Steam Safety

Part 3

By Baz Cann and Liz Green

For those visiting a steam preservation railway, here are a few tips on keeping safe around engines and yards. It is potentially a very dangerous place, but perfectly safe if you always stick closely to a few simple rules and apply a lot of common sense.

Applicable to all visitors:-

1. You must take reasonable care for your own health and safety.

2. You must take reasonable care for the health and safety of anyone else who may be affected by what you do or not do.

3. You must co-operate in all matters of health and safety, and do only what you are asked to do by the engine crew or staff.

4. As you will now appreciate, a locomotive yard is full of potential dangers by it's very nature. Never increase that danger by leaving things lying about where someone might trip over them. If you see anything lying around which may be a hazard, report it to a member of the railway staff. Fire irons, for instance, live either on engines or on the rack provided - they do not live on the floor or the ground!

5. The first and most important thing of which you must be aware is that only competent, authorised staff may have anything to do with moving any locomotive or vehicle. Only a qualified person may drive a locomotive, act as a fireman/second man on a locomotive, couple or uncouple vehicles and give hand signals to a driver. If you have not been examined and passed as competent in any of these duties, you must not attempt to carry them out. When vehicles or engines are being moved, keep well clear and remember not to move out of the way of one movement into the path of another!

6. Never, ever remove a NOT TO BE MOVED sign from a vehicle unless you personally put it there and you have ascertained that no one else is relying on it's protection. It may be someone's protection against serious injury or death should someone else try to move the vehicle.


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7. It goes without saying that an engine in steam is hot - very hot! Until you have experience to know what is hot and what is not, assume that everything is hot and act accordingly. Remember too, that a pipe that was cold two minutes ago might suddenly get hot if steam starts going through it because someone has opened a valve somewhere.

8. Never interfere with the controls of a locomotive until you are competent to do so, you may not necessarily know what is going to happen!

9. Never open the firedoor in a cab - you might find yourself accompanied on the footplate by six foot long flames!

10. Engines and engine sheds are full of heavy bits and pieces - be they large lumps of coal or large lumps of engine. None of these large lumps will improve the shape of your toes or feet if they fall on them, so remember to wear protective footwear. Whatever you are doing, someone else may drop something on your toes. If a locomotive is being coaled, it is possible for large lumps of coal to fall from a considerable height if the tender is overfilled for instance, or if the aim is misjudged. This happens daily, so never stand in a position where you could be struck by coal falling off a tender or bunker.

11. Before a locomotive is moved, the driver should sound the whistle. If you hear a whistle, always assume that an engine is about to move and stand clear immediately, keeping well clear of the front of the engine in case the cylinder drain cocks are open. Once an engine's crew have arrived at their engine, do not do anything on or around it at all without informing them of what you wish to do. Never start to climb up on the back of a tender without telling the crew - they might just have checked that they are clear to move back and be totally unaware of your presence! The crew can see very little immediately in front or behind the engine, or the top of the boiler, on some engines they cannot see below the running plate.

12. Never walk between two vehicles which are parked on the same line unless there is at least 10 feet between them, unless you have made ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that there is no means of moving them. Over the years many experienced railwaymen have been crushed between two vehicles through neglecting to take this precaution. Act safe and walk the long way round.


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Bridgenorth M.P.D.

It may all be a nuisance but so is being killed.

Enjoy your visit, in safety. Take only photos, leave only footprints.

Contains extracts taken from the Severn Valley Railway's Health and Safety leaflet, with their kind permission.


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