The Whistle Board Newsletter – No. 79, September 2020

RISSB's Rail Safety Conference
27-28 October 2020

Last week we launched the agenda for our 2020 Rail Safety Conference and we're pleased to say that we're adding even more speakers to our 2020 program. 

Your virtual ticket will now give you access to:

• More than 60 Australian and international speakers (including Chairs)
• 3 concurrent streams over 2 days covering major rail safety issues 
• Event networking sessions
• Content for you to download up to 3 months after the event. 

To see who's on the conference program, please go to this page.

If you want to attend Australia's most popular rail safety event and are ready to book online, please click on the blue 'Register Now' button below this article.

Safety Investigations Forum 3 to be Held Virtually on 21 September 2020

The third of the popular Sharing Investigations Forums will include detailed presentations from NZ and Australian rail organisations on incidents.

The presentations will engender discussion on common lessons for industry from the incidents.  This is likely to be the largest forum held to date with strong interest from across Australia and NZ.  The forum will also include a presentation from the ATSB on an investigation into a marine incident and what lessons that might have for the rail industry.  

Outcomes from the first two Sharing Investigations Forums were featured on a RISSB Masterclass Webinar held in April 2020 (Dr Todd Bentley, CEO, Holistic Systems) and a stream at the upcoming virtual RISSB Safety Conference (27 and 28 October) will focus on investigations and lessons learned.

Dr Armand Casolin Elected Chair of Chief Medical Officers Council

Dr Armand Casolin, Chief Health Officer at Sydney Trains and NSW Train Link has been re-elected Chair of the Chief Medical Officers Council (CMOC). The CMOC includes the Chief Medical Officers from Australian and NZ rail organisations and provides overall governance of the processes around assessing the fitness of rail safety workers. This includes input into the National Standard for the Health Assessment of Rail Safety Workers (the Medical Standards) and a range of issues relating to Authorised Health Professionals (AHPs) and Rail Industry Workers (RIW).

At the CMOC meeting on 31 August 2020, the CMOC also re-elected a Management Committee which deals with day to day AHP issues. Dr Casolin chairs the Management Committee and the four other members are Dr June Sim, Dr Stuart Turnbull, Dr Tim Drew and Dr Keith Adam. 

Collectively these doctors are Chief Medical Officers for a range of rail organisations including Arc Infrastructure, MTM, V/Line, PN and ARTC.

Over 30 Attend Medical Standards Meeting

Representatives of all major rail operators and RIMs attended an update meeting on 31 August 2020 on the National Standard for the Health Assessment of Rail Safety Workers (the Medical Standards) 2017. The Standards will be reviewed in 2021/22 through a comprehensive consultation process managed by NTC. At the meeting NTC provided an outline of the process they plan to use for the review and MTA presented on the RIW card scheme and continuous improvement of the scheme through implemented and planned initiatives.

Projects On Parade

Each week we'll showcase a publication in our 2020 / 2021 work plan that we will  be progressing in the coming year.

Publication Type 
Standard

Publication Name 
AS 7703 Signalling Power Supplies

Overview
Railway signalling requires a specialised power supply system. Whilst AS 3000 is the recognised Standard for wiring electrical systems, it does not allow for these specialised needs. RISSB, together with railway signaling experts from around Australia, is developing this Standard to address the differences between AS 3000 and railway signalling requirements. This Standard will address safety requirements for designing, building, and maintaining railway power supplies as well as mandating the type of power systems to be used. This will assist with harmonisation across the rail industry, which is particularly important where different signalling systems meet. 

Standards Development Manager 
Cris Fitzhardinge
cfitzhardinge@rissb.com.au

Live, Online and Unfiltered – Ask RISSB

Since the release of RISSB’s 2020 / 21 work plan in July, we’ve been inundated with questions about how we are delivering our Standards Guidelines, Codes of Practice and Rules, the major projects component of the work plan and how RISSB determined which projects to prioritise and progress.
 
So much so that we’re now holding a special live online forum - Ask RISSB - on 17 September. Hosted by Mike Aviet and Jesse Baker, this is your chance to get your questions about RISSB’s work plan answered on the spot by two of RISSB’s senior managers.

More details will be released soon.

Drew Dawson - RISSB Webinar #23

Next week we'll be joined by world renowned expert on fatigue in the workplace, Professor Drew Dawson from CQU's Appleton Institute.

Drew's webinar presentation Recent Advances in Fatigue Management Beyond FAID will bring people up to date with recent advances in fatigue science and provide some simple tools that will enable organisations to comply with new shared responsibility requirements under WHS and rail regulations.

Interested? Join us at 12PM (AEST) on Tuesday, 8 September 2020. 

Just click on the blue 'Register Now' button to reserve your place. 

Call for Public Consultation – Wheel defects Code of Practice