Wednesday 28 Nov 2012
Olympics legacy for rail users as Games ‘travel champions’ to be used at Christmas and bank holidays
- Region & Route:
- National
Rail passengers using the country’s biggest and busiest stations will get a helping hand from a new army of volunteers after the success of Network Rail’s ‘travel champions’ initiative during the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In a move which will secure an Olympic legacy for passengers across the country, Network Rail intends to make the volunteers a permanent feature in its stations at busy times, such as bank holiday weekends and during big sporting events. The decision was made after staff who had volunteered during the Games said they wanted to continue to help the travelling public in future.
Almost 600 travel champions from across Network Rail’s business worked alongside station teams to provide travel advice, directions and other helpful information to visitors from across the world as well as regular commuters during the Olympic summer. More than half of the 1.4bn rail journeys made each year start or end at one of Network Rail’s 17 managed stations.
Olympic long-jump gold medallist Greg Rutherford said: “Travel champions were a fantastic part of the Games. I had family coming to London who don’t use public transport that often – people like my dad, who had absolutely no idea where he was going and was still trying to ring me on the day of the competition to find out how to get to the stadium! So for him to manage it perfectly just shows what a good job the travel champions did.
“I’d like to say a massive ‘thank you’ from me and all the other athletes, because without the travel champions it would never have been as smooth as it was and it wouldn’t have been the greatest Olympics in recent history.”
Fiona Taylor, route managing director at Network Rail, said: “Playing a part in the success of the Olympic and Paralympic Games was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for our people and it’s no surprise that they want to keep that going. Our station staff do a great job every day, but the extra help from travel champions at some of the busiest
Notes to editors
Network Rail owns and manages 17 of Britain's biggest and busiest stations.
National stations:
Birmingham New Street
Edinburgh Waverley
Glasgow Central
Leeds
Liverpool Lime Street
Manchester Piccadilly
London stations:
Cannon Street
Charing Cross
Euston
Fenchurch Street
King's Cross
Liverpool Street
London Bridge
Paddington
St Pancras International
Victoria
Waterloo
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