Informed Sources
Hats off for Dr Mike Reece
I suppose it was inevitable that I should become the chronicler of the Class 91 locomotive project. Pretty well all the leading figures were long-standing friends.
At GEC I had known Project Manager Mike Newman from his Advanced Passenger Train (APT) days, while his Chief Engineer, that crusty old genius John Dowling, had been my mentor on locomotive design.
For British Rail, I had met Project Director David Rollin through his time at BREL, while his Project Engineer Andrew Higton had joined the railway industry with BREL before becoming bogie and suspension engineer in the BR Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Department at Derby.
And then there was Mike Reece, or more formally Dr Michael Reece, Director of GEC Research Ltd, the company’s Central Laboratory at Stafford. GEC had appointed his organisation as the Technical Auditor for the Class 91 Programme.
In this role Dr Mike and his team examined every aspect of the programme and maintained running audits on crucial features such as body and bogie structures, vehicle dynamics and the braking system. The Auditor reported directly to the parent GEC board, bypassing GEC TPL and the Class 91 project team.
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