TRANSLINK-Northern Ireland Railways swept the board at the prestigious HSBC Rail Business Awards in London, taking back to Belfast a caseful of trophies that included the Rail Business of the Year Award.

The operator, which has seen big passenger increases and improvements to train service reliability with a new fleet of trains, was also runner up in the SSP Train Operator of the Year.

But that was far from the end of the accolades.  The team from Northern Ireland then stepped up on to the stage of the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Park Lane to take the top prize as winner of the Rolling Stock Excellence of the Year award.

Translink also took honours for being highly commended in several other categories, including safety and security and rail marketing, and rail business manager runner-up.

Presenting the Rail Business of the Year award, David Rollin, managing director of Interfleet Technology which sponsors the category, said: “We have been supporting these awards for the past nine years and this year Translink is the best in class.”

It was also a night of celebrations for people who work-ed on the St Pancras International and HS1 project.

Eurostar was named SSP Train Operator of the Year, partly for its “seamless and un-precedented” overnight move from Waterloo International to St Pancras International in late 2007.

London & Continental Railways, the company behind the restoration of St Pancras Inter-national and the building of Britain’s first high-speed line, took the PR Campaign of the Year award for its highly successful campaign in the run-up to the royal opening of St Pancras.

And the Railnews Internal Communications of the Year accolade went to East Midlands Trains for bringing together an “engaged and committed” workforce from separate areas after Stagecoach won the EMT franchise.

Heidi Mottram, managing director of Northern Rail, which has around 5,000 staff and runs more than 2,000 trains a day, was voted Rail Business Manager of the Year.

“This is fantastic, but it’s all about what the team does,” she said.

It was a good night, too, for Southern which achieved a hat-trick of awards, including one for introducing a new system to detect train faults before trains become failures and also for regenerating electricity from trains.
More than 800 rail industry people at the awards dinner on Thursday 19 February, were welcomed by Mary Kenny, chief operating officer of HSBC Rail, main sponsor of the awards.

She warned that to come through hard times, the industry would have to face change and work together.

During the awards ceremony, campaigners to keep Tyne and Wear Metro in the public sector lobbied their case and distributed leaflets.

And the winners are...

Interfleet Technology Rail Business: Translink

SSP Train Operator: Eurostar

ATA Rail Business Manager: Heidi Mottram, MD, Northern Rail

NCP Station Excellence: Southern/Surrey County Council for Horley station

Rail Supplier: Siemens

Rolling Stock Excellence: Translink

Rail Marketing Campaign: c2c
IMechE Engineering Excellence: Southern

Information Technology Excellence: National Express East Coast

Railnews Internal Communications Excellence: East Midlands Trains

PR Campaign:  London & Continental Railways

Safety & Security Excellence: Atkins

Environmental Innovation: Southern, Network Rail and Bombardier

VTG Rail Freight Excellence of the Year: Malcolm Group