We present an extract from a new book from the mastermind behind the Chiltern Railways revitalisation, ADRIAN SHOOTER – with a money-off offer for readers
It was a sunny afternoon in late August 1993 when, with my newly acquired Chiltern cab pass, I joined the driver of a train at platform 4 in Marylebone station. I explained to him that I had just been asked by the British Rail Chairman, Bob Reid 2nd, to become designate Director of the planned Chiltern Train Operating Unit (TOU) which was to come into existence on 1 April 1994.
Before we even left for Aylesbury, he told me he was very worried about privatisation.
‘Why is that?’ I said.
‘I don’t know whether I will have a job.’
‘Do you think there will be any trains?’ I asked, and then added: ‘If so, they will need drivers, so I think you have got just about the safest job there is’.
‘If anything goes wrong…’
I drew my finger across my throat: ‘It will be people like me that go’.
This was a conversation to be repeated many times over the next few months as, gradually, the penny dropped that it would not be as bad as the trade unions and others were predicting.
SMELL THE COFFEE
For the previous year or so, I had been working for Dr Peter Watson, BR Board Mem…
