Jerry’s career began in 1976 when he joined London Transport as a Trainee Technician. After completing the scheme he joined the signal design office in Acton, west London in 1980, where he was involved in a range of projects including the production of Routing Specification from which the Boolean data was produced for each of the local site computers as part of the Jubilee & Metropolitan Line centralised control. Jerry produced the site-based risk assessment to address premature wire degradation of thin-walled wire.
By the early 1990s Jerry was leading a team of engineers who delivered the Watford-Croxley re-signalling as well as undertaking immunisation works to support the introduction of the Heathrow Express. Later that decade Jerry was supporting the acceptance of designs for the Jubilee Line Extension (JLE) project to the east of London from Green Park to Stratford. Those reviews were undertaken under the scrutiny of the ORR and the JLE was opened in time for the much-anticipated millennium celebrations.
In 2003, under the Public Private Partnership contract, Jerry moved to Tube Lines as a principal engineer. Here he oversaw the introduction of 7-car trains and the Seltrac S40 system on the Jubilee Line. Jerry also served as Technical Mentor for the IRSE licencing scheme when Tube Lines was an assessing agency.
Over the years Jerry has developed various simulations of signalling sub-systems using the Boolean logic functions available in Excel, enabling him to simulate the cyclic nature of Ladder Logic, the operation of trailable points in depots, and of a relay-based “plate-rack” known as a Changeover-Cubicle.
After more than thirty years in signal design Jerry was appointed as the Signal & C&I Asset Engineer for Tube Lines, the official receiver of assurance for all of Tube Lines’ signal and C&I assets, both for design and maintenance. Here he oversaw the introduction of SelTrac S40 on the Northern Line and was heavily involved in the management planning for maintenance during the 2012 London Olympics, where any failures or service perturbations would have had a much greater impact than normal. Jerry introduced 16-week maintenance cycles and eliminated the four-year routine change backlog through a phased reduction.
In 2018, as part of a major re-organisation within TfL, Jerry was appointed Principal Engineering Leader, managing a team of highly skilled and knowledgeable engineers with particular emphasis on their knowledge of TBTC and CBTC systems. He has supported projects which have included the extension of the Northern Line to Battersea, performance improvements under “Working Timetable 58”, and the capacity enhancement works at Bank.
Coming full circle, for the past three years Jerry has been the lead sponsor for Signalling Design apprentices, during which time he has seen eight apprentices roll off the scheme and supporting most of them through some of the most challenging times of the pandemic. He is always willing to take time to share his knowledge and experience, something evidenced by his contribution to the 2022 IRSE book entitled “Metro Train Control Systems”, and support the review of IRSE exam questions for their applicability to Metro systems.