When Lumo went looking for someone to lead its partnerships across its new West Coast route, it wasn’t searching for someone with years of sponsorship experience or a marketing background.
Instead, it hired a former vicar. Someone who had spent the past seven-and-a-half years walking station concourses, supporting railway staff through everything from bereavement and trauma to the everyday pressures of keeping Britain’s railways moving as a railway chaplain.
Meet Mike Roberts, the affable former vicar who believes that before you can build partnerships, you have to build relationships.
And he knows all about that. The affable clergyman joined Lumo just weeks after the award-winning open access operator launched its new West Coast services linking London Euston with Stirling via Milton Keynes, Nuneaton, Crewe, Preston, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell, Whifflet, Greenfaulds and Larbert.
It’s a significant expansion for a company already renowned for industry-leading customer satisfaction, reliability and award-winning community partnerships on its East Coast route.
For Mike, however, this latest chapter feels less like a career change than a continuation of everything he’s always done.
“The thing that links every role I’ve ever had is people,” he says. “Whether I was a minister, a railway chaplain or now working for Lumo, it’s always been about listening to people’s stories. It’s never about walking into a room saying we’ve got all the answers. It’s about hearing somebody else’s story and seeing where it connects with yours.”
That philosophy has shaped almost every step of his career.
Growing up in Tamworth, Staffordshire, Mike always imagined his future would involve helping people. He was ordained in his early twenties and spent around 15 years serving churches in communities as different as one of Huddersfield’s most deprived parishes to affluent parishes on the sea in Bournemouth.
Life, however, had other plans and a serious illness, followed by a broken hip, forced him to pause and reassess his ambitions. After marrying his wife Rebecca, herself a vicar, the couple moved north.
“We decided if we both looked for churches we’d never actually see each other,” he laughs.
So when an advert appeared for a Railway Chaplain, Mike applied.
“I didn’t even know the job existed,” he laughs.
But he quickly discovered it was exactly where he belonged. Working for the Railway Mission charity, Mike provided confidential support to railway staff across the West Coast network. The role was as varied as the railway itself.
Some days involved helping station teams during major events or supporting colleagues after difficult shifts. Others meant helping people cope with unimaginable tragedy.
Train drivers involved in fatalities. British Transport Police officers delivering devastating news. Network Rail teams attending incidents. Station staff grieving colleagues.
“People naturally think about the driver,” he says. “And of course they’re hugely affected. But a single incident can involve dozens of people. Everyone’s story is valid. Everyone’s trauma is valid.”
For Mike, chaplaincy was never about preaching. “If someone’s going through the worst day of their life, the last thing they need is somebody preaching at them,” he says.
Instead, Mike says it was about simply being present. “I always think of it as being like someone carrying an umbrella,” he says. “When somebody’s standing out in the storm, you walk alongside them, put the umbrella over both of you and stay there until the rain passes.”
Those years in chaplaincy changed him. They also reinforced a belief that would eventually lead him to Lumo.
“I realised people matter far more than I’d ever imagined,” he says.
It is perhaps no surprise, then, that when the Lumo opportunity came calling, friends immediately told him the role sounded tailor-made.
“They said, ‘This is exactly what you’ve always done,” he smiles. “It’s about building relationships. It’s about bringing people together.’”
Lumo’s approach to partnerships certainly looks different from the traditional corporate sponsorship model. There are no ambitions to simply hand over oversized presentation cheques or plaster logos across events for the sake of PR.
Instead, Mike talks repeatedly about finding authenticity in the partnerships he and Lumo are building.
“We’re not interested in transactional partnerships,” he says. “We want meaningful, genuine relationships where our values align. It’s about asking how we can help each other, how we can grow together and how we can make a positive difference in the communities we serve.”
The company’s arrival on the West Coast provides a unique opportunity to build those relationships from scratch.
“We’re starting with a blank canvas,” he says, excitedly. “We’re not changing something that already exists. We’re starting a new story.”
Already, those stories are beginning to take shape. Lumo supported this year’s Preston Caribbean Carnival, where organisers welcomed the company into the city as the newest addition to the community. Now conversations are underway about helping performers travel to London’s Notting Hill Carnival later this summer.
Plans are also developing around Stirling Pride, Bloody Scotland and other community events stretching the length of the route.
The aim isn’t simply to encourage people to travel, but to help those communities thrive in whatever way Lumo can help.
“The world is at its best when it’s done in community,” Mike says. “It’s about opening doors.”
Lumo’s new route gives communities including Whifflet and Greenfaulds their first direct rail links to London in decades, while destinations such as Stirling suddenly become far more accessible to visitors from across England.
For Mike, that’s crucial to the Lumo mission. “We don’t just want to take people somewhere and leave them there,” he says. “We want to work with tourism organisations, business groups and local communities so people discover everything these places have to offer.”
And he’s already become an enthusiastic ambassador. Ask him about Stirling and he’ll happily recommend independent coffee shops, local businesses and hidden gems beyond the famous castle and Wallace Monument.
It reflects another belief shaped during his years on the railway.
“The railway is a microcosm of society,” he says. “You can have someone sitting in First Class who’s expensed a £350 ticket, while outside the station there’s somebody trying to find enough money to buy lunch. Everything in society is represented along the railway.
“Everybody’s story is different. But there’s a little bit of ourselves in everyone we meet.”
That outlook perhaps explains why Mike never really saw himself as a railway enthusiast.
As he once wrote while reflecting on his years as a chaplain, he is more of a “person enthusiast who finds all the best people on the railway.”
These days, just weeks into his new role, he’s travelling the length of Lumo’s West Coast route meeting charities, community organisations, tourism leaders and local businesses, looking for opportunities to create partnerships with purpose.
He hopes organisations with ideas will get in touch. Because for him, success won’t be measured simply by how many partnerships Lumo signs but by the difference those partnerships make.
“I’ve always believed tomorrow can be better than today,” he says. “If we can help communities thrive, tell their stories and create opportunities together, then that’s exactly what this role is about.”
For Lumo, whose reputation has already been built on combining excellent customer service with purposeful community engagement, it’s a fitting appointment.
And for the communities stretching from London to Stirling, there’s now someone whose entire career has been built around one simple belief that people come first.
Image credit: CWA / Lumo
