Yellow ends

[russ p]

This happened before, in the mid 80s probably 87 when the 150/2s came out they had no yellow ends as apparently headlights were OK.

Mind I had more faith in management back then!

[Nearholmer]

Brian

 

Working on the railway was a pretty dangerous job in 'the old days', in common with many other jobs.

 

The NRM has a big project running to look at the history of rail worker safety, and they've so far analysed a bare 3% of the incidents affecting railway workers in Britain and Ireland, spanning 1911-15, which amounts to an astonishing 3929 cases, of which 777 were fatalities, and the rest injuries of varying severity.

 

Read those numbers again, because they are huge!

 

Of that lot, 351 people were killed while out on the track (so, nearly half of the deaths), and 587 were injured on the track. (Keep reminding yourself folks, this is based on analysis of only 3% of the incidents!). Shunting killed 205 and injured 1289.

 

Even if the remaining 97% of incidents turn out on analysis to be minor paper cuts, the numbers are shocking.

 

oh, and railways were 'safe' workplaces, compared with mines and deep sea trawlers.

 

Next time someone starts talking 'elf n safety gone mad', it might be worth pointing out to them the long run trends, and how attention to worker safety has cut the toll across numerous industries.

 

Kevin

Edited July 25, 2018 by Nearholmer

[298]

In the same period that Sarah Siddons was running on BR, there would have also been steam hauled specials with no yellow and no headlight.

And stock moves between Carnforth & Haverthwaite / Totnes & Paignton with non-accredited steam locos and preserved diesels with and without yellow ends. Flickering oil taillights were mandatory though...

[newbryford]

I'm surprised you lads can actually see any trains at the moment!

I have NEVER seen the railway so overgrown as it is at the moment some one high up in network rail wants to be held account for it . It's bloody lethal apart from looking a mess.

 

 

I blame the tree huggers and the ban on using herbicides that actually work...............

 

Mick

[russ p]

I blame the tree huggers and the ban on using herbicides that actually work...............

 

Mick

That is part of the problem but the root of it is cost cutting by network rail

[jim.snowdon]

I was answering Zomboid's very specific point about TSIs, but ......

 

I don't think that it is necessary to have an exemption from RGS to cover this aspect of LU trains running on NR any longer, because the relevant RGS (GM/RT2131) includes the option to use 'suitable and sufficient' risk assessment to prove the case to use other than yellow (Appendix E).

 

When on LU infrastructure, LU trains are, of course, not bound by RG or NR Standards, but by the regime set out in the document that I linked to.

Looking back through the predecessors to GM/RT2131, the original standard, GM/RT2180, had a specific exemption for stock belonging to London Underground. When it was superseded by GM/RT2483, that exception disappeared, leaving it to be presumed that LU applied for and got a derogation. The latest version, GM/RT2131, effectively puts the whole matter back to risk assessment on a case by case basis.

 

Sarah Siddons was, for a long time, the only non-steam locomotive able to run on NR metals that had never had a yellow end, and thus something of an oddity to start with.

 

Jim

 

Jim

[E3109]

Furthermore to this, I wonder why steam locomotives are exempt from orange cantrail lines when heritage diesels and electrics aren't.

I'd take this further and ask why heritage traction of any description is obliged to have EU-mandated yellow-on-black OHLE warning signs.

They look awful and particularly so on steam traction.

[daveyb]

Brian

 

Working on the railway was a pretty dangerous job in 'the old days', in common with many other jobs.

 

The NRM has a big project running to look at the history of rail worker safety, and they've so far analysed a bare 3% of the incidents affecting railway workers in Britain and Ireland, spanning 1911-15, which amounts to an astonishing 3929 cases, of which 777 were fatalities, and the rest injuries of varying severity.

 

Read those numbers again, because they are huge!

 

Of that lot, 351 people were killed while out on the track (so, nearly half of the deaths), and 587 were injured on the track. (Keep reminding yourself folks, this is based on analysis of only 3% of the incidents!). Shunting killed 205 and injured 1289.

 

Even if the remaining 97% of incidents turn out on analysis to be minor paper cuts, the numbers are shocking.

 

oh, and railways were 'safe' workplaces, compared with mines and deep sea trawlers.

 

Next time someone starts talking 'elf n safety gone mad', it might be worth pointing out to them the long run trends, and how attention to worker safety has cut the toll across numerous industries.

 

Kevin

I'm not sure that the yellow ends/lights argument is directly comparable in accident stats from 1911. Those stats are fascinating but also indicative of a very different lifetime. If you were to look at accident figures in the same era but for other areas of work, you will likely see horrifying numbers there too. Pre WW1 and the speedily advancing Edwardian Britain was a very dangerous place indeed... have a look at foundry accidents, farming accidents, mining accident, military deaths... life was a profit limiter and the law and the unions were not in place to look after the little guy.

 

This wasn't new, though. This had been the situation since for 150 years already. The attitude needed changing, hence the Factories Acts, Schools Act, Shops, Offices and Railway Premesis Act, all of course leading to the H&SWA 1974.

 

What really changed was the attitude to life following two World Wars. The tweak from yellow ends to lights is simply a modern visibility aid for a dangerous situation that has been incrementally improved for 55 years.

 

It's surprising lights haven't replaced paint a lot earlier. Which Deltic had the step welds replacing a trial flashing light?...

Edited July 26, 2018 by daveyb

[Wheatley]

Furthermore to this, I wonder why steam locomotives are exempt from orange cantrail lines when heritage diesels and electrics aren't.

I'd take this further and ask why heritage traction of any description is obliged to have EU-mandated yellow-on-black OHLE warning signs.

They look awful and particularly so on steam traction.

Because orange cantrail stripes were never mandated for steam so don't need to be fitted. OLE flashes were (in steam days) so continued to be required in preservation, and if they are fitted they need to comply with the current Regs. A bit like seat belts on a pre-seat belt car - you don' need to fit them but if you do they ecome a testable item. The only post-preservation kit I can think of which is mandatory and permanently fitted is TPWS because of the greater risks involved. Headlights and NRN/GSMR can be plugged in as and when required. Edited July 26, 2018 by Wheatley

[Wheatley]

This happened before, in the mid 80s probably 87 when the 150/2s came out they had no yellow ends as apparently headlights were OK.

Mind I had more faith in management back then!

I remember that, they lasted until someone asked what happened when the bulb failed. In those days the pway and livery designers all worked for the same firm and opposition to stupid ideas could be escalated until someone with a sufficiently large hat got involved. Edited July 26, 2018 by Wheatley

[E3109]

So why were they mandated for 'modern' traction, why does a preserved Western have to carry cantrail stripes when a preserved King or Castle doesn't.

 

Seems like a case of 'diesel is diesel' whether preserved or not and they were all bunched into the same BS (in this case Bu*****t Standard rather than British Standard).

 

My main work is intermodal jobs.

To this day, I've yet to see a single container with an orange cantrail stripe.

[Wheatley]

Because it's a diesel (doesn't matter which specific deisel) and diesels have no exemption from cantrail stripes. If one of the owning groups wanted to argue the toss with RSSB they might get a derogation but it's quicker and cheaper to paint the stripe.

 

Only traction units got stripes, drivers don't habitually climb on and off containers.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Wheatley

[E3109]

Because it's a diesel (doesn't matter which specific deisel) and diesels have no exemption from cantrail stripes. If one of the owning groups wanted to argue the toss with RSSB they might get a derogation but it's quicker and cheaper to paint the stripe.

Indeed. If I were foolish enough to own any kind of Moneypit though (apart from my mortgaged house lol) I'd be fighting that all the way.

[Wheatley]

Seems like a case of 'diesel is diesel' whether preserved or not

Yes. That.

[E3109]

Because it's a diesel (doesn't matter which specific deisel) and diesels have no exemption from cantrail stripes. If one of the owning groups wanted to argue the toss with RSSB they might get a derogation but it's quicker and cheaper to paint the stripe.

Only traction units got stripes, drivers don't habitually climb on and off containers.

Drivers don't habitually climb on/off coaching stock, or various wagons such as those used by DB, FL and GB, but they generally have cantrail stripes.

 

The majority of rolling stock, whether or not you're excluding traction units, have cantrail stripes.

In every case, regarding coaching stock whether LHCS or units.

Edited July 26, 2018 by E3109

[Wheatley]

The majority of rolling stock, whether or not you're excluding traction units, have cantrail stripes.

 

It might be fitted to wagons but it isn't actually required. GM/RT211 "Rolling Stock Subsystem and Interfaces to AC Energy Subsystem" (snappy title or what ?), my bold:

 

"2.3.1 - A continuous warning line 25-30 mm wide, at least 600 mm from exposed live parts of the OCL, shall be shown on all rail vehicles, except steam locomotives and wagons, operating over the 25 kV AC electrified railway."

 

https://www.rssb.co.uk/rgs/standards/GMRT2111%20Iss%201.pdf

 

"OCL" = "Overhead contact line". Thinking about it, even if it applied to wagons a container still wouldn't require one because it's not a wagon, it's the load.

 

Edited July 26, 2018 by Wheatley

[E3109]

Either way. I was discussing with a 'basher' friend recently, about the exact moment our railway went to sh*t.

 

We couldn't nail it down due to the way our railway was flogged off piecemeal, but we were in general agreement that it reached the point of no return around 1998, when those yellow/black warning signs started to appear and infest.

 

See it, say it, sorted.

Just FRO!

 

Not particularly bothered about orange cantrail stripes (except as outlined above) but OLE flashes of any type on an electric locomotive is just stupid. If you can't see the knitting and/or juice rail and thus are unable to know that you really ought to keep away from it, then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed out in the first place.

Edited July 26, 2018 by E3109

[Reorte]

Not particularly bothered about orange cantrail stripes (except as outlined above) but OLE flashes of any type on an electric locomotive is just stupid. If you can't see the knitting and/or juice rail and thus are unable to know that you really ought to keep away from it, then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed out in the first place.

No-one's immune from having moments of brainlessness, so whilst I've no sympathy for the type of person who'd walk straight off a cliff without a fence there (and then get people calling for all cliffs to be fenced) on the other hand it's also good to have a bit of prompting every now and then. Also there's how to balance instinct and complacency. Too much of a warning everywhere, even when not needed, and it'll start getting ignored (boy who cried wolf effect). If, on the other hand, the instinct is built  to see electric warning flash, keep clear, particularly in circumstances where if for example there are no wires around it might be appropriate to climb then it's useful.

[Wheatley]

We couldn't nail it down due to the way our railway was flogged off piecemeal, but we were in general agreement that it reached the point of no return around 1998, when those yellow/black warning signs started to appear and infest.

 

 

 

Agreed. When the heirarchical BR structure (escalate any inter-departmental dispute to man with sufficiently large hat) was replaced by contractual arrangements which no-one who hadn't written them could understand.

 

The other thing that happened was a lot of empire building, firstly by organisations who firstly suddenly found they had power, or sometimes who thought they had (yes, Railtrack Safety and Stands Board, you) and secondly by everyone else who simply replied "Shan't. Make us".  

 

For the first ten years of privitisation half of it only worked because someone in one org knew someone else in the other who could sort it on the QT.

[Hinckley_Wolf]

Either way. I was discussing with a 'basher' friend recently, about the exact moment our railway went to sh*t.

 

We couldn't nail it down due to the way our railway was flogged off piecemeal, but we were in general agreement that it reached the point of no return around 1998, when those yellow/black warning signs started to appear and infest.

 

Not particularly bothered about orange cantrail stripes (except as outlined above) but OLE flashes of any type on an electric locomotive is just stupid. If you can't see the knitting and/or juice rail and thus are unable to know that you really ought to keep away from it, then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed out in the first place.

but all of those signs are not railway specific and are therefore prescribed for all industries and workplaces.

 

Why should British Railway locomotives be exempt from displaying safety symbols that every other workplace has to display?

[Steadfast]

The yellow warning flashes are part of the range of Health and Safety Executive signage from the UK government aren't they? The European warning flashes on wagons and locos are very different

 

Jo

[Glorious NSE]

The yellow warning flashes are part of the range of Health and Safety Executive signage from the UK government aren't they? The European warning flashes on wagons and locos are very different

Yep, and the previous BR version was on most rolling stock starting in the 60s...

[phil-b259]

More TOCs are operating without yellow recently; those more acquainted with the new rules may be able to find a quote but in spite of the disappearing yellow, there have been few incidents. For years all there was, was a red buffer beam, no headlights as there is now and while a danger exists, most of the casualties are members of the public trespassing as with the recent demise of the three graffittists.

 

Sadly. in this country, many more trespassers seem to succumb much more frequently.

 

Brian.

So far the only trains actually operating without yellow fronts have been those on test runs or the new cross rail stock. The GWR 800s have a yellow nose as does the red LNER / RX VT liveried 800.

 

As such it is far too early to draw any conclusions as to the lack of yellow ends.

 

Once Crossrail is fully open, all the TPE stock in operation, etc then we will better be able to comment on the situation.

 

However I will reiterate what I said on the now lock thread - NOBODY has any right to make assertions about yellow ends (or dimmish the benefits thereof) other than track workers whose lives depend on having the best possible view of trains in all situations.

Edited July 26, 2018 by phil-b259

[Wheatley]

However I will reiterate what I said on the now lock thread - NOBODY has any right to make assertions about yellow ends (or dismish the benefits thereof) ends other than track workers whose lives depend on having the best possible view of trains in all situations.

 

Particularly if the only reason they are not yellow is because some corporate branding wonk has decided that it doesn't suit whichever GCSE Graphic Design / Art failure livery they've designed. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[Steadfast]

Apparently the TPE 185s don't carry front numbers any more because it would clash with the logo on the yellow panel. Doesn't sound important, but to staff working in depots full of identical units...

So TPE have previous for form over function I'm afraid

 

Jo