ELAINE HOLT, who heads the Department for Transport's subsidiary Directly Operated Railways, is moving on to a new 'senior' post in the railway industry early in the New Year.

Ms Holt has been in charge at DOR since it was created in mid-2009 to take over the running of Intercity East Coast from National Express.

Ms Holt, who will depart at the end of December, said she would be 'sorry to leave' DOR and its subsidiary East Coast Trains, whose managing director is Karen Boswell.

It's emerged that Ms Holt had been involved in negotiations to stay with DOR, but that she and the DfT had been unable to agree terms. The nature of her new post has not yet been revealed.

Before joining DOR as its first Chairman in July 2009, Ms Holt had been the managing director of First Capital Connect.

Announcing her imminent departure from DOR, which will continue to be responsible for the East Coast franchise until 2013 at least, Ms Holt added: "I shall be sorry to leave both DOR and East Coast. We’ve achieved a huge amount in the last two years and we’re just starting to see the benefits of the Company turnaround.

"The Company still has a number of challenges to overcome – but I’m absolutely convinced we made the right choices and have established a strong new foundation for our successes to be sustainable. The franchise extension until the end of 2013 will see this task largely completed – with a business in much better shape than when we started.

“I couldn’t have achieved this level of progress without the very strong support from the DOR Board, Karen Boswell and the rest of the team at East Coast.

“I’m genuinely regretful of the fact that I won’t now be around to ‘finish the job'."

DOR said that following Elaine’s departure Michael Holden will become chairman of East Coast, and Doug Sutherland will become non-executive chairman of Directly Operated Railways, both on an interim basis, until permanent replacements can be appointed.