WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.

[adb968008]

25 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Vintage Trains?

I dont think VT have ever done a railtour that hasnt started from Birmingham, indeed Tyseley depot itself is the boarding point for many.

 

As a charity they are very risk averse and very carefully sized.

They only operate 1 rake of stock and 1 mainline diesel (47541).

 

I dont forsee them stepping into the breech and taking on several non GWR locos, a fleet of 20+ diesels, 100+ coaches, a considerable number of staff, base in London and Carnforth and maintenaance facilities.

 

I should point out deep pocketed as LSL is, it focusses on a very high standard.. but a very tight pool of operations.. since 2013, the only new steam locomotive to emerge is embracing 60007. There core pool is 34046, 46100, 70000 and bought 45231 and 61306.  They dont operate other volunteer group locos.

 

if your a modern enthusiast your much dissapointed this year, as Intercity railtours has only produced a few trips with 47712 and very little else.

 

So even if they should cherry pick wcrc, dont expect them to quadruple operations.. it will be very high quality, but they’ll be very selective.

 

WCRC may not be perfect, but its what weve got.

Edited July 24, 2023 by adb968008

[DCB]

Oh well it will keep the environmentalists happy if West Coast cease operations.

Actually it does prove the  whole thing is based on ignorance and a failure apply the lessons of the past.. There were some fatalities some years ago due to the doors on Mk1 sleepers being locked and passengers unable to escape and other instances when passengers have had difficulty escaping.   Central locking is beneficial in certain circumstances and dangerous in others.  Locking doors was made illegal at one stage due to problems escaping fires.   The Rail regulator may have a role but at some stage the dangers of competing scenarios have to evaluated and if doing nothing is the safer option as this case, then nothing is what should be done, except lobby for an enquiry into the usefulness or otherwise of the rail regulator.

Edited July 24, 2023 by DCB

[adb968008]

27 minutes ago, DCB said:

Oh well it will keep the environmentalists happy if West Coast cease operations.

Not neccessarily WCRC now operate exactly 50% of the remaining working BR 1st general AC 25kv fleet… owning 86401 ( and operate 85259).

 

LSL own the other 50%.. 86101 and 87002.

 

Besides static 87001/35 all the rest, including the 16 Freightliner 86/6’s is scrapped or going to/in service in Eastern Europe, though several Bulgarian 87’s are now oou.

 

The rest is 90’s, 91’s and 92’s.. and aiui DB hasnt got any 90’s running now.

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by adb968008

[melmerby]

50 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I dont think VT have ever done a railtour that hasnt started from Birmingham, indeed Tyseley depot itself is the boarding point for many.

 

As a charity they are very risk averse and very carefully sized.

They only operate 1 rake of stock and 1 mainline diesel (47541).

It was slightly tongue in cheek, considering how well set up they seem to be.

They are also operating their own class 37 (37240) on mainline tours from this year.

Other diesels have been/are being hired in.

 

Sadly only Castles operating as part of the current main line fleet.

Mind you a Castle has travelled well outside the traditional GWR boundaries, even getting as far as Stirling and Edinburgh!

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, adb968008 said:

If that argument were to stand up, every commercially operated loco on NR which could theoretically be called upon to assist a failed train should have a compatible coupling… of which there is no standard across the industry and leads to painful delays when compatible stock has to be sourced and manoeuvred into a rescue position.

Under the Access Con ditions theoretically they can although is abit liimited because (unless theworing has been alterted) teh infrastructure owner can commandeer a loco from any operator in order assist a failed train of any other operator to get it clear of the running lines (or out of teh wya to a lesser running line).  

 

Orginally there was an automatic fee of £1,000 paid for use of a loco used to clear the ilne of a failed train,  By the early years of this century that fee had been increased, so I was told, to £2,000.  The coupling problem is on fact more than just couplings as it also extends to control systems where these need to be connected/powered from the assisting whatever -.for   example an IET can only be assisted by another IET (and at one time Class 800 and Class 802 weren't compatible ether).

[phil-b259]

3 hours ago, beast66606 said:

 

Not every operator has £600k lying around, thats like saying if one person can afford a Lotus then so can everyone - life is not that simple.

Which is why the ORR have given operators plenty of advanced notice so they can save up cash over time and do it in a phased approach.

 

Its not as if the requirements to fit central door locking have come out of he blue.

 

It cannot be Ignored that WCR have seeming stuck their fingers in their ears and assumed they are ‘too important’ to fail and the regulator will continue to give them exemptions while they gain revenue by running trains that other operators consider uneconomic.

 

Now it’s true that the increased costs might well hasten the demise of ‘ordinary’ enthusiasts charters - and if that’s the case so be it! You want to play on the national rail network you play by their rules or you can sod off.

Moreover charter trains are not an essential part of the Heritage scene per se - it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of Heritage railways out there where you can see older trains in operation. OK maybe not at 75mph but you can still get to appreciate them on the move.

[PhilH]

7 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Under the Access Con ditions theoretically they can although is abit liimited because (unless theworing has been alterted) teh infrastructure owner can commandeer a loco from any operator in order assist a failed train of any other operator to get it clear of the running lines (or out of teh wya to a lesser running line).  

 

Orginally there was an automatic fee of £1,000 paid for use of a loco used to clear the ilne of a failed train,  By the early years of this century that fee had been increased, so I was told, to £2,000.  The coupling problem is on fact more than just couplings as it also extends to control systems where these need to be connected/powered from the assisting whatever -.for   example an IET can only be assisted by another IET (and at one time Class 800 and Class 802 weren't compatible ether).

Haven’t you got to whistle up a shunter as well or has that requirement changed?? These days the only available one will probably be at the other end of the country.

Edited July 24, 2023 by PhilH

[didcot]

LSL have an agreement with the group who own Sir Nigel Gresley I believe that is beneficial to both parties.

Also the same group have been reported to be returning Bittern to working order for LSL in the near future. 

I think the Duke of Gloucester group have a similar arrangement with Tyseley.

Not quite run and restore, but something along those lines.

I also think Ian Rileys Black 5s are employed on the Jacobites.

 

[Mike_Walker]

Mike @The Stationmaster all 80x variants are compatible.  There were originally contractual reasons why 800s and 802s couldn't be coupled but the DfT have seen sense and now allow it 

[phil-b259]

7 hours ago, DCB said:

Oh well it will keep the environmentalists happy if West Coast cease operations.

Actually it does prove the  whole thing is based on ignorance and a failure apply the lessons of the past.. There were some fatalities some years ago due to the doors on Mk1 sleepers being locked and passengers unable to escape and other instances when passengers have had difficulty escaping.   Central locking is beneficial in certain circumstances and dangerous in others.  Locking doors was made illegal at one stage due to problems escaping fires.   The Rail regulator may have a role but at some stage the dangers of competing scenarios have to evaluated and if doing nothing is the safer option as this case, then nothing is what should be done, except lobby for an enquiry into the usefulness or otherwise of the rail regulator.

The ORR would much rather trains did not catch fire in the first place!

 

You don’t plan to mitigate one risk by planning to keep a different risk unaddressed.

 

Its the same with ‘what about a train crash’ type statements - the ORR expect you to stop crashes happening in the first place!

Edited July 25, 2023 by phil-b259

[adb968008]

4 hours ago, beast66606 said:

 

Not every operator has £600k lying around, thats like saying if one person can afford a Lotus then so can everyone - life is not that simple.

No but west coact railways does.

 

Profit for last year was £3mn, operating profit £1.9mn.

it also has separately controlled businesses with the same owner with the restorations business, coal supply and use of Carnforth site.

 

Onl £12mn turnover, to have £1.6mn after tax its doing very well.

Add to that CrRES being £300k larger since last year in assets, and Steamtown as a business turning £123k profit… things arent bad in this empire.

 

Altogether the group of companies had £2mn profits after tax.

 

Dont knock it, its successful.

If anything I wonder why they havent spent money on door locks regardless, it would off set tax on profits.

This is a family business looking at the accounts, the owner director isnt getting any younger.

Edited July 24, 2023 by adb968008

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, didcot said:

The difference is that you are running trains on the national network and as such is more heavily regulated than a preserved lines.

Don't preserved lines fall under the light railway banner and thus restricted to 25mph? Hence the exemption in certain areas.

The simple answer to that is 'yes, 'no' 'maybe'.  But nothing like as many such differences as you might like to think./

 

All operators/infrastructure owners are subject to the legal requirements in mposed by  ROGS (Rail and Other Guided Systems ) legislation which places many of theh same lega duties on the operators of private railways - be they heritage or leisure - as it does on main line railways.  But there are some relaxations  - such as those applying to the use of slam door coaches - for parts of the heritage sector.  But there is masses of legislation and procedures from which they have no exemption at all including industrial safety regulations, working at height, electrical related regulations, drugs & alcohol requirements, keeping of medical recods for all safety critical staff who might have a medical condition ir are taking prescription drugs which might have side, effects,  training programmes and recording of them, records of work done on safety critical tasks, and so on and so forth.  Plus they must all have a compliant (with ROGS etc) Safety Mnagement System.

 

The main things - to my knowledge - in which the Inspectorate have picked up private railways and sites have been in relation to the failure to keep records such as those I mentioned or the lack of a Safety Plan or a non-compliant Safety Plan and related procedures; poor or no documentation relating to training; lack of medical records for safety critical staff;  and, quite frequently at one time - breaches of various industrial safety legal requirements especially applying to power tools and machinery.

 

Unless something particularly dangerous is found during a visit the Inspector normally requiresa progress report on implementing the necessary changes to bring things up to standard.  But in some cases either immediately, or the required progress is not reported the Inspector will u issue an Inmprovement Notice and extreme cases a Prohibition Notice.  And some well known railways in teh sector have been on the receiving end of one or other, or both, of the latter.  And don't forget that as part of that process of inspection the Inspectirate will visit Carnforth so the they  will have knowledge of the way that site has been managed.

 

In addition should to something be brought to their attention by a member of the public then an Inspector will either contact or visit the railway/site concerned to ascertain if there is any truth in the allegation  and if remedial action is needed. I don't know the current situation as I have been out of ths sort of thing for some years but at one time not so many years back the Inspectorate were under direction from above to pay much greater attention to this sector because of suspected shortcomings within it.  

 

So leisure/gheritage railways and sites are in no way out of all this sort of thing and have to pay  attention to an awful lot of legislation plus they are obliged to report various categories of personal accidents and injuries.  In my experience dealing with them the Inspectorate are not unreasonable - the will ask for something to be done, they might impose an Improvement Notice to add impetus to getting it done and if it isn't done to their satisfaction they would issue a Prohibition Notice.  Basically no different in process terms from what has happened with WCRC.  So - you need to do something; you have come up with a procedure about how to do it which meets our approval but now we've found you aren't applying that procedure = prohibition notice.

 

You'll find a list here of issued Notices since 2012 plus a link to earlier years Notices in the National Archive.  You will see that the preservation sector - both railways and sites - is not immune - -

https://www.orr.gov.uk/monitoring-regulation/rail/promoting-health-safety/investigation-enforcement-powers/our-enforcement-action-date/prohibition-notices

 

And Improvement Notices here -

https://www.orr.gov.uk/monitoring-regulation/rail/promoting-health-safety/investigation-enforcement-powers/our-enforcement-action-date/improvement-notices

Edited July 24, 2023 by The Stationmaster

[The Stationmaster]

44 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

Mike @The Stationmaster all 80x variants are compatible.  There were originally contractual reasons why 800s and 802s couldn't be coupled but the DfT have seen sense and now allow it 

Mike have a word with Captain Kernow of this parish who found out the hard way that they weren't entirely electrically compatible when they did couple one to t'other.

Edited July 24, 2023 by The Stationmaster

[Cyberspice]

On 21/07/2023 at 19:56, Legend said:

All these years I had to lean out the window of a class 126  to open the carriage door from the outside , little realising I was dicing with death

 

Back when I was young and lived in the south east the local trains were 1950s electric trains with doors you had to open from the outside. I remember the station being closed because someone was decapitated after leaning out.

[Legend]

5 hours ago, beast66606 said:

 

Not every operator has £600k lying around, thats like saying if one person can afford a Lotus then so can everyone - life is not that simple.

But it might be a necessary cost to continue in business . WCRC are creating significant revenue for this journey £57 return up to £380ish for a compartment with two trains per day in each direction . That’s a fairly big turnover .  So maybe they should factor in safety into their costs . I think each of their passengers would have an expectation of being safe . 
 

Who can argue against Health and Safety ? One injury or worse still a death is clearly one too many , so how can you argue against that - you simply can’t . But will there be an injury ? What are the chances? What’s the risk assessment? There does need to be a sense of proportion . Again I ask how many people have fallen out the Jacobite or been injured in its years of operation . I don’t know the answer , I can’t think of any headlines but then maybe it doesn’t get reported . I would have thought there would have to be an investigation though , and again I can’t recall any .  Do we know of any cases? 
 

It isn’t  just the people in Mallaig, Glenfinnan etc that this affects . Tourists from all round the world deliberately go to Fort William to catch this train , so this will be affecting tourists and the reputation of Scottish Tourism . 2 weeks , maybe more in what is already the peak season up here.. I’m really surprised there hasnt been much more about this on the media given the furore (rightly so) when a ferry breaks down affecting tourism in the islands . This ban must be having the same , if not worse effect . 

[didcot]

Agreed, as you say people from all over the world want to travel the Harry Potter line. It brings in money to the area and it must be very disappointing for travellers. Are west coast employees at Fort William to explain the situation or are the station operators taking the flak? I don't know that answer. 

But fitting CDL and also tanks for toilet discharge is not breaking news. Failure to comply, regardless of any fatalities or not in the past is irrelevant. The ORR have stated the requirement and it needs to be adhered to.

You wouldn't be surprised if you were pulled over by the old bill for not having tax, mot and insurance. It's a legal requirement, no argument. 

[Northmoor]

I'll be interested to see if the next issue of Heritage Railway magazine, which exists to report on railway preservation/main line railtours etc., will report the WCRC issue in detail, or will they (seemingly unwilling to upset anyone they might need an interview article out of sometime) hardly mention it and report as Headline News that a Bullied Pacific is to get a new livery.

[Grovenor]

1 hour ago, didcot said:

But fitting CDL and also tanks for toilet discharge is not breaking news. Failure to comply, regardless of any fatalities or not in the past is irrelevant. The ORR have stated the requirement and it needs to be adhered to.

The prohibition notice in this case does not require CDL. It just requires them to follow their agreed procedure for managing the doors with the bolts they have fitted.

[pete_mcfarlane]

8 hours 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. 

A judicial review could end up costing them more than it would do to fit the coaches with CDL. 

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Legend said:

Again I ask how many people have fallen out the Jacobite or been injured in its years of operation

That's irrelevant.

Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean that the situation that could cause such event should not be rectified.

 

When I was at work I had to go and check the electrical safety in one of the companion work rooms.

One guy was using a 13A lead with crocodile clips on the end to test equipment that arrived without a plug.☹️

Quite clearly a massive hazard that had to stop, even though up to that point, nobody had been electrocuted.

 

Can't understand why he didn't use a Safeblock or equivalent, like everyone else.

[frobisher]

2 hours ago, Legend said:

It isn’t  just the people in Mallaig, Glenfinnan etc that this affects . Tourists from all round the world deliberately go to Fort William to catch this train , so this will be affecting tourists and the reputation of Scottish Tourism . 2 weeks , maybe more in what is already the peak season up here..

 

The weather has a greater effect to be honest.

 

Weather here in Orkney was fine, but the weather elsewhere has caused one of the liners not to stop here today.  That's 2,500 tourists that didn't set foot here today.  But 1,400 tomorrow and 2,500 on Wednesday still coming.  The big winner there is of course Orkney Harbours with their berthing fees...

 

The Jacobite doesn't really move that many bodies around, and is more concerned with making income for WCR rather than Mallaig etc.

[Morello Cherry]

I find the 'no one has fallen out the a train so it isn't a issue' arguments insane. Just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean you don't take precautions to stop it because put simply the worst case scenario doesn't bear thinking about.

 

The industry is already on thin ice with two very severe near misses - Wootton Bassett and the SDR. In both cases, it was 'there but for the grace of god go I'.

 

The SDR incident involved a toddler. Imagine what would happen if a child (rather than a middle aged train spotter) were to fall out of door because WCR didn't think that the rules and demands applied to them?

 

The fine for Wootton Bassett was £200,000 plus £64,000 in costs and suspended prison sentences for individuals involved and that was for a near miss rather than a fatality.

 

WCR have form:

 

Wootton Bassett

TPWS isolated by the fireman on Sherwood Forester

Bell Busk and Olton Hall

 

It is pretty clear that with their reputation that they would be on a short leash with the ORR, by ignoring the inspectors' requests they've brought this on themselves. Moreover, they are jeopardising the wider industry because if there were a fatal accident because corners had been cut, then it would be a long, difficult and expensive way back for the heritage railway industry.

[frobisher]

3 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

I find the 'no one has fallen out the a train so it isn't a issue' arguments insane. Just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean you don't take precautions to stop it because put simply the worst case scenario doesn't bear thinking about.

 

Indeed "We haven't killed anyone yet" is not a great H&S policy statement.

[david.hill64]

4 hours ago, Legend said:

But will there be an injury ? What are the chances? What’s the risk assessment? There does need to be a sense of proportion . Again I ask how many people have fallen out the Jacobite or been injured in its years of operation . I don’t know the answer , I can’t think of any headlines but then maybe it doesn’t get reported . I would have thought there would have to be an investigation though , and again I can’t recall any .  Do we know of any cases? 
 

It doesn't matter if nobody has to date been killed or injured by falling from a Jacobite or leaning out of the window. The whole basis of modern safety management systems is that they are no longer reactive to things that have happened, but seek to identify the things that reasonably could happen and ensure that measures are in place to eliminate or mitigate the risk.

 

You summed this up nicely in the first three sentences quoted above.

[phil-b259]

10 hours ago, adb968008 said:

.

 

Theres a network rail 153 navigating the SE lines in Kent right now, if that failed, the nearest sprinter is probably Norwich, or a 159 from Waterloo.. good luck with that. NR clearly not applying the standard to themselves (and looking at RTT something does seem to have gone wrong too).

 

Actually IIRC Network Rail did indeed put base another one of their 153 units somewhere along the GEML to act as thunderbird while the modified 153 was doing its survey work in the region precisely because following the delivery of new trains to Grater Anglia there was a lack of 15X units about which could be called upon in the event of a failure.

 

As such it wouldn’t surprise me that an unmodified 153 was dumped at the likes of Selhurst or Tonbridge while the dedicated survey unit was running around about Sussex or Kent to provide a similar contingency - the delay minutes (and thus financial compensation due) from a failure on the BML if the 153 failed would be significant!

Edited July 25, 2023 by phil-b259