Tim Shoveller, Managing Director, East Midlands Trains
Whether it is with louder whistles or atomic watches, TIM SHOVELLER has a reputation for getting trains to run on time. As the managing director of new franchise East Midlands Trains told PAUL WHITING, it is not rocket science – just giving good customer service
Tim Shoveller has packed a lot into his relatively short time on the railways. In just 16 years he has climbed a career mountain which started when he joined the railway at Guildford as a ‘trainman D’ – a guard with aspirations to drive trains.
He never made it into the driving cab – but he’s never looked back.
After learning railway operations from ground level, he is now MD of the newly-created, Stagecoach-owned franchise, East Midlands Trains, and facing one of his toughest tests. The 35-year-old has the task of welding together two very different former franchises – Midland Mainline and the eastern part of the former Central Trains – into the new organisation.
After a spell as business development director of Virgin West Coast, Tim has stepped into a role where he is leading 2,100 staff running 450 trains a day in an area which covers St Pancras International in the south, Norwich in the east, Liverpool in the west and Leeds in the north.
Fortunately he relishes the challenge and is never happier than when the in-tray is piling up.
Tim says: “This has been a double whammy, merging into one a long-distance operator, Midland Mainline, with predominately the eastern areas of Central Trains.”
It is a far cry from the days when Tim worked as a volunteer for the Mid Hants Railway as a teenager. After technical college in Farnborough, Hants, he planned to study transport at Loughborough University but switched to Southampton University and a business management degree.
“I had three days there and quit,” he says. “I decided I wanted to join the railway and work with people.”
One of the biggest issues with the new East Midlands Trains is technology. “We have a colossal amount of work to do to bring together systems which worked separately in the past. For a start, we still have two control areas – what we call Connect, which was the former Central Trains, and Mainline, which was the former MML area – so we have a lot of parallel activity, with controllers in Birmingham and controllers in Derby.
“Later, all the controllers will move to the new Derby integrated control centre to bring them together.”
But Tim’s biggest challenges concern rolling stock. It is fair to say that he is not particularly enamoured with the standard of some of his trains.
He has inherited a mixed bag – 25 Class 158 diesels, 16 Class 153 single-car diesels, 11 Class 156 diesels, 23 Meridian trains – seven eight-car Class 222s and the rest made up of four and five-car units – and 11 High Speed Trains.
Maintenance is split between Tyseley in the West Midlands, Etches Park (Derby), Neville Hill (Leeds) and Eastcroft in Nottingham.
Of these, Tyseley in now part of the new London Midland area, so East Midlands Trains is planning to withdraw trains from there and switch them to three other depots in Tim’s area. Etches Park is to receive a £13 million investment to provide two new 10-car ‘roads’ – enough for 20 vehicles. The work starts in the new year and will be completed in December 2009.
“People have been working in conditions which are very poor at Etches Park,” says Tim. “On the Meridian fleet, you cannot do an engine change or change wheelsets or turn wheels. You have to take trains to Bombardier’s works at Crofton, near Wakefield, and that means availability suffers. When the new ‘roads’ are built, trains will stay in Derby.”
Some of the changes will free up space at Eastcroft, which can then service trains in the Connect fleet. Neville Hill depot will be used for heavy maintenance.
“The changes will give us a proper fleet focus and real ownership.
“Frankly, I am quite appalled at the poor maintenance. It was far worse than I could have imagined. Three engines on 153s failed in traffic.”
His level of disquiet is such that Tim has called in John Parsons, a former top man in South West Trains’ engineering team, to look at maintenance issues.
East Midlands Trains is planning to spend £26.5 million on mechanical and electrical work and internal train refurbishment.
A controversial move has been the planned replacement of conventional catering vehicles with a smaller catering galley on the High Speed Trains.
“But none of this is set in stone. We are looking at the options,” says Tim.
There is no question of cutting staff numbers, however. “We have overall plans to increase the number of main-line trains running to London from 127 a day to 165 – that is 38 more a day. We will need all the people we have got.”
Not only are there plans to run more trains, but many of them will run faster. The December 2008 timetable will mark the key change. In the off-peak, the number of trains run will increase from four to five an hour into and out of St Pancras International. At the same time, some Sheffield-London journey times will be cut from two hours 23 minutes to two hours 08 minutes. “These timings will be achieved by the Meridian trains only, because they have the sports car-like acceleration out of curves and on gradients which the HSTs don’t.
“This is being made possible by better pathing times between Bedford and London where there is more congestion.
“Network Rail will also be involved with a number of schemes to increase line speeds on the slower sections by easing curves at places such as Wellingborough and Market Harborough.
“I will be very delighted when it happens because it will benefit the business from Derby and Leicester as well.”
Another major initiative is to reinstate rail services from Corby to London when the proposed new station at Corby opens. Connect services are also due for improvements, and Tim wants to see some of the long-distance services to destinations such as Liverpool and Norwich up their performance to join the Mainline club.
There will be a new hourly service between Nottingham, Derby and Matlock from December next year and the focus will be on ‘better connectivity’ for other Connect services.
Train performance and Tim Shoveller are synonymous. He will always be remembered as the man who joined Midland Mainline as operations director four years ago, when the service was in tatters due to problems with the Manchester Rio services. Trains were failing and delays had brought performance down to 63 per cent. By using simple expedients such as heavy use of whistles to get trains away on time, Tim started to revolutionise the service.
All EMT staff, including people working in booking offices, are to be given atomic watches.
“We will be implementing a ‘right time’ running concept. Not one to five minutes right time, but real right time.
“Nothing about this is rocket science. It is all about giving good customer service,” says Tim.
He is planning a devolved organisation with senior managers outbased in key locations such as Nottingham and Derby.
And he believes staff morale is good: “It’s been a very big change for our staff, but they have shown fantastic enthusiasm. Ex-Central staff say they are really pleased to be working with us to make a better railway.”