Recruitment
“Managing the Reading Festival railways
During the August bank holiday weekend, Reading Station becomes the gateway for festival goers returning from Reading Festival.
The Network Rail and GWR team at Reading Station worked collaboratively with British Transport Police and Interserve to ensure plans were joined up with Festival Republic and Reading Borough Council to ensure everything ran smoothly on the weekend.
The particular focus was Monday 27th August 2018, where Reading Station saw a mass exodus of revellers returning to the station at the festival’s end. While people arrived with full rucksacks and clean equipment, the return journey on the bank holiday Monday saw muddy boots and tents brought through the station. As part of the safe event planning, the main requirement for the local team at Reading Station is to ensure the safe movement of up to 100,000 extra customers using Reading Station during the day, with the use of over 500 barriers across the station, and volunteers from both Network Rail & GWR.
Planning for such an event for the influx of additional customer using the station included running additional train services throughout the night, strengthening train units, using over 500 pedestrian barriers to set up miles of queue systems in and around the station, and continuously keeping the station clean from large amounts of mud.
Volunteers were recruited from NR and GWR to manage the extra customers around the normal Monday morning travellers. As expected for such an event, trains, platforms and walkways became busier than usual and it was really important for the station team that both regular stations users and the Reading Festival revellers could all pass through the station safely.
The day was a success allowing our customers to enjoy a fantastic day leaving Reading. A great collaborative at Reading Station!“
“Thank you for a wonderful evening- words really cannot express how humbled I am to have won, ( yes, I cried all the way home.) The entertainment and meal were first class and the whole theme was amazing , wonderful to see so many people dressed up. As for my wonderful prize money, how will I spend it ? Two ways of spending it, this is how much patience I have , I purchased a new kitchen 11 years ago and its still in the boxes as my husband hasn't fitted it yet so hopefully this may spur him on......... Secondly I am a cartoonist and I help a lot of charities and now I have the funds to actually print some cartoons on to Christmas cards, which I can hopefully sell and raise some money for The Greyhound Trust ( My local one Perry Barr) and of course The Railway Children Fund too all being well. So thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart x Best wishes Simone”
Latest Twitter Updates
Follow us @RailStaffAwards