What was the past really like?

So making the fire was your excuse for buying it?

 

I'm not sure if that was the occupied driving cab, but the driver of the train in the Nuneaton crash survived, I think relatively uninjured.

 

Stretching the scope of this thread, here’s a picture, from a batch of slides that I've recently had digitised, that I think deserves to be seen on this forum. It shows what the slightly more recent past was really like. What would ORR etc have to say nowadays about this way of alighting from a train, beyond the end of a platform? It was 6th April 1974, when I was on "The Great Northern" railtour, steam hauled from Newport to Shrewsbury by Pendennis Castle and back to Newport by Flying Scotsman. I’m not sure whether this picture was at Shrewsbury or at an intermediate watering stop but I'm sure someone can tell me.

 

Or this, Chester 1967, when did the Nanny State Gestapo take over, it seems to have just crept up on us over the years

 

"Nanny State Gestapo" would seem to me to be an unfortunate and unsuitable phrase for a couple of reasons.

One is that - to the best of my knowledge - the Health & Safety Executive has never tortured people suspected of behaving unsafely, or executed anybody for crimes such as distributing anti-HSE leaflets.

The other slightly less serious reason is that they were a German organisation, and nowadays, at open days at German steam sheds, in my experience visitors can still wander over the site at will even when locos are in steam and moving.

 

It was never an organisation it was an acronym for Geheime Staatspolizei now commonly used to describe any organisation that tries to push people around. You will be pleased to know that at Chester and many other similar places in the days when we were all entrusted with our own well being everyone survived.

 

I think you may have missed the point of my post.

I'm well aware of the history of the Geheime Staatspolizei (which was, you will find, an organisation, albeit a subdepartment of different larger organisations for all of its existence). My point was that any comparison with post-1970 British health and safety legislation would be ridiculously hyperbolic, if the nature of the NSDAP regime's crimes did not make it disgustingly crass.

That is, of course, unless there are cases you know of where an HSE-led prosecution has led to the defendants being sentenced to death by strangulation with piano wire. I am not, I admit, a legal historian, but I am not aware of any.

 

Well said. In another thread, I recently commented on the abuse of the word 'fascist' as a catch all for someone right of centre that a left winger dislikes. The same principle holds for the abuse of the term 'Gestapo' in this context.

As an aside, it is interesting that the abuse of terminology in this way tends to give a free ride to the former USSR, let alone China under Mao, despite comparable levels of evil by the regimes and their institutions.

 

Oh please! It's an accepted piece of hyperbole. J Edgar Hoover once used it to describe the FBI. Let political correctness reign. I give up.

 

Not a question of political correctness, just someone who's spent more time than is good for him reading the historical literature struggling with this particular use of hyperbole.

 

... but there are a lot fewer people working on the railways now, the nature of the work has changed, and recording criteria may have changed as well so statistics may not be a wholly reliable indicator although I do agree that in all probability the railway is safer nowadays. Something has gone badly wrong if it isn't!

 

You say that but I remember my first H&S briefing in 1969at Neasden LT Depot on a visit to see the Pannier tanks. It went something like, ' Please remember that this is a working depot with trains moving about so watch your backs and obey any instructions given by LT staff. There are live rails away from the steam depot so watch your step and sorry but we cannot allow tripods. Have an enjoyable day.' I can confirm we all survived!
Regarding your last point, there are less railway accidents now but there is also a lot less railway and one of the most dangerous jobs, that of shunter, has virtually disappeared.

 

The job of shunter is still the most dangerous on the railway. I did come across a statistic 4 deaths in 10 years 97 to 07. This does not include the heritage railway death.

Slightly unbelievably death / injury is often caused by the train they are controlling

Another interesting statistic is that the passenger / door interface has not dropped as much as it was thought when slam door non central locking was abolished for most TOCs. The problem is people keep getting clothing and bag straps caught in closing doors.

 

A report from 2007 re shunters

http://www.rssb.co.uk/Library/risk-analysis-and-safety-reporting/2007-report-shunter-safety.pdf

 

Wasn't this though the basic premise of safety in the early days of the railway? You'll act in a spirit of self-preservation so there's no need for the company to do anything?

It was certainly thus in the late 70s when a wander around a local depot was simply a case of "keep your eyes and ears open, thanks for coming to see us first and come and see us as you leave."

 

Just as well it was otherwise a large proportion of the pictures I and many others took in the 60s wouldn't have been possible

 

Two words - Compensation Culture