Hailey Giblin

Said the following about Hull Trains Front Line Team:

“Rail Team of the Year – Hull Trains Frontline Team

2023 has seen significant disruption across the railway, from industrial action to engineering works, yet none of this phased the Hull Trains frontline team.

Working round the clock they have been able to maintain services for customers where other operators have struggled, including continuing to run trains into London when the East Coast Mainline had closed for engineering works.

Most recent was across the August Bank Holiday weekend, Hull Trains were able to provide a further 1,308 seats into the market on an extremely busy weekend, ensuring that East Yorkshire remained connected to the capital despite the disruption on the route.

From the four stations covered (Hull, Brough, Howden and Selby), Hull Trains took 100% of the market across the weekend, 792 journeys in total.

This could only be achieved by the Hull Trains frontline team pulling together to keep services running. On Board Managers were provided with extra training to learn a new route with full briefings and maps.

Drivers were conducted over the route and briefed with new diagrams and the fleet team had to apply for new route gauging and compatibility statements to allow our trains to operate safely over the route.

Safety reps also had to make changes to our safety certificate and additional risk assessments were completed and actioned to allow for full safety validation before the fleet could operate safely with customers and colleagues over the temporary route.

The team also had to engage with key stakeholders to allow extra capacity over the route and for the fleet to access a new London terminal station, which meant also engaging with EMR customer service teams to assist with the customers arriving at St Pancras.

The team could have resorted to running bus services, but instead put the customers first and did everything they could to ensure trains still ran into London despite the disruption across the route.

They are a true asset to the company and we’re proud to have them all as part of the Hull Trains’ team.“