The RailStaff Awards 2024

Jeremy Barrett

Transpennine Express

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Nominations for Rail Person of the Year

Al Piper

Said the following about Jeremy Barrett:

“Transpennine Express is going through a period of change at a pace that I believe is unprecedented in the industry, and York Driver Depot is at the heart of this transformation.

Pivotal to the delivery of this is one of my Driver Assessors, Jeremy Barrett. Jeremy has now been in the industry for 40 years and as his manager am proud to say that he is an extremely knowledgeable, articulate and helpful individual, without whom, my job would be a great deal harder.

He took on the task of organising, constructing and delivering the Calder Valley re-signalling brief, this brief not only went out to the drivers of his depot but Manchester as well. The brand new (at the time) Ordsall Chord brief was given to front line depots at just a few weeks’ notice; without direction Jeremy organised and cascaded delivery of the brief to 3 separate driver depots. In addition, and much of which in his own time outside working hours, he has scoped (including site visits), constructed briefs, gained competence and delivered training on 3 brand new routes for York Depot and it is fair to say with each of these had extremely tight timescales and these tasks normally fall within the responsibilities of the Ops Standards Department within the company.

The latest route in particular, Middlesbrough to Redcar, there was no indication that TPE were going to serve that route until April 2019, with such a tight timescale that even Ops Stds would struggle with Jeremy took ownership and produced one of the most comprehensive pieces of work that I have seen in my time in the company; I don’t think I am overstating that he may well have single handedly allowed the company to make good on it’s promise do deliver the route for the timetable change.

He has been the lynchpin in the delivery of Class 68 Locomotive to 2 driver depots and always makes himself available to assist with carrying out assessments on behalf of the Stds Manager.

A complete gentleman he is respected by both his peers and management alike. In fact, he is my ‘go to’ person whenever I need advice on any railway operations scenario. Unperturbed by scenarios seemingly more appropriate for a senior manager, Jeremy goes about those tasks and produces an answer often before we even knew the question.

With 40 years of service we are at a point where this remarkable individual must be thinking of retirement, when that day finally comes, my department, TPE and the entire industry will be a poorer place.

I wholeheartedly recommend that Jeremy Barrett, Driver at Transpennine Express is considered for the award of Rail Person of the Year.“