James Beckingham

Said the following about Christopher Horn:

“Chris has always been an extremely charitable individual but recently his efforts and endeavours to raise money for charity have to be merited. He uses his own time and initiative to raise both money and profiles for various charities within his organisation and beyond.

Chris was inspired by the Southeastern Class 395 High Speed Poppy Train for the Royal British Legion, which runs every year to raise money for the charity. This has operated now for several years and the team who organise it do amazing work to bring it together in their own time.

As a father of four, Chris wanted a way that he could bring his children (and big kids!) in on the fundraising, and something for the enthusiast to purchase which would see more money heading to charity.

Chris saw this opportunity while watching his son play with his wooden train set and, in his free time, contacted wooden toy manufacturer BigJigs. He spent many hours liaising with the company outside of work time and meeting them to come up with a concept of a Class 395 wooden toy train.

BigJigs were excited, Southeastern were excited and so was Chris.

One 'poppy train' was produced as a sample and auctioned online raising £75 for the Royal British Legion from the sale of just one wooden train.

Chris' Class 395 wooden train then went into production with BigJigs. On this run of trains, Chris secured a deal that sees 5% of each sale go to Southeastern's two nominated charities, The Dame Kelly Holmes trust and the Railway Children.

Before this, Chris often used his previous railway roles to raise money for charity. In his previous railway roles as Conductor and Railway Enforcement Officer, he organised a Christmas Toy Run for Demelza House Children's hospice, where he and a collection of volunteers collected donated toys from stations across Kent and, dressed as Father Christmas, delivered them to the terminally ill children at Demelza House.

Another year, he organised a Christmas Train trip for around a dozen ill children from Demelza House and their brothers and sisters. The train ran to St Pancras International with a designated 'party coach' for the children with food and decorations and, once again, Father Christmas put in an appearance at St Pancras!

Chris has also organised family fun days at Shortlands station, where families from the local area could come and see station life, play games and have a look at other aspects of the local community such as a fire engine in aid of the Alzheimer's Society.

He has run three London Marathons for varying charitable causes and many other local half and full marathons around his home county of Kent, despite the fact he's not overly keen on running.

Chris doesn't do any of this for recognition from his peers, colleagues or management. A lot of what he does goes 'under the radar' and it feels like time to let the world know what a wonderfully charitable and caring individual Chris is.“