Pod-Trak puts measures in place to continue working during COVID-19

Engineering specialist Pod-Trak is continuing its work on vital railway projects, despite the challenges it is facing because of the COVID-19 crisis.

The company continues to carry out several major projects, including:

• OLE works at a number of bridge structures along the Shenfield and Southend Victoria route for J Murphy & Sons Limited.
• Essential maintenance works in Kent and Wessex with faulty IBJ replacements and telecoms migration works.
• Construction of a new DNO at Hillside to support the power supply upgrade ahead of the introduction of new trains for Merseyrail for VolkerRail.

Paul O’Donnell, MD and founder, has praised the teams who he says are planning and delivering tirelessly in these uncertain times.

He said: “Our priority is the safety and wellbeing of our colleagues, and we have put in place multiple new systems of work in accordance with the Government guidance.

“It has been a challenge as basically overnight a lot of sites shut, which put a lot of strain on business. But we are quite resilient in the way we work, so we were able to set up quickly to work from home.

“We have done a lot of work around social distancing and how we could keep the sites going and keep our staff safe.

“We have had to furlough a lot of staff – around 50 – mainly from the overhead line teams. This is the area we are struggling to find a solution to being able to work to the government COVID-19 guidelines.

“They are working in baskets up in the air and the basket is only 1.5 metres wide and you need 2 people in them. This is the problem, so we are looking at other options, such as masks, and different air flow systems that we can put in place.

“Another part of the majority of the furloughed staff coming mainly from the overhead lines teams is the fact Transport for London took a blanket ban across all their sites to shut everything. We had quite a few overhead line staff working on TfL projects, so we had no other option than to furlough staff.

“We are a resilient business though and I feel the decisions we have taken the work we are doing now will leave us in a position that when we get on the other side we will be stronger.”