Doors and Droplights

This is bad news if true. I’ve already stopped doing mainline tours, I don’t want to have to stop visiting heritage railways too.

 

The NYMR is, well, the NYMR. Whilst they can be considered a barometer for the whole movement in many cases, I think observers can get carried away with their position and fall into the trap of "if the NYMR do it, it must be inevitable for everyone else".

I'd be curious to know in this particular case how much extra scrutiny (if indeed any at all) is being applied owing to the mainline/Whitby running element, which is certainly not a barometer for most others.

As mentioned further up thread, several railways responded a few years ago to the ORR letter to get our houses in order with regard to the "heads knocked off" assessments. This response often took the form of signage and "structure gauging" and when all bridges, signal posts etc are found to be over a metre away common sense would suggest that opening windows still don't represent an unacceptable risk to "normal" travellers on preserved lines*. That just leaves gala torso hangers to have a procedure for I guess!

(*Note - exceptions apply e.g. Welsh narrow gauge who have taken the relevent extra steps to suit their different infrastructure)

A last thought I often have: are we regularly (or irregularly) seeing maimed visitors specifically through the use of opening droplights? I'm aware of the high accident-per-mile ratio that heritage rail has, but has it been documented to be in the specific area of opening windows?

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You wouldn't 'have' to stop visiting, it's your personal choice.

 

I am inclined to think just using the phrase 'high accident-per-mile ratio' is prejudging the issue and implying a bias towards heritage railways being dangerous places. They are not!
Risk assessment should be the chances of something happening and potential harm caused if it did. Heritage railways are generally low risk (hence not needing to abide by many of the regulations that apply to higher speed railways). Perhaps the chance of something happening is not quite as low as on the big railway and we should certainly be considering any means of reducing it, but you do reach a point where the reduction is not realistic compared to the cost of implementing it (cost, not just to installing something, but potential to 'damage' the business by driving customers away).

 

Obviously those that treasure the ability to stick your head, or in some cases large parts of their torso, out of droplights want your assessment of “point out the risk and then it’s down to the individual to be a correct analysis of the railway’s responsibility.

 

This view makes me uncomfortable - if you assert something is "low risk" without actually specifying how you've reached that conclusion, it could very easily be confused with complacency.

My view is that incidents per passenger mile is a good (though imperfect) - it is a useful way of normalising the different types of demand.

That then leads to the question of whether the mitigations are As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) - which is where I find the combination of WCRC head in sand and NYMR "how high do you want me to jump" approaches worrying. Safety regulation needs to be proportionate to be of value, and the arguments for and against these regulations have the appearance of being made by assertion, not evidence, and conflating unrelated factors (e.g. "we need to stop people using droplights because short platforms").

 

Semantics. At the end of the day if a rule change stops someone visiting, it doesn't matter if you consider they "have" to stop visiting or not. They will stop visiting nevertheless and that's more lost income. The OP will not be alone in their thinking IMO.

 

The measure of 'high incident-per-mile' accurately represents the fact that per mile run heritage railways have significantly more reportable incidents that require ORR or RAIB response/intervention than the national network. (This is not to be confused with the lower risk of catastrophic accidents, largely due to lower speed, that result in a less rigorous legislative/regulatory framework within which most heritage railways are able to operate). On the basis of this measure, heritage railways are in fact higher risk than the mainline network - with proportionally more reportable incidents and injuries. This is not a new fact. It was something that HMRI/ORR were keen to address at least 15 years ago.

 

Yes. Tragically a fellow volunteer of yours lost his life because of a signal structure that was significantly out of kilter causing it to be within the kinetic envelope of the train on which he was travelling. I find it unacceptable that the response has not been to prosecute NR for failing to maintain their infrastructure properly.

 

Perhaps mention of prosecution highlights the issue? There may be some railways where the infrastructure can't be made safe for someone to run a risk they have been warned not to take. Vegetation can be controlled and signal posts moved but tunnels, bridges and restricted space in stations may be a different matter. Similarly platform length may not be an easy, or even possible, fix. The question is whether heritage railways, and possibly their leaders personally, have a duty to prevent rather than just a duty to warn? The analogy of airplane seat belts has been suggested but in that case there is a need for passengers to get out of their seats e.g to go the toilet. It' s an unavoidable risk . Possibly a better analogy would be car seat belts where the decision has been made that advising drivers and passengers to avoid the risk of not wearing them is unacceptable. In that case it's accepted there is a duty to prevent as well as warn.
If, heaven forbid, there is another serious incident involving slam doors what might the attitude of RAIB and, possibly, the Courts be? Where there is a relatively cheap method of ensuring doors are locked in motion, that also stops people from doing something they've been not advised for years not to do, then could the railway and its leaders be found to be at fault from not modifying their carriages? Were that to transpire it wouldn't be those decrying the loss of their risk taking freedom that would be facing the man or woman in a curly wig.

 

Typo! Too many nots! i.e. "where they've been advised for years not to do".

 

Lots of "what ifs", but no analysis of the probability of those risks - or of how NYMR taking this action may shift the dial for others.

I find the car seat analogy mistaken as well. It was a direct response to unacceptable levels of road deaths, where government mandated something that would save large numbers of lives. The duty to prevent has been taken by government, under primary legislation, and then implemented through obligations on drivers. That is rather different from the case you are making.

 

The time was when HMRI published Railway Safety Principles and Guidance and included in this there was a structure gauge which gave adequate clearances that British Railways had to comply with when undertaking any major works. Unfortunately, since privatisation, Network Rail no longer have to comply with this. However, when the ORR published their guidance for minor railways (RSP5) it was retained in that document so heritage railways had to comply at that time. It is still a good reference but has been superseded as the ORR no longer issue guidance and it is up to the railway to risk assess and apply their own standards.

 

Here, here. This whole thing wouldn't be so much of an issue if NR did their job properly.

 

The diesel gala issue would easily be solved after the first post reduced droplight gala but introducing mandatory restriction on toplight opening.

However I am unsure what risk or risks the "Old Cabotsonians" are actually trying to solve.

Window bars in my opinion are far more preferable to restricted droplight window opening. Mk1's can get hot enough in the summer as it is trying to turn them into "non air conditioned Mk2 's" seems crass to me.
Likewise if they are really concerned about doors being opened en route or off platform then we are in the only able to open a few doors scenario, or introduce mammoth layover times whilst the volunteer(s) you hope to have on the platform, or in the worse case the guard wanders up and down unlocking and relocking doors at each station call. Stewards as someone mentioned yesterday I see as a total no go for railways that operate daily all summer, where do they come from?
In the end you make the whole experience so uninviting people stop attending, which maybe is what the "Old Cabotsonians" are trying to achieve by stealth so they can concentrate on the big railway only.

 

If the signal structure had been within the kinematic envelope of the train, surely some part of the train itself would have struck it. My impression was that it was clear of the train but not by very much, hence the poor chap's head hitting it. What crime are you suggesting that NR committed?

 

I think you may be confusing loading gauge and kinematic envelope. Kinematic envelope is the space the train body might move within. It isn’t always moving around to that extent.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/59245646ed915d20f80000a9/R092017_170525_Balham.pdf

Take a look especially at the picture in paragraph 59.

Manslaughter by gross negligence for failure to manage a risk that was known. The train didn’t strike the structure, but if the track were in poorer condition it might well have done.

 

It was inside the area that NR standards said were clear around the train. NR failed to ensure that area was kept clear and instead allowed track and signal to get closer. That suggests to me that there was a prima facie breach of their legal duties under the Health & Safety at Work Act. There is a similar argument about the death at Twerton, though the fact it was a tree may be mitigation.

 

I was not misunderstanding "kinematic envelope". I was surmising that, if "the space the train body might move within" extended as far as the signal post, sooner or later one train or another could have been expected to strike it. But thank you for the link, with the detailed discussion of the allowances and the measurements.

Sadly, trains on some lines do frequently strike lineside vegetation (while it is growing, not just when trees have blown down).

The RAIB report says

 

Indeed, that is what the summary says. However, further on, it talks at greater length about the signal post in question (Paras. 50-71 in the report). Key points made are:
* Design standard at time of installation was 610mm static clearance (no swept clearance figure)
* Group Standards (GI/RT7073) specify a minimum swept clearance at window level of 450mm (opening windows for passengers) or 250mm (opening windows for staff) for new/altered structures
* There is no requirement in GI/RT7073 for clearance to be maintained post instal
* Normal clearances are defined in terms of clearances beyond the swept envelope, with >100mm being "normal" and zero or less being non-compliant (i.e. a risk of fouling the structure)
* The swept clearance post incident was 68mm
* NR monitoring had found this location to be in the band requiring rework
* There were witness marks on the post indicating vehicles had hit the post

Taking that section as a whole, I find the RAIB summary surprisingly bland. I also find the recommendations pretty weak: