Tube Lines announced the opening of a £10 million Skills Training Centre. As well as providing for all Tube Lines’ training needs, the purpose built centre will provide signalling skills and engineering training programmes against a backdrop of a national skills shortage in signalling.
The centre was officially opened today by the Transport Minister, Karen Buck MP. The Centre will enable Tube Lines to train 28 specialist signalling engineers every year, providing the skills we need today as well as the qualifications and skills required to install and maintain the innovative, leading edge infrastructure and technology that will replace it.
The state of the art facility combines classroom and hands-on engineering training under one roof. It will provide a wide variety of courses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to fit in with the schedules of the many shift and night workers who maintain and modernise the Underground. Courses will range from basic safety training for office based employees to two year advanced technical courses for signalling engineers.
Purpose built for those working to improve London’s underground system, the centre is fitted with five full-size lengths of track laid out for practical training on infrastructure, points and signalling. Four of these tracks are exact replicas of those currently used on the Underground, with a fifth track enabling training on the new systems being introduced in line upgrades. In addition to this, an Interlocking Machine Room, built with the support of the Learning and Skills Council (London East), contains all the equipment needed to control each of the tracks.
The centre also contains 14 spacious training rooms, each catering for up to 20 delegates, equipped with networked computers, touch-screen smart boards and the latest audio-visual equipment for an interactive training experience. A further training room is dedicated to IT training, along with breakout rooms, and a resource centre to encourage individual study and personal development.
Terry Morgan, Chief Executive of Tube Lines, said: "The Skills Training Centre sets new standards for best practice in training and development. We are actively taking control of our long-term skills needs and are enabling our people to stay on top of their professions. "
"Tube Lines will deliver an outstanding Tube for London through investment and the hard work of highly qualified, capable teams of experts. The centre, a significant investment by Tube Lines outside of the contractual requirement under the PPP, will help achieve this. "
Karen Buck MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, said: "A huge amount of investment is currently going into the Tube network to improve services. This is creating many new opportunities and making the Underground an exciting place to work and be part of.
"It's essential that facilities to train aspiring engineers and signallers are available and this new £10m centre in Stratford is an excellent example. It's extremely encouraging to see Tube Lines making such a big investment in training and skills development - demonstrating its long term commitment to the network."
The centre will be the hub for Tube Lines’ company-wide competency framework, where people can both keep their skills up to date for their current roles and develop themselves for the future. The centre will be run by a dedicated team of highly qualified and professional staff who collectively have 200 years of track experience.
All courses and trainers are nationally recognised and accredited, and the centre is accredited to award National Vocational Qualifications through the City and Guilds. In addition, it will also provide training for Tube Lines’ apprentices, working in partnership with Newham College of Further Education and other organisations in the Stratford area.
The Minister was accompanied by Lyn Brown, the local MP, and John Biggs, the local London Assembly Member.
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