Children on railway lines

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, jim.snowdon said:

In many ways, the decision that someone took to have internal door handles that required to be pushed down to operate was questionable in the first place. Common sense should have told the designers that. The standard for internal door handles on the Mark 1 stock, and even the Southern Railway EMU stock that was still about in the 1970s, was a horizontally oriented handle that was recessed into the lock face. You couldn't operate it by falling onto it, and to open the door required a definite squeeze action. The Metropolitan Railway went one better and had an internal door handle that had to be lifted to operate. Leaning down on it would not operate the lock. All intrinsically safe.

I never quite understood why, when the decision was taken to fit centralised door locking to the Mark 3s, there was no move to reinstate the internal door handles, even in a modified form, and either seal up or limit the opening of the door droplights. 

 

Jim

Jim the link below might help indicate why - it is an interesting read and it notes the relatively high incidence of people falling from Mk III vehicles.

 

Something here confuses me because to be honest I was fairly sure the problem with the 'easy to open' internal door handles first occurred on Mk III stock and not on Mk 2f stock and it led to an early panic modification removing all the internal door handles and making sure the droplight securing bolts were kept in the open position.  However whichever as this report shows there's an awful lot more to it all than the ability to open Mk III doors with an internal handle as they were long gone by 1984

 

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/HSE_TrainDoors1993.pdf

[The Stationmaster]

36 minutes ago, 96701 said:

Couldn't agree more. One has to go back to privatisation where there were no contracts set up for the maintenance of earthworks, drainage or vegetation. There are now 20 years of backlog to recover which is going to take a long time and a lot of taxpayers' money.

 

But it was getting bad even in BR times.  Back in the 1980s there was an increasing incidence of leaf fall problems on lines which had never suffered them in the past, e.g. on the WR where 'minutes lost' in the leaf fall season had become a problem which simply didn't exist in the late 1960s.  The reasons for the change were quite simple because the leaves were falling from trees and shrubs which had been kept under control in earlier years by a different, and more labour intensive, patterns of attention to the lineside plus burn-off (which was banned in the late 1960s due to the risk it posed to cable routes).

 

So what happened at privatisation simply put the final nail in the coffin of lineside attention and turned it from a problem in some places into a jungle everywhere.  The interesting thing now is that after a hefty programme of lineside clearance there has been no follow-up/continuing action so what has been cleared once will - before too long - have to be expensively cleared yet again.

[caradoc]

As Johnster says it was the first aircon stock, the Mark 2d, which (for a short time only) had internal door handles.

 

Lineside vegetation certainly is a big issue, but controlling it is a major exercise which often leads to criticism of Network Rail - Remember the topic here on the Guardian's 'trillions [approx] of trees at risk from NR' ? And in my area (Glasgow), NR has done a lot of tree cutting recently, which immediately led to unfavourable comments in the local paper, the Barrhead News, from residents, and an MP.

 

[boxbrownie]

Maybe they had better just employ more people to do the tasks rather than trying to eek every last penny of profit from the contract, oh no...hang on.....

[96701]

2 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Maybe they had better just employ more people to do the tasks rather than trying to eek every last penny of profit from the contract, oh no...hang on.....

What contract? Network Rail put a bid in for every Control Period which last for 5 years and this started when privatisation happened. We are in the 1st year of the sixth Control Period (CP6), and for the first time funding has been provided for (among other things) vegetation maintenance, but there is no way that the jungle can be cleared in 5 years. There are ecological surveys to be carried out before work starts, bird nesting season adds complications. And yes, the plan may well include maintaining later in the Control Period that which was cleared at the beginning.

 

Another by product of vegetation clearance is that it exposes the boundary fence which can result in increased trespass.

 

See how I got vegetation management back on topic?

[boxbrownie]

14 hours ago, 96701 said:

What contract? Network Rail put a bid in for every Control Period which last for 5 years and this started when privatisation happened. We are in the 1st year of the sixth Control Period (CP6), and for the first time funding has been provided for (among other things) vegetation maintenance, but there is no way that the jungle can be cleared in 5 years. There are ecological surveys to be carried out before work starts, bird nesting season adds complications. And yes, the plan may well include maintaining later in the Control Period that which was cleared at the beginning.

 

Another by product of vegetation clearance is that it exposes the boundary fence which can result in increased trespass.

 

See how I got vegetation management back on topic?

Call it a “Control Period” if you like but everywhere else in the business world it’s called a “Contract Period”.......if Network rail signed up for it without enough funding no wonder the Railways are in such a mess.

 

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Maybe they had better just employ more people to do the tasks rather than trying to eek every last penny of profit from the contract, oh no...hang on.....

As NR is a publicly owned company apart from Phil's  correction in respect of Control Periods any 'profit' they make is surely to our benefit as taxpayers.

 

Now as far as tree felling contractors are concerned the situation is very straightforward and I happen to know a bit about it because the firm which looks after my trees also does contract work for NR.  So before they can even bid for any NR contracts their staff have to have the necessary lineside safety qualification which involves training courses which are not cheap plus equipment and safety gear - which all has to be to NR standard and again is not cheap (e.g my safety boots are to NR standard so don't just have steel protected toecaps but also have the required steel sole protection.  The firm then gets the chance to bid for NR tree clearance contracts and i don't know what they charge NR but I do know what they charge me (and in my garden all they have to do is meet my requirements plus comply with H&S law so the cost to them of doing my trees is much less than it costs them to deal with an NR tree).

 

I don't don't doubt they make a profit - otherwise they wouldn't do it - but working for NR involves a considerable b*ggeration factor because jobs can be cancelled at short notice (which benefitted me on one occasion) and NR don't pay on the nail like me.  And of course the contractor's price has to take all of that into consideration if they are to remain in business.   And strange though it might sound working on most of my trees is - for the contractor - little different from some NR sites because they are working on a steep bank - but there are no trains about and it's reasonably easy to get the chipper to site.  Oh and of course I don't have as many trees as NR but the 5 sycamores, three of the hazels, the three elms, two of the hollies, and three of the elders n have been just as tightly packed in as some railway 'jungles' until I had some thinning out done last year

[96701]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Call it a “Control Period” if you like but everywhere else in the business world it’s called a “Contract Period”.......if Network rail signed up for it without enough funding no wonder the Railways are in such a mess.

 

What mess? 

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, 96701 said:

What mess? 

You read my post about the undergrowth hitting the train as we went past, and not once or twice but continuously for miles..............that's a mess!

[Reorte]

21 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

So what happened at privatisation simply put the final nail in the coffin of lineside attention and turned it from a problem in some places into a jungle everywhere.  The interesting thing now is that after a hefty programme of lineside clearance there has been no follow-up/continuing action so what has been cleared once will - before too long - have to be expensively cleared yet again.

 

A similar problem in a lot of walks of life - things reach the stage where they have to be attended to (with doubtless considerable expense) so something gets done then but there's never the interest in ongoing maintenance, just build up until forced to deal with it. Any time you've got someone with a tight grip on the purse strings (at least for anything that doesn't look glitzy), which is all the time, good luck in trying to persuade them to release money to deal with a problem that isn't causing an issue right now.

[caradoc]

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

You read my post about the undergrowth hitting the train as we went past, and not once or twice but continuously for miles..............that's a mess!

 

It's not ideal, and shouldn't happen, but as Stationmaster has pointed out, not as easy to deal with as might be thought.

 

And, as NR operate the safest railway in Europe, maybe our railways are not in quite such a mess after all !

[jim.snowdon]

3 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

It's not ideal, and shouldn't happen, but as Stationmaster has pointed out, not as easy to deal with as might be thought.

 

And, as NR operate the safest railway in Europe, maybe our railways are not in quite such a mess after all !

Especially when not only is there a massive backlog to deal with, but when it is getting more difficult to do anything anywhere near the tracks without getting a possession first. I'm all for doing things safely, or rather as safely as is reasonably practicable, but there does come a point where the pursuit of safety defeats the object of the exercise, ie running an effective transport system.

 

Jim

[boxbrownie]

17 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

It's not ideal, and shouldn't happen, but as Stationmaster has pointed out, not as easy to deal with as might be thought.

 

And, as NR operate the safest railway in Europe, maybe our railways are not in quite such a mess after all !

No, it shouldn’t happen but it has.......and it may not be easy to deal with, but it SHOULD be dealt with, it’s called maintenance.

 

No one is disputing the safety of the network, well maybe apart from the family of the poor lady at the Bristol area.

 

I cannot think of a station (maybe not Paddington) that I haven’t sat on and looked at weeds, rubbish, poor paintwork and rotten woodwork. New LED station lamps and a lick of paint over poor substrate does not constitute maintenance, and yes it’s still in a mess.

 

i am sure people who work in the industry have a hard time, no money, long hours etc etc......these criticisms are not of the workers on the ground but the organisation above them.

Edited October 21, 2019 by boxbrownie

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

No, it shouldn’t happen but it has.......and it may not be easy to deal with, but it SHOULD be dealt with, it’s called maintenance.

 

No one is disputing the safety of the network, well maybe apart from the family of the poor lady at the Bristol area.

 

I cannot think of a station (maybe not Paddington) that I haven’t sat on and looked at weeds, rubbish, poor paintwork and rotten woodwork. New LED station lamps and a lick of paint over poor substrate does not constitute maintenance, and yes it’s still in a mess.

 

i am sure people who work in the industry have a hard time, no money, long hours etc etc......these criticisms are not of the workers on the ground but the organisation above them.

A lot of truth in what you say about weeds on platforms and poorly/non maintained buildings.  But that has nothing at all to do with privatisation, not a thing, as things were like that in many places and at smaller stations long before privatisation was even a gleam in John Major's eyes.

 

In fact speaking based strictly on personal observation I would say that the lineside jungle apart things, especially at stations, are a lot better in many places now than they were in later BR days.  Our local branch stations see far more visits now from engineers (various) than they ever did in the last decade or so of BR management plus a local group is involved at one of them encouraged by help and cash from the train operator.

Edited October 21, 2019 by The Stationmaster

[Reorte]

27 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

A lot of truth in what you say about weeds on platforms and poorly/non maintained buildings.  But that has nothing at all to do with privatisation, not a thing, as things were like that in many places and at smaller stations long before privatisation was even a gleam in John Major's eyes.

 

In fact speaking based strictly on personal observation I would say that the lineside jungle apart things, especially at stations, are a lot better in many places now than they were in later BR days.  Our local branch stations see far more visits now from engineers (various) than they ever did in the last decade or so of BR management plus a local group is involved at one of them encouraged by help and cash from the train operator.

 

Mr Grumpty-hates-anything-vaguely-new here. My childhood (so that'll be 80s) perception of stations is of them generally being rather grubby and feeling like they were slowly falling apart, which contrasts quite strongly with now. Everything else feels less looked after though. I appreciate that that isn't always the same as is less looked after, and there are explanations for it, but it certainly all seems messier away from the stations.

[96701]

This layout at the Great Electric Train Show at Milton Keynes showed what the railways were like when I started in 73. Smallwood is it's name. I fervently believe that the railways are not in a mess as compared to how it was.

 

 

[phil-b259]

On 16/10/2019 at 21:26, laurenceb said:

It seems that RAIB will go to any length avoid saying that it was the casualtys fault

 

Thats because they are not allowed to!

 

The RAIBs terms of reference are very clear.

 

They MUST NEVER APPORTION BLAME in ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! - That is for the ORR, HSE CPS etc who are banned from using ANYTHING the RAIB report as evidence in a court of law. If any of these parties which to conduct an investigation with a view to apportioning BLAME then it must do so on is own - including its own interviews with railway employees and gaining their own search warrants etc.

 

This is deliberate - if any railway employee feels that anything they may say will be used against them then they will either say nothing or lie. Naturally enough this hinders the RAIB investigation and means that a few years on yet another person is killed or injured because improvement haven't been made. Thus any persons featured in the reports will be refereed to by their job title only.

 

The RAIB is there to establish the facts of the case, which obviously includes any pre-existing factors which may have had a bearing on the events which unfolded. Thus the language used tends to go along the route of ' Its most likely XX happened because of ZZ" or "Action XX is likely to have been a contributing factor to action ZZ occurring" - and definitely not "The blame for action XX was action ZZ"

 

 

[phil-b259]

A drivers take on the subject title....

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-50100690/train-driver-describes-horrific-impact-of-trespassers

[Reorte]

On 24/10/2019 at 00:08, 96701 said:

This layout at the Great Electric Train Show at Milton Keynes showed what the railways were like when I started in 73. Smallwood is it's name. I fervently believe that the railways are not in a mess as compared to how it was.

 

It's different, there's a mess in a different way. The current mess is at least one that doesn't give the impression of being near the end of terminal decline but the mess we do get gives more of an impression of "don't care" rather than "don't have the resources to do anything about it" (even if the latter is true).

[rab]

10 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

It's different, there's a mess in a different way. The current mess is at least one that doesn't give the impression of being near the end of terminal decline but the mess we do get gives more of an impression of "don't care" rather than "don't have the resources to do anything about it" (even if the latter is true).

 

The 'don't care' attitude is not limited

to the railway industry in this country.

[RJS1977]

On 24/10/2019 at 01:16, phil-b259 said:

 

Thats because they are not allowed to!

 

The RAIBs terms of reference are very clear.

 

They MUST NEVER APPORTION BLAME in ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! - That is for the ORR, HSE CPS etc who are banned from using ANYTHING the RAIB report as evidence in a court of law. If any of these parties which to conduct an investigation with a view to apportioning BLAME then it must do so on is own - including its own interviews with railway employees and gaining their own search warrants etc.

 

This is deliberate - if any railway employee feels that anything they may say will be used against them then they will either say nothing or lie. Naturally enough this hinders the RAIB investigation and means that a few years on yet another person is killed or injured because improvement haven't been made. Thus any persons featured in the reports will be refereed to by their job title only.

 

The RAIB is there to establish the facts of the case, which obviously includes any pre-existing factors which may have had a bearing on the events which unfolded. Thus the language used tends to go along the route of ' Its most likely XX happened because of ZZ" or "Action XX is likely to have been a contributing factor to action ZZ occurring" - and definitely not "The blame for action XX was action ZZ"

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the media don't seem to have picked up on this distinction - I read a number of articles blaming GWR & NR for the accident.

[Aire Head]

48 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Unfortunately, the media don't seem to have picked up on this distinction - I read a number of articles blaming GWR & NR for the accident.

Because it's a cheap easy article that gets the readership fired up over what is on fact a non-issue.

[royaloak]

On 25/10/2019 at 09:45, Reorte said:

 

It's different, there's a mess in a different way. The current mess is at least one that doesn't give the impression of being near the end of terminal decline but the mess we do get gives more of an impression of "don't care" rather than "don't have the resources to do anything about it" (even if the latter is true).

So you are saying that me and my colleagues dont care, such an arrogant post!

 

I had better leave it there or I will be having another holiday!

[Reorte]

15 hours ago, royaloak said:

So you are saying that me and my colleagues dont care, such an arrogant post!

 

I had better leave it there or I will be having another holiday!

 

As individuals I'm sure you do. Large organisations take on a life of their own though (and aren't free agents to do what they want anyway, no unlimited resources). Take the issue about the spread of vegetation throughout the railway for example. The reasons for it can all be explained but it still gives that impression.

 

I was certainly not intending to insult you or your colleagues - what I said was not directed at individuals, and please note the phrase "gives more of an impression of." There is no need to get personal with personal accusations of arrogance.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Reorte