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The trip to Great Britain is off. Canceled. Gone. Killed. Dead as Monty Python's parrot.  Not that it was ever definitely on, but now it's definitely off.

I've called the airline to cancel the reservation I never made and issued myself a refund for the airfare I never paid.  And I'm number one on my own wait list for the upgrade to standard coach from my previous  status which was "stowaway-wheel well."

I've emailed the hotel of my dreams, and the hotel confirmed I was only dreaming. 

Money out of pocket? $0 convertible to £0.  Money retrieved? $0.  

I'm not canceling because of the pandemic or Brexit or the dismal climate in Britain, or because Boris Johnson is my second least favorite person ensconced in Rupert Murdoch's hip pocket. 

(Note to President-Elect:  You want to "heal the country"?  Here's how:  Deport Rupert Murdoch and all the little Murdochs, and all the ex-Murdochs, and all the future-ex-Murdochs-[looking at you Jerry Hall- Bryan Ferry, Mick Jagger, and Rupert Murdoch?  What kind of career path is that?]. Deport 'em back to Oz, and never ever let them get their short-fingered grubby hands on another media company.  Build a paywall so high they can't get over it; so wide they can't get around it.  I guarantee it will stop the bleeding.  After that, couple of pints of convalescent plasma and Bob's your uncle)   

I canceling because... it's a long story, and I can't make it short. 

Our cousins across the pond have organized a Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB), kind of like our NTSB but dedicated to rail accidents, and as a consequence, much better at issuing reports of its investigations in a timely manner.  RAIB contains an email alert option so that you and I can be notified of investigations undertaken and completed while locked down, self-isolating, quarantined or looking for something to do until the vaccines are available to the general public. 

I subscribe to that email alert function, and so can you. Lovely.   

So in the previous fortnight, I've been alerted that RAIB has completed investigations into four railway accidents and issued its reports. 

Diligent, interested, and locked-down person that I am, I downloaded all four and actually read all four.

It appears their rail operations over there are just as screwed up as our rail operations over here; that adhering to the basic principles of safe railroading over there is as it is over here: lots of hits and a few misses.  But those misses...the misses can spoil your entire day. 

This hurts. Year after year, in or out of the EU, Britain's rail system has copped the "safest railway in Europe" designation, and year after year I've applauded the Brits and tried to learn from them. 

Sure there are certain things about their system I don't like.  I don't like designating tracks "up tracks" and "down tracks" with only trains traveling in the "up direction" on "up tracks," and "down trains" on "down tracks." And it boggles my mind that the "up" and "down" designations apply even within interlocking limits.

No, I don't like the token block system, the symbolic royal sceptre bestowing authority for train movement, but that's because the basic assumption of token block is that a single train in a single block  cannot collide with itself.  We in the US have disproven that bit of flimsy logic any number of times. 

Still, all that stuff might be idiosynchracies-- you know like shepherd's pie, and make them so much more....British. 

But these four reports are not curiousities of the system, they are evidence that despite their longer history, their advanced research, their British engineering, and whatever hangover remains from the days of empire, safe train operations are still compromised by the inattention to detail, the ease of distraction, and the same outright stupidity that haunts US train operations (and still intrudes on my sleep). 

The first RAIB report examines an accident fatal to two track workers, and when in the first pages you read that a group of three of six workers were working on switch points in a controlled point without establishing proper protection, you will be inclined  to not read any further.  But you should, painful as it is, because the report asserts and supports the argument that "Network Rail [infrastructure owner] had not adequately addressed the protection of track workers from moving trains." 

True, RAIB considers "lookouts," or what is known here as train approach warning, as proper protection. However, the major issue is that according to RAIB, Network Rail has never properly implemented changes to previous, and inadequate, standards of protection.   

This is classified as one "underlying factor" by RAIB.  Over here, I guess NTSB would call it a "contributing cause" or "factor."  Doesn't make a bit of difference here or there what you call it, it is, will always be, a manifestation of poor supervision. 

The second investigation  involves a SPAD (signal passed at danger, equivalent to a stop signal violation) by a deadhead equipment movement. The equipment being moved consisted of two locomotives towing a passenger multiple unit with its  brakes disabled. 

The train driver operating the equipment thought the MAS for this train was 75 mph when in reality movement should have been restricted, according to a table of braking capability to 60 mph.   The driver believe he was authorized to operate at the MAS of 75 mph based on the information provided him in the "train planning document." 

Now certainly, the driver is in the first and last instance, the party responsible.  And it is to address that responsibililty, and to protect the driver(s), that the Great General Road Foreman headquartered at Railroad Olympus, invented the running brake test, which the driver in this incident never performed.   

However the contributing cause should raise eyebrows if not voices and hammers:

58. ROG's (Rail Operations Group) management  processes did not detect a lack of compliance with its own safety management systems...that resulted in the driver and shunter [brakeman] being inadequately prepared for the movement of the train. 

59. Railway Group Standard GORT 3056 defines the requirements for a train document (commonly referred to as a 'driver's slip') that the driver must have in their possesson before and during the journey.  This document...includes information necessary for the safe operation of the train, such as its formation, load, brake force and maximum speed. 

60. ROG's own safety management system (SMS) also sets out the processes for traincrew receiving appropriate information, including the issuing of train documents to drivers as well as providing briefings associated with train movements.  However, netiher briefing nor train documents were being provided to drivers or shunters.

Does this sound familiar?  It shouldn't, but it does. Again, short version: poor supervision. And again, a safety management system is just another sheaf of papers; meaningless without the proper execution.   

The third report is almost enough to make you laugh.  Almost.  After all nobody got hurt, and the cause of the accident can be read as this:

Hey_________(fill in name of choice).  Did you hear the one about the train driver who was so busy trying to manage the on-board train management system that he forgot to manage his train and ran right up the ass of the train in front of him? 

That's what happened.  Now over here, we'd call that loss of situational awareness, and identify the TMS as a distraction to the engineer, and throw in some stuff about complicating tasks by requiring another level of human-machine interface.  But I would like to point out one salient point:  The train on which the train driver was configuring the TMS had completed its revenue service. It was being moved to the shop over track restricted to 5 mph.  There was zero need to configure the TMS. 

The problem with the man-machine interface here is that it resembles nothing so much as a video game. It is designed to attract attention under all circumstances, even providing a synthetic  "prize," a "reward" at the end of a successful configuration, i.e. full operability. This is nuts.  The TMS screens should be configured to disappear literally when trains are operating on restricting signal indications, or are moved out of revenue service, or on other than main tracks.

And now, finally we come to investigation number four (4).   Again, I'm happy to report, there were no injuries.  A lite locomotive, assigned to helper service, entered a "run-around" track (called a "loop," auxillary to the main track, but with access to passenger platforms).  At the other end of the siding were crossovers allowing movement to return to the main track.  If the crossovers were lined for straight track, movement on the siding would be directed into a stub track, large enough for several locomotives, thereby freeing the loop for use by passenger trains.  Got that?  Simple. 

At the distant end of the stub track, there was...well, there was nothing.  That's why we call it a stub track.  There was however a bumping block, illuminated by red lights providing sufficient indication for the locomotive driver to come to a complete stop before running off the rail.  Again simple.  Foolproof?  Not quite, see earlier remarks about a train colliding with itself.

On this day, the locomotive driver failed to stop the locomotive before it ran off the end of the stub track called the "Up Bromsgrove neck," struck the bumping block, and derailed, fouling the "Up Gloucester" main track (not to be confused with loop known as the "Up Bromsgrove Loop"). 

The train driver had allowed the speed of the locomotive to increase to 23 mph on the stub track, coasting for almost a minute until, 40 meters from the bumping block, the driver made a full application of the brakes.

Then after derailing and fouling the main track, the driver was "confused" "shocked" and failed to protect against movement on the main track.  You know what happened next, and at high speed. Luckily, there were no injuries. 

What happened?  I mean why did it happen?  Care to guess? Configuring the TMS?  No, not in this case? Disabled brakes? No, not in this case. How about "train driver texting on his mobile phone"?  Jackpot! Spot on! (not to be confused with Jack "Spot" Comer, well known Jewish East End gangster and pre-antifa antifascist street fighter-- you can look him up). 

The train driver was busy texting.  Now, of course, the carrier DB cargo rules state, "Personal mobile telephones must not be used whilst driving in the cab, or on or about the running line." As we have learned over on this side of the Atlantic, prohibition on use is not sufficient.  The phone must be turned off and not stowed on the body of the employee when performing service.

When I finished report 4, that was that.  I was not going to Britain.  Why spend the money and suffer the jet lag?  As Chuck Berry sang, "I'm so glad, I'm living in the USA."  Indeed, as we, all railroad operating officers working in all different countries anywhere on this globe know and agree, when it comes to poor railroading, there's no place like home.

David Schanoes 

November 21, 2020

" 'cause tourists are money!"

--Sex Pistols