Staff at Westinghouse Rail Systems in Chippenham were celebrating success last week following the prestigious Business of the Year Award event.

The company was declared winner in the Training and Development category and was named runner-up as Business of the Year in the over £20 million category.

Westinghouse managing director John Cotton was delighted.

"This award is the result of a great deal of hard work from our whole team over the last 12 months," he said.

"As a business we take enormous pride in the quality of our staff and in our ongoing training and development programmes; it's very rewarding to see that recognised in such a way."

The annual awards are presented to businesses that demonstrate excellence in five key areas and are determined by a panel of judges who complete a full assessment of each of the finalists' operations.

Mr Cotton said: "The fact that the judging process was so rigorous makes the award even more special. The judges spent time at our Chippenham office, had a full factory tour and met a lot of our staff. I'm extremely proud that they declared us a winner."

Westinghouse is involved in many high profile railway improvement projects throughout the UK, including the West Coast main line, Channel Tunnel rail link and London Underground re-signalling project. It is also a major exporter of products and technology and is working on projects throughout Europe, Asia and Scandinavia.

The company employs 1,400 people throughout the UK 850 of which are based at its Chippenham headquarters.