RAIB Investigation: South Devon Railway

I suggest that if the vehicle had been withdrawn from traffic it might have speeded up getting it fixed.

Reports suggest that the railway didn't cover itself in glory and it looks as if we came very close to the first passenger fatality in preservation

 

And quite apart from the financial hit, there is the bad publicity following on from this - which conceivably could rub off on other railways as well. Far fetched? I've been to a few railways where the coaching stock looks tired and run down, and even a couple where there have been 2ft square bits of plywood nailed onto the floor, hiding whatever lies underneath (if anything). The BBC article linked above might cause some to look more closely at what is on offer.

Steve B

 

Second.

Sawdust.

 

I wish the SDR no ill but, as a parent of a child of similar age, quite frankly I’m surprised and even dare I say it disappointed that the fine wasn’t significantly larger. “Only” 40k for nearly killing a child?


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But would a larger fine have been affordable? The railway has already stated that it has been given time to pay the fine, so the money isn't readily available. A larger fine may have put the railway's future operation in jeopardy.

Surely a fine should be designed to punish them (and warn others), rather than put them out of business?

 

I hadn't realised they had been running it for 3 months with the toilet floor missing. Personally I don't think it is acceptable to run a carriage at all with the floor missing, even with a locked door. It seems that the repair to the vacuum pipe was done to get it running again, but replacing the floor was such a big job they decided not to bother, probably a lack of people to do the work. At many railways the team working on carriages can be very small and if they are individually owned it is often left up to the owners to maintain.
If the carriage was still in regular use then there wouldn't be the opportunity to do the repair unless done on one of the railways closed days.

 

Even if that was the case (it's not, it's a Mk1 presumably owned by the railway) that's no excuse, it's the operator (the railway) that's ultimately responsible. Don't the SDR have some paid C+W staff?

 

So my experience of the SDR means I am not surprised. I feel wary about telling this story and so mods feel free to delete if you feel it should not be recounted in public.

I visited there within about 5 years. The train arrives into Totnes. At some point after the loco has uncoupled but not run round someone’s dog ends up under the train (I don’t recall whether it fell getting off the train or fell off the platform). My first concern was the loco running around hitting the dog. The passengers whose dog it was were freaking out. There were some volunteers painting something so I went and told them that there was a dog under the train. They were the only people I could find.

The young guy told an older guy who said something on the lines of ‘again?’. While my reaction would have been to make sure that firstly the loco didn’t start to run round, the guy wandered over to the passengers. While I’ve been reporting this one of the passengers has got down onto the track and is under the carriage with the dog.

My reaction is ‘this is not good’. The older volunteer is busy telling the passenger not to pass the dog up because it will break the dog’s back. They tell him to wait under the carriage with the dog until the loco has run round. Loco goes past on the loop and dog and passenger emerge (I forget it they came up on the platform or loop side).

I am not sure what the correct course of action should have been but I think I would have stopped the loco from running round while a dog and a passenger were under a carriage.

I felt that the situation was not really taken with the seriousness that it should have been.

 

To be totally frank and honest, there is no excuse to run a coach with such an defect in service, that it ran for two months, speaks volumes The report also state that the railways own record keeping was very poor, actually what else has been missed? buckeye exams? wheel flange gauging? in my view safety has to be paramount and 40k, they got off light, i would have closed them down until they had suitable systems in place and examinations done and recorded on their currently in use passenger stock, someone made a decision to put the paying public at risk,

 

Yea Gods nothing should have moved loco should have been handbraked and told not to move, platform staff should have gone under, not the member of public , if they had PTS, if not the guard or fireman, only once the dog was safely on the platform and under control should the engine then be given permission to move.

 

I did feel like I was in one of those h & s training videos where they say ‘spot the errors’.

When I read that the carriage continued in service after the near accident and it was only when the mother made a complaint that things came to light, it struck me that perhaps some at the SDR are not as serious about safety as they should be. That I saw the incident with the dog and passenger as well, makes me feel that this isn’t just a couple of people (ie commercial wanting a carriage back in service and the duty controller not reporting the issue) but a wider issue.

I know a lot of people bitch about ‘elf and safety’ (I was at another railway where someone was complaining about how they couldn’t do things like in the old days) but there is a reason why we have H&S it is so we don’t nearly kill our customers and ourselves.

 

Plus their own legal fees unless these were donated.

Paul H

 

I last visited the SDR about 30 years ago and found them a bit slap-dash then compared to the Mid Hants and the Bluebell.

 

I was trained on the Mid Hants, and we were very strict about procedure, we certainly never" played" at running trains

 

Plus £13k costs

 

My wife and I visited last summer and found them still a bit slap-dash.

 

An awful lot of criticisms here, quite rightly.
These shortcomings are exactly the things I believe that does the whole heritage movement a great disservice and can give, to many that visit heritage lines, the view that 'they are men playing with trains'.
Railways, as we all know, can be a pleasurable place; they can also be a quite dangerous place. Heritage lines are at a disadvantage to a degree over the main lines in that most passengers are on holiday or just a day out and as such being in a relaxed frame of mind are not alert as they might be.
O a lighter note some years ago I visited the SDR Staverton station in mid summer. There was a blazing fire in one of the grates and when I asked why, given the temperature that day, was told 'well the Americans like it'.

 

Whilst not wishing in any way to try justifying the indefensible are there actually cultural issues here which may be relevant to many small lines?

Other posters have highlighted the greater professionalism of larger lines where much larger numbers of operating staff, training expertise and management teams with both time and expertise to update and review processes are present. Meanwhile many smaller lines rely on very few volunteers many of whom may have little interaction with external advice against which to judge their operations. Inevitably small groups or individuals may not always remain or have the full breadth of expertise required. The report highlights not only the divergent objectives for the repair methodology, the uncertainty of reporting requirements between responsible operating officials and the lack of resource to update the operating rules.

Maybe this incident should be the wake-up call the movement needs to develop a self regulatory inspection regime to ensure that even the smallest operations can benefit from regular review from a friendly but professional team of mentors to maintain standards. Much better to be told to improve by an expert friend than to await an incident and costs which shuts you down, potentially puts your management and directors in jail and tarnishes the reputation of the entire movement.

 

several lines I have visited have had obviously substandard poorly maintained vehicles in service. Those lines need to learn from this.

 

But not in a rush, and that is what causes most of the mainline accidents (trips, slips and falls). Also people who are relaxed are more likely to be "herded". I think on balance heritage railways are at an advantage providing the staff are alert, though it must be said that even an alert platform staff cannot prevent someone from doing something very silly and unpredictable.