Rail safety is front of mind for railway workers in everything they do, but Rail Safety Week exists to ensure we have conversations about safety out loud, with one another, and appraise where we are as individual rail businesses and as an industry more widely.

Britain has a very safe railway, both in terms of our own history and in comparison with similar railways elsewhere in the world. However, a safe railway requires the diligence and focus of delivery organisations and staff to sustain it at the highest levels. 

Working together to deliver a safer network for everyone

Problems with track and signalling systems are most visible to the public when they arise, but for train operating companies two key safety focus areas are safe rolling stock and safe depots. One is essential to the other, as a high-performing depot is critical to delivering high standards of maintenance in rolling stock. 

Considerations include specifying the type and intensity of train maintenance, how to introduce new train fleets and the direct or contracted operation of train maintenance depots. 

The continuing delivery of that safe railway depends on effective and seamless joint working by both passenger and rail freight operators, and Network Rail. Key to this successful delivery are staff, their training, their awareness of and willingness to call out risky behaviours by others, including customers and railway neighbours. 

A culture of reporting risk is socialised right across the railway, though there are differences across organisations. Rail Partners is one of many organisations facilitating ever closer working and the sharing of best practice, including through its Passenger Operator Safety Forum. Work is ongoing to continue to improve safety while delivering services, and to minimise disruption for passengers. 

The future of rolling stock maintenance

While new rolling stock undoubtedly improves customer experience, its introduction brings with it additional technology, including a range of on-board software, sensors and other hardware. New rolling stock fleets currently being designed and introduced are inherently more complex than the equivalent legacy fleets they replace. They have more electronics, more software, more customer and traincrew facing facilities and amenities. 

Despite the added complexity and number of systems on board, many of these enhancements and innovations actually offer improved reliability. They allow maintenance to be better targeted to prevent problems occurring ahead of time and ensure components are replaced as necessary to ensure maximum safety while keeping costs in check. We also have improved processes around maintenance such as developing and deploying new statistical models of performance. 

A high-performing railway includes safer depots

A high-performing railway that delivers for our customers cannot be decoupled from a safe railway since both require ensuring peak performance of trains, infrastructure and people. Depot working conditions, technology, reporting systems, staff training and attitudes have changed radically in recent years for the better, proving in the process that the two go hand in hand.   

Train maintenance depots enable safe and reliable trains to operate, rather than creating additional risk areas. Our network has a real mixture of depots with some buildings and facilities dating from Victorian times through to brand new depots. The latter represent an opportunity to design and deploy good practice in whole system safety and performance from the start. The former represents a challenge to be grasped now, not to be deferred ‘until we get a brand new depot’. 

Join us at Rolling Stock Networking

Rail Partners is going to explore some of the challenges and opportunities around innovation in rolling stock and transforming depots at our conference at Rolling Stock Networking in Derby on 4 July. Attendance at the Rail Partners conference is free for Rolling Stock Networking attendees – register to attend here: Rail Partners' conference at Rolling Stock Networking 2024