This is the third in a series of posts about my role in the choir in York Theatre Royal's production In Fog and Falling Snow (26th June to 11th July). See links below to follow this series!
Ask any 10-year-old to suggest a couple of jobs you could do if you want to work on the railways, and you’ll get three answers: train driver, ticket collector and station staff. Ask most adults, and you’ll get the same three answers, with the possible addition of “the man who opens the level crossing gate at Poppleton station” (in places with antiquated signalling systems like the Harrogate line!) or “manufacturing trains” (especially if you happen to ask people in places like Stafford, Derby or York with a long history of train building, although the UK's biggest train factory opened earlier this year in County Durham).
Ask any 10-year-old to suggest a couple of jobs you could do if you want to work on the railways, and you’ll get three answers: train driver, ticket collector and station staff. Ask most adults, and you’ll get the same three answers, with the possible addition of “the man who opens the level crossing gate at Poppleton station” (in places with antiquated signalling systems like the Harrogate line!) or “manufacturing trains” (especially if you happen to ask people in places like Stafford, Derby or York with a long history of train building, although the UK's biggest train factory opened earlier this year in County Durham).
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| Hitachi's new IEP train, being manufactured in County Durham and coming soon to a mainline near you! |
Operations
Psychologist
The biggest cause of safety incidents on the railway is human error. So
how can we predict what a driver will do when she’s done this route 50 times,
but today something is different? Or whether the many alarms and flashing
lights on a signaller’s workstation will lead to action or just distraction,
with too many things to concentrate on at once? Or how a crowd of passengers
will behave in an emergency situation? Railway safety depends on psychologists
who are experts in human behaviour and can ensure that systems work as designed
when faced with real human beings!
Web designer
The last time you bought a train ticket, I bet you didn’t buy it at a
ticket office. On your phone or a computer? Or using a ticket machine? So
developing websites and passenger information systems that provide useful
information for planning journeys and during disruption is vital.
It’s important for other customers too, like supermarkets who want to
get their containers of fruit or clothing delivered to their warehouse just in
time as they do using road transport. Last week I heard a great talk from DB
Schenker, one of Europe’s biggest freight operators about how to provide
innovative train planning and logistics tools via web apps to integrate train
movements with warehouse stock levels and vastly improve customer service
(compared to 10 years ago when most freight carried on the rail network was
coal or steel, and no-one much cares if that arrives half an hour late).
Then there is the Digital Railway and ORBIS projects, which use
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or 3D modelling to give rail staff the
best possible information about the network in a form which is easily
searchable.
Signalling or electrical controller
Controlling the signals and the electricity supply is what keeps all of us safe on the railway, so it’s a challenging and well paid job. Rather than pulling levers in a distant signalbox somewhere, today’s signalling workforce is being moved to Rail Operating Centres like the one just completed at York, using screens to monitor train movements over a wide area and communicate with drivers, level crossings and the electrical controls.
Delay attribution
We have a highly regulated rail network, so if a train is late or
cancelled, there is a fine to pay. But who pays it? That depends whether it was
a fault with the train (which would be the operator’s fault), with the train in
front (another operator’s fault but not necessarily the same company) or with
the track or signalling, for example speed restrictions or engineering work
that overran (Network Rail’s responsibility). One of the downsides of a
privatised rail network is that we end up employing rather a large number of
people to argue about these things between all the different parties…
Maintenance
Train maintenance
Obviously trains need maintenance as much as the track, but they’re
pretty complicated pieces of kit nowadays, with air conditioning, lighting, heating, a kitchen, on-board
electrical equipment, engines, wheels and plumbing to worry about, not to mention the wifi and customer information screens.
Asset manager
The railway network is vast, with thousands of miles of track, bridges,
stations, embankments, electrical equipment etc, which deteriorate over time at
different rates but need to be
maintained in working condition at all times. How do we ensure that money is
spent wisely and is targeted at the most critical locations to give the best
performance? Network Rail as an organisation owns these assets, but each one is
personally “owned” as well by an asset manager, who is a specialist in a
particular asset type such as earthworks (a geotechnical engineer) and has
responsibility for everything in her patch, which is usually vast (as you can see here).
UPDATE: Rail Week 2016 takes place from 27th June to 3rd July. Get involved here and find out how you can build your career in rail!
UPDATE: Rail Week 2016 takes place from 27th June to 3rd July. Get involved here and find out how you can build your career in rail!
See also
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