MORE THAN WELCOME - Katy Usher West Coast Rail Part 1 - 07.04.24

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's by this morning and today we're joined by Katie Usher,
who is the guest Experienced Supervisor from West Coast Wilderness Railway.
Thank you for joining us. Hi, now tell us a
little bit about the West Coast Wilderness Railway and what
the guest experienced supervisor entails.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
So the West Coast Wilderness Railway is a one hundred
and twenty seven year old heritage railway operating between Queenstown
and Strawn on the West coast of Tasmania. And my
role as the guest experienced supervisor is quite a varied role.
My main job is to look after guests from the
minute they walk in the door to the minute they
walk out the door. And so we have a few

(00:36):
departments that I dip my toes into. We've got cafes,
a reservations team and on board, which is obviously a
large department, and I basically look after all the experience
from commentary writing to what they see in the cafe
and mainly deal with the on board team.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah. Right, so it's a pretty very role. Then with
the West Coast Wilderness Railway. What attracted you to that role,
what's attracted you in general to the industry. I should ask.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
The initial attraction was seasonal work. I kind of fell
into guiding when I was traveling around New Zealand and
just loved the aspect of showing something to someone they'd
never seen before and having that flexibility of seasonal work.
So coming in being able to work for a few
months and then be able to take some time off
without having to leave a job full time, and then

(01:24):
easily getting into another job as another season approaches. So
that ability to travel and work was really a highlight
for me, as well as being able to show people
something new and different.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Have you been doing it seasonally at the railway or
have you been here full time?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
I've been full time at the Railway since I started,
So that was my leap into full time work, and
really when I decided to take seasonal work into a
career and something that would see me through year round.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So before you decided to take that leap, is this
something that you thought you may or may not stick
with or just something that was fun and then you thought,
you know what, I'll give this a girl as a
permanent position.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, it was fun. I just had never really seen
good examples of somebody in this role full time and
year round and somebody who really loved their job year round.
So it was really hard for me to see that
in myself. So when I had sort of started looking
into it a bit more and actually researching for myself
and I did a diployment and tourism management, I started

(02:21):
to surround myself with more people who had a long
loss and career and tourism and that was sort of
the final push.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I guess it's funny how you say you don't see
many people who are in a permanent job and who
really enjoy it. I think that goes for a lot
of industries a broad general stroke. It's hard to find
industries that people really had fun in all the time.
Do you think tourism is something where you do have
a lot more fun.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah. Absolutely, if your personality suits the tourism industry, I
think you can have a lot more fun than in
other industries. It is very different. You know, it's very
busy in your high season if you work somewhere like
we do it the railway, where it's very very busy
in the summer months and a bit quieter in the winter.
But you get to work with such a huge range
of people and you get to see different people every day,

(03:05):
and if you're someone who thinks that that would be fun,
then you get to have fun year round at work.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
And were trains always an interest of yours somewhere or
is this just an interesting job that you thought. I'm
going to give this a go because it sounds fun.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
I was never a lover of trains, not in a
bad way. They just never really appealed to me. And
I've definitely developed a love for trains and engines and
steam in general, but probably on the lower scale of
train lovers at the railway, and I love the guest
side of things more so. I'd been on boats and
marine tourism for quite a while before I moved over

(03:41):
to trains and could never really see myself doing anything
except for boats. But yeah, trains and automobiles sounds like fun.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Look we're going to take a break, we'll come back.
We'll have a bit more of a chat with Katie Usher,
who is the guest experienced supervisor at West Coast Wilderness Railway.
This is your more than welcome