Great Western Main Line electrification - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I find it somewhat ironic that the poster accusing drivers of being unprofessional (which has since been disproved, and I guess which many found offensive), has littered their posts with some fairly awful spelling mistakes, despite being a well educated doctor.

As a newbie I'm not sure what the etiquette is, but it also seems poor form to make such an accusation, and then suggest that the discussion be closed when others seek to challenge that view?

I wouldn't like to be a driver.  It must demand a lot of skill, knowledge and concentration all the time, and I'm sure they all act very professionally. But everyone is human, and so slips will always happen, even if it seems in this case, the original accusation was wrong anyway. 

The etiquette is buried (deep, deep, deep) in the introduction for newcomers thread ... not a necessary read, but somewhere the moderator / admin team can point people who ask.

This is a forum with some amazing people from so many different walks of life and so many different views and - provided they don't move to personal attacks or be otherwise a problem - that's AOK, as is people doing their best with their presentation of data.  Not an example from here ... but I recall on another forum (where I helped moderate) being put out by posts that were all in lower case and unpunctuated; turns out our poster had such disabilities that even that as he posted was a struggle for every single letter.

It has also become a community where the caring and respect for people transcends the mere posts. We ... utterly .. welcome newcomers.  Know that at times they may be a little concerned at the views, approaches of others - but  strength comes from diversity of people and views and styles.

[TonyK]

Perhaps that little lot might explain why the odd mistake is made? 

II, many thanks once again for a comprehensive explanation of what is really going on.

I have learned much from the Coffee Shop, especially from posts by the engineers, drivers, and other professionals, all masters of their disciplines, who put a context to what I have seen. One example from my own period of pre-enlightenment: I used to think that working on the railway tracks must be the easiest job in the world, because whenever I have passed any "road works", nobody has been working. There is just a band of men in orange, leaning on shovels. Many years later, someone pointed out to me that they have to stop and step back to let my train pass. D'uh!

[Electric train]

Thank you”IndustryInsider” at last a realistic answer/reason, and not excuses based on so hypothetical technology that seams to be a figment of some of the members imagination........I will say on more thing and then call it a day on this particular subject......I was a practicing medical doctor and if I had forgot to undertake a procedure be it new or established, I would have rightly be dicaplined.

Perhaps DrKpm should realise that the railways were the first industry to have safety systems to eliminate human error as far as reasonably practical to prevent death and serious injury.   


I am sure the incident of the Pan not lowering at the correct time, be it human or technical, did not out human life at risk ………………………. just the irritation of inconvenience; Railway Professionals are held to account, in this case the drive might have been med screened, been suspended pending investigation (I don't know if that happened in this incident)

[TonyK]

It is, I suppose, possible that the driver forgot for a moment, ran off the end of the wires, and thought "Whoops, better start the diesels and put the pan down!" Outcome - a momentary loss of acceleration, and maybe a few seconds added to the journey time to Parkway. It is equally possibly that he was following a procedure that made it look a bit odd, or that the event didn't happen at all, just appeared to for some reason. Whichever way, there was never any danger to any person, nor to the success of the journey. I, however, once mistakenly switched the fuel supply of a light aircraft off in flight, when I meant to change tanks, which is another matter...

[ellendune]

One of the things that the Railway has strived for over the years and continues to find difficult to achieve in a culture of litigation is to investigate the fault and try and prevent it happening again rather than seek to prosecute. These two things are often incompatible. The equivalent to prosecution in employment is disciplinary process. There is a time and a place for this, but so often in the long history of railway accidents it was the system that was at fault not the individual, people should not be penalise if the system makes it unnecessarily hard for them to do their job.  

[Clan Line]

One of the things that the Railway has strived for over the years and continues to find difficult to achieve in a culture of litigation is to investigate the fault and try and prevent it happening again rather than seek to prosecute.   

The Railway is not alone in this mindset, the NHS is perhaps the biggest "culprit" for this. Many medical "mistakes" would be accepted if an immediate admission of liability (not guilt !) and a heartfelt apology were forthcoming. The fear of litigation (with ambulance chasers now advertising in hospital waiting rooms !!) causes an immediate closing of ranks in the NHS medical/management tiers. The root cause of the problem is ignored until it happens again, and again, and................

Practically every developed country has air accident investigation organisations who investigate civil aviation accidents down to the lowest possible level. Many of these accidents appear initially to be caused by pilot error/mistakes but are investigated to a much deeper level to find out why the pilot did what he did. The end results are very often changes to documentation, procedures and training. It is very rare for 100% of the blame to heaped upon the flight deck crew.

If they can do this with aeroplanes - why can't they do it on the railways ??

[TonyK]

One of the things that the Railway has strived for over the years and continues to find difficult to achieve in a culture of litigation is to investigate the fault and try and prevent it happening again rather than seek to prosecute. These two things are often incompatible. The equivalent to prosecution in employment is disciplinary process. There is a time and a place for this, but so often in the long history of railway accidents it was the system that was at fault not the individual, people should not be penalise if the system makes it unnecessarily hard for them to do their job.  

As I learned many years ago, much of the law of negligence, personal injury and duty of care arose from railway accidents at the dawn of the age.

[onthecushions]

Private Eye's "Signal Failures" column has a piece about contracting out electrification, for Christmas reading.

Nadolig llawen,

OTC

[eightonedee]

Private Eye's "Signal Failures" column has a piece about contracting out electrification, for Christmas reading.

Interesting - but it is not clear the extent to which Atkins are responsible in this role for what appears to be poor advance planning of the project which could be the root of many of the problems.

I also noted reference to "lavishing money on diesel trains" - Ian Hislop clearly has not been inside a Turbo lately!

[Western Pathfinder]

Private Eye's "Signal Failures" column has a piece about contracting out electrification, for Christmas reading.

Nadolig llawen,

OTC

And a Verry Happy Christmas to you OTC.

[Electric train]

If they can do this with aeroplanes - why can't they do it on the railways ??

Indeed they do its called RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) operates in the same manor and has the same powers as AAIB^▸ (Air Accident Investigation Branch); the railways also has ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) which incorporates the powers of the former HMIR and for railway matters the HSE^▸ (Health and Safety Executive) also there is BTP^▸ (British Transport Police).  The RSSB^▸ (Rail Safety and Standards Board) will look at the output of all of these and amend "The Rule Book" (The railway Rule Book predates many other industry SOP^▸ (Standard Operating Instructions) (Standard Operating Instructions) by many many decades.

Also not every incident is investigated by AAIB, a breach or operating rules would normally be investigated by the airline, airport etc and a report sent to the CAA^» (Civil Aviation Authority - about) detailing what happened, actions taken and lessons learnt which is exactly how the railways operate except our reports are made available to the ORR.  Its worth noting that heritage railways are also accountable to the ORR and RAIB.

There is not the same level of scrutiny for highways, perhaps if there was we would have less deaths, serious injury and delays to journeys caused by road traffic accidents than the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) currently has

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

The long-established railway practice of “open” investigations into railway accidents took a bit of a knock after the Purley accident in 1989 when the Driver of a train which did a SPAD^▸ (Signal Passed At Danger) was convicted of manslaughter.  This was close after Clapham, so railway safety was a sensitive issue in the public eye.

The Court proceedings went ahead before the Railway investigation.  When this went ahead it emerged that the signal involved was "high risk" and had been involved in several previous SPADs, but that BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) had taken no effective action to address this.  The Driver’s conviction was subsequently overturned because of this new information to the Court. 

This demonstrates the point made by others that a simple human error by front line staff may have deeper systemic causes.  The current complicated instructions for diesel/electric changeover cited by Industry Insider demonstrates this.

Also, since Purley, railway staff may think twice before being frank and honest about what they did before or during a safety incident, although with more data and voice recording etc nowadays there may be less scope for holding back.

[REVUpminster]

 On 2 January electric train services will run between Newbury and London Paddington for the first time.

 The upgrade will enable GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to run brand new trains with more seats.

tweeted today at 10am

[TonyK]

If they can do this with aeroplanes - why can't they do it on the railways ??

Indeed they do its called RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) operates in the same manor and has the same powers as AAIB^▸ (Air Accident Investigation Branch)...

...not every incident is investigated by AAIB, a breach or operating rules would normally be investigated by the airline, airport etc and a report sent to the CAA^» (Civil Aviation Authority - about) detailing what happened, actions taken and lessons learnt which is exactly how the railways operate except our reports are made available to the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about). 

There uis a handy guide on the GOV.UK^▸ (United Kingdom) website. laying out the three categories of incidents on railways that should be reported to the RAIB. The most serious in Schedule 1, involving death, serious injury, derailment, expense over €2,000,000 etc, or the possibility of the same,  have to be reported immediately by telephone.

There isn't a similar shirt-pocket guide to air accident reporting, which is covered by the Civil Aviation (Investigation of Air Accidents and Incidents) Regulations 1996, although knowledge of what is mandatory and what is advisable is part of the curriculum for pilot training at every level, with much the same principles applying to the student in a single piston engined 2-seater as to the pilot in command of an internationally operated A380. The cases to be reported are broadly similar to those in railway accidents, except that the rules also apply to UK registered aircraft anywhere in the world, and the report should be made by the fastest means available in every case.

[Thatcham Crossing]

387's in passenger service at Newbury this morning, a few days ahead of the advertised date