Man falls on to Talyllyn Railway's narrow gauge tracks while taking photograph

Rule 1 of Photography

Watch what you are doing!

 

What's a "Locamotive," by the way looking at the press report. I presume it's the Welsh way of spelling "Locomotive"

 

Got to be a simple miss-spelling, the Welsh for locomotive is low'car'mow'tive, the accents added to aid correct pronunciation. (Said with tongue firmly in cheek from a lad who only speaks broad East Lancashire!).

 

I don't think pedantry is really appropriate when the bloke was trapped under the loco? Could be a RAIB matter ....

A man was airlifted to hospital after falling on railway tracks and becoming trapped under a train while taking a photograph.

The incident happened on the Talyllyn Railway at 11.30am this morning at Nant Gwernol Station by Abergynolwyn near Machynlleth.

The Talyllyn Railway said the man was attempting to take a photograph of a train from the platform after it had been uncoupled from the train, but stumbled and fell onto the track in front of a slow-moving locamotive.

Despite the quick reactions of railway staff the man became trapped under the front of the engine and had to be freed by North Wales Fire and Rescue and Talyllyn railway crew members.

 

surely it's Llocomotive....

 

I'm guessing station announcers in Wales need to be fairly good at the language

 

An incredibly unfortunate and unlikely event but when you think how easy it is to trip and the numbers who travel every year on railways, both preserved and on the national network, it is possibly not surprising that such events occur. Basically it is a numbers game and just as eventually an infinite number of monkeys could type the complete works of Shakespeare with millions travelling on railways unexpected events will happen.

If anything can be taken from this it is that it reminds us all how vigilant operating staff have to be all the time. How many times have trains run round with no problem? Looking at the TR timetable it will be several hundreds of time each year, multiply that by the number of years they have run for and you probably have a number approaching 100,000. That will apply to other railways. No matter how hard we like to think we concentrate all the time etc it plainly is not the case and it must be easy and also it is human nature to at times become complacent, distracted or just assume that this time it will be like every other. This is a good reminder of why we have to guard against such assumptions when we carry out the standard
routine for the nth time.

I have to admit I gave up footplate work several years ago. I decided I had reached a level that I was no longer comfortable operating at. Yes I could drive a train all day long without a problem but when I heard of out of the ordinary incidents I started to question how I would have handled and did not like some of the answers. I have no knowledge of the TR incident beyond the Daily Post report but it is fortunate the TR crew were obviously observant and stopped the loco before there was a serious injury. I have to admit that I could not look myself in the eye and be confident that in the same circumstances I would have been as observant which confirms to me I was right to get out when I did. I still do other duties though and I have to admit that next time I am rostered I will be questioning myself whether I really do things I presume I do as a matter of instinct and really without a second thought.

 

As footplate crew, people on the platform are something you need to be aware of. I am always careful when running round if there are people on the platform, particularly small children who might get frightened and do unexpected things.