Great Western Coffee Shop

From FGW live updates:

Lineside fire at Filton invlolving acetyline cylinders. 5mph ESR in place, XC told to expect initial delays of 10-15 mins and then compounded due to loss of path across the network.

Yep. Exactly the same confirmed to me at Bristol Temple Meads this afternoon. Oxy-acetylene in someone's shed/workshop near Filton Abbey Wood.

And my train to Shirehampton lost it's path on the way in and on the way out!

General disruption is ongoing, apparently - an update, from the FGW website:

I went past this earlier today!!  It appeared to be a "bonfire size/type" fire in someones allottment/shed!!

Surely the person who started the fire can be prosecuted by FGW/BTP for the delay costs to FGW and inconvienience to many etc??

If it was a deliberate malicous act then I hope that they are prosecuted, and suitably punished.

If however it was an accident, as appears probable, then is it proper or legal to prosecute someone for an accident to their garden shed etc ?

The problem appears to be an over reaction to relatively small or low risk fires within sight of the railway. Fires involving acetylene cylinders can be very dangerous and evacuation of a significant area  is prudent. Fires known to involve acetylene cylinders are fortunatly very rare, unfortunatly the "elfansafety" now seem to regard most fires as potentialy involving acetylene cylinders, unless it can be proved that no such are present.
Cylinders of others gases can of course be dangerous in a fire, but the risks are less.
Present day "elfansafety" regards all gas cylinders as being as dangerous as acetylene, after all you cant have too much safety can you !
Acetylene cylinders that have been heated can explode some time latter, even after cooling, other gas cylinders are relatively safe afterwards.
Propane cylinders used to used on the railway for all sorts of purposes (points heating, worksite lighting, heating remote huts and cabins, on train catering etc.) and were regarded as relatively low risk. Now that the railway has ceased regular use of propane, it has suddenly become very dangerous.

Just a footnote, as someone who works with gas cylinders every day... Acetylene is of course a particularly dangerous case because of its flammability. However even cylinders containing an inert gas such as nitrogen are under such high pressure that they need to be treated with great care and respect - it's not "elfansafety" as you suggest. If one of them even gets knocked over it has the potential to turn into a lethal projectile very easily, hence the lengths that are gone to in order to make sure they stay upright.

Further, if a cylinder of even an inert gas is caught up in a fire, the pressure inside rises proportionally to the temperature; the ideal gas law says that pV = nRT. For the purposes of this discussion, p is pressure, V is volume (which stays the same inside the cylinder), n and R are both numerical constants and T is temperature. There can come a point when a cylinder will get hot enough that the pressure simply becomes too high for the mechanical limitations of the cylinder, at which point it will explode. That will send high-velocity shrapnel flying in all directions, regardless of the flammability of the gas inside.

So, it's easy to scoff at supposedly unnecessary health and safety precautions but in cases like this they're entirely justified.

Henry Shrapnel, born June 3, 1761, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire ...

A couple of years ago, there was a major incident in Bath - discussed here: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3484.0

See the BBC video news report on that incident, including spectacular footage of the flying gas cylinder, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7634501.stm 

Whilst gas cylinders are undoubtedly potentialy dangerous in case of fire, disruption to the railway network from this cause does seem to have increased recently.
AFAIK gas cylinders are neither more dangerous nor in more widespread use than say 20 years ago, yet line closures appear to have increased.
There appears to have been a change in policy from "close the line in case of fire involving gas cyclinders" towards "close the line for ALL fires unless it can be proved that gas cylinders are NOT innvolved"

From the Bristol Evening Post (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/triggers-explosion-fears/article-3271671-detail/article.html):

Interestingly, another lineside fire between Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway is causing problems this afternoon. From FGW live updates: