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Monday 23 Jan 2006

YOUNG WOMAN ENGINEER OF THE YEAR AWARD

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Elizabeth Cornes, 23, of Helsby, Cheshire has won the Mary George Memorial prize in the Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award. Along with the title comes a silver salver and cheque for £500. Ms Cornes works for Network Rail in Chester as an engineering technician. She joined the company as an apprentice in 2001 and completed three year’s academic, technical and on-the-job training with so much enthusiasm and commitment that she is now role model for new trainees. The only female signalling technician in the Liverpool and North Wales area, Liz works as part of a team of three, which provides round-the-clock fault finding and preventative cover in and around the Chester, Wrexham and Northwich areas. One day could find her maintaining sets of points, the next she could be working on signals or the tracks or putting right faults reported by train drivers. It’s that variety and never knowing what is coming next that really excites her. Speaking after the award ceremony, Ms Cornes said: “I am delighted to win this award and feel very honoured.  “A nine to five office job has never appealed to me, doing the same thing over and over again. I really enjoy the variety, you often never know what you’re going to get until you turn up and work your way through it. “It’s never bothered me being the only woman.  It’s not an issue; I don’t feel like a sore thumb or anything – in fact I don’t really think about it.  I’m there with the team doing an important job and I try hard. The lads treat me the same as everyone else. “I couldn’t have done so well without the support and encouragement of the people I work with – it’s like they’ve partly won the award too.” Liz became an engineer because she finds it very rewarding knowing that her work is vital for the safety of trains and their good timekeeping. Anyone else who wants to follow in her footsteps should look at the careers page on the Network Rail web site www.networkrail.co.uk.