As safe as hedgehogs
THE railways' strategic supremo, Sir Alastair Morton, has never minded a fight, so I was pleased to see him take on the welterweights at Health and Safety. He is not convinced that their inquisitori- al style is what the railways need. Aircraft accident inspectors look for causes, these inspectors look for culprits. At Hatfield, the line was shut for weeks while they crawled over it, looking for evidence. At Gidea Park, where two of Gerry Fiennes's trains collided, he found the evidence it was a spent detonator — and gave the all-clear: `NWR', normal working resumed. Safety, to his mind, was relative, on the railways as everywhere else, except in the sexual life of the hedgehog. That would nowadays get him into terminal trouble, with the animal-rights lobby and with the Health and Safety police.
Previous page
