One of those was a door open incident which CDL does not prevent. Not sure why it was mentioned in the court case.. I suppose ORR put it in to increase the strength of their case.
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WCRC loses judicial review in High Court
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Killingworth
Established Member
Surely the (volunteer?) stewards are supposed to ensure doors are closed before departure and the guard should ensure that they have been. The fact that the train started to move off with a still open door suggests that basic rules had not been followed by at least one person which strengthens the case for the belt and braces approach.
Yes I think that was exactly the point the ORR was making. WCRC are saying that their safety procedures are already more than sufficient to manage the risk presented by hinted doors without CDL. And yet they've still managed to have incidents relating to doors. This undermines their argument that their procedures are robust and sufficient.
If WCR withdrew from operating the Jacobite it wouldn't take long for another company to setup a copy cat service. Its clearly profitable. Its sounds like there is a lot of ego involved in its decision making. Why else would a company with a poor record go to the high court to attempt to block a decision which is probably inevitable and could be implemented over several years?
I am surprised Mark I coaches are still viable for regular main line use. Trundling along at 20mph on a herritage line will keep them going longer!
I am surprised Mark I coaches are still viable for regular main line use. Trundling along at 20mph on a herritage line will keep them going longer!
Sentinel
Member
The first RTC tour is 27 Jan 2024, the Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express, presumably with RTC stock?
If so, WCRC had better be quick and will need a very quick response on a "meaningful" plan.
I'd be surprised if ORR will rush to judgement on any plan.
WCRC currently have a derogation up to 29th February 2024 so that tour at least is covered.
12LDA28C
Established Member
RTC don't own any stock, they use WCRC stock although that's maybe what you meant.
43096
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No, they don’t. The light is not interlocked with the door itself.
Correct, the guard should be able to see that the doors aren't all secure, both from the door control panel and from the external hazard lights, and accordingly would not despatch it.
43096
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No, that’s not correct. As per my post above. There is no indication on the CDL panel that doors are physically locked and the BILs going out is also not an indication of doors being physically closed and locked.
357
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On Mk3 coaches the light is interlocked with the bolt. It is possible to lock the bolts, have all the lights go out (because the bolt has dropped) but have doors wide open.
Or platform staff, but not necessarily!
The inward opening doors on their Pullman stock (both MetCam Pullman's & Mk2 Pullman's) are a nightmare to deal with.
Particularly on convexly curved platforms!!
The key with CDL is that it is Central Door Locking, not closing. It centrally locks doors that are already closed. If the door isn't properly shut, is wide open or has even fallen off the lights will still extinguish when you press the close button provided there's power and an air supply.
It isn't designed to be overly relied upon for train dispatch. It is intended to stop a properly closed door and secured from being opened accidentally or erroneously by an unintending person, nothing more or less.
I used to dispatch full length slam door HSTs and you never really paid much attention to the lights, you were more interested in the door handles which feature a tell tale in that they usually only snap to horizontal if the door is closed properly, to get them do it otherwise requires some fairly obvious fiddling about.
It isn't designed to be overly relied upon for train dispatch. It is intended to stop a properly closed door and secured from being opened accidentally or erroneously by an unintending person, nothing more or less.
I used to dispatch full length slam door HSTs and you never really paid much attention to the lights, you were more interested in the door handles which feature a tell tale in that they usually only snap to horizontal if the door is closed properly, to get them do it otherwise requires some fairly obvious fiddling about.
craigybagel
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As I was taught when I used to sign MKIII slam door stock, all the blue button does is turn the hazard lights off. You can't assume anything else.
Justin Smith
Member
And they'd be right.
The best outcome would be for WCR to find the money from somewhere to put central door locking in all their carriages, but the estimated cost (up to £7m according to the Railway Magazine) would be put on the tickets. Every punter paying an extra few quid for the dubious pleasure of being locked into a train, something which, incidentally, was not deemed necessary for the first 175 years of passenger rail travel.
The alternative is even worse, no Jacobite and far fewer main line excursions, to what end ?
I can remember reading an interview with John Prescott in the RWM years ago, in which Nick Pigott (then RWM editor) asked him what he considered his greatest achievement whilst (effectively) transport Tsar. Nick was astounded to hear Prescott say he was most proud of making central door locking mandatory. Something which makes no significant difference to the safety of almost everyone who uses trains, and, compared to the dangers on the roads, is of no consequence at all.
At the end of the day it comes down to this, if someone opens a train door where they should not and then gets injured, whose fault is that ?
But the unstoppable trend of society is to limit personal responsibility in favour of constantly increasing regulations and restrictions. Basically limiting all our freedoms so that even the most irresponsible and/or plain dumb person is protected from their own stupidity : "it's always someone else's fault".
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I wouldn't disagree with you on many items related to over the top H&S but not locking doors.
Idiots taking out the unwary on platforms, occasional misadventures with smashing doors off on tunnel walls or on the front of other trains and so on - people were being hurt or killed quite frequently through misadventures with slam doors and had been forever and taking away the discussion about personal responsibilities, clearing up the mess afterwards was time consuming and getting more difficult.
Yes, the problem has largely disappeared now but it hadn't then and in an era when BR wasn't flush with cash and in fact was cost cutting it says something that they still went ahead with it.
Forward to 2024 and generally trains don't have slam doors and the public don't expect them or know how to use them.
357
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A figure disputed in court and by most industry professionals.
Other tour companies are able to operate trains safely - it is not the entire sector that has this problem, just one compoany.
I don't like the guy but I would be proud too.
If someone unfamiliar with the operation of slam door trains opens a door at speed and kills someone on a platform, whose fault is that?
Please don't call your ability to open doors on a moving train a restriction on your person. Unless it is something you enjoy doing?
Why are you so obsessed with opening doors on a moving trian?
What an interesting world you live in where some poor sod on a platform or working on the track who gets killed by an open door is irresponsible, dumb, or stupid.
Dai Corner
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Do you think it should be possible to open power operated train doors while in motion so passengers can leap off onto platforms and save a couple of seconds, to get a bit of breeze through the carriage on a baking hot day or to enjoy the sound of the traction equipment?
Justin Smith
Member
How many people got killed by other people opening doors ?
I for one would not be blaming the passengers for opening the doors, no way. I would have thought it'd illegal to keep livestock in conditions of such heat.
What about if the power fails on a train stuck somewhere with no opening windows on a baking hot day ? As has happened before on multiple occasions.
I for one would not be blaming the passengers for opening the doors, no way. I would have thought it'd illegal to keep livestock in conditions of such heat.
I am talking about the general principle, which is unarguable. They are regulating or even banning stuff now that nobody would have batted an eyelid at only 20 or 30 years ago, and the trend will continue. One can only speculate just how far it will go. Seat belts on train for instance ?
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Things progress. Facing points only have locks because people got killed when they didn't. Viz a viz interlocking. Some railway companies actively fought against the introduction of what we see as standard safety precautions on cost grounds.
By 1991 there were apparently over 325 logged unexplained fatalities recorded by British Rail over the course of it's existence cause by people falling from train doors. That's logged of course, record keeping back then being rather different. Even over a 40 year time period by modern standards that is a lot of passenger deaths per year by something that is seen to be entirely avoidable. We of course were outliers by European standards with most railway undertakings using inward opening doors.
That doesn't include injuries caused by doors striking people on platforms, people falling when getting off and so on.
There's a HSE document floating around the net somewhere that I haven't time to dig out with some more hard figures and one from HMRI from the final withdrawal of the Mk1 slam door units on the Southern.
Everyone remembers the golden era of bowler hatted commuters leaping like a gazelle from a VEP at Waterloo and everything being fine, except it wasn't really like that. I've seen enough BR publicity about doors from the 70s and 80s to know that even then they saw it as a risk.
The figure I saw somewhere recently (sorry, didn't make a note...) was 9 fatalities and 1k-odd injuries per year in the 70s. Obviously a lot of those would have been self-inflicted.
Incidentally, it was IIRC common practice in the early days for doors to be locked - until it was realised that the risk from being trapped was too high.
Alanko
Member
Are WCR the GB News of heritage TOCs or something?
Dai Corner
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If the power failed the train wouldn't be in motion and the guard may well open doors if it was safe to do so.
But that's quite different to routinely letting passengers open the doors whenever they feel like it, as you advocate.
Is this what happens in real life on these services?
When I commuted on slam door stock the 1970s it was the norm at busy times to see people opening the doors as the train slowed on the platform and people to jump out before it came to a halt.
But I have not seen that on mainline tours using slam door stock - or at busy heritage events. (Maybe I just don't frequent the right events).
The report in the 1993 publication on Passenger Falls from Trains seems to identify three main factors as far as I can tell: old slam door stock locks failing and maintenance issues, flexing of the carriage walls, and passenger behaviour / crowding.
The first can be mitigated by adding a manual bolt to each door. The speeds on the Jacobite would suggest that the second isn't an issue. And the nature of mainline tours with all passengers seated and a higher level of supervision would suggest that the third isn't an issue.
Moreover - as I read it - the 1993 publication would suggest there were no falls recorded in the report for the west highlands over the data collection period. Maybe because the underlying significant factors were not present to make the risk tangibly significant.
My personal observation is that when it comes to mainline steam is that the the risk is of accidents involving people at the lineside or indirect effects traffic on adjacent roads. Money might be better spent in additional police cover along some road routes and staff cover for some stations. Actively prosecuting trespassing when there are mainline steam tours and publicising the prosecutions might be a better long term safety investment.
Dai Corner
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The ORR found that the supervision WCRC said they had in place was missing/deficient and resulted in them issuing a prohibition notice for the Jacobite.
Merle Haggard
Established Member
My I add a few observations? I worked in an Accident Section around 1970 and my mishap cases included 'P' ones - "members of the public injured or killed - moving train involve"'.
Leaving a train while it was in motion fell into two broad categories; a) at line speed and b) arriving at a calling station before the train had come to a stand. b) was generally impatient commuters who wished to be first to the taxi-queue or car park. B.T.P. had occasional checks to dissuade by penalising those caught; to give some idea of the prevalence of this I clearly recollect that, on the occasion of such a 'sting' at Bedford, they only prosecuted those who, leaving a Down service, had made it over the footbridge and onto the Up platform. That gives some idea of the prevalence of the practice.
For a) it was difficult to see how someone could, mistakenly, open an exterior door on a train travelling at 100 m.p.h. in broad daylight, bearing in mind that all external doors had windows giving a view of the passing scene; the door catch had to be opened beyond the safety catch (i.e., a simple turn or pull of the handle would only move it to the catch position); and that to open a door against the flow of air required some force while holding the handle in the unlocked & uncatched position. The most likely explanation was that it was deliberate although coroners were very reluctant to make a decision implying that, preferring 'open verdict'.
There was a greater stigma against suicide then than now, and relatives were always keen to produce suggestions that countered any such suggestion. There was the added incentive, even in those days, to try to blame and claim from B.R.. The latter even extends to passengers who tumbled over and as a result injured themselves when deliberately alighting before the train had come to a stand. In those cases, there was usually a prosecution for alighting from a moving train to forestall claims but the Press just saw that as impersonal inefficient B.R. being callous and here could be negative publicity.
Record keeping was very thorough in those days as far as mishaps were concerned. A train arriving at a station with a door open or on the catch would always result in a 'D.O.' mishap form and an inspection of the line from the previous calling station. Of course, in those days there were staff available at stations with 'rules & regs' who could carry out this operation promptly. The generation of a mishap form was also motivated by the need to justify station overtime and late running - which, in those days, were part of a system that had the purpose of performance improvement. There would also be a request for the C&W to check the working of the door lock and door were operating correctly..
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DarloRich
Veteran Member
The whole point here is that this WASNT the case - the agreed mitigation plan was not complied with.
Llanigraham
On Moderation
It strikes me that this shows has a very cavalier attitude towards health and safety.
(Note the lack of capital letters in those last 3 words!)