More dangerous lineside behaviour around Flying Scotsman

[Darandio]

Time for a ban on locos both diesel and steam, an outdated haulage method in the modern world, slow freight should stick to the road.

That is a bit of an escalation. You propose putting millions of tonnes of freight back on the roads?

 

[433N]

Nothing to do with being "sucked up". The lines are marked at safe distance for potential issues such as open doors, out of gauge load and reduce risk of lose cloths being caught up.

If your vector calculus and familiarity with the Navier-Stokes equation are up to it, then I can go through it with you if you ask me nicely.
[Frankly, the aerodynamics of some trains are so poor (e.g. 380), that I make sure that I am way further back than the yellow line].

ON EDIT : This is undoubtedly the reason for the 'safe distances' of DanDaDriver's post above. There may be a change in the air dynamics about the train at 100 mph (or indeed other speeds depending on design) and even a change from laminar (even) flow to turbulent flow in which unstable and localised vortices form in the air about the train under quite subtle changes of conditions. You'd be surprised.

 

[DanDaDriver]

The speeds I quoted were for above and below 100mph if you look again.

 

[Elecman]

The speeds I quoted were for above and below 100mph if you look again.

And specifically apply to staff on the lineside who are trained and authorised to be there, not for trespassers or passengers on platforms. The distance is taken from the outer edge of the running rail not a platform edge.

 

[DanDaDriver]

And specifically apply to staff on the lineside who are trained and authorised to be there, not for trespassers or passengers on platforms. The distance is taken from the outer edge of the running rail not a platform edge.

I’m aware of that. I’m making the point that straying over the line on a platform edge is not just an excuse for station staff to shout at you,

 

[O L Leigh]

I had a feeling that yesterday’s events would provoke a discussion, and I can see that it’s following fairly predictable lines. A shame, really.

Anyone questioning the need for yellow lines on platform edges, repetitive announcements and any of the other pesky measures that the railway employs in the name of safety has clearly never been involved with an incident investigation nor the workings of the common leech (aka compensation lawyer). Are they overkill? Probably. However, the railway cannot assume that safety is a matter of commonsense and must, therefore, do everything practicable to ensure that everyone from the seasoned commuter to the first-time traveller is kept safe. Do people need to be told of the dangers of droplight windows? Recent events would suggest that they do, and it is almost certain that the railways will be held largely responsible for this.

Yes we can all cry “Misadventure…!!”, but ultimately the investigative process will follow a sadly predictable line.

Q: Why did this person die?
A: They were struck by a lineside object.

Q: How were they struck by a lineside object?
A: They were leaning out of a droplight window.

Q: Why are there droplight windows in use on passenger trains?
A: Er…

Now this is not entirely relevant to the FFS, but you can see how the same analysis would apply had a photter been splashed across the front of a Voyager yesterday.

As an aside, the yellow line is there to replicate the safe distance for staff going lineside in order to help ensure passenger safety. For speeds up to 100mph this is 4 feet, hence the yellow line being around that distance from the platform edge even where the linespeed is significantly lower than 100mph. As for nothing hanging more than 1.25 metres from a train, may I suggest that a broken pantograph could easily exceed that distance.

But to finally come around to the FFS and the events of yesterday, it is regrettable that it is once again a matter of photters v railstaff. The problem here is that the vast burden of trespass yesterday was a consequence of photters getting to places that they shouldn’t be, and that is simply a matter of fact. We had photters in the cess, at access points, on crossings and even up a signal gantry. Some of my colleagues were given the most fantastical justifications for people being lineside, reasons that simply don’t stand even the scantest scrutiny. This is simply unacceptable, and trying to protest that somehow we’ve overreached ourselves by enforcing petty rules that exist simply to spoil your day only marks you out as the kind of uncooperative enthusiast that will happily ignore the advice and direction you’ve been given.

In spite of everything (including my own feeling about mainline steam operations), I’m sure there is no real will to ban the FFS and other historical anachronisms from the network. However, if we are going to run these services we need to be able to do so safely. If we cannot rely on the goodwill and behaviour of the enthusiast community then Nitwit Rail will inevitably step in, and that will be to the detriment of all.

 

[Dave1987]

Ban it from the main line and stick it on a plinth. Then people can take as many photos as they want without putting themselves and others in danger and causing huge amounts of disruption in the process. Ban all kettles from the main line if enthusiasts can’t be trusted to not trespass.

 

[awsnews]

The limited clearance sign is the cherry on the cake there.

Again, they certainly look like all those “Facebook generation,” chavs who are famous for their love of old steam locomotives...::

I don't know the source of the image but I do wonder who took it and how as they appear to be looking down on the photograhers, not the place you would find a spare set of steps lying around.

 

[Dieseldriver]

I don't know the source of the image but I do wonder who took it and how as they appear to be looking down on the photograhers, not the place you would find a spare set of steps lying around.

I understand it to be the Driver of the Voyager that you can see in the image.

 

[randyrippley]

I wonder how many of the idiots would bus spot from the hard shoulder of a motorway?

 

[The Box Photter]

I wonder how many of the idiots would bus spot from the hard shoulder of a motorway?

No. And you'd expect anyone trying to do so to be picked up by Plod and escorted to a place of safety after being given some words of advice. But you can bus spot from the edge of a dual carriageway where the traffic might be travelling at motorway speeds. If you walked into the road and got mashed by an artic your family wouldn't expect to sue the haulage company. So your point is ...?

 

[berwicksfinest]

Not so long ago a lad decided to use Tyne Yard as his playground and suffered fatal injuries, DB were hauled up against Her Majesty's finest and were found guilty for not securing the site. and were fined accordingly.
Now today we have numerous people climbing here, there and everywhere for that illusive photograph!!

Can't have it both ways lads

 

[The Box Photter]

Not so long ago a lad decided to use Tyne Yard as his playground and suffered fatal injuries, DB were hauled up against Her Majesty's finest and were found guilty for not securing the site. and were fined accordingly.
Now today we have numerous people climbing here, there and everywhere for that illusive photograph!!

Can't have it both ways lads

Sometimes the Law is an ass.

 

[randyrippley]

No. And you'd expect anyone trying to do so to be picked up by Plod and escorted to a place of safety after being given some words of advice. But you can bus spot from the edge of a dual carriageway where the traffic might be travelling at motorway speeds. If you walked into the road and got mashed by an artic your family wouldn't expect to sue the haulage company. So your point is ...?

So the point is obvious
no-one trespasses on a motorway for fear of getting mashed by an artic
yet people have no fear of trespassing on a railway line and getting mashed by a train

 

[O L Leigh]

My point is that they shouldn't be trackside and should be prosecuted, but how close to being hit by a train were they? Being in the wrong place doesn't equal being in immediate danger of death.

I think you're confusing the issues a tad. In the normal course of events, no they would not be hit by a train. However, they are at risk of being hit by something else. That's 125mph stretch of line and pigeon bouncing off the front of the train carries rather a lot of energy.

What the concern is is that they are somewhere they should not be. If you're standing on ballast, you are trespassing. If you have climbed over a fence, you are trespassing. If you have walked along the line from a crossing, clambered up an embankment or slithered down a bridge abutment, you are trespassing.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Not so long ago a lad decided to use Tyne Yard as his playground and suffered fatal injuries, DB were hauled up against Her Majesty's finest and were found guilty for not securing the site. and were fined accordingly.
Now today we have numerous people climbing here, there and everywhere for that illusive photograph!!

Can't have it both ways lads

Weren't they non-fatal?

 

[O L Leigh]

Sometimes the Law is an ass.

Yup. And so the railways, the same as every other employer and provider of services, has to take the matter seriously. Hence the perceived H&S Nazism.

 

[O L Leigh]

So how do we deal with that? These people clearly can't be reasoned with and the risk of successful prosecution is negligible. So how do we stop these people getting where they shouldn't be?

 

[The Box Photter]

Yup. And so the railways, the same as every other employer and provider of services, has to take the matter seriously. Hence the perceived H&S Nazism.

Yes, but even the draconian level of H&S we have at the moment doesn't prevent trespassers or people climbing onto wagons beneath 25kV wires.

Punishing steam enthusiasts and photographers by banning main line running is unlikely to save any lives. How many people have been killed whilst trespassing in an attempt to see or photograph steam? Education is the way forward hand in hand with targeted Policing of high-risk trespass points.

 

[DanDaDriver]

 

[O L Leigh]

Punishing steam enthusiasts and photographers by banning main line running is unlikely to save any lives. How many people have been killed whilst trespassing in an attempt to see or photograph steam? Education is the way forward hand in hand with targeted Policing of high-risk trespass points.

Who's saying that mainline steam running will be banned? It's an option certainly, and one that I'm sure will have some support.

I wouldn't say that steam enthusiasts should be punished, but if the railways can predict for certain when there will be incidences of trespass it is certainly when there is a steam-hauled charter around. That no-one appears to have been killed (yet) is thanks to the vigilance of the drivers of the regular services seeing and reporting them, and the efforts made in trying to clear them away from places they shouldn't be. This doesn't mean that it's therefore safe and things can be allowed to continue as they are.

The problem I have experienced with dealing with steam enthusiasts standing in the wrong place (experience backed up by that of my colleagues) is that they genuinely don't believe that they are doing anything wrong. Put simply, you cannot reason with them. This makes education from the outside very difficult. My own personal view is that this sort of behaviour needs to be made socially unacceptable from within, that anyone straying lineside will get the moral judgment of their peers. How this can be achieved is unclear to me, but I believe that the specialist press may have some role to play. A clear and unambiguous policy of not accepting or publishing photos clearly taken from a position inside the railway would be one, together with a firm rebuke to the contributing photographer.

I will be bold enough to say that they future of mainline steam working rests in some large part with the enthusiasts who want to see it and come out to support it. It would be a shame to relegate these machines to a dusty corner of the NRM or to see them trickling around at no more than 25mph, so it's nice to see them out and about on the network from time to time. However, as I said above, these services need to be run safely and not cause the sort of major disruption we saw yesterday. And to achieve that we need the cooperation of the fans. If they can't be trusted to behave then the risk is that the railway will take their toys away, either through an outright ban or by imposing impossible conditions on the operator that would make these workings both harder to organise and less financially viable.

 

[Llanigraham]

And one of the rules for PTS that was drummed into us "Do NOT turn your back on the direction a train will approach you!!" Those 2 are most certainly doing that.

 

[LOL The Irony]

View attachment 62571 View attachment 62572 View attachment 62573

Have you got a link to this?

 

[DanDaDriver]

Have you got a link to this?

https://twitter.com/driversparky/status/1125503586996228102?s=21

 

[LOL The Irony]

https://twitter.com/driversparky/status/1125503586996228102?s=21

Cheers

 

[bramling]

I had a conversation with a 'photographer' as he was taking pictures of my Networker. When I asked him why he was taking photos of a generic aluminium piece of sh... He stated that these were the trains of his era.

Nostalgia and history is great but we also need to remember that trains, just as everything else, evolve over time.

Quite possibly you encountered one of those people who has some thought process of their own, rather than the run-of-the-mill jump-on-the-bandwagon types!

Personally I’m more keen on everyday stuff than something like a steam special.

 

[HOOVER29]

It's possible to train spot in a manner that is respectful and doesn't inconvenience anyone. No need for the sweeping generalisation.

I was at Elford the other week happily photting from the road bridge.
I was checking out on Realtime trains how the Hull to Bristol Phillips Marsh HST was going fully aware that a Voyager was approaching at speed from the Derby direction.
Next thing there was a massive continuous blast from the driver on the horn. If I was stood directly above the running line I perhaps could’ve understood why he sounded the warning.
However I was over to the far right of the bridge past the loop line.
No harm done apart from the very near miss of wanting fresh under crackers.
Thing is why the warning?

 

[randyrippley]

I was at Elford the other week happily photting from the road bridge.
I was checking out on Realtime trains how the Hull to Bristol Phillips Marsh HST was going fully aware that a Voyager was approaching at speed from the Derby direction.
Next thing there was a massive continuous blast from the driver on the horn. If I was stood directly above the running line I perhaps could’ve understood why he sounded the warning.
However I was over to the far right of the bridge past the loop line.
No harm done apart from the very near miss of wanting fresh under crackers.
Thing is why the warning?

he was worried you were going to drop a camera - or a brick - through his windscreen
or maybe he thought you were going to jump

 

[woodhouse122]

Quite possibly you encountered one of those people who has some thought process of their own, rather than the run-of-the-mill jump-on-the-bandwagon types!

Personally I’m more keen on everyday stuff than something like a steam special.

I always get funny looks from the kettle veg brigade when i'm taking pics of pacers and sprinters

 

[Robert Mann]

I had a conversation with a 'photographer' as he was taking pictures of my Networker. When I asked him why he was taking photos of a generic aluminium piece of sh... He stated that these were the trains of his era.

Nostalgia and history is great but we also need to remember that trains, just as everything else, evolve over time.

I'm actually more interested in photographing modern trains than steam ones. My main interest tends to be trains from the 90s onwards (although I am very partial to HSTs from before that), probably in large part due to those being the trains that were coming in when I was a child. Also, there's something I find very aesthetically pleasing about the exterior design of more modern trains compared to older ones.