Swithland Steam Gala 26th – 28th April 2013

some do, and indeed it might not be. and yes mistakes happen. learn and move on not spend oodles of time discussing why, doesnt help anyone.

cheers

 

What I've personally taken from the video and subsequent discussions here and elsewhere: There but for the grace of god...

I'll be double checking points in future before moving over them, with my own eyes.

Roger

 

The clip of the derailment is now featured as an news item on AOL

 

Quite a friendly style of reporting. Hopefully it will remain so.
PH

 

Don't you already do so then?

 

If it's on AOL then the hits are going to grow and it does make the GCR look like a laughing stock. There are a lot of rumours that circulate about the GCR and various goings on, it'll be interesting see see how big the story gets.

 

I don't think that the GCR is in anyway unique in this respect. If rumours = useful work, then all loco restorations and line extensions would have been completed years ago.

 

Found its way onto Huffington Post now as well. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...derailm_n_3207012.html?utm_hp_ref=uk?ncid=GEP Again pretty laid back description of events.

 

The thing is, especially in the case of online media, attempts to cover up and hide this kind of thing will often result in an even bigger backlash and bad PR (For a large scale example, see Beyonce's attempt to stop people posting unflattering pictures of her). The best thing to do is be open about the incident and explain what happened, why it happened, and what the action will be to prevent it happening again.

 

To be honest, every time, double checking - no. I suspect like many (most?) drivers when there's a lot happening to distract on the footplate, I sometimes take my fireman's word, or the bobby's... unlike the GCR crew, I've not been unlucky. To reassess ones practice in the light of someone else's ill-fortune is rarely a bad thing.

 

Thanks for an honest answer! I must admit that if a signal is clear and the points are interlocked then I don't bother too much but if I'm passing a signal at danger (with permission) or passing over ground operated points I'm inclined to be a bit paranoid about checking.

 

I suspect it may be quite the opposite and will put the GCR on the global map. This wasnt really a life threatening accident, and whilst unfortunate, to untrained eyes will be seen as an "oops" rather than an "hells thunder"

 

As of just now, the YouTube video has just over 92,000 views, and a click on the graph shows the a definite kink upwards when it was linked from Huffingtonpost. By way of contrast, one of the "suggested links" videos is another - no doubt cinematographically excellent - compilation from the Swithland Gala, currently with 378 views. If nothing else, "disaster" sells...

I hope the GCR are able to find a way to reassure casual visitors that, in railway terms, this was quite a minor incident that just happened to be caught on camera, and the wilder fantasies and misapprehensions in the YouTube comments are well off beam!

Tom

 

Tom does that mean it may one day feature on a "Rude Tube" compilation?

 

Wouldn't like to claim expertise in that area! But 92,000 hits - well, it's not quite Gangnam style or the Harlem Shake, but clearly, if you take a few hundred views as a benchmark figure for the number of views likely by the hardcore railway audience, then the vast majority of people viewing the video are doing so because they are interested - or maybe titillated might be a better term - but without presumably even a modicum of understanding of what they are actually seeing, or what the various significant features, might be. One comment was heaping opprobrium on the railway because they hadn't removed the "redundant switch" which had thereby caused the accident, completely failing to understand the proper function of a trap point is to do exactly what it did, and thereby prevent a much greater accident of an inadvertent move into the path of a fast-moving train on the mainline.

So at a PR level, for the GCR, maybe they will get away with this being, in public eyes, a "ho ho ho" kind of incident rather than anything more serious, but your starting point is dealing with people who think the danger is that it was possible to have an item of track that derails trains, rather than understanding that that is actually a vital safety feature!

Tom

 

Yes, I agree. To most people the idea of deliberately derailing a train seems preposterous but, as Tom says, it may be necessary to prevent something far worse. When my wife saw the video, and bearing in mind she has been a regular train user and been around my interests for more than 30 years, her immediate thought was not about the circumstances that allowed it to happen, but amazement that it was possible for a train to leave the track by design. So I hope this incident leads to a better understanding of the systems, rather than producing a knee-jerk reaction for a call to "abolish trap points" on the grounds of H&S.

Steve B

 

Whilst there are discussions and then there are discussions, if anything useful is to be gleaned from this incident, keeping quiet about it is not the way forward IMO. The outcome may be no more than an embarrassment for those concerned but what's done is done and there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.

 

Thinking about it, I think it would be beneficial for the GCR to obtain the footage from the video linked to above, and incorporate it into a video of their own, walking through the accident, explaining exactly what is going on, and how the trap points did their job, and post it on their own youtube channel.
Can also show a walk around of the damage caused and how they are going to fix it.
In the immortal words of Brunel - "That's what I'd do, anyway. Just sayin'."

 

I wondered along similar lines myself, however, the problem now is that even if they put out another version incorporating the same footage, it wouldn't necessarily gain "traction", since the original version is now so widely linked from many websites.

The other awkward position - I sympathise with the railway here - is that no doubt there is an understandable desire to explain what happened, but without jeopardising or pre-judging any investigation, internal or otherwise, that may be taking place. Not an easy situation, and perhaps one that should be considered by those keyboard warriors who are all to keen to slate the "they" department for management decisions, without actually being willing to stand up and take those hard decisions themselves.

Tom

 

You're quite right there, but at least they would have a version they can distribute and link to that has the facts in, rather than wild speculation about 'redundant points' etc.