SAFETY BEFORE MONEY
IT’S THE FIRST RULE OF MAIN LINE STEAM
as an engineering consultant to the national railway museum, I would like to bring a personal viewpoint to the role of West Coast railways as a main line operator. While I have no reason to doubt that Pat marshall is a competent financial manager, this does not necessarily make such qualifications a good grounding, as your correspondent puts it, for the position of managing director of a main line business. as br found out to its great cost, a safety culture has to originate and be driven from the very top level of an organisation, and as this is an area where West Coast has been found lacking, one has to question the company’s strategy in making safety critical appointments. on another issue - it has always amazed me and many of my colleagues that when steam was first allowed back on the main lines and, for that matter, first generation diesels, a proper system to govern all the different engines and their loads over the various routes was not laid down and vigorously policed. the railway companies had such regulations from time immemorial, and as I pen these words, I have beside me a copy of the north Staffordshire railway 1893 appendix to the Working time book, which categorises the company’s engines in regard to their power and then lists the loads they could haul on the various routes. only now have the powers that be woken up to this basic principle of railway operation, and it beggars belief that it has taken so long! In my capacity as a consultant with first Class Partnerships, along with a colleague, we were asked by the nrm in 2012 to undertake a comprehensive study of the situation regarding ‘a3’ no. 60103 Flying Scotsman, which resulted in the locomotive being restored to main line operation. the report is available in the public domain, extracts from which appeared in the railway press at the time, Subsequently, I acted on behalf of the nrm as engineering consultant for the work which has been undertaken so competently by Ian riley and his team. one of our recommendations concerned the loads ‘Scotsman’ should be allowed to haul, along with other suggestions on the routes over which it should work. It therefore comes as a surprise to see photographs of the engine hauling loads in excess of our recommendations. While I have no doubt of the engine’s capability to haul such loads, the recommendation was based on the engine giving relatively trouble-free performance for the life of its ten-year boiler ticket. remember - this locomotive effectively belongs to all of us. Is it not therefore, small wonder that professional railwaymen, both serving and retired, look on the way the heritage part of the industry runs its business with considerable concern?