The South West Area’s first event of 2011 saw a panel present on the subject of Worldwide Operations Best Practice.
Tom Birch FIRO, Operations Director, Projects Chiltern Railways, spoke about North America. Tom showed how a ‘Mickey Mouse’ railway operation in the United States was the best operating railway in the country for performance. This was down to the simplicity of the operation; a circular route with separate platforms for arrivals and departures. However, on a more serious note, Tom also explained that the railroads in North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) were able to benefit from a system of common couplers, longer and heavier trains, double stacking of intermodal containers, use of distributed power with locos in the middle of the train and assisting at the rear using remote control, as well as length of haul to provide a highly efficient freight transport system.
Tom gave examples of passenger operations with Metra in Chicago being cited as a good example, particularly running empty coaching stocks workings counter peak to cover the next working and ten double deck car commuter trains. It was Tom’s opinion that on the whole passenger operations weren’t comparable to the UK. He also talked about mobile phone policy, train protection and positive train control and how these had been factors in recent accidents. Clearly North America lags behind Europe in some areas.
In Europe we are certainly being challenged about the way we signal our trains, especially with the testing on the Cambrian Coast line of ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) for roll out in the UK.
Richard Lemon AIRO, Former Standards Assurance Manager, Eurostar, spoke about mainland European operations. Richard really made us think about the types of signals used in Europe and how they are used to manage the speed of the train and also permitting drivers to pass red signals in certain scenarios. Is it best that drivers know the route inside out or can the signals manage by speed and therefore the driver does not really need to know the route quite so well?
Obviously there are more issues concerning interoperability between countries such as language barriers. This is experienced on the Eurostar services and Richard gave examples of how to get round the problems associated with the language to use through the use of standard forms to cover.
And finally Mike Hogg FIRO, Head of Production, UK Arriva Bid Team, spoke about Japanese operations. We were all certainly educated on possibly the most efficient and reliable way to run a railway in Japan. The average delay for a train is 0.5 seconds, which leads you to think there may be something we can learn from this style of operating.
The main feature was the importance that the Japanese place on time and keeping to time on the railways. Obviously we run to a timetable, but we all know delays occur. Whereas in Japan, everything that is possible is done to ensure that the trains are to the second rather than the minute. They have that level of efficiency to focus on the detail. Mike talked us through the synchronising of watches when staff report for duty, the watch in the cab of the train and the prominent schedules in the cab. The use of pointing to show hazards, signals and speeds was a good example of the routines the staff follow to ensure that they are both safe and on time.
Mike also detailed how the Japanese practice in respect of on train data recorders, in comparison to the UK with drivers having their own data cards. He also told us how voice recognition technology was used on maintenance depots for updating systems when repairs had been completed on trains.
When you examine how this level of efficiency is achieved there is not one stand out feature, except perhaps for the culture and how this drives the operations. The whole operation had a militaristic feel to it. Everyone knew their place and smartly presented with a set process to follow. Even those at the engineering depot were smart!
As you would expect, technology plays a huge part in the operational success, but it’s pleasing to note that the simple things are the best such as having the right time on your watch. We also learned about what we came to know as pink ladies – the on train cleaning team. Image and cleanliness looked to be standard, but a sense of pride was evident in the way the service was delivered.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable presentation and no matter what your role within the industry there was something on offer to really challenge the way we work within the UK operations.
Our thanks go to Tom, Richard and Mike.