Lindsay Marshall

Said the following about Northern’s Training Academy Team:

“On 1 April 2016, the new Arriva Rail North franchise was launched. The new franchise has ambitious plans to transform rail travel in the North by 2020. Teams across Northern are taking up the challenge to modernise; from the trains we offer, to the services we provide.

A crucial team in this first phase of Northern’s modernisation programme has been the Northern Training Academy team. This team provides training to new and established staff in operational skills such as train driving, train conducting, gate-line, retail and ticket office.

At launch, the Training Academy team was set a significant challenge; to ensure we had enough skilled people – importantly drivers and conductors – ready to take on the roles Northern needed, within exceptionally tight timescales.

The first major step up in Northern’s modernisation programme will be in the six months from December 2017, with new routes and more train services. These improvements will not be possible unless Northern significantly grows its traincrew team.

More than 300 extra new drivers and over 200 extra new conductors will be needed in the next 18 months, a fourfold increase on previous years, and other training industry professionals described this as ‘an impossible task’.

In response to this challenge, the academy has delivered a significant increase in the number of people trained and created a larger and even stronger team of highly skilled specialist internal trainers. Academy staff numbers were doubled to meet this need via secondment of skilled staff from within the business.

A key part of the success story has been the way that people across the whole business have worked together to create new templates for safe and effective training to happen, focusing on having a ‘how do we achieve this’ rather than ‘it can’t be done’ attitude. Staff in standards, operational change, frontline depot managers and union representatives have all engaged positively in dialogue to adapt our methods of working to maintain their integrity whilst also allowing the flexibility essential to meet the higher workload.

One particular area of innovation that has enabled the plans to work has been the creation of new learning spaces trackside at our training depots in Neville Hill and Newton Heath. The scope of training delivered at these depots has now expanded and incorporates more theory and reflection on personal practice alongside the practical handling experience that helps bring the training to life.

Throughout the transformation, all involved have worked effectively as a team, bringing in new members of seconded staff, sharing skills and knowledge and supporting each other to manage a high workload to tight deadlines.

Innovative approaches have been introduced to the scheduling of the training that is being delivered with increased use of new materials, simulators for driver training and new ‘role play’ elements to conductor training. The team worked creatively to manage the uplift in requirements whilst ensuring safety needs and training standards were being maintained.

Between the start of April '16 and the end of March '17, Northern started training for 332 drivers 256 conductors. All of these people are available to support the introduction of new trains and new services in the coming years that will result in a 37% increase in capacity on Northern’s network by 2019. Without an effective team, pulling together and opening up new ideas, this huge achievement would not have been possible.“