BOMBARDIER Transportation’s UK chief Colin Walton has urged rail companies to ‘dig deep’ to ensure that they have the skilled workforces required for when the recession ends.

Mr Walton, who is chief country representative for train builder Bombardier Transportation in Britain and Ireland, was speaking at the first day of Railtex 2009 at Earls Court in London.

He told delegates attending a seminar on recruitment and training sponsored by Railnews: “The recession is biting and people are facing a lot of stress. But this is the time we should dig deep to ensure that we have the skills needed for when the recession ends.”

Mr Walton spoke of his excitement at being involved in the Prince’s Trust charity which helps to equip disadvantaged youngsters not in education, work or training with the skills they need to get into work.

He told the audience that Bombardier had been involved with Network Rail, East Midlands Trains and the Signal House Group (Collis Engineering) in a special pilot initiative with the Prince’s Trust to provide entry skills for 10 young people in a programme called Get into Rail.

The aim of the six week pilot initiative held last year was to see how the Get Into Rail concept could be rolled out to other employers in the rail industry.

Mr Walton, who is chairman of the East Midlands region of the Prince’s Trust, started his engineering and commercial career as an engineering apprentice with British Rail 42 years ago.

He said Bombardier had linked up with the Prince’s Trust after looking at its own social responsibilities programme. “ We are extremely excited to be working on the programme with them,” he said.

He said he had spoken to some youngsters who were the third generation unemployed in their family, “Everyone deserves a job and a second chance,” he said.

Through the Prince’s Trust young people were being given opportunities to realize their potential. Since being launched by Prince Charles more than 30 years ago some 600,000 young people had been helped.

Speaking about the need for more young people to be trained in railway skills, Mr Walton said the rail industry suffered from cyclical problems, with big schemes such as electrification projects needing skilled people for a while and then not requiring them.

Currently people were needed across the whole of the industry, to work in depots, on track side and cleaning trains.

Mr Walton said there were young people desperate to get into work and their enthusiasm had been seen during the Get into Rail pilot programme.

During the pilot they had been trained for and gained PTS – Personal Track Safety – certificates to give them something of value which might be needed in a rail career.

The Bombardier chief then gave young people wanting to get into the rail industry a spot of home-grown advice for when they applied for jobs.

“When you are sending in your CV send a hand written note with it. It’s very hard to throw a letter in the bin, but very easy to delete an email,” he said.

Earlier transport minister Lord Adonis officially opened the three day show which has more than 400 exhibitors – many from abroad – promoting a huge range of rail products from track machines to work wear and train operating systems.

He told delegates that there were 450 exhibitors at Railtex: “Despite the economic downturn the rail industry is in very good shape.”