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Railway Track "Speed Cameras"

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p123

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I didn't know these existed. Nor that they needed calibrated... however this story from STV has enlightened me:

http://news.stv.tv/highlands-island...d-for-speeding-allegations-at-level-crossing/

Are there lots of 'speed cameras' for train drivers about? And are they just placed at level crossings or all across the network.

Real shame for the drivers highlighted in this story, who were all acting very safely and professionally and stung by NR's error!
 
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Mvann

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One Of the standard tanks was issued a speeding ticket, but was rescinded after they had been given the wrong info.
 

Cherry_Picker

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Trains are fitted with black boxes which makes cameras fairly redundant, though from time to time there will be speed traps set up in certain areas. Think more of a man standing with a speed gun than a gatso on a post though.

The device in the article is referring to a treadle which controls the barriers at a level crossing. Speed = distance over time, so if you put a switch on a track and a train runs over it then you can have it control something down the line. Obviously it needs to be calibrated properly or you could have a very serious accident.
 

LE Greys

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A former Deltic driver recently told the Railway Magazine how he once fell foul of a 'speed gun' because of an under-reading speedometer. He was doing 109 somewhere north of Grantham.
 

AlterEgo

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I know that London Underground management do use speed guns from time to time, hand held by a member of management standing on the platform.
 

DavyCrocket

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I know that London Underground management do use speed guns from time to time, hand held by a member of management standing on the platform.

It has to be done for a certain number of hours a week/month. Can't remember but it is in the rule book. A radio broadcast must be made also.
 

KA4C

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Think more of a man standing with a speed gun than a gatso on a post though.

Hand held speed guns are so yesterday, don't think anyone on the mainline railway uses them now. no need with OTDR on everything
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
A former Deltic driver recently told the Railway Magazine how he once fell foul of a 'speed gun' because of an under-reading speedometer. He was doing 109 somewhere north of Grantham.

The procedure in that situation (allegation of speeding challenged) was always to get the speedo calibrated before proceeding with a speeding allegation against a driver
 

Tomnick

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Other than possibly reviewing the data recorders on the crossing itself (which would give some indication of speed?), the wording of the article suggests this might be a TPWS installation rather than a man with a speed gun?
 

A-driver

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Hand held speed guns are so yesterday, don't think anyone on the mainline railway uses them now.

they are still used more than you think. Is far easier in common speeding areas to ray gun 30 odd trains than to find all the units, download the otmr, go through the data to find that location etc. I have seen them used a few times in the past couple of years.
 

KA4C

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they are still used more than you think. Is far easier in common speeding areas to ray gun 30 odd trains than to find all the units, download the otmr, go through the data to find that location etc. I have seen them used a few times in the past couple of years.

I bet they are not.

So where would that location be then? I aint seen one for years and I used to use one every month. They are a totally ineffective use of managerial time given that downloads are analysed per driver on a routine basis. In addition, the problem with using a speed gun is once the first train has gone by, the word is out, so you may as well go and have tea

Do "common speeding areas" still exist? I doubt it very much and, if there are any, for the reasons given above, it would be an ineffective form of speed enforcement

Oh, and the guns have to be tested and calibrated, more unnecessary on cost when we already have OTDR
 

Darandio

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I used to see them regularly at Northallerton, but not so much recently. Wensley spends a lot of time there, I wonder if he has seen them recently.
 

A-driver

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I know for sure that brookmans park on the ECML is used a lot by FCC as they can catch those doing more than 55 on the slow aswell as it being just about where most units will start to get to 100 after the climb out of London. Infact the first managers on scene at the potters bar crash were ray gunning at brookmans park at the time. They still do it fairly regularly now.

Epsom is also done time to time by southern on the down to catch those taking power before the back is clear if the 20.
 

KA4C

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I know for sure that brookmans park on the ECML is used a lot by FCC as they can catch those doing more than 55 on the slow aswell as it being just about where most units will start to get to 100 after the climb out of London. Infact the first managers on scene at the potters bar crash were ray gunning at brookmans park at the time. They still do it fairly regularly now.

Epsom is also done time to time by southern on the down to catch those taking power before the back is clear if the 20.

Well, I've worked for a few companies in recent years and none use handheld radar anymore. I also travel extensively over the network and have not seen a hand held gun used in years. As I said, it is a pointless exercise, if you catch anyone, it'll be the first guy after you get there, after that, everyone knows you are there

You sure this is not NR using guns?
 

westcoaster

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Well, I've worked for a few companies in recent years and none use handheld radar anymore. I also travel extensively over the network and have not seen a hand held gun used in years. As I said, it is a pointless exercise, if you catch anyone, it'll be the first guy after you get there, after that, everyone knows you are there

You sure this is not NR using guns?

Ive seen it done many a time by our managers, they used to wait at the north end of farringdon tl platforms catching people not quiet clearing the old 15 mph restriction.
 

DarloRich

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Surely in the event of any “unpleasantness” involving an allegation of speeding the first thing that is done is that the data is downloaded. This data can be very easily checked!
 

KA4C

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Ive seen it done many a time by our managers, they used to wait at the north end of farringdon tl platforms catching people not quiet clearing the old 15 mph restriction.

But are they still doing it? if so, its about time they stopped wasting their time and moved on
 

A-driver

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I know for a fact the still do it at brookmans park. Not sure about Epsom but I know new managers in southern are still trained in using the gun. Deffinately FCC doing it at brookmans though.
 

Cherry_Picker

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I haven't seen one in at least five years, but I was always of the understanding some managers still do it as it counts as safety critical work and helps keep their competency up in something or other. As I said in my original post, which I am slightly annoyed about being misquoted on later in the thread, the black box/OTMR makes speed cameras somewhat redundant, its just that if there are speed traps about then they are of the handheld variety.

And going back to the article, its a treadle isnt it? A train goes over a button on the rail, a mile down the track and thirty seconds later the barriers for the level crossing activate. If the treadle isnt correctly calibrated and it takes forty five seconds for the barriers to activate then we have the situation described in the article. Not the drivers fault at all and no action will be taken against them. If it were me I'd quite enjoy a couple of easy days off track followed by complete vindication.
 

Maxfly

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I haven't seen one in at least five years, but I was always of the understanding some managers still do it as it counts as safety critical work and helps keep their competency up in something or other. As I said in my original post, which I am slightly annoyed about being misquoted on later in the thread, the black box/OTMR makes speed cameras somewhat redundant, its just that if there are speed traps about then they are of the handheld variety.

And going back to the article, its a treadle isnt it? A train goes over a button on the rail, a mile down the track and thirty seconds later the barriers for the level crossing activate. If the treadle isnt correctly calibrated and it takes forty five seconds for the barriers to activate then we have the situation described in the article. Not the drivers fault at all and no action will be taken against them. If it were me I'd quite enjoy a couple of easy days off track followed by complete vindication.

Afraid this is not the case, it was a TPWS OSS (OverSpeed Sensor) that triggered the brake applications and there is more to it than the P&J has in the story tbh and it would not be right to comment on exactly what else is involved:)
 

jon91

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It's not quite a button on the track Cherry Picker, more like a little grey box set in the four-foot next to one of the running rails with a spring loaded arm that the wheel depresses as it goes over.

The only reason I know that is because I have the misfortune of using Hykeham station a lot which straddles an automatic half-barrier crossing and you can see the treadle boxes in the four-foot of each track on either side of the crossing.
 

Ploughman

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Back in about 1993 whilst working on Leeds NW just outside Leeds station.
We had a 20 TSR in place for the renewal work in progress.
The lads had been complaining, rightly so, that many trains had been obeying the speed limit at the front of the train but by the time the rear coach was passing it was up to line speed.
So we called in the operations manager who brought his gun with him and a number of drivers got a warning and the problem went away. With trains obeying the TSR until the back of the train had cleared site.
 

KA4C

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Back in about 1993 whilst working on Leeds NW just outside Leeds station.
We had a 20 TSR in place for the renewal work in progress.
The lads had been complaining, rightly so, that many trains had been obeying the speed limit at the front of the train but by the time the rear coach was passing it was up to line speed.
So we called in the operations manager who brought his gun with him and a number of drivers got a warning and the problem went away. With trains obeying the TSR until the back of the train had cleared site.

Yeah, but that was when radar guns were all we had, we used to do monthly checks at places that we chose or that the P Way requested, every train after first would be obeying the speed! and we had to do two hours, boring. A radar gun is not unobtrusive monitoring, an OTDR is
 

big_dirt

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I saw the London Underground checking on the Sky 1 fly on the wall. I believe that the measurement gun was not extremely accurate and was calibrated before each use by hitting a tuning fork off the wall and then pointing it at that.

Due to the lack of accuracy the manager would only have an advisory word with the driver rather than take any disciplinary action.
 

The_Stig

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I have seen a speed gun used entering Glasgow central high level several times recently.
 

142094

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I saw the London Underground checking on the Sky 1 fly on the wall. I believe that the measurement gun was not extremely accurate and was calibrated before each use by hitting a tuning fork off the wall and then pointing it at that.

Due to the lack of accuracy the manager would only have an advisory word with the driver rather than take any disciplinary action.

Seems less stringent than the Police - Once went along to a road safety partnership meeting where they were testing the radars - said it cost a few grand to calibrate it before it could be used legally to catch speeders.
 

A-driver

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Seems less stringent than the Police - Once went along to a road safety partnership meeting where they were testing the radars - said it cost a few grand to calibrate it before it could be used legally to catch speeders.

Management can't really do you for within about 3-5mph anyway as the speedos on trains are not accurate enough. I have driven in yards with external speedos and my speedo has read 5 whilst the external has shown 7 or 8.

If they caught you obviously over with the gun then they could do you.
 

KA4C

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Seems less stringent than the Police - Once went along to a road safety partnership meeting where they were testing the radars - said it cost a few grand to calibrate it before it could be used legally to catch speeders.


The speed guns that I used were calibrated on test equipment by an external agency every 12 months. On the day a self test was carried out with the gun and the tuning fork test

The guns that we used at the time were the same as used by the police, they were accurate, subject to an allowance of 3 mph for traction unit speedo inaccuracy, hence if someone was 1 - 3 mph over, no action was taken. If someone was going to be disciplined over the speeding allegation, the traction unit speedo would be tested to check its accuracy
 

142094

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ACPO has the guidelines set as 10% + 2 mph for clocking speeders on the roads, with the 2mph for the inaccuracy of the speedo. I don't think many people would be worried if you were doing a few mph over the limit, but depends on what speed you are doing and what the limit actually is.
 

dooton

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London Midland had handhelds in use at snow hill just after the 172's had started service. So they are still in use when needed. Its hardly a waste of time, what is a waste of time is going through data produced by a train over a day, to find anomalies. This data is most likely in a completely raw format as well, which adds even more time to the process.
 

142094

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London Midland had handhelds in use at snow hill just after the 172's had started service. So they are still in use when needed. Its hardly a waste of time, what is a waste of time is going through data produced by a train over a day, to find anomalies. This data is most likely in a completely raw format as well, which adds even more time to the process.

Since there is likely to be a lot of data, from a lot of different types of unit, I would have thought this was done by computer?
 
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