Re: Melbourne trains

[Sam Eades <eadess@yahoo.com>]

G'day!

> 1. who owns the stations

The private operators have a franchise to operate and maintain the stations for
15 years. I beleive that the state still owns them.

> 2. do the private operators have Station Masters/ASM's

There are 5 ranks in the station staff heirarchy:
SA3 - Station Assistant Class 3. The bottom of the pile. Needs no qualifications
apart from station  work. Usually found doing barrier duties.
SO1 - Station Officer Class 1. Next in line (myself).  Needs no qualifications
apart from station work. Usually found working at an insignificant premium or
business needs station such as Thomastown.
SO2 - Station Officer Class 2. The majority of SOs. Usually required to have
safeworking qualifications (many do not). These SOs are found at busy premium
stations or locations where an emergency signal panel may need to be operated
occasionally. May be ASM.
SO3 - Station Officer Class 3. Must have Safeworking and usually at a location
where it is used every day. May be ASM.
SM - Station Master. In charge of 1 or many stations including staff at manned
locations.


> 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.

There are no guards in Melbourne, we are all SPOT (Single Person Operated
Trains). If a disturbance exists, the person in charge of a premium station
(anyone from SO1 to SM) will stop the train (by instructing the driver) and
remove the offender, or get the police.

> 4. Who controls the suburban train control system?

METROL, in Transport house. That's where the train controllers are.

> 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?

Yes, the train controller will often vary stopping patterns (not neccesarily to
make up time).

> 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?

Our revenue protection is done by CSEs (Customer Service Employees). Each
transport operator in Melbourne has them (Yarra & Swanston Trams, Bayside &
Hillside Trains) and these CSEs only patrol that network.

> 7. Penalty Notices issued by the Revenue Protection Officers - to which
> office are they paid (police/the rail operator/or some overall governing
> authority)?

Paid to the operator.

> 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?

Train drivers are still trained by a central authority and I beleive the same
applies for train controllers. Signallers are trained by the rellevant company.

Sam Eades