• On August 16 QR Chairman John Prescott announced the appointment of Lance Hockridge as the Queensland railway’s new CEO. He is currently President North American at BlueScope Steel, a position which includes responsibility for European and Middle East operations. His previous roles have included Group General Manager of BHP Transport, where he worked with QR. Hockridge was also previously the chief of BHP’s Newcastle Steelworks and later President of the division responsible for the Port Kembla Steelworks and for New Zealand Steel. Hockridge will join QR within three months; until then Chief Operating Officer Steve Cantwell will continue as acting CEO.
  • Ramesh Chandra became Chairman of India's Railway Board on July 31 with the retirement of Jay Prakash Batra. An officer of the 1968 intake of the Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers, Chandra has been Member Electrical, Railway Board since May 2005, and will retain the role. He was previously General Manager of Southern Railway, and has also been associated with several electrification projects
  • Salman M Babaev has been appointed Director General of First Freight Company, a subsidiary of Russian Railways established on July 26 to compete for specialised freight transport business (RG 8.07 p464). RZD will initially transfer 47 000 wagons to FFC, which will have around 200 000 wagons by 2009.
  • Head of SBB Cargo Daniel Nordmann announced his resignation on August 16, and was succeeded by his deputy Nicolas Perrin on an interim basis.
  • Former Chief Personnel Officer at India’s Northern Railway Ashutosh Swami has been appointed General Manager of Northeast Frontier Railway. On June 2 H K Padhee became General Manager at South Central Railway, joining from South Eastern Railway where he was Operations Manager.
  • Dr Thorsten Bieker has joined Rail4chem as Chairman from shareholder BASF.
  • On September 30 Christian Thing is to leave Railion Danmark after 3½ years as Managing Director, to join drain supplier Unidrain.
  • On July 1 Pavel Svagr became Under-Secretary for Economy at Czech rail infrastructure authority SZDC, succeeding Zita Karasová who is now Under-Secretary for Property Management.
  • Harold Tynes has been named Vice-President & Controller of RailAmerica Inc. He was previously Chief Financial Officer for QualServ Corp in Kansas City, Missouri, and has also served as corporate controller for Great Lakes Transportation and held a variety of finance positions at GE.
  • Following the retirement of Dr P Raja Goundan, Sabita Gopal become the first woman to be appointed as General Manager of India’s Integral Coach Factory. She was previously financial advisor to the Railway Board. B B Modgil became General Manager of the Rail Wheel Factory in Bangalore on July 20.
  • President of shortline company Delaware Otsego Corp and former Chairman of the American Short Line & Regional Railroad Association Walter Rich died on August 9 at the age of 61.
  • Director General of Britain’s Association of Train Operating Companies George Muir has announced that he is to retire in early 2008. Recruitment of his successor is now underway, and ATOC will also appoint a part-time Chairman to succeed Adrian Shooter. Former Head of Commercial Services at South West Trains Andy Wakeford has been appointed Head of Commercial Strategy at ATOC.
  • On August 9 the supervisory board of Vossloh AG unanimously agreed to remove Dr Gerhard Eschenröder as executive board member and Chairman with immediate effect, citing ‘serious differences of opinion’. Chief Financial Officer Werner Andree was appointed board spokesman.
  • Kenneth R Burk stepped down as President & Chief Executive of Union Switch & Signal Inc on July 31 to pursue ‘opportunities in the engineering and construction industry'. Emmanuel Viollet, Senior Vice-President, Business Development at Ansaldo STS has been named interim CEO.
  • António Crisóstomo Teixeira has been named President of Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes Terrestres, the inland transport regulatory body which is being created in Portugal. IMTT will be responsible for infrastructure and rolling stock standards, monitoring contracts, safety, and the inspection of rail operators and the infrastructure manager. Carlos Maio Correia and Jorge Batista e Silva have been appointed board members.

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