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Delude Retreat Indemnify Prevaricate Squander

The railway has a vocabulary all of its own and huge numbers of abbreviations. These can be confusing to anyone who speaks English and those few managers not certified as jibberish-competent. So here is the DBHS guide to some of the more common acronyms used every day by the railway's safety professionals.

If you know of others we have left out, please email us.
Track Safety Competencies
PTS Pointless Trivia Surplus
COSS Create Obligatory Safety Scapegoat
IWA Inevitable Walking Accident (or Idiot Wandering About)
Equipment
PLB Persistently Left Behind
TCOD Try Carrying Ordinary Detonators (or Two Chances Of a Disaster)
TPWS Trains Pass With Stealth
Organisations/Committees
ATOC Authorised Theft Of Commuters
DfT Disastrous for Travellers
HMRI Hardly Merits Regulatory Influence
HSE Hysteria & Stupidity Extolled
RAIB Read About It Belatedly
RSSB Resistance Stifles Safety Benefits
TOMSC Total Opposition to Meaningful and Straightforward Communications
Resources
SMIS Secure Manslaughter Indemnity Scheme
General Terminology
ALARP Agree Limits Averting Real Progress
SPAD Signal Placement Acutely Deficient
SPIN Statistics Promote Inaccurate Notions
Rule Book Module Titles
G1 Things to forget when appointed to a management post
G2 Personal safety when stumbling through the undergrowth
T6 Theoretical placement of one foot in front of the other
T12 Protecting personnel with a chocolate fireguard
T2 Protecting work or a hand trolley in 374 easy steps
T7 Safe systems of work on Utopian Railways
T3 Possession of the line for longer than expected
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