Latest RAIB report - Newcastle Central

[theblackwatch]

The RAIB report on an incident at Newcastle in 2013 has been published at http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports/reports_2014/report192014.cfm today. Although showing the category of 'Metro', the incident actually involved a main line train.

Summary:

At 17:02 hrs on Wednesday 5 June 2013, a passenger was dragged by a train departing from platform 10 at Newcastle Central station. Her wrist was trapped by an external door of the train and she was forced to move beside it to avoid being pulled off her feet. The train reached a maximum speed of around 5 mph (8 km/h) and travelled around 20 metres before coming to a stop. The train’s brakes were applied either by automatic application following a passenger operating the emergency door release handle, or by the driver responding to an emergency signal from the conductor. The conductor, who was in the rear cab, reported that he responded to someone on the platform shouting at him to stop the train. The passenger suffered severe bruising to her wrist.

 

[ModernRailways]

Quite a few reasons for this by the quick glance I've had!

Train Guard not following correct procedures.
The Class 185 door design allows things to get trapped.
The passenger uses the Metro where the doors will auto re-open if you block them and so took it that the doors on the 185 would do the same.

Either way, in my view the train guard is at fault as well as fTPE for not following correct procedure as well as not bothering to report it.

Can anyone find the original thread we had about this? I've searched high and low but to no avail.

 

[SeanG]

Not read it but surely the passenger is also at fault then, as she stuck her hand into a closing train door

 

[142094]

Now showing as 'Heavy Rail' rather than Metro.

Quite a concern for the industry as these incidents seem to be on the rise (unless this is down to increased reporting due to the consequences of what can happen i.e. James Street).

Not read it but surely the passenger is also at fault then, as she stuck her hand into a closing train door

Yes, but the guard also had a duty of care towards the passenger. Difficult situation to be in - the passenger should have taken more care and not stuck her arm in, but these days staff need to take more care as it is all too easy to lose your job, pension and possibly go to jail for a small error of judgement.

 

[TimG]

Not read it but surely the passenger is also at fault then, as she stuck her hand into a closing train door

Not sure. Would you expect a lift door to close on your hand?

 

[yorkie]

Not read it but surely the passenger is also at fault then, as she stuck her hand into a closing train door

That is true, but we live in a society whereby someone else must (also) be held accountable.

 

[bb21]

Some people are idiots. What if the door does not reopen, either because it is not designed to or due to a fault? Some people just don't think about the risks before doing something.

 

[Hebden Bridger]

That is true, but we live in a society whereby someone else must (also) be held accountable.

Well the report is clear.

This accident occurred because the conductor did not carry out a safety check before signalling to the driver that the train could depart. Platform 10 at Newcastle Central is a curved platform and safe dispatch is particularly reliant upon following the correct dispatch procedure including undertaking the pre-dispatch safety checks.

The correct process was not followed.

The investigation found that although the doors complied with the applicable train door standard, they were, in certain circumstances, able to trap a wrist and lock without the door obstruction sensing system detecting it. Once the doors were detected as locked, the train was able to move.

In 2004, although the parties involved in the train’s design and its approval for service were aware of this hazard, the risk associated with it was not formally documented or assessed. The train operator undertook a risk assessment in 2010 following reports of passengers becoming trapped. Although they rated the risk as tolerable, the hazard was not recorded in such a way that it could be monitored and reassessed, either on their own fleet or by operators of similar trains.

Both the train designers and TPE were aware of the problem with the doors but did little about it.

I'm afraid the willingness of some on this forum to blame passengers or society at large for the faults of the railway industry astounds me.

 

[bb21]

I'm afraid the willingness of some on this forum to blame passengers or society at large for the faults of the railway industry astounds me.

No one said the industry is not at fault on this occasion.

But that does not change the fact that said passenger was an idiot too in this instance.

 

[swj99]

No one said the industry is not at fault on this occasion.

But that does not change the fact that said passenger was an idiot too in this instance.

I wonder if referring to passengers as idiots might show this forum, and the railway industry in rather a bad light. I've noticed several instances where it's happened, and I'm sure it adds nothing constructive to a debate.

 

[ModernRailways]

Some people are idiots. What if the door does not reopen, either because it is not designed to or due to a fault? Some people just don't think about the risks before doing something.

Some other people are idiots for not doing the job they are paid to do properly...

The train guard is there to look after the train and it's passengers but didn't bother to do their job properly. Yes, they shouldn't have put their hands in the door but the passenger also wouldn't have expected for the train to then depart with their hand in the door because from experience train doors bounce back open, so she's obviously done this before and thought the same would happen it didn't because of a fault on the trains and the guard not completing his checks correctly.

This could have been solved quite simply by providing mirrors/monitors so the guard can check the train is clear before giving the RA, the guard should also seen if there were any straggling passengers who may have attempted to board. If mirrors/monitors can't be provided then there needs to be another member of staff who dispatches the service.

 

[rdeez]

It's a safe bet this passenger won't go anywhere near a closing door in the future...

People are just in so much of a hurry all the time. The underground is particularly amusing, where services are at most a few minutes apart, and yet you still see people launching themselves at a rapidly shortening gap as the doors close, as if their very lives depended on it.

 

[bb21]

I wonder if referring to passengers as idiots might show this forum, and the railway industry in rather a bad light. I've noticed several instances where it's happened, and I'm sure it adds nothing constructive to a debate.

I can't think of another word to describe that behaviour, sorry.

Whatever was going through her mind, I fail to understand. It is all well and good relying on the guard to do his job correctly and responsibly, but what if he didn't as in this case? This situation could have been easily prevented by not trying to board when the hustle alarm is going off. That way one would not have to rely on the guard doing the job correctly to stay safe.

Some other people are idiots for not doing the job they are paid to do properly...

The train guard is there to look after the train and it's passengers but didn't bother to do their job properly. Yes, they shouldn't have put their hands in the door but the passenger also wouldn't have expected for the train to then depart with their hand in the door because from experience train doors bounce back open, so she's obviously done this before and thought the same would happen it didn't because of a fault on the trains and the guard not completing his checks correctly.

This could have been solved quite simply by providing mirrors/monitors so the guard can check the train is clear before giving the RA, the guard should also seen if there were any straggling passengers who may have attempted to board. If mirrors/monitors can't be provided then there needs to be another member of staff who dispatches the service.

I did not say the guard was not at fault, but railway staff are people. They make mistakes. Yes, he was equally idiotic for not following the correct procedure. What if the guard made a mistake and/or the door developed a fault and the train did not stop in time, consequently dragging her off the platform? It should not be beyond the wit of a man of average intelligence to see that rushing through hustle alarms and potentially getting trapped in the doors can only end badly for one person.

So, idiocy and nothing else. We don't always need to rely on other people for our own safety, and in this case, she didn't need to.

 

[Bantamzen]

I can't think of another word to describe that behaviour, sorry.

Whatever was going through her mind, I fail to understand. It is all well and good relying on the guard to do his job correctly and responsibly, but what if he didn't as in this case? This situation could have been easily prevented by not trying to board when the hustle alarm is going off. That way one would not have to rely on the guard doing the job correctly to stay safe.

I agree. The alarm on the 185s gives passengers enough warning before the doors start to close. The common sense approach ought to be that if the alarm is activated, don't launch yourself at the doors. I'm constantly amazed at the stupidity of some of my fellow passengers sometimes when it comes to situations like these. Personally if I arrive late on the platform I either accept that if the alarms are going it's too late & wait for the next service, or if I'm really desperate I might try to head towards the doors the guard is operating from in the hope that they might see me & hold their doors whilst I board. There's really no excuse for endangering yourself and possibly others just because you didn't make it to the platform on time.

 

[LowLevel]

It's disappointing more wasn't made despite the hint of TPE using self dispatch on a known risky platform for financial reasons. Platform staff are available at the location to mitigate the risk but they elected not to pay for them and have been caught cutting corners in this area before (Manchester Airport , Lime St etc).

 

[TimG]

I can't think of another word to describe that behaviour, sorry.

Whatever was going through her mind, I fail to understand. It is all well and good relying on the guard to do his job correctly and responsibly, but what if he didn't as in this case? This situation could have been easily prevented by not trying to board when the hustle alarm is going off. That way one would not have to rely on the guard doing the job correctly to stay safe.



I did not say the guard was not at fault, but railway staff are people. They make mistakes. Yes, he was equally idiotic for not following the correct procedure. What if the guard made a mistake and/or the door developed a fault and the train did not stop in time, consequently dragging her off the platform? It should not be beyond the wit of a man of average intelligence to see that rushing through hustle alarms and potentially getting trapped in the doors can only end badly for one person.

So, idiocy and nothing else. We don't always need to rely on other people for our own safety, and in this case, she didn't need to.

The guard knows better and is trained and paid to know better. Everyone makes mistakes though.

It is reasonable to expect that a door will not close on your hands. This expectation is reinforced by the behaviour of other automatic doors eg lifts.

 

[bb21]

Guards can make mistakes, doors can fail, but not boarding when the hustle alarm goes off will never fail. It's only common sense.

Are we now going to place our own safety entirely in other people's hands even if we could take steps to ensure it ourselves?

To be honest I don't really care if some people want to be stupid, because they will only end up hurting one person in most cases - themselves.

 

[Hebden Bridger]

Guards can make mistakes, doors can fail, but not boarding when the hustle alarm goes off will never fail. It's only common sense.

Are we now going to place our own safety entirely in other people's hands even if we could take steps to ensure it ourselves?

To be honest I don't really care if some people want to be stupid, because they will only end up hurting one person in most cases - themselves.

I see you continue to call this behaviour stupid, but it seems quite commonplace to me that passengers attempt to board trains as doors are closing/have closed, fortunately rarely succeding nowadays. It seems to me to be a common impulsive behaviour, by no means confined to stupid people.

If you wish to jump to conclusions about the passengers actions, I'm also quite happy to jump to conclusions about the railway staff involved.(I am joking here before any readers have a heart attack).

The design team who allowed the trains into service with this known fault, without even informing the operator - obviously totally incompetent and unprofessional.

The TOC who spotted the fault for themselves after a number of passenger were jammed in the doors, but did nothing about, failing even to monitor the risk. Money-grabbing, profit making, corner-cutting, cost-controlling capitalists.

The guard, obviously an inept, lazy dimwit.

So a whole catalogue of ineptitude and incompetence.

As I said, I am of course joking, I wouldn't jump to these conclusions without knowing the facts of the case with far more detail. Neither should posters here make assumptions about the actions of the passenger.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That is true, but we live in a society whereby someone else must (also) be held accountable.

But this post really made me choke. It is apparently true that the passenger is to blame, but somehow the major faults of three different parts of the railway industry are not worth a mention and indeed any fault found due to society supposedly requiring that someone else must be accountable.

I'm not sure if the industry in which I work is typical of society, but mistakes similar to these three this would be career if not job threatening.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Passengers shouldn't run to board when the hustle alarm sounds, but it is a known risk and the railways have a duty to mitigate it.

Sadly TPE have a defective train and they're too cheap to pay for platform despatch staff at Newcastle, despite the severe curve on the bay platforms. On top of that we have a guard who, for whatever reason, didn't do the job that he's paid to do.

He should consider himself lucky that he's just got a telling off from RAIB and, presumably, a meeting without biscuits with his boss. The last guard who made a similar mistake got five years porridge.

 

[Quickthorn]

Well the report is clear.

This accident occurred because the conductor did not carry out a safety check before signalling to the driver that the train could depart. Platform 10 at Newcastle Central is a curved platform and safe dispatch is particularly reliant upon following the correct dispatch procedure including undertaking the pre-dispatch safety checks.

This paragraph occurs in the initial summary chapter of the report, but it doesn't entirely reflect the findings. Anyone who got further than the summary would have found the following, on p.36:

Summary of conclusions

Immediate cause

The train moved with the passenger’s wrist trapped in the closed door.

Causal factors

The causal factors were:

a.The passenger attempted to board the train as the door was closing
(paragraph 77, no recommendation).

b.A characteristic of the Class 185 doors was that a wrist could be trapped and not detected, thereby allowing the train to move (paragraph 81, Recommendations 1 and 2).

c.The conductor did not see the passenger trapped in the door because he did not do a final safety check before dispatching the train. This was because he either made an error due to confusion, or he consciously ignored what he had been trained to do (paragraph 84, no recommendation).

Underlying factor

The underlying factor was that although Siemens, FTPE and HMRI were aware of the possibility of a trapping and dragging accident as a result of the undesirable characteristic of the original door design, the risk of this specific hazard was not properly assessed, nor was there any consideration of additional safety measures to minimise any risk (paragraphs 100 and 110, Recommendations 3 and 4).

The paragraphs that caught my attention were more to do with the risk assessment procedures that fTPE did prior to this incident. I don't think it's true that fTPE "knew about the risks but did nothing". They did assess risk, but their risk assessment process led them to conclude that risk was tolerable. They assessed the likelihood of a fatality due to trapping and dragging, and whether this likelihood would justify action and/or expense (p.28-29):

In 2010, following the three reports of door trapping incidents and the video
evidence of how the sensitive edge detection could be overcome (paragraph 68), FTPE undertook a quantitative risk assessment with technical assistance from Siemens.

First TransPennine Express calculated that the frequency of a fatality due to a passenger becoming trapped on the outside of the train was around 1 in 26,600 years across the 51 units of the Class 185 fleet. Following the Newcastle Central accident, FTPE has reassessed this risk and has calculated the frequency of this event as 1 in 16 years.

The large difference between these two frequencies is primarily due to the
differences in the assessed likelihood of a trapped passenger on the platform not being able to remove their arm if trapped in the door. The earlier risk assessment estimated this as 1 in 100. The most recent assessment assumes that the person cannot remove their arm. Additionally, the earlier assessment estimated that the likelihood of a trapped passenger being seen before the train moved (thus preventing an accident) was ten times greater than that estimated by the more recent assessment.

The RAIB believes that the most recent assessment adopts a more appropriate basis for the estimation of the risk. This is because it assumes (in the absence of trial or test data) that a trapped passenger is not able to remove their arm once the train is moving.

As a result of the 2010 assessment, the risk of a fatality from this hazard was ranked as tolerable against the assessment categorisation. This meant that the risk was acceptable if the costs of implementing control measures grossly outweighed the benefits, thus demonstrating compliance with the UK principle of controlling risk so far as is reasonably practicable (SFAIRP).

So, before Newcastle, they reckoned 1 fatality in 26,600 years, but after, it's changed to 1 in 16. This seems like a huge failing in the risk assessment process to me, and would make me wonder what else has been risk assessed as "tolerable".

 

[Jonny]

It is a bit concerning that something like this could happen on a service and train type that I use on a regular basis. Given the fact that the passenger also uses Metro, I'm not in the least bit surprised. It is doubly ironic that she was going to Durham, one of the very few destinations in the region where you can afford to let a train pass before getting the next one.

I was also suprised to see that one side of the "sensitive edge" had the sensors 'buried' in among the door mechanism (figure 9/page 18 on the full report). I presume that the design intent is that the strip on the "male" side would detect this, or that the "female" one would be sufficiently bent out of place, but this incident seems to have shown that it's possible for something to get jammed. If both sides were like the "male" side, then this would have been avoided by design.

 

[ModernRailways]

I did not say the guard was not at fault, but railway staff are people. They make mistakes. Yes, he was equally idiotic for not following the correct procedure. What if the guard made a mistake and/or the door developed a fault and the train did not stop in time, consequently dragging her off the platform? It should not be beyond the wit of a man of average intelligence to see that rushing through hustle alarms and potentially getting trapped in the doors can only end badly for one person.

So, idiocy and nothing else. We don't always need to rely on other people for our own safety, and in this case, she didn't need to.

I never said you did say the guard was at fault...

As for the guard making a mistake, that would be fair enough but there was a system in place to tell them to re-do the dispatch procedure they guard ignored that and decided the train was safe to leave without checking. The thing that really makes me do a double take on how this could happen is the fact that the guard would be able to see if there were any late passengers who may have been going for that train and so should have performed a check to ensure those passengers boarded safely or didn't board at all and where left on the platform red faced.

I'm not sure of another train whereby if you put your hand in the door the door wouldn't re-open, with the exception of pacers, sprinters (?) and HSTs/MK3s (for obvious reasons) the rest all seem to have adequate safety mechanisms. If that safety mechanism is faulty then that train shouldn't be in service. As the passenger is also a user of the Metro they obviously took it that all train doors bounce back open whether they were right to think that or not. You also can't blame it on idiocy as you don't what they needed to be on the train for, depending on what it was adrenaline may have kicked in and she had no real control over whether she was going to hold the door or not.

If a child was to get caught in the door because the guard didn't re-do any checks their would be all hell let loose and the TOC likely given a hefty fine and the guard sacked. But this was an adult and so nobody gives a toss, the guard is still working in the same role and from what I've heard was sent to do 1 weeks training and to me that just says that fTPE don't care. This was just rumour from a member of TPE staff at Newcastle so could indeed be false but I doubt it's far from the truth.

 

[Jonny]

It's disappointing more wasn't made despite the hint of TPE using self dispatch on a known risky platform for financial reasons. Platform staff are available at the location to mitigate the risk but they elected not to pay for them and have been caught cutting corners in this area before (Manchester Airport , Lime St etc).

I see that TPE are now avoiding platform 10 (the site of the incident) altogether; TPE seem to use platform 9 which has the opposite curvature and should not have such a probelm. In fact, http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/basic/NCL/2014/09/19 shows only one service bothering to use platform 10 today, even then it will most likely be only two cars long.

 

[ModernRailways]

I see that TPE are now avoiding platform 10 (the site of the incident) altogether; TPE seem to use platform 9 which has the opposite curvature and should not have such a probelm. In fact, http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/basic/NCL/2014/09/19 shows only one service bothering to use platform 10 today, even then it will most likely be only two cars long.

That's the same as it always has been. However, it is quite often that TPE use 10 instead of 9 and vice versa.

 

[Bantamzen]

Just another thought here. I haven't read the report in full, but assuming that the guard was dispatching the train from the doors closest to the buffers at platform 10, whereabouts was this woman trying to board? If she had arrived late at the platform, surely the common sense thing to do was to board at the closest set of doors? So where exactly did she try to board? Was that even taken into account?

Edit: Actually scratch that, I've just seen she tried to board through the rear doors of the centre carriage. But the questions still stands, why the hell didn't she try to board at the rear which was closest to the buffers / entrance? I'm sorry but when the alarms are going on a platform configuration like that, you go for the closest doors. It's common sense that possibly shows that she was as much at fault. i wonder if she received a telling off?

 

[Tomnick]

If a child was to get caught in the door because the guard didn't re-do any checks their would be all hell let loose and the TOC likely given a hefty fine and the guard sacked. But this was an adult and so nobody gives a toss, the guard is still working in the same role and from what I've heard was sent to do 1 weeks training and to me that just says that fTPE don't care. This was just rumour from a member of TPE staff at Newcastle so could indeed be false but I doubt it's far from the truth.

Why is there always a demand to sack the person involved in such incidents? There's a disciplinary process to follow for a reason, and a combination of retraining, monitoring, assessment and support is usually a far more proportional response than reaching straight for the P45, especially if it's the first instance of a genuine error or misjudgment...!

 

[Bantamzen]

Why is there always a demand to sack the person involved in such incidents? There's a disciplinary process to follow for a reason, and a combination of retraining, monitoring, assessment and support is usually a far more proportional response than reaching straight for the P45, especially if it's the first instance of a genuine error or misjudgment...!

Indeed, especially when the anecdotal evidence is that this passenger not only went past two doors to the third available around the curve of the platform, but having read a bit more of the report she was carrying a mobile phone in the hand that go trapped. Often people carrying mobile phones in their hands are distracted, and make poor judgements as a result. I've seen plenty of situations where people have been more interested in what is going on with their phone than their surroundings, even when walking through large crowds, crossing roads, and boarding trains.

I have a name for people like this, but I won't repeat it here as it's a bit rude. But the second part of it is "wits", with four letters preceding...

 

[hassaanhc]

I'm not sure of another train whereby if you put your hand in the door the door wouldn't re-open, with the exception of pacers, sprinters (?) and HSTs/MK3s (for obvious reasons) the rest all seem to have adequate safety mechanisms. If that safety mechanism is faulty then that train shouldn't be in service. As the passenger is also a user of the Metro they obviously took it that all train doors bounce back open whether they were right to think that or not. You also can't blame it on idiocy as you don't what they needed to be on the train for, depending on what it was adrenaline may have kicked in and she had no real control over whether she was going to hold the door or not.

As far as I'm aware, on the London Underground, the first trains to have a sensitive edge were the 2009 stock for the Victoria Line, with the S Stock following. Also haven't seen 455s have such a feature, the other stock I regularly use (not forgetting they are effectively an electric version of the 150, which you mentioned). The latest 377/6 & 377/7 batches of Electrostar do have it, after seeing someone run for a train and get their pushchair stuck at Clapham Junction (then that group of 4-5 continued to try to board despite the dispatcher telling them not to :roll:, when he went to look what happened and press the door close button on the inside to get the door to close).

 

[bb21]

I see you continue to call this behaviour stupid, but it seems quite commonplace to me that passengers attempt to board trains as doors are closing/have closed, fortunately rarely succeding nowadays. It seems to me to be a common impulsive behaviour, by no means confined to stupid people.

You can call it whatever you want. When it is personal safety at risk, I consider it stupid to take unnecessary risks, and so would many others I would imagine.

If you wish to jump to conclusions about the passengers actions, I'm also quite happy to jump to conclusions about the railway staff involved.(I am joking here before any readers have a heart attack).

What?

I have given my reasons behind my arguments. Did you even bother reading them? What the passenger's actions were on the day is perfectly clear from the report. Whether you want to call it impulse, heat of the moment or whatever else, it does not distract from the sheer stupidity of the actions, and that makes the person (temporarily if you like) stupid.

You can jump to conclusions if you like. Don't drag me into it.

The design team who allowed the trains into service with this known fault, without even informing the operator - obviously totally incompetent and unprofessional.

The TOC who spotted the fault for themselves after a number of passenger were jammed in the doors, but did nothing about, failing even to monitor the risk. Money-grabbing, profit making, corner-cutting, cost-controlling capitalists.

The guard, obviously an inept, lazy dimwit.

So a whole catalogue of ineptitude and incompetence.

How is all this relevant to the assessment of the passenger's behaviour on the day?

As I said, I am of course joking, I wouldn't jump to these conclusions without knowing the facts of the case with far more detail. Neither should posters here make assumptions about the actions of the passenger.

No one is making assumptions about the passenger's behaviour. It is in the RAIB report.

But this post really made me choke. It is apparently true that the passenger is to blame, but somehow the major faults of three different parts of the railway industry are not worth a mention and indeed any fault found due to society supposedly requiring that someone else must be accountable.

I'm not sure if the industry in which I work is typical of society, but mistakes similar to these three this would be career if not job threatening.

Did you even read what other people wrote, or are you just ranting for the sake of it? :roll:

I never said you did say the guard was at fault...

As for the guard making a mistake, that would be fair enough but there was a system in place to tell them to re-do the dispatch procedure they guard ignored that and decided the train was safe to leave without checking. The thing that really makes me do a double take on how this could happen is the fact that the guard would be able to see if there were any late passengers who may have been going for that train and so should have performed a check to ensure those passengers boarded safely or didn't board at all and where left on the platform red faced.

I'm not sure of another train whereby if you put your hand in the door the door wouldn't re-open, with the exception of pacers, sprinters (?) and HSTs/MK3s (for obvious reasons) the rest all seem to have adequate safety mechanisms. If that safety mechanism is faulty then that train shouldn't be in service. As the passenger is also a user of the Metro they obviously took it that all train doors bounce back open whether they were right to think that or not. You also can't blame it on idiocy as you don't what they needed to be on the train for, depending on what it was adrenaline may have kicked in and she had no real control over whether she was going to hold the door or not.

But no one is saying anything different in respect of the faults and failings from the industry. You can call it adrenaline, or heat of the moment, or needing to be somewhere else, but that does not change the stupidity of the actions. It does not stop it from being an offence. It does not change the fact that she took unnecessary risks regarding her own personal safety.

When is rushing through a hustle alarm ever a good idea? Even if the doors automatically open, when it initially closed on the passenger, there is still a risk of injury.

She had control. She did not have to board with the alarm on.

If a child was to get caught in the door because the guard didn't re-do any checks their would be all hell let loose and the TOC likely given a hefty fine and the guard sacked. But this was an adult and so nobody gives a toss, the guard is still working in the same role and from what I've heard was sent to do 1 weeks training and to me that just says that fTPE don't care. This was just rumour from a member of TPE staff at Newcastle so could indeed be false but I doubt it's far from the truth.

Adults are supposed to take responsibility for their own actions. Stop finding excuses is part of the learning curve on the way to taking responsibility.

I am not going to comment on disciplinary actions dished out to staff. I have no information on that, and certainly will not comment on the basis of hearsay. If the company is not taking health and safety issues seriously then you are free to report them to the ORR.

I'm just going around in circles so I'm out. Feel free to disagree but the facts that I go on are clear so we will have to agree to disagree in this case.

 

[ModernRailways]

Why is there always a demand to sack the person involved in such incidents? There's a disciplinary process to follow for a reason, and a combination of retraining, monitoring, assessment and support is usually a far more proportional response than reaching straight for the P45, especially if it's the first instance of a genuine error or misjudgment...!

I wasn't saying the guard should be sacked. I was merely pointing out the difference between the outcomes.