Pop music legend and President of the Railway Benefit Fund Pete Waterman talks about the importance of the RBF as he visits the Very Light Rail National Innovation Centre, Dudley.
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00:00i am president of the rbf which is the railway benefit which looks after the welfare of railway
00:05people retired and that are still at work because everybody has this myth about that all railway
00:13drivers are on 80 000 pound a year you know they all drive roll royces or bentleys they all go to
00:18the south of france for their holidays they got second home in sri lanka well that might be true
00:24but it ain't true of 98 of the railway staff a lot of our staff are finding very difficult to make a
00:32living and we do know of people who actually sleep in their cars because they can't afford to live in
00:39the house and to do their job and that's what we do we look after those people that are finding it
00:45very difficult now to cope with modern life gambling is a problem of course we have a no drink no drugs
00:52policy on the railway so that's not such a problem but it is a problem divorces are a problem so we're
00:59there to help and i get a great thriller listening to some of these people because they realize just
01:06how lucky you are to do what you do i mean this week i've seen something i never thought i'd see
01:13you might see in my lifetime um one of the guys that works for me that just used to be the head of the
01:21hsbc bank tell me a story this week which as working people shot me his daughter had gone for an interview
01:32for a job and we have a saying at work particularly just we're in the record industry where there's a scheme
01:42there's a schema now the modern scheme is you go for an interview for eight hours worth that's all
01:54that people offer you it's eight hours so they're taking on five people to do one job but you only
02:00can do eight hours because that avoids national insurance and pay where have we come to when we're
02:10taking on people to do particularly young people leaving school with ambition to do eight hours worth
02:17that's so district when i started work we were still working saturday mornings we were still doing
02:23a 45-hour week work is not a place of horror work is a place of joy if you want that's where the
02:34railway men are always fantastic because they love their jobs in the pop industry jason donovan didn't
02:41used to come to work the camera in his body railway men go to work take pictures of their engines
02:46so if that's not a great word first don't believe but the whole point about the rbf is people we look
02:55after people and that's what to me rail 200 should sell it not necessarily the people like jason they call
03:08robert stevenson you know or the other great railway builders people that make the railway work
03:15work we run a scheme called the heart of gold i promise you when i go to the heart of gold awards
03:22and we do them twice a year those members of staff have been nominated by other members of staff
03:28for going beyond what they're expected to do i promise you sometimes i have to literally go out
03:36the route for five minutes because they're so outrageously unbelievable the lengths that people go to
03:43to look after other people and they have customers they're not other railway workers these are
03:48customers and they're the people i think we should be celebrating for 200 years the people that have
03:55showed you where your plan is that have helped you on your train they'll help the trains during the
04:01second world war the heroism of railway workers is phenomenal if you see the george crosses that were
04:09given to railway men in the middle of air raid it's incredible to think of today now you have to
04:15wear an orange vest right can you imagine in a bombing raid wearing an orange vest so i'm going to open
04:23this event because you've talked enough thank you for listening you've been a great audience enjoy your day
04:29we'll officially hope thank you