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Maurice Taylor

Project Safeworking Officer A.S.W.

A large part of our responsibility as Train Controllers has been to influence the design of the system to suit the operator. After all we are the ones who will have to live with it from now on. We think that we have done a particularly good job, especially with the graph formatting, sequencing of the windows, selection of graphic colours, room configuration and lighting - all according to established Occupational Health and Safety guidelines. It is our view that the system as developed will ease the overall Train Controller work load while the system implementation will provide other spin off benefits such as an improved communication network.

As representatives of the Train Controller section we are also responsible for taking these changes back to our brother Train Controllers and convincing them that this new system is also their future. We involved them, whenever possible, in testing and trialing and acted on their recommendation frequently. We trained them and supervised their first steps into the actual control using the new system.

A measure of the success of our mission can be demonstrated by the fact that despite the dramatic changes in work practices and work load, we have managed to introduce the system without any industrial disruptions. One could well understand the Train Controllers being apprehensive of the system, and even abandoning it, in the light of the near disastrous incident - but they haven't. They have assisted and encouraged us in the recovery process to get the system back up and running again and when we are back on line, the system will be a credit to their perseverance.