Laurence Ball
Operations Consultant
I am a life-long railway professional having spent almost 40 years in the industry, much of this in Operations Control and Current Operations Manager roles, although have also worked as an Operations Consultant in North America. I have experienced the nationalised world of British Rail where I joined as a traffic trainee on leaving school in the operations department, through privatisation as an Operations Controller and most recently in the public sector of Network Rail in Current Operations Manager roles. In the later part of my career, I spent two years on secondment with Network Rail Consulting helping clients in both Canada & the USA
Experience:
Rail Operations
Several years as a signaller at several locations on the Southern Region of British Railways, lastly at Victoria Area Signalling Centre at Clapham Junction. From there I progressed to an operations controller and spent several years as an Incident Controller / Deputy Control Manager on the Southern, with experience in Kent, Sussex & Wessex.
Route Control Manager on Network Rail Kent Route, leading to a senior role managing the Network Rail section of the Kent Integrated Control Centre, acting as Senior Leader on call for the route when required and Rail Incident Commander for several high-profile incidents.
Supported the introduction of the Incident Officer’s role into the Kent & Sussex Routes, and latterly the introduction of Senior Network Delivery Managers in Anglia.
Change Management, Projects & Engineering
During my time with Network Rail supported several projects to improve performance on the Kent Route, working closely with the Train Operator and helped to develop a separate classification for critical ECS (Empty Coaching Stock) train services that was ultimately introduced network wide.
Acted on secondment as Signalling Projects Manager during the construction of the CTRL (now HS1) as the interface between the local Kent operations teams and the project.
During the Thameslink Project, the interface with the Kent control team assisting with the production of operational contingency plans throughout the program.
Helped to develop the Concept of Operations for the MBTA in Boston during the modernisation and introduction of new rolling stock onto the Red & Orange Subway lines.
More recently helped introduce Integrated Train Service Recovery (ITSR) into Network Rail Western Route with the objective of introducing a consistent method of train service management during disruption.
Rail Training
During my time as the Lead Route Control Manager for the Kent Integrated Control Centre supported the introduction of the competency framework for controllers both within the Kent route and nationally.
