HS2 under review

[phil-b259]

Agree.

The line I understand.

Old Oak Common i could only understand, if HS2 was designed to pass through London, rather than terminate.

 

It feels somewhat Victorian in its conception.

 

As it is, i think many oppourtunities have been missed, for instance it does nothing for anyone south of the Thames, which is half the populace right there.

Despite propaganda, Old Oak has useless connections.. no tube, no over ground, no road connections, its not suitable for Heathrow and even the canal manages to just miss it. I’m not convinced its a viable replacement for cross country trains, to expect South West/North West travellers to swing via Old Oak.

 

Regardless the thought, Londoners arent going to move to Birmingham unless they are forced to, and ticket prices alone will be too prohibitive to commute. The first time little johnny is sick at school in Brum, and HS2 goes sideways, panicked parents will truly realise what it means to be 100 miles away from your sick child, not 45mins from home with a selection of tubes, buses and stations to pick from and end at the same destination a dozen or two miles from london. They will radpidly start to reconsider, that is if they dont pre-consider that before moving.

 

It would be interesting to know how many millions of londoners today commute daily from Birmingham with their spouses, i suspect very few. Just because it saves 10 minutes isnt going alter the necessary parking, changing tubes and onward journeys they have today, and no ones talking about lower fares.

 

If they really want to save money on HS2, make it relevent... scrap Old Oak and Euston, make the stock able to run it through Crossrail stopping at key central stations, and run onto Norwich, Stansted, and do a whip round for a HS1 connection to give access to Kent..(From stratford onto HS1) . it would save a few 345’s, 395’s and replacing those class 90’s too. Give Londoners options for a direct (not changing train service) for many more options and doesnt require a “terminus”.

 

 

Shesh, did I write post 2938 in invisible ink or have you just not bothered to read through the thread before posting nonsense.

 

As regards Old Oak, see below.

 

One important function Old Oak will full fill is a backup to Euston. Unlike HS1 with its stations at Ebsfleet and Stratford (Domestic only) to act as backups to St Pancras, if anything shut Euston (Gas leak, terrorist incident, fire, etc) then anything south of Birmingham would have to be sent back there.

 

Old Oak thus provides an essential backup at the London end of HS2 where some services can terminate and passengers transfer to Crossrail or walk a short distance to the Overground to continue their journeys.

 

The other thing you need to appreciate is the Mayor / GLA have big plans for the Old Oak area in the coming decades. Granted these are somewhat dependent on removing the Crossrail and Hitachi train depots, but if they pull it off then the Old Oak area will become a massive draw in its own right much as the massive Westfield shopping centre and ex 2012 Olympic site is at Stratford.

 

As for the rest lets actually do some investigation shall we rather than getting creative with the Crayons and making incorrect assumptions

 

Firstly through trains are all very well BUT because they cannot hang around at termini they need to be able to unload and load people quickly. This means they have to have lots of doors and plenty of internal space for people to move about. This is the absolute opposite of what InterCity travellers want on their trains and even long distance commuters are distinctly unimpressed by 'suburban' type layouts - which is why the 700 trains used by Thameslink are disliked so much.

 

So it follows that for your 'through trains idea to work you need an absolutely enormous number of underground platforms to be built under London to allow proper dwell times for InterCity stock (inordinately expensive to do and very difficult to find space for given the amount of underground stuff in the centre of London anyway) - which is why Old Oak is due to get 3 platforms for each direction even though only something like 1/3rd of the train will be boarding ./ alighting there. The only other alternative is for your or your Birmingham to Norwich (or just Birmingham to London) travellers have to put up with something akin to the 700s - which I'm sure you would agree is most unsatisfactory!

 

Secondly, your attempts to make out nobody commutes from Birmingham to London is simply not bourne out by the facts. One of the big growth factors in the past four decades has been in long distance commuting precisely because high house prices in the South East mean that you get more property for your money (and in many cases a nicer area too) and thus also are able to afford the fares. Commuting into London from place like Grantham, Kettering, Warrick and Swindon to name just a few provides a significant chunk of the relevant TOCs revenue and HS2 is unlikely to be very different. People doing these types of commutes are also unable to easily 'pop back home' if their child becomes unwell - yet it doesn't prevent them from making long journeys to work in London.

 

Thirdly, nobody is being forced to live in Birmingham and work in London - however with house prices in London and the wider South East being so high you can get a nicer / larger house further north even taking into account season ticket costs and the longer commute. As one long distance commuter observed in a ES article* "You do get a payback at the weekend," says Jonathan, "because we spend all of it outside in these wonderful green empty spaces. If we were going home to a ###### house in a ###### area of London we just couldn't do it. When you pay for your ticket, you do think of that lifestyle."

 

Fourthly given the details for fares have yet to be published your assertions that HS2 fares will be too expensive are a total load of b******t. What has been said is that there will be a price premium applied to HS2 and that this will be along the lines of that applied to fares over HS1 which are pricer than fares to London via the classic routes to Charing Cross / Cannon St / Victoria.  This price premium on HS1 has not stopped continual growth in passenger numbers and the High Speed services are very well used these days.

 

And Fifthly, you, like many others are struggling to get it into your head that HS2 is primarily being built to cater for flows starting or finishing their journeys north of Birmingham! Birmingham happens to lie slap bang on the middle of the route and its size / economic influence is such that it would be foolish to not serve it, but it remains that case that the intended markets for which HS2 is being built are the likes of Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Scotland, and at a later stage, Sheffield, Leeds, York Darlington and Newcastle, where journey time reductions are more significant and where removing these services from our classic network can free up space for additional services to locations closer to London. Commuter traffic from Birmingham will no doubt be welcomed and obviously forms part of the business case - but its far from the linchpin upon which HS2 depends.

 

 

* https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/londons-really-big-commuters-6448555.html

Edited January 24, 2019 by phil-b259

[phil-b259]

What a sensible post hits the nail on the head about the whole project.

 

On the contrary, a post riddled with false assumptions and displaying zero understanding of engineering constraints or indeed social trends / personal motivation.

 

It is most certainly not 'hitting the nail on the head' and more a case of simply throwing mud about and hoping some of it sticks.

Edited January 25, 2019 by phil-b259

[lmsforever]

As has been said before HS1 has actualy got a good cost basis with the Javelins complementing  tunnel services ,the Javelins of course all start on the ordinary network thus offering a good number of commuters excellent journeys.But the services on the old network have been slowed and this is not good, the proposals for HS2 predict the wcml being converted into a local network.   Okay if you have all day and don't mind changing trains a few times but the argument seems to be all for the new line and to hell with existing passengers ,people are to be forced onto high speed wether or not it can be accessed easily.Is this being done so as to actually make out its actually wanted?

[jamie92208]

A fastline between Euston and Waterloo, with a fourway junction to Crossrail at Tottenham court road...

 

Who would have thought a fastline across London was a good idea...

The Victorians did apparently, there was a plan for NYC style metro fastlines by passing some stops on the Northern line, during WW2 some potential platforms were built.

Clapham Junction even has a tube station access. However nothing was to come of it.

Today they are used for underground storage, Clapham junctions tube entrance is easily visible as you walk along the underground footpath between platforms 8/9 and 1-4.. next time you see those underground shops on the london side.. look up at the archways and you’ll see the style of a tube station entrance / exit arches occupied by the two largest retailers down there.

There was a website a few years back that did a visit, through a door at the back of the retailer that showed the underground storage vaults that could have been platforms.

There are other such locations around the capital, i believe one was used for housing immigrants in the 1950’s, examples are Bellsize Park, Clapham South, Clapham Common, Camden Town and Googe St.

The deep level shelters as they are known were built as air raid shelters during WW2 but the ones that were near the Northern Line were roughly on the same alignment but below the existing lines. I can have a look later but IIRC there were 8 planned and about half of the ones that were built were on the Northern Line alignment.

 

Jamie

[phil-b259]

As has been said before HS1 has actualy got a good cost basis with the Javelins complementing  tunnel services ,the Javelins of course all start on the ordinary network thus offering a good number of commuters excellent journeys.But the services on the old network have been slowed and this is not good, the proposals for HS2 predict the wcml being converted into a local network.   Okay if you have all day and don't mind changing trains a few times but the argument seems to be all for the new line and to hell with existing passengers ,people are to be forced onto high speed wether or not it can be accessed easily.Is this being done so as to actually make out its actually wanted?

 

It is true that services on SE to the traditional termini have been slowed down and that this has caused some annoyance / inconvenience  - but they have not disappeared completely have they? If you still want to avoid the HS1 premium you can get a direct train from Ashford / Dover / Canterbury to Charing Cross or on every other service alight from your Javelin and change at Ashford to avoid paying the premium. If people were that bothered by the cost then Javelins would run mostly empty from Ashford to London - but they don't. Some like the shorter journey time while for others the ability interchange with the DLR / Jubilee line for Docklands or the location of termini of St Pancras being more convenient for their place of work is the motivation.

 

The question is how much have classic services been 'slowed down' by - an extra 10 - 15 minutes while not being ideal is hardly the end of the world - particularly if this brings new journey opportunities for those at intermediate stations which were formerly skipped in the past.

 

Granted on HS1 this may not seem like an advantage - but then Kent as a whole lacks large cities and even the Kent coast is not particularly far from London in mileage terms even if the use of 3rd rail and lowish line speeds in parts makes it seem like it takes an age to get to the likes of Margate.

 

HS2 is rather different in terms of the population centres it serves and just how far its trains will penetrate into northern England, moving fast express services onto HS2 to allow for additional calls at rugby, Tamworth or Nuneaton say are more justifiable than additional calls at Paddock Wood or Tonbridge say.

 

This is one of the gains for communities along the current WCML in the post HS2 world. Rugby for example may well be able to get more services to Manchester calling there once the fastest expresses are moved onto HS2 and while end to end passengers may moan about the lengthened journey time, the net result is an overall increase in service provision and communities served.

 

The railway network cannot give everybody everything they want all of the time and neither can it remain static in the face of enhancements to the infrastructure. As such in a post HS2 world there will both winners and losers with respect to current WCML users and the most likely situation is that in percentage terms the outcome will be closer to 50:50 between each group rather than the 'everybody will lose' mentality you and others keep telling us will happen.

Edited January 24, 2019 by phil-b259

[Mike Storey]

As has been said before HS1 has actualy got a good cost basis with the Javelins complementing  tunnel services ,the Javelins of course all start on the ordinary network thus offering a good number of commuters excellent journeys.But the services on the old network have been slowed and this is not good, the proposals for HS2 predict the wcml being converted into a local network.   Okay if you have all day and don't mind changing trains a few times but the argument seems to be all for the new line and to hell with existing passengers ,people are to be forced onto high speed wether or not it can be accessed easily.Is this being done so as to actually make out its actually wanted?

 

I won't bother replicating Phil's comprehensive answers, but it remains unclear just what you are advocating instead of HS2?

 

Here, you seem to be suggesting a kind of Crossrail/Thamselink arrangement for express trains from the north. But you are pointing out the very clear reasons for not doing that - the enormous impact on other services (and on itself in consequence) and sub-optimum, compromises to make it all work. Performance impact is multiplied too. There are already far more complaints raised about slower journey times on Thameslink, due to the attempt to serve as many different communities as possible, as frequently as possible, than there is praise for the ability to get from the south coast to Luton without changing.

 

The operational efficiencies of through stations, compared to termini, are Chapter 1, Lesson 1, in any transport course, but it is a mistake to apply it to all situations, as Phil has well explained.

[jjb1970]

I’m not that sure how much through running would really add if you could develop a major London station with through platforms.

 

If looking at lines North of London there is nothing like the diversity and density of the routes to the South, East and West of London, and the Thameslink railway already provides a North – South through service between the MML and Brighton main line. To develop a cross web of routes to tie various lines running into Victoria and Waterloo to commuter lines running out of Liverpool Street and the major North facing stations would require some serious cross city tracks I think

 

For inter-city routes, I guess you could develop through routes between the North and West via London but because of the geography of England with the capital and by far the biggest urban centre in the South Est corner it limits through running opportunities for long distance trains. I may be wrong as I’ve never counted but I’m guessing it’d be difficult to accommodate all of the WCML, MML  to run through to the GWR or GER lines. In that respect we are different from many countries which have a more even population distribution and a more centrally positioned capital. I suppose the equivalent would be if Paris was located where Rennes is, or if Rome was in the heel of Italy.

 

I think a London Grand Central style station would be unwieldy and too big, as the footfall would be monumental and there’d be more stations than you can shake a stick at even if they were through tracks.

Edited January 25, 2019 by jjb1970

[Trog]

There is also the problem that a lot of the 4 tracking done by the LNWR was also done to a very tight budget and the clearances between tracks are very tight so that as far as I know it's nit possible to have both up line open if they are working on the down slow and vice versa.

 

 

Jamie

 

It is possible to work on the middle lines of the WCML with the outside lines open at line speed, we used to do it all the time in the 1980's, to do re-railing mid-week days. This included re-railing the 6' rails adjacent to the open lines, the welders would set up the Thermit welds wait for a train to go by, have a quick look to double check the moulds were undisturbed and drop the weld. That gave the weld a couple of minutes for the metal to solidify before the next train came through. We usually had both middle lines blocked if working in the middle, but would have been able to work on just one if we had wanted to.

 

When working on the three track section of the TV line in the 1990's we usually got a Saturday night and Sunday block followed by a Sunday night block, having to hand the line back at 20MPH between. We eventually persuaded the operating that using the 75MPH US was better for them than the UF with a 20MPH TSR, on the basis that if we could just leave an UF site blocked rather than having to do extra work to open it at 20 MPH for a few hours. We could either do more work or open the line at a higher speed on Monday morning. The operating not being willing to grant a continuous block of the UF for us to work in, as they were not keen to have us working on a single blocked line between lines open at line speed. Needless to say being the P-Way we lied saying that we agreed with them, then just kept working on the middle line throughout the period that the outside lines were open.

 

The big difference between then and now is not the constraints of the engineering, but health and safety who always know better than those doing the work what is safe, and that more is done by machine these days. The size of the machines, and their lack of flexibility in how they work making them harder to work with next to an open line than a gang of men. 

[jamie92208]

It is possible to work on the middle lines of the WCML with the outside lines open at line speed, we used to do it all the time in the 1980's, to do re-railing mid-week days. This included re-railing the 6' rails adjacent to the open lines, the welders would set up the Thermit welds wait for a train to go by, have a quick look to double check the moulds were undisturbed and drop the weld. That gave the weld a couple of minutes for the metal to solidify before the next train came through. We usually had both middle lines blocked if working in the middle, but would have been able to work on just one if we had wanted to.

 

When working on the three track section of the TV line in the 1990's we usually got a Saturday night and Sunday block followed by a Sunday night block, having to hand the line back at 20MPH between. We eventually persuaded the operating that using the 75MPH US was better for them than the UF with a 20MPH TSR, on the basis that if we could just leave an UF site blocked rather than having to do extra work to open it at 20 MPH for a few hours. We could either do more work or open the line at a higher speed on Monday morning. The operating not being willing to grant a continuous block of the UF for us to work in, as they were not keen to have us working on a single blocked line between lines open at line speed. Needless to say being the P-Way we lied saying that we agreed with them, then just kept working on the middle line throughout the period that the outside lines were open.

 

The big difference between then and now is not the constraints of the engineering, but health and safety who always know better than those doing the work what is safe, and that more is done by machine these days. The size of the machines, and their lack of flexibility in how they work making them harder to work with next to an open line than a gang of men. 

 

Thanks very much for that Trog.  I suspected that part of the problem was more onerous restrictions.   It is I presume similar to the scenes I witnessed when the line from Wakefield to Leeds was being electrified.  I was in a Mk 1 DMU and could clearly see men up ladders in front of us working on the overhead above our track. As we approached they came down, pulled the ladder out of the way and we went past. That would be about 1990 but I doubt that it would be allowed today.

 

Jamie

[Trog]

Thanks very much for that Trog.  I suspected that part of the problem was more onerous restrictions.   It is I presume similar to the scenes I witnessed when the line from Wakefield to Leeds was being electrified.  I was in a Mk 1 DMU and could clearly see men up ladders in front of us working on the overhead above our track. As we approached they came down, pulled the ladder out of the way and we went past. That would be about 1990 but I doubt that it would be allowed today.

 

Jamie

 

On the Midland Suburban electrification in the early 1980's I saw the ladders removed to allow trains to pass and the men who had been using them left up in the wires. 

[phil-b259]

It is possible to work on the middle lines of the WCML with the outside lines open at line speed, we used to do it all the time in the 1980's, to do re-railing mid-week days. This included re-railing the 6' rails adjacent to the open lines, the welders would set up the Thermit welds wait for a train to go by, have a quick look to double check the moulds were undisturbed and drop the weld. That gave the weld a couple of minutes for the metal to solidify before the next train came through. We usually had both middle lines blocked if working in the middle, but would have been able to work on just one if we had wanted to.

 

When working on the three track section of the TV line in the 1990's we usually got a Saturday night and Sunday block followed by a Sunday night block, having to hand the line back at 20MPH between. We eventually persuaded the operating that using the 75MPH US was better for them than the UF with a 20MPH TSR, on the basis that if we could just leave an UF site blocked rather than having to do extra work to open it at 20 MPH for a few hours. We could either do more work or open the line at a higher speed on Monday morning. The operating not being willing to grant a continuous block of the UF for us to work in, as they were not keen to have us working on a single blocked line between lines open at line speed. Needless to say being the P-Way we lied saying that we agreed with them, then just kept working on the middle line throughout the period that the outside lines were open.

 

The big difference between then and now is not the constraints of the engineering, but health and safety who always know better than those doing the work what is safe, and that more is done by machine these days. The size of the machines, and their lack of flexibility in how they work making them harder to work with next to an open line than a gang of men. 

 

 

Thanks very much for that Trog.  I suspected that part of the problem was more onerous restrictions.   It is I presume similar to the scenes I witnessed when the line from Wakefield to Leeds was being electrified.  I was in a Mk 1 DMU and could clearly see men up ladders in front of us working on the overhead above our track. As we approached they came down, pulled the ladder out of the way and we went past. That would be about 1990 but I doubt that it would be allowed today.

 

Jamie

 

 

On the Midland Suburban electrification in the early 1980's I saw the ladders removed to allow trains to pass and the men who had been using them left up in the wires. 

 

Such practices led to the death of 28 members of staff in 1983 alone - in the year 2017 / 18 it had fallen* to 1

 

Toady the situation is very different precisely because of the curtailment of some of the practices described above.

 

The railways are not the same thing as a burning building say where the risk of firefighters not coming home at the end of the shift could reasonably be tolerated to a degree.

 

Railway employers have a duty of care to ensure every worker returns home safe at the end of their shift - and if it means passengers are inconvenienced so be it.

 

 

* See http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/df4e5d5e-3b0b-447c-818d-1fb7990dd0e7 and http://orr.gov.uk/news-and-media/orr-blog/2015/175-years-making-britains-railways-safer

Edited January 27, 2019 by phil-b259

[jamie92208]

Such practices led to the death of 28 members of staff in 1983 alone - in the year 2017 / 18 it had fallen* 1

 

Toady the situation is very different precisely because of the curtailment of some of the practices described above.

 

The railways are not the same thing as a burning building say where the risk of firefighters not coming home at the end of the shift could reasonably be tolerated to a degree.

 

Railway employers have a duty of care to ensure every worker returns home safe at the end of their shift - and if it means passengers are inconvenienced so be it.

 

 

* See http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/df4e5d5e-3b0b-447c-818d-1fb7990dd0e7 and http://orr.gov.uk/news-and-media/orr-blog/2015/175-years-making-britains-railways-safer

 

I never realised that the stats were so bad.  I'm glad that things are safer.

 

Jamie

[Trog]

I never realised that the stats were so bad.  I'm glad that things are safer.

 

Jamie

 

Remember that the bare figures do not really compare like with like, as there were a lot more men working on the track in those days, and that a lot more work got done for each pound spent. How much of the GWML electrifications problems are down to the delays and expense of the modern safety culture.

 

While accidents at work are greatly to be regretted, remember that anything that pushes up costs and delays or stops improvement projects is going to move people and freight off the railway and onto the roads. The law of diminishing returns applies here, and each additional safety precaution is likely to cost more for less and less result. We have to be careful that in saving one staff members life we do not kill several people priced off the railway and onto the roads.

[jjb1970]

Most health and safety stats are massively improved from what they were 30 or 40 years ago after being normalised to account for different size of labour force, decline of some types of industrial activity etc.

Edited January 26, 2019 by jjb1970

[Mike Storey]

Remember that the bare figures do not really compare like with like, as there were a lot more men working on the track in those days, and that a lot more work got done for each pound spent. How much of the GWML electrifications problems are down to the delays and expense of the modern safety culture.

 

While accidents at work are greatly to be regretted, remember that anything that pushes up costs and delays or stops improvement projects is going to move people and freight off the railway and onto the roads. The law of diminishing returns applies here, and each additional safety precaution is likely to cost more for less and less result. We have to be careful that in saving one staff members life we do not kill several people priced off the railway and onto the roads.

 

A "common sense" approach, as many would agree. Except that the facts do not in any way support what you are saying.

 

a) passenger traffic has more than doubled in the period that safety regimes have been considerably tightened. Indeed, the vastly increased number of trains on many routes, including the WCML, means working between trains is almost an impossibility, or at least very, very high risk. The risk of causing more deaths outside the railway because of safety restrictions and higher costs has a logic to it, but applies here less than might be thought. The Business Case for almost any enhancement or new works these days, includes a social cost/benefit element in some form. which can include an estimate of lives saved and/or injuries avoided in road journeys, when relevant. Vastly different from the 1980's (and even later) when any such Business Case, when it forecast transfer of traffic from road to rail, had to include an estimate of the lost petrol duty to the Treasury, which obviously made it a lot harder to achieve a positive figure and get the works approved at all. Barmy.

 

b) there were many hidden costs of new works, renewals and maintenance works that never showed up in the costs of works themselves in those days. Particularly injuries. I was one of them - as an OS one weekend on a very badly lit section, whilst walking back to prepare a shunt, I fell down a hole that had not been there when I had walked up, was not protected nor advised. I was off work for a week, so two other people had to cover me, on my day job, on overtime and rest day working. Whether it was my fault for being careless, or a bad safety culture, is not the point. It cost the railway a lot of money. As did many other such injuries in my time in operations in the 80's and early 90's. Deaths, aside from the tragedy of course, were even more expensive, in so many ways.

 

Operations staff were/are just as frustrated as you at the limitations on how works were done, because it meant more grief for them over longer periods. 

[caradoc]

Remember that the bare figures do not really compare like with like, as there were a lot more men working on the track in those days, and that a lot more work got done for each pound spent. How much of the GWML electrifications problems are down to the delays and expense of the modern safety culture.

 

While accidents at work are greatly to be regretted, remember that anything that pushes up costs and delays or stops improvement projects is going to move people and freight off the railway and onto the roads. The law of diminishing returns applies here, and each additional safety precaution is likely to cost more for less and less result. We have to be careful that in saving one staff members life we do not kill several people priced off the railway and onto the roads.

 

Remember also that on many routes more trains are operating than at any time in history.

 

And surely you can't be suggesting that safety standards on the railway should be relaxed, so that workers risk get killed or injured, because it would indirectly save lives on the roads ?

[black and decker boy]

Remember that the bare figures do not really compare like with like, as there were a lot more men working on the track in those days, and that a lot more work got done for each pound spent. How much of the GWML electrifications problems are down to the delays and expense of the modern safety culture.

 

While accidents at work are greatly to be regretted, remember that anything that pushes up costs and delays or stops improvement projects is going to move people and freight off the railway and onto the roads. The law of diminishing returns applies here, and each additional safety precaution is likely to cost more for less and less result. We have to be careful that in saving one staff members life we do not kill several people priced off the railway and onto the roads.

The same changes in safety culture apply across the construction industry and particularly to highways. The safety systems used when working on motorways now were not universal 10 years ago let alone 30 or 40.

 

As a senior manager in the industry, I can only add that I could never accept lessened safety working practice and increase in fatalities. It is me sending people to work. I want them to all go home afterwards.

 

Are you saying your family would be happy that you were killed whilst working on the railway when safe systems were available which would have saved your life?

 

We are now in the 21st century. The next generation of engineers & technicians do not accept life or death risk at work. They choose work that does not put them at risk of death. If you turn the safety clock back, you will quickly find you have no staff. Why would anyone think that is a good idea?

Edited January 26, 2019 by black and decker boy

[Trog]

 

Indeed, the vastly increased number of trains on many routes, including the WCML, means working between trains is almost an impossibility, or at least very, very high risk.

 

In my personal experience I always felt safer working on a busy line like the WCML as with the trains following each other virtually on the signals you always knew where they were. In that once you could not hear the last train to go past anymore it was time to ramp up your alertness from looking up every five seconds, to watching for trains between downward glances, ready to stand out for the next. A fast line with thinner traffic gives more of a possibility of getting too involved in what you are doing and being surprised. To the extent that lines with lighter traffic such as the TV and GWML really gave me the creeps, as I always felt that there was something wrong.

 

 

As for not worrying about road users as caradoc suggests, unless their lives are worth less than ours it should at least be considered, although it would probably be hard to prove and I suspect negligible for any single added safety precaution. But I feel that by the time I retired the safety regime generally had gone past the sweet spot of balance between risk and cost, and that money was being spent on over the top safety precautions, that would have given more public benefit if it had been spent on improving the railway generally or even perhaps on something else like the NHS.

[phil-b259]

I never realised that the stats were so bad.  I'm glad that things are safer.

 

Jamie

And folk should also note that the reduction in deaths at work has also seen a significant fall in serious injuries some of which will have meant not just long periods off work but in some cases folk having to be made redundant due to things like of limbs, breathing difficulties from dust exposure, loss of sight, loss of hearing etc..

[Mike Storey]

In my personal experience I always felt safer working on a busy line like the WCML as with the trains following each other virtually on the signals you always knew where they were. In that once you could not hear the last train to go past anymore it was time to ramp up your alertness from looking up every five seconds, to watching for trains between downward glances, ready to stand out for the next. A fast line with thinner traffic gives more of a possibility of getting too involved in what you are doing and being surprised. To the extent that lines with lighter traffic such as the TV and GWML really gave me the creeps, as I always felt that there was something wrong.

 

 

As for not worrying about road users as caradoc suggests, unless their lives are worth less than ours it should at least be considered, although it would probably be hard to prove and I suspect negligible for any single added safety precaution. But I feel that by the time I retired the safety regime generally had gone past the sweet spot of balance between risk and cost, and that money was being spent on over the top safety precautions, that would have given more public benefit if it had been spent on improving the railway generally or even perhaps on something else like the NHS.

 

I completely get it, having been there when things were less rigid and we had more power over deciding our own levels of safe working. But I am afraid those days are gone, because too many people took risks that they should not have done. I had to help pick up, or deal with the aftermath, the pieces of several bodies of people who "knew what they were doing", the very last being a shunter at Kings Cross, who had decided it was OK to get between a loco and vehicles before he had ensured the driver knew he was there. He was very experienced and was always intent in getting the job done. He paid for that with his life.

 

The balance of risk v precautions debate has been going on since Victorian times, when the monetary value of a life lost (or severe injuries) had not been agreed. Nowadays, actuaries can provide chapter and verse on the value of risk avoidance v cost of lives potentially destroyed. When I first started assisting with Business Cases, I seem to recall that we were supposed to use a value of £100,000 per life saved, but some twenty years later, that value had risen to £1 million. The other value we had to take into account was the likelihood, in terms of number of times a particular type of incident was likely to occur, based either on how many times it had occurred, or if it was a new risk, computer modelling of such occurrences. So there is much more info available now to make a "business" decision about what the potential value of enhanced safety is, against its cost.

 

The fact that no railway person has been killed in many years (I think that is still true - the last was the runaway trolley on the WCML?) on trackside works, despite the amount of that work quadrupling over the past 20 years, speaks volumes.

 

The argument that reduced costs of railway work would be spent on hospitals, or more railway works, again has logic, but does not take into account just what would happen if the numbers of railway staff deaths or injuries suddenly jumped.

 

But your point about how to balance that against potentially increased road deaths or injuries, where rail disruption has been extensive, is interesting. But it is hard to measure, given that road deaths and injuries have continuously declined over the same period that railway enhancement and renewal works have increased massively. 

 

Tough call.

[black and decker boy]

Another aspect to add in here is the changes in legislation and in sentencing.

 

The law requires more to be done to avoid death or injury.

 

Sentencing guidelines were overhauled s coulld of years ago. Corporate fines for causing death, injury (OR the potential for either) are now a % based on the turnover of the company. So such fines are now measured in the millions or tens of millions.

 

That focuses corporate minds.

[caradoc]

As for not worrying about road users as caradoc suggests, unless their lives are worth less than ours it should at least be considered, although it would probably be hard to prove and I suspect negligible for any single added safety precaution. But I feel that by the time I retired the safety regime generally had gone past the sweet spot of balance between risk and cost, and that money was being spent on over the top safety precautions, that would have given more public benefit if it had been spent on improving the railway generally or even perhaps on something else like the NHS.

 

Where in my post did I mention 'not worrying about road users' ? My question was whether safety standards on the railway should be relaxed, so that workers risk get killed or injured, because it would (or rather might, but it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to quantify) indirectly save lives on the roads ? I do not believe they should; Clearly we will have to agree to disagree.

[jjb1970]

One of the good things about robust safe systems of work is it imposes good planning because if you don't plan well you are liable to end up in a world of the proverbial if the options of short cuts and "getting the job done" anyway you can aren't there. I used to be a senior authorised person in electricity generation (shift charge engineer then power plant ops manager) and whenever people whinged that the safety rules were stopping work being done I always flipped it around and told them no, it was there lack of planning that was holding the job up.

When I entered the work force people being killed in accidents or maimed was just one of those things, and it was almost a bit of a joke as it was viewed as Darwinism in action. The prevailing culture at that time was that in a heavy industry you have to expect casualties (as long as it was somebody else of course). That has been transformed and now incidents leading to injury or death are a rarity, to me that is something to celebrate, not belittle. In more recent years my former employer provided incident investigation support for a lot of maritime administrations and insurers (and also shipping companies own investigations) and in every case I was ever involved in the incidents were easily avoidable and entirely explicable. When you get involved in cases where people are burnt to death in oil fires or mangled by machinery for want of basic (what would be called common sense by most) safety management it kind of hardens your attitude to elf n'safety management.

[GoingUnderground]

I completely get it, having been there when things were less rigid and we had more power over deciding our own levels of safe working. But I am afraid those days are gone, because too many people took risks that they should not have done. I had to help pick up, or deal with the aftermath, the pieces of several bodies of people who "knew what they were doing", the very last being a shunter at Kings Cross, who had decided it was OK to get between a loco and vehicles before he had ensured the driver knew he was there. He was very experienced and was always intent in getting the job done. He paid for that with his life.

 

The balance of risk v precautions debate has been going on since Victorian times, when the monetary value of a life lost (or severe injuries) had not been agreed. Nowadays, actuaries can provide chapter and verse on the value of risk avoidance v cost of lives potentially destroyed. When I first started assisting with Business Cases, I seem to recall that we were supposed to use a value of £100,000 per life saved, but some twenty years later, that value had risen to £1 million. The other value we had to take into account was the likelihood, in terms of number of times a particular type of incident was likely to occur, based either on how many times it had occurred, or if it was a new risk, computer modelling of such occurrences. So there is much more info available now to make a "business" decision about what the potential value of enhanced safety is, against its cost.

 

The fact that no railway person has been killed in many years (I think that is still true - the last was the runaway trolley on the WCML?) on trackside works, despite the amount of that work quadrupling over the past 20 years, speaks volumes.

 

The argument that reduced costs of railway work would be spent on hospitals, or more railway works, again has logic, but does not take into account just what would happen if the numbers of railway staff deaths or injuries suddenly jumped.

 

But your point about how to balance that against potentially increased road deaths or injuries, where rail disruption has been extensive, is interesting. But it is hard to measure, given that road deaths and injuries have continuously declined over the same period that railway enhancement and renewal works have increased massively.

 

Tough call.

In today's blame culture there wouldn't be any money saved by lower safety standards as much if not all of the saving would go in paying compensation to those injured and to the relatives of anyone killed, not forgetting the legal profession's charges taking a slice of the cash, and the diversion of management time and effort in preparing for the case. Edited January 27, 2019 by GoingUnderground

[jjb1970]

In today's blame culture there wouldn't be any money saved by lower safety standards as much if not all of the saving would go in paying compensation to those injured and to the relatives of anyone killed, not forgetting the legal profession's charges taking a slice of the cash, and the diversion of management time and effort in preparing for the case.

Surely that would be a vindication of blame culture and the legal profession if the two things mean there is little point not doing H&S properly. One of the things I have always found odd about H&S is the number of cases where the pressure to take short cuts and get the job done was generated at shop floor level (i.e those liable to end up maimed or dead).