Proceedings 2002/2003 - IRSE

112
Sydney Hosts 2002 Convention
For the first time in the Institution’s history Sydney
and the Australasian Section welcomed the
President, Peter Stanley, and his wife Carol together
with members and guests to the International
Convention held between 29th April – 3rd May 2002.
Prior to the Convention opening the Australasian
Section held its AGM on the Monday afternoon and
their normal technical conference was combined
with the first full day of the Convention.
MONDAY 29th APRIL 2002
Following registration in the Conference Centre at
the Menzies Hotel, the 350+ members and guests,
from 18 countries, left by coach for the Welcome
Reception held at the Power House Museum,
situated in the Darling Harbour area of Sydney.
At the Museum the President opened the
convention and commented on “the considerable
amount of planning, time and effort that had been
necessary to ensure that the Convention would be a
success. Indeed, it was as long ago as 1994 that a
Convention to Australia had been first proposed and
now, following two years detailed preparation by the
local organising committee, this was a reality”. He
went on to thank the New South Wales State Rail
Authority (SRA), the Rail Infrastructure Corporation
The proceedings were launched on the Monday evening at
the Power House Museum amongst the transport exhibits
Photo: L Brearley
(RIC) and the many sponsors for their generous cooperation
and support in making the Convention
possible.
As is now IRSE practice, the technical papers and
literature were made available in CD format – this to
allow easier storage but, more importantly, to reduce
the weight in members’ luggage returning home
than the more traditional paper format.
The President then handed over to Les Brearley,
Chairman of the Australasian Section, who welcomed
everyone to Australia and the exciting city of
Sydney. This was followed by a short presentation
from the reception’s sponsor on the conclusion of
which the rest of the evening was free to view the
varied exhibits in the Transport Gallery, members
and guests afterwards making their own way back to
their hotels by various routes through the city.
TUESDAY 30th APRIL 2002
Technical Conference
The Technical Conference and associated
exhibition was held at the Menzies Hotel Conference
Centre. The President opened the Conference by
first commenting on the change in format by having
a full day technical papers session as per
Australasian Section practice. Turning to the theme
of the Convention – “Engineering the Technology for
Railway Operations” – he commented that it was
“important to understand and explore the Key
Drivers and Key Issues in the host country and how
technology for the future can meet the issues”.
These being:
• Privatisation – understanding how new legal
barriers and contractual issues affect the chain
of command; and
• Life expired technology and the introduction of
new, understanding how to deal with the
transfer of knowledge from the supplier to the
application and maintenance contractors.
To open the Conference, Les Brearley gave a short
recreate-cap of Peter Symons’ paper “Australasian
Signalling” (originally presented in London on 13th
March 2002). This outlined the differences in the Rail
Network as the vast distances involved have given
rise to the evolution of differing signalling practices
in each of the Australian states. These are based on
a mix of predominately British and North American
signalling and working practice and these, together
with the various track gauges, form interesting
diversity and provide compatibility problems for
interstate operations.
Following
these introductions
the Keynote
Address was
given by Howard
Lacy, Chief
Executive Officer
for the State Rail
Authority of New
South Wales
(NSW). Howard
gave an insight
into the
challenges and
issues facing the
Howard Lacy, Chief Executive of the rail network in
SRA, gave the keynote address on NSW and his fundamental
points
the first day of the Convention
Photo: C H Porter
included:
• change in organisational structure – resulting
from the privatisation process;
• customer focus – movement away from an
engineering based culture to one of customer
service;
• clearly defined principles of safety, reliability and
maintainability;
• the complexity of the industry and the challenge
of focusing on business needs;