trackmiles@googlemail.com wrote:

>On 10 Jul, 09:40, "Peter Fox"  wrote:
>> > It isn't personal abuse.  No doubt the Grand Central team are very
>> > nice people.  I am merely pointing out that the skills needed to run a
>> > train operating company are difficult to find when you choose the
>> > wrong kind of people for senior management positions.  Neither is this
>> > about me, because I doubt I could have done any better; being a
>> > railway enthusiast does not qualify me for doing the job.
>>
>> Facts:
>>
>> 1. Ian Yeowart who started GC is NOT a railway enthusiast.
>> 2. Tom Clift, present MD, is a former TOC MD (Valley lines). Everyone agrees
>> that he did a superb job there.
>>
>> Peter Fox
>
>Re. point 1) - I understand Ian Yeowart was a significant player in a
>group who bid for RRNE at the first privatisation stage - the bid was
>rejected because the financial aspects of the bid were "totally
>barking mad" - or undeliverable in polite parlance. That was at a time
>when bids written on the back of envelopes were winning... so it must
>have been a really terrible bid.
>
>Some of his aspirations (such as running on the WCML with non-tilt
>trains and assuming that ORR/DfT/Network Rail will be happy to find
>space for services which take 1.5 paths per journey on a line that is
>already full) suggest an ignorance of how the railways work. The
>regular announcements such as the Chinese Trains idea - which is
>clearly just hot air - suggest lots of froth but very little
>substance.
>
>When people within the industry who are broadly supportive of open
>access are saying that the management and planning has been, at times,
>totally clueless then you do have to wonder what the management DOES
>have going for it.
>
>Tom may have done a reasonable job on the Valley Lines - but the fact
>that its taken so long to get a grip of things, and the fact that he
>took several months to even get the idea that the image of the company
>was tumbling rapidly downhill suggest he hasn't got a clue about PR or
>marketing. So many people have sent messages about the lousy website
>and poor & outdated information it carries - but still nothing has
>happened.


For once, we are in total agreement.