Train driver confirmed dead in West Worthing station tragedy (01/02/2022)

[bengley]

Those are long times, but are surely not truly continuous, ie without any kind of break at all - There are no non-stop runs of such length in the UK these days, AFAIK?

Not most of the time, but you might only get such short turnarounds as in this situation where it's just not possible to get to a toilet in time

 

[skyhigh]

Those are long times, but are surely not truly continuous, ie without any kind of break at all - There are no non-stop runs of such length in the UK these days, AFAIK?

As an example, we do a max of 6 hours and get fairly close to that - for example York-Blackpool North-Leeds (there isn't quite enough time to get back to York under 6 hours). Total drive time of roughly 4hr50 with only one 15 min turnaround which goes pretty quickly when you need to shut down the cab, change ends, set up cab and nip to the loo.

 

[Towers]

What I find strange is what the guard's role was in this incident. The train was signalled to depart from the siding at 21.41. When it didnt move the signaller tried to make contact with the driver. When that failed they asked the driver of train 1N35 to stop alongside to find out why the driver had not responded. At 21.49 control contacted the guard to find out what the problem was. At 21.54 the driver of 1N35 stopped alongside the siding and reported the cab door was open. There is no mention of whether the guard attempted to ascertain why there was a delay in departing the siding nor what they did when contacted by control. Would you normally expect a guard to be more proactive in ascertaining why there was a delay or are services so regularly delayed it was not considered unusual?

Agreed.

The report appears to barely acknowledge the existence of the guard, which seems rather odd. There is a bizarre line where it states that the driver & guard briefly spoke when changing ends, and then says that "witness evidence" suggests the driver appeared normal etc - why not just state that the guard said that, which is clearly who the "witness" was. The report also states, as usual, some details of the deceased, the other train's driver & the signaller, such as who employed them and when they entered their role etc, but again omits any mention of the guard here. It may be that the guard played a minimal role, but as you say I would at least expect an explanation of what their actions were when contacted by control.

As an aside, is there not also a learning point here - the signaller can make an announcement via the train's PA system. It seems an opportunity was missed to attempt to make contact with the guard using this method. Admittedly, the signaller may not have realised that this specfic train had a guard, but most trains here should at least have an OBS on board, so perhaps there is an opportunity here for signallers to make use of this as a means of communication with other crew members if they cannot establish contact with drivers.

 

[43066]

As an aside, is there not also a learning point here - the signaller can make an announcement via the train's PA system. It seems an opportunity was missed to attempt to make contact with the guard using this method. Admittedly, the signaller may not have realised that this specfic train had a guard, but most trains here should at least have an OBS on board, so perhaps there is an opportunity here for signallers to make use of this as a means of communication with other crew members if they cannot establish contact with drivers.

They might well have simply assumed nobody else on board? Where I am (albeit not GTR) it’s pretty rare for our guards to come into sidings and ECS movements are DOO.

 

[Towers]

They might well have simply assumed nobody else on board? Where I am (albeit not GTR) it’s pretty rare for our guards to come into sidings and ECS movements are DOO.

Very possibly. Always worth a try though? And perhaps some value in a degree of local-level knowledge or procedure for these situations where a second crew member is routine?

 

[tony6499]

They might well have simply assumed nobody else on board? Where I am (albeit not GTR) it’s pretty rare for our guards to come into sidings and ECS movements are DOO.

You terminate in the platform , clear the train go into the sidings, change ends and back to the upside for the return journey. Guard is with the train at all times which is why it's strange nothing much is made of him in the report

 

[43066]

You terminate in the platform , clear the train go into the sidings, change ends and back to the upside for the return journey. Guard is with the train at all times which is why it's strange nothing much is made of him in the report

Thanks. As @Towers suggests there may well be a lack of local knowledge about what happens where. I know GTR OBS aren’t even PTS trained so they probably aren’t generally booked to travel into sidings?

 

[Surreytraveller]

Agreed.

The report appears to barely acknowledge the existence of the guard, which seems rather odd. There is a bizarre line where it states that the driver & guard briefly spoke when changing ends, and then says that "witness evidence" suggests the driver appeared normal etc - why not just state that the guard said that, which is clearly who the "witness" was. The report also states, as usual, some details of the deceased, the other train's driver & the signaller, such as who employed them and when they entered their role etc, but again omits any mention of the guard here. It may be that the guard played a minimal role, but as you say I would at least expect an explanation of what their actions were when contacted by control.

As an aside, is there not also a learning point here - the signaller can make an announcement via the train's PA system. It seems an opportunity was missed to attempt to make contact with the guard using this method. Admittedly, the signaller may not have realised that this specfic train had a guard, but most trains here should at least have an OBS on board, so perhaps there is an opportunity here for signallers to make use of this as a means of communication with other crew members if they cannot establish contact with drivers.

I disagree its odd. The guard doesn't give two on the bell to leave the siding, so has nothing to do with the running of the train at this point.
As with regards to witness evidence, they'll have spoken to far more people than just the guard - anyone who's seen the driver since they booked on duty will of been spoken to

 

[O L Leigh]

Those are long times, but are surely not truly continuous, ie without any kind of break at all - There are no non-stop runs of such length in the UK these days, AFAIK?

Where I work, there are two measures. There’s non-stop driving, which truly means driving without stopping (3.5 hours, which you’d never get anywhere near), and time in charge of the train (4.5 hours which ends only when the driver is relieved or the train immobilised). We get close to exceeding the second of those on one of our routes, which is 2 hours each way with 15-20 minutes during which the train is shunted between platforms.

 

[LowLevel]

If I was the guard I'd have been paying little attention to events in the siding unless it became clear that the delay was starting to significantly impact the departure time of the train we were going to form.

Having changed ends I might try buzzing the cab to cab after a few minutes but if I didn't get a response I'd assume the driver was talking to the box or similar.

It would take a pretty long wait for it to cause me to decide to investigate the front end in person having seen the driver a few minutes before.

The only time I make my way immediately to the front cab is if I'm in the train working and an emergency brake application brings it to a stand.

 

[Towers]

I disagree its odd. The guard doesn't give two on the bell to leave the siding, so has nothing to do with the running of the train at this point.
As with regards to witness evidence, they'll have spoken to far more people than just the guard - anyone who's seen the driver since they booked on duty will of been spoken to

The report specifically states "at this time" when referring to the driver's demeanor, referring directly to his conversation with the guard - the report has already clarified that there were no other 'witnesses' present at that point. I initially mis-read; the statement is actually that the driver "did not seem his usual self" - all the more reason to elborate I would think, or why mention it at all?

If I was the guard I'd have been paying little attention to events in the siding unless it became clear that the delay was starting to significantly impact the departure time of the train we were going to form.

Having changed ends I might try buzzing the cab to cab after a few minutes but if I didn't get a response I'd assume the driver was talking to the box or similar.

It would take a pretty long wait for it to cause me to decide to investigate the front end in person having seen the driver a few minutes before.

The only time I make my way immediately to the front cab is if I'm in the train working and an emergency brake application brings it to a stand.

But you would, I presume, take some sort of action if asked by control to investigate? That is what is missing from the report.

 

[AlterEgo]

The report specifically states "at this time" when referring to the driver's demeanor, referring directly to his conversation with the guard - the report has already clarified that there were no other 'witnesses' present at that point. I initially mis-read; the statement is actually that the driver "did not seem his usual self" - all the more reason to elborate I would think, or why mention it at all?

The report is really skirting around the edges of what it think may have happened because it is not an inquest (which I note is due to commence soon). But the witness evidence that the driver didn't seem himself cannot have been given lightly in the circumstances. It is not something I would say in the guard's position after a fatal incident where self-harm may have been a factor unless I was sure it may have been relevant.

In any case I hope the inquest provides Mr Olesiak's family some closure. A really tragic incident, whatever the cause.

 

[tony6499]

Thanks. As @Towers suggests there may well be a lack of local knowledge about what happens where. I know GTR OBS aren’t even PTS trained so they probably aren’t generally booked to travel into sidings?

It was a 313 so had a conductor on board, having worked thousands of trains terminating at West Worthing and going to the sidings and back the conductor/guard should have suspected something was wrong if the Littlehampton had gone past and you didn't get the road. The conductor would have been a coach and half from the driver so no problem nipping up and asking him if there was a delay, I'm just surprised knowing the procedure there that hardly any mention of the guard's role in the whole thing

 

[philthetube]

Driving non stop or with only a few minutes for a turnaround would be illegal in a truck. My former employers stated in their staff handbook that anyone driving on company business had to physically stop driving after 3 hours of continuous time behind the wheel and take a minimum 15 mint break ‘outside the vehicle regardless of the weather conditions’.

Driving hours for a truck without a break 4hours 15 for a bus 5.15, what you quote is not the law but company policy

 

[66701GBRF]

It was a 313 so had a conductor on board, having worked thousands of trains terminating at West Worthing and going to the sidings and back the conductor/guard should have suspected something was wrong if the Littlehampton had gone past and you didn't get the road. The conductor would have been a coach and half from the driver so no problem nipping up and asking him if there was a delay, I'm just surprised knowing the procedure there that hardly any mention of the guard's role in the whole thing

The guard played no part in the incident and had no bearing on the outcome. What exactly do you think should have been written in the report about the guard?

 

[tony6499]

The guard played no part in the incident and had no bearing on the outcome. What exactly do you think should have been written in the report about the guard?

I was asking as others have what was he doing and why wasn't he concerned with something that wasn't right, you have a guard on the train but stop a passing train to check if things were ok ?

 

[ainsworth74]

I was asking as others have what was he doing and why wasn't he concerned with something that wasn't right, you have a guard on the train but stop a passing train to check if things were ok ?

Wasn't that a function of who the signaller, who had noticed the issue, could reach most easily?

 

[bramling]

After the comments above, I’ve re-read the report carefully and I think the RAIB have been walking a tightrope here.

They can’t take on the duties of a Coroner so they have had to stick to what they definitely know and leave everyone guessing the rest.

The publication of that notice I read as a bit of devilment on the part of the Inspector - it is so obviously crass. If you have staff persistently going for a piss in odd places, don’t resort to idiotic notices - sort out your PNB facilities.

I do get the feeling RAIB have found this a difficult one to investigate. They’ve clearly picked up some local issues of wider relevance, however no one knows if this was the root cause of this particular incident. In that sense they seem to have made the best of a bad job, but it’s still something of a mess.

One does wonder what input there may or may not have been from the local union H&S, given that lack of access to toilets seems to have been an issue on this particular section of line, and what the response from the TOC was. The 313s have been running on that route for many years, so it isn’t exactly a new problem.

I was asking as others have what was he doing and why wasn't he concerned with something that wasn't right, you have a guard on the train but stop a passing train to check if things were ok ?

I’d say that’s more because signallers communicate with drivers, so it’s natural that this would be the first option considered. In times past there might have been station staff who would have been able to go out to the train, but those days are very long gone.

 

[tony6499]

Wasn't that a function of who the signaller, who had noticed the issue, could reach most easily?

But you had somebody on board the train which is my point, why wasn't he contacted or did he contact him. For all they knew he could have been sat with the guard having a chat and forgot the time which has happened many a time there. You had a second safety critical trained person on the train who didn't seem to do anything which is why I was curious knowing the location and the working there very well

 

[WAB]

But you had somebody on board the train which is my point, why wasn't he contacted or did he contact him. For all they knew he could have been sat with the guard having a chat and forgot the time which has happened many a time there. You had a second safety critical trained person on the train who didn't seem to do anything which is why I was curious knowing the location and the working there very well

AFAIK they would have to go through TOC control, or put it out on the PA for the guard to contact the signaller (if 313s have the functionality).

 

[LowLevel]

But you had somebody on board the train which is my point, why wasn't he contacted or did he contact him. For all they knew he could have been sat with the guard having a chat and forgot the time which has happened many a time there. You had a second safety critical trained person on the train who didn't seem to do anything which is why I was curious knowing the location and the working there very well

The signaller to contact the guard, excepting the DOO announcements facility which would perhaps reasonably be overlooked on a guarded train, would require a call to the NR control, them to call TOC control, them to pull up the guard's details and then call them, a process that would probably take several minutes. The standard process for a DOO train is to ask another train to take a look and given trains with guards are very much an outlier on Southern nowadays I'm not really surprised they didn't spring to mind, even if OBS are generally common.

I suppose the question of what the guard did on being called could be included, but they mustn't have considered it added much to the report. No doubt the RAIB would have spoken to them.

 

[pelli]

The RAIB report mentions the guard being contacted (my bold):

32. At approximately 20:41 hrs, and after train 1H63 had departed from West Worthing station, the signaller set the route and cleared the signal for train 5U57 to leave the middle siding and move into the station. A few minutes later the signaller became aware that the train had not moved as expected. The signaller made three calls (at 20:43, 20:44 and 20:46 hrs) using the GSM-R system to speak with the driver to find out if there was a problem, but on each occasion there was no answer. At 20:47 hrs, the signaller reported the loss of contact with the driver to the Network Rail Sussex route control centre at Three Bridges.

33. At 20:49 hrs, the signaller contacted the driver of train 1N35, who was then at Durrington-on-Sea on the up Brighton line and asked that the train be stopped alongside train 5U57 in the middle siding to establish contact with the driver. Simultaneously, the route control centre contacted the guard on board train 5U57 and asked him to contact the driver.

 

[66701GBRF]

I was asking as others have what was he doing and why wasn't he concerned with something that wasn't right, you have a guard on the train but stop a passing train to check if things were ok ?

Why the guard perhaps wasn't concerned has already been answered previous. Yes there was a guard on board but the signaller might not have realised that and contacting the other train was likely the quickest option (which turned out it was)

 

[43066]

The RAIB report mentions the guard being contacted (my bold):

Thanks for pointing that out. It sounds like the signaller was very on the ball to spot the failure to move that quickly.

 

[Falcon1200]

Total drive time of roughly 4hr50 with only one 15 min turnaround which goes pretty quickly when you need to shut down the cab, change ends, set up cab and nip to the loo.

time in charge of the train (4.5 hours which ends only when the driver is relieved or the train immobilised). We get close to exceeding the second of those on one of our routes, which is 2 hours each way with 15-20 minutes during which the train is shunted between platforms.

Thanks for the information. Such diagrams certainly don't allow much time for personal needs, and if the operator cannot or will not change them, they must accept that at times Traincrew will require longer, and should not be criticised or blamed when this is the case.

 

[Annetts key]

Should this topic be split? We don’t know if a toilet break has any bearing on this event.
And it has to be said, the lack of adequate toilet facilities is not unique to drivers.

 

[Chris M]

From the RAIB the relevant timings are:
20:22 - train departs West Worthing station
20:25 - train arrives in siding
20:25:25-
20:26:04 - driver walks through train
20:41 - signaller clears route from siding, presumably at the booked time
20:49 - guard is contacted
20:53:50 - driver of second train reports driving cab empty, discovers driver during the call.

It seems therefore that there was approximately 19 minutes between the guard having ceased their duties and the earliest possible moment for them to realise something was wrong, in reality that's going to be more like 20-23 minutes as they won't know exactly when the signal was cleared, and the first thought would not be that something is wrong with the driver - particularly as they had at most a few seconds of interaction. So it would be at best a growing realisation, and this all assumes the guard wasn't preoccupied with something else (If it is acceptable for the driver to be using their personal phone during this time then it must also be acceptable for the guard). This leaves, at absolute most, 7 minutes between it being possible to know something is wrong and being contacted, in reality almost certainly less than 5.
It seems likely that when they were contacted the guard was at the opposite end of the train to the driver, it would take at least 1-2 minutes from contact from control being initiated through the guard reacting, answering, the information being given, coming to an understanding, signing off, safely stowing anything they had in their hands and needed to take with them (radio, personal phone, ticket machine, etc) and starting to walk through the train. It took the driver 1 minute to walk cab to cab, the guard would be slower as they will be looking for the driver on the way. This means they could not have reached the driving cab until at least 3-4 minutes after being contacted - i.e. approximately the same time as the other driver was making their report. At that time the guard would not have been able to report any more than the guard apparently not being on the train, and it is most likely that this report would be to their control not the signaller, who they would then need to contact separately if they needed to investigate further, by which point the driver has been found.
I don't really see what else the guard could have been expected to do.

 

[Llanigraham]

I do get the feeling RAIB have found this a difficult one to investigate. They’ve clearly picked up some local issues of wider relevance, however no one knows if this was the root cause of this particular incident. In that sense they seem to have made the best of a bad job, but it’s still something of a mess.

One does wonder what input there may or may not have been from the local union H&S, given that lack of access to toilets seems to have been an issue on this particular section of line, and what the response from the TOC was. The 313s have been running on that route for many years, so it isn’t exactly a new problem.



I’d say that’s more because signallers communicate with drivers, so it’s natural that this would be the first option considered. In times past there might have been station staff who would have been able to go out to the train, but those days are very long gone.

I know I might have now retired, but remembering my GSM-R training, I cannot remember ever being told that a Guard/OTS could be contacted. We always spoke to drivers, so the action in getting the next train to check seems the natural thing to do.

 

[O L Leigh]

The RAIB report mentions the guard being contacted (my bold):

But the report says that the guard was asked to contact the driver, not to go looking for him. In this instance I would have expected the guard to use the cab-to-cab to make contact. There’s also a lot that’s not specified about what the guard was or wasn’t told by control about the situation and, given the propensity for traincrew to “take relief” at this location, maybe the guard thought nothing of it. I mean, if the driver was standing at the door having a slash then of course he’s not going to be coming to the radio/cab-to-cab to speak to anyone.

I think that questioning the guard’s actions is a little harsh given the information that’s contained in the report. Clearly it wasn’t material to the investigation and had no bearing on the outcome of the collision. By the time the signaller had realised anything was amiss it was already too late.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Why the guard perhaps wasn't concerned has already been answered previous. Yes there was a guard on board but the signaller might not have realised that and contacting the other train was likely the quickest option (which turned out it was)

Signalling in the area is controlled by Lancing, where the West Worthing stoppers would pass by. I can't understand why the signaller would not realise that 313's conveyed guards