A longstanding colleague, Dave Caiden, who has worked with Alan since 1981, said “whenever we had a crisis Alan would come up with some brilliant, funny quip or impersonation to make us laugh, relax and face the problem with new vigour”.
Alan was passionate about tunnelling and had a career spanning 44 years. The projects he worked on and the employers he worked for reads like a who’s who of tunnelling. He started work in 1974 with French Kier Construction/ Thomas Brand and Son Limited working on tunnelling projects from the Tyne and Wear Metro to Dinorwic Pumped storage hydro-electric scheme. It was during this last project he married Lynne. Looking for a way to broaden their horizons (and avoid the rain of the UK), Alan was delighted to be offered a role with Charles Haswell and Partners on the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway – Island Line. Here he was excited to be responsible for the tender design of Tai Koo Shing station cavern comprising a 24m wide by 17m high by 250m-long rock cavern and he followed that with the detailed design and construction support for Contracts 410 and 414, which included Shau Kei Wan station and associated running tunnels in rock.
Alan then chose to move to Singapore to take up the role of design co-ordinator for City Hall station C107B; which included underpinning of a major heritage structure and Contract 107 running tunnels for the Mass Rapid Transit Corporation.
In 1987, as Alan’s career progressed, he returned to England with Lynne and their first son Thomas, drawn back by the prospect of working on one of the largest and most iconic tunnelling projects in the UK, the Channel Tunnel. Alan became section manager with TML (Balfour Beatty) and was responsible for preparation of Civil Design Documentation from outline design to “Issued for Construction” on a fast-track basis. One issue included the design of an animal protection barrier to prevent rabid animals crossing into the UK. When the issue turned to bats, Alan’s sense of humour got the better of him when he had visions of a bat flapping madly being pursued by a high-speed train.
In 1993 Alan was delighted to join WS Atkins as an associate and applied his extensive tunnelling expertise to many significant projects including the Chelsea Hackney Line (Crossrail Line 2), Dublin Port Tunnel tender design, Dublin LRT feasibility study, Detailed Design of Hong Kong KCRC West Rail Contract DB 320 for Dragages-Zen Pacific JV and the detailed design of Docklands Light Rail – Lewisham Extension.
From 2002 Alan was appointed as an associate for Ove Arup and Partners. Colleague Phil Morley has very fond memories of working with Alan during this period. He said that “Alan provided the comedy stories, and I provided IT support”.
Sarah Terry recalls that Alan was a great guy to both work for and with. He had an amazing ability to be able to keep issues at work into perspective by using humour. A favourite of his was to say ‘‘don’t worry, the concrete hasn’t reached 20 Newton yet!” This phrase has stayed with her as a reality check for her working life, and she uses this phrase to pass on to the younger engineers working in her team. Sarah also recollected that he had an ability to never make her feel daft, even when she was taking forever to get to the right solution, and he was very approachable. Alan’s ability to encourage others and help others to find a way through with technical difficulties was also one of his strengths and passions.
Sarah also recounted how Alan had helped her with the design of the Victoria Line Access scheme (part of the King’s Cross Station upgrade project). A tricky part of the scheme was designing a route for the services whilst maintaining access for future maintenance. Sarah couldn’t see how to do this and kept coming up with schemes that could have put future maintenance workers at risk. Alan used his humour to show how a scheme was still not so great and using a fly by wire techniques guided her to the right solution. She recalled, “this was really Alan’s work, not mine, but he made sure that I got the credit for the work.”
Whilst at Arup, Alan worked as technical director for projects including the “Putting the overhead transmission lines underground” (PLUG) and Crossrail Line 1. A mutual friend advised that Alan was one of the few engineers working on PLUG with practical common sense. Alan’s tunnelling expertise was also used to carry out a peer review of the 2nd Avenue Subway Scheme, New York.
In 2008 Alan was appointed as a director for Halcrow Group Limited, with whom he stayed with until retirement, working on projects including Thames Tideway Lee Tunnel and reviewing HS2 Euston Cavern.
Alan had lived with Type 1 diabetes since the age of 17 and over time this took its toll, but he had a passion for life and never let this limit his ability to enjoy it. He loved his work and was able to work up to his retirement in 2017.
He died suddenly of a heart attack after a night out with friends. He is survived by his wife, Lynne, and his two sons, Thomas and Marcus, of whom he was immensely proud.
On a personal note I have so many good memories of Alan who has been my friend for 38 years since we worked together on the Island Line in Hong Kong. Our careers and private lives have been entwined and we consider both our families as extended families. From walking the entire Island Line tunnels together before we left Hong Kong and the tunnels were handed over to the Track and Rail systems teams, to having a joint leaving do at Haswell and spending many happy Christmases and New Years together. Alan was known to be a perfectionist both in work and DIY; he had a passion for cars as a young man and transferred this to tools as he made a home for his family. He put me onto many extremely useful tools so that our tool range is almost a mirror image.
The UK tunnelling industry, friends, colleagues, and the many companies and project teams he was associated with, within the UK and overseas, will remember Alan’s outstanding career achievements. We will all miss his humour, charm, warmth and most of all, the friendship and the laughter.
