An evening with Gordon Pettitt Part 2 21 April 2022
An evening with Gordon Pettitt Part 2
Speaker: Gordon Pettitt
Date: 21 April 2022
This was the second of a two part presentation originally scheduled for December 2020 but inevitably postponed because of the Covid pandemic. Even now we were affected by Covid as two committee members had tested positive so it was partially run remotely, and others who would normally attend in person were also unable to - Covid is clearly still a problem.
We were delighted to welcome Gordon back again at last and, after being introduced, he gave a quick resumé of the earlier part of his career covered in Part 1. He joined BR in 1950 and spent his national service in Germany monitoring troop trains and travelling extensively which proved very useful going forward in his railway career. In 1960 he became a management trainee and he has some good words to say about Dr Beeching – if it were not for Dr Beeching we would not have the railway we have today and he pointed out that more stations were closed before Dr Beeching than after. After various roles in divisions and depots he became divisional manager at Liverpool Street which is where Part 1 ended.
Gordon moved to the Southern Region in 1983 staying there until 1990. This was a massive responsibility with an extensive network, many people both staff and passengers, and around 5,400 passenger trains per day. It could not be managed in the same way as divisional and he now found himself managing very senior managers. His achievements there included increasing third rail electrification and efficiency on the network. Working with his managers, changes could be made in how services were run which provided sufficient savings to finance the extension of third rail electrification and Gordon provided a number of examples of how this was done.
When Sir Peter Parker retired as Chair of British Railways (BR), Bob Reid took over with a new vision for BR. He allowed the businesses within BR to decide how they should be run and how their respective investments would be made. Gordon outlined the five businesses within BR and provided some very interesting details of the work that was undertaken and the efficiencies gained.
What has clearly stayed in his mind was the difficult time of 12 December 1988 and the accident at Clapham. He arrived at the office early receiving a telephone call a few minutes later advising him of a major accident and was onsite by 8.50am. He says he can never forget the temporary morgue or the emergency services. The cause of the accident quickly became clear and the public enquiry came to the same conclusion. So why a public enquiry? It was a huge expense taking time and money but it brought about very significant changes in the way that safety is approached. The accident was a big part of Gordon’s career he cannot ignore; it still has an effect on him even now more than thirty years on.
A few months later he was invited by the Swanage Railway to open the extension to Corfe Castle but had a call about a serious accident at Purley. There was an issue with a red signal being overrun causing an accident; the signalling system was checked but no fault was found. The driver was prosecuted and sent to prison but it was found later that the same signal had been overrun previously on more than one occasion so there had clearly been a problem even before the accident. The driver was eventually released and Gordon stated rightly so. Gordon offered his resignation as he felt responsible but this was refused. So his time at Southern was very mixed with some real lows as well as some great successes.
One final part of the time on Southern was the twice yearly state visits when the Queen invited foreign dignitaries to the UK. The aircraft would arrive at Gatwick and the visitors would be taken by train to Victoria where there would be 6 horse drawn carriages to pick them up. On one occasion the train diverted to Olympia because of a bomb scare. Gordon had it stopped at Clapham Junction until it was established that there was no bomb at Victoria. The instructions were in place on what should happen for such an incident but did not say who should organise it. The train arrived at Victoria with 3 minutes to spare so all was well in the end. When Gordon went to collect his OBE from Her Majesty she said to him, “By the way Gordon, my train was late today again”.
There were a few questions immediately after the break on more electrification; making a good financial case for further electrification and services; rolling stock improvements; structure of rolling stock with regards to safety etc.
Soon after the accident at Purley, he was asked to become Director of Provincial Railways which was in a lot of trouble in May 1990 when he was asked to go there to sort it out. One of his first actions was to move the HQ out of London to Birmingham and give it a more appropriate name, so it became Regional Railways. This was Gordon’s last big job before retiring from BR. Apart from moving the HQ out of London, there was a lot of re-organisation required and an enormous shortage of rolling stock so how could this be overcome? With the agreement of ASLEF, 2 and 3 car units in some more remote parts of Scotland were reduced to a single car which freed up a substantial number of coaches to ease the overcrowding elsewhere. Electrification of Lichfield-Redditch had an order for 323s which freed up some more diesel units. The Leeds electrification had been authorised but there was no rolling stock and Gordon was told that as privatisation was on the horizon, there would be no new rolling stock. So he spoke to colleagues at Network South East and acquired some second hand stock to use there. There were similar problems with the North Berwick line electrification - solved in the same way, while there was still serious overcrowding to be resolved on other parts of the network.
Next came the introduction of 158s for Scotland. There seemed to be quite a lot of teething problems initially which reached the newspapers so, to counteract the bad publicity, Gordon decided to arrange a high speed run with a 158 from Glasgow to Edinburgh with a maximum line speed of 110mph. Using a very skilled driver, this was done successfully with an average speed of 100mph and showed that the units could run well.
He retired from BR after 42 years. It was a tough job with much to do and preparation for privatisation. A new planning and marketing manager was brought in from outside who had an excellent reputation and Gordon and others were impressed at his quick understanding of what was required. His final comment – Gordon is not sure that privatisation has been a great success.
Questions and answers followed covering rolling stock; innovative solutions to overcrowding; decentralisation and giving local managers as much authority as possible; the future of the railways; would Gordon recommend anyone to join the railway now? Answer – yes; was privatisation good or bad; is there is too much detailed interference by the Department for Transport and the Treasury; the wrong issues are being highlighted. The final question related to investment and improvements in service.
The vote of thanks was given by branch chairman Andy Davies for an excellent presentation and another fascinating talk from the lows of Clapham to the highs, and the 155s and 153s that are still in service now.