On the 5th and 10th December, pupils from Holy Cross High School and Strathaven Academy were lucky enough to be offered the opportunity of a behind the scenes tour at Alstom Traincare Centre in Polmadie. On arrival our young people were met by current apprentices, team members and management team and taken through the operations and services delivered at The Traincare Centre. Presentations done and kitted out with the appropriate safety gear it was time for the tour to get underway.
Our first stop was the first work hut which can fit 2 carriages. We were all taken around the hut and onto the carriages where each component was explained with the staff fielding questions from our eager young people. Although everyone has been on the trains and they are part of our day to day lives it was really interesting to have this behind the scenes look. Moving on from the carriages we were taken to the Parts & Storage Department where we saw Alstom’s brand new technology which identifies required parts and picks them for the staff streamlining their processes. It is really valuable for our young people to see how companies grow and adopt new technologies to make doing business easier.
The main work hut is large enough to store 4 full length trains, almost a quarter mile long! This massive workspace allows the staff at Alstom to work on multiple trains under cover (which is more often than not required in Scotland!). Getting to speak with the engineers was great as the pupils got to find out how many components need maintained on the trains. We were also giving an exclusive sneak peak into the brand new Caledonian Sleeper train which will begin operating in March 2019 which boasts hotel standard fittings.
Our final stop was the Production Management Office where we got an insight into the workload that comes through the site and how this is managed. Again, this is invaluable insight for our young people to have a look at the back of end of such a big operation and opens up their minds to the various different potential career paths within one business. At this site, 13 trains come in each night and need to be ready for service by 4am the next day. This is all done by 10 members of staff! Again this really highlighted for us how important good planning is to ensure this workload is managed correctly. We had a great few days at Alstom and all of our young people took so much from their site visits. A massive thank you to Mark Phillips, Davy MacDonald, Robbie Livingston, Sorley McKinven, Scott Guthrie and everyone at Alstom for a great few days.