TRANSPORT Secretary Chris Grayling opened a new rail academy due to train 500 apprentices over the next five years.

The Alstom Academy for Rail in Widnes, has just recruited 20 new apprentices and is about to offer 30 further apprenticeships to current employees.

The numbers at the Halebank Road site will rise to 135 by 2021.

The academy is part of a £20 million technology centre and world class innovation hub on Halebank Road which opened in May.

With more than 13,000 square metres of space it will be the largest rolling stock modernisation facility in the country.

Thousands of extra rail apprentices will be needed in the coming years as the network grows rapidly and the government invests £1 billion in the Great North Rail Project up until 2020.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: “Our rail network is growing and we will need thousands more people working in the sector in the years ahead.

“I’m delighted to open Alstom’s top class new Rail Academy which will help train up the next generation of talent.

“We are investing £13 billion in transport across the north and there are some great, rewarding careers working on our railways.”

Students will take engineering classes at Riverside College and then learn rail specific skills at the academy.

Training will include the safety and maintenance of Alstom’s Pendolino trains and the Citadis trams which are used in Nottingham.

Nick Crossfield, managing director at Alstom UK & Ireland, said: “In year one we will train 20 apprentices, five of whom have been taken on to help repaint the iconic Pendolino trains.

“It is a particularly proud moment for us to welcome the Secretary of State to see our progress on that project, because it demonstrates how transport contracts can deliver real jobs and training on the ground.

“Not just creating a better railway, but also building a new generation of highly skilled railway engineers.”

Railway engineer Alstom is repainting 56 Pendolino trains as part of a £23.8 million contract which secured 80 jobs.

The first train has already returned to service on the west coast mainline.

Five of the apprentices will be working on this project.

Alstom has pledged to create 600 jobs and bring train manufacture back to the north west as it hopes to secure more multi-million pound projects.