The LNER Encyclopedia

Following pms with 52A and 61070 regarding various incidents mainly pre grouping in the North East i have come to the conclusion that the accident rate on the railway pre grouping era could have been halved if a sensible attitude had been taken to working hours.
We moan today about H&S but when you read of tragedies when men have been at work for excessive hours it makes you glad to have a sensible safety regime in place.
I welcome comments and instances of the above where an alert railwayman may have avoided an incident.

You're not wrong 52D, witness the fact that so many staff were killed on duty that the railways of old felt obliged to open orphanages to take in their children. Signalman Holmes of the NER was always held up as an example of a tired railwayman who caused an accident, which came about as a pretty uncaring attitude by the management regarding the fact that his child had just died and the culture of those times. Be careful when looking at fatigue at work, though, as statistically you are more likely to be involved in an incident on your first day back after three weeks leave as opposed to having been working 12 hours a day for three weeks. We used to accept p.way men being knocked down by trains almost without comment, wheras today there are tremendous ructions if a staff fatality occurs.

That's an interesting insight into the dangers of p.way work even in quite recent times, hq1. I seem to remember reading in the report into the Grayrigg accident that Pendolinos appear so quickly that there's hardly time to disengage a spanner from a point stretcher bar nut and gain a place of safety before the train is upon the men.

Several of us, including 52D, have been researching an accident on the NER at Elswick, Newcastle on 14th September 1909. A 'mystery photograph', which turned out to be of the operation to clear the line following this accident, has been the subject of much debate, over several months, on another part of this forum what-loco-t1980.html .

The following are extracts from press reports of the inquest into the death of a Gateshead driver who was fatally injured in the above accident:

1. Evidence from the driver's widow.

At 1.30 a.m. ... he left home for work. He was to go to Berwick.

2. Evidence from a Leeds driver who was the booked driver of the train that was involved in the accident:

Christopher Orton Chandler, engine driver, of Leeds, said he drove a goods train from Leeds to Newcastle, and on arrival at Newcastle he boarded a goods train bound for Berwick, with the deceased as pilot. Witness and deceased returned together from Berwick in charge of a passenger train, and at Newcastle they were placed in charge of a goods train which was going to Leeds. Deceased was absolutely sober, At Neewcastle [sic] they were placed in charge of a goods train, and they left the Forth Junction at about 11 p.m. According to the regulations it was the duty of the pilot engineman to attend to the signals only, but it was a common practice amongst the men for the pilot to take charge of the engine, and the deceased was driving on this occasion. Witness was standing at the back of the cab eating some food, and he heard the deceased remark that the signals were off and that he was going onto the main line.

The accident occurred a few minutes afterwards, when the train entered a works siding and was wrecked after colliding with one of the works locomotives. The root cause was inattention to signals on the part of the deceased, and it is possible that he mistook the main line signals, which had been cleared for a passenger train, for those relating to the adjacent independent goods line along which his train was to travel. He had left home at 1:30 am that morning, nearly 22 hours before the accident, and he appears to have been on duty throughout; the Leeds driver may well have left his own home even earlier. A tired man on a familiar route, anticipating the end of his shift (his pilot duties would have finished on reaching the ECML at Low Fell, probably 20 minutes later) perhaps just let his attention drift, or maybe he even dropped off to sleep at the critical time.

Because this was an inquest, not a BoT inquiry, the scope of the investigation was limited. There is no information, for example, about the times of the trains that the men were assigned to that day, or whether they were able to get any proper rest. The issue of long hours on duty was apparently not considered to be relevant, being reported in a completely matter-of-fact manner without comment.

Can anyone say on what account this accident did not warrant a Board of Trade inquiry in those days? The following year there was a fatal accident involving a collision and derailment on the NER at Darlington that had certain similar characteristics and that was investigated by the BoT (by chance it was the same locomotive that was involved).

Similarities:
• No passenger trains involved
• Railway employees only were casualties
• Both appear to have been caused by error or inattention on the footplate (though in the case of the Darlington accident this could not have been a result of long hours on duty)

Differences:
• Elswick accident occurred on a private siding, Darlington accident on the NER main line

Was the latter the deciding criterion, or would there have been some other factor that made the difference?

That's an interesting insight into the dangers of p.way work even in quite recent times, hq1. I seem to remember reading in the report into the Grayrigg accident that Pendolinos appear so quickly that there's hardly time to disengage a spanner from a point stretcher bar nut and gain a place of safety before the train is upon the men.

Any work on track currently must have a safe system of work set up before work can start.
That includes as a last resort working "Red Zone with Lookout" The 9th option on the list.
The safe system here would include sighting distances required for the linespeed on the stretch of track concerned. If the required distance cannot be achieved then either another lookout must be provided up to a maximum of 1 site,2 intermediates and 1 distant lookout.
Or another method must be used such as T2 possessions etc.
The maximum linespeed at which staff are allowed trackside is 125 mph at which speed the commonest required time required to clear track of 25 seconds requires a sighting distance of 1400 metres or 70 chain. (How long are the straights on the WCML were Pendolinos run.)
That is allowing 5 secs for Dist L/O, 5 secs for L/O looking both ways, 5 secs for 1 track to cross and 10 secs in place of safety.

To return to the point made about Pendolinos appearing quickly may I hazard a guess that the safe system had not been set up correctly.
I have seen it many times were staff go trackside on their own or with minimal lookout protection and the actual sighting distance is nowhere near adequate.

Am I correct in thinking that Manor House SB near Thirsk, associated with the tragic Signalman James Holmes, actually survived into the 1960s, years after that section of line was re-signalled with colour lights? Possibly in use as some kind of store or something similar, with the windows boarded up. I was always reminded of the events of 1892 when passing it.

To give an non-NER example (just to show it was a national problem), the derailment at Norton Fitzwarren in November 1940, is generally accepted to have been caused by driver error, ultimately attributable to wartime conditions. The driver's home had recently been bombed in the Blitz and he was not as alert as he might have been, though for other reasons than tiredness. He made a mistake in the blackout and crossed catchpoints, leading to King George VI and five coaches rolling over, killing 27 passengers and ending nearly fifty years of the GWR's record of no passenger fatalities. (The odds on being killed in a GWR train were quoted in 1939 as being a billion to one.)

True about P.W. men, my late very good friend Charles Edward White was run down and killed while on a night shift as lookout on a P.W.gang between Pelaw & Felling in 1977.
He had worked several long shifts in succession and may have dozed off resulting in him being run down by a freightliner. there were several P.W. men killed on that same stretch down to Tyne Dock around that time.
Ted had not long had an honourable discharge from the army after being wounded in Belfast, it was his first "civvie" job.

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.

Yes, the poor p.way blokes had a very rough time of it not so many years ago and it's only right that great measures have been taken to ensure their safety. An awful job is to go round to the house and tell the wife that the husband's not coming home.

Sorry, not trying to get off topic but if you look at the underlying causes of the Salisbury derailment of 1906, there would appear to be the possibility of what we would now call 'micro-sleep'. The turn the driver involved had worked meant booking on early in the afternoon at Nine Elms, working a stopper from W'loo to Salisbury, taking short rest, then tender first to Templecombe and waiting for the boat train. Disaster befell them about 2 a.m., God knows how many hours after he and his fireman had signed on and, yet, they were right away Waterloo. Hate to estimate the length of duty of that turn but it was accepted without murmur in those times. Remember things like that when people talk about the railways pre 1914 being the 'golden age'

G'Day Gents.
There was a job at KX which was light engine to Bounds Green at about 3.am,to pick up odd stock (parcels vans, buffet car stuff like that) and take it to KX (usually put into the milk dock etc) We left Bounds Green ok, put out main line at the up end of Wood Green station, by Finsbury Park we were doing about 70mph at Holloway about 75/80mph so I called across to my driver, who was sitting bolt upright hand on the controller and looking forward like he should, my shout made him start he looked at me and said were are we?? I told him we were just entering Copenhagen tunnel 'Oh S***' and slammed the brakes on,full emergency brake application, we came out of Copenhagen tunnel still doing about 60/65mph, we were routed through the center gasworks tunnel which we entered at about 50mph, brakes full on, we came out of Gasworks tunnel into Kings Cross still doing 30mph (speed limit 8mph) hit the end of the platform at about 15mph (the brakes biting now)the driver starting to release the bakes to let us roll down the platform to the bufferstops, neither of us had said a word since Copenhagen tunnel. We finally stopped in the right place (platform 5/6) shut the engine down and looked at each other the driver said 'I fell asleep I don't believe it, I never fall asleep' I said 'never mind one of us was awake'.we both got off the engine and walked rather unsteadly back to the mess room, I always think back to that incident when ever I hear about railwaymen falling asleep on the job, I was sitting next to a driver who fell asleep in less than 5 miles, who did'n't fall over who's head did'n't drop down and who gave every indication to me of being wide awake, alarm bells only went off when we did'nt shut off power at Holloway Nth box by Holloway Sth box I was calling the driver in the next few seconds we were at Copenhagen tunnelmouth, can you imagine what could have happened if I had waited a few more seconds before calling out to the driver and coming out of Gasworks tunnel at 50mph,it was scary enough at 30mph we were bouncing around all over the place, you can bet your bottom dollar thats what happened at Grantham and a dozen other train crashes over the years, me I never fell asleep again on night shift, unless we were tucked away in some siding.
manna

In steam days - and probably also diesel - there were a number of enginemen's workings on the ECML which, although no doubt covered by national agreements, used to set me thinking with regard to the possible fatigue factors involved. King's Cross men arriving in Newcastle on the down morning 'Talisman at around 12.30 p.m. (08.00 ex K/X) would at one time return on the 22.55 the same evening from Newcastle. They would need to try, this being the operative word, to get some rest in the afternoon before signing on for duty later in the evening for their return working. Similarly, Gateshead men off the first up morning express from Newcastle to K/X at 08.00 would arrive at around 13.00 and leave at 01.00 the following morning for Newcastle. Some lodging turns were obviously fine in this respect. The Gateshead crew off the up evening 'Talisman' arrive K/X 22.40, should get a full night's sleep before their return the next morning at 10.10/11.00 am. One Thornaby driver once confided to me his fears of falling asleep, particularly in diesel days with single manning being introduced. Wasn't it this kind of thing that led to improved vigilance devices being introduced on locomotives.
It was not only enginemen. A signalman in a rural box on the main line used to pace and prowl the floor on the nightshift, constantly fearful of dozing off at around 3 or 4 a.m.

Just a further comment on working hours.
A fairly significant discrepancy in attitudes is often found when you examine the working time of staff on track.
Permanent staff employed by a company are limited to 12 hours door to door (Or they were in my case) however contract staff operating the diggers, additional ground staff etc were booked 12 hours on site irrespective of travel time.
Does this seem right?
I know I get tired after being out for a full shift and then having to drive home, that is the worst especially when the heater starts to work. Then you appreciate the laybys.

When I moved from Hull Botanic to Bradford (GN) I was asked to sign away my rostered day off ( 1 day per fornight) as they were short handed.
One job I worked in my link was a night goods from Bradford,Laisterdyke to Gascoine Wood and return to Halifax, North bridge. We were supposed to be relieved at Halifax by a Bradford crew coming up "On the cushions". Some times just a driver turned up leaving the fireman to work a 16 hours shift. Some times just a fireman turned up and sometimes neither!
I leave it to your imagination as to the state of an engine crew 14 hours into a shift and still having the responsibility of a loco and its train.

stembok wrote: It was not only enginemen. A signalman in a rural box on the main line used to pace and prowl the floor on the nightshift, constantly fearful of dozing off at around 3 or 4 a.m.

My Wife's uncle was a signalman at Dore and Totley and he told me of an occasion when he had fallen asleep and was woken up by the fireman of a goods train that he had put into the loop, it appears that they had been there for some time and had also been asleep!

Bryan wrote:Just a further comment on working hours.
A fairly significant discrepancy in attitudes is often found when you examine the working time of staff on track.
Permanent staff employed by a company are limited to 12 hours door to door (Or they were in my case) however contract staff operating the diggers, additional ground staff etc were booked 12 hours on site irrespective of travel time.
Does this seem right?
I know I get tired after being out for a full shift and then having to drive home, that is the worst especially when the heater starts to work. Then you appreciate the laybys.

This rings so many bells with me too. I would drive the scenic route to keep awake. There was never any consideration for how we were supposed to get home. A number of company vehicles were "damaged" by running off the road, albeit it wasn't a common occurance. I used to find that I would be nodding when driving and as soon as I would pull into a layby, I was suddenly wide awake again. I couldn't win.

The only time I ever had a driver allocated was when I was working two miles from home. They were never available when there was a two hour drive.

The thing with the plant drivers was that they were limited to 12 hours working with us, but many was the time when they said that they had just come from another site and were going back to that site next day.