BR Managers

[Peterthegreat]

There was also a bar on the top floor of Southern Hse although in early 80's when i was there only opened on Fridays from recollection but didn't last that long before it was shut.

Waterloo had a operating staff canteen (did great fry ups all day long at good price) over on the Windsor side before it got knocked down for WIT and there were two canteens accessed off the concourse roughly where the higher level entrance to Waterloo East was subsequently created. As i remember left for plebs and right for senior management but they could invite you in and pretty sure it was table service.

Another benefit was you were allowed to claim expenses with the highest grade you were with and as you would expect in our fair society the higher graded you were the better the expense rate and you got to claim it whether you spent any money or not. Anyhow if you had a job that took you out your home location everyday was a nice supplement to the salary in the 80's. Of course best income booster was to get a job that plenty of overtime at enhanced rates. My mistake though was to go straight from STO B to MS 1 where you got no enhancements so your earnings were lower than most of staff working for you. That was a flaw in the system and plenty of talented people would never move on from PTO as they couldn't afford to.

I also recollect that many technical and management grades had an annual increment for each year you did upto a number of years irrespective of performance in those days plus whatever the unions got for inflation. That all got done away with when the HAY Management scoring system came in which TSSA sold us down the drain on and i resigned from them and my position with P&T Section at Southern Hse.

In the mid eighties the staff canteen was refurbished and divided into two parts. One was self service the other table service but was open to anyone. I remember on one occasion I and my colleagues (as CO4s) were joined by David Kirby the London and South East Director.
I also agree with you regarding the HAY scale.

 

[PG]

Mention of the 'Office Move' in the context of Hamilton House reminds me of how difficult that was in the era of paper records and untidy desks. However, they could provide opportunities!

I was working in the old Railway Clearing House building in Eversholt Street near Euston in 1975 (I think) when the London Division of the LM Region had to move out and squeeze into part of Euston House. On the last day in one of the grand clerical offices (that had filing cupboards on a gallery accessed by spiral stairs) the Divisional [delete function name] Manager came in to personally oversee matters. He was carrying a large sack.

"Is this your 'In' tray?"
"Yes, Mr X."
(Empties tray into sack.) "Lost in the move".

Next desk, repeat.

One of the more conscientious clerks had the temerity to ask what on earth was happening.

"This the best chance that we've had in years to get current with our work. If it's important you'll get a 'repeat'; if not, I've saved you having to do anything with it. (Empties tray into sack.) Lost in the move..."

Priceless ...and shows a DM who knew how to 'work the system'.
Were any items 'unfortunately misplaced' in the move too?

 

[Route115?]

When I applied for the Finance & Accountabcy Management Training Scheme the recruiter said that I had 'a genuine interest in railways'. Whether was different to being a trainspotter I didn't think about at the time.

Promotion could be quite fast at first depending upon the area of work you were in (luckily in finance a lot of people left for better paying jobs outside the industry). In fact they boosted rates to help retention. (It happened elsewhere, CO4/CO5 secretaries got an extra £1,500 p.a. in I think the mid 80s). You got a 5% increment on your existing salary going into management grades (unless the starting management rate was higher). After that apart from the general pay award you got an increment of up to 5% p.a (generally 3.5% for an average review). Management scales were indeed incremental and an MS3 could earn more than an MS5. As said, no overtime was generally paid even though many managers worked more than their contracted hours. Normally the supervisors were the best paid staff, unless you have drivers with a lot of mileage payments (Kings X top link comes to mind).

I think that driver managers & work superintendents sometimes skipped the lower grades for this reason. You would loose out being promoted to MS1 but the prestige of higher grades made up for this. Incidently I am told that at in the late 80s at a Freightliner depot in Southampton where the normal working week was 56 hours the boss who was an Executive Grade was the lowest paid individual. I don't know if this is true of not.

One danger was the dreaded re-organisation where all jobs disappeared and you had to apply for ones in the new organisation. You can be made 'redundant' but this meant going into a pot and being fitted into other jobs. I was nearly a job for life if you kept you nose clean (although many low performers were offered good redundancy payments to actually leave the service. I worked 'out grade' MS4 rather than MS5 for several years. Luckily I still got paid as an MS5. The big fear was being relocated. Fortunately I escaped moving to Swindon. Actually at times not moving was my number one objective. That said there was a lot of long distance commuting (Colchester to Watford and Newark to London were not uncommon).

As far as staff travel was concerned, the grade for 1st class eligability has already been discussed. Then

MS4 all stations 1st class status pass

MS5 (in London) also got you a tube/bus pass

Executive Grades medallion rather tahn leather pass (now gold rather than silver pass - not much difference, a few fewer restrictions), also the family got free passes, but for leisure use only although sometimes abused).

 

[ChiefPlanner]

When I applied for the Finance & Accountabcy Management Training Scheme the recruiter said that I had 'a genuine interest in railways'. Whether was different to being a trainspotter I didn't think about at the time.

Promotion could be quite fast at first depending upon the area of work you were in (luckily in finance a lot of people left for better paying jobs outside the industry). In fact they boosted rates to help retention. (It happened elsewhere, CO4/CO5 secretaries got an extra £1,500 p.a. in I think the mid 80s). You got a 5% increment on your existing salary going into management grades (unless the starting management rate was higher). After that apart from the general pay award you got an increment of up to 5% p.a (generally 3.5% for an average review). Management scales were indeed incremental and an MS3 could earn more than an MS5. As said, no overtime was generally paid even though many managers worked more than their contracted hours. Normally the supervisors were the best paid staff, unless you have drivers with a lot of mileage payments (Kings X top link comes to mind).

I think that driver managers & work superintendents sometimes skipped the lower grades for this reason. You would loose out being promoted to MS1 but the prestige of higher grades made up for this. Incidently I am told that at in the late 80s at a Freightliner depot in Southampton where the normal working week was 56 hours the boss who was an Executive Grade was the lowest paid individual. I don't know if this is true of not.

One danger was the dreaded re-organisation where all jobs disappeared and you had to apply for ones in the new organisation. You can be made 'redundant' but this meant going into a pot and being fitted into other jobs. I was nearly a job for life if you kept you nose clean (although many low performers were offered good redundancy payments to actually leave the service. I worked 'out grade' MS4 rather than MS5 for several years. Luckily I still got paid as an MS5. The big fear was being relocated. Fortunately I escaped moving to Swindon. Actually at times not moving was my number one objective. That said there was a lot of long distance commuting (Colchester to Watford and Newark to London were not uncommon).

As far as staff travel was concerned, the grade for 1st class eligability has already been discussed. Then

MS4 all stations 1st class status pass

MS5 (in London) also got you a tube/bus pass

Executive Grades medallion rather tahn leather pass (now gold rather than silver pass - not much difference, a few fewer restrictions), also the family got free passes, but for leisure use only although sometimes abused).

Although annual reviews were very fairly done - the actual extra money received for very good or outstanding performance was usually very low , as there was a cap on performance based "extras" and though a high 2 or a 1 was not unusual (many managers , despite views from outside worked hard and put in a lot of extra effort outwith the working week) , it was often "kind words" and "I wish I could do more" - as the available funds were unsurprisingly low.

Those with working arrangements with external customers , would sometimes receive Xmas gifts , and the rules were very tight as gifts of a "trifling nature" were only acceptable - calenders and diaries , and alcohol very much "no" - but there were some very trivial incentives towards the end - something like a 20% reduction card for "Little Chef" for senior management !.

Not that most people o f my knowledge complained at all. As certain biographies and even formally mentioned in formal reports from others , many managers regarded the railways as a bit of a vocation , as did many staff.

(another "benefit" was "OCS" (on company service) tea from long gone Travellers Fare buffets for all staff - a couple of pence off public rate , nothing off coffee - as it was deemed that officers only drank it , and could therefore cough up the public rate !!!!

 

[Fred26]

.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I don't post very often anymore, but this thread is fascinating.
No wonder BR died! So much burocracy!
This thread is a real eye opener. What was it like for Station Managers? I have been a CO1 and a CSL2. I know staff still paid 'BR wages'.

I'd love to have been around in BR Times, but it was definitely 'jobs for the boys'...different world today

Depend what part of the industry you are in. NR has way more managers to front line staff than BR did in 1994 and in its projects organisation there is a huge amount of man marking due to the way it contracts work which forces contractors to to add alot of bureaucratic roles to produce paperwork.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

BR was never perfect - but it did a lot to reduce both bureaucracy and improve productivity over the years , from grim records in the early days post 1948 towards sectorisation and devolved management - especially the local teams of some very effective Area and Civil etc managers. Work showed it was the best value for money of all "nationalised" railways in Europe.

So come the new order of privatisation - you find set ups unheard of - the Rail Regulator to opine from a London based office on "track access" and "competition" and "value for money" - Railtrack who did not believe in much apart from shareholder value , ROSCO'S , OPRAF and the background of the DfT and so it goes. Behind all this - sholes of very well paid consultants (some of them "got rid of" ex BR staff) , but especially a very large cadre of City lawyers and finance institutions all non customer facing and racking up huge fees. So was that better ? - of course a group of managers loved this low risk "railway" work and embraced these 20+ people meetings with lawyers present , clocking up billing fees of eye watering levels.

(and LUL did not better - having the PFI nonsense forced on it , and then spirited away - with huge financial implications) - but in it's own way , developed things like "client / user" interfaces which I could never understand.) - but then we could talk about other areas - like the MOD ....

So - if you wanted anything done on BR at a working level - you picked up the phone and got specials arranged (no worries about Track Access rights) , - the Train Crew supervisors very often obliged and the local signalling managers and controls often did (and yes - I had plenty of real life examples of doing this) - none of this B==cks of GRIP processes to get sensible engineering upgrades of a modest nature done. Line speed improvements to get higher speeds for the 158's on the North and West routes were done by 2 very competent Area Civil Engineers under existing possessions as part of tamping and relaying for basically nothing. An exchange of letters or cost center numbers sufficed.

I got a Scottish freight branch "enhanced" for a lucrative chunk of long distance traffic on the basis of a couple of phone calls , a chance meeting with the acting General Manager at Euston one night and the underwriting of some weekend overtime -and to make it happen some nifty short term diagrams by an eager team in Glasgow and the reallocation of some traction from England.

My grade was then MS5 - pretty good value for money I think -or it might have been MS4. National responsibilty.

Anyway - no apologies for defending BR - Warts and all. Did me OK as a good baseline of work and so on.

 

[telstarbox]

Very interesting posts from everyone.

For those of you who transferred into privatised TOCs was there an obvious culture change?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Very interesting posts from everyone.

For those of you who transferred into privatised TOCs was there an obvious culture change?

Nothing happened immediately - (there having been the Railtrack split in advance - which resulted in a serious tightening up of "contracts" and a theoretical "them and us" approach - quite pathetic in retrospect as most people on the ground continued to work as they had always done , on an informal basis) - but things did change , especially with fairly rapid culling of middle TOC managers as the realities of franchise bottom lines kicked in.

An excellent example was a northbound DC train from Euston at Camden one sunny day which encountered a cable / track fire - driver stopped , went track side and discharged several AFF extinguishers and controlled the fire - reported it and carried on. Dealt with obviously in a practical manner - only to have the delay reported against the TOC and all the usual nonsense to rettaribute the delay etc etc. So the 313 came out of service at Watford for new extinguishers which caused a cancellation on the up. (no spare unit available) - which incurred an OPRAF cancellation penalty. Made people think about things.

The points heaters at Tring were then fed from the power supply at the booking office - RT were in default over settling the bill for months, and the bill piled up. After much verbal nonsense , it was threatened to cut off the supply in default of payment with the real threat of frozen points was a reality. RT paid up in the end. The TOC would have blamed it on RT - but in reality , they were themselves more interested in trying to run a reasonable service in the face of a West Coast main line at the time which was seriously deficient in the quality of the infrastructure condition.

So yes - culture did change - was it right that an extra passenger service on the North London line from Highbury to Richmond for a school outing was turned down by RT (easily achievable by the operator - off peak) was refused by RT's demand for "profit sharing" ? (hollow laughter) - that year group lost their annual end of year outing as a result. It never happened again.

There is obviously a lot more of this stuff - from all over I suspect.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Nothing happened immediately - (there having been the Railtrack split in advance - which resulted in a serious tightening up of "contracts" and a theoretical "them and us" approach - quite pathetic in retrospect as most people on the ground continued to work as they had always done , on an informal basis) - but things did change , especially with fairly rapid culling of middle TOC managers as the realities of franchise bottom lines kicked in.

An excellent example was a northbound DC train from Euston at Camden one sunny day which encountered a cable / track fire - driver stopped , went track side and discharged several AFF extinguishers and controlled the fire - reported it and carried on. Dealt with obviously in a practical manner - only to have the delay reported against the TOC and all the usual nonsense to rettaribute the delay etc etc. So the 313 came out of service at Watford for new extinguishers which caused a cancellation on the up. (no spare unit available) - which incurred an OPRAF cancellation penalty. Made people think about things.

The points heaters at Tring were then fed from the power supply at the booking office - RT were in default over settling the bill for months, and the bill piled up. After much verbal nonsense , it was threatened to cut off the supply in default of payment with the real threat of frozen points was a reality. RT paid up in the end. The TOC would have blamed it on RT - but in reality , they were themselves more interested in trying to run a reasonable service in the face of a West Coast main line at the time which was seriously deficient in the quality of the infrastructure condition.

So yes - culture did change - was it right that an extra passenger service on the North London line from Highbury to Richmond for a school outing was turned down by RT (easily achievable by the operator - off peak) was refused by RT's demand for "profit sharing" ? (hollow laughter) - that year group lost their annual end of year outing as a result. It never happened again.

There is obviously a lot more of this stuff - from all over I suspect.

The irony is privatisation would have fallen over a lot earlier had not been for the staff on the ground floor just getting on with running the railway despite the antics of the leadership.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The irony is privatisation would have fallen over a lot earlier had not been for the staff on the ground floor just getting on with running the railway despite the antics of the leadership.

The irony is privatisation would have fallen over a lot earlier had not been for the staff on the ground floor just getting on with running the railway despite the antics of the leadership.

Quite - local TOC supervisors for example talking direct to the Power Box supervisors (as they had always done) , as opposed to the company line of talk to a distant control in an other city.

Not that "blow in" senior managers on RT really had a clue as to what was really involved.

For quite a long time - even senior TOC managers could not engage with "zonal" etc RT managers without an RT HQ "minder" .....no wonder it all fell apart ,but then there were a cadre of people who "really" believed in the brave new world of "contract management" on the front line - contract management via several layers of "contractors" .....

If I am ever in a coma , I could be brought round by the term "we are working closely with our contractors" ......

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Quite - local TOC supervisors for example talking direct to the Power Box supervisors (as they had always done) , as opposed to the company line of talk to a distant control in an other city.

Not that "blow in" senior managers on RT really had a clue as to what was really involved.

For quite a long time - even senior TOC managers could not engage with "zonal" etc RT managers without an RT HQ "minder" .....no wonder it all fell apart ,but then there were a cadre of people who "really" believed in the brave new world of "contract management" on the front line - contract management via several layers of "contractors" .....

If I am ever in a coma , I could be brought round by the term "we are working closely with our contractors" ......

I was involved with RT1A contract management it was lite touch as we were so under resourced fortunately despite the infracos were owned by big companies their staff just carried on like it was BR.

 

[thedbdiboy]

Recruitment was two separate tracks. Most staff joined straight from school and worked their way up the hierarchy. But there was a graduate recruitment programme to recruit the top management of the future, similar to Sandhurst for future army generals and the "fast stream" for future permanent secretaries.

The British Railways graduate recruitment programme was very competitive, and being a rail enthusiast was frowned upon, unless you were a member of the railway club at Cambridge or Oxford.

Certainly in the latter years, there was a staff entrant route onto the Graduate Training Scheme - I know because I was one of them, having joined BR post A-Levels in 1987 as a clerical officer. Of the Graduate year group, just a handful (four on my year) were staff entrants.

All management grade jobs throughout BR were advertised on a weekly vacancy list that everybody had access to, with grade, location and brief job description. This ran to 20 pages or so. There were also arrangements for the frequent re-organisations, where somebody could be put into a lower grade job if there was no suitable role in their own grade, but continue to be paid at the higher grade.

It seemed that BR did not want management that were in any way enthusiastic about railways. About 40 years ago I had graduated in transport management, and applied for the graduate programme with BR. Along with some other transport graduates we got some way through the process until they discovered we were all rail enthusiasts. That was it, and I ended up as a trainee manager in road haulage!

The Vacancy List was legendary, and once one had mastered the vagaries of closed listing and other 'phantom jobs' it was a good way of getting on. I never encountered resistance to being interested in railways, but it was important to be professional and to be able to channel that interest effectively. I suspect that it was more of an issue on the operational rather than commercial side.

When you qualified , you were promised a supervisors role - usually a C or if lucky a D - these jobs entailed anti-social hours , weekends of course - direct on calls and a launch into the real world of bad weather and direct staff relationships. Quite hard after the university period and "cushy" training when you swanned around , learned a lot (sometimes not) , and had no direct responsibility.

Everyone wanted an MS1 for the 1st class travel , (an MS2 gave you a Regional Pass which you could change on geographical location) , BUT - you made lots of money in supervisor jobs with overtime etc , and management was pretty much "flat time" - plus you did unpaid overtime - every job description has "and any other duties as requested" - as a "C" I did 5x12 Mon-Friday , often a 0700 - finish on Saturdays , and too many Sundays. Ergo - lots of money and no social life.

By the time I did my training, the entry level job was likely to be an MS1, but by that time there was no 1st class travel until you made MS4. Many CO5/Supervisor E grades never went further because the loss of overtime and allowance pay when you moved to an MS grade was too much to bear. I went from CO3 via the Management Training Scheme and then to MS1 without making any extra money, although the hours were better.

Very interesting posts from everyone.

For those of you who transferred into privatised TOCs was there an obvious culture change?

The 'old' military-style culture was well on the way out by the time I was working in management for BR. However, on privatisation I ended up with Connex South Central which was a wild ride and very much a culture change but I learned a lot about the politics of the business from that experience

 

[70014IronDuke]

Canteens at major stations such as Paddington were divided into a wages staff one (drivers etc) , and a salaried staff one. Both served pretty identical meals , - but there was a demarcation based on uniform /or lack of.

It was similar at Derby Loco and Litchurch Lane (C&W) works - one for blue collar, another for salaried staff as I remember. Probably similar at all BREL works, but I don't know for sure.

 

[6Gman]

BR was never perfect - but it did a lot to reduce both bureaucracy and improve productivity over the years , from grim records in the early days post 1948 towards sectorisation and devolved management - especially the local teams of some very effective Area and Civil etc managers. Work showed it was the best value for money of all "nationalised" railways in Europe.

So come the new order of privatisation - you find set ups unheard of - the Rail Regulator to opine from a London based office on "track access" and "competition" and "value for money" - Railtrack who did not believe in much apart from shareholder value , ROSCO'S , OPRAF and the background of the DfT and so it goes. Behind all this - sholes of very well paid consultants (some of them "got rid of" ex BR staff) , but especially a very large cadre of City lawyers and finance institutions all non customer facing and racking up huge fees. So was that better ? - of course a group of managers loved this low risk "railway" work and embraced these 20+ people meetings with lawyers present , clocking up billing fees of eye watering levels.

(and LUL did not better - having the PFI nonsense forced on it , and then spirited away - with huge financial implications) - but in it's own way , developed things like "client / user" interfaces which I could never understand.) - but then we could talk about other areas - like the MOD ....

So - if you wanted anything done on BR at a working level - you picked up the phone and got specials arranged (no worries about Track Access rights) , - the Train Crew supervisors very often obliged and the local signalling managers and controls often did (and yes - I had plenty of real life examples of doing this) - none of this B==cks of GRIP processes to get sensible engineering upgrades of a modest nature done. Line speed improvements to get higher speeds for the 158's on the North and West routes were done by 2 very competent Area Civil Engineers under existing possessions as part of tamping and relaying for basically nothing. An exchange of letters or cost center numbers sufficed.

I got a Scottish freight branch "enhanced" for a lucrative chunk of long distance traffic on the basis of a couple of phone calls , a chance meeting with the acting General Manager at Euston one night and the underwriting of some weekend overtime -and to make it happen some nifty short term diagrams by an eager team in Glasgow and the reallocation of some traction from England.

My grade was then MS5 - pretty good value for money I think -or it might have been MS4. National responsibilty.

Anyway - no apologies for defending BR - Warts and all. Did me OK as a good baseline of work and so on.

My first job on the railway was collating train loading figures. Each morning we received dozens/ hundreds (it varied) of paper forms completed by guards and we entered them onto large cards, one for each service. In theory we therefore had a daily record of loadings on all of the region's long distance trains.

My predecessor (and on the job trainer) simply filled in the figures. I had a good look at them and drew to my immediate boss's attention (graded at the giddy heights of CO4) any regular overcrowding.

He would then say "wire something out" which allowed me (a temporary CO1, the lowest clerical grade) to send a telegram to (e.g.) Heaton that read "additional SK to be added to 1V47 0820 Newcastle - Plymouth FO, to return 1040 Plymouth - Newcastle SO UFN". Today I suspect it would need the involvement and approval of the TOC, the ROSCO, the DfT and possibly the Archbishop of Canterbury to even ponder such a thing!

Incidentally, this instruction came from the regional office of the London Midland Region and - of course - neither Newcastle or Plymouth well within our purview.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

My first job on the railway was collating train loading figures. Each morning we received dozens/ hundreds (it varied) of paper forms completed by guards and we entered them onto large cards, one for each service. In theory we therefore had a daily record of loadings on all of the region's long distance trains.

My predecessor (and on the job trainer) simply filled in the figures. I had a good look at them and drew to my immediate boss's attention (graded at the giddy heights of CO4) any regular overcrowding.

He would then say "wire something out" which allowed me (a temporary CO1, the lowest clerical grade) to send a telegram to (e.g.) Heaton that read "additional SK to be added to 1V47 0820 Newcastle - Plymouth FO, to return 1040 Plymouth - Newcastle SO UFN". Today I suspect it would need the involvement and approval of the TOC, the ROSCO, the DfT and possibly the Archbishop of Canterbury to even ponder such a thing!

Incidentally, this instruction came from the regional office of the London Midland Region and - of course - neither Newcastle or Plymouth well within our purview.

There are some excellent anecdotes by John Heaton (AM Exeter lately) of train planning meetings at York for what we would now call XC , with similar quantified loading data being used for summer etc workings , with agreement to extend services back from York say to Newcastle - and forward to Bristol vice Birmingham . (and trimming back some poorer performing trains to be fair) - of course when this was in the direct control of an integrated organisation and had total control over resources , with seasoned experienced managers - one can see how it was.

Only this week I discovered the long standing summer York - Tenby working was put on at such instigation - and partly due to "Golden Rail" bookings. Perhaps we may say BR was closer to customers in being able to plan and implement such services , which catered for multi-flows along the journey.

 

[Route115?]

It seemed that BR did not want management that were in any way enthusiastic about railways. About 40 years ago I had graduated in transport management, and applied for the graduate programme with BR. Along with some other transport graduates we got some way through the process until they discovered we were all rail enthusiasts. That was it, and I ended up as a trainee manager in road haulage!

I was interested in railways and the manager at my first interview noted that I had a 'genuine interest in railways'. This may, of course,have been to distinguish me from someone who was interested in taking loco numbers...

My problem was that I was in finance and I did struggle when I wanted to take a sabatical to do an M.Sc. in Transport Planning & Management - 'what's that got to do with finance?'. I did manage it in the end (and am very pleased that I did) but I did find the finance saw itself as a fiefdom. I suspect that this was true of other departments.

Moving on to privatisation, some organisations were terribly insular (parts of Railtrack were terrible). I know that Virgin used to have that reputation until Chris Green came along and thought of things from the viewpoint of the whole railway.

 

[D6968]

I was interested in railways and the manager at my first interview noted that I had a 'genuine interest in railways'. This may, of course,have been to distinguish me from someone who was interested in taking loco numbers...

My problem was that I was in finance and I did struggle when I wanted to take a sabatical to do an M.Sc. in Transport Planning & Management - 'what's that got to do with finance?'. I did manage it in the end (and am very pleased that I did) but I did find the finance saw itself as a fiefdom. I suspect that this was true of other departments.

Moving on to privatisation, some organisations were terribly insular (parts of Railtrack were terrible). I know that Virgin used to have that reputation until Chris Green came along and thought of things from the viewpoint of the whole railway.

Chris Green was a bit of a one off, though I do wish there were a few more like him!

 

[Bald Rick]

Chris Green was a bit of a one off, though I do wish there were a few more like him!

There are, quite a few. Some of whom still work full time on the railway. Chris still does some part time work too.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

There is still a cadre of "retired managers" - who still are able to advise and give guidance (with no folded money changing hands)

Something to do with a desire to see the railway doing better in a modest way. Plus latent dedication.

(and all over the UK too)

 

[Speed43125]

There are, quite a few. Some of whom still work full time on the railway. Chris still does some part time work too.

Would it perhaps be fair to say the system they work under is rather more constrained, and much as I hate the expression, 'bean counter' driven than that of yesteryear?

The FNL 158 story above seems -- and I by no means understand that situation beyond the anecdotal account above -- to have been rather more straightforward than the upping of speedl imits for HSTs in Scotland today for instance.