A return to the days of rail crashes

British Rail existed for 50 years, Railtrack for less than 10. Plus read post #10. When you can compare two equivalents your point might mean something.

Aww bereft of arguments or reason he just resorts to abuse like a typical lefty. Trtuly the nasty party

Aww bereft of arguments or reason he just resorts to abuse like a typical lefty. Trtuly the nasty party

^^^^^^

Well this post is hardly full of intelligent debate

Interesting old news article here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/more_or_less/6607991.stm

Gives detail how even with Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield, privatised rail was safer than BR.

Note how the opposition in the article is from one Christian Wolmer. You may remember him as the hapless Labour candidate that lost his deposit last week in Richmond.

Interesting old news article here:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/more_or_less/6607991.stm

 

Gives detail how even with Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield, privatised rail was safer than BR.

 

Note how the opposition in the article is from one Christian Wolmer. You may remember him as the hapless Labour candidate that lost his deposit last week in Richmond.

Except that again, this looks at all causes of accidents not just infrastructure maintenance. The decision currently being looked at is whether infrastructure maintenance should be private or public. The evidence that we have from the last 20 years is that it's safer in public hands.

Except that again, this looks at all causes of accidents not just infrastructure maintenance. The decision currently being looked at is whether infrastructure maintenance should be private or public. The evidence that we have from the last 20 years is that it's safer in public hands.

By your argument though, shouldn't we have more accidents that are attributed to non infrastructure causes than in the past because they are now the responsibility of private ownership?

Or is the argument that privatised trains are safer but privatised tracks are more dangerous?

In my opinion another sign that technology has increased passenger safety rather than better working practice or more money thrown at the job is the fact that numbers of accidents at work haven't improved since the old Railtrack days. Train and track design has evolved, but health and safety in the workplace hasn't.

By your argument though, shouldn't we have more accidents that are attributed to non infrastructure causes than in the past because they are now the responsibility of private ownership?

 

Or is the argument that privatised trains are safer but privatised tracks are more dangerous?

 

In my opinion another sign that technology has increased passenger safety rather than better working practice or more money thrown at the job is the fact that numbers of accidents at work haven't improved since the old Railtrack days. Train and track design has evolved, but health and safety in the workplace hasn't.

It's a fair question. I noticed looking back at the accident statistics that a lot of them seemed to be down to driver or signalman inattentiveness / error. I would have thought that technology has made it easier to eliminate these by computerising many processes and reducing the amount of human input (we have driverless trains now), whereas track maintenance is a more physical process that is harder to automate. Plus train operators now do rigorous drug and alcohol testing on staff which must help.

^^^^^^

Well this post is hardly full of intelligent debate

It's as full as BoB A's is which is kind of the point.

---------- Post added 04-12-2016 at 21:14 ----------

Except that again, this looks at all causes of accidents not just infrastructure maintenance. The decision currently being looked at is whether infrastructure maintenance should be private or public. The evidence that we have from the last 20 years is that it's safer in public hands.

The evidence we have from the last 70 years is that it's safer in private hands...

What about the "new" 70 billion pound train. How will it fare doing God knows what speed on it's mad rush to save 15 minutes getting to London., Then I found this, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/hs2/12192286/HS2-at-risk-of-derailing-at-top-speeds-report-finds.html

Angel1.