The RailStaff Awards 2024

Joe Brown

London Underground

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Nominations for Rail Manager of the Year

Alexander Bulley

Said the following about Joe Brown:

“I am nominating Joe Brown for having made an incredible difference to the career of not just me but also three of my colleagues. Like about 5% of the population, I am red-green colour blind. Despite successfully applying for the role of Train Operator (driver) on London Underground as an internal applicant, I was devastated to be told that my application would not be progressed any further on account of me failing to meet the Colour Vision Standard.

I felt like my entire future was in tatters and I gave serious consideration to leaving the company. My brother already worked as a Jubilee Line driver for Joe, and so I asked if there was anything he could do to help my predicament. The easy route was for Joe to simply rebuff me and tell me “sorry that’s the Standard”, but instead he started to work tirelessly to question how applicable the standard is to an automatic railway with no red / green colour light signals. Joe worked for well over a year meeting regularly with Occupational Health, HSE (Health Safety & Environment) Managers, Health & Safety Reps, and the Standards team to carefully analyse every aspect of the role of Jubilee Line Train Operator to identify any risks associated with a red-green colour deficient member of staff driving trains on the line. His leadership, persistence and resilience ultimately resulted in his writing a paper proposing a trial for me and three other red-green colour deficient staff to drive trains on the Jubilee Line being approved by The Directors, and as of February 2nd 2018 I have been able to realise my dream of being a Train Driver. Two of the other trial participants were existing drivers on other lines who had been told their driving careers were over as they had started to fail to meet the Colour vision standard, one after a 20 year driving career. They are both now driving on the Jubilee Line, joined by a fourth person who had like me applied internally but been declined.

We are all incredibly grateful to Joe for not giving up and challenging the status quo to make London Underground a more inclusive place, safeguarding our futures in the process as well as potentially opening the door to dozens more red-green colour deficient staff in the future. As I understand it, this is a UK rail industry and maybe even global first, I am so proud to have played a part in this achievement. Joe’s enormous personal contribution to this has to be recognised.“

Jackie McPake

Said the following about Joe Brown:

“Joe is an amazing boss. He demonstrates professionalism at all times, he cares deeply about his staff and always has an open door policy which says so much about Joe. Very deserving of this award!!!“