Passenger sadly died in December 2018, GWR subsequently fined £1 million

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

And now on the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20ej7rkj3ko

Reading the bits about the duty of care and attention and the lack of the risk - which was know about - not being taken seriously / speedily enough - it is probably right that someone should pay a substantial penalty.   But as even in such matters, I have an uneasy string of questions such as "where does the money come from" and "where does the money go" with corollaries, depending of the answers, about whether it deters something similar happening for the future, and whether it removes funding from important projects, some of which could actually be being done to make the railway better.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) were responsible, GWR pleaded guilty, GWR should pick up the bill.

It would be an outrage if the taxpayer, in any shape or form, has to meet any of the cost of their failure.

[a-driver]

Tragic as the case may be, all preventable by the application of common sense.

As a person you are responsible for your own actions.

[TaplowGreen]

Tragic as the case may be, all preventable by the application of common sense.

As a person you are responsible for your own actions.

"First Great Western Limited, trading as Great Western Railway, pleaded guilty to a breach of section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and to a breach of Regulation 19(1) of The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS)".

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have admitted that they were responsible. End of story. Victim blaming is not a good look.

[a-driver]

Tragic as the case may be, all preventable by the application of common sense.

As a person you are responsible for your own actions.

"First Great Western Limited, trading as Great Western Railway, pleaded guilty to a breach of section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and to a breach of Regulation 19(1) of The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS)".

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have admitted that they were responsible. End of story. Victim blaming is not a good look.

Can I ask why you're in the minority believing it's the fault of GWR?

[ChrisB]

It's not the first time this kind of accident has occurred but the first time it has ended in court.

If the passenger hadn't stuck her head out of the window....no one made her do this. At what point did having a window that opened far enough to allow passengers do this become an offence?

[grahame]

"Admin aware" on this thread.  An utterly serious discussion of the principles involved in a complex topic on which standards and expectations have changed over the years. Thank you to all posters for your sensitivity and in respect of the lady who lost her life, and family and friends who are able to, and perhaps will, read this discussion.

[IndustryInsider]

If the passenger hadn't stuck her head out of the window....no one made her do this. At what point did having a window that opened far enough to allow passengers do this become an offence?

A tragic accident.  It's interesting (and good) to see how far safety measures have come in the last couple of decades in terms of on-train safety.  Let's remember that it's only relatively recently that central door locking was mandated to stop passengers from opening doors and falling out of trains.

And I'm sure most of us are old enought to remember peak hour arrivals at the London terminals where almost all doors were wide open long before the train stopped in the platform and it was considered normal for people to jump onto the platform before the train had come to a stand.

[ChrisB]

And I'm sure most of us are old enough to remember peak hour arrivals at the London terminals where almost all doors were wide open long before the train stopped in the platform and it was considered normal for people to jump onto the platform before the train had come to a stand.

Yup - that would have been me. Every morning at Cannon Street.  No harm done (& neither did I encounter anyone else having an accident in the years that I commuted either.

[Oxonhutch]

And I'm sure most of us are old enought to remember peak hour arrivals at the London terminals where almost all doors were wide open long before the train stopped in the platform and it was considered normal for people to jump onto the platform before the train had come to a stand.

Indeed. At all London terminals in the peak, most of the arriving trains were empty by the time they came to a stop.

[grahame]

And I'm sure most of us are old enough to remember peak hour arrivals at the London terminals where almost all doors were wide open long before the train stopped in the platform and it was considered normal for people to jump onto the platform before the train had come to a stand.

Yup - that would have been me. Every morning at Cannon Street.  No harm done (& neither did I encounter anyone else having an accident in the years that I commuted either.

Ah - but it was not entirely safe - https://www.passenger.chat/r25846.html ... I am not suggesting that further step that all passengers must be seated while the train is in motion.

I have noted that on buses we all used to be waiting by the door as the bus pulled in but now we stay in our seats and don't move until they have come to a halt.

[ChrisB]

Ah - but it was not entirely safe - https://www.passenger.chat/r25846.html ... I am not suggesting that further step that all passengers must be seated while the train is in motion.

But the afore mentioned jump onto the platform would mean escaping unharmed from that sort of accident

I have noted that on buses we all used to be waiting by the door as the bus pulled in but now we stay in our seats and don't move until they have come to a halt.

I thought you were going to suggest seat belts?

[Ralph Ayres]

A tricky balance.  It's good to remove unnnecessary sources of danger, but the corollary is that over time people become less used to thinking for themselves and less likely to notice a hazard that hadn't been anticipated.  We're probably somewhere around the sweet spot now but I think need to be careful not to carry it too far.

[Trowres]

I thought it was strange that the focus of responsibility was on the train operator, and not the offending tree branch - so I decided to read through part of the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) report:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5da5d858e5274a392e9c9467/R142019_191016_Twerton.pdf

The report goes into some detail on the management of trees and why the offending branch came to be left in situ for many months. However, it states:

The Network Rail standard for vegetation management seeks to ensure that
vegetation is managed so that it is not a risk to trains. It does not seek to prevent
injury to persons (staff or passengers) leaning out of windows on moving trains.
The RAIB recognises that the risk to those leaning out of trains could be reduced
by stricter vegetation management standards. However, given that few mainline
passenger trains have droplight windows and that the numbers are still further
reducing, the RAIB considers that this would place an unreasonable burden on
those maintaining the network

[para 109].

Other parts of the report detail the vegetation management strategy and its focus on signal sighting and branches thick enough to derail a train.
I can see some of ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)'s logic in the above quote, but it's not entirely obvious why trimming vegetation to (say) provide 300mm space around the envelope of the train would be any more burdensome than trimming it to 0mm clearance - which seems to be what happens.... oh the cost of that falls on the train operators (scraped paint) not NR^» (Network Rail - home page)?