Melbourne trains

["Gail BENNETT" <valleyfm@mpx.com.au>]

Folks in Melbourne...pls explain something to me!

With the privatisation of Melbourne's train system, and I presume there are
two operators, could you please answer the following questions for me:

1. who owns the stations
2. do the private operators have Station Masters/ASM's
3. I know in Sydney if a disturbance exists on a train, the SM/ASM may delay
the train and remove the offender...how does this work under the private
system...can the Station Master/ASM (presumably there is such) give an
instruction to the Guard employed by the other system.
4. Who controls the suburban train control system?
5. Can the train controller transpose a service to vary the stopping pattern
to allow that service to makeup time? If not, who has the authority to do
that, and is it often done?
6. Melbourne's Revenue Protection Officers - who owns them? Do they cover
the entire metropolitan area, of do they now just belong to a particular
operator?
7. Penalty Notices issued by the Revenue Protection Officers - to which
office are they paid (police/the rail operator/or some overall governing
authority)?
8. Is the training for Melbourne's train drivers (both operators) done by a
central training unit and does the same apply for train controllers and
signal operators?

Cheers

Gail