Steve Diksa

Said the following about Nic Biondi:

“Nic is Bridgeway Consulting’s Possession Delivery Manager for the East Midlands route between Sheffield and London St Pancras. To put this into context, his job entails planning, delivering rail engineering possessions ensuring that possessions are taken and given up on time and are always delivered 100% safely. He leads and manages a team of Possession support staff that includes Possession Planners, PSS Assistants, Auxiliary Operating staff, PICOP’s and Senior PICOP’s and he has done this very successfully for a number of years.

When asked to help write this testimonial I asked a number of his team members to describe Nic in a few words and this is what they said: “he leads by example,“ I trust him”, “talks the talk and walks the walk”, “always gives 100%”, “Mr Dependable”, “resourceful” , “brings out the best in people”, “great talent spotter”, “always there when you need him”, “best bloke I’ve worked for”, “turns problems into challenges” “always delivers, never fails” “unique....but in a good way!”

Helping to plan/deliver possessions and managing teams comes naturally to Nic and he has done this successfully for Bridgeway in other areas of the UK rail network including the West Coast, Thames Valley, Western and Wales routes and he does this by working with his clients (Network Rail) and leading his teams to ensure that they deliver, every day/night, every week, every year. Nic is no stranger to operational duties either, having served his formative years as a Handsignaller and later as a SPICOP – he still works most weekends (including bank holidays!) as a SPICOP – working shoulder to shoulder with his teams and as they say – always leading by example.

The Network Rail Planning and Delivery of Safe Works Project (PDSW) went live in the East Midlands in May 2015 and Nic was the Bridgeway Manager right in the middle of everything for Bridgeway (and his client Network Rail): working with the Bridgeway Learning and Development team to ensure that staff were selected/released for training, his own and Network Rail’s possession planning teams to ensure that they could use the new e-permit process. He also stepped up when he was required to deliver the PDSW Town Hall briefings to help launch the PDSW project in the East Midlands. Bridgeway helped Network Rail implement the project successfully and Nic was instrumental in this.

Finally, Nic is a larger than life character, a ‘one off’ with whom I have had the privilege of working with. I sincerely hope that his efforts as a Manager get recognised by the rail industry family and hopefully he will be rewarded at the Railstaff 2015 awards as Manager of the Year.“