Northern Still Using FAX Machines

[muz379]

I wonder how many of the people here could actually say what specifically fax machines are still used for ? Or tell us what impact on performance that has .

Many of you have just heard senior managers from Northern saying they still use fax , and cant turn them off because of "union agreements" and jumped to wild assumptions about it being union
belligerence. I am sure if ASLEF come out and said that a TOC wouldn't let them use more up to date tech because of management belligerence many of you would be quick to doubt what was being said .

I wonder how much understanding the person answering has of a Late Notice document and its importance and use. Perhaps Mr Burham would prefer it if drivers had an extra few minutes booking on time, with the associated costs, so that they can boot up their IT devices, load it up and read it all digitally? Not to mention the time and facilities to keep it fully charged at the company’s expense, plus the required spare devices in case one is lost, damaged, didn’t charge etc, and the person to maintain said spares and ensure that they work, and the occasional cancelled service when all of that fails and a driver rightly refuses a train because they’ve not read their notices. Sometimes a bit of paper is the best way. It isn’t very trendy, but it very rarely breaks!

This , interestingly many of those on this thread pontificating about using such outdated tech clearly have short dated memories and forget last year when strike were cancelled last minute , but many TOC's failed to operate anything beyond the pre planned strike timetables because "industry systems" didnt allow a full service to be reinstated .

It's a combination of both. IT will save a lot of time in coming up with several different permutations of optimal rosters, to which human judgment can then be applied. It still saves time.

That is precisely what happens already , although some stuff like annual leave is still manually entered into the system so drivers aren't on rosters when they are generated . A lot of the stuff that is manually changed is after posting of rosters for example if someone is subsequently unable to take duty . The process of allocating their jobs to anyone that is spare is manual at present . But that isn't really an issue for ASLEF or drivers , that is largely a management workload .

There seems to be several arguments ongoing currently in this thread, one argument is solely focused on fax machines, and the other is the industry reliance on paper.

Indeed , regardless of how the paper is delivered be it fax or network printer . In many cases paper will still be necessary in the industry .

Er, are you suggesting someone's currently using the fax machine to do all that?

We're talking about the devices, you're talking about business processes. Fax machines are "dumb" and replaceable by equally "dumb" email apps. If someone were using a fax machine to do all that they could do it by email.

No plainly faxes are not being used to do all of that , but the point being made is . It's going to increase costs , and be a significant capital investment to replace a dozen or so fax machines with thousands of tablets for drivers . You aren't going to do all of that just to replace faxes , you are going to want to include other items of productivity value .

I have worked in too many organisations where new tech/software is introduced and training is little more than 'just play with it'. Thankfully I've never had a safety critical role.

Problem is if you do that and drivers are having a play with it trying to get it to print their diagram with the correct stopping pattern whilst their train is waiting for them on the platform .

Why would anyone who works in rail care how astounded 'real world' people are?

Indeed . Reminds me of a time when some manager was bleating on about "they dont do that in other industries ". The look on their face when I retorted with "well they dont move trains from A to B in other industries either do they " and walked off .

The fact is , if there is a productivity gain to be had , and the union thinks that they have the industrial power to get in on some of that productivity gain for their members . Then they will do that .

 

[fishwomp]

Many of you have just heard senior managers from Northern saying they still use fax , and cant turn them off because of "union agreements" and jumped to wild assumptions about it being union
belligerence. I am sure if ASLEF come out and said that a TOC wouldn't let them use more up to date tech because of management belligerence many of you would be quick to doubt what was being said .
[]

I think you're misunderstanding the role of employer and union.

The management doesn't work for the union.
The union doesn't work for the management.

The management was appointed to run the railway on behalf of the government.
The union does not have this responsibility, it is responsible only to the railway employee members.

If management want to use fax machines or chocolate teapots, it is up to the government to hold them to task if they do not run the railway properly. Plenty of TOC owners have been fired.

If the union wants to run the railway, they should have bid for a franchise when they had the chance.
If the union wants to do railway management, it needs to be fire-able by the government - and that would not be the right outcome for the employee members.

 

[Djgr]

If you've got an hour to spare (and admittedly the sound isn't great), listen to & watch the whole meeting on the TfN archive.
Tells you a lot about what a state Northern is in, and the standard (or not) of the management that fronted this. Wouldn't pay them in washers.

Indeed. The Northern management come across like a couple running a corner shop.

 

[Starmill]

No plainly faxes are not being used to do all of that , but the point being made is . It's going to increase costs , and be a significant capital investment to replace a dozen or so fax machines with thousands of tablets for drivers . You aren't going to do all of that just to replace faxes , you are going to want to include other items of productivity value .

Indeed, but that's totally fine because if there is an improvement in productivity to be had it's likely the training can be justified.

I wonder how many of the people here could actually say what specifically fax machines are still used for ? Or tell us what impact on performance that has .

It's hard to understand why the reason wasn't articulated if there is a rationale for it. They had plenty of time in that exchange to explain but instead they fumbled and made a mess of the answer, leaving lots of room for doubt.

 

[Facing Back]

Their rostering has a good deal of human input, though. And they get the same calls begging them to come to work because they’ve failed to cover a job that we get on the railway.

Source? An experienced 737 skipper, who had an EFB etc.

This is also my experience. The vast bulk of scheduling/rostering in the airlines that I am familiar with is done through the automated systems and edge cases are handled by human staff. The rostering teams in question are now about 10% of the size they were 20 years ago despite handling far more flights with far fewer under-utilised flight staff.

Until recently there was no practical alternative to the core experienced staff to handle the edge cases and emergencies however I know of at least one huge Indian IT firm who have been trialing AI for about 10 years with quite some success to take on a large percentage of those cases too.

I don't think it could handle a fax though...

I am not suggesting that it is a slam dunk that this could also be the case on the railways.

The premise of the thread is something of a nonsense, tbh. It’s almost all done via email these days.

My depot have a mandatory training course we need to do, so the company have offered a choice of being taken off track for a day to do it, or being paid for a day to do it at home (via out own devices). So a choice is offered…

Our Ts and Cs are decent, let’s not get it wrong, but others should aspire to similar, rather than criticising us…



I don’t think you’re familiar with how modern rostering software works, as previously discussed, in those businesses that require it.

So why do you keep pontificating about it?

TBH in some companies, email is on on its way out too for this kind of communication. Workflow and Business Process Management tools seem to be increasingly common.

I agree that everybody needs an appropriate level of training and support with the introduction of new tech, as well as the process that surround this. My experience in this area (I've been involved in introducing new tech to businesses for 30 years now) is that the amount and type of training and support required varies wildly from person to person and its often more cost effective to be a little more hands-on in providing this support rather than a one size fits all "take 1 day and do this CBT". Again, AI is starting to make its inroads into training and mentoring as well.

Just to be annoying as I don't work in the industry, I don't agree with paying people in order to have them accept new tech - I understand not everyone agrees with me on this. Where someone loses income then I think it is a more nuanced argument.

What if the person concerned doesn’t know how to use any form of IT? Believe it or not there are drivers out there with non smartphones, and in some cases no mobile phones at all, who have been in the role for 30+ years. They also need to be retrained, and that isn’t easy…

This was the bane of the NHS's various attempts to digitalise. Enormous sums were spent training people to use tech. Some never did roll-outs happened as people retired - especially GPs. Now much more effort is spent individually where required, getting people up to a basic level of knowledge, and people have also been retired early if they refuse to learn - although that was extremely rare and I', sure wouldn't be the case on the railway.

The shipping industry still used telex until at least the late 1990s for reasons of security.

Telex wasn't secure..

 

[12LDA28C]

If it affects the efficiency which which my taxes are spent, or the price of my train tickets, or the quality/reliability of the service I get, I very much care!

Let's take the example of the NHS. Let's imagine a paper based system that takes 12 hours to get data from point A to point B. In the past the system has worked and was pretty much as efficient as it could be. Now though, due to technological advances, there's a system that can do the same job in only 2 hours. Technically the paper-based system still works. Nothing has changed, the staff are familiar with it. But it would be crazy to accept what is now an effective 10-hour delay in data processing because that could mean the difference between life and death for someone. (This is just an example, I'm not your the railway systems under discussion are life critical)

There are many, many reasons across many, many domains (logistical, economic, political, ethical, security) for why you might want to improve or replace a "working" system.

Your first paragraph is interesting since you seem to want value for money for your taxes paid and cheap fares whilst simultaneously believing that a current system that works should be replaced with a more modern one at potentially great expense (if you are saying that staff should be issued with tablets instead, for example). Seems a bit of a contradiction there.

I care. Very much. And I know I’m not alone in that.

Because things like this portray the industry in a bad light, and it does none of us a favour. And believe it or not, it distracts people from doing the job - at all levels. Including Ministerial.

Do you think the person that sends or receives a fax should be concerned with how that process would be perceived if it got into the public domain, which it clearly now has? Or is it rather more likely that they should just get on with doing the job they’re paid for?

 

[muz379]

Indeed, but that's totally fine because if there is an improvement in productivity to be had it's likely the training can be justified.

Which is also fine , but obviously in this industry any increase in productivity comes after negotiation .

I think you're misunderstanding the role of employer and union.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make , the point I was trying to make and which it seems I might have missed making at least for some is that people are blindly believing what some senior TOC managers are saying without question even though as above they haven't even fully articulated what area faxes are used in or how that specifically holds back performance , yet when it comes to trade union disputes say because of managers abusing agreements people are quick to question or doubt the unions version of events even when fuller facts are provided .

 

[jfowkes]

Your first paragraph is interesting since you seem to want value for money for your taxes paid and cheap fares whilst simultaneously believing that a current system that works should be replaced with a more modern one at potentially great expense (if you are saying that staff should be issued with tablets instead, for example). Seems a bit of a contradiction there

I'm not saying anything specific about the current system. I'm speaking to the general case - my claim is merely that "it works now" is not on its own a sufficient reason to keep a system as-is.

And more specifically, I was addressing your claim that we (outside consumers of a system) should not be concerned with that system's inner workings, which is, I think, a ridiculous claim both in general and specifically on a railway forum discussing a railway topic.

 

[fishwomp]

That wasn't the point I was trying to make , the point I was trying to make and which it seems I might have missed making at least for some is that people are blindly believing what some senior TOC managers are saying without question even though as above they haven't even fully articulated what area faxes are used in or how that specifically holds back performance , yet when it comes to trade union disputes say because of managers abusing agreements people are quick to question or doubt the unions version of events even when fuller facts are provided .

Sorry, but we know that the union holds out for technology payments - things the private sector just cannot believe exist. Tablets was discussed a few months ago for example.

So, if a TOC says it's the union, then we're going to believe it's the union. Are you seriously telling me that setting up a depot email alias and mailing the (content of the) fax to that instead of faxing is something that takes a business more than a day to migrate to?

Net benefit: - no maintenance contracts for faxes, no fax oil, no fax paper, no person getting off their butt to look at the fax, etc etc.

For those that can't understand why an electronic message like an email is more efficient than a fax, please tell me how they are reading railforums and their email, and would they prefer it to arrive by fax (or post, or smoke signals), and when they last received a fax for personal business. Then they can tell me why it's reasonable to be paid for knowing how to handle an email (and for forgetting how to use a fax).

Ultimately, I know you're saying we're blindly trusting the TOC managers, but we're not. They get fired. That's what re-nationalization is about. We, the people, via the government, get to fire leaders of 'badly run' government sponsored organizations. We don't ask the union to do that for us, we vote for governments to do that.

 

[GusB]

I honestly cannot believe that we're seven pages into a discussion about the use of Fax machines. They may be considered to be old technology by some but if the task at hand doesn't require anything more modern, what's the problem?

We still communicate using voice calls - it's not exactly new technology either, but it still has its place. The technology behind voice calls has moved on (Voice over IP etc.), but the end user doesn't usually consider how it all works and nor do they need to.

It has been a good while since I needed to use a fax machine but when I last needed to do so it was far more efficient to send a hand-written document than it would have been to transcribe the information and email it onwards.

Old tech isn't necessarily bad tech!

 

[Sly Old Fox]

A driver books on spare at 03.45. At 04.30 he is called and asked to taxi to a location to meet a train as someone has called in sick at another depot. He needs a diagram and pretty quickly, it’s not one of his depot’s jobs, he doesn’t know where the train will be stopping or what the headcode is, and after this train he now has four more to drive to finish off the other driver’s diagram.

What better way is there of getting that information to him than by fax? Bearing in mind he isn’t allowed to have an electronic device switched on in the cab. The fax will be waiting for him to collect by the time he’s off the phone, and away he goes.

The sort of scene that is repeated daily all across the railway. This is such a non issue.

 

[TUC]

I honestly cannot believe that we're seven pages into a discussion about the use of Fax machines. They may be considered to be old technology by some but if the task at hand doesn't require anything more modern, what's the problem?

We still communicate using voice calls - it's not exactly new technology either, but it still has its place. The technology behind voice calls has moved on (Voice over IP etc.), but the end user doesn't usually consider how it all works and nor do they need to.

It has been a good while since I needed to use a fax machine but when I last needed to do so it was far more efficient to send a hand-written document than it would have been to transcribe the information and email it onwards.

Old tech isn't necessarily bad tech!

So why have virtually every other business long, long ago moved onto emails and electronic messaging?

 

[BayPaul]

A driver books on spare at 03.45. At 04.30 he is called and asked to taxi to a location to meet a train as someone has called in sick at another depot. He needs a diagram and pretty quickly, it’s not one of his depot’s jobs, he doesn’t know where the train will be stopping or what the headcode is, and after this train he now has four more to drive to finish off the other driver’s diagram.

What better way is there of getting that information to him than by fax? Bearing in mind he isn’t allowed to have an electronic device switched on in the cab. The fax will be waiting for him to collect by the time he’s off the phone, and away he goes.

The sort of scene that is repeated daily all across the railway. This is such a non issue.

The obvious question is why isn't he allowed to look at an appropriate electronic device in the cab, when he is allowed to squint at a poorly printed piece of paper, and presumably also at various other screens in the cab...

A well designed device could be set up and locked to be frozen on a static page showing the diagram when the train is moving, so it is no more of a distraction than the piece of paper (less so if key information about the next few stops was displayed in a very large and easy to read font, and the device was held in a well located bracket, rather than fluttering around in the breeze) and could also be used to provide other useful information to him, for example about disruption so he can keep his passengers informed, whilst waiting at a red signal.

The obvious disadvantage of a fax in the situation you describe is what if control's plans change whilst he is in the taxi. They can't now update him with a new plan until he gets to another fax machine, by when it may be too late!

Another thought... If control knew at 0300 that the driver would be needed in a different depot, with a digital system, he wouldn't need to go to his home depot at all, he could get the information before booking on, and rather than driving to his depot, he could drive to where he's actually needed, spending less of his time on the road, and more driving a train.

 

[Bald Rick]

Do you think the person that sends or receives a fax should be concerned with how that process would be perceived if it got into the public domain, which it clearly now has?

Yes!!!

A driver books on spare at 03.45. At 04.30 he is called and asked to taxi to a location to meet a train as someone has called in sick at another depot. He needs a diagram and pretty quickly, it’s not one of his depot’s jobs, he doesn’t know where the train will be stopping or what the headcode is, and after this train he now has four more to drive to finish off the other driver’s diagram.

What better way is there of getting that information to him than by fax?

Directly and immediately to an electronic device at 04.30:01, before he/she is anywhere near a cab, just like happens in some other operators.

 

[66701GBRF]

Another thought... If control knew at 0300 that the driver would be needed in a different depot, with a digital system, he wouldn't need to go to his home depot at all, he could get the information before booking on, and rather than driving to his depot, he could drive to where he's actually needed, spending less of his time on the road, and more driving a train.

You book on and off at your home depot. It’s not the employees responsibility to drive themselves in their own vehicle to location B or C.

 

[BayPaul]

You book on and off at your home depot. It’s not the employees responsibility to drive themselves in their own vehicle to location B or C.

Yes, that's how it currently happens. But wouldn't it be nicer if your car was in the place where you finish your day... If you could spend more time driving a train and less time in the back of a taxi... If you had time to complete a full roster rather than needing 2 people to cover it... If your TOC didn't need the expense of paying for taxis...
There are massive benefits to employer and employees by having a digital system with a little bit more flexibility in it, just like most other industries!

 

[Carntyne]

Is the issue not more about Northern's management being unable to introduce such a simple change, that it gives background to the state the TOC are in at the moment?

 

[Djgr]

Is the issue not more about Northern's management being unable to introduce such a simple change, that it gives background to the state the TOC are in at the moment?

Precisely. Watching Northern management on the video taken of this meeting is extremely painful.

 

[pompeyfan]

Yes, that's how it currently happens. But wouldn't it be nicer if your car was in the place where you finish your day... If you could spend more time driving a train and less time in the back of a taxi... If you had time to complete a full roster rather than needing 2 people to cover it... If your TOC didn't need the expense of paying for taxis...
There are massive benefits to employer and employees by having a digital system with a little bit more flexibility in it, just like most other industries!

Just to give some helpful context to the fax / remote printing system used for crew.

I’m not sure how Northern do it, but the TOC I’m familiar with have 4 stages of rostering and diagraming.

Firstly there is the base roster, this is the crews rough guide, the base roster can be any number of weeks long, some are even 52 weeks long depending on depot establishment. Some could only be 4 weeks but repeat and so on. These are printed and available for anyone to take home to mark their personal diaries or a personalised one can be created at the crew members request. These are based solely on LTP diagrams.

Next there are the weekly sheets that are issued around the beginning of a week, that are relevant for the following week. These will show crews on their allocated job numbers as above, but will reflect any STP changes such as if a job has been extended slightly or cancelled for engineering works. Any crew with cancelled jobs then revert to As required / as ordered with their booked hours.

The daily sheets are sent to the depot by fax / remote printing and posted and must be posted on the agreed notice board at T-36 hours. Depending on the T&Cs of the grade of crew any crew that were AR/AO can be moved by a set number of hours to pick up other work that they have route and traction knowledge of. It wasn’t unheard of to have a nice little 6 hour early job cancelled, pushed back 3 hours and extended by 4 hours. Suddenly your nice little 0600 - 1200 had become a 0900 - 1900. Once the 36 hour sheet was posted your hours were fixed and any movement was only by agreement with the resource managers. If the 36 hour sheet wasn’t printed in time crew could revert to their base roster if they wanted to.

Finally on the day crew would book on and collect and annotate their schedule card that had been printed with personal protection strategies, short platforms etc.

I’m not saying this is how Northern do it, just an insight into how a TOC does it.

Going back to your point about remote sign on, crew shouldn’t be expected to commute from their home depot without being paid in my opinion. You could be adding up to 5 hours on their day unpaid.

 

[Killingworth]

Precisely. Watching Northern management on the video taken of this meeting is extremely painful.

Indeed, but we need to appreciate that they're victims in this too, victims of past management putting off long term negotiations that must now be concluded as a matter of urgency.

The fax farce is a time consuming smoke screen diverting attention from that urgent priority.

 

[island]

If a cheap and simple fax machine does the job adequately, what is the problem?

The PSTN phone network is being switched off in the coming years which will make them unusable.

 

[TUC]

Yes, that's how it currently happens. But wouldn't it be nicer if your car was in the place where you finish your day... If you could spend more time driving a train and less time in the back of a taxi... If you had time to complete a full roster rather than needing 2 people to cover it... If your TOC didn't need the expense of paying for taxis...
There are massive benefits to employer and employees by having a digital system with a little bit more flexibility in it, just like most other industries!

Imagine any other business where there was no one to staff the Wakefield office that day, you were asked to cover it, and said 'Yes, but I must clock in at the Leeds office first and then take the transport you arrange to get me to Wakefield'.

 

[mandub]

Indeed, but we need to appreciate that they're victims in this too, victims of past management putting off long term negotiations that must now be concluded as a matter of urgency.

The fax farce is a time consuming smoke screen diverting attention from that urgent priority.

Yep, it's the throwing a dead cat on the table thing.
Got everyone's attention & split people into the usual "it's the unions fault/no it's not" camps.
And for those of us at Northern we know faxes (batch emails in fact) are an irrelevance in the way things are run. They are responsible for zero cancellations or short formings etc.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Does everyone on here think of old style fax machines are the ones that are used? My experience is very different.

The ones we 'phased out' were multi-purpose modern printers (fax/scan/print/send via email) so the cost of having them, maintaining them and training for use were exactly the same regardless of using the fax system.

The only major difference now is that an email has to be received and sent to be printed whereas the fax system printed it out automatically. Same printer, same toner, same paper.

It was just a very poor interview with a side of union bashing which suited the angle wanted for front page news.

 

[island]

Agreed, if it works, why change it?

Because the network that supports fax machines will stop working in 2027.

Why is a productivity deal required to phase out fax machines?

Because the railway is a heavily unionised industry and the unions block changes that are noncontroversial in 99% of workplaces because they think, usually correctly, that they can extort extra money from employers in return for graciously agreeing that members will do things "the new way".

 

[66701GBRF]

Imagine any other business where there was no one to staff the Wakefield office that day, you were asked to cover it, and said 'Yes, but I must clock in at the Leeds office first and then take the transport you arrange to get me to Wakefield'.

So you take your own vehicle to the second location, get pulled over or have an accident then realise you are not actually insured because the majority of insurance policies only cover to a single place of work unless you have business insurance…then what? None of this has anything to do with fax machines anyway. Having a tablet doesn’t render the rest of your contract of employment mute.

 

[Dai Corner]

If I was a Northern manager I'd, over a period of a few weeks or months,

• replace the fax machines with multi-function devices which could receive and print via phone lines and computer networks
• Switch from the former to the latter
• Get rid of the phone lines
• Start emailing the documents to the recipients as well as printing them
• Stop printing them except on specific request by the recipient to the sender
• Deal with any remaining recipients who were still having difficulties

 

[SCDR_WMR]

If I was a Northern manager I'd, over a period of a few weeks or months,

• replace the fax machines with multi-function devices which could receive and print via phone lines and computer networks
• Switch from the former to the latter
• Get rid of the phone lines
• Start emailing the documents to the recipients as well as printing them
• Stop printing them except on specific request by the recipient to the sender
• Deal with any remaining recipients who were still having difficulties

1) chances are, they already use multi-function devices
2) As above
3) what it they are used for other critical systems such as fire/security alarms? And are contracts to such
4) doesn't work for users that don't have company tech.
5) diagrams and rosters still need to be posted up for all to see/use on the day, especially STP diagrams or special turns
6) what formal process would you use? Would all unions agree to that proposal?

 

[35B]

So you take your own vehicle to the second location, get pulled over or have an accident then realise you are not actually insured because the majority of insurance policies only cover to a single place of work unless you have business insurance…then what? None of this has anything to do with fax machines anyway. Having a tablet doesn’t render the rest of your contract of employment mute.

Travel to place of work policies are rarely that restrictive. And out in the real world, plenty of us claim expenses for travelling to an alternative location, rather than wasting time on triangular journeys.

 

[mandub]

Northern literally won't employ drivers if you if you live more than 60 mins drive away from depot. (Safety, fatigue policies)
Never gonna be the case they'll be having drivers make their own way to other depots at short notice because they've now got electronic means of comms.