Railway safety.
“It may well be that one unfortunate result of this accident is that resources earmarked for improvements and enhancements will need to be redirected to improving resilience of the railway.”
OF all the headline stories that become the subject of these columns, this is the one I have dreaded having to write about.
The long period without any fatalities in accidents on the national network has ended, and it is particularly poignant that two of the deaths were rail workers on duty.
The fact that there has been an unprecedented period of nearly 13 years without such a tragedy is an illustration of the recent stepchange in rail safety, undoubtedly spurred by the dreadful spate of accidents in the late 1990s and early 2000s that must never be forgotten.
Looking further back, within the lifetime of many RAIL readers (including myself), rail accidents were a regular occurrence with an expectation that there would be several fatal crashes every year.
In the 1970s, there were 20 accidents involving fatalities, which caused 73 deaths and around ten times that number of injuries. The causes varied from ‘intoxicated driver’ to ‘overspeed at curves’, and many have been systematically eliminated either through regulation or technology.
The same, incidentally, has happened in the air industry. When I was transport correspondent of The Independent in the 1990s, I covered the aftermath of several major disasters. There was concern within the industry that unless safety was markedly improved, the growth in the number of flights would lead to so many major incidents that the resulting publicity would deter people from flying.
Now, thanks to improved technology and training, air accidents are a rarity, although the series of events leading up to the two involving the new Boeing 737-Max aeroplanes is an object lesson in how complacency and regulatory capture by an industry can result in disaster.
This is not the case with the rail industry - as testified by the recent marked improvement, which has resulted in an unprecedented long period without a fatality.
It is worth recalling, however, that during this period there was the Sandilands tram crash of 2016, in which seven people were killed. That tragedy was partly the result of complacency, given the failure to recognise either the risks at that particular location or the effect of tiredness on drivers working onerous shifts.
Moreover, the improvement of safety on the railways has, at times, been far too gradual. It took the horror of Ladbroke Grove to bring about the introduction of TPWS (Train Protection Warning System), a technology that had already been available in one form or another for many years, to reduce the risk of signals passed at danger.
Indeed, given that the railways were at their most risky in the final years of the 19th century, much more could have been done earlier or been introduced more widely.
Inevitably, the old risks have given way to new ones, and this accident is the result of the main one facing the railways - climate change. The industry must respond far more quickly to this new situation than it has (at times) to safety risks in the past.
It is far too simplistic to characterise Network Rail as having done nothing to mitigate the potential effects of extreme weather events caused by climate change.
However, it was rather chilling that just a couple of weeks before the accident, the Office of Rail and Road’s annual safety report on the railways noted: “The vulnerability of some asset[s] to the challenges of climate change and more frequent extreme weather events was illustrated during 2019-20. The year saw substantial increases in flooding events, earthworks failures and trains striking trees on the line.”
The ORR report went on to say that while Network Rail has drawn up plans to “address climate change and increase resilience to extreme weather, these plans are not keeping up with the frequency and severity of these events”.
It is, of course, down to money. And it is not exactly a good time for Network Rail to be asking for more. It may well be, then, that one unfortunate result of this accident is that resources earmarked for improvements and enhancements will need to be redirected to improving resilience of the railway.
Moreover, the old risks remain. Inevitably,
during such a long period without a fatality, there were several near misses - such as the run-through of the Sleeper train in Edinburgh, the derailments at Waterloo and in the Watford tunnel, and (most of all) the SPAD involving
Tangmere at Wootton Bassett which still sends a shiver down my spine when I think about it.
Therefore, there has been an element of luck over this period. But there have also been countless tales of quick-thinking railway workers who have prevented incidents from turning into disasters. Indeed, the woman rail worker who went down the tracks to contact the authorities about the Stonehaven derailment is the latest in this panoply of rail heroes.
One could also say that there was an element of good fortune in that the accident occurred at a time when Aberdeen, the train’s starting point, was in lockdown and therefore the number of passengers was particularly low.
This accident could not have happened at a worse time for the industry, given the effects of the pandemic, which has resulted in such a sharp and prolonged decline in passenger numbers.
Yet, the railways are nothing if not resilient. There was one very heartening aspect of this tragedy - the way the industry came together, as it always does in times such as this. Network Rail Chief Executive Andrew Haines did not hesitate to break his holiday and return to deal with the accident, and it was significant that Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps also responded immediately.
I was struck by the readiness of supporters of the industry to call out the Scottish edition of
The Sun, for its crass and insensitive front-page headline ‘Death Express’.
Social media these days makes it far easier for such complaints to escalate. And such was the furore that the editor quickly apologised, realising that otherwise The Sun risked ending up with the same pariah status as it already has in Liverpool, after its disgraceful and untruthful coverage of the Hillsborough disaster that 30 years on still means you struggle to find a copy of the paper in that city.
This rapid rebuttal, carried out largely on an online petition by ordinary people, is an example which in these difficult times industry leaders and PR staff should note.
There is much support for the railways out there. And given the terrible situation of the railways at the moment, that resource needs to be tapped.