ruggedpeak

The debt thing is worrying but there is a lot going on. New heavyweight Sales Director with serious experience and connections in the world's biggest toy market and hardcore ecommerce experience. Can see that might make our Northern friends interested in a punt. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaun-dubberley/ And Airfix now in a US equivalent of Hobbycraft with over 1,200 stores https://www.linkedin.com/posts/Hornby-hobbies-ltd_hornbyhobbies-airfix-modeling-activity-7188114001937997825-c2Li? Looks like things are moving forward big time.

Calm down, you were the one suggesting there would be a 20 page pile in because it was WCRC, just pointing out the irony of the most prolific poster by some margin making that complaint. And maybe you put yourself in the cross hairs continuing to making false allegations and smears against others. Now apparently it's a 'mob'.... surprised you haven't gone the full monte and blamed the Illuminati or lizard people for trying to take down WCRC. You are the one baiting, read your own posts including the one above. Don't dish it out if you're not big enough to take it

I'm not 100% clear on what point you are trying to make but in the spirit of discussion I would say: 1) what is the evidence base of saying "they usually crop up in local papers.." - is that based on knowing about all the incidents locally and then seeing how many reported? I have been involved in plenty of incidents that did not get reported when I have searched for any info. 2) what do you mean by 'low risk' and how does that play into the wider risk assessment process, which is not just about risk? The intention with CDL is to deliver on a clear and thought out decision that people dying or being injured due to issues with slam door stock should be eliminated, and that the cost of doing so is regarded as appropriate and proportionate. 3) What safety authorities are sometimes trying to achieve, and CDL is a good example, is pointless deaths and serious injuries occuring to innocent people who are not or should not be in a hazardous environment. Being hit by a coach door or falling out of one on amoving train is a horrible, pointless, and avoidable way of dying. That is totally different from working in a high risk environment like PW on a live railway for example might result in death or injury, but that is not pointless, it is hazardous but if correctly RA'd etc it is necessary. I have worked in hazardous environments and understood that if things went wrong the outcome would be bad but accepted that. What I really didn't want to happen or accept was something dumb happening to me like some muppet opennng a train door and smacking me on the head resulting in life changing injuries. Why is preventing stupid deaths and injuries a bad thing, especially when it is entirely affordable by those paying for it?

👍 Even fatal injuries often don't get reported in the media. I spent many years dealing with fatal and serious injury RTC's in London and often they would not even rate a mention in the local paper unless there was something 'extra' to make it noteworthy, something I found rather sad. Just because people don't hear about it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Possibly, mostly by one person trying to stick up for the poor, innocent, hard done-by WCRC it would appear.....

Agree, but a court will want to know what they are doing running non-compliant stock in the consist if there is an accident etc. There appears to be no legitimate business reason for running unusable empty coaches, that will cost to operate and increase fuel costs etc. A longer train may make an incident involving speed and mass related physics like momentum potentially worse than it needed to be. Tricky one to explain and an accusation of playing games with the ORR could be hard to defend. Courts will look into exactly what people were up to rather than what they said they were up to, and make judgements such as "you tried to flex the rules by putting non-passenger compliant coaches interspersed with compliant ones for reasons X, Y and Z, but based upon the detail of the regulations and the evidence of your actions and motives as provided it appears that in fact those non-compliant coaches were arguably in passenger use under the regs despite being locked out.." It is a dangerous game to play, Judges aren't stupid and can and do extrapolate when required. Also what is the rationale for inserting several of them in between coaches that are used by the public on a train in public service? Why not all together at one end, if the Mk1's are locked out of use and passengers can't get from one Mk2 to another? Again from a broader safety perspective this does not seem sensible? Not exactly climate friendly hauling several deliberately empty coaches back and forth using coal power either! All rhetorical questions...maybe there is a sensible reason for all of this, it just eludes some of us mortals..........🤪

I agree with your first point, locking the doors out of use does not make them "defective", it makes them isolated as you say. Doesn't stop some genius damaging them to then make them 'defective'..... Either way, locking the doors out of use does not disapply Regulation 5 and CDL. So in relation to Reg 5, by my interpretation, locking the doors is of no consequence. Those regs, including Reg 5, on CDL apply to WCRC Mk1 stock. There is no door related exemption i.e. even if you welded the doors shut or plated them over, the coaches are still "Mark 1 rolling stock" as legally defined under the 1999 Regs and the Mk1 guidance 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 Also under the 1999 regs there is a definition of "rolling stock with hinged doors that does not have central locking". Again this is a very clear legal definition - WCRC Mark 1 coaches are "rolling stock with hinged doors that does not have central locking." So their coaches meet both the separate definitions. Under the guidance there is no leeway, exemption or anything else that means locking the doors changes anything. Under this latter 'rolling stock with hinged doors definition' you could get around it by removing/plating over the doors and removing the hinges. However it would be futile because even with no doors at all 😲 the coaches still meet the "Mark 1 rolling stock" definition. This is important because the 1999 Regs prohibit the use of Mark 1 and hinged door stock on the network without CDL under Reg 5, unless there is an exemption. WCRC have no exemption, therefore their Mk1 stock can't be used. Unless there is some other unknown regulation that overrules and disapplies the main 1999 regs? So the doors are a red herring, you can do what you like with the doors, but if its a Mk1 and/or rolling stock with hinged doors (and WCRC's are both), regardless of them being locked/defective or whatever, you can't run it without CDL unless you have an Exemption. Full stop. The End. In his comments Richard I think changed tack part way through his answer about risk assessments. He started suggesting that operators can do things subject to local RA's, but then basically changed his tune mid-answer by refering to RSSB and needing a "pre-existing" derogation of some sort. I think he realised that from a practical and legal standpoint there is a huge difference between taking a few doors out of public use on an RMB and making them staff only (but presumably still usable), and locking out all the doors in a normal passenger coach. The former seems reasonable subject to the usual RA's etc, the latter less. Is it credible, let alone safe or legal, for a normal passenger coach, especially one with poor crash protection, to be in a train containing passengers when all the doors in a number of the coaches are locked out? I'd definitely like to see the RA making that case. And locking the doors out does not, under these legal definitions, suddenly make these coaches a form of wagon/non-passenger stock. There is plenty of case law around this sort of thing in other sectors, and a court would most likely need convincing with other actions such as removing all the seats if that argument was going to be used. But again, a seatless Mk1 is still both a Mk1 and rolling stock with hinged doors.....so you'd have to remove the seats and the doors to try and argue it is no longer a Mk1 coach, and frankly a court will probably see it for what it is. I am not an expert on rail safety but do know a thing or two about both fire safety in buildings and vehicle collisions. Removing or restricting doors and other means of escape means avoidable deaths are likely if something goes badly wrong. Mid speed collision on the Jacobite that does not push the coaches off the track but jams them together, not helped by their weak structure, and the end gangways are blocked. Anyone who happens to be in that space now requires rescuing as there is no means of normal self-evacuation even if they are capable of doing so. Conversely if people can't exit the doors of one of the Mk2's but can get through of the gangway to the adjoining Mk1.......they can't get out of that as the doors are locked. Safety is supposed to not only reduce incidents but also maximise survival for those affected and maximise their ability to get to safety. Anything that reduces the ability to evacuate is a "bad thing", like locking all the doors. We don't yet know how or if WCRC is ensuring that no one is in these Mk1 coaches when the train is running, that presumably is covered by their RA. Frankly, however you look at it, locking doors of several passenger coaches spread throughout a train is, at best, not very smart. Big crash, headline reads "Nearly half* of doors of doomed Harry Potter train locked out of use". Good luck with that in court. But again, it appears to be academic since the Mk1's should not be on the network in any event if the intrepretation of the Regs is correct. In the same way that the doors being defective or not, and whether they are allowed to used in service under the defects part of the 1999 regs is irrelevant. There may be further discussions about are the doors defective or isolated, and if so can it leave the depot etc, but they are irrelevant until the question of what the is legal basis of WCRC running its Mark 1's on the network is. Happy to be shot down, but there is an apparent case that these coaches should not be on the rails at all. Certainly very interested to know what the legal basis for their use is. *or whatever the correct proportion is.

The turntable is now under the new Library and small industrial units west of the station, location of where it used to be on this extract https://maps.nls.uk/view/75982706 Definitely looks too wee for a Black 5 !

A quick synopsis of their comments, based upon the limited information available to them: WCRC is operating Mk1s without a reg 5 exemption and with the doors locked out of use. Doors locked out of use are still doors, and appear to be deemed 'defective doors' rather than them no longer being doors Under the RSSB regs a train with defective doors should not leave the depot unless there is some form of pre-existing RSSB derogation/exemption Does not appear to derogation or exemption in place This leaves the question as to whether it is legal to have the Mk1's in a train on the network at all........

OK, totes confused as I just ordered the Mk5 DCC chip before they sell out (!) and went straight through to the checkout, so no idea how/when I clicked on anything else and I can't find any tickbox even now. No worries, it seems to have gone away, thanks for responding. Have a good weekend. 😊

Something has changed the website in the last few minutes as I did it twice and both times the carbon thing appeared out of nowhere, once when I ordered and then again when I created a new order before I posted to the forum. Each time I just selected one product, went to cart and straight to the checkout where it was sitting in the cart bit on the right. It did not appear on the cart page at all. Right now there is no check box I can see on the cart page (see below). So not sure what is going on but I definitely did not tick any boxes to get the carbon thing to appear. The good news is having repeated the process the carbon thing no longer appears. Cart page just now. If this issue has been removed then great work addressing it so quickly. I was logged in when I did the first two orders (one paid and completed, one aborted) so if you want to check the web log and tell me I did something wrong then no worries, always happy to eat humble pie if I've messed up!

If you order items as normal, the climate donation does not appear in your cart when you see it before you go to the checkout. It is only when you get to the actual checkout page that it mysteriously appears, eve nthough you have already checked the cart. To then get rid of it you have to go back out of the checkout and into the cart again to remove it, to then re-enter the checkout. I have just checked this as I had the scam item appear automatically without warning or consent in my cart just now and ended up paying it as I couldn't see how to remove it in the checkout. So saying it is "completely optional" is technically correct but somewhat disingenuous. It is added without warning or consent and requires several additional steps, which are not made clear, to remove it. I thought that sort of behaviour had been ruled illegal after Sports Direct and their infamous mugs? It is certainly not ethical retail practice.

Whilst at Cornavin today they removed a Passenger Control Car from a service and left it sitting in platform 4, whereupon Tmf 232 303 promptly appeared from Montbrillant, coupled up and took it away back towards Montbrillant so as not to delay the following service. Was a pretty speedy turnaround.

You can press any of the buttons on either side of the carriage and the correct door will open on arrival regardless of which side it arrives on.

As an aside, one thing a lot of Swiss trains, trams and buses have is a pre-arrival facility on fully powered doors. If you push the door button whilst the unit is in motion that door will open as soon as the driver releases the doors at the stop/station. It also lights the button or a separate light by the door to indicate this in operation. I don't know if this helps dwell times but suspect it does have some impact. It is something I always use as it means I don't have to think about waiting to push the button until the door release has been actuated (as against when the train stops!). I get irritated by stock not fitted with! I don't recall it in the UK but I have only used a limited range of stock so may be in use. Anyway, it is a good thing as you can approach the door push the button and know the door will open immediately.

One upside of the this latest WCRC fiasco is that CDL is now widely known about, seems like any reference to railway coaching stock now includes a CDL comment, whether it is Bachmann announcing imminent WCRC coaches coming into stock, Facebook posts or other social and normal media. ESR were highlighting their passenger stock training work for a TOC on Facebook and included confirmation that their Mk2 and Mk3 coaching stock is CDL fitted in the post! A large number of people including a growing portion of the general public are now aware of and expecting CDL on their coaches....so any hope of WCRC avoiding CDL and getting more exemptions are well and truly dead as their own publicity and PR stunts have made sure everyone is aware that coaches on the mainline need CDL and know it is a safety issue. It is difficult not to admire the genius of their entire strategy....🤣

Same here in Switzerland - on the mainline, the single decker Eurocity coaching stock (see below) running major routes right across the country operate this way. Doors are heavy to open, it has to be said, and it often confuses people not familiar with this stock as they stand by the doors waiting for them to open automatically at the station - this is common at Geneva and Geneva airport as this route has a lot of non-Swiss passengers. Whilst the doors open manually, an air system (AFAIK) closes all the doors, this operated by the guard. It reinforces the point about people not being familiar with manual doors these days as many trains have button or automatic door operation. https://www.sbb.ch/en/travel-information/services-on-train/our-trains/eurocity.html

That might actually add up to the £7m figure WCRC was putting out!

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).

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.

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.........

Apologies if this has been answered before, but if no ETH loco what powers the CDL?

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......

Have an incident on two wheels and it is largely luck what happens. Separating from the bike and sliding across the centre markings into oncoming traffic or street furniture often doesn't go well for example.

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.