Railtrack told to tighten standards urgently after series of near misses
Safety chief warns of rail disaster risk
By Toby Moore, Transport Correspondent
A LEAKED Railtrack report warns of another "Clapham disaster" because safety on the network is inadequate and will take at least 18 months to reach an acceptable level. The assessment concludes that it will take that time to reach a position "where we can begin to effectively manage safety". It says that other crashes have twice been only narrowly averted this year in the South-East alone.
"But for the final link in the chain these could have been another Clapham," says the internal report.
Recent incidents in Scotland "among other places" add to what are described as a "list of near misses".
The document was prepared for Gil Howarth, director of the major projects division of Railtrack, which is responsible for track renewal and modernisation.
The report's impact is heightened by the distinction if its author, Jack Rose, Railtrack manager incharge of safety assessment.
He is the foremost authorisation in risk assessment on mass rail transport systems, and carried out the review of procedures on London Underground after the King's Cross fire.
The report is a blow to Government hopes to privatise Railtrack next spring and was seized upon by opponents of the privatisation process.
It also casts doubts on the running of a network that carries two million people a day and in the South-East is one of the most complex systems in the world.
The Clapham crash in 1989 cost 35 lives and was blamed on a management failure to ensure that wiring on a signal light was checked.
Safety procedures are alleged to be so poor that Railtrack, which took over stations, track and signalling from BR last year, is urged to "take immediate and professional safety advice" from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority on how to manage itself better.
The assessment, leaked to The Daily Telegraph, paints a picture of an organisation where safety procedures are so weak that its author confesses "my concern about potential court appearances" if Railtrack were ever put in the dock.
Such an admission raises significant issues of legal liability. Potential investors will be wary if a fundamental matter such as safety is unresolved, and acknowledged to be so, in the event of another accident.
The three-page document is the first evidence of major problems since the process towards rail privatisation began last year. The Railways Act set the course for BR to be split into about 68 independent companies and for a new one, Railtrack, to run the infrastructure.
Critics said at the time that breaking up and replacing long-established chains of command and responsibility could be dangerous.
Mr Rose's report into the King's Cross tragedy, in which 31 people died in 1987 resulted in the biggest overhaul of safety on the Tube in its history. He finds it necessary to spell out the lessons of his riskassessment carried out for London Underground after the fire.
"The assessment clearly predicted the disaster and approximate timings based on three very obvious near misses during previous years. The only response to those near misses being a limited investigation and local follow-up actions.
"Given all the above, any safety professional or manager responsible for safety worth their salt would, at this point, be considering whether at some very short time in the future they really want to stand in the dock following a major disaster."
Mr Rose says in his report that from his experience with London Underground it would take at least 18 months to be in a position to manage safety effectively.
He said that a range of procedures would have to be put in place "to adequately defend ourselves following an accident".
Labour seized on the report, calling for the Health and Safety Executive to mount an urgent inquiry and for privatisation to be abandoned until independent assurances could be given.
Henry McLeish, Labour transport spokesman, said the document was a frightening insight into what he called the "chaos" in Railtrack over safety.
"The memorandum reveals an organisation desperately struggling to get to grips with safety, the most important issue in the railway, and not succeeding."
It was extraordinary, he said, that after more than a year in existence Railtrack was being advised to seek advice on safety.
He said plans to sell Railtrack must be abandoned. "If it's going to take 18 months to get safety ready, that must logically mean they are not in any position to be privatised. It would be irresponsible to proceed."
* The inquest opens today into the deaths of five people killed last october when two trains collided head-on on a single-track in Crowden, Kent.
TWO INCIDENTS
IN his Railtrack report Mr Rose refers to two unpublicised incidents this year.
One happened at the end of March, during track laying work in east London, when a vehicle was left across a track and hit by a train.
"The vehicle operator appears to have blindly followed instructions, which were themselves of an ambiguous nature, but which were clearly of a potentially dangerous nature," Mr Rose alleges.
Only the fact that the train was of a modern design protected passengers.
A similar incident happened at Waltham in June where a worker appeared to "blindly follow potentially dangerous instructions".
Referring to Railtrack, Mr Rose says: "Again, we were saved by the strong train construction."
He concluded: "In either incident, if the train body had been of the older, wooden-based construction, the events could have led to the ripping away of the side of the train with disastrous consequences."
Mr Rose says "we cannot afford to be third time unlucky" and suggests that staff may not even be aware that they can refuse to carry out work if it is "downright dangerous" because management is so bad.
