Jimmy King commemorated with station plaque

Jimmy King, an extremely well-respected and popular member of the Telent team, sadly passed away on the 24th of October 2021. Jimmy’s life has been commemorated with a plaque at Glasgow Station, in his home city.

The unveiling of Jimmy King’s Commemorative plaque at Glasgow Central Station took place on 12th August with family, colleagues, friends and members of the First Battalion of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, Jimmy’s old regiment, all present.

Jimmy was well-known for his commitment to the company and his positive attitude, which made him a true asset in his role as Lead Systems Engineer. He will be missed by all those lucky to have worked with him.

His service with Marconi/Telent was exemplary and he became known as a Radio Guru. A member of the Radio Engineering team, Jimmy was admired by all those who worked with him both within Telent and our customers, and he always made time to help anyone who asked for his assistance.

Jimmy was involved in a high number of projects during his service. These included the West Coast Mainline GSMR rollout, a project dedicated to designing and implementing the new GSMR service when it was introduced on the WCML.

The GSMR Network evaluation was a consultation of current network coverage and, with Jimmy’s passion for documentation, provided 7kg of reports into Network Rail.

He also played a part in the MCA Microwave refresh program, where the overarching microwave network design for Telent to deliver against was created.

More recently Jimmy contributed to the train station Wi-Fi – spear project. Jimmy spearheaded Wi-Fi into Network Rail stations and lead the Telent engineering team. Jimmy led by example and others certainly benefitted from his eye for detail and became better engineers for working with him. Continuing his love of documentation, Jimmy produced the Reference System Design on Wi-Fi for Network Rail Stations (160+ pages) for which Telent received a commendation from Network Rail.

Jimmy was an excellent mentor and a true friend. I greatly enjoyed working with Jimmy, especially on difficult projects in which his expertise and quality would shine through. Jimmy would provide encouragement and we would have a few jokes to make the world right.

Igor Chernikov, Senior Engineer - Radio

Jimmy was a great man to have on the team. He always made time to speak to you and offer technical advice. He also always had a story to tell from his long and varied career and from his life. He is sorely missed.

Neil McComiskey, Principal Engineer - Radio

I only really knew Jimmy for a relatively short time, seven years, compared to a lot of people within Telent and most certainly from his Army days. I can honestly say that he was a perfect gent to work with and we certainly batted a lot of things off each other in the time we worked together. To some people he was a son, brother, husband, Fusilier, “Sir” and a work colleague but above all he was our friend, and he is sorely missed.

Andrew Carter, Engineering Manager – Radio

Jimmy originally joined Marconi after serving for 28 years in the Army as part of the Royal Highland Fusiliers (RHF), a time of his life which he was extremely proud of. He rose from a boy/junior soldier entrant to the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major, serving the country on operational tours at locations all over the world.

His last project was to see the completion of the Managed Station Wi-Fi Programme at his beloved Glasgow Station.

Kind permission for a commemorative plaque was granted by Drew Burns, Glasgow Central Station Manager. This is the first commemorative plaque ever to be permitted at Glasgow Central, a real testament to the high regard in which Jimmy was held.

Next time you find yourself at Glasgow station, please pay a visit to Platform 15. There you will be able to read the plaque and remember Jimmy King, who’s vision brought Reliable, Fast and Safe Wi-Fi to all passengers at the 19 Network Rail Managed Stations.

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