Posted By Peter McMurray I had problems downloading off the bbc website so here is a link to the RAIB website. http://www.raib.gov.uk/c...226_I012007_Grayrigg.pdf Some other interesting reports on the site also. Peter

Posted By Jim Walker John, Unless you plan to live in a cave its still safer than the roads. Anyone know by what factor?

Posted By cara Obviously this could be biased but... ""Despite recent accidents, rail continues to be the safest form of land transit. Travelling by train is 15 times safer than going by car and five times safer than going by bus or coach. You are far more likely to involved in an accident whilst walking, cycling or driving to the station than when you are on the train. Sixteen times more person-miles are travelled by car than by train yet there are 100 times more accidents on our roads than on our railways. In terms of time spent on the journey, train travel is even safer than air travel."" http://www.railfuture.org.uk/old/why1.shtml

Posted By Robert K Lewis Playing around with figures though can be fun. A train trip of 100 miles with 100 passengers equates to 10,000 passenger miles whilst a car with a solo driver the journey equates to 100 passenger miles. Who is to know how many passengers are on a jourmey individually to achieve an overall passenger mile figure to use in the comparisons? I have also heard that most accidents occur on short journies when in a car. Therefore all journies under 20 miles could be banned to produce lower accident statistics, and free congestion as the school run disapppears! The lower congestion will further reduce the potential for accidents, speed up journey times and avoid future congestion charges. Should we be comparing then the fatalities per journey figures and would the result be the same? After all it could be estimated that around 10 million car journies are made each day. How many rail journies are undertaken in the same period? Being a total cynic on statistics I have to ask who is producing them and for what purpose. Having said all that one must look at our rail industry and ask some detailed questions about how Network Rail manage the competence of their staff performing such safety critical work. A repeat of a Potters Bar failure within a short time frame really does not give one a great deal of confidence. Can we be certain that the 15% examined were not examined in the same way as these failed points at Grayrigg? Bob

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Good afternoon All, Yes it seems on the face of things a repeat of Potters Bar, BUT, it is not exactly the same. There is nothing in the public domain yet to suggest the circumstances were the same except for speculation in the media. I have read the RAIB interim report which quite frankly simply states the facts as they are currently known. Yes the points were in a state of disrepair and were not as they should have been, however there is not yet anyting to say WHY they were in that condition or that the mechanism of failure was the same as at Potters Bar. At Potters Barr the drive of the points was incorrectly set and the type of streacher bar was an adjustable streacher. The type of streacher bar at Grayrigg has not yet been made public although the odds are that they may have been adjustable because of the date the points were installed. The interim report states the crossing was installed in 1986 and says nothing about the general condition of the points only that some components were missing and others had become detached. There may well be simularities to the Potters Bar incident and lessons had not been learned well enough. Those lessons are being learned now ahead of the final report and will no doubt be part of the ongoing investigation.

Posted By Robert K Lewis Merv I simply look at the basic facts outlined admirably by Bob S, parts missing, parts loose, inspected less than 1 month previously. All in the interim report and all indicating that somewhere a failure in the way the system is performed and thus managed. Thus the issue is about how we can ensure that persons are competent and act as competent persons at all times in safety critical activities particularly. I do not think such an analysis is pure speculation and thus I respectfully refuse to shut uppa da face if there is a conversation to be had. Bob

Posted By Crim I would just like to add that most car accidents are small, minor bumps, with minor injuries, if any. If you look at data for trains, planes, ships etc. most accidents/injuries are larger due to the sheer size of the mode of transport. Many years ago car accidents on motorways were front page news stories but for a long time now it's only the big accidents that make the news therefore we lose sight of the smaller issues.

Posted By Roger Brown I know that the derailment was a tragic event and resulted in the death of one person so far and the injury of many others, however I know where I would sooner be if a vehicle is going to role over at the speed that the train was likely to be doing, I suspect that if you tried it in a car you would flatten the roof and in a coach well it does not just bear thinking about.

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Hi Ben, Hope alls well. Thanks for the support. It seems the same old stuff gets dragged out without any firm evidence isn't it. I was trying to put a sence of reality into the discussion. Apparantly from info doing the rounds the points were not of the type at PB but the older stretchers plus the points were GF operated so may have had less scrutiny who knows though. The Inquiry wuill no doubt take a view. Regards Bob.