GERT8000-T3 Iss 12

Section 2.1, ‘PICOP confirming the details’ has been revised so that the person in charge of the possession (PICOP) is required to contact each signaller who controls a protecting signal leading to the line under possession and make all the necessary arrangements with each of those signallers.

A new requirement has been introduced to Section 2.2, ‘Taking possession around one or more engineering trains’ so that the PICOP or Engineering Supervisor (ES) is required to tell drivers that the possession has been granted before authorising them to move.

Successful trials have been carried out of an arrangement under which the PICOP contacts each signaller who has a protecting signal for the possession when a possession is being granted or given up and agrees the arrangements so far as that signaller's area of control in concerned. Each of those signallers is responsible for advising adjacent signallers who do not have a protecting signal. These arrangements have now been included in section 2.3, ‘Arranging to block the line’, where the reference to a protecting signal being controlled by another signaller has been removed, as this rule now applies to each signaller who controls a protecting signal.

‘Back-to-back’ possessions are now permitted when the protection is placed in relation to points as well as signals, providing no movements will take place from one possession into another. The necessary instructions have now been included in section 2.8. A clarification has been added in the same section on back-to-back possessions that it is not necessary for detonator protection to be at the standard distance.

In section 4.6, ‘Leaving the possession’, to avoid ambiguity, the term ‘standard arrangement’ has been altered to ‘normal arrangement’. This had been misinterpreted as meaning that the instructions in sub section a) applied only when detonator protection was at the standard distance.

Section 9.1 a) has been changed to explain that drivers will be met at the intermediate point where the train will enter the possession, and who will meet them.

Section 9.1 c) has been changed to explain that if a train is to enter a possession from a siding under possession directly into a work site, the engineering supervisor (ES) or a competent person on behalf of the ES will meet the train at the exit from the siding.

These changes to section 9.1 a) and c) were previously published in the December 2023 Periodical Operating Notice.

Section 9.7, ‘When a possession is to be taken around one or more engineering trains’ has been revised to introduce a new requirement that the PICOP or ES is to tell drivers that the possession has been granted before any authority for movement is given.

Sections 10.1 and 10.7 on protection zones have been revised to include the use of engineering possession reminders as additional protection.

Sections five, nine and ten have been revised to remove obsolete references to safe work leader (SWL).

The changes form part of the suite of general updates issued annually which are intended to improve understanding and application of the content of the Rule Book and provide opportunities for duty holders to operate more efficiently.