RailStaff May 2015

Staff

Better Railway

Build and Design Operate and Maintain

@StobartRailLtd

THE MOST POPULAR PUBLICATION IN THE UK RAIL INDUSTRY Issue 210 | May 2015

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Railway Children EVEREST TEAM backs Nepal Appeal

A sixteen strong team that trekked to Everest Base Camp to raise money for the Railway Children charity has urged RailStaff readers to contribute to the Nepal disaster appeal, ‘We flew back three weeks before the earthquake,’ says team-member Adam O’Connor, production manager, Rail Media.

‘Many of the villages we walked through

HS2 BARRIERS AWAY

Prediction: HS2 will be progressed by the new government - it makes economic, political and social sense.

Page 12

have been badly hit and the survivors are in real trouble. You couldn’t meet a better or more friendly people than the Nepalese.

What has happened in Nepal is a deep tragedy but we can help.

‘If everyone reading this contributes again then we can together make a real difference.’ www.dec.org.uk

TO THE BALL

April saw the Young Rail Professionals (YRP) Annual Black Tie Dinner.

Page 24

Safety is the cornerstone of our business

NEW CEO FOR MURPHY Steve Hollingshead appointed CEO.

Page 9

McGinley Support Services fully support and implement the new Network Rail Code of Conduct.

For information please call: 0845 543 5953 or visit:

www.mcginley.co.uk

Proud Sponsors of Watford Ladies FC

@StobartRailLtd LONDON SOUTHEND AIRPORT AND STATION Stobart’s Aviation Division has really taken off and is set to

The Airport, which welcomed more than one million passengers

included the expansion of London Southend Airport, creation

Customer Satisfaction for the second successive year. It offers

soar even higher. Five years of unprecedented growth has

of Executive Handling and ambitious plans to develop Carlisle Lake District Airport. Southend has been Europe’s fastest-

growing airport for the past two years and that growth is poised

last year has been voted Which? Best UK Airport for

passengers a pleasant and highly efficient experience with flights to over 20 national and international destinations.

to continue with an extended terminal increasing capacity

‘Stobart Rail designed, constructed and now license and

establishment of an EasyJet base coupled with growth from

boasts plane to train times of less than 15 minutes, meaning

to five million passengers. Success has been fuelled by the

operate London Southend Station. London Southend Airport

Aer Lingus Regional, Flybe, SkyWork Airlines and TUI.

travellers can arrive in the City of London just an hour after their aircraft lands.”

#BetterRailway

Network Rail continues to invest in the network to make it more flexible by building new platforms, crossovers and turnback facilities

to name but a few. “Investing in your railway is not just about more rails, trains, signals and stations. Investing in your railway is about making a real difference to people’s lives,” said Mark Carne, Chief Executive, Network Rail.

Stobart Rail undertakes civil engineering activities away from rail infrastructure. Recent developments within Stobart Group have given Stobart Rail the opportunity to use the tried and tested approach taken to rail works and apply them to more diverse projects such as London Southend Station and Carlisle Airport.

Build and Design The range of structural projects carried out by Stobart Rail is more diverse and extensive than any other type of work. The company’s expert teams of multi-skilled civil engineering operatives are trained specifically to respond to the unique demands of constructing,

Kirk Taylor Managing Director e. kirk.taylor@stobartrail.com Graeme Wharton Civils Director e. graeme.wharton@stobartrail.com Andrew Sumner Business Development and Stakeholder Manager e. andrew.sumner@stobartrail.com Head Office t. 01228 882300

maintaining and enhancing the full spectrum of railway structures.

Stobart Rail can offer the full package from design through to completion. Stobart Rail are also able to uplift existing stations to exceed passenger expectations and create a more enjoyable journey. With investment in our railways increasing Stobart Rail is excited to be able to offer Modular Station development.

Stobart Rail are working with BWSC to design and build the biggest biomass plant in the UK at Widnes. This contract was secured as a direct consequence of our newly attained skills and experience. Richard Butcher, Stobart Energy & Infrastructure chief executive, said: “This agreement secures an attractive energy investment for the group” plus “It demonstrates the strength of our integrated infrastructure, energy and engineering capabilities.”

Operate and Maintain Stobart Rail redeveloped the area around Southend Airport and Station to leave an improved environment by building new roads, improving parking facilities and creating a children’s play area. Stobart Rail now operates Southend Airport and Station directly employing local people.

stobartrail.com

COMMENT

May 2015 | RailStaff | 3

Staff Contact us: Publisher:

Paul O’Connor

Editor:

Andy Milne

Production and design:

Adam O’Connor

Senior Reporter:

Marc Johnson

Senior Writer:

Colin Garratt

Track Safety:

Colin Wheeler

Event Sales:

Jolene Price

Advertising:

Asif Ahmed

Chris Davies

Craig Smith

Keith Darlison

Contact Email Addresses News: news@rail-media.com Pictures: pictures@rail-media.com Adverts: adverts@rail-media.com Subsciptions: manda@rail-media.com

Contact Details RailStaff Publications, Rail Media House, Samson Road, Coalville, Leicestershire, LE67 3FP.

Tel: 01530 816 444 Fax: 01530 810 344

Web: www.railstaff.co.uk Email: hello@rail-media.com

Printed by Pensord.

RailStaff is published by RailStaff Publications Limited A Rail Media Publication

© All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

Liberty Project Sadly the celebration of VE Day was largely overshadowed by the General Election, sad because it marked Britain’s finest hour.

Dyspeptic historians will argue that the Second World War was won by the Russians, who made horrific sacrifices.

Others will stress that the fate of the Nazi regime was sealed once America entered the war. Both would be wrong.

The war was won by Britain. Only the British stood firm against Hitler after the fall of France in May 1940.

Russia, which had signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler, was forced to join the war once Germany invaded in June 1941. The USA entered the war after Pearl Harbour six months later.

The British fought on, fired by principles of personal freedom, supported by Canada, Australia, New Zealand and thousands of men and women who flocked to the cause from Ireland, Africa, the Caribbean and India. Free French, Polish and Czech forces also fought alongside us. These countries between them form the longitude and latitude of mankind’s eternal quest for freedom; a liberty elusive for so many.

Britain’s identity as a defender of ancient rights and freedoms, that should be the property of every generation, is not to be lightly cast aside, despite the need to reform politics and its purveyors.

“The British fought on, fired by principles of personal freedom...”

One morning, shortly before VE Day 2015, Eurostar started running direct services to Lyon, Avignon and Marseille on a high speed railway that starts at St Pancras. The rail industry will be relieved by an administration committed to rail development.

Electrification, fleets of new rolling stock, Crossrail One and High Speed Two mean the UK is poised to capitalise on railway success.

Yet there is still no high speed link with Scotland. If the next British Government is serious about uniting Great Britain it will empower the expansion of HS2, reaffirming a shared identity. Let HS2 start at Edinburgh and continue to London. Let it unite these two vibrant capitals, partners in the world’s most successful global liberty project.

andy@rail-media.com

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Freight Focus in July

Welcome to Railtex

Electoral Role

Following on from the Rail Freight Group’s annual conference in June, we will be featuring a freight focus in our July issue. We’ll explore the current issues facing the UK and European rail freight sector as well as news from organisations across the industry. For information about promoting your company within the focus, please call 01530 816440 or e-mail: sales@rail-media.com

This will be the 12th of these events and given the unprecedented levels of investment currently going into rail in this country, it promises to be a great show.

Getting involved in your industry and community is the essential lesson of the last election. For all its faults, the General Election 2015 marks the most interesting for a generation.

RAILWAY CHILDREN

4 | RailStaff | May 2015

Everest Base Camp Rail Team Backs Nepal Appeal As international relief agencies switch from rescue operations to keeping survivors alive and rebuilding houses and infrastructure, Rail Media’s Adam O’Connor has renewed calls for continued donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee: www.dec.org.uk.

‘We were in Nepal just three weeks before the tragedy,’ says Adam. ‘It’s a beautiful country and the vistas and mountainscapes are hard to describe.

What stands out is the friendliness of the Nepalese. Much of Nepal is under developed and the buildings are not as strong as in the west and this has made the effects of the earthquake much worse.’

The quake on April 25 measured 7.8-magnitude on the Richter scale and killed more than 7,500 people and injured at least 14,500. The United Nations says 8 million people, over 25% of Nepal’s population, have been affected by the disaster. This number includes nearly 2 million children.

Father-of-one, Adam, said, ‘UNICEF says it is concentrating on delivering aid – shelters, food and clean drinking water. Many communities are so remote reaching them is a real challenge. We walked in carrying much of what we needed on our backs.

The Nepal we travelled through is a land without roads and transport as we know it and the Nepalese carry everything on their backs. I remember

seeing elderly Nepalese carrying two tables up mountain passes on their backs.’

Mountain airstrip The Railway Children team hiked to Everest Base Camp and back from the airstrip at Lukla. ‘I was in a plane with David Franks and Diane Crowther. The plane was the smallest I had ever been on, and also the scariest,’ says Adam.

The first flight attempt had to turn back as it was too windy. After waiting for hours at a remote airstrip we made two further attempts to land at Lukla but had to admit defeat and return to Kathmandu to retry the following day.

The team included Iarnród Éireann’s chief executive, David Franks and Johanna Franks, Dyan Crowther, Chief Operating Officer of Govia Thameslink Railway and Michael Holden, Chief Executive at Directly Operated Railways.

Mac Motraghi, Head of Bid Delivery at Hitachi Rail Europe joined David Taylor, Business Development Director, at Thales and Adam O’Connor, production manager at Rail Media.

Tim Wade, Service Manager at London

Underground and Dave Gregory a paramedic in Suffolk walked with Dave Thorpe of East Coast Trains and Andy Ridout of advance-TRS. Katie Mason of Railway Children with Simon Johnston, director at Mainspring, Darren Morley and Steve Whitehead both of First TransPennine Express, completed the team.

With the Sherpa crew leading and the camping equipment and baggage loaded on Yaks, the team walked the trail. One thing that was really apparently different from when I summited Kilimanjaro with Railway Children and most of the team some 5 years earlier, was that this trek was rich in culture. All the way along the trek we passed religious monuments and symbols, loads of the local children would often be out playing with

their siblings. They would always say ‘Nameste’ to us all with a smile on their faces.

It is those children that kept reminding me along the trek of why I was undertaking this challenge and would make me think of my little boy at home. Now that this disaster has hit, again those children are in my thoughts and I want to shout from the rooftops to explain to people how much they deserve our support.

Happy Birthday The morning of 19th March at Namche Bazzaar was a happy occasion. Adam celebrated his 31st birthday. ‘When I entered the tea room everyone erupted into a chorus of happy birthday. I received a lovely birthday card signed by all the group, and gifts of Pringles, a Mars

RAILWAY CHILDREN

bar and a Curlywurly.’

Although that day was a tough trek it was clear with blue-skies. ‘It wasn’t too long into the morning trek when we got our first glimpse of Everest. What a sight to see on your birthday. We stopped at one of the tea houses, and as it was my birthday I bought everyone tea. The group was posing for a photo when Ricky, the Nepalese mountain leader, pointed me out to the tea house owner.

She approached me and wrapped a beautiful prayer scarf around my neck and wished me a happy birthday (pictured left). She joined the group photo. I was told by Ricky later in the day that the tea house owner and her husband visited Buckingham Palace two years ago where they met Prince Charles.’

In stark contrast to my time in Namche Bazaar (pictured below), Canadian film maker Nick Versteeg was in Namche Bazaar three weeks later when the earthquake struck and witnessed several houses shaking and falling down. ‘We were sitting in the lodge and had just ordered lunch and the building began to shake,’ he told CBC News.

‘The owner and his daughter ran to the front and we ran to an archway, we were very fortunate. The building we were in fell inward. If it had fallen outwards, we could have been hit. And then the older building in front of it started to disintegrate, rocks coming down, plaster coming down... Kids screaming, people running through the street…’

May 2015 | RailStaff | 5

Breathless Reply Despite a worsening weather front the team made it to Everest Base camp on 23 March. ‘Arriving at Everest Base Camp was very emotional, everyone in the team congratulated each other with hugs and hand shakes galore!

We posed for a group photo, and then I was given the expedition leader’s satellite telephone for me to complete a totally different task. I called home to speak to my partner, Abena. With bated breath I dropped to one knee and asked her to marry me. After what felt like an eternity and reminding her I needed a reply, I got the answer I was hoping for: Yes!’

Falling boulders Hiking in the Himalayas is risky at any time. ‘We were quite lucky on the return journey. Had we left Everest Base Camp 10 minutes earlier we would have been caught in a huge rock fall. Rocks the size of cars tumbled down the mountain and came crashing across the path we were on. Luckily none of the team were in danger and a Nepalese Yak herder and his herd just

managed to get out of the path of the falling boulders in time.’ The near miss brings home the ever present danger of life in Nepal. The team returned safely.

‘All of us in the team are shocked by what has happened. Seeing places that you were at just three weeks ago turned to rubble is really upsetting.

We did a great thing taking on this challenge to raise funds for Railway Children, which raised a growing total of over £70,000. But now I think we

all feel the need to help the Nepalese people. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the people of Nepal at this dark time.’

‘No doubt you would have seen the devastation on the nightly news.

This really is a disaster that needs our support. Don’t be one of those people that reads this and passes it by thinking others will donate. Whatever your financial situation, please give what you can.’

NEWS

6 | RailStaff | May 2015

Nepalese Man leads fund-raising in Peterborough

Nripesh Upreti, 38, a ticket inspector at Peterborough station, is leading a fundraising drive at local railway stations in response to the earthquake in Nepal.

Says Mr Upreti, ‘I am originally from Kathmandu, the most affected city hit by the recent earthquake which

has left thousands dead and half of the city demolished. I am part of the Peterborough Nepalese community which is a charitable organisation. We raise money and send it to the families affected. £20 is enough to feed a family of five members for a month. It’s crucial now that we raise as much as we can to help.’

CDI AndersElite boss plans Nepal help David Arkless, president of CDI International, has a personal link with villages in Nepal where he has been helping with infrastructure development for several years.

Now he is planning to help further. Arkless acknowledges that disaster recovery should be left to specialist organisations. However, there will be long-term problems left for the communities in the high Himalayas, and he argues we can all help with vital sustainable recovery initiatives and development aid.

‘The village I have been involved with the most, Ghyampasal, north of Ghorka, has been reduced to ruins after the horrific earthquake. Where neat stone and mud houses once stood, these have now been reduced to piles of rubble,’ said David.

‘In the Himalayas, most villages are on the top of ridges - if residents lived in the valleys, they would be flash flooded out a couple of times a year. These communities survive high up, well away from the rivers in the deep gorges. However, there is a drawback - they don’t have access to clean water except

Already he has received strong backing and a corporate donation of £200 from Great Northern’s chief operating officer Dyan Crowther (pictured in red at Durbar Square) who trekked to Everest Base Camp just three weeks before the disaster.

Says Dyan, ‘I was devastated to read about the earthquake. Nepal is such

rainfall. The women of the villages spend many exhausting hours a day walking down the mountains to bring water up in heavy plastic containers for drinking and watering crops.’

David Arkless, originally from Durham, has been working on suitable solutions to provide water supplies to one of these communities for a number of years.

David and his colleague Bill Wasilewski, executive vice president - global engineering and technology solutions - part of CDI Corp, had already been discussing an idea for engineers at CDI to create an inexpensive gravity pump to help villages gain access to running water.

David and Bill now plan to turn these conversations into reality. The proposed project will be joined by a group of volunteers who will work together to source fundraising, planning and implementation throughout the CDI Corporation and its partners.

David and his team of volunteers will utilise the appropriate tools required, such as design equipment and CDI’s IT systems, to help support the volunteer project. The most important contribution, of course, will be the volunteers’ time. Any time and expertise offered can really make a difference in Ghyampasal - and in other communities with similar challenges.

a beautiful country and the people are so welcoming and friendly – this is a terrible disaster. I raised £5,000 for Railway Children, which is an international children’s charity that fights for vulnerable children who live alone at risk on the street. Now it’s our turn to help Nripesh help his countrymen.’

For more information on the project, to volunteer assistance or to put forward any other ideas and suggestions, please get in touch by e-mailing the project team. CDI will be setting up a dedicated website specifically for volunteer programmes and projects shortly. contactus@anderselite.com

Britain’s Largest Specialist Transport Union

Despite pressure from the unions Network Rail are offering only a non-consolidated, one off £500 in the first year of a four year deal. Job protection would be lifted after year two, leaving a threat hanging over our members at a time of major change. RMT members delivered a massive nine to one rejection of the earlier plans, that forced some movement but it’s not enough. Now we are balloting again – this time for strike action and action short of a strike. We need a massive YES vote across the board. Only continued pressure will secure a fair pay deal and job security.

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stand together – vote YES to action for pay and security Protecting our members’ interests is our priority

Join us today www.rmt.org.uk

FREEPHONE 0800 376 3706

PEOPLE

8 | RailStaff | May 2015

Ford & Stanley spring signing for James Wall Ford & Stanley Group has appointed James Wall as the new managing director of its specialist rail and engineering recruitment business.

James Wall joins from Shorterm Ltd, where he was a director responsible for managing contract and permanent recruitment services for over 60 clients in the UK and Europe.

‘The client base here is very, very impressive,’ says James.

‘We work with a number of the leading rail businesses, so my role is to get more recruitment consultants, more specialised people and grow our client base - do more with the clients we’ve got and grow our client base to a wider audience.’

James will be responsible for delivering Ford & Stanley’s growth

plan, which will see the company more than double its staff and offices, and substantially increase turnover by 2018.

Prior to joining Ford & Stanley, which is based on Pride Park in Derby, James Wall ran the largest rail recruitment contract in the UK with Bombardier.

Before entering the world of rail recruitment, James was a professional footballer. A Queens Park Rangers fan, James signed for Derby County when he was nine. During his professional career, James had a stint playing in the USA before ‘getting a proper job’.

‘The opportunities for growth in rail are unprecedented,’ James added.

‘The current spend by government is unparalleled, we have electrification, HS2, new line upgrades, new stock needed, and here we are based in Derby, the heartland of the rail industry.

The company has grown quickly in the

last 18 months, but there is a space there to really attack and put Ford & Stanley amongst the forerunners of recruiters in the sector.’

Says Ford & Stanley Group Chairman, Pete Schofield, ‘Appointing someone of James’ calibre to lead our recruitment

services business represents a massive opportunity for the Ford & Stanley Group as a whole. I am absolutely delighted to welcome him on board and I am looking forward to the exciting period of growth that his appointment will drive.’

Don Robert to Katrina and the Westermos chair Achilles Katrina Parkin has joined the

Sales Chief Joins McGinley

Don Robert has been appointed chairman of Achilles - provider of pre-qualification and accreditation services for the Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme (RISQS).

Steve Hamon has been appointed as sales and marketing director at McGinley Support Services as the company further expands its activities in rail and metro.

Mr Robert was formerly chief executive of Experian, a global provider of information services, for 10 years. Prior to Experian he was a director of First Advantage, which provides financial and insurance services for the real estate sector.

Don Robert is from Oregon. His father was a social worker and his mother a school teacher. He went into banking by chance after winning a scholarship as a high school student with US Bancorp.

After graduating from Oregon State University, he worked his way up at US Bancorp for 15 years. His big break came when the bank acquired Credco Inc, a credit-checking agency based in California. Don was sent down on a three-month secondment and was eventually put in charge.

sales team at Westermo Data Communications, capping 15 years in the rail industry.

After a spell at SkyBlue as a trainee, Katrina joined Carillion and later McGinley Support Services. Her career has included working on Crossrail and London Underground modernisation projects.

Originally from Watford, Katrina was educated at St Michael’s Catholic High School, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this September.

Says UK rail sales manager Phil Mounter, ‘We are delighted to welcome Katrina to the Westermo business.

‘She brings extensive experience of major infrastructure upgrades to the business, and I am sure she will be an asset to our clients when planning and designing the installation, commissioning and maintenance of our data networks.’

Westermo is a leading supplier of Ethernet and serial industrial communications devices to the rail

industry.

Says Katrina, ‘Each position so far has provided me with different skills and a broader knowledge of the operational side of Crossrail, London Underground and Network Rail.

‘Working in the rail industry fills me with a deep sense of pride. We help people get to work safely every day. I have always had a real interest in how the railway works and look forward to building on that at Westermo.’

It is a broad remit and Steve has been out and about familiarising himself with the rail industry. Hamon joins from Intertek, the international product testing and certification experts.

Before joining Intertek, Steve was commercial director for BSI. He has also worked for Roush as a prototype and test manager.

Originally from Guernsey in the Channel Islands, Steve lives in Ashby-dela-Zouch in Leicestershire.

Away from work, he keeps fit by running and enjoys attending heavy metal concerts and festivals.

He is married with two grown up children.

McGinley is a Link-Up accredited supplier of personnel and support services to the national rail and light rail sectors.

PEOPLE

May 2015 | RailStaff | 9

Karen heads Hitachi Rail Europe

New CEO for Murphy

Karen Boswell has been appointed managing director of Hitachi Rail Europe.

Steve Hollingshead has been appointed chief executive officer of J Murphy & Sons.

Karen Boswell joins Hitachi Rail Europe after a successful spell at East Coast Trains where she spent five years as managing director.

Hitachi Rail Europe is embarking on a rapid expansion as it prepares for the delivery of its Class 800/801 and AT200 trains. The company will also be continuing to attract new orders for rolling stock, ETCS and traffic management systems.

Says Karen, ‘I was attracted to Hitachi by its excellent record of customer delivery as exemplified by the 395 Javelin fleet. ‘I look forward to bringing into service a new generation of trains, which will deliver a step change in the experience for passengers and greater reliability for operators.’

A strong believer in people development, she went on, ‘I believe people are the key ingredient, and I am looking forward to working with the wider Hitachi Rail Europe team,

developing our people, creating new and exciting opportunities for all whilst at the same time raising the bar in the customer experience.’

Boswell takes over the role of Managing Director from Keith Jordan, who will be taking up a new senior international role integrating Hitachi’s Rail businesses: Ansaldo STS and AnsaldoBreda. Andy Barr will remain as Chief Operating Officer focusing on the rapid expansion of company operations.

Alistair Dormer, global chief executive of Hitachi Rail is delighted with the emerging senior team.

‘Hitachi Rail Europe is now established as a strong player in the UK rail market and is well set for the next phase of expansion with the opening of the Newton Aycliffe manufacturing facility later in the year.

‘I am delighted to welcome Karen and Nick to join our strong senior team to lead the company into the next phase of growth.’ He added, ‘I would like to wish Karen, Nick, Keith and Andy every success in their new roles.’

Steve began his career with Taylor Woodrow Construction. He joined R O’Rourke & Son in 1989, becoming construction director in 1991 and playing a key role in the O’Rourke Group’s acquisition of Laing Construction in October 2001.

Initially appointed as managing director of Laing O’Rourke, London and South East, he went on to become managing director of Laing O’Rourke’s infrastructure, direct delivery, manufacturing and plant hire businesses.

Steve was educated at Hurstpierpoint College in East Sussex and Bristol University where he read a degree in civil engineering.

Says Steve, ‘It is a great privilege to be joining one of the industry’s leading infrastructure companies. With its rich heritage of innovative solutions, ability to self-deliver and entrepreneurial culture, Murphy has a very unique

Mark James to head Linbrooke’s rail division Mark James, Network Rail’s current head of engineering for signalling, has been named as the first managing director of Linbrooke’s rail business.

Mark, who joined British Rail at the age of 16 as an apprentice, trained as an engineer at Salford University.

Graduating with First Class Honours, Mark became a signal maintenance

engineer at London Euston station before joining Railtrack as the zone signal engineer for the North West.

In the years since, Mark has worked for Jarvis Rail as divisional S&T engineer east and Atkins where he was part of the West Coast Main Line Modernisation programme.

After leaving Atkins in 2012, Mark joined Network Rail where he has overseen the restructuring of the leadership

and delivery planning of the internal Network Rail signalling design group and the reorganisation of the testing and commissioning assurance group.

Says Mark, ‘I believe that the railway industry continues to be an amazing enterprise, populated extensively by trustworthy people who set out every day to give of their best and I am as proud today to work as a part of it as I was starting out in 1978.’

TBF is all about people... people in the public transport industry, people just like you!

A wide range of benefits including financial, medical, convalescence and professional advice is available to you, your partner and dependent children for just £1 a week.

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The Transport Benevolent Fund (known as TBF) is a registered charity in England and Wales (1058032) and in Scotland (SC040013)

place in the industry and is ideally positioned to capitalise on the growing opportunities in the market.

‘The capability and talent that exists within Murphy are impressive, and I very much look forward to working with my new colleagues to grow and broaden the company’s portfolio in the UK and overseas.’

Murphy Group is closely involved with infrastructure works for Network Rail, London Underground and Crossrail.

RAIL ALLIANCE

10 | RailStaff | May 2015

Join the Rail Alliance Join the Rail Alliance now Rail Alliance membership starts from just £500 per year

log on to www.railalliance.co.uk email info@railalliance.co.uk or call 01789 720026.

A Packed Programme

New Members

The Rail Alliance not only delivers value to its members, we constantly strive to deliver timely and important industry information in the form of news publicised on our website or via our themed networking events. The 2015 Rail Alliance calendar certainly has a packed programme running right up to the end of the year with all of our events so far this year achieving full or near full attendance.

Ultimate Hearing Protection (Custom-fit hearing protection and communication systems) www.ultimateear.com

We are always interested to hear what our members think about the events they have attended in addition to letting us know if there are specific themes or events they would like to see running in the future. Please drop us an email. We will be at Railtex so call by and have a chat! We are on stand C30.

Calendar of Events 2015 Railtex May 12, 13, 14: NEC, Birmingham (http://www.railtex.co.uk/) As well as exhibiting and hosting our “hub” we will also run a breakfast networking meeting at the show starting at 8.30am in Piazza Suite 1 opposite the main entrance to Hall 3. As a key RSG partner, the Rail Alliance will also be holding sessions throughout the three days of Railtex at Piazza Suite 1. See link for details: http://www.railsupplygroup.org/2015/04/railsupply-group-at-railtex-12-14-may-2015/

Introduction to BS11000 21st May: Quinton Rail Technology Centre Collaborative Business Relationships & FutureRailway Test and Trials Facilities Demonstration Voucher Briefing

Workshop including buffet lunch 21st May – 1000-1400 hrs Location: Quinton Rail Technology Centre, Long Marston.

Date: 21 May – 1430-1630 hrs following a buffet lunch Attendance at the Rail Alliance BS11000 Workshops is open to all full members and non-members. Prices compare most favourably with other UK training deliverers – offering between 50% saving for non-members and 90% saving for members. All BS11000 training is conducted by a certified and qualified BS11000-accredited trainer/facilitator.

The workshops commence at 1000hrs and are usually completed by 1430hrs – a light buffet lunch is provided.

Rail Alliance Ingenuity Live 2015 (RAIL2015) Quinton Rail Technology Centre RAIL 2015 provides rail suppliers with a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate and exhibit the capabilities of their products, goods and services. Furthermore, RAIL2015 will enable companies to exhibit within a real rail environment using the facilities available at the Quinton Rail Technology Centre (QRTC). It is well known that the railway is a “show me” industry and where better to showcase your company’s capabilities than here at RAIL2015?

Practical demonstrations of equipment will be central to the success of this event and exhibiting companies are encouraged to submit requests outlining the scope and nature of their demonstrations. We are also planning on providing a focus on education in the sector, and expect academic and vocational bodies to be on hand to discuss training and education options available to the industry and how they are planning on helping fill the infamous skills gap. Exhibitor requirements can be discussed further with a member of the Rail Alliance RAIL2015 planning team – please contact us by email: (Rhona.clarke@railalliance.co.uk) or come and talk to the team at Railtex.

CU Phosco Lighting (Manufacture, installation and maintenance of exterior lighting systems for railways, ports and airports) www.cuphosco.com Marshalls plc (UK leading hard landscaping manufacturer. Marshalls’ product portfolio and end to end support services are ideally suited to the design and construction of rail infrastructure whether mainline, underground or tram) www.marshalls.co.uk/ commercial TXM Projects (Group) (Worldwide group of companies providing specialist engineering and resource solutions across industry and particularly the railways. The group works across both rolling stock and infrastructure sectors providing contract, interim and permanent recruitment solutions, turnkey project delivery, RRV plant, POOL, PCL, signalling & system installation, rail door solutions and Academy Training & Apprenticeships) www.txmgroup.com SWA Fortis Ltd (Management consultancy) www.swafortis.com Tracsis plc (Developer and aggregator of technology and services solving mission critical management problems within the transportation and rail sectors) www.tracsis.com

Specialised Tools & Equipment Ltd (Design, manufacture and supply of small plant, tools and consumables to the track maintenance and renewals industry) www.specialisedtools.co.uk Holdtrade (UK) Ltd (Suppliers of railway and mining equipment to the UK and international markets including railway/railroad equipment, rolling stock, locomotives and wagons to suit any gauge) www.holdtrade.co.uk Nabarro LLP (International law firm delivering high quality, business-focused advice to clients. Specialists in healthcare, infrastructure, real estate and technology) www.nabarro.com Arrow Solutions (Leading Manufacturer of professional cleaning and maintenance chemical products) www.arrowchem.com Business Doncaster (Partnership of Doncaster College, Doncaster Chamber of Commerce, JobCentrePlus and Finance for Enterprise to provide a simplified business support offer - whether for a new or existing business, an individual requiring work, skills and training or any business considering investment or relocation to the borough) www.businessdoncaster.com The TEW Group (Providers of application engineering solutions to many market sectors including rail) www.tewgroup.co.uk

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Within the group, Ford & Stanley is a specialist rail recruitment business with key service provisions that include Executive, Permanent, Contract and Master Vendor recruitment. Ford & Stanley employ consultants who specialise in specific skills and disciplines; this gives clients the opportunity to have a dedicated account manager for recruiting at every level within their organisation The company specialises in providing front-line recruitment and supporting talent consultancy to Operators, Traction & Rolling Stock companies and the Rail Infrastructure sector.

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FEATURE

12 | RailStaff | May 2015

High Speed Two Barriers Away Prediction: High Speed Two will be progressed by the new government - it makes economic, political and social sense.

Happily all major parties backed the initial parliamentary bill by 350 votes to 34 in the Commons on 31 October 2013, achieving a re-assuring political consensus.

For Scotland and northern England it can’t happen quickly enough. HS2 opens up a deep new reservoir of opportunity. For Britain it will come to be seen as an engineering triumph, boosting confidence and creating jobs and wealth. Importantly it will unite the country after a bruising period of political and economic discord.

In short, ‘HS2 gives you your life back. It stops you dying,’ claims the project’s technical director, Andrew McNaughton. His argument applies equally to the wider country as it does to crowds of hard-pressed commuters.

‘British cities are growing faster than at any time in our history. HS2 is part of the story of creating a Britain that can prosper.’

The argument for HS2 has three main factors: • 1, Fast links between principal centres • 2, Extra capacity for commuters and freight trains • 3, Economic regeneration of Britain as a whole.

The tall, thin-framed engineer from Leeds has become a fervent proponent of the project. McNaughton took up the role of technical director in 2012, joining from Network Rail where he was chief engineer. ‘I’ve been with HS2 over six years now, since the very start.’ At the beginning it was all about capacity and journey times. ‘A very railway thing - capacity,’ says McNaughton, but, ‘then the value of reliability and dependability came in. Slowly but

surely people realised it’s not as much what HS2 is; but what it can do.’

McNaughton sees the rail as a high-speed spine speeding up and improving performance across the rest of the network.

Smart technology The Y-shaped network will cover around 550 track kilometres, linking the majority of the UK’s major metropolitan centres. High-speed trains will run through to places like Liverpool, Carlisle, Newcastle and Glasgow. Construction is scheduled to begin on Phase One in 2017 and be completed in 2025 ready for the first train in 2026. The line is likely to be built to accommodate speeds of 400 km/h, which would make it, by current standards, the fastest railway in Europe, if not the world.

It may have been dismissed initially but journey times do matter. That’s what McNaughton believes. ‘Our aim is to give you your life back,’ said

McNaughton, addressing a packed Rail Exec Club meeting in Birmingham.

‘Because frankly, however well you’re using your journey, if you’re standing there because your train’s not frequent enough or late, what are you doing?

You’re not living you’re life, you’re basically dying, so if I make you wait 10 minutes, you’re never going to get that 10 minutes back.’

HS2 will take long distance passengers off hard-pressed commuter lines freeing up capacity by creating more paths for more trains. It creates a bigger, bolder, heart for the national rail network.

The project will make good use of smart technology. McNaughton talks of the Wow! factor. Ticket barriers will be done away with allowing direct access from street to seat. ‘I don’t want barriers,’ he says. Passengers will know exactly which door to board the 400-metre long trains using escalators to go down to platforms. No time

FEATURE

May 2015 | RailStaff | 13

the latest proven technology. It’s too important a project for Britain that we use something that’s untried, untested, just crawling out the laboratory.

Human Touch

wasting wandering around and then waiting for barriers to open before joining the train stampede - a regular feature of commuter travel.

Railway of the Future Designing a railway with current technology when it won’t be completed until 2030 is a challenge. ‘This railway is here forever. Not just for 2030 but 2300,’ said McNaughton.

‘You can look to the future but you can’t predict it.’

HS2 will be built anticipating future upgrades. This fits in with HS2’s emphasis on ingenuity and intelligent planning.

‘Innovation is a strong part of HS2, but it’s innovation for a purpose. So it’s not techies doing things for techies sake.

You will see an awful lot of innovation on HS2, innovation in the way we use technology for the passenger experience.

We hope to be ahead of the world.

‘Our technical strategy is to use

The average age of HS2’s workforce is just 34. Women account for 43 per cent of the workforce. Many of the people who will help design, construct and operate HS2 are still in the classroom - some won’t have even begun to consider a career in rail.

‘We’re certainly building careers,’ said McNaughton. ‘The railway’s always a people business, it’s a human business.

It’s used by humans, it’s operated by humans, it’s maintained by humans, it’s renewed by humans, it’s designed by humans and it affects humans. So it’s fundamentally a human business with added technology.’

A modern railway system is designed to be easy. But this doesn’t mean it needs to be a largely automated system, with little human interaction.

‘The passengers want an emotional connection with people. They don’t want some people-less system.’ In fact, ‘Staff will be an integral part of the experience.’

Tomorrow’s Talent ‘What you can say about the future is it will be different. We don’t necessarily know how. The point I continually

make is that our people will be at the heart of what we do, which sounds kind of trite but it’s absolutely true.

‘It’s an exciting time because we’re big enough as a programme to change things… We’re big enough and a lot of our requirements that the government set out for us are that we are an exemplar… How we use technology, how we train people, the service it operates. We just want to redefine rail travel and leave something that people can then re-redefine in 30, 50, 60 years time.’

McNaughton’s remarks went down well with young people from the rail industry’s Tomorrow’s Talent Today, as well as local people, at the Birmingham meeting. This is not a London-centric organisation. Birmingham will not only be the headquarters for HS2, it will be the site of the country’s main HS2 academy. The high-speed fleet will be

maintained in Birmingham and the city’s Curzon Street station will boost the fortunes of a hitherto neglected part of the city.

Removing barriers HS2 has faced a concerted and well orchestrated campaign to stop it in its tracks. However, the logic of uniting Scotland and the north country with the economic phenomenon of London and the south east makes irrefutable sense.

McNaughton’s infectious optimism should be applied to the UK as a whole. New railways have always faced barriers. HS2’s aim of creating a barrierfree station environment perhaps demonstrates the ultimate eloquence of its argument. Removing barriers to growth and economic opportunity for people of every background should underpin the political aspirations of us all.

NEWS

14 | RailStaff | May 2015

Magnetic Attraction Central Japan Railway’s maglev train has set a new world land speed record on a test run near Mount Fuji.

The seven-car train hit 603 kph - just over 373mph - speeding along 10 centimetres above the magnetised metals.

Although costs of development remain high, Japanese rail chiefs are confident they can export the high-speed rail technology around the world. The plan is to build an operational maglev link between Tokyo and Nagoya by 2027.

Trains will cover the 286 kilomtres in 40 minutes. Further maglev links are planned between Tokyo and Osaka.

Britain needs to realise the advantages of developing highspeed rail, says Philippa Oldham, head of transport at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE).

‘This world speed record is a hugely exciting milestone and shows the potential for high-speed train travel.

Considering that the UK developed the first railways, it now shows just how far behind we are falling.

‘While maglev technology is not appropriate for use in the UK, due both to its high costs and incompatibility with conventional rail infrastructure, this record illustrates how advanced high-speed train

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technology now is.’

Oldham urged the new government to get right behind high-speed rail.

‘This latest technological advancement demonstrates Japan’s vision and ambition to develop a truly integrated transport network, which includes conventional high-speed rail, something that we are distinctly lacking in the UK. The new UK Government... needs to move away from piecemeal transport

Data Advisory Win for ESG ESG Rail has won a contract to install its GreenSpeed Driver Advisory System on 498 driving cabs operated by South West Trains.

The system assists drivers by processing data and calculating the ideal speed for the train, ensuring it arrives at its destination exactly on time, with minimum energy consumption.

This information is presented to the driver via an in-cab display.

Classic films including Strangers on a Train, American Werewolf in London and Blade Runner will be shown on the ultimate pop-up cinema on the London Underground.

Organised by the Underground Film Club, the disused Tube station at Charing Cross will be transformed into a cinema complete with popcorn stands, hotdogs, and director chairs.

Three days of screenings will

celebrate London’s rich cinematic history, the role that the Underground has played and the boost that the Night Tube will give to the British cinema industry.

The station has been shut since 1999, when the Jubilee line that it served was extended to the Docklands. The platforms and concourse have since been closed to the public, but have been hired out for film productions, including the making of Paddington, which also appears on the bill.

projects and work with the Transport Systems Catapult to develop a properly integrated system, which includes road, rail, sea and air travel - connecting airport hubs and ports through the development of a high-speed rail network.’

Meanwhile Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is in the United States pushing the technology for a highspeed rail link between New York and Washington.

The Driver Advisory System (DAS) automatically recalculates the speed profile based on the current situation, to account for late or early running and then advises a revised speed profile.

ESG selected the IT Engineering Company Cubris as the partner for this project.

Cubris GreenSpeed DAS is already in fleet-wide operation on Danish Railways.

Driver Advisory Systems are already in use in Denmark

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NEWS

16 | RailStaff | May 2015

Waterloo Memorial The 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, which ended Napoleon Bonaparte’s second attempt at European domination, will be marked by the unveiling of a new war memorial at London’s Waterloo station this summer.

The unveiling ceremony will take place on 10 June when the 9th Duke of Wellington will reveal the memorial.

The memorial itself is being created by the London Mint Office Limited on behalf of Waterloo 200, the government-backed organisation overseeing the commemorations. As its centrepiece, the memorial will feature a replica of the obverse of the Waterloo Campaign medal, which depicts Nike the Greek Goddess of Victory.

The battle itself was fought on Sunday, 18 June, south of Brussels.

Says Tim Shoveller, chief executive of the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance, ‘We are both honoured and privileged to be taking part in the memorial at London Waterloo station. Thousands of men lost their

To Beattock and Back Staff and supporters at First TransPennine Express (FTPE) and the Branch Line Society (BLS) have helped raise £17,433 for the Railway Children by running a special charter train over rarely used sections of track.

The packed six-car TPE Class 185 Desiro travelled from Manchester up to Beattock and came back via the Settle and Carlisle line. Seats on the train sold out within days of going on sale, raising £15,185. Fundraising on the trip itself boosted the Railway Children revenue by another £2,248.

Says Kev Adlam, fixtures secretary for the BLS, ‘Our fundraising work together continues to achieve great things for worthy causes, whilst demonstrating to

lives at the Battle of Waterloo and the station is a fitting place for their ultimate sacrifice to be remembered.’

The memorial will also feature a tribute to the fallen soldiers carved in granite, along with the Iron Duke’s famous quotation, ‘My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have

sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers.

Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.’

Waterloo station in the Belgian province of Brabant is on the popular Nivelles-Waterloo-Brussels line.

Marylebone Memorials

stakeholders the excellent partnerships that exist across the rail industry. The team I work closely with at FTPE are true railway professionals and are an asset to their employers.’

Staff on board helped organise a raffle and a quiz and sold snacks and light refreshments.

Luke Gardner, diagramming and schedule production manager at FTPE, thanked staff for making the day such a memorable success. ‘We’re thrilled to have the opportunity of chartering a special train again this year, this time focusing our efforts in the north west of England. A big thank you to FTPE staff for making it possible,’ said Luke.

‘Everyone involved has pulled out all the stops to raise a remarkable amount of money for such a brilliant cause.’ © TIM BRAWN

Chiltern Railways and the Rail Heritage Trust have joined forces to commission replicas of three war memorials dedicated to the railwaymen of Marylebone.

The original memorials were lost with the largest, dedicated to the men of the London and District Goods Department at Marylebone, being destroyed when the goods shed was bombed during the Second World War in 1941.

In the First World War between 20,000 and 30,000 railwaymen died, and they are honoured in a series of war memorials.

The Marylebone memorials list the

names of 43 railwaymen who lost their lives in the conflict. Staff at Chiltern have been researching these men and their relatives - some of whom attended the ceremony to re-dedicate the memorials.

Says Andy Savage, executive director at the Railway Heritage Trust, ‘The trust has worked very hard to ensure the recording and conservation of all railway war memorials.

‘We were acutely aware of the loss of the three memorials at Marylebone.

We are delighted to be able to fund the replacement of the memorials and to work with Chiltern Railways to place them back on the station.’

NEWS

May 2015 | RailStaff | 17

Paramedic Praise for Rail-Road Rescue A group of railway workers who stopped on a busy dual carriageway to save the life of an injured motorcyclist trapped under debris after a serious crash has been praised by medics and the head of the London Ambulance Service.

Without the cool thinking and prompt intervention of Wayne Brooks, Sandy McLay, Ben Frankish and Darren Johnson, who all work for NRL Rail, the motorcyclist would have died.

Whilst travelling down the A406 dual carriageway on their way to work, the NRL team spotted a large amount of debris on the road. Slowing down and looking more closely, they realised that there was a motorcyclist trapped in the wreckage. The man had been injured minutes before in a serious collision and needed urgent medical assistance.

The workers parked their van as a roadblock on the two lanes that were obstructed by the debris and

Jubilee Visit HRH The Princess Royal visited the Severn Valley Railway (SVR) recently and met staff, volunteers and apprentices.

Princess Anne travelled on the footplate of steam locomotive ‘Erlestoke Manor’ and chatted with Paul Fathers, the driver, Ryan Green, the fireman, and traction inspector Roger Norfolk during the 15-minute journey to Kidderminster.

The Princess Royal unveiled a plaque celebrating 50 years of the SVR and made a short speech congratulating the railway on its Golden Jubilee. She described the footplate ride as ‘a real treat’ signed the visitors book and was presented with a billy can and whistle.

moved smoothly into action.

As part of their health and safety training all four had studied first aid and been trained by NRL to deal with emergency situations. This training was critical.

Using a variety of life-saving techniques, Wayne, Sandy, Ben and Darren managed to keep the driver conscious and breathing until the air ambulance arrived. As it was dark, the team set up a generator and a portable light system enabling paramedics and first responders to treat the motorcyclist unimpeded.

Says ambulance chief Natasha Wills, ‘On behalf of the London Ambulance Service, I would like to thank the NRL workers who stopped to assist the injured

During a tour of the Carriage Works at Kidderminster, she met volunteers and young apprentices at the Heritage Skills Training Academy.

Says Nick Ralls, SVR’s general manager, ‘It was a true delight to welcome HRH The Princess Royal to the SVR. ‘She is very engaging, enthusiastic and friendly and is extremely knowledgeable about steam railways and engineering.

‘She was extremely complementary about our buildings, personnel and achievements, and was more than happy to chat to volunteers about steam locomotives and train spotting.

‘She seemed to enjoy her footplate experience so much that it looked like she could have stayed up there chatting to our volunteers for much longer if she didn’t have a tight schedule to keep to.’

motorcyclist. The gentlemen went out of their way to assist with this traumatic incident. Their assistance was greatly appreciated.’

The air ambulance made a successful landing and take off, whisking the patient to hospital.

NRL rail director Jim Taylor added his thanks, ‘Health and safety is a very high priority at NRL. On behalf of NRL, I would like to thank the four rail workers who went above and beyond to assist with the situation. We are proud to provide a robust health and safety programme which gives workers the skills and techniques to keep themselves and others safe if a situation such as this one arises.’

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18 | RailStaff | May 2015

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL RAIL SAFETY SUMMIT

AND A WORTHY WINNER OF THE WING AWARD SAFETY Colin Wheeler colin@rail-media.com

When I opened the 2015 Rail Safety Summit on Thursday April 30th nearly all of the 220 or so attendees had arrived despite the train delays that morning. I described the event as a meeting of rail safety minds with safety culture, leadership and motivation being high on the day’s agenda.

I referred to the excess of rules, instructions and processes before quoting from the following letter received from a reader following publication of my April article. (pictured right, I have added asterisks to protect the identity of the author).

Reducing the paperwork Mark Carne Chief Executive, Network Rail then delivered his keynote address.

He reminded us all of his passion for safety, adding that although we have the safest railway in Europe this is no reason for complacency. He acknowledged that he carries responsibility for around four and a half million people every day.

He said that it was an illusion to believe that 1,800 standards and procedures improve safety. For this reason he said he is pursuing their business critical rules programme with the objective of reducing the quantity of paper.

Speaking about workforce safety, he commented on 5 staff fatalities in 2014 saying there is a need to fundamentally change the culture. He asserted this is a leadership matter, implying no blame to front line staff.

Problems and answers too Steve Featherstone Network Rail’s Track Programme Director spoke on “Work Staging and Planning”. He described the Track Safety Alliance which has a rotating chair and a peer group that includes company safety

representatives as well as the trades unions. They meet every six months.

He reminded us of his father’s mantra of asking those who dig the holes to tell you what the problems are and the answers are too! As an example he cited an initiative to increase the use of safety spectacles. Hearing they were difficult to use because they steamed up when you were working, he found some from safeaid that would not steam up and only cost £4.60 per pair.

Working together with the RMT Trades Union mental health, literacy and IT skills are currently being addressed. The risks associated with picking up possession protection are also being examined with safety representatives, hence the development of a remote track circuit operating device.

Another initiative is the April 2015 introduction of “GRIP4Track” specifying access, haulage, specification and working method for track renewals.

Inspire a Generation Giles Thomas, Rail Systems Director High Speed Two, spoke about concept design and delivery and reminded us that work is due to start in 2017.

Describing HS2 as a “Challenge to Inspire a Generation” he outlined sustainability issues and climate change predictions.

The intention is to maximise the use of prefabricated components in the designs and make full use of BIM. Work planning is disciplined to avoid late changes, and many European standards (including TSI’s) will need to be challenged. Not least the ones that prohibit level access platforms for the disabled. Using technology to inspect and report back on degraded track is another intention.

The Letter

“I want to commend your article in the April edition of RailStaff magazine.

Having been working away from the mainline railway for ** years I’ve been engaged on a project at ******* for the last few months.

I have been shocked at the volume of paperwork in the safety documentation for the job. I cannot see how it makes workers safer. To make matters worse, I have seen no appetite to engage those working at the sharp end of the job in meaningful dialogue and a worrying box-ticking attitude amongst management.

It’s good to see a sensibly constructive view of the issues aired and I can only hope that the messages in your piece are heeded.”

is experienced in social media as well as leadership and motivation within the commercial railway. In policing his officers are mindful of their public duties, serve the public and manage risks whilst at the same time staying loyal to their oaths. They are responsible for their own actions and are licensed to use force when necessary. He described their duties as combining leadership with the art of discretion but referred to peer group pressures and managing the bravery factor.

British Transport Police

Suicides and “whoopee cushions”

Paul Crowther is the Chief Constable of BT Police. After 34 years including duties as the Investigating Officer at Potters Bar and Incident Commander at major incidents including Hatfield, he

Civil police training specifies investigating fatalities with the assumption of murder. BT Police adopt the reverse position based on the fact that the majority of those killed on the

railway are suicide victims. Bomb threats at stations are approached in a similar way. Oversized “whoopee cushion” to reduce risk of injury for those threatening to jump from bridges are a recent initiative. This and similar initiatives help the organisation feel good about itself and encourage individuals to make a difference.

He described their new “hot spot” focussed patrolling at a major London Station which has been successful and how they have changed their 19-week training course which previously only included a single hour on crime prevention.

“Never waste a good crisis” Pino De Rosa is the Managing Director of Bridgeway but began his railway career as a British Rail

SAFETY FOCUS

May 2015 | RailStaff | 19

apprentice and added diving to his skills before becoming a co-founder of the company. His insistence on directors working weekend shifts and listening to employees has contributed to its success.

He emphasised his belief that “safety and good business go hand in hand”, before asserting that managers should never waste a good crisis. Mistakes he commented are an opportunity to improve if you examine them in detail; and good leaders must understand people.

Directors and management on site should spend twice as much time listening and looking, rather than talking.

Many regard the Managing Director as the most important person in the company. Pino De Rosa questioned this using the interdependence of the organs of the human body as a model.

Prefabrication saves time Bill Henry of Bechtel has spent 39 years in project management and in 2014 became the Programme Director for Crossrail and the Great Western Route Modernisation Programme,

Rev Liam Johnston.

having worked on the Reading Station Redevelopment since 2013.

His talk title “Joint Ventures - how to successfully manage and lead teams from different organisations” is selfexplanatory. He spoke about driving high performances in both safety and quality. Early contractor involvement beginning at the design stage, coupled with prefabrication to minimise site job

hours are his recipe for reducing risks and hastening completion.

Pre-casting concrete elements in Ireland for Reading reduced the number of crane lifts by 47%. This complemented by the innovative method used to transport preassembled switches and crossings to site led to those works being completed a year ahead of programme.

The industry has been lucky Simon French joined the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) when it was formed in 2004. Now its Deputy Chief Inspector he is well qualified to speak about what can be learnt from its investigations. He acknowledged that RAIB sees the bad things that happen.

He reminded us that the last passenger fatality was in 2007, but that there were

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Bigger fines in Magistrates Courts

Pam Warren.

a number of near misses last year.

Major areas of concern he said were work planning (Newark), the quality of paperwork, uneven loading of container wagons (Primrose Hill), and track defects (Liverpool Street). He referred to staff understanding of standards, cyclic top near Gloucester, driver management and an incident at Holborn when a passenger was dragged along the platform by clothing caught in an underground train door.

The words I will remember especially were those of his conclusion that, “Over the past year the industry has been lucky”. With the departure of Carolyn Griffiths, at the end of May he became the acting Chief Inspector.

Permaquip Trevor Tophill, Permaquip’s Managing Director began his career with British Rail before joining Geismar where he introduced time saving hand-held plant into the industry. Later he became Managing director of Gamble Trackline before taking up his current job. We worked together on the first use in England of the Geismar PUM system.

The expert operators of the equipment did us proud but were all recruited from amongst his friends at the local pub!

Maybe this was the basis on which he maintained that working together, taking pride in the work, looking after each other, working safely are the key?

Commercial pressures resulting in better planning and more efficient use of manpower need not be unsafe.

Speaking about ironman equipment, he made the case of its use as less expensive than road/railers for smaller jobs and safe if used correctly. He added

that some track staff can be “devious little devils” when motivated to work around safety systems. He suggested the industry needs to work better together and that unreported incidents and accidents together with unsafe practices are evidence of a less than safe safety culture.

Searching for records Paul Clyndes, Health and Safety Officer at the RMT spoke about how the pace of change is affecting health and safety.

He referred to their archive of reports going back to 1910. He referred to the original debates over the appointment of lookouts back in the 1930’s and suggested that Handbook 3 is little different; even some wording is original.

He commented on the findings of early inquiries into fatal accidents that were often blamed on the actions of individuals. He urged for more speed in changing attitudes before praising the work of Steve Featherstone’s “Track Safety Alliance”, and urging more action on site toilet provision.

Office of Rail and Road!!

Iain Ferguson is both a Railway Inspector and Leader in Safety and Risk Management. Although advertised as working for the Office of Rail Regulation I learnt on the day of the Summit that his employer is now titled the Office of Rail and Road. He assured me that this logo retaining change did not imply that they had given up on regulation!

Using graphics he explained the derivation and use of RM3, a tool he has created to measure the risk management capability of organisations. It has 26 elements with

five measurement levels for each.

He drew parallels with the failings uncovered by the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Inquiry, before indicating his admiration for a surgeon who always made sure his team had introduced themselves before operations began.

Health and Safety Laboratory Johanna Beswick described the work of the laboratory which is the research arm of the Health and Safety Executive.

She showed a film of the dramatic consequences of an acetylene cylinder explosion and commented on their work on the mitigation of the effects of major accidents principally in the chemical industry.

She praised the good safety practices used in the construction of the London Olympic Park. In particular she commended the use of “credible champions”, the empowerment of contractors and the review of all risk assessments by the workforce at the workplace.

Sean Elson is a regulatory lawyer with Pinsent Masons focussed specifically on health and safety matters with experience in the rail industry. He affirmed that there have been no significant legal developments so far this year. However the limit on the level of fines that may be imposed by a Magistrates’ Court has been removed, so they can now impose multi-million fines without referring to a Crown Court.

Whilst fatalities are still likely to go to Crown Court, he anticipates that large companies will be less keen for their cases to be heard by magistrates in future. New guidelines are due out for comment this November and will be in place early next year. The proposed fines will be far in excess of current levels. He mentioned the latest CDM (Construction Design Management) regulations which replaced the Coordinator with a Principle Designer.

Works covered by these regulations now include those lasting more than 30 days, exceeding 500 man-days of work and where more than one contractor is involved.

After this final presentation of the day it was my privilege to hand over to Colin Porter Chief Executive, Institution of Railway Signalling Engineers’ (IRSE) who then announced the winner of the Wing Award which is presented each year to an individual who has been chosen for his or her “outstanding contribution to track safety”. The presentation was made by the President of the IRSE Andrew Simmons to Conway Massam of Bridgeway Consulting. See page 56 for more details.

SAFETY FOCUS

May 2015 | RailStaff | 21

CIRAS - Speaking for railway workers who need a confidential voice Paul Russell (pictured), head of CIRAS, and I, naturally read with interest Colin Wheeler’s article ‘Rail Safety Culture – What Worries an Experienced Rail Worker?’ in April’s edition of Railstaff, where CIRAS is mentioned a few times.

The RailStaff reader who wrote to Colin clearly has something important to say, reflecting a growing sense of unease when he says, ‘I feel less safe with every new process’. These are sentiments that deserve to be taken seriously.

Over the years at CIRAS, I have been privileged enough to listen to thousands of railway workers speaking frankly and totally confidentially about their safety concerns. Some commentators would say we are a critical, last port of call when all else has failed, facilitating the resolution of safety concerns which, for one reason or another, have not been addressed. But CIRAS is also about assisting the creation of a stronger safety culture. It is another line of defence, providing both staff and their employers with a safety net.

Voicing concerns Proactive organisations embracing safety acknowledge our facilitative role in voicing concerns, accepting that, however robust, all safety management systems have potential weaknesses. As an early warning system, CIRAS helps provide that opportunity to capture those events that haven’t yet resulted in an accident.

Our track record speaks for itself, but perhaps we haven’t been clear enough in communicating to industry how we make a difference.

Most of the people who report to CIRAS are frontline staff who, like the letter writer in Colin’s article, do not feel their concerns are being addressed effectively by their employers. Like this individual, they tend to be experienced railway workers with an understanding of how industry initiatives can change the nature of their work.

At CIRAS, we can only support Colin’s view that in order to create a healthy trackside culture that welcomes the sharing of safety concerns, we need to listen and respond, rather than lecture rail workers.

Written by Chris Langer, scheme intelligence manager, CIRAS

Total confidence I don’t believe I am overstating the case when I say that CIRAS is better positioned than most organisations to hear uncensored views of what working on the railway is really like.

Confidential calls about health and safety concerns are handled with a high degree of competence by our staff.

Rail workers can speak their minds in total confidence about the issues which are really bothering them. They needn’t worry about any negative repercussions because confidentiality is the one thing we never compromise on. We stand by our record: in nearly two decades of operation, and thousands of calls later, no-one has ever been identified as a result of a CIRAS report.

If it’s about health and safety, we’ll take a report from anyone who works in the railway. CIRAS is especially interested in hearing about the impact of organisational changes on the ground.

We know only too well that frontline staff have a wealth of experience in assessing what does - and doesn’t - work effectively.

Railway staff on the ground, whether trackside, on train, or in depots, are often

closer to what is really happening and therefore in a position to observe what the culture is really like.

Safety culture Railway workers will often talk to CIRAS when they feel unheard, fearing the consequences of using company channels for reporting safety issues - and we should encourage that because we can also analyse why staff are using confidential reporting routes. This can help inform member organisations in determining future training needs, usefully feed into new safety plans, as well as painting a true picture of safety culture on the ground.

There is, of course, always more work we can do to promote awareness of CIRAS. We are the only genuinely independent reporting service for the UK railway, but we acknowledge that there is sometimes a degree of mistrust about using a confidential reporting service.

Unfortunately, staff often believe using our service may be no safer than approaching their own company for a response. We are addressing this by searching for new ways to reach out to a very diverse workforce,

which is especially important for the trackside community with its transient workforce.

The CIRAS team responding to safety concerns are skilled at what they do. They listen, analyse and help both reporter and employer facilitate a resolution to a concern. To this end, we will talk to our reporters for anything up to an hour, ‘deep diving’ into their safety concerns, attending to the details that matter, before we approach the companies concerned for a constructive response.

Of course, the reader may be wondering if any of this makes a difference. When every other safety channel has been exhausted, how can we guarantee anything will change on the ground? The truth is that we can’t because we’re not a regulator, but we can point to changes made proactively by companies that fully acknowledge their staff have highlighted a valid safety concern.

The embracing of CIRAS is a mark of industry maturity, with support from both senior management and frontline staff. The majority of our reports make a tangible difference to our reporters and to their employers.

SAFETY FOCUS

22 | RailStaff | May 2015

Major incidents and the role of reporting Safety conferences aren’t particularly emotional places. The legal and regulatory responsibilities often take centre stage.

Delegates sit, take notes from colleagues on things they could probably do better and then go back to their offices. It’s rare that the concerns of real passengers are heard or the stories of those who have survived major incidents are told.

On 1 May, CIRAS, the rail industry’s independent confidential reporting service, followed the Rail Safety Summit with a conference of its own - the first of its kind.

The two-day programme at London’s Royal College of Physicians included Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) chief executive Charles Horton and Ladbroke Grove survivor Pam Warren.

Much of the second day was about the fall out of major incidents. Who is there to help when things go wrong and why services like CIRAS offer another layer of defence in preventing loss of life on the railway.

Delivering the keynote speech, Charles Horton, chief executive of GTR, said, ’Although Ladbroke Grove is

only 16 years ago, there are many, many people in this industry who were not around at that time. For those of us who were I’m sure we will remember it as a time which was painful - a time when the consequences of failure were all around us.’

From behind the mask Pam Warren, known commonly as the woman in the mask, has made a career from public speaking, having made it out alive from the disaster where 31 of her fellow passengers didn’t.

Countless surgeries were required to repair the damage to her face and body caused by a fire ball that engulfed the carriage she was in. Her story will no doubt stay with everyone sat in that lecture theatre - something that was made clear by the number of people buying copies of her book, ‘From Behind the Mask’, in the lunch break.

‘Just as we neared Paddington the train lurched and it lurched violently,’ said Pam. ‘For a brief second I thought ‘oh somebody’s pulling the emergency cord’ because the sound of metal screeching was filling this carriage.’

She described the crash in detail. The sights, the smells - the sounds. ‘There was one sound that overrode all this that frightened me the most and that was the sound of screaming - it was the sound of men screaming and I don’t know why and I don’t hear men scream very often and that sound really, really unnerved me.

She added, ‘When I eventually took my hands down from my face, I didn’t know whether I was dead or alive.

I just didn’t feel anything… There was no panic and no pain.’

Getting better The industry’s confidential reporting system, CIRAS, was born out of the events at Ladbroke Grove. The industry had to make changes and it did.

Delegates heard from Paul Russell, head of CIRAS, about the work the organisation is doing. The aim of CIRAS is a simple one - to give people a safe outlet to raise safety concerns. What CIRAS wants to distance itself from is the perception that it’s a whistleblowing

scheme - something that is working against the interests of the industry.

Reverend Liam Johnston of the Railway Chaplains, which has been serving the rail industry since 1881, has seen many accident sites and supported countless rail staff and their families during challenging times. His presentation touched on the important role played by Railway Chaplains for passengers and staff involved in life-changing incidents.

He too spoke about the important role CIRAS plays. ’Confidential reporting is a mechanism not to hold companies to account but a mechanism for people to raise issues in an environment where they feel safe. If they’re tired, if there’s problems and things are getting too much - all kinds of things cause safety issues.’

He added, ‘The cost is just too great for some families to bear and yet they have no choice, but we do have a choice, you have a choice by investing in the safety of your company, you have a choice. By allowing that confidential reporting you have a choice, by having a culture that’s not of blame but of responsibility, and responsibility not in a negative way but in a positive way.’

Other talks came from Network Rail’s health and safety director Emma Head, David Leckie, of legal firm Clyde & Co, TES 2000’s Mike McLean, Jill Collis from London Underground and Paul Oliffe from the National Audit Office, who gave a breakdown of the application of confidential reporting schemes across other industries.

David Leckie brought home the reality of the penalties that company directors and health and safety executives can face when things go wrong. Later in the day, Emma Head set out how the introduction of Network Rail’s Lifesaving Rules was contributing to the creation of a fairer culture within the organisation.

The weight of responsibility of rail disasters is carried by many. It’s what drives the industry to be better and the accounts of those who have experienced them first hand are one way of ensuring that the younger generation are just as acutely aware of the small margins that can be the difference between a safe operating railway and a national incident.

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YOUNG RAIL PROFESSIONALS

24 | RailStaff | May 2015

Young Rail Professionals TO THE BALL

Support our Three Peaks Challenge by Rail team, in aid of the Railway Children!

Donate online at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/YRP

April saw the Young Rail Professionals (YRP) Annual Black Tie Dinner, a yearly celebration of young people in rail. Always a glittering spectacle, this year’s bash at the Grand Connaught Rooms sold out in record time, with 460 YRPs, senior rail professionals and VIP guests celebrating in grand style.

Kicked off by a lively welcome drinks reception, the hall was already buzzing by the time the guests reached their seats.

The dinner began with the swan song of the outgoing YRP national chairman Adam Stead as his speech marked his “retirement” from YRP, though he will not be forgotten any time soon.

Anyone who attends YRP committee meeting will know that his retirement was a ruse, anyway - a testament to the draw of YRP and its ability to shape the

future for young people in the industry.

A very special keynote address from Simon Kirby, chief executive of HS2, was the headline speech of the night.

Simon gave a special focus on the importance of young people in the industry, how to engage them and help them to become leaders. Given his unique role as the future employer of choice for the schoolchildren of today, it was especially meaningful to hear Simon’s emphasis on attracting, retaining and promoting young people.

Following Simon’s speech, as part of the annual tradition for YRP, Julianna Moats, YRP National PR and communications manager, delivered a brief call to action to support the Railway Children Charity just before the dinner was served. The night was a success for the charity, raising just over £1,800 for the Railway Children.

After dinner, new YRP national chairman, Stephen Head, spoke of the impressive statistics of YRP, having doubled its membership in the last year, with the expansion across Great Britain. To highlight the new

YOUNG RAIL PROFESSIONALS

regional structure, Stephen polled the audience to the sound of cheers from each region in Britain, and from international guests, showing the growing geographic reach of YRP’s influence.

To conclude the evening, a new Young Rail Professional of the Year was crowned. Richard Gannon, a scheme project manager at Network Rail, garnered the top award from a

very impressive list of nominees. All of the award finalists were invited as VIP guests to the dinner, and it was a privilege to have such accomplished young people counted amongst the members of YRP. The dinner concluded with a gigantic YRP Committee member team photo, with hard working volunteers from across Britain gathering together, to join their friends and to make a

May 2015 | RailStaff | 25

difference for young people in the industry.

If anyone would like to become involved in organising future YRP events, performing outreach activities to promote the railway industry as

a career choice, and developing opportunities for young people to be recognised and prioritised in the wider railway industry, then you are of course welcome to contact us at info@youngrailpro.com.

Congratulations to Richard Gannon and to all of the finalists for the Young Rail Professional of the Year Award!

Adam Stead with Clare Moriarty of DfT.

NEWS

26 | RailStaff | May 2015

Soccer Mascot Murphy Jumps Train Llanfairfechan Town Football Club’s runaway mascot has been successfully reunited with his family thanks to the timely intervention of train crew on a Trenau Arriva Cymru service in North Wales.

Inspired Delivery

‘The conductor, Colette, took Murphy with her to Holyhead and her husband picked him up and took him home where he just fell asleep. They then agreed to drive him back here, which was really kind. We were very relieved to have got him back. We’ve had him since he was a pup.’

The dog, Murphy, managed to slip away during a home game and made his way to the railway station where he boarded a train bound for Llandudno Junction.

Once on the train, passengers eventually realised the dog was travelling alone and alerted the conductor.

Known only as Colette, the conductor took charge of Murphy even taking him home to her house in Holyhead for the night. Meanwhile the BTP tried to trace the owners, the O’Hagans.

Says Rory O’Hagan, ‘Murphy comes to watch the football every week and normally is well behaved, but he managed to get loose and somehow boarded the train to Llandudno Junction.

GBRf locomotive 66751, which will be used to haul Hitachi Rail Europe’s Class 800s between the Old Dalby test track - now known as the Rail Innovation Development Centre - and the East Coast Main Line, has been named ‘Inspiration Delivered’.

The move cements GB Railfreight’s collaboration with Hitachi Rail Europe. The naming was conducted

by John Smith, managing director of GB Railfreight, and Andy Rogers, projects director at Hitachi Rail Europe with representatives from the

Department for Transport (DfT), Agility Trains, Network Rail, Virgin Trains East Coast and First Great Western looking on.

Says John Smith, ‘We’re delighted to be supporting Hitachi Rail Europe with its testing programme for IEP. This ceremony highlights our commitment to the project, and the name ‘Inspiration Delivered’ successfully reflects the wider innovation and reliability of Hitachi Rail Europe’s business.

‘We aim to carry out the testing effectively and support Hitachi Rail Europe in its delivery of IEP.’

Search for Newton Heath Driver Hero Often overlooked in war histories are the stories of courage and heroism of the locomotive drivers and firemen who consistently took trains out during the height of the Luftwaffe blitz.

James Walker, a driver based at Newton Heath T&RS Depot, Manchester, was regularly involved in moving troop trains and munitions throughout the war.

In the build up to the Normandy landings vast amounts of supplies and equipment had to be moved down to the south coast, irrespective of the war raging in the skies above.

Mr Walker was born in 1901 and is thought to have joined the railway from school. Sadly he died in 1946. His wife, Ellen Walker, was employed as a cleaner at the Clogger’s Arms, Oldham Road, Newton Heath. Ellen also passed

away after the war.

Their daughter, Carole Watterson, 72, and her younger brother went to live at the Railway Servant’s Orphanage, later called St. Christopher’s, in Derby.

Carole Watterson is trying to find out more about her father. ‘I recently visited Newton Heath Depot,’ says Carole, who now lives in Sale, Cheshire, ‘but was unable to find out much more about him. I’d be grateful to hear from anyone who knows more.’ The Walker family lived at 65 High Street, Newton Heath. ‘I do know that he liked to have a drink in the Railway Hotel, Dean Lane, Newton Heath.’ The pub is still there, as is the depot.

The night skies above Newton Heath Depot are quieter now. Built in 1876 the depot itself is still busy and is used by Northern Rail for stabling and maintenance of diesel units. Newton Heath has a less well known claim to fame. Men from the depot started the

View from St. Paul’s Cathedral after the Blitz.

football team that became Manchester United. The Newton Heath LYR Football Club, the LYR stands for Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, originally played on a ground specially built at North Road and changed its name in 1902.

Says RailStaff editor, Andy Milne, ‘James Walker is representative of a generation of brave railway workers

that has slipped imperceptibly into history. We owe them. Please help Carole in her search and get in touch if you were employed at the depot or know anyone who worked at Newton Heath in the 1930s and 1940s.’

Contact the editor, Andy Milne at andy@rail-media.com or Carole Watterson at carolewatterson@live.co.uk

NEWS

May 2015 | RailStaff | 27

Engineer your Future The Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) will be hosting an open day on Tuesday, 2 June, 9.30am - 4.30pm at the University of Birmingham.

The open day is an opportunity to learn more about the BCRRE’s railway engineering courses and to discover the centre’s state-of-the-art learning environment, which gives students with a passion for engineering the chance to flourish.

Students will have the opportunity to attend talks about the many taught and research opportunities available and have questions answered by university lecturers and students The BCRRE is a leader in railway science and education. Their approach looks at railways as whole systems, examining how each part

affects every other.

Close relationships with the rail industry mean that research and teaching draws in real-world situations.

By studying in depth what is happening across the world’s railways, they prepare graduates for the challenges of the future.

Railway engineering courses at the university will provide students with an

For more information: 0121 414 2626 www.birmingham.ac.uk/bcrre/events openday railway@contacts.bham.ac.uk

excellent opportunity to develop their knowledge in a specialist area of their choice to enhance employability and to stand out from the rest in the eyes of potential employers.

Says Professor Felix Schmid, director of education for BCRRE, ‘There has never been a better time to be in the railway industry.

‘A railway engineering degree will give

competitive edge in launching your career in this diverse industry.

‘At BCRRE, we are excited by the transformational power of railways.

We believe that rail has a vital role in creating the world of tomorrow and are developing the people to lead it.’

For more information contact: Nadeen Taylor, BCRRE Administrator, +44 (0) 121 414 2626, n.taylor.3@bham.ac.uk

Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education Open Day Tuesday 2 June 2015 9:30am - 4:30pm

FEATURE

28 | RailStaff | May 2015

Man on the

Clapham Commuter Train Report by Clive Kessell It is perhaps ironic and an unhappy coincidence that on the 30 April 2015, the day of the Rail Safety Summit organised by Rail Media, I was caught up in the unfortunate incident at Clapham Junction, where trains became stranded on the up fast line as they were approaching the station.

No one was killed or injured so in that respect the safety of passengers was not at risk. Knowing the admirable measures that have been put in place to prevent accidents from happening by using appropriate risk assessment and associated safety processes, this incident did not enter the frame.

However, as we sat marooned on the train, it crossed my mind as to how much thought is put into efficient recovery procedures following serious rail failures and perhaps safety itself being made worse by over-zealous risk aversion preventing a speedier resolution.

The Incident Just before 8am in the heart of the rush hour, a displaced conductor rail caused the preceding train to the one I was on to lose its collector shoes, preventing it picking up power from the third rail. Luckily it had enough momentum to reach the up main platform in Clapham Junction station, where passengers could be de-trained. My train, the 07.02 from East Grinstead to Victoria formed of 12 coaches with standing passengers after leaving East Croydon, also had its shoes knocked off by the conductor rail and stopped at the approach signal to the station, then not able to draw power.

Very quickly, the train crew realised the seriousness of the situation and announced that we had a real problem which was going to take a while to sort out.

Following trains suffered the same fate and were also stranded at successive rearward signals. In all, it was reported that around 10 trains were affected. One can only make conjecture as to the number of people involved, but certainly in the thousands.

What to do Next?

At times like this, it can only be surmised as to what went through the minds of the controllers in both Network Rail and the Southern TOC control rooms, but their training would have kicked in as to the options available. A whole series of trains, all without power, is a serious situation. It became clear that the down fast line was also affected so trains approaching Clapham from Victoria would also be stopped. The

two slow lines remained in operation but trains were being cautioned through the entire area and the low number passing through indicated that diversions or terminations short of the Victoria destination were happening.

In the meantime, it was obvious to our driver that to keep lights and air conditioning working would quickly drain the batteries, so we were informed that these would have to be switched off. Modern trains do not have opening windows but the guard, realising the temperature would soon rise, duly came round to unlock and open the top droplights. That at least allowed some air in.

Periodic announcements when the battery supply was temporarily switched back on told us of the likely recovery measures: maybe a following train could be restored with power and pull us back to either Wandsworth Common or Balham stations; maybe we would have to be taken off the train by a controlled evacuation. Time went by and after nearly three hours, it was announced we would have to be evacuated from the train. The police arrived and went through the coaches asking if everyone was all right; from what I could see it appeared they were.

After initial irritation that this was yet another rail fiasco, the traditional British humour kicked in and people began to swap information as to what to do for the rest of the day. The guy next to me offered his biscuits, gratefully accepted as my stomach was rumbling to the amusement of all. Passengers tuned into social media announced that all trains services from the Victoria Central side had been suspended.

Occasional trains on the adjacent slow lines stopped alongside, mostly empty stock but with some bemused travellers staring at our fate. Eventually at around 11.15 it was announced that the train was to be evacuated but it would take some time since it would be only via one door.

The Evacuation Process The train crew were right, it did seem to take forever.

Noticing the steady stream of walkers on the far side footpath, something was going on but it was not until nearly 12.00 that our turn came to move from the front coach down to number eight. There, we were helped down some short ladders by the fire brigade and escorted along the cess, under a road bridge and up a flight of access steps to the roadway above. It was a relief to be in the fresh air with the first thought being where’s the nearest toilet? The road had been closed so the traffic was horrendous but a 10 minute walk to Clapham Junction enabled a toilet visit and a SWT journey into Waterloo.

I made it to the Safety Summit by 12.30 so missed

the morning session. The afternoon speakers proved it had been worth making the effort but getting home in the evening proved quite a challenge. Victoria station remained severely disrupted with Tweets indicating that London Bridge was also having problems in coping with the extra load, so I decided to try Thameslink only having to go northwards to Farringdon to stand a chance of getting on a Brighton bound train. I finally reached home close to 8pm.

Did They Get it Right?

The news media was full of it that evening, generally portraying the incident accurately but making the most of some people’s adverse comments. Having been personally involved, however, and having a lifetime of railway experience to boot, it was inevitable for me to consider, ‘what would I have done?’

Our train crew were superb and did their very best to make conditions as comfortable as possible with accurate and informative announcements from time to time. I can only speculate on the challenge staff on the other trains and at stations had to inform passengers of the serious disruption taking place and the alternative means of getting to intended destinations. But what about the decision making process by management and did they do it quick enough? Options included: • The chosen solution of evacuating the train but

FEATURE

May 2015 | RailStaff | 29

Power dependent Having thought about it, the right decision was made in the local circumstances but it needed to

have been put in place much more quickly. The fact that modern trains are very power dependent for basic amenities must mean that decisions need to be made much faster. Toilet considerations are the most critical but if the day had been hot, the temperature would have risen such that coaches would have become furnaces. As it was, the situation was uncomfortable but not unbearable.

It could have been much worse. We all perhaps remember the incidents at Kentish Town and in the Channel Tunnel when passengers had to take matters into their own hands just to ensure survival.

I believe the staff at all levels took the right decisions but were they constrained by safety factors that might have slowed the whole process down? Is enough thought given to the recovery from major incidents? All too often one reads of massive train service disruption for hours on end and the seeming reluctance to take effective action because of safety concerns.

There had been one earlier in the week

©PC BEN PERKINS, MET POLICE

could it have been done in a shorter time and maybe using more doors to get people down into the cess to speed the process?

• To bring up a train on the adjacent down fast line and then using a supervised step across from one train to the other. This assumes the power to the third rail to that track was not linked to the conductor rail of the up fast.

• To stop a train on the down slow line and with all traction power switched off, transfer people down to track level and up into the adjacent train.

This would have been a logistical challenge and not easy to achieve.

• Procure some diesel locomotives to progressively move trains to a station platform where passengers could get off. Not easy these days and getting them in position would have been difficult.

INSET PHOTO ©JOSH RUSSELL/TWITTER@JOSHR

© JOSH RUSSELL/@JOSHR

© PC BEN PERKINS

when Waterloo and SWT services were effectively shut down because of a suicide at Surbiton and a failed train in the Clapham stabling sidings. In my view, this whole area needs far greater attention with, perhaps, acceptable risks being taken just to ensure situations do not worsen because of inaction.

Clive Kessell writes regularly for

the Rail Engineer magazine and is an international speaker on railway signalling. Clive lead the telecommunications engineering department at British Rail. He was the engineering director at British Rail Telecoms. He is a leading member of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE).

NEWS

30 | RailStaff | May 2015

Apprentices Launch Story Centre Josh Forster, an apprentice with Nexus, has officially opened the new Training Centre at Story Contracting’s Burgh Road base in Carlisle.

Phil Kirkland, head of maintenance for Nexus, which owns and manages the Tyne and Wear Metro, Fred Story, chief executive of Story Contracting, and Tom Wall, Training Centre manager, joined Mr Forster at the opening.

The building has been extensively refurbished and will run specialist courses including Personal Track Safety (PTS), Crane Control and CITB testing.

Says Tom Wall, ‘This is a great milestone for us at Story Contracting. To have access to a facility like this and to be able to continue to up-skill and train our teams from within is a necessity as our business continues to grow.

‘This new chapter for our training operation will also mean that we will bring people from across our industries to Carlisle to access our training provision.

This will benefit our business and see our centre thrive.’

The opening coincided with a visit from a group of Tyne and Wear Metro apprentices. They took part in vehicle demonstrations on the specifically built test track. Nexus is stepping up apprentice recruitment for its rail engineering section.

Says Phil Kirkland, head of maintenance delivery for Nexus, ‘This is an excellent opportunity for our

apprentices to get first-hand experience of rail maintenance vehicles in a bespoke training facility.

‘What Story Rail has created is really top class and will be of great benefit for the whole railway industry. Our apprentices will one day be responsible for maintaining the Tyne and Wear Metro system, so it’s essential that we make their training as hands-on as possible.’

New Depots On-Line Two of the most hi-tech train centres in Europe are nearing completion as part of the Thameslink Project.

The new Siemens depots at Three Bridges and Hornsey will house the Class 700 Desiro City trains, which will start operating Thameslink and Great Northern services in spring 2016.

The purpose-built Three Bridges depot in Crawley, West Sussex, will be ready to receive trains this summer for testing and training purposes. The construction of the second depot in Hornsey, north London, is also well underway.

The first phase of the project, including seven new roads and a carriage wash machine, was handed over to Govia Thameslink Railway in March. Both depots are being constructed by main contractor VolkerFitzpatrick on behalf of Siemens.

Meanwhile the Class 700s are currently undergoing testing in Germany. From the middle of 2016, one Class 700 train will be delivered

every week to the Three Bridges depot.

Says Iain Smith, programme director of the Thameslink Rolling Stock Project at Siemens, ‘The fact that we are now so close to the completion of Three Bridges depot, with Hornsey following closely behind, is hugely exciting.

‘Three Bridges depot is of particular

Stacks for Drax importance to the overall Thameslink Programme due to its role in commissioning the trains. Without a working depot, we can’t fully test trains, perform maintenance or put them into service. The completion of the first depot later this year will mark a key milestone and takes us a step nearer to a transformation in service for Thameslink passengers.’

Drax Power Station is a firm convert to rail freight. Since 2011, DB Schenker Rail has delivered up to 45 per cent of coal at Drax.

Now, under the new contract, the majority of coal will be arriving by train. In addition, DB Schenker Rail UK has struck a deal to supply up to 80 per cent of Drax’s biomass requirement.

The three-year deal covers supply routes from Immingham and Kellingley.

Says Mark Fernandez, acting head of sales at DB Schenker Rail UK, ‘We are delighted to have been awarded this contract. At DB Schenker Rail UK, we place a huge amount of importance on building solid partnerships with our customers. Drax has recognised that we have a team of experts in the industry focussed on delivering excellence for their business.’

DB Schenker, has also won a three-year Royal Mail contract extension. It will continue to run six daily services on the West Coast Main Line and two on the East Coast Main Line using Royal Mail’s modified fleet of 15 Class 325 mail trains.

RAILTEX

May 2015 | RailStaff | 31

Report by Kirsten Whitehouse

Welcome to Railtex With the preparations behind us, we are now keenly looking forward to welcoming our visitors when Railtex opens its doors on 12 May. This will be the 12th of these events and given the unprecedented levels of investment currently going into rail in this country, it promises to be a great show.

I took over responsibility for Railtex at the beginning of this year. For me this was a happy return to familiar territory as I previously managed our Railtex and Infrarail shows from 2000 to 2004. Without doubt the biggest change since then has been a major expansion of what is on offer for visitors. Railtex now includes a very extensive supporting programme of activities taking place alongside the exhibition.

Seminars, speeches and forum discussions At this year’s show there will be no fewer than 30 seminar sessions, including three keynote speeches, plus three open forum discussions and a similar number of presentations on export opportunities for UK firms.

Speakers will cover topics ranging from updates on Network Rail projects to future developments in train control technology. These all take place in the exhibition hall and are open to everyone attending the show, free of charge.

Presenting this programme has two great benefits.

First, it makes a visit to the show even more worthwhile by providing accessible opportunities to hear about industry innovations and trends from senior authoritative figures. Second, it supports the work of exhibitors by raising the profile of the show and boosting attendance - and by providing participating companies and leading industry bodies with a platform to communicate and inform.

We are confident that this year’s programme is the best ever, and we thank our many partners including Nigel Wordsworth at Rail Engineer for their help in devising it. Make sure you carefully check via the show website for topics of interest being covered to get the very best out of your visit.

Networking Railtex is also a great place to meet people, whether to renew acquaintances or to help build new business relationships. Our Networking Reception on the opening day of the show is intended to assist that.

This year also sees our second Railtex Awards dinner on 13 May, celebrating exhibitors’ achievements during an evening of good food and entertainment led by former Catchphrase game show host Roy Walker.

Judging by the success of the last of these events in 2013, this will be another great way of bringing people together.

The show The heart of Railtex of course remains the exhibition, and we value the industry’s support for the show this year. The number of exhibitors now exceeds 450, making this the biggest of these events for more than a decade.

We are delighted to see the return of so many familiar names. This backs up our own findings that Railtex is a highly-effective way for companies to communicate with existing and future customers and to present their products and capabilities.

We are also pleased to welcome more than 140 firms exhibiting with us for the first time, in many cases bringing new thinking and innovative products to the market.

Remember to register online via www.railtex.co.uk for your free visit to the show. As well as saving you paying the £20 entry fee on the door for Railtex, this means your issued e-badge will give you instant access to the exhibition hall. The website also includes the latest list of exhibitors plus full details of that extensive supporting programme.

This year’s Railtex has a lot to offer. On behalf of the whole team, I hope everyone taking part and attending the show has a very successful and enjoyable visit and I look forward to meeting many of you there.

Visit Rail Media on Stand E61.

A & J Fabtech T03 A J Paveley & Co M31 A.P. Diesels K90 Aalco Metals A81 AATi Rail C56 AB Connectors E90 Abacus Lighting U61 ABB R31 Acal BFi UK P90 Achilles Information K44 Acksys Communications & SystemsC11 ACOREL D60 Adaptaflex R31 Adlink Technology Inc P90 advance Training & Recruitment D50 AEG Power Solutions U11 Aggreko UK F67 Airquick (Newark) V10 Allan Webb B80 Alstom N11 Altec Aluminium Technik GmbH & Co. KGaA P17 Aluminium Lighting Company (ALC) H41 Amaro Group N43 Ambersil (CRC UK) G03 Amfax A91 Amphenol-Tuchel Electronics GmbH V53 AN4 Group B81 Anamet Europe BV F34 Anderton Concrete Products C31 Aqua Fabrications F31 Aqua-Solv Solutions B05 Archerdale B36 ARCO D81 ARM - Advanced Resource Managers M65 Armacell UK N95 Armorduct Systems A57 Arriva Traincare U17 Arrow Solutions M66 Artesyn Embedded Technologies B68 ASD Lighting plc T31 Ashtead Plant Hire P11 ASL S05 Associated Rewinds Ireland G16 AT Source QX T/A Protecthear B40 ATL Transformers Q44 Austin J International V63 Axis Communications (UK) C44 Axminster Carpets F03 Bakerail Services B50 Baldwin and Francis V03 Ballyclare T41 Basque Railway Components and Suppliers - SubcontEX Gipuzkoa S50 BCMGRC L91 Beck & Pollitzer E36 Be-Ge Seating UK D37 Bender UK J81 Bernstein R11 Bird Technologies E07 Blakley Electrics S16 Blocksil U60 Blocksil Spain U60 BMT Reliability Consultants D66 BOC Gases U90 Bombardier Transportation G60 Bombardier Transportation (Rolling Stock) UK : BTRoS - Derby T10 Bradgate Containers U54

Brecknell Willis Brecknell Willis Composites Bremskerl UK Britax PSV Wypers Brush Traction Burdens ByteSnap Design Cablecraft Cairn Cross Civil Engineering Cameron Forecourt Camlin Rail Cannon Technologies Cembre Censol Channeline International Charcroft Electronics Charles Endirect CHG Electrical Chieftain Trailers China CNR Corporation CIS Services Cisco Systems Clemtech Colchester Fuel Injection Columbus McKinnon Corporation Commend UK CommScope Concrete Canvas Cordant Services CRC Industries UK Creactive Design CSR Qingdao Sifang Co., CUBIS Industries D.K. Rewinds DAC Daforib Securite Data Display/Daktronics Data Track Systems David Brown Gear Systems DB Heavy Maintenance Defender Demco Depe Gear Company Derby & Derbyshire Rail Forum Design + Analysis D-Grease UK Diamond Point International (Europe) Dilax Systems UK Direct Track Solutions Divvali LED Lighting & Design DMS Technologies Dold Industries Dormer Pramet Dorset Woolliscroft DTI Group duagon AG Dura Composites DW Windsor DWG Timber Components EAO Eland Cables/Unipart Rail Ellis Patents Elma Electronic UK Eltek Power (UK) Emtelle UK EnerSys Erlau ESG Rail E-T-A Circuit Breakers

F81 F81 K84 D34 F81 C57 V90 H91 D45 A69 H51 R44 L51 U37 V67 C05 W16 B37 K61 N61 J05 G17 B51 F90 T66 E67 C66 V17 J91 G03 B44 P61 D11 F61 F30 B87 G10 W60 U01 U17 Q36 R55 C34 S11 D86 V51 N91 E17 T45 V61 C50 B11 Q55 B16 G34 T55 J51 W16 J61 K41 E11 M67 C84 K67 T64 N93 B46 T12 D68

ETLG Eurosafe Express Electrical & Engineering Supplies Express Medicals F.P. McCann Faiveley Transport FAL - Fundicao do Alto da Lixa SA Federal-Mogul Friction Products FERESPE-Fundicao de Ferro e Aco Lda Ferrograph Fibrelite Composites Findlay Irvine FinnPower Flexelec UK Flexibil SRL Flexicon FLI Structures (Francis & Lewis International ) Flotec Industrial Franke Sissons Frauscher UK Freyssinet FT Transformers Fuchs Lubricants (UK) Plc Fuelcare Furse g2 Energy GAI-Tronics a division of Hubbell Garrandale A11 & GDM Heat Transfer Gemco Equipment General Cable GGR Rail GIFAS Electric GmbH GILLAM-FEi SA Glenair UK Global Rail News GLS Coatings Gmeinder - M.Buttkereit GNB Industrial Power Goldwing Cable Greenwood Engineering A/S Griflex H.V. Wooding Hadleigh Castings HAKEL spol. s r.o.

Hargreaves Ductwork Harmill Systems Harting HaslerRail AG Hawker Siddeley Switchgear Hegenscheidt - MFD Hellermann Tyton Henry Williams Hepworth Fabrications Hepworth Rail International HH Lions Equipment Hilti (Gt.Britain) Hird Rail Services Hitachi Rail Europe Hoppecke Industrial Batteries Horizon Utility Supplies Houghton International Huber+Suhner (UK) Hunan Boyun-Dongfang Powder Metallurgy Co., Hunan Qixin TongCheng Building V50

H01 C65 D84 F66 W54 A47 U64 C10 R31 U31 B30 A01 T01 M85 U35 G51 W16 W44 B57 E61 H41 P93 B17 G91 B50 U10 C69 N66 V01 W34 D80 M51 C35 H41 G30 J45 P43 D93 D91 U14 D41 S41 J11 U67 S60 M50 W40

J90 R67 J87 E86 V60 H90 V37 U10

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Materials Products Co., Hunan Yi Da Enterprises Services HydraPower Dynamics Ilecsys Rail iLine Technologies / Channeline International Imetrum imi Precision Engineering Impreglon UK Imtech Traffic & Infra Infor Infotec Innovative Railway Safety Institution of Railway Signal Engineers International Engineering Invertec Interiors iris-GmbH Ixthus Instrumentation Jafco Tools Jewers Doors Jigsaw M2M JUMO Instrument Co K.S. Terminals Inc Kaba KeTech Keyline Rail Klauke UK KLW - WheelCo SA Knorr-Bremse Rail UK Kontron AG KOREC Group KROY (Europe) Kwik-Step LB Foster Rail Technologies LEM UK LH Group Services Lindapter International Line Worx Liniar Retaining Systems Link2 LINSINGER Maschinenbau GmbH Liquid Management Solutions Lista (UK) Lordgate Engineering LPA Channel Electric LPA Connection Systems LPA Excil Electronics LPA Group Plc LPDN - Luhn & Pulvermacher, Dittmann & Neuhaus Lucy Zodion LUR - Lucchini Unipart Rail M.A.C Solutions (UK) M.Buttkereit Mabey Hire Macemain + Amstad Manbat Marshalls plc MC Electronics Mechan MERMEC Met Systems Mettex Electric Company MGB Engineering MGF Trench Construction Mills Modern Railways Magazine Morgan Advanced Materials V31 U05 G11 Q67 P93 V91 P44 S64 F17 L93 N10 R03 M01 U16 U41 B85 C51 N60 H41

N64 R61 N59 A37 V55 T51 J41 A69 G01 W50 D35 B10 C41 S60 P55 G31 U45 R17 W36 D17 R45 R05 F81 A45 T67 C03 B37 F11 T61 B31 N16 J31 J31 J31 J31

V67 R17 L60 D01 J35 C86 S30 L90

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Mornsun Guangzhou Science & Technology Co. Mors Smitt UK Moxa Europe GmbH MPI MSc Traction Oy MTM Power Messtechnik Mellenbach GmbH MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH Multipulse Electronics National Training Academy for Rail (NTAR) E51 & Navaho Technologies Network Certification Body (NCB) Network Storage Systems NewRail Centre for Railway Research Nexala Nightsearcher Nomad Digital Nord-Lock NR Engineering NRL Nusteel Structures Oxford Hydrotechnics Panasonic Computer Product Solutions Park Signalling Parker Hannifin Partex Marking Systems (UK) Passcomm Paul MacArthur T/A SCCS PCC.eu PC-Soft GmbH Permanent Way Institution Perpetuum PESA Petards Pfisterer PHS Besafe PILZ Automation Technology Platipus Anchors PMA UK Polydeck Polyrack Tech-Group Pontoonworks Portastor Prostyle Provertha Prysmian Group PULS UK Pulsarail Quantum Seating Rail Alliance Rail and Road Protec GmbH Rail Engineer Rail Media Rail Order Rail Professional Rail Safety Systems B.V. Rail Technology Magazine Rail Waiting Structures RailStaff Railway Approvals Railway Gazette International Railway Industry Association RailwayPeople.com Railweight Raspberry Software Systems J03 F10 S15 E35 K40 F01 H41 S68 F05 E01 G55 P33 P51 S51 C46 D03 R31 N51 R44 V41 R66 S91 J67 F80 A41 Q51 F37 C30 G45 E61 E61 V64 F07 L90 P41 D16 E61 T12 J01 N01 E61 B41 T54

E87 M11 E31 M41 R91 W66 D85 C17 E84

F51 B81 E85 T90

D10 A85 F46

R60 F81 L50 K66 V45

Raven Group M60 Rebo Systems A51 Red Plant U66 Reinforced Earth Company C14 Relec Electronics D90 Rennsteig Werkzeuge GmbH R93 Renown Consultants L61 Rexel UK V36 Ricardo UK T35 Rittal N41 Röchling Composites and Engineering Plastics C60 Rosehill Rail K31 Rowe Hankins C35 RUGGED MOBILE Systems Q65 RVEL - a Loram Company Q10 Sabre Rail Services D51 Saft K51 Saira Electronics SPA R01 Samuel Taylor V34 Sapa Profiles UK C40 SCG Solutions B15 Schaltbau Machine Electrics E41 Schneider Electric F60 Schoenemann Design F37 Schweerbau GmbH & Co KG Q17 Schweizer Electronic S65 Schwihag AG F16 Science & Technology Facilities Council C85 Sécheron SA T17 Selectrail (Australia) Pty C87 Semmco D87 Semperit AG T45 SES Contracting B60 SES Holdings (UK) B60 Shield Batteries E69 Siemens E51 & F51 Siemens RUGGEDCOM E51 & F51 SIG Plc S61 Signalling Solutions N31 Signature Aromas E30 Silver Fox B45 Site Eye Time-Lapse Films S66 SITECH UK and Ireland R17 SMP Electronics/Samalite Products C61 Snap-on Industrial L67 Socomec Q41 Sogefi Rejna SpA V31 Solo Rail Solutions N40 Specialist Engineering Services B60 Steelway Fensecure T11 Step On Safety N50 Strail UK F91 StrainSense R90 Strukton Rail R64 Sulzer V66 Surge Protection Devices V01 Syntax Consultancy S03 TAMMET Systems U66 Tata Steel M89 TBM Rail D84 TCP - BOC Ecolite U90 TE Connectivity E91 Tecton K91 telent Technology Services L31 Ten 47 R93 TenCate Geosynthetics UK T44 Tenconi SA T45 The Institution of Engineering & Technology (The IET) S93 The TEW Group R41 The Triscan Group W60 Tidyco S15 Tiflex E03 Time 24 G05 Tinsley Bridge Group B15 Tinsley Bridge Services B15 Torrent Trackside S01 TPA Portable Roadways S01 TQ Catalis T16 TRaC Global C16 TrainFX S10 Trainpassenger.com.

B90 Transurb Technirail R62 TRATOS Q30 Tribo Rail F86 Triscan Systems W60 Trojan Services N53 Trough-Tec Systems S41 Trueform Engineering R67 Tyrolit A61 UKDNWaterflow R51 Ultimate Hearing Protection Q61 Unilathe S90 Unipart Dorman S45 United Springs V31 Universal Heat Transfer D55 Valmont Stainton A17 Variable Message Signs E45 Visul Systems A31 Viztek M61 Vogelsang L11 Voith Industrial Services H11 Voith Turbo H11 Vossloh Cogifer P31 Vossloh Fastening Systems P31 Vulcanite Pty E34 Wabtec F81 Wabtec Rail F81 Wago Q63 WDS Component Parts R65 Webro W30 Weidmuller K80 Welsh Government H41 Werther International SpA U14 Westcode (UK) G41 Westermo Data Communications N44 Whitmore Rail Q01 Wilcomatic L11 Wireless CCTV D56 WMG centre HVM Catapult S62 Worlifts S67 WRS Cable U41 York EMC Services E81 ZEP UK S55 Zephir SpA F40 ZF Services UK L41 Zhuzhou Gofront Equipment Co., U55 Zhuzhou Yuntong Rail Products U53 Zhuzhou Zenpon Technology Industries Co., U51 Zircon Software B56 ZÖLLNER Signal GmbH C81 Zonegreen W10 Zoppas Industries Heating Element Technologies V11 Zuken D31

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RAILTEX

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RAILTEX May 2015 | RailStaff | 33

RAILTEX

34 | RailStaff | May 2015

In Touch

Express Medicals

Professional experts from Express Medicals will be on hand at Railtex to discuss the medical issues that face rail employers and staff.

Express Medicals looks forward to welcoming visitors to stand Q43 to outline the range of services it offers to companies working on Network Rail, London Underground, DLR and Crossrail. These include medical examinations and drugs and alcohol services provided UK-wide via a nationwide network of onsite service provision and at 16 clinics located in major cities and towns.

The comprehensive portfolio of services offered by Express Medicals makes calling in on Stand Q43 a healthy element of a visit to Railtex.

Reassuring Touch Rail employers have an increasingly onerous responsibility to ensure good governance. This includes meeting an array of European and UK health and safety directives and laws, aside from industry-specific protocols, standards

and regulations. It may appear daunting but Express Medicals is here to help.

As well as testing and screening, we can advise and support you in the implementation of an occupational health screening and wellbeing programme that will provide your company with the assurance that all necessary obligations are met.

Our occupational health (OH) team can help to protect the physical and psychological wellbeing of your workforce, supporting your efforts to boost morale and benefit workplace motivation.

Healing Touch Musculoskeletal problems constitute one of the two most common reasons for being absent from work. The rail industry, with it combination of desk work and on-track and depot physical delivery, is no exception. Causes range from defective lifting techniques by manual workers through to poor posture by office workers at their desks.

Physiotherapy is an important approach in treating musculoskeletal

injuries and ensuring a rapid period of recovery and rehabilitation, and hence a successful return to work.

The Express Medicals OH team can arrange prompt and professional physiotherapy via a nationwide network of registered physiotherapists.

Touch Out - Touch In Stress is the most common reason for absenteeism and it impacts on the workplace by affecting morale and productivity.

Express Medicals can produce an occupational health assessment to help your company to identify stress in the workforce and advise on how to manage the problem. A stress audit will provide management with evidence as to whether stress is a problem in your company and, if so, how big a problem.

Counselling can be an effective approach to many stress-related issues and is available for both groups and

individuals.

Express Medicals works with a nationwide network of counsellors and always strives to match an individual with a selected counsellor of appropriate experience. Nourishing psychological wellbeing is just as important as looking after the physical health and safety of the workforce.

Express Medicals can arrange a selection of wellbeing days, wellbeing challenges and activities to help support morale and enhance staff’s feelings of being valued.

Medical issues can be daunting and the supportive legislation over powering but a chat with Express Medicals will prove reassuring and positive. See you at Railtex stand Q43 www.expressmedicals.co.uk

Engineering & Operating New Logistics for a New Parliament: Rail Freight - The Way Forward REF Technical Seminar Followed by a Parliamentary Reception

Monday 15 June 2015 Registration 8.30am, Seminar Opens 9.30am and Closing Speech 5.15pm The Institution of Civil Engineers, Smeaton Room, One Great George Street, Westminster, London, SW1P 3AA

Outline Agenda: 1. Rail Freight from a Strategic Viewpoint: What the Nation needs from Engineers & Operators - Maggie Simpson, CEO, Rail Freight Group 2. Panel Discussion: themes / topics from a customer’s perspective. Speakers include Chris Swan, Senior Manager Rail & Shipping, Lafarge Tarmac 3. Rail Freight - The Way Forward - Alain Thauvette, CEO of DB Schenker Rail UK & member of the Rail Delivery Group 4. Panel Discussion: key technology & infrastructure delivery developments / likely innovations in the next 5 to 10 years - Martin Brennan, Head of European Research, Rail Safety and Standards Board and Professor Simon Iwnicki, Director of the Institute of Railway Research, Huddersfield University 5. Panel Discussion: case studies - how the rail freight industry has responded to the needs of Britain’s logistics revolution: operational & technology harnessed towards improved performance. Speakers include The European Transport Commissioner plus Philippa Edmunds, Freight on Rail Manager, Campaign for Better Transport and Tim Shakerley, Engineering Director, Freightliner Group Limited 6. What the Members of REF can do to Deliver Against this Agenda Chris Kinchin-Smith, Chairman of the Railway Division, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 7. Panel Discussion: future training & industry leadership - how can the rail freight industry continue to respond to the needs of Britain’s logistics revolution? - Chris Fenton, Chief Executive, Rail Safety and Standards Board 8. Closing remarks by Lawrie Quinn, Chairman, REF and Lord Berkeley 9. Parliamentary Reception on the House of Lords Terrace

How to Book: www.theref.org.uk Email: ref@springboard-marketing.co.uk Tel: 01732 363399 When booking, please indicate Seminar only or Seminar and Parliamentary Reception.

Please book your Reception place by Monday 18 May (or Seminar only place

by Monday 8 June). Early bird Corporate delegate discount of 20% if booked before 30 April.

Prices: Corporate: £300 per person REF Member: £150 per person Student/Graduate: £75 per person Attendance at the seminar will qualify as CPD training certified by RCEA

For sponsor opportunities please contact ref@springboard-marketing.co.uk A seminar organised by:

NEWS

36 | RailStaff | May 2015

Hallandsås Tunnel

23 years in the making When an industrial sealant was found to be leaking into the watercourse surrounding the Hallandsås Tunnel site on Sweden’s west coast 20 years ago, workers downed tools and everything stopped.

Construction began on Sweden’s longest rail tunnel in 1992. The tunnel had been a long-held aspiration of Swedish State Railways, which had first proposed a subterranean rail link through the Hallandsås Ridge in 1975.

It was to replace the existing coastal railway, which dates back to 1885, and remove a known bottleneck, but 23 years on and it is yet to be completed.

The problems began five years into construction when Rhoca-Gil, the sealant used to keep out intruding groundwater, contaminated the surrounding watercourse, killing fish and poisoning livestock. The high levels of acrylamide, a known carcinogen, detected in the water sparked a major environmental investigation, closing the the project down indefinitely and becoming the subject of various court cases.

Years of remediation work followed and in 2003, the site was declared safe and work was able to restart.

Now into its third decade, the £812 million project is nearing an end.

Tunnelling was completed in 2013

in the western tunnel but even this process wasn’t without its issues.

Freeze pipes had to be installed to chill an unstable 200-metre section of ground, named the Mölleback zone, to - 40 degrees celsius, creating spectacular underground ice caves, to allow tunnelling to be carried out safely.

By the end of the year, both east and west tunnels should be open for passengers. Tracklaying was completed at the start of this year and work is now underway installing and testing the electrical and signalling systems, and constructing three new stations Förslöv, Barkåkra and Bastad.

Once open, the tunnels will boost capacity from four trains an hour to 24 trains an hour and increase the line speed from 80 km/h to 200 km/h. It will also allow freight carriers to double the weight of trains using the route.

It is a project more than 20 years in the making. Apart from one engineer, Kenneth Rosell, who has worked on the Hallandsås Tunnel from the very start, several generations have played a part in one of Sweden’s biggest infrastructure challenges.

Photos: Trafikverket

10th October Ricoh Arena Coventry

www.railstaffawards.com

ELECTORAL ROLE Getting involved in your industry and community is the essential lesson of the last election. For all its faults, the General Election 2015 marks the most interesting for a generation. Crucially it emphasises the responsibility of the personal vote and of engaging with the electoral process. The question for any democracy is this: can the individual make a difference? Certainly that’s the case in the rail industry - from safety procedures to the RailStaff Awards - your action counts.

Regrettably the concept of personal responsibility has become unfashionable elsewhere in a modern civicinterventionist state where ill-defined authority figures take decisions for you.

However, in the rail industry personal responsibility persists. Whether it’s responsibility for one’s own sobriety, reading the notices or understanding the safe system of work - personal engagement is encouraged and is an essential part of almost every railway job.

Free society By contrast the electoral process has negated the power of the individual and been cheapened by a moribund media content to police an imagined political correctness.

SHORTERM

Shorterm recognises apprentice achievement.

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engage, to join that union, take that course, get more involved in your industry. From family firms, MBOs and depots to global high street brands and the City of London, the tousled success of the UK will continue.

Hard evidence

encouragement of colleagues affirms them as winners.

Democracy is difficult but at least a nomination for the RailStaff Awards gives back control to the voter. The RailStaff Awards, like the railway, is dependent upon the engagement of ordinary men and women who make up the backbone of the industry. Getting involved in the RailStaff Awards may not be a political solution - but it’s a start - and it’s fun.

Bland mainstream news and current affairs programmes drive voters to make arbitrary political judgements in the same way as they might select a washing powder. For politics and the wider democratic state to succeed, political engagement is essential. Only one party, the SNP, has achieved this.

In a country where government is weak, it is on the shoulders of a free society that survival depends.

Unlike many nations, Great Britain has a plethora of industries and institutions that bolster the body politic. An independent judiciary, strong trade union movement, popular monarchy, universities and commercial enterprises stay the shaky hand of instability. However it is important to

In the midst of this, the calm at the eye of the storm, sits the new rail industry. Once ridiculed and slated for economic decline, the railway bounced back and is now a powerful contributor to the nation’s economy. That it has done so is down to the engagement of the people which it draws to its cause.

Rail staff come from every conceivable background, many different cultures and countries. The railway was enacting cultural diversity long before it was politically fashionable.

Confidence and success cannot be imagined or decreed by diktat.

Staff need hard evidence of better performance, projects completed and investment agreed. Best of all the

On the actual night the ‘Let’s Party Party’ always wins an outright majority.

The Westminster Bubble is replaced with Champagne Bubbles, swings to left and right are carried off with daring aplomb on the dance floor. No deposit is necessary, negative campaigning is actively discouraged and best of all the good guys win every time. Please get involved - nominations are open now.

The RailStaff Awards is on Saturday 10th October at the Coventry Ricoh Arena.

TBF

WESTERMO

SAMARITANS

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Station Staff of the Year gets TBF backing.

Westermo supports Signalling and Telecommunications Engineer of the Year.

Let’s Party

Talk, listen and help: Samaritans Lifesaver Award.

RAILSTAFF AWARDS 2015

38 | RailStaff | May 2015

Shorterm recognises apprentice achievement Shorterm Group, leading specialists in recruitment and technical support services for the engineering industry, is proud to be sponsoring Rail Apprentice of the Year at the RailStaff Awards 2015.

Steve Gallucci, chief executive of Shorterm Group, says, ‘We are delighted to be sponsoring this important and prestigious award.

With over 35 years’ experience of supporting the rail industry, we at Shorterm appreciate the commitment increasing numbers of young people make to the industry by taking up an apprenticeship. Right across the industry, their efforts and enthusiasm

should be recognised.’

It’s been another successful year for Shorterm. After a rigorous tender exercise, Shorterm Group has been selected as one of just four core suppliers for Network Rail’s new Contingent Labour Framework agreement with a total minimum spend of £450 million over five years.

SHORTERM ARE PROUD TO SPONSOR Apprentice of the Year

Category at the Rail Staff Awards 2015

Shorterm Group is a railway recruitment specialist with more than 35 years’ experience placing permanent and contract staff across all major rail projects.

For more information call our rail team

0800 122 3456

The move anticipates a strategic change in the number of suppliers from 57 to 20. The four core suppliers will provide 70 per cent of the workforce supported by a number of smaller specialist suppliers.

An accredited provider under RISQS (formerly Link-up), Shorterm provides managers, engineers, safety critical and support staff across a wide range of rail projects throughout the UK. In addition, the company is also the leading provider of engineering staff to the rolling stock sector.

Says Asif Ahmed, director, Rail Media, ‘The fact is the rail industry needs more apprentices to form the bed rock of a future, highly professional, workforce charged with delivering the railways of the future.

‘CP5 has ushered in a dramatic era of enhanced investment in the rail industry as it works in concert to meet demand. Organisations like Shorterm, which understand the needs and sensitivities of the rail industry, add real value to the ever increasing portfolio of projects and organisations involved in expanding the industry.

Apprentices joining now will progress new capacity initiatives and develop the high speed, better performing, railway of the future. Seeing it through and making it all happen will depend on securing the next generation of railway engineers, operators and visionaries. The RailStaff Awards is part of the movement to salute and encourage everyone from apprentices to life time achievers. Thank you Shorterm.’

Shorterm is a service-led, customerfocussed organisation that is committed to continuous development of rail managers, engineers and staff at all levels. With extensive rail engineering expertise Shorterm is able to provide a dynamic and innovative service to its clients, and is perfectly placed to undertake small or large projects efficiently, professionally and most importantly, safely.

Shorterm Group’s diverse rail offering includes: • Permanent way engineering • Signalling and telecoms engineering • Rail welding and grinding • Rolling stock technicians • Depot and fleet management • Rolling stock design engineers • Overhead line electrification engineering • Safety critical personnel • Electrical and mechanical engineering • Rail training and assessment services Lawrence Dobie, Shorterm Group’s director of rail, says, ‘The RailStaff Awards 2015 will be a wonderful celebration of the extraordinary young men and women who make the rail industry such a success. Outstanding apprentices are key to that success.

At Shorterm Group, we continue to rise to the challenge of providing the rail industry with the skilled people it needs to grow. I am proud that we are sponsoring Rail Apprentice of the Year.’

For more information about Shorterm Group, please visit www. shortermgroup.com

RAILSTAFF AWARDS 2015

May 2015 | RailStaff | 39

Station Staff of the Year gets TBF backing The Transport Benevolent Fund (TBF) is backing the Station Staff of the Year Award at this year’s RailStaff Awards.

With a membership of over 45,000, the TBF enjoys a unique and central place in the railway community. Says Andy Milne, editor, RailStaff, ‘The rail industry is a public service like no other. Railway staff are in daily contact with passengers on trains and on stations in a safety critical environment.

‘Passengers can see the driver and talk to the guard but before they get on the train their journey effectively starts at a ticket office, on a railway concourse or platform.

Station staff handle a variety of situations with competency and kindness. Their professionalism underpins the continuing good fortune of the railway industry. It is highly appropriate that the TBF which has helped so many railway staff since its foundation in 1923 should be backing this award.’

The Transport Benevolent Fund (TBF) is a registered charity and offers a wide range of benefits including health, legal advice, convalescence and cash help to its members and their dependants.

The TBF is run by trustees who understand the industry and the needs of staff. TBF is here to support those who work in the public transport industry when they are in need, hardship or distress. Almost anyone who works in the industry may join TBF. If you are a member of the TBF,

you may choose to continue your membership in retirement. It is not possible to join once you have retired.

Contributions to the TBF are just £1 a week. Please contact TBF for more details. If you pass away while in service, and have five years’ worth of TBF contributions, your family will normally continue to be treated as dependants in accordance with TBF rules. TBF was originally established to help families of London public transport workers serving in the First World War. A permanent trust was set up in 1923. TBF has been helping public transport workers for over 90 years.

In recent years, TBF has shown extensive growth nationally and now has over 45,000 members throughout England, Scotland and Wales. PostBeeching railway stations often became depressed, grimy places with their buildings boarded up. Many staff were withdrawn. Much of this is changing now as the rail industry powers up to answer the upsurge of passenger volume.

Stations are being modernised and expanded. Major stations are being re-defined as light, friendly places full of shops, cafés and restaurants. The rail industry has worked out the huge footfall through its stations presents a real commercial opportunity.

The essential element in making stations work are the staff from every quarter of the station, from barista to dispatcher. Thanks to railway staff, stations are once more becoming inspired statements of faith in the future.

George with John Sheehy, TBF

TBF is proud to sponsor the 2015 Station Staff of the Year Award With the help of the TOCs, Network Rail and other employers throughout the public transport industry we now have nearly 45,000 members.

For just £1 a week, a variety of benefits are available to you, your partner and dependent children.

& 0300 333 2000

etd 00 38571 help@tbf.org.uk 8 www.tbf.org.uk

The Transport Benevolent Fund (known as TBF) is a registered charity in England and Wales (1058032) and in Scotland (SC040013)

RAILSTAFF AWARDS 2015

40 | RailStaff | May 2015

Westermo supports Signalling and Telecommunications Engineer of the Year Phil presents the award to Paul.

Westermo Data Communications is sponsoring the Signalling and Telecommunications Engineer of the Year Award at the RailStaff Awards 2015.

The award aims to highlight pioneering work developed by the rail industry’s signalling and telecommunications specialists as new projects and renewals crowd the rail industry’s expansionist agenda.

A Beijer Electronics Group Company

Proudly sponsoring ‘Signalling & Telecomms Person of the Year’ Proud sponsors of the RailStaff Awards 2015 Westermo is a global player in mission critical data communications solutions. Westermo products thrive in the harsh environments of the trackside at the edge of today’s enterprise networks. … Quality systems audited by leading global rail companies … Designed for high reliability and long life leading to reduced maintenance costs … Legacy serial communications to Ethernet IP networking solutions … Secure and resilient networking solutions … Tested to EN50121-4 EMC standard and operational at extreme temperatures … Wide range of Network Rail accepted products … Low power consumption helping to build sustainable railway Lynx managed10-port Ethernet switch PADS: 087/045460

Wolverine industrial Ethernet extender PADS: 087/038364

Industrial RS-232 to fibre optic converter PADS: 087/045462

Industrial PSTN dial-up modem PADS: 087/039595

Says Phil Mounter, UK rail sales manager, Westermo, ‘The growing signalling and telecommunications sector is sometimes overlooked but it makes a huge contribution to the new rail industry.

‘All projects - electrification, new railways, light rail systems, flyovers and tunnels - need new, cost effective, safe and robust signalling systems.’

In an industry where timing is crucial and every second counts, top performing signalling installation engineers are an integral element of rail engineering dynamics.

‘Signalling and telecommunications engineers are out there whatever the weather and wherever the project takes them. They work with quiet professionalism and concision to get the job done - often within the parameters of a tightly timed possession or total blockade.

Installation, commissioning and maintenance are all integral elements of their skill set,’ says Phil. ‘We want to recognise these men and women and this award is a big thank you to all our customers, suppliers and staff.’

Says Tom O’Connor, managing director of Rail Media, ‘Westermo is at the heart of developing new technologies that underpin the signalling and telecommunications sections of the industry. Phil’s quite right, we don‘t hear enough about S&T engineers. This award will go some way to redressing that. No train

moves without S&T professionals in the background and their role is of deep significance. I’d like to thank Phil and beyond him all S&T engineers for their hard work - we wish you well at the RailStaff Awards 2015.’

The RailStaff Awards is an industry-wide exercise in getting together and uniting the industry.

Says Phil, ‘Getting together is important. Part of our approach is to communicate direct with signalling and telecommunications designers, installers, maintenance technicians, engineers and managers. We believe we are all in the communications business. For us talking, discussing and refining what we do is essential and gives us the edge. Top S&T engineers choose Westermo when building mission critical communications networks.’

Westermo products are built using high quality, military-grade, components with low power consumption and data integrity in mind. Westermo offers some of the most reliable, secure and energy efficient products on the industrial market today.

Founded in 1975 in Sweden, Westermo now has a global reach. In Britain Westermo has been supplying Ethernet and serial industrial communications devices to the rail industry for many years. New ideas, top quality equipment and listening to the concerns of the engineers themselves has placed Westermo among the market leaders in signalling and telecommunications.

For more information about Westermo see: www.westermo.co.uk

RAILSTAFF AWARDS 2015

May 2015 | RailStaff | 41

Talk, listen and help - Samaritans Lifesaver Award As part of Samaritans’ suicide prevention partnership with Network Rail, the charity is again sponsoring the Lifesaver Award at the RailStaff Awards 2015.

Now in its fourth year, the Lifesaver Award aims to recognise the pre-emptive actions of station staff, train crew, track workers, British Transport Police (BTP) officers and the many railway staff who by timely intervention have prevented a potential fatality.

Rail suicides continue to be a tragic issue for the rail industry, however there were over 800 reported life-saving interventions in 2014/15, carried out by rail industry personnel including BTP officers, train operating staff and Network Rail personnel.

Samaritans are delighted to be sponsoring the Lifesaver award again at this year’s RailStaff Awards. This award seeks to recognise those individuals who have intervened to potentially save the life of a vulnerable person on the rail network, and to demonstrate that talking and listening to someone in need can make a huge difference.

Matt Lenton from Southern Railway won the award last year for his great work at Hassocks station, helping a man in need. Matt’s account, along with accounts from many other rail personnel and BTP officers is included on the new Suicide Prevention and Support on the Railway: Learning Tool developed by the rail industry’s National Suicide Prevention Steering Group (NSPSG). The Learning Tool comprises a series of short videos and seeks to engage the rail industry en masse, increasing vigilance and empowering viewers to make an intervention. The Learning Tool is

available to all rail personnel and can be viewed online at www.nspsglearningtool.co.uk.

Samaritans also continues to deliver the one-day Managing Suicidal Contacts course that has been delivered to over 8,500 personnel to date and provides delegates with the skills and confidence to help someone in need on the rail network, as well as teaching valuable listening skills that are relevant in everyday life.

The Managing Suicidal Contacts training team won the Training Team of the Year award at last year’s RailStaff Awards and the course averages an evaluation score of 4.8 out of 5. If you are interested in attending the course please e-mail: railcompanies@samaritans.org.

The Samaritans/Network Rail partnership was formed in 2010 with the aim of reducing railway suicides and improving the support available to those affected by them.

Paul Curtis of Rail Media is a strong supporter of the Network Rail Samaritans partnership and sadly has direct personal experience of railway suicide. ‘I know from my own experience this is a source of continuing distress for those left behind.

‘Suicide on the railways remains a big challenge for us all. ’ Paul lost his sister-in-law’s brother in a railway suicide and has since been a vigorous supporter of measures to reduce suicide. The aim of the award is to draw attention to the many instances of railway staff intervention which have served to save life, ‘If you know of a colleague who has prevented someone from taking their life on the railway in the last year please consider nominating them for Samaritans Lifesaver Award,’ says Paul.

Kate accepts the award on Matt’s behalf from Ola.

TALKING SAVES LIVES Samaritans is proud to sponsor the Lifesaver award at this years’ RailStaff Awards 7,500 rail industry personnel and British Transport Police officers have been trained with the skills to help a person in need. These skills can encourage people to talk about their problems and help save lives.

For more info and to nominate a colleague  www.railstaffawards.com

In partnership with

A registered charity

RAILSTAFF AWARDS 2015

42 | RailStaff | May 2015

We can help... ...and so can you

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FEATURE

May 2015 | RailStaff | 43

Mercury Communications Train Conductor to

Imagine waking every day and not knowing what problem is going to land in your lap next or from which direction it will come. This is the life rail industry communications specialist, Simon Taylor, leads every day.

Having recently celebrated his 25th anniversary in the industry, Taylor, who followed in his father’s rail footsteps, started his working life as a conductor before graduating through the railway management programme and going into PR. Today, his work in rail, engineering, energy and construction sector communications through his company, Mercury, is recognised by many as leadingedge and he is fast becoming the ‘go-to-guy’ for helping to promote, defend and advise train operating and rail infrastructure companies on how best to raise their profiles, improve their reputations and to support with successful and profitable growth.

There’s not much that Taylor hasn’t dealt with: extreme weather, industrial action, sustained reliability and punctuality problems, crashes and operational incidents, worker and public injuries and fatalities, possession overruns, protestor activity, replacement services, sensitive staff issues. You name it, he can recall most issues and how he helped to resolve them.

Bank of goodwill Keeping cool, stepping back and understanding what needs to be done to bring matters under control is where his main skills lie. Although he also strongly

advocates the importance of ongoing promotion to develop a bank of goodwill so that if and when the more challenging issues arise, internal and external stakeholders, the travelling public and industry commentators are all able to set matters into context.

Never more were his crisis management skills, PR ability and powers of persuasion tested to the limit than when he was called in by FirstGroup to deal with what quickly became a crisis for First Hull Trains when its fleet of Class 180 trains repeatedly failed in the summer of 2012.

Taylor had been the company’s PR adviser since 2003 during which time First Hull Trains had achieved some very impressive results as one of the country’s pioneering open access operators. However, persistent train failures that summer, following similar problems the two summers before, reached record levels over a sustained period. Customer confidence was reducing as passengers re-routed to other services and modes of transport, putting the future of the service at risk.

This was coupled with criticism by MPs, themselves regular users of the service, key business people along the route and the regional media – championing the regular travellers’ cause.

Despite this, through careful planning, meeting the right people and focusing everyone on the solution, the external communications and reputational challenges were contained and once the engineers eventually resolved the underlying causes positive messages were pushed to change and shape perceptions. Overall, the positive column centimetres

in the media outweighed the negative and the company very quickly returned to the top of the league table for customer satisfaction. Today First Hull Trains is carrying record levels of passengers.

Mercury Communications Taylor describes this as being all in a day’s work and whilst most would struggle under the extreme pressure, he has an uncanny knack of making it all look so easy.

Taylor and his team have created literally thousands of positive column centimetres for the clients they represent. The 20-strong team of copy writers, graphic designers, web developers and media trainers work around the clock to help position train operators, infrastructure companies and industry supply chain partners appropriately in their market-place with some hugely impressive results. They have written many winning industry award bids as well as supporting companies with tenders that have resulted in excess of £200m worth of new work in the last two years alone.

With over a quarter of a century of rail industry experience under his belt Taylor has grown his company, Mercury, into one of the UK’s leading communications and marketing agencies. With new franchises being agreed, HS2 on the horizon and Network Rail’s ambitious plans as part of CP5, he knows that he and his team need to remain at the top of their game…he hopes, for the next 25 years at least. www.mercury-marketing.co.uk

STATIONS FOCUS

44 | RailStaff | May 2015

Stations A Reassuring Drama With its gardens and sculptures, cafes and musicians, the railway station sits at the heart of a thousand dramas. A far cry from the smoky halls of yester-year, the railway stations of the 21st century are changing their role and better meeting the needs of the people the industry serves.

Time spent at a railway station can be pleasurable and better used thanks to the myriad of retail and artistic initiatives sweeping the network. Recognition of the unique role railways play in our social and economic discourse is immediately apparent on the station.

The hard pressed commuter sips rich coffee, priming her neuro-circuitry ahead of the rigours of the working day. Passengers shop at delicatessens and students read palm-held theses, planning journeys unfolding ahead of them.

The role of staff at stations has changed as well.

New ticketing technology is freeing up staff to work on platform and concourse. This has been rightly viewed

with suspicion but the idea of closer contact between passenger and provider is a good one. The secret strength of the railways has always been its people.

Railway staff are the oil in the rail machine, whether at stations or on board.

The RailStaff Awards is full of stories about station staff, their kindness and knowledge as rich and reassuring as the quality coffee belatedly catching up with railway standards of customer care and professionalism.

Railway stations are also becoming places to see and hear art. Musicians play in the undercroft at St Pancras, exhibitions commemorate the war dead at Waverley and a whole generation of rail staff and station adopters has seen platforms and buildings brought back to life with flowers and shrubs. Art should always be a work in motion mirroring the living, pulsing reality of an industry and its peoples.

The railway is a work in progress, its stations portals on a powerful and reassuring drama.

Time Please

St Pancras International has set up a four-year partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts.

Work by acclaimed sculptor, Cornelia Parker RA will be on show first. Parker’s piece will be titled ‘One More Time’ and will be unveiled at St Pancras International station on Thursday, 28 May 2015.

One More Time will be a working replica of the station’s DENT London clock, reversed out in black with white hands and numerals and silver detail.

The black clock, suspended from the iconic Barlow Shed roof, 16 metres in front of the original, will be seen by thousands of passengers alighting from the trains.

The artist has a longstanding connection with St Pancras, which was the subject of a number of her artworks in the 1980s and 1990s, including Left Luggage, 1989.

Says Cornelia Parker RA, ‘The clock is the most conscious focus of a railway station, a dominant force. Everyone is watching the clock, checking if they are late.

‘The piece will introduce the idea of a parallel frame of reference, that of a slower astronomical time.’

One More Time will be on show until early November 2015.

STATIONS FOCUS

May 2015 | RailStaff | 45

Roof Garden for Crossrail Station A roof garden at Canary Wharf’s Crossrail station has opened to the public. The station itself opens in 2018 and will be one of Crossrail’s largest stations.

Like the nearby Canary Wharf London Underground station, it has been built in the dock water area - in this case the North Dock of West India Quay.

Stretching more than 300 metres along the north dock, the station, designed by Foster + Partners, includes four levels of shops, cafes and restaurants, as well as extensive public gardens. Two thirds of the six-storey station development will be dedicated to retail.

The roof-top garden has been densely planted with trees and plants, and interspersed with seating and pavilions – all partially enclosed by a timber lattice roof, which wraps around the building like a protective shell.

The roof opens in the centre to draw in light and rain for natural irrigation. The spruce beams are sustainably sourced and provide a natural counterpoint to the glass and steel towers of Canary Wharf, a gentle microclimate for some of the plant species that first entered Britain through the docks.

The station box was handed over to Crossrail in May 2012, ready for the arrival of the eastern tunnel boring machines. Elizabeth arrived at the end of May 2013 and Victoria followed a few weeks later.

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STATIONS FOCUS

46 | RailStaff | May 2015

New Street dawning Take a good look. These may be the last photos you’ll see of Birmingham New Street’s £600 million redevelopment before the grand unveiling to passengers in September.

New Street station was only designed to cope with around 40,000 to 60,000 passengers a day. Currently the station receives an average of around 175,000 passengers - that’s 35,000 more than when Network Rail started the refurbishment six years ago.

Passengers were given their first glimpse of what the new station will look like in April 2013 when the

project reached its halfway point. The completion of phase one allowed the closure of the old concourse and work to start on the project’s standout feature its central atrium.

New Street is a station redevelopment on an extraordinary scale. The new concourse will be five times the size of Euston and all of the work has had to be carried out above an operational railway. The project also includes the construction of a new shopping centre, Grand Central, and the largest John Lewis store outside of London.

The former New Street station was built in 1967. At the time, British Rail sold the air rights above the station which led to the construction of the Pallasades Shopping Centre. With little room to manoeuvre, the station remained virtually unchanged for the next 40 years while passenger numbers continued to rise.

The new station has a 60-year design life but there is little room for further expansion beyond that so it was important that the project team got it right this time.

Strength of a Ryvita ‘There’s one big milestone - opening in September. Everything is focussed

towards that,’ said project director Chris Montgomery.

New Street has often been described as the largest refurbishment project in Europe. Building a modern station around the skeleton of a 1960s concrete box has not been a simple task.

A huge amount of demolition work had to be carried out to create the new concourse beneath the ETFE bubble atrium roof. The question was whether the structure would be able to support the weight of the steelwork being lowered onto it. The careful balancing act was successfully done but any additional weight has had to be carefully considered, from the glass fronts of the retail units, which have had to be suspended from the steelwork, to the weight of the equipment which will be used to clean the station once it’s open.

Says Montgomery, ’I can’t underestimate just how big a piece of engineering that was, taking out all that concrete above a live operational station. The contractors had to come up with methods that were pretty innovative but also safe.’

Quoting a colleague, he added, ‘The challenge we’ve had is making the pieces of kit work on this concrete slab that’s got the strength of a Ryvita.

STATIONS FOCUS

‘A 1960s built building; one it was built to different design codes, secondly the quality of workmanship was nowhere like you’d get today.

‘A crack in the concrete ordinarily wouldn’t be such a problem in a multi-storey car park, with de-icing salts on it, those de-icing salts get in the crack, attack the reinforcement, the reinforcement expands, it cracks, effectively the concrete’s useless and we’ve come across that time and time again.’

The quality - or lack of it - of the former station building presented issues throughout the programme.

The new New Street is wrapped in a ‘living’ mirrored facade which includes three eye-shaped screens above the entrances. Fixing it to the existing station building wasn’t as simple as drilling a hole and screwing it on. They found that some of the concrete and steel reinforcement had been shaved back which meant care had to be taken so as not to further risk damaging the integrity of the building.

Virtual station The main engineering challenges have now been solved and the project becomes about logistics. Around 1,200 people are currently working on the sprawling New Street site. Work is underway in all corners of the new station - theatre-style rigging has been installed to allow work to be carried out on the roof and the floor simultaneously. As contractors begin to move in to fit out the station’s retail units, the number of people will almost triple to 3,500.

With the opening just a matter of weeks away, the delivery team is looking at ways of introducing the new

May 2015 | RailStaff | 47

layout to passengers and station staff. Virtual reality is being employed to help train staff ahead of the opening and Network Rail hope to put the virtual New Street online, allowing passengers to get acquainted with the vast station. The computer simulated station is the work of one of New Street’s many apprentices. ‘He’s taken it to another level,’ said Montgomery.

Another hope is that better access will stop the station acting as a barrier between the northern and southern parts of the city centre. The development will create new public spaces and the advertising screens will have regular slots for community promotion. When September comes, New Street will be a central part of the city for the first time in over 40 years, not just a dingy burrow beneath it.

STATIONS FOCUS

48 | RailStaff | May 2015

The ghostly remains of a longlost South London railway station, which closed 100 years ago, have been uncovered by engineers building the Bermondsey Dive Under, as part of the Thameslink Programme.

Southwark Park station, perched on a viaduct above Rotherhithe New Road, only served passengers from 1902 to 1915 before it closed for good. Now engineers working on a massive project to rebuild the railway in Bermondsey have rediscovered the former ticket hall and platforms.

Says project manager Greg Thornett, ‘We uncovered the footings for the former platforms while we were preparing the top of the viaduct for new track, and we are now working up in the roof space of the former ticket hall to fill in the old sky lights, ready to carry the final track alignment. Much of the existing stretch of viaduct will be replaced by the ramps into and out of

Silent Hall the new dive under, but the arch that used to house the old booking hall will remain.’

The Government-sponsored £6.5 billion Thameslink Programme is rebuilding much of the railway from New Cross Gate through London Bridge and on to Blackfriars and St Pancras. The Bermondsey Dive

Under will see two Victorian viaducts partially demolished and rebuilt to allow Charing Cross trains from South East London and Kent to dive down to almost street level, under a new route carrying Thameslink services from Croydon, and back up again.

Thornett added, ‘Although the old viaducts will be replaced by modern

structures, they are designed to remain in keeping with the older architecture. It’s exciting to see this transformation, and it will be a real sense of achievement to see trains running on it.’

Southwark Park station was one of several in the area, including Spa Road which closed as a result of competition from trams and buses.

Churchill’s Bunker Up For Grabs Transport for London (TfL) wants to open up the disused Tube station Down Street, which is located on a quiet residential street off Piccadilly.

The station first opened on the Great Northern Piccadilly & Brompton Railway on 15 March, 1907, and closed on 22 May, 1932, because of low passenger usage.

Close to Hyde Park Corner and Green Park stations, trains still run through the station but 400

square metres are available for lease.

The station played a vital role in the Second World War when it was used as the protected underground headquarters of the Railway Executive Committee.

Wartime leader Winston Churchill and the War Cabinet met there while the Cabinet War Rooms were being prepared.

Legend has it Churchill was provided with cases of 1928 Perrier-Jouet champagne, brandy and Cuban cigars. The wine and cigars are long gone

now, although transport staff report the popping sound of the occasional ghostly champagne cork.

Says Graeme Craig, TfL’s director of commercial development, ’Adjoining parts of the station are still required for running the Tube, but we will work with interested parties to ensure the commercial and operational activities can happily coexist.’

TfL is looking at pursuing similar commercial ventures with a number of other disused stations.

The leasing out of London’s ghost stations is part of a plan to raise £3.4 billion in non-fare revenue.

STATIONS FOCUS

May 2015 | RailStaff | 49

Next Call Provence Eurostar has added three new stations to its network with the launch of a new year-round service direct from St Pancras International to Lyon Part-Dieu, Avignon TGV and Marseille Saint Charles.

Fares rage from just £89 return. Trains can do the trip to Marseille in sevenand-a-half hours.

October Debut for New Oxford Station Chiltern Railways plans to start running trains from the new Oxford Parkway station to London Marylebone on Monday 26 October.

Oxford Parkway is positioned next to the Water Eaton park-and-ride site just

off the A34 and close to the A44.

The new station will have disabled access, 150 cycle spaces and 800 car parking spaces.

Says Chiltern Railways, managing director Rob Brighouse, ‘We’re delighted to be able to announce the official opening date for the new

Oxford Parkway to London rail link as 26 October.

‘The line will transform travel in Oxfordshire, helping passengers avoid city centre traffic congestion and benefit from more convenient journeys to London via our new stations, Oxford Parkway and Bicester Village station.’

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STATIONS FOCUS

50 | RailStaff | May 2015

Scotland Story in

Marc Johnson discusses Story’s vision for Scotland with head of region John MacArthur

The growth and development of Scotland’s rail network has enjoyed a substantial chunk of print columns across the national, regional and trade press over the past few months.

Network Rail’s Supplier of the Year in 2014. In February, John MacArthur joined Story Contracting’s rail division as head of region for Scotland, having spent the past 18 years with Balfour Beatty.

New electric trains will soon arrive as part of the Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP).

Borders Railway - the longest section of new railway to be built in Britain for over 100 years - is just months away from opening and a new operator has reinvented the iconic Caledonian Sleeper service.

Major hub stations such as Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley have tended to be the focus for investment. But more money is now being spent on the railway itself.

Projects like phase two of the Highland Main Line upgrade, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of Control Period 5 (CP5), will see journey times cut between Perth and Inverness.

In 2014, Story Contracting was awarded one of four major Network Rail framework contracts for Scotland.

For the Carlisle-based company, it was an opportunity to grow the business in a new region after being named

Collaboration ‘I think for the other contractors in Scotland initially it came as a bit of a surprise,’ said John, reflecting on Story’s framework win.

John, who has 26 years of experience within the civil engineering and railway sector, was approached by Story to head up the framework. This would

involve not only ensuring the successful delivery of projects but establishing a whole new team in Scotland.

‘The main thing, which has been a pleasant surprise coming on board with Story, is the way they go about their business,’ said John.

‘It’s all about collaborative working and understanding the client’s requirements in terms of the drivers for their business.

‘There seems to be a tendency in contracting that there are a lot of people with a huge amount of experience, but with that experience you sometimes get very entrenched

STATIONS FOCUS

views. In turn, we find that there can be preconceived ideas about what the clients’ requirements are and a tendency not to really listen to clients.’

He added, ’It was a breath of fresh air with Story. I learnt pretty quickly that we’re very good at listening. We want to fully understand what the client wants - Story deliver on that by monitoring how we’re delivering against the client’s needs rather than making assumptions.’

The framework is focussed around work at stations and depots. So far Story has completed a full platform refurbishment at High Street station in Glasgow and is currently at Aberdeen station demolishing a redundant canopy and carrying out a glazing replacement scheme. Other projects in the design phase include an extension scheme at North Berwick station, a goods access feasibility study for Edinburgh Waverley and ‘Access For All’ schemes at Elgin and Blairhill stations.

Future-proof John, who is originally from the east coast and now lives just outside of Glasgow with his wife and two sons, said the framework had allowed him to become reacquainted with Scotland,

May 2015 | RailStaff | 51

having schemes stretching from Inverness in the north to Stranraer in the south.

‘I think we’re building a really strong team up in Scotland,’ said John.

Currently, Story’s rail office in Scotland has a core team of around a dozen people. With the framework in place, John, who studied civil engineering at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, said there will be opportunities to grow this further and pluck local graduate talent straight from university.

‘I was told I had the opportunity to bring in whoever I needed to deliver the framework, with a view to recruiting a team that have the right specialised skills and behaviours to deliver on programme and budget,’ said John.

‘It’s a bit of a finite resource pool,’ said John, talking about the specific rail skills shortage Scotland is experiencing. ‘At the moment, we’ve got the foundations of a good team

‘The main thing, which has been a pleasant surprise coming on board with Story, is the way they go about their business,’ said John. with the right key positions filled but to future-proof the business going ahead, we need to start thinking about bringing graduates through university and getting them trained up such that as people move on and develop their careers there’s other people coming through to fill these roles.

‘Having a five-year framework in place gives you the confidence that the work is going to be there so that you can bring people in from university and develop them without the fear of ‘where’s the next contract coming from?’.’

In the future John hopes to move into new areas. In particular he is looking to

further develop Story’s track capability by working in partnership with other contractors - something John is keen to promote.

‘It’s not just people with the right experience, it’s people with the right behaviours,’ said John.

‘We need to work the way that Story operate as a business but also work in a way that is extremely attractive to clients, so we don’t want people who are very knowledgable but perhaps commercially aggressive, we want people who are team players and work collaboratively, it’s just that way at Story.’

STATIONS FOCUS

52 | RailStaff | May 2015

Waverley Remembers Edinburgh Waverley is the setting for an exhibition about the essential role of the railways during the First World War. Presented by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), the display shows how the railway helped sustain the war effort. Visitors can research ancestors who died in the war, through Poppy Scotland’s ‘Everyman Remembered’ interactive feature.

One-hundred-thousand railway workers fought in the war and 20,000 gave their lives. Women started working on the railways making a huge

Barbican Pop Up

contribution to the war effort and paving the way for political emancipation.

Says Juliet Donnachie, station manager at Edinburgh Waverley and RailStaff Awards winner, ‘Every year on Armistice Day, Waverley stops to remember those who died in World War One, and the station is proud to be able to host this unique new exhibition.

‘It promises to bring the past alive through fascinating photos and railway memorabilia - telling the story behind the war memorials commuters pass in stations across the country every day.’

London Underground has launched a pop-up garden at Barbican station.

A 100-metre long garden has been created on a disused platform and includes trees, shrubs and colourful flowers.

Rail staff working at Barbican station will be able to grow herbs and vegetables. Volunteers from LU and Friends of City Gardens worked together to build the garden over the past year.

Says Gareth Powell, London Underground’s director for strategy and service development, ‘We are always looking for innovative ways to

make our stations attractive and our customers’ journeys more exciting and colourful.

‘Our staff and volunteers have done a terrific job.’

The unveiling of this unique garden comes ahead of LU launching its annual Underground in Bloom competition. This will see staff from competing stations, depots and train crew sites potting, planting and pruning against each other in a bid to grow the most beautiful flowers, ripest fruit and tastiest vegetables.

Happily more than half of the London Underground operates in the open air.

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STATIONS FOCUS

54 | RailStaff | May 2015

Hynes Backs Rhymes Northern Rail, RSSB and Network Rail have launched a new campaign aimed at keeping passengers safe on stations.

The campaign uses rhyming verses to encourage people to show concern for others and to be more courteous when at their local station.

The ever-courteous Alex Hynes, managing director of Northern Rail,

is right behind the scheme, ‘This campaign is all about celebrating people lending a helping hand and spreading goodwill.

‘To encourage this we would like customers and our people to think of others when around our stations and on train.’

Neal Lawson, director of operations and maintenance services at Network Rail explained the challenges the

industry faces.

‘The entire rail network is made up of 2,500 stations, all with different layouts, built at all different times over the past 180 years, with different types and designs of trains and different and changing passenger needs - this means there is no one magic bullet solution to improving platform safety but our challenge is to find ways to make it better for passengers.’

Finsbury Park Upgrade

A new phase of work is underway at London Underground’s busy Finsbury Park station.

This will provide step free access to train services. Passengers will also have more space and journeys through the station will be quicker and brighter.

Finsbury Park is the fourth-busiest Underground station outside of zone one. The number of people using the station during the week has increased by 20 per cent since 2010.

Stop Gap Platform gap-fillers in use by Heathrow Express at its Terminal Five station will soon be rolled out at other stations, further reducing the risk of passenger accidents.

The rubber gap-fillers sit along the edge of station platforms reducing the size of the gap between the train and platform edge.

Stepboard accidents are of concern to the whole rail industry. Historically railway companies developed different levels and models of platforms.

Accidents occur when a passenger falls between the train and the platform edge and are responsible for 48 per cent of the overall fatality risk to passengers.

A year-long trial at Heathrow Terminal 5 station found there were no stepboard incidents wherever gap-fillers were in use. The devices are

now set to be installed at all Heathrow Express stations by the end of May. Says Joanne Lewis, head of safety for Heathrow Express, ‘Our top priority is ensuring Heathrow Express, and the rail industry as a whole, is as safe as possible for customers and employees.

Stepboard accidents are a concern across the rail industry, and for good

reason; they can be fatal. With demand for rail travel predicted to double over the next 30 years in the UK, devices like gap-fillers could be a big help.’

The platform gap-fillers, designed

by Australian company Delkor Rail, also enhance access for disabled passengers and improve efficiency of passenger boarding, reducing the number of delays.

Heathrow Express, which carries 17,000 people a day between Paddington and Heathrow, is now working with the Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB) and other rail companies to develop the idea.

The platform gap-fillers were trialled at each end of platform four at Heathrow Express’s Terminal 5 station between March 2014 and March 2015.

STATIONS FOCUS

May 2015 | RailStaff | 55

End of the Paper Ticket?

Paper tickets could be phased out altogether over the next five years. There are currently a perplexing assortment of ways in which we can buy and collect our train tickets. For occasional travellers it normally involves purchasing the tickets online and collecting it from the station, usually in a panicked two minutes as the train is pulling in.

The ORR’s most recent Passenger Experience report said that 57 per cent of passengers buying tickets on the day of travel use a ticket office. The trend, however, is for contactless payments - a world where mobile phones and smart tickets have replaced the paper ticket altogether.

A ticketless system is cheaper, potentially a lot simpler for passengers and better for the environment. But closing ticket offices is unpopular and for those who rarely use the train, tourists and, forgive me, older passengers, is 2020 a realistic target?

In March, Transport Minister Baroness Kramer said that £620,000 would be invested over the next two years to try and accelerate the nationwide rollout of smart ticketing schemes. This would start in the West Midlands where Centro is extending the use of its Swift card to the rail network.

The announcement also included a partnership with the UK Cards Association to better coordinate the card payments industry with the transport operators who need their solutions.

There are other examples that show that the industry is getting quicker to adapt to new technology. Booking website Trainline now has an Apple Watch app which can give passengers directions to their nearest station, departure times, platform information and displays booking references when collecting tickets.

Many rail operators are innovating on their own. Abellio Greater Anglia is trialling a new mobile payment system between Cambridge and London Liverpool Street called MultiPass. The

mobile app can be downloaded onto a smart phone and automatically records the passenger’s journey around the network. The journey is then processed over night and MultiPass works out the cheapest fare.

Passengers just need to show the app screen on their phone to staff.

The industry is also investing in furthering mobile phone payment technology in order to develop a sophisticated system that is reliable and convenient for passengers. In January, FutureRailway selected Bytemark to create an industrystandard mobile payment system and

smartphone app for the UK transport sector. By using bluetooth and wireless readers on ticket barriers, the system will allow passengers to move through stations without even taking their phone out of their pocket.

David Mapp, Rail Delivery Group (RDG) commercial director, said, ‘Many passengers are already using smart cards like Oyster and contactless bank cards, and buying e-tickets on smartphones. Over the next 10 years we will see increasing use of the latest technology to transform the way people buy rail travel, bringing benefits to many more customers.’

NEWS

56 | RailStaff | May 2015

Wing Award

Frame and Fortune

Bridgeway Consulting’s head of HSQE, Conway Massam, has been recognised for his contribution to rail safety over the past 12 months.

Conway was presented with the Wing Award for Safety at the end of a programme of presentations at the annual Rail Safety Summit on 30 April.

The Wing Award, which appeared at the Rail Safety Summit for the first time in 2015, is an annual award presented to someone who has made an outstanding contribution towards the safety of staff working at the lineside on the railways of Great Britain. It was introduced in 1994 by the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE) to commemorate the life and work of Peter Wing, a former Fellow of the Institution.

Conway received the award from the president of the IRSE, Andrew Simmons.

Says Conway, ‘It was a big shock. I don’t remain speechless very often but I did then.

‘I feel very, very honoured to receive this award and very humbled to have my name added alongside the previous winners.’

Conway has concentrated on the application of the new Construction Design and Management (CDM) regulations, which came into force in April, for Bridgeway and the industry as a whole over the past year.

Throughout 2015 and into 2016, Conway said his focus and that of Bridgeway would be on the implementation of Safe Work Leaders (SWL) and the development of new behavioural safety techniques.

Police Team for c2c

The Kent MFF project commemorates the 150th year anniversary of Costain.

The team working on the Kent Multifunctional Framework for Network Rail recently celebrated its first successful year working on Costain’s maiden rail framework in southern England.

Work goes well with no RIDDOR reportable accidents recorded.

Says Andy Clarke, Costain programme manager, ‘From a standing start in April 2014, our team can be extremely proud to have achieved such a strong safety record

Australia Trauma Help The Australian rail industry staged a one-day ‘Rail R U OK? Day’ on 16 April 2015.

A new team of British Transport Police (BTP) officers dedicated to the c2c route is providing a more visible security presence for local rail passengers.

The team of one sergeant and three constables will combine regular patrols on trains and at stations with special operations targeted at hotspot areas.

The latest statistics show that overall crime fell 3 per cent on c2c last year, while the number of crimes successfully detected increased by more than 15 per cent.

C2c’s revenue protection team has

also caught more fare dodgers so far in 2015 than at this stage during any of the past five years.

Says Iain Palmer, c2c’s head of security, ‘It’s really important that our passengers feel safe when they’re using c2c. That’s why we’ve introduced these officers, and they will be supported by our own roving security teams.

‘From later this year, we will also be staffing every station from before the first train until after the last service has departed, so c2c passengers will always have someone they can approach if they need help.’

in a live rail environment.

‘Network Rail needs us to deliver 18 per cent efficiencies on the previous Control Period 4 targets, and we are targeting this through close collaboration with Network Rail and our supply chain partners - something that has already been recognised by our Network Rail colleagues.’

Work includes station enhancements, new footbridges, embankments and tunnels. Framework agreements are designed to encourage collaboration between Network Rail and partners.

The event was launched at Central Station in Sydney by Sussan Ley MP, Minister for Health, Bob Herbert, chairman of TrackSAFE, and Mike Connaghan of R U OK? The aim is to address the emotional wellbeing of staff involved in railway trauma - particularly suicide.

‘The rail network is a workplace;

train drivers, guards, emergency services and other rail industry employees are the first people on the scene when incidents take place on the network and for them, severe mental, physical and emotional trauma can result from witnessing such an event,’ said TrackSAFE chairman Bob Herbert.

Rail companies across Australia provided opportunities for staff to talk about their emotional status following rail suicides.

NEWS

58 | RailStaff | May 2015

Effective Hiring Hiring talent is one of the most laborious and time consuming processes that every organisation goes through. Not only can the process be noticeably challenging, you may also be unable to reach the talent that can make the biggest difference to your business.

So what are the benefits of considering outside expertise to help find the best staff? Carl Taylor of advance Training & Recruitment Services explains.

Specialist Knowledge The consultants at advance-TRS pride themselves on their expert knowledge of the rail industry and the specific sectors in which they operate. Their immersion within key sectors keeps them abreast of the whereabouts of the biggest talents; they’ll essentially be your eyes and ears within the industry.

Their knowledge enables them to provide guidance and advice to clients, whether it’s salary and rate recommendations, the complexities of hiring within the current market or understanding the present day skill sets of the workforce.

Advertising job vacancies is also quickly and efficiently handled through multiple media platforms including job boards, print advertising and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, enabling your vacancies to reach more candidates, much faster.

Extended Reach

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The best recruiters have established relationships with the top talent within the industry and will know how best to reach out to them. These top candidates may also be more willing to trust the recommendations of a recruiter they have previously worked with.

Recruiters are also able to tap into the huge pool of ‘passive’ candidates not actively applying for new jobs. Around 60 per cent of the current workforce is not actively pursuing a new career but may be willing to consider the right opportunity if it is presented to them; this is a massive untapped market for many businesses.

The phrase ‘time = money’ is astute, if your recruitment process is ineffective, you’re essentially throwing money away. A recruiter immersed within their sector will be able to provide you with a number of highcalibre candidates within the space of a couple of days.

Consider also that the number of applicants per vacancy has risen dramatically throughout the economic downturn. This has resulted in an increase in wasted time spent trawling through piles of CVs, many of which are no where near suitable for your vacancies. Recruiters are experts at swiftly qualifying CVs, reducing a stack of applications down to only a

few, retaining only the best applicants.

Recruitment consultancies will also save you time and money by undertaking references, collecting competency certificates and eligibility documents whilst also arranging medicals, drug/alcohol tests and training courses for the candidate.

Talk to the Specialists Are you looking for a recruitment partner to find the best talent for your business? advance-TRS are expert recruiters based solely within the UK’s £44 billion rail industry. They are members of the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), a badge of quality ensuring clients are represented by a company on the frontier of recruitment excellence.

Get in touch with advance-TRS today by calling 01483 361 061 or e-mail: info@advance-trs.com for a further discussion about how they can help with your recruitment in 2015.

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Touch Rugby Tournament and Dinner Reception with Lewis Moody

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We have a limited number of seats and team places remaining in this very special and unique fundraiser in aid of Railway Children To sign up your team or purchase seats for our evening reception with Lewis Moody, visit www.railwaychildren.org.uk or email events@railwaychildren.org.uk Sponsored by:

CAREERS

60 | RailStaff | May 2015

Construction Marine Ltd. CML is a long established and highly successful civil engineering contractor specialising in railway engineering. We deliver a diverse range of projects from earthworks and embankment stabilisation schemes to structural projects such as footbridge replacements and bridge refurbishments.

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To apply, please send your CV and covering letter to recruitment@cml.uk.com To find out more about all of these opportunities please visit our website at www.cml-civil-engineering.co.uk

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CAREERS

10:19

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