Let’s start with ROGS !

Almost 6 months ago, following the official entry into ROGS date of the 26th of March 2021, 3ECO-Morson started providing competent and trained Authorised Persons, Senior Authorised Persons and Nominated Persons to support Rail for London Infrastructure (RFLI) with all their OLE & Distribution Isolations for the Elizabeth Line.

Let’s say that we have been a little bit busy since ROGS happened, hence why we haven’t communicated on the subject as often as we would have liked. Although, considering we knew most of the main stakeholders involved and the Crossrail Project well, this busy period did not come as a surprise to us. It was expected and was anticipated. Thankfully we did prepare for it still to be able to meet our client’s expectations.

Challenges & Opportunities

A number of things have evolved since we started on this assignment. 3ECO and Morson together continue to support RFLI through undeniably challenging times but it has also given us the opportunity to demonstrate to our client how professionally managed, committed, transparent and competent our organisations are. It started small with a limited core team of competent engineers and technicians, including Authorising Engineer’s services support and it evolved into a subtly more managed service that allowed a better synchronisation between the various operational teams, offering a level of optimisation on the OLE and HV isolations front that will more suitably support Revenue Service in the long run.

Suitability & Performance

And again, such a development was not unexpected and was in fact desirable. From our own experience, the so-called ‘Trial Operations’ period primarily exists to test key maintenance and operational aspects of the new railway and is an opportunity to improve the performance before the first member of the public ever sets foot on the station platform. By streamlining our operations week on week, we collaboratively and collectively created the conditions to make the necessary adjustments to the existing electrical rules so that their day-to-day practical application would become simpler and would ensure access to the railway and/or the equipment would be facilitated without creating unnecessary constraints or paperwork.

Nearly There…

It would not be completely honest to state that all these evolutions occurred smoothly. This job was, and remains, an eventful assignment to say the least. A project of this scale and complexity, with the number of parties involved and the sometimes diverging views, was always going to create the conditions for a rather bumpy ride. But it is also fair to say that these evolutions were inevitable as they will serve the fare paying passengers better and make the Elizabeth Line a truly astounding new addition to the London railway landscape when it opens to the public.

The 3ECO’s isolation team has worked very hard these last few months, to try to cover for every eventuality, last minute changes in the planning and despite the impact from Covid-19 which has, on occasion, limited our capacity to support all of the requirements at once. Our personnel, together with the support of our RFLI colleagues, are the ones who make all of the above possible, 24h a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. It is with their commitment of the last 6 months in mind that this post has been written.

Today it is being published as a ‘Thank You’ note for their amazing support without which none of this would have been possible. We are confident the next 6 months working on the Elizabeth Line will help confirm that these evolutions bring the discipline and stability that is needed for the people involved to progressively ‘learn’ this new railway and improve their performance for the benefit of everyone involved.

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