Become a member…
www.railwayoperators.co.uk
North East Area Devolution, decisions and drainage: an insight into the Network Rail LNE Route and business plan Phil Verster, route managing director of the LNE Route opened up by challenging a number of beliefs and attitudes. Phil pointed out a disconnect between the way the industry sees itself and the way the customer sees it and that, ‘It is all too easy to excuse inadequate performance by focusing on the difficulties rather than on looking for opportunities.’
Growth in demand is a significant challenge as is the way the industry is funded said Phil. The customer is being asked to shoulder much more of the costs, and to retain these customers the industry must become smarter at reducing costs, but at the same time deliver better service. This
IRO Annual Members’ Lunch 2013
South East Area Golden Whistle awards
Every year the IRO gets together with Modern Railways’ Fourth Friday Club to present the Golden Whistle awards. The awards were first held in 2010 to celebrate success in the operating arena, in the way that the Golden Spanner awards celebrate engineering success in the UK railway industry. This year’s speaker, Chris Gibb, chief operating officer of Virgin Trains, said that Britain’s railways have a lot that we should be celebrating collectively. Awards are presented for operational performance, safety, and managing disruption. This year’s ceremony was held at the Hotel Russell in central London in January. In addition two special awards were made to operators who have performed above and beyond the call of duty in the past year. The first of the special Golden Whistles
Call: 01785 248113
Valuable opportunities for members to learn and share knowledge
was for all the staff who made transport run so smoothly throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. Mark Budden, Network Rail route safety improvement manager for Sussex, was awarded the second special award for his extraordinary actions following a serious passenger accident. Mark received a fully-deserved standing ovation as he collected his award.
eland Area Thank you’ to Dick Fearn
may seem like an impossible task, said Phil, but it isn’t, provided that the industry starts to challenge existing ways of doing things. There are three main thrusts to improving according to Phil. The first is to reduce and try to eliminate bureaucracy; to focus on the basics, and finally to plan better (which will require changes in behaviour and attitudes). The LNE has already started on the path to improvement, said Phil. Cost savings have been obtained by: challenging track renewal criteria to optimise asset life; trading resources internally with other routes to optimise the use of plant and equipment, and placing greater emphasis on managers spending time with the workface to see where matters might be improved. Phil believes that improvement requires personnel at all levels making, and being allowed to make, decisions about their work and being equipped to make them effectively.
1
South West Area: Modernising the Western Route – Swindon October 2012
Behaviours are changing though according to Phil: safety and performance have become an obsession; getting things done and learning lessons has become a way of life, as is challenging and accepting challenge from others. Phil agreed there had been a tendency
in recent years to forget established knowledge, and a failure to learn from the past. The old railwaymen had invaluable experience. We should not ignore them.
The IRO said thank you to Dick Fea n for his contribution to the IRO in Northern and Southern Ireland. The photo was taken
Tickets – £47.00 per head
Table of 10 – £470.00 per table (Ticket prices are inclusive of VAT @ 20%)
Our Annual Lunch for Members and Guests will be held at The Mermaid, Puddle Dock, London. On Friday 19th April 2013 from midday. Our guest speaker is the Rt. Hon. Simon Burns, Minister of State for Transport.
pattern from May 2014, and will continue the trend until full electrification of the TransPennine route from Manchester Victoria through to Leeds/York. The two guest speakers, David Langton,
Download a booking form at:
www.railwayoperators.co.uk
train planning manager and Chris Nutton, programme director, began with an overview of the Scottish timetable and TPE’s improvement in passenger journey opportunities. At present these services are provided by Class 185’s but when electrification is in full swing on the Chat Moss and Bolton corridors, Class 350 units will be the traction. May 2014 WTT onwards
Your local IRO Area runs evenItrs all year round. There are opportunities to see how others work, broaden your experiencA ‘e and add to your professional development. Visit the website to find out more…
www.railwayoperators.co.uk
May 2014 will be a critical point for TPE’s timetable, where Class 350’s will replace 7 Class 185 diagrams out of 10 available units, and it will also have five trains per hour between Manchester and Leeds. David showed the scenario of the long- standing debate over longer trains versus more trains. It was interesting to know that providing more trains actually increases capacity as the service is more spread out, thus increasing opportunities during the hour for a passenger to travel. Theoretically this benefits patronage on the ‘turn up and go’ type service. December 2016 will see electrification fully implemented on the Chat Moss, Bolton Corridor and Victoria station areas. Resourcing Chris Nutton gave a presentation on how the training and resourcing programme will work. A new train crew depot will open at Liverpool, along with the recently opened Preston depot. There will be 3,000 days of driver route knowledge training, 2,500 days of conductor route knowledge training and 700 days of
assessments.As a result of this additional training, more drivers, conductors, train crew managers and support staff are being recruited. There is also another new fleet to introduce (first one was Class 185 from Class 158). Winners and losers with a new timetable A timetable such as the December 2016 TPE plan offers many new opportunities, such as reduction in journey times:
2
at the dinner and presentation organised by Hilton Parr in recognition of Dick’s support.
South West Area: Operations Experience Day – West Somerset Railway, Minehead October 2012
• Manchester to Liverpool 46 mins to 31 mins
• Manchester to Leeds 55 mins to 48 mins • Liverpool to Leeds 1hr 47 mins to 1hr 27 mins
IRO North West and North Wales area Masterclass – Train planning and resourcing with TransPennine Express Carl Phillips, MIRO Area chairman oversaw a debate and presentation on how TransPennine Express (TPE) is planning and resourcing its timetable up to December 2016. As part of the Northern Hub programme and associated electrification, the train plan in the North West will have significant changes in its service
The additional number of trains (increased frequency) and calling at Piccadilly and Victoria for Manchester City Centre will give more opportunities to passengers. But, sacrifices are involved in providing an increased timetable service with a finite resource - chiefly a reduction in through services from Manchester to Barrow and Windermere.
Although the number of train paths
north of Preston will stay the same, there will be fewer through journey opportunities.
March 2013 Page 33
B
C o
F n d
lo
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116