Dominic Carey - **HAS LEFT**

Said the following about Pete White:

“Great Western Railway (GWR) is one of the biggest rail franchises in the UK, part of the First Group of companies, operating the Western network since 1996, rebranding ourselves as GWR in 2015. We employ over 6000 people across our network and we carry more than one and a half million customers over two million single journeys on 10,000 services every week. People are at the heart of our business and our ethos is that we are 'greater together'. Pete has had an incredible journey during the last two years, and started with us after successfully completing one of our GWR/Prince’s Trust employability programmes. His ambition and desire to move forward meant that after several applications, he successfully started work with us.

He is an amazing person, so very positive, kind and driven by a strong desire to look after others. He is charming, warm and engaging and is able to create almost instant trust and rapport with anyone he meets.

He has since his start with us, had a rapid journey of outstanding performance and progress, and his energy and drive has now resulted (following work as a Ticket Examiner and Dispatcher) in him securing a trainee-Drivers position. No small achievement considering his relative newness to the railway.

Pete is always putting extra into the business, going that extra mile for customers, or supporting GWR/Prince’s Trust programmes, to mentor and guide young people.

It is Pete’s outstanding customer service behaviours, and his use of initiative to ensure that customers’ needs are fully met in the most difficult of circumstances, that we are highlighting here.

When heavy snow fell across our network, Pete was on duty on the Severn Beach line as a Ticket Examiner. He had started his turn at approximately 12.00 and it was by then snowing badly, and the reports were that the snow would get even worse. The start of his shift was nonetheless going well.

Pete boarded the 17:13 Bristol Temple Meads service to Severn Beach just the weather was getting worse. As the train moved up the line he started asking customers if they needed to travel, as he was starting to become concerned that the train could become stranded.

The train only managed to travel between St Andrews Road and Avonmouth where it had to then stop due to frozen points. The train returned to St Andrews Road where two of customers left the service. The train driver and guard were by this time trying to contact control and were advised to return to Severn Beach. On returning to Severn Beach (approximately at 19:00) then train came to a halt with around 20 customers on board, including children. Both customers and staff quickly realised that there was by this point no other travel options as all other public transport had come to a halt due to the worsening snow and ice.

Concerned about customer morale, using his initiative Pete spoke to each of the customers several times to build up their spirits, keeping them calm and reassured (especially the children) using his usual great sense of humour. This had the desired effect and everyone remained in good spirits. As the train was still at Severn Beach as of 22:00, with the customers having been on board for nearly five hours, several customers were by now feeling very hungry and dehydrated. The driver and guard were unable to arrange a solution via Control due to the effect the weather was having on the network.

Realising that resolution would not be quick in coming, and concerned about the wellbeing of those on board, Pete took it on himself to try and make the situation more bearable for the customers.

Peter contacted his line manager using his mobile device and explained that he had a plan to reduce the impact on the customers on board. He asked if he could use his takings and float to purchase food and drink from a local shop that he advised he thought he could reach through the snow. He stated that he had contacted to see if it was still open, and it was.

Pete’s line manager agreed, and Pete then checked with customers to see if any customers were vegetarians or had other special dietary issues, before leaving the train for the shop.

After struggling through driving snow, Pete returned (managing to secure the help of some locals along the way) with a load of supplies and walked through the train handing food and drink out to the customers and his fellow staff members. Throughout he kept them positive through his tirelessly positive manner, and attended to everyone’s needs giving no thought to his own.

Pete was contacted by his line manager at 23:30 who gave him an update on the situation and he was informed that both Network Rail and the local Police would be unable to help for several more hours. The hope was that they would be able to free the train early in the morning.

He assured his line manager not to worry, that he would personally speak to each customer to inform them of the situation and make sure they didn’t take news too badly. Pete’s line manager remarked after the event “Peter was very positive, and I was really surprised just how positively he took the news. Peter said,` I need to remain upbeat and positive for our customers’, and it struck me at time just how amazing his behaviour was”.

Pete then spoke to every customer informing them of the current situation. Peter faced some challenging conversations, but was able to make it personal to each passengers, he showed empathy and resolution. Pete lived around that area which helped him conversing with passengers. He also took the name and numbers of all passengers so GWR could contact them at a later date.

The points were cleared at approximately 01:00 and the train was finally able to transport most of the customers back to Clifton Down, but as the train moved towards Bristol Temple Meads it again became stuck at frozen points at Montpellier. A few customers were still on board and Pete again did his best to keep them up-beat and they eventually arrived back at Bristol Temple Meads around 03:30.

Pete had by this time been on shift for 14 hours, all of that time taking care of his customers with a smile, reassuring them with his fantastic customer service and looking after them at great risk to himself (walking through heavy snow and ice).

The level of empathy, care, accountability, responsibility, positivity, resilience and dedication shown by Pete in this situation was outstanding, and something that serves as a powerful example for others to learn from and emulate.

By taking the time to get to know the passengers on board, as well as meeting their needs, he became a person to the customers, not just a uniform, and was able to bring everyone together positively to see the challenging situation through.

Pete has already secured two internal awards for his actions, in both cases for outstanding customer service, at GWR’s Excellence Awards (our yearly red carpet recognition event) and also at First Group’s BeFirst Awards, where he won the UK award for customer service excellence.

It would be extremely gratifying if Pete’s incredible behaviour received the recognition it deserves externally at the RailStaff Awards.“