From books of memoirs of railway managers I get the impression that in the days of BR, senior managers who had seriously fallen from favour of the chiefs sometimes found themselves in a specially created post intended to be fairly soul-destroying.
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Martijn Gilbert leaves FirstGroup with immediate effect
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Clarence Yard
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Or they received a letter informing them that “their application for early retirement had been approved”. (They hadn’t applied!) In the case of one Regional GM it was signed by the Chairman and sent round to the GM’s home address via motor cycle courier.
Just a mention on that West Midlands GM. His reputation suffered somewhat when he boasted to the DfT (and others) that the 2019 recast was going to be such a success and he had this train planning guru who was going to make the service all that much better. When, despite being warned by others in the industry what would happen, it turned out to be a messy disaster, his days were numbered. The so called guru (who had previous form, hence the warnings) went as well.
Just a mention on that West Midlands GM. His reputation suffered somewhat when he boasted to the DfT (and others) that the 2019 recast was going to be such a success and he had this train planning guru who was going to make the service all that much better. When, despite being warned by others in the industry what would happen, it turned out to be a messy disaster, his days were numbered. The so called guru (who had previous form, hence the warnings) went as well.
Quite! A mess indeed.
Given your name, I do wonder whether that was a very Equitable way to deal with employees?
m0ffy
Member
It can be considered a form of constructive dismissal.
I see Martijn has joined Arriva as UK bus MD
news.arriva.co.uk
Arriva Group appoints new Managing Director for UK Bus
Martijn Gilbert appointed Managing Director of Arriva UK Bus. Martijn also joins Arriva’s Executive Committee. Appointment effective from 18 August 2025.
news.arriva.co.uk
I wonder if he’ll be able to steady the sinking ship that is Arriva!I see Martijn has joined Arriva as UK bus MD
Arriva Group appoints new Managing Director for UK Bus
Martijn Gilbert appointed Managing Director of Arriva UK Bus. Martijn also joins Arriva’s Executive Committee. Appointment effective from 18 August 2025.
Tomos y Tanc
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Shouldn't that be a sinking bus?
Why are arriva taking him back after the way he messed up arriva train Wales
Rail replacement service
And the 2012 Olympic
Arriva need to look at how he mess up the bus and rail industry
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Also not forgetting what he did at Yorkshire tiger a few years back
Rail replacement service
And the 2012 Olympic
Arriva need to look at how he mess up the bus and rail industry
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Also not forgetting what he did at Yorkshire tiger a few years back
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Given they state Go North East was left in, expect lots of rebranding and cutting
I admit I don't rate him at all, but I'm confused, he had nothing to do with any of this? Think you've got him confused with someone else?
He didn’t do too badly at Reading to be fair and let’s face it, Arriva could do with both trimming, fixing and route branding.
Perhaps this thread is now more suited in the bus section of the forum too?
And let's be honest, he can't do much worse than the current Arriva Bus management, they've had a good go at running everything into the ground already!
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
How do these people keep managing to fail upwards? I wish I had that skill.
Because they are very good at:
1) shifting blame elsewhere
2) suggesting that if they hadn't been at the helm the result would have been even worse.
You only have to look at the current labour government who start every phrase with "we inherited a broken system....."
I keep on wanting to ask if the front door at no 10 was broken when they moved in.
Partly because those who do the appointing are cast in a similar mould? Not a huge queue of folk clamouring to be bequeathed a can of worms?
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Goldfish62
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Er...it went into loss during his tenure - and that was before Covid.
Thankfully his replacement steadied the ship in very challenging circumstances (including being able to cancel Gilbert's orders for the awful BCIs and Metro deckers) and has since turned round the company's fortunes from what looked the start of an inevitable decline at one stage.
I live in the Medway towns where Arriva is the dominant operator. Last week I travelled on a bus operated, under council contract, by a local operator. Overhead a discussion between a passenger and the driver to the effect that they use his bus when they can as it’s reliable, unlike the other lot. This matches my experience too. If the new boss can improve things, that would be great. They can hardly make things worse.
londonteacher
Member
Going slightly off topic here.
To be fair, I also live in Medway and they are not as bad as people make out. Yes, Arriva has its issues, but the last timetable change seems to have improved reliability. There is still a way to go, but the investment in new buses that Gillingham has seen will help, as it will increase the reliability of the actual buses.
Most of the issues around Medway aren't the operator but the fact that the roads are poorly designed, meaning that if one small section of road has an RTC or roadworks on, then it causes a massive impact on a wide area, as there are not many suitable diversion routes. Take the A2/M2 - if there are issues on here in the Medway area, then drivers divert via the Medway towns and Rochester to rejoin near Shorne. This knocks out the Rochester bridge and often the Medway Tunnel. If there is an issue on the A2 in Gillingham, then every back road and possible diversion route is congested. There is no easy fix to this, as without knocking down parts of Medway to build improved infrastructure then this will not help.
Arriva will always seem to be more prone to not being as reliable because they tend to run a more frequent service on their routes than ASD, Nu-Venture, and Chalkwell. It doesn't matter who the new boss is, as it is unlikely to improve, and this is not 100% Arriva's fault.
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