While most of Scotland is asleep, Rachel Mills is helping keep the country's railway moving.

The 25-year-old from Glasgow spends her nights working trackside for infrastructure support services provider SWGR, carrying out essential maintenance before the first trains begin running each morning.

It's a world away from where she imagined she would end up after leaving school at 16 and taking a job in a betting shop.

To mark National Opportunity Day on Wednesday 5 August, Rachel is sharing her story as Glasgow Kelvin College builds on its continued partnership with Glasgow-based rail employer SWGR to offer the NQ Rail Engineering (Level 5) programme, combining classroom learning, practical training and industry experience.

Rachel retrained through Glasgow Kelvin College before joining SWGR. While at the College, she won the Anne Porter Award, recognising excellence among female engineering students, and now hopes the partnership will encourage more people, particularly women, to consider careers they may never have thought were open to them.

Rachel Mills said: "When I tell people what I do, they think I'm joking.

"I've got fake eyelashes and don't really look like what people expect someone working on the railway to look like, so people are always surprised when I tell them I spend my nights out on the tracks.

"I love seeing their reaction because it shows there's still this stereotype about who belongs in engineering and what they should look like."

After leaving school, Rachel spent several years working in customer-facing roles before deciding she wanted a career that was more practical and offered opportunities to progress.

Inspired by family members who had worked on the railway, she enrolled on Glasgow Kelvin College's railway engineering course, which introduced her to an industry she says she had never considered.

That decision led to a career with SWGR, where she has gone on to gain specialist qualifications, including becoming a Controller of Site Safety (COSS), responsible for ensuring colleagues can work safely while maintenance work is carried out on the railway.

Rachel said: "I honestly didn't know this career existed.

"I'd always enjoyed practical work, but I didn't know there was a route into the railway through college. Once I found the course, everything seemed to fall into place.

"I've never looked back. Every shift is different, you're constantly learning and you're doing work that really matters."

Rachel says she can still count on one hand the number of women she has worked alongside on site, but hopes the new partnership will encourage more women to enter the industry.

Rachel said: "Engineering is still a male-dominated industry, but that shouldn't put anyone off.

"I could probably count on one hand the number of women I've worked with since I started, but I've always felt respected by the people around me.

"If you're interested in engineering, don't let stereotypes make you think it's not for you. The industry needs more women and more different perspectives."

Looking back, Rachel says taking a chance on a course she knew little about completely changed the direction of her life.

Rachel said: "If you'd told 16-year-old me that I'd be working on Scotland's railway, I wouldn't have believed you.

"Sometimes the opportunities that change your life are the ones you didn't even know existed. Taking that first step changed everything for me."

Peter Brown, Assistant Principal of Curriculum, Skills and Apprenticeships at Glasgow Kelvin College, said: "National Opportunity Day is about helping people see that there is more than one route into a rewarding career.

"Our new partnership with SWGR demonstrates exactly what that looks like in practice, giving learners access to industry-standard training, real workplace experience and a direct pathway into skilled jobs that are vital to Scotland's future.

"Rachel's story shows what can happen when people are given the opportunity, confidence and support to take a different path."