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Historically steam locomotives have a bad record with actual use of safety systems. IIRC accident investigators found that one locomotive retrofitted with the c

Historically steam locomotives have a bad record with actual use of safety systems. IIRC accident investigators found that one locomotive retrofitted with the current minimum allowable safety equipment (TPWS) was routinely being operated in a "cut out" mode intended only for service use but in passenger service. In this mode no actual safety is achieved, the locomotive can (and does) for example pass danger signals without action - which is why accident investigators were looking at it, it had been involved in an accident which should have been impossible because it simply sailed through red lights like a distracted driver playing Candy Crush as their SUV rolls through a busy intersection. On a typical "modern" (ie late 20th century) train like the mainline EMUs I would normally catch when I was a commuter decades ago, the equivalent "cut out" is a glass sealed MCB in the cab, a driver who wants to get rid of this safety feature has to destroy a tell-tale glass seal and company regulations will make them write up why it was necessary then replace it - and of course the automation records each occurrence because why wouldn't it. The paperwork is a faff, so is getting a new unique numbered seal, so drivers actually choose the non-risky option when it's available. On the steam loco, that "cut out" is operated by cutting a cable tie. The cable ties aren't unique of course, and so investigators found countless broken ties littering the dirty cab of the steam locomotive, because you just cut the tie, do what you want and before signing off try to remember to fit a new cable tie. No actual safety delivered.

lambdas 2y ago
Yeah, the steam operators raised hell over having to follow the central locking for doors and sealing of windows passengers could stick their head out of. Wasn’t even prospective, preventative action. There was pretty rash series of decapitations/fatalities in the past decade of people who think sticking their head out of a moving train is risk free that lead to this ruling being made mandatory. They kicked off claiming it would ruin the ambience, but really it cost a very pretty penny. They’d do anything to save a few quid; it’s amazing how they used to get cheap oil lube and coal from Russia, and since the war they’ve miraculously been managing to procure the same rates from new companies that have appeared overnight/moved production to sanction-less countries just over the border like Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan etc.
- adminu 2y ago
  Sorry, but sticking your head out the window is one of the greatest perks of going on a heritage train. That really IS about the ambiance.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    It turns out UK society wasn't OK with "Sometimes people get decapitated" as the price of this perk, and it also wasn't happy with "Increase the clearance for structure gauge" because that would solve the decapitations but is eye-wateringly expensive in many places or would mean demolishing things society also wanted, like bridges, castles, or other buildings which are too close.
    - lazystar 2y ago
      what about "make one car skinnier than normal so that folks can open windows on it without risking their necks"?
- pjc50 2y ago
  The "slam door" carriages survived way past their sell by date. I travelled on them in the 1990s. The only advantage is quick de-boarding .. because you can open the door while the train is still moving. Everything else about them is spectacularly dangerous 1800s levels of safety.
  - xnorswap 2y ago
    I'm confused about what exactly constitutes "slam door", because wikipedia says they were last in operation 2005, but there were definitely still the type of "open the window to open manually" type used on the Reading / Paddington line well after that. Is the difference that they had central-locking?
    - dspillett 2y ago
      IIRC it largely depended on the age of the carriage. Some newer slam-door carriages had the door sensor and remotely operable lock, but most of the stock did not and was of an age already that they were due for replacement so retro-fitting wasn't cost-effective. That subset which did have the mechanisms in place may not have been counted in what was decommissioned in 2005 & prior. I'm pretty sure I used slam doors later than 2005 too.
fancyfredbot 2y ago
> like a distracted Karen playing Candy Crush as her SUV rolls through a busy intersection. FYI this comes across a bit misogynistic! I'd word this differently
- tialaramex 2y ago
  Yeah, I rephrased.
- elzbardico 2y ago
  Each sex can have their own stereotypes if you wish: The male drunk driver rushing through the same intersection is probably even more common than the unfortunatelly common screen distracted Karen.
  - fancyfredbot 2y ago
    I'm really not trying to say that OP is misogynistic here, just mentioning that it can come across that way because the "Karen" example is oddly specific and not relevant to the overall point. Yes it's a stereotype and you could pick a male one but that'd also be weird and potentially also come across as sexist.
red_admiral 2y ago
I know which company you mean, and I think the RAIB investigation found serious problems with the driver training and the management's approach to safety. One suspects they would also have broken the glass on the MCB if the attitude from above was "we'll give you hell if you're not at the destination on time, but we won't look too closely at how you do it". WCRC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Railways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Railways) got banned from the network as a result until Network Rail was satisfied that the management took safety a bit more seriously. The driver being prosecuted and sentenced in court may also deter future drivers from doing that again, especially if someone can show they're being pressured from above to do anything unsafe again, someone much higger up will be very, very upset with them. Meanwhile in Germany, there was a head-on between two trains with modern safety systems on the train because the _signaller_ was playing games on his phone - I'm not sure if it was actually candy crush - and pressed the "just ignore this red and go at normal speed on to the single line" signal button without following any procedures like checking whether there's a possibility that there's already a train there.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  I don't understand why there's a button for that. In the UK the trains would be "Cautioned through" this section. "Caution" here being a term of art for an instruction for drivers to operate a train by hand at a speed where they can reasonably brake the train short of any obstacle - this can mean very, very, slowly if you're on a sharply curved or foggy section. I understand the UK is weird because of route knowledge [a German train driver can expect to just operate a train to anywhere in Germany, a British train driver needs to be intimately familiar with any track section to be used for their journey, as a result the signals in the UK don't need to tell you e.g. "Go 50" but instead "The signal after next is red" because the driver knows "that's the signal in New Town, it's uphill from here, so I can do about 50"] But it seems like caution would be possible everywhere.
  - nic547 2y ago
    Route knowledge exists in Germany, it's called "Streckenkunde" and under normal circumstances drivers in germany can't just drive anywhere. I think it's a fairly common thing in europe, Switzerland and Austria also require aquisition of route knowledge.
mschuster91 2y ago
> On a typical "modern" (ie late 20th century) train like the mainline EMUs I would normally catch when I was a commuter decades ago, the equivalent "cut out" is a glass sealed MCB in the cab, a driver who wants to get rid of this safety feature has to destroy a tell-tale glass seal and company regulations will make them write up why it was necessary then replace it - and of course the automation records each occurrence because why wouldn't it. The paperwork is a faff, so is getting a new unique numbered seal, so drivers actually choose the non-risky option when it's available. Fun fact: in Germany, the now-infamous company Die-Lei GmbH lost their license to run trains after a few accidents where a side finding was that their trains kept running with PZB (a magloop system halting a train when running a red light) disabled, sometimes for hundreds of kilometers and weeks worth of operating time. It never was a contributing factor in any of their incident, but the persistence of these findings was enough for the railway safety authority to yank their license for good. YouTuber and former loco driver Alwin Meschede has a (German) video series where he narrates the investigation reports and the final license yank order, while drinking a gulp of wine for each violation [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heigen1vnHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heigen1vnHA

lambdas 2y ago

Yeah, the steam operators raised hell over having to follow the central locking for doors and sealing of windows passengers could stick their head out of. Wasn’t even prospective, preventative action. There was pretty rash series of decapitations/fatalities in the past decade of people who think sticking their head out of a moving train is risk free that lead to this ruling being made mandatory. They kicked off claiming it would ruin the ambience, but really it cost a very pretty penny. They’d do anything to save a few quid; it’s amazing how they used to get cheap oil lube and coal from Russia, and since the war they’ve miraculously been managing to procure the same rates from new companies that have appeared overnight/moved production to sanction-less countries just over the border like Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan etc.

adminu 2y ago
Sorry, but sticking your head out the window is one of the greatest perks of going on a heritage train. That really IS about the ambiance.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  It turns out UK society wasn't OK with "Sometimes people get decapitated" as the price of this perk, and it also wasn't happy with "Increase the clearance for structure gauge" because that would solve the decapitations but is eye-wateringly expensive in many places or would mean demolishing things society also wanted, like bridges, castles, or other buildings which are too close.
  - lazystar 2y ago
    what about "make one car skinnier than normal so that folks can open windows on it without risking their necks"?
pjc50 2y ago
The "slam door" carriages survived way past their sell by date. I travelled on them in the 1990s. The only advantage is quick de-boarding .. because you can open the door while the train is still moving. Everything else about them is spectacularly dangerous 1800s levels of safety.
- xnorswap 2y ago
  I'm confused about what exactly constitutes "slam door", because wikipedia says they were last in operation 2005, but there were definitely still the type of "open the window to open manually" type used on the Reading / Paddington line well after that. Is the difference that they had central-locking?
  - dspillett 2y ago
    IIRC it largely depended on the age of the carriage. Some newer slam-door carriages had the door sensor and remotely operable lock, but most of the stock did not and was of an age already that they were due for replacement so retro-fitting wasn't cost-effective. That subset which did have the mechanisms in place may not have been counted in what was decommissioned in 2005 & prior. I'm pretty sure I used slam doors later than 2005 too.

fancyfredbot 2y ago

> like a distracted Karen playing Candy Crush as her SUV rolls through a busy intersection. FYI this comes across a bit misogynistic! I'd word this differently

tialaramex 2y ago
Yeah, I rephrased.
elzbardico 2y ago
Each sex can have their own stereotypes if you wish: The male drunk driver rushing through the same intersection is probably even more common than the unfortunatelly common screen distracted Karen.
- fancyfredbot 2y ago
  I'm really not trying to say that OP is misogynistic here, just mentioning that it can come across that way because the "Karen" example is oddly specific and not relevant to the overall point. Yes it's a stereotype and you could pick a male one but that'd also be weird and potentially also come across as sexist.

red_admiral 2y ago

I know which company you mean, and I think the RAIB investigation found serious problems with the driver training and the management's approach to safety. One suspects they would also have broken the glass on the MCB if the attitude from above was "we'll give you hell if you're not at the destination on time, but we won't look too closely at how you do it". WCRC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Railways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Railways) got banned from the network as a result until Network Rail was satisfied that the management took safety a bit more seriously. The driver being prosecuted and sentenced in court may also deter future drivers from doing that again, especially if someone can show they're being pressured from above to do anything unsafe again, someone much higger up will be very, very upset with them. Meanwhile in Germany, there was a head-on between two trains with modern safety systems on the train because the _signaller_ was playing games on his phone - I'm not sure if it was actually candy crush - and pressed the "just ignore this red and go at normal speed on to the single line" signal button without following any procedures like checking whether there's a possibility that there's already a train there.

tialaramex 2y ago
I don't understand why there's a button for that. In the UK the trains would be "Cautioned through" this section. "Caution" here being a term of art for an instruction for drivers to operate a train by hand at a speed where they can reasonably brake the train short of any obstacle - this can mean very, very, slowly if you're on a sharply curved or foggy section. I understand the UK is weird because of route knowledge [a German train driver can expect to just operate a train to anywhere in Germany, a British train driver needs to be intimately familiar with any track section to be used for their journey, as a result the signals in the UK don't need to tell you e.g. "Go 50" but instead "The signal after next is red" because the driver knows "that's the signal in New Town, it's uphill from here, so I can do about 50"] But it seems like caution would be possible everywhere.
- nic547 2y ago
  Route knowledge exists in Germany, it's called "Streckenkunde" and under normal circumstances drivers in germany can't just drive anywhere. I think it's a fairly common thing in europe, Switzerland and Austria also require aquisition of route knowledge.

mschuster91 2y ago

> On a typical "modern" (ie late 20th century) train like the mainline EMUs I would normally catch when I was a commuter decades ago, the equivalent "cut out" is a glass sealed MCB in the cab, a driver who wants to get rid of this safety feature has to destroy a tell-tale glass seal and company regulations will make them write up why it was necessary then replace it - and of course the automation records each occurrence because why wouldn't it. The paperwork is a faff, so is getting a new unique numbered seal, so drivers actually choose the non-risky option when it's available. Fun fact: in Germany, the now-infamous company Die-Lei GmbH lost their license to run trains after a few accidents where a side finding was that their trains kept running with PZB (a magloop system halting a train when running a red light) disabled, sometimes for hundreds of kilometers and weeks worth of operating time. It never was a contributing factor in any of their incident, but the persistence of these findings was enough for the railway safety authority to yank their license for good. YouTuber and former loco driver Alwin Meschede has a (German) video series where he narrates the investigation reports and the final license yank order, while drinking a gulp of wine for each violation [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heigen1vnHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heigen1vnHA