Rail Professional interview: Ian Yeowart


We want to be better than Christopher


Garnett and GNER at its very best


Once the public face of Grand Central, Ian Yeowart is back with a new open access bid – one that could see the GNER brand reinstated. Katie Silvester met him at his York office


PHOTOGRAPHY DAVE FARROW T PAGE 18 OCTOBER 2010


he cover of the first issue of Rail Professional I edited had Ian Yeowart on it, back in June 2006. At the time he was the managing director of Grand Central with 18 months to go before services eventually began running, not


to mention a legal challenge under way from GNER. A lot has happened to Yeowart in those four years. He caused ripples through the rail industry when


Grand Central’s proposals to run open access services from London to Sunderland were challenged by GNER. The East Coast operator claimed that Grand Central’s services would be detrimental to its franchise agreement with the government, for which it was paying handsome premium payments. Grand Central won, but setbacks with rolling stock meant another year of delays before trains began


running. Then the unthinkable happened – Grand Central was bought by a private equity group and Yeowart was removed from his post as MD. Initially moved to a development role within the company, he was sacked last year. To anyone who had been following Grand Central’s progress – the company was the subject of a BBC documentary – Ian Yeowart was Mr Grand Central. He started the company and its eventual success owed a lot to his personal endeavours. In terms of putting bread on the table, things


weren’t too desperate – Yeowart also owns a go-kart track, which he bought with his railway pension. But that was never going to be enough for a third generation railwayman like him. So, soon after leaving Grand Central, Yeowart announced that he had formed a new holding company that had aspirations for several open access routes in the north of England.


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