You'd be surprised, but it's actually not like that for the most part. Some shifts ("Local Relief" or "Standby" types) yes, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

The job itself is not "hard" per se' and you can be re-tasked if your originally-assigned train is cancelled, but "forecast rosters" are something that has been (very) hard fought for in various depots over time and they are a major selling point for companies in attracting and retaining crew. Ie Your Master Roster has you doing Shift pattern "Central-05A"and the actual working of "Central-05A" may be "All stations to Penriff, then All stations to North-Sydney & have crib. Pick up next train at North Sydney and work all stations to Berowra then all stations to Central & signoff at time xx:xx." You know your signon time, your distance travelled (as you can get km-based payments if you work over X km's) and your signoff time down to the minute (if everything works normally). An actual Sydney Trains job diagram is shown in this video at the 15s mark. Apparently I can't just link it, it shows the actual preview instead of the BBcode text...:ugh:
Some depots have what is known as "Blank line" or "Pencil" working, where you know your RDO's and that is it. You don't know what you're doing tomorrow until you sign off today and the working is almost exactly as you describe. ie my old signoff phone call would be "Cheers, KR, got you off at 1600, job for tomorrow is 0300 on, work train 1535 to Walgett and load." Other depots have specific rostered sign-on times(and usually signoff as well, when things are running well) for the typical working of that depot (usually container & passenger trains) as they run to a timetable. Blank line working, though, is shyte. You can't plan a damn thing, fatigue is a major problem and consequently so is retention, so some companies actively market their forecast rosters in their job ads, like PN do here.

The ST problem they have created for themselves through lack of recruitment, is twofold. One is the ongoing requirement to have crews work on their RDO's just to run a 'normal' timetable and the other is the constant changing of roster's (with the attendant changes in signon/signoff times) to try to cover the normal timetable (or services they deem a priority) without sufficient crew to do so.

We have our rosters 5 weeks ahead. You can basically see what shifts you have from the “guide rosters”, 2 years ahead. If I could be bothered, I can see my RDOs, 3 years ahead. RDOs are set in concrete and can’t be touched. Sign off time is sign off time.. incase of a major disruption and you go past sign off time.. you are straight into overtime. ( so usually the will get you “off traffic’ to avoid this.)

What's with all the initials?!

Need to explain/write it out in full as many on PPRUNE are not in the rail industry and/or not Australian.

Well there it is.

642 days later (and 9600+ posts, a forum record I believe) the title of this thread has finally come to fruition.

And not a moment too soon.
The irony of re-opening just as cases peak seems to be lost on many.

McGowan's support appears to have declined significantly over the last few months.
Will be interesting to see where it goes form here.

And the funny thing is, even with thousands (at least soon to be) of cases, life here is still pretty much normal. Not "lockdown like conditions" as MM and his cronies (and memebers of this forum) liked to tell us. Even MM acknowledged last night the their were other "consequences" of the closed border. It's now time to move on. Many Labor Backbenchers will lose their seats in the next election as the Libs who voted Labor to "reward" MM will all flow back, and we can return to a functioning democracy in WA. Hooray!

No, the irony is that some people don't understand that it made little sense to keep the border closed once Covid got in and case numbers started increasing, which is precisely why the border has now been reopened.

Maybe that's because WA now has one of the highest vaccination rates in Australia, and because of the restrictions and changes to close contact definitions, isolation rules, etc that were introduced as soon as case numbers started to increase? Other states didn't do that until well after case numbers exploded, by which time it was all a bit late. The whole point of McGowan's approach is to slow the spread and prevent a repeat of the situation that occurred in NSW and Victoria as case numbers peaked. Time will tell, but so far it seems to be working. Omicron first entered WA in early January and it's taken two months for cases to start rapidly increasing. Compare that to NSW, where cases exploded within several weeks.

I certainly look forward to more balance within WA's parliament, but I somehow doubt that "all" the seats will flow back to the LNP by the next election. The Libs in particular were decimated and it will take years for them to rebuild their brand in WA. As things stand, they are a basket case and their few elected representatives utterly ineffective at getting any kind of message across.

Now it is just the utter stupidity of the level 2 restrictions that WA has to deal with. 30,000 allowed to go to Optus stadium, but grandad can’t go watch kids play community sport at local oval. 150 limit for pubs, the Camfield equates that to one person per 23sqm. 10 people max in your backyard for a bbq. Year 3 kids in masks despite worldwide evidence that masks for young kids are useless, they constantly fiddle with them and don’t wear them properly. If you are unvaxxed, even an unvaxxed West Australian, the only way you can come to WA is via internationally.

if this is all based on the CHO’s health advice, then it’s time WA got a new CHO, the guy is nuts.

It's remarkable the difference between a hysterical, fear mongering, non practicing medical doctor, puppet of the politician, Jeannette Young (QLD) to the CHO now, Dr John Gerrard, practicing and qualified. Apparently he's able to interpret 'the science' in a practical and sensible way. There'll be no governorship for him!

Perhaps try reading the CHO's advice, before throwing brickbats?
TRANSITION TO LEVEL 2 PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL MEASURES

Thanks Buzz, that's helpful.
What was the date of WA's first day of this outbreak?

Reading the health advice doesn’t change the inconsistencies the community see in the new rules. You may disagree with everything everybody else says Buzz, but that doesn’t make you right. The community are rightly asking questions about the insanity of the inconsistencies. I won’t continue with the politics I earlier mentioned, but I disagree with you.

The index case was a returned traveller from Tasmania who, as I recall, entered WA on 2 January. The first local transmission occurred less than a week later.

Disagree with me about what, in particular? I didn't say there weren't inconsistencies in the restrictions and even McGowan has admitted as much.

So we are approximately 55 days then.
If I understand the modelling correctly, shouldn't we be at 400 hospitalisations under the most optimistic scenario with Level 2 restrictions in place early enough?

Possibly, but the most optimistic scenario also shows peak hospitalisations about 55 days from '0' and we're clearly nowhere near the peak. It's not entirely clear what '0' actually represents; is it the day of the first local transmission, or something else?

In any case, the accuracy of the modelling obviously depends on a lot of assumptions that might not eventuate. The Dept of Health's Omicron modelling (https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2...odelling_0.pdf) also states the following:

You'd want to hope their hospital system can handle it, because to an outsider, it sure as hell looks like they've got problems as it is!

I don't think any graph I've seen since this whole thing kicked off explains his absolute terror of Covid in WA as well as this one does...And remember - this is without a Covid impact on the WA health system...He must be such a proud State Daddy, overseeing a near 20-fold increase in ambulance ramping since he took office.:yuk:
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....12352604e8.jpg

The claim that ambulance ramping has increased "near 20-fold" is somewhat misleading, given the large variation in the data from month-to-month. The highest monthly ramping figure is certainly about 20 times the lowest figure, but that 'high score' only occurred once. That said, ambulance ramping has significantly increased since early 2017. The WA Liberal Party analysed the ramping data using the total annual ramping hours. On that basis, ramping increased from a total of 9819 hours in 2017, to 52,435 hours in 2021; over a five-fold increase. https://www.waliberal.org.au/state-n...ouble-in-2021/

Day 56 of the Omicron scarient , cases hospitalised dropped by 1 to a grand total of 21.
A total of 2,137 new infections recorded. No ICU admissions, no further fatalities.
Hospitals not in meltdown yet.