“Golden age for rail”
To mark the 30th anniversary of the sector’s re-launch, former Network SouthEast Managing Director CHRIS GREEN talks to PAUL STEPHEN about how the region’s railways have fared in the intervening years
Thirty years on from the relaunch of Network SouthEast, former MD Chris Green looks at how the region’s railways have fared.
Chris Green is a self-confessed optimist, and a man with a refreshing tendency to embrace change rather than dwell on the past. That’s just as well for one of the UK’s most respected railwaymen, given how far his assessment on the health of the nation’s railways has altered since he left British Rail under a cloud 21 years ago.
From vocal critic of the piecemeal way John Major’s government opted to dismantle the state-owned apparatus of BR, Green now readily admits that we have entered a ‘golden age’ in railway patronage and investment, far in excess of anything he could have imagined in the final days of BR.
From reluctant bystander to how the railways were being carved up, to proud champion of today’s network.
Turning back the clock to February 1995, Green’s resignation as director of BR’s ScotRail region was widely interpreted as a vote of no confidence in the Government’s choice of structure for the soon-to-be privatised railways.
Green had advocated retaining and selling off the InterCity and London & South East business sectors in their entirety, having finally reached a sounder financial footing since the sub-division of BR in 1982.
By the mid-1990s, and largely under his leadership, both had reached levels of efficiency, profitability and cost control never previously witnessed under the nationalised railway, delivering a profit to the Treasury in place of a traditional diet of subsidy.
His firm conviction was that the extensive gains made by British Rail would be best protected by selling sectors as complete units, as opposed to the more disparate model of franchises that would eventually emerge.
His departure was therefore seen as a damning indictment of the new era for Britain’s railways, given the immense respect he commanded - and continues to enjoy - within the industry.
As one of BR’s highest fliers, Green had carved himself a reputation for maximising revenue and improving performance in core sectors, earning deserved admiration for his can-do attitude to previously intractable problems.
Having signed up as a management trainee in 1965, he rapidly rose through the ranks until being moved to Scotland as regional MD in 1979, to then lead the launch of the newly empowered ScotRail brand in 1984. By November 1985 its powerful new corporate identity, aggressive marketing and customerled approach had yielded a 25% growth in revenue, and Green was duly promoted to the directorship of BR’s sprawling London & South East division.
With a daily movement of 400,000 commuters, this was a much bigger beast than ScotRail, but BR placed its complete faith in Green’s ability to repeat in the capital what had worked north of the border.
The economy was growing again, and passenger numbers were rising for the first time in decades. And so Green was handed a remit by the BR Board to extract maximum levels of income from this growth business, while sharply reducing the level of subsidy from the Treasury (which still stood at almost £ 200 million).
With much fanfare, the stage was set at Waterloo on June 10 1986 for Green to unveil a newly rebranded Network SouthEast to 200 assembled VIPs from the press, government