Managing Director Rail Division, First Group and Chief Operating Officer, First Great Western
Andrew Haines
Managing Director Rail Division First Group and
Chief Operating Officer First Great Western
Andrew Haines joined First Great Western in September 2007. He has spent his entire career in the railway industry, having joined British Rail as a graduate manager in 1985 and worked in numerous front line positions. At privatisation Andrew joined Railtrack where he achieved rapid promotion before joining South West Trains in 1997. In January 1999 he was made Operations Director and then became Managing Director of South West Trains in September 2000. He joined FirstGroup plc as Managing Director, UK Rail division in July 2005.
The path to the top was certainly an interesting one. After graduating from the BR management training scheme, Andrew was able to benefit from both operating and commercial experience from working in station management, prior to the reduction in operating scope of station staff resulting from the privatisation process. The next move, to a job acting as a liaison between the BRB and Parliament was certainly not a typical railway career move, but undoubtedly paid dividends in helping him grasp transport politics – and useful in the current railway environment.
Having overseen the break up of the public sector giant, the next move was to the infrastructure owner Railtrack where as an account manager he created the access regime and basic contractual framework that operators use to access the network. However frustration caused by the structure of the industry led Mr Haines to depart to a TOC, in this case South West Trains, where he undertook a regional management role encompassing fleet, train-crew, stations and revenue protection. Despite enjoying this period, the promotion to Operations Director and subsequently Managing Director were moves that clearly could not be resisted.
It could be argued that the only place left to go upwards in TOC land after heading up the largest passenger franchise was to head up the parent group of the largest franchise operator, who also happens to be the owner of an open access TOC and freight operator.
The First Great Western franchise has required not only organisational challenges from merging the Wessex and FGW link franchises with the higher profile operators, but also a need to manage a period of substantial engineering as infrastructure and rolling stock assets are renewed and re-built and some enhancement schemes are completed.
