More than £700,000 is being spent improving staff accommodation at Central Trains’ stations and depots since employees were asked for their opinions in a survey last Spring.

From new toilets, CCTV and lighting to complete office refurbishments and brand new portakabins, more than 20 improvement projects have been completed by Central Trains, part of the NX Group.

One of the most notable transformations is at Coventry station, where 70 depot staff are now housed in a former nightclub. Their previous premises, an old portakbin, had to be demolished to make way for a car park. With help from Network Rail the disused “Platform Five” nightclub was completely refurbished to provide offices, toilets, changing rooms and meeting rooms.

Central Trains Senior Conductor at Coventry, Shakeel Gouthrop says:”The new accommodation is much more spacious, the mess room is great and we’ve now got internet access. It’s a great improvement on our cramped old portakabin and it’s good that we’ve been able to make use of a disused building.”

At Birmingham Snow Hill £85,000 has been spent refurbishing all train crews’ offices, staff at Lincoln are enjoying a £10,000 mess room upgrade and a £30,000 travel centre refurbishment, the Stansted cleaning team got a new staircase and staff at New Street are benefiting from a new training room.

Project Manager Raj Jagpal says:“I’m glad that we have been able to respond so positively to many of the points raised by staff in the 2006 survey. New toilets, lights, décor and furniture may not sound very exciting, but it all goes to make people’s jobs a bit more pleasurable. We’ve spent more than £300,000 already and have about ten more projects worth more than £400,000 in the pipeline. The next work will be a major refurbishment of the fitters’ accommodation at the end of platform 12a at New Street.”