Trespassing on the tracks: what are the rules, and what were the rules?

[Krokodil]

I don't understand your point. Apologies for being 'thick', but electric (or plain wire) fences are a physical boundary.

In the UK pretty much all farmland (whether arable or pasture) is permanently enclosed, usually by walls or hedgerows. In many countries, including the US and some European countries there is often no barrier around arable fields, just a track or a strip of grass.

In many parts of Switzerland the only barrier around pasture is a temporary electric fence which is a fairly modern invention and is not left in place around empty fields. Alpine farmers (pre electric fences) would have used other methods to corral their cattle instead of a physical barrier. In many cases goats and cows would roam the mountains relatively freely, with a reliance upon bells to aid in finding them.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Barbed wire round an arable field is overkill - the crop is hardly likely to try to escape.

I once had a palm ripped open when I slipped on a steep public footpath between two (arable) fields, put my hands out to save myself, and cut one of them on a barbed wire fence.

 

[danm14]

Barbed wire round an arable field is overkill - the crop is hardly likely to try to escape.

Barbed wire around an arable field is to keep animals out, not the crop in.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Barbed wire around an arable field is to keep animals out, not the crop in.

There are very few wild animals in the UK that can damage crops and would be deterred by barbed wire. Deer can jump, rabbits can burrow, birds can fly.

 

[Tezza1978]

I remember watching a video at school in the 90s about trespass on the railways - had some highly graphic and gory images of people who did not live to tell the tale.

As someone has pointed out earlier in the thread there are still plenty of warning campaigns but I'm not sure anything as graphic as that would be allowed these days....

 

[zwk500]

I remember watching a video at school in the 90s about trespass on the railways - had some highly graphic and gory images of people who did not live to tell the tale.

As someone has pointed out earlier in the thread there are still plenty of warning campaigns but I'm not sure anything as graphic as that would be allowed these days....

The last videos I saw on youtube weren't graphic as such, relying on cuts to black and sound effects to get the message across. But still powerful enough.

 

[43066]

The last videos I saw on youtube weren't graphic as such

I’ve seen some extremely graphic videos of people getting on the wrong end of (and under) trains, most of which are quite rightly not available on youtube, to my knowledge.

I’ve also heard some even more graphic accounts from colleagues, almost always relayed with an appropriate level of dark humour. It might sound perverse, but gallows humour is pervasive within the industry. No surprise given what people have to witness and deal with, on occasion.

All of the above are an excellent incentive not to engage in whatever ridiculous behaviour is initially depicted, and should perhaps be shown/discussed more widely.

 

[zwk500]

I’ve seen some extremely graphic videos of people getting onto the wrong end of (and under) trains, most of which are quite rightly not available on youtube, to my knowledge.

I’ve also heard some even more graphic accounts from colleagues, almost always relayed with an appropriate level of dark humour. It might sound perverse, but gallows humour is pervasive within the industry. No surprise given what people have to witness and deal with, on occasion.

All of the above are an excellent incentive not to engage in whatever ridiculous behaviour is initially depicted, and should perhaps be shown/discussed more widely.

100%

 

[ChewChewTrain]

Some may be interested in this 1992 episode of The Bill featuring kids playing “chicken” on the track. Anyone know where it is?

(The Bill was usually pretty accurate regarding the procedure used in such situations.)

 

[43066]

Some may be interested in this 1992 episode of The Bill featuring kids playing “chicken” on the track. Anyone know where it is?

(The Bill was usually pretty accurate regarding the procedure used in such situations.)

Actually it isn’t where I thought - deleted.

One thing I can confirm is sadly still correct in 2023 is The Bill’s early 90s interpretation of a thick Bobby or two getting it all wrong, trespassing on the tracks themselves, nearly getting bowled over by a train, and thinking a milepost is a structure plate!

Edit: and on the subject of “The Bill”. I did briefly meet Eric Richard who played Bob Cryer, in circa 2000 when I had a student job at a Mercedes Dealership in Bromley.

I distinctly remember how he gave it the biggun about who he was over the phone (ie a minor actor), turned up in a Ferrari Mondial - worth very little money in those days - and lo and behold, little billy big nuts wanted to buy a base spec C180, and couldn’t even agree a deal on that.

Complete and utter pretender - the salesmen laughed him out of the showroom.

Never meet your heroes!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Some may be interested in this 1992 episode of The Bill featuring kids playing “chicken” on the track. Anyone know where it is?

(The Bill was usually pretty accurate regarding the procedure used in such situations.)

That's been discussed on here before some years ago; I can't remember the exact location but it was given - it was somewhere on the Sutton Loop if I remember properly.

 

[43066]

That's been discussed on here before some years ago; I can't remember the exact location but it was given - it was somewhere on the Sutton Loop if I remember properly.

In which case, I’m all the more glad I deleted my initial view .

 

[Egg Centric]

Complete and utter pretender

Tbf that's his job

 

[edwin_m]

That's been discussed on here before some years ago; I can't remember the exact location but it was given - it was somewhere on the Sutton Loop if I remember properly.

There was a piece about it in Railnews at the time. IIRC they isolated and earthed the third rail and filmed with a DEMU unit, which looks enough like an EMU to be convincing.

 

[DavyCrocket]

The scene with the trolley on the line is Sutton Loop near to Chaucer Gardens

 

[DJ_K666]

Yes school visits still happen regularly for both primary and secondary children, carried out by British Transport Police and Network Rail. They do lots of proactive school visits when lines are being newly electrified too. They also organise free community activity schemes in high risk areas during the school holidays (like running football academies etc…) to try to give the kids something to do and keep them off the railway.

Here are a few recent trespass films for young people that Network Rail has produced but there are more -

'The Finishing Line' was better. Much, much much more hard hitting as PI films tended to be in the 70s. Another one was Dark and Lonely Water (Not railway related, I know) with narration by Donald Pleasance. Can you imagine releasing something that scary these days? To my mind the reasons the complainers would give against it would be exactly the reasons to put it out.

 

[eldomtom2]

and should perhaps be shown/discussed more widely.

The risk is that focusing on trespassers who were killed may encourage more suicides - which after all are more common than trepass fatalities.

 

[DJ_K666]

The risk is that focusing on trespassers who were killed may encourage more suicides - which after all are more common than trepass fatalities.

To be honest you'll never stop a person who is determined to kill themselves. They'll find a way, unfortunately for their families and those that have to deal with the results.

 

[takno]

'The Finishing Line' was better. Much, much much more hard hitting as PI films tended to be in the 70s. Another one was Dark and Lonely Water (Not railway related, I know) with narration by Donald Pleasance. Can you imagine releasing something that scary these days? To my mind the reasons the complainers would give against it would be exactly the reasons to put it out.

I don't think it's complaints that are preventing this kind of film being made. It's more that the impact of seeing injury and deaths in film is much reduced for children and young people today because they have so much more access to media where this happens all the time. Back in the days when somebody had to come and set up a projector in your school you simply didn't see anything that shocking that often.

What I think might have made it seem like trespass incidents are being treated a lot more seriously now is that it's a lot easier to radio them in when they happen, rather than having to stop at the next viable signal, or indeed forgetting to stop at the next signal.

 

[DJ_K666]

I don't think it's complaints that are preventing this kind of film being made. It's more that the impact of seeing injury and deaths in film is much reduced for children and young people today because they have so much more access to media where this happens all the time. Back in the days when somebody had to come and set up a projector in your school you simply didn't see anything that shocking that often.

What I think might have made it seem like trespass incidents are being treated a lot more seriously now is that it's a lot easier to radio them in when they happen, rather than having to stop at the next viable signal, or indeed forgetting to stop at the next signal.

Maybe. They can access some seriously graphic stuff like you say

 

[Phil R]

Actually it isn’t where I thought - deleted.

One thing I can confirm is sadly still correct in 2023 is The Bill’s early 90s interpretation of a thick Bobby or two getting it all wrong, trespassing on the tracks themselves, nearly getting bowled over by a train, and thinking a milepost is a structure plate!

Edit: and on the subject of “The Bill”. I did briefly meet Eric Richard who played Bob Cryer, in circa 2000 when I had a student job at a Mercedes Dealership in Bromley.

I distinctly remember how he gave it the biggun about who he was over the phone (ie a minor actor), turned up in a Ferrari Mondial - worth very little money in those days - and lo and behold, little billy big nuts wanted to buy a base spec C180, and couldn’t even agree a deal on that.

Complete and utter pretender - the salesmen laughed him out of the showroom.

Never meet your heroes!

This is wildly off-topic now but... seems Mr Cryer moved to a different form of German motorised transport - mate of mine bought a BMW GS motorbike in around 2006, he was the previous owner. I kind of dodged a bullet by not being on the trip, but it seemed to have niggly problems culminating in a major oil pump failure leaving him stranded in France somwhere and having to hire a car to drive most of the way back, bike repatriated later.

Slightly back on topic, I do recall a scene on The Bill filmed at Old Oak Common, must have been mid/late 80s.

 

[TheSeeker]

In many countries, railways are unfenced, and can be easily accessed by anyone who is so inclined. Presumably a different attitude and response to trespass than in the UK?

I was in Latvia a few years ago. Signs everywhere in the stations warning not to walk on the tracks. I thought it was overkill but then on our train journey there were people walking everywhere. Along and over the tracks. When we reached our destination near the beach huge crowds got off with picnics and deck chairs and all walked over the tracks heading for the beach. It reminded me of the case in Spain when a group of friends going to the beach were killed by an express train passing the local one they had just got off.

 

[nitten_travell]

I don't know about safety but remember the original purpose of fencing the railway in the UK was not so much preventing things getting onto the railway as it was stopping livestock getting out of their fields.

In his (weighty) book The Railways Simon Bradley mentions that the original Acts which created the railway required that a physical marker of the edge of the permanent way be present. This could be a light fence, not necessarily strong enough to stop a cow. Farmers from whom the land was (compulsorily?) purchased grew hedges along the fence and they ended up as effective livestock barriers. But the main reason was to mark out who owned what.