So basically hundreds, if not thousands of passengers, have been massively inconvenienced by delayed and cancelled trains on the WCML because Network Rail had NOBODY available to man the work station in the Rugby ROC ?
Surely this contingency should be planned for ??
It is. But even the best contingency plans come unstuck if the stars align perfectly wrongly.
Put it like this. There are about 10-15,000 signaller shift changes every day.
Now, how many times in a typical year have you been late for work or not able to go in at all on a day when you were supposed to be there at short notice? Multiply that by 10,000 / 365 and you have, very roughly, how many times a year such an issue happens with a signaller.
Normally there are at least three options:
1) ask the current signaller to stay on, or another signaller / supervisor to stay on.
2) get a spare signaller (if there is one), or the new supervisor (ditto) to take the reins
3) if it is a multiple workstation / panel area, get another signaller in the same location to work two workstations, with appropriate controls applied.
So, in a single workstation / single person box... If there is no supervisor, perhaps because of short notice sickness, and the current signaller is out of hours or simply can not stay, and the relieving signaller and the supervisor are both delayed on the way in, or one of them is off sick also, what do you do?
