Colleagues of a train driver at Northern‘s TrainCare Centre in Newton Heath in Greater Manchester have recognised his 50 years of service on the railway with a special celebration.

Driver Mike Hughes, known to everyone as ‘Sparky’, celebrated his 50th anniversary of working in the railway industry yesterday, 10th October.

To mark the occasion, Mike was invited to attend the opening of a new garden at Newton Heath depot. Mike was stunned when he arrived to find it was called ‘Sparky’s Peace and Development Garden’ as a tribute to his long service.

Mike Hughes joined British Rail in October 1974, initially working at Bolton station before moving to Manchester Victoria in 1979 where he worked as a shunter, moving trains about the station.

He later moved to Cheetham Hill where he was also employed as a shunter for the next nine years before moving to Red Bank Sidings in 1989.

At Red Bank Sidings, his first role was as a driver before becoming a chargeman when he was in overall control of all train movements on the site.

Mike’s final move came in 2003 when he moved to Newton Heath, and he has been there as a driver for over 20 years.

The depot has undergone a drastic change since Mike Hughes moved to Newton Heath. It opened as a train maintenance facility in 1876, but in 2020 Northern invested in a £20m upgrade of the site to increase significantly its maintenance capability under a new designation of a TrainCare Centre.

Since 2022, Newton Heath has been the home of Northern’s Intelligent Trains programme which is designed to make train travel safer and more efficient.

In 2023, the team at Newton Heath depot were awarded an industry ‘Silver Spanner’ award to recognise its outstanding work on Northern’s Class 195 fleet.

Newton Heath is one of the depots where Northern took on apprentices last year to train the next generation of railway engineers and engineering leaders. The depot is also deriving the benefits of an app that provides up-to-the-minute details when each train at the depot was last cleaned.

“I would like to thank my friends and colleagues at Newton Heath. It was completely unexpected and a huge surprise.

Mike Hughes