West Coast Railways is at The High Court of Justice aiming to overturn the Office of Rail and Road's decision to revoke their exemption to operate heritage steam locomotives and carriages on the mainline.
The regulator has insisted that WCR install all trains with Central Door Locking, but WCR says that it has operated without CDL since 2003, and has instead used an alternative method.
This system is on all WCR carriages, which are then operated behind famous locomotives, such as the Flying Scotsman, and on the ever popular Jacobite summer steam services.
At WCR, trained stewards are responsible for the four doors on each carriage, they bolt the doors through Secondary Door Locks and monitor them on the journey.
On each passenger service there is:
- At least one steward per carriage to operate doors and monitor droplight windows.
- A train manager, who delivers a safety briefing for stewards before dispatch of every service.
- A guard, who delivers a safety briefing for passengers at the start of each journey, and monitors procedures through the rest of the trip.
WCR's case is that they have had an exemption since 2005 and yet says that the same regulations, Rail Safety Regulations 1999, that are being used to force the operator to install Central Door Locking.
West Coast says that installing Central Door Locking would cost around £7m, which, according to the operator, would wipe out any profits for close to a decade – and would deem it unviable for business.
WCR also says that should the exemption be revoked, it would lead to a £50m loss in economic value.
James Shuttleworth, Commercial Manager, WCR, said:
“This country was the birthplace of railways and I very much hope it won't be the death of our steam power on the main line. Specialist railways are one thing, but to truly experience the beauty and power of steam we still need our most famous trains to run on the real railway.
“Safety is, of course, WCR's priority and WCR supports the ORR's desire to continue to drive safety improvements. The challenge we have is the cost of installing a modern safety system on carriages from a different era. Our decades of operational experience suggest to us that a steward to four doors, with secondary locks and monitoring, a train manager and a guard is enough to ensure the safety of our passengers and colleagues.
“We continue to go to great lengths to preserve our historic vehicles and maintain customer safety through ever-evolving safety procedures.”
James Shuttleworth, Commercial Manager, WCR continued: “Our services, particularly The Jacobite, have become an intrinsic part of Scottish tourism, they're lynchpins. They have helped build up local economies, which we're extremely proud of. When we first started operating the Jacobite from Fort William to Mallaig in 1995, I don't think we could have predicted how popular an attraction it would become. We believe in our services, and we see them as part of preserving the UK's railway heritage for future generations. We will continue to push to operate on the main line.'
An ORR spokesperson said: “As the rail regulator our role is to ensure that Britain's railways are run safely.
“There has been a regulation in place since 2005 which prohibits the operation on the main line of carriages with hinged doors for use by passengers.
“The majority of charter heritage operators have either complied with the regulation by installing central door locking or have a plan in place to do so. Services can operate with compliant carriages.”
The safest railway is one with no trains. Perhaps this is the Office of Rail and Roads ultimate objective!?
Like Red BR era Jubilees, ‘I’ll b well do it my way, paint it pink IF I damned like, v much the ‘entrepreneurial’ spirit of boss of WC…they have form re safety as he likes to do it HIS way. Other companies…less hostile do so called red tape, fixed the problem ages ago. PS Platform staff do your job.
I have travelled many thousands of very pleasurable miles by heritage stock and there has never been an incident of worry regarding doors on National Rail.
Why create a problem were there isn’t one.
If ever there is a problem, perhaps it could be seen to at the time, as the responsibility belongs to the owners of the vehicle, National Rail does not be involved, provided the carriage is fit to travel.
Having said that carriages have been upgraded with regards to the WC arrangement and the same argument is applied. In that case, it’s fair enough.
I fell so sorry, but as far as I am concerned, heritage means heritage. You cannot bring heritage into this modern age.
When booking onto one of these trains, customers should be warned of the dangers.
It seems to me such a shame, that the blame is put on the Railway if anyone gets hurt on the system, not the idiots who put themselves at risk.
Such a shame, the world we live in is getting worse and worse all the time. Congratulations to all those people who are in charge.
I find the figure of £7M that is quoted for fitting their stock a bit eye-opening. What is not, mentioned of course, is how many coaches are involved. I suspect the figure per coach isn’t that great and if they prioritised their stock – eg do the Jacobite stock first and rest the others for a year, – the cost could be brought down to an acceptable level. But we are talking David Smith as the head of West Coast and he doesn’t like being dictated to, by all accounts.
Usual scenario, we all have to suffer because someone who can’t be trusted not to stab themselves in the eye with a sharp pencil can’t work a simple train carriage door.
Why should WCRC be exempt ! They have not stuck to the rules in the past. If they want to run heritage stock then they have to be safe to modern standards.
Do WCR suffer from door abuse? Not to my knowledge. A very civilised atmosphere has prevailed on the trains I ve used – so why are ORR worrying about this when problems involving safety at all levels on TOCS and NR are rife? WCR has Guards, many services do not – and passengers fall under trians, get items trapped in doors and are dragged etc unseen. I spent decades travelling on slam door trains including Southern Mark One EMUs, always leaning on an open window too (NOT out!) and never had a problem of any kind, yet have been injured by being shut in sliding doors on Southern stock (fortunately a passenger reopened the doors to release me), plus only a fortnight ago an Overground train locked the doors just as my hand touched the open button at a terminus and drove off with me leaning on it expecting it to be re-released. . . A train driver told me the driver probably couldn’t see me (despite being the front carriage) as the cameras are not much bigger than a postage stamp, there are a whole bank of pictures jammed together, with limited fields of view and unintelligible in bright light or wet weather. And this is only for starters, braking policies that throw you off your feet and on and on and on.
A key aspect of nostalgic steam journeys is to escape the cretinous ‘health and safety’ culture that has turned Britain into a nation of wusses that seek to blame others for their own stupidity/ lack of common sense. Society would be better rid of these ‘Darwin award’ candidates.
What I’m worried about is the next step on the elf and safety cycle in which you wont be able to leave your seat on the journey we will be belted in.
Modern passengers do not know how to get in and how to get out of these old carriages. I found a Dutch couple struggling to get off at Dunster. It never occurred to them that they had to drop the window, lean out and open the door handle from outside. I told them that it was a health and safety feature that small children could not open the door from inside, which it was even on HSTs before central locking was retrofitted. But in an earlier age I struggled on a ex GWR suburban train at Southall, because I did not know that once on, you could only shut the door by leaning out and reversing the door handle: there was no two step spring lock, as on SR stock I was used to only three miles to the south. The GWR lock wasn’t a safety feature, but the platform staff noticed and shut it for me. Everyone else knew. But you can’t rely on that knowledge being inherited. Things have changed, move on. Locking by carriage key is even more dangerous. Get on and get fitted. You know it makes sense in the long run.
Reply to R Bull. you are missing the point here as even with Central door locking once it’s released you still have to open the window and open the door from outside so your comment makes no sense
Move all the door handles to the middle of the doors. Central Locking? Job done.
Where
I tend to agree with the comments that older stock should be exempted. West Coast contribute to the splendour and tourism of our area too, also the popularity of add-on visitor attractions which benefit like the superb Hellifield Station cafe. What particularly concerns me is the eye-watering amount quoted to install central locking in the carriages. It adds to my overall impression that the whole of the railway industry and other transport projects are bedevilled by a rip-off Britain culture where costs are inflated beyond all realism for the benefit, presumably, of a privileged few. This is likely to have extended right up to the HS2 debacle. I hope West Coast won’t become victims of this problem.
I totally agree with your comments. Every company who regulate these leisure facilities are hell bent attempting to extract money in this greed driven society. WCR have operated this system for many years with an excellent safety record and I hope, like many others, they justify this and do not succumb to the ORR. I also agree with the comments regarding HS2. The cost is spiralling out of control and only earlier this week the projected cost for the link from the Old Oak Common terminus to central London (how many miles?) was posted, which was staggering. There are many individuals out there who being paid far too much for delivering very little and it should be addressed before the countries’ economy is brought to it’s knees.
Unnecessarily mollicodling people nowadays costs millions. We go on heritage railways because we loved the past, when we had common sense. Every day of my schooldays I travelled 24 miles on such trains.
Infrastructure clearances these days are lax anyway. 6 foot 6 inches from any vertical structure above 3 feet above rail level was the norm in my day . 5 foot three inches in exceptional circumstances. And that had to be agreed by the inspecting officer . Nowadays trains are brushing through the undergrowth and signalposts foul the structure guage. No wonder the ORR are worried.
If only they had time to plan and prepare! 20 years is just not long enough 🙁 poor, innocent operator.
We have been taking train journeys for a hundred years and more. You cannot apply modern standards to old stock. Case in point, cars over 40 years old are MOT exempt. This is just modern madness going another step too far. Personally I would rather be able to get out quickly from a train than be locked in, particularly given the route which although scenic can also be hazardous. Stop this madness and let us enjoy life as we used to.
For a start the Jacobite is operating under the control of ScotRail so the crews not only work under WCR instructions but also ScotRail/National Rail rules so take it from me the first thing you get on the journey in both Fort William and Malaig are a pretty substantial list of do’s and don’ts. Also the list is given to you after the train doors are locked. What this is about is a London Based Quango protecting itself. The reason being because the GCR trust were penalised because a partially sighted person got out of the wrong end of a BR Mark one carriage. Also ORR hadn’t seen fit to advise the Heritage Sector to ensure that the simple expedient of station staff and crew locked train doors which used to happen in steam days might be advisable. CTL is fine for the glorified tram cars the national operators are using now, but it is not as easy on Loco hauled stock which was why the Mk 1s and early Mk 2s were withdrawn by BR. In any case it was part of a Station Masters and Porters remit to ensure that a train was safe when it left a station not just the guard.
Yes they are not in the real world , the jackabit was stopped for a while because of this. They need to get a grip on this , if the current safety recurrent is working okay , why change it . Clive Daniel , of pontypridd.
The comments on here are typical of the “elf’n safety gone mad” cliche that is so tiresome. The other operators have managed it, so WCR should be able to fit Central Door Locking. The other specialist operators have managed it, and WCR have made enough errors in the past to not deserve the trust of us who work on the Railway.
Absolutely. The rules are the same for everyone: other operators have complied (at great cost) but WCR once again are trying to push back on a deadline that’s been known to them for a long, long time. It’s not H&S gone mad: it’s simple logic in an age when people are no longer familiar with the dangers of leaning out of windows.
ORR are being disingenuous in this. Passengers pay a premium for a vintage experience on vintage rolling stock behind a vintage locomotive. Modern(ised) stock would destroy the attraction. For decades last century millions of trips were made in contemporary trains without the calamities that ORR are apparently trying to prevent.
Yes, make modern trains safer if that is shown to be necessary, but history shows it is not in this particular case.
Are ORR really a bunch of jobsworths trying to force an inappropriate regime on what is effectively a collection of museum pieces? They need, not to think again, but to start thinking.
Let’s bring common sense and a sense of perspective into this.
Complete and utter madness, don’t these idiots realise how much revenue these companies bring in. Yet again Health and Safety gone completely bonkers, unfortunately as has been said many times, sense doesn’t seem to prevail anymore. Let’s hope someone sees sense and lets them carry on doing what they do best and that is bringing back a bygone era and putting smiles on peoples faces. Long live the Steam Locomotives on the Mainline and down with the idiot Wokes who seem to be infiltrating all and sundry.
This isn’t a woke problem, this is bureaucratic overreach.
The imposition of prescriptive regulations is bound to fail. You can’t expect the bureaucrat to have thought of everything, whereas the system operated by WCR sounds pretty safe to me. Every door and drop down window is monitored and controlled by a trained steward. The guard no doubt does not give a go signal until all the doors/windows are reported locked. Sure, people are fallible, but be aware that centrally controlled systems can also fail and when they do they are likely to paralyze the whole operation, and, of course they are designed and built by (fallible) humans, aren’t they? Do the risk assessment. Risk = Consequence x Likelihood. What’s the likelihood of all doors failing. In the central system it is high compared to the multitude of individual doors in the WCR system. One could look upon the centrally controlled system as being a single point of failure – a no no in risk management. Whereas in the WCR system a failure would affect each door/window individually, leaving the rest fully operational. Not a single point of failure and furthermore, controlled by responsible humans. Try getting a manufacturer to take that responsibility. Good luck with that one.
Other companies only have a few whereas west coast have around a hundred so vast difference in cost
If you’re stupid enough to lean out of a window to open a door on a moving train then tbh you deserve what you get!! Whatever happened to taking responsibility for ones own actions 🙄
As they are Mk 1 carriages, why not just lock the budget lock from the outside with a carriage key, like many other heritage railways do, in an emergency all those managers and stewards each with a carriage key will be able to let everyone out.
I remember the Taunton sleeping car train fire in July 1978. A contributory factor in the number of deaths, was that Sleeping Car Attendants habitually locked the doors with carriage keys to prevent unofficial passengers surreptitiously boarding and occupying vacant berths. Random checks to ensure doors on slam door stock were not locked in traffic were subsequently introduced.
Any serious incident on a WCR which incapacitated the coach stewards could result in this scenario in fatalities because passengers could not open the doors.
Loads of carridge stock fitted with central locking have been scrapped in recent years surley these could have been acquired for far less the figures being suggested.
Madness!
Who are these oligarchs who are intent on destroying one of the most pleasant trip/rides available for the people who enjoy nostalgic travel by the mechanical marvels which are steam engines.
I urge them to reconsider there actions ,don’t spoil it for all generations.
The beauty and power and noise made by a steam engine at the head of a train is beyond words .
So please don’t spoil it for us .
How do other mainline heritage operators manage?
Don’t WCR have a poor safety record anyway?
Just to say people from the steam train era must of had more sense than the people of today??
Typical. Health and Safety gone mad
This is beyond ridiculous.
What is now heritage coaching stock was used in regular public services quite safely until quite recently. This coaching stock had door catches that the public accessed from the inside by lowering the window and operating the outside handle. I’m not aware that any members of the public routinely fell out of moving trains because of this, so they were quite safe.
West Coast Railways have gone well beyond this, with secondary door locks and stewards monitoring all doors on every coach.
So why does the Office of Rail and road suddenly decide that these arrangements are “unsafe”. This is ”elf & safety” taken to ludicrous extremes and assumes the general public are stupid and must be saved from themselves.
Too much health and safety. People are capable of looking after themselves, given that advice is given
For heaven’s sake. They, appear, to have a robust and multipoint system to safeguard pax safety.
Forget the cost tbh. They might as well go on a hunt for some of the original Thameslink 319 units and couple them to the engine.
Its heritage stock. People know the differences, and if they don’t then they’re told and monitored under the system in place.
Pencil pushers with necks too long
Why haven’t we been told why the exemption was granted and why it’s now no longer applicable – unless I’ve competely misread this article!
The fact that the Jacobite was suspended earlier this year became these procedures weren’t being followed (pax allowed to operate locks etc) probably hasn’t helped. WCRC haven’t exactly got a great record when it comes to following the rules.
This exception has been planned to expire now for years. Every other company has now complied. West Coast have done nothing and are just hoping for an extension.