Mark Cawdron

Said the following about Great Northern & Thameslink Operations Learning Team:

“This team, which has only been 14 strong, has been at the centre of the biggest trainee driver recruitment programme the industry has ever seen. Within the last 12 months the team has completed a 3 year highly intensive training plan that has not just seen literally hundreds of individuals embarking on brand new careers as Train Drivers, but has also seen the introduction and roll-out completion of a brand new fleet of trains, class 717's to replace the ageing Northern City Line stock of Class 313's.

Sounds simple enough? During this time, the team have had not just work life and pressures increase to previously unheard of levels but also family and personal lives.

A number of the team spent up to 5 weeks away from home over the course of 9 months, out at the Siemens train building facilities in Wildenwrath and Krefeld, Germany. Meticulously and methodically learning how the trains operated whilst they were being built and spending hours upon hours on the test tracks before heading for home and compiling all of the documentation needed from risk assessments and task analyses to drivers guides and Northern City Line sub surface railway procedures.

During this time remaining members of the team where getting used to delivering a brand new style of driver training course that is nothing short of a culture change.

Again during this time, our simulator managers introduced a while new suite of desktop simulators, including Factory and then Site Acceptance Testing. This again requiring time away from families to achieve.

As if all of this was not enough, coupled with the hundreds of trainee drivers to manage and facilitate their learning, nearly half of the team also volunteered to assist the business in getting new depots up and running by lodging, some as far as 100 miles away for periods of up to 10 weeks. The aim being to enable new drivers to cover new routes and gain competence.

The GN & TL Operations Learning team is a team to be proud of. A team that has a 'Can do, will do' attitude despite the impacts this may have on their families. the flexibility and resilience this team has shown is not just remarkable and something to be proud of, but without shadow of doubt has been instrumental to the future success of GTR.

It's a team that have never had their praises shouted from the rooftops and nor do they seek it. A very humbling group of professionals who deserve long overdue recognition.“