WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.

[25901]

On 11/04/2024 at 17:07, adb968008 said:

 

Carnforth Railway and Restoration engineering services lists 159 staff, in 2022 accounts.

 

In the related party disclosures, it says “they handle all the payroll costs for other group companies”.

 

it also operates a pension scheme (assets are independent of the company).

 

I also note this business registered at Helifield station, has overdue accounts in companies house for this year, due December 31st 2023, and a First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off has been issued.

 

all this is on companies house.

Correct, I know a driver on a part time contract who is payed to sit in a cabin at Newark

Edited April 20 by 25901

[Railpassion]

3 hours ago, ruggedpeak said:

Agree, but a court will want to know what they are doing running non-compliant stock in the consist if there is an accident etc. There appears to be no legitimate business reason for running unusable empty coaches, that will cost to operate and increase fuel costs etc. A longer train may make an incident involving speed and mass related physics like momentum potentially worse than it needed to be. Tricky one to explain and an accusation of playing games with the ORR could be hard to defend. Courts will look into exactly what people were up to rather than what they said they were up to, and make judgements such as "you tried to flex the rules by putting non-passenger compliant coaches interspersed with compliant ones for reasons X, Y and Z, but based upon the detail of the regulations and the evidence of your actions and motives as provided it appears that in fact those non-compliant coaches were arguably in passenger use under the regs despite being locked out.." It is a dangerous game to play, Judges aren't stupid and can and do extrapolate when required.

 

Also what is the rationale for inserting several of them in between coaches that are used by the public on a train in public service? Why not all together at one end, if the Mk1's are locked out of use and passengers can't get from one Mk2 to another? Again from a broader safety perspective this does not seem sensible? Not exactly climate friendly hauling several deliberately empty coaches back and forth using coal power either!

 

All rhetorical questions...maybe there is a sensible reason for all of this, it just eludes some of us mortals..........🤪

The Mk1 inbetweeners power the MK2 kit from their dynamos. 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

7 hours ago, Ohmisterporter said:

Regarding steam locomotives running up and down gradients: please correct me if I am wrong but won't a loco running uphilll chimney first have its boiler at the same angle to the gradient when it is running downhill tender first? And vice versa.

Yes. But running downhill isn't really an issue.

 

Ordinarily, the loco crew aim to keep the water level fairly constant during a run, high enough to cover the firebox on any gradient and not so high as to cause priming. Water is put into the boiler as quickly as it is being used.

 

However, when working hard, such as when climbing a steep gradient, the engine may be uing more steam than the boiler can produce. In this case, the driver might ease off to reduce the load on the boiler, or the fireman may stop puttimg water into the boiler (adding cold water cools the boiler down, of course) and allow the water level to drop, or the fireman could maintain the water level and allow the pressure to drop, or some combination of all three. This is perfectly normal, and one aspect of route knowledge for footplate crew is knowing where you can or need to mortgage the boiler in this way.

 

Climbing a gradient chimney first gives the crew an advantage, since the firebox is covered by more water, so there is more that could be lost - provided you still have enough for going over the summit at the top of the climb. But climbing tender first and the water level over the firebox will already be low to start with.

 

None of this appears to be relavent to the issue at Glenfinnan. The report is that the locomotive was slipping, not that it had stalled (which might be a result of allowing the pressure to drop to maintain water level). There is no suggestion that the failure was in any way boiler related.

[John Besley]

9 hours ago, Ohmisterporter said:

Turning tender engines on short turntables can be done by splitting the engine and tender; turning each part separately, then re-joining them.

 

I have seen it done several times on the Ratty with visiting locos from the RHDR that are longer than Ratty engines. A lot depends on the timetable for the return trip of course. 

 

Splitting a mainline engine from its tender to turn it won't be a quick job... not as simple as uncoupling an Triang loco

[PhilH]

10 hours ago, Ohmisterporter said:

Regarding steam locomotives running up and down gradients: please correct me if I am wrong but won't a loco running uphilll chimney first have its boiler at the same angle to the gradient when it is running downhill tender first? And vice versa.

Turning tender engines on short turntables can be done by splitting the engine and tender; turning each part separately, then re-joining them. I have seen it done several times on the Ratty with visiting locos from the RHDR that are longer than Ratty engines. A lot depends on the timetable for the return trip of course. 

The thing is on a boiler you have a hot end and the other end. The hot end is the firebox end which must be kept covered with water, so running uphill chimney first not a problem, water will run toward the firebox (back) end naturally, basically the crown of the box will be covered. Going uphill tender first it’s the reverse, water will run away from the firebox end leading to low water level over the firebox if not managed properly. This can cause serious damage, dropping plugs etc. (think boiling a saucepan of water at home, all is well when there is water in it, not so good if you let it boil dry and keep on heating it)

 

As regards splitting tenders from engines this can be a right pain in the backside to do on a full size engine. Pins get stuck, very often you have to get a shunt engine or some such to squeeze the engine and tender together so the pin can be withdrawn, the safety chains get stuck, pipes between loco and tender to disconnect etc. You will also need another loco of some sort to move the engine and tender around once disconnected. Not always a straightforward task by any means.

[adb968008]

5 hours ago, PhilH said:

The thing is on a boiler you have a hot end and the other end. The hot end is the firebox end which must be kept covered with water, so running uphill chimney first not a problem, water will run toward the firebox (back) end naturally, basically the crown of the box will be covered. Going uphill tender first it’s the reverse, water will run away from the firebox end leading to low water level over the firebox if not managed properly. This can cause serious damage, dropping plugs etc. (think boiling a saucepan of water at home, all is well when there is water in it, not so good if you let it boil dry and keep on heating it)

 

As regards splitting tenders from engines this can be a right pain in the backside to do on a full size engine. Pins get stuck, very often you have to get a shunt engine or some such to squeeze the engine and tender together so the pin can be withdrawn, the safety chains get stuck, pipes between loco and tender to disconnect etc. You will also need another loco of some sort to move the engine and tender around once disconnected. Not always a straightforward task by any means.

I thought if you split the loco and tender an ftr is required before it can be used again?

 

Wasnt that which ended 34067’s the use of its quick release tender gear, designed to use Swanage’s turntable back in the green train days, and resulted in two locos being used on those turns, one out, one back…?

 

That was back in the days when London had nearly daily summer time steam that had a variety of destinations and locos*, rather than the diet of 61306 for the masses and 35028 for the rich… with the odd morsal of 34046/44871/45407 thrown in usually at christmas, mainline steam is almost exclusively a midlands/northern thing now.

 

* who remembers the days of 4464/34046/34067/45305/46100/60163/70000/70013/71000 interspersed with occasional visits of 6201/6233/5029/5043/44932/45231/45407/44871/48151/46115/60007…. Weve lost so much down south since wootton bassett and dont believe its through lack of demand.

 

it was interesting to watch the farce that was LSLs trip to Bristol yesterday with 61306… it got to Streatham, waited 30 mins. Reversed to Latchmere junction waited 20 mins, sat on the Thames for 15 mins blocking 2L11 and 6V07, continued back to kenny o, reversed forwards to Clapham p5 and reversed again off (delaying 2C18) to Vauxhall at now 2+ hours down… it then reversed again before heading mainline to Wimbledon/Epsom and hence Horsham, delaying 2I12 for 20 mins …just .to start its tour now 2h06 late.

 

Why it was routed via Ewell West is beyond me in the first place, nothing ever goes that way (47830 went LE 2 years ago, 61306 in 2019),  but the farce was odd in that at Streatham, whilst hanging about it could just have gone is a regular route for 61306 anyway, via Carshalton on to Cheam to Epsom, following 2I02 and been at Epsom for 0655 , saving 15 odd minutes of its planned route… or via Norbury, following 2B04, and just ahead of 9J05 from East Croydon to Horsham (which is the usual ecs path anyway), putting it on time at Horsham, both routes were open and available and both have been used by 61306 many many many times before, so avoiding any delay at all… for some reason someone really wanted that Ewell West section for ecs steam mileage…

Even the magical mystery ecs tour could have saved a palava by going into the SL reception lines reverse and out to Clapham p15 hence south and avoided blocking Overground, and Waterloo approaches.

Passengers were taken for suckers on that 2 hour late round trip, that ended up as steam only 1 way anyway…. If that was wcrc there would be 20 pages by now.

 

 

Edited April 21 by adb968008

[nightstar.train]

I've found this diagram of the route from Fort William to Mallaig*. To me it looks as though the route to Mallaig is harder work then the route from Mallaig. If the engine gets better traction one way than the other, then you'd want it that way round going to Mallaig. 

 

 

Looking at it I'd say the run up to the summit near Glenfinnan is about equal either side, maybe even harder coming from Mallaig, but crucially you are starting from a stand heading northwards, whereas coming south you have a run up and get some momentum up. 

 

*Clipped from the PDFs here: https://westhighlandline.org.uk/the-west-highland-map/

[The Stationmaster]

On 20/04/2024 at 13:30, Jeremy Cumberland said:

New season, Possibly unfamiliar or rusty crew. Perhaps the engine has a better rail head cleaning action in one direction than the other. Sanders work better in one direction. Steam locomotives slipping or stalling on the main line is hardly a new thing.

 

I'm mildly surprised that hand sanding (which apparently they tried) didn't solve it. Perhaps they weren't really set up for hand sanding (not enough sand, no suitable dispensers, crew not knowing what to do), but they were almost certainly by then being pressurised to come to a quick decision about whether to abandon - they might have faffed around for another half hour and still not been able to clear the section, but until they declared the train a failure and secured it, the rescue engine would not be allowed to leave Fort William (it was on the FW side of Glenfinnan, wasn't it?).

 

I understand that steam locomotives usually face Mallaig on this run. I wonder why it was changed. Has the loco since been turned? Presumably it would need to go back almost to Glasgow to do so.

Looking at the gradients logically it would make sense for an engine to be chimney first to Mallaig in relation to the gradients as there is a climb of nearly 6 miles heading in that direction. There is a shorter climb heading towards Fort William but both directions appear to be  either 1 in 45 or 1 in 48 at their steepest.   Climbing from the Fort William side approaching Glenfinnan there is the best part of a mile at mainly 1in 50 with a very short stretch of 1 in 45 and another stretch at 1 in 100.  This follows two miles of almost continuous climbing but, a bit of 1 in 50 apart, that is not so steep.

 

The length of climb from the Fort William direction makes me wonder if management of the engine on this occasion was not entirely as it should have been and it was likely over-powered at some point during the long climb.  However the start of the climb is 13 fairly easy miles out from Mallaig junction so there should have been time to get the engine ready for the harder work ahead.

[Lemmy282]

Might work on the Ratty, but wouldn't want to try splitting a mainline steam loco from its tender, major operation!

[The Stationmaster]

On 20/04/2024 at 21:36, ruggedpeak said:

Agree, but a court will want to know what they are doing running non-compliant stock in the consist if there is an accident etc. There appears to be no legitimate business reason for running unusable empty coaches, that will cost to operate and increase fuel costs etc. A longer train may make an incident involving speed and mass related physics like momentum potentially worse than it needed to be. Tricky one to explain and an accusation of playing games with the ORR could be hard to defend. Courts will look into exactly what people were up to rather than what they said they were up to, and make judgements such as "you tried to flex the rules by putting non-passenger compliant coaches interspersed with compliant ones for reasons X, Y and Z, but based upon the detail of the regulations and the evidence of your actions and motives as provided it appears that in fact those non-compliant coaches were arguably in passenger use under the regs despite being locked out.." It is a dangerous game to play, Judges aren't stupid and can and do extrapolate when required.

 

Also what is the rationale for inserting several of them in between coaches that are used by the public on a train in public service? Why not all together at one end, if the Mk1's are locked out of use and passengers can't get from one Mk2 to another? Again from a broader safety perspective this does not seem sensible? Not exactly climate friendly hauling several deliberately empty coaches back and forth using coal power either!

 

All rhetorical questions...maybe there is a sensible reason for all of this, it just eludes some of us mortals..........🤪

Er yes - but.  And the big but is where things move from the Regulations and Exemptions, or not, to the everyday railway.  Once they are on the everyday railway - provided they are allowed to be there (i.e vehicles  either have CDL or an Exemption if they are to carry passengers) - then what happens is subject to the Rules.

 

This is were the real world meets what is or isn't permitted,  Vehicles carrying support crews are not required to have CDL, but at the same time the occupants of those vehicles are required to be qualified in Track etc safety Rules,.  So they (should) know exactly what they should or should not do before opening a door.

Vehicles carrying passengers in the mainline railway are required to have CDL (or an Exemption).  But if the CDL is defective and not working all the exterior doors of that vehicle must be locked out of use and passengers must be moved from it.  The doors must be labelled not for public use etc.   Effectively, as I posted previously. that also 'implies' (and in my view 'means') that the doors on a vehicle not fitted with CDL - and without an Exemption - must also have its exterior doors locked and cannot be used by passengers.   Gangway etc doors which give access to vehicles locked out of use also need to be locked.

 

So quite what the 'extra'  beyond the support coach vehicles are for is debatable although there must obviously have to be a suitably equipped vehicle for the Guard to ride in where he will access to a handbrake.  Quite where the Guard will control the CDL from seems unclear/thus far unexplained but presumably one of these 'extra' WCRC vehicles includes the control point for the CDL?  But that apart they are simply makeweight and more importantly maybe to add some extra brake force.

 

Whether or not the RMB can be used for catering supply purposes is an interesting question lurking at one side.  Passengers are not allowed to travel in it which means they can't go to it and to refreshments.  But presumably on-train staff could work from it selling refreshments etc - however they would as i understand it) therefore also be required to be qualified in Track etc safety and if they are not then what is their legal status?

 

 

[Northmoor]

9 hours ago, adb968008 said:

That was back in the days when London had nearly daily summer time steam that had a variety of destinations and locos*, rather than the diet of 61306 for the masses and 35028 for the rich… with the odd morsal of 34046/44871/45407 thrown in usually at christmas, mainline steam is almost exclusively a midlands/northern thing now.

 

* who remembers the days of 4464/34046/34067/45305/46100/60163/70000/70013/71000 interspersed with occasional visits of 6201/6233/5029/5043/44932/45231/45407/44871/48151/46115/60007…. Weve lost so much down south since wootton bassett and dont believe its through lack of demand.

 

I agree it isn't about demand but it is very likely to be about available capacity, specifically the impact of a failure or most likely late running.  Steam loco performance is so far from that now achievable by modern EMUs that if they end up missing their (often very generous) path, they are likely to cause much worse disruption than if that were to happen further away from London.

 

The regular correspondent on Main Line runs in HR magazine has long been obsessed with the idea that steam specials should be allowed to run at up to 90mph to allow margins for recovery.  While I suspect this is more to do with his particular interest in fast running - which the vast majority of travelers would have zero interest in - it would also achieve very little as it is the desperately slow acceleration compared to modern multiple units, that causes problems with pathing.  Not something that has to be worried about too much North of Fort William.

[Morello Cherry]

FWIW - I was reading up on Samuel Caudle on SteamIndex and I came across another entry for a driver which has some relevance here in response to the 'it was all fine in the 1960s people these days are babies' crowd:

 

Quote

Jimmie Dobson originated in Tillicoultry where he started work in 1899, but moved to Cowlairs in 1901. In 1906 he was snowbound at Steele Road. In Falkirk Tunnel a rail displaced off another train pierced the cab narrowly missing Dobson. When driving A3 Spearmint in November 1939 he was seriously injured as the train was leaving Polmont by an open carriage door on another train. Working on Glen class on excurssions to Fort William, Fort Augustus and on Stores Train which took him all over NBR system. Also broken axle on driving wheel of Director class and complete failure of motion on another.

 

https://steamindex.com/nbrsg/j40.htm#40-25

 

CDL not only helps protect passengers but also staff, it says something about WCR that they don't really seem to care about their own staff being injured by open doors.

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

This thread seems to have come down firmly on the side of the ORR. To my mind we have a classic David v Goliath situation, with the ORR being an arrogant, overbearing, undemocratic beaureacracy which is completely out of touch with how ordinary people assess risks (for example look at the different attitudes to working on ladders at home and at work). WCRC have clearly made some mistakes but thank goodness that some organisations are prepared to put their neck on the line and stand up against unnecessary expenditure and state sponsored bullying. I for one, don’t want to travel in mark 2s or spend an extra £10 for a useless safety initiative.

 

I apologise if I’ve missed it in the 70 odd pages on here, but how many people have been injured in the 40 years of running steam on the West Highland?

 

Andy

[david.hill64]

2 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

This thread seems to have come down firmly on the side of the ORR. To my mind we have a classic David v Goliath situation, with the ORR being an arrogant, overbearing, undemocratic beaureacracy which is completely out of touch with how ordinary people assess risks (for example look at the different attitudes to working on ladders at home and at work). WCRC have clearly made some mistakes but thank goodness that some organisations are prepared to put their neck on the line and stand up against unnecessary expenditure and state sponsored bullying. I for one, don’t want to travel in mark 2s or spend an extra £10 for a useless safety initiative.

 

I apologise if I’ve missed it in the 70 odd pages on here, but how many people have been injured in the 40 years of running steam on the West Highland?

 

Andy

There are many readers of the Daily Telegraph who agree with you.

 

If it was your child, killed while standing on a platform and hit by the uncontrolled opening of a hinged door, would you consider the £10 a useless safety initiative?

 

As they say with financial investments, history is no guarantee to future performance. Same with safety: we no longer think just about preventing what has happened in the past, but what is reasonably foreseeable. What ORR is doing is entirely in keeping with UK safety law.

[frobisher]

3 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

This thread seems to have come down firmly on the side of the ORR.

 

And rightly so - I'd advise you actually read some of the 70 pages proceeding and it should become apparent why.  WCRC are not an innocent or injured party in any of this and this is not "health and safety gone mad".  They have been caught being in contempt of exemption agreements, which funnily enough were not extended.

[rodent279]

5 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

I apologise if I’ve missed it in the 70 odd pages on here, but how many people have been injured in the 40 years of running steam on the West Highland?

Something like 5 deaths per year nationwide, and dozens of injuries, during the first 10 or so years, up to about 1994, from when the majority of pasenger trains started to have some flavour of power operated doors, or manual doors under the control of CDL. 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

8 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Vehicles carrying support crews are not required to have CDL, but at the same time the occupants of those vehicles are required to be qualified in Track etc safety Rules,.

Although support crews are mentioned in the ORR's guidelines, that's not what the statute says, which only mentions fare paying passengers. I see no reason why a non-CDL-fitted coach could not be used by invited guests having no railway experiences at all. The RMB could be used by hired-in caterers. The doors would need to be unlocked, of course, and labelled not for public use.

 

The statute appears to prohibit entry of fare-paying passengers to such a coach (so it would have to be at-seat service), but I would not like to say for certain.

[Neil]

6 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

This thread seems to have come down firmly on the side of the ORR. .....

 

Well the clue's there isn't it; when you have respected industry professionals giving full backing to the ORR then it should tell you something about the rights and wrongs of the situation. 

[2251]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Although support crews are mentioned in the ORR's guidelines, that's not what the statute says, which only mentions fare paying passengers. I see no reason why a non-CDL-fitted coach could not be used by invited guests having no railway experiences at all. The RMB could be used by hired-in caterers. The doors would need to be unlocked, of course, and labelled not for public use.

 

The statute appears to prohibit entry of fare-paying passengers to such a coach (so it would have to be at-seat service), but I would not like to say for certain.

 

While it is certainly the case that the 1999 Regulations would not prohibit that, WCRC is subject to the general duties in Part I of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 -- including the duties to non-employees under sections 3 and 4 (note that a railway carriage would appear to be "premises" as defined by section 53).

 

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/part/I/crossheading/general-duties

 

For my own part, I would not want to sign off the use of non-CDL coaching stock by sub-contracted non-railway staff without a pretty robust risk assessment. 

 

[rodent279]

On 08/04/2024 at 11:32, Northmoor said:

Some may complain about 'Elf 'n' Safety but I consider the fact that in most years now, not only are no passengers killed but no-one dies working on the railway either, to be something worth applauding LOUDLY.

This is worth reposting. 

[rodent279]

9 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

CDL not only helps protect passengers but also staff, it says something about WCR that they don't really seem to care about their own staff being injured by open doors.

 

Did the industry ever produce any figures showing how many railway staff going about their duties were killed or injured due to the misuse of, or malfunctioning of, slam doors?

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

This is worth reposting. 

Thank you. I know some believe these statistics are "tricked" by fewer passengers and staff not working on the line when trains are running.  Well unless the work isn't being done at all, removing people from the risk is a perfectly accepted safety mitigation while (at least pre-pandemic) passenger-journey numbers were at record levels, so that excuse doesn't wash either.

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

how many people have been injured in the 40 years of running steam on the West Highland?

 

Andy

Growing up in West Wales, I don't recall ever reading/hearing about anyone being hit by a train door or falling out of one.  Are you suggesting the regulations on slam door stock didn't need to be applied there, only in the locations/routes where there had been serious injuries or fatalities? 

[ruggedpeak]

20 hours ago, adb968008 said:

If that was wcrc there would be 20 pages by now.

Possibly, mostly by one person trying to stick up for the poor, innocent, hard done-by WCRC it would appear.....

 

[Reorte]

5 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Growing up in West Wales, I don't recall ever reading/hearing about anyone being hit by a train door or falling out of one.  Are you suggesting the regulations on slam door stock didn't need to be applied there, only in the locations/routes where there had been serious injuries or fatalities? 

I know what you're getting at but let's take a step back, otherwise we're heading in to one extreme or the other territory, and that's when opinions start getting entrenched and unreasonable. The way some are carrying on you'd think it's an argument about juggling live hand grenades vs zero chance whatsoever of anything bad happening. It's neither, and quite honestly I wouldn't want either of those extremes (the former for obvious reasons, the latter because at some point I find the solutions more obnoxious than the problem and would prefer to live with the risk - a point I personally find we've passed in various areas of modern Britain).