At 8pm on a mild spring evening at Carmarthen train station, the Transport for Wales cleaning team are getting ready for work. One of them has recently celebrated his 80th birthday - and after 25 years of cleaning trains, he has no plans to stop.
William Gwyn Thomas, known as Gwyn, is working as hard as ever and is proud of what he does. "I love the job," said Gwyn, who works with his team to clean between 18 and 26 carriages on an evening shift, ready for the next morning.
"Pride is everything and we are really proud to get the trains looking good for the people using them the next day... knowing you are doing something important for the customers."
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The former dairy farmer from Lampeter admitted he didn't think he'd get the job when he applied for it in the late 1990s, but he was "delighted" to find out he'd been accepted for the Carmarthen job. He said: "It means a lot to me to be part of the Carmarthen team because it’s a really special station. I didn’t expect I’d still be working at 80 but I really love it and I’ll finish when I’m ready and when I feel I can’t do it as well."
Gwyn has two children and a stepdaughter, as well as three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, and credits his long working life to "eating well, not drinking anything stronger than a shandy and cutting down on smoking."
Gwyn's team works from 7.30pm to 2.30am to clean each carriage including the toilets, tables and floors. He admits Saturdays can be the worst, with more rubbish and mess left behind, saying: "It’s annoying but there’s no point moaning about it because that’s the job and we just have to get on with it. Someone has to get it looking nice for customers again."
TfW's cleaning operations manager Wendy Jones and Carmarthen station manager James Nicholas said Gwyn was "part of the fabric of Carmarthen," adding: "The standard of work Gwyn puts in night after night is a true example to us all on how to show pride in your work. We’d like to thank Gwyn for everything and to wish him a very happy birthday."
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