http://www.modern-railways.com April 2019 Modern Railways 33
Informed Sources
improvement in the TfN region.
Echoing the quality claims in French
which used to appear on HP Sauce
bottles, DfT emphasised Mr George’s
independence at length: ‘he is an
independent railway expert and not
employed by, nor aligned to, any
of the train operating companies
or their owning groups, nor to
Network Rail, nor to the DfT or TfN’.
Taking up the commission in
September last year, by November
Mr George had come up with his
preliminary conclusions, which
mirror those of the other railway
‘lifers’ DfT has eventually turned to.
‘There are no quick fixes. Many
of the issues which have emerged
will take long-term effort to resolve.’
‘Significant capacity issues will
become worse. Some industry
structural and governance
issues are not helping.’
But what caught my eye was
this: ‘There are also indications
that Signallers, Planners, Station
Managers have been centralised
for good reasons over several
years – but this has reduced
the level of local knowledge –
this is key to responsive local
operations’. More on this later.BORINGLY RELIABLE
Just like Andrew Haines, Richard
George’s report is all about the
operator-centric railway. Yes,
I know the Williams Rail Review
is adjuring the industry to focus
on a passenger-centric railway,
whatever that may mean. But
unless you get your operating and
engineering right you are never
going to get the boringly-reliable,
commercially-competitive
railway that passengers value.
As Richard George notes, the
North of England has a much busier
railway than it used to have and it
requires greater operating discipline.
Some capacity issues have not yet
been fully addressed, for example
depot and stabling capacity are
creating operating problems.
Note the frequent use of the ‘O’
word which occurs throughout
his recommendations. Thus local
teams involving planning, signalling
and station operations need to be
created. Stations dispatch training
is required across ‘many stations’.
Signaller training should emphasise
‘local’ rather than ‘generic’ routes
and practices. Station and depot
local planning should feature early
in the timetabling process. And
governance should be revised
to reflect operational needs.
To hark back to John Welsby,
what Chris Gibb, Sir Michael
Holden and Richard George areproclaiming is the importance
of managing the ‘nuts and
bolts’ of running the railway.LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
When out and about with those
who came up through the BR
management programme I am
always in awe of their encyclopaedic
knowledge of the rail network. They
chat happily about this junction
or that tunnel which I would
need my Track Atlas to follow.
Similarly, observing controllers
and signallers working on their
screens it is clear that those with
decades of experience can mentally
convert the symbols on the screen
into the situation out on the
ground. This local knowledge may
have been gained from working
at smaller boxes before they were
consolidated into larger signalling
centres, or by more-senior signallers
passing on their knowledge.
Today, the combination of new
entry signallers going straight
from training into Rail Operating
Centres (ROC), plus experienced
staff leaving, means that they
may have no local experience.
This is not unique to railways. As
recent air accidents have shown,
today’s young airline pilots havelost the ability to fly an aircraft
manually if the electronics go
awry or in the event of failure.
As Chesley Sullenberger, the
pilot who safely landed his Airbus
on the Hudson River in New
York after losing both engines
two minutes after take-off,
puts it: ‘Flight 1549 wasn’t just a
five-minute journey. My entire
life led me safely to that river’.LOSS
Fostering local knowledge is not
an easy task in an age of ROCs and
Signalling Centres. As one retired
signaller put it, when experienced
staff leave they do not just take
30-odd years of experience with
them, they can take 100+ years
of experience with them, as they
had absorbed local knowledge
from previous generations which
had been passed to them.
This is of a piece with the
‘dwindling expertise’ of the
operating profession highlighted
by Andrew Haines. How do you
find the time and provide the
facilities for people to go out and
experience the physical railway
being worked in real life, rather
than experienced remotely on the
displays of a quasi-video game?Back in the day, when he was
Assistant General Manager of
the London Midland Region,
Ivor Warburton used to organise
social evenings where drivers
and signallers could discuss
over a pint how they made each
other’s lives difficult. I could see
a programme of ROC visits for
drivers, along with footplates
for signallers, with a social get
together at the end of the day.
This would provide the basis of
an ongoing local knowledge
regeneration programme.SPAD TRAP
Meanwhile, on the subject
of operating experience and
competence, readers might like to
consider the diagram in this extract
from a recent Weekly Operating
Notice. The Rule Book is quite
clear on the situation portrayed.
‘When a single steady yellow
aspect is displayed together with
a junction indicator, this has the
normal meaning of a yellow aspect,
be prepared to stop at the signal.
This applies even though a flashing
aspect may have been displayed
at the preceding signal’. It seems
we are in danger of forgetting
Colwich as well as Clapham. aWON extract: Fletton Junction. For P409, the WON says ‘may display a double yellow flashing aspect for trains
routed onto the Down Slow line’, while for P413, it says ‘may display a single yellow flashing aspect for trains routed
onto the Down Slow line’. The diagram then shows these followed by a green signal; at Colwich, one of the drivers
assumed that the flashing yellows meant the route was set for him, when he was actually approaching a red.New Northern DMU: unit No 195001 working 3Z11, the Carnforth - Edge Hill
depot test run, passing Wigan North Western on 25 February 2019. Joel Coulson032-035_MR_Apr 2019_informed 2-3.indd 33 12/03/2019 15:02