wrote in message
...
On Wed, 11 May 2011 15:20:17 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
People like you are everything thats wrong with britain today.

Absolutely. If kids want to work as chimney sweeps rather than go to
school, who are we to stop them?

Straw man. Or should that be child?

Any rule that states that no one no matter what shall do anything on the
railway without prior permission even if doing so could prevent a
derailment
is a rule that needs to be re-thought. Do you think 50 years ago a station
master would have waited for health and safety clearance before he removed
an obstruction from the line?

Perhaps if this chap really was a 'station master' he would have been
allowed that discretion. But he won't have been a station master, whatever
the reports actually say.

Paul

In article , wrote:
On Wed, 11 May 2011 14:48:31 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
Whatever the situation, sacking a man for carrying out what he presumably
thought was an action to prevent a possible incident is just vindictive. It
smacks of management using their powers simply because they can.

Don't be silly. If someone breaks the rules like this, you can't let
them off because they thought breaking the rule was OK. That's anarchy,
especially in a safety-critical industry like railways.

And what if a train had come and derailed while he was finding other
ways to solve the problem? Sometimes rules need to be broken if they get
in the way.

Wellingborough, 1898. A porter's trolley fell off the platform onto the
track. Instead of running to the signalbox to stop trains, two railway
employees tried to shift it. They failed, the express was derailed,
and five people and two staff were killed.

Sometimes, Boltar, there are reasons for rules and procedures ...

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 29th March 2010)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

In message , at 14:33:45 on Wed, 11 May
2011, d remarked:

Any rule that states that no one no matter what shall do anything on the
railway without prior permission even if doing so could prevent a derailment
is a rule that needs to be re-thought.

It's not permission that's required, but obedience to safety rules which
have been put in place in an attempt to reduce risk. Few situations have
only one risk.
--
Roland Perry

Walking on the track without prior arrangement is really not acceptable. the guy should really have known better. At the very least he needs to go through his training again.

If the train was in imminent danger of hitting the trolley - and I can't see a derailament occuring in this instance especially as trains usually go pretty slow through stations - then the guy really was putting his own life at risk.

Once you allow one guy to do this then you know there'll be others and quickly lose control.

He should have phoned up and reported the trolley - with instant communications these days, and radios in trains the driver could easily have been alerted, the train diverted or stopped and the power shut off to allow for the trolley to be removed safely.

In message , at 14:20:24 on
Wed, 11 May 2011, Steve Gardiner remarked:
Not if the safety device which does that stopping has been disabled.

But this is impossible as one part of the device sits on the track and
the other part of the device is on the underside of the train - and
there are many of them so even if one is disabled the others still work.
The driver does not have access to this system.

Yes there are big potential risks on the railway, but this may not have
been one of them. It's unlikely that the driver can do anything that
will lead to an actual collision as far as I know. But again - I do not
know the facts around this particular case, so, unlie others, will not
jump to any conclusions.

You must have missed this posting a couple of days ago:

"Basically, the driver deliberately ran the train with a safety
device (the tripcock) cut out without a second person in the
cab. The tripcock is part of the safety system that stops the
train if it goes past a red signal. A driver must ALWAYS have a
second person in the cab if the Tripcock is defective."

Full report (see para 37 onwards):

http://www.rmtlondoncalling.org.uk/f...9270%20(1).pdf
--
Roland Perry

On 11/05/2011 15:33, d wrote:
On Wed, 11 May 2011 15:20:17 +0100
Roland wrote:
People like you are everything thats wrong with britain today.

Absolutely. If kids want to work as chimney sweeps rather than go to
school, who are we to stop them?

Straw man. Or should that be child?

Any rule that states that no one no matter what shall do anything on the
railway without prior permission even if doing so could prevent a derailment
is a rule that needs to be re-thought. Do you think 50 years ago a station
master would have waited for health and safety clearance before he removed
an obstruction from the line?

How much paperwork is involved in

a) disposing of a bent trolley and maybe jacking a train back onto the
track if needed.

b) scraping up squished/fried people who think the rules can be ignored
just this once, helping the driver and cleaners deal with what happened,
keeping passengers clear of the mess, plus doing it all next time
because a precedent has been set?

When people complain about railway board members getting bonuses in
years when there are accidents, could the board just say "well, the
victims thought it seems a good idea, so it's Not Our Problem"?

(has no-one spotted the report which uses a photo of a 455 yet?)

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In message , Roland Perry
writes

You must have missed this posting a couple of days ago:

"Basically, the driver deliberately ran the train with a safety
device (the tripcock) cut out without a second person in the
cab. The tripcock is part of the safety system that stops the
train if it goes past a red signal. A driver must ALWAYS have a
second person in the cab if the Tripcock is defective."

Full report (see para 37 onwards):

Nevertheless, the tribunal (and now TfL, by reinstating the employee)
seem to have decided that this was not after all a sackable offence,
especially given the precedent that another driver had done the same but
with a train in public service, and he merely received a warning.
--
Paul Terry

On Wed, 11 May 2011 18:37:51 +0100, Arthur Figgis
wrote:
b) scraping up squished/fried people who think the rules can be
ignored
just this once, helping the driver and cleaners deal with what
happened,
keeping passengers clear of the mess, plus doing it all next time
because a precedent has been set?

How likely do you think that *actually* would be? Particularly to
anyone familiar with the dangers of the railway?

Neil

--
Neil Williams, Milton Keynes, UK

In message , Roland Perry
writes

What you can't tell from the story is how much of a danger the trolley
was to trains, and what other, safer, action could have been taken,
which would not have infringed the rules.

It's difficult to know what safer action could have been taken, given
that he first telephoned to report the incident and ask for the 3rd-rail
power to be turned off before he removed the trolley.

I suppose SWT expected all services to be delayed for hours (not an
unusual occurrence for their customers) until their official
trolley-remover made his way to the site to complete the necessary
paperwork.

Knowing Lymington quite well, and the enormous respect with which this
guy is held locally, I fully expect SWT to be smacked long and hard when
the case comes before the forthcoming employment tribunal hearing.
--
Paul Terry

On 11/05/2011 19:28, Neil Williams wrote:
On Wed, 11 May 2011 18:37:51 +0100, Arthur Figgis
wrote:
b) scraping up squished/fried people who think the rules can be
ignored
just this once, helping the driver and cleaners deal with what
happened,
keeping passengers clear of the mess, plus doing it all next time
because a precedent has been set?

How likely do you think that *actually* would be? Particularly to anyone
familiar with the dangers of the railway?

I've no way of calculating, but it certainly isn't something I would
discount simply because it has not been considered in a mass media
report of an incident

Friends who do PW stuff have told me some horror stories about dedicated
look-outs screwing up (to the extent they walked off the job), so who
knows how non-specialists would get on?

And while an individual only has to be lucky the once, the company has
to be lucky every time.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK