Sally Ralston

Said the following about Ian Taylor:

“Ian is a fantastic role model to his Team within the Tech Office and to the wider depot as a whole. Passionate and enthusiastic about ensuring the fleet performs to its best, he has boundless reserves of enthusiasm, even when the going gets tough, and provides inspirational leadership to his team. Ian is always actively seeking out better ways to do things, and ensures that mistakes are understood and lessons learnt to prevent recurrence. In the external arena, Ian is both proactive and professional in his dealings with the Operations Department and also importantly with Network Rail,

and is well respected for his knowledge and commitment to Merseyrail.

Ian recognised the need to change the interaction between the Technical Office and the production teams coming in to his current role and had a clear view on how to achieve this, in the process this has earned him increased respect from his colleagues and helped to bring genuine improvements to the working environment which has impacted positively on performance.

Ian has achieved what he has because he has spent time within the department working in a number of roles building a depth of knowledge that is enormously helpful to understand any given situation be it a technical problem or a people issue, he treats everyone with respect, supports and encourages people and happily shares his knowledge to coach

and develop others where needed. He delivers all of this with boundless enthusiasm and is never down.

Ian has been in the role of Train Performance Engineer for nearly 2 years, having worked his way up within the Engineering team earning promotions on pure ability and hard work. Ian made an immediate impact on commencing his current role bringing his immediate team closer together recognising the individuals strengths and instantly helped to improve relationships between the technical functions and the production teams where previously there was little trust between the two.

The difference can be seen in a highly engaged and motivated team who are flexible and supportive of what needs to be done, have a thorough understanding of what is important to the business and the part each person plays in this. Further the production teams are more engaged with what the technical team are trying to achieve and are supportive of

the work that is being implemented, they now feel part of the process and a happy to interact with the Technical Office team to discuss ideas and solutions to technical issues rather than simply being told what to do.“