Northern Railway’s chief tasked with top job at Scotrail Alliance

0 Alex Hynes steps in to the Scotrail Alliance hotseat, replacing Phil Verster, who quit on Friday The head of northern England’s leading trains operator has been confirmed as the new Scotrail boss.

Alex Hynes, the current managing director of Northern, will take over from Phil Verster as head of the Scotrail Alliance.

Mr Verster stood down as managing director on Friday to take up the same role at the East West rail project, a new line linking Oxford and Cambridge.

He had been in the post for less than two years during a turbulent period for the company, which has faced calls to be stripped of its £7 billion ten-year franchise to run Scotland’s railways after being ordered to put an improvement plan in place when performance slipped below contracted standards last year.

Mr Hynes has nearly 20 years’ experience in the industry and has been managing director of the Northern franchise for the past three and half years, during which he is said to have “delivered their best-ever customer satisfaction scores as well as record levels of positive employee engagement”.

He said: “I am delighted to have been appointed to lead the Scotrail Alliance, this cutting-edge arrangement, which brings together the management of Scotrail and Network Rail to deliver the very best for customers.

“The Scotrail Alliance is delivering one of the largest programmes of investment, change and modernisation since the railway was built.

“To be part of that, and the plans to vastly improve services and capacity for customers, is hugely exciting for me.”

Dominic Booth, managing director of Abellio UK, said: “Alex has a proven track record delivering rail improvement and investment programmes, and is the ideal replacement.”

Last week, Mr Verster, 53, appeared before a Holyrood committee and revealed Scottish Government plans to give a week’s free train travel to Scotrail yearly and monthly season ticket holders could collapse as it relies on £1.8 million from a fund controlled by his firm which was earmarked for other initiatives.

Scottish Labour transport spokesman Neil Bibby MSP said: “The relationship between Scotrail and the SNP appears to be at breaking point, so Mr Hynes will have a lot of work to do repairing that in the interests of Scotland’s passengers.”

A Transport Scotland spokesman said: “Alex Hynes is very experienced and highly regarded in the industry, and we look forward to working with him.”