WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 hour ago, Vecchio said:

Even I am not that old I have grown up in a town with trams which had at the time open platforms, where people where jumping off at low speed and jumping on at crossings, also railway coaches, well those for local trains, had open platforms. Of course, they are all gone now, but in my first 10 or 15 years of my life they were present. I do not remember that there were excessive death rates because people were jumping off while the train was running between stations. Have we all mentally degraded in the last 60 years or so that we are jumping out now, even when there is written not to open while the train is running? I know I will get a few negative comments now, but have we thrown all common sense over board? 

I've been thinking about this since posting my earlier link to the 1993 report. Not about open platform trams (which I don't remember) or buses (which I do). I certanly knew people being injured getting on or off an open platform bus, generally at an inappropriate location, and I think their hazards were well-known - everyone could see that they were potentially dangerous. That was part of the fun, after all. Well, it was when you were young and healthy, but that isn't what I had been mulling over. It's the bit about train doors I was thinking about.

 

Although railway staff were clearly well aware of the frequency of incidents, I am pretty sure that the number of both incidents of doors opening and the injuries they caused were kept pretty well hidden from the general public. An average of one death of a passenger falling from an open door every two and a half weeks ought at least to have been commented upon. Yet I don't recall anything in the railway press (either in Rail News or in publications like Modern Railways), nor in newspapers (happy to bash the railways on other occasions), nor in the types of television programs that delighted in bringing this sort of issue to public attention. The 1993 report was written by the HSE at the instigation of the Health and Safety Commission and the Secretary of State for Transport, although it seems clear from an early paragraph that BRB were also keen to see an independent investigation. There is no suggestion that the report came about through public or other external pressure.

 

Remembering back, I would hazard a guess that the opinion formers of the day, the proud bastions of a free press, rather liked slam door trains. They could open the door as the train rolled into the platform at Cannon Street or Blackfriars, get their little thrill from getting off before the train stopped, and didn't want to see a change that would take away this little freedom. Certainly they didn't want to be "nannied". And so it was that the risks and the death rates were never mentioned, and so even now there is a sense that everything was perfectly safe.

 

155 passenger fatalities from 1984-1991. Just compare this with the number of deaths from what we more usually think of as "railway accidents" in the same period. Accidents that were widely reported and many of us are doubtless familiar with:

30 July 1984 Polmont: 13 dead

11 October 1984 Wembley Central: 1 dead

4 December 1984 Eccles: 3 dead

9 March 1986 Chinley: 1 dead

26 July 1986 Lockington: 9 dead

19 September 1986 Colwich: 1 dead

11 September 1986 Bridgeton: 2 dead

19 October 1987 River Towy: 4 dead

18 November 1987 King's Cross: 31 dead

11 November 1988 St. Helens: 1 dead

12 December 1988 Clapham Junction: 35 dead

4 March 1989 Purley: 5 dead

6 March 1989 Bellgrove: 2 dead

4 August 1990 Stafford: 1 dead

8 January 1991 Cannon Street: 2 dead

21 July 1991 Newton: 4 dead

 

The total of dead in all these accidents is 115. 40 fewer than those who died falling from open doors.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Jeremy Cumberland

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, Vecchio said:

Have we all mentally degraded in the last 60 years or so that we are jumping out now, even when there is written not to open while the train is running? I know I will get a few negative comments now, but have we thrown all common sense over board? 

I have cycled for over 60 years and driven for 35, and was associated with the railway industry for nearly 50. The lack of awareness of surroundings and danger nowadays never ceases to amaze me, similarly the seeming detatchment from the reality of being on the road that I see from the drivers of hermetically sealed Chelsea Tractors.

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 23/07/2023 at 22:34, beast66606 said:

I also hung out of door windows for years photographing signals, used to duck back in when lineside vegetation encroached of course but I would never hang out with my back to traffic except where I knew the lineside was clear and/or could be sure there were no trains on the other side if I was hanging out on the 6' side.

Straying off topic, I remember when John Adams and Patrick Whitehouse were making the Railway Roundabout films they made a camera bracket which could be fixed to a cab side or carriage door droplight so they could film without leaning out.

Edited July 24, 2023 by TheSignalEngineer

[Morello Cherry]

6 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

An old school friend of mine suffered a fatal head injury window hanging on a spotting trip. It was believed that he came into contact with a signal box corner post between Bristol and Gloucester.

 

A friend of my cousin fell out of a carriage door that wasn't shut properly and was killed. It gave me a lifelong wariness of slamdoors and you certain won't ever get me leaning on one. I can also remember one time getting on a VEP at Waterloo, sitting down and realising that the off side was on the latch and not shut properly and having to open the door (there was a train sat in the other platform) to shut it properly. I've no idea how long it had been like that and how it hadn't been noticed, but it always made me think that it wouldn't have taken much for someone not to notice and to lean on it and fall.

 

I can also remember seeing someone being hit by a door that had been opened before the train had stopped.

 

I get a bit tired of shouting at clouds the 'back in my day no one hurt themselves' rants that so often crop up (normally whenever anyone posts a photo of a depot open day from the 1970s). I can remember plenty of trains being delayed because of doors opening, or guards having to drop the brake as the train pulled out of the station as some moron tried to leap on board.

 

What I find interesting is that if you read through the C19 reports on Railways Archives, you'll see that they are full of reports of people falling out of trains, being killed trying to jump onto trains departing, being run over on level crossings, and so on. The reality is that such accidents are such a big thing now because they are so rare, because so much effort has gone into preventing such accidents occurring.

 

The reality is that the world isn't the world of 20 or 40 years ago and this is not just railways. Let me give you an example - for my sins I work in Higher Education. Back when I was a student - pastoral care/concern for student welfare was non-existent. The attitude was 'you are over 18 and we don't care'. In recent years there have been a number of suicides where at the inquests it was found that the students had expressed suicidal thoughts but people had failed to pass on that information. This forced the sector to confront its practices which were found to be lacking. What was the real driver was that in short, if something happens to a student and someone knew and didn't pass it on then the institution involved is on the hook for a massive amount of money. And while I am sure that it was lovely 40 years ago not to care about students, that won't fly now. And sure, nobody has died in the last 40 years but that isn't the point, the reality is that if something happens to someone and there is something that could have been done to prevent it happening, then you are on hook big time for it.

Complaining about how no one hurt themselves back in the day and all this stuff is spoiling fun is just tilting at windmills

 

As for WCR - do they never learn. It is a rotten management culture if they are not acting on warnings from the inspectorate.

[phil-b259]

50 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

 

A friend of my cousin fell out of a carriage door that wasn't shut properly and was killed. It gave me a lifelong wariness of slamdoors and you certain won't ever get me leaning on one. I can also remember one time getting on a VEP at Waterloo, sitting down and realising that the off side was on the latch and not shut properly and having to open the door (there was a train sat in the other platform) to shut it properly. I've no idea how long it had been like that and how it hadn't been noticed, but it always made me think that it wouldn't have taken much for someone not to notice and to lean on it and fall.

 

I can also remember seeing someone being hit by a door that had been opened before the train had stopped.

 

 

 

And I bet this is something the 'it was fine in the olden days' brigade (several of whom seem to be forum members) will never even consider in their 'H&S overkill' type comments

 

Thankful the world in general has moved on and it doesn't matter if the numbers are 'tiny' or 'other things are far more dangerous' - if a hazard is identified then it should be eliminated.

 

There is NO EXCUSE for not having a system of central door locking - or windows which easily permit persons to hang out of them on todays railway network and its pathetic people seem to think that they degrade somehow from the Heritage experience. You shouldn't have been opening doors before the train halted or sticking your head out of windows in the 1930s either!

Edited July 23, 2023 by phil-b259

[Morello Cherry]

I was reading a recent upload on Railways Archive of an accident from 1880 where a soldier had fallen out of train which was going across a viaduct. The Guard claimed that the soldier had been 'making water' out of the window, his colleagues denied it and said he'd been laughing at a joke and had leant against the door and it had opened and he had fallen. The report showed that it was a poor design of door lock. The recommendation then as now was 'sort out your door locks and don't blame the victim'.

 

I sometimes read the Nine Elms engineman's memories website. From memory, most of the memories cover a very short period of time ie last few years - and yet within that time there is an account of someone being crushed to death by a turntable, a driver losing the top of his head while leaning out and his fireman having to bring the train to a stop covered in blood and a decapitated body on the footplate, a father and two sons all of whom worked at Nine Elms and all three of whom lost legs after being run over while crossing the lines returning from work in the dark. I find it hard to imagine that 60 years later, that anyone would tolerate that kind of working environment and attitude to safety. 

 

What strikes me as informative is that the deaths and injuries are not recounted as shocking but as matter of fact and normal, which tells me that such things were far more common than the 'nothing bad ever happened to me' brigade would have us believe.

[black and decker boy]

We need to remember that this is a professional national railway network not a private garden railway.

Does anyone really want there to be a first time when someone, likely part of a family travelling together given the target market, does fall out and gets killed of these coaches? What do we think will happen to WCRC then and more general exemptions from ORR that the heritage /railtour market rely on?

If WCRC cannot meet the control measures they themselves stipulate in their risk assessment then they should not be operating. History is no guarantee of the future and ‘we’ve always done it that way’ is too often the prelude to disaster.

 

99p toilet door bolts from a local DIY store are hardly a true fail safe system on a train with few stewards.

 

 

[BachelorBoy]

10 hours ago, Vecchio said:

I do not remember that there were excessive death rates because people were jumping off while the train was running between stations.

 

Perhaps you could some research to find out the numbers of deaths, please.  Also, what do consider "excessive"? 

[Darius43]

There has been a steady decline in the number of deaths on the railway over the past decades due in no small part to the efforts of the ORR and the railway companies.   A similar downward trend is seen in the construction industry.   This can only be sustained by maintaining the effort.

 

Foolish yearning to return to a golden age free of “elf and safety” regulation will only reverse that trend.   
 

Cheers
 

Darius

[Mike_Walker]

2 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

 

Perhaps you could some research to find out the numbers of deaths, please.  Also, what do consider "excessive"? 

I would refer you to @Jeremy Cumberland's post at the top of this page.  As to "excessive", how about ONE?

[SZ]

Can the doors not be locked out of use with a key like in ye olden days?

[Mike_Walker]

2 minutes ago, SZ said:

Can the doors not be locked out of use with a key like in ye olden days?

Not desirable as it could delay evacuation in an emergency.

 

I understand there are issues with fitting CDL to vacuum braked Mk1s as used on the Jacobite as the CDL requires an air supply.  There are electro-magnetic alternatives but these depend on a reliable electrical supply which means first class maintenance of batteries and their charging to ensure reliability.

 

Window bars on the door could be an answer preventing leaning out but still allowing a hand to be put out to open the door at stations.

[BachelorBoy]

16 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

I would refer you to @Jeremy Cumberland's post at the top of this page.  As to "excessive", how about ONE?

 

I was asking Vecchio to do it, as he was relying on memory, and he also used the term excessive first, not me.

 

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Darius43 said:

There has been a steady decline in the number of deaths on the railway over the past decades due in no small part to the efforts of the ORR and the railway companies.   A similar downward trend is seen in the construction industry.   This can only be sustained by maintaining the effort.

 

Foolish yearning to return to a golden age free of “elf and safety” regulation will only reverse that trend.  

In many areas I'd personally prefer to take the risk rather than suffer from depression, which I do, and various aspects and attitudes of the modern world are a significant contribution to that. I'm certainly no great believer in protecting people from themselves. It's not got to the point where I'm suicidal but there have been times thoughts have wandered in that direction.

 

edit to say - this is just how I feel. I am not claiming that is thus how everything should be just because it aligns with my feelings. Where the right balance on such things should be has to reflect society's stance as a whole. No-one, at any extreme, or anywhere in the middle, should claim that their take on it is the only right and acceptable one.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Reorte

[SZ]

1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Not desirable as it could delay evacuation in an emergency.

 

If passengers can't open doors it's a problem. If passengers can open doors it's a problem. Can someone not decide which is the biggest problem.

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by SZ

[woodenhead]

19 minutes ago, SZ said:

 

If passengers can't open doors it's a problem. If passengers can open doors it's a problem. Can someone not decide which is the biggest problem.

 

BR worked it out and implemented a system, the problem as stated earlier is that vacuum braked Mk1 coaches don't suit that system and then it requires extremely reliable batteries and chargers to make it so.

 

It seems WCRC are using something different whilst delaying doing the correct fix - there is a solution it's just not yet been implemented.

[SR71]

Air shouldn't be a problem. I've never seen a mainline certified loco in the last 30 years without an air pump.

[Ray H]

Would an option be to remove the door opening devices on the inside of the door and limit how far down the door's window can be lowered - perhaps wide enough for just a hand and a camera?

 

I suspect some of the trouble in the past was through doors not been properly closed. Could each door be fitted with a "door properly closed" detector and either, by coach or by complete train have an indicator on the outside of the coach that would remain illuminated if a door was not properly closed?

 

How much of a problem would it be for the guard (or other member of the train crew) to walk along the train at the end of the journey and open the doors? Perhaps someone could do likewise at intermediate stations if required.

[Siberian Snooper]

Last year I travelled on a Swiss train from Chur to Arosa and the 1st vehicle was open sided from around waist height, but with a roof, it could only be accessed from the adjacent coach using the corridor connection. Very similar to that used on the Welsh Highland line. We hung out, but if one of our party had their back towards the direction of travel someone would warn when approaching a tunnel, just incase. No doors, so no chance of falling out and reasonably safe to stick your head over the side, especially if someone was watching your back. I would say that the speed would be similar to that of the jacobite.

 

 

[frobisher]

2 hours ago, SZ said:

If passengers can't open doors it's a problem. If passengers can open doors it's a problem.  Can someone not decide which is the biggest problem.

 

Passengers...

Edited July 24, 2023 by frobisher

[didcot]

The topic of CDL has been covered in Steam Railway recently. One tour operator has complied with the ORR and fitted it to it's stock at a reported cost of £600K.

 

Other haven't and in West Coasts case has been given extensions to honour bookings. It is also reported the West Coast are seeking a judicial review on the subject. 

 

So CDL can be fitted, at cost, but it seems some are reluctant possibly due to cost.

It isn't a surprise that CDL was going to be required. Some operators push the boundaries whilst others comply. Surely the ORR should be clamping down hard on those that fail to comply to regulations. If you draw a line in the sand you have to stick to it, otherwise you will be retreating up the beach and into the grass.

 

 

[Mike_Walker]

1 hour ago, SR71 said:

Air shouldn't be a problem. I've never seen a mainline certified loco in the last 30 years without an air pump.

Not all main line certified steam locos have air brakes and that includes most of the WCRC fleet.  It also needs the stock to be air or dual braked which, again, those used by WCRC on the Jacobite aren't.

[Wheatley]

1 hour ago, Ray H said:

Would an option be to remove the door opening devices on the inside of the door and limit how far down the door's window can be lowered - perhaps wide enough for just a hand and a camera?

 

I suspect some of the trouble in the past was through doors not been properly closed. Could each door be fitted with a "door properly closed" detector and either, by coach or by complete train have an indicator on the outside of the coach that would remain illuminated if a door was not properly closed?

 

How much of a problem would it be for the guard (or other member of the train crew) to walk along the train at the end of the journey and open the doors? Perhaps someone could do likewise at intermediate stations if required.

 

Inside catches and bars on windows (mentioned earlier) are red herrings, the issues identified in the 1993 report were (from memory) catches on properly closed and latched doors becoming undone because doors were flexing in the frames, and poor maintenance not picking up worn catches. 

 

CDL does everything in your second paragraph. 

 

One of the control measures listed on the original Derogation was that members of staff would lock and unlock the doors, and this appears to be what they were observed not doing. Twice. 

 

19 hours ago, adb968008 said:

The poor relation between WCRC and the ORR I would be expecting for actual proof (rather than hearsay) that WCRC were not following protocol, as many hold a grudge about wcrc and could say anything to rock the boat and damaging WCRC would support the ORRs case in any upcoming litigation… so video evidence etc.

 

ORR does not operate on tittle tattle and heresay evidence. That might get you a visit but it won't get you a ban, they went to look for themselves. From ORR's statement, my italics:

 

"Safety inspectors from ORR subsequently visited the Jacobite service run by WCRCL on Friday 14 July. This inspection found safety failings which ORR considered breached the earlier prohibition notice and the conditions contained in WCRCL's Railway Safety Regulation Exemption Certificate." 

 

https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2023/07/orr-release-statement-on-jacobite-steam-train-cancellations.html

[phil-b259]

17 minutes ago, didcot said:

The topic of CDL has been covered in Steam Railway recently. One tour operator has complied with the ORR and fitted it to it's stock at a reported cost of £600K.

 

Other haven't and in West Coasts case has been given extensions to honour bookings. It is also reported the West Coast are seeking a judicial review on the subject. 

 

So CDL can be fitted, at cost, but it seems some are reluctant possibly due to cost.

It isn't a surprise that CDL was going to be required. Some operators push the boundaries whilst others comply. Surely the ORR should be clamping down hard on those that fail to comply to regulations. If you draw a line in the sand you have to stick to it, otherwise you will be retreating up the beach and into the grass.

 

 

 

And thats the point - if one operator can do it so can the rest!

 

WCR seem to be behaving very much as the Ryanair of the industry in that they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to obey the rules everyone else does.

 

Quite frankly I hope their legal venture fails and they get landed with a big bill for their actions. If it makes them go bust - so be it. We don't want cowboys in the railway industry and they have had long enough to get their house in order.

[AY Mod]

15 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Although railway staff were clearly well aware of the frequency of incidents, I am pretty sure that the number of both incidents of doors opening and the injuries they caused were kept pretty well hidden from the general public. An average of one death of a passenger falling from an open door every two and a half weeks ought at least to have been commented upon. Yet I don't recall anything in the railway press (either in Rail News or in publications like Modern Railways), nor in newspapers (happy to bash the railways on other occasions), nor in the types of television programs that delighted in bringing this sort of issue to public attention. The 1993 report was written by the HSE at the instigation of the Health and Safety Commission and the Secretary of State for Transport, although it seems clear from an early paragraph that BRB were also keen to see an independent investigation. There is no suggestion that the report came about through public or other external pressure.

 

Remembering back, I would hazard a guess that the opinion formers of the day, the proud bastions of a free press, rather liked slam door trains. They could open the door as the train rolled into the platform at Cannon Street or Blackfriars, get their little thrill from getting off before the train stopped, and didn't want to see a change that would take away this little freedom. Certainly they didn't want to be "nannied". And so it was that the risks and the death rates were never mentioned, and so even now there is a sense that everything was perfectly safe.

 

I would suggest it's been a gradual transition from 'it's their own fault they fell out' towards 'someone is responsible for them falling out' from HASAWA 1974 onwards. Still, the "Health and Safety gone mad" mindset is a noisy one in the media and social media in the absence of their common sense to look at bigger pictures.

 

Similar to your relevant list of fatalities that take headlines there are similarities with the motor industry where a local individual fatality barely merits a mention whereas a multiple pile-up on a motorway with fatalities and delays hits the news. Fatalities have been substantially reduced over the decades;  mainly due to traffic management and planning and vehicle safety systems more than the individual nut behind the wheel - I don't think there's a regulator involved there but at least there is for rail and air.