CHILTERN RAILWAYS
Newly installed in the Chiltern Railways’ hotseat, Interim Managing Director MARY HEWITT tells PAUL STEPHEN what issues the operator faces as it nears the end of its 20-year franchise
Whatever your view might be on the various pros and cons of privatisation, there are few people who would argue against Chiltern Railways being one of the most successful franchisees to have emerged in the last two-and-a-half decades.
First conceived during the dying days of British Rail by a group of forward-thinking route managers, the now Arriva-owned operator has carved itself a reputation for creating new routes and offering genuine choice to passengers.
Underpinning this transformation was the award of the UK’s first (and so far, only) 20-year franchise deal in 2002. In what was hoped to be a blueprint for other operators to follow suit, the long duration of the contract gave Chiltern Railways sufficient confidence to pour more than £ 600 million private capital into developing its commuter, regional and inter-city services.
Almost 50 new trains have been procured, while the Project Evergreen package of infrastructure improvements on the Chiltern Main Line has steadily upgraded this longneglected ‘second’ route from London to the West Midlands.
Double tracking, resignalling, line-speed improvements and additional platforms at Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street all helped to dramatically increase capacity between Britain’s largest two cities.
The number of weekday services run by the operator across all routes has subsequently been increased from 240 to 432, while journey times from London to Birmingham have been slashed to a minimum of just 90 minutes. Accompanied by a strong focus on customer service and reliability, Chiltern Railways’ investment and ambition has enabled the operator to offer a viable and increasingly
This was never on my career path, and none of my friends can believe that I’m running a railway.
Mary Hewitt,
Interim Managing Director, Chiltern Railways
attractive alternative to the West Coast Main Line and to the M40 motorway.
Meanwhile, a second competitive front was opened up in 2016 following the completion of the Evergreen 3 project, which established a new route from Marylebone to Oxford to rival Great Western Railway services into Paddington.
The success of the operator’s enterprising vision speaks for itself with passenger numbers on the Chiltern Main Line having risen from 7.7 million in 1996 to more than 24.5 million in 2018.
The driving force behind much of that vision was Chiltern Railways’ original Chairman Adrian Shooter (until his retirement in
2011), followed by Managing Directors Rob Brighouse (2011-15) and then Dave Penney, until the latter’s switch to Network Rail at the end of last year. Succeeding Penney on January 1 on an interim basis was Mary
Hewitt, who is now at the helm until a permanent appointment can be made.
Although new to the world of managing day-to-day operations, she is certainly no novice to the railways having made the sideways shift to her current position from her former role as Strategy and Policy Director at Arriva Trains UK.
“This was never on my career path, and none of my friends can believe that I’m running a railway,” she tells RAIL. “I don’t know how long I’m here for, but I’m passionate about delivering for the customer, driving improvement for the good and changing things for the better.”
Having joined Arriva in April 2017, Hewitt was tasked with co-ordinating Arriva’s response to the Government-commissioned root and branch rail review that has been conducted by Keith Williams (although not yet published as this issue of RAIL went to press).
Previous to Arriva, Hewitt spent a decade in management and consultancy in the energy and utilities sectors, where she focused on developing policy and strategy around decarbonisation and electricity market reforms.
She explains: “We covered renewables, energy trading, the supply side and large consumers but then the role at Arriva came up and, if you take the railway bit out, it felt like the job description had been written exactly for me.
“We had six different train operating companies (TOCs) within Arriva when I started, which all had slightly different strategies. Our job was to leverage those economies of scale but also pull together the areas that we were focusing on in order to develop a clear and compelling strategy designed around the customer.”
Hewitt’s recent arrival at Chiltern Railways coincides with the tail end of the operator’s landmark 20-year deal that is due to expire in December 2021. But with all eyes naturally set on winning a fresh franchise term or a contract extension (the Secretary of State for Transport is permitted to issue a Direct Award for up to a further 65 months), the way ahead is not as straight forward as it seems.
That is because conventional bidding or negotiations with the Department for Transport have been put on hold until the outcome of the Williams Review is known, and its potential for structural reform fully understood.
Hewitt and her team have therefore been left in the difficult position of not being able to agree a new deal, while also having to keep pace with the strengthening competition offered by operational rivals Great Western Railway (to Oxford) and Avanti West Coast (to Birmingham).
The former has recently benefited from
introducing new Intercity Express Trains and partial electrification of the route from Paddington to Oxford while the latter took over inter-city operations on the WCML in December with a range of commitments to refurbish existing stock and to procure a new fleet of bi-mode trains.
Hewitt says: “We’ve got just under two years of our existing franchise left so there’s a huge opportunity but also huge risk. The world around us has changed and other operators have had direct awards or new franchises that will bring about change, so it’s about how we can continue to innovate and be on the front foot as well.
“We have always had consistently high NRPS (National Rail Passenger Survey) scores and performance levels and we need to maintain those while also behaving as if the franchise isn’t going to end. We’ve never behaved otherwise, but we can’t avoid that our fleet is getting older.
“We have lots of ideas but it’s about how you implement them. This is one of the flaws of franchising that you need to have a business case that pays back within two years when you get to the late stage that we’re currently at.”
With time rapidly running out for Chiltern Railways to recoup any largescale investment such as the procurement of new trains or further infrastructure upgrades, Hewitt says that much of her leadership team’s immediate efforts will be focused on delivering more improvements to the customer experience instead.
In addition to maintaining market share, she believes this is necessary to maintain momentum within a workforce and customer base that has become used to experiencing transformative change.
She adds: “It goes without saying that we need to see what Williams looks like, but we see Chiltern by its nature as an operator that could be run to trial some of those key things that come from it. Chiltern has historically had a reputation for being highly innovative, and so it’s about what we can pilot and lead the way on behalf of the entire industry.”
Hewitt says there have been clear aims in the past like opening the Oxford route as well as very clear trajectories. “All the feedback I’ve heard since I’ve been here is people asking: ‘what is the next goal?’. How do we have a clear goal for our people that might not be as exciting as opening a new railway in the next two years but is something that people can very much get behind?”
The process of smaller incremental change appears to be well under way, with plans at an advanced stage to install a new floor on the concourse at Marylebone - which regular users of the station will know gets notoriously slippery during times of wet weather.
Hewitt also points to minor adjustments being made in the safety culture among staff while the operator is also making efforts to improve air quality and reduce its carbon footprint.
As one of the few remaining operators to exclusively operate diesel stock into central London, Chiltern Railways will shortly proceed with two trials for hybrid trains in conjunction with rolling stock leasing companies Angel Trains and Porterbrook.
Hewitt confirms that the Angel Trains trial (a Class 165 retrofitted with battery technology) was due to commence in March or April, while the second trial with Porterbrook (involving a Class 168/170 Turbostar) should
It comes back to thinking now about what we might need in the future. Chiltern has always been very good at that and must continue.
Mary Hewitt, Interim Managing Director, Chiltern Railways
start by the end of the year.
“It might not be the huge transformative innovation, but the messaging is still there. For example, the floor downstairs can be like an ice rink and we do get a lot of trips, slips and falls. Marylebone is a listed building so we’re constrained by what we can do. It’s a beautiful floor and people love the station, but we don’t want customers hurting themselves,” says Hewitt.
“The other bit is about safety culture. At National Grid I used to get told off in the car park for driving at 10mph instead of 5mph, and if you walked up the stairs while on your phone then you had to have a lid on your coffee.
“The point is that people intervened when they saw unsafe behaviour. Our safety statistics are pretty good but there are still too many accidents for my liking so it’s about bringing down those numbers and making people comfortable to point things out.”
Another immediate challenge for Hewitt that cannot be deferred beyond December 2021 is dealing with a chronic shortage of capacity at peak times. As London’s smallest terminus (it has only six platforms), the quaintness of Marylebone has always been one of its key attractions but is now one of the main constraints on Chiltern Railway’s ability to handle peak flows.
Unable to expand the station or bring in new trains, Hewitt believes that some gains can be made from slight adjustments to timetables and better utilisation of existing stock.
“I think in a way we’ve been a victim of our own success in that our trains are getting busier,” she says. “We’re not going to bring in any new rolling stock in the next two years but then what can we do with what we already have, and with our timetabling to relieve capacity constraints?
“When you see the sea of people walking out of Marylebone each morning it’s great, but you realise the scale of growth we’ve experienced and the forecast growth that we need to keep up with. People have been used to getting a seat on every single service but a combination of passenger growth and the challenges we had last year with short forming of stock… Our Twitter feed shows that passengers are starting to feel the pain so we need to do what we can to relieve that.”
Problems of overcrowding have been compounded on a number of weekends since 2018 when Euston (Britain’s fifth busiest station) has been closed to facilitate enabling works for HS2.
As the bulk of construction and engineering works for HS2 is due to commence after 2021, Hewitt says that the use of the Chiltern Main Line as a diversionary route must be one of the chief considerations in either a Direct Award or new franchise agreement.
With Chiltern Railways’ existing deal drawn up several years before HS2 was first seriously considered, no allowance was
Things don’t always work but the worst-case scenario is no change and the best case is transformational step change in terms of how we deliver the railway. Mary Hewitt, Interim Managing Director, Chiltern Railways
made in terms of stock or infrastructure for the many thousands of passengers who opt to head cross-country from Marylebone to Birmingham when the WCML is closed.
She adds: “People are coming into Marylebone instead of Euston and we need to ensure they are safe and that we are running a timetable that works. At the moment there’s nothing [contractually] to protect us from any changes around HS2 whereas I suspect with Avanti there is. While from an industry perspective HS2 gives much needed capacity, from a Chiltern perspective it’s about what does it mean for our customers?
“If we got a five-year extension we would have to prepare for disruption, so it comes back to thinking now about what we might need in the future. Chiltern has always been very good at that and must continue.”
Should the next franchise expire towards the end of the decade, thought will also need to be given to the added competition HS2 will provide once Phase 1 is opened from LondonBirmingham. East West Rail is also expected to share tracks currently operated by Chiltern Railways between Bicester and Oxford and also serve Aylesbury from 2025.
Hewitt lists her other hopes for inclusion in the next franchise as further efforts to decarbonise the fleet, an increase in accessibility, and the introduction of extra stock to provide much-needed extra capacity.
It remains to be seen if another 20-year deal will be offered in the post-Williams world, although Hewitt says the operator would feel comfortable and is best placed to operate within any future framework.
“Obviously we’ve been hearing rumours about what’s coming, and Arriva operates all kinds of different contracts, so we tend to be contract-ambivalent. It’s about the risk and reward that’s associated with it,” she says.
“From a personal point of view, it would be great to trial something different and I would love for there to be something around fares reform and ticketing. We can’t do that on our own but for me its fundamental to do something or it will always be our Achilles heel. Things don’t always work but the worstcase scenario is no change and the best case is transformational step change in terms of how we deliver the railway.”
She adds: “Having a 20-year franchise lets you do something slightly different and I haven’t heard how long franchises are likely to be post-Williams, but if you’re going to have longevity and step changes then a longer period makes more sense. If it’s business as usual, then it probably makes sense to have a shorter contract.”
The relatively recent arrival of Hewitt combined with uncertainty around the longer-term prospects for the franchise makes it difficult to make predictions around how she will be able to make her mark at Chiltern Railways in the same vein as some of her illustrious predecessors.
Although she will not say either way if she would like to be considered for the permanent role at the operator, Hewitt is determined to position Chiltern Railways as the natural choice to continue running the franchise beyond December 2021.
She concludes: “These are big shoes to step into, especially given where Chiltern is in the franchise. The decision is out of my hands, and I’m going to sit on the fence (on whether I’d like to become permanent MD).
“It’s a difficult question to answer but I think my personal legacy, even if I’m only here for six months, is about a different style of leadership. Adrian [Shooter] and Rob [Brighouse] both had very different styles of leadership and so it’s about making it a more diverse place, less top-down and a real meritocracy.
“I also want people to see that I can put in short-term change that makes a really big difference, but the big thing I really want to do is to position Arriva as the obvious choice for the next franchise whatever Williams throws out. I have a very clear personal objective and that is getting us ready to be the next franchisee.”