Northern appoints Joanna Milton to engineering leadership role

She joined the train operator on Monday (2 December) in the new role of head of engineering facilities and infrastructure.

Milton, who grew up in Stocksfield (Northumberland) and studied geography at The University of Durham, will be responsible for supporting Northern’s train servicing, maintenance and fleet performance.

In this role, she is also set to develop the train operator’s long-term strategy to ensure operational excellence across all its engineering locations.

During her career, she has held senior engineering and programme delivery roles with Thames Water, Great Western Railway and Network Rail.

Commenting on her appointment, Joanna Milton said: “The size and scale of Northern’s engineering operation is what made this role so appealing.

“As a proud Northerner, I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and ensuring the engineering team support our operational colleagues to deliver a reliable service for people right across the region.”

Iain Burnett, director of fleet at Northern, added: “Joanna brings a wealth of experience to the team and was perfectly suited for this new role.

“We have 376 trains in our fleet, which includes over 100 we bought in 2020 as part of a £500m investment – and we’ve recently begun the procurement process for even more new trains.

“As we work towards eliminating diesel-only trains from our fleet by 2040, our engineering leadership team has a huge role to play in improving the service we offer to our customers.”

Last week, the engineering team at Northern was recognised at the ‘Golden Spanner Awards’, a scheme that celebrates the efforts of the maintenance and depot teams across the country that keep trains running reliably. They picked up three awards for their work on the Class 150 and Class 323 fleets. 

Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with nearly 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.