Latest facts and figures:
- London Overground Rail Operations are now live on GSM-R
- CA15 Goes live, this concludes South of the Severn-Wash GSM-R network
- Steam locomotives - Flying Scotsman and Olton Hall are now GSM-R ready
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1 August 2011
‘Good neighbours’ ensure training for remote maintenance teams
With its own go-live more than a year away in the second phase of the GSM-R rollout, cab radio fitment and driver training are not yet high priority for Northern – but the York-based TOC has had to accelerate its GSM-R maintenance training to meet the needs of two other operators whose trains travel through Northern territory and visit its depots for servicing.
This requirement has sparked an informal training partnership with East Coast and East Midlands Trains helping Northern maintenance teams to develop GSM-R skills – initially by sending qualified trainers to start a train-the-trainers programme for Northern. As a result, Northern now has a nucleus of trainers qualified to instruct maintenance teams at each of its depots, equipping them to maintain GSM-R radios on East Coast and East Midlands Trains.
The ‘good neighbours’ training initiative flows from frequent contact and best practice sharing between GSM-R Project Managers Keith Bickerdike (Northern), Steve Leigh (East Coast) and Paul Caffrey (East Midlands Trains).
“We needed to ensure that any maintenance staff who may come into contact with any of our trains are able to deal with GSM-R issues should they arise, either when the trains are stabled on Northern metals – for example at Neville Hill, Leeds, and Heaton, Newcastle – or when calling at Northern’s main stations,” says Paul Caffrey.
Steve Leigh says: “Our bottom line was that we went live very early, and needed to have GSM-R trained staff in all our depots. We trained our own maintenance teams, but as many of our trains are stabled elsewhere we had to ensure that staff there could support us as well. The GSM-R kit is proving very reliable and we have not needed to swap out any radios from our 30 fitted trains as yet, so there has not been much call for maintenance teams to show their skills.”
Both East Coast and East Midlands Trains operate passenger services across the Severn-Wash line that divides the first and second GSM-R rollout phases. East Coast is already live between London Kings Cross and Stoke Summit, while East Midlands Trains will see its first go-live between London St Pancras and Loughborough in August 2011.
Meanwhile, Northern is proceeding with GSM-R cab radio fitments across its 13 classes of DMUs and EMUs. “We are fitting to the ‘ready’ stage because there’s no immediate urgency – our first go-live is not until the end of 2012,” says Keith Bickerdike. “We also don’t need to train our drivers until the latter part of next year.”
