Railway boss calls it a day after 12 years
Philip Benham reflects on ‘challenging and rewarding’ role
At the age of 65, Philip Benham has decided to call it a day as managing director of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
He retires this month after what he describes as 12 remarkable seasons at the helm of the nation’s busiest steam railway.
The rol e has been both challenging and rewarding for someone who he admits to being a steam buff through and through.
Developments he has seen during his tenure include:
• reinstatement of the roof on Pickering Station taking it back to its original glory whenbuilt in the 1840s and including the new Reussner learning centre;
• a new carriage restoration shed (the Atkins Building) at Pickering;
• the introduction of an Artist in Residence at Levisham Station;
• continued growth in the number of Pullman dining services;
• growth in visitor numbers to a record of 355,000 in 2010
• c a r r y i ng t he Olympic Torch from Whitby to Pickering for the 2012 Games.
As h e p re pa re s t o s t e p down, Philip is keen to emphasise that the credit for the railway’s continuing success should go to others.
“These achievements reflect a huge amount of work by our volunteers and paid staff, and it is their dedication and commitment that has brought the railway to where it is today,” he said.
For a railway given the axe in 1965, its fortunes have cer- tainly seen a huge turnaround.
As he says: “Much of this was due to the railway’s founding fathers, people like Tom Salmon and Charlie Hart, who both sadly died in the last two years, and Michael Pitts, who is still happily very much with us. If it were not for their vision and determination there would be no North Yorkshire Moors Railway.”
Having lived for many years in North Yorkshire, when he got the chance to work on the North York Moors Railway Philip grabbed it with both hands.
The combination of the glorious landscape and the fascination of the railway made it much more than just a job.
“It gets into your DNA” he said.