Southeastern

Southeastern completes its executive team and welcomes high-speed train experts
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date 18 April 2006
source Southeastern
type Press release

Southeastern, the new operator of train services for Kent and East Sussex, has made two key appointments to its executive team.

David Miller has been appointed programme director in charge of introducing high-speed domestic rail services onto the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL).

Supporting him in this role is Patrick Ropert, who joined the company on April 1 from French national rail operator SNCF.

The new Integrated Kent Franchise came into being on April 1, with Govia’s London & South Eastern Railway, trading as ‘Southeastern’, chosen to run it.

A flagship feature of the franchise from December 2009 will be express commuter services between London St Pancras, Ashford and the Kent coast.These will be provided by a fleet of 28, 140mph Hitachi Class 395 trains, designed for both CTRL and conventional railway lines use. They will bring greatly improved journey times in parts of Kent -- for example, London to Ashford will be reduced from 83 minutes to 36.5 minutes.

Mr Miller is a chartered engineer and his previous experience has included being director of Railtrack’s integrated management team for West Coast Route Modernisation and head of projects for the Great Western Zone. He was also director of rail (Europe and Africa) for Kellogg Brown & Root Limited and chief executive for Halcrow Rail, and oversaw the design and construction of the new southern railway in Sydney for Bouygues and the Lantau and Airport Railway Project for the Mass Transit Railway Corporation, Hong Kong.

Mr Ropert has held several positions with SNCF, most recently as office manager for the chairman and chief executive officer but also as project manager for the operational launching of France's high-speed TGV Mediterranee train services in 2000-2001.

Managing Director Charles Horton welcomed them both, saying: “We are very excited at the prospect of operating the new high-speed domestic rail services over the CTRL from 2009 and their input will be crucial to the planning and introduction of the new service.”

Southeastern will use the new trains to operate the Javelin Shuttle Service to the 2012 London Olympic Games center at Stratford, East London.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Govia is a joint venture between Go-Ahead (65 per cent) and Keolis SA (35 per cent). As well as being the operator of Southeastern it is also the operator of Southern.

Go-Ahead operates bus services across London and the South East as well as aviation and car parking business.
Keolis is a French-based operator of transport services in Europe and Canada and is owned by 3i, SNCF and its senior management.

Southeastern runs train services into London from Kent and East Sussex, operating some 1700 trains a day, carrying more than 400,000 passengers a day, managing 178 stations and covering 480-miles of railway infrastructure.
The network now forms part of the Integrated Kent Franchise and Southeastern will provide high-speed domestic services on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link from December 2009.

Railhub Archive ::: 2006-04-18 SEA-001