Saviour of the Valley Lines sets his sights on reviving rural buses

Since his time as British Rail’s manager for Wales, transport consultant John Davies has experienced the Welsh transport system as a consumer and a procurer of bus services. Rhodri Clark asked him for his views on the challenges facing Welsh transport policy

06 February 2015

John Davies

Davies helped transform the fortunes of the Cardiff Valley Lines, which are now in line for electrification

John Davies is one of many British Rail managers who left the industry in the 1990s. He left despite – or perhaps because of – his actions that reversed the fortunes of Welsh rail services. BR was preparing to close some lines in the South Wales valleys in the 1980s, but Davies went native. Exploiting his position as BR’s provincial services manager for South Wales, he reduced fares to make them affordable to a population suffering a long decline in industrial employment. This...