Interview
Rail Professional interview: Cath Bellamy
My decision had been, right, I’m going to leave the railway industry. I’m going to do something else
When Cath Proctor left Chiltern Railways in 2007, she disappeared from the railway world for a while. A year ago she popped up at Hull Trains with a new surname. Katie Silvester catches up with her
S
even years ago, Cath Bellamy, then Cath Proctor, was in charge of the Chiltern franchise – a Toc that had a rather revolutionary agreement with the DfT, whereby it was to fund some infrastructure improvements,
including a new section of track, in return for a longer- than-usual franchise agreement of 20 years. Then – disaster. Tesco got planning permission to
build a tunnel over the Chiltern Main Line, but the tunnel collapsed during construction, closing the line for two months. Proctor stuck around for another couple of years, but the aftermath took its toll and she quit the rail industry for a spell.
‘About a year after I was appointed managing
director of Chiltern, the tunnel collapse happened at Gerrards Cross, so I went from a strong position taking what I thought was going to be my vision for the business forward, to having to stop the business from getting into some very serious trouble and putting my fi ngers in lots of dykes and getting it back on its feet. I left Chiltern on August 31, 2007 because I decided that after spending far too many hours working over the previous 13 or 14 years, I wanted to have a break and try something different. I took a year out, packed a rucksack and trekked around New Zealand and Australia, then went back to Singapore where I was born.’
MARCH 2012 PAGE 19
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