Recruitment
“I am nominating Chloe Thomas in the category of Rail Engineer of the Year for a myriad of reasons. Not only is she dedicated to her own professional development, but she encourages other engineering apprentices by mentoring them and managing the fleet mentorship programme, supports women who want to join the railway through her work with Women in Rail and leads on innovative workstreams at Canton Depot for Transport for Wales.
Chloe joined the railway back in 2015 as a fleet maintenance apprentice and progressed to be a fully qualified maintenance technician working across the different fleets that TfW run. She was a pioneer as the first female maintenance technician at TfW.
Over 6 years later, she is now a Fleet Support Engineer who has just completed her BSc Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Not only did she successfully juggle full time work and part time study she received a First- Class Honours Degree. This year she was awarded the IET Prize for most outstanding student and was also presented with an additional award by the Dean of the University – the Certificate of Excellence for University of South Wales.
Along with Chloe’s many academic achievements she’s also been innovating at Canton Depot. She has successfully implemented new battery testing equipment that uses conductance testing to determine the health of the battery on the Class 150 Fleet.
As a battery ages, its internal components gradually wear out through corrosion, disintegration, shedding, electrolyte dry out and other mechanisms. When this happens, conductance is unable to be restored and declines as the battery degrades, leading to failure. To determine a suitable point for the changeout of batteries, a baseline reference must be implemented at which point if a cells conductance drops below this point, the cell is replaced. This project will enhance the performance of the Class 150 batteries resulting in increased reliability of battery systems as this project will implement preventative maintenance into the exam regime.
Chloe is also providing Class 231 support - ensuring the smooth integration of Nexala and SRMS, re-writing electrical safe working procedures and improving reporting through automation.
From apprentice, to technician, to engineer – Chloe has a bright future and will play a pivotal part helping transform rail in Wales.“
“I have heard that Saturday night was a real success! People have said so many good things about the comedian, the dancing and the lovely food and so if you could pass our thanks onto who ever deserves them please.”
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