Jonathan Dunster FCIRO
Managing Director
Severn Valley Railway Holdings Plc.

PA Victoria Evans : victoria.evans@svrlive.com 
www.svr.co.uk

Jonathan Dunster

Jonathan Dunster has been a railwayman all of his professional life. He joined British Rail in 1987 as a ticket office clerk at Paddington Station in London, but quickly pursued a career in Operations from the following year. Moving to Birmingham as a Controller in 1994, Jonathan was part of the organisation that became Virgin Trains in 1997. Over the subsequent twenty two years his career continued to progress through various roles, culminating in becoming Executive Director for Operations and Safety in 2019. Jonathan transferred to the new operator, Avanti West Coast, at the end of the Virgin Trains franchise on December 2019 & retired from this position after 35 years service in November 2022.

In parallel to his professional career, Jonathan has been an active railway preservationist since the age of twenty, having co-founded “The Fifty Fund” in 1988 with the objective of saving a Class 50 diesel locomotive for posterity. This endeavour was successful and in 1992 the group ran their first operational locomotive on the Severn Valley Railway, where they have remained based ever since. Jonathan quickly became an SVR volunteer too & was asked to join the Board of Severn Valley Railway (Holdings) Plc in 2010. In early 2023, when his predecessor as Managing Director resigned, the SVR Board asked Jonathan to step in originally on an interim basis. He became permanent Managing Director in November 2023.

Jonathan is married with two sons & holds a BSc in Railway Operational Management & is a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Railway Operators.