UK risks rail safety and reliability from inspection backlog, watchdog …
Passenger rail safety could be threatened by a growing backlog of inspections of vital railway[1] infrastructure, including bridges, culverts and tunnels, a regulator has warned.
Failure to carry out safety inspections at required intervals meant faults could go undetected, in some cases leading to “safety issues” or line speed restrictions resulting in late-running trains[2].
Three people died in a rail crash in 2020 at Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire[3] which investigators later said was caused by a incorrectly built drainage system that went uninspected for years, resulting in debris being washed on to tracks and causing the derailment.
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has been monitoring Network Rail’s inspection programme[4] since the issue first emerged in 2021.
The regulator said that “despite some pockets of good practice, overall there has been limited progress and some regions have seen the backlog increase”.
It calls for greater use of new technology including drones to help it inspect vital railway infrastructure.
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It said it fears Network Rail[5] may not be able to comply with its own new standard for structure examinations starting in September.
John Larkinson, ORR chief executive, said: “There are over 70,000 structures on the rail network, so we understand the scale of the job of inspecting these assets. Equally, we know this requires clear, robust and systematic examination plans but previous attempts to get on top of the backlog of work have failed.
“Network Rail has accepted the need to do better.”
A spokesman for Network Rail said: “We have been developing and enacting recovery measures to ensure structure examinations are up-to-date. We recognise there is still work to be done to build on these improvements and we are liaising closely with the ORR to get back on track.”
References
- ^ railway (inews.co.uk)
- ^ trains (inews.co.uk)
- ^ a rail crash in 2020 at Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire (inews.co.uk)
- ^ Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has been monitoring Network Rail’s inspection programme (www.orr.gov.uk)
- ^ Network Rail (inews.co.uk)