Safety on Trains

godtabh

Has the HSA ever investigated safety on trains?

Irish Rail dont seem to care about over crowding. Animals wouldn't be packed in as much as people on the Maynooth line were this morning.

MarkoP11

HSA have no legally standard to apply so they can't investigate it.

There exists no rules or regulations in Ireland or indeed anywhere in the EU to address this matter. All trains are designed to opperate safely upto and well beyond the crush limit, thus a DART coach can carry 175-200 depending on type, it is however built to take over 250

All rail safety issues concerning design, operation and passenger safety go to the Rail Safety Commission, its not the HSA's turf.

Principle party at fault is the Department of Transport who steadfastly refuse and stall investment in rail transport, name any rail project and you can be sure it has been delayed to suit the whims of the minister

antoinolachtnai

What is the safety issue with an overcrowded train?

godtabh

antoinolachtnai wrote:

What is the safety issue with an overcrowded train?

What happens if their is a crash or a fire or any type of accident?

antoinolachtnai

Severe accidents on trains are incredibly infrequent.

You can evacuate even a packed train pretty quick if you open all the doors on both sides.

If you are standing in an uncrowded train during a derailment or collision, you are at a lot more risk than if the train is packed. Anyway, the moment of a full train is so massive that it takes an awful lot to send the train or the passengers within flying.

godtabh

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Severe accidents on trains are incredibly infrequent.

You can evacuate even a packed train pretty quick if you open all the doors on both sides.

If you are standing in an uncrowded train during a derailment or collision, you are at a lot more risk than if the train is packed. Anyway, the moment of a full train is so massive that it takes an awful lot to send the train or the passengers within flying.

Tell me how an over packed train would be evacuated when panic sets in after an accident

MarkoP11

In almost all circumstances following an accident, the safest place is to remain on the train, you will find that repeated by rail safety agencies the world over. Far too many people have died needlessly by leaving the train following an accident. Its only if your life is in imminent danger do you leave the train. Its on page 11 http://www.rsc.ie/uploads/rsc/V4%20Passenger%20guide.pdf

If there is a fire, again unlikely, the vast bulk of Irish trains now meet the requirements to operate underground and the higher fire standards that requires, there have been several fires on trains in the last 18 months, no injuries, no signifcant damage.

The practical problems with overcrowding can be classifed in two ways
1. People who shouldn't be travelling in crush conditions, hungover, no breakfast etc
2. People who insist on squashing on

You cant legislate for these

All trains meet Irish, UK, UIC and Japanese requirements in some cases and have vastly better safety equipment than what you find in the UK. World over people travel in similar conditions so its not an Irish thing

godtabh

MarkoP11 wrote:

If there is a fire, again unlikely, the vast bulk of Irish trains now meet the requirements to operate underground and the higher fire standards that requires, there have been several fires on trains in the last 18 months, no injuries, no signifcant damage.

Yet.

I was just wondering is all.

At one stage this morning people were pushing people off the train it was so packed.

In a world were the first thing people do is sue if an accident happens it would appear to me that Irish Rail are doing nothing to protect them selfs.

cast_iron

kearnsr wrote:

In a world were the first thing people do is sue if an accident happens it would appear to me that Irish Rail are doing nothing to protect them selfs.

It appears from what Marko is saying, they have no need to.

MarkoP11

If an accident happens you have the right to sue as per normal. Most likely person at fault given current accidents stats will be a truck driver striking a bridge.

Is it safe, well it happens the world over. They pay people in Japan to push you into the coach. The question is, is the risk as low as reasonably practical (ALARP), short of having hundreds of staff to do crowd control there is nothing they can do, is that practical or worth it, no.

If the safety risk wasn't as low as reasonably practical IE would be in breech of their safety case and would run the risk of being shutdown. GAA trains are now strictly sold one ticket for each seat as a result of crowding problems, it was practical and reasonable to do so given the fact the trains used are not designed for standees.

If the train is in your opinion overcrowded don't board

Now you are right to complain about the fact the train service doesn't match demand, thats a fundamentally a funding problem, the service planning in IE could do with some work, they currently won't publish the list of which trains are which length (even the internal timetable doesn't know in many cases) nor will they give prior notice of a short train, in customer service terms there is a failure here