View the I Run the Railways booklet - RailCorp

CHRIsTInE bRoI
Customer service Team leader
When I fi nished high school, I was going to be a teacher but I wanted
to get a year’s work experience fi rst. I applied for the Railways and
twenty-eight years later, I’m still here! I’d had a pretty sheltered life and for
someone that had hardly been out of Blacktown, it was just a whole new
world; working in the city, and meeting all these different people.
Back then, things were not like they are now. There were no women
drivers, no women guards. In those days, the only way to get a promotion
was to go out shunting. Shunters are the people that work out in the train
yards, joining carriages
together and things like that.
You’re on the tracks and
you’re putting brakes on
THE Class was suPPoRTIVE
anD so wERE THE
TRaInERs. EVERyonE was
GETTInG usED To THE
IDEa oF woMEn woRKInG
bEsIDE THEM!
with your hands and taking
them off. It was considered
a man’s job and quite
dangerous. When I applied
I didn’t realise what a furore
it was going to cause. It
sounds funny now but during
a railway medical, I had
to arm wrestle the doctor
to prove that I was strong
enough to be a shunter. And
I won – both arms.
They assigned me to Enfi eld
yard for some training and when I got there, there were no facilities for
women. There were a couple of women offi ce workers and they wouldn’t
let me use theirs because I was a shunter so I had to use the male
facilities which was a big meal room, a locker room and shower room.
Afterwards, I had to go back for another interview to confi rm I still wanted
to do it (which I did) and the traffi c offi cer plopped a steel cap boot in front
of me. It had been run over by a train and badly damaged and he said,
‘That’s what can happen on the job!’
But I still wanted to shunt. I went through the training and I was the only
woman in the group. The class was supportive and so were the trainers.
Everyone was getting used to the idea of women working beside them!
Now as an older, experienced person on the station, I really enjoy my
work. I worked at the Training College for two years and I‘m part of the
RailCorp Women’s Network. I especially enjoy greeting new people onto
the job and hopefully having some part to play in their development and
worklife.
( I RUN the RAILWAYS)
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