West Somerset Railway General Discussion

From looking at the stats it seems that I am about 5 times more likley to be killed by a vehicle when I am on the pavement than die in a terrorist incident.

I've never seen a boy racer handcuffed, face down with an armed police officer standing over him, safety catch off.

Might I ask why?

 

To bring it back to the WSR, I doubt they normally see those sort of numbers at one station at a time, except possibly gala weekends when a railtour arrives. Once a year maybe at most? Is it reasonable to expect more than 800 people there once a year? Or do you start limiting station access in case the numbers do go over the threshold?

The law is a good idea in principle but badly executed. Wimpole Estate NT near here has 700 car parking spaces which are often filled close to capacity, so therefore falls under the enhanced tier. But 2000 people spread out over a 3000 acre estate is a completely different proposition to, using an above example, 5000 people crammed into Brixton Academy.

From the looks of things, Blackpool air show won't be covered by the law as it's a free event along the sea front and on the beach. Yet 10 miles away at Southport, the air show there, similar set up, but it will have to be in the enhanced tier as it's ticketed entry to the prime spots. It just seems bonkers.

 

I repeat my earlier observation about <name> laws...

 

Another damned American import...

 

From what we’ve been told Pete, apparently there are good reasons (that still haven’t been explained to us) why the NYMR doesn’t do social media, so why am I not surprised that there’s no response?

Said this on another forum and anyone could quite rightly disagree with me because I don’t know the bloke, but if I was told what the weather was like outside by him I’d be sticking my head outside the sodding window to double check.

 

@moderators

Do you think the Martyns Law stuff can possibly be separated off from the WSR stuff please?

I'm not sure it's relevant here- but the discussion is both interesting and useful.

*Have reported my own post to moderators*

 

Many good points here, especially including "do you start limiting station access in case the numbers do go over the threshold", but I'm not sure I agree with the first part above. Places with large draws might indeed find it useful to do a bit of planning on how they'd deal with emergencies, but having to jump through government-mandated Procrustean paperwork hoops seems to me unlikely to have an overall positive cost/benefit ratio. Will it be possible to find some examples where it had a benefit? Quite likely. But those must be balanced against all the places where it will be completely useless (and not without costs to implement, either).

I dunno, maybe someone actually sat down and tried to make some projections about i) how often it would be useful, and ii) how much it would cost (summed over all the places that will be mandated to do this). I doubt it, though.

Yes, insurance is useful - but in most cases, people/organizations decide on their own whether the coverage is worth it, how large a coverage ceiling to pay for, etc.

Noel

 

I'm sutre t

I suggest that an example of shoot the messenger! What I may regard as appropriate is irrelevant. The expectations are likely to be set by the Security Industry Authority. As the Act will impose statutory duties ultimate liability for non compliance will lie with the directors/trustees of the organisation whether they are employees or volunteers.

 

And I hope that HRA will continue their engagement there to achieve practical and proportionate regulatory outcomes.