What's Holding You back?

As part of the Derby 175 celebrations, Women in Rail hosted an event at the East Midlands Train Academy in Derby: ‘Women in engineering: What’s Holding You Back?’. The event aimed to raise awareness of the issues faced by women working in the engineering sector and more specifically explore the challenges they face when considering a career in our industry. The event was attended by more than 50 men and women from across the rail and engineering industries, as well as teenage girls from the Bemrose School Derby whose contribution offered us all a great insight into how our industry is perceived by the audience we are trying to appeal to! . The key note speech was given by the Minister of State for Transport Baroness Susan Kramer (seen here with David Horne, Managing Director, East Midlands Trains and Adeline Ginn, founder of Women in Rail and General Counsel at Angel Trains Limited).

Baroness Kramer said
“We need the industry to encourage more women to come on board and make the most of the opportunities on offer. The Women in Rail group has done a great job in raising awareness of careers in rail…. The best way we can help to encourage more women to work in rail is by working hard to get into the mind-set of our future engineers from an early age. By influencing girls whilst they are still at school and college and helping them realise there are lots of exciting opportunities waiting for them out there, we can help provide a more diverse and skilled workforce”.

Further speeches were also made by Tim Sayer, Engineering Director at East Midlands Trains and Rachel Turner, Logistics and Configuration Manager at Porterbrook Leasing Company Limited who spoke about her personal experiences as a female engineer in the rail industry. The event was very well received and we hope to repeat it again in 2015!