Level crossing stupidity...

[Grovenor]

Fair enough Jim, personal knowledge from work beats a news article, just your original satement was not supported by the article. And I hope the 12 weeks is wrong! If it takes NR 12 weeks to repair a crossing they should be well ashamed. And if they can close the road for 12 weeks they may as well close it for good.

[ianwales]

56 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

My apologies. I can see why you would need confirmation from the user. It does seem strange that the farmer in the video was given such specific instructions that required him to do the opposite. Do different conditions apply in other locations, dedicated lines rather than BT?

 

As far as I am aware there are no dedicated lines everything goes via BT, on a daily basis I get phone calls which begin "Is there a train coming, I want to cross the line" I have to find out where the person is in order to grant or refuse, I was at a briefing some time ago on the subject of user worked crossings where the signaller took the information from the light on his phone concentrator and allowed someone to cross resulting in a near miss because of a crossed phone line, hence I NEED the user to tell me verbally which crossing they want to use. From personal experience I find if I explain why I need the information then the person on the other end is more than happy to work with me to ensure safety.

 

As an aside and with regard to the use of BT lines, when the NSTR signalling was put in on the Central Wales line in the late 80's the S&T department were baffled for months by an intermittent failure of the token instruments between Llandovery and Llanwrtyd, it would fail several times a week, then work perfectly a week or so before going into a round of failures again, this went on for months on end until someone discovered the BT lines from Llandovery were routed via the telephone exchange in Merthyr and the failures were due to  BT engineer switching equipment off for maintainence without knowing there were BR signalling lines in the circuit.

 

Ian

[ianwales]

1 hour ago, grahame said:

 

That may be the case, but the quoted procedure looks, like most company procedures and protocols, to be in-house for employees to follow. It's unlikely that the public would be aware of them or be under any obligation or understand the need to follow them.

 

 

The OBligation to follow them is that if they don't then they won't get permission to cross the crossing because it won't be safe to do so, Simple.

Edited July 2, 2020 by ianwales

[Grovenor]

There are a fair number of fairly recent RAIB investigation reports on accidents at user worked crossings and a common theme is poor signage for users and poor information available to signallers to allow them to make decisions. Even on new signalling schemes user worked crossings are essentially ignored in the signalling design as it would cost a little more to provide good information to signallers. ETCS should mean that it can be done for very little extra cost so it will be interesting to see if it is sorted on the ECML.

[duncan]

As a lay person, I can understand why the signaler has to know where the public are.  I also think it gives the signaler an early warning if the public are a problem - if the public either can't give the crossing name or give an incorrect name then there is something wrong.  As I said, just a layperson.

[grahame]

57 minutes ago, ianwales said:

 

The OBligation to follow them is that if they don't then they won't get permission to cross the crossing because it won't be safe to do so, Simple.

 

That would be rather counter-productive as it would likely cause people to take unsafe risks and not bother to phone in future. There needs to be discourse rather than barriers to effective communication.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, ianwales said:

 

The OBligation to follow them is that if they don't then they won't get permission to cross the crossing because it won't be safe to do so, Simple.

But it appears an attitude like that from the signaller is exactly what caused the rant by the Farmer in the first place.

[96701]

I'm sure the Level Crossing Manager will pay the user a visit and smooth things over.

 

[ianwales]

So, Grahame & David

 

Kindly explain to me then how I can allow someone to cross a crossing safely if they wont tell me what crossing they want to cross?

 

Ian

[grahame]

1 hour ago, ianwales said:

So, Grahame & David

 

Kindly explain to me then how I can allow someone to cross a crossing safely if they wont tell me what crossing they want to cross?

 

Ian

 

I haven't said or have suggested that people shouldn't say what crossing they want to cross but there needs to be consideration and agreement regarding the identity of the crossing. And that is a two way process, takes two parties and more effective communication than appears to have taken place. If one refuses discourse or doesn't explain what is required then it effectively blocks progress in the conversation. I get the impression that both parties took a contrary high and mighty attitude which effectively made it difficult to reach an amicable conclusion and resulted in the video rant. It could have been avoided.

 

It seems that the farmer asked the signaller at what crossing he was at because that is what he was told to do by another railway employee. That question appears to have been rebuffed with a negative statement and a demand that he say where he is - rather a childish tit for tat approach. Perhaps some explanation and discussion of the reasons and information required would have helped rather than a flat refusal. Although we will probably never know the full story of an 'I said, he said' disagreement there is no doubt that the farmer was rubbed up the wrong way sufficiently to make the video. Not a good outcome or great publicity for either party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kevinlms]

6 hours ago, ianwales said:

 

The onus is on the user to tell the signaller what crossing he is ringing from, not for the signaller to lead the user by stating what crossing he thinks he is ringing from, if the user will not for whatever reason tell the signaller which crossing he wishes to use then the signaller will quite rightly refuse permission to cross.

 

Ian

I can see that the signaller needs to know which crossing anyone is calling from, but it appears from the video that the particular farmer had been told, or at least understood to be the case, that it was the other way around.

 

Technically, you should refuse permission, but that is likely to lead to the caller to potentially just crossing anyway. It would appear from the same video, that particular person won't be doing that, because he knows that it is his life at risk. Certainly not the signallers.

 

I do hope that your senior management, has tracked this farmer down and clarified EXACTLY what the correct conversation MUST be.

[Reorte]

19 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

 It would appear from the same video, that particular person won't be doing that, because he knows that it is his life at risk. Certainly not the signallers.

 

That's the one good thing we can take away from this - a pity rather more people don't have that much common sense.

 

I've never used such a crossing, for the benefit of the ignorant such as myself what information (name, list of instructions etc.) is actually provided at the crossing?

[96701]

4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

That's the one good thing we can take away from this - a pity rather more people don't have that much common sense.

 

I've never used such a crossing, for the benefit of the ignorant such as myself what information (name, list of instructions etc.) is actually provided at the crossing?

There is a load of information on level crossings from Network Rail's perspective on their website:

 

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/communities/safety-in-the-community/level-crossing-safety/

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, ianwales said:

So, Grahame & David

 

Kindly explain to me then how I can allow someone to cross a crossing safely if they wont tell me what crossing they want to cross?

 

Ian

No one is saying you should, just a little bit of common sense both sides and more communication at the time rather than a flat NO or obstinacy to explain might have helped more.

[boxbrownie]

5 minutes ago, 96701 said:

There is a load of information on level crossings from Network Rail's perspective on their website:

 

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/communities/safety-in-the-community/level-crossing-safety/

That’s interesting but I cannot find anything in those pages (at least easily) that gives advice/protocol for user operated LC locations.

[96701]

1 minute ago, boxbrownie said:

That’s interesting but I cannot find anything in those pages (at least easily) that gives advice/protocol for user operated LC locations.

Each level crossing has its own instructions dependent on the type. The instructions are written down. At least once a year the Level Crossing Manager should give or send the user a copy of those instructions and should get written confirmation that the user has understood the instructions and will work to them.

 

I would guess that this particular crossing is on private land, so there will be no public interface, so the above paragraph should apply, but for some reason communications seem to have broken down. I should have thought that there should be some record of the formal process which would not include the signaller telling the user where he is. The fact that the farmer has been there as the user for some considerable time, I find it strange that comms have failed, hence my comment about the Level Crossing Manager paying the user a visit,if only to remind him of the correct procedure. The user should have no difficulty remembering the name of the location, and I'm with the signallers on this forum. If the user wants to sit there, that is up to the user.

 

[boxbrownie]

3 minutes ago, 96701 said:

Each level crossing has its own instructions dependent on the type. The instructions are written down. At least once a year the Level Crossing Manager should give or send the user a copy of those instructions and should get written confirmation that the user has understood the instructions and will work to them.

 

I would guess that this particular crossing is on private land, so there will be no public interface, so the above paragraph should apply, but for some reason communications seem to have broken down. I should have thought that there should be some record of the formal process which would not include the signaller telling the user where he is. The fact that the farmer has been there as the user for some considerable time, I find it strange that comms have failed, hence my comment about the Level Crossing Manager paying the user a visit,if only to remind him of the correct procedure. The user should have no difficulty remembering the name of the location, and I'm with the signallers on this forum. If the user wants to sit there, that is up to the user.

 

I’ll have to check but we have many user LC on our farmland in Norfolk and not sure I can recall any letters coming regarding their use, recently at least.

 

BTW.....our instructions to the drivers is to tell the signaller where we are, and make sure he repeats the location to us, when your taking a couple of these over the rails you need confidence it is safe to do so, pretty sure all ours are 65 mph lines.

[ajwffc]

have just watched the video again. It was in his own words whoever installed the phone line that told him to get the signaler to say where he was phoning from. 

[96701]

25 minutes ago, ajwffc said:

have just watched the video again. It was in his own words whoever installed the phone line that told him to get the signaler to say where he was phoning from. 

He also said that the phones were put in 5 or 6 years ago. If he can't remember when the phones went in, is there perhaps a chance he may well be misremembering what he was told? Also has everybody been doing it wrongly in all that time? I reckon that there is more to this that meets the eye. There are a number of farmers have commented on the original Facebook page, some think the railways should be closed, some think the farmer should get a grip.

[caradoc]

As already mentioned, we only have the farmer's version of his side of two conversations, with the Signaller and with the guy who installed the phones. Given the farmer's evident disdain for the Signaller, perhaps he did not start his end of the conversation in a positive or helpful manner ? Regardless, surely when the LC was upgraded from Stop Look and Listen to phones, Network Rail advised the farmer of the change to the method of working and the procedure to be adopted; If not, that was a failure on NR's part.

[Grovenor]

Here are a couple of cases that will give more idea of the problems, there are more on the RAIB site.

https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/report-11-2019-serious-operational-irregularity-at-bagillt-user-worked-crossing

https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/safety-digest-09-2018-plain-moor-user-worked-crossing

[96701]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

As already mentioned, we only have the farmer's version of his side of two conversations, with the Signaller and with the guy who installed the phones. Given the farmer's evident disdain for the Signaller, perhaps he did not start his end of the conversation in a positive or helpful manner ? Regardless, surely when the LC was upgraded from Stop Look and Listen to phones, Network Rail advised the farmer of the change to the method of working and the procedure to be adopted; If not, that was a failure on NR's part.

But we don't know, do we? We've got one side of the story from a bloke who got annoyed and had a rant to his phone and posted it on social media. 

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, 96701 said:

He also said that the phones were put in 5 or 6 years ago. If he can't remember when the phones went in, is there perhaps a chance he may well be misremembering what he was told? Also has everybody been doing it wrongly in all that time?

 

Although I agree it's possible that he's simply mis-remembered or it's been done wrong all along I don't think it's fair to say if he can't remember exactly when he might've mis-remembered the rest. My memory for time is lousy, I always have to sit down and work it out to figure out the year anything happened.

[96701]

13 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Although I agree it's possible that he's simply mis-remembered or it's been done wrong all along I don't think it's fair to say if he can't remember exactly when he might've mis-remembered the rest. My memory for time is lousy, I always have to sit down and work it out to figure out the year anything happened.

If there is a failing on Network Rail's part, I would suggest that there is not enough consultation between the user and the Level Crossing Manager.

[kevinlms]

17 hours ago, 96701 said:

He also said that the phones were put in 5 or 6 years ago. If he can't remember when the phones went in, is there perhaps a chance he may well be misremembering what he was told? Also has everybody been doing it wrongly in all that time? I reckon that there is more to this that meets the eye. There are a number of farmers have commented on the original Facebook page, some think the railways should be closed, some think the farmer should get a grip.

Why should any user need to remember EXACTLY, when the phones went in? Correct usage is far more important.

 

To me, it sounds like at least one party has been doing it wrong all along. Is this farmer, the only person to use this crossing, or do random employees/contractors - who might be casual workers and no one trains them properly on the usage at all?

 

Another factor is, how often does this particular farmer use this crossing? If he uses it virtually every day, he is more likely to use it correctly, than if he say uses it for a few days a year at harvest time and doesn't use it for months at a time.