Thanks for watching, check out me other bits! Thank you Jago: www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard My new Album: madebyjohn.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-archiv-1 Outro Song:ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-c10sL_KoFOU.html Instagram: instagram.com/plainly.john/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/Plainlydifficult Merch: plainly-difficult.creator-spring.com Twitter:twitter.com/Plainly_D
🎉 Hey there! It would be super cool if you could cover the Cave Creek disaster in Aotearoa. It was massively tragic and entirely preventable, but no one knows fuck all about it outside of Aotearoa, I think you'd do a great job!
You and Jago should try and find a UK railway disaster that neither of you have covered (or did so long ago that you think you could improve) and do a collaborative video.
If I were the rail driver that reported the rough ride, correctly and in detail, I would be absolutely livid and heartbroken at the company bungling it and not checking the very specific section of rail I mentioned. No words.
And if my experience in the railway industry is even 20% reflective, you'd have angry failing boomer maintainance crew backed up by union thugs on your case if you ever spoke up critically about it.
The then CEO of Railtrack was gerald corbett, his claim to fame is almost every company he headed he's manage to run into bankruptcy, after Railtrack he wrecked Woolworths UK. He's known as the man with the reverse Midas touch, everything the touches turns to S#it. Many werent please that he left railtrack with almost a £million severance, on top of his already excessive pay
@@nvelsen1975Well then your experience is 0% reflective because as both a driver and a "union thug" I have never known either ASLEF (the drivers' union) or RMT (the maintenance union) to back down from a fight over safety issues. In fact, although it was only briefly mentioned in this video, pressure from the unions following Potters Bar and a few other incidents attributed to poor maintenance contributed to the replacement of for-profit private corporation Railtrack with non-profit publicly-owned Network Rail.
I grew up in Cicero, Illinois, USA, an industrial town that bordered on Chicago. Trains of all types were everywhere, and one of the largest railyards in the US was located in the middle of town. As a kid back in the 70s I was occasionally allowed to tag along with maintenance crews. (It was a different era, few thought to sue if a kid did something dumb and got hurt.) I was fascinated and learned a lot by watching and from the workers who believed that kids should learn anything they wanted. I still remember how meticulous they were about point maintenance; all work was checked and double-checked before the line was pronounced clear. Now, though, they run everything with skeleton crews. Short-sighted and dangerous to say the least. PS- Nice outro music, John!
Don't worry pop's, some of us were raised right, it may have taken some of us a bit for the lessons to sink in, but those of us who don't do things like sue when we get the cosquenses of being dumb do exist.
So, a team leader that I had actually witnessed the aftermath of the the incident in the video. The way that things are going now in the UK, he said that it's almost worse than when Potters Bar occurred
Well, in France, we have had such a disastrous train crash : one "petit gris" electric self-propelled train, in direction to Paris Gare de Lyon, was halted at a station due to someone pulling the emergency brake, panicking when she realized that the train wasn't going to stop at her station. When trying to get into traffic, the train's brakes were locked. The drivers, already 20 min behind schedule, though it was due to an overpressure in the pressure brake line. He purged it, but forgot to reconnect it correctly, leaving the brakes permanently open. After climbing a ramp toward Paris Gare Lyon station, and realizing dreadfully that he hasn't any braking, he pulled the emergency signal for the train regulation. That caused the train to be drived towards it's first programed platform, which was changed as it was behind schedule. In the end, the brakeless train collided at high speed into an overcrowded other "petit gris", which was wating for departure authorisation. The platform became a hell of twisted steel and entangled passengers in wrecked train cars (it was a self-propelled system, the propulsion was made in the cars)
I remember seeing a documentary on that incident. Huge amount of respect for the late conductor of the stationary train. He saw the oncoming train and instead of ditching to save his own life, he spent his last moments ordering passengers to evacuate, likely saving many of their lives
She was picking her kids up from school. When she was on the wrong train she didn't want to be late for her kids. And the rest is history @@liamcollinson5695
I feel sorry for both the reporting employee and the inspecting track worker, neither of whom can be blamed but must have felt the weight of the disaster on their shoulders.
The inspecting track worker should share some of the blame. One thing I learnt in investigating customer complaints (not in rail) passed to me via a system, is that there will be a fault, but not necessarily where I have been told. If everything looks ok, you need to look further, and not just dismiss it. When the guy found the supposed points ok, he should have asked himself how the message may be been corrupted - maybe its one of the other points? Especially he should have taken the report more seriously, since 100 MPH trains necessarily make faulty points very dangerous.
@@keithammleter3824 Agree 100%. When the points he was sent out to inspect were fine, he should have checked all the others at that location, just to be safe. Instead, he did the bare minimum, resulting in maximum confusion and delay.
@@ivertranes2516 We don't know how much time he was allowed to spend on own accord from the people over him. Maybe he had to attend to other tasks directly afterwards.
That first clip of the rain on the rails reminds me of how soothing it is to be on a long distance train journey when its raining. I love to read, have some coffee and just enjoy the rain spattered windows with the scenery flying by
@@Jabarri74 not on a work day. I'll take an hour of road traffic than suffer thru the cattle car of he'll followed by the zoos of monstrosity and finally the taxis of death. Commuting for work is a miserable experience in any weather
Coming from a railroad family in the US, it's always interesting to see how things work/worked in the UK compared to over here. Thanks for your content John!
At least the Brit term for "frog" more accurately describes function. I saw a car pick a switch. Train entering yard, same car, two tracks doesn't work.
I would like to stress that UK's railways are very safe. Yes, we've had some.... blips over time where poor souls have lost their lives, but overalls our railways are safe. (Not to mention hardly any trains run at the moment....)
Point maintenance has come on a long way since Potters bar, with Remote condition monitoring, tubular stretcher bar etc. I started on the railway a matter of months after this and rember the general state of points, it is far removed from that today. That said, it was a long road, as illustrated by Greyrigg in 2007 (I think?) which was a very similar accident.
Your comment on "rough ride not being what we think it means" had me confused at first because my mind went to the US history route and thought it referred to the Rough Riders headed by President Teddy Roosevelt. Then, my brain caught up and realized, "oh, a euphemism".
As a retired former driver I can confirm that we are completely in the hands of the track engineers for all things rail safety and that you cannot legislate for some idiot just plain getting it wrong. I was driving the first train to approach an small piece of track at Wembley Central that had been reported by an earlier driver. It had been inspected with a 20mph temp speed restriction imposed. The warning boards were placed and then along I come with a fully loaded 8-car class 350, approaching at 100mph downgrade on a wet rail. The warning board is supposed to be placed at a distance that will allow the train to be slowed from line speed using a normal Step 2 or 50% brake application. I saw the warning board, shut off power and applied 50% brake. I had a small amount of initial wheel pickup on the wet rail, then I went into the North Wembley neutral section - this is a small bit of dead overhead wire between two electrical sections. On a Class 350 this knocks out the electric dynamic braking for 16 seconds so you go to full tread braking. The whole unit, all 8 cars, picked up (the wheels locked and slid) so I had absolutely zero control over what was happening. I thus went through the 20mph TSR at around 65mph. I reported it to the signaller then filled in the necessary paperwork at the end of my shift. Unusually on this occasion I did get a report back from Network Rail. The person who had set the warning board was completely unaware of the effect of a neutral section on dynamic braking capability and also they had miscalculated the braking distance needed by applying the line speed of the slow line (75 through Wembley Central) to the fast line (100 through Wembley Central). This sort of incident is what we drivers called a code brown !
@@mfbfreak The dynamic brake cuts out through a neutral section - dynamic brake is a very strong electric retarder effect from the traction motors as they feed power back into the overhead electric wires. On Class 350s it makes about 60% of the brake force and is responsible for the classic Desiro 'chirp' sound when it is braking. When that cuts out it goes to 100% disk brakes, so if the rail is slippery, and you suddenly have all your brake force through the wheels, off you go. The speedo drops to zero, the big yellow wheel-slip light comes on. It certainly focusses the mind, that's for sure !
Love the advert flags in the top right corner. Only people who remember old telly will know what they are - the signal for a loo break and to put the kettle on 👍🤗
I've always wondered what that was for. Do ads show up for people when those bars come on then? I use Brave so it's been quite a while since I've seen a youtube ad.
They came up on itv to signal the programme would be halted for adverts. From memory on at 1 minute for 5-10 seconds. Off until ten seconds before adverts when the bars appear until...2 seconds before adverts. Used to cue the tape machines. This is from memory - for sure there are more accurate explanations available 👍 Very similar to the cigarette burns on old films to allow the reels to be synced and changed by the projectionist.
Kettle?! What kettle …. Oh, got it. This is a British youtuber 😉. (Watching every single British criminal series on the telly, I realize that Lipton must make bigger revenues than Prozac ….)
Jay Foreman uses those too for his in-video sponsor ads -- though he uses animated flags (flashing between black-and-white and white-and-black) that look like they were clipped directly from old standard-def TV.
You have an incredible knack for making a complicated technical explanation really simple. That's why you're closing in on one million subs...that and your great artwork and your droll humor!
I was at work the day this happened. I've always wondered how in hell the coach ended up jammed across two platforms. Now I know. I'm a first responder, trauma technician, I've a weird skillset.
Weird skill set maybe, but a good one to have! I mean, my grandfather was a firefighter, mechanic, and tailor, and I've done everything from sailing on cargo freighters on the Great Lakes to working as an art therapist in a trauma and crisis intervention program, with a stint as a pro-Dominatrix in there somewhere, so I think weird skillsets are what make for interesting people!
@@thing_under_the_stairsfor a second I thought you said your grandfather was a dominatrix, and I was wondering why he was dominating clients as a woman! Thankfully I re-read your comment and realised my mistake, so I didn’t foolishly ask you why your grandfather was a dominatrix. Thank god. Anyway, better now tell you what I almost foolishly asked :)
What I like is that this vid highlights how the UK and US are two nations separated by a common language. "Points". Aka a "switch" in common vernacular to those of us on this side of the pond. Great vid PD.
I was a bit confused by that as well. I was thinking.. is he talking about a part of a switch? Still a good video as always… and as a NYC commuter.. “rough ride” is par for the course. A few years ago, I was going through some switchwork that literally bounced me out of my seat (mind you, I’m 6’5” 375 lb (195 cm, 175 kilos)
I really enjoy your breakdowns of these disasters. Not because I'm a ghoul but because I want to know why things happen. The fact that you do it in a logical and clear manner with no hysteria or loud music, is appreciated. Also you give your audience credit for intelligence which a lot of creators don't, they have to keep repeating themselves in case you don't get it the first time, which is infuriating when they can just replay the video. Thank you for all your efforts.
This kinds of videos are really great to understand how and why security stuff works. I think its way better to here a story of what happen when it go wrong than trying to learn by heart that "this do that, this do this, but we have no idea why its doe this or whas designed that way."
I know exactly what u mean! They do it in tv produced docs too, Seconds from Disaster being the worst, Ive ever experienced, with constant repeatitions of already incredibly dumbed down explanations, sensational music and their constant annoying tick-tock. This is SO much better than tv docs and the vast majority of sensation content here. John does a really bang up job!
Seeing a train coming towards you, sideways and on two different tracks, must be one of the things no one expects to see, ever! Just the photo was crazy enough. Next time Im on one of those smaller platforms, this is bound to come in mind.
hertfordshire is actually pronounced like "heart" and not "hurt." aside from that, great video. i think "Overly Confident Official" should be blotted too because of jarvis blaming terrorism
Genuinely, I never actually cared about trains before finding your channel. I now have an incredible respect for all persons, technology, and the sheer quantity of regulations written in blood.
I think, this was the last straw with the privatised Railtrack and were liquidated and became network rail. Sadly if NR get away with the cuts they want to do in maintenance, this may become an all too real occurrence again on UK railways
With the many, essentially financial, crises that the UK is currently experiencing, along with frank reluctance to spend on anything other than "glamour" projects such as the now much - curtailed HS2, yes, this will PROBABLY become a more commonplace occurrence.
@@phils4634Yes and no on HS2, we absolutely need something like it to help take the strain off the WCML, and it's only been as expensive as it has because we have had to build the logistics chains and train skilled workers to build it (same reason Crossrail was so expensive). The point about blatant underfunding or lack of funding is very fair though.
If I remember correctly two of the victims were from Taiwan. And one of the victim's mothers was very upset with the UK government and their lack of clarity when it came to this terrible incident.
Having youtube premium, and not getting an Ad when i see the cue dot has been frustrating. Its the one time im looking forward to getting an Ad, and i dont get the pleasure 🤣 its like blue balls
Imperial-Metric??? Finally our two cultures can communicate properly. I see great things for the US / UK relation moving forward. Brilliant. Just don't tell Canada, k?
Hi john. Thank you for a very precise video about this disaster at Potters Bar. I was the rail worker who reported the rough ride the night before. Having worked on the railway between 1998 & 2003 being based at Kings x and then at Finsbury Pk and living at Stevenage ive travelled at least 2 times every day over all those lines at Potters Bar. On that particular evening on 9th may 2002 my journey north was far more violent as we passed Potters Bar. I reported the rough ride to the ticket office staff when i got off at Stevenage but he didnt seem too bothered about my report. As soon as i got home i immediately called my supervisor at Finsbury Park and asked him to report it on my behalf. He called me straight back and told me to call Kings X signalbox directly as they needed to hear it from me. This i duly did. I remember saying to my wife after id made that call " if they dont go out abd check those points something bad will happen and people will die". Little did i know that my words would become true !!
@peperonikiller yes, I can talk about it freely now. I was questioned quite intensely a few days after the crash by the British Transport police. They asked me quite in depth questions like how did I know the layout at the station ? , how could I be so precise about where I'd experienced my rough ride considering I was travelling late at night ?. This was all questioned again 8 years later when they finally agreed to hold an inquest to the disaster in 2010. As I was a key witness, I was called to attend, had my statement thoroughly examined and went over some very fine details. Some of the other accounts and reports were, to me, quite shocking. For example, I was travelling on a DOWN train that night, yet Railtrack sent out their P Way gang out to examine the UP line !!. Another shocking example was how my report of the rough ride was just jotted down on a scrap of paper at King's X box and got easily discarded !!. Even though I wasn't "directly" involved in the disaster, it affected me quite deeply, feeling like I never quite did enough and that those 7 victims were partly my responsibility even though I wasn't technically. Every year for nearly 20 years, on that date, I would pay a visit to the station memorial, tidy up the rubbish that would be lying around and leave 7 flowers in the garden and then another 7 tied to the railings where the carriage ended up across the platforms. Odd, I know because I'd never met these 7 victims but I felt so responsible for their demise even though I wasn't responsible .
In about a month, it will be the 1 year ""anniversary"" of Greece's major railroad accident (Two trains got into the same track and collided on maximum speed). It would be cool if you were able to make a detailed video related to this accident at some point.
The first rail disaster I remember watching on 24hrs news. I also remember watching a documentary where one of the passengers in the last vehicle was a fighter pilot, and he had a good memory of what happened has the vehicle rotated, but it was black and white as his brain discarded colour so his brain could take it all in I smiled when Jago's voice sounded for someone authoritarian lol
@alisonwilson9749 unfortunately it was about 15 years ago i saw it, i just remember it as being fascinating how training in hugh pressure situations can do that when most peoples brains would not be able to remember what was happening due to the intensity of the situation
Personally I think the latest rules to report rough riding to Control/TOC rather than signaller is going to make these sorts of maintenance issues worse again. Tracks are currently in a terrible state in places, and some trouble areas pop up on a yearly basis.
I just checked the latest module TW1 section 5.3 and it still says to report rough rides to the signaller. The instruction to report to your TOC only applies where you have previously reported a rough ride you think it may be deteriorating on a subsequent journey. I agree with you that it isn't ideal, but it's not true to say that you are no longer expected to report a rough ride to the signaller.
@@ianfromnycit says nothing about previously reporting it. It only mentions a deterioration from that previously experienced. That was added purely to reduce delays and reduce the need for track inspections. The entire railway is deteriorating at this point. We have one section of track that has to be fixed yearly because it slips towards an embankment making it feel like you're about to end up on the motorway below.
@@danielvanced5526 It's implied. The rule is clear that the driver must report suspected track defects to the signaller. So either the driver is encountering the suspected defect for the first time in which case they are to report it to the signaller, or they are encountering it a subsequent time in which case they need only report it to the TOC because they will have already reported it to the signaller previously. Also, I would point out that although it says you "do not need to tell the signaller about" a rough ride that has deteriorated on a subsequent journey, it doesn't say that you can't, only that you must report it to the TOC. In other words, there's nothing that says you can't report it to *both* the signaller and the TOC, which personally I often do if I think my reports are being overlooked by one party or the other. I also copy in my ASLEF H&S rep for good measure.
Say hello to Mr. Hazzard - his voice is instantly recognisable! Great presentation as always, these videos are so well done and the balance of analysis to mood of delivery is spot on.
Crazy accident, but not surprising with the culture of lowest bidder subcontracting. Also nice to hear a Jago Hazard cameo, when the video started I remarked this would be in his wheelhouse.
Me, 5 minutes in: Ah, it's about British transportation and infrastructure! Surely THIS one won't be the consequence of privately-owned capitalist cost-cutting negligence! Me, 15 minutes in: god dammit...
As a once regular user of Potters Bar station before the accident, the thing that REALLY used to worry me was the flapping of the cantilevered concrete canopy, when a fast upline express roared through the platforms!
i was so excited to see this cause i grew up next to stevenage and this (as well as the hatfield rail disaster you should definitely cover!!) was something i grew up knowing about so hOW COULD YOU MISPRONOUNCE MY HOME COUNTY (pun intended) OF HERTFORD YES IT IS SPELLED STUPIDLY BUT MY HEART (pun intended again) HURTS
John, why are you pronouncing Hertfordshire "hurtfordshire", when you don't live that far away? I love your weekly videos, and your music channel, and you are a last bastion against the americans to teach them how to say our place names properly, so I don't understand your change of tack... For the uneducated, we in England pronounce it "hartfordshire"
@@neiloflongbeck5705 I mean if you want to spell it differently than you want it pronounced, you can't really raise a fuss if people don't abide. If there's 8 billion people in the world that say it one way and 27 who say it the other way, well there you go... 😁
2:00 the best example of the mess on UK railways are the four tracks where HSR meets local trains: The two external tracks are marked in mph and miles/chains, with British signalling. The two internal tracks are in km/h, and the distance is in kilometers/hectometers. The signalling is identical with the French one, and I don't even think they translated the signs to English (which is actually good - sticks to one standard)
I often work in an unholy combination of Imperial and Metric...even occasionally measuring things in feet and centimetres rather than feet and inches, which horrified a young assistant I had once, who reacted like I'd broken one of the Ten Commandments......but I'm not in a safety critical industry. It's just more convenient for me to do some things that way. If I had to chose, for my job I'd choose Imperial, as on the whole feet and inches are the two most convenient units for my work. Metres are too big for almost everything I do, and I can use yards anyway if I need anything that long, cms are too small and rarely get quoted anyway, and mm are a right pain in the neck, the numbers get truly stupid. I really hate it when timber lengths of six feet or more are quoted in mm.
I don't sign that route, but aren't the HS1 lines controlled by a different signaller than the Network Rail lines? Yes, they use different rules and standards right next to each other, but you could say the same thing about the areas where LU and NR share infrastructure. I know of at least one station where LU, NR, and Tramlink all run right next to each other on adjacent lines using different rules, signals, and signage. It's perfectly safe as long as there is a clear delineation where one ends and the other begins.
I don't think the bingo card is right about the legacy infrastructure. Maintenance was done improperly and the track was updated with remote control and monitoring. The crash didn't have anything to do with outdated technology, but was an mechanical failure due to ignorance and cost cutting.
I've always grown up with the rail company's being privatised, the fact that jarvis was a private company maintaining critical infrastructure with obvious failings makes me question privatising the railway in the first place. People always seem to crap on network rail but i can at least have some what comfort knowing they are looking after the tracks effectively and performing maintenance when it is absolutely necessary, even if i have to take a dreaded bus replacement service. Renationalise the network, bring down ticket prices.
In my experience, privitasation usually brings a steep drop in quality along with a sharp rise in prices. It's certainly been the case in my province's electrical operations, and the attempts to bring in more private healthcare options are sadly doing the same to our health system too.
Stanley Hall's later books on railway accidents go into the effects of privatisation. As time went on, he worked out that most of the big accidents since privatisation were due to privatisation one way or another, and mostly to the way privatisation was done- too fast, for political reasons, and without listening to the industry itself. He wasn't against it in principle, at first, but in practice, he came to be unhappy with it, because it was done so badly. His last book on it was 'Beyond Hidden Dangers'. I recommend it, and his earlier books.
@@alisonwilson9749 The trouble is that I've never seen a case where privitasation has been done well in practice, because in private business the be-all, end-all goal is to make money rather than to do a good job at whatever it is you're doing. And when applied to necessary infrastructure or healthcare, that can only lead to worse outcomes for the people who need it.
Contracting out, is the same as using temporary workers. The expertise and knowledge is absent in both cases, and also the urge to give a toss about getting the job right. I think also, it is a way of passing responsibility on to someone else so if anything goes wrong they can raise their hands and step away, whilst pointing elsewhere and saying, 'it wasn't our fault, it was theirs.' Privatising national companies for shareholders profits is directly at odds with providing a proper service. Since the shareholder profits will always come first. This could have been titled, 'What's the point?' since this is what it came down to. A report being badly handled and maintenance being poorly carried out. This is something that drives my husband nuts since his background is engineering quality control and inspection.
Surveyors in the U.S. still use chains as a measure of distance as well. All of our sectionalized land was originally surveyed with chains (Gunter's chains) equaling 66 feet. 10 square chains is an acre.
Wondered if this was going to be about Hatfield or Potter's Bar. Hatfield was another train disaster that stayed with me. Reading about it as an adult made me so angry! Four people died and it cost the UK millions of £s because the company in charge of the rails didn't replace a bit of track that they knew was damaged!
Ah, Railtrack, we meet again! They were at fault in the Hatfield disaster as well. How no one got charged for their incompetence is beyond me. Jago! Good evening, my fine fellow! RIP to the people who died that day. ❤️ Not something you expect to happen when just going about your business.
So maintenance guy sees nothing but doesn't call back to verify issue and location ? I get the feeling there was some serious complacency going on with Railtrack . Wow
A similar accident happened at Bretigny station in France in July 2013. A badly maintained bracket near a point went lose and derailed an intercity train on two different tracks, the coach that streched on the platform killed seven people. The amount of wounded inside the train was about the same as the Potter Bar disaster. I'd say, same speed, same cause, same effect basically. When It occured I remembered reading years earlier about the Potterbar disaster and I told myself: "Here we go, the French railways, so renown for their reliability are now at the dismal level of the British Railways..."
Interesting to note how well the system responded to the actual accident - it was detected as soon as it happened by multiple systems, and all trains in the area were immediately told to stop. So at least most of the system was working as it should have done.
17:41 your free square (write-in candidate) should say 'failure in communication' (or, 'talks like a fat Scottish baby on the radio'); what's you're vote, hand? Currently sunny and 80° in Florida would like to know, seeing as Brightline is always crashing their Metro at grade crossings, which given the cost of those fancy-pants Semens locomotives, should result in disposable, easy to reconstruct, "slugs" being introduced to remotely control the Semens team (in lead position), which would greatly reduce the cost of such calamities on the Metro admin-. But, whoose counting on this being a vid- of another day?
Damn you! I've had Scheherazade stuck in my head for a week. I thought I would fix it by listening to all 50 minutes of it it in it's entirety... TWICE but it's stuck there, playing in my head even as I type this. J'ACCUSE!
This sounds a lot like the fatal 2024 Voorschoten crash in the Netherlands. The railway contractor BAM Infra has extremely lax standards and an untouchable unionised boomer staff who ignore all rules. I would be willing to bet money that as their procedures have become under the union, they just don't write details of the next track or how you handle your equipment down at all. The crane operator, not having been given any information (my opinion), then extended his support legs (fact) and was hit by a speeding train that overturned his machine and killed him. The fault? Lax procedures full of old boomers who go 'Why would anything change?' and to directly quote one of them who was shouting in my face before crying and calling union thugs: "I have been doing this for 30 years! I will not be lectured by some 30 year old! I am going to call the union now!!!" and ran out of the building crying leaving me me write the two potential fatals out of his job. He wasn't just not fired, when he rolled back in three days later with a FNV union thug in tow, they rolled out the red carpet and did everything to appease them.
god i cant imagine sitting at a train station, not paying attention to the train, when all of a sudden it detaches and flips heading straight towards me. what a horrible way to die
Here's another idea for you... Check out the Chicago Blue line crash in 2014 where the lead car over ran a bumper and climbed up an escalator at the station. It's on video too!
The final point about who was held responsible is the real issue. If you really think about it, 7 people died, many were left permanently injured, but nobody was directly held responsible. In a "free market" those who owned the rail would be directly held responsible. But in the West, they use a corporate model that allows the government to block nearly all responsibility of the owners (shareholders, officers, etc). The thing I find most funny about this arrangement is when people blame the corporations but its really the government that creates limited liability entities. You can't create a limited liability entity yourself. You must petition the government to issue a corporate charter that grants these privileges. As a citizen in the West the government sees you as having unlimited liability. Its strange to me that people can't see this. So I never understand why people protest corporations. They didn't create the limited liability.
Having experienced many a "rough ride" on Class 142 Pacers to and from Colne in Lancashire (where I used to live), with them bouncing about like they're about to leap off the tracks and fall over, the thought of them doing so and both them and us passengers ending up in a mangled mess often sat on my mind as I sat there watching the rubbery joints between the two halves stretch and strain with the two carriages twerking away, quite scary to experience really, thank goodness they retired the things, though, even modern trains are susceptible to rail faults, but, there was always that "what if?" in the back of my mind as it was being jostled about like jelly on a plate...
Is that a guest appearance by Jago Hazzard at 15:29 ? (Edit, I paused the video to post this, before resuming, so didn't hear your confirmation after the quote).
Thank you for making the videos detailed enough for folks who know nothing about railway maintenance or terminology easily understandable and detailed enough that the science about what happened is clear and you give the victims respect.
I have studied english in the UK midlands for a year and the whole railway network can be summarised as a "rough ride". As a German-Lithuanian, i always thought the rail network of my two countries were the worst. With constant delays and cancellations in germany and outdated, very shaky and loud soviet trains in Lithuania (many of them are replaced by now, thankfully). In the UK there are both problems. Shaky slow trains, delays and as an addition, a lot of curves. My wife was with me and studying and her younger sister was visiting us. They are siberians from the upper Baikal lake area and is used to shaky roads and wobbly rust boats, but the younger sister almost had to throw up in the train. In contrast, the best rail experience, i've ever made were in east asian countries. Reliable, comfortable and no delays.
The UK has railroad infrastructure dating back 200 years. Your country tried to take over the world in a bout of fascist insanity and genocide and was bombed into oblivion in WWII. Your infrastructure is newer than theirs, but I wouldn't be eager to thumb my nose if I were you.
@@SanchoPanza-m8m "bombed into oblivion" is a bit exaggerated. Perhaps Dresden and Berlin were bombed into oblivion, but the rest not so much. I live down in the south, where most remained intact.
@@SanchoPanza-m8mthat is bullshit. Most of the German railway lines weren't destroyed during WW2, and there were analog signals from the 19th century in use even until a few years ago, if not up to this day. Maybe it helped at some points, that there was a need to rebuild after the war, but the overall system is still an amalgamation of lines built during the last 200 years and not something built from the ground up in the last 80.
@@silphonym I believe the main historic difference is that Germany always had a mostly unified rail network owned by the state, while in the UK it was always a bunch of different companies and regions, which all had their own standards.
@@hyperturbotechnomike that's also not the case. The German rail network began before Germany was unified in 1871 and I don't think it was centralised at that point, but I'm not sure about that. You are correct though, in that it was often state owned from the beginning, but that didn't mean it was unified or followed a cohesive plan for all of Germany.
I remember this happening - really awful - absolutely unforgivable bog standard simple maintenance neglected. No-one - absolutely nobody mentioned 'terrorism' or sabotage in any media I saw
"for profit safety maintenance" one of least trustworthy concepts that has yielded more than enough issues over the years. it is case of proper oversight and inspection i suspect, since everyone is trying to save money in inappropriate ways there needs be means of enforcing the usually passable standards that is actually you know enacted, not backlogged to hell. Oh i suspect frequent inspections would also lead to some issues emerging as chronic problem that could than be added to be part of regulations as preventative measure.
Sloppy practice and failing to detect a fault situation in time, then to immediately correct it upon being alerted to the said conditional situation. Railways begin at rail infrastructure level, the trains themselves are just secondary items, if what they are intended to run upon is not rightly installed and maintained to begin with. Not rocket science is it.
I feel it about time as we now left EU, we go back to our old measurements, ie pounds and ounces instead of kilograms and grams, mph instead of KPH, pints and gallons instead of litres, it was much more easier then it is today
@@Secean It just makes sense. In general, people hate Mondays. They don't want to be at work, doing work stuff. Some might still be tired, or even hungover from weekending. Second choice goes to Fridays, when people tend to bollocks around, pay less attention to the job than the clock, and possibly even skive off a bit. Yes, this is cynical, but I've worked in customer service.
Why is London ( south ,) up and north down . Confusing . Also it's pronounced hart ford shire . As in hert a white deer . Country hall in Hertford town .
