Media centre

Monday 7 Mar 2005

MEDIA INVITATION: OPENING THE DOORS TO THE TALENT OF TOMORROW

Region & Route:
| Southern
Date:                           8 March 2005 Time:                          11am Location:                    HMS Sultan (Caledonia Entrance), Military Road, Gosport Event:                         A chance to see Network Rail’s new training centre and to meet some current apprentices Media contact:          Jenny Sacre 020 7557 8107 The Royal Navy’s historic HMS Sultan will open its doors on Tuesday, giving the chance to see the new home of Network Rail’s advanced apprenticeship scheme – a £30 million investment in one of the UK’s biggest apprenticeship programmes. Current Network Rail apprentices will be on hand to talk about their experiences on the scheme and there will be chance to look around the training centre at HMS Sultan, which will house the new set of aspiring young trainees. HMS Sultan is Europe’s largest engineering training centre boasting fully refurbished accommodation, a swimming pool, football, tennis and squash amenities and much, much more. Almost £2 million is also being invested in completely refurbishing living accommodation, common rooms, kitchens and classrooms within the complex. The apprenticeship scheme will be a huge boost for the Portsmouth area and is equally good news for the railway as Network Rail develops a new breed of talent for the industry.

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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