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Home > Rail
Work Experience
RAIL WORK
EXPERIENCE
In late March
2006 my school's Year 10 pupils did our two-week work experience
courses. Rather than arrange mine through the school I chose
to contact South West Trains (SWT) directly, who then organised
the course for me. It lasted 10 weekdays between Monday 20th
and Friday 31st March. Whilst with SWT I was based at
Basingstoke train crew depot and was under the supervision
of two guard managers - Pat and Ruth. You will hear these
two names throughout this work experience diary, as well as three others - Matthew, Anthony and Francis.
Matthew was my fellow student who I spent the two weeks
with. The reason he chose SWT was that one of his parents
worked there. Anthony Cutler was a guard that we were
accompanied by for a couple of the days and I have seen him
on a number of occasions since. Finally we have Francis
Oldfield who's name I had seen on internet discussion forums
a few times before meeting him totally by chance. We
met on three consecutive days throughout the fortnight
because I was coincidently sitting in on the same induction
days that he was attending for real!
A friend of mine,
Luke Bartey, started his work experience on Tuesday 8th May
2007 and his involved accompanying a MOM (Mobile Operations
Manager), which he did with Network Rail. You therefore
may also be interested in his work experience blog
here.
CONTENTS &
SUMMARY
The comments
below the dates in this section are merely summaries. For
the full day's story please click on the relevant day's
date.
Monday 20th March 2006
Quiz, basic introduction to the company and a round trip to
Waterloo with a guard.
Tuesday 21st March 2006
Assisted a guard to London and then back-and-beyond
Basingstoke to Southampton.
Wednesday 22nd March 2006
Trip down to Southampton on a 'company day' with 13 guards
discussing various things.
Thursday 23rd March 2006
A trip to the training centre driving Class 450s on the
high-tec train driving simulators.
Friday 24th March 2006
Trip to the signal box showed us people signalling trains
that were over 15 miles away.
Monday 27th March 2006
First day of the induction. This involved us being told
about the company in general.
Tuesday 28th March 2006
After waiting almost three hours in the morning we were
given our promised cab rides.
Wednesday 29th March 2006
We visited 'Centre Stage' and when we left the
anti-terrorist police searched Matthew!
Thursday 30th March 2006
Rear cab ride to Waterloo before having a tour of the
station, train cabs and Wimbledon.
Friday 31st March 2006
Unfortunately the last day although we did receive a few
nice gifts from the company.
PHOTOGRAPH
GALLERY
During the two
weeks I had the opportunity to photograph a few items of
interest including a number of cabs at London Waterloo,
thanks to a guard who showed us around the station.
Unfortunately I do not remember the name of this guard so if
this was you then please contact
me. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera into
Basingstoke Signal Box so there are no images of it's
interior on this page.
All images were taken with permission. The images are clickable and if you click them you will get a
larger version.
The cab of Class 159, 159017. |
The cab of Class 442, 2421. |
The cab of Class 455, 5848 (un-refurb). |
The cab of Class 455, 5719 (refurbished). |
The cab of Class 450, 450090. |
2401 overtakes us on the up fast. |
Class 73, 73235 awaiting it's next duty. |
960012 ticking over in Woking bay. |
Class 444, 444004 departing Woking. |
Basingstoke signal box from the train. |
A close up view of 450090's panel. |
Left and right view of 450090's panel. |
A few souvenirs from the past fortnight. |
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