NETWORK RAIL’S ROUTE MASTER
THERE was a time in the 1970s and ’80s when train enthusiasts employed by British Rail tended to keep quiet about their interest for fear it might affect their promotion prospects even though their knowledge could only have been of benefit to the company. Happily, more enlightened views now prevail – so much so that a lifelong rail enthusiast now sits at the top of Network Rail.
NR chairman Sir Peter Hendy is a no-nonsense, straight-talking businessman, holding down one of the toughest jobs in British industry, yet he’s so proud of his roots that a framed certificate and souvenir ticket for his journey on BR’s last main line steam run – the famous ‘Fifteen Guinea Special’ of August 1968 – hangs in pride of place on the wall of his office at Waterloo.
“I was only 15 years old at the time, and I must be the only person on that train still employed by the main line railway,” he tells me. “I also own the name and number plates of the last ‘Manor’ 4-6-0 built – No. 7829 Ramsbury Manor – and back in 1973 I paid £40 for a nameplate off Metropolitan Railway electric loco No. 10 W E Gladstone.”
Filling other spaces above his desk are pictures of two London ‘Routemaster’ double-decker buses he’s preserved, plus a photo of GB Railfreight Class 66 No. 66718, the engine that enabled him to fulfill an ambition most railfans can only dream of… having a locomotive named after themselves. Formerly bearing the identity of the late Crewe MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, the Type 5 became Sir Peter Hendy CBE in November 2013. Peter feels as passionately as ever about heritage today and maintains his interest in preservation as a trustee of both the Science Museum and the London Transport Museum.
His interest goes
