West Coast Railways this morning (November 25) issued a statement in response to the Office of Rail and Road’s decision yesterday to take action to prohibit WCR steam operations on the main line.
“The Office of Rail and Road has made West Coast Railways aware of a problem with certain steam locomotives operating on the main line,” said WCR Managing Director Pat Marshall.
“WCR is working with the ORR and locomotive owners to resolve this problem. We will continue to operate steam charters on the main line with locomotives that are not affected by this problem. This issue has the potential to affect all other operations of steam locomotives on the main line.”
The statement followed the ORR prohibiting all WCR steam locomotive operations on the main line as of 2300 on November 24, unless approval was sought to run locomotives where there are effective controls in place for key safety systems. The ORR said “the enforcement action follows an initial investigation into an incident near Doncaster on October 2 2015, which found staff on-board locomotive 45231 had turned off its Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) isolation equipment, designed to apply an emergency brake if the driver makes an error."
RAIL understands that WCR has been granted approval to run 61306 Mayflower and a 'Black Five'.
- For more on this story, see RAIL 789, on sale December 9.
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