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

Sometimes the sense of entitlement is strong.

 

I too have never witnessed anything remotely like the appalling behaviour related above during my dozen or so visits to the railway over the last 4 years and have always enjoyed the gossip and discussion between what I would say are genuine railway enthusists on my visits. The interaction with train crews and other folk has always been professional and cordial with quite a number of linesiders appearing to know footplate crews personally.
I always believed that having an LPP was very much a privilege and allowed me access to areas not available on any other heritage railway. I remain saddened that I cannot repeat such into the future whilst agreeing that the railway has very little option other than ending the scheme as it stands at present.

 

A bit OTT, in the last 50 years how many linsiders have been killed on a heritage railway? The risk is minute compared to the risk of coming to an untimely end on the road journey to get to the railway

 

The virtual elimination of deaths on UK railways, other than suicides, is surely something we should be proud of.

 

It would be interesting (but no doubt impossible) to know how much extra all UK heritage railways who have facilitated lineside permits in the last 20 years have had to pay on their liability insurance for allowing lineside pass holders this privilege. At a wild guess it could be a six figure sum. And it would also be interesting to know in the same time span how many lineside pass holders have put in a successful claim against heritage railways insurers. It would surprise me if it was any more than zero.

 

+1

 

I cannot quantify the additional premium aspect, but can provide some insight into the situation (now over ten years ago) on a single railway, and in a period of less than two years. Incidents that caused review and intervention included:
(i) A permit holder (having undergone local PTS training as well as holding a mainline PTS) narrowly avoiding being hit by a light engine in an area of restricted access - and complained to HMRI/ORR that the railway was 'unsafe' for running non-timetabled trains that were not included in the notices (this was a result of a failure);
(ii) NR were somewhat 'dischuffed' at finding someone on their infrastructure and claiming the right to be within yards of the third rail on a line with an 85mph limit on the basis of their heritage line trackside pass; and
(iii) an insurance claim was received after a linesider slipped down the side of a cutting (again having been in an area where access was specifically limited) - despite documentary evidence, this still went to court where it was only on appeal that costs were awarded in favour of the insurers - one of the key arguments being a question of the appropriateness to a railway allowing non-essential and non-supervised access to its infrastructure and therefore its negligence in importing known risk.

So the answer is that on one railway, in a short period of time there were several significant risk events involving lineside pass holders and a very near miss of an insurance company having to meet its costs of defending a claim. That is aside from other instances of bad behaviour and risk events (some recounted on another thread at the time when WSR were reviewing lineside access). In the end the amount of management time and the potential stress on crews and other staff involved (I can remember several instances of rude or abusive behaviour from photographers, including behaviour that resulting in interfering with people in their operational duties), the requirements of the insurers and the advice of ORR/HMRI meant that the only realistic option was to remove access, and establish a system for a very small number of known people to have access to obtain publicity material.

 

The railway has a duty of care to the linesider and should provide a safe environment so the slippage above would present a reasonable basis for a claim, the non timetable train rather depends upon how the timing information is prepared and issued.

 

Presumably you've never held a lineside pass? Rule 1 - always be prepared for a train to come from any direction at any time.

 

It's not about what has happened, it's about what could happen.

 

Since in the cited example, the non-timetabled train was running as the result of a failure: how could a railway possibly issue timings for such a move in advance?

As @flying scotsman123 said - always be prepared for trains to appear from any direction at any time.

Tom

 

If you think the few thousand pounds that the permits bring in covers all risks and costs just try having one contested incident and see how many tens of thousands the lawyers and hangers on consume. The railway is probably looking at the bigger picture to minimise overall risk. It was good whilst it lasted but the world has moved on.
Edit: Just to remind us as to the scale of these things. KE1 Society were landed with £7.5k of damages with £330k of costs. Who won in that situation?

 

Your posting is just about the strongest argument you could make for banning lineside photographers.

Sent from my SM-J330FN using Tapatalk

 

Quite true on the face of it but it's not quite so simple. For example, one factor increasing rail safety has to be the closure of whole lines for maintenance or upgrades rather than as previously using strategies such as single line running etc.. This increases road traffic which increases traffic accidents and deaths.

 

A simple rule for anyone working/volunteering on a railway - timetabled or not - is always expect a train!

 

Nonsense

 

Very fair - the way performance is measured discourages an overall view of safety and the impact of particular actions.

 

And to remind us all of the real costs of these things, to meet its bills the society had to sell the very thing they were formed to preserve.

 

Not true methinks. If railways allow access by lineside permit then they immediately (in legal terms) accept a duty of care to those with permits. If they do not grant permits then they have to show what action they take to identify and prosecute trespassers else they still become liable for accidents. I would refer you to cases within the Merseyside area where persons have trespassed on the railway by way of damaged fences and suffered death / life changing injuries leading to Network Rail being prosecuted for failure to prevent trespass (by virtue of failing to repair damaged fencing). Given that many heritage lines operate under many of the same rules as the Network then the lines will be subject to the same level of liability for persons on the lineside - whether in possession of lineside permit or not methinks.

 

In addition, most people now carry mobile phones - when entering a section with limited clearance a linesider could call the appropriate signalman and inform them of their presence and check for impending movements. Reminds me of a Friday afternoon doing lineside clearance when no public trains were running, the following passed - Footplate experience loco + 3 coaches( once in each direction) , light engine- off to do some shunting further up the line, loco on test run -(passed twice in each direction) - not bad for a day when "nothing is running"!!!