Is £2m pounds enough for 31 lives?

[Theodoric]

I see that Thames Trains have been fined £2m for the Paddington train crash in which 31 people died.

But what does £2m mean in practice? For you or me a lot, but for a major company - it is moderately significant at the worst.

And who pays it? The company directors from their personal accounts? No way! It comes from the company funds and they will make it up by cutting services or sacking a few staff.

Have any Thames Trains Directors been forced to leave (without a golden handshake)? Not that I know of.

So, what is the point of the whole charade? I'm not really sure. At the best, I suppose that it will make some of the grieving relatives feel that something has been done.

[Chris W]

can you put a price on 1 life?

[Russ]

And how do you think they're going to pay that fine? Not by cutting back, I can tell you.

[Bex]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

can you put a price on 1 life?

that's a good point...i don;t think you can put a price on life...

[kronas]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

can you put a price on 1 life?

just about to post that, i dont think it will affect then majorly, a short term cut back here and there should do it

[deadite66]

some of them should be jailed for corporate manslaughter

[BBKing]

Actually Thames (or rather the Go-Ahead Group, which ran it) has been stripped of its franchise, which will be merged with Great Western, under the control of First Group. So they've been hit in the pocket by the HSE and the SRA. I'd like to see the managers responsible for ignoring the warnings on signal design in the area called to account though (remember Southall two years before was also part-caused by poor signal design on the same resignalling scheme. The railway company that ballsed up then? Great Western, who were fined £1.5m).

Go-Ahead still runs (jointly in some cases) the South Central and Thameslink franchises.

http://www.thamestrains.co.uk/ now has a placeholder announcing the transfer to FGW.

In case you're wondering who pays, I'm not sure. It should be Go-Ahead as the franchise owners at the time, rather than FGW, who were actually the innocent party at Ladbroke Grove (their train was proceeding under clear signals when the Thames train hit it head on after going through a red). I'd be interested in knowing who actually forks out. All the news organisations are saying Thames, which doesn't really exist any more. BBC transport news standards are hilariously bad.

Sometimes you have to put a price on a life. If you're choosing to spend an amount of money on a safety scheme which will save 2 lives per year or one which will save 4 lives per year, clearly the cost per life saved for the second scheme is greater, which is why you should choose it. This analogy explains why TPWS is actually a good idea (for stopping trains at red lights anyway).

You cannot really blame anyone. Someone made a mistake and that led to a depth but that can happen to anyone.

You could make a mistake tommorow anything from littering! e.g. you cannot be bothered to put your coke can in a bin so you throw it on the floor, then a old women slips on it and falls down some stairs. Should you be done for manslaugter?

Its not the same thing but blaming managers or companys gets you no-where.

Should we merge this into the railway nationalisation thread? It all sort of seems linked?

Just a thought...

Originally Posted by towny

Should we merge this into the railway nationalisation thread? It all sort of seems linked?

Just a thought...

I see what you mean towny, however I think a merge now would become too messy with the time of posts from both threads.

[Halcyon]

Agree with you.
No money can replace a life.
2 million is nothing to a huge company.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Damien

You cannot really blame anyone. Someone made a mistake and that led to a depth but that can happen to anyone.

You could make a mistake tommorow anything from littering! e.g. you cannot be bothered to put your coke can in a bin so you throw it on the floor, then a old women slips on it and falls down some stairs. Should you be done for manslaugter?

Its not the same thing but blaming managers or companys gets you no-where.

There is a difference between an honest mistake/ unavoidable accident and negligence. As I recall, in this instance, the red light the commuter train went through was badly sited and hard to see. This was documented and had been reported to managers of several occasions but they did nothing about it. That makes this accident a negligent act by the management (not the driver) as they knew about it and if they had re-sited the red light i'm sure this terrible accident would have been avoided.

Remember it was a fine and not a compensation payment.

[Julian]

Originally Posted by gary_580

Remember it was a fine and not a compensation payment.

Good point gary.

The amount should be the same irrespective of the number of casualties or if there had been no casualties.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

There is a difference between an honest mistake/ unavoidable accident and negligence. As I recall, in this instance, the red light the commuter train went through was badly sited and hard to see. This was documented and had been reported to managers of several occasions but they did nothing about it. That makes this accident a negligent act by the management (not the driver) as they knew about it and if they had re-sited the red light i'm sure this terrible accident would have been avoided.

Thought this extract from BBKings post on the other thread was worth posting here.

Originally Posted by BBKing

Ladbroke Grove, where a badly designed layout and a badly trained driver missing badly sited signals caused an appalling crash. The layout was designed by Westinghouse and BR in the early 90s under the assumption that all trains would have automatic train protection in case of missing signals. In fact two out of the three types of train on the route had ATP, the exception of course being Thames, as BR didn't fit it to their trains in the years immediately pre-privatisation and Thames didn't in the years immediately afterwards, and the HSE didn't press for it, being too busy nitpicking about footpaths by the trackside and other major threats to railway safety.

The layout at the points was therefore designed on the basis that no trains would go through a red light, so they could be left safely pointing in the direction that was the easiest for the computer signalling to cope with, which unfortunately meant a possible head-on collision in the case of the signal being missed, instead of a possible sidelong collision with a train travelling in the same direction. So cost cutting on the original design, assumptions about the nature of the traffic that were never revisited after privatisation (Railtrack would have said 'Thames has to fit ATP' and Thames would have said 'RT has to make the layout safer' and no one was there to knock their heads together).

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