Recommissioning after Coronavirus

A lot has been said rightly about the physical distancing needed in the trains and the impact that has on the rolling stock used and the loadings that result and managing passengers generally. These are the fundamentals of the business plan you need to operate trains.

Staffing is just as big a problem to solve.
How many employees compared to its current amount can a railway afford?
Which ones can it not do without?
If you cut paid staff a large body of knowledge walks out of the door and tends not to come back or be replaced easily.
Operation of steam loco's is a specialised and very concentrated body of knowledge, that is the numbers of people who have the necessary expertise is quite low. As has been said elsewhere it is something of a cottage industry.

The real biggie as far as I can see is the railway's volunteer staff.
Consider the age profile for a start. Many volunteers are older, 50+ and quite a few are in the 60+ retired age group. We know Covid affects older people disproportionately.
Many of the senior roles are performed by the older age group because that's just how promotion and knowledge acquisition works.
There aren't many Drivers under 40 on my railway.
Speaking of which, do I as a 52 year old Driver want to spend a 10 hour turn in a cab with 1 or 2 people who's infection status I am ignorant of? There are no passenger diesels on my line. I would happily drive with no second man. And have done, it felt a bit odd as it goes.
When a member of loco crew goes in between to couple/uncouple they may be exposed to the 'output' of the carriage toilets. At the moment that's a manageable risk.
All of the risks will have to be part of the railway's SMS and it will be quite a challenge. I imagine the HRA is already thinking about this as should the individual railways.
Speaking of risk I wonder what the risk of Covid is in micromorts? A micromort is a 1-millionth chance of death, For example skydiving has 8 micromorts per jump. Motorcycling, my other main hobby has 1 micromort for 6 miles ridden.
I might say 'Blow driving choo choos for a lark' and just stick to classic motorbike where I can understand a manage IE reduce the risk.
Lots to think about. I don't know the answers yet.

 

The UK Government have put aside £14million to feed animals at English Zoos. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/14-million-financial-support-for-englands-zoos-unveiled

A similar level of support to heritage railways would be very useful

 

Doesn't sound appealing to me, let alone a family.

Sorry, it's just fantasy land to think heritage railways can operate in a time of social distancing.

 

A zoo not having money to feed animals is a matter of life and death. Heritage railways are not. Locos will still be here without being powered up.

 

The view across the Atlantic.
http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/staff/ar...g-will-look-like-with-covid-19-lingering.aspx
If it looks grim here, I guess the US of A will be a great deal worse for the heritage movement.

Cheers, Neil

 

I think steam railways should be pushing for a two stage opening

1 When can volunteers go back to be able to do maintenance ? I see no reason for example that staff couldn't work and keep apart. For example track gangs could be split up and work on different parts of the railway. Volunteers could also agree to go in on different days. This would allow some maintenance and projects to continue and mean time isn't wasted, although spending lots of the railways money would be something to avoid.

2 When can we run trains and open to the public ? Clearly that is going to take longer. I don't believe any special measures could be put in place. The public will keep apart or just not come if they are really concerned. I think this is at least 2 months away and maybe longer and visitor numbers will be low so perhaps less running days.

 

Great post. I've been wondering how 'social distancing' will function, in the context of workshops, where (covid-19 aside) having folks 'going solo' poses a safety risk.

Edit: see Tom's post below for reason.

 

Your spelling is clearly not something to “crow” about ...

(Apologies - please carry on ...)

Tom

 

Oh rats ..... I hate spellcheck. Speling now corectted ocardingly. Thank bob I wasn't bulleid as a result of that won geting threw!

.

 

With the expectation that the furloughing scheme is likely to be scaled back from July I suspect decisions are going to get even tougher for some lines soon

Jon

 

The suggestion on the radio was that the scheme might be rolled back for construction and industries able to restart more easily (but not others), or might be modified to allow some part time working to stagger attendance at work.

Those feel like a good thing, rather than a cliff edge

 

But with no sort-term prospect of meaningful income for many railways they have to weigh up whether they can afford the part-time wages, and also the expenditure on materials needed to put those employees to useful work.

Yes you can send people out to work on light maintenance , but specialist materials for a loco overhaul or infrastructure work does not come cheap....

Edit- the reports I'd read suggested a scaling back to 60% wages , with employers pushing part-time work. I hadn't heard the possibility that some sectors roll back but others remain fully supported.
Jon

 

Bit of creative thinking on furloughing. If you are furloughed you can not do any work even on a voluntary basis at the place you work. You can do other voluntary work. Maybe employees who are furloughed at Railway A could decide to volunteer at Railway B and vice versa. Obviously entirely coincidentally!

 

A little tricky if things like induction are required to be compliant with safety regulations.

 

Some possibilities are described at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52563533

 

As one who is trying to keep working in the construction industry.... An increase in construction is simple as social distancing is very easy to manage on site. However, if the builders merchants don't go back to work, the site workers have nothing to build with.(Go on-ask me how I know this) The builders merchants can't go back to work until schools and nurseries are available to have the builders merchant's kids....The schools can't go back until the food supply chain gets running to supply school lunches... Which in turn requires the haulage industry and food industry to get up to speed....
It shows how the economy is a house of cards, inter-dependant, and totally reliant on confidence. No-one has ever deliberately stopped the western economy before. There is no pattern for re-starting it. I hope someone cleverer than me has a plan.
I wonder what would happen if Boris just stood up there and said "Its all ok. Nothing like as bad as we thought, so everybody back to work. If you're in the "at risk" group, stay home. Everybody else, shoulder to the wheel, the holiday is over." Every self-employed guy I know is eager to get back to work. All the salaried people are apparently quite happy getting paid for answering a few emails from home and playing candy-crush.

If there is a way to do a gradual re-start, great. Lets do it.

 

Disaster, in about a month. Mortuaries overflowing, economy tanks due to lack of confidence in the government and country at large, more death, more bad things etc. etc.

 

People will still need to pay bills, buy food, etc, so some kind of limited assistance will be needed no matter what, So there will need to be some form of help, possibly like the German method, of an assistance, based on hours worked, that way, people can still survive until they can add more hours to their working day, And rather than pay people to be idle, i would like the Government to invest in some social schemes, and building projects to kick start the economy . invest in people, and their skills, rather than sit them on the scrap heap, or an endless courses that lead to nowhere.

 

That is one of the possible outcomes. Another is that nothing will happen healthwise, and neither I nor Pearse Morgan know for sure. But if we carry on not finding out, and doing nothing, and being scared of the flu, the current situation goes on indefinitely. If the incubation period is 14 days, until we are testing the entire population on a fortnightly basis, no-one will ever be sure. Can we manage 5 million tests per day? And what then, we keep staying at home and testing until everyone has had the disease, and either lived or died. If that is the safe point, we might as well get back to work...

 

This isn’t flu, though - the comparator is pneumonia, not flu.

While I agree with you that it’s important that life starts to return to something like normal, the evidence from previous pandemics is that reapplying lockdown measures that have been released too quickly does more harm than easing them slowly. And there, I do mean economic harm.


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