The Steam Ban around York

What an extraordinary post. Maybe you need to go and lie down in a darkened room? Your sneering contempt and unpleasantness does you no credit.

This is a forum. It exists for like-minded people to express views about things in which they have an interest. If you don't like it then why have you taken the trouble to compose this bizarre mixture of assumptions and half-truths? There are many who post on here who(unlike you) actually have valuable contributions to make which increase knowledge and understanding of mainline steam operations.

 

Lets make it more relevant - In any traction depot, any TOC, any region, does a fitter have all of his work checked by someone else before it goes out on the line?

 

Steam I enjoy, in all its forms - which includes rail based.
Obsessive, self-declared experts who have a myopic distorted view of their own importance in the scheme of things, I despair of.

Time and again the forum seems to reveal the worst in enthusiasts, whether it's declarations on what rolling stock owners should do with their possesions, how preserved railways should conduct their affairs, how commercial companies should operate, or how other enthusiasts should behave and react.


I suppose there's no harm in people discussing things, but perhaps it should also be acknowledged that it makes no difference what opinons people have, because the only people listening are themselves. ...others see a group of self-important 'trainspotters' ranting.

I'm quite happy to go out trainspotting, as I did yesterday, but I don't think that suddenly entitles me to start spouting forth on how companies should run their affairs, (and certainly not get wound up when such companies don't listen to me). I have absolutely nothing to contribute on the knowledge or understanding of mainline steam operations - my qualifications and professions in life are elsewhere. I suspect the majority of people who spout forth on here don't either. The only people who do have something worth contributing are those who do actually have knowledge of working in the industry. There are one or two who frequent the forum who are in this position - but then there are notable such individuals who also got fed up with the frequent forum attitude and won't have anything to do with Nat. Pres., or these days rarely get involved on the forum. Who can honestly blame them with the attitudes that prevail here?

 

Where a large regulated utility makes a decision which affects the commercial interests of the users of the network which it is responsible for providing, there is clearly a public interest in ensuring that the utility has behaved reasonably and not abused its position in any way. Publishing the Adjudicator's report is necessary in terms of openness and accountability. Participants in the blogosphere are perfectly entitled to say what they think about a public document within the law and the rubrics enforced by our ruthless mods. Modern life may well be rubbish but that's the way it is.

 

So what are you doing if you are not "spouting forth" then?

 

Hear, hear!
This forum is becoming a slanging match between the same 2/3/4 members, especially when it involves newspapers & politics (or lorry drivers/ NE steam ban!).
Another forum has locked several threads about lorry drivers because they have descended into a free for all bitter slanging match, namely by one member.
That's the reason I don't post much here now, because if you say something someone else disagrees with, all out war breaks out worse than a school playground.

 

He does sound just like someone else we all know.

 

I'm mystified as to what I. Cooper is annoyed about. We are indeed not experts in the management of train operating companies but we're not pretending to be. We're interested spectators.

We know that safety-critical work is sometimes checked by an independent person and sometimes apparently not. We wonder about that discrepancy and whether that's how things should be.

Some of us have read the ADA report, in full or in part. Some of us have made comments along the lines of "WCR dropped a clanger. What a shame. This doesn't bode well for the future of their business and therefore for the future of main line steam. Wonder whether they really had good procedures but didn't see why they should explain them to NR, or whether their procedures really weren't adequate: either way, wonder that they're doing now to sort it out". What on earth is wrong with such comments?

A sub-thread has concerned the presence and role of traction inspectors. Again we're not trying to tell anyone what they should be doing, but we are interested.

 

A forum is a place for discussion and debate, it isn't a board room for decision making.

whether discussion makes a difference / influence is out of our control, and I really don't think anyone expects to influence Network Rail or WCR from a forum.

That doesn't mean dissent / disagreement should not be tolerated... Stalin isn't watching, we aren't communists and should not be afraid of a knock on the door just because we question those we watch for fun... but equally those in the industry, shouldn't forget the reason they have a job.. it is to entertain.

Think of it like football, post match the fans do their diagnosis.. everyones an opinion on what strategy the manager should play, but in the terraces theirs little they can do...doesnt mean to say they aren't allowed to think/cheer/cry/moan.. equally fans have been known to depose the odd manager... those who think enthusiasts have no right to anything should remember why it is they are getting a pay cheque.

The day enthusiasts stop being passionate about the hobby, will be the day everything is sold for scrap and the firebox goes cold.

 

Good old Mr gear jammer........

 

True, but a lot of us "pontificate" on Youtube, if posting vids of what goes on can be called pontificating. On more then a few occasions now I have seen and heard of vids posted there used by various aspects of the railway industry (referenced in the recent access dispute, used by the RAIB on more than one occasion and by the BTP)

Now, I used to scoff at this, but does that give us a responsibility to police what we post to give heritage steam on the mainline a good image? Self Censorship?

I am of the opinion that what happens in front of my lens is a matter of record, and it gets posted, Good Bad or Ugly to the cause of heritage steam, but I guess in future I have a responsibility to be as factual as possible with no colour or slant when something that gets caught on film could be considered contentious.

 

The camera doesn't lie, but doesn't always reflect the truth either...

true the industry uses images (my wife works in marketing for a railway civvies contractor), she uses my images all the time because in her words "her customers get 10 proposals all with the same images copied from wikipedia in their portfolios"... her company won the contract to overhaul parts of a mainline station recently.. hopefully the pictures of Duchess of Sutherland (when in LMS maroon) underneath the footbridge were different from the normal EMU pictures of the said footbridge that everyone else submitted... fyi said footbridge was restored in a period style not a modern one... even though it's quite a busy one on the network.

 

In most cases people post plain video clips of what takes place before them. In that regard I would fully concur with your view, if that happens to reveal something that others perhaps wish it didn't, then ce la vie. If a video shows a steam loco working hard up a hill when it should have been shoved by a diesel, how is the producer of the video clip supposed to know that? ...and even if they did, it's not their fault the train crew on the day didn't comply. How is a video publisher to know if their video shows a non-original split leg cotter was substituted for an original style of cotter when a locomotive was originally restored an unspecified number of years previously? ...and what, if any, analysis surrounded that substitution?

However, anyone using such published material as 'evidence' does need to exercise care and judgement. There is no requirement for publishers on YouTube to be truly accurate in what they produce, in the same way that perhaps a news reporter might. Video production is an artistic pursuit, and it would only take a couple of cut-aways to potentially give a totally different meaning to a situation. Show a shot of a track gang working on the line whilst the sound of an approaching train continues uninterrupted from the shots before/after could give the implication they're not paying attention to their surroundings and a collision is narrowly avoided, where in reality they may have left the area half an hour before. A wide establishing shot might include a signal showing the line is clear, yet to break up the monotony of great periods listening to an approaching train with nothing to see, a shot of a signal arm dropping could get inserted before changing back to a different view point as the train approaches - true, unlikely for a railway enthusiast to do, but a home video enthusiast who happens to have gone to see a steam train go by has just managed to imply the train passed a signal at danger whilst their main objective was creating a more visually engaging video.

If an approaching train on a slight down grade has clear exhaust which suddenly changes to dark smoke does that mean it was running with the regulator slightly open which was then fully closed? ...or that the regulator was always fully closed but the blower was cracked open before being shut off? ...or perhaps that the fireman has just started to sling fresh coal on a fire that was otherwise fairly well burnt through? Stood at the side with a camera I'd have no idea if the sound remains constant.

I'm not suggesting your average train enthusiast is going to deliberately set out to depict inadvisable situations, but before accepting anything shown as 'evidence' it should be remembered the producer is under no obligation to show 'the truth' in the process of creating their art. As a previous poster stated, the camera might not "lie", but neither does it necessarily tell the truth either. Just as when watching a documentary on TV it is worth considering the 'story' the producer is wishing to convey, so it is with self-published material online. Not everyone who uses the likes of YouTube is necessarily aware of correct railway procedure or temporary operating instructions - whether that's on the mainline or private railways.

 

For some reason the ADA report focussed on the change of exhaust colour, which could have had various causes, rather than on the sound of the exhaust which (unless the video had been doctored) shows clearly when the loco was working and when it wasn't.

 

C'est la vie. You have to watch your language on this forum.

 

but wasn't that in the north west area before the LNE requirement?

 

On this forum, you have to be careful using phrases like c'est la vie, else you'll get people moaning about the the way our country is being taken over by bl**dy foreigners, with their poncy Norman introductions to our good Anglo-Saxon language ...

Tom

 

Such as "poncey"?