The Irish Railway Record Society in London is governed by a committee. Below are details of our committee members and their roles. Further information about some of the Committee members is on the Meet our Members page.

To contact a committee member please email: irrslondon@hotmail.com

Tim Morton is Chair of the London Area, with a general responsibility for guiding the Area’s activities and ensuring that they are conducted in a proper manner.

Tim hails from Northern Ireland where a teenage interest in UTA steam led to him becoming a founder member of the RPSI. On moving to England, he became a member of the IRRS in 1971 and has been a London Area Committee member for over 40 years. He worked as a transport consultant and has travelled worldwide pursuing both professional interests and his enthusiasm for steam locomotives.

Committee Members

Alan Bowers was born in the Jameson Whiskey Distillery, Dublin, where his father was ‘head distiller’ before moving to Ballsbridge in 1950. The nearby Sydney Parade Station provided the then four-year-old a friend via Leo the signalman, and his interest in railways began.

Alan worked as an hotelier before joining South West Trains first as an inspector, and then as Training Champion for the entire south-west region. This included working on the Gateline Project, the biggest in Europe, which saw the installation of 52 ticket gates at London Waterloo. His great-uncle, Frank Warren, was General Manager of the GNR (Dublin) and lived in Sutton. Alan could never understand why Frank checked his watch any time a train passed the back garden – now he does.

George Porter Secretary for the IRRS London Area, George was born under what is now Kilroot Power Station, about 30 feet from the Larne line. He moved to south Belfast at an early age, thereafter making the journey to school by train on what was left of the GNR. Somehow he found the IRRS and joined about 1960. He also met Fred Graham and helped run his wonderful hand-crafted GNRI layout with locos powered by clockwork gramophone motors. An Electrical Engineering degree at Queens University Belfast led to employment in London. A lifetime of writing, planning and managing computer projects ensued, during which he was a passive consumer of the IRRS Journal, until he thought he might try a London Area meeting and became ensnared again.

John Hatton is the London Area Treasurer, welcoming members to area meetings, collecting entrance fees and paying meeting expenses.  After joining the May 1988 RPSI Tour, John fell in love with Ireland.  In subsequent years he travelled extensively throughout Ireland, soaking in the culture whilst enjoying traditional Irish music in the ‘far west’. He has been a volunteer at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre since the early 1980s, acting as Cashier dealing with the day to day money requirements.
By profession John is a semi-retired Financial Adviser.  He describes himself as a ‘serial’ Treasurer – as well as fulfilling the role for the London Area, he is also Treasurer of Chesham Folk Club, Museum & Community Association.

Leslie McAllister  is Publications Officer of the London Area. Leslie was born in Belfast within a locomotive whistle’s sound of the Great Northern – which may explain his love of that railway.  Another founder member of the RPSI, he came to the IRRS through our late Chairman, Lance King, who quickly recruited him as Book Sales Secretary in 1972.  He has served on the Committee ever since, bar a gap while working in Hong Kong.  With his late friend Irwin Pryce, he co-compiled an updated history of the GS&WR’s 101 Class – Steaming in Three Centuries. He has travelled extensively in pursuit of steam locomotives and for twenty years as a Tour Manager for Great Rail Journeys.

Richard McLachlan is active both in the London Area IRRS and also as a Board Member of the parent body in Dublin, with a special interest in digitising images.  He is also Manager of the annual Transport Collectors’ Market in Chiswick. A graduate of Durham University, where he studied Applied Physics and Electronics. His career was with PO Telephones.