Train crashes?

Question

Richard Branson what a guy honestly hats off to him. ask the uk government to stop getting guys to work at 3 in the morning to fix rail-tracks inconsistently and asking people from agencies that have no knowledge? anyone agree? The train driver he could have jumped and he stayed on? He's not paid to be a hero or put his life at risk people who do are heros

Answer 1

Hi there I agree that Richard Branson was good, but I am afraid that I have to put you right on one thing. Track maintenance is now completed 'In-House' Meaning that all the agencies are not used like they used to be. The Only real times that most track work can be carried out without disrupting the rail network is by either completing it over bank holiday weekends when less people use the network or at night. As for the train driver he is well aware of the dangers that can occur on the railway lines, mind if he had jumped out of the train at 95mph he would have got killed.

Unfortunately this is an accident that should not have happened & we will have to wait and find out the full details of why the points have failed, and why the maintenance was not up to standard, and what possible actions can be taken to stop it happening again. Our thourght are also with the families who have been affected.

Answer 2

99.99% of operating department railroad emplyees are heroes at times.  Everybody has a "near miss" encounter with a load of petroleum or Haz Mat or logs and enough other types of heavy lading that have an unfortunamte propensity to squash the cab of a locomotive, along with the people inside.

I don't know the details of this crash people are speaking of here in this forum, but "jumping" as an option is nearly as fatal a circumstance as the danger of impact with the obstruction itself.

And, if a collision is eminent where passenger operation is even more of a safety concern, as well as obligation, most would stay with the rain to the last.  Consider when an airliner goes down.  Those pilots whose planes are in trouble keep trying to fly the thing until they meet the ground.

Each accident must be and is investigated of course.  So, you tell me, how many reported results of train crashes have you seen published?  That's right.  They don't want you to see reports where the cause has been determined to be by man failure, so that the carriers can keep their train crews continuously working in a state of continual fatigue, at best, or on autopilot due to complete exhaustion.

Here in the US, there is the "Hours of Service Law," wherein caps are placed on time that an employe can be kept on duty.  It is antiquated and is in real need of revamping, the current model having been in existence for 35 years.

Again, not knowing the statistics, I would argue that a man caused accident is due to poor training or insufficient rest in the large majority, given that drug and alchohol abuse is almost nil these days.

Only change in the law will help bring the numbers of man failures down.  Where is the department of Homeland Security on this one?  How many reading this has heard anything about anything done to improve rail safety, which is rail security?

The next "cornfield meet" may be coming to the tracks nearest you.

Addendum:  I still don't have all the particulars, not having been able to find news of this accident, but from what I have been able to surmise is that this may have been a maintenance issue or one of defective materials.

Either way, Mr. Branson, much to his credit, didn't try to dodge on any aspect of this incident that I can see.  I can not think of another director of a rail common carrier with whom the buck stops to EVER step forward, either before all the details have been evaluated or following being assessed as bearing the burden of responsibility.

Bravo.

Answer 3

BadWolf, yours is also a stupid answer. Firstly, it would be possible to renationalise the railways at little cost, simply by not reletting the franchises when they finish and allowing the trains to be run by a publicly owned organisation.  Network Rail, the infrastructure company, is really nationalised in all but name. The biggest cost would be acquiring the stock from the Rolling Stock Leasing Companies (ROSCOS) which now own all of the passenger stock (what a stupid way to run a railway). The Paddington/Ladbroke Grove accident (which was one, not two as you appear to imply) took place after privatisation as did the crashes at Southall, Hatfield and Potter's Bar.

As for the driver jumping, certainly that would have killed him. He could have run back into the body of the carriage, but he probably had only 20 or 30 seconds between the derailment and the power car tumbling down the embankment to do so. Saying that is not intended to detract from the fine job he did in sitting in his seat and trying to slow the train down.

I'm not sure what the comment about 'agencies that have no knowledge' actually means, but if it is being suggested that the maintenance of the track at this location had been contracted out, that isn't the case. Maintenance at the crash site was the direct responsibility of Network Rail which is taking more and more of such tasks back in house.

Answer 4

incidents like these definitely bring the best out of people .equally i find it brings the opposite out in people . Speaking as some one who works on the railway and is an accident investigator, wait until the incident has been completely investigated before making judgements based on partial facts at best and hear-say and rumours at worst . All this does is distract from the underlying causes for the sake of listen me or i want a good story to run in my paper or news programme .

Of course we all want to know what happened but just as importantly we need to know why. If the people who are involved with this feel that there is a witch hunt then it will only delay getting to the bottom of the matter so that measures and corrective actions can be implemented.

Answer 5

The bus drivers in London i worked with were hero's at least 5 times a day!

The stories we used to hear in the canteen every day would put most people off public transport for life but these guys do it every day!

London transport expected every bus to have 3 accidents a day!

Your bus driver is allowed 1 per month!

The buses we drove were falling to pieces but we kept em going and got you guys to work safely!

If only you knew what goes on behind the scenes!

You would be real nice to your next bus driver!

Answer 6

The train driver probably thought that jumping at 95 MPH was not a very sensible idea.

The regular track maintenance is not done by agency workers anymore, it was taken in-house by Network Rail after the Potters Bar accident.

Branson did well to attend the scene, agreed.

Answer 7

yes we should stop letting inexperienced Muppet's loose on out tracks and stop things like the Cumbria Train Crash also the Potters Bar crash and the Hatfield crash. I don't think it would have been possible for the driver to jump there would not have been time and possibly he could have been killed jumping from a train doing 90 miles an hour.

As for magnus stupid answer you cannot nationalise one part of the railways, for the government to nationalise the railways would cost either to buy back the franchise from every single company that runs trains in th United kingdom, then the government would have to spend billions running the Railways, under B.R there was still plenty of train crashes, think Paddington and Ladbrooke Grove, what it needs is stricter regulations on the people actually maintaining the tracks the trains travel on

As for the suggestion that Network Rail run it, great then they can cause more train crashes

Answer 8

Indeed, the train driver was brave. The two options he had, were to either leave the cab and head for the first carriage, or stay put. He chose to stay put, and make a concerted effort to "control" the end-result of the derailment, which by the way, is the result of a possible point(switch) failure/mispositioning. I saw the report on Yahoo News.

Thanks to Ian Black's efforts, there was only one fatality, so far. Roughly 77 people were injured in that accident.

I too, commend Sir Richard Branson for being willing to cut short his holiday and respond to the scene of the derailment.

Answer 9

Branson is an *** and should be put in jail for fraud.  If we want a decent West Coast line, then Nationalise it.  Virgin Trains are the most uncomfortable, crowed, late trains with unhelpful staff I have ever had the mis pleasure of travelling with.

Answer 10

In the Sunday Post today, they said the driver was a hero by steering the train to safety.   Never known a train with a steering wheel.

Answer 11

I agree, Branson for PM's job in my opinion.

Answer 12

I agree with you.