Council in talks with MOD over bridge repair.

[Berk]

Most other similar signs I’ve seen have just said Network Rail.

Older examples said Railtrack. I couldn’t say for definite if I’d seen even older ones saying British Rail.

[Phil]

Prominent notices on the bridge, visible in the Streetview link above,Weston.JPG state in the last line that it is owned by Network Rail.

WRONG!

Those notices are 'Emergency Contact Details' signs erected so that if a member of the public spots something which could endanger the safety of the railway they know who to call.

Fact - if you want to stop trains from crashing into debris fallen from a bridge or because the bridge deck has moved after being hit by an overheight lorry then calling the Police etc is useless - it takes far too long for the information to be passed through the various bodies.

Instead , if you call the number listed it will take you straight through to the signal box or route control in charge of that particular section of line and quoting the structure details as written on it - i.e. "Winterstoke Road Overbridge, MLN1 (this code is the Engineers Line Reference code used to uniquely identify a section of line between two places), at 27miles and 11.75 chains" which ensures the railway can be blocked and trains stopped with minimal delay (or the imposition of emergency speed restrictions depending on the type of bridge) plus the quick dispatch of a bridge examiner.

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OWNERSHIP! - and everything to do with keeping rail passengers safe.

The reason it refers to 'The Railway Authority' is that since privatisation the UK mainline railway infrastructure has been owned by two organisations:- one called Railtrack and another called Network Rail - with further changes possible should Mr Grayling and Co decide to shake things up for a third time. Omitting the actual name of the 'Railway Authority' (i.e. Network Rail) trades under means that there can be no confusion over whether the sign is 'current' and should be relied upon. It also facilitates a uniform standard for other rail bridges which may pass over or under tramways or Heritage railways where the the 'Railway Authority has nothing to do with whoever is in charge of the national network.

[Chris5156]

Prominent notices on the bridge, visible in the Streetview link above,Weston.JPG state in the last line that it is owned by Network Rail.

WRONG!

Those notices are 'Emergency Contact Details' signs erected so that if a member of the public spots something which could endanger the safety of the railway they know who to call.

All of which is fine and not being disputed by WHBM. But the sign in the street view link he posted clearly includes the text “this bridge is owned by Network Rail”. Whatever the purpose of the sign might be, it is clearly remiss of Network Rail to go around screwing signs to bridges that say they own the thing if actually they don’t.

If the sign has nothing to do with ownership then perhaps it shouldn’t include text that claims ownership of the bridge!

[Phil]

Prominent notices on the bridge, visible in the Streetview link above,Weston.JPG state in the last line that it is owned by Network Rail.

WRONG!

Those notices are 'Emergency Contact Details' signs erected so that if a member of the public spots something which could endanger the safety of the railway they know who to call.

All of which is fine and not being disputed by WHBM. But the sign in the street view link he posted clearly includes the text “this bridge is owned by Network Rail”. Whatever the purpose of the sign might be, it is clearly remiss of Network Rail to go around screwing signs to bridges that say they own the thing if actually they don’t.

If the sign has nothing to do with ownership then perhaps it shouldn’t include text that claims ownership of the bridge!

It probably uses the term 'owned by Network Rail' to simplify matters for the public - the majority of whom (as this thread shows) are largely ignorant of the complex legal relationships which actually govern who is responsible for what.

Of course its always possible that when the sign was produced NR simply used the wrong template (NR does own plenty of bridges after all), but in the context of why the sign is used does it really matter?

If the sign on this bridge was intending to be accurate it should actually say who the highway authority is (including their contact details), who the owner is (including who their contact details) as well as how to contact the Railway authority

However doing this could well confuse the issue of who to contact in an emergency - and it doesn't take much of an obstruction in the wrong place to derail a train with catastrophic results.

As such by removing ambiguity (i.e. it goes over a railway and the public would expect the railway authority) the scope for confusion is minimised.

[WHBM]

You don't just go round putting official public notices on things saying you own them when you don't, especially when there are arguments over who is footing the bill for millions of pounds for repairs.

My hunch is we have somehow got the wrong bridge linked. Has the newspaper article identified the wrong one ? If the journalist had actually bothered to go down to the bridge they were writing about, they would have seen the inconsistency about ownership, which is the centrepoint of the story, straight away.

[ANiceEnglishman]

As a former local who drove over that bridge many times when learning to drive in the 1980s and subsequently I'm sure were talking about the right one.

It has been an important part of the local road network for many decades, linking the Oldmixon industrial and residential area to the south of the town with the A370 towards the M5 and Bristol, avoiding the town centre. It's not a forgotten structure recently brought back into use to serve a new development. I'm surprised to learn that it hasn't been adopted by the local authority.

[quarella]

The council website shows it to be bridge between Byron Road and Lidl. http://www.n-somerset.gov.uk/my-servic ... works-map/ Clicking on the roadworks sign gives details. This is also confirmed by family living in Weston.
In a large organisation such as Network Rail I expect a template is made for signs and an assumption made. Probably in an office many miles away. It is only when something happens that the legal departments go digging.


Thanks to BigNick for the link to the News reports. I was aiming for the Weston Mercury, but it says the same thing.