Posted 17th June 2010 | 3 Comments

Coucher resigns from Network Rail

NETWORK Rail chief executive Iain Coucher has announced that he is leaving the company.

Mr Coucher has been with Network Rail for eight years -- three of them as chief executive. He has told the NR Board that he will stay in his post while a successor is found.

He said: "I  am enormously proud of what the Network Rail team has achieved over the past eight years. Britain’s railway is now on a sure footing for the future.

“Following three years as chief executive, and five before that as deputy, now is a good time for me to move on. The company needs continuity of leadership throughout the next five year regulatory review period.

“Leading the thousands of dedicated railwaymen and women that make up this company has been the greatest privilege of my professional life. I know that under the management team we have in place, complemented by a new chief executive, they will continue to go from strength to strength in the future.”

Mr Coucher has been sounding warnings over the past few days about the effect of the financial crisis on railway investment. He has cast doubt on the chances of further electrification in the near future, partly because rolling stock procurement plans set out by the Department for Transport over the past two years are in disarray.

Reader Comments:

Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.

  • philip russell, carlisle

    The line near where i live , the cumbrian coast route,has signalling that is as ancient and clapped out and anachronistic as the day BR was privatised which just goes to show that many parts of our rail network have changed little or are any more modern or efficient despite a string of over payed fat cats running things for a number of years now at both railtrack and network rail

  • andrew gee, cheam, england

    Just seen his 'severance' payment of £641,00 thats on top of his £1.3m a year salary. So while the rest of us tighten our belts and put up with a sub-standard railway into the bargain 'pigs in the trough' people like Croucher carry on as though
    everythings hunkie dory.
    Hardship? thats a laff he wouldnt know it if he fell over it in the street.

  • Mick Rogers, Cardiff, Wales

    Is Lord Adonis looking for employment?