Friends of the Rail Forum

Action after boy partially blinded in Essex rail detonator explosion

Network Rail has been criticised after a teenager lost the sight in his right eye when a railway detonator exploded.

The injury happened after detonators - which are used as fog signals - were taken from a depot in Leigh-on-Sea and put on on a bonfire at a nearby park...

Not quite sure how its their fault.

If you want to set fire to a detonator then thats your problem.

At present in the United Kingdom, there appears to be an atmosphere of, no matter what you do, it is somebody else whose fault it is if something goes wrong. I do not know how it started, and more worryingly how it can be reversed, so that an individual is responsible for his/her actions especially when it come to breaking the law.

Now where did I put my soapbox?

At one level I agree with you completely. It seems a person is not responsible for his/her own actions even if those actions are illegal and/or stupid.

On the other hand, there may still be questions for Network Rail about the storage and control of detonators, which are explosives and are thus subject to quite stringent regulation.