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 "Whos Who" in SteamRanger


We are often asked to outline the organisational structure of our historic railway, to identify the key personnel and to provide an outline of their responsibilities.

This page responds to those queries and hopefully puts faces to names that you may encounter on other parts of the website.

If you are interested in contributing to SteamRanger in any of the identified areas, please approach the responsible Board of Management member or team leader or email us at info@steamranger.org.au and your email will be onforwarded.



The legal entity operating the railway is the Australian Railway Historical Society (SA Division) Inc, referred to below as the "ARHS". The role of the ARHS in preserving the Victor Harbor line and restoring our historic rolling stock is described elsewhere on this website.
Click   [IMAGE]   to read that page.

The management structure of the ARHS was significantly altered several years ago and the overall affairs and property of the Division and SteamRanger are now managed by an Executive with four officer bearers elected bi-annually from and by the ARHS (SA) membership. In recognition of the essential support we receive from the SA Government, representatives of the SA Tourism Commission and Transport SA are ex-officio advisory menbers, not necessarily attending all meetings.

The information below relates to positions and current occupants



[IMAGE] Elected Executive Committee members are;

President
Barrie Hawes

Professionally, Barrie recently retired as an Estimator Administrator with the Mossop Group. He is an Associate of the Institute of Building and holds an unrestricted builders license.

He has been an active SteamRanger volunteer for 45 years and was previously an ARHS Councillor and a member of the Board of Management.

Barrie may be contacted at the email address
president@steamranger.org.au
Vice President
Bev Sawyer

Bev joined ARHS / SteamRanger in 1988, and over the years has worked in most train operations areas, initially in catering, then as a train manager, guard and station master and volunteer roster officer. With the closure of our full time office at Mt Barker in 2000 Bev took over a wide range of administrative responsibilities on a voluntary basis and most recently has also become one of our train booking team. She is an active member of the SHR Operations Committee

Treasurer
John Lambert

Professionally, John is the Chief Financial Officer for a private company and is a Fellow of CPA Australia. He has been employed in financial management for over 45 years and has been a SteamRanger volunteer for 30 years.

Prior to April 2005 John was a member of the Board of Management, filling the position of SteamRanger Accountant

Secretary
Ivan Marchant

Ivan has been a member of ARHS for 50 years, almost since its inception in SA, and in the 1970’s as a member of the Tours Committee was a tour organiser and booking officer . He organised memorable visits to the Signal Cabin at the end of platform five at North Terrace, Train Control both SAR and AN and the new Dry Creek Railcar Depot.

An avid railway photographer he comments "Train photography often occurs when the sun is shining" Ivan has been contributing to Catchpoint magazine for over 20 years and in 2002 edited the archival 110 page book "50 Years of the ARHS SA Division"

Ivan may be contacted at the email address
secretary@steamranger.org.au
 


[IMAGE] Board of Management

Our heritage railway operations are marketed as the SteamRanger Heritage Railway (SHR) managed by a Board of Management (BOM), responsible to the ARHS Executive. The BOM consists of the Executive members and five appointed functional Managers. The functional managers coordinate the activities of volunteers and staff in their assigned area and report as required to the Executive and the membership at large.

Membership of the Board of Management is reviewed by the incoming Executive following each bi-annual election, taking into account responses from members to a call for expressions of interest.

Current members of the Board are:


[IMAGE] Manager, Operations

Trevor Blight

The Manager Operations and Marketing oversights of rostering of operations personnel, collection and presentation of statistics regarding passengers carried and train movements, issuing of train notices and working timetables and control of appropriate documentation. He chairs the Operations Committee

Trevor has been a SteamRanger volunteer since 1970 and took up this role in 2013. Before retiring he was employed in the retail banking industry at a number of locations in South Australia. He is a qualified SHR Guard, Train Controller and Station Master and has been responsible for a range of "behind the scenes" operations roles, most significantly in catering, staff rostering and marketing areas.

Trevor may be contacted at the email address
operationsmanager@steamranger.org.au




[IMAGE] Manager, Marketing

Peter Michalak

The function of marketing our services through liaison with government, statewide and regional tourism bodies is a critical part of the Board of Management activities. In recent years this position has been undertaken by the Operations Manager prior to which outside consultants were sometimes involved. Peter was appointed to this role in November 2014 after being a SteamRanger volunteer since 2009, and has been involved with many facets of the organisation since joining us.

Outside of SteamRanger, Peter comes from an IT background, where he currently works as a System Administrator at an eastern suburbs college.

He is a qualified Station Master, recently qualified Guard, maintains SteamRanger's marketing website, and has assisted his wife Sarah in rostering during 2013/14.

He is also a member of the Operations Committee.




[IMAGE] Manager, Infrastructure

Infrastructure comprises condition monitoring, modification and repair of SteamRanger infrastructure assets under the broad categories of Signals and Telegraph, Bridges, Buildings, Stations, Platforms and Depots.

No applications were received for this position when applications were last sought.

Pending filling, duties are being shared by other members



[IMAGE] Manager, Track

Ray Green

Track maintenance an important function within SteamRanger. It comprises condition monitoring, modification and repair of SteamRanger track assets, regular track inspections, and acquisition and maintenance of track machinery.

Ray has been a member of the track and depot teams since moving to South Australia in 2004 and is also qualified as a guard, station master and ticket officer.

He was appointed to the Track Manager position in early 2011.






[IMAGE] Manager, Safety

Peter Charlson

The Manager Safety is responsible for the safe operation of services over the railway including safeworking and rail safety management, training, assessment, incident investigation and reporting to accrediting bodies.

Peter comes to SteamRanger after a long career in the electrical power generation and distribution industry.

He is a qualified locomotive engineman and active contributor to mechanical maintenance activities.




[IMAGE] Manager, Mechanical Services


Craig Dunstan

The Manager Mechanical Services is responsible for making available locomotives, railcars and rolling stock to satisfy operational requirements. Subordinate foremen will work as team leaders in each of these asset areas and to manage the Mt Barker and Goolwa workshops on a day to day basis.

Specific responsibilities of the position include preparation of crew rosters, maintenance and upkeep of machinery, equipment and tools, participation in periodic audits, inspections and accreditations, control of appropriate documentation and records and liaison with external bodies.

Craig was appointed to this position in 2006. For many years a committed member of the loco team, Craig is a trained automotive tradesman. He is employed in a senior position in the retail motor vehicle industry.

He is assisted in various day to day facets of his role by Shaun Cassidy as workshop fitter at Mt Barker, and long serving workshop volunteers Ian Johnston and Peter Charlson. Craig is Chair of the SHR Locomotive and Rollingstock Committee and a member of the Operations Committee.



[IMAGE] Manager, Human Resources


Andrew McDonough

The Manager Human Resources is responsible for overseeing training, assessment and record keeping in regard to OHS&W, First Aid and Safe Working across the organisation, including those activities specifically delegated to other managers.

The manager is also responsible for oversight of recruitment and induction of volunteers and for volunteer and staff welfare and sucession planning.

Andrew comes to this position after an earlier stint as Marketing Manager where he was responsible for introducing a number of valuable initiatives aimed at broadening our customer base.

He brings skills and enthusiasm gained as a senior manager for an major international appliance manufacturer and has quickly gained the confidence of volunteers as very approachable team leader in the often tricky field of human resource management. Andrew has a good "coal face" knowledge of SteamRanger operations through being a fully qualified guard, stationmaster and ticket officer









[IMAGE]Our Employees

SteamRanger has ongoing employees who provide a core resource in our workshop and in track maintenance

Daryl Simon

Daryl initially joined us in early 1993 as an out placed tradesman when the workshops facilities at the Defence Research Centre Salisbury were being wound down. In December 1993, he was appointed as a full time SHR employee and worked with Fitter-in Charge, Ron Williams, on a broad range of workshop tasks at both our Dry Creek and Mt Barker depots, specialising in later years in carriage restoration and maintenance of our diesel railcars.

After a period as a tradesman at Mt Barker Depot, Daryl has spent many years as a key member of our track infrastructure team, and in the last couple of years has assumed increasing responsibility for the rebuilding of 300/400 class railcars. He when required, works in the Signal and Telegraph Division.

He is a qualified diesel loco and railcar engineman.



Shaun "Butch" Cassidy

Shaun joined us in mid 2010 as Mt Barker workshop fitter, following a search to find a replacement for long serving fitter-in-charge Ron Williams who retired in late 2009. He comes from Queensland, where he was educated in the TAFE system and was then employed in a company who were contracted to undertake plant maintenance at the BP Refinery. Most of this work was associated with high pressure steam and turbines. He quickly progressed to a Fitter and Turner in the Maintenance Workshop. In 2007 BP took over their own maintenance work so Butch was then employed by BP.

He found out about our vacant position on the Internet and thought it sounded like a challenge. With his partner, Tania, coming from SA and desiring to return to SA to be closer to her family, the decision to join us seemed a good move. He has had little difficulty in transferring his skills from an oil refinery to a railway workshop. While his knowledge of steam locomotives is not deep, he is learning quite quickly.

Steve Stratford

Steve has been working for SteamRanger for 3 years as a member of the Infrastructure team

He initially worked full time supervising the work experience team upgrading the external appearance of Goolwa station and repairing the platform surface and fencing. He then moved to work on internally and externally upgrading Victor Harbor station. He is currently engaged on a range of infrastructure tasks including assisting Daryl with track rehabilitation along the line.




Oliver (Ollie) Lukins

The youngest member of our Loco Team is Oliver Lukins (Ollie for short) who has came to us at Mt Barker depot early in March 2004 - initially working 3 1/2 days per week on a work experience basis. Since starting he has always been very keen to learn as much as possible about how locomotives work and the servicing and maintenance of them - so much so that he took away as many notes and books as he could lay his hands on, plus some loco parts, to study at home. He attended a Safeworking Course to start his training program well before reaching the minimum permissible age in order to gain a better understanding of train operations. Because of his enthusiasm and commitment, Ollie regularly travelled on locomotives in support of his overall training

With the appointment of Shaun Cassidy as fitter-in-charge Ollie was formally taken on as an apprentice at Mt Barker which has now been completed and whilst now employed as a fully qualified fitter at Mt Barker, is continuing to gain gaining practical on-track experience as an observer / fireman. Congratulations Ollie!





[IMAGE] Certificates of Appreciation



The operation of the railway depends on the dedicated contributions of innumerable
other volunteers, many of whom have not chosen to nominate for Board, Council
or Committee positions.

To recognise long serving volunteers in both front line and "behind the scenes" positions,
SteamRanger began in April 2004 to award Certificates of Appreciation in three denominations,
recognising both length of service to the organisation and significant personal contributions.

Basic Certificates of Appreciation are presented to those with 4 years service,
Silver Certificates after 8 years and Gold Certificates with 16 years or more service
or significant contribution as an office holder or other major supporter of the organisation.

Gold and Silver award recipients are entitled to special travel privileges on most SHR trains.
Silver Award recipients and their partners can travel free on all qualifying trains for a period
of one year from grant of a silver award, and Gold Award recipients, Life Members
and their partners can travel free on all qualifying trains for life.

The 2016 awards brought the total awards made to
       58 Certificates of Appreciation,        55 Silver Awards and        91 Gold Awards
with a significant number of holders of Silver and Gold awards now retired.

Awards made in 2016 were
Gold Award - John Heyer, Mathew Job
Silver Award - Kym Goodsell
Certificate of Appreciation - Jake Barber, Ashleigh Bennett, John Cutts, James Emmett, Ben Graefe, Leon Parsons
Dale Patyi, Maria Smith, Peter Lemar, Terry Gifford

CLICK HERE to see awards held by currently serving volunteers
This table also includes the names of four longserving volunteers who had been awarded national awards
made by the national ATHRA organisation before it was terminated.
and
CLICK HERE to see awards held by now retired volunteers

Use the      button at top left of the downloaded file window to return to this page after reading or printing the award charts.



Important Proviso

In interpreting these charts it should be noted that the award scheme was only introduced in 2004 and a significant number of older volunteers who had retired by then are not included. In some cases early volunteers had worked with us from the early 1970s when the railway was first commissioned.

For interest the following photo shows the graduates from the very first 1970 ARHS Safe Working course conducted by SAR Inspector Keith Kraft
(front and centre with tie) Of this group of some 14 volunteers it is interesting to note that six are still very active SHR workers today - three having contributed in senior SHR management roles and three still contributing as active loco footplate workers!

And just for the record the "originals" in this graduation photo"" are
(seated in front L to R) *Trevor Blight, Jack Forbes, *Ian Johnston, SAR Instructor Keith Kraft, Dean Harvey, and Vic Kollosche.
And at the back;*Andrew Gramp, *Peter Soar, Brian Busch front), Ralph Lee, John Smythe, *Brenton Job (front), Peter Hoye,
Graham Crack, and *Bob Green

Six marked * are still active workers on the SHR in 2016




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