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iRail 2011


Rail advocate Pete Waterman, whose own steam engine business is run by apprentices, talks to RTM about forcing the industry in a new direction…


O


ne of the driving forces behind the National Skills Academy for Railway


Engineering (NSARE), Pete Waterman knows only too well the amount of effort involved in getting the rail industry to think in new ways.


He chaired the judging panel at iRail 2011 and offered plenty of tips to youngsters as- piring to a career in engineering.


He told RTM: “We need a change of at- titudes in the rail industry. For too long, people have seen engineering as dirty and badly-paid. Dirty it certainly is, badly-paid it certainly isn’t. I would guess that most young people have got more chance of a career in engineering than they have in pop music, but everybody wants to be in media.


“We’re coming to the crunch because of the economic situation; people have got to re-think what they really want to do.


“I lobbied for years for NSARE, and after a chance conversation with Gil Howarth in a Turkish restaurant, well, three years later, here we are. We’ve still got a long way to go. There are so many organisations in- volved in getting it set up, it’s almost like walking in treacle.


“We started properly in February so we’re still very young and there’s a lot of ques- tions to ask. We have to talk to govern- ment and to employers to try to under- stand what employers want; not what government thinks we should have. With the current downturn, now more than ever the question is being asked: what are we doing in rail? How do we get out of the re- cession, how do we spend money in better ways? Upskilling is one of those ways, but if you’re not getting that training from the employers, it’s pointless.


“Training for a piece of paper is pointless. It’s a no-win for anyone.


“Our problem is we’ve got a Victorian net- work, but over the last ten years, I can’t be- lieve what we’ve done to modernise the rail industry. Even my steam engines looked fu- turistic ten years ago. Now, we’ve got HS2 round the corner, and what I can’t believe is that history is repeating itself. When we started railways in 1824, landowners were


against. And we’re back to that – landown- ers objecting to people trying to make a living. Don’t we ever learn anything? HS2 will bring 40,000 jobs – where else are you going to find 40,000 jobs?”


He jumped at the chance for a role at iRail, adding a bit of celebrity glamour to the event.


He said: “We need to do more events like iRail; it’s great. I’d like to see kids getting involved more with engineering – not just ‘clean’ engineering at places like Bombardier, which is such a fantastic mod- ern facility, but a few of those kids seeing what it’s like when hot rivets get chucked up and people are using hammers. They need to hear the noise and find out about what their grandfathers used to do here in Derby. It fascinates kids, and I know from my own apprenticeship schemes, once you get kids on the rivets, we never lose them.


“I think ‘apprenticeship’ is the most mis- used word. It must be about learning a skill; not having a paper qualification. You need a qualification, but it should only be issued in the pursuit of a job and after a minimum, in engineering, of three and a half years. You can’t learn anything in six months.”


So, what about a more concerted push by all rail businesses to promote the whole industry?


It won’t happen soon, thinks Waterman:


“Rail is the worst industry in the world for talking to each other. It doesn’t speak with one voice and sectors are jealous of each other. With NSARE, I think we’ve per- formed a miracle. Now we’ve got to get the industry to work together, and that ain’t happened yet! There’s a lot of jealousy and professional secrets in the rail industry – so my background in the recording in- dustry comes in useful. We used to have to run the British Phonographic Institute without people talking to each other, be- cause there were so fiercely in competi- tion. Everybody’s got an angle and they’re all businesses.”


Waterman is a well-known rail enthusiast, and it was his love of steam engines that prompted him to get involved seriously in rail engineering. He said: “I bought the first part of British Rail to be privatised and came here to this Roundhouse and was going to set up business here; but it didn’t happen. Crewe offered us what Derby didn’t, so we moved there. We sold the engineering maintenance business to DB Schenker two years ago to concentrate on heavy engineering, which we’re build- ing up now.


“I did it for the love of it and out of self-in- terest, knowing that if my engines needed maintenance, other people’s would too. We do stuff every day of the week that 15 years ago no-one would have believed. We’re talking to the Ecuadorian govern- ment about bringing five engines back to Britain for us to do for them, and we’ll set up a firm in Ecuador to train their staff. It’s an idea that globally could grow.


“We’ve been taking apprentices on for 15 years now, and we’ve got an order book to 2019. I started off with guys who were be- ing made redundant by BR, trained in the 1950s, who had steam knowledge. I put young apprentices with them and the kids I started with at 15 then are now 30. We’ve got 47 employees – no more than six of them haven’t served apprentices, and even they have served them elsewhere.


“I don’t want any of them to leave me, but I believe that when they leave me, they’ll get a job anywhere.”


FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit www.nsare.org


rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 11 | 49


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