WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.

[Oldddudders]

In the heady days of That's Life w Esther Rantzen, suitable names were a regulkar feature. They had stumbled across a business card for an antique dealer rejoicing in the name of Robin Bastard. 

[melmoth]

There was a builder in Weymouth called Crumbleholme. No longer trading.

[john new]

1 hour ago, melmoth said:

There was a builder in Weymouth called Crumbleholme. No longer trading.

True, and one of the better one's too. On same lines there were two in York I recall from living there in the late 70s and early 80s:-

 

C Hopcutt (A butcher's shop on Burton Stone Lane)

A Buckle & Son (Joiner's shop, which IIRC was on Gillygate).

 

Edited January 20 by john new
Punctuation corrected

[Artless Bodger]

We used to send our paper machine rolls to a company called Bottcher to have their covers replaced.

 

APM QC manager was Ken Tester.

[adb968008]

We had a sales coach once called Dave Bonus.

[Bucoops]

My Dad used to work with a Gordon Bennett.

 

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

We had a sales coach once called Dave Bonus.

 

Was it a Pullman coach? I thought they normally had girls' names? What did you sell from it?

[Northmoor]

11 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

My Dad used to work with a Gordon Bennett.

 

 

Was it a Pullman coach? I thought they normally had girls' names? What did you sell from it?

Not related to a job, but in the big 1989 storm a girl in the year below me at school had her house almost flattened by the sea.  Her name?  Dawn Gail.

[Gilbert]

3 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Not related to a job, but in the big 1989 storm a girl in the year below me at school had her house almost flattened by the sea.  Her name?  Dawn Gail.

So many comments I can't possibly post on here....

[Ken.W]

On 12/01/2024 at 22:39, roythebus1 said:

There's still nothing to stop WCRC running their train with hired-in compliant stock. .......a diesel loco between steam loco and compliant air or vac braked stock. the diesel loco acts as translator vehicle between vas steam, air-braked loco and vac or air braked train. Simple really, much fuss about nothing if you can hire a suitable train for a while.

 

Not quite so simple unfortunately.

It seems that the locos WCR have for the Jacobite are vacuum only, if spare CDL fitted vacuum stack is available for hire then yes, no problem

However the problem seems to be that any available CDL fitted stock, including some that WCR apparently have, is air braked.

Although it is possible for an air braked only loco to work a vacuum braked train with a dual braked loco between as a sort of translator, it does not work the other way round.

On a dual braked loco working in vacuum mode, it's the air train pipe pressure that governs the vacuum via a relay valve in the engine room, the drivers brake valve being purely an air brake valve apart from in the emergency position. The relay valve would still work the same way with the air train pipe pressure being reduced by another loco, but doesn't work the other way with vacuum controlling air.

 

Another issue, that seems to have been missed, in the pictures posted earlier of WCR's CDL fitted stock which were air braked, is they were also air conditioned stock. This means that having no ventilators, they'd be required to have an ETH supply.

Although this is easily solved by having a diesel loco or generator van on the train this causes a further problem as, l believe, the train is already up to the load / length limit for the route. So, this additional vehicle couldn't be added without removal of a passenger one, significantly reducing capacity.

 

 

[Ken.W]

On 13/01/2024 at 23:23, TheSignalEngineer said:

LMS stock for the Wirral lines electrification in 1938 (19 x 3 car sets) and the new Southport sets (152 vehicles) built 1939 were the only ones with sliding doors. BR added 24 sets to replace the old Mersey Railway sets in 1956-7.

LNER Tyneside Stock had manually operated sliding doors. I don't kmow if they had any interlocking system.

The LNER ordered about 100 sets with sliding doors for the Great Eastern Suburban lines and Manchester - Hadfield but they weren't introduced until BR days. They became classes 306 and 506.

I think the only BR designed sliding door stock prior to the PEP prototype were the 303/311 sets for Glasgow in the 1960s

 

The LNER Tyneside stock apparently didn't have any interlocking, there's been previous references to them frequently running with the doors open in hot weather.

 

On the LNERs GE & Hadfield stock, it was a certain Austrian Corporal responsible for the delay in their introduction

[pete_mcfarlane]

On 18/01/2024 at 21:31, Northmoor said:

The new Heritage Railway reports that WCRC are to "work with the ORR to find a solution to the CDL issue".  What amounts to a staring contest  apparently counts as working with someone.

Maybe WCRC are hoping that they'll lose the staring contest and the Weeping Angel will send them back in time to when CDL wasn't a requirement?

[Ken.W]

On 13/01/2024 at 23:10, Legend said:

Now safety is paramount and I can well see the need for CDL in Mainline operations . However just as it’s not required for preserved railways, should there not be an exemption specifically for the Jacobite , assuming that WCRC have other provisions in place to ensure safety  . I know they were caught out by ORR on inspection in 2023 , but have since taken on the stewards necessary .  
 

Again I ask how many people have been injured on the Jacobite . What is needed is common sense and pragmatic approach to the situation .  

 

Yes safety is paramount, someone needs to get that through to WCR,  and they are a mainline operation.

 

They did have an exemption in place for the Jacobite, with provisions in place to ensure safety - which they were found to not be observing, not once, but twice in the space of a month. The first got them an improvement order, being caught again after just a month earned a prohibition.

Don't forget, they'd also previously had two open door on moving train incidents, luckily without injury, or worse.

 

So, as for your last point, what's that got to do with it? There's already been more than enough incidents of deaths and injury with hinged door stock (hence CDL in the first place), so why do we need to wait for such an incident on that particular train to do something about that one?

 

I find WCRs attitude to this, failing to comply with the provisions for the exemption to CDL, and continued refusal to its fitment rather disturbing given their past record, and leads me to wonder what else they may be failing to observe.

At Wooton Bassett,  one of their trains came within 30 seconds of a high speed head on with an HST which would undoubtedly resulted in a major casuallty toll, the outcry from which could well have had all heritage mainline operation shut down. Although it was the driver responsible for isolating to override a TPWS application, it was the company's safety management culture (ie lack of) which permitted it to happen, no driver on a properly managed company would ever consider such a thing.

 

Someone earlier made reference to cowboys in relation to WCRC, sorry, but that's a gross insult....

To cowboys.

Personally I'd need to think twice before allowing them to run a Hornby trainset

 

 

[GMKAT7]

Good morning folks,

 

Some 14 years ago, whilst I was working for Network Rail, my design team was asked to undertake a feasibility study into the work needed to install ERTMS onto mainline registered heritage locos.

 

First up was to look at a couple of West Coast steam locos, a Black Five being the first choice IIRC.

 

However, there was lots of resistance to my guys going into Carnforth. Primarily this came from the head of WCRC, the chairman was somebody Smith I believe?

 

The two lads going were/still are heritage loco engineers, one at the MRC Butterley and the other based at Tyseley. Guys used to working on the mainline with steam and diesel locos, so they knew what they were doing.

Edit:One is an electrical engineer and the other mechanical, so covering all the bases.

 

Eventually the obstruction was cleared by someone in NR further up the tree, who probably advised Chairman Smith that it was in his best interests since his locos would be first in the queue.

 

The phrase ar£e seemed applicable at the time and later actions haven't changed my view.

 

Andy/Phil, if I have infringed the politics/libel filter please delete 🙂

 

Cheers, Nigel.

Edited January 21 by GMKAT7
Added info.

[Mike_Walker]

7 hours ago, Ken.W said:

At Wooton Bassett,  one of their trains came within 30 seconds of a high speed head on with an HST which would undoubtedly resulted in a major casuallty toll, the outcry from which could well have had all heritage mainline operation shut down. Although it was the driver responsible for isolating to override a TPWS application, it was the company's safety management culture (ie lack of) which permitted it to happen, no driver on a properly managed company would ever consider such a thing.

Slight correction here.  The HST in question was an Up South Wales service coming off the Badminton Line under clear signals.  Tangmere was on the Up Main and passed the signal protecting the junction at danger.  It came to a stand across the junction.  Had either the HST been a few seconds later or the special a few earlier the latter would have sliced into the side of the HST rather than head-on but still with consequences frankly too horrific to contemplate. 

 

As others have said, WCRC should have been permanently banned then given their cavalier attitude not just to the circumstances leading up to the incident but also their response to it.

[Oldddudders]

7 hours ago, Ken.W said:

Although it was the driver responsible for isolating to override a TPWS application, it was the company's safety management culture (ie lack of) which permitted it to happen, no driver on a properly managed company would ever consider such a thing.

Never having been a driver, I am baffled why any driver would not relish the reassurance such systems offer if he becomes distracted, which I imagine to be much more likely on a steam locomotive with its footplate complexities, compared to modern traction. Were a TPWS equivalent available for the family car, I think most of us would opt-in. And WCRC managers clearly had not learnt much from Southall, where my former colleague Richard George, then MD of GWT, probably had his career terminated, quite apart from the lifelong regrets of such an appalling event on his watch. 

[The Stationmaster]

12 hours ago, Ken.W said:

 

The LNER Tyneside stock apparently didn't have any interlocking, there's been previous references to them frequently running with the doors open in hot weather.

 

On the LNERs GE & Hadfield stock, it was a certain Austrian Corporal responsible for the delay in their introduction

The Tyneside units definitely ran with doors open for various reasons plus the Guard couldn't see open doors when giving the rightaway.  At some stations there was no problem because platform staff were there in sufficient numbers  but in my experience of travelling on them that wasn't necessarily the case at smaller stations.  Oh, and if it was a very hot day you'd actually see passengers opening  the doors while the train was between stations.   A train ride to Whit'ey Bay could be quite a hair raising experience!

Edited January 21 by The Stationmaster

[jjb1970]

When I think of this case I can't help remembering a meeting I attended with a maritime regulator when a company was arguing over emissions certification. My employer who did the technical work for the regulator had declined to approve a design (hence my presence). The guy from the Administration got fed up after about 20 minutes and issued a brutal put down - "We're not here to negotiate,  we're here to tell you what the regulations say" and preceeded to eviscerate them. He was a nice guy but we had gone round the same circle a couple of times and he got to the point where he closed the book and basically told them to stop wasting our time, bleep off and call us if you have a design that we can approve. After that things improved greatly.

[Oldddudders]

Official Regulators are not there to be trifled with. I recall joining the train home and finding the man opposite was reading the Evening Standard. The headline was "Railtrack resists Rail Regulator", and we all know what fate ultimately befell them, and their hapless shareholders.

 

Oh, and the man reading the newspaper? Tom Winsor, the Rail Regulator! 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Slight correction here.  The HST in question was an Up South Wales service coming off the Badminton Line under clear signals.  Tangmere was on the Up Main and passed the signal protecting the junction at danger.  It came to a stand across the junction.  Had either the HST been a few seconds later or the special a few earlier the latter would have sliced into the side of the HST rather than head-on but still with consequences frankly too horrific to contemplate. 

 

As others have said, WCRC should have been permanently banned then given their cavalier attitude not just to the circumstances leading up to the incident but also their response to it.

The entire situation with WCRC in respect of Wootton Bassett was atrocious; the company simply did not have any sort of very basic managerial attitude, to or concern about, safety management.   Their management of traincrew was lacking in what should have been by then some very basic matters such as assessment and control of road knowledge.   In my opinion the Driver clearly had very limited knowledge of the road because if he had known where he was he would have been keeping a sharp lookout for all signals approaching the junction at Wootton Bassett.  And there are two excellent landmarks  to ensure that happens - firstly, on his side of the cab,  c.4 miles from the junction is the very obvious site of the former Dauntsey station in use at that time as a large scrap yard and dumping ground.; you could readily see that through a bit of drifting steam.  Secondly, in the same vicinity is the very noticeable steepening  - to 1 in 189 - of the rising gradient which would be particularly noticeable on a steam engine with a heavy train.  I have been up there, at speed, on a test train hauled by a   'Mercnant Navy' and that change is noticeable even riding in the train.   The Driver missed the yellow aspect not because his attention was elsewhere but simply because he wasn't looking out for it when he should have been.

 

And although the temporary AWS ramp was not correctly sited if he'd read the notice (assuming WCRC had ensured that he had received it?) he would have been on the lookout for an additional AWS warning - no chance of getting confused there.  All down not just to the Driver but to non-existent basic safety management by WCRC.  The fact that they couldn't even get stuff that basic right is one reason I'd have shut them down for good - total lack of interest in even the most basic safety matters.  Added to that the near criminal attitude and incompetence of WCRC personnel in respect of the AWS Isolating Cock is almost beynd belief - but it happened, and duly disabled both the AWS and the TPWS.

 

As far as Southall is concerned the story is a sad one to say the least.  Considerable managerial failings at various levels in GWT left the Driver who took over the train at Cardiff in an invidious position.  As it happens I knew that Druver quite well - at one time he'd been a member of my staff and I'd also ridden with him later,  in the early 1990s.  He was known as a very conscientious Driver.  Alas he fell into one of those everyday 'we never get checked here' traps lying out there for the unwary and his attention was diverted at just the wrong time.  He wasn't the first to be involved in a collision on the Up Main Line in that area but I sincerely hope he will be the last.  Incidentally he could not be faulted for taking over at Cardiff a train with inoperable AWS because that was in accordance with the Instructions which had been revised in the mid 1980s being - as far as he was concerned - an AWS failure enroute.  I know that because I was a member of the BRB/all Regions Working Party which had redrafted those Instructions in the mid 1980s.  The train should not have left Swansea with defective AWS;  it could have been turned if the fault could not be rectified.  Richard George probably had no personal involvement at all but - as Ian has said - the incident occurred on his watch.  And that can be mre than enough to change someone's career path whatever Rules and Appendix Instructions might say. 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

When I think of this case I can't help remembering a meeting I attended with a maritime regulator when a company was arguing over emissions certification. My employer who did the technical work for the regulator had declined to approve a design (hence my presence). The guy from the Administration got fed up after about 20 minutes and issued a brutal put down - "We're not here to negotiate,  we're here to tell you what the regulations say" and preceeded to eviscerate them. He was a nice guy but we had gone round the same circle a couple of times and he got to the point where he closed the book and basically told them to stop wasting our time, bleep off and call us if you have a design that we can approve. After that things improved greatly.

My company was working as technical advisor to the client in a major rolling stock procurement. The supplier was trying to nitpick and delay things in order to get an extension of time. So, at the next big meeting I took my big bound copy of the contract in, threw it on the table and said "Right, which bit don't you understand?". That burst the bubble and things got going again. You can only do it once per project, though, and it helps to have known the people on the other side of the table for a number of years.

[The Stationmaster]

20 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Official Regulators are not there to be trifled with. I recall joining the train home and finding the man opposite was reading the Evening Standard. The headline was "Railtrack resists Rail Regulator", and we all know what fate ultimately befell them, and their hapless shareholders.

 

Oh, and the man reading the newspaper? Tom Winsor, the Rail Regulator! 

Back in the 1980s I planned the signalling installation for a preservation site and my locking chart was checked by a professional signal engineer, an expert of locking, who also drew up the electrical control table.  A contractor installed sonme of the equipment and when the time was approaching he said to me 'Shall i leave something for the Inspector to find?'  To which i replied 'No, if there;s anything at all to find he;'ll find it anyway'. Which gota slightly diappointed look in response.

 

I had submitted detailed descriptions of the method of working, all the necessary plans and detail drawings to HMRI and they had been accepted without demur or any sort of adverse comment.  The HMRI Inspecting Officer duly arrived on the appointed day, remembered me from our previous meeting more than 10 years previously  duly greeting me in a very positive and friendly manner.  He cvommenced his inspection and when we got to the signal box he began to ask me about the proposed method of working (MOW) and my signal engineer friend, who the HMRI had also met previously, about the interlocking and electrical controls on various levers.  We had gone through this between ourselves several times over and and we had received HMRI written approval.  But the Inspecting  HMRI 'recommended' that we make a minor addition to the electrical controls (and in consequence to the MOW).

 

So we made the change - because it had been recommended; no need to instruct us.  A 'recommendation' was as good as an instruction for us and clearly no need to set up any obvious little niggles - the HMRI in question was to thorough to be insulted in that manner

[Bucoops]

35 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

So we made the change - because it had been recommended; no need to instruct us.

 

Quoted for emphasis. This is what should be the norm.

[rodent279]

Going back to the question of how many accidents have happened on the WHL extension in general, the WCRC operation in particular,  the point is that "hasn't happened" is not the same as "can't happen".

 

As I said earlier in the thread, I've never been in a car crash, so going by the "hasn't happened" theory of risk management, I don't need to wear a seat belt.......

 

I've never had my car nicked, or my house burgled, so I guess I can start leaving my car unlocked and house doors & windows open.

 

'Nuff said?

Edited January 21 by rodent279

[Ken.W]

On 20/01/2024 at 07:50, St Enodoc said:

It was a running theme in the Sunday Express' Michael Watts column for many years - called the Department of Appropriate Names (DAN).

 

In a company I worked for, the expert in fire engineering was a Mr Woodburn.

 

Reminds me of an incident l had when we used to run through to Glasgow, so probably GNER days.

 

At about 80, approaching Curriehill going round a blind left hand bend into a cutting, no visible track ahead, just a whole flock of sheep. Brake to emergency and leaning on the horn. Came to a stand, just missing the OH neutral section with the 91, did the necessary and continued to Glasgow.

 

On arrival, was told 8 of them were killed

 

On getting back to Newcastle had to go upstairs for a debrief with the duty Driver Manager.....

 

 

Mr. Wooley

[Siberian Snooper]

On 20/01/2024 at 10:12, Oldddudders said:

In the heady days of That's Life w Esther Rantzen, suitable names were a regulkar feature. They had stumbled across a business card for an antique dealer rejoicing in the name of Robin Bastard. 

 

That company had their premises in Yelverton and that was the owners correct name, not a made up one and pronounced as per the Rik Mayall character in The New Statesman.