Jacobite 2024

I know that crossing very well having crossed it many times in the last 30 years,and i will say that heading to the Fort it is a bit concealed and curves just after the crossing.If I remember correctly this was the main road before the bye- pass was built. Parking at the crossing led up steps to a shot on the hill looking down.
There was also a foot crossing about 50 yds after the barrier crossing heading for the Fort.

 

Assuming that was what happened, I agree.

However, it’s not the scale of error that really matters, but the consequences. I mentioned the Spital Junction and Craven Arms reports from RAIB earlier - they illustrate the point. Spital was a simple and trivial error, easily explained, but people were hurt. Craven Arms was a safety digest, because (thankfully) the lorry got clear 2 seconds before the train would have hit it.

 

You are right Henry, it was the main road. I just remember it as such and nearly had an unfortunate encounter with one of those red Ferguson trucks there that are always going up and down to Mallaig. After the village the old road was taken up and the course of it grassed over.

 

That’s all part of the skill of driving a steam loco and is something done on every heritage railway with steam locos and was just an everyday thing in times past. It’s not a difficult task. How often to drivers have to stop at a column for water? There’s little room if you want to get it right. As far as I’m concerned, I have stopping points for all these things and I think that’s the norm with most , if not all, drivers and part of the route knowledge. Sometimes, these stopping points are official or semi official such as a little yellow line on the platform at Whitby and if I stop opposite this I haven’t hit the buffers (a technical spad) which I can’t see. Sometimes just a convenient ‘something’. For example, if I stop with my nose opposite the leg of the running in board at Levisham, I know that I’m fairly close to the signal but haven’t spadded. Most locos are reasonably similar in the position of the driver relative to the front and rear, the couple of feet difference between large and small not being that significant.

 

As @Steve has said, you rarely look at where the front or back of the loco is when stopping a steam loco - instead you look for a specific feature that will typically be adjacent to the cab - "if I stop with the cab by final lamp post, the front of the engine will be inside the signal". So I think it is somewhat irrelevant that the driver is not at the front of the engine, provided they have experience on the line to know where their stopping markers are.

In the context of stopping a train, I'd suggest 20ft is a pretty big error, not "only" 20ft. The recent accident at the GCR involved stopping only 5 feet long, but resulted in a passenger injury with a door off the end of the level part of the platform. Had that been a 20 feet overshoot, the door would scarcely even have been over the platform ramp. I also don't think it is particularly relevant that the controls are behind you when running tender first, since you don't need to look at them to operate them. You don't complain that your car's brake pedal is tucked away out of sight in the footwell and therefore hard to operate, do you?

Tom

 

With respect that’s a rather spurious comment, no mistake should happen or it wouldn’t be a mistake! We won’t know anything until the investigation is completed, the last time I was there the track was fairly overgrown so could even be the wheels picking up on a greasy rail, the line is on a falling gradient of 1 in 70 for eastbound trains. I cannot remember any other incident on the Jacobite making the news which illustrates the skill and competence of the engine crews on a line that’s challenging at the best of times.
The Scotsman has also been a bit naughty in using an old picture of the crossing. It used to be an open crossing with just red flashing lights operated by the driver pressing the plunger on the stop board post. It now has half barriers that I’m sure come down before the train reaches the station. They certainly do for trains coming the other way as I’ve stood by them to take pictures.

 

My response was simply to your post and disagreeing to your thoughts on the subject, not a criticism of the driver or WCRC. I can’t comment on the actual incident as I know neither the place nor the circumstances. Spads are a fact of life on railways and happen for a host of reasons which may or not be driver error. I had one many years ago which was later deemed to be not my fault. A simple spad is not immediately reportable to the ORR unlike some dangerous occurrences. Depending on the circumstances the ORR might investigate them.

 

Untill the ORR investigation has been completed, and its findings published, It's best to not comment on the spad, other to say, they do indeed happen, and it can be caused by any number of things,
the Jacobite is a regular operation during the season, and as such the crews should know the line very well, including the stopping markers for when running tender first, So clearly something went wrong on this particular day.

 

The second part of your post seems to ignore the sound advice proffered initially....

 

Both paragraphs are consistent. It is a fact that SPADs can have many causes and it is another fact that one of those causes happened. We don't know what went wrong on this occasion and should not speculate. RAIB will eventually tell us.

 

Or not. Surely SPADs only get referred under certain criteria like how many points they score on a risk assessment, whether there are key learning points of wider application etc. If every SPAD got an RAIB report, RAIB would be ten times the size. Even I have been on a train which slid marginally past a signal in leaf fall season. Driver drove extremely cautiously and still couldn't stop it. Not much to learn from that.

 

If there was a worry about stopping at a particular location, the TOC could work with the NR route, who would facilitate some sort of signage to reduce the risk.

Where the sign is located relative to the train is something to be worked out within the project, different multiple units have different boards to cope with central or left-handed driving positions, long or short noses etc, something similar could be worked out for steam locos easily.

 

Amongst the talk of the Spad a reminder of why (partly) these trains are successful. The scenery they run through, Sunday was a sparkling day in the west highlands .

 

As I've said elsewhere Karl excellent,

 

Very kind Henry, thankyou. I just dropped lucky with the weather on my one day. I think I got 16 shots in total.

 

Oh wow @Karlh, those are stunning!

 

That's very kind of you, thank you. In that scenery though with that weather I got a lot of natural help!

Three others from yesterday. More can be seen on my Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/146487151@N02/

 

I generally have an aversion to drones but….. stunning! I assume the clag on Arnabol Viaduct was pre arranged.

 

Cheers John. Just a 'something out of it' rather than a request for working it.