Following the success of the Operations Experience Day in 2010, the IRO South West Area and Avon Valley Railway organised another Operations Experience day on Saturday 19 March, 2011.
This year 15 people attended, comprising of a wide range of experience and roles, from planning to station managers, all looking to learn more about railway operations and gain some hands on experience. The group had representatives from Network Rail, First Great Western, TransPennine Express, First Capital Connect, First Group, Arriva, Ivensys Rail and the North East Area council, as well as a number of IRO students. Some of the group were returning guests from last year’s event.
The recent commissioning of the passing loop at Bitton meant this year’s timetable, organised by IRO SW Council Member and AVR Operations Inspector Paul Stanford, was more intensive than last year. This gave everyone the chance to have experience of all areas but also allowed some flexibility to accommodate preferences.
The group met in the morning for a safety briefing and to allocate turns. The day was structured into two halves, starting with a shunting masterclass and main line operations in the morning, followed by a main line running, fully utilising the passing loop, in the afternoon.
The shunting masterclass, led by Paul, was excellent and everyone had the opportunity to get to grips with using a shunting pole, with varying degrees of success, controlling movements using hand signals, coupling and uncoupling buckeyes, joining up vacuum pipes and point operations. The team on the shunt loco learnt how to control the loco and interpretation of hand signals. For the train planners there was a valuable learning point on how long it can take to shunt a train, while on the safety side the team saw how critical it is to reach a clear understanding prior to commencing movements.
On the main line the people who were new to the railway had the opportunity to route learn and take on the role of driver/guard and, critically, Responsible Officer (RO), essentially the signaller at Bitton. This role has changed since last year. With the new passing loop there is now a lot more work with tokens to issue for the single lines and groundframes to operate at both ends, which involved a lot of walking! This is in addition to a level crossing where the RO has to contend with cyclists in a hurry rather than motorists.
After lunch the team started running the main line operations with two trains. Despite some late running, because the loco hauled set took longer to run round as vacuum pipes are much harder to couple than air brakes. However, it all went to plan and the group managed to fit in some additional trains and shunting at the end of the day.
Throughout the day Richard Lemon, IRO course tutor, Chris Prior, Paul Stanford and the AVR team were on hand to explain and demonstrate how equipment works and to carry out operational process in order, as well as answer questions.
It was another excellent day with plenty of operational learning experiences. Our thanks go to Ken Goodway and Paul Stanford of AVR for organising the days and all the AVR volunteers who supervised the IRO team. Without them we could not make this happen.