NGE 238 Responsibilities of Protection Officers

Purpose

To prescribe the responsibilities of Protection Officers.

Responsibilities

The primary responsibility and duty of a Protection Officer is to keep the worksite and workers safe.

Protection Officers must:

• be satisfied that other work will not interfere with their primary duty
• make a safety assessment in accordance with  NWT 300 Planning work in the Rail Corridor
• arrange and implement work on track authorities and work on track methods in accordance with the Network Rules and Network Procedures
• be the only person to speak to Signallers about protection arrangements
• be responsible for the protection of workers from rail traffic
• make sure that they can safely and effectively protect work activities within a worksite
• tell workers about the:
  • locations of safe places
  • protection arrangements
  • safety measures in place
  • extent of the area protected
  • changes to protection arrangements
• make sure that work in the Danger Zone does not begin before the required worksite protection and safety measures are in place
• make sure that the rail safety component of the work is done safely
• keep records about the methods used for working safely on track and protection arrangements
• tell the Signaller about breaches of Network Rules and Network Procedures.

Possession Protection Officer

A Possession Protection Officer is a Protection Officer responsible for managing the protection arrangements of a Local Possession Authority (LPA) and rail traffic movements into and within the LPA.

Coordinating Protection Officer

Worksites less than 500m apart that cannot be managed as a single worksite, may be protected and managed as a coordinated worksite. A Coordinating Protection Officer is a Protection Officer who is responsible for managing the protection arrangements of a coordinated worksite and rail traffic movements into and within the coordinated worksite.

Change of conditions

Change of conditions must be assessed by the Protection Officer for its effects on protection arrangements, and must be managed accordingly.

If the Protection Officer assesses that they can no longer safely and effectively protect all work activities within a worksite, they must:

• stop all work
• move workers and equipment to safe places
• arrange for:
  • the required worksite protection and safety measures to be implemented for the work, or
  • the scope of work to be changed.