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Posted By Steve Bennett
Anyone watch the above programme?
If I was in charge of any of the rail companies featured I think I would call a crisis meeting this morning!
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Posted By Eric Burt
VERY worrying Steve.
It is also sad that employees such as those secretly filmed last night, show such a care-free attitude towards public safety. After all, it could be their friends or family who are travelling on the trains using this stretch of track.
Surely there must be sufficient evidence for HSE to prosecute the company involved (under s2 & 3 HASAWA) as well as the individuals under section 7 HASAWA.
Eric
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Posted By David Sinclair
Why?
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Posted By David A Jones
Why have you started a thread which is the same as one posted already? ( a few hours earlier)
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Posted By Steve Bennett
Because I made a mistake! People do you know.
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Posted By Robert Weiland
I taped this but haven't watched it yet. My brother works in railways and he said they had been tipped off and were expecting the worse. Was it really bad ?
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Posted By Steve Bennett
Not good at all. Very worrying in fact. It will certainly make me think twice about using the trains in future.
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Posted By Liam Mc Conalogue
Hopefully we see a follow-up programme showing the areas that have been improved and successful prosecutions out of this- so long as it's not made by a rail company!!
Credit goes to the former inspector for highlighting evidence (where they had highlighted areas of track that were defective) disappearing after an accident had been realised.
Although the journalists did stand out a bit too much from the rail workers.
But keep it up BBC.
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Posted By John Mann
Yes it was very disturbing. A far cry from the days when PW gangs took pride in their length. However, to those who are now "thinking twice" about travelling by train remember you are still MUCH safer than on the roads.
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Posted By steve e ashton
I wish the BBC had an undercover operative in the garage where some scumbag was working on my car on Tuesday - it was not very pleasant driving home last night to have brake failure caused by absence of brake fluid!
My point being - if you look anywhere, and look hard enough, you will find evidence of poor attitude and poor compliance.... The roads are less safe than the railways, there are rotten apples in every barrel, and I am more concerned about the lack of standards / monitoring / maintenance / training for workers on the roads and on our cars than I am concerned about the railway, where the owning Company (Network Rail) is TRYING (and spending a huge amount of time, effort and money trying) to operate safely.
If I could be, I would be a rail commuter. Bring back the Waverley line, then I can be!
There's reporting, there investigation, and there's sensationalism. I believe the prog last night was the latter.
Steve
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Posted By Jim Walker
Mr Ashton,
Would you be working for a rail track contractor perchance?
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Posted By steve e ashton
Jim, No. I do not work for a network rail contractor in the sense you imply. No offense taken
And for those with an open mind, willing to see the other side's point of view: see the following link....
http://www.networkrail.c...20on%20rail%20safety.doc
The brake story is true by the way...
Steve
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Posted By David Brede
Having watched the programme and having read the Network Rail response I would say that every operative going trackside should get a site safety briefing on each occasion. It is not good enough that it happens most times which seems to be the defence provided by Network Rail as circumstances change even at the same location. I get concerned that when I go on site if a COSS assumes that as I am a Health & Safety Advisor and wear an orange jacket that I know what safety rules and information applicable to that site. I want to be reassured that the COSS really knows his or her site and so should the operatives.
I hope at some stage that Network Rail will respond to the programmes allegation about the erasing of the track fault following the derailment. It may be that the derailment incident destroyed the faulty location but then they should say so.
I am also concerned that the rebuttal of the allegations of track safety on the Forth Bridge did not say why it was OK for the wedges to be so loose which was the concern of the expert provided by the BBC. To say that they have done other checks and it is ok does not go far enough. Perhaps a bit more detail on the engineering of this bridge and how it is kept safe would be helpful.
I hope that one of the lessons learned from this is that the expertise of IOSH and its members would be invaluable to a programme such as this and I am pleased that Ruth Doyle our new Director of Communications has put this point to the BBC.
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Posted By Alan Haynes
I have been following with interest this discussion thread, and was pleased to the input from David. As a fellow member of the Railway Specialist Group, here are a few ideas of my own;-
· The deficiencies within the track safety training processes that the programme highlighted are worrying, [but not unknown to some extent]. There is a need for Network Rail, the ‘Training Organisations’ and ‘Labour Suppliers’ to get together to come up with a sensible plan for removing this problem. Personally, I believe that too much pressure is put on Trainers, by the Training Organisations, to pass candidates.
· Every worker going onto the track must receive a site safety briefing. Like David, as he states in his note above, I look to this briefing to provide me with confidence in the COSS as well as tell me about local conditions. I would expect any individual to challenge the COSS if the briefing is not adequate, and report the failure to his manager. There is a process in place that checks the performance of COSSs, but perhaps something like ‘test shoppers’ could be introduced to reinforce the process. [test shoppers would also work for training courses]
· I am very concerned about the alleged removal of safety records. Network Rail must rigorously investigate this.
· The programme was to a certain extent, [and understandably so in the light of the TV ‘ratings war’], less ‘Whistleblower’ and more ‘Scaremonger’, and although it has raised some very important issues, it has failed to stress the relative safety of rail travel over other transport modes.
· Network Rail’s response to the programme, which they were not allowed to preview, appears to me to be a measured one.
I am sure that the contents of the programme will form part of discussions of the next Railway Specialists Group Networking meeting – This is hoped to be in Newcastle in the January, details of which will appear on the RSC website when details are finalised.
Anyone who missed the programme can read a synopsis of it and the responses on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3977189.stm
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Posted By Charles Robinson Tech SP
Railways may be a safer form of transport? than roads but almost every person in the country use roads as either in a vehicle or on foot not the case for rail users.
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Posted By Bill Bircham
And your point is . . . . ?
The comparison is made not on straight numbers of how many people get killed / injured, but normalised data.
But even taking your view, hands up who has never been on a train?
I really do despair when a piece of blatant, scaremongering tabloid journalism can keep Health & Safety 'professionals' entertained.
Our energies would be better spent trying to influence this type of approach.
Who's next Charles, perhaps the inadequacies in the NHS? Would you care to comment on this?
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