We enjoyed an excellent 'behind-the-scenes' tour of Paddington Station on the Elizabeth Line this week.
As part of our Havering employment project, we have teamed up with Mtrel, the award-winning UK train operator running the Elizabeth line for London. Our employment project has identified members of the autistic community in Havering who needed support to gain employment experience and as many of them are interested in public transport, it made sense to approach the Elizabeth Line to see if they would be willing to take some of our young people for work experience.
Well, they have exceeded expectations and offered us the chance to place a number of young people in various positions around the railway to find out how London's best performing railway operates. This week, we visited Paddington to get a flavour of what life is like on a typical day. We met at Romford and took the Elizabeth Line to Paddington where we had a tour of the station. We split into small groups to visit the station control room, which monitors everything that happens at Paddington, 24 hours a day.
We also visited the gateline, to see how that operates as passengers are tapping in and out and no visit to Paddington would be complete without seeing their most famous resident, Paddington Bear! We also saw the plaque commemorating the opening of the station, by HM the Queen, in May 2022. Best of all, some of our group were invited to make live platform announcements, as the trains were pulling into and out of the station!
Click here to see Harry making a station announcement; https://youtube.com/shorts/YlNbI1j5mcg?feature=share
Rachael also made a platform announcement
From there, we headed to Canary Wharf, and the roofgarden above the station, where we stopped for lunch before heading back to Romford.
The The Elizabeth line is the most significant addition to London’s transport network in a generation, providing new journey options, cutting travel time and supporting regeneration across the capital. Mtrel takes diversity and inclusion very seriously, and has a team of ambassadors, dedicated to ensuring that people of all abilities are able to travel on Crossrail. Click here to find out more about the Elizabeth Line community ambassadors https://mtrel.co.uk/about-us/community/
Each of the young people in our group will now have the opportunity to spend some time in a particular area of the railway, giving them valuable experience of what is involved in a busy working environment. Huge thanks to everyone at the Elizabeth Line for supporting this initiative, particularly, Rhona, Katrina, Joseph, Rosemary, Adam and Louie.
For more about our work in supporting the Havering autistic community to gain valuable work experience, click here; https://www.sycamoretrust.org.uk/latest/article/New-employment-project-in-Havering