LEADING THE WAY
Bluebell Railway plc Chairman Dick Fearn on recruiting the next generation of railway managers
It’s all about the people lad.” An old British Rail senior officer told me this back in 1973, at the beginning of my railway career as a young railway traffic student on BR’s London Midland Region. How right he was. In my experience, and over the 44 years since he said those words to me, I have certainly found that it’s the people who safely operate the railway, who maintain and renew the infrastructure and the trains and stations, who publicise and promote the railway and who administer it, along with the people who lead all those people, that really make the difference. I have found the same is true wherever the railway system may be, whatever the ownership and the type of traffic it carries, and whatever the motive power and rolling stock that it uses. It is equally true, as I have found more recently, on preserved railways. When I retired from fulltime main line railway work in 2013, I was delighted to be offered the position of chairman of the Bluebell Railway plc, where I encountered a board of directors who had a wealth of experience at the Bluebell and with great achievements to their credit, such as the completion of the long-desired extension to East Grinstead. I was not really surprised because the Bluebell has been a leader among standard gauge preserved railways for almost six decades, but it was very reassuring to me as a newcomer to the preservation sector.
SKILLS GAP
However, with such a long-standing and established board, change is inevitable, and over the past two years, the retirement of a number of long-serving colleagues in key functional directorships, such as operations, infrastructure, rolling stock and commercial, has led me to ponder this question: Where will the next generation of volunteer preserved railway company directors come from, and what skills and competencies will they need? The latter point about skills and competency requirements is, of course, the first thing to consider before launching any search for leadership talent. The increasingly intense regulation of railways in the UK, even in the preservation sector, means that companies need to be able to demonstrate that they have people on the board with the necessary professional and technical competencies for safety assurance, in line with the railway’s safety management systems. Furthermore, in the very competitive sector of the tourist market in which preserved railways operate, companies should have board members who have marketing, business development or communications experience on
WHERE WILL THE NEXT GENERATION OF VOLUNTEER PRESERVED RAILWAY COMPANY DIRECTORS COME FROM?
their CVs, in order to grow visitor numbers and to seek out new revenue-earning opportunities. At the Bluebell Railway, the directors of the company had traditionally been drawn from the elected trustees of the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society (BRPS) and, over time, this produced directors with experience of, and with great loyalty and commitment to, the Bluebell Railway. However, that system could not necessarily provide candidates who had the required background and experience as and when those directorship positions became available. So the company now advertises its volunteer director positions both inside and outside the Bluebell Railway family. The society, as the major shareholder in the company, rightly has the opportunity to approve (or otherwise) any individual director appointments at the company’s annual general meeting, but the process of both external and internal advertising does at least provide the opportunity to seek out new leadership talent from the largest possible pool.
TALENT POOL
One of the great assets of the Bluebell Railway, as with many other preserved railways, is the body of people that forms the membership of the society. Currently, membership stands at well over 10,000 and, although about 700 are regular volunteers at the Bluebell Railway, there remains a vast and largely untapped pool of people, many of whom may have skills that they are unaware the railway needs. I am regularly impressed by the response we receive to volunteer job advertisements placed in our quarterly magazine, Bluebell News, a copy of which goes to all members. For example, in response to a recent advert, a society member, who is himself an experienced business consultant supporting small and medium sized companies across the South East of England, has willingly volunteered to help us write a new five-year business plan, at no cost to the company. Many members of preservation societies may assume that volunteering at their railway requires undertaking front-line roles on stations, on trains, in depots and workshops, on the track or in signal boxes – something which they may not have the time to do, or may not want to do. Many such members would be surprised, I think, to hear that the specialist skills they have developed during their careers could be just what their railway needs. So the membership could prove to be a great source of new voluntary leadership talent for any steam railway company. However, it is also my view – particularly for senior roles in the traditional railway functions (track, signalling and building infrastructure, locomotives, rolling stock and operations) – that there is still much potential for attracting more main line railway professionals. Some of them may have volunteered elsewhere in the past, but many others may not have had any previous involvement with the preservation sector. For professional main line railwaymen and women to come and give their time freely to help with the leadership and direction of a preserved railway can be very rewarding for the individual concerned and extremely helpful, in terms of succession planning, to the railway preservation movement. Job advertising aimed at main line rail industry professionals and skilful headhunting of suitable candidates can, in my experience, prove to be very fruitful. Finally, I have found that it is sometimes possible to recruit people from professions such as marketing, or from activities such as charity fundraising, who have no previous experience of either preserved or main line railways, but who live locally and who will happily offer voluntary leadership support to their local preserved railway. These outreach opportunities, (including advertising and promoting new leadership roles to the untapped membership resource, head-hunting current and former main line railway professionals and seeking out professionals and potential leaders in the local community) will help us to attract new talent to the sector. The people who have worked so hard for over half a century to create the tremendous variety of heritage that we now have throughout Britain today have more than played their part. We owe it to them to ensure that our preserved railways will continue to be held in safe hands and be able to grow and prosper in the next halfcentury.