A Railway Life (Why I’m grey!) – Cliff Perry MBE

At the February Hybrid meeting we welcomed back Cliff Perry to present A Railway Life (Why I’m grey!).  Cliff started by giving us a precis of his railway career, starting with a family history on the railway that went back to 1889.  Having joined in 1967, he took on various depot management roles in the 1970s and 80s, before becoming Director of Traction and Rolling stock for Network South East from 1989 to 1993.  As the railways were being prepared for privatisation, he was managing director of Thameslink, and put together a management buyout that did not succeed.  His role with the new owner only lasted a couple of days, but soon received several offers, and became MD of AEA Technology Rail (formerly BR Research) from 1997 to 2006.  After this he took of various consultancy roles.  One role he had for many years was Chairman of the Railway Mission Charity which provides pastoral care to the railway industry.

Cliff then went on to talk about some his experiences where he showed in several cases that the operating staff often knew better than senior management, and that local actions could often supersede those passed down from the layers of Senior Management.  He also showed how technology has vastly changed over time and made massive improvements to the safety of workers and travellers alike, with the UK now probably the safest system in the world.  One plan to improve and streamline train maintenance showed that if any item is overlooked then a problem can occur.  The example Cliff gave was the transfer of maintenance of the Class 302s from Ilford to East Ham.  All went well until there were a series of “exploding guard’s compartments”.  Investigation showed the problem to be that the transformer oil was not on the check list, only being done at Ilford, leading to water ingress not being checked.  The maintenance plan was soon changed! Several other examples, including HSTs and Turbos were also discussed.

On privatisation, Cliff clearly believed that this was the right way to go, but political oversight was the wrong thing to do, especially where there is a high level of micromanagement.  Cliffs final example went back to his time at AEA and the use of the Vampire monitoring system.  Cliff was asked by Irish Rail to help in the investigation of the Cahir rail bridge accident in 2005 when part of a cement train finished up in the river.  Neither the infrastructure nor the operations management felt that they were responsible.  What was found was that the replacement of the longitudinal timbers under the rails plus the train travelling above line speed led to a serious oscillation of the wagons and then derailment.  Cliff concluded with a photo of his proudest moment when he received an MBE from HM Queen Elizabeth II.

A very enjoyable evening for all present.