Jacobite 2023

Booked the Caledonian seated coach from Edinburgh to Fort Bill this morning in hope of a pay on the day on Jacobite. Travelled anyway, to take the service train to Mallaig, which was full and standing with disappointed Jacobite pax. Be warned!

Notices up at FTW station, but no WCRC staff in attendance. Some people were asking where their steam train was, etc. Not everyone has access to email when on hols.

 

I have a number of opinions here. In no particular order, these are:
* It would be unfair to blame GWR for failure to prevent the death of Bethan Roper at Twerton
* Network Rail need to properly manage their infrastructure to gauge (e.g. the August 2016 death at Balham)
* ORR are becoming highly risk averse
* WCRC are entitled to test the law as it applies to ORR regulation of their operation
* Expecting passengers to confine themselves behind glass on Glenfinnan viaduct is a triumph of hope over expectation
* Operators need to meet the standards that they're committed to
* If things are as they seem from the ORR notice, WCRC have only themselves to blame for falling foul of an inspection so soon after the previous prohibition notice
* Assuming that the current ban is tied to door and window use, stopping Jacobite operations is both entirely proportionate (commitments not being met) and disproportionate to the actual risks to passengers.

That does not reduce down to a straightforward assertion that "the TOC should be policing this better".

Edit. I missed a bullet point. Someone from injuring or killing themselves when using a company's service is not in itself evidence of a failure by that company, or of a necessity for additional regulations.

 

That sounds horrendous. I feel sorry for the ScotRail staff working at Fort William. On the plus side, at least the Jacobite passengers still got to experience the fabulous scenery, and at a fraction of the price. An Off Peak Return between Fort William and Mallaig is £16.80. I wonder how it will end up affecting Mallaig, a lot of the cafes and shops there are dependent on tourists from the Jacobite in order to survive.

 

What tripe! The ORR have made it very clear to operators of Mk1 rolling stock about what is required to continue to operate the vehicles on the national network (and I suspect in the not too distant future heritage railways!). CDL, Retention Tanks for toilets and the condition of crash pillars is often talked about, but operators have to be able to prove the crashworthiness of the vehicle generally, including the sole bar (aka underframe).

I can only talk with experience of the currently out of service SRPS mk1 set, but generally during overhauls significant attention is paid to the sole bare and other areas of the underframe. Take First Open 3112 for example which was acquired from Riviera Trains last year and is in the final stages of an extensive overhaul at Bo'ness: 10mm strengthening plates have been fitted to the sold bar around the toilets where corrosion was most evident, with other areas built up with weld where required. All welding completed by coded welders from contractors who are rail specialists, and not surprisingly, costing tens of thousands of pounds!

Photo pinched from David Horne's excellent gallery which shows the rebuild of 3112 (and many other SRPS items of rolling and stock) - Mark 1 coach 3112 restoration at Bo'ness. - RealRail (smugmug.com). Well worth a look for anyone who would like to know the work involved in restoring a mk1 for the mainline!

If anyone would like to help us try and keep a charity owned set of mk1 coaches in use on the national network, donations gratefully would received: https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/20942

 

That BBC article says "The popular tourist train The Jacobite was made famous by its appearances in the Harry Potter films." How much was there in common between the train in the films and The Jacobite?

 

There was a time when HMRI published a structure gauge and required railways to conform to this gauge for all new works and existing structures where possible. I think that I am right in saying that this is no longer a requirement although heritage railways are expected to do so (RSP5). This structure gauge also applied to vegetation encroachment. Their inspections of works would pay particular attention to this requirement prior to approval, something else that has gone by the board.
I wonder how great the actual problem is? I have never seen any statistics on people falling from train doors or hitting heads on infrastructure. Yes, I am aware of a couple of relatively recent fatalities but I do wonder how common it was historically and if this is more a symptom of people's modern lack of perception of hazard and risk and the encroachment of the structure gauge.

As a 12 year old, I well remember a train journey on the West Riding to Kings X behind 60073 as a substitute for a Deltic and I had my head out of the window for virtually the whole 200 miles. I had sufficient perception of the possible risks to lean against the hinge side of the door frame and always face the direction of travel and bring my head back in when a train approached on the adjacent line once I had noted the number of the loco. I'm sure that I wasn't unique in my approach to window hanging.

 

Train speeds have increased since the days of the Deltics, we used ride motorbikes without helmets, cars without seat belts, times change, many riders on the Jacobite will never have travelled in a carriage without modern safety standards and guidance and enforcement is essential, arguably this current problem could put the entire main line heritage activity at risk.

 

I have no problem with modern stock having all the safety bells and whistles. Train speeds have indeed increased but I don’t think heritage train speeds have. You are right that we didn’t have seat belts and it would be foolish to have a modern car without them but such legislation is not retrospective and old cars are not required to have them or all the other modern safety features. For the most part these old cars fall by the wayside but those who want to keep their pride and joy on the road can do so without penalty. Personally I think that is a sensible approach.
For the avoidance of doubt I do think that WCRC should comply with this and any other legislation. I just think that the requirements imposed by legislation should not be retrospective with equipment not built with it.

 

which has been known to happen, has it not?

 

I can't agree with your comparison with a classic car - in the main a car is restored for personal use and will be used by people highly familiar with it's characteristics. A carriage is used by members of the public, including by people increasingly unfamiliar with manual doors, or indeed on the Jacobite - unfamiliarity with UK railways full stop. The ORR have highlighted a risk, backed up by previous cases & /or near misses and are attempting to prevent another incident - that is their job.
We can argue whether the ORR are being harsh for eternity, but in this case it's irrelevant. It isn't even to do with CDL or retention tanks (two items I also agree with incidentally that should be essential on a modern railway, whether owners should be paying for CDL is another question).
In this case, West Coast had agreed terms of an exemption to use the stock and were found not abiding by it. Simple. They were warned and were still found not abiding by the terms they agreed with the ORR a month later. It's either stupidity or crass arrogance - neither option deserves a rail operating license until they get their house in order. They have given the ORR no choice and I have little sympathy with the thousands of pounds they are losing.
I do feel sorry for the 100s of tourists who are having their holidays affected, Ian Riley and his volunteers whose locos are sat cold and the knock on to local businesses in Mallaig etc.
This whole situation was completely avoidable.

 

All depends whether they feel the Jacobite is an isolated incident. If they have inspected other West Coast services and found them compliant then only the Jacobite will be affected.
If that is the case it makes the whole situation even more bizarre, why run the Jacobite service differently? The practical answer is that it may be lack of stewards to man all carriages on 2 services, daily. But these are the terms of the exemption and what they signed up to. Obviously, Fort William isn't that far away after all to be off the ORR's radar..

 

This is a cogent point. Expectations for how safe we expect to be have changed. There is room for debate about the respective responsibilities of the state and of individuals for their own safety, and all that H&SaW stuff is sometimes done to excess, but it does save many injuries and deaths.

The authorities could have adopted that approach. Just as it is possible, though expensive, to fit central door locking to older coaches, it would be quite possible, and not even very expensive, to fit seat belts to an old car, although the anchor points might not be as good as in a modern car. However the owner of the old car is allowed to expose him/herself to the additional risk from not having a seat belt and also to expose any passengers (or other drivers of the car) to that risk. At least when you get into the car you put your seat belt on as a matter of course (unless you're one of the few who refuse), whereas in the old car you realise that there is no belt.
The point is well made that some of the people who ride on heritage lines or railtours have no experience of older rolling stock. But one size doesn't fit all: ORR does require heritage lines to manage the risk of people leaning out, but does not require them to prohibit it as it does the railtour operators.

 

There is a difference between a point to point service like the Jacobite, and a railtour.


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Not as far as the stock is concerned, which is what the exemption (& agreed mitigation) applies too.

 

But there is in usage. Which is where I find it interesting that it appears to be the Jacobite that is subject to restrictions, not the whole WCRC operation.


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ORR will take a risk based approach to their decision making, which means the individual circumstances of the Jacobite operation will be factored in.

Given it is aimed squarely at tourists, a sizeable number of which are unlikely to be familiar with UK style rolling stock, then I can understand why ORR consider the likelihood of a risk scenario to be higher therefore the overall risk to be higher.

They will also consider what mitigations are proportionate to control that risk to ALARP principles. In this case something was agreed, appears not to have been adhered to on the follow up inspection, which has resulted in further requirements being agreed / imposed (it's not quite clear which yet).

Regards,

Dan

 

This whole saga is a huge disappointment for the main line steam movement and I do wonder if it is, at least partly, a case of 'familiarity breeds contempt' - an operation that has been running for so long that it becomes prone to slackness and complacency.

 

Excellent! Your own work?