Queensland Rail knocks back offer of help amid staffing crisis

QUEENSLAND Rail has shunned a lifeline cast by Melbourne’s rail operator to ease its driver shortage calamity by helping speed up the training of hundreds of new recruits.

QUEENSLAND Rail has shunned a lifeline cast by Melbourne’s rail operator to ease its driver shortage calamity by helping speed up the training of hundreds of new recruits.

Melbourne’s Metro Trains offered to come to QR’s rescue on November 8 by supplying driver trainers to help clear a major backlog in training.

It is understood the offer involved recruits travelling to Melbourne, or drivers being flown to Brisbane, to help deliver training modules not affected by differences in the states’ rail systems.

The offer came after QR admitted late last month it was desperately short of driver trainers, with the first available spot in its training school not opening until July 2017.

It has exacerbated a critical shortage of drivers that has forced hundreds of services to be axed.

Melbourne’s Metro Trains offered to come to QR’s rescue on November 8 by supplying driver trainers to help clear a major backlog in training. Picture: Eugene Hyland

QR knocked back the offer to instead try to solve the delays in-house although a QR spokeswoman last night said the offer “has not been ruled out”.

Opposition Transport spokesman Andrew Powell seized on the knock-back as evidence the unions were in control of staffing at QR after internal hiring rules were bolstered in October.

Mr Powell said it was “yet more evidence of the stranglehold the Palaszczuk Government allows union bosses to have over QR’s operations”.

QR’s acting chief executive Neil Scales has hired top HR lawyer Robin Franklin to help with union negotiations on a new traincrew enterprise agreement. He is understood to be working as a consultant, which sources say can cost up to $400 an hour. Mr Franklin previously worked as an HR chief at QR.

Mr Scales also hired crisis management specialist Kym Charlton this month. Transport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said 231 driver applicants had passed interviews and 227 guards were in training.