Class 158 flap causing a potential safety risk

[allotments]

As I boarded a class 158 today I noticed a right angled flap open across the doorway presenting a significant trip hazard likely to cause a nasty fall onto a platform and injury.

The conductor came by almost immediately so I stopped him to point this out and he closed the flap with the standard key.

Later I asked if the issue had been logged and he said he won't be logging the issue because it had been fixed . Apparently these flaps may rattle loose. This could happen again then .

I expressed surprise at the response received and asked for this to be logged and said that I had already tweeted the details of the fault to Tfwrail.

What is the correct procedure for reporting safety incidents and faults on trains？

The flap shows signs of damage.

 

[ggbrf]

Ive DM you. Your most welcome to put it on twitter mate.

 

[LowLevel]

It's a class 158 door pillar cover. They are made of fibreglass and can flex or work loose if struck hard, IE by a suitcase or refreshment trolley and become unlocked. They are held in place with a budget lock latch. The remedy is to re-lock it and see if it is secure, if so, move on. It is something that has been happening regularly since the trains were introduced 30 years ago and no one has been bothered enough by it at any level to redesign it.

If not, put it in the repair book and secure it with tape or similar as a temporary mitigation until it can be attended to properly by engineering staff who can adjust or replace it.

 

[ggbrf]

It's a class 158 door pillar cover. They are made of fibreglass and can flex or work loose if struck hard, IE by a suitcase or refreshment trolley and become unlocked. They are held in place with a budget lock latch. The remedy is to re-lock it and see if it is secure, if so, move on. It is something that has been happening regularly since the trains were introduced 30 years ago and no one has been bothered enough by it at any level to redesign it.

If not, put it in the repair book and secure it with tape or similar as a temporary mitigation until it can be attended to properly by engineering staff who can adjust or replace it.

Excellent response.

But the OP stated "safety culture" and put it on twitter.

 

[LowLevel]

Excellent response.

But the OP stated "safety culture" and put it on twitter.

Well indeed, I just answered the question posed, I gave up a long time ago trying to placate people who see the slightest of issues like an open flap and immediately see corpses being pecked by crows as an imminent consequence.

The correct response is of course, as we all know, to report it to the guard who is the company representative, and allow them to use their knowledge and training to decide how to manage the issue.

Sadly a minority of people then descend into busybodying and second guessing the guard's response, which is none of their business anyway.

Such is life.

 

[allotments]

I think there are 2 issues to log here

1. A risk of injury incident occurred so I expect that to be reported. How？

2. A fault with the train which should be logged so that it won't be missed when maintenance can be done.

Out of courtesy, I let the conductor know about my tweet so that he wouldn't get caught out if nothing had been recorded and questions were asked.

Recording nothing wasn't expected.

 

[ggbrf]

I think there are 2 issues to log here

1. A risk of injury incident occurred so I expect that to be reported. How？

2. A fault with the train which should be logged so that it won't be missed when maintenance can be done.

Out of courtesy, I let the conductor know about my tweet so that he wouldn't get caught out if nothing had been recorded and questions were asked.

Recording nothing wasn't expected.

Question 1 - you report it to the guard.
Question 2 - you report it to the guard.

Excellent.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Sep 2021 ==

Well indeed, I just answered the question posed, I gave up a long time ago trying to placate people who see the slightest of issues like an open flap and immediately see corpses being pecked by crows as an imminent consequence.

The correct response is of course, as we all know, to report it to the guard who is the company representative, and allow them to use their knowledge and training to decide how to manage the issue.

Sadly a minority of people then descend into busybodying and second guessing the guard's response, which is none of their business anyway.

Such is life.

My new hero

 

[LowLevel]

I think there are 2 issues to log here

1. A risk of injury incident occurred so I expect that to be reported. How？

2. A fault with the train which should be logged so that it won't be missed when maintenance can be done.

Out of courtesy, I let the conductor know about my tweet so that he wouldn't get caught out if nothing had been recorded and questions were asked.

Recording nothing wasn't expected.

If we logged every flap that works loose or is broken open on a vibrating diesel train full of clumsy humans we would soon run out of fault books.

Was the cover secure again once the conductor had locked it? If so, then the matter is resolved. If not, then as you've stated it needs reporting and securing, as per my original post.

You can download the train CCTV if provided to try and find the root cause If you like but you'll be there a while and you could be doing plenty of other things.

"Found door pillar cover open at C doors. Locked it. Now OK" would probably raise the eyes of the fitter doing the next inspection of the unit.

I must highlight once again that should the cover not be able to be secured I would expect it to be suitably temporarily secured to mitigate the risk of it coming open and reported for assessment and repair.

 

[Surreytraveller]

There's plenty of stuff which should be reported that doesn't due to people's workloads. This isn't one of them.

 

[driverd]

I think there are 2 issues to log here

1. A risk of injury incident occurred so I expect that to be reported. How？

2. A fault with the train which should be logged so that it won't be missed when maintenance can be done.

Out of courtesy, I let the conductor know about my tweet so that he wouldn't get caught out if nothing had been recorded and questions were asked.

Recording nothing wasn't expected.

As excellently pointed out by other users, the fault was fixed and no further repair is needed. The very presence of a lock on the flap shows the repair available. They do sometimes work themselves loose, but a quick and easy fix is simply for the guard to re-lock the panel. Equally, the panel could have been left unlocked or partially locked. In each case, the fault was repaired.

Trains generally have a repair book, so faults that cannot be rectified by onboard staff can be investigated and repaired. As this was repaired by the guard no further repair is required.

If you're suggesting this is a fundamental design flaw and the unit requires vast engineering solutions to repair, then that would need to be logged, however, as pointed out by lowlevel, the units have been like this for some 30 years.

I suggest a similar example may be a piece of car trim working loose on a 30.year old vehicle. You would simply pop the clips back in. If this didn't suffice, you'd take it to the garage and get it repaired. Itd likely be quite overkill to contact the manufacture and suggest an engineering change is required on all such vehicles.

I see the point you're making, that it could pose a trip hazard, but as noted, the solution is already there - to re-secure the panel when reported. What additional safety steps would you suggest could be introduced?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Similar to damaged motor vehicle panels, surely it's only a problem if there's sharp edges or it's a trip hazard, which may, or may not, be the case from the OP's photograph.

And as the Dwayne Johnson character in the film "Skyscraper" once said; "If you can't fix it with duct tape, you ain't using enough duct tape!"

 

[allotments]

I appreciate your explanations. Most likely the flap has been bashed even tripped over many times, damaged and vibrated loose again.

But how is risk calculated if nothing is recorded?

Tripping out of a train onto a platform is no joke for elderly passengers. Consequences would be expected to include nasty fractures.

 

[Bow Fell]

How do you know it wasn’t put in the D-Book?

As a Controller, do I expect every little fault to be reported to me? No. And unless it contravenes the rule-book or company manual, then I don’t see an issue.

As long as it’s put in the D-Book, it will be picked up by the fitter, to be looked at that night or on its next exam.

I think this is the usual use of social media, to highlight a non-issue.

 

[Rab Smith]

Hello to the OP. I work in maintenance. We have lots of flaps, doors, hinges, spaces, nooks and crannies. We need people to report the defect so we can act on it.
You did the right thing by informing the guard. They can then log it in their defect book and it should be attended to. If they don't log it then it will normally be picked up in the scheduled maintenance but not always.
That's why we rely on information coming to us from all sources but we prefer not to see our defects posted on Social Media.
Like any other business, we try to excel but we don't always achieve.

 

[pdeaves]

Most likely the flap has been bashed even tripped over many times, damaged and vibrated loose again.

Or... "Most likely the flap was not secured properly last time it was opened". That's equally plausible, no?

 

[allotments]

Hello to the OP. I work in maintenance. We have lots of flaps, doors, hinges, spaces, nooks and crannies. We need people to report the defect so we can act on it.
You did the right thing by informing the guard. They can then log it in their defect book and it should be attended to. If they don't log it then it will normally be picked up in the scheduled maintenance but not always.
That's why we rely on information coming to us from all sources but we prefer not to see our defects posted on Social Media.
Like any other business, we try to excel but we don't always achieve.

From the passenger's perspective we don't always have an opportunity to check with the guard whether a fault or issue has been documented. So reporting via Twitter is a simple immediate method to get a message through.

WMR have a live feedback webpage https://www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk/contact-us/live-feedback but there's no response which feels like a black hole, unlike Twitter where TOCs typically reply that the message has been forwarded to the appropriate team.

The safety culture in the NHS that I am familiar with is to submit an incident report if safety is compromised. Doesn't the railway have a simple process for this?

It's not Tweeted as a complaint but as a statement of fact, intended to be a helpful report.

I also use Twitter to report positives on the railway.

 

[FGW_DID]

I can almost guarantee that even if it has been entered in the defect book, if the panel, upon checking, is still shut & locked, it will be “NFF - no fault found!”

 

[RPI]

It got reported, the guard sorted it, thats what the guard is for, they're there primarily for the safe operation of the train which involves fixing minor things.
.. like a flap coming loose. If the repair book was filled with every instance of a flap coming loose then a) you'd need a new repair book every day. B) you'd find that sets would spend twice as long on depot. Literally the issue was sorted without a tirade of red tape and beurocracy

A bike left in a doorway would be a bigger trip hazard, shall we put that in the defect book? A suitcase in the aisles? Where do we draw the line?

 

[SuspectUsual]

From the passenger's perspective we don't always have an opportunity to check with the guard whether a fault or issue has been documented. So reporting via Twitter is a simple immediate method to get a message through

But you did have the opportunity to check with the guard, so didn’t need to take to twitter. You’re contradicting yourself aren’t you?

 

[Rab Smith]

From the passenger's perspective we don't always have an opportunity to check with the guard whether a fault or issue has been documented. So reporting via Twitter is a simple immediate method to get a message through.

WMR have a live feedback webpage https://www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk/contact-us/live-feedback but there's no response which feels like a black hole, unlike Twitter where TOCs typically reply that the message has been forwarded to the appropriate team.

The safety culture in the NHS that I am familiar with is to submit an incident report if safety is compromised. Doesn't the railway have a simple process for this?

It's not Tweeted as a complaint but as a statement of fact, intended to be a helpful report.

I also use Twitter to report positives on the railway.

Apologies, I wasn't being critical of you reporting your concern through Twitter. All TOC's have excellent Social Media teams who do great interaction with the public. Reporting defects through these channels should get information back to the relevant department.

The best course of action if possible, is to report your concern to the Guard. They can make the decision whether to attempt a fix or report it on to maintenance.

As I said, without the information, it's difficult to catch every fault.

 

[wobman]

The guard did everything correctly in my eyes, the trains are old and have had a hard life so things rattle loose.

If the guard ignored the customer then that would be a major issue, but the guard acted correctly by fixing the problem and the issue did not reoccur.

Putting this issue in the defect book wouldn't make sense unless it's a recurring problem or broken panel/lock. There's nothing to fix by the fitters/depot.