I Tried to Run a Railway

by Gerard Fiennes

'BR rebel chairman resigns' The Guardian.

'Rebel rail chief in row' Daily Mail.

'I don’t take it back says sacked rail chief' Daily Express.

This is the notorious book that got Gerard Fiennes sacked from British Railways while he was Chairman and General Manager of the Eastern Region in 1968.

Fiennes became a railwayman by accident, joining the L.N.E.R as a Traffic Apprentice in 1928. Over the next four decades he worked himself up to the top of management tree, experiencing all facets of railway life - steam through diesel to electrification - on his way to the top. When he got there, he knew the service was ripe for a revolution... and he believed he was the man to lead it.

But of course, it was the wrong time for a manager who thought that railways could be a success - Dr. Beeching was sharpening his axe and unprofitable lines were closed rather than turned round. After being resisted, circumvented, delayed and blocked, G. F. Fiennes ran out of patience and put pen to paper and ran his career into the buffers as he told the story of what happens when non-railwaymen tried to run the railway.

Genres: Transport, Nonfiction, Biography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spotted I Tried to Run a Railway in a charity book sale and could not resist this statement on the back cover: 'The notorious book that got Gerard Fiennes sacked from British Railways'. First published in 1967, it is the garrulous polemic memoir of a man who worked his way up the ladder of railway management over forty years. During that time, the Second World War, technological improvements, and efficiency drives, notably that of Dr. Beeching, transformed Britain's rail network. Given the initial publication date, I would not expect Fiennes to provide a glossary. However the 2018 edition I read could certainly benefit from some additional explanation of terminology that hasn't been relevant since steam trains were removed from service. There is an absolute blizzard of technical terms, which make some paragraphs truly impenetrable to the layperson. Nonetheless, the whole book is highly readable as Fiennes writes like a man giving a comedic after-dinner speech at his own retirement do:

York had many advantages. The first was the head of the Freight Section George Smith. He had been for part of my time there Yardmaster at Whitemoor. So it was a bit of an uplift that he didn't veto a second spell of my company. He was a good organisation man and kept the job in fair order. He was one of those little men with a face like a puzzled pug, at which it always made me cheerful to look. The Hun had shot him in the bottom in the war so that he strode around pigeon-toed with his left buttock convoluting in a corkscrew roll. This was even after years a never failing source of fun.

Fiennes has a nuanced insider's view on Dr. Beeching's efforts to close uneconomic branch lines, a process that I learned about as a child from the BBC sitcom Oh, Doctor Beeching!. I was particularly interested in the chapter discussing debates over which branch lines would survive in East Anglia, as I grew up there and still use the surviving lines whenever I visit my family:

In those ways we had made it clear in East Anglia firstly that where by altered methods of working we could see our way to making a rural railways profitable we were glad to keep it open; secondly that where there would be a continuing loss we were glad to negotiate with local authorities to keep a railway open or to provide facilities greater than we judged to be necessary, as long as they guaranteed the extra costs; thirdly that we were impressed only by reason and direct negotiation with us [rather than complaints to the press]. The effect of this will be, I believe, to preserve a lot of railway which would otherwise have been closed and to avoid for many years a most costly programme of road works.

Fiennes died in 1985, a few years before the rail privatisation which is now being gradually reversed franchise by franchise. I don't think he would be terribly impressed by the management of today's railways, although I expect he'd love the newest train technology. The speed of electrification remains embarrassing; it began more than 140 years ago and still less than half of the British rail network is electrified. I also had a very annoying time booking advance rail tickets just after finishing this book, so don't even get me started on prices. Britain cannot claim to have top notch railways, yet they remain by far the best way to travel more than ten miles. I will continue using them while hoping for improvements. I Tried to Run a Railway provides a fascinating insight into how the British rail network developed from the 1930s to 1960s and is an important piece of railway history. Let the endless parade of early twentieth century Englishman names wash over you and enjoy Fiennes' blustering yet astute insights into transport infrastructure and the management thereof.

[John Naylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is fifty years old. Some of the ideas and methods mentioned in it are timeless.

As a read this is not brilliant. The humour is spread out and it goes into detail that it would take a railwayman to understand it fully. However, as a testament it is better and it gives valuable insight into the times as well as the railway industry. I wouldn't recommend it to a casual reader as a book that could easily be picked up and read.

I do recommend that it gets read due to just one thing. Probably the most important thing for an autobiography. The author.

He wrote with both love and hatred in places where either were deserved. There are passages that show arrogance, annoyance, love and frustration. I definitely feel that he could have turned his head to fiction if he had been inclined or had the time. He seems to have been honest and humble despite some high profile jobs that he ended up in (not always by his choice.)

The big question is whether this book got him deservedly sacked from his job. I won't answer that. Whistleblowers are occasionally needed and he was only trying to vent as well as educate.

A book of its time. One that there is still things to learn from. Not a great read for a layman but an important one.

[Mark Iliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve had a long-time, if shallow, interest in UK railways from a business point of view, and I can’t recall a time when this book went long without being mentioned as a classic. With even a tatty copy commanding £45+, I never read it. So when the reprint was published I grabbed it.

It’s probably inevitable that such inflated expectations were dashed. Fiennes has a fine laconic style and oodles of dry humour, and the bits I could follow were, on balance, worth the time & cover price. However a large proportion of the book depends either on understanding railway practices & jargon of the 1930-60s intimately, or on knowing screeds of people by name. I recognised Beeching, Gresley and… er that’s it.

The book is a fine period piece, but you’d have to be a serious gricer to get the most from it.

[Boneist · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book - especially living through the Beeching era - but I wish it had had a better editor.

We could have done with more explanations of railway acronyms, parlance, etc, which would have made it much more accessible to those not familiar with the nuts-and-bolts of the railway.

Also, there was a lot of jumping around between time periods and abrupt changes between stories, especially in the first few chapters, which I found grating and hard to follow.

I feel like Fiennes (yes, related to those Fiennes, albeit moderately distantly) could have improved things at British Railways, had he been given more of a head. A shame, really.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too wordy and full of industry jargon.

[Francis Bunch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal!

[Ipswichblade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely of its time and as some of the other reviewers have said even if you have an interest in railways then it may be too in depth!!

[Gwyn Owens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting

[Connaire Demain]

Someone should get the Transport Secretary a copy.