c2c, the country’s most punctual railway, welcome Julian Drury as their new Managing Director leading a new management team for parent company National Express.

Julian has extensive railway industry experience starting his career 27 years ago with British Rail in Liverpool as a Graduate Management Trainee and since working in various roles predominantly in operations, commercial, general and business management.

Julian has been a key figure within National Express for the last seven years, firstly as Route Director, West Anglia, in charge of services from Liverpool Street to north-east London, Cambridge and Stansted Airport and then as Route Director, Silverlink County for three years in charge of services from London Euston to Milton Keynes and Birmingham. Here he saw the business through the period of West Coast Route Modernisation, the launch of the West Coast September 2004 timetable and the introduction of Class 350 Desiro trains.

More recently Julian was Bid Director for National Express’ bid for the East Midlands franchise. For the past six months he has project managed the bringing together of National Express’ bus, coach and train businesses into a single, integrated UK division.

As Managing Director for c2c, Julian is now tasked with looking after National Express’ most punctual train operating company which has also achieved an enviable third place in the National Passenger Survey.

Commenting on his new position Julian says, “It’s an exciting prospect when taking over a company operating as successfully as c2c and I’m confident that we can build on this success to improve our business still further.

This is a time of great opportunity for c2c because of the levels of growth we are experiencing along the Thames Gateway, the continued development of London Docklands and preparation for the Olympic Games in 2012.

As a National Express company we are committed to making travel simpler for our customers and I’m really looking forward to the exciting opportunities we have to remove the obstacles that over-complicate current journeys. I’m totally committed to the idea of multi modal travel and how, at c2c we are already leading the way in making it easier and simpler to hop from train to tube and bus and other national rail services. We will be focusing all our efforts over the coming months on making travel a little simpler for all our customers.”

Julian heads an experienced senior management team at c2c consisting of Kevin Frazer; Head of Operations, Steve Rees; Director of Engineering, Bob Houghton; Director of Business Development, Alan Bray; Head of Sales and Marketing Amarjit Kang; Finance Director, Katy Newman; HR Manager, Sheila Julian; Property Manager and David Evans; Head of Safety.

Speaking of Julian’s appointment, David Franks, Business Unit Director Trains for National Express said, “Julian has some excellent experience in our industry and he will do a great job leading the business”