Hitachi trains grounded

[TomScrut]

3 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

Therefore why has the lner fleet been withdrawn?

 

To be checked. Some are now running as far as I am aware.

 

3 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

Finally there should be a thunderbird fleet of warm stord 9 -car hst kept for emergency fleets across the network.

 

And who would drive them? Would all the drivers with all the TOCs be trained in HSTs, or would there be a crack team of commando drivers that are signed on all the routes?

[Hobby]

2 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

Finally there should be a thunderbird fleet of warm stord 9 -car hst kept for emergency fleets across the network. They have a hogh RA, and are very robust and reliable. Its an insult that a serviceable hsts are being scrapped when their replacements are not fit for purpose day in day out. If I were commuting now and would have a paragraph of choice words for the tocs involved.

 

Have you thought how big that fleet would have to be to run a meaningful service? How much it would cost just to have it sitting there, probably for years, before it's needed? How much it would cost to have enough staff trained up to work them? Are you prepared to pay the extra needed by the ticket price increase?

 

(As someone has already pointed out it was the Gov who did the technical specs for these new trains, so blaming the TOCs, though a kneejerk reaction, isn't fair on them!

[Dunsignalling]

And if you were still commuting now, how would you feel about paying an extra 10 or 15% for your ticket when everything was working just fine, to finance such a strategic reserve for when the brown stuff does hit the whirly thing?

 

John  

[corneliuslundie]

I am not saying anything is wrong with the basis for the safety rules on the railway, but it is interesting to compare them with another area of life.

Imagine if you had to retake your driving test regularly to retain “competence”; if you had to have training before you could drive the new model of car you had just bought; if you needed a test that you knew the route you were going to take to get to work; that you had to be proved competent before you could change a wheel or the oil. Alright, I know that the results of an error with a train are potentially much greater than for a road vehicle incident.

But it seems to me that both are extremes and the right answer should be somewhere in the middle. It is impossible to eliminate risk (how often have I typed that?) and the problem is finding the right balance between risk, cost, inconvenience etc. The more you try to reduce risk the faster the cost of any reduction escalates. Unfortunately, with the number of “lawyers” chasing work these days that is not easy.

Yes, these days we would have surrendered at Dunkirk because of the risk of sending small boats to sea. Probably operated by crews with no paperwork to prove their competence.

Jonathan

[TomScrut]

2 minutes ago, Hobby said:

As someone has already pointed out it was the Gov who did the technical specs for these new trains, so blaming the TOCs, though a kneejerk reaction, isn't fair on them!

 

AFAIK the only exceptions to this are the 802s, these were chosen by the TOCs. Although GWR were unlikely to want a small fleet of unique units so a relative of their 800s was very likely.

[Hobby]

26 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I am trying to saying to some running round with wild “can’t do’s” and others increasingly with “wild ideas” that really there should be some faith in the management come up with safe solutions.

 

Lets see what the next 24 hours brings, i’m confident some cooperation from with in the industry will emerge.

 

 

None of us are running around with wild "can't dos", however we are having to contain the wild ideas that some of you who don't work in the industry seem to think are possible. You keep mentioning those extra trains and staff that can be used, have you evidence of their availability, bearing in mind traction and route knowledge? Or is it a guess.

 

If you'd look you'd already find the Industry is already co-operating as much as possible, Xc have already brought a spare HST into use as well as running extra trains in the SW. The WCML TOCs have chipped in with ticket acceptance. So it isn't fair to insinuate nothing is being done, it is.

 

[TomScrut]

2 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am not saying anything is wrong with the basis for the safety rules on the railway, but it is interesting to compare them with another area of life.

Imagine if you had to retake your driving test regularly to retain “competence”; if you had to have training before you could drive the new model of car you had just bought; if you needed a test that you knew the route you were going to take to get to work; that you had to be proved competent before you could change a wheel or the oil. Alright, I know that the results of an error with a train are potentially much greater than for a road vehicle incident.

But it seems to me that both are extremes and the right answer should be somewhere in the middle. It is impossible to eliminate risk (how often have I typed that?) and the problem is finding the right balance between risk, cost, inconvenience etc. The more you try to reduce risk the faster the cost of any reduction escalates. Unfortunately, with the number of “lawyers” chasing work these days that is not easy.

Yes, these days we would have surrendered at Dunkirk because of the risk of sending small boats to sea. Probably operated by crews with no paperwork to prove their competence.

Jonathan

 

I expect if somebody crashed a type of bus they hadn't driven for years, or on a route they had never been on before and killed a load of people questions would be asked.

 

And HGV drivers have to keep their CPCs in check as an example too.

 

The difference between this and WW2 is these measures actually help stop people getting killed. Tens/hundreds of thousands of soldiers lives at risk if nothing is done is the polar opposite of putting thousands of lives at risk by doing something. People's lives are not being risked by the trains not running as far as I am aware. It is an inconvenience more than a life and death situation.

[Coryton]

10 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am not saying anything is wrong with the basis for the safety rules on the railway, but it is interesting to compare them with another area of life.

Imagine if you had to retake your driving test regularly to retain “competence”;

 

Although railways do have very rigid rules, I think there it's the driving test that's the anomaly.

 

2 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

I expect if somebody crashed a type of bus they hadn't driven for years, or on a route they had never been on before and killed a load of people questions would be asked.

 

I would be surprised.

 

 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

I’m not sure anyone would want that situation.

 

Not only would it be dangerous, but damage to the jacks/depot infrastructure could cause more issues, as without said infrastructure no other units could be lifted in the meantime, causing fleet attrition due to maintenance backlog.

 

A few years back 222103 had an indepot collapse, the unit was out of service for 2 years. They didnt quit and give up, nor did they pull Rocket out of the NRM.

 

The filing cabinet was moved, they were able to overcome the paperwork issues, objections etc, and operate a slam door HST in the interim.

 

Indeed the spirit of GC and HTs is the spirit we need, they more than any other operator have overcome unbelievable number of operational issues over the years...and with regard to safety andwith regards to who is allowed to press which button.

You just don't get it. Slam door HSTs were the norm back in 2005 or whenever it was that 222103 got dropped. You keep ranting on about filing cabinets, and you quoted something like "sat with their feet up citing the rule book" after a list that laughably included green godesses.

 

Staff could be retrained on older stock, vehicles could be brought back out of storage and given exams or overhauls they need to get them back in service, dispensations could be granted for non PRM stock to be brought back to cover the shortfall. They are long term solutions, not overnight ones. You (and it's not just you) seem to think that drivers and guards working for GWR can just change back into their old uniforms and regain the traction competencies they held back then- it doesn't work like that. When the HSTs were introduced on Hull Trains (for example) that was after weeks of training had been carried out and using stock that was then common on the route and thus they had station staff competent in their dispatch and didn't need a PRM exemption.

 

[TomScrut]

1 minute ago, Coryton said:

 

I would be surprised

 

You'd be surprised if questions were asked if a load of people died in a bus accident, especially if there was a way of pinning it on the driver's competence?

[Dunsignalling]

2 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am not saying anything is wrong with the basis for the safety rules on the railway, but it is interesting to compare them with another area of life.

Imagine if you had to retake your driving test regularly to retain “competence”; if you had to have training before you could drive the new model of car you had just bought; if you needed a test that you knew the route you were going to take to get to work; that you had to be proved competent before you could change a wheel or the oil. Alright, I know that the results of an error with a train are potentially much greater than for a road vehicle incident.

But it seems to me that both are extremes and the right answer should be somewhere in the middle. It is impossible to eliminate risk (how often have I typed that?) and the problem is finding the right balance between risk, cost, inconvenience etc. The more you try to reduce risk the faster the cost of any reduction escalates. Unfortunately, with the number of “lawyers” chasing work these days that is not easy.

Yes, these days we would have surrendered at Dunkirk because of the risk of sending small boats to sea. Probably operated by crews with no paperwork to prove their competence.

Jonathan

TBH our roads would be a lot safer if everybody had to retake their driving test at regular intervals, say every five years.

 

The levels of risk regarded as acceptable during wartime bear no relevance to what can or should be allowed in providing a public transport service.

 

We must never forget that the railway rulebook was written in blood, not ink. Ignoring inconvenient bits of it to get through the week or so of (gradually decreasing) disruption that it will take to get a revised inspection and maintenance regime for these trains in place to allow a return to normal, or near normal operation, would be reckless in the extreme.

 

John

 

[alastairq]

4 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am not saying anything is wrong with the basis for the safety rules on the railway, but it is interesting to compare them with another area of life.

Imagine if you had to retake your driving test regularly to retain “competence”; if you had to have training before you could drive the new model of car you had just bought; if you needed a test that you knew the route you were going to take to get to work; that you had to be proved competent before you could change a wheel or the oil. Alright, I know that the results of an error with a train are potentially much greater than for a road vehicle incident.

 

The above example is covered by Law.  Responsibility for competence, vehicle familiarisation,  route learning, or even maintenance competence is , on a basic level, the legal responsibility of the individual.  {The enforcement of those Laws is another issue]

However, within the  driving industry as a whole, employers take  driving competence, vehicle familiarisation, route learning etc very seriously these days. It is nowadays enshrined in legislation [For example, the requirement for all LGV drives to under regular CPC assessments/education]

The military [all services, and my area of expertise, now retired]....already follow the above , from the day the basic Cat B test is passed. The military [legal] requirement that nobody 'drives' a vehicle they have not successfully completed  the correct familiarisation course on, as a user, is absolute. It caused an awful manning issue back in 2003 Gulf 2.  [ drivers operating vehicles they had not touched for years..they had the FMT 600 for it, but had worked in other  'jobs' for years. The competence was lost...training fade....and as a result, breakages were rife. I was involved in the 'surge' training to turn out new young and very competent  soldiers, in a short space of time.   But this still took several months! What looked good on paper, proved sadly lacking on the ground. ]

[Phil Traxson]

On 08/05/2021 at 09:20, Jol Wilkinson said:

Surely this can't be correct. Japanese design and engineering, what has gone wrong?

With British civil service and bean counter spec. interference!!

[woodenhead]

22 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

And who would drive them? Would all the drivers with all the TOCs be trained in HSTs, or would there be a crack team of commando drivers that are signed on all the routes?

I don't think even @big jim signs all routes. 

[Hobby]

3 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

TBH our roads would be a lot safer if everybody had to retake their driving test at regular intervals, say every five years.

 

And were policed as well as the railways... Everything we do these days is captured on CCTV and can be used if things go wrong. We certainly can't get away with what drivers on the roads can! Conversely our safety record is somewhat better...

[Coryton]

Just now, TomScrut said:

 

You'd be surprised if questions were asked if a load of people died in a bus accident, especially if there was a way of pinning it on the driver's competence?

 

 

Maybe I am wrong but I didn't think that bus drivers had to have specific training on each model of bus they might drive and sign off on them in the way the rail industry operates. Some companies (I can think of one locally) have very varied fleets.

 

Likewise, while bus drivers clearly have to know the route they're running so they take the right turns and don't miss stops, I didn't think there was a requirement to stay "current" on each route for safety reasons.

 

I've certainly seen signs to remind drivers which way to go, and I very much doubt that when routes are diverted all the drivers that might cover that route have to go out and drive round the diversion before they are allowed to carry passengers on it.

 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

56 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Rules are a box, which constrain behaviour.

Those constraints define safe working boundaries.

All rules are interpreted, some are more absolute (Yes/No) than others (Between A and E)

 

A good example of this is pilot man working, where a driver of one type can drive over an unfamiliar network with a guide who knows it.

Not everything is as black and white as being presented, there are always shades of grey, that are perfectly acceptable if implemented within the defined frameworks...

 

We don't do shades of grey, period. And there are not dozens of pilotmen/women sat around on call today just in case you want to run something over a route where it now normally does not run.

 

And you are getting confused about GWR- there are three (now four actually, but I will simplify for my audience) "groups" of staff- HSS, LTV and West (and former HeX) and each only holds competency on their own routes and their own tractions. For HSS that means Class 800 only apart from a few that do Class 57's, for LTV that means Class 800, Class 387 and 165/166, for West that means HST, Class 15x and 165/166. There are very few "crossover" staff, some West of England depots do a bit of everything but they are busy, err, doing a bit of everything. You could possibly cape the Gunnislake branch to run a Paddington service with a HST if they had been passed to run to Paddington as sliding door sets but the benefit would be negligible.

 

[woodenhead]

22 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am not saying anything is wrong with the basis for the safety rules on the railway, but it is interesting to compare them with another area of life.

 

Yes, these days we would have surrendered at Dunkirk because of the risk of sending small boats to sea. Probably operated by crews with no paperwork to prove their competence.

Jonathan

It's risk v reward - a train driver is as a policemen once put it to me with my car driving a lethal weapon, in the wrong hands or with carelessness a lot of lives can be lost.  Competence = safety = lives not being lost.  It's the same with planes, ships, coaches and lorries.

 

With Dunkirk, the risk of the odd small boat sinking versus the large number of fighting men who would be lost to fight again either dead or imprisoned outweighs the risk of one boat sinkin.  Also with other boats around if one boat was sinking the others could effect a rescue further reducing said risk.

[great central]

35 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

No I am not saying this.

Please show me one statement where I have

1. advocated throwing out the rulebook,

2. suggested “brought back these trains”, which I assume you mean some form of classic traction...

or..just cease doing it please...its your imagination, not mine.

 

I am trying to saying to some running round with wild “can’t do’s” and others increasingly with “wild ideas” that really there should be some faith in the management come up with safe solutions.

 

I don't accept “surrender, nothing can be done and shut the whole thing down”... as long as the tracks exist, staff come to work and the juice is on, something is possible.

 

As I said I think XR with spare 345’s and drivers on a 4 day week, even if it was only a handful, is a great idea... tell me why it is isnt ? That then pushes GWRs london resources further west, thus giving extra capacity there... The only thing I can see here is the filing cabinet throwing up objections to stop it.
i’m sure those who are paid to do these things are thinking of equally similar ideas...

ive never at any point said a pair of 58’s will top and tail the sleeper nor that drivers should disregard signals etc...or any other wild ideas. I do think some objections being thrown up, are possible to overcome, safely, with the right attitude and approach.

 

I do think however, some in the industry quite often demonstrate more negative traits than positive ones, when it comes to responding to issues, however that could also just be a trait of the employees at a certain work level, where as more influential ones publically  say less, but make decisions.

 

Lets see what the next 24 hours brings, i’m confident some cooperation from with in the industry will emerge.

 

 

As I've already pointed out in previous posts I'm personally responsible for carrying out my duties, my company management is corporately responsible for my actions.

If something is done which results in bad consequences there's lots of people looking where to apportion blame.

For instance I COULD, probably, take one of our units to London as a guard and cause no issues, but as I don't sign beyond Leicester if something did go wrong both I and the company management would likely be facing a judge at some point.

I would not take an HST or Meridian to Liverpool, although I sign the route I do not have competence on either traction and would quite likely get into trouble.

In both cases it's possible to overcome the obstacles by double staffing, one with route knowledge, the other with the relevant traction knowledge. But this requires there to be staff available and given we're mostly already fully employed on our own jobs there simply isn't the spare capacity to provide anything above one or two services in the way you seem to think.

[mikejames]

to be honest I'm confused

way up the thread people were saying 'blame the government - not the TOCS.'

Certainly the government specified these trains

but I would have thought that would be a functional specification

i.e these trains must be able to do this.....

run for so long between maintenance etc.

 

It would then be up to the manufacturer to design a train to these specifications.

 

I cannot see how the government (DFT) could be expected to detail design a bogie/link etc 

that doesn't crack

 

So what exactly did the DFT specify  incorrectly.

 

DFT seems to come in for a lot of stick on this website and it is probably generally justified

but I suspect not in this case.

 

thanks for clarification

mike james

 

 

 

 

[alastairq]

9 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

 

Maybe I am wrong but I didn't think that bus drivers had to have specific training on each model of bus they might drive and sign off on them in the way the rail industry operates. Some companies (I can think of one locally) have very varied fleets.

 

Likewise, while bus drivers clearly have to know the route they're running so they take the right turns and don't miss stops, I didn't think there was a requirement to stay "current" on each route for safety reasons.

 

I've certainly seen signs to remind drivers which way to go, and I very much doubt that when routes are diverted all the drivers that might cover that route have to go out and drive round the diversion before they are allowed to carry passengers on it.

 

 Yes there is!

No company would allow a driver to take charge of a vehicle worth a heck of a lot of money without having undergone some familiarisation with the operation, and driving, of that vehicle.

No Company employs a driver without first assessing their driving competence.  Most, if not all bus companies actually require their drivers to undergo regular and frequent driving assessments and refresher training. [My last employer, EYMS, compelled drivers to undergo annual driver refresher training]

Certainly, that was the case when I started bus driving for London Transport in 1972!  [Finished in 1997, went into the driver education industry] Back int eh1970's, London Transport employed teams of driver assessors who would ride, incognito, behind every driver they employed, at least once or twice a year...More so if the company had received passenger complaints,  or the drive had accrued a collison record.

 

The same goes in the haulage industry...no employer lets a driver loose on a machine costing several hundreds of thousands of pounds,without prior training.

Edited May 9, 2021 by alastairq

[woodenhead]

27 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

AFAIK the only exceptions to this are the 802s, these were chosen by the TOCs. Although GWR were unlikely to want a small fleet of unique units so a relative of their 800s was very likely.

Chosen because it was probably a faster route to delivery and acceptance - a ready to go production line and a signed off design for UK trains plus a there are Hitachi maintenance depots all over the country now because of the massive fleet.

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

7 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

 

Maybe I am wrong but I didn't think that bus drivers had to have specific training on each model of bus they might drive and sign off on them in the way the rail industry operates. Some companies (I can think of one locally) have very varied fleets.

 

Likewise, while bus drivers clearly have to know the route they're running so they take the right turns and don't miss stops, I didn't think there was a requirement to stay "current" on each route for safety reasons.

 

I've certainly seen signs to remind drivers which way to go, and I very much doubt that when routes are diverted all the drivers that might cover that route have to go out and drive round the diversion before they are allowed to carry passengers on it.

 

Bus drivers would generally get a familarisation on new types, but that may be limited to just showing them where the controls are and how they differ to other types. Difference on the railway is that a Class 800 is 45 years newer in design vs a HST and so is radically different to the extent of training pretty much from scratch traction-wise.

 

[TomScrut]

9 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

 

Maybe I am wrong but I didn't think that bus drivers had to have specific training on each model of bus they might drive and sign off on them in the way the rail industry operates. Some companies (I can think of one locally) have very varied fleets.

 

Likewise, while bus drivers clearly have to know the route they're running so they take the right turns and don't miss stops, I didn't think there was a requirement to stay "current" on each route for safety reasons.

 

I've certainly seen signs to remind drivers which way to go, and I very much doubt that when routes are diverted all the drivers that might cover that route have to go out and drive round the diversion before they are allowed to carry passengers on it.

 

 

I wasn't suggesting it was the same as the rail industry, in that there is a legally binding process. But just because something isn't written into law it doesn't mean it can't be used against somebody, it would probably fall under H&S or some sort of public liability law.

 

In the case of a driver doing what his employer tells him with no legal requirement for him to say no I expect it would boil down to H&S on the employers part.

 

If somebody shot somebody with a nail gun on a building site and hadn't had the correct training then the lack of training card would be played by the "nailer". If they had then I expect they'd be charged with whatever offence best suited the damage done to the "nailee" unless a hole in the companies process was found.

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

1 minute ago, woodenhead said:

Chosen because it was probably a faster route to delivery and acceptance - a ready to go production line and a signed off design for UK trains plus a there are Hitachi maintenance depots all over the country now because of the massive fleet.

and there wasn't a massive amount of choice for off the peg bi-mode, 125mph units. Still isn't! Massive digression (please forgive) but Alstom missed a trick when they built the 4 extra WCML Pendos; they should have built a 5th one with a large diesel engine between the cab and the passenger area in each driving car and tried flogging it as a bi-mode with UK acceptance, albeit with C4 restriction and lardy-arse carriages...