Rail workers recruitment drive

Work is going on at 60 sites

Transport minister Lord Macdonald has inspected a railway engineering site as Railtrack announced it is to recruit 1,000 new staff.

The company is looking for 700 signallers and 300 engineers as it attempts to get services back to normal after the Hatfield crash.

The announcement comes as 8,000 employees work through the Christmas break to replace 25 miles of track and points at 60 sites.

Lord Macdonald visited workers on the Waterloo to Bournemouth main line at Wimbledon, south west London, on Tuesday.

I've been saying to a lot of the workers on the railway this morning they've got a pretty secure job for the next 10 years.

Lord Macdonald

He said he was pleased to see the work was on target, and that real progress on the rail network was being made.

The priority was to try to get trains running on time again, he stressed.

"It's very encouraging that Railtrack and its maintenance contractors have been working right over the holiday period, and very good that today the weather has held up," he said.

"It's a sign of just how much work there has to be done on the railway but the priority at the moment is just trying to get the trains running on time again.

"Railtrack say that by the end of January they'll have about 85% of the services back to normal."

He agreed that Railtrack's recruitment drive was a clear indication that the company had not had enough staff working on Britain's railways to date.

But Railtrack chief executive Steve Marshall said the majority of the 1,000 new jobs were in response to changes in working practices and negotiations with trade unions.

Lord Macdonald and Steve Marshall inspect the work at Wimbledon

Lord Macdonald said: "Railtrack say that they inherited decades of under-investment in the railways.

"What we've got now is a 10-year plan to put £50bn into rebuilding Britain's railways - not just the infrastructure but the rolling stock as well.

"For that you need skilled labour, and the announcement today of the 1,000 extra workers being recruited as from next month is a sign of just how seriously the problem is being taken.

"I've been saying to a lot of the workers on the railway this morning they've got a pretty secure job for the next 10 years."

Confidence

Railtrack's announcement of the search for extra staff is intended to bolster the drive to return services to normal and reinforce public confidence in the network.

But it is already known that the company will attempt to attract back engineers who have taken early retirement and whose expertise could be invaluable under the present circumstances.

School leavers, graduates, people returning from a career break and professional engineers will also be targeted.

Mr Marshall said "We hope that the announcement today is a major signal that passengers should have full confidence in the railways.

"The public will also be able to judge us when they see normal services returning - and the work should pretty much be complete by Easter.

"Railtrack has a substantial agenda ahead of it with the recovery programme to deliver, restoring services to normal, as well as the delivery of a huge investment programme and major capital investment projects."

There are reports that staff stand to gain bonuses of £3,000 if they succeed in laying the new track by the end of Wednesday.

Speed restrictions

They are on duty around the clock over the Christmas period.

The programme began as soon as the last train ran on Sunday night and will continue until 27 December.

It aims to replace track and sets of points to help towards removing or easing about 100 of the 463 speed restrictions still in place in the wake of the Hatfield tragedy.

Some of the sites where work is being carried out:

• Willesden, north west London
  
• Edinburgh-Glasgow
  
• South Manchester
  
• Birkenhead
  
• Chorley and eight other sites along the West Coast main line
  
• Birmingham to Derby
  
• Rugby to Nuneaton
  
• Rugby to Stafford plus about 20 other sites on the southern end of the West Coast and Midland main lines
  
• Castle Cary to Taunton
  
• Cardiff to Brigand routes and about five sites on the Great Western Line.