https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2024/10/03-new-great-british-railways-chair.html
I agree about someone who knows something about the real world of public transport in the UK (i.e. not London where it's loads better and people complain more) being a good idea.
Is that not because there are more people?
Not in my experience, it's because they expect more. Any other city in the UK getting close to what London have would be delighted.
www.statista.com
www.intelligentinstructor.co.uk
You're not actually suggesting there are more users of rail in the North than in London, are you?
I didn't say anything like that. I'm suggesting that the public transport as a whole is substantially better in London than everywhere else, and people who live in London therefore have a different perspective on the problems of it from the rest of the country.
Or should they be in a central location which will also soon be served by a very speedy railway allowing them to get to London rather quickly when required?
Central to where? Almost all meetings for the chair will take place in Whitehall, not in Derby or Birmingham. And "soon" is a bit premature.
How about putting them somewhere that is representative of where the majority of the potential customer-base is from (ie “outside London”)? Would suggest that the potential for modal shift towards rail is much higher outside London than inside the M25.
London already has enough representation, Hendy was TfL for years.
Ultimately to court that market, you'll require investment. His Majesty's Treasury has not moved.
The chair should be representative of the parts of the network which have been most neglected and have the greatest room for growth and development to encourage more use of the railway. A national body is not and should never be focused on any one location.
Is there anyone around who has lived in all of Barnoldswick, Lampeter and Riccarton Junction?
Back in the day a resident of Riccarton Junction would have had a rosy view of the railway service with its connections to 3 regional cities of Carlisle, Newcastle and Edinburgh. (all just walking trails when I last stopped by)
With the most important appointment, that of CEO or DG or whatever executive title applies, still to be made.
100%, but the diversity of experience is part of that ability when taking on a job at the head of a national body.
No one is talking about where she "comes from". It's about what her work experience is, and having experience of working in the sector but outside of London is, for some of us, a positive.
If they do exist they’ve probably got an ability to deal with boredom far in advance of that of most humans
Shadow GBR is the organisation that can exist prior to legislation being passed to allow GBR. GBRTT was a think tank talking shop of senior railway staff to help advise and guide the previous government about how to design GBR to deliver the outcomes they wanted. So far SGBR is four staff but will presumably move quickly to absorb the GBRTT into it so that it can implement and realise the outputs that a single entity can control without legislation.
I still find it bizarre that there's fixation about "not London". What on earth has London got to do with anything?
There seems to be a common "train" of thought that instead London should descend to the depths of the worst elsewhere, so that everywhere is rubbish.
Don't know about Shoaf, but the other three appointees are doing their old jobs (ie heads of DfT Rail [Hynes], DOLR [Gisby] and Network Rail [Haines]), as well as their new SGBR role.
