Disclaimer: this post is obviously NOT intended to be a substitute for the PTS course! If you want more information on railway safety, see the videos and resources on Network Rail's Safety Central site or read some of the incident reports produced by the RAIB.
One reason for the course is that most people underestimate just how dangerous the railway environment is. After all, from the perspective of passengers, the railway is as safe as we can possibly make it, and you are considerably less likely to be killed or injured as a train passenger than by driving to your destination. But this leads to problems at level crossings, the one place where members of the public interact with trains travelling at their normal speed. People tend to assume that the stopping distance for a train is similar to a bus or a lorry travelling at 30mph on an urban road.
Unfortunately, trains are considerably heavier (hundreds or thousands of tonnes, not 10 tonnes like a bus), travel faster than road vehicles (usually at least 60mph, remembering you're not allowed pedestrians on the motorway, and 125mph on the fastest lines) and make use of a deliberately low-friction surface (the rails), all of which means that if a driver applies the emergency brake, it will still take over a mile to stop. And they can't swerve out of the way of any obstructions, either. So railway workers are regulated as a "high risk" industry with similar procedural requirements for safety as an oil refinery or a nuclear power plant.
Obviously, the safest method of working is by stopping the traffic (known as a "possession") and turning the electricity off if you're on an electrified line (an "isolation"). This means most construction work on the railway is done in the wee small hours (with attendant problems of working or walking about in the dark). But fairly obviously, members of the public don't see the railway under possession conditions. So how can you safely work when there's trains going past? Why do train drivers honk? And why do track workers that you pass on the train never seem to be doing any work?
The answer is: when you see a train on the track near where you're working, you raise one arm to "acknowledge" ie tell the driver you've seen it (both arms means "emergency stop"), shout a warning to your colleagues and move immediately to a position of safety away from the track (you must be there at least 10 seconds before the train arrives, which is not that much warning if you're on a bend and the trains are going fast - we have special lookout arrangements to cover this). The driver honks as soon as he or she sees you, and honks again until every member of the party has acknowledged, which is usually enough to make you move quickly!
You keep your arm in the air until the cab has gone past, then hold onto your hard hat (or put the chinstrap on) because as people who use Stevenage station know very well, "passing trains cause air turbulence". In fact, they cause more turbulence at track level than on the station, so you have to prepare yourself for a blast of air (potentially full of dust or grit) in your face about a second after the last carriage has whooshed past - delightful...
One thing which becomes very obvious from the PTS course is that most of our safety systems were invented 50+ years ago for a low-tech railway that's very different from what we have today. As high-tech options have become more useful, these have been added but the old ones still have to be memorised (which means that if the high tech versions don't work, there's always a backup plan). Thus, we now have a preference order for problems like: what if there's an emergency and you need to stop the trains?
The preference order looks like this:
1) Apply track circuit operating clips (this makes the signalling system think there's a train in your block, so it sets the signals on the approach to red). You should always have a set of clips with you.
2) (ideally one of your colleagues does this at the same time as option 1) Ring the signaller and/or electrical control room and tell them to stop the trains or turn the electricity off as applicable. About two hours of the PTS course are devoted to practising how to make emergency calls, including the phonetic alphabet.
3) If you need an ambulance or the fire service, ring them next unless the signaller is able to do this for you. Note that in railway land, mobile phones are very useful but there are also line side telephones in some places which is good if there's no signal, or if the person who's been injured is your COSS who has the task briefing with all the relevant phone numbers on him/her (programming useful phone numbers into your phone is advisable).
4) Now for the low-tech options: walk 1.25 miles in the direction of traffic and put down detonators on the track to warn any driver that comes along. Yes, by detonators I do mean explosives: little canisters which go off if a train drives over them (instructions include: put them on the line, then stand well back!)
If your phone isn't working to do option 2, this turns into "walk to the nearest telephone, put detonators down then ring the signaller".
Now, really? We're talking here about walking for at least 20 minutes on ballast, potentially in the dark in the middle of the night, which is quite frankly daft if you're working on the East Coast Mainline with a train every 3-5 minutes. So in these days of high traffic and ubiquitous phones, you start by putting the detonators wherever the incident has happened, another set in advance of any relevant signals or points and then as a last resort, put some more down a mile and a quarter down the line.
5) My personal favourite though: methods of telling a passing driver to stop if you haven't had time to implement options 1 to 4 yet. In daylight, this comprises either both arms in the air, a red light or a red flag. In the dark, only the light is useful - and what if you don't have a red light? The super low-tech option is: Any light will do, waved about "vigorously" (not up/down or side to side, because this might look like a shunting signal).
See also:
- In Fog 5: The Changing Face of Railway Safety
- Network Rail - Safety Central
- In Fog 3: Railway Jobs You've Never Thought Of
No comments:
Post a Comment