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Interview
Rail Professional interview: Cath Bellamy
My decision had
been, right, I’m going
to leave the railway
industry. I’m going
to do something else
When cath Proctor left chiltern railways in 2007, she disappeared
from the railway world for a while. a year ago she popped up at hull
Trains with a new surname. Katie Silvester catches up with her
Seven years ago, Cath Bellamy, then
Cath Proctor, was in charge of the
Chiltern franchise – a Toc that had
a rather revolutionary agreement
with the DfT, whereby it was to fund
some infrastructure improvements,
including a new section of track, in return for a longerthan-usual
franchise agreement of 20 years.
Then – disaster. Tesco got planning permission to
build a tunnel over the Chiltern Main Line, but the
tunnel collapsed during construction, closing the line
for two months. Proctor stuck around for another
couple of years, but the aftermath took its toll and she
quit the rail industry for a spell.
‘About a year after I was appointed managing
director of Chiltern, the tunnel collapse happened
at Gerrards Cross, so I went from a strong position
taking what I thought was going to be my vision for
the business forward, to having to stop the business
from getting into some very serious trouble and
putting my fingers in lots of dykes and getting it back
on its feet. I left Chiltern on August 31, 2007 because
I decided that after spending far too many hours
working over the previous 13 or 14 years, I wanted
to have a break and try something different. I took a
year out, packed a rucksack and trekked around New
Zealand and Australia, then went back to Singapore
where I was born.’
March 2012 Page 19