A LIFE REMEMBERED: Professor Brian Mellitt

Professor Brian Mellitt, a leading railway electrical engineer, will be best remembered for driving the case for a 140mph West Coast Main Line for Virgin Trains.

While the ambition was never realised, it led the thinking for building HS2.

Mellitt, who has died aged 82, became the pioneer of moving block signalling after he joined London Underground from Birmingham University in 1988.

While it seemed a sound idea, it was way ahead of its time and was only achieved on the Jubilee Line extension from Green Park to

Stratford in 2011 - many years after he had moved on.

Mellitt took the ideas with him when he joined Railtrack in 1994, when the grand plan was to dispense with conventional signalling between at least London and Birmingham.

However, the mobile phonebased technology was again not robust enough, and the engineering teams and consultants were unable to solve problems no matter how much money was thrown at them.

A native of Preston, Mellitt began his career as a student apprentice with English Electric, before studying at Loughborough University and Imperial College, London.

He worked on British Rail’s Advanced Passenger Train (APT) project at Derby Technical Centre, before moving to enjoy a senior 15-year role at Birmingham University.

As London Underground’s Director of Engineering and Operations from 1989, Mellitt forced through major organisational changes despite modest budgets.

But he hit tougher challenges when he joined Railtrack. The government had agreed that Richard Branson could run his West Coast ‘Pendolinos’ at higher speeds, despite other operators using the same route. As project leader, Mellitt was under fire for costs soaring to £9 billion without real results.

He left Railtrack in 1999 to chair the Building Research Establishment, and joined the boards of Jarvis, Catalis, and BRE Group.

He lived near Peterborough and died on July 9.

HOWARD JOHNSTON