Right Track
RSSB’s frontline quarterly magazine Issue 55 | Spring 2026
Check out the Spring 2026 issue of Right Track, the Rail Safety and Standards Board's quarterly magazine for people on the operational front line.
Corporate memory matters
Finding your feet
Fatal accident at Ickenham
Getting ADAR on our radar
(Still) running on empties
Voices on the line
Ten minutes with RSSB's Barbara Smith
Caught on camera
On my radio
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Letter from the editor
Someone born in 2000 will be in their mid-twenties now, so they won’t remember any of the accidents that occurred at the turn of the century. Yet the lessons we learnt from those events, like Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield, and many others, can help turn compliance into competence. Those lessons can also help prevent changes being brought in that weaken our safety defences—which they will if the person making the change doesn’t know why it’s unwise to make it.
We don’t only owe a debt to safety to keep these lessons alive. We also owe it to everyone who losttheir lives, or has been injured or affected by an accident, to keep on being vigilant.
In this issue’s corporate memory matters feature, RSSB’s Tom Waghorn remembers his friend, who was killed at Balham in 2016. It is a very personal story, and a professional one. I urge you to read it.
RSSB expert Joe Wilson explores the dangers of SPADs involving empty stock moves. EMR’s Simon Whittingham and GWR’s Jack Collins discuss a rise in ‘attempted dispatch against red’ incidents. Their message? Report, report, report—and report accurately. Claire Repeti returns to the subject of body-worn cameras. Barbara Smith takes us on a journey round the ‘Clockwork Orange’ from Glasgow to the world of standards. It’s all here, and more.
Greg Morse Editor
RSSB's Tom Waghorn remembers a friend and looks at the lessons we learnt.
Finding your feetEveryone's favourite freight driver, Bessie Matthews, reflects on being a Post Qualified Assessment driver.
Getting ADAR on our radarRail communication is changing. Are we ready?
Voices on the lineWhat is it like to be a neurodivergent frontline worker?
Caught on cameraAre there big benefits to body-worn cameras, or is Big Brother watching us?
NewswireYour quarterly round-up of overseas rail accidents and incidents.
