Swanage Railway appoints Michael Scott as General Manager

Press Release from Andrew P.M. Wright - 20th May 2003
Official photographer & press officer, Swanage Railway.
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Swanage Railway's new General Manager Michael Scott in front of the award-winning signal box at Swanage Station.

An experienced railwayman who managed an important part of the London Underground – and also worked for the Hong Kong and Athens metro systems – has been appointed the new general manager of the award-winning Swanage Railway.

Michael Scott started his railway career 37 years ago when he joined the London Underground as a guard in 1965. He ended his full-time career with the world’s busiest metro system as the General Manager of the London Underground’s Metropolitan Line; a post he held for eight years until 1996.

Now, he is the new full-time general manager of the relaid Purbeck Line – a paid post seeing him manage a full-time paid staff of 35, more than 300 working volunteers and a steam operated heritage railway business with a £1 million annual turnover that carries some 185,000 passengers a year.

Michael Scott (right) with Swanage Railway volunteer driver and railway founder member Peter Frost (centre) together with fireman Mick Hatton on the footplate of BR Standard 80078 at Swanage station

Swanage Railway deputy chairman Steve Doughty said: “We’re delighted to have Michael as our new General Manager.

“Not only does he have all the management experience we need to run the railway we have today, his experience of managing a much larger railway will be invaluable if our plans to run to Wareham come to fruition,” added Mr Doughty.

Michael Scott, aged 57, has had a home in Swanage for four years and has been visiting the Purbeck area since the late 1960s.

Since leaving London Transport, Michael has carried out a wide range of railway consultancy work at home and abroad – including two and a half years in Athens, Greece. While with London Transport, Michael was seconded to work on the Hong Kong metro system for three years.

“I’m not entirely new to the world of steam traction because while the General Manager of the Metropolitan Line I helped organise the highly successful Steam on the Met events,” explained Michael.

Michael Scott with BR Standard 80078 and crew at Swanage station

“I decided to take on the role of Swanage Railway general manager because I love Swanage and the Isle of Purbeck, I wanted to stop commuting up to London on my consultancy work, I wanted to stay in the field of railway management and I thrive on a good challenge and helping people meet those challenges.

“I‘ve spent 37 years working in the railway industry and I have got a lot out of the business in terms of pleasure and experience. Now I think it’s time to put something back,” he added.

Michael has nothing but praise for the band of determined volunteers who built the Swanage Railway from nothing after British Rail closed and lifted the seven miles of branch line track from Wareham in 1972. Taking BR just seven weeks to lift the tracks, it took the Swanage Railway 30 years to relay them back to the national railway network.

“I’ve ridden on the Swanage Railway before I became its general manager and I’m full of admiration for everything that has been achieved against so many physical and political odds. It’s an amazing and remarkable story of a pioneering spirit and people just not taking no for an answer,” explained Michael.

“The Swanage Railway is run very competently, safely and professionally. My role is to develop and focus the railway while maximising its potential without taking out the fun that so many people derive from the railway – both the staff that run it and the passengers that ride on it,” he added.

While still managed and largely run by volunteers, they are supported by full-time paid staff in running what is, during the peak summer months, the busiest and most extensive train timetable of any preserved or independent railway.

“The Swanage Railway is a proper railway business – it just so happens that its business is running a very popular heritage railway using steam traction supplemented by an evening diesel railbus service on summer evenings,” explained Michael.

Michael Scott with BR Standard 80078 and crew at Swanage station

“My role is to bring my experience of running railways and motivating, channelling and focusing people’s enthusiasm to developing the Swanage Railway which is a large business run by volunteers. It’s about evolution rather than revolution.

“I’ve been made to feel very welcome by both the volunteers and full-time paid staff on the Swanage Railway. People have been genuinely pleased to see me and genuinely interested in my experience of 37 years in the railway industry and how I can help them.

“The Swanage Railway’s greatest asset is the enthusiasm and devotion of both the volunteers and the paid staff to the development and running of the Purbeck Line,” added Michael.

Even after 37 years, Michael still loves working in the world of railways: “I’ve always liked meeting people and helping them to produce their best. The railway industry is like a little community of its own quite unlike any other and really a vocation or a calling.

“It’s also the challenge of running a working railway that I love so much. There is so much that can go wrong – it’s exciting, varied and unexpected. It’s the unknown and encompasses almost every problem that you experience in life and in industry.

Michael Scott at Swanage station as Mick Hatton (left) and Peter Frost (right) look on from the footplate of BR Standard 80078

“I’d sum up the attraction and challenge of managing a working railway as the fun, the challenge and the people – and all within a very strict regime of safety for both the staff and the passengers,” added Michael.

But what do Michael’s former colleagues on the London Underground as well as the Hong Kong and Athens metro systems think of him becoming the general manager of a volunteer-managed and largely volunteer-run steam railway in Dorset?

“Some are very envious and others regard the Swanage Railway as just a pleasure railway which it is not because it has a long-running aim of running an all-year round amenity service between Swanage and the national rail network at Wareham,” explained Michael.

“If becoming the general manager of the Swanage Railway was not a proper job, I wouldn’t have taken it.

“Where ever I’ve worked on the railways, I hope that I’ve created good teams of people and I still have contacts and friends on the London Underground as well as the Hong Kong and Athens metro systems. I’m a people person,” he added.

After leaving school, Michael completed a watchmaker’s apprenticeship and then decided to follow a complete change of direction when he joined the London Underground as a train guard in 1965.