GCR TPO set

I can confirm that every instance was reported to the proper person at the time. It was the lack of activity on the behalf of the people in question that led me to take further action.

Tom

 

from the RVP website - so far the only ones to make any comment

 

Although this is going slightly off topic, the UK's railways are much safer than they were 40 years ago - the figures in this report - http://www.rssb.co.uk/library/risk-analysis-and-safety-reporting/2012-aspr-annual-safety-report.pdf (pages 15/16/17 in particular) show big reductions in fatalities for both passengers and railway workers since the early 1970's.

 

Tom,
No witch hunt from me, I simply took issue with a statement earlier in the thread which is quite clearly untrue.
I am concerned though that, whatever your particular grievance may be, you choose to air it (albeit in vague terms) on a public forum. Other than potentially damaging the GCR's reputation, I can't see what this achieves.


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With respect I think the GCR have damaged their own reputation in the last 72 hours.

 

Phil,

The GCR are perfectly competent at damaging their own reputation with their repeated accidents. Nothing I say can make their reputation any worse than it already is.

Now, as for my statement being clearly untrue. I made that statement whilst looking at photos of a Class 37 buried in an MK1 TPO vehicle. Unless I'm sadly mistaken, such an eventuality should not take place on a safe railway. If the rules were being followed properly, there's no way, at all, that this could have happened. You can't seriously argue against that.

Tom

 

I don't think its fair to single one railway out, the ORR must surely be looking at all preserved lines.
It might just be the internet, but it does seem the overall annual number of incidents as a whole in the preserved railway sector is increasing, maybe higher than the number ofincidents on network rail...

God forbid we've been close to some boiler explosions, one line had a loco with low water hauling a passenger train with 1 only person on the footplate..

There's been at least a dozen collisions in the last few years

It to me seems that if the sector doesn't pull its socks up, their will be regulation to enforce it and it may be due.. Railways are not toys.

 

Well all I will say is lets hope all us operational railway staff can learn from the GC's misfortune, we should not be affraid to do this as, after all, the BR 1950 rule book, which so many of our rule books are based on, is just a list of 239 other people's cock ups!

 

The ORR do look at all heritage railways. At the last HRA meeting we were told that the number of incidents, whilst never satisfactory, was not warranting any regulatory action and not increasing apart from a blip three years ago . I'm sure that the 'net is responsible for both the increase of awareness and 'bigging' them up.

 

Err - and where's the problem in that?
(I accept low water is never a good situation, but sometimes matters do conspire against you, no matter how many people are on board - and there is a big difference between 'low water' and 'no water'!)

Not all railways operate on the BR principle of driver & fireman (and traction inspector, loco owner's representative, tom cobley & all). The Llanberis lake railway operate passenger trains on 2ft gauge with a single person on the footplate, and industrial railways weren't immune from operating with just a driver to look after things either (although that wouldn't be fare paying passenger trains).

If you enter the world of road steam, although falling more out of fashion these days, the concept of single-manning is still permitted for some types of vehicle - and away from the billiard tables of railways you can instantly swap from ascending the north face of the Eiger to descending the south face of the Matterhorn (ie. real hills), whilst also needing to worry about steering and controlling a vehicle with no brakes. (oh, and also following a route you've never been before, so have no route knowledge of what's coming next either)

As a blanket statement, it's not impossible or unsafe for one person to control a steam engine. Individual procedures, circumstances, or engine design may dictate more than one person being required - but the blanket statement given here doesn't give any clue to any of that, it simply calls into question the operation by a single person.

 

In addition to agreeing with the above I really think it is time some of the accusations that are now being bandid about about on this topic are held in check.

As has been pointed out many people have access to both the internet in general and this board in particular and continued accusations of poor pratice in our hobby are only going to draw further interest from officialdom, remember the old saying "be careful what you wish for".

To see some of these comments made by a staff member/administrator makes me especially sad.

 

That's as may be, but the comment posted in this thread made no reference to the incident occurring on "a large steam locomotive where the boiler does not permit viewing of the road ahead...". It simply seemed to scorn the idea of a single person driving a steam loco hauling passengers - something that plainly can and is done safely on railways which are large enough to be generally considered non-miniature. In my previous post I did state that individual circumstances or procedures may require otherwise eg. loco too large to be safely driven by a single person other than during shunting, or operating rules forbid it.

As for a single driver handling a low water situation - easy, if they're not able to operate injectors/pumps and resolve the matter whilst going along, then STOP and sort it. If the situation is serious enough that a greater problem is likely to develop (ie. drop the plug and potentially cause mechanical damage), then don't continue blindly on until the inevitable happens. But that should be the same no matter how many crew are looking after an engine. If there's a problem leading to low water, or simply the fireman gets it wrong, then to my mind a sensible driver shouldn't ignore the fact. If necessary they should be prepared to stop until the problem is resolved, at which point they can continue. To do that is safer and potentially going to cause less delay than pressing on, dropping the plug and then having to wait for rescue. ...even if the fireman responsible gets an ear bending afterwards!

 

Since you nor I nor just about everyone else on the planet has no idea what caused the incident to happen, not a single conclusion can be drawn until it has been investigated and the cause deduced. Until then
maybe you'd like to keep your speculation axe grinding to yourself.

 

It has been suggested that it is an NR 37. Now I have no idea if it is or it isn't but this raises the possibility that the GCR is not solely responsible. Either way, it could be human failure, equipment failure or a combination of both. Until the facts are known though, pointing a finger is pointless (excuse the pun). Let the RAIB investigate and report.