Safety & Maintenance Report

It has been a pleasure to have been appointed by the Committee last year to coordinate safety and maintenance for our station.

​The position has been busy as there has been a lot to do for both safety and maintenance roles.

Safety

It has been acknowledged by the Committee that producing an effective safety management system (SMS) was a necessity. To that end I developed and had approved by the Committee a SMS which will protect and ensure the safety of our members and visitors. The system includes the assessment of risks with implemented actions to either remove the risk altogether or, if not possible or reasonably practical, to ameliorate the risk to an acceptable level. In addition the SMS records accidents, incidents, and so called  “near misses” so that actual or potential threats are recognised and dealt with including corrective actions. This year alone we recorded several incidents and two accidents which have been dealt with appropriately including the installation of effective corrective actions.

Probably the most significant safety improvement has been the installation of earth leakage devices in the Fettlers Shed Gallery to avoid electric shock. In addition, all electrical devices have been tested for safe operation and suitably tagged. This procedure will be an annual event.

The SMS is mounted in a suitable folder and mounted on the wall for easy visibility in the Gallery. A copy of the SMS is also held in the station building office.
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The SMS is scheduled for review in February 2017.

Maintenance

General
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The maintenance roll has been quite busy. Essentially there are two types of maintenance, namely, routine repairs to the station’s structures, grounds and equipment and preventative maintenance to assist with keeping all those things in good working condition.
By way of examples this year we have had to make repairs to the Rover rotary mower where the steel tubing of the handle fractured and more importantly to replace the cutting disc which fractured and flew off the crankshaft. This was also recorded as an incident under the SMS. Fortunately there was no injury when this occurred. Whilst this was attended to we also had the mower serviced including the fitting of new blades.
In terms of preventative maintenance the ride-on mower was given a service, all pad locks were inspected and lubricated, electrical items tested and tagged, as explained earlier, as well as some other minor repairs and maintenance.

Concrete-Cancer Project
 The single most important maintenance item is the repair of various concrete sections of the station building, the signal box, station destination sign and “Lamp Shed”. These have significant “concrete-cancer” problems whereby sections are spalling and falling away which is not only an eye-sore but, if not attended to soon, will only worsen and limit the lifespan of these valuable and historic structures. This concrete-cancer problem had been an issue for some time. We applied and received $10,000 from the Transport Heritage NSW 2015 grant process, which is administered by the Royal Australian Historical Society acting on behalf of THNSW.  Given that this grant would not adequately cover all repairs I approached ARTC who agreed to provide another $10,670, which was the balance required to complete the job according to the quote we had previously received.

A contractor from the Southern Highlands was engaged to make repairs. This included site inspections and a discussion about the process to not only make repairs but to ensure that the repairs maintain the structures in good condition for many years to come. Once we were satisfied that this contracting firm could effectively make repairs it was decided that work could begin in early February 2016. However, work didn’t actually start until May when the first step in the process, namely the wet abrasive blasting, was carried out by a sub-contractor. The next steps were to take place within about 2 weeks of the abrasive blasting. In fact this has not yet happened despite several emails and phone calls. Apparently tradesmen in the Southern Highlands, and many other places, are dealing with a large amount of work so delays are to be expected. To make things worse a very unfortunate accident occurred whereby the owner of the contracting business died in an industrial accident at his worksite in Moss Vale. These tragic circumstances have delayed the continuation of the project but discussions and a site meeting have taken place with the deceased’s son who will take over the work of his late father.

I feel confident that the work will be finalised and to our satisfaction but I must report that this project has been a great source of frustration for me.
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Future Maintenance

1. Following on from completing the concrete repairs all the concrete structures will require repainting. In earlier discussions with ARTC I was informed that they would sympathetically consider an approach from us to complete and pay for the painting. Whilst I can’t be certain that this will happen I was given reason to feel optimistic about this. ARTC are very likely to use their own contractor to complete this job. Clearly this can’t occur until the concrete repairs have been made. Until this job is completed the areas which were repaired under the concrete-cancer project will need to be protected by the application of a protective coating of paint. I think we can manage this part of the job ourselves.
2. An important and immediate concern is the gallery roof whereby leakage following rain, even slight showers of rain, occurs in the building. The model train room is very much affected. Wet carpets and minor damage to the model train layout have almost become routine. There are other areas that are damaged too including water marks in the entrance foyer and loosening of the wall tiles in the male restroom. There is an unpleasant odour in the female restroom which I suspect is caused by damp from rain making its way inside the roof cavity. Whilst the building shows evidence of past water ingress the addition of the awning on the north side has made things worse. To this end I had two roofing contractors look at the problem. Both contractors independently gave the same cause for the leaks and the same solution. Essentially the slope of the roof is so slight that water runs to the north but without sufficient force it doesn’t pour off the end of the roof but rather clings to the underside and then travels backwards under the steel sheeting, eventually dropping down into the wall space. The awning roof makes the situation worse.  The only solution is to replace the whole roof with single sheets of steel roofing covering the whole building including the new awning. This is an expensive solution but it is the only one that will actually work. The cost will be just under $17,000. Clearly our financial resources would be overwhelmed with this cost so an application for a grant has been made. We are not particularly optimistic about being successful in this application. If we are not successful then the next approach is to seek help from ARTC. I have already spoken to them about it, in particular, that we will be approaching them if our grant application is not successful. Their initial response was non-committal. Given that they have already covered more than 50% of the concrete-cancer repairs and are likely to pay for the repainting of all concrete structures I don’t think we could be certain that they would provide significant funds for other repairs. However I am sure that the new committee will pursue this in the next year.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Ian Wallace and the committee generally for their encouragement and support in the last year.
Neil Harvey
September 2016