{"id":276590,"date":"2025-09-01T19:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/railuk.com\/?p=182073"},"modified":"2025-09-01T19:00:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:00:44","slug":"alstom-employee-retires-after-50-years-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=276590","title":{"rendered":"Alstom employee retires after 50 years service"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alstom has celebrated Movements Manager Ken Davies\u2019 career as he retires following more than 50 years\u2019 service on Britain\u2019s railways.<\/p>\n

A fitting send-off was organised at Alstom\u2019s Liverpool Traincare Centre on Friday 29 August, where he was surrounded by many of the trains he had worked on over the last five decades \u2013 including a Class 390 Pendolino. In fact, as part of his final shift, Ken drove Avanti West Coast\u2019s 390200 back in to the Edge Hill depot ahead of maintenance work.<\/p>\n

Following a series of speeches in front of around 30 colleagues, Ken was whisked away on board a vintage bus from the Merseyside Transport Trust. Ken has been an active member of the Trust for five years, and their 1968 Leyland Panther bus \u2013 Liverpool Corporation Passenger Transport No. 1054 \u2013 took him and his colleagues on a nostalgic trip across the port city, passing by many of the places that have shaped his and his family\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy career has taken me across the length and breadth of this country, and around the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout, I have been supported by the \u2018railway family\u2019, who\u2019ve been with me through every challenge and triumph,\u201d said Ken, who now lives in Ashton-in-Makerfield.<\/p>\n

The 67-year-old began his career on the Wirral, progressing quickly through signalling and traincrew roles, before moving in to senior traffic management positions. Ken joined Alstom in 2002, where he managed the company\u2019s operations along the West Coast Main Line, as well as the Old Dalby Test Track.<\/p>\n

Ken added: \u201cI had made my mind up at the age of four that working on the railway was what I wanted to do with my life. It\u2019s gone so quickly and I am looking forward to a break, but something tells me that this won\u2019t be the last time I am working in this environment. The railway gets under your skin \u2013 in the best way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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Ken\u2019s final role at Alstom was to mitigate risks when operational procedures changed, particularly when a new fleet is introduced. Launched in 2012, the Alstom Zero Deviation Plan (AZDP) focuses on high-risk activities to protect all employees and contractors from the risks they may face, and Ken has been instrumental in implementing this across the UK and Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are immensely proud of Ken\u2019s remarkable career, spanning over five decades of dedicated service to the railways. It\u2019s been a privilege to support a journey that has brought him such lasting fulfilment. At Alstom, we strive to create meaningful careers for passionate individuals like Ken, and we look forward to continuing this legacy through our growing recruitment programmes that are supporting the next generation of rail leaders,\u201d said Ben Cooke, General Manager at Alstom.<\/p>\n

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the modern railway and Ken\u2019s family have made their mark during this period, sharing 157 years\u2019 service between them. His grandfather worked at Tuebrook Sidings in Liverpool, while his father was a driver. Meanwhile, his sister worked on the railways for 20 years, retiring from her role as a guard in Par, Cornwall.<\/p>\n

Alstom celebrated Railway 200 earlier this month when it hosted the world\u2019s largest-ever gathering of historic and modern trains. The Greatest Gathering took place at the company\u2019s historic Derby Litchurch Lane Works between Friday 1 and Sunday 3 August, welcoming 40,000 visitors from around the world.
Furthermore, the train Ken drove in to Alstom\u2019s Liverpool Traincare Centre on his final shift \u2013 390200 \u2013 has been temporarily renumbered by Avanti West Coast to commemorate Railway 200.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Ken was surprised by colleagues at the Alstom Transport Technology Centre in Widnes, where the site\u2019s Class 08 locomotive, 08721, had been fitted with a plaque bearing his name in honour of his 50 years\u2019 service. The Class 08 then took centre stage at The Greatest Gathering, where it helped moved exhibits into place and highlighted the shunter\u2019s importance to Britain\u2019s railways since the 1950s.<\/p>\n

In addition, as part of BBC Radio 2\u2019s 21st Century Folk series, singer-songwriter Bill Ryder-Jones was asked to write a song commemorating Ken\u2019s 50-year career. The song, Climbing The Shap Again, was performed by Bill \u2013 from West Kirby \u2013 to Ken at The Greatest Gathering on board a Derby-built Class 720 Alstom Aventra train.<\/p>\n

Image credit: Alstom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Alstom has celebrated Movements Manager Ken Davies\u2019 career as he retires following more than 50 years\u2019 service on Britain\u2019s railways. A fitting send-off was organised at Alstom\u2019s Liverpool Traincare Centre on Friday 29 August, where he was surrounded by many of the trains he had worked on over the last five decades \u2013 including a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8202,16017,8221,47,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-company-news","category-industry-news","category-people","category-rail-news","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=276590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276591,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276590\/revisions\/276591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=276590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=276590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=276590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}