Safe System of Work, or Mindless Bureaucracy?

Even without reading the RAIB report, which is not yet finished, we can say with certainty that the runaway train incident on the Northern line a couple of weeks ago was a major safety issue which will require the review and modification of working practices as regards defective trains. The RAIB report should tell us exactly what those modifications are.

In the mean time however, London Underground has gone utterly mad with new regulations. First of all, engineering trains of the same type as that which ran away were totally banned from the network pending the investigation by RAIB and LU. At first this seemed fine to me, but now I think about it, I wonder whether setting out a stricter method of working with these locos in the interim would not be a better and more efficient way of doing things. First of all, the standard LU response to a defective train is usually a push-out, not a pull-out as was attempted on the Northern line. Push-outs put less strain on the coupling, which in any case is supposed to be proven before it is used. Why not set out strict processes for dealing with defective engineering locos of this type instead of banning them altogether?

My real problem though is with an incredibly ill-thought-out, kneejerk reaction called “Operational Standards Notice 96” (OSN96). OSNs have the same force as the hallowed LU Rule Books, when all is said and done they are essentially additions to the Rule Books. OSN 96 states that all engineering trains which have their brakes isolated, or any passenger stock which has two or more cars of brakes cut-out, must not be moved until a ridiculous bureaucratic process has been carried out.

Firstly, the OSN states that the person in charge of the site must contact the LU Rostered Duty Officer (RDO) to request permission to move the train. The RDO is an LU general manager with special incident training. It is a very senior grade, rostered weekly. To find out who the RDO is this week and what their mobile number is, the person in charge must call the Network Operations Centre. The RDO will then call the LU duty engineer to discuss the move request. The move will then be given or denied permission.

So far, so arse-covering. Even more ridiculous though is that although the OSN stipulates that it covers “defective trains”, depots have been told it also applies to them. I was at our local depot the other day, and a three-car unit came in to go over the wheel-lathe – a piece of equipment which keeps the train wheels in the correct profile. This is done by cutting out all the brakes on the train and attaching it to a “tug” loco. The attachment is no botch-job, the shunter is the same height as the passenger train, and they connect using a secure double D attachment. The lathe road is perfectly level, not by accident, by design – specifically because the unit to be lathed must have all its brakes cut out. Despite all this, OSN 96 had to be followed to the letter. Authorisation took 45 minutes in the middle of the day, and was only given for that specific train – not for the lathe road or the depot in general. This depot usually lathes at night, with their peak time being between 0200 and 0400. How long will authorisation take at that time in the morning?

This is an absurd over-reaction to a totally different scenario. I advised the depot manager to give the RDO a call at 0200 on Sunday or Bank Holiday Monday with his next request. It will be interesting to see how long OSN 96 applies to depots after that.