Belt, braces and proactive safety01 March 2008

The Kings Cross tube fire on 18 November 1987, which claimed the lives of 31 people, changed attitudes to safety on the underground for ever. That one terrible incident (which led to the public inquiry chaired by Sir Desmond Fennell QC) set in train a total rethink of systems and procedures, which - following the Hidden report after the 1988 Clapham rail disaster - quickly spread to the entire rail sector.

The Fennel report's 100-plus recommendations prompted a sea change, best summed up as moving from ?reactive' to ?proactive' safety management. Two small words, but leading to radically different approaches that have since transformed the rail industry into one of the safest places on the planet, at least for the people concerned with carrying out engineering work.

That's the general consensus - and it needs to be. As Graeme Bickerdike, self-styled rail safety expert, says: 'There aren't many industries where workers stand in the path of 400 tonnes of metalwork hurtling towards them at 125mph. Or where trains can converge on them every 45 seconds from four directions, as they do at the Metropolitan Junction near London Bridge, for example. And by the way, that's with a third rail that's electrified. The safety challenges for people that work on the railways are enormous.'

He ought to know: last year Bickerdike won the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers' Wing award for his single-minded work on the Rail Safety and Standards Board's COSS (controller of site safety) Handbook. 'I campaigned on the appalling way in which track safety rules are communicated in its Rule Book - and compressed 400 pages into 50 that the people who need it can actually understand,' he says. Which is one key point for achieving safety in any sector with any plant.

Inspect, investigate, oversee
Beyond that, though, how has the step change in safety performance, started 20 years ago, been achieved? Myles Sibley, general manager of Unit 4 (Home Counties, south and south west) at Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate - HMRI, part of the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) since April 2006 - believes that success hinges on industry-wide and rigorously enforced structures, procedures, reporting and supervision, plus specialist support.

Looking at the latter, he makes the point that rail embraces a wide array of engineering disciplines, so HMRI is underpinned by National Expertise Teams, with engineers assigned to everything from rolling stock to infrastructure, operations and control, command and signalling (CoCoSig). Additionally, each of his opposite numbers, managing the three other areas in the UK, has different but overlapping responsibilities - including for rail plant inspection.

'We inspect, investigate and oversee everything, from on-track machinery and associated small plant, to cranes and road-rail vehicles used for maintaining track condition and lifting, realigning and relaying track and other rail infrastructure,' explains Sibley. 'It's mostly small cranes and vehicles that carry modules, such as lifting and jacking equipment. But we're also concerned about the needs of obsolete equipment, particularly on the heritage railways - plant such as steam locomotive boilers - providing guidance for safe management, inspection, maintenance and repair.'

Most of all that is routine, with a strong emphasis on audit trails, checks and balances. However, all are under periodic review, influenced, for example, by incidents like that near Tebay, Cumbria, in 2004 - when a runaway engineering trailer killed four track technicians - and the hydraulic lift platform that took off from Brentford to Romford in November last year. 'There have been relatively few accidents involving plant, but they do spawn particular areas of interest - in those cases, relating to braking systems and methods of securing vehicles,' explains Sibley.

Accident investigation
Not that HMRI is on its own when it comes to major incidents. 'The Rail Accident and Investigation Branch has primacy in terms of technical investigations associated with accidents. It reports and makes recommendations, while we are the enforcing authority,' explains Sibley. 'So we are concerned, for example, with determining whether breaches of health and safety legislation have occurred, and whether contractors' arrangements around safety, competence, training and supervision were adequate under Part 4 of ROGS [Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems Regulations 2006] guidance.'

Which brings us to structures and procedures. Fundamental to all of this is the rail industry's requirement on duty holders (such as contractors) to have documented safety management systems that set out arrangements for supervision, training and the rest, approved by HMRI (see panel left). 'We look for a comprehensive system that includes relevant training of operators, recognising the nature of their work, technical competence - for example, to maintain vehicles actively in service - as well as the manner in which they will work.'

What about the workers themselves? For Sibley, ?proactive' here means new programmes of investigation every year, with assignments to check on safety issues spanning from hand arm vibration (HAV) to occupational health and fatigue. 'Over the last decade, there's been a much greater recognition of hazards associated with working outside the hours of daylight. That's happening because of the pressures on the system to operate more trains, which has reduced our ability to secure safe zones for maintenance and inspection during the day. But working at night brings its own hazards - particularly fatigue.'

In fact, the rail industry has adopted a fatigue index, which takes into account what people are being asked to do, the shift patterns that result, as well as the individuals' profiles - so that managers can determine sensible rest and recovery periods. 'That's having considerable success,' says Sibley. 'Remember, a momentary lapse of concentration can be the precursor to a serious accident.'

Contractor's perspective
'I honestly believe that London Underground is the safest place to work on the planet.' So says John Clifford, rail safety manager with contractor Mansell. 'It has the lowest accident rates for any industry, and the reason is the level of supervision and our quality of safety documentation.'

For Clifford, the organisation's almost obsessive concern with safety starts with its documentation, which involves subcontractors submitting detailed method statements and site-specific risk assessments for each and every job. 'Those are reviewed and, if necessary, revised by me before being passed to London Underground for their review in a process that can go backwards and forwards several times before a single worker goes anywhere near site,' he says.

Then there's the supervision side, which is equally robust. 'Where Mansell employs a subcontractor, for example, they will provide their supervisor, but we will also provide our own - and so will London Underground, to make absolutely sure they're doing what they're supposed to. So it's double or quadruple what you'd find on a construction site. But the result is there hasn't been a single fatality linked to the underground maintenance, refurbishment or new works in years.'

What about plant itself? 'Every piece of plant and every tool has to be assessed and certified for suitability - and that includes every Hilti drill, every Genie power lift... It was a huge task at first, but if you're going to take safety seriously, that's what you have to do,' says Clifford.

'We also set standards for maintenance based on the manufacturers' guidelines, but whereas they might recommend inspection, say, every 12 months, we will specify every six months. Also, maintenance technicians have to be vetted for competence. And, as part of the risk assessments, all plant has to be inspected before first use and then again every three months.'

And there's more: 'PPE is mandatory everywhere, and that includes boots with ankle supports and steel midsoles, hard hats and on some sections - with Metronet, for example - eye protection is also mandatory. That's the secret: control measures rigorously enforced in terms of plant, equipment and people. I've had contractors from other industries come to me, and they've never seen anything like it. They might say, ?What about the financial implications,' but this regime isn't in place on a whim. That's what makes the underground the safest working environment in the world.'

Pointers
- Rule books that users can understand are critical
- Proactive safety means annual reviews of risks, issues and procedures
- Structures, procedures, reporting, supervision and support are industry-wide
- Method statements, site-specific risk assessments and supervision are double to quadruple those found in some other sectors
- All tools, plant and equipment are certified, maintained and inspected well beyond legal minima

SOE

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