Action after boy partially blinded in Essex rail detonator explosion

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Network Rail has been criticised after a teenager lost the sight in his right eye when a railway detonator exploded.

The injury happened after detonators - which are used as fog signals - were taken from a depot in Leigh-on-Sea and put on on a bonfire at a nearby park.

The Office of Rail Regulation said some detonator storage at the Essex depot where the explosives had been taken from was unsuitable.

Network Rail said it took immediate action to address concerns.

The 15-year old boy, who is from the town, was injured in the incident in August last year.

A spokesman for the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)) said: "Inspectors found evidence of poor record keeping, and examples of detonators being stored in unsuitable locations." Network Rail has taken immediate action, he said, but inspectors would take further action if other failings are identified.

A Network Rail spokewoman said: "Safety is our number one priority. We run one of the safest railways in Europe and incidents such as these are extremely rare. After this incident we took immediate action to fix the issues found by the Office of Rail Regulation to improve storage, record keeping and security of our equipment."

[EBrown]

As far as I'm concerned if you actively steal something, then you live with whatever the consequences of that theft is, an article asking for NR^» (Network Rail - home page) blood because your son either is or associates with thieves gets no sympathy with me.

Sure Network Rail should have 80ft high dual electric fences with guard dogs and razor wire, man traps at every access point, CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele-Vision) everywhere rather than a fence no higher than my knee but people also just shouldn't trespass and then steal property.

I'm clearly in ideal world land aren't I.

As a serious point, the explosives should be suitably stored - that's not debatable.

Edit, son not soon!

[eightf48544]

I would hestitate to tell you where we found detonators stored when we did an audit around our Sutton stations in the middle 60s.

But then it was a more innocent time.

[plymothian]

Put it this way, as the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) man on The Railways said in regards to children on the line: 'rather than being angry their kid had caused damage to fences and trespassed on the railway, the parents will blame NR for the child being able to make a gap in the fence in the first place'.

[thetrout]

But has it been confirmed if the injured person had stolen the detonators in the first place? Perhaps they were completely unrelated to both the theft and the individual(s) responsible, and it was merely a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time??

Also if the lads friends had stolen the detonotars without his knowledge. Is there anything to suggest his involvment and/or knowledge of the theft and again, was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

If there is proof that he was the thief then thats fair enough. But as this is the first I've heard of it I just wanted to throw in a potential different story side... :-/

[inspector_blakey]

Sorry, don't see your reasoning at all. If he didn't steal the detonators and got injured then that's unfortunate, but it's the responsibility of whoever *did* steal them. You'll note that there's no argument about the dets being taken from a storage location. There's no suggestion that they were left lying around for someone to pick up casually. Their pilfering was absolutely a deliberate act.

[thetrout]

Sorry, don't see your reasoning at all. If he didn't steal the detonators and got injured then that's unfortunate, but it's the responsibility of whoever *did* steal them.

That was what I was trying to say... Sorry if I didn't explain it very well. Personally this is the first I've heard of this and made those comments without reading up about it.

You'll note that there's no argument about the dets being taken from a storage location. There's no suggestion that they were left lying around for someone to pick up casually. Their pilfering was absolutely a deliberate act.

Completely agree with that. Someone was very, very foolish there...

[TonyK]

I haven't read of any complaint by the boy or his family. Criticism of the railway has come from ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about). Two 17-year old boys were arrested on suspicion of theft, no 15-year old boy was arrested. That makes it probable that the injured boy was not party to the theft, just a spectator at an impromptu bonfire (in August, not 5 November).

ORR is right to criticise improper storage of detonators, as any authority would criticise improper storage of anything with a potential for harm. Boys, as they say, will be boys. Railways and explosives are only two of many things that hold a fascination for boys of all ages (even late 50s!), and although I am old enough now to know better, it was not always thus. Detonators should be kept safely under lock and key, available only to those who may have proper cause to use them. Aged about 10, a friend and I found a clip of five .303 rifle bullets on a disused railway in Oldham, close to the former Glodwick Road station. Back in my grandparents' back yard, we set about hitting the bottom of one of them with a hammer, even using a nail on the percussion cap. First, my friend pressed the cartridge down with a finger whilst I struck the back end of the bullet, then we changed over. Fortunately, Grandad came home. We showed him our booty, without mentioning our detonatory attempts. He went out and found a policeman, who thanked us for handing them in (!) and took charge. Eight years later, as a trainee TA soldier, I learned how disastrously that day could have ended.

One area where detonators would have little attraction is in the terrorist fraternity. The explosive element is easily made from relatively easy to obtain ingredients - I made something broadly similar whilst a schoolboy, for the amusement of myself and my peers, with home-made fireworks. I am not going into detail, but you get more bang for your buck with other materials, even easier to obtain. I worked in a tin mine for a short while, learning how to handle dynamite properly in the process, and I also learned how quarries use a mixture of two readily available ingredients, mixed in a slightly adapted cement mixer, to blow holes in huge slabs of rock.

[JayMac]

I too, was once a boy. And the railways were often a playground. Some of the things I got up to were down right dangerous and hindsight makes me shudder at the thought of 'what if?' Unlikely that any of my youthful stupidity would have resulted in the death or injury of anyone but myself - the worst that happened was being hit in the leg by a small piece of ballast shrapnel after placing a stone on the line. But there's no doubt I caused headaches for train drivers who saw my mates and I on or near the line. We did get our collars felt one time. Marched home by the local plod to an earbashing and grounding from Mumsy.

Even after watching 'Robbie' at school me and my mate Gary still used the stretch of line along the River Tone between Bathpool and Taunton Station as a playground.