SkylineHorizons
Active Member
I posted this on the reddit thread but will also post it here so as to better inform more people about how internal operational matters are dealt with over at Alstom
Re: Disciplinary Standards and Government Accountability.
Discipline is generally not disclosed since the crews work for a private company; Alstom, and not a government agency, it is legally considered a privacy matter. But as a former engineer I can say one thing for sure: disciplinary standards on the railway are extremely strict. For starters, crews are effectively treated as guilty right from the outset of an incident. And they are continously viewed as such throughout the investigative process and are presented in that light to the entire workforce.
Following any incident related to a rules violation, or sometimes even just a procedural violation, the crew members involved are immediately removed from service and suspended without pay pending the completion of the investigation, the duration of which is completely unknown at that point. It's nothing like policing, where someone can be involved in an extreme incidents, such as when they killed someone and yet they are almost always suspend "with pay". The crew is then subjected to drug and alcohol testing and are required to surrender their phone records. Testing positive for any prohibited substance understandably results in immediate termination and the same applies if it is determined that they used their phone at any point during the tour of duty.
The investigation itself is presented as a fact-finding process, but in reality it more closely resembles a police interrogation. Mounting any meaningful defense is generally not possible because the accused is typically not given access to critical internal records such as train, track, or signal maintenance logs. In truth, by the time the statement takes place the company has more or less reached its conclusions already. The process then becomes less about determining what actually happened from the accused's perspective and more about strengthening the company's case against the accused in the event the matter goes to arbitration. This is done by framing the accused in the worst possible light, a process that is both highly patronizing and deeply demoralizing.
Interestingly enough, at times Alstom will break its own protocols and keep a crew in service by issuing what they call "deferred discipline" that is no suspension is given, when it is suffering from extreme manpower shortages. This is in order to avoid being penalized for failing to provide the required service levels since it may result in train cancelations. It is quite telling that the usual process suddenly no longer seems to be in the interest of public safety when the company itself faces financial repercussions.
Serious violations, such as passing a stop signal or passing a Rule 42 foreman without authority(a designated track worker with authority over train movements in a work area), commonly result in suspensions of 3 to 6 months. For an engineer that essentially amounts to a substantial financial penalty of roughly $35,000 to $65,000 in lost wages, somewhat less for conductors. A second offense of this type typically leads to permanent dismissal. But even a first serious violation can result in dismissal if the employee already has minor infractions on their record. Employees in these cases are often kept completely in the dark for weeks on end - long after their statement has been given and the investigation should by all reasonable measure be concluded - left unsure whether they still have a job or not.
Once a suspension has run its course the employees must undergo a thorough recertification process. After passing it, they are closely monitored and frequently accompanied on duty for an extended period of time, usually around a year. While there is no debate that this part of process has merit, the problem is that the guilt-based culture that the railroad cultivates means that returning employees are rarely welcomed back without reservation. They are frequently viewed differently, marginalized, and spoken about disparagingly behind their backs not only by other coworkers but by management as well. In many cases the reputational damage sticks with an individual for years, sometimes even for the entire duration of their careers.
The reality, however, is that serious incidents happen with some frequency, and this is nothing new. Violations of this kind have been occurring for generations, largely because the fundamental nature of railway operations in North America. Operations that have changed remarkably little in over 80 years. Consider that the average GO train crew will make over 1,000 foremen calls, approximately 10,000 station stops, and pass somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 signals in a given year - now multiply those numbers by over 170 train crews. At that scale, the uncomfortable truth becomes unavoidable: people are not machines, and mistakes and accidents do happen. Sometimes it does stem from incompetence yes, but more often it is the result of the fundamental nature of the job, a lack of proper tools, and an ever-increasing workload without adequate mitigation. It should come as no surprise then that red-light violations, speeding incidents, and foreman authority violations occur with some regularity. Rather than addressing this through systemic improvements, the response has largely been to impose changes at the individual level, when in reality there is only so much that can be done to influence human behavior. Over the course of an entire career, a significant portion of the workforce, perhaps half, will have been involved in at least one such incident. That should make it clear that the problem is not individualistic in nature - it's SYSTEMIC. And while Metrolinx has spoken at length about modernization, nothing of significance has been done at the operational level, let alone the technological one. So you tell me where the problem truly lies: with the individual train operators who are specifically selected and rigorously trained for the job - or with an organization that, in nearly twenty years of full operational involvement has yet to meaningfully change the operational limitations of an antiquated system.
Lastly, while having a private corporation run the operation was initially an understandable choice given GO Transit's lack of operational knowledge at the time, that justification has long since expired. Metrolinx could easily bring train crews in-house whenever the operations contract expires, and coincidentally the current contract expires this year. And yet they plan to once again hand Alstom another five-year extension. The implication here speaks for itself, Private corporations, by their very nature, are under no obligation to open their operations to public scrutiny, and governments have long understood this. When something goes wrong, as it did on January 6th, accountability diffuses. The corporation cites confidentiality, the government points to the contract, and the public is left none the wiser. Maintaining that arrangement year after year, extension after extension, achieves something that would be far harder to sustain with a public operator - plausible deniability, and with it the political cover to avoid accountability altogether.