Level crossing stupidity...

[jim.snowdon]

Apart from saying that it may be necessary to read the whole of the Act, it is important to consider it in the context of 1842 thinking, not 2019 thinking. I haven't read the whole Act, but I have the utmost respect for the Railway Inspector concerned.

 

There is a similar parallel in the interpretation of "level with the road surface" in the 1870 Tramways Act, something with which I have had a much closer professional interest. Precisely what was meant by "level" was not defined in the Act, but at the time it meant "not laid on the surface of the highway" in the context of specifically outlawing the type of surface rail that had been employed by George Train in his first tramways. Wind the clock forward a bit over a century to when tramways were starting to make a resurgence in the UK, and it was interpreted that "level" mean precisely that, ie neither above nor below the surface of the road, subject to a very small tolerance as it was at least recognised that absolute level was beyond the limits of being reasonably practicable. Generally, tram rail, both now and a century ago, is designed to be laid with the running head (which wears) 1/4" higher than the road surface when new, and the head of the groove edge (which doesn't wear so much) level with the surface.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

Only ten pages. 

[Porkscratching]

When I was a kid the railway fence was a single rusty strand of wire which we ducked under to go and play / put pennies on the track etc...we all lived to tell the tale ...

[Grovenor]

2 hours ago, EddieB said:

Funny that (well in a sort of coincidental rather than humorous way).  I was reading a similar story from Victoria Australia, from a link posted in this very thread by KevinLMS a few days back.  It seems that there is no monopoly on stupidity anywhere on this planet.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/tourists-in-search-of-selfies-ignore-warning-signs-put-lives-at-risk-20190422-p51g2m.html

40 years ago in Victoria (The Grampians) this was seen as an appropriate warning sign.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Grovenor

[Joseph_Pestell]

15 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Last time I was held up on a Motorway (A14 last year, car caught fire) the biggest hold up was caused by rubber-neckers, long after the emergency services had departed. 

 

Rubberkneckers are not just to be found on the roads.

 

Two light aircraft involved in a near-miss here on Monday as they were looking at the site of a serious fire (20 appliances attended!) on Sunday night.

[Wickham Green]

14 hours ago, EddieB said:

Funny that (well in a sort of coincidental rather than humorous way).  I was reading a similar story from Victoria Australia, from a link posted in this very thread by KevinLMS a few days back.  It seems that there is no monopoly on stupidity anywhere on this planet.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/tourists-in-search-of-selfies-ignore-warning-signs-put-lives-at-risk-20190422-p51g2m.html

At least nobody seems to be suggesting that all snakes should be fenced of .............

[Hobby]

That would be akin to herding cats...

[eastglosmog]

4 hours ago, Hobby said:

That would be akin to herding cats...

But the sign clearly prohibits cats - they must have some very un-catlike cats around there if they think  any cat would take any notice (quite apart from them not being able to read as a general rule)!

[jcredfer]

21 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

.... and should be for all but the wilfully idiotic.

 

As for those who see no future in this life - for whom I have the utmost sympathy and some small personal, past empathy - if they can't end it all on the railway, the world offers an infinite number of alternatives which will NEVER all be eliminated, despite the best efforts of H&S.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

 

I have to go back to the real reason for railways being fenced off, to keep livestock away from disrupting the railway traffic [and the need for compensating any {back then} rich landowner for such loss, or getting sued for the damage the animal caused to the rolling stock].  A fence has never stopped people from crossing them, but animals seem to display rather more compliance - fact!! {Frump please note!}.  Politicians have twisted the original intention into something called, duty of care for the public.  If the politicians really had such a "duty of care about the public" it raises a question.  It doesn't take much thought to work out that they don't have the slightest care for the safety of the public, otherwise they would have.....  ???

 

Any sensible answers about what would follow their logic???

 

Clues?

 

1.  Places where animals have to be under human control.

2.  Lots of them, with not even a fence.

3.  Frequent human deaths.

4.  Automated facilities for the safety of humans {and any animals in the vicinity} have been available for over 50 years, let alone manual ones.

4.  Despite the above 4 - no legislation to address any of the above.

 

Regards

 

Julian

 

PS.  When you work it out, do you still want to vote for your local politician - or anyone else's come to that?

 

 

 

 

[jim.snowdon]

It is not politicians who interpret the letter of the law but judges, and through the principle of precedence, they tend to follow each other like sheep.

 

Jim

[Hobby]

You wonder how we all survived in the old days before all these signs were put up...

[mozzer models]

Network rail cleared of blame

 

But after a trial at Central London County Court, Judge Heather Baucher threw out the mum's claim to £22,000 damages from the rail infrastructure body.

A sign informing pedestrians to "stop, look, listen" was next to the crossing gate, which was a "perfectly adequate" way of warning users, she said.

"In my view, it couldn't have been clearer," she said

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/mum-loses-court-case-over-16177911?fbclid=IwAR3qxdmV07zjoRvva2JwgV09ztLd1FSyBIiQzHaYjl6vK4CZ7-aa-hBd7gA

[jcredfer]

17 hours ago, jcredfer said:

 

I have to go back to the real reason for railways being fenced off, to keep livestock away from disrupting the railway traffic [and the need for compensating any {back then} rich landowner for such loss, or getting sued for the damage the animal caused to the rolling stock].  A fence has never stopped people from crossing them, but animals seem to display rather more compliance - fact!! {Frump please note!}.  Politicians have twisted the original intention into something called, duty of care for the public.  If the politicians really had such a "duty of care about the public" it raises a question.  It doesn't take much thought to work out that they don't have the slightest care for the safety of the public, otherwise they would have.....  ???

 

Any sensible answers about what would follow their logic???

 

Clues?

 

1.  Places where animals have to be under human control.

2.  Lots of them, with not even a fence.

3.  Frequent human deaths.

4.  Automated facilities for the safety of humans {and any animals in the vicinity} have been available for over 50 years, let alone manual ones.

4.  Despite the above 4 - no legislation to address any of the above.

 

Regards

 

Julian

 

PS.  When you work it out, do you still want to vote for your local politician - or anyone else's come to that?

 

 

 

 

 

The regulations for railways allow for the aforementioned fences alongside tracks, but not at the places where humans have to closest access to trains.  Platforms are open to trains in most stations, and are where many people die every year.  Fences for animals, but not for humans, although various types of barrier have been available, laterly even automatic ones for decades.  There is no political will to safeguard the rail users at the main interfaces with the trains and could have been done many years ago. 

 

There are places where transparent doors are placed along the platform edge, which will only open when coaches are level with them.  However there are precious few in the UK, despite Westinghouse producing them and selling them elsewhere well over 40 years ago.  Manual gates could have been in place for as long as the railways, but no - fences for animals and to stop trespass, but none for the people using the railway.

 

Regards

 

Julian

 

[jim.snowdon]

Proof that there is still some sanity in the world.

 

Jim

[jcredfer]

1 minute ago, jim.snowdon said:

Proof that there is still some sanity in the world.

 

Jim

 

I'm not quite sure which bit you refer to as sanity:-

 

Help prevent suicides and platform accidents or previous lack of over sensitive people who bring in unrequired regulations. 

 

Regards

 

Julian

[jim.snowdon]

1 minute ago, jcredfer said:

 

I'm not quite sure which bit you refer to as sanity:-

 

Help prevent suicides and platform accidents or previous lack of over sensitive people who bring in unrequired regulations. 

 

Regards

 

Julian

Actually, Mozzer's post in respect of Judge Baucher's judgement in favour of Network Rail. Your post managed to sneak in whilst I was writing mine.

 

Jim 

[jcredfer]

Just now, jim.snowdon said:

Actually, Mozzer's post in respect of Judge Baucher's judgement in favour of Network Rail. Your post managed to sneak in whilst I was writing mine.

 

Jim 

 

Aahh! Agreed, too.

 

Julian

[Andy Hayter]

16 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

 

 

There are places where transparent doors are placed along the platform edge, which will only open when coaches are level with them.  However there are precious few in the UK, despite Westinghouse producing them and selling them elsewhere well over 40 years ago.  Manual gates could have been in place for as long as the railways, but no - fences for animals and to stop trespass, but none for the people using the railway.

 

Regards

 

Julian

 

 

 

Which of course works well where all of the trains are identical (Paris Metro, Frankfurt airport interchange, Dusseldorf airport interchange airway) or where the doors on all coaches are set at an identical distance appart, but if you have a mix of trains, train lengths, door geometry etc, this does not work.

[Wickham Green]

14 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

 

Which of course works well where all of the trains are identical .......

............ and the operator is happy to stick with ( dimensionally ) identical trains for ever.

 

 

[TheQ]

Lets do it the British way, 

Take such a long time to decide to have the barriers, that the day before they ae installed they change the carriage sizes.

(or as they did at my boys school which was mixed sex many years before, change all the toilets to boys, with places to stand, after they had announced it was changing back to mixed sex..

[lmsforever]

Authorties are having to increasingly pander to idiots as they all expect someone else to look after them its a sad day that many are incapable of self help.

[Fat Controller]

I would quibble about the 'many fatalities every year':- a quick peruse of the RSSB annual reports that the figure is around four per annum for all passenger fatalities apart from those on trains. This will include slips, trips and falls on footbridges and subways, as well as passengers getting caught in automatic doors. Whilst four is four too many, I doubt that it could justify the expenditure of many millions of pounds on platform doors network-wide. It would more likely lead to the closure of many stations, with a concomitant rise in risk of serious injury, as passengers are obliged to travel by road to the remaining stations, or more likely for the entire journey.

Platform-edge doors are appropriate on Metro systems with uniform-sized trains and standardised door spacing, and where access to tracks by other means is difficult. They are not at all suitable for applications in the open air.

[caradoc]

2 hours ago, jcredfer said:

 

The regulations for railways allow for the aforementioned fences alongside tracks, but not at the places where humans have to closest access to trains.  Platforms are open to trains in most stations, and are where many people die every year.  Fences for animals, but not for humans, although various types of barrier have been available, laterly even automatic ones for decades.  There is no political will to safeguard the rail users at the main interfaces with the trains and could have been done many years ago. 

 

There are places where transparent doors are placed along the platform edge, which will only open when coaches are level with them.  However there are precious few in the UK, despite Westinghouse producing them and selling them elsewhere well over 40 years ago.  Manual gates could have been in place for as long as the railways, but no - fences for animals and to stop trespass, but none for the people using the railway.

 

Regards

 

Julian

 

 

Could you give an estimate of the cost of installing and maintaining such equipment at every passenger station in the UK, therefore allowing a cost per life saved equation to be assessed ? Even on the London Underground, which logic suggests would be a higher risk area for passenger/train interface issues, only a small proportion of stations have platform edge doors.

 

And it is not right that nothing has been done; On quadruple track routes, stations at which trains normally only stop on the Slow lines have fences preventing access to the Fast line areas, eg Wimbledon and the Great Eastern route to Shenfield for example. 

 

 

 

 

[jcredfer]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

 

Which of course works well where all of the trains are identical (Paris Metro, Frankfurt airport interchange, Dusseldorf airport interchange airway) or where the doors on all coaches are set at an identical distance appart, but if you have a mix of trains, train lengths, door geometry etc, this does not work.

 

It 'ain't that difficult, if the regulations are made, then the manufacturers would simply factor that into the design of new.  There are plenty of foreign places which have gone this way and they seem to be able to get on their coaches still.

 

Regards

 

Julian

[jcredfer]

32 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

Could you give an estimate of the cost of installing and maintaining such equipment at every passenger station in the UK, therefore allowing a cost per life saved equation to be assessed ? Even on the London Underground, which logic suggests would be a higher risk area for passenger/train interface issues, only a small proportion of stations have platform edge doors.

 

And it is not right that nothing has been done; On quadruple track routes, stations at which trains normally only stop on the Slow lines have fences preventing access to the Fast line areas, eg Wimbledon and the Great Eastern route to Shenfield for example. 

 

 

 

I didn't claim that nothing had been done anywhere, I agree that some places have had safety measures of various types.  I simply said that "most" platforms had no safety barriers.  I haven't advocated any specific system either, my observations were about the British system and others which have provided some form of barriers.  You might remember my comparison was between the fences, compulsory for animals either side of all tracks and the lack of barriers for humans where there was a direct interface with trains, on platforms.

 

Regards

 

Julian