MEDIA INVITATION: RAIL MINISTER TO VISIT NETWORK RAIL APPRENTICE SCHEME

Wednesday 1 Feb 2006

MEDIA INVITATION: RAIL MINISTER TO VISIT NETWORK RAIL APPRENTICE SCHEME

Region & Route:: National

Date: Tuesday 7 February Time: 10.00am (duration approximately 2hrs) Venue: HMS Sultan, Military Rd, Gosport, Hants, PO12 3BY Contact: PJ Taylor 020 7557 8292 Journalists are invited to visit the home of one of Britain’s biggest apprentice schemes on the occasion of the visit of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Derek Twigg MP. The minister’s visit will coincide with an announcement by Network Rail extending the size of the scheme as applications open for the second year. Network Rail is investing £30m in the scheme to train 1,000 young people on comprehensive three-year courses. During the tour of HMS Sultan, visitors will see some of the apprentices training to become the railway men and women of tomorrow in state-of-the-art facilities. The young people are taught by trainers from the Royal Navy, Network Rail, and Flagship Training Ltd. For security reasons we ask all journalists who intend to come to confirm this by 5pm on Friday 3 February. Transport to HMS Sultan can be provided from Fareham train station at 9:50am.

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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.

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