Corporate memory, depot safety, and mental wellbeing
Letter from the editor
Is it a dummy, or a dolly, a dod, or a position light signal? All of them are right, to someone, and all of them reflect personal preference, regional preference, national preference or slang in a way that’s totally human. In RED 31 (This is an emergency call) we demonstrated the confusion that can arise when people call different places by different names. What might be Chocolate Poodle Bridge to you might be Milepost 17 to everyone else.
Our RAIB report brief in this issue covers a wrongside failure at Dalwhinnie, which led to a derailment. Back in the days of British Rail, ‘wrongside failure’ was a catch-all term for everything from a wiring fault to a dodgy barrier at a level crossing. This made it hard to focus on specific risks when looking at incident reports and the data that comes from them.
Recently, we have been involved in another bit of standardising. What some call ‘horseplay’, others call ‘trespass’; more still refer to ‘dangling legs’. Now, so that we can get a proper handle on people who sit over platform edges, all such incidents are to be washed with SOPE – that’s ‘sitting on the platform edge’ to you. And me. And everyone else.
We need to keep an eye on this, as the data we already have shows that many more people are involved in near misses by sitting over the platform edge than before the pandemic. So, if you see a SOPE incident, report it through your usual company channels. That way we can clean up before the bubble bursts.
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The data we already have shows that many more people are involved in near misses by sitting over the platform edge than before the pandemic.
Paisley Gilmour Street 1979In this issue, we remember the Paisley Gilmour Street rail crash which caused seven fatalities and 68 injuries.
The Harrison Ballantyne story Harrison Ballantyne was 11 when he tragically lost his life after being electrocuted by arcing overhead line equipment. Now you can watch his story.
Speaking up for safer depotsCould you help make depots safer and healthier by reporting your concerns through internal channels or in confidence through CIRAS? asks Lucinda Neal of CIRAS.
Survival of the fitterFreightliner’s Bessie Matthews takes a look under the bonnet of her charge.
Comic book heroesSerco Caledonian Sleeper has a great new health and safety initiative which industry can learn from, writes RSSB’s Marianna White.
10 minutes with…We catch up with Great Western Railway’s Andy Long, who, ahead of his retirement, shares why it’s important industry values the full experience of rail workers.
NewswireQuarterly round-up: between November and January, a number of incidents occurred across the globe. We present the highlights.
Greg MorseEditor
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