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Network Rail hopes staff will be 'amateur meteorologists'

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Annetts key

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A lot of OHLE seems prone to failure, but I was thinking especially of signalling, when semaphores were robust and mechanical - essentially, the more equipment is controlled by electronics, the more delicate it becomes. Of course, I'm obviously not saying everything should be mechanical, but, say, a steam train (or even diesel - just with a self-contained power source) running with mechanical signalling is about as robust as you can get.
Colour light signals are very reliable. With regard to electronic signalling systems, these are not normally affected by the weather. The exceptions being if water gets into the enclosure (case not correctly fitted or closed for example or floodwater rising up and entering the case from the bottom) or the lightening during an electrical storm.

Mechanical signalling rusts, is affected by day/night temperature changes, and during winter, may freeze.
Main line power operated points have heating to prevent freezing problems.

The only other weather related problems are the track flooding and causing track circuits to fail right side (they detect the water as if it's a train).

Axle counters don't have this problem.
 
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al78

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By what metric?


Given that my posted north Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy chart shows no change over decades, we have to put this down to land use change or infrastructure rather than weather.
I don't see how an Accumulated Cyclone Energy chart, which by my understanding of the term refers to wind and I have only heard it used for tropical cyclones, can be used to infer anything related to flooding. It is true that windstorms have shown no trend over many decades and have trended downward since the 1990's (although that involves cherrypicking a stormy decade to start from). Rainfall on the other hand has been trending up and last time I looked at the HadUKP data, winters are on average about 5% wetter now than 50 years ago. That might not sound much but impact is not linearly related to accumulated rainfall, since (for example) a flood defence will hold back excess water up to the point where even a small amount of further rainfall causes a catastrophic fail resulting in inundation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Closing the railway also doesn’t force people onto the roads,
It does if their journey is essential and road transport is the only other practical way of making the journey.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

At Rannoch, yes, as there is a met station there (or was).
It is not recording anymore.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Ah you might have to search for it yourself as it appears it's been vanished.

"North Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy" should get you the relevant data.

My contention is that it is weakening infrastructure, geologic/land use changes or increased population that are causing more stress - not weather.
Not true, at least some extreme events have trended upward and can be partly attributed to anthropogenic climate change:

Here is a good look at the wet and stormy winter of 2019-20:

This paper talks about high impact weather in the UK, current trends and future projections:

linked from here:
 
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43066

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It does if their journey is essential and road transport is the only other practical way of making the journey.

No, closure merely prevents them from using the railway. If they choose to go by car instead and get injured or killed on the roads, that’s nothing to do with the railway. On the other hand, if the same happens on railway infrastructure because they’ve continued to operate when it’s unsafe, it very much will be the railway’s problem, so why take the risk?
 
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The exile

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No, closure merely prevents them from using the railway. If they choose to go by car instead and get injured or killed on the roads, that’s nothing to do with the railway. On the other hand, if the same happens on railway infrastructure because they’ve continued to operate when it’s unsafe, it very much will be the railway’s problem, so why take the risk?
Which is half the problem - “back covering” and “target based” risk assessment rather than a proper analysis of the full picture. If my denying a service because it’s too risky merely encourages people into something even more dangerous then it is counterproductive and should be recognised as such.
 

Annetts key

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No, closure merely prevents them from using the railway. If they choose to go by car instead and get injured or killed on the roads, that’s nothing to do with the railway. On the other hand, if the same happens on railway infrastructure because they’ve continued to operate when it’s unsafe, it very much will be the railway’s problem, so why take the risk?
There is a risk involved with absolutely everything, including not running a service or (often) as an individual, not actually doing anything.

Say for example that a TOC has decided to cancel all their train services, some passengers are therefore waiting on a platform while they try to work out what to do next. Then a tree falls on them. If the trains were running, said passengers may well have not been on the platform at the time the tree fell, because they would have been on the train that had already left the station. The other side being that the tree may have fallen on a train. If the tree had fallen as a train approached, chances are that if the train was a stopping service, the driver would either have been able to stop, or reduce the speed of the train so that the resulting collision would have been minor.

Managing risk is not really about minimising risk, because you can't completely minimise risk. But about making good informed decisions to balance risk against the benefits of an activity.

I think the modern railway is more risk averse than it needs to be in some situations. But some of this is due to the lack of resources. If the vegetation including trees along the line side was better controlled, there would be less reason to impose blanket speed restrictions on many lines during windy or stormy weather for example.

With flooding, again, TOCs choose not to run stock/trains along flooded lines (that are open to traffic) not because it is unsafe, but because of the increased maintenance costs (including the replacement parts) that would result from trains running through flood water.

In many places, the real problem are the limitations with either the drainage systems (which may include a lack of maintenance - blocked or partly blocked drains for example or the design of the drainage system) or with how to deal with run off from the surrounding (non-railway) land, or with overflows from aqueducts (if the stream or river is so high that water is overtopping the overflow for an aqueduct, it affects the railway, but dealing with the root cause is rather outside the railways area of control).

Ultimately, dealing with the root causes, often it comes down to money or rather, the lack of it, and how the government decides to deal with it (or not).

Cancelling services, blanket speed restrictions and other similar measures are therefore often a symptom of a lack of money rather than sensible logical risk management.

At least, that's my opinion.
 

43066

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Which is half the problem - “back covering” and “target based” risk assessment rather than a proper analysis of the full picture. If my denying a service because it’s too risky merely encourages people into something even more dangerous then it is counterproductive and should be recognised as such.

Recognised as such by whom? You can’t expect companies within any particular industry to consider “societal risk” when making decisions about whether it’s safe to operate. The decision starts and finishes with whether it’s safe to operate the railway.

There is a risk involved with absolutely everything, including not running a service or (often) as an individual, not actually doing anything.

Say for example that a TOC has decided to cancel all their train services, some passengers are therefore waiting on a platform while they try to work out what to do next. Then a tree falls on them. If the trains were running, said passengers may well have not been on the platform at the time the tree fell, because they would have been on the train that had already left the station. The other side being that the tree may have fallen on a train. If the tree had fallen as a train approached, chances are that if the train was a stopping service, the driver would either have been able to stop, or reduce the speed of the train so that the resulting collision would have been minor.

Managing risk is not really about minimising risk, because you can't completely minimise risk. But about making good informed decisions to balance risk against the benefits of an activity.

I think the modern railway is more risk averse than it needs to be in some situations. But some of this is due to the lack of resources. If the vegetation including trees along the line side was better controlled, there would be less reason to impose blanket speed restrictions on many lines during windy or stormy weather for example.

With flooding, again, TOCs choose not to run stock/trains along flooded lines (that are open to traffic) not because it is unsafe, but because of the increased maintenance costs (including the replacement parts) that would result from trains running through flood water.

In many places, the real problem are the limitations with either the drainage systems (which may include a lack of maintenance - blocked or partly blocked drains for example or the design of the drainage system) or with how to deal with run off from the surrounding (non-railway) land, or with overflows from aqueducts (if the stream or river is so high that water is overtopping the overflow for an aqueduct, it affects the railway, but dealing with the root cause is rather outside the railways area of control).

Ultimately, dealing with the root causes, often it comes down to money or rather, the lack of it, and how the government decides to deal with it (or not).

Cancelling services, blanket speed restrictions and other similar measures are therefore often a symptom of a lack of money rather than sensible logical risk management.

At least, that's my opinion.

All that’s true, but that doesn’t change the fact that if the railway closes, it is in no way liable for injuries/deaths caused to those who travel by other means. Hence “societal risk” has no bearing on the decision.
 

Annetts key

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What journeys are so essential that they justify the risk of venturing out in extremely hazardous weather conditions, by any mode of transport?
You assume that everyone has not started their journey. What about people who are already away from home, either having finished their work day / shift and who are trying to return home, or who are already part way through their journey?

I used to work 12 hour shifts including night shifts. Was I suppose to try to tell my employer that I won't be in for work because there may be a storm tomorrow?

And what about the essential workers? How are they supposed to get to and from their work?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Whether we are talking about railways, airlines, bus companies, roads, schools or indeed any other industry or commercial or leisure activity, maybe, to minimise risk, every time there is a storm, the whole country should go into lockdown?

But lets get back to the subject rather than going even further off topic. As I said earlier, good risk management is about making balanced and informed decisions. Without the detail behind what Network Rail is intending to do, it's hard to produce a conclusion.

But if the company do provide/improve the training available to their staff, such that there is a better understanding of our weather, and that must include local weather conditions for an area, not just an national overview, it should improve the decisions that are made.

The government and the railway do however need to also look at improving the infrastructure (including the vegetation management and amount of maintenance of drainage systems, embankments, cuttings etc.) and investigate measures to reduce the damage to rolling stock/trains, should they have to run on a flooded line.
 
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Falcon1200

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You assume that everyone has not started their journey. What about people who are already away from home, either having finished their work day / shift and who are trying to return home, or who are already part way through their journey?

There is an obvious way to mitigate that problem; Plan and advertise in advance how services will be affected by forecast severe weather. Which is what the railway is being criticised for doing!

I was on duty, on far too many occasions, when severe weather was forecast but we effectively promised passengers a normal timetable, only for the service to collapse when the weather hit, resulting in incidents such as multiple electric trains stranded when the wires came down, and staff having to be sent out in horrendous conditions to rescue people. Even before Carmont procedures had changed to minimise such risks, and of course that terrible incident concentrated minds on the dangers of train running in severe conditions even more.
 

Bald Rick

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Mechanical signalling rusts, is affected by day/night temperature changes, and during winter, may freeze.

It’s also affected by lightning. I‘ve had a signaller in a mechanical ‘box thrown across the ‘box as (very unfortunately) he was pulling a points lever as the track nearby was struck by lightning…. fortunately he was ok with nothing more than some warm hands and a very good story to tell.
 

dosbod stuey

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It’s just not clear how this relates to weather related issues on the railway specially. As others have noted rainfall in particular is increasing, as are droughts and other “extreme events”, not just tropical cyclones.

Did you read what you posted? Rainfall is increasing and declining at the same time?

That's climate change for you! Capable of anything.

We live in a highly variable area for climate and these variances have always occurred, usually depending on whether we get wind from the west or east.

You can cherrypick data showing this or that has changed, which is natural in highly variable data.

Being amateur sleuthy meteorologists is fine, but being aware of land use change is more relevant for detecting railway impacts.

t’s just not clear how this relates to weather related issues on the railway specially. As others have noted rainfall in particular is increasing, as are droughts and other “extreme events”, not just tropical cyclones.
 

43066

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I used to work 12 hour shifts including night shifts. Was I suppose to try to tell my employer that I won't be in for work because there may be a storm tomorrow?

Not just “because there may be a storm”. However if it’s judged unsafe to travel due to dangerous road conditions, for example, with the Met office issuing “danger to life” warnings, it would seem perfectly reasonable to refuse to leave home. I’m aware of railway colleagues who did so during the major named storm (I forget which name, there are so many these days!) which ended up shutting the entire network down a couple of years back.

Did you read what you posted? Rainfall is increasing and declining at the same time?

I said both rainfall and drought are increasing, yes. I didn’t say they occur at the same time. You may remember we had an incredibly dry summer a couple of years ago, to the point where ground subsidence was causing water mains to burst, and we’ve just had an unusually wet and warm winter with flooding, landslips etc. The point is that we are getting more and more periods of extreme conditions - you don’t need to be an amateur meteorologist to be aware of that.

Being amateur sleuthy meteorologists is fine, but being aware of land use change is more relevant for detecting railway impacts.

It sounds like that’s your own theory, based on one weather metric.
 
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Bantamzen

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Being amateur sleuthy meteorologists is fine, but being aware of land use change is more relevant for detecting railway impacts.
I must admit, I was wondering about this myself, especially with reference to a landslip in my area. Land use has changed dramatically since most of the railways were built, and this will impact how water moves about. When the line in Baildon was built, there were very few homes and roads meaning plenty of ground to absorb and move the water down the valley to the river. But with thousands of homes, roads and all associated infrastructure, these natural watercourses have been lost and ultimately the few that remain become more prone to overflowing and flows of water ending up where they can do damage to the rail infrastructure.
 

BrianW

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Yes it is. The models show warmer, wetter winters and increased chances of hotter summers. It's been quite well publicised.
Indeed not only models for the future but here already. It may be thought that the railways (and not only them) have been somewhat 'behind the curve' on this, due to insufficient (or misdirected?) investment, or benign (or willful) neglect. At least greater (hopefully sufficient) investment (in staff and monitoring equipment) is now promised.
 

43066

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May I ask which one is due to climate change, and which one isn't?

Both are due to climate change, which I think is generally considered settled science. Are you suggesting we aren’t experiencing more and more periods of extreme weather conditions in the UK?

Capable of all sorts this climate change.

Are you suggesting the climate isn’t changing?!

Can you back up your hypothesis that weather related railway issues are due to land use, rather than increased periods of rainfall, drought etc.?
 
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