Catherine Unsworth

Said the following about Thomas Donnelly:

“Thomas has been nominated after receiving much praise from his manager for his all-round performance. He has taken up the challenge of the Customer Service Team Leader role at York Station with both hands and wasted no time at all in building relationships with both East Coast and Network Rail. Thomas has brought his control room experience to bear for the good of both the station operation and the resilience of the FTPE train plan. This has been noted by the East Coast Station Business Manager and Duty Station Managers who have all been very complimentary of his efforts. Thomas has also been very supportive to his manager and team in the run up and during the EBOR Festival of Racing event at York, his manager commented in fact that his support was ‘outstanding'. Whatever he was tasked with he carried out quickly and efficiently, basing his decisions on your wide ranging experience within the industry. He scrutinized the train plan in advance of the event and identified ways in which we were able to strengthen key services. He then took his findings to train planning for them to act upon. In disruption he has embraced the technology that has been provided to the team at York and have identified ways in which the ipad can be used. This has had a real positive effect on the service and quality of information you give to our customers. He has shown that he is able to communicate this message to his peers and gain their support for the new technology. This is the sign of a true leader- he has gained the respect of his peers who cannot now imagine the team at York without him. The most gratifying incident however was when the on-board team were struggling to crew trains over the EBOR weekend and he identified certain services that you could work to avoid a cancellation. We could have no better ambassador at York Station.“