71000 Incident: ELR 26th February

I don't think that either 73129 or I was speculating on the cause of this particular incident. Our comments were general about the industry. The discussion was a factual observation that incidents on heritage railways have increased followed by a perfectly reasonable hypothesis that this might be due to lack of crew experience. A reasonable question I think. I made it perfectly clear at the start of my post I wasn't making a comment on the ELR. Perhaps you'd both like us all to just stop having any discussion at all?

As it happens 73129 I don't think overall that crew experience is the critical factor, at least not on lines like the MHR, I get about 30 turns a year and I am at the lower end of the scale, some of our drivers are doing well over 50.

 

How many accidents are there? If every year you typically get very low numbers (say in the 0 - 2 range) and then suddenly you get a year or two where there are 2 - 4, it looks like a huge percentage increase in accidents and looks like there is some deep underlying problem. But actually it probably just represents noise and the random variation you would expect in any series looking at very rare events.

If consistently 2000 people are killed every year in road accidents and then one year that number jumps to 2500, there is probably some underlying cause worth investigating. But if year after year no-one is killed in a crashing airliner and then suddenly that number jumps to 150, it represents nothing more serious than the fact that airliner crashes are rare, but one happened that year. It is worth investigating in its own right to see what happened in that specific accident, but tells you precisely zero about any long term trend. I'd suggest the fact that there seem to have been three(?) shunting incidents on heritage railways in the last few months that have been widely reported here and elsewhere falls into the same category.

Tom

 

It MIGHT be due to the brakes not working, It MIGHT be due to any number of things, what you have said regarding crew experience is speculation.
I seem to recall some time ago when Scots Guardsman had an incident, I think it was Albert Seymour who got pilloried on here and it was all pure speculation.
The known FACTS are that 2 locos have had a bump, and that's all that is known at this time. WAIT FOR THE FACTS.

 

Without commenting on the incident in question (as I know precisely zip about what happened and am not given to speculating about things), how would you square that particular circle? Some railways have issues in filling the turns available anyway; restricting the number of crews would not exactly help that.

The fact of the matter is that we are in a predominantly volunteer industry, and people can only make themselves available to their railway when their everyday life doesn't interfere. The railway I volunteer on has a minimum number of footplate turns of 15 per annum, and looking at myself personally this is pretty much what I have been able to do over the last few years, when work, family, domestic and other railway commitments (in non-operational and administration based roles) are taken into account. Does this mean I should not be able to be loco crew as I am not able to devote a couple of weekends a month to it?

 

That is some really HEAVY download, Will. Having trawled through about 5000 pages though, found the bit on 71000 ! Have to say though, there's some good reading in there....Paddington revisited from the 50/60s and no end of updates generally for the network. The write up on the Aussie coal train with TEN locos (five up front and five pushing) was something new to me. And we think double heading is decent !!

 

Dont want to start a witchunt, and dont shoot the messanger, but prior to the incident, various repairs had been done on air and vacuum systems due to leaks.

duke of gloucester

Having been lucky enough to drive 71000 on a footplate day at ELR, i can only wish them all the best with repairs, and lets hope the damage is not too extensive.

This is assuming that the duke was to blame of course....

 

Sometime around about 1966 I was on a visit to the Festiniog railway. As the train was leaving Portmadoc behind Prince, the leading coach derailed. The FR, being efficient as ever, soon produced jacks and packing and the coach was back on the rails and the train on its way with only a few minutes delay. Even the the passengers remained on the coach. Today, that would entail a full enquiry and RAIB investigation with everything quarantined for hours, if not days.

In the past, I've been involved in 'rough shunts' both as driver and passenger but with no damage to stock or injury to people. Then, it was just one of those things. Today, they would be classed as collisions.

 

An accident is always caused by more than one contributing factor. So there must of been a few influence that caused this accident. I was only asking do we need our loco crews to have more experience. I'm sorry if my earlier post has caused any upset to loco crews. I know how much respect loco crews have for these wonderful locos.


cheers
Lee

 

This thread has ended up just where I feared it would. There was an accident, that is a fact. from there on we have had all sorts of finger pointing at crews without knowing the facts.

Please, please just wait for the results of the accident report before indulging in harmful, ill-informed speculation which can only hurt the movement - in all sorts of ways.

 

Well said Brian i think we should all just wait i feel very sorry for the duke crew that after a bad year last year they now gone into another bad year for them i wish them all well and hope she up and running real soon;
all the best
jane;

 

Perhaps this 'crew experience' discussion could be moved to another thread, to avoid it getting confused with speculation regarding the 71000 incident. It's an interesting discussion but has nothing to do with 71000 really.

 

Could the speculation discusion be moved to a new thread too??? This would avoid it getting confused the the FACTS regarding the 71000 incident!

Will

 

But speculation is SO much more important than fact.

 

Here are some facts. I just went to the Duke's website and they have news entries for March 15 and 19 detailing the buffer repairs. They mention that the repairs shall be completed in 3 weeks. We shall see if they meet that goal. Today is April 1 so the they are shooting for an April 4th completion date I guess. The 4th being three weeks from March 15th. I guess a better assessment shall be that repair shall be completed sometime this month.

 

31st March. Looks like it just needs its bufferbeam, buffers and a few plates fitting. Should be doable in 4 days providing theres enough people present.
Not the best shot I know....

 

Looks like it has already got its bufferbeam in that photo.

 

Oh...I thought it bolted onto that! Shows how much I know! LOL

 

Apropos Heritage Rail safety, referred to above, News has the following report showing why there is concern:

"Office of Rail Regulation/Heritage Railway Association Safety Seminar (20th March 2012)

The day consisted of a number of presentations from representatives from the ORR, HRA and heritage railways. It is important to note that the tone of the seminar was positive and encouraging. Ian Prosser, Chief Inspector of Railways started the day by acknowledging the importance of heritage railways to the economy of the region in which they are in. He stated that the seminar was called in recognition that during the last two years there has been an increase in reportable incidents. This has led to eight enforcement notices being issued over the last twelve months to heritage railways. There was a common cause in all the incidents; poor governance.
This was then followed by further presentations from the ORR on where to find guidance on constructing a good Safety Management System (SMS) and how to make it integral to our organisations. There were two valuable talks given by railways where incidents have occurred and how they have responded successfully in raising their standards of operational safety.
HRA representatives highlighted the guidance material that is available through their website to help us instil good practice".

(That's not to speculalate on any causes of the incident in this case, just contributing to the general debate)

Patrick