Heritage lines help out the big railway

EXPERT staff from Britain’s heritage railways have been placed on standby ready to help Network Rail to fill key worker shortages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Responding to a call from Network Rail, the Heritage Railway Association (HRA) has been contacting its operational members to assess the availability of suitably skilled and qualified personnel, with an initial requirement being signalling staff, followed by station staff.

By the end of March, 10 heritage lines had responded with, potentially, well over 100 signalling staff who may be available for secondment to the national network.

Drivers and guards are recruited separately, by the Train Operating Companies (TOC), and like the TOCS, Network Rail is preparing for mass absences caused by the virus.

HRA chief executive Steve Oates said: “The proposal makes sense. Network Rail is expecting to suffer staff shortages, like many other organisations. Effectively all of the UK’S heritage railways have now closed until further notice – yet we have experienced and skilled people, available to help keep the nation’s vital railways working.”

Resource

Many of the staff and volunteers at Britain’s heritage railways are retired Network Rail people. Others are younger people, working full-time running heritage railways to the same standards of safety and proficiency – and sometimes over the same track – as Network Rail. Many heritage railway weekend volunteers are Network Rail staff. The overlap between the nation’s rail network and commercial heritage railways means the recruitment plan is logical and less surprising than those outside the railways sector might think.

Steve added: “The first step is to identify the staff and volunteers prepared to put themselves forward, establish their availability, and where they are willing to work. The second step is to match staff and volunteers to vacancies, and assess to determine appropriate training. Following that, individuals would be deployed to their workplaces for completion of training and induction, and starting work.”

Operations

Although rail services have been heavily cut across the UK due to falling public demand because of the virus, ministers and train operating companies have agreed the need to keep core services and freight services running. Network Rail is planning for all the measures necessary to enable those operators to function.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “Our priority is to continue to operate the railway safely and reliably. We’re taking steps to ensure we have enough colleagues in the business to do that, including talking with the HRA to see how they could help fill any key worker shortages that arise as a result of Covid-19.”

The UK’S main line services have in effect been ‘nationalised’ on a temporary basis after the Government suspended rail franchise agreements to avoid TOCS collapsing because of the pandemic.

Emergency measures announced by the Department for Transport in late March saw operators offered the chance to transfer all revenue and cost risk to the Government and in return receive a small management fee to continue running services.