Virtually all (a couple of exceptions employed by west coast) steam drivers are mainline drivers. Many WCR drivers are retired and working on zero hours contracts (hence why WCR charge less than DB) and they are men of considerable experience.
There is a school or thought that the old hands do not make the best drivers.
I suspect that a lot of the investigation into both the SPAD and other issues will focus on competency management. Records of rules and regs testing, monitoring and the big one, route knowledge. The RAIB will be interested in how frequently drivers have worked over routes, records of route learning and route refreshing.
After reading an awful lot of hot air on this thread, at last the voice of sanity.
I couldn't agree more with the sentiments expressed above, especially the bit about "old-hands". I have had personal experience where this was undoubtedly true.
I recollect that there were concerns shown by several companies regarding WCR and these go back many, many years (see various accident and incident reports) I would have thought that the signs were there that an increased auditing of their SMS was necessary. I may be mistaken but I'm sure that in the past I can recollect that some companies took a decision NOT to use their drivers for route conducting etc. after auditing their SMS. If my recollections are correct then that says more about WCR management than it does about the competence of their drivers.
My only thoughts are :-
1) What took them (NR) so long?
2) I'm very surprised that the same treatment was not meted out to DCR over the Stafford incident which was an appalling catalogue of incompetence both at driver, maintenance and management level. I suspect much of the culture that was within DCR is also prevalent within WCR.
From the suspension notice it appears NR were stopped doing an audit of WCR's SMS (and I find it incredible that such a thing could happen) and they ought to have been suspended for that alone. I am commenting without knowing the full politics of the case, but that, in my opinion, is tantamount to car driver refusing a breath test. You are automatically assumed guilty of drunken driving.