This term Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership has been working with Year 8 students from 4 local secondary schools to help raise awareness of vitally important rail safety issues.

Students from Greenfield Academy, Longfield Academy, St Aidan’s CE Academy and Polam Hall School all took part in assemblies, highlighting the dangers of railway trespass. This culminated in 30 students from each school being invited to Locomotion in Shildon to take part in a rail safety and careers event.

Throughout the day the students engaged in interactive sessions covering rail safety with virtual reality headsets and drones, potential rail careers and understanding their personality with a MySkills quiz, looking after their mental well-being, designing anti-trespass messaging and understanding the impact of anti-social behaviour.

There was even an opportunity for all the students to find out what it’s like to work in the rail industry from Drivers, Travel Safe Officer and British Transport Police Officers, as well as those behind the scenes in roles like train performance, planning and strategy.

Sadly, trespass on the rail network increases during the summer months and the Easter Holidays often see a spike in incidents. We are hoping that our engagement work with young people this spring will help to reduce occurrences this year.

Lonely Tower Film and Media were commissioned to make this fantastic film to document the event, and we would like to share it as widely as possible to keep our community safe around our railways.

*Source for trespass increase information:

https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/network-rail-and-british-transport-police-issue-warning-ahead-of-expected-surge-in-trespass-incidents-across-the-rail-network