On 29 May Stakeholder Liaison Manager, Jody Ball, and Cambridge Senior Conductor, Lesley Elding, spoke to a large group of young females from Doddington Guides and Brownies at March station about their personal career paths into the Rail industry. The event formed part of a programme of educational ‘Try a Train trip’ events for local groups of young people being arranged by Hereward Community Rail Partnership (CRP) this summer, with funding from our CrossCountry Community Engagement Fund.
Leaders of local Guides and Brownies groups had expressed interest in young females learning more about Women in Rail, so we agreed to join forces with other train operators serving the Fenlands region by arranging for two of our female CrossCountry colleagues to speak about their own journeys into railway careers. Several of the Guides and Brownies expressed an interest in a career in Rail and they found Jody’s and Lesley’s talks interesting and helpful. There was particular interest in the contents of Lesley’s Senior Conductor’s ‘kit bag’, as part of a lively Q & A session after the Women in Rail themed talks.
The party of Guides & Brownies, some of whom had never been on a train before, later travelled from March to Ely on a Greater Anglia bi-mode train for a tour of Ely station, followed by a visit to the City Centre attractions, before returning to March on CrossCountry’s 1427 Stansted Airport to Birmingham Turbostar service.