The RailStaff Awards 2024

Joe Lamb

Said the following about Training Team Larbert Training Centre:

“The Network Rail Training Team at Larbert Training Centre consistently perform above and beyond what is expected of them in order to deliver for our customers.

One great example of this is the Training Bus. A bus used for safety presentations has been repurposed and repaired to create a mobile training unit for Network Rail colleagues in remote parts of Scotland.

Helmsdale depot in the highlands was the first to test the learning facility with a track induction held for seven new joiners. The use of the training bus saved a journey of more than 200 miles to the route’s national training facility in Larbert. The implementation of this in Scotland Route was a trial to see if the concept would work. It has gone down well and we are now looking to roll this out across Network Rail Training if the demand is there from our customers.

The training bus was featured on Connect in February and feedback from delegates and their line managers has been very positive - Ian Gunn, Track Maintenance Engineer, said: “The new training bus has worked very well for us in the far north of Scotland.

“Removing the need to travel south for courses means people don’t have to spend additional time away from their families and we can better manage fatigue levels and reduce costs caused by long journeys.

“Using the bus means we don’t need to take over meeting rooms or mess areas to deliver training, which can impact the daily operation of the depot.

“I’m planning to bring the bus back to my area to deliver a number of other training events in future.”

Further examples of the excellent customer service provided include:

Sacrificing personal leave at Christmas to provide subject matter expertise to enable a vital project to be commissioned, delivering training events at various locations throughout the UK which generally involve sacrificing weekends plans to allow time to travel, liaising with the local SRPS Railway at Bo'ness, to deliver training on real faults, repairing existing track defects thus benefitting the community, sacrificing personal time in evenings to facilitate visits to the training centre from local community groups such as Scouts and open evenings for NR Advanced Apprentices, attending out of ours to respond to security issues relating to intruder alarms, reducing the duration of noise pollution for neighbours, providing subject matter expertise and mentoring newly trained individuals in the delivery units on a voluntary nightshift basis, regularly providing ad hoc 3rd level on call support for delivery units by diagnosing fault symptoms, recommending actions to reduce likelihood of repeat failures and expediting failure recovery time, personally obtaining HGV and CPC driver qualification to enable delivery of the Training Bus to our customers desired location, providing technical support to project Engineers re application of specific products, providing technical content review of NR standards as required. The list goes on...

The training team at Larbert are also committed to raising Dyslexia awareness within the training environment and have signed up for an Open University course which will link to Professional Recognition in Dyslexia and Inclusive Practice which will include an element of self-study out with their core working hours.

Customer driven? Accountable? Collaborative? Challenging? Yes to all 4!!“