Jacobite 2023

Having just read that I feel sorry for West Coast, passengers and personal for the Jacobite runs.

hinged doors? and things were operating fine before this.

 

https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2023/0...B_dh8opm1VrRVrwx03_rPZT7a_bytfdx6tKUpe_Yc&amp

 

Crumbs, fully booked to the end of the season

 

Given other trips don't seem to be having any problems with hinged doors and the previously linked ORR prohibition notice it sounds more like West Coast were not doing what they were supposed to in order to comply with the derogation for using stock that has opening windows on doors and no CDL. As mentioned by Oswald earlier given their current dispute about fitting CDL this seems to be a bit of an own goal. If they have not managed the risks in the way they are required to do then I am not sure they deserve much sympathy in this instance, the passengers are a different matter.

In addition if the issue that has stopped them running is as a result of prohibition notice then the line in the statement on their website saying "this is completely beyond our control" is somewhat questionable. However perhaps there is more to this which is not in the public domain.

 

But that money is largely to cover the Jacobite operating costs for the season, which they are probably going to incur anyway due to the short-notice cancellations. Whether they manage to persuade ORR to allow them to run any more trains this year, they are facing a sizeable financial deficit which may have an impact on their other operations.

 

I think the cost per coach quoted by the ORR is around 25k. So let's say WCRs total operation requires 50 coaches it's north of one million for the company.

But you are assuming that the problem identified up there is passengers opening doors. We don't yet know the reasons for the immediate prohibition so until we do, that might be comparing chalk and cheese.

I very much hope they can find a solution to the problem at Fort William but also make progress towards a resolution before the 30 Sept deadline. Ultimately court action is an absolute last resort.

 

The ORR have published a statement:

“A safety inspector from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) visited the Jacobite service run by West Coast Railway Company Limited (WCRCL) on Friday 9 June 2023. This inspection found safety failings which ORR considered breached Health and Safety Legislation and accordingly ORR issued WCRCL with a prohibition notice which came into effect at 00:01 on 15 June 2023 and which prevented it from running until WCRCL was satisfied that it could rectify the issues raised in that notice. The prohibition notice is published at P/KB/14062023 West Coast Railway Company Ltd prohibition notice (windows.net). The Jacobite service recommenced on 15 June 2023.

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. This type of exemption certificate is required for all train operators who want to use carriages without central door locking fitted – ordinarily heritage carriages of the type used on the Jacobite service. Due to the safety issues identified, ORR has revoked WCRCL's Exemption Certificate. WCRCL will continue to be able to use carriages without central door locking fitted on its other services in accordance with the conditions of a new Exemption Certificate.

ORR is working with WCRCL to ensure robust safety arrangements are in place to allow WCRCL to use heritage carriages on the Jacobite line in the near future. In the interim, it is open to WCRCL to use alternative carriages to operate the Jacobite service.”

 

This is the context of the Notice:
The ORR Inspector considered this to be the issue with the current practice is that it:

Involve a risk of serious personal injury, and that matters which give rise to that risk are
That persons may fall from the doors of a train or that any person leaning out of an open window of a moving train may be struck as the train passes infrastructure (including vegetation, rock cuttings and earthworks) close to the train.

Interestingly the following is quoted:
and that those matters involve contravention of the following statutory provisions
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Sections 2(1) and 3(1)

 

So regarding Health and Safety does that mean Network Rail are going to get their clippers out and do something with the encroaching vegetation or is than down to West Coast too?

 

The obvious question is why what is now so unsafe as to be prohibited was ever safe enough.

 

The simple, and inexpensive, solution for the window hanging is to do what Saphos have done on their Mk 1s. A vertical bar positioned diagonally between the upper right and lower left corners of the door. Enough space for the steward to reach down their arm and grasp the door handle, but not enough room for people to put heads out the window. Plus it serves as a useful handrail when alighting or boarding the train.

 

To be clear, that is from the notice of 14 June. The ORR statement published today ( as quoted in Rail Advent and by @bleeder4 above) is not specific about precisely what transgressions happened a few days ago.

I could believe that controlling passenger behaviour on the approach to Glenfinnan Viaduct is an exceptionally challenging task.

 

No quarrel with that, but the fact remains that what is now prohibited was allowed very recently. Those window bars even disappeared for a long while (except on the LT Museum's coaches?) though they are now appearing again. It seems to be ultimately down to someone's subjective assessment of risk tolerability and of the adequacy or inadequacy of possible risk control measures.
I take Big Al's point that what works well enough on most main line charters may not work well enough on the Jacobite with its rather different clientele.

 

Based on the ORR statement, I suspect that what is allowed has not changed but the degree of tolerance over it's enforcement has done.

 

As I have mentioned before I have not travelled Saphos, but if the set up is the same as I saw on the Statesman set when it was held at Wareham for a while the other week to me it looked like something you could get your head out of, but not back in quickly. As I walked down the platform I thought it looked worse than nothing there at all.

 

Here's a picture from a Steam Dreams trip at Basingstoke in April.