Adrian Shooter
Adrian Shooter CBE 22 November 1948 - 13 December 2022[1][2]
Both Adrian's parents were doctors and were commissioned in the Royal Navy as Surgeon Lieutenants and that is how they met in Scotland in 1946. When Adrian was small his mother used to tell him how proud she was to be one of only 25 women to be commissioned as a naval officer (rather than a Wren) in WW2. She was Surgeon Lt Jean Wallace RN. His father was Surgeon Lt R A Shooter RNVR (Royal Navy Voluntary Reserve). His father, (Adrian's grandfather) A E Shooter, was a Methodist minister and served in the army as a chaplain in both world wars. His maternal grandfather Thomas Wallace won the MC leading a bayonet charge to clear enemy trenches at Gallipoli. Adrian seems to have been endowed with some leadership genes.
Adrian was interested in railways from an early age and while still at school was showing entrepreneurial initiative. When BR failed to provide the buffet car that was promised for the charter train that was booked for a rail tour he got them to provide a full brake van in the centre of the set and sold home made sandwiches with a lower price than BR would have charged and pocketed the profit.
Living in London he first visited the FR in 1963 and joined the Ffestiniog Railway Society and London Area Group and started attending working parties.
Adrian Shooter was a director of the FR Society from 1971 to 1981.[3]
He was the owner of the former Darjeeling Himalaya Railway (DHR) Sharp Stewart 0-4-0ST No 19, and the two Boston Lodge built DHR replica carriages.
In 1971 he was elected the FRS's youngest director. He moved to Uttoxeter as a student apprentice in mechanical engineering. He cofounded the North Staffordshire Group of FRS in 1967 and he was secretary until 1971.
The following is based on a published bio on the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) site, of which he was Chairman, and the Railway Safety and Standards Board (RSSB}, of which he was also a member.
He joined British Rail in 1970 as an Engineering Management Trainee.
In the course of his career, he had management responsibility for a wide range of railway activities, including operations, engineering and marketing. Throughout, he was at the forefront of improving productivity and delivering change, initially as Engineering Manager, then moving progressively into business management and, since 1993, as Managing Director of Chiltern Railways.
In 2002 Shooter became Chairman of Chiltern Railways and Managing Director of Laing Rail, a division of John Laing plc, the owners of The Chiltern Railway Company Limited.
Shooter was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and of the Chartered Institute of Transport.
He was also the Passenger Train operators' representative as a non-executive director of the RSSB, the railway industry's own safety management organisation.
He built and owned a private narrow gauge system known as The Beeches Light Railway, for which Boston Lodge carried out some contract work.
Shooter was created a C.B.E. in the 2010 New Year's Honours List. His citation read "Adrian Shooter, Chairman Chiltern Railway Company Ltd. For services to the Rail Industry".[4]
He was chairman of Vivarail, a heavy rail company which refurbished several old London Underground D Stock trains for use on National Rail with diesel or battery power. In 2021 he was quoted as cautioning about the practicalities of hydrogen propulsion for rail.[5]
By early 2022, he had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease but planned to continue driving his Darjeeling steam locomotive for long as possible. He died in December 2022.
Adrian's autobiography is an interesting account of his life but sticks strictly to his standard gauge activities. "Festiniog" does not get a mention in the index (it is an admittedly short index) but trips to the Festiniog are mentioned here and there. There is a picture of the FR lorry loaded with a bug box with Ron Jarvis looking on at his house.[6] He mentions Alan C Clothier when he is based at Heaton Motive Power Depot in the late 1970s. Alan was one of the attendees at the 1951 Bristol Meeting For a comprehensive list of posts held and honours received see his Wikipedia article:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Shooter Adrian's autobiography only goes up to about 1992.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Adrian Shooter: A life in engineering and railways (2018) Pen and Sword Ltd. 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England, p9.
- ^ "Adrian Shooter CBE `1948-2022.", Ffestiniog Railway Magazine, Issue 260, page(s): 598-599
- ^ "Personal Portrait", Ffestiniog Railway Magazine, Issue 055, page(s): 032
- ^ Daily Telegraph, 31 December 2009
- ^ Railway Magazine, January 2021
- ^ Adrian Shooter: A life in engineering and railways (2018) Pen and Sword Ltd. 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England p82.
External links
[edit]- Obituary, originally published in the Daily Telegraph.
- Obituary in International Railway Journal