Content area
Full text
A UK rail company is making train drivers out of people as diverse as radio DJs, airport baggage-handlers, electricians and computer engineers, through a home-grown training program that is improving individual and company performance, and has attracted the praise of the Railway Safety and Standards Board.
Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) employs 3,200 staff, of whom more than 300 are drivers, operating from four depots. The company staffs 12 railway stations and runs 123 train services each weekday. The company recently won a ten-year franchise to operate high-speed inter-city train services between London, the East Midlands, Yorkshire, north-east England and Scotland.
"On privatization, a large number of drivers chose to take early retirement," explained Richard Potter, GNER technical-training team manager. "This, coupled with the age profile of remaining GNER drivers, meant the company needed to be prepared to recruit and train more than 50 drivers between 2002 and 2005."
The company has three driver-training consultants, responsible for delivering all classroom theoretical driver training, and 51 volunteer trainers who support trainees during on-the-job training.
"Under British Rail, a train operator would take any shortfall of drivers from regional operators," Richard Potter continued. "This was ruled out as GNER was committed to a policy of encouraging home-grown talent and ensuring that our high standards of safety and behaviors are instilled into all new recruits, while making sure that bad habits are not imported from other train operators."
Before this, a traditional open-ended apprentice-style of training had been employed, using a strict line of promotion, with some trainees never becoming a driver. Drivers, often without training skills, could partner a trainee, increasing risk by potentially passing on bad habits. The company's volunteer trainers had not received any development.
"Content had never been reviewed nor training systematically designed, with the risk that training no longer gave trainees the required knowledge, skills or behaviors to achieve competence," said Richard Potter.
More-systematic training needed
A...