London Banter - View Single Post - Here We Go Again

Steve Gardiner · May 11th 11, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick Leverton

In article , d wrote:
On Wed, 11 May 2011 14:48:31 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
Whatever the situation, sacking a man for carrying out what he presumably
thought was an action to prevent a possible incident is just vindictive. It
smacks of management using their powers simply because they can.

Don't be silly. If someone breaks the rules like this, you can't let
them off because they thought breaking the rule was OK. That's anarchy,
especially in a safety-critical industry like railways.

And what if a train had come and derailed while he was finding other
ways to solve the problem? Sometimes rules need to be broken if they get
in the way.

Wellingborough, 1898. A porter's trolley fell off the platform onto the
track. Instead of running to the signalbox to stop trains, two railway
employees tried to shift it. They failed, the express was derailed,
and five people and two staff were killed.

Sometimes, Boltar, there are reasons for rules and procedures ...

Nick
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Walking on the track without prior arrangement is really not acceptable. the guy should really have known better. At the very least he needs to go through his training again.

If the train was in imminent danger of hitting the trolley - and I can't see a derailament occuring in this instance especially as trains usually go pretty slow through stations - then the guy really was putting his own life at risk.

Once you allow one guy to do this then you know there'll be others and quickly lose control.

He should have phoned up and reported the trolley - with instant communications these days, and radios in trains the driver could easily have been alerted, the train diverted or stopped and the power shut off to allow for the trolley to be removed safely.