South Western Railway has announced that their first of their newly qualified train drivers has taken to the tracks.

On Friday, 14th September 2018, Temitope Awe took the controls of the 0454 train from Basingstoke to Waterloo.

As part of new plans to expand train services, South Western Railway currently has approximately 150 drivers in training. Many of which will be fully qualified in the coming weeks and months.

Temitope, or ‘Temi’, has been with the train operator for 14 years, spending 11 years in revenue protection at Waterloo before becoming a guard for 2 years.

Over the past 14 months, Temi has gone through the intensive full-time training programme. This includes classroom-based training, exercises in a high tech driver simulator and supervised driving.

What did the officials say?

Commenting on his newly acquired skills, Temi said:

“It’s been a challenging but enjoyable 14 months training, and I’m excited about this new chapter in my career with South Western Railway!”

Andy Mellors, Managing Director, South Western Railway, said:

“Congratulations to Temi on starting a new chapter in his career on the railway!

“We’ve invested heavily in training more drivers to support our plans for growth in the years to come, and it’s great to see that this investment is resulting in a large number of newly qualified drivers joining the ranks of their driver colleagues over the next few weeks and months.”

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