West Coast Railways is urging the Office of Rail and Road to reconsider its ruling that coaches without central locking on their hinged doors can no longer operate on Network Rail infrastructure.
The withdrawal of the exemption which had allowed older rolling stock without central locking to be used was challenged by heritage operator WCR in the High Court late last year, but on 22 December the court dismissed its appeal. Mrs Justice Thornton said a feature of the services like the Jacobite between Fort William and Mallaig was the hinged doors that ‘can be opened by anyone inside the train even when the train is moving’.
She described central locking as ‘common sense’, because it was safer on a system which was ‘dependent on no more than an assumption by the guard that the stewards have locked the doors’. She added that the ORR had observed that there was no evidence of a WCR investigation or ‘lessons learnt’ after a charter train had departed from York with a door open in October 2020.
The ORR told the judge that it did not want heritage operators to go out of business, but that it wanted ‘minimum safety standards’. The exemption was withdrawn from 10 January.
Following the court’s decision, WCR had asked the ORR to keep the exemption until 29 February, while it worked with the regulator to find a long-term solution, but this was refused.
WCR commercial manager James Shuttleworth said: ‘We are already considering a range of options and had asked the ORR to allow the current exemption to run its course, to give us time to put forward detailed proposals.
‘Our much-loved services, enjoyed by so many visitors from the UK and around the world, support a large number of businesses along our routes. The Jacobite alone has become an intrinsic part of Scottish tourism, boosting the economies of Mallaig and Fort William. It brings an estimated £20 million into the UK’s tourism sector to which we contribute £50 million overall every year. For everyone relying on these incredible heritage services this decision is a body blow.’
In spite of the ruling, trains without central locking on their coaches will continue to be allowed on heritage railways where the maximum speed is 40kmh (25mph), but the withdrawal of the exemption applies to all heritage operations on the National Rail network, including WCR’s scheduled ‘Jacobite’.