[Beeyar Wunby]

Thanks for that interesting read Tony.

It's easy to be knowledgeable after the event, but you can't help but wonder why nobody considered a back up plan for if the winch cable separated from the vehicle.

On the Big Railway, traincrew have all sorts of rules about how to operate unbraked vehicles. The Rulebook states that you should never have a 'swinger' on the outside of the formation, or in a position where it can run away onto the main line. For the loading/unloading of road trailers it would make sense if there were a place with a dead-end siding containing buffer stops to catch any veheicle that rolls away, rather than an open line with access to the main line.

It appears from the preliminary report that the MNR left the contractor to 'do their own thing', which is understandable, but it's the MNR's responsibility to run trains, and their Safety Case which could take a knock. Clearly a member of MNR traincrew should be there in future to safeguard the initial movement onto or off railway infrastructure.

RAIB has hinted that it may introduce new rules to deal with this. Road/Rail exchanges are on the increase due to increase of heritage operations, and maybe for once RAIB can make this safer before someone gets killed?

This was a very lucky escape!

Cheers, John