50760 Sunday track patrols ‘carried out unofficially’ on Saturday

July 2012 in Network Rail and Suppliers

Infrastructure Rules and procedures West Midlands Wales North West

The relevant documentation shows track inspections have been carried out on the designated Sunday, despite the fact no inspection has actually taken place that day. The reporter is concerned that there could be some potentially severe safety consequences. In particular, there are concerns that if there were a major incident on Sunday no-one would be available to attend, or that if a track defect were discovered on Saturday it might not be reported until Sunday.

Could Network Rail investigate the alleged practice and take action if appropriate?

Response from Network Rail

Network Rail would like to thank the reporter for bringing their concerns to our attention.

Could Network Rail investigate the alleged practice and take action if appropriate?

Network Rail can confirm that we have carried out a detailed review of the issues raised. A similar concern was raised three weeks ago anonymously, and we had almost completed our review of the concerns raised when this report was received.

We carried out a detailed review of all paperwork and process management over a three month period to provide an accurate and detailed review of the cyclic maintenance p-way plan. This included a review of the Safe System of Works Planning System (SSOWPS), the work management system, Ellipse and the line blockage arrangement forms.

The findings of this investigation summarised by the local Track Maintenance Engineer (TME) who acted as the lead investigator, are as below.

Following the investigations of this claim which, initially came as an anonymous text message, an exercise of collating the SM(T) Llandudno timesheets, SM track patrolling locations and line blockages taken form (RT3180) from the local signal boxes was completed. After cross checking all of these there appeared to be no discrepancy or issues of unsafe working or inspection practices.

The issue of a track patrol taking place on a Saturday or Sunday is in itself no issue, providing the correct date has been placed on any SSOWPS paperwork or inspection records.

The issue of a major incident taking place on a Sunday and having no staff to attend is unsubstantiated because should there be any type of incident then there are on-call teams in place and should the incident be of such a severe nature, then as always a 'call to help' round all the staff always shows a huge number of volunteers with great commitment.

On the basis of the investigation performed Network Rail are pleased to confirm that we do not consider there to be any safety or operational risk in how works are planned and delivered.