Media centre

Wednesday 26 Oct 2005

NETWORK RAIL ON TRACK WITH DISABLED ACCESS

Region & Route:

| Southern

A Network Rail customer service assistant at Paddington station was a winner at the National Deafblind Friendly Corporate Awards held in London yesterday. Kerstin Coult, who has been with Network Rail for 18 months, won the Travel and Transport category for the friendly way she had helped deafblind people. Kerstin regularly assists disabled passengers including Liz Ball, who nominated her for the accolade which recognises individuals and organisations that positively welcome customers with both sight and hearing impairments. Liz, who is deafblind, says: "Kerstin understood the idea of communicating with me using a Braille alphabet card almost straight away. She actually had quite a conversation with me and didn't mind that I had turned up without booking assistance. "I was about 30 minutes early for my train, so Kerstin asked me to sit and wait for a while. I always worry that I will be forgotten when this happens. But every few minutes she came over, gently tapped my arm and said something to me." Kerstin says she was both surprised and grateful to be awarded for good service that she would expect anyone in a customer-facing role to provide: "You would imagine that everybody would help in the way I helped Liz, but the stories she recounted about the poor service she'd received from some individuals and organisations were distressing. However it's still great to know that we’re helping people and doing some good.”