A 17-year-old work experience student has saved Central Trains £750,000 a year by working out how to run the trains on time. Ade Sodeinde, who arrived in Britain from Nigeria last year, was working for the company on a year’s placement. She decided to spend her time working out a problem surrounding train punctuality at the company’s Tyseley depot.

Every time a train is late because of human error, Central Trains have to pay £4500 in fines to the Department of Transport. Ade looked into the issue and found that a problem with the tracks inside the depot meant that trains had to run slowly, so they arrived at platforms late and were then further delayed by safety checks and carriage cleaning. Once Ade had identified the problem, and found some solutions to it, punctuality rose sharply.

Central Trains have awarded Ade its top employee honour, a gold award, for her efforts.

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