Its no secret what I do for a living, however, I know staff for other operators and one gave me a discussion about their shift card one weekend that really shocked me. I could come up with something as equally in efficient, but this is sort of what I was told, I’ve used locations of similar distance and times on the network to protect the identity.
| Sign on | 12:00 | Sign off: | 18:00 | NM1201 | GRD | |
| Act | Traction | Location | Arr | Dep | ||
| TAXI | Northam Dep | 13:15 | ||||
| Portsmouth Hbr | 13:55 | |||||
| PASS | 2E30CB | Portsmouth Hbr | 14:00 | |||
| Southampton Ctl | 14:59 | |||||
| PNB | ||||||
| 450 | 2E35CB | Southampton Ctl | 16:10 | |||
| Portsmouth Hbr | 17:09 | |||||
| PNB | ||||||
| …. |
And something like that… It is completely made up from my perspective, however just to give you an idea and no this is not a diagram we would ever create or even pass, the diagram has never been used on our side as Northam depot in reality doesn’t have guards of any type, only drivers. But it did happen at another TOC without guards.
Notice the problem:
– the guard gets a taxi from Northam to Portsmouth
– then gets passed to Southampton by TRAIN (if you aren’t aware, Northam Depot is very close, like a mile from Southampton Central – Portsmouth is about 25 miles away).
– THEN has their minimum 30 minute PNB (an hour and 11 minutes, should be 30 minutes plus 5 minutes each way, so 40 minutes total).
– finally,works a train TO Portsmouth Harbour…
– THEN another 30 minute PNB.
PNB = Personal Needs Break.
Now, 2 PNB’s are not unusual for guards, they can have either one 30 minute break or 2×20 minute break which has to be diagrammed between the 2hr 30 minute and 7hr mark. So at a bare minimum, the start of their break has to be somewhere starting at 2 hours 30 minutes and ended by the 7hr mark. If it falls outside these times, its not a legal diagram. (Say the break starts either at 2hr 29m or ends at 7hr 1m, its illegal). This is exclusive of walking times – i.e. they have to be added and at some stations and sidings, walking time is quite long, especially for drivers. As a standard, a lot of places unless stated are generally 5 minutes.
Now its legal, but we haven’t considered shift length, minimum is usually agreed to be SIX hours and maximum gets VERY complicated very quickly. How? Drivers are different to guards who can stay on for longer but the union gets involved and drivers often have their shift length dictated by their start time AND in some cases their end time. Confused? You will be. On top of that, you can’t extend an existing turn by 60 minutes (as a lot of them have 12 hour turnaround times, I.e. as they do a safety critical role and are under “Hidden rule 15” rules, they must have a minimum gap between shifts of 12 hours and they can only work a maximum of 12 hours which is why it exists), if you have to extend it more than 60 minutes, you have to cancel the turn and replace it with an STP turn.
So, how would I approach this? Well….. I am suspect that this is what is called an LTP (Long Term Plan) that has been “overlaid”, altered in other words, but this is where altering has problems as the duty can only be extended if it is “related work”. Otherwise, there is free reign to do what you need to with the diagram, as long as the work content remains. Due to engineering work, looks like the first part has been removed and therefore doesn’t exist.
Fair play
But if the work content is substantially changed, then the diagram has to be cancelled and reissued with the remaining work content if desired (or mixed up and re-issued as a more efficient diagram).
What I would do? Exactly that, cancel and recreate as an STP diagram, not as an LTP(O). I know a lot of you this post wouldn’t make sense, I’ve tried to explain it simply but it will be hard to follow as there is a lot agreements that go into a lot more depth, think nearer to 40 pages of agreements and that is just the start. (Sign off appears weird as I did the table in word, then forgot the sign off time, so assuming a 6 hr shift, still 1 train.)