Dogs hired to paw-trol major train station in ‘first’

By Isobel Williams

London's Waterloo has become the first major station in Britain to put dogs on regular security patrols.

Canine colleagues Riley, Buster and Flo are providing "additional reassurance" to passengers as part of a three-month trial.

The pups were deployed by South Western Railway (SWR) and Network Rail Wessex (NR Wessex) in partnership with Alpha Canine Specialists.

Riley, aged 11, and Buster, aged 9, are cocker spaniels, while Flo, aged 10, is a Labrador.

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This will be their last deployment before retirement, and they are intended to act as a visual deterrent.

Waterloo is the first major station in Britain to deploy dogs as part of a wider program designed to keep customers and colleagues safe, SWR said.

Other recent measures include equipping colleagues with body-worn cameras, launching an upgrade of CCTV and investing in an outreach worker who engages with vulnerable young people.

Dan Harrison, station manager for SWR and NR Wessex, said: "Security needs constant innovation and we're taking positive steps to reassure our customers that we take their safety very seriously.

"Deploying these dogs is not linked to any increased threat. It's simply part of providing more visual deterrence and offering our customers some additional reassurance.

"In the same way, we recently equipped all our colleagues with new hi-vis tabards to make them more easily identifiable to customers in the station who might need their help."