The Rail and Road Pod Episode 26: Lego and dinosaurs - ORR engineers on their chosen careers

Saj Chowdhury

Hello, I'm Saj Chowdhury, and welcome to the 26th edition of the Rail and Road Pod. Now, the ORR's duties are wide-ranging, and its engineers are integral to the work we carry out across both rail and road. The work can include evaluating infrastructure projects in the way they are managed, reviewing designs, and ensuring compliance with regulations. To mark the recent International Women in Engineering Day, I spoke to four engineers about their career paths and their work for ORR. But before that, it's time to review what's been recently happening at ORR. We published our Rail Revenue Protection report, which stressed the urgent need for reform in rail fare enforcement. We set out our next steps for assigning access to Temple Mills International depot, which is crucial for train operators providing services from the UK to the continent. We also made our decision on open access applicants seeking to run services on the West Coast Main Line. You can read more about this work at orr.gov.uk. Now, back to this episode. Rachel McDonnell, Cherry Lam, Morwenna Corry, and Jenny Hamilton have carved out successful careers as engineers. But how did they get started? We hear first from Rachel, who explains the influence a certain type of kids building blocks had on her.

Rachel McDonnell

I think I've always been really interested in how things work. But Lego, ginormous building sets, train sets, and Scalextric were a very core memory in my childhood. I think at the age of five, my mum relented and allowed my dad to buy me a fully functioning toolkit, complete with saw and hammer. So I spent much the time harassing any trade that came into the house to help them. We had an extension built at one point in time, just sat in the back garden with nails and wood smashing the two together. I think I realised very early on that I wasn't going to be as academic as my sister. She's incredibly academically talented and I've just never really been that way inclined. And I think my dad panicked a little bit. So I think from the age of 12, he was gearing me up to do apprenticeship schemes. So he used to work at a power station. So I was doing, I think, interviews with Didcot Power Station from about the age of 13, just gearing me up into the process of it. I really struggled with my GCSEs, if I'm being honest, and it took me a while to land an apprenticeship scheme.

I ended up landing two at the same time. I got Didcot Power Station, I got one for Network Rail's Track Apprenticeship Scheme. My dad came with me to both of them and he was like, 'no, you're doing Network Rail. It's a much better course. It's a much better process. Go and do that'. I spent three years training to be a track engineer, which is amazing. It was like a year away studying at a navy base and then two years back at my home depot learning the trade as it were, so going out and playing with trains. It was a bit of an odd joining experience for me. I think at the time, they'd just reopened the apprenticeship scheme. I think I was the second or third year through. In my year, there were only 13 women and only four of us were doing track. Everybody else is doing another element. My depot that I was sent to were a little bit, I think, confused as to how to handle me. There weren't that many women in track at the time. I think the first three months were really hard just trying to integrate into something where you didn't really feel as welcome as I'd always felt before.

But we got over that, we bonded. We used to go out drinking and it was like having 13 brothers, which was ridiculous. But yeah, it was really nice time. They're some of the best people I've ever worked with, to be honest.

Jenny Hamilton

It was purely by chance, really. My parents were looking at the Herald and they saw our job advert for a BR apprenticeship and they were fed up with me taking things apart at home and decided, 'well, you may as well get paid for it'. I've always loved knowing how I love doing things, work, machines, humans, animals, whatever. I love finding out about everything. I was accepted to go to uni to become a vet, but thanks to my parents and the advert, it caught my interest. Here I am.

Saj Chowdhury

Cherry, same question to you.

Cherry Lam

For me, probably a little bit typical. I love maths and science in high school. I went to your open day and I was amazed by a civil engineer what they're doing, how they connect people. That made me to pursue a degree in Civil Engineering. Then after graduation, I started as a design consultant and worked on a railway station project in the UK and then overseas. That's how I get into my engineering career.

Saj Chowdhury

Is that similar for you as well, Morwenna?

Morwenna Corry

No, a little bit of a different one, I suppose, because I'm a geotechnical engineer. I grew up loving rocks and fossils and dinosaurs and everything else, as in fairness, a lot of children do. Went to uni and did geology and then got a call from a recruiter who got me an interview and I had absolutely no idea what geotechnical engineering was really at that point. Didn't know what a drilling rig was until about my second day in the job, but absolutely loved it and have then pursued it, I suppose, properly as a career for the last 18 years.

Saj Chowdhury

Brilliant. I think we'll stick with you with the next question as well. What does a day for a geotechnical engineer look like?

Morwenna Corry

Gosh, I suppose within the ORR, the first thing is normally looking at the daily logs, especially if I've been out for a few days, just to double check what's gone on. Looking, checking and seeing whether there has been any earth movements over the previous days. Then if there has been anything, contacting the relevant regions and speaking to people to find out what's going on, what's happened, what are they doing about it. Then there's ongoing projects, some really large scale projects. Last year, one of them was Browney Curve up near Durham, which has just been completed now. Just following the progress on these big the rail projects that Network Rail are running to making sure that we are improving the safety. Well, they're improving the safety and we're regulating it.

Saj Chowdhury

That's very interesting. I think it's some aspects of what we do at ORR that are not known. So thanks for that insight. Cherry, what about you?What does your day look like?

Cherry Lam

My day could be very different, I would say. Like Morwenna, we look at daily log, but also train performance. I'm also disciplined lead of two portfolios. So one is lineside, so covering vegetation, boundary, and one of them is very different about station operating building. One day I could look at train performance and also how the extreme weather is impacting the network. For example, there could be trees falling on the line, vegetation encroaching near the train. The other day, we'll be talking to our dutyholder, for example, Network Rail, how the policy and process can help to improve the asset resilience and also address the asset degradation. But I'm also on the working group in-house and then talk to the in-house specialist to look at how we can improve passenger experience, for example, accessible travel. It could be a very different day, but it's really enjoyable because the work is quite diverse, really.

Saj Chowdhury

Yeah, that does seem extremely varied. Jenny, is yours as varied as Cherry's?

Jenny Hamilton

Yeah, pretty much. It is never standard. There's always something different to do. So constantly on the go. Early rises, I don't mind anything to do with that because I'm usually awake anyway with my brain spinning about. Daily, it could be anything looking from looking for trends in asset failures from the data dashboard that we have, to site visits to look at new installations or assisting in wrongside failure investigations with the other colleagues in the ORR.

Saj Chowdhury

What about for you, Rachel?

Rachel McDonnell

I'm now the drainage lead at the ORR. We're all given a specialist asset area. I was really plugging for track and they decided that I already knew too much about that, so they gave me something to really get my teeth into. So drainage is my baby. At the moment, I've I've got a targeted assurance with you currently in flight, so looking into how Network Rail manages and works with drainage installations within earthworks, so specifically in soil cuttings. So understanding if the industry is embedding good and positive changes, good asset management, good maintenance, and a look back from Carmont in 2020. So it's mostly around reviewing data, structuring my findings, trying to be cohesive in my report writing and fair in my assessments. There's also the opportunity to do more around commission pieces, doing a section around extreme weather and how that's affecting not just the railway, but wider utility areas as well. I also get involved with a lot of authorisations. I've always worked on the Wales and Western route within Network Rail, and I ended up back there again doing all of their station authorisations. I was done in Newquay last week, I'm in Milton Keith later this week.

Previously, I was up in Cambridge doing a station authorisation. It's a bit of a mixed bag, but it's quite exciting.

Saj Chowdhury

Cherry, this year's theme for International Women and Engineering Day was Together We Engineer. Now, what does that mean to you?

Cherry Lam

It's quite interesting. I think it's more than work side by side. To me, I think it's more like everyone works together. So everyone brings something very unique and very essential to the table. And then we discuss and then form a collaboration and diversity during the conversation. So for me, no matter the project I work before in a consultant or even the work I'm now doing in ORR, it never be like something you work alone. So you work together with all the in-house expertise, your colleagues, no matter if it's engineering, economist, or even a safety inspector. It's like shared by a collective effort. I think that is really the real meaning, I think, for together we engineer.

Saj Chowdhury

Thank you very much. Morwenna?

Morwenna Corry

Yeah, I think building on what Cherry was saying there, it's about taking that holistic approach as well to these things and recognising that the engineering, the varying engineering disciplines can't be looked at in isolation. They all interact with each other, and those interactions are just as important as the systems themselves. I think, yeah, it's about encouraging people to do cross-disciplinary working, which is something I think that we're very good of within RPP of making sure that our engineers are communicating with each other on a regular basis and making sure that we're looking at a whole systems approach as opposed to a blinkered individual.

Saj Chowdhury

Rachel?

Rachel McDonnell

I think I'm very aware that my engineering story, as it were, is mostly based not just on luck, but I'm very lucky to have had parents that realised very early on that I was never going to be the A-star student We already had one of those, we didn't need to, and that I would probably be better on a different path. I've ended up instilling that. I think that's a virtue that I've taken for it. My dad was my biggest supporter when I was about 12 until the age of... until now, to be honest, he's elated about where I've got to. And I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for people like him and for his friends who used to come do mock interviews with me. And it's therefore something that I've ended up back in. So I do an awful lot of support work, I guess, with schools. I'm part of the Sheffield Hallam HNC railway engineering course at the moment. I'm one of the endpoint assessors for that, which is really exciting. I did my HNC there and now I get to come and support the degree students coming through. So that's amazing.

But yeah, I think it's all about that. It's all about bringing people up and showing people that there is a route through this, even if it's not conventional. I did my degree part-time while I was working. And you can do that. It's hard, but you can do that. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a, you go to school, you do your degree, you come and work in engineering. It can be a case of you finish school, you do an apprenticeship scheme, you learn on the job, you do a HNC, you do a degree, and you can still end up at the same heights as other people. I think volunteering has been a big part of my journey.

Saj Chowdhury

Thank you very much. And Jenny?

Jenny Hamilton

Together We Engineer, to me, is working on an issue using our key strengths as a team. Whether that's getting insights and evidence for the periodic reviews that we do through to demonstrating from materials gathered at site, for example, the key factors behind any incidents. It also means working collaboratively with industry for a better, safer railway that encourages realistic innovation.

Saj Chowdhury

Final question. It's a multidisciplinary career in the sense of what all of you guys do. What I'm going to cherry with this one. What advice would you give to future engineers?

Cherry Lam

I would say engineering is very broad. Obviously, I worked as a consultant before, so it's a shift for me to a regulator from a consultant. But don't limit what is engineering can do. When I join ORR, although it's a regulator, but I day to day still use my engineering knowledge and experience and to support the other areas of expertise like our policy team or safety inspector. So it's much wider when you consider what engineering is and what can be done. For me, I have found this quite a lot by being bold and staying curious. So all the questions, no matter I talk to our duty holder or even to our stakeholder, I start with curiosity. Just ask about what's that about and why is that and how we are going to do that. As a young engineer, I would say, please speak up because sometimes you may struggle, you need support or need a connexion. But if you don't speak up, nobody will do it for you. So if you need mentorship or even sponsor, or even you are now considering to be an engineer as your future career, just talk to a different engineering companies or professional institution because they can give you advice of how you can get into the profession.

Cherry Lam

So there's a lot of routes you can do. So just voice up because I think that is how we build our legacy through engineering.

Saj Chowdhury

That's very good advice, Cherry. What's yours, Rachel?

Rachel McDonnell

I think when I first started, I was utterly terrified that I was doing everything wrong. And I panicked at my exams, I panicked at doing tests, and I think I got in my own way more than I helped myself. I got to be entirely honest. I think there's a rationale behind embracing failure. It's owning your mistakes as well. I think those are the key things I was taught. I've I've made multiple mistakes in my career. Everyone has. You've got loads of time to do that throughout your job, and you should always own up to that. I think the bits I take away are when I have messed up royally. I've always had somebody next to me be like, 'it's fine. You know you've messed up. Have you learned from it? What have you learned from it? Would you do this again?' You're like, 'No. So what would you do differently?' And I think it's that. It's building your own resilience, and it's learning how to fail, but also how to learn from it. And it's learning that risks are sometimes worthwhile. It's fail well, fail with pride, and take it all in stride.

Saj Chowdhury

What about you, Jenny?

Jenny Hamilton

I'm known for being a wee bit out there, so this next thing I'm going to say is going to sound maybe a little bit corny, but my advice for future engineers would be to keep your minds open to possibilities, but your feet anchored to the facts. Remember that a lot of the time you are actually better than you think. Just keep at it, keep learning, keep asking questions. Just like Cherry said, just keep going. You can do it.

Saj Chowdhury

Finally, Morwenna.

Morwenna Corry

The only thing I'd say is, is like Cherry said, ask questions. If you ask somebody about what their job is or what they do or something, especially other engineers, they will tell you in great detail and for a very long period of time, they will talk to you about exactly what it is that they do, because you will discover that most engineers have got once they have found that niche, they are ludicrously passionate about it and they know everything about it and they will talk to you about it. So use that. Really, really pull on that information that you can get from people, because if you start asking somebody about their job, they will tell you. Just ask questions. Just always think 'why?' is a good place to start for any form of engineering, really.

Saj Chowdhury

Thank you, Morwenna, Jenny, Cherry, and Rachel for providing valuable insight into your careers. Remember, you can find out more about our work in rail and road by visiting .orr.gov.uk. And of course, you can follow us on our social channels, including X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and why not check out our Instagram page? Thank you for listening.