Safety Net returns at last!

June 13th 2007

and the next move is for safety information to be available on-line.

I am delighted to welcome the return of Safety Net, which is the DVD aimed at raising safety awareness.

I was concerned that the logo of the track worker raising his arm was waving us all goodbye, rather than acknowledging a horn warning from an approaching train. Graham Bickerdike’s contribution this month is about train horns.

I have been around so long that I remember when high visibility clothing in the form of orange mini-vests was introduced. It was explained to me then, by a Chief Permanent Way Inspector who was older than Methuselah, that train horns were more important than mini vests. He explained that if a train was travelling at ninety miles an hour, the horn might make you get out of the way. Conversely, all that the vest would do was make sure the train driver saw you before he hit you!

Safety Net available on line too

Safety Net 30 is dated May 2007 and was produced jointly by Rail Safety and Standards Board and Network Rail. Towards the end of this DVD we are told that Safety Net is moving on and will be available on line from this summer. It promises news, video clips and incident reconstructions.

Making Safety Net 30 available and ensuring all track staff see it should be a priority for all who manage people working “on or about the line”, whoever their employers are. The commitment of Bridgeway Consulting and QTS Ltd in assisting with the making of this one is to be applauded. Their involvement will have cost both time and money.

However, all the other people featured and listed in the credits at the end of the programme appear to be Network Rail employees. Welcome back Safety Net, but for the future could we please underline that track safety is a concern for us all by featuring a wider cross section of companies next time?

“The good, the bad and the downright ugly”

This new edition begins with the down to earth presenter stumbling down the “access” alongside an over-bridge. A situation familiar to us all! He describes accesses to the tracks as “the good, the bad, and the downright ugly”. He adds a description of the need we so often have at this time of year, to hack a way through the undergrowth.

There is further definition of those needed for road/rail vehicles, carrying heavy materials and equipment and those just for people access. Network Rail is two thirds of the way through spending £13 million on improving accesses. When this work is finished they expect there to be around one hundred fewer slips, trips and fall accidents each year.

Site access planning software developed in Scotland

The varying nature of accesses has driven Network Rail’s Robert Stewart, north of the border, to develop software which records details of access points. It includes digital pictures that can be viewed by planners working in an office. His system will be introduced nationwide.

The reason for his interest may be in part due to his job as area mobile plant engineer. Many of us know the challenges, which result when you get to a site in the middle of nowhere just hoping that this time the planners have got it right? His software allows searches per line of route to all listed access points, which have individual identity numbers as well as pictures.

Criminal assault and how to avoid it

At the end of the Crimewatch programmes on Tuesday evenings, BBC 1 viewers are always urged to sleep well and remember that the crimes featured are very rare. Similar remarks are made about what happened to Bridgeway’s Susumu Asano after his visit one night to a site with his PICOP.

A group of three or five hooded youths hung around and as soon as he was alone opened his car door, tempted him out and set about him with the intention of stealing his car. Battered and injured he got back in and managed to set off with wheels spinning!

Bridgeway Director Pino DeRosa offers his own advice on avoiding criminal assault. Park within locked gates if possible, either carry no tools or make sure they are hidden away, and lock your vehicle from inside it if you are parked up and working inside it. All good advice.

Track Visitor Permits

Safety Net 30 moves on to address some of the challenges faced by (Controllers of Site Safety) COSS’s. Steve Diksa gets in on the act explaining that Sentinel, which has apparently been with us for seven years, is now used to issue Track Visitor Permits (TVPs). From on-line application to issue takes no longer than two minutes. Who needs the access, where and why are the basic questions.

The result is that Network Rail for the first time know who is where, doing what. It is easy for the site COSS to check someone out on Sentinel and apply the golden rule - “no permit, no work”. All good stuff, but by now surely everyone has become familiar with the Sentinel system for TVPs already?

Effective COSS briefings and switching off the friendship button

COSS briefings have featured as a concern of mine before. Until now things have not changed. Canute Simpson of Constructing Excellence is an excellent communicator, clear, confident and concise. A study of the effectiveness of briefings revealed that 85% were not always questioned to establish their understanding, 38% admitted that they stopped listening part way through, and 15% signed for it although they had not understood it.

I blame the briefers more than the people in the gangs. I have experienced COSS’s who only brief when sitting alongside the driver in the van with the work group behind him, so that there is no eye contact at all. Canute sums it up very well, saying that briefings have to be tailored to the audience, and need to be professional.

More tellingly he adds that the COSS, often one of the lads, has to be able to “switch off the friendship button.” There are mentions of “effective site briefing courses” and the inclusion of more on briefing in future COSS training, including practice-briefing sessions. It cannot come too soon!

Drugs and alcohol briefings

Whilst on briefings Network Rail’s Warrington based Bill Bibby wrote out on 4th June to NCCA sponsors, trainers and assessors telling them that new drugs and alcohol-briefing material was available. Every sponsored individual is to be briefed but only local records need be kept.

The briefing material is only available on the NCCA website to those registered! Why not make it web available to everyone! Riding on the back of the Government’s binge drinking etc. publicity, reinforcing the railway drugs and alcohol standards would surely be good. Of course it may feature in Safety Net 31 but by then an opportunity may have been lost!

The work of PSLG and SITs

There is a news review in Safety Net 30, which I guess will be a regular feature. Doubtless the production schedule prevented the inclusion of either the welder fatality or copycat near miss that preceded it, which we featured last month. I feel sure the next edition will put that right.

The news review in Safety Net 30 is a little out of date, but a good reminder. It features three items from the work of PSLG, the Project Safety Leadership Group, which is chaired by Peter Henderson. Its members are mainly Network Rail directors and managers but there are a few representatives from the industry too.

It uses Safety Improvement Teams (SITs) to research problems and develop solutions which PSLG, and in particular Peter Henderson, ensures happen! I have been involved with PSLG for around a year and the word “can’t” is not allowed to get in the way of safety initiatives. The work of the group deserves to be more widely known; an initiative which I believe would in itself contribute to safety.

Site welfare facilities and track briefing sheets

Mark McCarthy was with the SIT, which examined site welfare facilities as a result of feedback from site staff on their concerns. The result is that even for jobs of very short duration, basic facilities must now be provided. Mark refers to some jobs being planned without facilities, and rightly says that this is “not acceptable”.

Will Stephenson from the SIT, which looked at providing a single sheet to replace voluminous method statements, has reason to be pleased with the overdue solution of a big problem. On the DVD he admits that 20, 30, and even 40 page method statements were issued in the past.

(Do you remember the story of the track worker criticised for using a wheelbarrow, which was not detailed in the method statement who replied he only used it to carry them!) The replacement single page “track briefing sheet” is rightly described as user friendly. You can put it in your pocket! Yet it carries all the information you need! How many trees can be saved now I wonder?

Breathable new specification HV for ALL from this January!

Andy Mitchell, a member of PSLG, led the group looking at PPE. He admits that some was always good, but nonetheless the topic ranked highly amongst people’s concerns. Materials, which don’t breathe, and consequent interior condensation and damp make for discomfort.

A national committee including safety representatives was formed to look at this one. Trial use by staff and their comments were part of the process of tender evaluation as well as price. Details such as side pockets and slots for kneepads resulted. Lightweight Hi-Viz tabards, which do not get heavy after every shower of rain, also gained support. Andy Mitchell concludes by reminding us all that from the beginning of this year the wearing of the new specification higher quality PPE, by Network Rail, their contractors and engineering consultants is mandated.

Looking forward to going on-line

Now I look forward to being able to go on line in a few weeks (or might it be a month’s time?) and see reconstructions of incidents and near misses. It is good to see a well-produced DVD with clear messages. Can those who produce it please try and ensure that it becomes recognised as a safety communication in its own right, and earns the respect and hence gains the attention of everyone who works on track, whoever their employer may be?

Truthful reporting, without fear or favour, and a balanced view which encourages the reporting of both accidents, near misses and incidents then needs to be brought about so that real safety progress is made! All employers who are sponsors of Sentinel registered people must use these communications.

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