A mole may not be entirely to blame for rail delays on the Rhymney line yesterday, Network Rail has said.
At around 10am on Monday, September 25, a train driver reported that a trespasser on the line had been hit near Llanbradach station.
A Network Rail spokeswoman explained: “All trains were stopped and emergency services were called to the scene immediately.
“After searching, no person was found, and lines were reopened.
“At 11.44am, trains were again stopped at request of the police after a heat source was found by a police helicopter.
“This heat source was identified as a mole, but it is in no way implied that this mole was the cause of the initial strike, and could be completely unrelated to the incident.
“The incident is still being treated as a near miss of a person by the British Transport Police, and the driver of the train is understandably still very shaken.”
Was it the wrong kind of heat source?
I don’t know about you, Pete, but I am increasingly concerned that I have left the life I once had and have been thrust into some kind of parallel universe. Something like the old monochrome ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes that I used to enjoy after pub closing time in the 1970’s.
None of this makes any sort of sense to me. A driver reports a hit or near miss with a person, 10-00 A.M. in broad daylight. Train drivers know, with some precision, where they are on the tracks they drive on day after day. Correct response should be for this area to checked by rail employees or transport police. Trains may need to be stopped whilst the search for a casualty or a corpse take place.
Why on earth do we need police helicopters following up with heat seeking equipment, that they obviously cannot use properly, causing another closure of the line? A mole weighs less than 100 grams, there is no way that any competent operator of thermal imaging could confuse the heat signature of a small burrowing animal with a human or even a body part. I have used these things, I’m no expert but I find the scenario as depicted ludicrous.
Corporate culture of overindulgence in worry is the probable cause. Because of the blanket blame culture, employees just tick boxes when conducting any procedure in order to keep themselves prosecution free. Common sense and realism takes a distant second and third behind covering ones own bum.
The grit and reality of the 70’s and 80’s and even the early 90’s has been replaced with endless tick boxes.
I personally blaming Tony Blair and his New Labour- new vision for Britain, but then again there is not much I don’t blame that megalomaniac for.
Might just be collective stupidity.
You state the problem with current culture very well. About 15 years ago my Admin Controller, a highly competent woman who had worked in industry since the 1960’s. turned to me and said. “Do you get the feeling thet every day we come in and play at work, where once we used to just work efficiently?”
I knew what she meant as we were getting increasingly bogged down in paperwork, measuring things that were irrelevant to the task and recording things that nobody looked at or cared about.
I think it is a Western world trend but agree that Tony Blair and his henchmen accelerated the process in Britain, Road crashes are an example. The priority used to be releasing casualties from wreckage, caring for them and getting them to (a local) hospital quickly. The next priority was clearing away the wrecks and getting the road open once more.
Following the Blair government, we now shut the road for hours or days whilst ‘an investigation’ takes place, regardless of cost and inconvenience to road users.
I blame Blair and his acolytes for creating a culture of interference where the state is everything and the individual nothing. Marxism and cultural Marxism are words bandied around quite a lot these days but that man either believed it a religion (he is no catholic) himself, or set about portraying it as one.
What interfering megalomaniacs like him and his ilk don’t understand is that the ripple effect is very real.
Undermine this institution and the damage is not controlled within its borders.
Discredit that belief, that is itself a foundation, and everything under its umbrella crumbles.
Remove customary barriers or protocols in behaviour patterns and new, unchecked, patterns will fill the void.
This is what he did and used every trick in Saul Alinskys book to do it.
After the destruction of norms he then introduced his unbridled passion for controlling every action of people’s lives from cradle to grave. Which in turn spawned the culture of infantilised adults we see in today’s society. Adults who dare not think for themselves should they be reprimanded for it.
I remember watching a programme at the beginning of the Iraq war where a british officer was describing military tactics of saddams army. The officer is everything and there is one for every platoon. We take out the officer and the rest are just directionless children who instantly retreat or surrender. Said the British officer.
I sometimes think Tony was watching the same program.
Too right, the creature Blair is the most loathsome British politician of my lifetime. I am no fan of Maggie Thatcher but Blair eclipsed her.
I have been against capital punishment since I watched a, long forgotten, conference speech by Douglas Hurd who demolished any thoughts I had that it had a place in criminal law. However I would not be sorry if Blair faced a court who convicted him of his many crimes against the human race and sentenced him to death.
network rail are a joke lol