OBITUARY: STEVE McCOLL – FORMER BR SPECIAL TRAINS MANAGER

Steve McColl, former head of BR InterCity’s Special Trains Unit and one of the powers behind steam running on the network in the preservation era, has died after being struck down by pneumonia. He was 60.

McColl, who started his railway career as a young signalman in Liverpool, forged his way through the ranks to ultimately succeed David Ward as head of BR’s Special Trains Unit for the final year of its existence, before privatisation in 1996, and he was hailed as a bright young manager, with the world at his feet.

He was largely responsible for getting the ban lifted on steam running on Southern electrified third-rail lines, which had been imposed during the 1970s by SR general manager David Binnie following a mass trespass by members of the public over live tracks during an Eastleigh open day. With John Duncan, then chief mechancial engineer to the Steam Locomotive Operators Association, he was credited with the initiative for air-braking of main lineapproved steam locomotives, which up to that time had run on the vacuum brake only.

As BR gave way to privatisation, he took up the reins as part-time general manager of the East Somerset Railway, enjoying the full confidence of ESR owner David Shepherd that he was the man to reverse the ESR’s fortunes, and pull it out of a financial mire – but he left the East Somerset in the midst of a financial crisis in 1997, with debts much larger than those he had inherited. McColl bounced back quickly, winning the confidence of VSOE general manager Bob Barnes, and in 1998 he was appointed to manage VSOE’s ‘Northern Belle’ steam and diesel charter operations. But in 2001, his railway career was effectively ended when he was accused, with his lover

Jill Rogers, of ten charges of deception, three of attempted theft, and one of false accounting by VSOE.

Despite initial robust denials, McColl eventually admitted to an elaborate scam in which he had set up a bogus carriage design assessment and inspection company, which invoiced VSOE for work carried out on railway vehicles which had never taken place. In at least once instance, the carriage invoiced for didn’t even exist.

McColl defrauded VSOE of at least £27,150, and at Chester Crown Court on October 6 2001, he was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.

Following his release from prison, McColl and his wife Helen initially ran a small tea shop at Seaton in Devon, but in 2008, despite declaring that he “no longer even liked railways”, he took over the lease of the railway station at Bridge of Orchy on the West Highland line and ran it as a bunkhouse for hikers.