22
INTERVIEWS
RAILSTAFF JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2021
FROM WALT DISNEY TO HARRY POTTER -
WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN
KING'S CROSS
WHEN LOOKING FOR A CAREER ON THE RAILWAY, ONE OF THE TOP JOBS THAT PEOPLE CAN ASPIRE TO IS THAT OF STATION MASTER AT ONE OF THE UK'S BUSIEST STATIONS
T
he current station master at King’s Cross started her career at Disney World in Florida. It seems like a big jump from there to one of the railways top jobs. Kirsten Whitehouse was intrigued and arranged to meet her to find out more. Laura Murphy is station manager at London King’s Cross, one of Britain’s busiest stations – it was tenth on the 2018/19 list with 34,645,924 entries and exits. However, she started her working life at Disney World Florida. So, almost the first question RailStaff put to her was how had she come to be working on ‘The Great Movie Ride’ at Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World?
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Laura laughed. “Well, I grew up in Essex and went to school in Billericay, before I moved to Portsmouth to study web design. As a teenager it seemed like a really cool thing to do, I was really interested in all things internet.” Though while Laura enjoyed herself over the three years of the course, she realised that perhaps this wasn’t quite what she wanted to do for the rest of her life – “I just wasn’t technical enough”.
THE GREAT MOVIE RIDE Like so many students, she decided to take a gap year after receiving her degree and applied for a number of short-term positions – amongst them as an attractions host at Disney World in Florida. “I was so excited when they got in touch to offer me a job,” Laura reminisced. “Interestingly, this was also where my love for customer services began.”
Laura arrived in the USA in October 2008 and was put in charge of ‘The Great Movie Ride’ – a little tram journey right ‘into’ a selection of famous movies, which required her to learn a 22-minute spiel and deliver it to 60 people at a time. “I started off a bit timid, but I soon got into it,” laughed Laura. It turned out to be a fabulous learning opportunity for her. Disney World’s customer service is famously second to none, thanks to the emphasis the corporation puts on it with all its employees. Staff are encouraged to regard themselves as cast members, whilst customers are referred to as guests and treated accordingly: ‘I suppose it’s a bit like this in the rail industry, too: we don’t so much use the term customers and instead refer to them as passengers – it personalises our relationship somehow.’ After all these years, Laura still travels to Florida regularly to meet up with friends she made during that time. Even though ‘her’ ride no longer exists – The Great Movie Ride got retired in 2017 – her time entertaining her guests made a lasting impression on a young Laura.
