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(22 November 1948 - 13 December 2022) Adrian Shooter, a well-known rail industry leader, died on 13 December at the age of 74. He was ill with motor neurone disease that had increasingly affected his mobility and speech. Adrian was a keen photographer at Epsom College in the 1960s, where I first met him, and ...
(Permalink) Adrian Shooter Obituary


Beeches Light Railway: Sadly, as of 13th December, you wont get Adrian Shooter on any phone. Apparently he could set challenging assignments; but was a great manager most of the time, and transformed Chiltern from a backwat ...
Ken Strachan 26/06/2022

Shooter and his family joined colleagues for the unveiling at Marylebone station of a crowdfunded 9ft statue of him by Luke Perry. [Full article requires subscription. -RS]
(Permalink) Adrian Shooter Obituary

Dr Stefan George Kay OBE. Businessman and railway preservationist. Born: 25 July, 1944 in Peebles. Died: 19 February, 2021 in Edinburgh, aged 76.
(Permalink) Obituary Stefan Kay

While he was best known for his broadcasting work, Alastair was also an accomplished and published historian of the Clyde's naval warfare history, penning the book, Action Stations! (2009). He also created the displays at Gourock Railway Station, highlighting the towns role in the Second World War and the CalMac ships which sailed from there. Together with his book, these are amongst his greatest achievements.
(Permalink) Alastair Alexander Gourock Gourock Pier Obituary

John Clemmens, engineer and railway photographer. Born: October 16 1934 in Palmers Green, Middlesex. Died: February 6 2021 in Kirkcaldy, aged 86.
(Permalink) John Clemmens Obituary

James Urquhart CVO, rail executive. Born: 23 April, 1925, in Edinburgh. Died: 14 July 2015, in Dorset, aged 90. [From John Yellowlees]
(Permalink) Obituary

Graham Ellis, who has died aged 90, was an influential figure in the steam preservation movement whose modesty denied him full credit. He helped to preserve the Steamtown locomotive depot at Carnforth, created a narrow gauge railway on Mull and, in his eighties, played a leading part in saving the historic steamship Sir Walter Scott from the scrapheap. [From Richard Buckby]
(Permalink) Obituary

Inventor, railway enthusiast and broadcaster who appeared on Tomorrow’s World and Horizon.
Robert Symes-Schutzmann, who has died aged 90, was an inventor, model maker and ecologist who communicated his enthusiasms over three decades through popular radio and television programmes, notably Tomorrow’s World. [From Richard Buckby]
(Permalink) Obituary

Born: 14 June, 1926, in Cambridge. Died: Overnight 29/30 December, 2014, in Newtonmore, aged 88.
Allan Garraway was one of the giants of railway preservation, an expert who was not merely a railway enthusiast but an enthusiastic railwayman, a subtle but a vital distinction.
Internationally renowned in his field, he ran the world's oldest operational railway company, an enterprise that would not exist today but for his contribution and tenacity.
For almost 30 years he managed the historic Ffestiniog Railway Company in Wales, which he had been determined to reinvent, and in retirement was a director of the spectacular Strathspey Railway in the Highlands, an area he had known as a schoolboy.
(Permalink) Obituary Strathspey Railway [Preserved]


Aviemore Shed: Allan Garraway photographed at Aviemore in the 1980s.
Bill Roberton //

Even has a small boy Alastair McPherson had a fascination for transport and logistics: a drawing of his first bus network still survives, carefully crafted around a fictional town he created, complete with bus stops and interchanges.
He would still have been at primary school when he came up with the plan. Later he would collect timetables wherever he went and insist on taking public transport wherever he was holidaying.
(Permalink) Obituary

Vic Gilchrist, who has died aged 73, was a passionate railwayman who managed Central Station in Glasgow, was deputy managing director of Scotrail in the last days of British Rail, and often accompanied senior members of the Royal Family on the Royal Train. He also co-ordinated the railways' involvement in the fatal accident inquiry that followed the tragedy in Newton, Lanarkshire, in 1991 in which two trains collided, killing both drivers and two passengers. [From John Yellowlees]
(Permalink) Obituary ScotRail

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