FR & WHR & WHHR News

The earl is out according to Facebook photos I have asked how long it has left

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Ffestrail Insider (the Faceache page) has changed it's masthead photo to one of EoM in the last couple of days.

 

She had a reprieve for the summer, and is rostered this week: http://www.festrail.co.uk/locoroster.htm

 

The Earl has been undergoing a bogie overhaul over the winter and is now available until the end of August. As far as i'm aware its boiler ticket will not be extended.

Tim

 

http://preservedrailway.weebly.com/ffestiniog…

 

There is no need to. The NGG16s are so tall because of the height of the running plate over the bogies. Width and legroom are generally more useful to passengers. Extra height is just adding cost for no real reason.

Tim

 

Out of interest, what is the headroom in the carriages? Just curious given that I can't stand straight in parts of some mainline stock, so would dispute that there is "no real reason" for adding height where it's feasible.

 

A selection of shots including the reinstated 'Earl of Merioneth' filmed on 31.5.17

 

A few shots from me - mostly 31st May, one on 1st June.

 

Latest (video) update on Welsh Pony from FfestrailInsider

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1841268636191097&id=1529052670746030

 

Just got back from a week in North Wales and a trip on the Ffestiniog which I survived notwithstanding locked doors. Also nice to see the Great Orme Tramway is so far a H&S free zone moving cables between the rails and no fencing, long may it continue

 

I agree with Reading General that this is a questionable practice even if it is based upon tradition or Victorian legislation and wouldn't be acceptable on buses or other forms of public transport. The Vale of Rheidol do something similar but they have bars on the dropping door windows so any emergency egress would be difficult. Where this practice occurs, common sense would suggest that life hammers should be in the carriages to safely break the glass in an emergency, but I don't recall ever seeing a hammer in any carriage and I have looked on several occasions. I may write to the rail authority about this in my role as a safety professional to see why they have not modernised the standard or required alternative methods of passenger egress if they continue to require doors to be locked.

 

Might I suggest you talk to the Ffestiniog people first to get the facts surrounding their operating practices rather than the "he said, she said" of an Internet forum. You could be opening a big can of PITA that may not be warranted.

 

I seem to remember that one reason that the F&WHR want to build new carriages (with inward opening doors that don't need to be locked) is so that the vintage carriages are used less.

 

Please no! I would rather be locked in a vintage carriage than 'free' in a new one!

 

Jobsworth - do you want heritage railways closed down completely in case someone might get a smut in their eye?

 

If you are safety professional, why not offer your services to the FfR instead?

 

I think it's bizzare that people think the Rail Inspectorate don't know about this already. The F&WHR is the biggest preserved railway in the country. Do you think they can somehow fly under the radar, or do you think they are likely to come under more scrutiny than everywhere else?

Even if the doors were left unlocked there are few locations where you could actually open one, and if you can you'll be next to a steep drop. Given the nature of the line the ability to get people off the train in a controlled manner is generally seen as a positive rather than a negative. Having dealt with the remains of a door that had come open in the past i can say that keeping them locked is definitely the safest policy. The majority of coaches with locked doors on a train, are corridor connected to ones with unlocked doors. Sometimes extras made up of vintage stock are added to the top end of a train. In an emergency these can be opened by the train crew.

Various scenarios including carriages on fire or trains stuck in tunnels have been practiced to validate the safety management and to educate staff. These have sometimes involved the local emergency services as well.

Tim

 

Different people have different perceptions on what is safe and what is hazardous. A certain narrow gauge cableway had fitted safety chains on the doorways of its cars to stop people falling out. The Railway Inspectorate came along and asked for them to be removed because they deemed them to be a hazard. Experience indicated that people would stand up to get off without unhooking the chain and trip over it, leading to injury. Under legislative changes, Cableways came under the Mines Inspectorate a few years ago and the Mines Inspector required them to fit safety chains to stop children falling out.
Another example related to Cableways is that thinking in the 1950's was that you should have two independent braking systems each capable of stopping the system and this is what was done. Thinking in the 1970's was that this was not a good idea because of the danger of compounded application (both brakes together) and that multiple brake systems should be employed which act simultaneously and have a degree of redundancy (a bit like the split braking on a car). Modern European legislation has reverted to the requirement for two independent braking systems with one in reserve (and the possibility of compounding.)

 

It's a long time since I was on the Festiniog, and I remember being surprised by the locking of doors back then.

Out of interest, does anyone on here know when the practice was last reviewed, and (more interestingly) how closely balanced the risks of locking/not locking were in the risk analysis?