Chris Dugdale

4th November 2016

Our esteemed member and dear colleague, Chris Dugdale, sadly passed away on 25th October.

Chris Dugdale read engineering at Sheffield University before being accepted on the British Rail (BR) graduate trainee scheme. During his first years at BR he had the opportunity of working in a number of different areas in the railway industry, but from the 1980s onwards he was increasingly involved in international transport. A short secondment to Deutsche Bahn and study of foreign languages in his spare time gave him excellent working French and German. Over the last 20 years of his BR career he worked with Sealink and Railfreight International.

Chris took early retirement from BR and became a consultant in the industry, in due course setting up his own company, European Rail Consultancy Limited, focusing on international rail policy.

We worked with him first in about 2004 when he was running an expert group for the EU as it was considering how to reform the European railway network. Some years later, he became an enthusiastic member of the RWG. Since he had tremendous knowledge on the technical operations of the railways, he was not only highly respected around the European rail industry but also a marvellous resource for the RWG as we stepped up our work on various technical issues concerning the Protocol, guiding us carefully through detailed practical problems. In particular Chris worked hard behind the scenes on working through the concept and then the shape of the URVIS (Unique Rail Vehicle Identification System – the name invented by him) which is an essential element of the Luxembourg Protocol.

Chris was a vocational railwayman, a branch line enthusiast who had travelled pretty much every mile of track in Western Europe. He could be quite stubborn on his vision of how the rail sector could operate but never arrogant and he was always kind and courteous, ever with a wonderful rail anecdote and a good friend. We send our deepest condolences to his wife Vivien and his daughters Sasha, Polly and Victoria. He will be greatly missed.

Chris’s funeral will take place at 2pm on Wednesday 16 November at Woodvale Crematorium in Brighton. Chris’s family invite you also to join them for afternoon tea in the Dome Ballroom at the Pub du Vin from 3.30pm onwards. If you are driving to Brighton there is a car park by the Pub du Vin (Lanes Car Park).

Please do let his daughter Sacha know if you are planning to attend at sasha.dugdale@btinternet.com.

The family is asking Chris’s family, friends and colleagues to make contributions to charity, rather than sending flowers, and they have set up a page here so you can make a donation to The Railway Children, if you would like to do so.