Re: Independent Review of Rail Safety Arrangements in Australia

["Exnarc" <gwrly@netspace.net.au>]

Dave Proctor <daproc@spambait.umpires.com> wrote in message
83nmsj$meo$1@news1.mpx.com.au">news:83nmsj$meo$1@news1.mpx.com.au...
> Exnarc wrote in message <83l66e$bgd$1@otis.netspace.net.au>...
>
> >DOO is a safeworking issue as rules must provide for Driver Only
Operation
> >as the minimum basic criteria, however minimum and maximum shifts for
> >drivers is more an Occ Health and Safety issue.
>
> I disagree. DOO is a rail safety issue more than an OH&S issue. Whilst DOO

Thats what I said. (I think)?

> can be operated safely, the lack of another person in the cab to provide
> backup or override services ("services" being used in its loosest sense)
is
> an issue on the railways.
>
> Take a staff and ticket stretch of line, where a train can be sent out
after
> a certain period has elapsed after the previous train. If the driver of
the
> first train karks it en route, there is no one to protect the rear of the
> train, so the following train would go right up the rear (unless I am
> missing something here).

Doo and Train Staff & Ticket, (In Vic) we run it all the time on the
Hurstbridge Line,
If you haven't got the "Acre" Message you can't let another tain in the
section to run up the rear of the first, we don't have time interval since
DOO was introduced.

> There are other issues that impact on rail safety - whilst most of these,
> mainly related to driver fatigue, etc. - are certainly OH&S issues, they
> certainly have a direct bearing on rail safety.

Thats what I said, (I think)?

>
> >What we need in this country (IMO) is a US type FRA to regulate the
> carriers
> >to prevent things like 32 hour shifts, one of our US owned roads was
> >documented on one occasion of being guilty of this in Australia, (there
is
> >no dead hog 12 hour law here).
> >
> >I've worked long shifts many times in the past, being rostered 11 hour
> >shifts is one thing, but do half a dozen back to back and you start to
know
> >what a Zombie feels like.
> >
> >Fatigue is the the most dangerous problem on Australia's railways at the
> >moment, this coupled by corporate policies that see profit before safety
> and
> >you have a lethal combination.

> So how would you feel about the relay style system of operation? I
*believe*
> (although open to correction) that ASR operate this across the Nullabor. I
> think the safest way of doing this would be to have 5 crew members - drive
> for 8 hours, have 12 hours off in the crew car - thus, at any one time,
> there would be two drivers in the cab and three in the crew car. This
would
> not gel well with current ideas regarding operational efficiency, but it
> would sit well with me regards fatigue. Where it would come unstuck is
with
> regard to road knowledge.

I don't like the concept at all, it IMO only compounds the fatigue issue.
>
> What do ASR do now? Do they have crews qualified for the whole length of
the
> TAR, from ADL to PER? Whilst the Nullabor would not be too taxing as far
as
> route knowledge goes (I mean that in a general sense, in terms of what
> happens at what loop), KGI to PER could be a problem.
>
> Any thoughts on this?
>
I wouldn't use ASR as a model for any safe operating proceedures, they have
a record for working unbelievable long shift, the DOT in SA have I'm told,
looked at at least one 32 hour stint on the Plains. I know of one instance
of a crew driving a car back to Adelaide after a 17 hour shift to Dimboola.

Bob

Bob.