better at people than at policy and finance’.
He was a brilliant mentor and encouraged young entrants to the industry to learn their craft and develop themselves.
later years special operations. He was also a brilliant mentor and encouraged young entrants to the industry to learn their craft and develop themselves. He gained much pleasure from passing on his knowledge and seeing careers flourish, and helping individuals develop, both practically and in correspondence.
“He will perhaps be most remembered for his amazing power of recall and his ability to transfer that to magazine articles, books and so forth. Our industry doesn’t always evoke passion for what it does and those who do it. For Dick that was never an issue, and he was a role model for those who knew him and followed him.”