Richard W. Malins joined British Rail as a Graduate Trainee in 1966, at York on the general management training scheme. He then held local management positions in Broxbourne and West Wales. He worked as the Assistant Area Manager at Exeter between 1972-1976 and then served as the Divisional Passenger Manager at Nottingham until 1980. He then moved to the Southern Region Headquarters at Waterloo, which became part of Network SouthEast (NSE) in 1986, staying with NSE Headquarters in his role as liaison with London Transport through to privatisation. He then went into consultancy, undertaking work for London Transport and he established Transport Investigations Ltd., which provides support services to rail operators.