Stephen Gwilt

Said the following about Sandwell & Dudley Welding & Grinding teams:

“This team of welders & grinders go above and beyond when set a task. If there are any issues they will try their best to resolve them and fix the problem. On numerous occasions they have completed switch repairs in the New Street area that have been out of the box normal repairs to get a safe reliable railway and trains running again, saving thousands of pounds in train delays and performance issues.

The challenge this weekend (12/08/17) was on NS550 facing points for all traffic out of New Street going south to London/Rugby. Working under the authorisation of the area RAM team they completed an out the box switch blade repair that would have banned all facing movements over the switch. In real terms they have saved the potential for an unknown amount of minutes delays per day which would have equated to thousands of £s per day and significant disruption to the network. Last time these points failed we had 7,003 Minutes delays and the W&G team had to complete an SO/53 emergency switch T3 Possession on days, diverting all South bound train. Attached power point presentation about this emergency repair. This time the repair was completed T3 possession Saturday night when identified on the night by the welder.

The W&G team are one that regularly deliver really good work for the DU and their efforts are regularly noted. Below is an E-Mail sent the back end of last year from the depot Infrastructure Maintenance Engineer, for some great work completed by the W&G team, “I want to state that there is a huge appreciation for all that you and your team did, as well as the work Carl and Dave did to authorise our out the box thinking. In real terms we have saved the potential for 4000 minutes delay per day which equates to roughly £330,000.00 per day so you are absolutely right that we have saved significant disruption. Your team are one that regularly deliver so really good work for the DU and their efforts are regularly noted. Please do pass on thanks from us for this and their continued good work”.“