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Incident at Chalfont & Latimer (21/06/20)

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Efini92

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Not quite, the DfT response was to say no to a straight pay rise, as this was against their policy and would lead to other claims, but to "seek another solution", which is thinly-guarded civil service-speak for them recognising the issue, just find something else which can give more money without calling it pay - regrade the staff, devise an Additional Responsibility Element, whatever.

Chiltern's original costings for their franchise would have assumed some ratio, say 1:20, for driver managers, as an overhead of the business. If reality was only 1:40 then that is money into Chiltern's pocket - it's not even as if they didn't have scope to be creative.


Always understood this was quite normal on the railway. David L Smith wrote that he found Driver Caudle, from ther Ais Gill major collision in 1913, on yard work only at Carlisle 10 years later.

One thing I didn't see (or missed) was how often does the tripcock actually activate spuriously, on or off LT tracks. Is it happening a common occurence? How often had this driver done so before? Does it become a bit of a reflex action?

Separately, I don't think I've ever seen a formal accident report before which used the "bullying" word explicitly about a senior management member. It must be quite obvious who was being referred to. Are they still in post?
I suppose if it hits a piece of debris or an animal it would set off the tripcock.
 
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Bayum

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Not sure how people are getting that management failed the driver there's some personal responsibility needed.
The driver was allowed to stay in role, the underlying issues causing his behaviour went unnoticed with little put in place to correct and they were moved back to passenger working.
Tell me again how management didn’t fail the driver?
 

Efini92

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The driver was allowed to stay in role, the underlying issues causing his behaviour went unnoticed with little put in place to correct and they were moved back to passenger working.
Tell me again how management didn’t fail the driver?
It’s more likely the power of ASLEF was the reason why he was allowed to stay in the role.
 

Meerkat

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The driver was allowed to stay in role, the underlying issues causing his behaviour went unnoticed with little put in place to correct and they were moved back to passenger working.
Tell me again how management didn’t fail the driver?
Were the underlying issues correctable?
 

A Challenge

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It’s more likely the power of ASLEF was the reason why he was allowed to stay in the role.
Why do ASLEF want members with such bad safety records? There's protecting your member's employment rights and then there's blatant disregard of safety (and they are normally campaigning for safety) - if you were the driver of the LU train and discovered it was only the campaigning of your union (whether they were is not something I know, obviously) that meant that driver still had a job despite his record I think you'd be very annoyed with them.
 

craigybagel

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Not sure how people are getting that management failed the driver there's some personal responsibility needed.

To be blunt if you are too stupid enough to know after twice doing it before that you do not move the train until you contact the signaller or train controller when you have an emergency brake application then you have no business being in possession of a train driving licence.

They should have been sacked after the 2nd offence of resetting and continuing, this is putting people's lives at risk.

The driver was allowed to stay in role, the underlying issues causing his behaviour went unnoticed with little put in place to correct and they were moved back to passenger working.
Tell me again how management didn’t fail the driver?
I'm not sure why the two have to be mutually exclusive.

Clearly, and as much as it pains me to say it, questions have to be asked about the drivers suitability for the role. But at the same time, questions also have to be asked about management's role in letting this situation come to pass, and not taking firmer steps sooner.

There are many lessons to be learnt by all parties - which is why we have the RAIB who IMO have written a very even handed report, as is their job. Apportioning blame doesn't get you very far if it's not accompanied by remedial action to stop such things happening again.
 

ComUtoR

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It’s more likely the power of ASLEF was the reason why he was allowed to stay in the role.
Do you have any evidence to support that statement ?

I didn't read anything significant in the report to suggest it was ASLEF who kept the Driver in a job. I would hope that an RAIB investigation would identify that as a contributary factor.
 

O L Leigh

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It’s more likely the power of ASLEF was the reason why he was allowed to stay in the role.
That's speculative at best.

ASLEF would want to ensure that their member was treated fairly and within the policies and procedures that govern discipline and incident investigation but would not defend the indefensible. If the company has processed the driver correctly and decided that they were no longer suitable for mainline work there isn't much that the union could do about it, although they may be able to secure them a position as a depot driver or similar. The question over a driver's suitability for mainline work rests with the company.
 

rebmcr

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I'm not sure why the two have to be mutually exclusive.

Clearly, and as much as it pains me to say it, questions have to be asked about the drivers suitability for the role. But at the same time, questions also have to be asked about management's role in letting this situation come to pass, and not taking firmer steps sooner.

There are many lessons to be learnt by all parties - which is why we have the RAIB who IMO have written a very even handed report, as is their job. Apportioning blame doesn't get you very far if it's not accompanied by remedial action to stop such things happening again.
I don't have anything to add to this but 'hear hear'.
 

Meerkat

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By the way….he wasn‘t considered safe enough to drive passengers but was safe enough to drive ECS into Marylebone - ie over the busiest bit of the line, with lots of trains full of passengers about. Does that really make sense?
 

bramling

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It’s more likely the power of ASLEF was the reason why he was allowed to stay in the role.

In a situation like this where the driver has a record as long as the proverbial arm, the union’s main role is to ensure management correctly follow company procedures.

This may indeed mean there’s quite a few checks and balances in the process to get rid of someone, however this shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing.

In this case management seemed to do little apart from sweep the problem under the carpet for a couple of years.
 

craigybagel

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By the way….he wasn‘t considered safe enough to drive passengers but was safe enough to drive ECS into Marylebone - ie over the busiest bit of the line, with lots of trains full of passengers about. Does that really make sense?
It does if you see it as being only a few miles long, as opposed to the many hundreds of miles that would be on the route card of a Marylebone based driver. It's not so much that he wasn't safe to drive a train with passengers on (freight drivers are held to the same standards as passenger drivers after all), but by focusing only on lower speed moves over a much smaller section of track, it takes some of the pressure off him.

I'm assuming that was the logic anyway
 

Bayum

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Were the underlying issues correctable?
Maybe not but the route to dismissal in most companies these days is a planned intervention of which the employee works against to prove incompetency.
 

Watershed

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By the way….he wasn‘t considered safe enough to drive passengers but was safe enough to drive ECS into Marylebone - ie over the busiest bit of the line, with lots of trains full of passengers about. Does that really make sense?
The report specifically addresses this in paragraph 103:

The panel noted that the driver was dealing with personal issues in his life and that the driver was identifying methods to use to help his concentration. It decided that the driver would be restricted to driving trains at Wembley depot and empty class 165 and 168 trains between there and Marylebone station for an initial period of three years. The intention of the restriction was recorded as to:
‘ ...manage the concentration issues and to reduce the amount of decisions that you will have to make whilst driving at high speeds and during longer periods of sustained concentration.’
 

bramling

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The report specifically addresses this in paragraph 103:

Three years is a long time to have someone restricted in this way. One would expect a lot to have been going on in that time to attempt to address the underlying issues. My feeling from the report is that the opposite happened - the problem was out the way for a while.
 

Watershed

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Three years is a long time to have someone restricted in this way. One would expect a lot to have been going on in that time to attempt to address the underlying issues. My feeling from the report is that the opposite happened - the problem was out the way for a while.
Yes, it seemed to be a mixture of passing through the cracks with the various driver manager changes, and a managerial attitude of "he's served his sentence now". Restricted driving was clearly seen more as a punishment than a tool (or safety measure).
 

whoosh

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Separately, I don't think I've ever seen a formal accident report before which used the "bullying" word explicitly about a senior management member. It must be quite obvious who was being referred to. Are they still in post?

I used to work at a TOC, that upon the appointment of a certain Head of Drivers, managed to develop a phenomenal 'churn rate' of Driver Managers - five left in two years from one depot alone! All returned to driving, one staying at the depot, but all the others joined other TOCs or FOCs elsewhere. NONE stayed in Management - obviously completely put off.

A couple of Depot Drivers were offered positions with an FOC to become fully fledged mainline drivers, but this Head of Drivers refused to let his Driver Managers sign the ATOC 'Safety record' form that needs to be filled in when drivers transfer companies, effectively trapping them and hindering progression of their careers.
Morale took a nosedive.

I know he had since left but I wasn't quite sure where he'd gone to. I thought of him when I read that paragraph, and thought, "I wonder if it's him?"
No surprise when I typed his name into a search bar and his LinkedIn page says where and what he's doing now...


Are they still in post?

I kind of hope so, as bad as that sounds, as that means he isn't where I work now.
 

option

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I'm not sure why the two have to be mutually exclusive.

Clearly, and as much as it pains me to say it, questions have to be asked about the drivers suitability for the role. But at the same time, questions also have to be asked about management's role in letting this situation come to pass, and not taking firmer steps sooner.

There are many lessons to be learnt by all parties - which is why we have the RAIB who IMO have written a very even handed report, as is their job. Apportioning blame doesn't get you very far if it's not accompanied by remedial action to stop such things happening again.

Is there an issue with recruitment processes?

When you look at the 'jobs' forum, a lot of the recruitment is done in batches, & could be many years between batches. (& of course there's the time spent training)
But, of course, people don't leave in batches, or at times convenient for a TOCs recruitment processes.
 

ComUtoR

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Is there an issue with recruitment processes?

There are some known issues in the process as a whole. I can't comment on Chiltern specifically but Driver recruitment is rather notorious.
 

craigybagel

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Is there an issue with recruitment processes?

When you look at the 'jobs' forum, a lot of the recruitment is done in batches, & could be many years between batches. (& of course there's the time spent training)
But, of course, people don't leave in batches, or at times convenient for a TOCs recruitment processes.
Given he was presumably recruited into the driving role about 20 years ago (given he passed out in 2002), whether or not there were issues in the recruitment process he went through is probably not all that relevant today.
 

Surreytraveller

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As ever, passenger care came last. Although the Chiltern diesel was within spitting distance of a platform, nobody could bring themselves to shunt it forward a bit so the passengers could be detrained. No, they have to get down on the track. And that means double-checking current is off and using staff who are authorised to do so, none of whom of course are readily available. So they are just left there to fester for a couple of hours.

The passengers would have been better off if the trains had collided. Then the fire service would have turned out and would have got them out pronto.
Of course, don't forget the train had run through a set of points and was now on the wrong line. There may be damage to the train, possibly detailed, damage to the track, potentially causing a derailment if anything were to move.
Fitters, S&T and P-Way would need to do inspections before anything could move
 

Bayum

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Is there an issue with recruitment processes?

When you look at the 'jobs' forum, a lot of the recruitment is done in batches, & could be many years between batches. (& of course there's the time spent training)
But, of course, people don't leave in batches, or at times convenient for a TOCs recruitment processes.
The recruitment process isn’t always going to weed out those who will ultimately not make good drivers.
 

Horizon22

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Partially answered in para 84:


100 activations annually doesn't sound to me like a driver would see more than one in several years (naturally certain areas would be worse, and some drivers may get unlucky)

Agreed on your last point too - rare is it that an RAIB inspector ventures to such an explicit description of behaviour, which implies - to me at least - that this must be a particularly serious shortcoming.

Chiltern were recently hiring a considerable number of senior driver managers / operations managers which to me suggests the team has been restructured which should hopefully put an end to the "bullying" culture.
 

43066

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Does a ‘fail to cancel AWS’ go on your safety of the line record?

Nope. It’s a call to the signaller before moving and an email to management. They sometimes download the journey to ensure it wasn’t a TPWS activation/intervention.
 

PudseyBearHST

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Nope. It’s a call to the signaller before moving and an email to management. They sometimes download the journey to ensure it wasn’t a TPWS activation/intervention.
Thanks. That was what I thought too. The RAIB listing it under, “safety-related incidents” is why I asked. I suppose it still gets recorded as an operational incident as there’ll be no doubt forms to fill out but it’s not a safety line of the incident.
 

Meerkat

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Apologies if I am being dumb but why isn’t a missed AWS a safety issue?
 
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