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Was privatisation supposed to bring competition?

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Edders23

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If you want genuine competition on the primary routes you would divide all the paths up into 2 or 3 parcels and offer them out to businesses who would need to provide stock and staff and pay network rail for track access and station provision

you would then have 2 or 3 companies competing with one another but as they do at the airports they would have a permanent right to their "slots" this would be great for consumers but probably not for the taxpayer and would only work on major routes
 
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Oxfordblues

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Irrespective of the benefits or otherwise of Privatisation and all its ramifications, it's worth noting that, barring any mishap tonight, the 2010s will be the first decade in the history of Britain's railways when there has not been one single passenger fatality in a railway accident. This exemplary performance puts the UK way ahead of most other European systems. That is not to say of course that Privatisation has enhanced railway safety, but when raising a glass at midnight tonight let us celebrate this extraordinary achievement.
 

Railwaysceptic

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Irrespective of the benefits or otherwise of Privatisation and all its ramifications, it's worth noting that, barring any mishap tonight, the 2010s will be the first decade in the history of Britain's railways when there has not been one single passenger fatality in a railway accident. This exemplary performance puts the UK way ahead of most other European systems. That is not to say of course that Privatisation has enhanced railway safety, but when raising a glass at midnight tonight let us celebrate this extraordinary achievement.
Although that's wholly admirable and very welcome, I doubt very much that it was caused by the privatisation of the railway. I certainly don't remember any advocates of privatisation at the time asserting that a reduction in passenger deaths was a likely outcome. I do recall one or two people prophesying the opposite.
 

flitwickbeds

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you would then have 2 or 3 companies competing with one another but as they do at the airports they would have a permanent right to their "slots" this would be great for consumers
Would it be great for consumers? Let's say there are 8 direct paths available from City A to City B - four fast and four slow. Company Y gains the right to use 2 of the fast and 2 of the slow, while Company Z gets the other package, with the end result that their trains alternate roughly every 15 minutes.

For your proposal to truly work there would be no "any operator" ticket (just as you can't buy an airplane ticket from London to Berlin and use it on any airline). So on arrival at the station you would be forced to choose a ticket only valid one Company Y or Company Z. So you choose the one whose train is scheduled to depart next, but then their train is cancelled. Instead of waiting for the next train to your destination, you now have to wait double the time for the next train valid on your ticket, or go to the hassle of getting a refund and a new ticket.
 

Grumpy Git

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For your proposal to truly work there would be no "any operator" ticket (just as you can't buy an airplane ticket from London to Berlin and use it on any airline).

In the 1990's a business class ticket allowed you to turn up for the return flight and get on practically the next one to depart to your destination, whichever airline was operating it.

My life was so much easier back then in this respect.
 

Carlisle

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with the end result that their trains alternate roughly every 15 minutes.
.
In which case, if it actually brought about significantly cheaper fares, cancellation wouldn’t constitute the end of the world for many passengers simply to wait a maximum of half an hour for their next operator specific service, given regular Trans Pennine passengers who book ahead are well rehearsed in such practices already
 
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coppercapped

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Although that's wholly admirable and very welcome, I doubt very much that it was caused by the privatisation of the railway. I certainly don't remember any advocates of privatisation at the time asserting that a reduction in passenger deaths was a likely outcome. I do recall one or two people prophesying the opposite.
Probably not 'caused' by privatisation but in business it is generally considered bad form to kill your customers. Any efforts in the drive to improve safety would be supported.

Airlines learnt this long ago. Profitable airlines are safer than the other sort.

Compared to other European railways the railways in Britain are safer by a country mile. Eurostat has the data - look it up. Then ask yourself who owns them.
 

coppercapped

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In the 1990's a business class ticket allowed you to turn up for the return flight and get on practically the next one to depart to your destination, whichever airline was operating it.
In my experience only if the alternative airline belonged to the same 'Alliance'.

If not - tough. Buy another ticket and then claim a refund on the unused portion.
My life was so much easier back then in this respect.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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Probably not 'caused' by privatisation but in business it is generally considered bad form to kill your customers. Any efforts in the drive to improve safety would be supported.

Airlines learnt this long ago. Profitable airlines are safer than the other sort.

Compared to other European railways the railways in Britain are safer by a country mile. Eurostat has the data - look it up. Then ask yourself who owns them.
There was a string of rather nasty fatal accidents at the start of the privatised era, most of which could be traced directly or indirectly to the process of privatisation and the fragmentation which this brought (e.g. the Watford crash and arguably the Hatfield crash), as well as the profiteering at all costs that it brought (e.g. the Southall and Ladbroke Grove crashes).

After this regulation on railway safety got tightened up rather more, and now with the ORR's regulatory regime you can't even as much as extend a bit of third rail. The attitude to safety, and also public opinion, has shifted dramatically and some of the things that led to the above accidents are now unthinkable. A train crash would be a major news event (just as would be a plane crash). 20 years ago, not quite as much.

The reason for the increased accident rate in other countries is, I think, largely down to the attitude to safety here vs there. The fencing off of the railway even in the most remote Scottish Highlands - whereas other countries don't even fence off tracks in busy city centres - is a good point of comparison.

This attitude holds us back in some respects and for example leads to some inflexibility when it comes to disruption, but it gives us one of the safest modes of travel in the world. To have managed this despite the fragmentation of the industry is probably the biggest achievement of the privatised TOCs.
 

coppercapped

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There was a string of rather nasty fatal accidents at the start of the privatised era, most of which could be traced directly or indirectly to the process of privatisation and the fragmentation which this brought (e.g. the Watford crash and arguably the Hatfield crash), as well as the profiteering at all costs that it brought (e.g. the Southall and Ladbroke Grove crashes).

After this regulation on railway safety got tightened up rather more, and now with the ORR's regulatory regime you can't even as much as extend a bit of third rail. The attitude to safety, and also public opinion, has shifted dramatically and some of the things that led to the above accidents are now unthinkable. A train crash would be a major news event (just as would be a plane crash). 20 years ago, not quite as much.

The reason for the increased accident rate in other countries is, I think, largely down to the attitude to safety here vs there. The fencing off of the railway even in the most remote Scottish Highlands - whereas other countries don't even fence off tracks in busy city centres - is a good point of comparison.

This attitude holds us back in some respects and for example leads to some inflexibility when it comes to disruption, but it gives us one of the safest modes of travel in the world. To have managed this despite the fragmentation of the industry is probably the biggest achievement of the privatised TOCs.
None of the accidents on the British railways you mention were directly due to privatisation or 'profiteering' - the roots of all of them date back to the pre-privatisation era.

You are correct in that the attitude to safety is critical - but can you then explain why the TOCs and Network Rail, which are apparently 'profiteering' have a better attitude — and results — than the state-owned and operated railways in other countries where these 'profiteering' pressures don't exist?
 

ForTheLoveOf

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None of the accidents on the British railways you mention were directly due to privatisation or 'profiteering' - the roots of all of them date back to the pre-privatisation era.
I have to disagree with you there. For the Watford crash the driver's extensive history of SPADs would have been noted sooner if the driver monitoring processes that were being mandated had been introduced properly. The HSE report on this goes into quite some detail as to the fact that North London Railways, as it had just become, had yet to properly establish oversight of drivers due to the change going on around that time. The remodelling of Watford South Junction was interrupted by privatisation and there was quite a lot of miscommunication about what PSRs existed where and why. It had substandard overlaps which shouldn't really have been allowed with a remodelling and all sorts of other contributory factors IIRC.

The Hatfield crash quite simply couldn't have happened under the pre-1994 structure, and was largely precipitated by Railtrack's failure to properly supervise and audit its outsourced track maintenance. Not to mention the approach to spending as little money as they could get away with.

The Southall crash quite simply wouldn't have happened if the ATP hadn't been disabled. The mandatory reporting of this never happened and it had become routine to continue with it disabled. It was seen as an unnecessary burden in some ways. I can't see British Rail managed GWT having been so careless as to turn a blind eye to this. One reason cited for this policy was the cost savings achieved in reduced maintenance cancellations.

Ladbroke Grove was a lot down to the driver not being trained properly and being rather inexperienced. He should never have been out on his own on a layout as complex as the Paddington approach with his experience. The training programme was completely substandard - to save time and get trainees out there quicker, to plug the manning gap that had occurred. Signal Sighting Committees were not properly held on the sighting of the signal that was SPAD'd and the impact on visibility of the newly erected OLE wasn't properly considered in the mad rush to get it done.

True, some of these could still have happened under BR, but some of them definitely owed a lot to the process of privatisation.

As much as the profiteering TOCs may want it, they can't break the ORR's safety regime. They know it is one of the few areas where not playing by the rules means big penalties - not least in terms of lawsuits if non-compliance causes injuries or fatalities.

Other countries simply don't have the same safety culture as us.
 

Railwaysceptic

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None of the accidents on the British railways you mention were directly due to privatisation or 'profiteering' - the roots of all of them date back to the pre-privatisation era.

You are correct in that the attitude to safety is critical - but can you then explain why the TOCs and Network Rail, which are apparently 'profiteering' have a better attitude — and results — than the state-owned and operated railways in other countries where these 'profiteering' pressures don't exist?
Yes, I can explain why we have better results than other railway systems in Europe. It stems from the attitude of those at the top. The old, pungent maxim applies: dead fish stink from the head. If the people at the top prioritise safety - as did the recently departed head of NetworkRail - fewer tragedies will occur.
 

PeterC

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Would it be great for consumers? Let's say there are 8 direct paths available from City A to City B - four fast and four slow. Company Y gains the right to use 2 of the fast and 2 of the slow, while Company Z gets the other package, with the end result that their trains alternate roughly every 15 minutes.

For your proposal to truly work there would be no "any operator" ticket (just as you can't buy an airplane ticket from London to Berlin and use it on any airline). So on arrival at the station you would be forced to choose a ticket only valid one Company Y or Company Z. So you choose the one whose train is scheduled to depart next, but then their train is cancelled. Instead of waiting for the next train to your destination, you now have to wait double the time for the next train valid on your ticket, or go to the hassle of getting a refund and a new ticket.
But at the time competition was the Holy Grail.
 

Grannyjoans

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Not read the entire thread so I don't know if this has already been mentioned.

Competetion certainly exists on the freight but that's about it.

Even so, rail freight still hasn't really taken off.
 

xotGD

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Not read the entire thread so I don't know if this has already been mentioned.

Competetion certainly exists on the freight but that's about it.

Even so, rail freight still hasn't really taken off.
Because the freight companies spend too much time trying to win existing work from each other instead of growing the overall business.
 

Grannyjoans

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Yes I agree
Every time I hear of Freightliner/DB/DRS/Colas/GBRF "winning" something new it's nearly always from another FOC.
 

Grumpy Git

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I'll never forget when the Brush class 89 was built in Loughborough and before it turned a wheel it was transported by road somewhere or other?

Great advertisement for moving "freight" by rail.
 

coppercapped

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From the ORR's report Freight Rail Usage and Performance 2019-20 Q2 Statistical Release to be found here:
The total amount of freight lifted in 2019-20 Q2 was 18.2 million tonnes, the same volume recorded in Q2 last year. The long-term downward trend for coal continues; falling to its lowest amount on record for any quarter (1.4 million tonnes), a reduction of 38% compared with 2018-19 Q2. This is attributable to significantly reduced coal production in the UK due to government targets to eliminate coal related emissions by 2025. The amount of other freight lifted increased by 5% to 16.8 million tonnes compared with the same quarter last year.
and for freight moved
Total freight moved by rail was 4.25 billion net tonne kilometres in 2019-20 Q2, a 3% decrease compared to Q2 last year. This was affected by the continued decline in coal. Construction (up 4%) and Domestic Intermodal (up 2%) increased to their highest ever levels since the time series began in 1998-99 and together accounted for 70% of rail freight moved in 2019-20 Q2. Coal fell by 69% to 0.08 billion net tonne kilometres, its lowest level recorded and now accounts for only 2% of the overall rail freight moved, compared to 6% in 2018-19 Q2 and 35% at the peak in 2013-14 Q2. This large fall in Coal was accompanied by decreases in Oil & Petroleum (down 6%) and Metals (down 3%).
The drop in freight over the past few years was almost all due to the steep decline in coal - what is being carried at the moment is the lowest since, probably, the 1830s.

So more traffic, mostly intermodal and construction, is being won - it's not simply the same quantity being shared around the same usual suspects.
 

Andrew1395

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The employer being British Rail. If the schemes in those days were final salary schemes, then BR (or U.K. taxpayer) would hold the liability to ensure that they were being funded properly.
The pension Trustees had that responsibility. Until privatisation the scheme was in surplus. The scheme was not underwritten by BRB or the government. If the BR pension scheme could not meet its liabilities, Pensioners would have lost out. The government in 1993 would not have stepped in to fund the loss. In the private sector the same would have applied. You will remember the Maxwell scandal. The pension scheme could not meet its liabilities, so pensioners and employees lost their pensions. Nowadays there is the pension safety net. Ironically it is contributions into that that has made many deficits in pensions even bigger.
 

Grannyjoans

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I'll never forget when the Brush class 89 was built in Loughborough and before it turned a wheel it was transported by road somewhere or other?

Great advertisement for moving "freight" by rail.

Yes and also I saw on the telly one of Northern's brand new 3 car units being moved by 3 lorries. Plus, a class 55 attending a diesel gala at GCR also going by road.

What chance is there of other users chosing rail for freight when the railway often doesn't even move it's own vehicles by the railroad?
 

Carlisle

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I have to disagree with you there. For the Watford crash the driver's extensive history of SPADs would have been noted sooner if the driver monitoring processes that were being mandated had been introduced properly. The HSE report on this goes into quite some detail as to the fact that North London Railways, as it had just become, had yet to properly establish oversight of drivers due to the change going on around that time. The remodelling of Watford South Junction was interrupted by privatisation and there was quite a lot of miscommunication about what PSRs existed where and why. It had substandard overlaps which shouldn't really have been allowed with a remodelling and all sorts of other contributory factors IIRC.

The Hatfield crash quite simply couldn't have happened under the pre-1994 structure, and was largely precipitated by Railtrack's failure to properly supervise and audit its outsourced track maintenance. Not to mention the approach to spending as little money as they could get away with.

The Southall crash quite simply wouldn't have happened if the ATP hadn't been disabled. The mandatory reporting of this never happened and it had become routine to continue with it disabled. It was seen as an unnecessary burden in some ways. I can't see British Rail managed GWT having been so careless as to turn a blind eye to this. One reason cited for this policy was the cost savings achieved in reduced maintenance cancellations.

Ladbroke Grove was a lot down to the driver not being trained properly and being rather inexperienced. He should never have been out on his own on a layout as complex as the Paddington approach with his experience. The training programme was completely substandard - to save time and get trainees out there quicker, to plug the manning gap that had occurred. Signal Sighting Committees were not properly held on the sighting of the signal that was SPAD'd and the impact on visibility of the newly erected OLE wasn't properly considered in the mad rush to get it done.

True, some of these could still have happened under BR, but some of them definitely owed a lot to the process of privatisation.

As much as the profiteering TOCs may want it, they can't break the ORR's safety regime. They know it is one of the few areas where not playing by the rules means big penalties - not least in terms of lawsuits if non-compliance causes injuries or fatalities.

Other countries simply don't have the same safety culture as us.
A very informative post, but don’t the accidents you describe, apart from Hatfield suggest more of a straightforward continuation of the series of extremely tragic & unfortunate human error linked incidents that happened on occasion throughout BR & it’s predecessors history , prior to the increase in safety offered by technologies like TPWS,ERTMS, DRA etc
 
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Edders23

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railways are only suited to high volume freight which has declined sharply over the years it simply cannot compete with road freight on other flows as rail has a much higher cost base and the UK is now an importer of most goods so the only viable flows are imported containers where you have hundreds of loads all travelling on roughly the same route so economies of scale are possible
 

coppercapped

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I have to disagree with you there. For the Watford crash the driver's extensive history of SPADs would have been noted sooner if the driver monitoring processes that were being mandated had been introduced properly. The HSE report on this goes into quite some detail as to the fact that North London Railways, as it had just become, had yet to properly establish oversight of drivers due to the change going on around that time. The remodelling of Watford South Junction was interrupted by privatisation and there was quite a lot of miscommunication about what PSRs existed where and why. It had substandard overlaps which shouldn't really have been allowed with a remodelling and all sorts of other contributory factors IIRC.

The Hatfield crash quite simply couldn't have happened under the pre-1994 structure, and was largely precipitated by Railtrack's failure to properly supervise and audit its outsourced track maintenance. Not to mention the approach to spending as little money as they could get away with.

The Southall crash quite simply wouldn't have happened if the ATP hadn't been disabled. The mandatory reporting of this never happened and it had become routine to continue with it disabled. It was seen as an unnecessary burden in some ways. I can't see British Rail managed GWT having been so careless as to turn a blind eye to this. One reason cited for this policy was the cost savings achieved in reduced maintenance cancellations.

Ladbroke Grove was a lot down to the driver not being trained properly and being rather inexperienced. He should never have been out on his own on a layout as complex as the Paddington approach with his experience. The training programme was completely substandard - to save time and get trainees out there quicker, to plug the manning gap that had occurred. Signal Sighting Committees were not properly held on the sighting of the signal that was SPAD'd and the impact on visibility of the newly erected OLE wasn't properly considered in the mad rush to get it done.

True, some of these could still have happened under BR, but some of them definitely owed a lot to the process of privatisation.

As much as the profiteering TOCs may want it, they can't break the ORR's safety regime. They know it is one of the few areas where not playing by the rules means big penalties - not least in terms of lawsuits if non-compliance causes injuries or fatalities.

Other countries simply don't have the same safety culture as us.
After being busy on other things I should like to return to this topic.

I stand by my statement that the roots of these accidents do go back to the BR era.

In the case of Watford both driver monitoring and the design of the signalling were factors and they dated back to the BR period. The signalling — including the shorter overlap for signal WJ759 and the consequential permanent speed restriction of 60 mile/h on the approach to it — was commissioned in May/June 1993; the Railways Act 1993 was passed by Parliament on 5 November.

As you correctly said, the existing driver monitoring procedures were being changed - but these also dated back to the BR period. A total of 953 SPADs were recorded in the peak year of 1991/92 and as a result in September 1993 the BRB published Group Standard GO/OTC 508 'Signals Passed at Danger’. This introduced a hazard ranking process and a requirement to carry out a detailed analysis of any SPAD and then take appropriate corrective action.

While all this was happening North London Railways was set up as a state-owned ‘shadow franchise’ (as part of BR) in the run-up to privatisation. National Express was awarded the franchise on 7 February 1997 and commenced operations on 3 March.

The accident occurred on 8th August 1996, seven months before North London Railways was privatised.

The root causes of this accident, both the signalling issues and ineffectual driver monitoring and training, go back to BR times.

Regarding Hatfield I would point out that train accidents had also occurred under British Railways due to track failure which better maintenance could have avoided. Clearly there were serious and terrible mistakes made in this case, but to say that they could not have occurred under the pre-1994 structure is stretching the limit of credibility.

Specifically the phenomenon of rolling contact fatigue/gauge corner cracking was not well understood at the time nor the influence of vehicle suspension and tyre profiles on its development. A clean rail break might — just might — not have led to such a disaster, but that 30-odd metres of rail shattered and disintegrated was unprecedented.

The issue at Southall wasn’t so much that the ATP was not being used but that the train was running with the AWS out of action.

Professor Uff’s report into the accident makes the following statement in the Preface:
The company (GWT) acquired its franchise on 1 February 1996 and had therefore been operating independently for some 19 months only, when the accident occurred. It would be wrong to see the Inquiry and this Report as an inquiry into privatisation. Nevertheless, the new structure of the industry has inevitably affected the events under consideration. At the same time it will be seen that the new industry is still heavily influenced by procedures and structures inherited from British Rail.
My emphasis.
Specifically it was the inactive AWS which was the immediate cause of the accident, not the lack of ATP. One of the affects of this accident was that AWS, and later TPWS, was added to the list of safety critical items which have to be functional — until then BR considered AWS to be an ‘advisory’ system and trains could be run with it inactive (albeit with other mitigations such as a second driver being present, which wasn't the case here) and this attitude was continued into the early privatisation era.

Uff’s report also gives much background to the development of ATP, specifically in Section 13.6 but which, although interesting, is not directly relevant to the immediate events leading to the crash. Nevertheless I quote it:
By 1994, on the eve of privatisation, the trackside infrastructure was complete (except for the final 12 miles into Paddington) with a total of 358 signals fined. The whole of the GWT HST fleet of 87 power cars had been fitted. The bulk of the installation costs were, therefore, already incurred and what remained was to bring the Pilot Scheme (together with that on Chiltern) into full operation. HMRI were, and continued to be, enthusiastic about ATP. However, just before Railtrack took over as infrastructure controller, BR on 31 March 1994 delivered to the Secretary of State a report on ATP which set out their conclusions on its economic viability. It was reported that the cost of ATP was substantially in excess of normal safety investment criteria (cost per equivalent fatality avoided). The concerns of BR and Railtrack were given public expression at a major conference in July 1994 on Value for Money in Transport Safety. By this date it was becoming increasingly apparent that ATP was unlikely to be fitted nationally. The BR report had been referred by the Secretary of State in May 1994 to the HSC. In December 1994 the Chairman responded, expressing qualified support for the report's conclusion. Further correspondence followed between the Secretary of State and the Chairmen of Railtrack and HSC in which reference was made to new safety initiatives within Railtrack's SPADRAM project, including TPWS. Finally, the Secretary of State on 29 November 1995 made a statement listing the safety measures being pursued by Railtrack and BR, with ATP being limited to the two existing pilot schemes and main line re-signalling projects. Extracts from the above documents are contained in Annex 26. From this point ATP was no longer a national solution. It had been effectively replaced by the SPADRAM programme including TPWS, for which trials were then already under consideration. Railtrack remained committed to the Pilot Schemes as they stood in March 1994, but considered they had no commitment to fit ATP more widely, nor to extend the Pilot Schemes.
The Great Western and Chiltern pilot schemes were thus left in an uncertain position. Both Railtrack and the Secretary of State had stated publicly that the pilots would proceed but the purpose of doing so was not obvious. The operational experience with the ATP pilots was initially poor. Equipment problems combined with deficiencies in driver training and, seemingly, a less than committed management drive, meant that the system was operational for at best less than 30% of the time in the period up to August 1997. This is hardly surprising as two years earlier the trials had officially been declared a dead end and the emphasis had turned to TPWS.


Ladbroke Grove was a lot down to signalling arrangements and sighting which, together with the unusual arrangement of the signal heads and the low sun, set a trap for the driver. But the proximate cause remains that the train failed to stop at a signal at danger in spite of the AWS sounding a warning.

One thing the inquiry should have done at the beginning, but didn’t, was to establish the exact sequence of events leading up to the collision. Because of difficulties in decoding the On Train Monitoring Recorder traces the actual behaviour of the outbound Class 165 was available only shortly before the inquiry closed — long after all the hypotheses, claims and counter-claims had been discussed in public.

These OTMR data were overlaid on a track diagram and they show quite clearly that the AWS warning was cancelled at the single yellow indication before signal SN87 on Gantry 6 (in rear of SN109) and speed was allowed to drift down to 38mph as the train entered points 8051, to be transferred from line 4 to line 3. During the crossing movement power was reapplied although the train was still some 60 to 70 metres before the sighting point for signal SN109 (this being 188 metres from the signal) and about 140 metres before the AWS magnet for that signal. On passing the magnet the AWS warning was cancelled, signal SN109 was passed at danger (all 5 other signals on Gantry 8 were also at red) and the train to continue to accelerate. In other words three driving errors were made in quick succession:
  1. power was re-applied before signal SN109 was visible
  2. SN109’s AWS warning was cancelled when the signal was visible, even if the aspects were obscured or unclear, but power was left on and the train accelerated past the signal
  3. no brake application was made when the train overshot turnout 8057 (about 150 metres in rear of SN109) that would have taken the train (if SN 109 had been ‘clear’) to line 1, the Down Main.
Thames Trains did not follow its own guidelines in recruiting the driver and the training process was admittedly deficient but he had driven into and out of Paddington nearly 100 times during and after his training. How many times does one have to drive over the same stretch before one knows it well?

The most likely explanation for points 2 and 3 is that the very bright low sun was shining into the lenses of the signal head and the driver saw what he thought was a double yellow aspect, so cancelled the AWS and carried on. One can debate for eternity whether this misinterpretation was due to lack of experience or lousy training. It is probably a bit of both — but the position of the signal gantry behind the Golborne Road bridge instead of in front of it where sighting would have been much easier is entirely due to decisions made by BR.

I do not accept that Paddington is unduly ‘complex’, the 6 track layout is only some 2 1/2 miles long. In Germany, in a city that I am familiar with, the approach to Munich Hauptbahnhof is twice as wide with 12 running lines over a similar 2 1/2 mile distance from the station at Laim to the throat of the Hauptbahnhof. It is on a similar alignment to that at Paddington, slightly north of west leaving the station. The sun is also low there in spring and autumn mornings but in addition it can suffer from poor visibility when snow is falling. Paddington is not unique.

We have to thank our safety record on the need for all organisations to have written and robust safety cases - this was not something BR had to do. The requirement for safety cases for each organisation involved with railway and train operation was driven by privatisation. It, and the cluster of accidents discussed above, led to the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006, aka ROGS; enforcement through HMRI is crucial. Other countries are now catching up.

I rest my case.
 
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