For background, Mark Smith, the man behind seat61.com, was an employee of British Rail. Starting out in rural Kent on what was then BR’s Southern Region, he was the Station Manager for London’s Charing Cross, London Bridge & Cannon Street stations in the early to mid 1990s. After a spell as the Customer Relations Manager for two large UK train companies, he worked for the Office of the Rail Regulator and later the Strategic Rail Authority, ending up at the Department for Transport in charge of the team regulating fares & ticketing on the British rail network. Since 2007 he has run seat 61 full-time, as (a) updating it has indeed become a full-time job and (b) it’s more fun than real work.
He’s traveled the world on trains & ships and he’s been on the other side of the counter too – in university vacations he worked in a European rail ticketing agency in London, issuing tickets and advising travel agents on train travel across Europe. Now he can share that knowledge online on his rather amazing website.
Content courtesy of Sixty and Me