Nexus, which owns and manages the Tyne and Wear Metro, has teamed up with Newcastle College’s new Rail Academy to help in the delivery of a major programme of overhead line renewal on the Metro system.
The region’s first dedicated training hub for rail engineering, the Rail Academy successfully won the contract from Nexus to deliver the training to its staff.
Nexus is to modernise large sections of Metro’s overhead power lines, with the work being delivered ‘in-house’ by staff based at its rail headquarters in South Gosforth in Newcastle.
The work is part of the £350m Metro all change modernisation.
The Rail Academy was chosen to deliver the overhead line training to 25 staff from the Nexus Capital Delivery Team following a competitive tendering exercise, underpinned by its unrivalled facilities at its bespoke training centre in Gateshead.
Director of Rail and Infrastructure at Nexus, Raymond Johnstone, said: “the Rail Academy is delivering an essential programme of training which will support the modernisation of the Tyne and Wear Metro.
“We are retaining our capital delivery workers and are training them up so that they can carry out the replacement of the overhead lines across the system.
“This shows how the Metro all change modernisation is helping to create jobs and allowing our workers to learn new skills. The Rail Academy is the perfect place to learn because the facilities are top class.”
Marc McPake, Head of Rail at Newcastle College, said: “The Metro is a critical part of the region’s transport network and we are delighted to work with Nexus and provide professional training as part of this multi-million pound renewal project.
“The Academy has made a significant move into commercial training and we have had a fantastic response from employers looking to up-skill their existing staff or recruit the next generation of rail engineers. We believe that what we have here is unique and we are well positioned to provide the skills support required by companies like Nexus, who want to develop their own staff in response to major Government investment into rail infrastructure.
The Nexus Capital Delivery team was set up in 2012 to deliver three major work streams - the installation of a system wide diverse fibre cable route, the electrical testing and renewal of signalling cable and the fettling of concrete cable trough routes system-wide.
Since the completion of these projects the team has gone on to undertake a number of other projects including earthworks, station Help Point renewals and a range of other minor modernisation projects.
The pre-training for this project is being delivered over 15 weeks at the Rail Academy.
The Rail Academy won the contract to deliver the training following a competitive tendering process.
The Academy is the first of its kind in the country with indoor and outdoor training areas including P-Way, overhead line and signalling equipment all under one roof. The facility was developed in partnership with Network Rail and the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) to help industry address regional and national skills gaps, support further job creation and ensure the vitality of the rail sector. It offers real scenario based training in a range of technical areas, but within a safe controlled environment.
The Academy opened in September 2014 and has already been praised by Chancellor of Exchequer, George Osborne as ‘helping to address the skills gaps in rail engineering’.