Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

As part of one of my ongoing jobs, I have been asked to facilitate and manage the surveying and site investigation of Sunbury station and surrounding areas for a future upgrade and track widening.

As part of this project, there was a requirement to capture the last 10km of track from Sunbury towards Melbourne digitally. This involved mounting a machine onto a ‘hirail’ modified ute and driving up the track. The data capture is akin to google street maps but captures enough data to create a 3D model of the surrounding area and skinned with high quality photography. Accurate to about 5mm. I can write another little blog on this kit if people want to get their geek fix. Photo below shows the data capture machine mounted to the rear of the ute.

The hirail modification can be seen in the photo above too. The ute operates like normal, but once over the rails the steel wheels that are raised in the photo at the rear of the vehicle then lower and engage with the track. The ute’s normal wheels drive the vehicle forward, the rail wheel keep it on track.

Working on the track is called an occupation (occo for short; Aussies abbreviate everything). This type of occo that occurs over night is called an ALBF (After Last train at night Before First train in the morning).

Originally, I had thought I would need a lot less manpower and have a lot more time than I actually did for this simple job. I’ll run through what we actually needed.

The Plan

Manpower and Resources

1. HiRail Ute
   1. TVO (Driver)
   1. Data collection wizard (Veris)
2. HiRail Unimog
   1. TVO
   1. Signals Engineer
3. Traffic Management
   1. 2x vehicle with 4 crew (Holden Road Xing)
   1. 2x vehicle with 4 crew (Gap Road Xing)
4. Free running Vehicles (each in their own Ute)
   1. Project Manager (me)
   1. Track Force Protection Coordinator (TFPC)
   1. Survey Manager
   1. Track Certifier and Supervisor
5. Level Crossing Controllers
   1. 1x TFPC at Old Calder highway
   2. 1 x TFPC at Watsons Road

Permits and Certifications

1. Permit to Work
2. 2 x HiRail Vehicles must be track certified, John Holland inducted, isolation checked and PlantGuard checked. (All different online systems, need VRN of vehicle)
3. Each member must ‘sign on and have their ‘Rail Industry Worker’ Card checked for currency.
4. 35 page Works Group document.

(Lets skip to…) What happened

At midnight I briefed the workforce of the plan, H&S and all that good stuff. Then they had a bit of time to get into position. When planning these things, you don’t actually know exactly when the last train will pass AND the safety team have put out their signage. The last train, I learnt, was 0130hrs, the works group plan told me that we must be off the track no later than 0400hrs. This gave me 2.5 hours to play with.

At the given time, the two HiRail vehicles would get onto the track at Holden Road under traffic management. They would start to move up the track, optimum speed would be at least 20kph, but for the first run  on a new track the signal engineer had to check the signals were ‘ok’ (more info if anyone would like me to explain) before moving on. The two crossings would have the booms manually operated to allow the two vehicles to pass without slowing down. At the Gap Road crossing, under traffic management the two vehicles will turn around and return.

One loop (there and back) would be ok, but every other extra loop would increase the quality of the data capture and reduce the chance of repeating this work. A workforce that knew this and knowing their part and everyone else’s parts would give us the best chance at getting this evening to go smoothly.

We waited for the call that the rail line was clear to drive on. 0140hrs, 0155hrs, the time went on. At 0205hrs we got the call. Oh, and just before the formal briefing to the workforce I also learnt that we would have to be off the track at 0330hrs. My 2.5 hour window was reduced to 1.5 hours. Within this time, we just got in 1.5 loops which was acceptable. No one was hurt and we didn’t prang a vehicle, so I consider this a success.

Summary

For 1.5 hours worth of work and a simple plan, it took 12 vehicles and 14 people to enact. I spent 1.5 days in preparation as well as plenty of random actions to tidy up loose ends. I was massively surprised that this seemingly simple job took so long in planning and sucked in so many resources.  Bed for 0430hrs, back in fornt of my computer by 1100hrs. zzz, apologies for any typos caused by sleepiness at the keyboard.