25 Facts About Adrian Shooter

Adrian Shooter is best known for leading the newly privatised Chiltern Railways between 1996 and 2011, and for founding the Vivarail engineering company in 2012.

Adrian Shooter was born on 22 November 1948 in London.

Adrian Shooter's father was Reginald Arthur Shooter, a microbiologist and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, best known for chairing the enquiry into the 1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom.

Adrian Shooter's mother was Jean Shooter, who was a doctor.

Adrian Shooter joined British Rail in 1970 as a management trainee.

Adrian Shooter became maintenance engineer at Bletchley in the mid-1970s, then depot manager at Heaton, then moved to Carlisle as area maintenance engineer.

Adrian Shooter worked on expansion projects at Bournemouth and Selhurst, before becoming area manager at St Pancras, then was involved in the establishment of Red Star Parcels and Rail Express Systems, before joining Chiltern Railways in April 1994.

Adrian Shooter was the first managing director of that franchise in 1996, and went on to become its chairman.

Adrian Shooter had introduced the use of driving simulators for training Chiltern Railways' train drivers.

In November 2016 Adrian Shooter delivered the annual railway lecture to the Institution of Engineering and Technology on "Innovation and Realism".

Adrian Shooter was a director of the Association of Train Operating Companies between 2001 and 2011.

Adrian Shooter was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and of the Chartered Institute of Transport.

Adrian Shooter was chairman of the West Midlands and Oxfordshire region of the Confederation of British Industry, chairman of Bicester Vision, director of Wabtec, and was chair of the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership for three-and-a-half years until late-2015.

In mid-2011, Adrian Shooter had joined the advisory board of the National Railway Museum.

In 2012, Adrian Shooter founded Vivarail, a company purchasing London Underground D78 Stock and rebuilding them into the Vivarail D-Train family, including diesel class 230s and third-rail electric class 484s.

In 2013 Adrian Shooter became chairman of Churnet Valley Railway, and a vice-president of Railfuture along with Andrew Adonis, Chris Green, Roger Ford and Barry Doe.

Adrian Shooter was a director of Vintage Trains from 2018 until 2020.

In June 2019 Adrian Shooter was recipient of the chairman's award of the Institute of Directors West Midlands branch.

On 16 September 2021, Adrian Shooter received the lifetime achievement award at the Rail National Railway Awards.

On 30 August 2022, a 2.7-metre bronze statue with a bust of Adrian Shooter created by Luke Perry and crowdfunded by rail industry leaders and close associates, was unveiled beside platform 1 at Marylebone station in London.

Adrian Shooter married his first wife, Diana Crombie, in 1970 and they had a son and a daughter together.

Besides his professional interest in railways, Adrian Shooter owned the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Class 'B' steam locomotive 778, which he operated on the Beeches Light Railway in the grounds of his residence in Oxfordshire.

Adrian Shooter commissioned carriages to accompany the locomotive from the Ffestiniog Railway's Boston Lodge works, together with a replica Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad inspection locomotive commissioned from the Statfold Barn Railway.

Adrian Shooter was chairman of the Model 'A' Ford Club of Great Britain.

Adrian Shooter died on 13 December 2022, at age 74.