AGREED MINUTES OF DRIVERS COMPANY COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY, 26TH MARCH 2013 AT EAST CROYDON

Transcription

1 AGREED MINUTES OF DRIVERS COMPANY COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY, 26TH MARCH 2013 AT EAST CROYDON Present: Colin Morris Head of Trains Roy Luxford Drivers Company Council Kevin Eade Drivers Company Council Jayne Byrne Note taker Mr Morris opened the meeting by advising Staff Side that he had been offered and had accepted the position of Head of Safety and Operational Standards. He will be taking up the position with immediate effect and will continue to act as Head of Trains until a replacement has been found. Staff side offered their congratulations on the appointment. Previous Minutes Minutes of the previous meeting held on 7 March were agreed. Mr Morris will check progress on the last item before issuing. Ongoing Items Item A 377 Cab Seats Mr Morris confirmed that the seats are due to be delivered on 15 th April. Mr Morris will speak to Dave Hitchcock tomorrow to discuss the way forward. Mr Morris will arrange release for a meeting of the Seat Working Party. Staff Side suggested Friday 12 th April and Mr Morris will confirm if that date is possible. Staff Side asked about progress with the DSD pedal and the AWS baffle mod. Mr Morris replied that he will discuss with Dave Hitchcock and Fleet to find out what SWT do with regards to the DSD pedal. Mr Morris confirmed he had asked Fleet to remove the AWS baffles and will check when this will be completed. 1

2 313 Cab Environment Mr Morris has received a revised proposal from Interfleet and the order has been signed and processed. The likely date for delivery and installation of a modified unit (2 cabs) is the end of June. Mr Morris advised that the Brighton H&S Rep was updated on this at the Joint Health & Safety meeting on the 11 th March. Item B Mobile Phone 761 Facility Mr Morris has amended the mobile phone policy and will send to Staff Side before circulating. Mr Morris advised that a Champion will be identified at each depot to arrange the roll-out of the SIM cards. Item C Field Sidings Mr Morris advised that the Field Sidings are operational, a Health &Safety visit has taken place and walking route timings have been agreed with staff reps for Selhurst. Timings for Norwood will be agreed before May. Staff Side asked who would be responsible for de-ice the walk routes. Mr Morris replied that Fleet Service Quality have agreed they will de-ice the field sidings and procedures have been put in place; the bridge itself will not need treating as it is covered and has a non-slip surface. Item D - 7 Day return to work brief Mr Morris reported that he had taken the PON (see previous minutes) to Level 2. Network Rail advised that they supply some TOCs with electronic bespoke WONs and Southern are investigating what this would look like. Mr Morris will arrange a joint risk assessment to determine what requirements there are for return to work briefs based on length of time off. Item E Fatality and Trauma Support Ms Scotford-Sneezum has been unable to discuss this item with Megan Taylor as she has been off sick. 2

3 Item F - Shunter Driver Main Line Assessments Mr Morris will check how assessments are recorded on the national database. Item G - TC followed by APTC (Risk Assessment) Mr Morris has discussed this item with Bill O Connor and he has agreed to carry out a risk assessment. Mr Morris reported that Southeastern have carried out a risk assessment and explained the procedure they use. A discussion followed around whether Station Staff need to lock the doors and the potential danger of locking people on the train, and Mr Morris suggested carrying out a practical exercise first to see if a risk assessment is required. Item H - P.I.D.D. Mr Morris explained that if Control declare CSL2 (red) disruption, part of their check list dependant on the incident is to request general calls be made by signallers, and feedback suggests they are doing this more and more. Mr Morris added that Network Rail are now issuing more general calls based on requests from Control and signallers are being monitored for their safety critical comms. Item I - Weekend Diagrams Timeline David Walker joined the meeting. Mr Morris confirmed that the 7 x major weekend blocks at Streatham Common were now finished. He added that the number of diagrammers has been increased and it takes between 12 to 18 months for a diagrammer to be fully competent and of the 7 short term diagrammers only 2 have more than 2 years experience. Staff Side asked Mr Walker if he envisaged problems when the London Bridge work commences. Mr Walker explained the plans and the very high volume of work that would be taking place at London Bridge for the next five years. Mr Walker apologised for the late issue of diagrams recently and explained the steps that are being taken to recover back to issuing consistent with the timeline that had previously been given to Staff Side. 3

4 Mr Walker explained that the Tracsis system is more accurate than a manual diagrammer and generally problems arise when a diagrammer has been altering the output from Tracsis rather than from a fundamental problem that existed. Mr Walker explained that some of the problems are due to NR not complying with the correct timescales for issuing alterations. Mr Walker and Mr Morris reiterated that whilst they completely understood the frustration with some errors these are entirely genuine mistakes and are in no way sharp practice on behalf of the crew diagrammers. Staff Side gave a number of specific diagram errors to Mr Walker and he committed to review these errors. They added that on Saturday 23 rd March, Selhurst diagram 2778 had been altered and extended by 1 hour 21 minutes. The Local Reps advised Mr Walker and the turn was then cancelled and re-issued as special diagram 7720, which was an abuse. Mr Walker replied that he was aware of the original alteration but had not been advised it had been cancelled and re-issued as a special. He will brief his department this should not have happened. Staff Side advised on the 9 th March, s were sent from Control to the Brighton PM asking to let drivers know the Littlehampton to Victoria services were required to call additionally at Three Bridges, as these had not been included in the schedule cards. Mr Walker said this had been caused due to both Southern and FCC running services over the same route and went unnoticed. Staff Side asked Mr Walker to put something in Train Crew Matters apologising for what has happened, giving the reasons why and explaining that pressure is being put on Network Rail to improve. It was agreed that this would be done. Item J - DLF Trainee Drivers Delay (pay increase) Mr Morris advised Staff Side that he had spoken with Andrew Taylor, and that the increased payment point for trainees was to be around 3 months from commencement. In fact they had received their increase 1 week short of this, and before critical point 1. Staff Side will check and report back at the next meeting. Item K - DLF DI s Overtime Payments Mr Morris advised that this will be discussed at a meeting on 15 th April. Staff Side suggested that for their first month they are given a couple of extra hours pay each week to get used to the IPads. Mr Morris will discuss this further. 4

5 Item L - Polegate Incident (Crutch in Door) Interlock Gained Mr Morris advised that the tolerance of a 377 door is 25mm and confirmed this is the railway group standard and would apply to all trains. Mr Morris added that the door in question did re-open twice before it shut on the crutch. Staff Side agreed this was an industry wide issue but said their concern was that it could have been a child s arm rather than a crutch that was stuck. Staff Side stressed the need to be confident that what people are asked to do is fit for purpose. A discussion followed around dispatch at different locations. Mr Morris stated that as long as people are following the process then the Company would support them. Staff Side questioned whether the DOO cameras on Class 377s are being cleaned properly, as it seemed that image quality was decreasing on some units. Mr Morris said that he would be surprised if arrangements had changed but that he would check. Item M - CSR Radio Failure (Instructions to use mobile phone) Mr Morris confirmed that an investigation is being carried out and said he would respond when it is concluded. He confirmed that Control will not put out information like that again. Item N - Door Incident Angmering Fleet have explained to Mr Morris that Mitrac has a data logger (Micfast) and they have gone through this incident and discovered there was a software problem which is why GPS was lost. Mr Morris explained what had happened and what else the data logger had shown, and that the driver concerned had been taken through this. Item O - Random D&A Policy Staff Side said that the brief sent by Ms Scotford-Sneezum was for cause screening and not random. Ms Scotford-Sneezum will speak to Megan Taylor and update at the next meeting. Item P - Part Time Working/Job Share Mr Morris agreed to arrange a separate meeting with HR to discuss this. 5

6 New Items 1. Rostering of Spare Drivers Staff Side showed Mr Morris correspondence they had received from local staff representatives at Horsham regarding the rostering of spare drivers. Mr Morris accepted that a way needs to be found to show on the rostering system when someone was previously spare. Staff Side said they would expect rosters to ask drivers before they moved them to another job. Mr Morris will speak to the roster clerks about this. 2. FTA Horsham of Drivers Spare to Spare Staff Side showed Mr Morris a FTA from Horsham which read: When spare, a driver s booking on time remains the same, he then sits spare for a number of hours before driving and incurs overtime as his booking off time is extended from the original spare booking off time. As his original hours have moved this is a spare to spare booking. Mr Morris will speak to the roster clerk regarding this. 3. Emergency Door egress 377 units (Horley fatality) Mr Morris reported that Fleet have confirmed the train operated in line with the design and there was no fault with the doors. Staff Side asked if the doors should open inside 80 seconds? Mr Morris will find out and report back at the next meeting. Any Other Business Staff Side asked when delivery of the new 377 units is due to happen. Mr Morris said the first unit is expected to arrive in June for testing. Staff Side asked if Southern were tendering to operate the MPV s in future. Mr Morris said not at the moment but it could be something they think about in the future. Staff Side said that stock working on the first trains needs sorting out and strengthening for the winter. Mr Morris replied that the key route strategy has been reviewed in the last few weeks including looking at use of 313s. Staff Side mentioned a problem with the PNB point at East Croydon. Mr Morris agreed it needs looking into to prevent it occurring again. Date of Next Meeting on Wednesday, 24 th April in the Waddon Room, Knolly s House. 6