Outstanding success for ScotRail in Railway Oscars

ScotRail is celebrating an outstanding success at the prestigious annual National Rail Awards, the industry's Oscars.

Glasgow Queen Street station General Manager, Margaret Hoey, scooped the Outstanding Personal Contribution award at a glittering ceremony last night in London's JW Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane.

The event, which was hosted by BBC News lead presenter Huw Edwards, rewards excellence across every aspect of the railway from contributions made by those on the front line, to astounding achievements on the industry's biggest projects.

This year's awards recognised the efforts of the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the toughest periods in its history.

Many people were involved in taking the blueprint for a new modern station at Glasgow Queen Street from artist's drawings to the £120million futuristic building we can see today.

But there were a few whose contribution made a real difference, and one of those is the station's General Manager, Margaret Hoey.

Maggie, as she's known to everyone, was completely open to, and supportive of, the collaborative approach required to see a massive project like this through to its conclusion.

She has been a hugely enthusiastic supporter of the project, despite the massive demands on her time to manage almost 50,000 passengers a day during three years of disruption to one of Scotland's busiest railway stations.

Maggie kept passengers and her team fully updated on the scale of the construction and how it would impact on journeys and their daily workload, displaying flexibility to allow for changes to the construction workflow in order to speed up completion of some phases of the project.

She led site visits and station tours involving elected representatives, schools, colleges and universities, transport organisations, and interest groups.

She was always available, day and night, should any issues arise or on occasions when discussions or meetings might be required at short notice, to talk through potential problems and work together to resolve these.

She received her award from train enthusiast Professor Jonathan Van-Tam MBE, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England.

In addition to Maggie's success, Scotland's Railway (ScotRail and Network Rail Scotland) were nominated in multiple categories, achieving Highly Commended status in:

• Major Project of The Year - Glasgow Queen Street station redevelopment.
• Outstanding Teamwork - Glasgow Queen Street station redevelopment.
• Station of The Year (Small) - Pitlochry.
• Station of The Year (Major) - Glasgow Central.

Margaret Hoey, Queen Street station General Manager, said:

'I am so honoured to have won this prestigious award.

'Although it has my name on it, the award is a recognition of the tremendous dedication and team-work of everyone involved in the massive project to transform Glasgow Queen Street station.

'It's been three years in the making, but when I stand and look at the end result, it's been worth every single day of disruption and I feel really proud to have been a part of it all.'

Alex Hynes, Scotland's Railway Managing Director, said:

'I am really delighted that Maggie has won this fantastic award.

'It's been a display of team-work from start to finish, but Maggie has gone above and beyond on many occasions in the three years that it's taken to turn Glasgow Queen Street into a world class station.

'Maggie has dedicated her working life to the railway and no-one deserves this accolade more.

'She will continue to play an important role as Scotland's Railway develops our strategy to make us fit for the future with a railway that our customers deserve.'

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