Jacobite 2023

You just cant help yourselves.Get a life!

 

CDL would mitigate the risk of a non platformed door being opened, if the system also had SDO (selective door operation) fitted too. I’m fairly certain LSL stock has the ability to be SDO’d, so you can stop non platformed doors opening with CDL

 

Not from the recent report by @TheModster of a recent Garden of England tour, or from a report of a Saphos trip up north somewhere in which is was said stewards did a "sweep" to move passengers forward to doors that would be platformed as they all show "open" when unlocked.
I agree SDO is the only fail safe way in my opinion, and personally I believe CDL is not really safer than a properly stewarded secondary bolt train. SDO however I would assume needs to have multiple operation points (like say on an SWR 444) otherwise on a curved platform you potentially end up with the guard at the end off platform unable to see anything, even if despatchers do survive the eventual outcome of strikes and the T.O. issue.
Even with SDO or CDL do you not still need stewards to close the doors as most will just walk off and leave them open?

 

Selective Door Opening is fitted to only a few trains. The voyager fleet for example isn't fitted. The system on the 444/450s is a cheap knock off system that is a load of junk compared to the system fitted to the 458s.
SDO isn't fail safe. Far from it. For example, it can allow doors to be released on the wrong side. The beacons can fail meaning the whole train opens. It also isn't mandated so its left to operators to decide what's best. In theory its a nice idea.
Even with bars, like you see on the Saphos set, people still stick their hands / phones out, just look at the videos down Dawlish, this isn't just a West Coast Problem. SDO fitment on charter stock would be a joke if it was required.

 

I wasn’t 100% sure with CDL/SDO at LSL but I will ask one of my mates who works for them and find out the crack. I think the Statesman/Intercity has SDO as built, and I’m sure I’ve seen the MK1s operated from various panels but I’d be willing to be over otherwise.

SDO is fail safe if the guard uses it right. I have used it in my day to day job, and now the more modern ASDO and it works well. CDL without SDO, I agree is only as effective as bolts.

 

I can think of quite a few it’s fitted to Tbf. I’ve certainly worked 170/172 fleets which have had it fitted. And the 185s have CASDO. 802 and 68+MKV sets have ASDO.

But the point is it still helps to mitigate the risks. Ok it doesn’t totally get rid of them, but mitigates. And if you work in common sense order from high risk to least risk you go - no door locks, then bolts, then CDL without SDO, then SDO, then ASDO. But they all have their faults which are mostly human factors

 

You are not the only one. It isn't fail safe, how can a system that allows door release fail 'safe'? It can be overridden, isolated and overriden by passengers during emergency egress.
Like i say, its a nice idea and when it works its alright, but it would be utterly ridiculous to demand that of charter stock.

The whole point of this boils down to this....if this is required now on the modern railway, thats a network change in my book, others might disagree but thats how I see it. Not against any of this, CDL, SDO or ASDO, but there has to be clear lines drawn and if the ORR require it for safety improvements then it should be paid for like the toilet tank changes.

 

There's a difference though - the toilet tank changes were a consequence of changes by Network Rail, which are covered by Network Change, whereas these are regulatory changes* and outside the Network Change regime. Regulators don't usually have to pay for the costs to companies of the changes in regulation.

* - Whether these are changes is debatable; I've been reminded elsewhere that CDL has been mandated for many years now, but other forms of operation permitted by exception.

 

Well there in lies the rub, the debate needs to happen. Like I made clear, that was my opinion of it, not fact.

 

I have never seen SDO in use on either Saphos or Statesman. Unplatformed doors have always been unlocked when I've looked. The usual process is that stewards do a sweep shortly before each set down point, and direct relevant passengers towards the closest door which will be platformed.

 

Quite and one would assume based upon a pretty rigorous RA and paperwork process to reach this position, hence why I am a little unsure why ORR seem to be getting it so in the neck about this.

However, what as puzzled me since day one is the legality and merits of the staggered introduction of the process whereby ToC X has to comply by date Y, yet ToC Z has to comply by some date in the future, from my many years (now happily ceased) of having to write RA's if something is a risk and isn't safe, its a risk and isn't safe and needs to be addressed be that through physical change and/or risk management.

I would be intrigued to see what happens if whilst ToC X have complied as per their timetable to be compliant with the RA paperwork that led to this situation yet ToC Z have not as yet as they still have an exemption from ORR and then someone falls out of a door on a ToC Z service how this would all be addressed, there will be a huge amount of arse covering required and the buck will stop somewhere.

I have worded this abysmally, but the long and short is I am not sure how ORR can square identifying that something is a safety risk that must be addressed, but then giving various different companies various, quite diverse, different time periods to address the identified issue.

 

I believe that the issue involved is the ending of the derogation, and the times that companies have to comply. The extensions granted to WCRC appear to be in anticipation of a judicial review, where if WCRC did not benefit from those extensions, but were successful in their judicial review, the purpose of the judicial review would be defeated.

I'm personally more inclined to the views of @007, in having doubts about the proportionality of this regulation, in terms of the cost per life saved. However, that is in ignorance of what recommendations may come out of the RAIB report into the fall at Loughborough early this year, and tempered by knowledge that the suspension of operations followed two closely spaced failed inspections.

 

I am not sure it as that unique with just rail regulators.
In much of my working life buying aircraft seats and we had a similar mismash of "rules"
When I started the floor and the seats were certified to 9G. Those seats were good even when the seat regs changed to 16G as long as you never changed them (a sort of grandfather right). The moment you upgraded the seat or replaced it then it became a 16G seat on a 9G floor.
Then it became 16G for both seats and floors which the FAA, CAA and others deemed the safest, yet differing certifying bodies still had differences even then on some of the details.
Like all regulators this was based on some logic and lots of testing, various head strike rules, but really only with crash test dummies. I am still not sure there has been a survivable 16G impact, where the floor remained intact so the regulators could see what really happened to a human body only held in place by a lapstrap.
So I am not sure who or what or how they decided what was "safe" really. I guess it l comes down to probability of the occurrence. There I think rail is more cautious (more paranoid?) than aviation.

 

Given the geography I feel sure the concern is more about injury to persons from having heads out of the windows given the spread of vegetation at some points on the Jacobite route. This surely requires close stewarding to ensure the safety of passengers - especially those ignorant of the route and its environs hence more susceptible to injury - possibly serious if not life threatening. Many forget the dangers of "heads out of windows" including the decapitation of one unfortunate soul who looked out of the window on an Ynys Mon charter just as the train entered a tunnel (Bangor perchance ?) in the late 1980s.

 

The incident on the North Wales Coast was in 1990 and happened on the return journey as the train entered Penmaenbach tunnel, between Penmaenmawr and Conwy.

 

ta muchly for the correction - but the fact remains that line side vegetation on the Jacobite route presents a danger that needs close stewarding for the safety of passengers. I speak as one who in the 1970s during my daily commute had my head out of the window on my train home when it was travelling at 100 mph +. It was quite an experience BUT it cleared my passages so much that I never caught a cold during my 18 months of daily commute.

 

If the vegetation on the West Highland Extension is that bad (and I note @Mike Wylie's comments that suggest it may not be), then I suggest that stewarding is not the right answer - if vegetation is that close, then it needs to be dealt with at source, not by having it's harm mitigated by transferring responsibility to the operator.

 

It’s definitely close on the extension