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If you happened to be high up on a
hillside near the Ffestiniog Railway
in Gwynedd today, you'd have seen
a team of Network Rail's newest
apprentices sharpening their skills
on one of Wales's oldest lines.
Yes, with the recession squeezing jobs
and university costing thousands,
apprenticeships are enjoying
renewed popularity. Rob Shelley reports.
It's the opposite of listening
in a university lecture hall.
Maybe there is no more hands-on
experience than discovering how to build
a railway piece by piece,
track by track.
Of course, one of the ironies of today
is that the brand new class of 2012,
the new apprentices,
are learning their trade on this,
the Ffestiniog Railway
one of the oldest railways in Wales.
This dates back to the 1830s.
They call this the permanent way
and all of the teenagers high up
on a hillside above Minffordd
have beaten high odds.
Network Rail had 200 places
for apprentices last year
and 8000 applicants.
That's a 1 in 40 chance.
Why apprenticeship rather than
university? Why did you decide
to do this?
Looking at things now, an
apprenticeship's pretty secure.
I mean people are going university,
gaining degrees and can't get a job.
Going on an apprenticeship,
especially with Network Rail,
you can get quite a secure job at
the end of it, it's a secure industry.
The average cost of finishing
a 3-year degree course now
rolls into tens of thousands of pounds.
And with the 18-24 year-old age group
facing one of the most difficult
employment markets in a generation
the concept, the idea of apprenticeship
is becoming far more attractive.
Now the people who look after Wales's
railway infrastructure are looking
to recruit more apprentices
from Wales itself.
It's a really important and exciting
time for the railway in Wales,
we're seeing huge projects
coming to fruition,
we're doing huge resignalling schemes
and electrification of the
main-line railway into south-Wales
is about to start.
So we need to be recruiting apprentices
and our future engineers now
and I'm really keen to encourage
more young people from within Wales
to apply for the scheme.
Wales had its first railway revolution
over 150 years ago.
Now a new generation's learning
some of the old techniques
and helping to rebuild
part of the Ffestiniog,
one of Wales's most famous
railway lines in the process.
Rob Shelley, Wales Tonight, Minffordd.