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Tram accident


ellanvannin2010

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17 minutes ago, MadAsHell said:

They let tourists drive them, so the test can't be that intensive.

Not on their own, only under supervision just like you do in a car.

https://mers.org.im/pages/index/view/id/89/The Training Of MER Motormen

The link describes the process in the 80's or 90's

Edited by ellanvannin2010
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1 hour ago, Gladys said:

Public liability and personal injury insurance is unlikely to cover damage to own property unless it is wrapped up in an all risks policy, but that's not likely. It is all about liability to third parties and the cover levels you describe is commonly known as "catastrophe insurance".  They may have other insurance that does cover property.  

So, possibly unlikely that they will claim for any personal injury.  It would be interesting how a claim would be treated if IL was driving, who allowed him (himself presumably) and at what point does it become a frolic of his own rather than a liability of the department?

Again, I ask do you need to have some kind of certification of competence to drive the trains and if he was driving, did he have it? 

 

He's the Messiah he needs no frivolous bits of paper!

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1 hour ago, Max Power said:

I heard, on good authority, that the derailment was most likely caused by expansion and deformation of a rail?

Call me cynical but thats a easy one to pull out of the hat. Is it true !?? My guess is we will never know. Its all quiet considering  the injuries  there could have been 

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14 hours ago, Max Power said:

I heard, on good authority, that the derailment was most likely caused by expansion and deformation of a rail?

If your source is correct (and it differs from what I was told) I would expect an observant motorman to notice the track was warped or faulty on a long straight with good visibilty and take appropriate action.

 

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23 minutes ago, ellanvannin2010 said:

If your source is correct (and it differs from what I was told) I would expect an observant motorman to notice the track was warped or faulty on a long straight with good visibilty and take appropriate action.

 

But maybe not, if the motorman was warped or faulty.... 😂

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22 hours ago, AlanShimmin said:

It's a toy train set and only runs as often as it does because of the huge amounts of cash that are thrown at it. It's one giant job creation scheme.

As I have argued elsewhere the Electric and Steam Railway are part of the Isle of Man's heritage and are pretty unique and will contribute to the limited tourist attraction that the Isle of Man now has.  

(Unique in the sense that the MER still operates over the entirety of it's original network with original rolling stock.  The Steam Railway is similar but obviously doesn't have the entire network preserved)

22 hours ago, ellanvannin2010 said:

Under David Howard they were part of the public transport system with fully interchangeable tickets, regular traditional style timetables.

Under Ian Longworth they are heritage railways with much higher fares, non interchangeable tickets,  colour coded timetables that vary daily and dining trains, world at war and other theme park style events. All copied from various heritage railways.

I did say that they had been promoted as public transport not that they still are.  

They had been doing events for many years.  I remember the steam railway putting faces on the engines just like Thomas the Tank Engine and running Santa specials for years.  

22 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Well only in so far as most heritage railways are run by amateurs, while ours are run by highly paid 'professionals'.  And yet...

I think you will find that most of the people who operate the railways are professionals.  The issue is the management who mostly sit behind desks but decide they want to have a go at being a motorman occasionally. 

22 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

It's worth saying that this refusal to accept any outside monitoring or assessment isn't just limited to the Railways or the DoI - you get it in Health, Social Services, Education and so on.  The first rule of the Manx civil service is that only you can mark your own homework.  Again this is a fairly recent thing.

This has Politics written all over it.  If the Isle of Man Government invited the UK's Health & Safety Executive, Rail Accident Board, or any of the numerous other regulatory bodies to investigate then the issue of "home rule" or sovereignty would no doubt arise.  Would the Manx Government or indeed the Manx population want to become another county of England?

I assume you have seen the current mess of a Government that is in Westminster?

 

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3 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

I think you will find that most of the people who operate the railways are professionals.  The issue is the management who mostly sit behind desks but decide they want to have a go at being a motorman occasionally. 

[...] This has Politics written all over it.  If the Isle of Man Government invited the UK's Health & Safety Executive, Rail Accident Board, or any of the numerous other regulatory bodies to investigate then the issue of "home rule" or sovereignty would no doubt arise.  Would the Manx Government or indeed the Manx population want to become another county of England?

I assume you have seen the current mess of a Government that is in Westminster?

To answer your first point that's why I said 'run' rather than 'operate'.  While heritage railways in the UK often do employ paid drivers and so on (though not always) the management and governance (as well as a lot of supplementary tasks) is mainly run by amateurs in their own time.  It's different here but the results don't seem to be worth the money.

The Isle of Man does not have sovereignty and never has had (even in Viking times we were nominally under the Norwegians).  But even if we did there should be no shame in having specialist supervisory services handled by an outside body.  After all that is exactly what is done with air accidents - why not railways?

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31 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

Unique in the sense that the MER still operates over the entirety of it's original network with original rolling stock.  The Steam Railway is similar but obviously doesn't have the entire network preserved

Like Theseus' ship (or Triggers broom for those who didn't do classics at school) is it original stock?

Edited by kevster
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9 minutes ago, kevster said:

Like Theseus' ship (or Triggers broom for those who didn't do classics at school) is it original stock?

There are considerable bits of the stock that are original, lots of the bodywork, interior and trucks are, other stuff is obviously replaced over the years.

Up until fairly recently some rarely used stock still had chilled iron wheels which had 1898 manufacturing date stamped on them

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