Victa Railfreight reached a significant milestone on 28 November when it delivered its Rail Safety Awareness training to the 500th candidate from the construction logistics industry.
The 500th was Liam Maltby of Tarmac and the course took place at Tarmac’s Newmarket site.
Rob McKittrick, Victa’s Operations Support Manager, said: “This is a huge achievement, so a special thanks to all involved and especially to Collette Ranford, Victa’s Operations Development Manager, who has created this programme with passion and energy from the very outset.
“We are developing people that work every day within a railway safety critical role. It is vital that the training we deliver is relevant to the work place of the participants and not a one size fits all, off the shelf package.”
Chris Swan, Tarmac’s Head of Rail said: “These courses really help us enhance the safety of our rail operation as they are tailor made for businesses, locations and activity in the construction industry. The feedback from the Tarmac teams have been how much they have helped with understanding & knowledge in this area.
“The Victa and Mentor teams are to be congratulated on its achievements on the continued success of the course. “
Victa won a contract in 2016 with a consortium of rail users from the construction industry to train around 800 staff at terminals, railheads and loading points on a derivative of the Victa Rail Safety Awareness courses.
These courses included key risks identified by the industry around rail operations within construction sites including interfaces, the loading and unloading of trains and specific wagon features to enhance the understanding of their staff involved in rail activities at these locations.
Victa began the courses in December 2016. By the end of 2018 over 525 construction staff will have attended the courses.
There will have been over 120 RSA courses by the New Year for customers from Liverpool Peel Ports, Aggregate Industries, Associated British Ports, Tarmac Cement, VTG, Cemex, UKRL and the Port of Tilbury.
Simon Blake of Aggregate Industries said: “Not only is the course content excellent, but we appear to have cracked the challenge of making it sustainable by acting collaboratively.”
Victa is now working with the same construction consortium to deliver a course covering higher level responsibilities for managers/operators of private rail infrastructure
As well as these courses, several spin-off programmes covering subjects such as “A Beginner’s Overview of Rail Freight”, “Effective Communications” and the “Role of the Designated Person” have been developed to meet specific customer requirements, again made relevant to the tasks the candidates undertake.
Other courses relevant to the rail freight and logistics sector will be added to the Victa portfolio over the next twelve months. Victa has strengthened its training team to meet the increasing demand for and range of its courses.
