Induction Week of Railcorp

First week was mostly training. Code of ethics, culture, fraud, corruption, safety, security and getting qualifications to work on the track called RISI.

Saw a lot, learnt a lot and met a lot of new people and friends. Petersham training centre is like a TAFE for Railcorp, it has so many classrooms and different courses going on simultaneously it felt like it was buzzing with life at all times.

The dull boring drone of the trainer's voice mixed with the food in the stomach in the afternoon, or even the dark room as we watched information dvd lulled nearly all to sleep. It was all good fun though, learning together, doing mini assessments at end of each module and learning a great deal about Railcorp as an organization and the expectations for them to perform and from us as individuals.

Interesting Facts:

• Railcorp move approximately 1 000 000 people on an average weekday

• How many cars, buses and eight carriage trains does it take to transport 1000 people?
• 200 - 250 cars
• 15 buses
• 1 train

• Railcorp costs around 2.5 BILLION. Yes. Billion to run each year. Tickets are heavily subsidized by the government, if it Railcorp sought to recover all costs of running the railway, tickets will cost about 3x as much. For the extensive area, Railcorp actually is not expensive at all for rail. Europe trains cost a lot, as does other countries globally. Germany and Hong Kong are examples of cheap systems though. So although we like to have cheaper tickets and complain, we lose sight of the fact, or didn't know, that Railcorp is actually quite cheap for the area it covers.

• Railcorp has around 16 000 employees, possibly bumping it up soon.

• The first NSW train opened in 1855, running from Sydney to Parramatta

• Central turned 100 in year 2006.

What I also found was the Railcorp has many rules to follow, lot of regulations and Acts designed for Railcorp to follow. In a way it's an unique environment for them, not many companies have acts applied solely for them and that in itself creates a lot of challenges as I learnt later on the first day of my non-training week.

Rules governing employees are very strict. Random breath tests and urine tests are conducted. I mean who wants someone high driving a train or someone that's high designing the tracks? Railcorp's committment to safety is fairly impressive. Also the way we behave and act is governed by a Code of Conduct which we had to go through during training. Being in an organization that gets slammed and scrutinized for everything means employees must... well.. try at least... to act in a way that public sees acceptable.

Running on time? Railcorp's stats right now for on time running are quite impressive, around 94%, so... of 2000 services daily, that's 120 services late, but overall, 94 is pretty impressive. I learnt that many customers were dissatisfied when a train arrived early and it's sitting at the station. So you get negative feedback when trains are early and when trains are late. It has to be just right... well.. according to the public. What most people don't realize are lots of delays are caused by people jumping into trains, delaying it as it has become a crime scene if death occurs and the train cannot move until police and ambulance have arrived. That being said, I looked up the stats for 2004-2005, the on time running was around 61%. So I can understand why people have "running late again" stereotype imprinted in their brains.



What I have posted here may not be accurate figures and in no way do I speak on behalf of Railcorp. They're my personal opinions only.