{"id":73828,"date":"2024-06-27T08:52:33","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T22:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railexpress.com.au\/?p=116702"},"modified":"2024-06-27T08:52:33","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T22:52:33","slug":"celebrating-a-half-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=73828","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating a half century"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image\/Queensland Rail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
With 50 years of riding the rails under his belt, there\u2019s few with as much knowledge and experience driving locomotives as Queensland Rail<\/a>\u2019s Peter Ca\u2019ttell.<\/strong><\/div>\n

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Mr Ca\u2019ttell, who joined the organisation on 20 November 1973, is one of 45 Queensland Rail<\/a> employees with more than 50 years of service.<\/div>\n
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The Ferny Grove resident currently works as a Locomotive Driver Class II, SEQ Operations at Mayne Yard and is qualified to operate everything from diesel freight locomotives to city trains to the iconic Tilt Trains.<\/div>\n
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However, he originally started as an engine cleaner, and as part of his role he drove the call car to notify traincrew of their next shift.<\/div>\n
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\u201cThings were a bit different back then. All you needed was a Grade 6 pass, a medical, and a maths test to meet the employment requirements,\u201d Ca\u2019ttell said.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI would drive the call car to Brisbane, Caboolture and Ipswich to inform the drivers, firemen and guards of their next shift.<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe shifts were rostered manually, so if the shifts roster was completed at 2pm on the previous day and the crews finished work at or before 2pm they wouldn\u2019t know what their next shift was.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Mr Ca\u2019ttell held a number of positions over his five decades of employment including as a fireman, driver, tutor driver, training instructor and train management improvement officer.<\/div>\n
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\u201cOne of my favourite roles was when I was travelling across Queensland teaching drivers, guards, control clerks, and station team safe working practices and radio communication, as well as basic electrical and track safety to contractors,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIn fact, the University of Melbourne specifically requested me as the trainer for track and trackside safety for their students.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m still a bit of a mentor to the younger ones coming through. They\u2019ll often call me up and ask me how to fix this or do that. I really enjoy being able to share my experience with them.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Working at Queensland Rail is a family affair for Ca\u2019ttell, with his daughter Sarah joining as a guard in 2019.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI am proud that she\u2019s joined Queensland Rail. She has always wanted to work here and was very excited when she got the role,” he said.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI also have to thank my wife for my career. We have been married 50 years this December and she\u2019s very dear to me.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIf it hadn\u2019t been for the love and support of my family then my career in Queensland Rail could\u2019ve been very different.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Queensland Rail CEO Kat Stapleton recently met with Ca\u2019ttell to recognise his achievement at a 50 years of service celebration.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI want to congratulate Mr Ca\u2019ttell on such a long and incredible career here at Queensland Rail.\u00a0 We feel so fortunate to have his level of knowledge and expertise available to us \u2013 that is invaluable,\u201d Stapleton said.<\/div>\n
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Ca\u2019ttell isn\u2019t ready to retire yet but enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, creating things from timber and gardening.<\/div>\n

The post Celebrating a half century<\/a> appeared first on Rail Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Image\/Queensland Rail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With 50 years of riding the rails under his belt, there\u2019s few with as much knowledge and experience driving locomotives \u2026 <\/p>\n

The post Celebrating a half century<\/a> appeared first on Rail Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1,"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":[163],"tags":[7465,10376],"class_list":["post-73828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rail-industry-news-australia-new-zealand","tag-queensland","tag-rail-express"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73828","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=73828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73829,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73828\/revisions\/73829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}