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mrplow
09-07-2003, 18:35
I assume you all watch the news on occasion, or at least read it on the intermanet...

Seems they've charged several individuals at railtrack.. ahem, sorry, Network Rail.. with "corporate manslaughter". Whilst it's interesting, and I suppose inevitable, that they charged the bosses, what surprised me more was that there was actually a "rail engineer" in there (whom I assume to be an actual worker). How do you decide who to blame at low level for such a thing?

It seems to me the big bosses probably don't really get all the information, and decide every single thing within the company. The workers on the actual tracks probably report things like crappy rails to their bosses who then decide what to make the workers do. It seems more likely to me that a worker would say "this track's on it's way out, we should fix it" and the boss to say "no, you're doing this today, and then that and the other..."

Which would lay the blame with middle management (it's always middle management..) using my probably highly flawed opinionated logic.

Anyways.. uhh.. discuss?

Oh and of course I offer my comiserations, as little a difference as they'll make, to families of those caught up in the tragedy back in oct 2000.


BBC news feature (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3052591.stm)

harry
09-07-2003, 19:22
I get confused with all the different train crashes... but I believe one of them was down to a dodgy job - ie. the contractors not doing their job properly. If this is the case it may be that the engineeer fudged up and the management didn't notice, care or check that he was doing it properly and had suitable training? :blarg:

mrplow
10-07-2003, 01:20
Apparently a crack in the rail was the cause of this incident.

They showed the track pieces on the news; the rail was completely obliterated into weeny pieces, terrible :|

So yer, seems like BB are pretty much at fault since it is their responsibilty to keep the track in good nick. Yet they insist they are not liable. How dare they, to be perfectly honest.