GCR Ending of Lineside Passes, ex-Bridge that Gap: Great Central Railway News

I think he needs a special 4 foot camera...



Tom

 

Is that the modern day equivalent of a yard of ale we used to drink as students?

 

hello
i see the gcr web site has been updated regards passes

Lineside Access
Our Lineside Permit scheme came to an end of 31st December 2018.

Existing Lineside Permit holders were contacted following a decision to terminate the Lineside Permit scheme, and all Lineside Permits are no longer valid from 1st January 2019.

If you are a previous Lineside Permit holder and would like to contact us regarding the termination of the scheme, please contact lineside@gcrailway.co.uk

 

I think part of the problem is that those who trespass to photograph don’t see their trespassing as a problem. I was looking at the photos of one of the people who had been photographing from places that were off limits on the GCR, and in short, this person has been photographing wrong side of the fence, boasting about sneaking into off limits places for 30 plus years. It seems to me that they feel like the rules simply don’t apply to them, and this is the nanny state etc etc interfering in their right to take photos wherever they like.

There is almost a badge of honour in having got into somewhere off limits and got some photographs, with lots of virtual slaps on the back for having got shots from such and such depot.

So someone like this isn’t going to abide by the GCR lineside rules, of course if they get hit, and are in the wrong place it becomes complex for the GCR. If they choose to sneak lineside now and get hit, as you say it is much less of a problem for the GCR.

Judging by the attitude of this particular photographer towards rules and safety I can only say that I am not surprised that the GCR has done away with lineside passes and only surprised that it wasn’t sooner.

 

I think in the 1950s that was called BUNKING a shed ,done by most. There were three ways of doing a shed ,a permit ,at least three weeks notice to request and receive back by post. E and NE region were difficult as they required a minimum of 12 persons. Other regions varied ,SR /Scottish one person ,LMR/GWR three. If I had a permit for three I just said others couldn't come ,never a problem.
Next ,ask the Forman at the shed ,I think I had about a 75 % success rate ,OK just let me know when you are leaving he would say. Bunking ,depending where the Forman's office was ,and what day it was 80 % success rate. I had in 1956 a permit for Swindon works for one ,had a guide for most of morning.
Nothing the same these days I know.

 

It was called having fun and we all survived. Asking the Foreman was risky as a no would mean he would then be looking out for you. In London it was just a case of going in and trying to get round the lot before you were thrown out but the latter rarely happened. A school friend did Swindon works with out a permit or a ticket to get there. He saw an organised visit advertised and went down and just walked in with the crowd. Getting there no problem as the train went from an open platform at Paddington. On the way back he dropped an old ticket down the gap between the train and the platform and showed the ticket collector what he had done, almost crying. 'Don't worry son I'll get that after the train has gone, you run along'. Such were the stories we exchanged after a weekend of bunking. By the mid to late 60s most surviving sheds were an open house.

 

Not seen that done (or even available) for many a long year. Also the glass boot too.

 

I have a glass yard at home - so next time you are here I could fill it for you. What would you prefer - beer or tea?

 

Hmmm - tricky ..... Think we should take it down the pub and do it properly!

 

Sadly, we live in a different age. We were less neurotic then about elfansafety, and the British are especially cowed by rules and regulations. However, we have to respect the need for preserved railway operators to work within the current regime. I feel that the loss of lineside permits for photographers is a necessary casualty; otherwise preserved railways will get endless grief from the authorities and increased insurance premiums. I wish it were otherwise, but sadly the happy go lucky atmosphere of the past is only a memory.

 

“Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.” Tony Soprano.

The point is that how things were is not how things are now. You can tilt at windmills, you can shout at pigeons and rage into the night about how you can’t do what you used to do and how unfair it all is.

The problem is that clearly some people have a mythologised view about how it was ‘back in the day’ and that they know better, that new rules are stupid and because they are stupid they should be ignored. Which is all the more reason to ditch lineside passes if people won’t accept the rules.

I find the rejection of health and safety to be bizarre. There is a site where ex-members of a London MPD talk about their memories. Reading through the memories that cover a little over a decade, I counted at least two deaths, including a fireman crushed to death by a turntable, a driver who decapitated himself, and at least another three staff who were hit by trains while crossing the lines. The staff survived but all had limbs amputated. And those are only the accidents that a handful of people mention in passing at one depot. The Golden Era was dangerous, not all the fun and japes that it gets made out to be.

We’ve reached the point where staff work in a much safer environment and when there are accidents they are far rarer. Every member of staff deserves to work in the safest possible environment, every passenger to travel in the safest possible environment and if it takes rules to make sure that it happens and not leaving it up to mythical common sense, then this is a good thing.

 

You are talking about something different, railway photographers are not staff and as an intelligent adult I’m quite happy to take responsibility for my own health and safety, across the Channel they still seem to have the right to do that
I’m a great believer in the old adage ‘ rule are made for the guidance of wise men and to be observed by fools’.

 

It’s not “Health and Safety” that has caused a change. Activities that were previously possible on many heritage railways such as unaccompanied access to yards while locos were being prepared have largely disappeared not because Health and Safety says so, but because the no-win, no-fee lawyers have pushed up insurance premiums to unaffordable levels.

Tom

 

I think the quote ends “the slavish obedience of fools”. Rather a different meaning than “observed”.


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I think the main problem with that old adage is that wise men think they know better and fools just ignore the rules.

 

Quite right. In the Good Old Days people took responsibility for their own actions, if a visitor to a loco yard tripped over something and broke their arm, they accepted it as an accident and their fault for not looking where they were walking, today they want to blame someone else for it and go to one of the many no-win no-fee lawyers and the railways just can't afford the risk any more.

 

Nobody wants to go back to unsafe working practices. In Victorian times, our illustrious judges even denied injured workers any compensation because they concocted a doctrine of 'common employment' - if you were injured through the negligence of a fellow employee tough luck on you and your family who no longer had a breadwinner. And there was no welfare provision for the dependants of a worker who got killed, either; just a collection hopefully by your old colleagues out of their low wages. I welcomed the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, as did nearly everyone else. But it has become a religion, and (encouraged by ambulance chasing lawyers and silly judges looking after their own) an elfansafety Taleban has succeeded in wrapping everyone in cotton wool.

But I'm with you in saying that lineside passes should be ditched if people won't accept the rules. I go further and say that if they lead to grief from the safety bodies and higher insurance premiums or even refusal of cover altogether, then as a practical response, preserved railways don't have much choice but to ditch them altogether.