The 'Apprentice Train' arrived in Cardiff yesterday (Wednesday 7 February), as Great Western Railway celebrated National Apprenticeship Week by operating a service crewed by current and former apprentices.
The train was crewed, driven, dispatched and controlled by current and former GWR apprentices. Network Rail apprentice signallers controlled the train's journey and Transport for Wales colleagues dispatched the train at Newport.
The train formed the 1015 service from London Paddington to Cardiff Central on Wednesday and featured more than 20 colleagues from GWR, TfW and Network Rail performing a variety of roles on the service.
They included Cardiff-based Katie Ellis on the first class trolley service. Katie started as a customer service apprentice nine years ago.
The 'Apprentice Train' was masterminded by Molly Giffard, 20, from Swansea, an Aspire operations management apprentice. She said: "We wanted to do something to promote the attainability that apprenticeships can give you. This is something that's 'real' and shows that getting your dream job through an apprenticeship is possible."
GWR supervises more than 240 apprentices across 2,000 miles of the network and last year received golden recognition as part of the Investors In People 'We invest in apprentices' programme.
Find out more about GWR's apprenticeship programmes here.
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