Level crossing stupidity...

[phil-b259]

13 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Back to the specific case, is the problem that it would be necessary to take part of the land occupied by a business to build a bridge?

Jonathan

 

No - NR have a ramped solution which avoids the need to purchase land from the builders merchants (who are described as 'difficult to deal with' and would presumably need to be served with a CPO)

 

The issue simply comes down to the locals / local authority not liking the large ramps on the NR design and wanting lifts instead (even though lifts at an unmanned station are less than ideal).

 

The process has not been helped by frequent staff turnover on the NR side however

Edited April 25, 2023 by phil-b259

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Back to the specific case, is the problem that it would be necessary to take part of the land occupied by a business to build a bridge?

 

It is mentioned in the report that one of the difficulties with the proposed ramped footbridge was that it would require some land from an adjacent builders' merchant's yard; the builders' merchant was being difficult. 

[martin_wynne]

4 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

I'm sure NR would love to be able to just 'get on with it' - which in this case would mean plonking in a ramped footbridge

 

 

What would happen if they did exactly that? Would a court order them to demolish it and force school children to walk across a live railway line instead?

 

Martin.

[phil-b259]

1 minute ago, martin_wynne said:

 

What would happen if they did exactly that? Would a court order them to demolish it and force school children to walk across a live railway line instead?

 

Martin.

 

I don't know- I'm not sufficiently well versed on planning enforcement to say how it would play out. I do suspect it might well result in lots of expensive legal bills and involve the court system.

 

And given NR is a publicly owned body there is a reluctance to do anything that is not as per procedure because of the whole 'Government riding roughshot over the electorate' thing.

 

Personally in this particular case (with the RAIB report to back them up) I would be very much tempted to act first and deal with the fallout later - but I acknowledge that will not go down well with everyone.

[Wickham Green too]

Not Farnborough North - but it seems relevant : - 

Whitehead : 12/9/11 ........ the lad wasn't in any danger from another train - but did he actually know that ?

[kevinlms]

23 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The issue simply comes down to the locals / local authority not liking the large ramps on the NR design and wanting lifts instead (even though lifts at an unmanned station are less than ideal).

 

The 'not liking it', was a big feature about 8 years ago in the Melbourne suburbs. Originally the first few level crossing removals, were a 'dig a large trench and lower the line'. But later designs came out for a 'SkyRail' elevated version, pointing out that this would allow things like bicycle/walking paths and play areas to be built underneath.

 

To cut a long and political story short, since the first 'SkyRail' section was opened, people have been almost always welcoming of them.

Residents that previously were held up to go to the local shops to buy a coffee, often waited at level crossings for anything up to 3/4 an hour in peak times, can now walk underneath and be back home in 10 minutes!

 

The 'SkyRail' versions were suggested in areas where there were extensive underground services in the vicinity or low lying areas, such as bayside suburbans, where flooding was likely to be an issue.

Edited April 25, 2023 by kevinlms
More info

[martin_wynne]

39 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I don't know- I'm not sufficiently well versed on planning enforcement to say how it would play out. I do suspect it might well result in lots of expensive legal bills and involve the court system.

 

And given NR is a publicly owned body there is a reluctance to do anything that is not as per procedure because of the whole 'Government riding roughshot over the electorate' thing.

 

Personally in this particular case (with the RAIB report to back them up) I would be very much tempted to act first and deal with the fallout later - but I acknowledge that will not go down well with everyone.

 

Perhaps the court would order the objectors and the children's parents to be locked in a room and not come out until they have reached an agreement. I'm sure NR would be happy to provide the room and the sandwiches.

 

[The Stationmaster]

7 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

 

Good grief Simon, what has the railway come to? This is what our railways used to look like:

 

 

 

 

Now we can't have signals -- far too risky, they might get passed at danger. We can't install a crossover -- it might need oiling.

 

Obviously running trains in this country is far too risky and difficult, it would be better if we stopped doing it.

 

My throwaway idea was obviously a bit silly in operational terms, or in financial terms, but the idea that it can't be done because of RISK is beyond belief. What has happened to our railway?

 

Martin.

 

That is grossly unfair Martin.  Simon explained teh risk situation very well and in straightforward terms  and even without doinga risk assessment  common sense says that he was absolutely right.  And don't forget that the railway is legally obliged by UK legislation to assess the risk involved in any idea such as this and to be hinest I don't think that is a bad idea if risk assessment is carried out in a sensible manner.  It is actually no more than a formal approach to what we did in the past when we made our decisions based on experience and what we 'considered' to be safe or unsafe (and had to face the man in a grey wig if we got it wrong).  

 

Apart from that there is the sheer loony economics involved on providing two crossovers and considerable signalling alterations for the sake of a couple, and definitely no more than four, trains daily on only five days of the week.  The railway network has far better things - such as Nuneham bridge - on which to spend its limited (and apparently reducing) funds.

 

Even if you go back to the process of assessing cost against the cost of a life lost - which is obviously a brutal approach but  it was used in BR days and is also a measure The Treasury rather liked (and was used to justify TPWS) - your suggestion would still have a massive economic shortfall.

 

The simple answer to any risk is to first of all make it ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) and if substantial risk still remains to find a means of eliminating it.  NR has already taken action to make the level of risk ALARP - the risk being to the users of the crossing and not to anything else.   In order to eliminate the risk a bridge, or similar, is required and UK legislation (again) requires that a footbridge must have ramps to cater for disabled users.  Lifts are an alternative to ramps but they require a suitable power supply and the right ground conditions to allow their construction (which I doubt exist in that particular, rather soggy, location); they also require quite high towers to house the mechanism.

 

Interlocking signals with pedestrian gates strikes me as both overkill plus a being an overkill which won't solve the problem.  If the school children persist in holding gates open all that will happen is that train delays will balloon and hundreds of people, on a busy route, will be delayed which could cause to miss connections and flights.  Plus of course it will require resignalling - probably over an extended distance - which will cost a lot of money to hardly improve pedestrian safety.  

 

We will come back every time to the same, very simple, conclusion that the way to remove the risk to pedestrians is to remove the need for them to cross the railway at track level including removing anything which might tempt, or dare, them to do that.

[martin_wynne]

6 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

That is grossly unfair Martin.  Simon explained the risk situation very well and in straightforward terms  and even without doing a risk assessment  common sense says that he was absolutely right.

 

 

Hi Mike,

 

But he was comparing two different risks which are orders of magnitude different in scale. The financial and operational factors are obviously massive, but they don't change the underlying risks:

 

1. that a schoolchild would be killed or injured crossing the railway tracks on the level. That risk is so great that it very nearly happened, and only the intervention of a crossing keeper prevented it. How often has a pedestrian been injured on a foot crossing in recent years? 

 

2. that a train will pass a signal at danger AND that the TPWS will fail AND that the driver will be unable to brake sufficiently to avoid a serious collision. How often has that happened in recent years?

 

The two risks just aren't sensibly comparable.

 

Martin.

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, martin_wynne said:

 

What would happen if they did exactly that? Would a court order them to demolish it and force school children to walk across a live railway line instead?

 

Martin.

 

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I don't know- I'm not sufficiently well versed on planning enforcement to say how it would play out. I do suspect it might well result in lots of expensive legal bills and involve the court system.

 

And given NR is a publicly owned body there is a reluctance to do anything that is not as per procedure because of the whole 'Government riding roughshot over the electorate' thing.

 

Personally in this particular case (with the RAIB report to back them up) I would be very much tempted to act first and deal with the fallout later - but I acknowledge that will not go down well with everyone.

"Think of the Children" always goes down well in the media - perhaps an article in the local paper with a quote from the relevant NR media rep saying something along the lines of "These children nearly died because the council won't let us build this footbridge"... 

[Nick C]

1 minute ago, martin_wynne said:

 

Hi Mike,

 

But he was comparing two different risks which are orders of magnitude different in scale. The financial and operational factors are obviously massive, but they don't change the underlying risks:

 

1. that a schoolchild would be killed or injured crossing the railway tracks on the level. That risk is so great that it very nearly happened, and only the intervention of a crossing keeper prevented it. How often has a pedestrian been injured on a foot crossing in recent years? 

 

2. that a train will pass a signal at danger AND that the TPWS will fail AND that the driver will be unable to brake sufficiently to avoid a serious collision. How often has that happened in recent years?

 

The two risks just aren't sensibly comparable.

 

Martin.

But you're suggesting removing risk 1 and introducing risk 2, wheras a bridge means removing risk 1 and not adding any other risk.

[martin_wynne]

5 minutes ago, Nick C said:

But you're suggesting removing risk 1 and introducing risk 2, wheras a bridge means removing risk 1 and not adding any other risk.

 

This is getting silly. I never suggested not having a footbridge, which is obviously the best solution. I was suggesting a way of dealing with the problem IF IF IF it is not possible to build a bridge.

 

I've noticed time and again that the word IF seems to be invisible on RMweb.

 

Martin.

Edited April 25, 2023 by martin_wynne

[RJS1977]

I'm trying to work out which educational establishment the "children" were going to. There are three relatively close to Farnborough North station:

 

* North Farnborough Infant School: Unlikely - how many parents send infant children to school by train?

* Henry Tyndale School (special educational needs 3-19). Possible, but the school only has capacity for 140 pupils - how likely is it that they all arrived on the same train? And again, how many people parents would send a SEN child to school by train unaccompanied?

* The Sixth Form College - in which case all the "children" are at least 15.

 

If it is either of the first two schools, then it seems to me that a more practical and cost-effective solution would be to have a member of staff from the school meet the children off the train (there's only one train an hour that stops there so it's not a particularly onerous duty) and see them across the line safely.

 

If it's the 6th form college, then the "children" should be old enough to know how to use the crossing safely. After all, by then they will almost certainly have been taught how to use the road, and there are plenty of signs and posters at FN saying not to cross the line when the lights and siren are on. 

 

I'm sorry, but on a footpath crossing where the only victim of an accident involving crossing misuse is likely to be the person(s) misusing the crossing, and the passengers on the train are not in danger (unlike say a car stopped on a level crossing) then provided there is adequate signage and the equipment is working properly, NR should not be responsible for the failure of pedestrians to use the crossing properly.

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, RJS1977 said:

I'm trying to work out which educational establishment the "children" were going to. There are three relatively close to Farnborough North station:

 

* North Farnborough Infant School: Unlikely - how many parents send infant children to school by train?

* Henry Tyndale School (special educational needs 3-19). Possible, but the school only has capacity for 140 pupils - how likely is it that they all arrived on the same train? And again, how many people parents would send a SEN child to school by train unaccompanied?

* The Sixth Form College - in which case all the "children" are at least 15.

 

Principally Farnborough Sixth Form College (ages 16-19), which has a wide catchment area - hence a considerable number arriving by train and meeting a bottleneck at the crossing. Again, this is all discussed in the Report, both in relation to the incident itself:

 

Quote

At 08:20 hrs on Thursday 19 May 2022, 144 people were waiting on the east side of the railway to use the footpath level crossing at Farnborough North station. Pedestrian gates on each side of the crossing were locked until a train had departed from the station. The crossing users had arrived on this train and were mostly young people. They were regular users of the station and normally had to wait before crossing the railway to continue their journey to school or college.

 

and in a prior survey:

 

Quote

54 In 2013, Network Rail commissioned a specialist human factors consultant to study user behaviour at Farnborough North footpath crossing. The purpose was to understand the effect of installing back-to-back miniature stop lights and audible warning equipment. Observations at the crossing were made before and after the new equipment was commissioned in September 2013 so user behaviour could be compared.

 

55 The study included interviews, observations and a census of crossing users. This was initially undertaken over a seven-day period before the new equipment was installed. The data identified that an average of 1798 general pedestrians and 164 cyclists used the crossing daily. It noted that a high number of crossings observed occurred between 08:30 hrs and 09:00 hrs, reflecting the close proximity of the crossing to schools and colleges. 

 

56 The consultant published its interim report in February 2014. It found:

a. approximately 50% of traverses were from users in groups queuing to use the crossing after leaving the train

b. head down, distracted and ‘following’ behaviours were very common

c. the majority of users were young people.

 

57 The final report found that:

a. typical group behaviours were evident at the crossing, whereby users would fail to check the lights, even when unobscured, and instead choose to follow others in the group onto the crossing

b. a high proportion of users did not appear to check for trains before crossing

c. a sense of devolved responsibility is common in group situations, where users assume that others in the group are taking responsibility for the safety of the group and fail to check the lights for themselves.

 

You may say of these young people "well, if they won't follow the instructions they deserve to be mown down by a train" but that's a response that won't wash. The challenge is to manage the situation: either by eliminating the risk by providing a footbridge, or by more proactive action on the part of the level crossing attendant - which, it appears from the report needs both better information supplied to them and better training - and, as has been done, better education of users, by talks etc. at the College.

[martin_wynne]

26 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

I'm trying to work out which educational establishment the "children" were going to. There are three relatively close to Farnborough North station:

 

* North Farnborough Infant School: Unlikely - how many parents send infant children to school by train?

* Henry Tyndale School (special educational needs 3-19). Possible, but the school only has capacity for 140 pupils - how likely is it that they all arrived on the same train? And again, how many people parents would send a SEN child to school by train unaccompanied?

* The Sixth Form College - in which case all the "children" are at least 15.

 

If it is either of the first two schools, then it seems to me that a more practical and cost-effective solution would be to have a member of staff from the school meet the children off the train (there's only one train an hour that stops there so it's not a particularly onerous duty) and see them across the line safely.

 

If it's the 6th form college, then the "children" should be old enough to know how to use the crossing safely. After all, by then they will almost certainly have been taught how to use the road, and there are plenty of signs and posters at FN saying not to cross the line when the lights and siren are on. 

 

I'm sorry, but on a footpath crossing where the only victim of an accident involving crossing misuse is likely to be the person(s) misusing the crossing, and the passengers on the train are not in danger (unlike say a car stopped on a level crossing) then provided there is adequate signage and the equipment is working properly, NR should not be responsible for the failure of pedestrians to use the crossing properly.

 

 

 

Also within walking distance is a private catholic girls school, Farnborough Hill, with a capacity of 650:

 

 https://www.farnborough-hill.org

 

map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/196961357#map=17/51.30044/-0.74566

 

Martin.

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

Also within walking distance is a private catholic girls school, Farnborough Hill, with a capacity of 650:

 

That might have quite a large catchment area too, with pupils arriving by train. And the capacity of privately-educated catholic girls for disobedience and refusal to follow instructions is legendary.

[St. Simon]

2 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

Hi Mike,

 

But he was comparing two different risks which are orders of magnitude different in scale. The financial and operational factors are obviously massive, but they don't change the underlying risks:

 

1. that a schoolchild would be killed or injured crossing the railway tracks on the level. That risk is so great that it very nearly happened, and only the intervention of a crossing keeper prevented it. How often has a pedestrian been injured on a foot crossing in recent years? 

 

2. that a train will pass a signal at danger AND that the TPWS will fail AND that the driver will be unable to brake sufficiently to avoid a serious collision. How often has that happened in recent years?

 

The two risks just aren't sensibly comparable.

 

Martin.

 

I was not comparing the risks, I was pointing out that your suggestion to reduce the risk at the crossing itself comes with multiple risks, however minimal or unlikely, and that the combinations of these risks may  (once assessed) actually increase the overall risk profile of Farnborough North rather than result a reduction of overall risk that you believe your suggestions provides.

 

I believe, as a qualified professionally registered engineer and designer, that the overall risk would not be reduced.

 

2 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

This is getting silly. I never suggested not having a footbridge, which is obviously the best solution. I was suggesting a way of dealing with the problem IF IF IF it is not possible to build a bridge.

 

I've noticed time and again that the word IF seems to be invisible on RMweb.

 

Martin.

 

I'm not debating that it was a potential solution nor you suggested that the footbridge is the best solution, but it wasn't as clear cut as 'installing a crossover and some signalling would reduce the risks at the crossing' as you implied by suggesting it as a solution.

 

Simon

Edited April 25, 2023 by St. Simon

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

This part of the crossing has a good safety record and was not associated with the incident on 19 May 2022.

As you say, legally it's a separate crossiing, not part of the foot crossing.  Such crossings (often closed to the general public) are quite common across the network.  Often a foot crossing has to remain but road access can be closed where the publc only have a right of way on foot and/or horseback.

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, kevinlms said:

The 'not liking it', was a big feature about 8 years ago in the Melbourne suburbs. Originally the first few level crossing removals, were a 'dig a large trench and lower the line'. But later designs came out for a 'SkyRail' elevated version, pointing out that this would allow things like bicycle/walking paths and play areas to be built underneath.

 

 

 

This is our Melbourn & Meldreth station as it used to be

 

 

They've dropped  the first village from the station name, and the footbridge has been replaced by a more modern one as OHLE had to be installed.  And here's the suggestion as to how you get back to the disabled bay in the station car park if you can't cope with stairs.

 

Or of course you could go by bus ...

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

At 08:20 hrs on Thursday 19 May 2022, 144 people were waiting on the east side of the railway to use the footpath level crossing at Farnborough North station.

This statistic is gross!

[Titan]

2 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

I'm sorry, but on a footpath crossing where the only victim of an accident involving crossing misuse is likely to be the person(s) misusing the crossing, and the passengers on the train are not in danger

 

 

Of course the psychological trauma of the driver having human guts spattered all over the windscreen does not count?

 

Perhaps you just expect him to turn the wipers on and continue?

[martin_wynne]

48 minutes ago, St. Simon said:

but it wasn't as clear cut as 'installing a crossover and some signalling would reduce the risks at the crossing' as you implied by suggesting it as a solution.

 

Well I'm pretty sure it would significantly reduce the total risk. I didn't suggest it would remove all risk. For most of the day the risk is unchanged, but for far fewer pedestrians.

 

It was obviously a daft idea, on operational and financial grounds. You could easily shoot it down in flames on that basis. But to choose RISK as a reason to object to it makes no sense to me at all.

 

You are in effect saying that the railway can't be trusted to run safely, and you would be better off walking across a live railway on foot that sitting in a train at the opposite platform.

 

Martin.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

Hi Mike,

 

But he was comparing two different risks which are orders of magnitude different in scale. The financial and operational factors are obviously massive, but they don't change the underlying risks:

 

1. that a schoolchild would be killed or injured crossing the railway tracks on the level. That risk is so great that it very nearly happened, and only the intervention of a crossing keeper prevented it. How often has a pedestrian been injured on a foot crossing in recent years? 

 

2. that a train will pass a signal at danger AND that the TPWS will fail AND that the driver will be unable to brake sufficiently to avoid a serious collision. How often has that happened in recent years?

 

The two risks just aren't sensibly comparable.

 

Martin.

Martin let us assess the two risks.  The death of , say, one or two children would very definitely fall into the extreme consequences red area of the assessment chart but then so would head-on collision between two trains as a consequence of a SPAD.  So in terms of the most serious outcome we are in the far end of the red area with both in certain circumstances

 

Potential frequency is the next area and for trains it would be well in the green when running right road but would increase and go into the yellow as   consequence of several trains per weekday running wrong road.  The exact score it reaches could only be reasonably accurately assessed from the national record of the frequency and severity of SPADs.  A mitigation could be applied, if warranted by the potential frequency, of using TPWS but of itself the design of that installation might not necessarily prevent collisions although it would f greatly reduce their severity.  What is undeniable is that the potential frequency would increase for trains.

 

 The potential frequency for pedestrians varies according to whether they are alighting at the far platform. (where with the present mitigation correctly used it would be well in the green with, effectively no potential frequency at all).  The figure will be different for joining passengers for several reasons and will be in the yellow, and on present evidence, at times straying into the red even with the mitigation in place because its effectiveness is negated by the actions of the passengers themselves.

 

Witha grade separation of trains and passengers all assessment areas would change to green.    This is the whole purpose of comparative risk assessment and it is nota difficult technique to learn provoided you can recognise all teh areas involved and what they can lead to.  At present there is effectvely no serious risk to thse travelling ona train whuch calls at the station but there is a risk to those alighting from (readily fully mitigated by the present arrangments) or joining a train at the far platform,  

 

Introducing the crossovers.creates a new potential risk for trains with a potentially very serious outcome.  Although I haven't mentioned it there will be a minor element of spoilt journey for passengers confused by which platform their train will stop at but door controls obviously eliminate any risk of injury.

 

I realise that you only floated a suggestion but suggestions have consequences and one of those is that a comparative rosk assessment would be required.  And, as a matter of historic, as in the case of TPWS, comparative risk assessments do have a place and have done for several decades, including from the time before they were legally required..

 

What I have written above is a fairly simplified outine but the critical thing is that in hopefully eliminating one area of risk another potential risk is created one risk.  If you were doing it with all the relevant numbers researched and entered - i.e. a quantified risk assessment  it could go either way although I'm reasonably sure that the potential frequency of a collision would be much less than the potential frequency of someone being hit by a train - purely because of teh size of comparative numbers if nothing else.

 

The rest of what goes on nowadays is also pretty strange to those of us of more mature years.  For example it doesn't take a behavioural expert to tell me that teenage schoolchildren tend to include a number of right little sxds who get up to all sorts of tricks and bad behaviour the instant they get within 100 feet of a railway line.  And I don't need the same expert to tell me that the school can tell them to behave until its entire staff is blue in the face with doing so but to very little effect, if any.

[martin_wynne]

.

I give up.

 

How much would a shuttle bus round the local schools to and from the station cost? That sort of thing used to happen 60 years ago when I was at school, but we mustn't hark back to the old days of course.

 

Bus Back Better? See:

 

 https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9464/

 

Martin.

[RJS1977]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Principally Farnborough Sixth Form College (ages 16-19), which has a wide catchment area - hence a considerable number arriving by train and meeting a bottleneck at the crossing. Again, this is all discussed in the Report, both in relation to the incident itself:

 

 

and in a prior survey:

 

 

You may say of these young people "well, if they won't follow the instructions they deserve to be mown down by a train" but that's a response that won't wash. The challenge is to manage the situation: either by eliminating the risk by providing a footbridge, or by more proactive action on the part of the level crossing attendant - which, it appears from the report needs both better information supplied to them and better training - and, as has been done, better education of users, by talks etc. at the College.

 

I'm not saying "they deserve to be mown down by a train", but equally it seems to me wrong that Network Rail are potentially having to spend a large sum of money installing a footbridge for the sake of someone ignoring flashing lights and a siren.

We don't see pelican crossings being ripped out and replaced by footbridges.