WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.

[Legend]

13 hours ago, ruggedpeak said:

Not entirely accurate to say the cruise ship hordes don't spend much money or arrive not hungry. Cruise ship spend varies enormously according to the port. Escaping the ship and its food and drink can be a priority for passengers. The Norwegians claim they don't spend much as no one gets off at Bergen, but then no one goes on a fjords cruise to look at Bergen, it is for the on-ship experience of being in the fjords. However try and find a taxi or restaurant table in Funchal, Madeira when a cruise liner arrives, or get on any of the well known attractions and you will have your work cut out. The entire city changes its dynamic when the cruise ship approaches.

 

According to WCR the Jacobite brings £20m to the economy, whilst cruise passengers contribute £40m+ across Scotland according to Visit Scotland:

 

"Visitor spend
2.9 It is estimated that £40.6 million was spent directly onshore by cruise passengers and crew in Scotland in 2019, representing 0.4% of all (overnight and day) tourism spend in Scotland. This,
however, is a conservative estimate and does not include indirect and induced effects or some spend on tours booked through the cruise operator that is retained in Scotland. In addition, the contribution of cruise spend as a proportion of the local tourism economy varies significantly from port to port and their hinterlands and is estimated to be 2.54% of all tourism volume and 1.50% of expenditure in the Highlands region.4 Spend is focused in parts of the Highlands and Islands and the Central Belt. The five marquee ports accounted for £9 in every £10 spent by cruise passengers and crew in 2019."

 

https://www.visitscotland.org/binaries/content/assets/dot-org/pdf/research-insights/cruise-tourism-in-scotland.pdf

 

So cruise passengers do spend money and contribute.

 

All of which begs the question, if the train is so important to the Highlands and WCR reportedly care so much, why on earth would they waste money on expensive lawyers to engage in a futile and counter-productive JR rather than do the work required by law and just get on with running trains?

 

The cruise ship argument is a spurious one . We are talking about tourism in Lochaber . The nearest a cruiseship gets is Oban , and that is very rarely as they have to sit outside the bay and tender passengers in . The main cruise ports in Scotland are Greenock , Invergorden and Queensferry/Leith  none of which will be used by cruise passengers going to the Jacobite 

 

I go back to the fact that the Jacobite is a significant draw of tourists and a major earner for the Lochaber economy . If it doesn’t run , that income is not going to be replaced by cruiseship passengers . Incidentally a large part of the benefits purported to come from cruise ships is actually berthing fees .    

[black and decker boy]

7 minutes ago, Legend said:

The cruise ship argument is a spurious one . We are talking about tourism in Lochaber . The nearest a cruiseship gets is Oban , and that is very rarely as they have to sit outside the bay and tender passengers in . The main cruise ports in Scotland are Greenock , Invergorden and Queensferry/Leith  none of which will be used by cruise passengers going to the Jacobite 

 

I go back to the fact that the Jacobite is a significant draw of tourists and a major earner for the Lochaber economy . If it doesn’t run , that income is not going to be replaced by cruiseship passengers . Incidentally a large part of the benefits purported to come from cruise ships is actually berthing fees .    

All this fearmongering & doom over the WCRC Jacobite is crazy.

 

WCRC need to rustle up a rake of CDL fitted coaches. They won’t need an exemption to run them. IIRC Most of the (hired) steam locos used on it have air brakes.

 

if WCRC give up or point blank refuse to fit CDL there are others who can and will step in and run an equivalent train given its highly profitable (the commercial aspects were laid before court) .

 

for now, I think everyone expects WCRC to do what it should have started doing 4 years ago and fit / reinstate working CDL to its fleet.

 

 

[ruggedpeak]

3 minutes ago, Legend said:

The cruise ship argument is a spurious one . We are talking about tourism in Lochaber . The nearest a cruiseship gets is Oban , and that is very rarely as they have to sit outside the bay and tender passengers in . The main cruise ports in Scotland are Greenock , Invergorden and Queensferry/Leith  none of which will be used by cruise passengers going to the Jacobite 

 

I go back to the fact that the Jacobite is a significant draw of tourists and a major earner for the Lochaber economy . If it doesn’t run , that income is not going to be replaced by cruiseship passengers . Incidentally a large part of the benefits purported to come from cruise ships is actually berthing fees .    

If it is a spurious one why did you suggest that cruise passengers did not spend money? That was the original point made in your earlier post. It is demonstrably incorrect. Why the environmental arguments is now brought in is not clear, cruises are well known for not being eco-friendly. but then neither are the flights that many Jacobite customers use to get to to Scotland.  To quote:

 

"Contrast this with a cruiseship arriving when fully fed. Cruisers descend in hordes , spend a few hours walking around then get back on cruiseship for more food drink , not really spending much locally".

 

The numbers are clear that they do spend and are important to the Highland economy. Cruise passengers may not descend on Lochaber directly but their economic impact is felt right across Highlands, far beyond the area the passengers actually go to. If the cruise passengers stopped coming Lochaber would feel the economic chills as well. #

 

All of which shows that WCR clearly are not sufficiently concerned about the economy of Lochaber or the Highlands to actually put locks on the coach doors.

 

[ruggedpeak]

15 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

All this fearmongering & doom over the WCRC Jacobite is crazy.

 

WCRC need to rustle up a rake of CDL fitted coaches. They won’t need an exemption to run them. IIRC Most of the (hired) steam locos used on it have air brakes.

 

if WCRC give up or point blank refuse to fit CDL there are others who can and will step in and run an equivalent train given its highly profitable (the commercial aspects were laid before court) .

 

for now, I think everyone expects WCRC to do what it should have started doing 4 years ago and fit / reinstate working CDL to its fleet.

 

 

The concern is understood because the Highland economy is such that the lack of the train will have a discernible impact locally. I think some of the doom is fair in that WCR are making no public attempts to resolve this amicably or look at the obvious and legally required solutions. It is not unreasonable to assume, based upon actions and comments to date, that WCR would rather stop the train running at all than lose face to ORR.

 

It is very unfortunate that although the train is linked to Harry Potter there is no licencing of Harry Potter IP as part of the train service AFAIK. I have no doubt if Warner Bros were involved, this WCR situation would have been sorted out by now.

 

We can only hope that WCR are in fact busy putting locks on doors and this was a rather clumsy and ill advised attempt at brinkmanship with ORR.

 

[jjb1970]

I find some of the inferences to 'elf'n safety gone mad, nanny state-ism etc disappointing. The UK is a much safer place than it was when I was growing up and entered the work place. When I left school in 1989 there was a General Hague-ish mentality of 'you have to expect casualties in a heavy industry' and a certain level of major injuries and fatalities was seen as just part of doing business. There has been a complete sea change and we now question any injury, let alone fatality (and rightly so) as it is no longer normal for any industry to just have accidents. I think that is something to celebrate, not deride. Are there examples of H&S sillyness? Yes, but usually it is people in H&S who don't understand H&S legislation or the industry they work within. I've worked in commercial shipping, offshore oil and gas, electricity generation and nuclear fuels, in all of them I say a steady escalation of safety regulation and demands to improve safety performance, in none of them did it stop business or even make it unduly inconvenient or more expensive.

Edited January 13 by jjb1970

[MarkC]

10 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I find some of the inferences to 'elf'n safety gone made, nanny state-ism etc disappointing. The UK is a much safer place than it was when I was growing up and entered the work place. When I left school in 1989 there was a General Hague-ish mentality of 'you have to expect casualties in a heavy industry' and a certain level of major industries and fatalities was seen as just part of doing business. There has been a complete sea change and we now question any injury, let alone fatality (and rightly so) as it is no longer normal for any industry to just have accidents. I think that is something to celebrate, not deride. Are there examples of H&S sillyness? Yes, but usually it is people in H&S who don't understand H&S legislation or the industry they work within. I've worked in commercial shipping, offshore oil and gas, electricity generation and nuclear fuels, in all of them I say a steady escalation of safety regulation and demands to improve safety performance, in none of them did it stop business or even make it unduly inconvenient or more expensive.

As the saying goes:-

 

"If you think that Safety is expensive, try paying for the aftermath of an accident..."

 

Mark

[Artless Bodger]

2 hours ago, Ryde-on-time said:

Last year on one trip to a preserved line i noted at each station a train would be announced followed by polite but firm requests to keep back from the edge of the platform. This was met with several moans, especially those wanting to take a photo.

 

On one trip along the line, I was in the second coach and was standing at a window as we approached the station, as we entered the station someone opened wide a door in the first coach - queue lots of shouting from the station staff and thanks to them no one was injured as the train passed along almost the length of the platform with the door sticking out. The gent who caused the issue was perhaps 60 ish and totally oblivious to what he had done. The station staff spoke to him (he just claimed has innocence) so I did have a quick work with the staff to confirm that was the person. They said it does, unfortunately, happen occasionally 

 

There seem to be people who think the regulations are over the top etc and if someone falls out of a train it is their own fault. They don’t however seem to consider the potential for someone on a train on the national network to open a door and cause injuries (or worse) to those on a station where there would not be staff as there are on a preserved railway - for someone to do something stupid and injure someone else?

I remember the posters in the frames on partitions in SR EMU stock - "Do not open the door before the train has stopped, your thoughtless action may kill or maim". Illustration of male passenger standing in open doorway and injured woman laying on the platform. Still it didn't stop commuters doing it at Victoria, there was always a rush to the Underground entrance. Only time I saw someone get come-uppance was him opening the front end door on the corridor side, jumping out and starting to run alongside, the train stopped smartly (as the SR seemed to do then) and he ran straight into the door he'd opened, held perpendicular to the train by the whip straps.

[LNER4479]

13 minutes ago, MarkC said:

As the saying goes:-

 

"If you think that Safety is expensive, try paying for the aftermath of an accident..."

 

Mark

Absolutely.

 

The version of that adage I particularly like is:

 

RISK = HAZARD + OUTRAGE

(I believe that came out of the petro-chemical industry. 'Nuff said)

 

Like others on here, no doubt, I witnessed at close quarters the aftermath / outrage of Clapham, Labroke Grove, Hatfield, amongst others*. It's very real.

(*not to mention dealing with the consequences of people falling from open doors of moving trains. Campaign changing all the door locks on a 304 EMU. That was fun.)

 

[rodent279]

26 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I find some of the inferences to 'elf'n safety gone made, nanny state-ism etc disappointing. The UK is a much safer place than it was when I was growing up and entered the work place. When I left school in 1989 there was a General Hague-ish mentality of 'you have to expect casualties in a heavy industry' and a certain level of major industries and fatalities was seen as just part of doing business. There has been a complete sea change and we now question any injury, let alone fatality (and rightly so) as it is no longer normal for any industry to just have accidents. I think that is something to celebrate, not deride. Are there examples of H&S sillyness? Yes, but usually it is people in H&S who don't understand H&S legislation or the industry they work within. I've worked in commercial shipping, offshore oil and gas, electricity generation and nuclear fuels, in all of them I say a steady escalation of safety regulation and demands to improve safety performance, in none of them did it stop business or even make it unduly inconvenient or more expensive.

I agree, it seems to be a knee-jerk reaction on the part of the old guard reactionaries, for whom any improvements in H&S are seen as nanny state, 'elf & softee, namby-pamby etc. I'm tired of it, it's like a broken record.

Back in the "good old days", irresponsible people still did silly things that put themselves and other in danger, so it's not that "we didn't need it then", we did need it, but a few deaths and serious injuries were taken as par for the course. We take a different,  much more pro-active view now, and I for one am glad of that, and am unapologetic about it.

Really, BR should not have been allowed to build a whole raft of passenger rolling stock from the late 60's on without at least CDL, and ideally anything mk2 & upwards should have had power operated doors. Slam door emus were still being built as late as 1976.

But as usual we insist on doing it on the cheap, so it didn't happen. 

[Supaned]

If I could add a few thoughts on this.

 

Regardless of my own opinion of WCRC and their operations, one thing that seems to be overlooked here, although touched on in a fashion, concerns the actual behaviour of some passengers and is perhaps very pertinent in this day and age.

 

For all of those blaming "health and safety culture" and looking back to to the glory days of BR steam in the 1950s, they perhaps miss the point that equally in the 1950s there wasn't the insideous creation of social media, with the likes of Instagram and Tik Tok, and "influencers" effectively making a living from such things. I've seen countless images and videos of people hanging off the side of trains in the likes of Sri Lanka and India, and sadly there are some cases of people falling from trains or indeed colliding headfirst with signal posts, OLE masts and many other railway items which fall well outside of the normal loading gauge of a coach and which passengers if travelling in a vehicle in a normal manner ie sat down or stood within the vehicle envelope would never come near.

 

I'm led to believe that the Jacobite service in particular is more likely to be conveying people seeking such imagery , and so the likes of CDL and possibly some sort of window barring is necessary.

 

There have also been several high profile fatalities involving people leaning much further out of vehicle droplight windows and striking obstacles, and again, this is potentially an issue on the Jacobite but equally with most if not all droplight fitted stock, and on most charter trains these days such behaviour is prohibited and stewarded accordingly, with the ORR keeping a keen eye on operators to ensure this is done with the threat of removal of operating licenses (as we've seen here) ever looming.

 

Equally in the rose tinted common sense days, there wasn't a litigation culture like we have now with "where there's blame there's a claim" solicitors and arguably a reduction in the personal responsibility of the individual to act in a sensible manner (eg not hang off the side of a moving train) and more onus on the train operator to ensure that passengers aren't able to act in that way in the first place and cause themselves harm, with significant penalties if harm does occur. CDL is part of that process.

 

Other operators of slam door stock have fitted or are in the process of fitting CDL and other safety devices to their slam door stock to comply with the regulations and ensure that passengers are kept safe , and equally that such stock is able to continue to operate on the main line, so I fail to see why WCRC think they should be exempt. The ORR could equally have just decided that main line steam is too much trouble , especially when you factor in the many trespass incidents that surround certain locomotives, and then everybody loses out. Our railway is on the whole far safer now that it has been for some years, and to run on a modern railway trains need the appropriate safety equipment, no operator should be exempt from that.

 

I do have course have sympathy for the front line staff now thrown into uncertainty by the actions of their employer and hope the matter can be resolved in a satisfactory manner for all concerned ASAP.

[lmsforever]

Accidents are awful and steps to stop them happening has to be taken  but to many people today do not take any interest   in it they consider it a nuisance ,this starts at school and goes through to old age . When I was growing up in the forties and fifties you took notice of safety and how it affected you and it stayed with you for life. We might be old fogies but we are here !!!!!!!!!!

[woodenhead]

9 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Accidents are awful and steps to stop them happening has to be taken  but to many people today do not take any interest   in it they consider it a nuisance ,this starts at school and goes through to old age . When I was growing up in the forties and fifties you took notice of safety and how it affected you and it stayed with you for life. We might be old fogies but we are here !!!!!!!!!!

So you never played on bomb sites, ventured into old buildings to see what was there, swung from a rope tied to a tree branch, had a look over the other sides of fences (especially if you had an interest in trains), climbed up wooden advertising structures to look down on the people in the street below.

 

Children have always taken risks, it comes with the inquisitive nature of growing up and it's how you find yourself.

[Northmoor]

4 hours ago, class26 said:

A month ago I escaped to Marrakech in Morocco for a week and took the opportunity to travel on the trains there, travelling from Marrakech to Rabat and back. The stock was ex SNCF. Travelling  first class with compartments the comparison in comfort with IET seats was stark but the point I wish to make here is on the return journey I noticed the door on my coach did not properly close - see photo ! 

I estimate the speed this train reaches between Rabat and Casablanca  is 100 mph (it is the same track as used by the new high speed service to Tangier) 

No one fell out despite many walking past the door to the toilet. Common sense seems to be in greater supply on the African continent !

 

As we have discussed ad nauseum on this thread, what exactly is "Common Sense"?  Did none of the 325 who died on BR have it?

 

Your assumption above is flawed by many criteria:

1. Did someone fall from that train on its return journey or later that day/week?
2. How many people die on Moroccan railways by falling from trains, every year?  You have travelled on one journey and extrapolated that to assume no-one ever dies.  For all we know, someone might die every week, but I suspect neither of us read Moroccan newspapers to know either way.  Well worth remembering that more than one person dies EVERY DAY on Indian Railways, mostly crossing the track, but do we hear about it?
3. How many people who fell out of British trains in the 1980s, could actually see that the door was open?
4. Does you actually think its acceptable for a train to travel with doors open?  It happen occasionally on London Underground and believe me, such reports are treated very seriously.  Would you drive your car, retained by your seat belt, if you knew the drivers door could swing open when you braked?

Tolerating something and it being acceptable, are not the same thing, neither in law nor if management of safety.

[johnofwessex]

Worth making the point that train speeds have increased significantly since the end of WW2 so what was a tolerable situatin then isnt now.

 

What I find suprising is that power operated doors were fitted to the stock the LNER built for the GE Electrification and had been in use on the Undergtround long before that so why were they not used, for example on the Southern?

[Oldddudders]

4 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Children have always taken risks, it comes with the inquisitive nature of growing up and it's how you find yourself.

I recall circa 1961 a chum arriving at school with his arm in a sling - he'd climbed a wall at Nine Elms, slipped, fell and broke his arm. 

 

In response to other remarks, I think it was 1990, even when the industry was still reeling from Clapham and Hidden, that the man from Dupont was said to have walked into his first BR meeting with "Good morning, Chairman - how many staff have you killed today?" It's a fair bet the Chairman didn't know, because the culture didn't call for it then. It soon did!

 

I never had the misfortune to have to break tragic news to a newly-widowed lady, but on commiserating with an injured mum in a hospital bed I had trouble knowing how to respond, when she told me her husband had died in the same accident - this was the morning after Stoats Nest 1989. This stuff is no fun, believe me.

 

And whether you side with WCRC, or ORR, or just common sense, the effect of someone falling from the train on or near the viaduct would be catastrophic for everyone. On the day the police would be bound to impound the train and seek as many witnesses as possible to the event. [I recall a boat-trainload of very angry passengers after a Maudsley Hospital patient discharged himself and jumped in front of it. They were there some hours.] And the subsequent fallout (sorry, not sorry) would envelop the entire railway touring community, much of which is no doubt responsible and compliant, with further checks and requirements. 

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

So you never played on bomb sites, ventured into old buildings to see what was there, swung from a rope tied to a tree branch, had a look over the other sides of fences (especially if you had an interest in trains), climbed up wooden advertising structures to look down on the people in the street below.

 

Children have always taken risks, it comes with the inquisitive nature of growing up and it's how you find yourself.

Two examples of common sense from "the good old days".

I used to love walking along the top of the fence that bordered the car park & recreation ground at my local station. It was made out of old railway sleepers, and was about 100m long, largely straight, but not an even height. 

Until I fell off it and broke my wrist. Fortunately I landed on the grass side, not in the car park with it's hard old ballast surface, or on a car, which could have resulted in something more serious. But no harm done really, apart from injured pride. Would it have been "nanny state, elf & softee gorn mad" to prevent me from doing it? Of course not, and that's what happened some years later, when access to the fence was restricted by iron railings between the footbridge and the start of the fence.

 

The other, more serious one, was around the same time, a couple of miles away at the local tunnel. A lad of about 17 was playing with a bit of cable, dangling it over the tunnel mouth as paying trains went through. This is the electrified WCML, so you can imagine what happened eventually. Stupid idiot? Yes, but should he be have been allowed access to the space above the tunnel? No, of course not. It was fenced, but not adequately, and shortly afterwards the fence was replaced with proper iron spiked fencing.

 

Edited January 13 by rodent279

[woodenhead]

There was so much commonsense in the past and it permeated to a grand scale:

• Sending children to work down mines such as the ones at Worsley where they would stand in half flooded tunnels.
• Sending children to workhouses or cotton mills
• Sending off so many people for a war because of some agreement between powerful elites in Europe that led to 16m deaths of mainly not elites

For the avoidance of any doubt the point I raised earlier was that despite 'commonsense' people still did misjudged acts that could result in injury.  The past was not safer because people used commonsense, they generally got lucky and those that didn't paved the way for current legislation and practices.

[black and decker boy]

To add some other context to this.

 

if WCRC were to have had a fall from an open door resulting in a death in the past few months (since the prohibitions etc), they would most likely have faced prosecution for breach of the H&SWA1974.

 

in Crown Court, if proven to not be applying industry standards (they are clearly not doing so) then a fine would be based on annual turnover (not annual profit) and the courts assessment of harm and the culpability of the defendant.

 

For a death, with high culpability, the starting fine for WCRC based on last years turnover is £1.6m with a range up to £4m.

 

fitting CDL is assessed by the court judgement as £1.8m.

 

annual profit last year of WCRC was £2.46m.

 

 

[frobisher]

21 hours ago, Legend said:

Cruisers descend in hordes , spend a few hours walking around if they couldn't get on a guided tour with one of the local taxi firms or the like who are fully booked months in advance, then get back on cruiseship for more food drink (because the local restaurants are swamped by the numbers ashore), not really spending that much each locally with the hotels, but then there's so many more of them so the footfall adds up for the larger numbers. Quite a different market.

 

Fixed that for you.  The fallacy is always to see the low volume higher value customers as the ones that are spending everything.

[rodent279]

4 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

for now, I think everyone expects WCRC to do what it should have started doing 4 years ago and fit / reinstate working CDL to its fleet.

But even if they did fit CDL, would we trust them to maintain it in operable condition? How long before ORR are slapping another prohibition order on them because they were discovered using a carriage with CDL inoperative?

Edited January 13 by rodent279

[lmsforever]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

So you never played on bomb sites, ventured into old buildings to see what was there, swung from a rope tied to a tree branch, had a look over the other sides of fences (especially if you had an interest in trains), climbed up wooden advertising structures to look down on the people in the street below.

 

Children have always taken risks, it comes with the inquisitive nature of growing up and it's how you find yourself.

Yes of course I did and we enjoyed ourselves  dont remember any bad accidents   but now its different situation  people do not heed safety warnings and if they do themselves damage its off to lawyers  to make money.

[Northmoor]

35 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Yes of course I did and we enjoyed ourselves  dont remember any bad accidents   but now its different situation  people do not heed safety warnings and if they do themselves damage its off to lawyers  to make money.

That is almost a complete myth in the UK.  There is a reason Claims 'R' Us, or whatever they were called, went bust.  Actually there were multiple reasons: British people aren't litigious, British Law doesn't apply punitive damages (unlike the USA, so companies don't get £Bn claims against them) and lastly, they made fraudulent claims to make up for the lack of business.

 

Lucky you for not knowing anyone who had a bad accident, but we're not talking about typical children's accidents of grazed knees or even the odd broken ankle.  Judging by the numbers who used to die working on the railways, plenty of people did know someone who was affected and I am baffled why anyone would think you should stop trying to prevent deaths and injuries. 

 

As for the theory that having accidents "teaches people common sense", I think it's quite difficult for dead people to learn very much at all.

[black and decker boy]

Deaths at work have dramatically improved.

 

From what I find online, around 1600 people per year died at work in the 1960s. That’s over 6 deaths per working day.

 

By 1974, it was 600 per year so nearly 2.5 deaths per working day.

 

last year it was 135. Still more than 1 death every 2 working days.

 

Back in the ‘good old days’ before “health & safety went mad”, you had the knock on consequences of industrial negligence such as Aberfan, Asbestos, Ibrox. You also had airlines crashing every year and trains crashing every couple of years with multiple deaths. You can have as much common sense as you like but still die due to someone else’s negligence and apathy.

 

is that really the halcyon paradise we want to return too? 

[class26]

6 hours ago, Northmoor said:

As we have discussed ad nauseum on this thread, what exactly is "Common Sense"?  Did none of the 325 who died on BR have it?

 

Your assumption above is flawed by many criteria:

1. Did someone fall from that train on its return journey or later that day/week?
2. How many people die on Moroccan railways by falling from trains, every year?  You have travelled on one journey and extrapolated that to assume no-one ever dies.  For all we know, someone might die every week, but I suspect neither of us read Moroccan newspapers to know either way.  Well worth remembering that more than one person dies EVERY DAY on Indian Railways, mostly crossing the track, but do we hear about it?
3. How many people who fell out of British trains in the 1980s, could actually see that the door was open?
4. Does you actually think its acceptable for a train to travel with doors open?  It happen occasionally on London Underground and believe me, such reports are treated very seriously.  Would you drive your car, retained by your seat belt, if you knew the drivers door could swing open when you braked?

Tolerating something and it being acceptable, are not the same thing, neither in law nor if management of safety.

I wasn`t suggesting for one second UK trains should travel with doors open , keep your hair  on , merely trying to stimulate debate. Of course I have no idea about other services on other days but H & S in the UK is turning people into brainless morons unable to think for themselves. H &S in the UK is out of control and common sense in many (not all) instances would suffice. It stops people thinking for themselves 

A simple example which we have all seen is on coffee cups "warning, the content of this cup might be hot" and similar, If I buy a coffee I hope it is hot. if I turn on the hot tap in a hotel it had better be hot,. I don`t need to be told it MIGHT be hot. 

[Darius43]

1 minute ago, class26 said:

I wasn`t suggesting for one second UK trains should travel with doors open , keep your hair  on , merely trying to stimulate debate.

I think you might be more at home posting on a tabloid newspaper readers comments forum.

 

Cheers

 

Darius