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Thursday 17 Sep 2009

TRAIN-ING BEGINS FOR NORTH WEST RAIL APPRENTICES

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At a time when unemployment is at a 14 year high with one in five 16-24 year olds out of a job, 28 aspiring engineers from throughout the North West this week joined Network Rail’s award winning advanced apprentice scheme, becoming part of the latest rail revolution which will see £35bn invested in a bigger and better railway over the next five years.

The young apprentices will spend their first year studying technical, practical and personal development activities at Europe’s largest specialist engineering training centre at HMS Sultan in Gosport, Hampshire. Here they live and work alongside the Royal Navy, sharing state-of-the-art recreation and sports facilities. Apprentices will train as specialists in track, signalling, electrification and plant, or telecoms.

Whilst training at the Gosport centre continues throughout their second and third years, apprentices extend their development by learning on the job at rail engineering depots across the North West, where they are supervised by experienced teams.

With this year’s intake, Network Rail has hired over 1,000 apprentices since its launch in 2005 and will train a further 1,200 over the next five years.

Commenting on the new apprentice intake, Network Rail chief executive, Iain Coucher, said: "This is an exciting time to begin working in the rail industry, to train and develop new skills so they can be part of the future of Network Rail. I believe investing in our people is an investment in all our futures, building a better railway and a better skilled Britain."