Horizon explores: Health and Safety
CP7: Safety first for Network Rail
RSSB member interview
We sat down with Rupert Lown, Network Rail’s Chief Health, Safety & Wellbeing Officer, to find out what safety issues the organisation will be prioritising from 2024.
Rupert LownChief Health, Safety & Wellbeing Officer, Network Rail
From improving the measures in place to protect track workers and taking smarter steps to review asset integrity and performance, Network Rail is hard at work on a number of key health and safety matters. As we head into CP7, Rupert Lown—its Chief Health, Safety & Wellbeing Officer—brings us up to speed on these efforts.
Can you tell us about your career journey to Network Rail, some key achievements, and how you became interested in safety?
My original background is in farming, and it was while I was farming that I learned about safety. It wasn’t until one of my friends was quite badly injured that I realised just how dangerous farming could be. I later saw that Health and Safety Executive was advertising for farm safety inspectors, so I applied, they recruited me, and I had a fantastic time working there for 20 years in a wide range of industry sectors.
During that time, I then went to work for what’s now the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), and that was the week before the Ladbroke Grove rail crash in 1999. That was my introduction to the rail industry and rail safety. Later, I ended up working on various projects across government—including as part of a group that did Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s review into improving the outcomes for people who struggled with mental health to stay in employment—and I then eventually joined Network Rail, where I’ve held a number of roles in the safety space.
Along the way, I spent a couple of years with the British Transport Police investigating the Hatfield train crash in 2000. Lots of learning about track safety came out from that. I also did the Elsenham level crossing re-investigation in 2008, when further evidence came to light. That was a significant time for the rail industry around level crossing safety, leading to lots of leadership focus.
Key to all of my career highlights has been learning. Matters of safety can be difficult to confront, but you’ve got to deal with the sad parts to move forward and make sure the same incidents don’t happen again.
What are the most significant health- and safety-related challenges facing the rail sector today?
There are lots, if I’m honest, and it helps to separate these into three areas: our workforce, our passengers, and how we interact with the public.
To start with our workforce, a big one is keeping people safe on the track—for example, by ensuring that the correct line block protections are in place and that isolations are done properly. The other big area is driving risk. Our people need good, well-maintained vehicles, and we need to encourage them to stick to the speed limit.
Looking at health, the big area for us is enhancing our occupational health arrangements. Network Rail has just insourced our occupational health service, so that will bring greater benefits to our staff. We also need to focus on things like reducing workers’ exposure to silica dust, weld fume, hand-arm vibration, and noise. Trying to improve the controls around those will be key in CP7.
Looking at passenger safety, we need to make sure they can move through stations safely, get onto a train safely, have a safe experience on the train, and get out at their destination safely. Key to this will be examining the integrity, performance, and upkeep of our assets. For the public, it’s about level crossing safety and continuing trespass and suicide prevention.
How is Network Rail responding to these challenges? What’s planned for CP7?
We’ve got lots of plans. A major one is continuing our work on track worker safety. For example, we need to improve possession arrangements so we reduce risk to our possession support staff. Along the same lines, we also have a big electrical safety programme that works to improve how we interact with the 25,000-volt system. We’re also going to be continuing our work on fatigue.
From a passenger safety point of view, we’re doing some really intelligent risk modelling around how our assets are performing. We may not be able to renew as many assets as we’d like, so applying more maintenance and heavy upgrades will be key, as will being alert to whether those assets are working as well as we need them to.
We’ll be looking closely at level crossings as well—particularly footpath and user-worked crossings that don’t currently have systems such as miniature stop lights. How do we get good, cheap warning systems for pedestrians so they get some kind of reliable warning of a train coming? And another focus for the public will be targeting trespassing and suicide hotspots to try to reduce those numbers.
How are you working with the wider industry on safety?
RSSB runs a number of cross-industry safety risk groups, and Network Rail is linked in with all of those because they’re integral to us. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing if we’re not hooked up with our supply chains, train and freight operating companies, and RSSB—we just don’t get that systematic control that’s required.
A lot of our undertakings require different effort from different people at different times. Those interactions and that type of collaboration are critical to our work and will continue to be important during CP7.
What’s rail’s biggest underappreciated strength? And how can industry build on it?
One of the things we should always remember is that we try really hard as an industry to deliver health and safety across the board. I don’t think there are many industries that have a more complicated setup or that interact with so many passengers or members of the public across such a huge geographical space. It’s a massive undertaking.
We know from benchmarking against others that we’re the safest railway in Europe, but we need to strike an important balance: remembering that we’re really good while not being complacent in continuing to improve. This is the biggest challenge in keeping motivated, and we’ve got to be motivated to continue to learn.
Thank you. What’s your parting message to our rail leader readers?
Remain eternally vigilant, look at your data, and talk to your staff about what works well and what doesn’t. Our job is to help keep them safe, and if you don’t talk to them, you won’t truly understand how to achieve that together.
In June, we spoke with Paul McMahon—Network Rail’s Director of Planning and Regulation—about the company’s business plan for CP7. You can read the article here.
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In this issue, Ellie Burrows, Regional MD, Network Rail, explains why being open about risk improves safety.
