West Somerset Railway General Discussion

The thing is the poster was saying they wanted to run 7 days a week in the summer but couldn't because they wouldn't be able to get enough staff. If mid week is quieter the obvious thing is to run few/shorter trains. I think probably a lot depends on where the railway is located. If it is in a tourist area then in summer it could find itself busy every day.

 

A couple things have leapt out at me over the years with regards to volunteers on railways but also at other institutions including an art gallery, horticultural society and the wrvs. I don’t think hostility to management paid or volunteer management is unique to volunteer organizations but I get the sense that there are some volunteers (and not all) who have a very strong sense of both ‘ownership’ of the organisation and entitlement. The sense of ownership can be very positive for railways in that many people will go above and beyond the call of duty for the railway, or horticultural society etc, but it has a dark side.

I’ve seen this from bizarre rants by people in the gift shop against management and health and safety to the public (I was just a passenger buy a gift on that occasion not really a great image to sell to the public), to hostility to anything that managers said and essentially ignoring any demands from anything that came on high, to a fairly insidious campaign to undermine a manager that boiled down to ‘he’s probably gay so not to be trusted so ignore anything he says’.

When it came to H&S I heard a lot of ‘we used to be able to do this but managers won’t let us anymore, it is so stupid.’ Which is a worrying attitude to have when it comes to safety.

I spent sometime on the other side of the fence working with volunteers and a few who were very open with ‘you couldn’t do this without me’. Again this was just a minority. But the sense was that for some they were entitled to do as they like because there were no alternatives. We needed someone to do the job, there was no one else, it needed doing so we had to suck up that they were an objectionable person.

I remember as a volunteer having to deal with someone who was rude, aggressive and deeply unpleasant, but the response of the manager was ‘they do x which no one else is willing to do’. When they left/retired/died (I forget which) the piece in the magazine mentioned their ‘forthright opinions’ to which I thought ‘that is one way of describing it’.

I got the sense back when I volunteered on a couple of railways that many people were very heavily emotionally invested in the line, that they saw the railway as theirs and they were the true keepers and defenders to the true spirit of the railway and that anyone who differed with them was to be seen as a threat to be warded off.

Most volunteer organisations are small communities so word gets around quickly and it is often very hard to avoid cliques. I recall working with one volunteer who hated pretty much everyone from the general manager downwards, including the catering manager and workshop manager, but they came back every week to volunteer... I can recall people gleefully telling me about all the people they’d run off the railway in the pub as if this was a badge of honour.

The short version of this is - cliques and institutional memories are very difficult to breakdown and shift. I am not sure how a volunteer organisation could move on and move people out without potentially crippling themselves.

 

The SVR does not use radios for dispatch but does use them for shunting. There are many places where line of sight is not possible. Safe use of radios requires constant contact when propelling - keep comming at aprox 5 second intervals is required.

All documentation is stored on a Microsoft office database to which all operational staff can have access. It contains everything from corporate documentation, operating instructions, blank forms to next weeeks traffic notice and more. It is a good system. The only drawback is simply the number of documents required to run a railway in the 21st centuary

 

The bell at Winchcombe tells the Guard and TTIs that no one else is coming over the footbridge from a southbound train crossing to a northbound one, Guard and TTIs then despatch the train as if the station is unstaffed. It is used at the stationmaster's discretion and the stationmaster will inform the guard what he plans on doing that particular day. If the northbound platform is particularly busy usually the stationmaster is there to help despatch.

On the GWSR stationmasters and TTIs are both safety critical roles, although TTIs at least do not require full medicals by a doctor as a guard does, only an eyesight test and a long list of medical questions. I'm unfamiliar with the exact requirements for stationmaster, Roger will probably know more.

 

Extra staff to operate is not the only limiting factor on the GWSR at the moment. Maintenance is also a big issue. We currently aren't in a position to rotate complete sets in and out of service as we please, so we need a day or two to complete routine maintenance and deep cleaning. I note that next year that although we're running slightly fewer days we're running more trains on the days we are open.

I'm sure there are volunteers who have been put off by us following the rules properly but so be it.

One thing that is causing concern is volunteer fatigue, and we're taking steps to shorten the working day, such as employing contract cleaners to clean the train at the end of each day rather than it being the guard's and TTIs' job.

Im not averse to more paid staff, but I'd also be slightly uncomfortable introducing paid staff for roles such as TTI and Guard, I think it could end up driving away volunteers and changing the feel of the railway. Quite prepared to accept we might need more paid managers though in the future, our current C+W HoD is a volunteer, is in the workshop 3-4 days of the week and flying a laptop the rest of the time, I don't know how he does it. We're very lucky to be able to rely on such volunteers as these in a number of departments, but that might not always be the case.

 

How long till we will see 7828 back in service please

 

HOPs would seem like a good template for the WSR to help them get type to speed on their training records etc. It really is incredibly useful for a huge variety of functions. I believe there is a seminar about using HOPs being held at Winchcombe on the GWSR in January, perhaps a few WSR folk ought to go along if they're not already.

 

Thank you! I thought there must be more to the explanation than just "the DSM rings a bell to despatch the train from the other platform".

 

And picking up from something Roger said, if the guard doesn't hear the bell or see a stationmaster, he ain't going anywhere!

 

Come off it! There is no valid reason why it should not be in the public domain. Restricting access immediately gives rise to suspicion. Vincit omnia veritas.

 

No it doesn't. There is no valid reason why it *should* be in the public domain! Once again, look around you. No other heritage railway feels the need to publish their rule book publicly, for good reason. As is usual, my rulebook is numbered, in the front is our Ops manager's signature confirming he's given it to me and mine confirming I've received, a copy of which is held on record. Should I cease to be a volunteer I am to hand it back again. This is very normal practice.

 

As has been pointed out, there is more to safety than just the rule book, so I'm not sure what you'd hope to achieve by having it publicly accessible. Presumably, given all that has gone before, you have in mind some means to hold the board and managers to account, but I suspect there are rather more important performance indicators than just being able to read the rule book. Besides, where does it stop? Do you wish to be able to inspect every signed off maintenance exam of every carriage, or the materials certificate of every bit of steel or copper purchased by the loco workshop?

Tom

 

As an aside,
I see a lot of interesting products in the shop.
One factor, rarely mentioned, is the HRA. They offer guidance and help to Members; I presume most lines are Members. Besides, there should be a fount of information and help available to managers, boards etc. given the number of years many lines have been operating.

 

I'm sure most if not all contain the traditional "Private and not for publication" rubric somewhere in the frontmatter.

To touch on something @Jamessquared hinted at: the rulebook (in all its constituent parts) is only a small part of the safety management system of a railway, and only really discusses operational matters, not any of the many other factors which affect the safety of the railway.

(incidentally I was slightly irked on my railway when, at our last revision, I received a new copy of the Signalling Regulations with a different serial number to my main rulebook and my general appendix - the former was a complete reissue, whereas the latter two only had incremental changes. Previously I'd had a fully-matching set!)

 

To play devils advocate - in the light of the missing toilet floor near accident, maybe it would be an idea to have maintenance records available. An argument might be that the demand to have things available might mean better record keeping and so incidents such as the toilet floor. It might not be the whole answer but it might make a small difference.

The basic question is - where safety standards have slipped and there is mistrust between management (tasked with improving safety and enforcing rules) and volunteers (who have to follow the new rules and practices) what has to change to improve safety, clearly a new rulebook or closer management oversight isn’t going to do much if volunteers are to anything that comes from management or certain individuals.

 

It is not clear to me what you mean by this. Are you referring to "interference" by the Board or by other Managers ?
I may be misunderstanding your comment but doesn't this come down to the usual distinction between Governance and Management ? It is up to the Board of Directors to determine Policy (after considering appropriate advice from their management) and it is the job of the General Manager to implement it.
So the overriding responsibility to enforce rules and maintain proper training and records, in all Departments, lies with the General Manager, who is answerable to the Board. The GM can, of course, delegate some of these duties to subordinates, such a Compliance and/or Administration Manager, the CME or whatever but they in turn remain responsible to the GM. Thus there is a clear conduit between the Directors and the workforce and there should no way that the various subsordinate managers can interfere with each other.
Is this not the current setup at the WSR ?

Mike

 

Is the ballast leveller machine self propelling or used with loco. Can’t see from pictures. Thxs

 

What I am saying is on safety issues the Safety Manager should report directly to the board not the GM. I don’t consider that the GM should be a board member as is the current situation. Safety is paramount so nobody but the board should be able to veto his actions. The chairman should be chosen by a formal selection process not the revolving door system that has existed for far too long. Management and commercial expertise is crucial rather than specific railway expertise.

 

The term "Safety Manager" sends an incorrect message that this individual is (solely) responsible for managing matters of safety. That cuts across the real direct responsibility of the board, managers, employees & volunteers. A well versed safety advisor, easily accessible to all levels, is what is required with full buy in at all levels to the use of a system for managing safety which the management themselves devise using the necessary advice. A safety advisor would have a role in advising of the need for updating and perhaps high level auditing reporting to both the GM and the Board.

 

Interestingly HMRI endorsed HOPS at the HRA seminar in the same speech that he briefly talked about the WSR (and other railways!) Personally, I find it a very useful tool, not just for rostering. They now include an asset management system.