THIRTEEN FLOORS up in his corner office overlooking London’s Euston station,
Iain Coucher has had plenty of time to take in the magnitude of what awaits
him.
“Since the announcement was made in November, I’ve thought about it long and
hard,” he says. “I’ve worked closely with the chief executive for the past
five years, but it’s only in the last six months that I’ve realised how
important this is.”
Heading Network Rail, the infrastructure company that maintains Britain’s
railway tracks, is not for the fainthearted. Press and politicians dog your
every move. Train operators and the travelling public test your business
every day. “And to have a successful UK plc we need to have a successful
rail industry, which means a successful Network Rail,” says Coucher,
anxiously ticking off the linkage. “It’s a daunting challenge.”
Last week he replaced veteran boss John Armitt as chief executive. At 45,
Coucher is a young head in an old industry. Crop-haired and composed, he
can’t even claim to be steeped in the rail business. He started working life
as a missile designer – no jokes about rocket science – before moving into
IT services with the American consultancy EDS.
He later ran Tubelines, one of the London Underground public-private
partnerships, and then jumped into Network Rail. The closest he can claim to
oily engineering know-how is the Aston Martin he drives.
Yet now he controls one of the oldest and busiest rail networks in the world.
And with it comes a ton of pressure.
To some, Network Rail is a success story, pulling Britain’s rail system out of
the chaos that followed the Hatfield crash in 2000, bringing maintenance
in-house and restoring confidence. For that, Coucher shares the credit with
Armitt and chairman Ian McAl-lister. They have created an infrastructure
business that appears to work better than its predecessor, Railtrack, which
was put into administration by a despairing government.
To others, the network is still rife with problems. An accident like that at
Grayrigg, Cumbria – where a train derailed in February, killing a passenger
– is just a maintenance error away. And last week, train operators accused
Network Rail of doing less to reduce delays than Railtrack preHatfield.
Coucher, who has run day-to-day operations since 2002, knows he must tread
carefully.
Hence the nerves. Former Costain boss Armitt was a calm, affable frontman.
Coucher is less charismatic, more impatient and more controlling, according
to critics. “He’s a world-class chief operating officer,” says one former
rail chief. “He has yet to prove if he can step up.”
Coucher takes it all with equanimity. “I am more impatient than John, but the
control is just the style we imposed here after Railtrack. We had to grasp
control of all decision making, and do it centrally so we could find out
what decisions were being made, and we had to standardise processes, and
change the systems to enable that to happen . . .”
He could go on. An obdurate Yorkshire-man, Coucher has a shyly determined
delivery, eyes down on the table, as he runs through the logic of decisions
and processes. Far less outgoing than Armitt, and a generation younger – his
office door is covered in his children’s school drawings – he is, by
reputation, a media-shy technocrat who sticks close to those he trusts.
At Network Rail, these include a 10-strong core of people who followed him
from Tubelines, including infrastructure director Peter Henderson (seconded
to Tubelines from Bechtel) and head of government affairs Victoria Pender.
She worked at EDS with Coucher and is co-director with him of a private
consultancy firm, Coucher Pender.
And Coucher has more than just work-mates rooting for him, not least Britain’s
commuters who want a safe, efficient rail service. A few even think Network
Rail should start operating trains itself – a notion that Coucher dismisses,
though he admits he has discussed with politicians the feasibility of a “not
for dividend” company running trains.
That structure – a private company limited by guarantee, returning all profit
to the business – has served Network Rail well for five years. Train
operators pay it fees for running on its tracks, and the government
contributes a whopping subsidy – £22 billion over five years, more than
Railtrack ever received. Last year it announced its first profit.
And punctuality is up, accidents are down. Trains are, as Coucher contends,
far safer than road or air. The difficulties now stem from the growing
popularity of the service. More passengers and freight mean the network
needs longer trains, longer platforms and new lines.
In short, Network Rail’s top team has done a good job getting operations
sorted, but it has been less smart at planning for the future.
“Actually, I think that’s harsh,” says Coucher, pointing out that
“enhancements” were not in the original remit for Network Rail. “There are
funds available and willingness, but it takes time to get these projects off
the ground.”
Delivering them will be part of what Coucher calls phase three. “Phase one was
sorting out the basics. Phase two was removing costs and standardising what
we do. Phase three is where I take over. It’s all about becoming a
world-class company, bench-marking ourselves against the very best.”
That will raise wry smiles among train operators who say Network Rail is still
dogged by mediocre middle management – “6,000 men in cardigans” as another
critic puts it. But Coucher is adamant. He wants Network Rail to become “one
of the top 20 companies in Britain to work for”. And for that he needs new
talent, not least to manage the intensive investment programme that’s coming.
Will it produce a world-class railway? He pulls a face. “What is a world-class
railway? The Japanese have a phenomenally expensive, highly segregated
railway, where high-speed trains run only on high-speed lines. We run our
high-speed trains on lines shared with commuters and freight.
“Run it like the Swiss? We already run more trains in Kent on a daily basis
than they do. Like the Dutch? We run more in the Anglia region than they do
in Holland.
“We run 22,000 trains a day on mixed-use, very old railway and we do it very
well. Yes, we can make it better, but passengers don’t want a debate about
what world-class is – they want a very good service with 19 out of 20 trains
on time.” And what the system needs now, he adds, is a period of stability.
That single-mindedness will be familiar to former colleagues at EDS, where
Coucher worked closely with transport clients. It was after helping London
Underground develop the Oyster card that the rail bug bit him.
David Courtley, chief executive of Fujitsu Services and fomerly at EDS, says
the Oyster card project showed Coucher’s real skills. “He’s quiet and
modest, but he’s also bright, numerate, and very good at herding together
different suppliers and customers.”
A career in rail was a world away from where Coucher started, designing
ground-to-air missiles for Hunting Engineering. He was brought up in
Doncaster and Leeds – where his father worked for the electricity generating
board – and originally wanted to be an RAF pilot. Aeronautical engineering
was a fall-back.
But like many in the sector, he realised his computer skills could earn him
more outside defence. That took him to the consultancy SD Scicon, later
bought by EDS. His work there, advising clients how technology could improve
their business, shaped his management style. He loved it.
So why chuck it all in to renovate London’s old Underground system?
“Because I had got to a stage with EDS where my next move would have to be to
America, and I didn’t want to bring up my kids there. So I went to set up
Tubelines.”
That company – a rival to Metronet, the firm currently in financial meltdown (
see feature on page 11) – was established to upgrade London’s
Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. Before it had even started, Coucher
had been nudged by Whitehall to help Armitt create Network Rail.
Despite initial industry hostility, both men now draw plaudits. “They have
been a formidable team,” says Graham Eccles, former director at Stagecoach
and a rail man for 40 years. “John is a great people person and Iain is
intellectually rigorous and highly analytical. If he has a fault, it’s that
he needs to be more intuitive.”
That will be tested now that he fronts the whole operation without Armitt.
This week the government will publish its latest five-year plan for rail.
Commuters want more done to ease overcrowding. Freight users want more lines
and bigger capacity.
Proposals and projects are already in place. There’s upgrading of major
stations: King’s Cross, Euston, Waterloo and Victoria in London alone. “The
toughest bit is not spending the money,” says Coucher, pawing his receding
hairline. “It’s managing expectations. Everything is debated and
scrutinised, and often it’s not a completely informed debate.”
He sighs. Dealing with the media – he clearly believes – will be among his
toughest tasks. It was the media that kicked up a storm about executive
bonuses after the Grayrigg accident. They remain on hold.
Does he feel like a rail man now? “The name tag doesn’t bother me,” he says
softly. “Making Network Rail great does.”
Good answer. But we’re not going to go away. Welcome to the goldfish bowl, Mr
Coucher. Please make our trains run on time.
IAIN COUCHER’S WORKING DAY
THE Network Rail chief executive wakes at his flat in Marylebone, central
London, at 6.30am. “I go to the gym and then head to a coffee shop in
Marylebone High Street to read papers and prepare for the day,” says Iain
Coucher. He walks to his office in Euston before 9am.
“Half my time is spent in routine meetings and reviews. A quarter is spent
meeting stakeholders. The rest I leave clear for stuff that arises.”
Coucher lunches contacts at the Orrery, or Puccino’s coffee house at Euston.
He works until after 7pm. Every weekend he returns to his family home near
Banbury, Oxfordshire.
VITAL STATISTICS
Born:August 22, 1961
Marital status: married twice, with two children
School: Ashville College, Harrogate
University: Imperial College, London
First job: missile designer at Hunting Engineering
Salary package: £500,000 plus bonus
Homes: Marylebone, Banbury and Scotland
Car: silver Aston Martin DB9
Favourite book: Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
Favourite music: Kaiser Chiefs
Favourite film: Twelve Monkeys
Favourite gadget: Siemens Nespresso machine
Last holiday: Scotland
DOWNTIME
IAIN COUCHER relaxes by cycling, bird-watching and playing with his children.
“The weekends are devoted to them. We do lots of things as a team.”
He keeps a holiday home on the Scottish west coast overlooking Jura for
bird-watching . . . “though I wouldn’t describe myself as a twitcher”. He
also collects modern ceramics, and spends large amounts on his Aston Martin.
“A lot of train people are petrol-heads,” he says.
In football, he supports Leeds United and Doncaster Rovers. “They are in the
same division now,” he says glumly. He expects to watch them play next
season, though he doesn’t sound too enthusiastic.
