Trespass

[Blink Bonny]

Let's spread the word here. And nail these people.

[60041]

There is a popular photographic location just a hundred yards up the lane from our house and I see blatant trespass almost every week, usually people crossing the line to get shots from the other side, but I have also seen people kneeling in the cess or even standing on the up line, taking photos of a train on the down.
We have not had much steam past this year, so things have not been too bad lately - although some of the diesel fans are guilty; the problem with steam is that it attracts the family groups and I have seen people climbing over the fence with young children in tow and wandering across the line: it is the ECML and people just do not realise that trains running almost silently downhill at 100 mph can be on you before you hear them coming.

[52D]

I know 60041s location very well and I endorse his comments about HSTs 91s and others coming up silently at high speed. Trouble is families and other people who have not worked in an Industrial environment do not understand Health and Safety legislation. The picture BB posted is only one of many I have seen posted online. Just a reasonable use of common sense is needed.

[PinzaC55]

There is a popular photographic location just a hundred yards up the lane from our house and I see blatant trespass almost every week, usually people crossing the line to get shots from the other side, but I have also seen people kneeling in the cess or even standing on the up line, taking photos of a train on the down.
We have not had much steam past this year, so things have not been too bad lately - although some of the diesel fans are guilty; the problem with steam is that it attracts the family groups and I have seen people climbing over the fence with young children in tow and wandering across the line: it is the ECML and people just do not realise that trains running almost silently downhill at 100 mph can be on you before you hear them coming.

Have you reported it to the BTP and advised them to have someone there when the next special is due?

[D2100]

Trouble is families and other people who have not worked in an Industrial environment do not understand Health and Safety legislation.

Good grief. Not having a pop at you 52D, but how difficult is it to understand 'a train weighs hundreds of tons, it cannot stop on a sixpence and it will make an almighty mess of you'. It's not even common sense IMHO, it's a basic lack of a self-preservation instinct.

[Blink Bonny]

Ian

You know this.

I know this.

The members of this forum know this.

But most folks think a car can stop dead at 70mph!

That's what we're up against. And when you consider the trash press report of drivers "steering" their trains???

[Boris]

Re a car stopping dead at 70 M.P.H.
Actually in normal conditions it is 94 metres, so as a good tip if you are on a motor way, every 100 metres there is a little marker post at the side and in the centre, so if you keep the car in front of you passing the next post beyond the post you are passing then you are in the right distance.

This you will find it is also the two second gap, if you know what that is

Try it you will be gob smacked how far away it is from where you usually drive, but it may save your life one day.

Sorry to get off railways but as I have spent 5 years training drivers up to take the Advanced Driving Test with the I.A.M. I feel compelled to get this bit in.

And by the way I didn't get paid for this

[StevieG]

Thanks for those additional tips Boris. Hadn't thought of those posts, although familiar with the "Only a fool breaks the two-second rule", and the (trial?) stretches where in-lane chevrons have been painted in the motorway lanes, with relevant explanatory signage, to commend keeping two chevrons in sight between you and the preceding vehicle (I know of two such areas along the M4).

Ian

You know this.

I know this.

The members of this forum know this.

But most folks think a car can stop dead at 70mph!

That's what we're up against. And when you consider the trash press report of drivers "steering" their trains???

I have to agree with BB on this.
Taking oneself and one's offspring/nearest and dearest to see the quaint sight (as some see it) of an old-fashioned steam train passing can be very attractive.

While some will undoubtedly know there is danger in being the wrong side of the fence/wall, or 'yellow line' (or similar distance) on the platform; worse, actually on-track, many will not know the degree (or speed) of risk, and there will be some that haven't the slightest clue. Consider how many of the population rarely or never use a train (cost of many journeys will be a factor in that, not just convenience or lack thereof).
Even for a significant proportion - I'd suggest, a majority - of those that do take to the train moderately/frequently often, or every workday, it can be just a conveyance that mostly works okay, allowing them to concentrate on reading the paper or a book, do an extra x hours of work on a laptop (probably unpaid and/or deadline-dictated) or become totally engrossed in participating in 'the social meedja'.

I suspect that thinking of what they're travelling in, how it works, how fast it's going, how heavy it is (okay, less so the pacers/'railbuses' etc. perhaps: I can't comment on the Parry People-mover ), and especially how long it takes to stop / the low friction available between steel wheel and steel rail, does not enter most passengers' heads : And even less so to those making few or no train journeys.
Few would know that traditional signalling for our high-speed trains is fashioned to give (taking the detail of several varying factors for each site into account) very roughly around 2,600 metres (about 1 & 5/8 miles) for coming to a safe and comfortable stop at a red from maximum permissible speed (while at the same time generally allowing successive trains running on greens at 125mph to be as little as apprx. 95 seconds apart!).

Emergency braking? Well, more severe, yes, but naturally, forget any equivalent to 'sixpences' or 'two seconds'.
As a possible indication in this context; - In the case of initial awareness of a derailment or other obstruction of a line which requires an immediate stop to trains which may thus be in danger, being by involved or observing traincrew or competent other/s [and if more modern means of emergency communications to signaller being absent or apparently unsuccessful at the time], then for emergency protection of a line, I believe that the emergency protection Rules still require the furthest protecting detonators to be placed (where/when at all possible) on the rail at 1 & 1/4 miles from the obstruction of the line (or as near to that distance as can be achieved before a train approaches).

Admittedly though, 1 & 1/4 is shorter than 1 & 5/8-ish miles, and while possibly about 1,200 yards would be a more realistic minimum emergency stop distance (can vary greatly according to train length/type / loco/multiple-unit type/braking capability / actual speed / gradient / weather .....), both situations are irrelevant if a driver only gets a few seconds' sight of danger to the train or to people just ahead, and then all he/she's got available is the warning horns and initiating emergency braking.

Even if no-one ends up getting physically hurt, the driver, and possibly onlookers and/or those who just escaped injury, will have been badly shaken-up, 'heart in mouth', etc., for what is/was a relatively trivial reason, and the driver (or nowadays, any directly-involved relevant real-time rail organisation's Control) may justifiably feel, or be obliged by policy, that it would be unsafe for him/her to continue with their train owing to concerns over possible ensuing mental distraction in thinking about what happened, and so their train may then be 'marooned' until another driver can be got there: [Very likely to be mandatory, if there has been injury or worse].

(Sorry; going on a bit aren't I, but I think the extent of lack of risk realisation amongst some should not be underestimated.)

[John Palmer]

We are extraorodinarily inconsistent about the degree of risk we tolerate in different circumstances. Compare the lengths to which we go to prevent two trains coming into collision with each other with the precautions taken to prevent a collision between two motor cars. With the car we depend substantially upon a repeated process of individual risk assessment ("Am I too close to the vehicle in front?") that in all too many cases isn't repeated frequently enough, or in some cases at all! Contrast that with the highly prescriptive process by which safe systems of railway operation are applied, even though there seem to have been a few blind spots in the course of their evolution (Colwich? The curve at Angrois?).

On the roads there are those who maximise their survival prospects by taking pains to improve their risk awareness, like Boris with his IAM training. Some will survive because they enjoy an inherent capacity for perception of risk that is above average. But you will always have a problem with the Rumsfeldian 'unknown unknowns': those who just don't or can't realise their ignorance of the risk to which they expose themselves.

"It's perfectly all right. I know exactly what I'm-" BANG!

[Bryan]

Braking distance
I don't know about older stock but when the Voyager had an incident at Copmanthorpe a few years back, I had to wheel out the distance from impact point to front of train when it stopped.
I made it at about 825 metres that was with at least one, later two wheelsets dragging on the sleepers.
The Rolling stock examiners asked me the distance and said that 825 was very close to the design emergency stop distance.

825m approx 903yds.

[Boris]

Did anyone see the u tube video of an H.S.T. or some passenger unit pulling up at a platform end and the driver leaning out of his window to tell a photographer to get his arse back from the platform edge.
He had been instructed by control to slow and tell him

It may be of interest, I once went early morning to video some East Coast traffic at line speed through Cross gates station with a new camera I had just bought.

As I trundled onto the platform a voice from the tannoy asked me what I was doing there so early as I was walking onto an end part of the platform trains no longer stopped at, I just held my camera up so it could be seen on their cams' and got a nice 'Thank you'

[StevieG]

Braking distance
I don't know about older stock but when the Voyager had an incident at Copmanthorpe a few years back, I had to wheel out the distance from impact point to front of train when it stopped.
I made it at about 825 metres that was with at least one, later two wheelsets dragging on the sleepers.
The Rolling stock examiners asked me the distance and said that 825 was very close to the design emergency stop distance.

825m approx 903yds.

Interesting to hear of an actual example Bryan. Thanks.

[Ferrybridge Flyer]

At the end of the day,no photograph is worth risking your life for.Or being arrested for that matter.There will always be the danger of the ignoramus though.A few years back,i was on Micklefield station waiting for a special,and two little kids,about seven or eight actually ran across the tracks in front of a X/C HST,and when i said not to do that,their answer was 'WHY?' Sometimes you just can't put it where there is nowt.

[Mickey]

Possibly the ulimate act of trespass that occurred was printed in the Welwyn & Hatfield Times local newspaper maybe about 6-8 years ago when it was reported that a 'young kid' who was acting on a dare from a friend layed down in the 4ft between both running rails and let an express go over him!!!.

Apparently he survived in one piece.

[StevieG]

" .... it was reported that a 'young kid' who was acting on a dare from a friend layed down in the 4ft between both running rails and let an express go over him!!!. .... "

I'd think that one reason against trying that (not the most obvious!) would be that these days, with many trains/locos having all sorts of extra post-AWS 'gubbinses' aboard (ATP / TCAIDs / TPWS / TASS / SDO*, etc.), who knows how many low receiver/detectors for 'this and that' might be positioned down below the floors - though no doubt they ought all to be no lower than Standards-specified requirements for minimum clearances above rail-level / sleepers / rails crossing / level crossing surfaces.

At least these days, the number of passenger vehicles still having soil pipes from 'flush-straight-to-track' toilets is steadily reducing !

* - [ Track Circuit Assister Interference Detector system / Automatic Train Protection / Train Protection & Warning System / Tilt Authorisation and Speed Supervision / Selective Door Opening (automatic) ]