Weather Academy meets to tackle responses to adverse weather

Network Rail’s inaugural Weather Academy workshop brought together operations staff, asset engineers and meteorology experts to identify ways of delivering a safer, more reliable service during adverse and extreme weather.

To run the pilot Weather Academy workshop, NR teamed up with Newcastle University, the Met Office and MetDesk.

It is the latest proactive step following the fatal derailment at Carmont in August 2020, caused by debris following heavy rain.

More recently, a landslip at Honiton closed the Salisbury-Exeter line, while Network Rail also closed routes in Scotland after heavy deluges.

In July, NR announced that an ‘extreme weather taskforce’ was being launched in response to the heatwave. It follows recommendations by meteorology expert Dame Julia Slingo, Professor Paul Davies (Met Office) and Professor Hayley Fowler (Newcastle University) on how the railway could better manage weather and climate risk.

The workshop entailed NR working with industry experts to empower railway staff with the right knowledge to improve mitigation against the impacts of adverse weather, so that trains can continue to run safely and reliably.

At its first session, NR staff worked through practical case studies and interactive tuition and scenario-based exercises to improve the management of weather risks. Further workshops are being planned for 2023.

“This is the first time in the transport sector that we got people together to think about how you manage the considerable risks to operations from adverse weather and related hazards,” said Dame Julia Slingo, lead author of the Weather Advisory Task Force report.

The taskforce will consider four key areas, each led by an independent expert in their field. Three of these areas will be focused on gathering insights from other countries and making comparisons with international rail networks, which are more used to dealing with extreme heat and fluctuations in temperature.