Martyn's Law

However, despite NR staff already having training in this area, it is still the case, as far as I know, that there has never been a terrorist attack on a heritage railway, which statistically, makes the probability of one happening to be less than that of a staion being struck by lightning, which is the accepted standard of something so unlikely as to be not worth worrying about. After all, why cause widespread disruption by blowing up a major rail terminus when you can blow up a steam railway station and spoil quite a few people's day out?

I fail to see any good intentions here, only malign ones. When the IRA was operating in mainline Britain, blowing up pubs, shops, city centres, churches, hotels etc., there was not felt to be a need for such training. In any case, it is very much shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Would it not be better for the government to try and concentrate on stopping such things happening in the first place? Moreover, it smacks of blame shifting: your loved ones are dead because people were not trained to deal with a terrorist incident, not because the government has failed in its duty to keep us safe. This seems to be very much designed to spread an unrealistic fear of terrorism together with providing work for "security" contractors.

 

Indeed, which only makes it all the more ridiculous that the measure is being focused on terrorism.

 

Manchester Arena is 23000 cap and Brixton is 5000. I'm not sure what the busiest single day on any of our heritage railways was (different topic I suspect) but 5000 would be a tough one to meet.

Correct.

 

The intent is good. But we know how the road to hell is paved.

The legislation has got legs because the private security at the Manchester Arena was deficient. That was then compounded by the failures of the emergency services. The duty to look after one’s guests* is reasonable. The question, which @Lineisclear has stated that HRA have raised on behalf of the sector, is then of proportion.

My perspective is from a church angle, where my church can take a thousand people for major services. We already take special measures for Christingle (cocktail stick studded oranges carried by small kids wearing flammable outfits definitely feature on our risk register); this is a formalisation of that.

Until recently, we didn’t think places of worship were subject to terrorist attack. Then came Heaton Park. “It'll never happen here” isn’t considered risk management but wishful thinking.

* - we’d do well to reflect on the language of hospitality. It imposes duties on hosts, and one of the basic ones is protecting them from harm.

 

Agreed, which is why I question the proportionality. But as the legal threshold for “large” venues has been set at 800 (including staff), @Lineisclear is not wrong to think there’s a possibility it may be triggered in some circumstances (for reference, 800 is 12.5 fully laden Mk1 TSOs)

 

Anyone heard of the Fire Safety Regulations 2005?

I've had a quick scan through the pages of waffle that comprise the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. Returning to our learned friend, what exactly are you expecting the average volunteer station staff at a Heritage Railway to do in the event of somebody setting off a bomb in a train of 200 plus people? What are you expecting them to do if a "suspicious person" arrives in the booking office? If something happens will individual staff be prosecuted if they are deemed to have failed in some duty of care? Who is going to be stupid enough to take on the role of Responsible Person?

 

From looking at the stats it seems that I am about 5 times more likley to be killed by a vehicle when I am on the pavement than die in a terrorist incident.

I've never seen a boy racer handcuffed, face down with an armed police officer standing over him, safety catch off.

Might I ask why?

 

I repeat my earlier observation about <name> laws...

 

Another damned American import...

 

Many good points here, especially including "do you start limiting station access in case the numbers do go over the threshold", but I'm not sure I agree with the first part above. Places with large draws might indeed find it useful to do a bit of planning on how they'd deal with emergencies, but having to jump through government-mandated Procrustean paperwork hoops seems to me unlikely to have an overall positive cost/benefit ratio. Will it be possible to find some examples where it had a benefit? Quite likely. But those must be balanced against all the places where it will be completely useless (and not without costs to implement, either).

I dunno, maybe someone actually sat down and tried to make some projections about i) how often it would be useful, and ii) how much it would cost (summed over all the places that will be mandated to do this). I doubt it, though.

Yes, insurance is useful - but in most cases, people/organizations decide on their own whether the coverage is worth it, how large a coverage ceiling to pay for, etc.

Noel

 

I'm sutre t

I suggest that an example of shoot the messenger! What I may regard as appropriate is irrelevant. The expectations are likely to be set by the Security Industry Authority. As the Act will impose statutory duties ultimate liability for non compliance will lie with the directors/trustees of the organisation whether they are employees or volunteers.

 

And I hope that HRA will continue their engagement there to achieve practical and proportionate regulatory outcomes.

 

Of course! It's already achieved important concessions such as the 200 and 800 figures being assessed station by station not for the whole line as a single set of premises. Had that not been secured many heritage railways would have been in the 800 plus category. It's also secured confirmation that while passengers are on trains they do not count against those totals. Otherwise two full trains seven coach passing at an otherwise quiet location could have put that site into the burdensome 800 plus category.

 

Excellent news, and which confirms my view that the greatest risk for most organisations is overstating the risk

 

What about “passengers on trains that haven’t yet departed?”

If they are excluded, then I think in our case it is fairly rare we’d have 200 people at one station, except at galas, Santas etc.

Tom

 

My local council has spent - and is still spending - literally millionsof £££s on erecting a 'ring of steel' of rectractable bollards around the city centre to protect against a possible terrorist atttack. OK, fair enough in that during peak summer days it can be almost impossible to move because of the thousands of terrorists. However when you examine the situation more closely:-

• what they are doing AIUI exceeds what the police recommended.
• for practical reasons it only affects the 'core' centre - much of the surrounding centre is still unprotected
• the concept arose in the days when the perceived threats came from car-bombs and/or people deliberately driving vehicles into crowds. These days the 'wisdom' on such things is that attacks are more likely to be (a) suicide bombers and/or (b) or or more people wielding gun/ swords etc - neither of which will be kept out by bollards
• the bollards are only in place from (IIRC) 10am to 6pm anyway, so car-bombs could be driven into the centre and hidden away over night
• the bollards offer no defence against those on motorcycles etc. Indeed the council is actually *increasing* the provision of cycle lanes right into the heart of the city centre, an ideal conduit for such attacks.

Meanwhile the bollards are notorious for braking down and failing to lower [#] when required. There have been many well-documented instances where ambulances and/or fire-engines have been unable to access an emergency location and the crews have had to leave their vehicles and walk to the scene.

[#] Actually, when they came to install the bollards, they found that in many locations they could not be lowered down into the ground as the under-road area was the private vaults of adjacent properties, so inside they have to slide across the road to one side - it's a bit like watching giant chees-pieces being moved by an invisible hand!

 

I thought that I'd posted elsewhere, and support the suggestions of others that this be moved to another thread. The Church of England "Parish Resources" newsletter has provided links to a webinar series being run by Historic England for how this should work at heritage sites (1st is on 10th June at 1 pm) - see https://events.teams.microsoft.com/...bd01eea3@30116e44-4d79-44c0-a8c1-ebc0707da3c9.

Home Office guidance is now online at https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...~:text=time to time.-,4.37,-Places of worship, and is (insofar as government guidance ever is!) quite clearly laid out.

I assume that HRA will be communicating to member organisations too.

 

Agree that this discussion should be moved as it's relevant to all heritage railways. Just to try and answer Toms's question it may not make a great deal of difference in practice. Passengers on board a train waiting to depart would be excluded from the calculation but while they are waiting on the platform or in car parks or on walkways making their way to the station they would be included. The main impact of the concession it seems to me is to take out of the calculation passengers finally on board trains particularly when two trains are passing. As soon as they alight from a train they would count against the relevant total.

 

The shoot the messenger response drives the hardline response.
It's very simple, the government has mandated stuff. You can do it, or go away. The govt's concern for any given preserved railway is down with it's concern for amateur kumquat growers.

By all means push for a proportionate response, but make sure you are pushing the right people.

Remember nobody had suicide-bombed a gig. Until it happened.

 

Memories of the Bribery Act coming in, and the screams of protest from the business....