Day in the life of Ryan Freer - Section Manager [Off Track Maintenance]

Hi Ryan! Tell me about your journey with us so far?

I started on the railway in 2002 working in the Hallade team. My duties included activities such as chaining out, platform gauging and supporting the technical department.

In 2008, I joined the technical department as a Technical Officer which was an entry level role within the team. I carried out all sorts of admin type roles for the senior team as well as gauging and technical investigations. I soon moved into a vacant Senior Technical role which was a bit more hands on, and allowed me to get involved with design work, stressing, re-railing, excavations and occasionally supporting the Track Geometry supervisors. I then got promoted into the Principle Technical Officer role and became the main contact for all technical work. In this role, I had a much bigger focus on design work and had to carryout trace reviews, stressing 1,2&3 and planning of on track machines.

...And then?

I was then seconded into the role of an Assistant Track Maintenance Engineer, a deputy to the Track Maintenance Engineer. Whilst doing this role, I took control of all the technical team and the track geometry supervisors. I was in charge of managing the on track machines and where they needed to be to improve the track geometry. I also supported the TME in all his walks and inspections that had to be done cyclically.

My next role was Track Section Manager Saltley. This was my first real manager role with a significant amount of direct reports, my day to day role was managing a section to ensure the safe passage of trains. I had to carry out various inspections, from SO53, SO54 to track inspection walkouts, whilst in this role we went completely live PLPR on my route which at the time was breaking technology.   

I then moved to my current role which is Off Track Section manager Saltley.

What is Off Track like as a discipline?

My Off Track role was completely new for me and was completely out my comfort zone. Moving from away from Track, I’ve had to learn lots of new standards and take on lots of new staff.

Our day to day role is to

Ensure we keep a compliant vegetation plan to ensure that signals, walkways, safe cess’s and public areas are not obstructed

I also manage both a flail plan and a drainage plan which work side by side to ensure that we eradicate flooding areas and maintain vegetation. We also work very closely with the public doing both service requests and FMS faults.

We regularly have to work with boundary incursions from livestock which is both entertaining but sometimes frustrating!

I also need to make ensure all my staff are competent and safe to carry out the activities that I set them to do. Days tend to start at 6:30am and finish around 16:30. Currently we carry out lots of planning meetings and cross discipline planning to ensure we can work side by side with other sections. 

  What’s the most exciting part about working in Off Track ?

What excites me the most is the opportunity to get my teeth into a new job, bring in new people and create a team that we at Saltley Delivery Unit can be completely proud of.

Do you have advice for anybody who wants to work in your field?

Learn about the environment and the growth of all plants and trees, this will help with your planning, no 2 days are ever the same.