TFR driver refresher courses may be changed

[John Ashworth]

REFRESHER COURSES MAY BE CHANGED

[Steve Appleton]

This change was mentioned at the recent Railway Safety Regulator conference that I attended.

Part of the reasoning was not just to elliminate the unproductive time taken to do the refresher courses but was motivated by the fact that the refresher courses did not really address or measure the driver's knowledge, ability and performance in the actual working environment. The existing refresher courses concentrated purely on book work (rules and the like), but safe and competant operation is not all about the books.

Internationally, a program of periodic, regular monitoring on the job has been used for some time by several major railway administrations and has apparently been found to be a much better way of assessing the driver; checking his/her competance rather than simply measuring his ability to do static book work. Operating faults or habits can be spotted and corrected during these assessments and by that means driver performance and safety awareness corrected and uprated.