A campaign recently launched by Network Rail aims to attract more talented women to the company. Describing the scheme on its website (www.networkrail.co.uk), it says: ‘We are a modern, innovative company, using state-of-the-art technology, and need a highly skilled workforce to maintain and deliver a successful and growing railway. But not enough exceptional women apply for jobs with us. Our new recruitment campaign aims to attract more talented women to the company, further improving the overall skills of our workforce and addressing the male/female balance. To start with, we are focusing on attracting more women to our award-winning Advanced Apprenticeship scheme, which, since its inception in 2005, has received only around 2% of applications from women.
 

 

To find out more about careers in the rail industry, see our article on page 22.

 

 

 

 

Britain’s high-speed rail network was officially unveiled last month when Transport Secretary Lord Adonis presented detailed plans for the 335-mile network to Parliament, commenting ‘High speed rail is a policy of huge strategic significance. The time has come to create a credible plan and for this to be a national cause.’

The route will – using 250mph trains – cut travelling times between London and Birmingham from one hour 24 minutes to 49 minutes. It will fork north of Birmingham, with one branch going towards Manchester and Liverpool and on to Scotland, and the other to Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle upon Tyne. Journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield will come down from more than two hours to between 75 and 80 minutes. Journeys from London to Glasgow or Edinburgh will be cut by an hour, to just three and a half hours.

In east London, a link with the Crossrail project would provide a fast route to Heathrow Airport in 11 minutes. In addition, the government is still considering giving the west London airport its own terminus for high-speed trains.
Although the new network will cost £30 billion, it is set to generate £2 of benefits for every £1 spent. The scheme will create a total of 10,000 jobs. Work – due to start in 2017 – would take up to a decade. Lord Adonis said the plan was a ‘step change’ for Britain and that the new capacity on the already overcrowded rail network would stimulate economic growth.

 

 

 

 

High Speed Two (HS2) – a governmentcreated company – has been drawing up plans to develop a highspeed rail network to run initially from London to Birmingham, and ultimately via Manchester to Scotland (a decision on the exact routes is expected by this April).

 

One of the major reasons behind the plans is to eliminate polluting domestic flights, which is why the scheme includes a proposal to link the highspeed line with Heathrow airport. By slashing journey times from London to Scotland to under three hours, it is hoped that such flights will become redundant.

 

The track will be capable of carrying trains at speeds of up to an astonishing 250 mph – a speed that current passenger trains are incapable of matching. French designers are, however, already developing trains that can travel at up to 225 mph – such speeds would cut the journey time from London to Birmingham from over 80 minutes to about half an hour.

 

The development and implementation of the new network looks likely to cost at least £25 billion and will, of course, offer a host of job opportunities in this sector. The government hopes to obtain allparty support for the new line, and to start work on the project by 2015, with the line due to be completed by 2025.