KEN Bird, the former managing director of LTS Rail, now c2c, has died at the age of 63.

Yorkshireman Mr Bird, whose career spanned 39 years on different parts of the rail network, took early retirement in January 2002 after a year battling cancer.

Our picture shows him at Fenchurch Street station in London in March 2002, when he proudly named a Class 357 Electrostar unit Ken Bird, in recognition of his work on the route between London and Southend.

He was credited with playing a major part in the transformation of what was originally the LT & S, which he dubbed in BR days a “Mickey Mouse” line.

In one interview with Railnews in early 2002, he smiled when he recalled that he had been voted by a local radio station the “Second most hated man in the world” next to Saddam Hussein. He helped to win major investment in signalling, track and new trains to transform the 63km ‘Misery Line’.

Mr Bird, a keen golfer, was a former president of the Eastern Region Golf Society and organised many tournaments.

He joined the railway as a junior porter at Cudworth, near Barnsley, South Yorks, and worked his way up the career ladder as a signalman, controller and senior TOPS clerk. He rose to senior management jobs and was appointed divisional director of LT & S in 1990. After privatisation and under Prism he became MD of LTS Rail and later chairman of c2c, the brand name of which was his idea.

He died in Lister Hospital Stevenage on 23 February, and his funeral will take place in the town on 10 March.