The Steam Ban around York

Yeah, to be fair West Coast didn't despute the allegation that the steamer had been working up the hill in question, and the adjudicator accepted that whether the loco was working or not was unrelated to the cause of the fire resulting from hot coals falling through a damaged ashpan screen. The adjudicator also seems happy to accept the damage could have been caused during the course of the day's run and been Ok during regular examination.

My reference above was simply to suggest that you have to be careful drawing conclusions too far from video clips seen online.

Fair comment - I always was cra... not very good at French when I was at school.
...and my written French was even worse! lol.

 

The way around the situation is for NR to in an ideal world, have the ability to spot check and FTR stock and traction, or have agents or subbies, instead of leaving it to the TOC as it could invite trouble.

We have all been on the wrong side of stock with no heat/lights, that passed a FTR the day before????

Bearing in mind this same stock could be running around at up to 100mph, with in excess of 500 bodies on board, is approaching 50 years old, does not have the same crash resistance as modern stock, and the possibility of failure is a sobering point.

Nobody wants to see any operator banned, however a fair line should be drawn as to what is expected, and what is delivered.

If the report on the failings helps to do that, then it has been a worthwhile exercise.

 

Which may explain why the French don't wear poppies and why one should be careful ordering maquereau in a French restaurant.

 

The adjudicator accepted it.. they could have enquired further, for instance : 22nd July 2014 WCR Wrote

Anyone else ever dropped a coin off a foot plate (let alone from inside the ashpan) onto the 4ft and saw where it landed at speed, at just the right time before ?
I left a coin on a rail once at Wolsztyn to have an OL49 and train run over it... it had the drain cocks open... I'd be damned if I ever found that coin again and I had ages to look for it.

Neither party showed any photographs of the fire / damage.. which I thought was surprising.. considering this is what the case was supposedly about.
A small fire would have been a "much a do about nothing", a massive fire could have helped Network Rails case.. so either party could have had something to gain by doing so.

My guess is the adjudicator went with Innocent until proven guilty on that one... I suspect NR may have gone the other way given by the further investigations of their own that followed.

There are a number of other questionable points missed.. the RAG system itself.. surely being experimental it's purpose was supposed to be about fire risk, yet NR's own letter 18th July stated :

Surely this is misuse of the "experimental" policy.. RAG relates to generalised, regionalised weather related conditions not means of instigating a punitive measure - which surely should have been done through other procedural methods when an operator is in breach ?

I didn't see WCRC capitalise on this quote as this is clearly pre-judicial and discriminatory against one operator, which isn't what the policy was designed to be used for.

 

Don't hold your breath for getting a full, no-holds-barred expose of what went wrong. WCRC has a history of robust responses (or non-responses) to journalists. Magazines that depend for their livelihood on plenty of material about main line steam dare not up the ante with critical reporting. We know the high dudgeon that WCRC can muster, like when they threatened in 2007 to paint 46115 Scots Guardsman bright pink!

I think the others will follow Heritage Railway's example with a short factual summary and leave it that. I almost hope I am right because what WCRC needs to do now is quietly heed the adjudication, overhaul their internal procedures and practices, and establish more collaborative working with NR. That is the only way to ensure that there is no more wholesale and needless disruption to main line steam running

Peter on a grey and wet Manchester morning
http://pjhtransportpix.zenfolio.com/f731739511

 

Excellent post and hopefully the last on a subject that has surely run its course







The Venerable Bede likes this