Kings Heath Train Care Facility Officially Recognized as Transport Centre of Excellence

On 1st July 2010 Kings Heath Train Care Facility Northampton was officially recognized as Centre of Excellence for ISS Facility Services, Transport, supported by Siemens Mobility. With its central location, great achievements and reliable contract Kings Heath Train Care Facility is the ideal site for a centre of the business where best practices are established by testing and assessing, and shared amongst all Transport contracts with a consistent flow of information. As part of the Centre of Excellence Project, several innovative activities have already been initiated at Kings Heath Train Care Facility: BICSc accredited training of operatives for Rolling Stock, courses for supervisors and team leaders to develop personally and within their roles in the company and the development of the Sharepoint Web including a blog available for employees without ISS email user accounts. With the Centre of Excellence, Transport at Kings Heath Train Care Facility aspires to develop the business in aspects of health and safety, training and teamwork.

The Centre of Excellence plaque was presented to Gordon Virgo, Siemens Maintenance Manager by Ivan Shiels, ISS Transport Operations Manager and Ian Johnson, Contract Manager at Kings Heath Train Care Facility. The client Siemens have been very supportive of the project and are excited to be the setting for the innovation and improvement of the services offered by ISS Transport.

Wayne Goldsmith Operations Director stated “This is the type of innovation that sets ISS apart from our competitors. Working in partnership with our clients to deliver their key business needs whilst engaging with our staff to think differently and whilst enabling them to be apart of the process. A truly remarkable concept. Well done”

Kings Heath Train Care Facility Awarded Gold

ISS Transport at Kings Heath Train Care Facility was recently presented with their Gold Flag award for achieving a 100% score on a flag audit completed 4th June 2010 for the second year in a row. The audits provide a consistent benchmarked measure of safety performance and it is a significant accomplishment to achieve the top score. For this amazing result the site has demonstrated dedicated business compliance and continued commitment to improving health and safety with a range of innovative measures. The ISS Transport employees at Kings Heath Train Care Facility can be extremely proud of their achievement as the site is the first over ground Gold Flag site. The Gold Flag Certificate was presented by Ivan Shiels, ISS Transport Operations Manager to the client represented by Gordon Vigo, Siemens Maintenance Manager who personally distributed ‘golden’ badges to all ISS employees on site.

Wayne Goldsmith – Operations Director Transport said, “This is a fantastic achievement and a just award for a team so dedicated and focused on delivering the highest level of Health and Safety. I look forward to seeing what this team can deliver next as it is them that set the bar”.

Contract Manager receives award for collecting most for BHF

Having raised a total of £1050 between his two contracts at Kings Heath, Northampton and Heathrow Express, London, Ian Johnson was the manager contributing the most to the corporate charity event ‘Red for Heart’ on 25th February 2010.

To avoid interference with the railway signal colours the day was modified to ‘wear pink-day’ at both sites. A lot of events were organised to drive donations into the charity with great contributions of staff and support from the client, Siemens.

On 25th March Ian was awarded with a certificate from British Heart Foundation thanking him for his efforts and a prize from the Company.

Pictured below is Ian Johnson being handed his prize, an Ipod Touch engraved ‘BHF Best Contract 2010 Presented to Ian Johnson’, by Operations Manager Ivan Shiels. Pictures from the event are available in the archive.

Pink Madness
Raised £700 for British Heart Foundation at ISS Kings Heath


Red is the colour of the heart but unfortunately also the colour of an important signal in the railway world. As a result ISS Transport at Kings Heath Northampton transformed the corporate sponsor British Heart Foundation’s wear red-day into wear pink-day and accordingly blue ISS uniforms were replaced with pink shirts, leg warmers and wigs!

At wear pink-day on 25th February and during BHF’s National Heart Month the ISS team at Siemens Train Care Facility, Kings Heath came up with various creative ideas to drive a lot of donations into the charity. The cause is of particular significance for the staff due to a recent bereavement of a co-worker in January. Like this experience illustrates, most people are somehow affected by heart disease in their circle of friends or family.

Siemens and ISS at Kings Heath work in a close relationship and Siemens Fleet Manager Mick Hill has given his full support to make this event possible and successful.

ISS Kings Heath also received a lot of support by their number one chemical supplier, Freshclean who has made a generous donation to support the good cause.

The ISS cleaning staff that usually look after the London Midland fleets

extended their service to depot colleagues’ vehicles offering a first class hand car wash and valeting.

Stakes were made in a Winter Olympics sweepstake, cakes and cookies, fry-ups and Indian specialities were sold to fill up the donation jar as well as empty stomachs. Some people went to more radical measures to collect money with sponsorships for very experimental haircuts and cross-dressing!

Thanks to these amazing efforts by the staff team, sponsors and the corporation and very generous donations by Siemens managers and colleagues, ISS at Kings Heath has managed to raise a whopping £700 for the British Heart Foundation.


A huge thanks to everybody who was involved or helped support this event.