Chris Green (born 7 September 1943) is a British railway manager. He has a reputation for the adoption of business-led management of passenger services both in the British Rail and privatised eras, and has been described as "the best chairman BR never had". [1] [2] [3]
Green was born in Winchester and educated at St Paul's School, London and Oriel College, Oxford (where he read history).
Green began his career in 1965 as a trainee manager with British Rail in the West Midlands, becoming area manager at Hull in 1973.
In 1984 Green became manager of ScotRail, building its new identity. [4]
In January 1986 he became BR Sector Director, London & South East. In April he announced that Marylebone station in central London would be reprieved from closure, and in June he launched Network SouthEast to unify London suburban rail services. [5] [6] In October 1989, Green briefly appeared on BBC Challenge Anneka in an episode covering the re-opening of Northiam railway station. [7]
At the beginning of 1992 he was appointed managing director of the InterCity sector, with a remit to create a new integrated and profitable business (from that April) which he achieved with a particular emphasis on customer service. [8]
Owing to an interest in the built heritage, [9] in 1995 Green became chief executive of English Heritage. He resigned from this post 14 months later in July 1996, after reportedly clashing with the organisation's chairman Jocelyn Stevens amid allegations of irregularities including inappropriate expenses claims and unauthorised spending. [10] An investigation by the National Audit Office found ''clear failure in the proper conduct of public business'', and a January 1998 report by the Public Accounts Committee made recommendations to improve the recruitment and training of accounting officers (the person in a public body who is responsible to Parliament for the money spent). [11]
Green then became a director of consultants Gibb Rail [10] and an advisor to the Transport Select Committee of the House of Commons. In 1995 he was appointed a board member of Eurotunnel.
In 1999, Green was invited back into active rail industry management as chief executive of Virgin Rail Group on a five-year contract with a twofold mission – to deliver a markedly improved service on the existing network and ensure the £1.8bn worth of new Class 390 Pendolino, Class 220 Voyager and Class 221 Super Voyager trains would be delivered on time. [1] [12] [13] [14] [15] He also served as non-executive chairman of Virgin Rail Group Holdings in 2004–2005. [16] [17]
From 2005 to 2010 he was a non-executive director of Network Rail. [18] [19] [20]
Green has also served as a non-executive director of Connex Rail; chairman of The Railway Forum, 2005–2006; an advisory board member of Cranfield University; and a trustee of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. [16]
Since 2012 he has been a Vice President of the advocacy group Railfuture, having been appointed at the same time as his peer Adrian Shooter. [16]
He has co-authored two books; one about Network SouthEast [21] and the other about InterCity. [22]
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board.
The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest mixed-traffic railway routes in Europe, carrying a mixture of intercity rail, regional rail, commuter rail and rail freight traffic. The core route of the WCML runs from London to Glasgow for 400 miles (644 km) and was opened from 1837 to 1881. With additional lines deviating to Northampton, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh, this totals a route mileage of 700 miles (1,127 km). The Glasgow–Edinburgh via Carstairs line connects the WCML to Edinburgh. However, the main London–Edinburgh route is the East Coast Main Line. Several sections of the WCML form part of the suburban railway systems in London, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, with many more smaller commuter stations, as well as providing links to more rural towns.
Virgin Trains (VT) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Stagecoach, which operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 9 March 1997 to 7 December 2019. The franchise covered long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London, the West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and southern Scotland, consequently connecting six of the UK's largest cities: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh, which have a combined metropolitan population of over 18 million. It had around 3,400 employees in 2015.
The British Rail Class 55, also known as a Deltic, or English Electric Type 5, is a class of diesel locomotive built in 1961 and 1962 by English Electric for British Railways. Twenty-two locomotives were built, designed for the high-speed express passenger services on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) between Edinburgh and London King's Cross. They gained the name "Deltic" from the prototype locomotive, DP1 Deltic, which in turn was named after its Napier Deltic power units.
The British Railways Board (BRB) was a nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that operated from 1963 to 2001. Until 1997, it was responsible for most railway services in Great Britain, trading under the brand name British Railways and, from 1965, British Rail. It did not operate railways in Northern Ireland, where railways were the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland.
The InterCity 125 or High Speed Train (HST) is a diesel-powered high-speed passenger train built by British Rail Engineering Limited between 1975 and 1982. A total of 95 sets were produced, each comprising two Class 43 power cars, one at each end, and a rake of seven or eight Mark 3 coaches. The name is derived from its top operational speed of 125 mph (201 km/h). At times, the sets have been classified as British Rail Classes 253, 254 and 255.
InterCity was a brand name introduced by British Rail in 1966 for its long-haul express passenger services.
In the railway system of Great Britain, a train operating company (TOC) is a railway undertaking operating passenger trains under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the privatisation of the network under the Railways Act 1993.
Gerard Francis Gisborne Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes OBE, MA was a British railway manager who rose through the ranks of the London and North Eastern Railway and later British Rail following graduation from the University of Oxford. British Rail fired him in 1967 for publishing an outspoken and critical book, I Tried to Run a Railway.
Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the network went as far west as Exeter and also covered the inner East of England. Before 1986, the sector was originally known as London & South Eastern.
Regional Railways was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982 that existed until 1997, two years after Privatisation of British Rail. The sector was originally called Provincial.
British Rail was the brand image of the nationalised railway owner and operator in Great Britain, the British Railways Board, used from 1965 until its breakup and sell-off from 1993 onwards.
The British Rail Class 87 is a type of electric locomotive designed and built by British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) between 1973 and 1975. A total of thirty-six locomotives were constructed, to work passenger and freight services over the West Coast Main Line (WCML).
The British Rail Class 90 is a type of electric locomotive. They were built for mixed-traffic duties, operating from 25 kV AC overhead lines and producing 5,000 bhp (3,700 kW). They weigh 84.5 tonnes and can typically achieve a top speed of 110 mph (177 km/h).
The InterCity 250 was an electric railway project undertaken by British Rail in the late 1980s. The InterCity 250 train would have consisted of a Class 93 electric locomotive, nine Mark 5 coaches and a Mark 5 Driving Van Trailer operating in a push-pull formation. The British Rail project was cancelled in July 1992.
The history of British Rail's corporate liveries is quite complex. Although the organisation was associated with Rail Blue from the mid-1960s to the 1980s, a number of other schemes were also used, especially when it was split into operating units in the mid-1980s.
Railfuture is a UK advocacy group which promotes better rail services for passengers and freight across a bigger rail network. The group's national policies are determined by its national board of directors and its national AGM. The group's campaigns are pursued nationally by three policy groups and locally through regional branches. Its honorary president is Christian Wolmar, a transport writer and broadcaster. Its vice-presidents include former rail industry leaders Adrian Shooter CBE, Ian Brown CBE, Chris Green, and Stewart Palmer, and leading commentators such as Roger Ford of Modern Railways, fellow columnist Alan Williams, and Paul Abell, a former editor of Today's Railways UK.
Adrian Shooter was a British transport executive.
ScotRail has been the brand name used for all Scottish regional and commuter rail services, including some cross-border services, since September 1983, as well as many of the country's intercity services.
ScotRail was the trading name providing a distinctive brand for the British Rail network in Scotland, first adopted on 22 September 1983, under manager Chris Green, British Railways Scottish Region. ScotRail was the final brand of British Rail passenger services to operate prior to the privatisation of British Rail, with the ScotRail franchise being signed over to National Express on 31 March 1997.
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