Given up with Southern Rail.
Discussion
SWTH said:
I'm not prepared to repeatedly explain for you the definition of safe. Therefore, allow me to spell it out once and for all:
1. The railway operates on the basis of safe/not safe. No in betweens, no extra definition required.
2. The Rule Book, Appendix to the Rule Book and several other publications cover the safe method of operation of the railway.
3. We, as railwaymen are very well aware that nothing is without risk. This is why we develop safe methods of working. Not 'safe as reasonably practicable methods of working'.
4. If I told a manager that what I was doing was 'reasonably safe', at the very least I would expect to be told to go away and think about what I was doing, if not expect retraining and observation of my working practices. For the final time, we work to a straight, no grey areas, yes or no answer of safe or not safe.
Knock the semantics on the head and accept that we DO know what we are talking about. If you have anything worthwhile to contribute, then do so. If not, stop posting utter b
ks.
I am prepared to assist you to understand the meaning of "as safe as reasonably practicable". The HSE have some knowledge.1. The railway operates on the basis of safe/not safe. No in betweens, no extra definition required.
2. The Rule Book, Appendix to the Rule Book and several other publications cover the safe method of operation of the railway.
3. We, as railwaymen are very well aware that nothing is without risk. This is why we develop safe methods of working. Not 'safe as reasonably practicable methods of working'.
4. If I told a manager that what I was doing was 'reasonably safe', at the very least I would expect to be told to go away and think about what I was doing, if not expect retraining and observation of my working practices. For the final time, we work to a straight, no grey areas, yes or no answer of safe or not safe.
Knock the semantics on the head and accept that we DO know what we are talking about. If you have anything worthwhile to contribute, then do so. If not, stop posting utter b
ks.http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/theory/alarpglance.htm
Rolling stock is a tangible example of "as safe as reasonably practicable" in that newer stock is probably safer than older stock, but that doesn't mean that you stop using the older stock immediately.
Countdown said:
V8 Fettler said:
If I'm not using the passenger rail network then why should I have to pay for it?
Because, even though you're not using them, you still benefit from them.Because, even though you're not using them now, you may well need to use them one day. (It's called strategic planning).
Because,even though you may never ever use them, they're a vital,part of our national infrastructure and suggesting that people only pay for the stuff that they are currently using is a very blinkered approach.
What percentage of commuting relies on the passenger rail network? 10%?
No-one subsidises my commuting costs, in fact it's the precise opposite.
schmunk said:
V8 Fettler said:
If I'm not using the passenger rail network then why should I have to pay for it?
It's a public good, like the NHS, like the police, fire and ambulance services, like roads, like energy infrastructure, like the armed forces, etc. etc.Rick101 said:
What about all the goods delivered by freight?
What about the coal that keeps your lights on?
What about nuclear freight?
What about the poor old Queen?
What about a motorway network that would be completely congested if all rail traffic all moved to road?
Transport is a public need and should be subsided from the public purse.
Of course we are going away from that, so we also get folk moaning about how much season tickets cost.
Passenger rail network.What about the coal that keeps your lights on?
What about nuclear freight?
What about the poor old Queen?
What about a motorway network that would be completely congested if all rail traffic all moved to road?
Transport is a public need and should be subsided from the public purse.
Of course we are going away from that, so we also get folk moaning about how much season tickets cost.
What percentage of goods are carried by rail in the UK? 10%? And most of that starts and ends on the road network. Spend the £20billion annual tax-take from motorists on the road network to ease congestion.
Is not road transport also a public need that should also be subsidised from the public purse? Or at the very least be revenue neutral?
V8 Fettler said:
Isn't the road network a greater public good? After all, many more people use the roads than the passenger rail network, so shouldn't the road network be subsidised?
Apart from a small stretch of motorway and a couple of bridges / tunnels, the road network is 100% subsidised. Perhaps you're confused with VED charges and the taxes on fuel. If that's a coven maybe you should change your name to eFettler.
Edited by schmunk on Friday 15th July 08:42
Rick101 said:
Good post.
I'm a big fan of safe working though have been amazed at the lengths some folk will go to to declare something unsafe to get a night off!
Safety used to be Number 1 priority for a certain Railway company, except it wasn't, money was. Then people died.
Just because someone dies doesnt mean it isnt safeI'm a big fan of safe working though have been amazed at the lengths some folk will go to to declare something unsafe to get a night off!
Safety used to be Number 1 priority for a certain Railway company, except it wasn't, money was. Then people died.
Otherwise youre into 'the only safe railway is a closed railway'
which obviously wouldnt work as a railway
Same as the current mantra about level crossings
'The only safe crossing is a closed crossing'
and so is pretty useless as a crossing
The trick is to approach it as acceptable risk
What is an acceptable risk for running a railway (or keeping a crossing open).
If it meets the acceptable risk it's deemed safe.
Being human is an acceptable risk
Is anyone actually still reading V8fettler's posts, or like me just scrolling past with a mental picture of him sat there with his fingers in his ears going "Nahnahnahnah not listening, can't hear you"?
Almost unbelievably, this is mostly due to the Bombardier rolling stock that makes up most of the traffic through Hassocks being so badly desinged that the side cab window is some distance from the driver, behind them and inaccessible. The seat design means you have to either get up and walk round the back of it to get to the window, kneel on the seat facing backwards or twist like a contortionist to see back out of the window, none of which were deemed safe or timely working practices by union or TOCs. Why they persisted so long with Bombardier rubbish is another argument, but given that their main business is making Lear jets and the like it constantly surprises me you don't hear about them falling from the sky in flaming ruin on a daily basis. I can only assume they throw them together with a lot more care and attention than they do their trains...
Anyway, if I drive a train with defective monitors I tend to report it at the end of the journey rather than the start, thus affording me the luxury of pretending it's a 319 or 313 or whatever and being able to use the on-platform equipment. It would probably get me disciplined but I figure the paying public probably don't want to miss their stop because the driver can't be bothered to turn round in his seat and look out of the window
rs1952 said:
Whilst I don't disagree with what you are saying, the fact still remains that approximately 30% of passenger services are currently running DOO around the country.
However, another issue on DOO that has been aired at length in another group of which I am a member is skip-stopping, where trains booked to call at a given station do not do so despite the fact that the train in question is not running late (which should theoretically be the only reason for this practice, to return the train to its booked path).
It appears to have emerged on that forum that skip stopping is happening with DOO trains when the CCTV at a given station is out of service. Without the platform CCTV in operation the driver is unable to easily establish whether the doors are clear, so the train doesn't stop.
As I understand it, this is a particular problem at Hassocks, but am happy to be corrected by any staff working on that line who post here and know better.
This is probably because of a failure of the on-train monitors on a DOO service. The instruction (because of the railway's binary "Safe" attitude) is that if the DOO monitors fail on the train then it is to call at stations manned by trained dispatch staff only. They are NOT to use the on-platform dispatch equipment, be it monitors, mirrors or pure blind luck.However, another issue on DOO that has been aired at length in another group of which I am a member is skip-stopping, where trains booked to call at a given station do not do so despite the fact that the train in question is not running late (which should theoretically be the only reason for this practice, to return the train to its booked path).
It appears to have emerged on that forum that skip stopping is happening with DOO trains when the CCTV at a given station is out of service. Without the platform CCTV in operation the driver is unable to easily establish whether the doors are clear, so the train doesn't stop.
As I understand it, this is a particular problem at Hassocks, but am happy to be corrected by any staff working on that line who post here and know better.
Almost unbelievably, this is mostly due to the Bombardier rolling stock that makes up most of the traffic through Hassocks being so badly desinged that the side cab window is some distance from the driver, behind them and inaccessible. The seat design means you have to either get up and walk round the back of it to get to the window, kneel on the seat facing backwards or twist like a contortionist to see back out of the window, none of which were deemed safe or timely working practices by union or TOCs. Why they persisted so long with Bombardier rubbish is another argument, but given that their main business is making Lear jets and the like it constantly surprises me you don't hear about them falling from the sky in flaming ruin on a daily basis. I can only assume they throw them together with a lot more care and attention than they do their trains...
Anyway, if I drive a train with defective monitors I tend to report it at the end of the journey rather than the start, thus affording me the luxury of pretending it's a 319 or 313 or whatever and being able to use the on-platform equipment. It would probably get me disciplined but I figure the paying public probably don't want to miss their stop because the driver can't be bothered to turn round in his seat and look out of the window
Edited by Nik da Greek on Friday 15th July 10:18
Incidentally, the approved safe method of self-dispatch when there are no DOO monitors or mirrors provided at the station (or should the driver not manage to stop so he can see in them) is that he should leave the cab and walk back until he can be sure beyond any doubt that it is safe to close the doors, closing each coach-worth of doors locally if necessary, return to the cab to check interlock is achieved and then make another visual check nothing is stuck in any doors/no fools are clinging on the sidesteps/buggies handles stuck in them/etc etc before moving off. With a twelve-car train on a bendy platform, this is obviously going to take a long old time (especially givent he speed the average driver moves at!) and goes some way to explaining why the TOC would often rather knock out stops than have all that faffing about going on.
The bottom line is that if a train belonging to any given TOC has a delay, they are fined not only for those delay minutes but also the delay minutes accrued by every other service affected by the causal train. With the density of trafic on the Brighton Main Line, you can imagine that a delay of even a couple of minutes soon causes thousands of punds of fines and this, sadly, is what the TOCs operational control centre will be most aware of. It is also why at the moment... cynically speaking... it is cheaper for Southern (for e.g.) to cancel a train than run it catastrophically late and accrue fines for every minute it's late and every minute it makes anything else late.
The bottom line is that if a train belonging to any given TOC has a delay, they are fined not only for those delay minutes but also the delay minutes accrued by every other service affected by the causal train. With the density of trafic on the Brighton Main Line, you can imagine that a delay of even a couple of minutes soon causes thousands of punds of fines and this, sadly, is what the TOCs operational control centre will be most aware of. It is also why at the moment... cynically speaking... it is cheaper for Southern (for e.g.) to cancel a train than run it catastrophically late and accrue fines for every minute it's late and every minute it makes anything else late.
Nik da Greek said:
Is anyone actually still reading V8fettler's posts, or like me just scrolling past with a mental picture of him sat there with his fingers in his ears going "Nahnahnahnah not listening, can't hear you"?
I can't be bothered to reply to him any more. I don't think I can dumb down the information to his required level.SWTH said:
Nik da Greek said:
Is anyone actually still reading V8fettler's posts, or like me just scrolling past with a mental picture of him sat there with his fingers in his ears going "Nahnahnahnah not listening, can't hear you"?
I can't be bothered to reply to him any more. I don't think I can dumb down the information to his required level.
eldar said:
RemyMartin said:
Conversely he does not use the passenger network so his opinion counts for the same as the stuff I've just unblocked from my toilet.
He does help pay for it, though... Every ticket bought is subsidised around a tenner, or eighteen quid in Scotland.
schmunk said:
V8 Fettler said:
Isn't the road network a greater public good? After all, many more people use the roads than the passenger rail network, so shouldn't the road network be subsidised?
Apart from a small stretch of motorway and a couple of bridges / tunnels, the road network is 100% subsidised. Perhaps you're confused with VED charges and the taxes on fuel. If that's a coven maybe you should change your name to eFettler.
Edited by schmunk on Friday 15th July 08:42
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