Don't Touch The Door Handles Mate

[douglas9401]

There, problem solved, the rest is down to Darwinism.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67552056

 

Toot toot

[tomus42]

Central locking won't stop the dementors getting in.

[douglas9401]

Whole thing's gone off the rails I tells ya.

[bookbinder]

Nanny strikes again.

[wolf63]

I don't really understand the article.  

Is it the external doors that need extra locks or the doors between carriages?

Surely if no accidents have happened then there should be no immediate risk to Choo-Choo fans.

 

[Canary42]

External doors. 

[New Judge]

"Nanny strikes again."

Not quite.

The regulations about Central Door Locking (CDL) have been in place - as a matter of law - since 1999 with Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) issuing exemptions in some circumstances. In addition the ORR very clearly stated over five years ago that there would be no further exemptions beyond 2023.

24 years of exemptions is more than enough time to develop an engineering solution and fund fitment. West Coast Railways (WCR) have had that time to resolve the issue, yet have chosen to do nothing - indeed it is evident that they have paid lip service to the existing mitigations in place. As part of their exemption they were required to place extra stewards on their trains to ensure the doors were properly locked and not tampered with. They failed to do this and the ORR  issued a stop notice in the summer, causing them to cease operations for about a week.

As well as that, they are trying to claim ‘grandfather rights’ to cover a fairly recently acquired set of coaches from Riviera Trains who sold them off to avoid the costs of making them compliant with the requirement to fit CDL.

No sympathy at all.

[New Judge]

"Is it the external doors that need extra locks or the doors between carriages?"

It's the external doors, wolfie.

The fact that there have been no accidents so far is not the point. The purpose of such regulations is to prevent accidents before they occur, rather than wait for one to happen before taking action.

[Ellipsis]

> Following an inspection in July, the ORR highlighted problems with procedures around secondary door locks and found West Coast Railways was putting passengers "at risk of serious personal injury".

Sounds like unless there a Colloportus and an Alohomora from WCR, the ORR will be shooting out an Avada Kedavra.

[tomus42]

We should pull out of whatever thing it is that's imposing these rules things on us.

[Canary42]

In the [good] old days of slam doors, there were accidents -speaking from experience, luckily only bruised - especially the schoolboy ego 😀.

But a fellow-pupil lost an arm trying to board a moving train.

[tomus42]

Can they not just make those doors unopenable with entry and exit at each end of the carriage like modern trains?

[Canary42]

So how do you provide entry and exit without doors?

[douglas9401]

New Judge shames Tora by revealing his wishy-washy woke side.

No more 'bang-on' says Geezer.

[douglas9401]

"So how do you provide entry and exit without doors?"

 

[wolf63]

Thanks to those who explained the problem to me.

If they have had nearly a 1/4 of a century to upgrade the locks I think that the relevant authorities have been fair.

Okehampton used to have a heritage railway but it closed down.  They had a cat called Percy who lost his job and had to find another home.

[jno]

they've been given decades to sort it and they haven't. (Whether they've tried and failed, or just carried on taking the money and haven't bothered, it doesn't say.) Thank goodness they're not also building tower blocks.

[douglas9401]

Do tower blocks have central locking to avoid sudden plunge situations or do lazy architects rely on non-suicidal occupants?

Typical of the university educated liberal elite eh?

 

[jno]

tower blocks have flaws. jno jnr is about to be moved out of his for several months because a post-Grenfell check revealed dangerous problems. How surprising that nobody checked for these before they actually built it.

[douglas9401]

We seem to have travelled a long way from a jolly day out on an authentic vintage train only to arrive at Triggerword Junction by mistake.

All change for Real Life terminating at Tooshort.

[New Judge]

"Okehampton used to have a heritage railway but it closed down."

Okehampton now has a regular “proper” train service running hourly from Exeter Central, wolfie. To be clear, though, this issue does not involve heritage railways. WCR is a rail tour operator, running trains over Network Rail routes. Probably its most notable service (and the one against which the ORR issued an enforcement notice in the summer) is the “Jacobite” which runs during the summer between Fort William and Mallaig in western Scotland:

 https://westcoastrailways.co.uk/jacobite/steam-train-trip

They use steam locomotives in the main but the cause of the problem highlighted here is their ex-British Railways “Mark One” carriages which date from the 1960s. WCR provided the loco and similar carriages for the “Harry Potter” films and the Jacobite is often referred to as the “Hogwart’s Express”.

"(Whether they've tried and failed, or just carried on taking the money and haven't bothered, it doesn't say.)"

There is already a working design for CDL that can be fitted to Mark One carriages. It has been used to modify rolling stock used both on heritage railways and some “proper” lines. There is no reason why WCR should not adopt this design for theirs and they probably made enough money out of the Harry Potter films alone to pay for the upgrade.