Maintenance Technician Apprentice Review

On a day to day basis I am in a team which conducts maintenance tasks on the railway. These are things such as ensuring the rail is correctly aligned, make sure the sleepers are in good integrity and generally make sure the railway is up to the standard that we need it to be.

I have learnt many skills on the apprenticeship. Some of these skills are job related such as learning how to change rails to changing sleepers. I have also learnt better people skills and how to adapt and overcome problems that I have faced by myself and as a team. I have become a better team member.

I enjoy the programme as it allows me to work outside, use my brain and my hands as well as working with a valuable team. I enjoy the new challenges that I face as an apprenticeship in a new environment and see what things I will learn throughout the day.

The programme is very well structured. However I will say that at the beginning of the apprenticeship it feels like the work is piled on and get become a bit overwhelming. Maybe if it was distributed throughout the year it would be better for us as we will have more time to complete them.

I receive as much support as I require from teacher, training staff, my manager and the company as a whole. If I have a problem or a question I know that I can ask someone and get a detailed and correct answer from them. That is very important to me as an apprentice.

I receive a lot of support from my training provider. If I have any questions or problems I know that I can go to them in confidence and get help or guidance with it. I have never had a problem I couldn't solve by talking to my training instructors.

Everytime I go and learn down at HMS Sultan I always learn something new which helps me become better at my job. these can be general knowledge skills or engineering skills, they have all added to my knowledge bank and I know when I get back to work it will make me better at my job.

There are in the office but as someone who works on track I don't really get to know about them but as someone who isn't really bothered about that sort of thing it has affected me at all. For someone that is looking for that sort of thing you can find it.

Yes

It helps you gain world class qualifications, meet new people and have an enjoyable job which I can see myself doing for the foreseeable future. Not two days are the same and there is a lot of variety which you don't get in many day to day jobs these days.

Try and learn about the railway as much as possible as it will surely help in the future. Also learn to become a people person as it will help you so much through your apprenticeship. If you are good with your hands and your head track maintanence is for you.