So, what's the alternative then. Have people go walking the tracks off their own back? stay on the train and hope the fire doesn't get worse? Or for the other incident, what will be will be?
Perhaps guards should only be carried when we know there is going to be an incident :roll:
The thing is, the cat is already out of the bag. DOO is already allowed on a number of lines, so surely alternative procedures are already in place for such occurrences, or am I being terribly naive?
I am quite curious to know how often these days does a guard SUCCESSFULLY protect a train with detonators, by which I mean actually avert an escalating incident by stopping a second approaching train. By contrast, there was NOT time to place protection at e.g. the Watford tunnel collision last year.
I can see e.g. the merits of detonators warning a rescue loco, but even so, detonators are 19th century technology, introduced before a number of other communication methods became available.(GPS, VHF, mobile, GSM-R etc). As long as the replacement can be shown to be as safe there shouldn't be an issue.
I remember reading a guards memoirs in one of the mainstream magazines. The safety requirements of a rake of Mk I's or 4 wheeled coal wagons are very different from modern stock. One incident I recall is where he insisted a coach was removed from the train as he thought the suspension looked iffy. We don't seem to have that sort of incident these days.
If DOO is actually dangerous at particular locations this should be demonstrable. What we actually get is a lot of "proof by arm-waving". (The notion that the speaker must be right because they can wave their arms more vigorously than their opponent...)
If, say, monitors are genuinely unviewable I would hope to see much more working-to-rule going on.