Richard Bowker to save Britain's railways?

VIRGIN Trains boss Richard Bowker spent last Tuesday with a few drinking friends celebrating his appointment as the new £250,000-a-year rail supremo.

Meanwhile, some 200 Virgin passengers were still fuming about the company's dreadful service and, no doubt, completing their compensation claim forms.

Last week summed up the crisis in the rail industry - yet more changes at the top, but the same appalling service.

'It was ever thus,' a former rail executive said. 'It will get worse before it gets better, but then I'm not saying anything people don't already know.'

As Bowker was weighing up an offer to head the Strategic Rail Authority, 200 passengers on a service between Preston and Portsmouth were being turfed off the Virgin train at Birmingham because there was no driver to continue the journey.

It is unlikely that many, if any, of those left stranded for two hours had heard of Richard Bowker, the co-chairman of Virgin Trains and commercial director of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

But it is a fair bet to assume not many of them would expect the future of the railways to be put into the hands of a man who runs a train company criticised for consistently bad service.

One of Bowker's supporters at a rival train-operating company said: 'That is a very wrong thing to say. Richard has only been at Virgin a couple of years and I think you'll find the service's performance is getting better.'

However, this remark could have been damning with faint praise.

Bowker's appointment received its fair share of acclaim. Stephen Byers, the heavily criticised Transport Secretary, said he was the best man for the job. Others praised the drive and commitment of Bowker, 35, who joined Virgin two years ago from a management consultancy. But one of those who so publicly praised his appointment was a lot cooler in private. Asked if Bowker was the best person for the job, he paused and said: 'I'd rather you didn't ask me about that.'

Even a union official who represents Virgin Trains staff said he barely knew of Bowker: 'I know what I've read in the papers - that he has a bit of a temper on him.' What others may call a temper, Bowker said was just a 'passion and commitment' for the industry. There is no doubt that being the new head of the SRA is one of the toughest jobs in the rail business and Bowker will need all the commitment he can muster.

He will oversee billions of pounds of investment in the network, appoint the board of directors to replace Railtrack, award franchises to train-operating companies, and take the blame when things inevitably go wrong.

No surprise, then, that rail executives and industry experts were not exactly queueing up to take over from Sir Alastair Morton at the SRA. The chairmanship of the SRA is seen by many as a poisoned-chalice, as was the top job at Railtrack. The search for a new Railtrack chairman became a fiasco because just about everyone approached turned it down.

Morton said in June he would step down: Bowker was first approached in August and interviewed in September. According to one Whitehall insider, Bowker didn't say no, but nor was he champing at the bit. 'It was a curious situation because Branson must have known that Richard had been approached,' he said.

'But my understanding is that Richard Bowker found it a bit odd that Branson never approached him to talk about whether he was going to resign from Virgin.' The SRA job was on offer at £200,000 a year for a four-day week, but Bowker negotiated a five-day deal for £250,000 a year for five years. He will also receive an annual bonus of up to £50,000, though the performance criteria have still to be agreed.

Bowker, with his open-necked shirt and easy-going approach, is seen as a Branson clone. This has added to suspicion of a possible conflict of interest between his new and old jobs. A source at a rival train company said: 'We'll be watching to ensure there is no partiality towards Virgin.'

Just days into Bowker's appointment, the sniping has begun.