ruggedpeak
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Everything posted by ruggedpeak
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FB comment from a local about the Jacobite at 1425 hours: "....I believe it is presently stuck somewhere near Glenfinnan holding up the sprinter..." Several likes suggest perhaps others aware. Looked on RTT, first run of the season so likely to be teething troubles. https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C10935/2024-04-15/detailed 2Y62 1410 Mallaig to Fort William Departing today operated by West Coast Railways This service is cancelled. This service was cancelled due to a problem with a steam locomotive (ME).
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LSL announce their trip https://www.facebook.com/share/p/HSLqmkhRhv3FvpyS/ We are delighted to present a day return journey over the world-famous West Highland Jacobite line, featuring some of the most spectacular scenery in Scotland as we cross magnificent bridges and viaducts offering views of tumbling waterfalls, peaceful lochs, and the Isle of Skye. The train departs Fort William at 08.50 for the magnificent 84-mile round trip on the ‘Jacobite’ line to Mallaig - Passing Ben Nevis we travel along the shoreline of Loch Eil and at Glenfinnan cross the viaduct featured in the ‘Harry Potter’ movies offering stunning vistas down Loch Shiel and regarded as the most spectacular view in Britain. There will be a short break in the pretty fishing port of Mallaig from 10.50 to 11.30 before retracing our outward route past the white sands of Morar with an arrival back in Fort William at 13.20. Tickets are available as pay on the day from staff on the train and are priced at £40 per person for adults and £20 per person for under 16’s.
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I've just found that Mr Wolmar did a piece in the Spectator entitled "Don’t blame health and safety for killing the Harry Potter steam train" a couple of weeks ago. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dont-blame-health-and-safety-for-killing-the-harry-potter-steam-train/ He doesn't mince his words: "Should we be tempted to regard the safety risks on a few puffa trains as being nothing much to worry about, it should be noted that West Coast Railways has form on potential dangers of this sort. The company was involved in what, in my 30 years of writing about the railways, came close to becoming one of the worst disasters in British railway history." I will let readers guess what he is referring to.........
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The upshot of all this is presumably that WCRC will use Mk2def's and everyone will be happier, especially the punters who no longer have to look through steamed up windows on the rare occasions it is cold/damp/raining on the West Coast of Scotland 🤣 . WCRC won't have to employ door stewards. ORR will no doubt do inspections etc, meanwhile LSL have got their foot in the door up there. No one at DfT or ORR was ever going to put their career on the block for WCRC, the naive MP's have been put back in their box, the PR stunts have generated as much anti-WCRC sentiment as pro, especially in Scotland. So what will WCRC have achieved at the end of this? A rhetorical question of course. And of course there is still time for WCRC to go all in and snatch total disaster from the jaws of defeat, who would bet against them doing really dumb even at this stage? Definitely need some TV company to a fly on the wall documentary about WCR's management......
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Well if the sea is so safe why is there a 200 year organisation that does nothing but rescue people at sea, many of whom started the day on a beach but ended up not on it? You'd have thought in between chuntering and posting in the DM comments section they'd be watching TV, where there is even a BBC series about the RNLI on repeat during the daytime.
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In other door related news.... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/12/driverless-dlr-train-london-doors-open/ (paywall) Reportedly the DLR train sped towards Bank apparently. From the passenger comments the train was slow to leave Shadwell then stopped. Then it started again and carried on with the door open. Of course there is no driver or door stewards on the DLR. TfL stated there is a staff member on every train, but as DLR units have no connecting corridor and often work in multiple that's as much use as a chocolate teapot if they are in the other unit. Did anyone push the emergency button, no of course not, they were too busy filming it...... I always liked the DLR towards Bank as the tunnel lights reminded me of when the fighters launched in Battlestar Galactica.....
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The Telegraph has just regurgutated the WCRC line and headlined it "Steam trains face end of the line in Britain after row over slamming doors", https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/11/steam-trains-face-end-line-britain-row-over-slamming-doors/ paywall The usual WCRC #stuff but concludes: A Department for Transport spokesman said: “The ORR is the independent rail safety regulator, and it would therefore be inappropriate for the department or ministers to intervene in their decision to refuse a further exemption to West Coast Railways, which was upheld by the High Court.”
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The 25 mph limit is irrelevant to the WCRC issue anyway, it relates to the Light Railway regulations for the entire operating environment, used by heritage railways to avoid the cost of full scale compliance. The WHL is not a light railway. Full regulations apply to all aspects, so non-CDL stock is not permitted except by exemption.
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Yes, perhaps someone experienced in railway PR work can advise. In relation to your regulation question, the regs you previously linked to https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-03/rsr-1999-guide-to-operation-of-mark-one-type-and-hinged-door-rolling-stock.pdf are clear IMHO under this section: What is meant by ‘a person operating a train or rolling stock’? 1.8 Regulation 2(3) makes it clear that regulations 3 and 4 apply to persons who operate trains or rolling stock in the course of a business or other undertaking, whether or not for profit. This definition includes a company and in this document the term ‘train operator’ is used to describe someone with obligations under regulation 2(3). 1.9 The regulation includes operations which are run on a voluntary basis, where there is no employment or self-employment and it also makes it clear that a self-employed train driver is not an 'operator' This means the regs apply to anyone operating a train or rolling stock' (i.e. WCRC), 'whether or not for profit' and where there is 'no employment or self-employment'. WCRC Mk1's full of journos is a train comprising rolling stock, being operated for profit or not (you can debate the profit issue either way, PR stunts are to generate profits ultimately, but the issue is irrelevant here since the regs apply irrespective of whether there is a profit motive). So my reading is that to operate Mk1 stock for a PR junket requires full regulatory compliance, so either Mk1's have CDL or an exemption in order to be used for a press trip. There is no leeway under the regs from CDL if someone is using Mk1's as 'rolling stock', which stuffing them full of journos is. If I have missed another clause that provides an exemption do let me know! More interesting is this bit at the end (page 11 & 12) which clarifies the position very clearly for those who think WCRC are being hard done by: 4.5 ORR expects any such application to demonstrate the requirements set out in ORR document (Railway Safety Regulations 1999, Assessment and Guidance Manual for Exemption Applications3) are met by either: (a) Setting out how the means of controlling risks associated with the operation of hinged doors other than the use of CDL as required under regulation 5: I. are in line with the hierarchy of controls within the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999; II. provide an alternative engineering solution not relying on individual human action to lock each door, that ensures doors are secondarily locked in position at all times the carriage is in the course of its journey; and III. is supported by a quantified risk assessment to demonstrate as a minimum, equivalence to CDL as a means of risk control; or: where fitment of a form of CDL to rolling stock with hinged doors is not achievable by the 31 March 2023 date; that a time bound programme of work is in hand for such fitment. In such cases a limited period of exemption may be considered to allow the programme to be completed, so long as other methods of secondary door locking are in place and being operated effectively in the meantime. Anyone who has read the various documents and utterances from WCRC and MP's will be aware of how WCRC has not entirely achieved the requirements clearly set out by the ORR and why therefore ORR would be in breach of its own guidance and policy to issue exemptions. We don't need to revisit those. If people want to disagree with ORR guidance documents, based upon statutory regulations, that is probably best done somewhere else by those with the necessary expertise and competence. There are very few on here who have those pre-requisites. It is irrelevant to the main issue of operating a compliant train service. It is just a distraction and howling at the moon. The critical issue is that WCRC have not complied with the documented requirements of the ORR and rather than do this they are trying various routes to not do so. CDL has been known about for 18 years, this guidance was issued in 2021. CDL is affordable and it is technically feasible, a Judge has confirmed so as has the real world experience of other operators.
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a few practical issues to sort out, perhaps slide into the cocoon and then some robotised stacking system on platform. The concourse can become a sorting area bit like airport baggage handling system. Could reduce injuries/deaths in a train crash but might have to concede some loss through robot malfunction etc.
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the fundamental issue is often even getting a seat, so belts are irrelevant unless like a plane TOC's are guaranteeing a seat for every passenger, which leads to..... as has been said earlier, every train service would effectively be a Pullman, VSOE service then. Not sure that will go down well with the travelling public.... Of course you could make everyone lie in a small protected cocoon chamber and stack them into an upgraded freight wagon (get loads more people in then..) or replace the seats with rollercoaster style seating and restraint systems, would improve things dramatically......
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Would a press junket in a train that does not meet current passenger safety requirements be allowed under a competent risk assessment? I would be curious as to whether an insurer would accept that risk. What would be the rationale for assuming the press are any different from fare paying passengers when it comes to behaviour or exposure to risk? They are (or used to be) well documented consumers of alcohol and will take risks to get stories. The car companies know a thing or two about the risks of press launches with written off vehicles, trying to get journo's out of the country before they get arrested, stopping the bad news stories leaking etc. Any risk assessment involving journo's (and even more dangerous, social media types taking risks for their Insta, whilst on the Bernina Express recently a young lady was hanging out the windows repeatedly whilst a chap was filming her...) is going to have to assume they are at least as risky as normal punters. You can also guarantee someone will test the doors whilst the train is moving to make a point on social media....... Push, kick, "See, these doors are perfectly sa.............." None of this actually precludes WCRC running a press train, or maybe one full of supportive MP's......
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Trains The use of seat belts in trains has been investigated. Concerns about survival space intrusion in train crashes and increased injuries to unrestrained or incorrectly restrained passengers led researchers to discourage the use of seat belts in trains. "It has been shown that there is no net safety benefit for passengers who choose to wear 3-point restraints on passenger-carrying rail vehicles. Generally, passengers who choose not to wear restraints in a vehicle modified to accept 3-point restraints receive marginally more severe injuries."[127] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#cite_note-127 A study published the same year by Britain’s Rail Safety and Standards Board {link in the article] reached a somewhat more positive verdict on seatbelts, but did not recommend them. “It was found that injury outcomes for passengers choosing to wear restraints were substantially improved,” the study said. “However, there was a slight general worsening of injury outcomes for passengers choosing not to wear restraints as they impacted the modified (stiffened) seat.” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/us/amtrak-crash-raises-question-of-seatbelts-on-trains.html Took about 10 seconds of Googling.
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"LSL, which operates under the same safety regulations as WCR, have progressively upgraded their trains during annual refurbishments. Its chief engineer says it is about £23,000 to upgrade a carriage to compliance. Jonathan Rawlinson said: “Over the years when we have refurbished our carriages we have made sure they are compliant." A very different approach from James Shuttleworth at WCRC. The world is moving on in railway safety. WCR are the laggards, time for them to make way for those who are forward looking and actually put safety first by investing in it rather than in lawyers and PR to not do it.
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Roaming the railways of Romandie and beyond - Geneva/Genève/Genf
ruggedpeak replied to ruggedpeak's topic in Swiss Railways
I love the mobile substations (Fahrbares Unterwek), they look like the cross between a battleship gun turret on a wagon and some giant mutant Dalek! Found a wiki page about them https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrbares_Unterwerk#Schweiz Firefox has an auto translation function so can translate the page. Essentially these wagons arose during the war when it was realised the substations were the weak link in the railway - track and OHL could be replaced/repaired quickly, but a bombed out substation couldn't, and at the time it was reported much of the steam and diesel motive power was end of life so couldn't replace electric. Post war new versions were acquired as stand-ins during repairs or refurbishment of fixed installations, but over time SBB found that using them was quicker and easier than doing a full fixed installation. SBB run their own power network, plugging into the national grid but operating on 16.7 Hertz. So these wagons allow SBB to connect to the national grid anywhere the grid is near the railway and where there is a siding. Reportedly 17 in use. We know there are ones at Le Day and Romont and I have passed one just north of Roche (VD) on the mainline between Montreux and Martigny (you can see it on Google Maps), so they are around. -
Revisited my thread and photos, on 27th October 2023 it was still showing as Broc Fabrique, on both the train and platform indicator. As per my post the other day (2 April 2024) at Romont it is now definitely Chocolaterie! So December fits, really good news the visitor numbers are up. I think there was only one Domino unit in Cailler Chocolat livery originally, but as per my thread there are clearly now at least two, working in tandem. The layout progress is excellent, very impressive and enjoying the posts.
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It's like 'Have I Got News for You' odd one out round!! My guess all the English areas mentioned have heritage railways that may have some loose connection to WCRC. The Scottish MP's are a bit less gullible than their English counterparts, know the real story, and are probably as p1ssed off with WCRC as many of their constituents.