Was this for real or just staged? HSE would have loved it!

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I have three volumes of Engineering Workshop Practice (1951) and flicking through them recently saw this illustration of castings being cleaned up.

There are so many things wrong it is hard to imagine a more hazardous operation.

 

Ian P

 

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

I’m guessing real, but no one will ever know, there are loads of old photos around where people are machining etc with no PPE, in reality hopefully they wore goggles at least?

Tony

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Another question is why has the bloke on the left decided to polish his corset while still wearing it?

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

We have had the HSE since 1975 because before then employers expected workers to do jobs like that.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

“We have had the HSE since 1975 because before then employers expected workers to do jobs like that.”

I am not going condemn ‘Health & Safety’ because, clearly, in many instances it will have prevented injury and saved lives. However, it is a question of degree. Any ‘safe’ practice can be divided into any number of individual risks, each with its own inherent danger. It is when these apparently insignificant risks are identified and then amplified in the eyes of an assessor that seemingly ridiculous mitigation measures are demanded.

Personally, I believe that these measures are not often meant to be for the benefit of the individual but to the insurance company that has assumed the risk and would not want to be exposed to criticism in attempting to defend any claim. Obviously, an employer will comply with any legislation in the first instance and any further demands of the insurance underwriter in order to cover its own liability.

It is here where some of the nonsense that has saddled practices with a history of years of hazard free implementation with ridiculous and, for all practical purposes, nonsensical mitigations arises. Could I describe a couple from my own personal experience? For years I installed equipment racks in buildings, some of which had vinyl tiled floors. The operation entailed drilling two 10mm holes to insert plugs to accept coach screws. The drillings were always brushed away and binned or vacuumed. Then a method instruction was issued that, because the vinyl tiles contained a trace of asbestos, this practice must cease forthwith. In future the area to be drilled must first be coated in paste, the operative must wear a disposable paper overall, mask and gloves before attempting to drill. The remaining drillings and paste then had to be wiped up, double bagged and sent for environmental disposal, although no process was put in place for this to happen. And all this just to drill two holes in a floor! Needless to say this instruction was quietly ignored.

On another occasion we were instructed to place ‘Cabling in Progress’ notices around the work area which made a certain amount of sense even though those passing through the work area would probably see the cables before they saw our notices, but no matter. I volunteered to print and laminate a few notices to take from site to site and was told in no uncertain terms by a H&S instructor that I must not do this. The reason? Because laminate has sharp edges and people might cut themselves when brushing past one of my notices. I kid you not!

I am now retired and pleased to be out of it all and away from these ‘clowns’ who seem to see the world as full of mentally retarded chimpanzees with a death wish instead of rational, intelligent human beings who make risk assessments every single second of their waking lives and would not knowingly expose themselves or others to un-necessary risk or danger. Accidents do happen and all the legislation or ridiculous petty restrictions are never going to prevent them from happening because that’s life whether we like it or not.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I’ve sometimes wondered if the “clowns” actually make places potentially more dangerous by bringing safety into disrepute on the tar-brush principle.

The Cannings illustration was probably only for advertising, and the machinery is not moving – you can see the brush bristles. We don’t know though, what if any safety clothing the operators would have worn at the time.

Cannings was a major manufacturer of metal-finishing equipment.

My first encounter with the name was when working for a small, still-young decorative-plating company that no longer exists. Its two proprietors also ran a longer-established anodising firm in separate premises, and on my first visit I assumed the flint gravel on the floor under duckboards aiding access to the tanks, was to aid drainage. Naturally, as the staff clad in rubber aprons, gloves and wellies picked up each frame-full of work-pieces manually from each tank and sploshed it into the next, with fluid going everywhere.

The firm’s copy of what I was told was the “Platers’ Bible” soon taught me otherwise. Written and published by Cannings – the name picked out on every photograph of equipment – it explained anodising uses dilute sulphuric acid.

The shingle, all silica so insoluble, had been the aggregate in the factory’s concrete floor.

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

I’m a REMAP engineer. Some years ago, I had a case where a mother had to take her severely disabled daughter to physio twice a week. The daughter was crippled, blind, dumb, and totally incapable of doing anything herself. Some years earlier a Harrington rod had been inserted into her spine in an attempt to straighten it. She spent her days in a special powered wheelchair controlled by her mother.

At the physio session the mother used to lift her from the wheelchair and place her on the physio bed until, one day, the nurses said that, because of H&S, they couldn’t allow her to do that any more. They had to use the overhead rail and sling system instead. This seemed to work reasonably well until one day it went wrong. If you or I were being transported on a sling and felt insecure, we could wriggle or say we were going to slip out. But the daughter’s disabilities prevented her from doing this and the inevitable happened, she fell out of the sling and broke the Harrington rod in her spine.  So much for H&S.

This is where REMAP was contacted. The wheelchair had a partial recline facility and the mother asked if it could be modified to fully recline so as to obviate transferring her daughter to the physio bed. She could be treated on the wheelchair.  I modified the hinge and incorporated a screw thread that, when turned, raised or lowered the backrest. The mother was delighted. The next time she went to physio she demonstrated it, but the nurses said that they weren’t allowed to use it. Why Not? Because you had to bend over to operate the screw and in doing so, might injure your back.

I eventually replaced the hinge with a powered version incorporating a motor with a worm and wheel.

[Chris Crew]

On Chris Crew Said:

I am now retired and pleased to be out of it all and away from these ‘clowns’ who seem to see the world as full of mentally retarded chimpanzees with a death wish instead of rational, intelligent human beings who make risk assessments every single second of their waking lives and would not knowingly expose themselves or others to un-necessary risk or danger. Accidents do happen and all the legislation or ridiculous petty restrictions are never going to prevent them from happening because that’s life whether we like it or not.

Problem is of course that everybody is a clown!  You can’t assume that the workforce or members of the public are always: ‘rational, intelligent human beings who make risk assessments every single second of their waking lives and would not knowingly expose themselves or others to un-necessary risk or danger.’

In the right circumstances everyone is stupid, worst of all the clowns who don’t realise their own limitations.

Before the 20th century it was unusual for employers to have any liability for what happened to their employees.  If an untrained ill-equipped man was killed at work by a fundamentally dangerous process, that was his problem.  The public got fed up with slack-alice employers when boiler explosions, railway accidents, mine subsidence, factory chimneys falling on houses, and pollution impinged on folk wealthy enough to go to law and influence parliament.

The law was gradually changed to make employers responsible for sins of commission and omission.  Very often done by forcing them to insure against accidents, so that victims got paid something for their trouble.  During the 20th century repeated scandals caused more legislation to be added: it being noted by inquiries and inquests that most ‘accidents’ were nothing of the sort – they were avoidable. A catalogue of unwise short-cuts, negligence, cost-cutting, assumptions, poor training, wrong equipment, and working when tired, ill or under the influence.   Plus stupidity, like coal miners killing themselves and all their mates by smuggling cigarettes into a gassy colliery for a smoke, electricians choosing to work on live equipment, refusing to wear PPE on ‘human rights’ grounds, pilots crashing at air displays due to showing off, and nuclear workers falsifying records so they can watch TV during the night shift.

The system was and remains imperfect.   It’s impossible to prevent all accidents, and many employers treat H&S as an ar$e covering exercise by sending unqualified office workers armed with a clip-board out to do ‘checks.’  These unfortunates tend to see stuff that doesn’t matter, whilst things that matter go unnoticed.

H&S done properly is quite easy:

1. Before work is done identify all the risks and their consequences
2. Decide what can be done to eliminate or reduce risks.   Risks can be tolerated, but all risks have to be thought about.
3. No assumptions, and the risk assessment has to be written down, and – ideally – reviewed by an expert.   Could be anything from half a page of A4 to several volumes, and it has to be kept up-to-date.
4. Whatever recommendations are made are implemented on the job: typically training, PPE, equipment, process steps and dos and don’ts.
5. Risks have a named owner, who is responsible for keeping them up-to-date, and making sure the people who do the job are following it.

What often happens is that a bunch of over-confident know-alls fake the paperwork and do their own thing. This is fine and dandy until something goes wrong.   For example, a new worker was killed by a bog-roll making machine, because no-one told him that an  improvised inspection hatch was an illegal bodge, only to be approached with extreme care whilst the machine was running.   Rules broken, no risk assessment, and an assumption that everyone on the shop-floor knew it dangerous.   New man joined the team, and no-one told him…

In the UK life changing injuries and fatalities cost millions.  Not like the good old days, where mangled workers got nothing and survivors sold matches on street corners.   Not quite so bad for victims now the NHS picks up the medical bills and employers pay compensation, but the pain and disruption are best avoided by taking sensible precautions.

Easy to disparage H&S when accidents cost you nothing.  People change their minds rapidly when they are made responsible for H&S.

Dave

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

“Easy to disparage H&S when accidents cost you nothing.  People change their minds rapidly when they are made responsible for H&S.”

I don’t think that I disparaged H&S, I recognise the importance of adopting safe practice in all things. The point I was trying to make was that methods that had been used for years with no problems arising were suddenly being hi-jacked by some H&S ‘jobsworths’ who thought they could earn brownie points by identifying risks that were so insignificant as to hardly register with any ‘normal’ person who would be conducting an ongoing risk assessment as the less than two-minute job of drilling two 10mm holes in a floor progressed. e.g. Don’t put your fingers in the place where you are going drill! (although I wouldn’t be surprised if some ‘clown’ hasn’t written this down already along with don’t drink the acid in this battery).

I noticed a report in the paper this morning that the Hogwarts Express, and I assume other heritage rail tours, are now under threat because Those Who Must be Obeyed have decided that the coaching stock must be equipped with central locking doors. Notwithstanding William Huskisson at Rainhill, the fact that trains ran for over 150 years without centrally locked coaching stock, and the number people who managed to deliberately step out of a moving train could probably be counted on the fingers of no hands, seems to have escaped them. Likewise when the train was in a station, the reason passengers looked for which side of the carriage the platform was located before opening the door was because they were not mentally retarded chimpanzees with a death wish, but normal rational human beings who made a risk assessment before alighting. I do hope the exemption from this ruling can be extended for all heritage rail tours and also not be applied to heritage railways in general, otherwise there are going to be a lot of disappointed enthusiasts.

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The Health & Safety Executive does come in for considerable criticism but much of that is unfair.

The worst excesses of power-without-knowledge (or sense) are from local managers, council officers etc; and I suspect a lot of it is driven by those inveterate money-grubbers, the insurance companies and civil-claims lawyers.

These have opposite ways to achieve the same end: wealth!

The insurers try collect as much money as possible, while hoping no-one will want paying. So they jack up the premiums and physical requirements, especially to repay settlements made to the policy-holders; but even with unblemished records they cannot understand, or do not care, if their greed and other pressures they impose kill off the organisations and events.

The solicitors’ and barristers’ interest is the reverse. To them, others’ accidents (perhaps not fatal ones) or misfortunes are welcome, as those earn money, handsomely, from both sides; win or lose, logically or illogically, justly or unjustly.

.

And cases can be against any logic or justice.

A friend who manages a building company, and the firm itself, were fined after an accident involving two scaffolders. The accident was entirely the men’s own fault (corner-cutting), and the manager was on holiday abroad at the time.

Wasn’t there also a case in our own field, a few years ago, of some idiot dog owner being recompensed by the insurers for high veterinary bills to treat her pet, after it was badly injured by chasing a miniature-railway train and running headlong into a gradient post? The incident was entirely the woman’s fault. The railway was on public land, she had failed to consider dogs’ low IQ and high instincts. She had also wilfully ignored signs ordering dogs be kept leashed. I don’t know if the Council took legal action for her flouting a clear by-law; it might have thought she’d suffered and learnt enough.

 

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

SOD has missed a bit. What you need to do is identify the hazard (the asbestos in the above case), the risk (chance of breathing it in) and the consequence if you do (asbestosis which is pretty nasty). If the risk is low and the consequence is low, a sensible assessment would not require further action. I’ve no idea what chance there is of breathing in dust from drilling the floor, but PPE should be the last resort. Evaluate a vacuum cleaner with HEPA filter, or just pouring water over it from a watering can. You can get asbestosis from one fibre. As others have said, some H&S people revel in stopping the job, and are not prepared to use judgement. As long as you can demonstrate that you made a reasonable attempt, you don’t get prosecuted if something goes wrong. If you think doing it properly is expensive, try having an avoidable injury /death. In my limited dealings with the HSE I found them extremely reasonable and helpful.

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

https://youtu.be/sZXb5uqUolM If you want to see a real H&S nightmare, just check out this short video from the turn of the century. Its only a few minutes long (courtesy of the BFI). Particularly check out the level of PPE on the chap standing on the rickety step ladder while they poor the steel!

Mike

 

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

In my limited dealings with the HSE I found them extremely reasonable and helpful.

That was my experience too, Duncan.

I was senior person on site at two companies for 3 unannounced HSE inspections & had no issues with the inspector. On the second inspection at the first company we discussed trailing extensions on the shop floor & the isnpector  mad eth comment that, had there been more employees then this might have been a concern but as we were small (the company was, as it turned out, winding down & there were only3 or 4 of us then) & the employees were trained and aware of the risks he was happy to leave be. The follow-up letters had a few recommendations, which were easy to implement. The HSE website was my first port of call if there were any questions about legal requirements (or just things to consider) when new-to-us processes were introduced.

The requirements imposed by insurance companies are a different matter, many seeming to be just “tick box” requirements that imposes costs & disruption for things not mandated by the HSE but represented as though they were, PAT testing being one.

Nigel B.

[Chris Crew]

On Chris Crew Said:

“Easy to disparage H&S when accidents cost you nothing.  People change their minds rapidly when they are made responsible for H&S.”

I don’t think that I disparaged H&S, I recognise the importance of adopting safe practice in all things. The point I was trying to make was that methods that had been used for years with no problems arising were suddenly being hi-jacked by some H&S ‘jobsworths’ who thought they could earn brownie points by identifying risks that were so insignificant as to hardly register with any ‘normal’ person who would be conducting an ongoing risk assessment as the less than two-minute job of drilling two 10mm holes in a floor progressed. e.g. Don’t put your fingers in the place where you are going drill! (although I wouldn’t be surprised if some ‘clown’ hasn’t written this down already along with don’t drink the acid in this battery).

I noticed a report in the paper this morning that the Hogwarts Express, and I assume other heritage rail tours, are now under threat because Those Who Must be Obeyed have decided that the coaching stock must be equipped with central locking doors. Notwithstanding William Huskisson at Rainhill, the fact that trains ran for over 150 years without centrally locked coaching stock, and the number people who managed to deliberately step out of a moving train could probably be counted on the fingers of no hands, seems to have escaped them. Likewise when the train was in a station, the reason passengers looked for which side of the carriage the platform was located before opening the door was because they were not mentally retarded chimpanzees with a death wish, but normal rational human beings who made a risk assessment before alighting. I do hope the exemption from this ruling can be extended for all heritage rail tours and also not be applied to heritage railways in general, otherwise there are going to be a lot of disappointed enthusiasts.

 

1960’s vinyl tiles are full of asbestos, you can safely drill holes in them through a blob of made up wet wall paper paste

Based on the Hogwarts thing why is it that pre 65 ish cars have not had to have seat belts retro-fitted? The rail carriages were made to the safety specs current at the time just as the cars were.

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

As has been said it is real for me.  I started work in engineering in the mid sixties, I remember seeing even then places with overhead shafting running down to machines with open belt drive. A smock was about the only PPE available to most people in factories and they were just to differentiate between the workers and the foreman.  I think some of it has to do with the number of years you worked to become qualified at something, in those years you often saw the results of carelessness, these days you need a degree to start but that doesn’t make the person anymore careful.

A few years ago I had to complete a course with the local HSE, it was interesting to hear his viewpoint on what was considered to be in breach of HSE rules.  Many cancelled events which claimed they didn’t occur because of failure to conform to HSE rules where siting things which the HSE wouldn’t bother with and taking the easy way out to cancel rather than commit some time in research.

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

Health and safety is essential  this is true. It is the inept officers that cause problems where there are’t any.I had a job fitting an internal manhole in a domestic kitchen,I had an apprentice working with me when a woman asked to speak to me regarding H&S I was bemused by the request as there wasn’t a problem .She insisted that we wore high vis jackets and hard hats and stick a H&S information sheet to the glass in the kitchen door.I tried hard not to be rude or abusive but it was a close call.Needless to say her request was ignored .

Frank

[Gary Wooding]

On Gary Wooding Said:

 

The next time she went to physio she demonstrated it, but the nurses said that they weren’t allowed to use it. Why Not? Because you had to bend over to operate the screw and in doing so, might injure your back.

I eventually replaced the hinge with a powered version incorporating a motor with a worm and wheel.

I’ve worked in places with an entire department was dedicated to workplace ergonomics and they would have banned it the same as the nurses did. From the perspective of the mother who has to operate the screw once in a blue moon for appointments it would pass due to the unergonomic practice being infrequent. For the nurses who work an 8 or more hour shift using person moving devices every device has to be ergonomic. You can’t have one exemption because of the many patients how do you choose who gets to have the exempt machine while everyone else has to shell out for a motor?

[martin haysomParticipant @martinhaysom48469]

back to the original question. i too have this book. while the photo is most likely staged the working practice is real. for those with this book have a close look at the picture on the next page. sorry i have no idea how to put it on here.

[martin haysom]

On martin haysom Said:

back to the original question. i too have this book. while the photo is most likely staged the working practice is real. for those with this book have a close look at the picture on the next page. sorry i have no idea how to put it on here.

Hopefully like this, a quick scan, or a photo, saved as a jpg and inserted with the final icon on the top row of the edit pane.

Bill

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

They do at least have dust-extractors – though of engineering or lung cleanliness I would not like to say which BAC thought the more important. At the time, dusts might not have been thought as dangerous as we now know them.

No eye-protection though.

I have encountered an odd slant on the latter. An acquaintance working on railway civil-engineering maintenance saw the necessity for most of the Rules and Procedures, both for the obvious general hazards and the specifics such as for working at heights (one of his specialities). However, one day it was decreed that everyone must wear goggles on the works site all day long even when not engaged in, or close to, activities hazardous to the eyes. He said the rule was rescinded after staff started having eye problems caused by such long-term wearing of the eye-protection!

”’

Looking again at the photo, I reckon ‘Im standing centre-left will have to have words with ’em nearest us. It may not have done those machined components any harm, but I’d still have thought an aircraft builder a bit less sloppy when it comes to how and where people stack them…

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

Chris Crew’s comment about the locking doors on the Hogwarts Express reminded me of watching trains in Romania. Very hot summers day, and trains passing at speed, mostly composed of second-hand carriages from Austria or Germany, all with the doors wedged open and two or three people sitting/standing in the doorway for the benefit of the cooler air – what H&S?

As far as I can find out, no-one has ever fallen out, but then, who knows?

[An Other]

On An Other Said:

Chris Crew’s comment about the locking doors on the Hogwarts Express reminded me of watching trains in Romania. Very hot summers day, and trains passing at speed, mostly composed of second-hand carriages from Austria or Germany, all with the doors wedged open and two or three people sitting/standing in the doorway for the benefit of the cooler air – what H&S?

As far as I can find out, no-one has ever fallen out, but then, who knows?

Whether or not it’s best to lock train doors has a long history.  In the beginning there were many accidents due to people getting in and out of trains at inopportune moments, William Huskisson being a famous example.  His death was followed by many others, and the Victorians eventually locked everyone in.  This proved unsatisfactory when trains crashed and caught fire due to oil-lamps, killing trapped passengers by burning them.  Eventually, after I think, a particularly nasty incident in France, the British introduced the system whereby doors could always be opened from the outside, and this could also be done by passengers inside dropping the window and reaching out to turn the handle.  I remember it well.

Still too many accidents!  People would open the door on the wrong side and fall heavily on the adjacent track, and were often run over by another train before rescue.   And folk frequently jumped from slow moving trains before they had stopped and crashed into stuff on the platform like baggage trolleys or bystanders.   Another common accident was persons waiting on the platform being struck by open doors, the edge of which travelling at walking pace inflicted life changing injuries or worse.

Modern trains usually have central locking because passengers can’t be trusted.  You and I might be OK, but all the others are idiots!  In the event of a fire, there is usually an emergency release plus hammers that can be used to break the windows.  This system works quite well.

Early US railways were infamous for killing and injuring passengers.  Collisions were common, and horrific injuries were caused when the flat beds of carriages rode up and slid over each other.  This resulted in excellent knuckle couplers.  However, even though carriages where less likely to telescope through each other, they were often heated by a pair of red-hot cast-iron stoves at each end that broke loose in an impact and flew through the carriage, mangling anyone who got in the way, and scattering burning coals throughout.   Doors didn’t matter much because folk were trapped in splintered wooden wreckage. Root cause, much bad-practice in railway management and working practice.   There’s a lot that can be done to stop trains colliding, but it takes effort.

Done properly, risk management is a self-improvement process.  It’s not about setting inviolable rules.   We’re expected to think before doing anything, and mitigate risks.  And if anything goes wrong, we learn from it and change the rules.   Hiding behind rules and regulations is as bad as not bothering with them in the first place.  H&S is all about managing risk so stuff gets done.  Worth knowing that most accidents are due to thoughtless incompetence.

Dave

 

 

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Reading between the lines on the interweb it would appear that the ORR have had enough of WCML’s slapdash approach to H&S. They’ve known this was coming, and there are proven solutions, so WCML should have got on with it.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I started this thread after seeing the (Cannings) picture in a recently acquired set of books. HSE was not around in the 30′ when the book was first published but I found the scene shown quite alarming.

The worker holding what looks like a 12″ diameter wire brush appears to be in a most unstable stance, presumably the rotation of the wheel would be pulling him forward and he is already bent well over. In the event he did stumble forward and let go of the handles the wire brush and its flexible drive would flail round and wrap itself around anything in its path!

The picture (touched-up to remove the background) looks like it might have come from a Canning catalogue or brochure but it does probably represent a real situation.

Its probably fortunate that the fairly low RPM limits the speed of any needle-like projectiles that detach themselves from the wheel/s.

Ian P

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The name Cannings is just visible on the wheel-stand, and it’s quite possible the original photographs were taken in Cannings’ own factory.

..

The Official Report into the Harrow & Wealdstone Rail Disaster in the 1920s, with its photographs, shows what can happen when loose-coupled carriages collide with a stationary set at somewhere around 55 – 60mph. Three trains were involved, the coaches climbing high enough to demolish a covered footbridge over the lines.

A fog-delayed Up express ran through signals and a cross-over against it, straight into the rear of a stationary, on-time local commuter train put to the Up Fast platform to allow Slow line movements nearer London; then a Down express in the right place at the right time but too close and fast for anyone to signal to stop, ploughed into the wreckage.  The Report also shows the two crashed locomotives’ cabs, with the sheet-work removed, once the engines had been righted, re-railed and towed to sidings. These photographs were key by showing the last control positions before impact. The Up express driver was killed, along with about 120 other people, so it was impossible to determine why he had run past the Distant and closer, brightly-lit Stop signals North of the station.

That human failure seems as similarly, decades later, at Moorgate Station on the London Underground. Is this a type of failing no amount of rules, risk-assessments and precautions can ever really prevent?

Notably, in our days of “calls for judge-led full public inquiries”, that and other major disaster Inquiries in the 19c and early 20C were often chaired by senior military officers, perhaps chosen for having at least some understanding of engineering.

”””’

I recall railway stations used to display large posters warning passengers not to open doors while the trains is still moving – with a picture showing why. Whilst inside the carriages, small notices warned against leaning out of the window. So this is not a new worry.

At the lighter end of the scale, railway carriage lavatories no longer seem to have those curious plaques that defined one’s status as a male by “Gentlemen Lift The Seat” and “Gentlemen Adjust Your Dress Before Leaving The Lavatory” – when I were very young I don’t recall seeing Gentleman in their best frocks but these days one would barely bat one’s eyelids.

[Author]

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