Rail Professional interview: JULIAN DRURY
It sounds very boring to say that detail is behind it, but in a way, boring is good
At the time of interview, c2c was waiting for news on whether it had held on to the Essex Thameside route. But in speaking to Julian Drury, managing director,Lorna Slade discovered an ethos that isn’t about to be dimmed by franchising issues
H
aving sized me up while I waited in reception – I didn’t recognise him initially when he was standing at the nearby drinks machine looking at me quizzically,
Julian Drury turns out to be circumspect and clever, controlling the interview through scrupulous politeness, and a certain look when he cares not to comment. It’s on record that he dabbles in street theatre, but
while there was no sign of the flamboyance that might be necessary for such a hobby, Drury is quietly eloquent and one can get a pretty good idea of why this Toc has been showered with awards and setting records on a regular basis.
Drury is clearly a rail man through and through
and confident enough to be in the current arena. “Working in the rail industry is like working in a shop window 24-hours a day because we are so visible, to our customers and stakeholders. There’s a lot of debate, a lot of media and political interest, and what we do affects the finances of government.’ Does that bother him? ‘Not at all, we’re used to it. When you’ve been in the industry for a couple of years you understand that’s the environment.’
A tense time
The Essex Thameside franchise is one of the longest granted so far at 15 years, beginning in 1996 to 2011 and extended to May 2013, ironically to allow the government time to conduct a review of the franchising process. In fact Rail Professional interviewed Drury in 2009, a time when c2c was asking the DfT for the extension, and he spoke then about
how long franchises enable real progress. Three years on and bids were lodged for the franchise renewal in September last year, by Abellio, First, MTR and c2c’s owning group National Express, with the successful bidder due to be announced in January. Then came the West Coast debacle. So at the time of the interview, yet more government reviews on the franchising process were prolonging c2c’s tenure, or rather, delaying news on its future (alongside Greater Western and Thameslink) - Sam Laidlaw’s on what went wrong with the West
Coast...recently, you guessed it, delayed... and Richard Brown’s on recommendations for future changes to the franchise model. That can’t be an easy situation to deal with? Drury is
fairly tight lipped for obvious reasons: ‘The department [for Transport] has told us that they are not able to make a final decision until it gets the results of both reports. We’re talking to it quite closely as you’d expect but I think we’re looking at early January time.’ Fingers crossed then, ‘Yes. We have some views like everybody else and we’re talking to Richard’s team to add our contribution but it will be some while yet.’
Taking it personally
It felt like an imposition and a probe into what would seem like a travesty, to ask how Drury would feel if c2c doesn’t keep the franchise. ‘I can’t comment because it’s not something we can comprehend. We’re pretty committed to keeping it and we are really ambitious for what we can achieve if we do.’ As an Essex resident, I feel his pain. c2cfeels like a
gift of a service: covering some of the most deprived as well as affluent areas in the south of the county, it is
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