West Coast South Route Director JAMES DEAN explains to JAMES ABBOTT how he envisages the landscape unfolding after Covid
‘Devolution has to go much deeper, to enable us to get much closer to our partners and customers’ said Network Rail’s Chief Executive Andrew Haines three years ago when he unveiled an operating model based on five Regions and 13 Routes. Some experienced railway top brass was brought in to head up the new divisions, with one newcomer being former Stagecoach Rail managing director Tim Shoveller, as MD of the sprawling North West and Central Region.
Blooded by his experience at the helm of Stagecoach, which held 49% of the shares in the Virgin operation that at the time was running inter-city trains on the West Coast, Mr Shoveller was determined that Network Rail should pay proper attention to the West Coast main line – particularly the busy southern stretches of it, which were notorious for infrastructure failure and service disruption. He fashioned the Route structure so that a specialist management team would be solely dedicated to keeping the West Coast main line south of Crewe up to scratch, undistracted by concerns about the West Midlands or the Chiltern line – which went …
