In Fog 3: Railway Jobs You’ve Never Thought Of

This is the third in a series of posts about my role in the choir in York Theatre Royal's production In Fog and Falling Snow (26th June to 11th July). See links below to follow this series!

Ask any 10-year-old to suggest a couple of jobs you could do if you want to work on the railways, and you’ll get three answers: train driver, ticket collector and station staff. Ask most adults, and you’ll get the same three answers, with the possible addition of “the man who opens the level crossing gate at Poppleton station” (in places with antiquated signalling systems like the Harrogate line!) or “manufacturing trains” (especially if you happen to ask people in places like Stafford, Derby or York with a long history of train building, although the UK's biggest train factory opened earlier this year in County Durham).

Hitachi's new IEP train, being manufactured
in County Durham and coming soon
to a mainline near you!

I mentioned previously in this series that since York’s carriage building workshops closed down, the rail workforce has been spread around the city’s offices out of sight, so many people don’t realise that the rail industry still employs thousands of York (and Yorkshire)’s brightest and best. So here’s just a few of the more unusual jobs that happen behind the scenes here in York. If you want to know more, see the great videos here (including my friend Philippa Jefferis!).

Operations

Psychologist

The biggest cause of safety incidents on the railway is human error. So how can we predict what a driver will do when she’s done this route 50 times, but today something is different? Or whether the many alarms and flashing lights on a signaller’s workstation will lead to action or just distraction, with too many things to concentrate on at once? Or how a crowd of passengers will behave in an emergency situation? Railway safety depends on psychologists who are experts in human behaviour and can ensure that systems work as designed when faced with real human beings!

Rail electrification at last for the North?

I have previously written about the Harrogate Line and thesignificant barriers which it presents to people who want to travel between Leeds, Harrogate and York without resorting to a car, and about the difficulties that short-term thinking has presented to our efforts to improve the line (not least bridges which are not wide enough or high enough). So it’s time for some good news, and over the last few weeks there has been a flurry of it!

 

Firstly, engagement with bidders for the various franchises has resulted in a promise by Virgin East Coast to provide a two-hourly direct service from Harrogate to London and back (7 trains per day in each direction) which is a vast improvement on the current situation where there is only one early morning train to London and one late evening train back again.   

Thinking Long Term: Learning from the Railways

This post is part of a series inspired by the book "Sustainable Infrastructure: Principles into Practice" (see the introduction to the series here). Having examined the issue of intergenerational stewardship and thinking long term about infrastructure (Principle 3) in my last post, how can we put this knowledge into practice in real civil engineering situations such as the railways?

Putting it into Practice 3.1: Plan for the Long Term

There is a need for future proofing, but all our predictions are scenarios: we need a clear statement for each line of what it would ideally look like in 20 years time, such that all projects work together to either facilitate the vision, or at the very least not get in the way. For example, the Harrogate Line was reduced from two tracks to one between Poppleton and Hammerton in the early 1970s, which means that it is now only possible to run one train per hour between York and Harrogate and any delays quickly escalate because the train in one direction can't pass a train which is running late in the other direction, so only 85% of trains run on time. 

Getting Transport Policy Right: The Harrogate Line Blues

Since August, my new job in Harrogate has meant a daily commute on the York – Harrogate – Leeds line, a secondary route in need of some TLC. But before I explain the problems, here are four things I love about my daily train journey:

1. The fantastic view over Knaresborough and the Nidd gorge from the Nidd Viaduct.
2. Mist rising gently over the flat fields of the Vale of York between York and Knaresborough (ie before it gets into the hills).