Railway working hours and Safety

[hq1hitchin]

I will admit now to falling alseep, albeit for a minute or two, while undertaking handsignalling duties on the WCML (off topic but at least I was trained on the ECML). Usual stuff for those days, been at work all day, job collapsed, all hands to the pump, ticket working implemented and about 02:00, yours truly began to fall into the arms of Morpheus. Stricter control measures now - I saw a whole breakdown gang sent off the site of a passenger train derailment because they were over their hours a few years later. In the olden days on the KX division, we used, like most of our ilk, to get overtime at weekends on engineering work in the 1970s acting as traffic supervisors. Saturday nights a speciality but sadly one of our number on the GE fell asleep (so it was thought) going home after a long night turn, lost control of his car and was killed. Another mate admitted to me that he wound all the windows down and turned the heater off on his Viva in order to help him get home. Thus was the Eastern Region modernised....

[ceejaydee]

I've found it very interesting reading through this thread and I'll add my limited experience if I may.
When I mentioned to a friend who works on the 'real' railways the hours I had been working on a preserved line he was shocked and told me that he wouldn't be able to work that many.
Whilst falling asleep on the job was not an issue whilst volunteering being efficient at work on a Monday after working a sixteen hour shift on a Sunday was!
It is sad that I have had to restrict my volunteering but my safety, health and paid employment must come first!

[52A]

Thanks very much for explaining the lookout arrangements currently in force, Bryan. I've had another look at the Grayrigg accident report on the RAIB website. As you suggest, line speed and sighting distances were such, following the introduction of Pendolinos, that no access to the track for either inspection or maintenance was possible on long stretches of the WCML through NW England, except for the period between first light and 10:30 on Sunday mornings. In the winter this could be just a few hours, when of course you are often fighting the weather too, and even more so on higher ground. To quote the introduction to Appendix H:

This appendix describes the decisions and circumstances that led to almost the whole of
the WCML in the area under the control of Network Rail’s infrastructure maintenance
manager, Lancashire and Cumbria, being inspected before 10:30 hrs on Sunday mornings
from April 2006 to the time of the accident [23 Feb 2007]. In winter this slot was limited to the order of
two to three hours, between sunrise and the end of the possession.

As a result, resources were concentrated on inspection to the detriment of maintenance, because the same people did both, were expected to do both in the same possession period, and there were restrictions on overtime - to quote again:

There were no additional resources to meet the commitment of patrolling the whole of
the Carnforth section on Sunday morning. ...In addition, the need for all patrolling to take place on Sunday mornings reduced the availability of staff to undertake maintenance activities, which could also only be
undertaken in the same possessions, as the same group of staff carried out inspection and
maintenance activities.

A sad tale of time-honoured engineering practice and tradition being swept aside by bean counting executives with no interest in, or loyalty to, their people or the railway industry.

I was working on the west coast route when this accident happened. It was sickening to see the way the so called managers treat their staff in the aftermath. I have also downloaded the full report which lists a number of management failings. The BTP held ground level staff on bail for almost 2 years then released them from this with no further action. When will they arrest the managers which were criticised in the report?

[Boris]

Our method was when we were put in a loop to wait for faster stuff to pass us we would put a bucket on the signal balance weight so when the signal came off it would wake us up,hopefully.
However once at the bottom of the loop at Woodhouse East the bucket dropped O.K. but fell into soft mud so we didn't hear it.
The next thing we knew was the signal man climbing onto the footplate and giving us a rollicking, he had walked in the mud in the dark as well.

[52A]

Yes it did happen, I have had to wake signalmen up as well so they can't claim imunity!