LUL Emergency Response Unit - Operator

[warrior33]

Evening,

Rare opportunity has opened up with 5 x vacancies on the ERU. These are the guys and girls who respond to a variety of railway incidents, not limited to LUL but all modes of TfL inc DLR and provide mutual aid to Network Rail.

Responding to things such as fatalities and derailments, they have also attended the Croydon Tram incident.

Knowledge of the railway technical aspects is required such as P-Way, Signalling or Rolling Stock.

Great opportunity.

Closing - 13th March.

https://tfl.taleo.net/careersection...?job=032951&tz=GMT+00:00&tzname=Europe/London

From the ad:

The Emergency Response Unit (ERU) provides London Underground (LU) and TfL rail (RfL(I)), Croydon Trams, DLR and London Overground with 24/7 cover 365 days per year. When required, the ERU will respond to Mutual Aid requests from Network Rail and other transport systems. The ERU are an emergency service recognised Cat 2 responder (Police, Ambulance and Fire are Cat 1). The ERU support the emergency services to recover casualties following incidents such as derailments, terrorist activity, suicide and accidental injury or death.

Do you have experience in an engineering background and enjoy a challenge? Do you have the ability to work within a highly pressurised environment? If so, we would like to hear from you.

We have an exciting opportunity as an ERU Operator. As a member of the ERU, working on a shift basis, you will have a key role following an incident/event, in completing repair or taking action that enables affected service to be resumed efficiently and effectively so minimising delays.

 

[Class2ldn]

It says you'll need to drive the units but I believe they are crewed by BTP now because they are cleared for blue light use.
Not sure if that's all units or what?
Quite fancy this I must admit but not sure I want to be restricted to london for the rest of my career lol.
Any ideas where they are based?

 

[DavyCrocket]

It says you'll need to drive the units but I believe they are crewed by BTP now because they are cleared for blue light use.
Not sure if that's all units or what?
Quite fancy this I must admit but not sure I want to be restricted to london for the rest of my career lol.
Any ideas where they are based?

Only a minority of vehicles are in BTP livery and driven by a Police Officer. There are some that have dual livery capability. The bulk of the “trucks“ are in LU livery. There are also other smaller vehicles that are used for responding or deliveries.

 

[Class2ldn]

Cheers for that, already got my lgv licence so that's a bonus.
Any idea on locations?

 

[DavyCrocket]

Cheers for that, already got my lgv licence so that's a bonus.
Any idea on locations?

Sorry I missed the last bit.

there are bases in the areas of Camden, Acton, Stratford and Battersea.

 

[Coopes1710]

Shame they don’t have a team in Yorkshire.
I have my emergency response driving qualification in a LGV along with rescue from height, confined space and so on

 

[Class2ldn]

Wouldn't be much help to London underground in yorkshire lol.
I know what you mean though.
I'm also blue light trained.
Battersea wouldn't be too bad actually.
Trained at their acton branch in my previous job for one unders.

 

[Stigy]

Shame they don’t have a team in Yorkshire.
I have my emergency response driving qualification in a LGV along with rescue from height, confined space and so on

Be a bit of an extended response time to London

You wouldn’t be able to respond under blue light conditions regardless of if your ticket is in date or not. TfL wouldn’t allow this, as they don’t train their staff to respond in these conditions and they certainly wouldn’t be insured to allow this. I’m not aware of any organisation whose staff drive on blue lights other than the emergency services and some Search and Rescue/blood services.

 

[Class2ldn]

No but it will show that's hes capable of doing the driving.
Be a pay cut for me though but definitely something different.

 

[Coopes1710]

Be a bit of an extended response time to London

You wouldn’t be able to respond under blue light conditions regardless of if your ticket is in date or not. TfL wouldn’t allow this, as they don’t train their staff to respond in these conditions and they certainly wouldn’t be insured to allow this. I’m not aware of any organisation whose staff drive on blue lights other than the emergency services and some Search and Rescue/blood services.

I am not familiar with the organisation but I read last night that they were granted blue light permission in 2012 I think it said. I was a firefighter so I have many of the qualifications for the role as a whole but unfortunately I don’t live in or near London

 

[Stigy]

I am not familiar with the organisation but I read last night that they were granted blue light permission in 2012 I think it said. I was a firefighter so I have many of the qualifications for the role as a whole but unfortunately I don’t live in or near London

They were granted blue light authority indeed, but as an organisation they have to have a police officer from BTP driving the truck. With relevant training I guess there’s no reason why a member of TfL staff can’t do this, but at an educated guess, I’d imagine insurance would prevent it, plus the extra cost of training (they would certainly not just take for granted that the post holder has the relevant qualifications, as even emergency services won’t allow you to carry over your blue light ticket a lot of the time. I know fire service co-responders aren’t allowed to just jump in their ambulance vehicles without having another assessment as an example.

It’s much the same as NWR’s Emergency Intervention Unit. It’s crewed by a police officer and a MOM so that they can respond on blue lights, but it’s funded by NWR.

 

[MostlyHarmless]

They were granted blue light authority indeed, but as an organisation they have to have a police officer from BTP driving the truck. With relevant training I guess there’s no reason why a member of TfL staff can’t do this, but at an educated guess, I’d imagine insurance would prevent it, plus the extra cost of training (they would certainly not just take for granted that the post holder has the relevant qualifications, as even emergency services won’t allow you to carry over your blue light ticket a lot of the time. I know fire service co-responders aren’t allowed to just jump in their ambulance vehicles without having another assessment as an example.

It’s much the same as NWR’s Emergency Intervention Unit. It’s crewed by a police officer and a MOM so that they can respond on blue lights, but it’s funded by NWR.

This is certainly a lot to do with insurance - I know of an ambulance driver who had to do his permit again when he joined the police and indeed I know of police officers who have had to do theirs again when they have transferred to another force (which is madness). Your permit also allows you to drive certain vehicles only - so for example I had to do a separate course for 4x4 vehicles and also carriers (which also needs a D1 on your driving license).

 

[Stigy]

This is certainly a lot to do with insurance - I know of an ambulance driver who had to do his permit again when he joined the police and indeed I know of police officers who have had to do theirs again when they have transferred to another force (which is madness). Your permit also allows you to drive certain vehicles only - so for example I had to do a separate course for 4x4 vehicles and also carriers (which also needs a D1 on your driving license).

I know Firefighters (certainly in Hants) have to do a separate course for their Land Rover than they do for the appliances. Also, or certainly as used to be the case, they’re trained in response driving in a car, not a truck. Seems bizarre given that a fire appliance will naturally handle differently when being driven ‘enthusiastically’ to a car, and is certainly a lot bigger. I assume they have assessments in the trucks, but the nitty gritty is in a car.

I think it’s all about culpability as far as the insurance goes, as well as being covered in the first place. If it goes wrong, TfL could have a huge legal fee on its head.

 

[Coopes1710]

They were granted blue light authority indeed, but as an organisation they have to have a police officer from BTP driving the truck. With relevant training I guess there’s no reason why a member of TfL staff can’t do this, but at an educated guess, I’d imagine insurance would prevent it, plus the extra cost of training (they would certainly not just take for granted that the post holder has the relevant qualifications, as even emergency services won’t allow you to carry over your blue light ticket a lot of the time. I know fire service co-responders aren’t allowed to just jump in their ambulance vehicles without having another assessment as an example.

It’s much the same as NWR’s Emergency Intervention Unit. It’s crewed by a police officer and a MOM so that they can respond on blue lights, but it’s funded by NWR.

Yes we had to have regular refreshers and assessments even if we drove everyday. It was a day out with a smile on your face as long as you can handle the res

I know Firefighters (certainly in Hants) have to do a separate course for their Land Rover than they do for the appliances. Also, or certainly as used to be the case, they’re trained in response driving in a car, not a truck. Seems bizarre given that a fire appliance will naturally handle differently when being driven ‘enthusiastically’ to a car, and is certainly a lot bigger. I assume they have assessments in the trucks, but the nitty gritty is in a car.

I think it’s all about culpability as far as the insurance goes, as well as being covered in the first place. If it goes wrong, TfL could have a huge legal fee on its head.

I did my course in a lgv, we did a familiarisation drive to be able to respond in a 4x4. The emergency response driving cert covered driving on blue lights through out. We just had to have a quick drive under normal driving conditions in other vehicles next to an instructor to be passed to respond in them like a 4x4 transit for instance.
We did regular refreshers/assessments and the hard drive could be pulled at anytime to assess video footage of our driving skills/decision making.
If you can make progress through heavy traffic safely in a lgv on blues it’s easy in a car.

It’s actually a lot of responsibility, 1 wrong decision can land you in court on dangerous driving charges or worse.

 

[Class2ldn]

It's certainly a high risk procedure, had a few close calls before, people tend to panic a bit when they see a big vehicle with blue lights.

 

[Mojo]

It’s much the same as NWR’s Emergency Intervention Unit. It’s crewed by a police officer and a MOM so that they can respond on blue lights, but it’s funded by NWR.

You are thinking of the team which is crewed of a BTP police medic officer and a Network Incident Response Manager which is distinct from this role they are recruiting for here.

The Emergency Response Unit is a separate team which consists of engineers who can undertake a variety of roles such as track repairs, re-railing trains, remove obstructions from the line, repair fencing, deliver signalling components, clear up the track following a person under train and so on. The core crew of an ERU team is 3 or 4 engineers. At two locations they are driven by a BTP police medic officer 24/7, with the scope to have a police driver at the other locations when required. All the main vehicles are the same, the panels are reversible to either display EMERGENCY or POLICE, with the V&A (Visual and Audio - i.e. the blue lights, electronic display reading POLICE and sirens) being activated by the police driver with a PIN inside the vehicle. The ERU also have smaller vehicles for deliveries.

I know Firefighters (certainly in Hants) have to do a separate course for their Land Rover than they do for the appliances. Also, or certainly as used to be the case, they’re trained in response driving in a car, not a truck. Seems bizarre given that a fire appliance will naturally handle differently when being driven ‘enthusiastically’ to a car, and is certainly a lot bigger. I assume they have assessments in the trucks, but the nitty gritty is in a car.

The police officers who drive the ERU vehicles firstly do their LGV the same as someone who wanted to be a standard LGV driver, and then attend Surrey fire & rescue for their Efad (Emergency Fire Appliance Driving) qualification. This involves driving their training vehicle (details here: https://www.smmt.co.uk/2017/08/scania-develops-new-fire-service-training-truck/) as well as fire pumps.

However I ought to add that for any potential applicants you should not be put off by all this talk about ex-firefighters and response driving; the ERU operators do not drive under blue lights. The key part of applying for this role is your railway engineering experience!

 

[Stigy]

You are thinking of the team which is crewed of a BTP police medic officer and a Network Incident Response Manager which is distinct from this role they are recruiting for here.

The Emergency Response Unit is a separate team which consists of engineers who can undertake a variety of roles such as track repairs, re-railing trains, remove obstructions from the line, repair fencing, deliver signalling components, clear up the track following a person under train and so on. The core crew of an ERU team is 3 or 4 engineers.

I was thinking of the crew who drive the converted fire appliances. Maybe it’s the role I misunderstood. Are these staff not the ones in the Fire engines? I thought they were similar to the EIU which may be where I was getting confused.

 

[Mojo]

I was thinking of the crew who drive the converted fire appliances. Maybe it’s the role I misunderstood. Are these staff not the ones in the Fire engines? I thought they were similar to the EIU which may be where I was getting confused.

The ERU are the staff in the "Fire engines" yes. However the EIU is modelled on the team of Network Incident Response Managers and BTP police medical officers.

 

[Stigy]

The ERU are the staff in the "Fire engines" yes. However the EIU is modelled on the team of Network Incident Response Managers and BTP police medical officers.

Got ya. Yeah I was just confusing the two I guess, and wrongly assumed they were similar whereas it’s the other team who are similar.