"The Times" - UK newspaper May 16 2000 

  Rail safety training 'hit by privatisation' 
  BY ARTHUR LEATHLEY, TRANSPORT CORRESPONDENT

  A RAIL manager praised for his life-saving action in the
  Paddington train crash said yesterday that emergency
  training had deteriorated since privatisation. 

  Mike Thomas, an off-duty senior guard, was commended
  for his quick thinking during the disaster, when he cut off
  electricity supplies and evacuated part of a train
  enveloped by fire. However, Mr Thomas said that
  emergency training had been less frequent in recent years
  and that his experience under British Rail had been more
  useful. 

  He spoke out as the first witnesses to give evidence to the
  public inquiry into the crash gave detailed accounts of
  heroism among the suffering and carnage. Passengers
  spoke tearfully of rescuing severely burnt victims, some of
  whom could barely walk as they were helped from one of
  the two blazing trains. 

  One passenger told the inquiry that Mr Thomas, a Virgin
  Trains manager who was travelling off-duty on the First
  Great Western train last November, deserved a medal for
  the way that he isolated the electricity supply, lowered a
  ladder from the train and calmed passengers. 

  Mr Thomas, however,voiced doubts about the
  competence of colleagues who joined the industry after
  British Rail was sold off. He said that much of his
  knowledge had been gained during his eight years with
  British Rail, rather than in recent training. 

  "I had much more frequent training under British Rail than
  I have had since privatisation," he said. "It doesn't matter
  so much to me because I have had a lot of experience to
  build on. 

  "But new people coming into the industry, I am not sure
  they have the training they need. I am not sure I would
  have been so competent and confident if I had recently
  joined the railway." 

  He added: "You could never create a situation in training
  such as we encountered at Paddington, but training is
  better than no training. If staff get minimal training they
  have not the confidence. They are running around like
  headless chickens." 

  Virgin Trains was quick to rebut Mr Thomas's claims that
  he had not received sufficient emergency training, but said
  that training was about to be improved. Managers said
  that he had had a series of tests throughout the past year
  and had passed his two-year rules and regulations
  examination last November. 

  During the third day of the public inquiry, Philip Scotcher,
  24, who had escaped from coach B, near the rear of the
  Paddington-bound First Great Western train, described
  finding a fellow passenger, Michael Adams, "sitting right in
  the middle of a pool of fire". Mr Scotcher helped to drag
  Mr Adams to safety and then stayed with him until
  medical experts arrived. Mr Scotcher, from Tetbury in
  Gloucestershire, said Mr Adams was so badly burnt that
  he could not tell the colour of his skin.

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