Nicola Huggins spent years balancing ledgers. Now she works a guillotine, a metal bender, and a heavy grinder, often climbing over and under Sydney passenger trains.
Huggins is one of 30 women who joined Sydney Trains in its 2026 apprentice intake, announced on 5 July. The number is a 50 per cent jump on last year and brings total female apprentices to 30, or 11.1 per cent of the record 270-strong cohort. Ninety-seven of those are first-year starters learning trades that power the city’s rail network.
“I’ve never really touched tools much before this so it’s been great being able to use the big machines, the guillotine, the bender, the grinder; it’s great,” Huggins said. “It was straight into the trains. I was underneath trains, I was on top of trains, I was inside trains.”
The former bookkeeper, who now trains at the Auburn maintenance centre alongside TAFE, said she was initially nervous about entering a male-dominated workplace but found the crew overwhelmingly welcoming.
Minister for Transport John Graham linked the intake to the state’s ambition to build more trains locally. The upcoming Tangara fleet replacement, due to start early next year, carries a target of 50 per cent local labour.
“We want to build more trains here, we want to invest in the reliability of our rail network but we need the people to do it,” Graham said.
Sydney Trains CEO Matt Longland said the programme was drawing people who might once have learned mechanical skills at home. “The sorts of things that maybe in the days gone by, people would have tinkered with on weekends with their mums and dads, we’ve now got apprentices in the digital age,” he said.
Apprentice Ariana Gackowski has a different starting point. She is following her father into the same electrical trade he began decades ago. “He worked high up and he started where I am as a fleet electrician,” she said. “You’re so happy once you complete the job and you’re proud of yourself, so it’s good.”
The women train in signal electrician, rolling stock mechanical, signal fitter and automotive refinishing roles, splitting time between the Auburn workshops and TAFE. Nationally, men still make up 94 per cent of railway track workers and 97 per cent of electricians, making the 50 per cent annual increase of women in Sydney Trains apprenticeships a deliberate break with tradition.
For anyone interested in a trade that touches the daily commute of millions, annual intakes are limited. The record 270 places fill months in advance, and electricians and fitters remain on the NSW Occupation Shortage List, meaning qualified workers are in high demand once qualified.
“NSW simply stopped investing in apprentices in prior years,” Graham said, adding that the new skills centre and larger female intake are meant to remedy that gap.
Related to This Story
Sydney Trains
Operator of suburban passenger rail services across the Sydney metropolitan area, responsible for maintaining and running the majority of the city’s heavy rail network.
Transport for NSW
State government agency overseeing transport policy, planning, infrastructure and operations across New South Wales, including rail services.
Training at Auburn is readily reached by train; the maintenance centre is a short walk from Auburn station, served by multiple lines. For visitors or prospective applicants, Auburn Road offers a strip of cafes and casual eateries popular with staff on breaks. Nearby, the Auburn Botanic Gardens provide a quiet spot to decompress after a site tour.
By the time the Tangara fleet begins its replacement run, many of this year’s 97 first-year apprentices will be qualified and working on trains that carry Sydneysiders every day. Nicola Huggins, for one, plans to be under them, on top of them, and inside them for years to come.