Accessing the MINOS Areas

Access to the underground areas is made only via the MINOS Shaft elevator, within the MINOS Surface Building. The MINOS Building has 4 exterior doors and 1 large roll-up door, all of them locked at all times. One of the exterior doors leads into the Elevator Alcove and is opened with an Elevator Key. The other doors are opened with a Building key. This diagram shows the locations of the doors and which keys open which doors.

Elevator Keys and Building Keys

The Shaft elevator sits within an enclosed space inside the MINOS Building, the elevator alcove, which has two entry doors, one from within the Building and the other from outside the Building on the east patio. These doors are locked at all times. An Elevator Key for these doors can be obtained from the MINOS Control Room, WH-12-NW.

Keys are given only to those who have both of the following -

• you have taken or renewed the NuMI Underground Safety training within the past year; see Underground Training for more information
• you have, or are a part of, an approved Work Permit, or you are the escort for an approved Tour; use those links for more information

Both your training status and your work/tour Permits will be checked by the Shifter in MINOS CR before they give you an Elevator Key.

Special training is not required to obtain a Building key. The MINOS Control Room has a few keys available, generally for the use of people escorting a tour. People who expect to make frequent access to the Building and underground can request their own Building key, using the standard PPD Key Request form. Ask the Areas Coordinator for the key number, and where to take the form for signatures.

Work Groups and Tour Groups

Anyone doing any form of work underground, including visual inspection of equipment, must check out a key, and is part of a work group. Untrained collaborators can go underground with a work group, but they cannot do anything more than observe or record (no helping, no handling of tools). There can be no more than 2 untrained for every 1 trained person in the work group, and the untrained people must have a Fermi ID badge and completed GERT and other basic training required to obtain the badge.

Larger numbers of untrained collaborators, and members of the general public, can be taken underground as a tour group. By definition, no work is performed by the tour escort(s) or by anyone in the group.

Escorts, whether escorting a tour group, or escorting untrained collaborators, should be familiar with what is required of them. See Escort Information for the details.

If your work group is accessing the Muon Alcoves, then you also need Rad Worker and Controlled Access training, and you need an additional Interlock key from the Main Control Room. Tours are not conducted into these areas.

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General Access Rules and Procedures

If you have taken the NuMI Underground Training, then you should know the general rules. The following list contains these, plus the key checkout procedure, plus answers to some commonly asked questions - -

• Hardhats required. Hats are available in the MINOS Building, usually on the picnic table in the High Bay area.
• Carry a flashlight. Most of the keys have a small LED light attached, and while this is sufficient, you should make a habit of carrying your own small light. Tour escorts must carry more than the LED light on the key.
• No open-toed shoes.
• If you are part of a work group performing detector installation, involving tool use and/or working around heavy equipment, then additional safety gear may be required, such as safety glasses and steel-toed shoes. In this case, your work group should have a written Work Plan or JHA, and you should be familiar with it.
• Detector maintenance work, like swapping electronics, generally does not require any additional safety gear.
• You or someone with your group must submit a Work Permit Request. Let others in your group know which Permit Number is assigned to your work group.
• Check out a key in the MINOS Control Room, in person. The Shifter gives you the key. Tell the Shifter which Work Permit or Tour you are associated with. Fill in the Key Log with all the requested information.
• Badge in/out at the Badge Board in the Elevator Alcove by taking an orange badge and replacing it with your Fermilab ID. Don't forget to return the orange badge when you exit. Badging in for tour groups is slightly different - see Escort Information.
• For normal operations, a maximum of 26 people can be underground at one time - this is the number of orange badges we have on the Badge Board. Up to 50 people can be underground at once, but only for specially arranged large group tours, such as a Lab Open House.
• If there are no orange badges available, then the maximum number of people are already underground, and you have to wait. The Badge Board has the final word on getting underground. Generally we hand out only as many keys as there are badges, and MINOS Control Room has only 26 keys; but in fact there are more keys than badges. Some keys are given to certain groups for emergency access: the Fire Dept, FESS, and Radiation Safety, for example. It is possible for you to have been given a key by MINOS CR when the maximum limit underground has been reached.
• If you just came upstairs to use the restroom and are returning underground immediately (i.e. you are not leaving the Building), you can hold onto your orange badge. If you are heading out for lunch, then badge out, and badge back in when you return.
• The elevator holds a maximum of 13 people. Fewer, if you are moving equipment in the elevator.
• If there are already at least 2 people underground, and you are alone and want to join them, it is perfectly all right to ride the elevator by yourself.
• At least one Escort must always accompany untrained collaborators or tourists in the elevator.
• Two-person rule - there must be at least 2 people underground during any access.
• If you get back upstairs, retrieve your badges, and then notice that there is one badge left (that person was perhaps working on their own, out of your sight), then you must send 2 people back down to find that person and tell them they have to come out. Or call, if you know which phone they were sitting near. Don't assume they already exited and just forgot to pick up their ID. Verify.
• Return keys promptly to the MINOS Control Room. Enter your "time back" into the Key Log. If you came up for lunch and are returning underground immediately afterward, you can hold onto your key. If you expect to be away from underground for more than 1 hour, then return the key.
• Contractors (electricians, riggers) are issued a key for all day. For multi-day contractor work, the Task Manager can request a group of keys to keep at the MINOS Building, for checkout to the contractors. We are paying contractors by the hour, and we don't waste their time by sending them to the High Rise for keys - they report directly to the MINOS Building.

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Training Information

The FNAL ES&H NuMI Underground Safety class is offered every other Tuesday at 9am. It is preferable to sign up for the class in advance, but walk-ins might be accepted, if other people signed up for the class (so it is being given on that particular day) and if the class is not full.

The first time you take the training, it must be in person. The training is valid for one year. To renew your training, you can take a test online instead of sitting in the class. You do not have to wait a year to renew the training online. If you visit Fermilab infrequently, then renew whenever you are on-site, and the training is valid for a year from that renewal date. The link for the online test is reached on the same web page used to sign up for the class - follow the steps below to reach this page.

You can sign up online, for the in-person class or the online test, via the ES&H TRAIN web pages - you need to have a Fermi ID to do so. Unfortunately, you can only view these pages from an on-site IP address, either by being on-site, or by using VPN software when off-site (available from Computing Div). You can ask your collaboration Spokespersons or Run Coordinator to sign you up, if you are unable to reach the pages.

To get to the TRAIN pages following these steps - -

• Go to the FNAL-At-Work page. Select "Divisions and Sections" on the left-hand side, and then select "ES&H".
• From the ES&H main page, on the right-hand side, select "Training". This goes to the Employee Training page.
• From the Employee Training page, on the left-hand side, select "Class Schedule".
• This brings up a forms web page; fill in the form with your FNAL ID number, select Employee or Visitor as appropriate, and select the "Safety Training" category. Submit.
• The next page will present a list of safety classes, one of which is NuMI/MINOS Underground Safety Training. Select that class link.
• The next page will present links to the Study Material for this training, a link to the online test, and below that a list of classes currently scheduled.
• If you are taking the online test, you may want to read through the study materials as a refresher. Then click the Go to Online Test. You will be sent a link to the test via email.
• If you are signing up for an in-person class, scroll down through the list of class times, and click on the Enroll link in one of the offerings to sign up for that particular class. You will receive an email confirming the class you signed up for.

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