It is one of those wearily baffling days on the railway. “The trains …” sighs a woman on the platform at Gatwick, where a huddle of us stare glumly at the cancellations and delays on the departures screen. “What can you do?”
At that moment, I should be 25 miles away, asking that very question of one woman who really can do something: Angie Doll, chief executive of Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR).
The operating company carries almost one in five UK rail passengers – around 5 million every week – across its Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express trains. And Doll, arguably Britain’s most senior woman in rail since being promoted to the GTR top job in November, believes she can turn around the train service for customers again.
That change of role has afforded her a couple more hours’ sleep the night before we finally meet at Brighton station. At 4am, a power failure meant GTR taking the decision to cancel all Southern trains from London to Brighton, and most Thameslink ones too.
Not long ago, Doll would have been the one making the night-time call on the latest snafu. Now she gets the news on the WhatsApp group when she wakes. Most might welcome the peace but Doll says “one of the hardest things is taking that step back”, and leaving operations to her team.
Her new role means setting strategy for the coming years. Many in rail feel the industry is at its lowest ebb in a long time, battered by Covid, cuts, strikes, stagnating promises of reform, and ever-rising fares: they went up another 4.9% on Sunday. Doll, though, is upbeat: “We’re on the cusp of a big change in rail: we have to be clear about our purpose and where we’ve got to go.”
Whether or not the draft bill to set up Great British Railways will pass before a new government is elected, Doll believes either Conservatives or Labour will push forward reform: “There are lots of things that they are absolutely aligned on – and the industry agrees. We do need a guiding mind, we do need a longer strategy, and we do need to be more customer-focused and address where we are with fares. The difference now is their mechanism and how they get there.”
Of the quarter-century of the industry she has worked through, she says, “I feel this is almost the most exciting time. The railway … does absolutely need to think of the passenger in a different way than they ever did before, because working from home is established now.”
Many GTR customers would have gladly ripped up their season tickets to work from home long before the pandemic made it possible. Southern Rail was a byword for train hell in 2016-17, when Doll was in the fray as passenger services director.
An ill-prepared GTR mega-franchise was firefighting on several fronts, leaving commuters on overcrowded, unreliable trains – even before Southern was embroiled in the worst strikes since privatisation, over driver-only operation of trains. Doll became a bete noire of the rail unions as Southern pioneered the role of the onboard supervisor – or downgraded the role of guard, according to competing views.
“With Southern in 2016, I was saying it was better for our customer, and these are jobs that will stand the test of time,” she says. “Now I’ve got a legacy that says: I’m doing things that are in the best interests of our people and customers.”
That could also apply to the introduction of new Thameslink trains. They were at the heart of the 2018 timetable fiasco that saw one of Doll’s predecessors forced out, and their spartan carriages, with hard seats and without proper tables, caused consternation among commuters when introduced.
Doll sees it differently: “Those trains, they’re like hoovers. They’re great – you see them come in and they just hoover everybody up from the platform.”
And many are happy to be hoovered, she says: “From a passenger experience, they’re a great train to travel on because they absolutely do what they say on the tin – it’s mass transit, moving lots of passengers very quickly and creating that space. It’s a more comfortable experience, especially if you have to stand for short distances.”
She became Southern’s managing director in 2019, overseeing its renaissance from strife-torn laggard to operator of the year in 2021. Her strategy was, she says, “building the bridges with unions and staff, stabilising the business, then improve to be the best. You have to give people a sense of direction and where they’re going, and show them the building blocks along the way.”
Doll came into rail after a long stint in the holiday industry, working up from rep to boss in the Canaries: “When I went on holiday with my mum at 14, I told my mum, ‘I don’t want to be an air hostess any more, I want to be a rep – because they get to stay’.”
It was a good grounding, she says: “It prepares you for anything because people put such high expectations on holidays. And made me realise that the purpose of a journey is more important than the journey itself. That helps you look at it from a completely different point of view.”
Nevertheless, she faced questions when she started her rail life in Brighton as station manager: “People often ask me what it’s like to be a woman in a male organisation. When I joined, the biggest thing was ‘how can you be a station manager if you haven’t done the job before?’. The currency is your history and experience – you really get accepted after about 10 years.”
About 140 people at GTR alone will collect awards this year from Doll for reaching 25 years of service, and “next year, I’ll be signing my own certificate!”
But while long rail careers are common, Doll says: “We do need to modernise. There’s a very established way of thinking and of how people want to work. When you want to make changes, even if they are small changes, you really need to take people on the journey with you. You have to demonstrate the value – and people only see it when it comes in.”
CV
Age 58
Family Married, with a stepdaughter.
Education Comprehensive school in Bristol, left at 17 “with several O-levels”.
Salary Declined to say.
Last holiday Skiing in Cervinia, Italy, with a group of girlfriends.
Best advice she’s been given “‘Be authentic’ – from my executive coach.”
Biggest career mistake “I don’t regret anything I’ve done.” But she nearly turned down a job (at High Speed One) that was “the best I ever had”.
Phrase she overuses “Will this make our boat go faster?”
How she relaxes Yoga every morning, walking.
