Great Western Coffee Shop

I'm going to ask a question here and would like to see the feedback from fellow railway staff.

With the busy modern railway, I was personally greatly concerned to discover that many of the contractors who work on station do not have safety critical work cards, some do but most don't.

It might seem only a small point but non safety critical staff don't get to see the Network Rail safety videos and it's my impression that they look on working on the railway as as safe if not safer than working in other industries.

I've seen to many CIRAS reports to be at ease with a lot of contractors.

This was reinforced in the past few days when contractors installing some new equipment (I don't want to say what, it would give a little to much away) broke of for lunch, it was only as they were seen, (at least 2 of them) to come back from a pub to restart work.

They were challenged about this, and after a short argument about drink and railway work they were given an option leave the station or face medical testing.
They left for the day coming back the next day (I think), the work has been finished.

By the rules they should have been screened for Drugs and Alcohol but I and my fellow staff don't want to get anyone the sack.

I'd be alot more secure about contractors if they had to have safety critical work permits.
The strangest thing is even some PTS holding contractors don't have safety critical permits, that just doesn't seem right.

Couldnt agree more.........if contractors wish to work on railway contracts they should have the appropriate PTS or SCWID end of story.
Better still bring all work back in house

they should all be safety crit in my opinion to work on the railway.
i did not think you could have pts without safety crit? i certainly cannot anyway

Station Manager, thanks for starting this particular thread.  I hope responses from non-staff are also allowed, as we are all affected by safety?  ;)

For the benefit of the non-staff (including me ^ I^m just a passenger!), while I know that PTS means -Personal Track Safety - could you explain what is meant by CIRAS and SCWID, please?

Also, you will find some related information, on a previous thread in this forum, from http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1528.msg9922#msg9922 onwards.

However, could I ask that any new responses to Station Manager^s specific question above are posted here, please, to avoid duplication?

Thanks!   :)

SCWID - Safety Critical Work ID
CIRAS - Confidential Incident Reporting & Analysis System

More on CIRAS is here: http://www.ciras.org.uk/

Thanks, Ollie.

General note - most abbreviations are listed at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html (and those two were added earlier in the evening  ;D )