British Railways Form One - Did it actually exist?

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The punishment was then stated on the Form 2 and if there was no appeal it was then carried out.  If there was an appeal - which had to be taken by someone senior to the manager who had taken the Form 1 hearing -  the case could either be dismissed,  or the punishment confirmed or either reduced or increased.  I know of several cases where the punishment was increased,  and oddly that often seemed to be when local TU reps had advised someone not to appeal.

 

In some cases, particularly ASLEF, local union branch committees would decide whether or not they would provide a spokesman for a Form 1 hearing and whether or not they would support an appeal.  I had one instance where a Driver bailed out before the end of his turn and left the Drivers Asst in charge of the loco which he was not qualified to drive.  The branch refused to support the Driver for the Form 1 hearing and were even angrier than me when the Driver only got a Severe Reprimand - they demanded he be suspended for 5 days.  

 

There's a difference between supporting a worker who has inadvertently broken some minor rules against an oppressive management and blindly supporting union members right or wrong.  A trade union's duty is to its membership in general, rather than any to individual member who may knowingly have done wrong.  Where an individual has done something which endangers the safety of his colleagues, it's in the the other drivers as well as the travelling public that the offender not be allowed to continue to do so.  ASLEF are notoriously jealous of their members' skills, and it's a bit hard to square the need for drivers to undergo extensive training and experience with allowing an unqualified person to drive.

[The Johnster]

On 26/08/2022 at 22:49, whoppit said:

I worked with a guy 30 odd years ago, he was on a night shift 22.00-06.00 at Andover, the Station manager from Salisbury rocked up at Andover in the early hours but he was nowhere to be found, so the S.M drove to his house and knocked the door. The guilty party eventually opened the door in his dressing gown and invited the manager inside. The manager was shocked to see B.R carpet in the hall, a B.R mirror on the wall and the kitchen was kitted out with B.R soap dispenser, roller towel and was served a cup of tea in a travellers fare mug from the set of them on the counter top! When the manager said you know why I am here don't you? He slipped the form across the table to which my colleague asked is that a form one? That it is said the manager, the reply came back said well you can only issue that at the end of my shift. The manager said what does that mean? My colleague said I'm not due off until 06.00, its now 02.00 so come back in 4 hours! I believe he got away with it on a technicality.

Working for Royal Mail in Cardiff’s main sorting office back in the 90s, I’d slipped away early on an xmas eve morning shift.  Called into the office after the holiday, my immediate supervisor stated that I’d been seen leaving at 11.30 in the morning, and I straightaway knew this to be a foul and devious lie.  ‘No you didn’t, you must have been mistaken’, I said.  It was probably the time he’d noticed me missing, but I’d actually made a break for the border, my work completed, at 10.15, though I didn’t feel the need to point that out.  Got away with it!

[bécasse]

Mike Romans lists various possible outcomes from a disciplinary hearing but has missed out one rather odd one - commendation.

 

Back in the 1960s the Up No.1 Viaduct Line coming up from the South Eastern into London Bridge had a string of automatic colour light signals and, in clear weather (and daylight), multiple unit drivers had got into the habit of driving in pursuit of the clearly seen train in front rather than observing the actual signals. The line speed limit was 60mph but trains would more typically do around 40mph and maintain that speed even though the stick ahead was displaying red, knowing that it would automatically clear to yellow when they were a couple of coach lengths from it. The practice was, of course, well known to the local management, but, bar offering the odd stricture on the subject there wasn't much that they could do about it, it wasn't actually unsafe and it did help a little in keeping the complex peak service running to time.

 

Inevitably though, there came an occasion when a track circuit failure occurred under the preceding train and the stick failed to clear. Once the driver realised it wasn't going to, he released the dead man's handle (which cut traction and resulted in an emergency brake application) but, of course, ran well past the stick before coming to a stand. He had to ring the box to get permission to continue so there was no way he was going to hide his "SPAD" but he had the presence of mind to tell the bobby that the stick was showing single yellow as he approached but dropped back to red at the last possible moment.

 

At the end of the shift he got the expected Form 1 and maintained his story. The manager concerned was a young whipper-snapper who saw this as an opportunity to stop the practice once and for all, so it came to a hearing which he attended with his ASLEF rep. The rep apparently realised that the panel was hostile and so went on the offensive, pointing out that not only had the driver done no wrong but that he had been particularly diligent in spotting that the signal had gone back at the last possible moment and bringing his train promptly to a stand, and for doing that, rather than facing a disciplinary panel, he should be receiving a formal commendation - which in due course he did. The essential thing, though, was that the practice, while wrong, wasn't unsafe, and everybody did it.

[Nearholmer]

Wasn’t there an accident, which was decisive in terms of prompting the SR-AWS project, caused in part by this very practice?

Edited September 8, 2022 by Nearholmer

[The Johnster]

Back in the 70s, I went to a party held by a chum of mine in Shepperton, Surrey, and went up on a privilege ticket.  Got a cab ride on the 4-EPB from Clapham, and was amazed at the practice of accellerating hard on double yellows; nobody on the WR would have done that.  Driver explained that it was normal practice and necessary to keep time, and of course the EPBs had very good brakes...

[keefer]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Wasn’t there an accident, which was decisive in terms of prompting the SR-AWS project, caused in part by this very practice?

i can't remember if there was an accident or several 'incidents' which gradually brought the practice to the fore - i think it wasn't so much the practice of running on yellows per se (although it obviously was caused by it) but more the fact that drivers were becoming used to routinely cancelling the AWS horn, almost as a reflex.

Then. as you say, there was an accident(s) where they automatically cancelled the AWS and something more than a SPAD occured.

[Morello Cherry]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Wasn’t there an accident, which was decisive in terms of prompting the SR-AWS project, caused in part by this very practice?

 

Purley in 1989 maybe?

 

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=264

[Nearholmer]

A good few years earlier than that, I think the project started in the early/mid 70s, and was abandoned by about 1978-79.

 

I thought the accident was at Borough Market Junction, but drew a blank on that.

 

Purley (and one at Copyhold IIRC) were what led to ordinary AWS being given the hurry-up on the southern.

 

PS: it all goes back further than I thought. See report of accident at Marden in 1969, wherein there is discussion of the limitations of ordinary AWS when running on double yellows, and a summary of progress on SR-AWS.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Nearholmer

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Back in the 70s, I went to a party held by a chum of mine in Shepperton, Surrey, and went up on a privilege ticket.  Got a cab ride on the 4-EPB from Clapham, and was amazed at the practice of accellerating hard on double yellows; nobody on the WR would have done that.  Driver explained that it was normal practice and necessary to keep time, and of course the EPBs had very good brakes...

Wanna bet?  The only way the v certain parts of the London Division peak service could work was by running on normal train speed on double yellows.  The odd signal spacing in some places - notably Slough - also meant that some double yellows all you did was shut the controller and not touch the brake but watch very carefully for the next signal in advance and what happened then depended entirely on how far you were from the signal.

 

Even in the late 1990s when I was looking at trying to path some rather different trains over the GWML I found that in various parts of the Down evening peak from Paddington the number of trains between Paddington and Airport Jcn exceeded the theoretical line capacity - but the service worked so trains were clearly running on double yellows at line speed.

 

Running at lne speed on restrictive aspects went on over on the SR for many years although it was considered to be the major contributory factor in one rear end collision (Purley I think without checking).  But the situation was very simple - if the railway didn't have and couldn't afford sufficient infrastructure to handle the traffic one has to wonder what the alternative would be and at what point the various 'blind eyes' would open.  And - for political (it seems) reasons I suspect that it might be about to happen again on one route in the London area if delays are to be avoided.

[jim.snowdon]

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Wanna bet?  The only way the v certain parts of the London Division peak service could work was by running on normal train speed on double yellows.  The odd signal spacing in some places - notably Slough - also meant that some double yellows all you did was shut the controller and not touch the brake but watch very carefully for the next signal in advance and what happened then depended entirely on how far you were from the signal.

 

Even in the late 1990s when I was looking at trying to path some rather different trains over the GWML I found that in various parts of the Down evening peak from Paddington the number of trains between Paddington and Airport Jcn exceeded the theoretical line capacity - but the service worked so trains were clearly running on double yellows at line speed.

 

Running at lne speed on restrictive aspects went on over on the SR for many years although it was considered to be the major contributory factor in one rear end collision (Purley I think without checking).  But the situation was very simple - if the railway didn't have and couldn't afford sufficient infrastructure to handle the traffic one has to wonder what the alternative would be and at what point the various 'blind eyes' would open.  And - for political (it seems) reasons I suspect that it might be about to happen again on one route in the London area if delays are to be avoided.

The principle, as I understand it, of the adoption of four aspect signalling by the Southern Railway was so that they could run the electric trains at closer headways than the steam trains, exploiting the better braking performance of the electrics. In essence, steam trains treated the double yellow as the cautionary aspect, electric trains treated the single yellow as the cautionary aspect, and regarded double yellow as if green.

Routine running on double yellows elsewhere than the Southern Region, when combined with AWS, had a fundamental flaw, namely that there was no longer any distinction between any of the signal aspects, leading to cancellation as a reflex action. There was a whole string of accidents through automatic cancellation of AWS over many decades and other than the experimental SR-AWS, which repeated the aspects in cab, nothing has ever been done to remove the problem. There is scope to develop TPWS in a way that would allow signal aspect information to be transmitted to the train, and in such a way as to require the driver to acknowledge the correct aspect, but I suspect the attractions and spread of ETCS will have put paid to further development of existing signalling systems.

[roythebus1]

It was very common on the South Western to run pm peak hour trains at line speed from Waterloo to Woking (where everything stopped, not always by design) on double yellows. Beyond Clapham IIRC we had 2 lots of double yellows. It was also possible to see the train in front and in most places see the next couple of places . So if you ran on the first double yellows at line speed you could judge the speed of the train in front. You knew it was going to stop at Woking regardless, so reduce speed between the 2 lots of double yellows.  The sW also had a lot of short blocks, but we managed to run something like a 2minute headway on the down main at peak times. But we digress..I've got a couple of Form 1 stories but it's late.

[Southernman46]

I once worked in SR Electrification for an extremely stupid PTO on Floor 13 at Southern House who Form 1'd me on return from a bout of flu stating he had seen me walking down the ramp to the platforms at East Croydon during this time and that I was effectively AWOL in his opinion. Long story short, pointed out that I lived in darkest Kent at this time and was highly unlikely to be in Croydon, but it ended up with me literally dragging this fool down to Floor 9 where my Doppleganger worked in the S&T Department and pointing out that this was who he had seen not me. Needless to say, this was just one in a litany of incidents involving this cretin and I moved on ASAP to a proper job in the Electrification Projects section. Glad to say said PTO left the railway fairly quickly as his brand of sneaky, divisive shenanigans made him extremely unpopular and I like to think he was hounded out.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Southernman46

[Nearholmer]

Name names - depending on dates I may have known the individual!

 

(perhaps best not)

[96701]

On 26/08/2022 at 22:49, whoppit said:

I worked with a guy 30 odd years ago, he was on a night shift 22.00-06.00 at Andover, the Station manager from Salisbury rocked up at Andover in the early hours but he was nowhere to be found, so the S.M drove to his house and knocked the door. The guilty party eventually opened the door in his dressing gown and invited the manager inside. The manager was shocked to see B.R carpet in the hall, a B.R mirror on the wall and the kitchen was kitted out with B.R soap dispenser, roller towel and was served a cup of tea in a travellers fare mug from the set of them on the counter top! When the manager said you know why I am here don't you? He slipped the form across the table to which my colleague asked is that a form one? That it is said the manager, the reply came back said well you can only issue that at the end of my shift. The manager said what does that mean? My colleague said I'm not due off until 06.00, its now 02.00 so come back in 4 hours! I believe he got away with it on a technicality.

This must have been a different time to mine. A member of the public reported to the police of a bicycle being loaded into a BR van. We worked out who was driving that particular van and the police turned up unannounced at his house and found a BR fire extinguisher. Another was having an argument in chippy that was so vociferous that the police were called and found that his Reliant was furnished with a BR dumper tax disc.

 

I summarily dismissed them for theft and there were no appeals.

[Pinza-C55]

On 25/08/2022 at 16:24, bécasse said:

IIRC the wording on "Form 1" started "Please explain ...................." so it was seeking the recipient's explanation for the incident or occurrence that was then detailed on the form. Many, perhaps even the majority, went no further than a simple acceptance of that explanation. 

 

I once got (I was a KX Guard) a "Please explain" why I had not checked tickets on a main line HST on a particular day. I asked the manager Harry Wort if he would accept my excuse that not only had I not worked that train but in addition it had been my Rest Day that day.

[The Johnster]

Had one for leaving traffic behind at Aberthaw Cement works, 5 Presflos full; according to one of their managers I'd refused to take it.  What had actually happened was that, during a heavy blizzard, their little Fowler diesel could not be started as the wind had driven packed snow under it's bonnet, our Hymek was not allowed into their yard beyond a stop board, I'd tried to assist the Aberthaw boys to start their loco, and by the time we gave up it was dark, we were 90 minutes behind our booked departure time and claiming overtime.  Aberthaw Cement yard was poorly lit (unlike the modern floodlights at the road loading bay), a dodgy slippy slimy place under foot at the best of times, and the points were buried in snow; we all considered that it was unsafe to attempt to work the yard in those conditions even if the Fowler could have been started, and my driver was concerned that he might not be able to get the Hymek out of the steep siding in the snow, though we had no trouble when the time came.

 

I wrote all this on the form in suitable terms, and was called in for a chat with Bill Griffiths, the Canton Traincrew Manager, to explain myself; further enquiries had the Aberthaw driver and shunter, as well as my own driver, backing up my story, all of which left Bill (I'm sure Mike Stationmaster remembers him) itching to write his rebuttal of the AC manager's claim, and grinning from ear to ear and clearly enjoying himself.  And he wasn't a particularly cheerful sort of bloke as a rule!

[The Pilotman]

I knew I still had one somewhere… Although I had several brushes with the BR disciplinary process, this was the only time it resulted in a Form One. I can’t remember the outcome; just a warning on my file I think, but it certainly didn’t result in termination of employment. Various details have been redacted to preserve anonymity even though it happened almost thirty years ago. 
 

 

[The Stationmaster]

9 minutes ago, The Pilotman said:

I knew I still had one somewhere… Although I had several brushes with the BR disciplinary process, this was the only time it resulted in a Form One. I can’t remember the outcome; just a warning on my file I think, but it certainly didn’t result in termination of employment. Various details have been redacted to preserve anonymity even though it happened almost thirty years ago. 
 

 

Is that Tony Barry's signature on there?    If it was him I'd have thought a 'good talking to' would have been far more likely than a Form 1 so maybe he was 'under orders'?

 

The other interesting thing about it is the charge quoting an SGI (Signalmen's General Instruction) and a Track Circuit Block Regulation.  In the past we were always told not to charge someone on a Form 1 with the breach of a particular Rule, Regulation, or Appendix Instruction etc.  There was a good reason for that because a 'Rule Book lawyer' of a staff rep could often find something else that contradicted the Rule or whatever you were accused of breaking.

[The Pilotman]

23 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Is that Tony Barry's signature on there?    If it was him I'd have thought a 'good talking to' would have been far more likely than a Form 1 so maybe he was 'under orders'?

Yes it certainly is his signature, Mike. By that time I already had “a bit of previous” so this was probably intended as a warning; I’d had the “good talking to” already. In all the time he was my boss, it didn’t appear that Tony was ever under orders from anyone. 
The incident in question happened fifteen minutes before the end of a twelve hour night shift so a small lapse in concentration is understandable, but not excusable.

Edited October 3, 2022 by The Pilotman

[BR traction instructor]

As a Control we tried to ensure that the finger of blame pointed accurately and to the correct degree. A complex example of this arose from an overnight engineers consist running from Crewe BH to Newport ADJ one Saturday night, destined to a worksite on the Bristol side of the Severn tunnel, some 7/8 years ago now. The first hint of trouble was a report around 3am that the train had been stopped in the Maindee north area with sparks coming from the wheels of two very valuable rail mounted cranes in the consist. A terrible smell hung around the cranes too, apparently. Wheels on the two cranes were said to be badly scaled but not flatted.

After C&W examination the train was allowed forward at 5mph to Alexandra Dock Junction yard. I personally red carded both cranes on T.O.P.S. as soon as the train arrived into the yard. Time went by and the routine Control work of monitoring/updating and assisting numerous other engineers workings meant that the next two hours passed quickly. The original train conveying the aforementioned cranes had departed from ADJ yard without them but they had been added to the tail end of the second engineers working destined to the same worksite some time later and were now approaching the Severn Tunnel in that consist. Alarm bells rang in my head immediately and I ensured that the Log accurately reflected that our office had its last dealings with the two consists/T.O.P.S. statuses when they arrived at ADJ yard. The brown stuff then hit the fan a few minutes later with the rear of the now over length second consist obstructing a crucial set of points that should have allowed normal working of passenger trains to start in rear of the Engineers Absolute Possession containing the two trains involved in the cranes issue. 

The problems continued long after our night shift went home apparently.

I was next on duty on the Monday morning following and was already occupied dealing with the routine telephone business of a busy Control office when a red faced senior manager appeared at my side and started jabbing his finger at a log entry from Saturday night, demanding an explanation whilst I was still on the phone. Apologising to the staff at the other end of the phone I promised to ring back once I’d dealt with what was now cropping up in the office. The manager’s tirade was along the lines of handbrakes being left on from Crewe and me consisting red carded vehicles onto a service out of ADJ yard that shouldn’t have conveyed them, leading to hundreds of minutes of delays to passenger trains. The whole of the open plan office had come to a standstill with the raised voice and accusatory tone, with most people watching.

 

Having instructed on the transmission type used on the cranes and being 100% positive that I had the answers to every stage of the incident I set about an in depth explanation, punctuated at the end of each sentence with “you do understand what I’m telling you?”…at a volume that also held the attention of most people in the office.

I explained that the issue would relate to the self propelled capability of the cranes and their not being correctly prepared for the hauled in train journey, evidence offered by the severe scaling of wheels and terrible smell of boiled/shredded transmission oil being emitted from the vents. This included a technical description of the component parts of such a system and how drive depended on transmission oil being impelled against an opposing hemisphere (no fixed link). This allowed the power unit mounted on the cranes to move them around a worksite or yard at low speed but would conversely allow the rail wheels to try to drive the transmission in reverse if the vehicle wasn’t correctly prepared to be hauled in train. 

The manager was visibly subsiding now and he was attempting to reduce the volume of the exchange.

I ended by confirming that our office had red carded both cranes on arrival at ADJ and had had no further involvement with them. I suggested following a trail that supposed a crane technician from the owning company had arrived in a van, with an angle grinder to remove the worst of the scale and a large tub of transmission oil to replace what had been boiled away. Also, to interrogate T.O.P.S. to find out which terminal had been used to release the cranes back into traffic/consist them onto the second train. 

The manager at least had the grace to say thankyou for his impromptu training session and it saved innocent staff from getting a likely form 1 due to a lack of awareness/understanding by managers.

 

Funnily enough he never came into the office again to inquire about incidents whilst I was on duty and always rang via the telephone, very politely.

 

BeRTIe

Edited October 2, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Bucoops]

Reminds me of a "discussion" I had with an HSE inspector some years ago now on a site. He had come down to inspect the cranes, but saw there was asbestos works going on so decided he would have a nose at what I was doing. I was a very green asbestos analyst a the time and this was an easy site as it was all outside so the likelihood of actually finding anything while they were crushing concrete with <0.001% chrysotile in was about as likely as the pope kissing my ring...

 

Anyway, the filters we use always have a few fibres on them, and the air always has some too. But even so the air sampled was well below the <0.01f/ml of air that was our lower limit of detection. Most tests had 1 maybe 2 fibres recorded.

 

Mr HSE person decided that it was shocking that there were recorded fibres and I had not stopped work - 1 fibre can kill you!!!! He starts yelling at me in the site office with the site manager looking on with a panicked face.

 

At the point that he said he was going to issue a prohibition I managed to get a few words in. I forget exactly what I said but it was along the lines of "let's call the HSE Principle licencing inspector for the South of the UK and you can explain to him what you are doing" (I had his card from a previous encounter). Less than 5 minutes later Mr HSE had hurriedly left site and I think I caught the words "stick to what you actually understand" being said to him over the phone. The site manager was somewhat relieved.

 

I didn't get many HSE visits when I was in the field but I always seemed to get the numpties.

[BR traction instructor]

One of the biggest issues created by privatising the railway network is the scale of resources wasted trying to pass the buck to other companies, avoid paying fines for delays etc. If an efficient, not for profit, still nationalised solution could have been found then there might still have been enough money around to train the staff properly…BR did get quite a lot right.

 

BeRTIe

Edited October 2, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[The Stationmaster]

On 02/10/2022 at 13:39, The Pilotman said:

Yes it certainly is his signature, Mike. By that time I already had “a bit of previous” so this was probably intended as a warning; I’d had the “good talking to” already. In all the time he was my boss, it didn’t appear that Tony was ever under orders from anyone. 
The incident in question happened fifteen minutes before the end of a twelve hour night shift so a small lapse in concentration is understandable, but not excusable.

I'd known RTony from back in the days when he was Relief Signalman on what was called the 'Divisional Tamping Gang' which was something of a misnomer because although they were a small pool of Reliefmen for various duties in connection with tamping possessions they were also very wide ranging Relief Signalmen used all over the London Division in mechanical 'boxes.  I reckon you must have upset him a bit but I also know that he was getting a bit 'crochety' in his opinions in that job.  And, not that you'd have known it, he would have been under pressure from above regarding delays as they had become a quite hot subject by then.

 

Talking about HSE Inspectors the Railway Employment inspectors (REIs) were an interesting bunch who definitely liked to go to town on very minor details.  However my biggest piece of amusement came with a visit from one of them accompanied by an Inspector from the Nuclear Inspection team.  The latter interviewed one of my staff who was involved in handling flasks from Hinckley Point and asked him where he washed his hands because there was only one wash basin in the mess room.  The chap responded that he didn't wash his hands so was then asked if he washed them before eating his sandwiches.   At this my chap let fly with a long tirade about everybody always telling anybody involved that the flasks were safe to touch and work with and in any case he  always wore gloves for working with the crane slings.  So was the Nuclear Inspector now telling him that they weren't safe?  Back came the story, correctly that they were safe. so my man then asked if that was the case why did he have to wash his hands - victory firm;y in sight for him.  The Nuclear Inspector duly got his revenge by requiring that I should have an additional wash basin installed for staff to wash their hands after working with flasks - I don't thing they ever used it notwithstanding being told why it was there.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

On 02/10/2022 at 17:30, BR traction instructor said:

One of the biggest issues created by privatising the railway network is the scale of resources wasted trying to pass the buck to other companies, avoid paying fines for delays etc. If an efficient, not for profit, still nationalised solution could have been found then there might still have been enough money around to train the staff properly…BR did get quite a lot right.

 

BeRTIe

Interestingly I don't think it actually created much in the way of extra posts although quite a lot of jobs were re-titled from their old name to 'loss prevention' or something along those lines and they were still doing basically the same work as they had in the past but often got a grade out of it.

 

I think the big problem with some of the privatised concerns - but definitely not all - is that they cut back drastically on training and supervision and in a couple of cases lost their franchises as a result.  But then in some respects some of them weren't much better than BR had been in similar aspects of operational management and safety as a look at some SPAD data quickly reveals.

 

The bigger problem has been bringing in people from outside - very often into public facing jobs - where they have little or no  'railway knowledge' and simply fall apart or go and hide when things get rough and passengers start asking about alternative routes.  But then that isn't exactly new either.

 

The discipline that now, or did, extend to putting a price on delays was probably long overdue where many departments in the past went to considerable lengths to avoid responsibility for the consequences of their shortcoming feeding into delays.  The other thing that has happened in a number of concerns has been very poor management of traincrew resources in particular where cuts have been made, the culprit makes his/her name and promptly gets promoted into a job with another company leaving others to sort the mess they created.

 

 In BR days makinga mistake like that would have eant them being shunted asid - although generally the system didn't allow such responsibility to untrained folk in such roles.  That has of course been a problem elsewhere with inexperienced people getting into jobs before they haven't the wider experience needed to handle such roles.  But I can remember similar things being said, and happening, on BR 50 years ago.  

[Mike Storey]

On 02/10/2022 at 18:30, BR traction instructor said:

One of the biggest issues created by privatising the railway network is the scale of resources wasted trying to pass the buck to other companies, avoid paying fines for delays etc. If an efficient, not for profit, still nationalised solution could have been found then there might still have been enough money around to train the staff properly…BR did get quite a lot right.

 

BeRTIe

 

I agree with Mike SM here. The "scale of resources" needed to identify the causes of delay and then to attribute them started with BR Sectorisation in the 1980's, not with privatisation in the 1990's (although that might have needed a few extra accountants). But the discipline and concentration on delay causation it brought was wholly necessary. Previously, whilst much was made of punctuality drives and much was known by experienced railway peeps, much of the problem was brushed under the carpet, especially as the railway started to change rapidly and congestion was becoming a much greater problem on the wider network.

 

Back to topic (sorry, I have come a bit late to this thread): I never received a Form 1 (although I got plenty of bollockings, the first, when I was still a clerk, being for wearing an old BR Hi-Vis vest on my motorbike - I never really found out what was so wrong with that). But I did have many issued to others, and was party in some way to several more. I also actioned at least 2 Clause 9 dismissals. I was taught by an old hand at Gillingham (Kent), Ben Dyer, together with the local NUR rep (one of the Guards' Regulators), in a simulation, where I had an hour to prepare my case. I was crucified.

 

But it came in handy when, several months later, we (as in the three Traffic Managers) were told to go into a certain signal box on successive Sundays, at a certain time, following which Form 1's were issued to three signalmen for absence from duty. Within a week or two, agreement was reached to single man that box on Sundays, and the Form 1's disappeared.