Doors and Droplights

The NYMR are seemingly planning to lock doors using the standard door lock and providing an emergency key behind break glass. They are also planning to restrict droplight window opening so that people can't put their head out. Apparently this is as a result of pressure from the ORR following the Loughborough incident last year and incidents on the main line in recent years. Are any other railways under such pressure and contemplating such actions?

 

Is this for all the line or just the trains that go to Whitby?

 

All the line as I understand it. Even if not most of the coaches are registered for Whitby so would be so modified and it would thus apply over the whole line

 

There was a drive a couple of years ago to show that if someone leant out they couldn’t come into contact with a lineside structure. MHR dealt with this using a sort of structure gauge on the exterior of a vehicle and showed that there was nothing in reach. The hedgerows are trimmed back to that point as well.

The mismatch of train length to platform length is managed by staff. Mostly people don’t open their own doors anymore anyway and this could be reinforced.

Each railway must assess its own risks of course, but I worry a bit about the degree of focus on HR, but this is a result of 2 things I suppose, 1) the network is a lot safer than it was 2) there are some HR that are not well managed from a safety perspective - often without incident as yet, but with obvious risks not managed.

 

The Swanage DMU on the Wareham service had restricted window opening, although that was fitted with (the answer to all the world ills) ORR's CDL

 

Festiniog has always locked outward opening doors - one of the guard's checks had to be that they were before leaving Port ...
Capt Tyler insisted when he inspected the line !

Clearances are very close in many places. There's a warning notice over every door / window.

The droplights used to have bars over them, but these were removed at various times.

Something that made me quake was the lack of clearance at Garnedd Tunnel, coupled with the view down to Llyn Mair - that wrecked quite a few expensive camera lenses. Although I'm aware of few direct injuries at that point on the line.

 

Absolutely stupid. 'Something that happened at the GCR'. ORR are a one size fits all kind of organisation it seems. Could be the beginning of the end if this happens and is enforced en mass.

 

What do you mean Steve by "lock doors using the standard door lock". Is that a T key? Who is going to lock and unlock all those doors every 5 or 10 minutes.
What is the emergency key? A hammer to break a window or a T key in a glass case? If the latter how many of the public would know how to use it, and if the windows are restricted like the Swanage DMU (which I assume meet some ORR regulation) I do not think you could be able to unlock the door anyway.

I may of course totally have misunderstood what is proposed.

 

I don’t think you have misunderstood what is being proposed. My understanding is exactly that.
Unlike CDL there is no legal requirement with regard to droplights so cannot be enforced by the ORR. It depends on your risk assessment. However, Network Rail can mandate it as a condition of operation on their track, as they do with retention toilets and GSMR.

 

Good point, if the droplight only opens say 4 inches I don't think you would be able to reach the budget lock. Perhaps NYMR is raising the locks?

 

Never mind the budget lock, what about the actual door handle?

 

Never mind being able to reach the lock, how are you going to reach the door handle from the inside - unless the main locks have been changed so that they can be opened from the inside as well?

Edit: @Steve beat me to it!

 

My first thought was what are the neds going to do on diesel galas if/ when this becomes more widespread. Then the carriage and wagon brain took over and said we may as well remove all the tables from the outer most coaches of each set, as I can see people climbing all over of them to stick their heads out of the sliding lights.

This has been discussed in very similar vein on the SVR safety committee, when we were discussing the GW door lock issue. I wonder if the flow of passengers on the NYMR is such that a 6 coach train fits in the platform at Pickering, Grosmont and Whitby, whether that service misses out Levisham and Goathland, ie missing the shorter platforms, which would reduce the risk of people opening doors off the platforms. The NYMR have already blanked off most if not all of the centre doors on the Mark 1s so you only have 4 doors per vehicle, depending on volunteer levels, would stewards not be applicable here.

The best solution I have seen in recent times in the LSL option of a steel bar that limits, not prevents, heads out of window but allows access to the main door lock in the event of an emergency. The small hammer idea is using already available products for breaking windows. Sadly I can see these hammers going missing fairly quickly. I am against locking the budget lock on Mk1s as, for its diminuitve size, it provides a very effective lock thats not easy to burst open in the event of an emergency.

If this also provides a cattle prod up the backside for railways to assess the lineside vegetation and other hazards to reduce the risk of damage to both persons and rolling stock then thats a good thing.

 

It’s interesting how when this sort of thing comes up, people start protesting, but when WCR did actually try to fight against a similar imposition from the ORR, they got condemned for not following the rules.

 

There are rules (i.e. Regulations) regarding Central Door Locking which is what WCRC were protesting against. There are no regulations regarding droplights so the decision is down to the railway. I'm worried about back door legislation, here. One railway does it and the ORR go to the next one with the approach that railway A is doing it so why don't you? Before long it becomes the norm. I've seen it happen in my previous working life.

 

WCRC weren’t condemned for opposing the rules, but refusing to comply with them.

The worst thing about their case was how it reinforced ORR’s authority by not challenging the rules in their own terms.


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There's a significant difference (to me) in that heritage railways can control both their rolling stock and infrastructure. If people leaning out of windows and being struck is an issue, a heritage railway can always react by - for example - controlling the encroachment of lineside vegetation better.

Part of the reason the ORR is concentrating on door window bars on the mainline seems to me a tacit acceptance that they have been unable to enforce proper lineside vegetation and structure control on Network Rail.

Tom

 

Interesting.

The “hierarchy of controls”, with regards to health and safety has “elimination” (physically remove the hazard) as number 1, and, ‘engineering controls” (isolate people from the hazard) as number 3!