Appeal to Siemens to Revive Eastleigh Tradition of Annual Depot Open Day

11.04.45am UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 24th Aug 2004

Chris Huhne calls for rail open day

Hampshire MEP Chris Huhne has appealed to Siemens to revive the Eastleigh tradition of an annual open day for family and friends of the railway at their new Northam traincare depot.

Mr Huhne has written to Andrew Healey, the general manager at the Northam traincare depot, asking him to reconsider given the benefits for good community relations and the pride of those working on the railway.

The new Northam facility will maintain the new rolling stock being introduced to replace the old slamdoor trains that were built and maintained at the Eastleigh depot.

Mr Huhne said: 'One of the reasons why there is such strong local pride in the railway is because of the big efforts that the train companies used to make to show off the works. I very much hope Siemens will continue the same tradition'.

In his letter to Mr Healey, Mr Huhne says that he understands that an open day would add costs because of stopping work at the facility for a period, and because of the need to ensure that safety standards were properly maintained. However, these issues were traditionally overcome at the Eastleigh depot, and the managers there found that the open day had real benefits.

Mr Huhne points out that the open day enabled staff members to take their families to see where they worked, and this helped to communicate much of the pride in the work that was a feature of Eastleigh's railway engineering tradition to the wider community.

Mr Huhne said that he suspected that it also increased staff commitment and pride, helped to reduce staff turnover, and raised motivation.

Mr Huhne added: ' I am sure safety is paramount for you particularly where children may be involved. However, I am not aware of any accidents during open days at Eastleigh even after the introduction of the 'live rail''.