National lineside permits

If a railway does not issue lineside PTS and photographers are regularly trespassing then, yes in theory said railway can go after them through the courts on the basis of Trespass. However most railway realise that doing so is simply not a good use of resources. For their part, the ORR are not particularly bothered about prosecuting Trespassers - what they what to see is the railway removes them from their infrastructure ASAP and takes all reasonable steps to stop them gaining access in the first place.

Providing the fences are in good order (and suitable for the task - a post and wire fence in a rural area would generally be considered fine, in an urban area chain-link fencing or Palisade fencing maybe whats needed) and the signage at the likes of foot crossings / stations is fit for purpose than there can be no claim of negligence or that the railway is facilitating Trespass. Where negligence claims / prosecutions have been sucessfull on Network Rail, that has been on the basis that the company failed to react to keep the fences secure (e.g. they have not repaired damage quickly or not upgraded the fence construction to take account of new risks like a lineside housing development being built).

Turning a 'Blind Eye' to trespass is not acceptable to the ORR / HMRI - regardless of whether anyone gets injured or not and railways will face prosecution if the authorities become aware of such a thing going on.

However if the railway can prove they have addressed the matter of Trespass in their SMS - for example reports of Trespassers are logged to spot patterns, regular inspections undertaken of the fence line, that signage is correct, the railway has a process to consider upgrading the fence type at Trespass hotspots, it engages with the local community to try and prevent by engaging with local schools etc, then any attempts by the legal profession to make a claim will fail. Moreover the ORR will be happy as the railway can be proven to have carried out what they need to do under ROGS.

If the person concerned has permission to be on the line due to having been through an official PTS procedure which shows they are fully conversant with all the risks then again, a legal challenge will fail.

If however the railway does not properly address the matter of Trespass in its SMS or have a robust PTS procedure and some does suffer an injury, then there is the very real risk that a legal challenge to the railway on the grounds of negligence may succeed.

 

In the context of this discussion re. line side access official or otherwise.......why do you support your point of view with untenable hyperbolic extremes. All it does is discredit and debunk any salient point that your argument may hold. As a shareholder in most of our leading heritage lines I can tell you that they are vital to their local economies, quite often the major employer in their locality, some having over 100 paid employees with turnover in millions and you think they can be easily shut down over the issue of legislation pertinent to trespass! Unadulterated rubbish your argument is fallacious and discredited

 

And, to judge by their marginal profitability and cash constrained nature (as evidenced by accounts and appeals for public support for capital expenditure), are presumably not strongly placed in the unlikely event of a serious accident occurring and prompting regulatory intervention. I'd say they are more vulnerable than we'd like to think, large turnovers or not.


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You are getting very confused and not paying proper attention to what I have been saying.

I never said Trespass would cause a railway to be shut down - what I said is the breaches of ROGS legislation could get the railway shut down if deemed significant enough by the ORR.

Also please note, I have used the term 'Shut Down' - it is not the same thing as 'Closed Down' (the former being a potential outcome of a ORR Prohibition Notice*)

The fact that someone is trespassing does in itself not say anything about whether the railway concerned is complying with ROGS - the question ROGS poses is "Does this railway have effective systems in place to try and minimise it from taking place?" Railways that can answer "Yes" by virtue of it being properly considered in connection with their SMS have nothing to fear.

The only way I could see Trespass incident requiring the ORR to shut down a railway (the theoretical ability for this to happen via Prohibition Notices* exsists) is if the lineside fencing was in such an appalling state that it couldn't be relied to keep people out for the entire length of the railway - and where it needed to be completely renewed before they believed trains could be allowed to run again.

As for Heritage Railways and the economy, you have got you priorities seriously adrift if money trumps safety. While its true the ORR do not seek to put organisations out of business, in the case of a very serious breach occurring then that could potentially be the outcome if large fines are applied or extended Shut Downs take place.

For example, back in 2012 The Telford Steam Railway were fined £5000 (plus £3000) costs for criminal breaches of health and safety law, which left a member of its staff with extensive injuries. This was not a trivial sum for such a small railway to find, plus they were banned from operating (thus preventing the generation of revenue) till the ORR was satisfied they had put in places measures to comply with the legislation.

The year before the Wensleydale Railway got fined £4000 (plus £4000) costs for breaches of health and safety law which led to a collision between a train and a car at a level crossing near Newton-le-Willows in North Yorkshire - again not an insignificant some of money for them.

More recently West Coast Railway Company were kicked off the national network around 6 months, fined £200,000 (plus £64,000 costs) and one of their employees given - four-month prison sentence (suspended for 18 months) - a fairly hefty sum of money for the company to find.

Finally my comments comparing the susceptibility of the Heritage railway sector to be shut down versus the National rail network are still valid, in the sense that the political and economic backlash from shutting down a network that carries thousands of commuters a day means it simply won't happen.

* See http://orr.gov.uk/rail/publications/notices/legal-notices/prohibition-notices

A list of ORR prosecutions can be found here http://orr.gov.uk/rail/health-and-s...rcement/enforcement-action-taken/prosecutions

 

Read the thread title and dance on a pin all you like.

 

That sums up what's wrong with the current regulatory system that makes everyone running scared. In the days of the railway inspectorate the inspecting office, traditionally a retired RE officer, would investigate with a remit to find out what happened and make recommendations to ensure it didn't happen again. Now we have a bunch of bureaucrats with a mindset of ' who can we nail for this'. Unfortunately it runs through every facet of our lives, make an error of judgment on the road that regrettably causes someone's death and you can end up in jail. You can't legislate human error away.

 

What I don't get is a volunteer who decides to change departments. Let's say they joined S&T department then takes a PTS which allows him/her to go line side. They are then deemed competent to look after them self when working line side. So why can't a photoghapher take the same PTS course and have the same awareness has the volunteer. The photographer wouldnt be in any more danger than the volunteer working on his own. Both the volunteer and the photographer could be covered under the same railway insurance. I can't see why a photographer is more likely to be run down than a volunteer is. Both have been on the same PTS course so what's the difference. You could say the photographer maybe more aware of what's going on around him/her due to not being distracted from working.

 

I think you need to differentiate between a volunteer who dedicates his efforts to a specific line thereby becoming familiar with both regular and unadvertised train movements as well as the railway's infrastructure. A photographer - on the other hand - is also familiar with a specific line but is liable to visit other lines where they often presume to go lineside because of presumed competency rather than actual local knowledge. It was this latter function that I was alluding to when proposing a "national" PTS at the macro level to prove "competency" and a printout of some sort at the heritage line to provide the "local knowledge".

Once again I am grateful to phil-d259 whose exposition clearly shows hows the inter-play of both ROGS and SMS influences the decision asto whether allow lineside access or not; of greater interest is the reality that not allowing lineside access BUT taking no action to either monitor or prevent it can be seen as a breach of a line's SMS hence creates a liability with potential consequences.

 

An S&T engineer would generally be interested only in the S&T equipment, and will have worked initially with other volunteers. They are unlikely to be stand somewhere to get the "perfect shot" and would perhaps be less likely to concentrate so hard on something that they miss other moving equipment.

 

I know a number of volunteers who have PTS for the main job on their chosen line but also go trackside to photograph and are aware of the risks associated with both activities. As for concentrating hard, in the rule book I've got we are told to look up from what we're doing frequently to observe for oncoming trains. I wonder how many do that when they're concentrating hard on the job in hand.

 

On the Bluebell, a PTS issued by a opperating department (e.g. S&T, P-way, etc) also doubles up as a photographers PTS. The reverse is not true however as a photographers PTS is more restrictive and there are quite a few areas that are 'Off Limits' to holders of such a competency (e.g. The loco yard) but where opperating staff will need to go in the course of their duties.

The reasons behind this go back to an alysis of the risks in the SMS as required by ROGS.

 

Having keep out areas for photograpghers is a sensible idea and I would think all photographers wouldn't argue with this rule. I'm sure there must be some way to get over the issue of line side permits. Maybe at galas there could be a guide taking photographers line side for a set period of time with a maximum number of photographers and with a set fee.

 

Whatever safety regs you put in place and no matter how many bits of paper to fly around, there will always be those with more limbs than brain cells. This is unbelievable, doubly so when he's als got the crossing barrier warnings ringing in his ears

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/...ser-by-inches-at-cradley-heath-station-watch/

 

Maybe slightly off topic (and maybe discussed before) but stumbled on this YouTube clip when looking for something else after the recent Amtrak accident.
Around 5 mins 28 secs it shows one of the dangers of lineside photography.