Alexandra Crook

Duty Station Manager
Joined September 2006

Managing my part of the Northern line

I joined TfL as one of two Safety, Quality & Environment Graduate trainees. I'm now on my last placement as a Duty Manager (stations) and working hard to complete all my training and competently transfer into my substantive role. I run the stations between Morden and Balham on the northern line. I work shifts of eight hours throughout the day and manage the staff on duty at the time. This involves sorting out duty staff, holding Personal Development meetings ensuring competence assurance, sorting out minor and major works on the group and liaising with outside departments right across London Underground and TfL.

Working with a high-profile organisation

After leaving university I wanted to work in the transport sector, specifically railways as it sits well with my desire to promote public transport and improve the environment and efficiency. TfL had some great benefits compared to many other graduate schemes and the people seemed very friendly and approachable. Also, I believed the graduate scheme to be well managed and challenging. London Underground is both of high-practical and high-symbolic importance and I'm pretty pleased to work on such a high-profile system.

Taking responsibility for a considerable piece of work

I worked for the step free access team in September to November last year on a project to allow London Underground to use alternative providers (i.e. companies other than the Infracos) to build step free access projects. This was a multi-faceted problem and allowed me to get involved with a range of internal and external people. It was great to be given ownership of a potentially high value piece of work.

Feeling supported throughout my development

Training opportunities have been immense since I began. The highlight has definitely been the National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health's (NEBOSH) National Diploma for Health and Safety, which gave me a nationally recognised qualification covering all aspects of health and safety. This course is normally for more senior staff and I felt very lucky to be offered the learning so early in my career. Another good course was the Birmingham Systems Engineering course, which taught me a lot about the technical side of railways, and I also (excitingly) got to drive an old school train. The company has been excellent at developing and investing in me and I hope to continue to grow in my career and pay back the investment.