Formal Inquiries

Hayle report and recommendations

Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) has issued its formal inquiry report into the accident causing serious injuries to a contractor whilst riding on a road rail vehicle at Hayle, in Cornwall.

The formal inquiry was convened under independent chairmanship and included representatives on the panel from the involved parties. As with all such inquiries the panel's task was to establish the immediate and underlying causes of the accident and make recommendations to prevent or reduce the risk of recurrence.

Sequence of events

During some relaying work three men were riding on a trailer carrying plant to the worksite propelled by a road rail vehicle (RRV). As the RRV approached to pass through Hayle Station, the piece of plant being carried on the trailer struck Hayle Down platform ramp. The plant was swivelled round by the collision with the platform ramp forcing the men from the trailer into the six-foot. One man was run over by the road wheels of the RRV and sustained serious injuries.

Conclusions

The formal inquiry panel concluded that the immediate cause of this accident was that the machine controller was riding unauthorised as a passenger on a trailer not equipped to carry personnel and propelled by a RRV. He was thrown from the trailer into the six-foot and run over by the RRV road wheels, sustaining serious injuries, when an item of heavy equipment being carried unsecured on the trailer struck the platform ramp at Hayle Station.

The panel also concluded that there were a number of underlying causes:

• There was a practice which existed on this worksite (and possibly was more widespread) of workers riding as passengers on rail plant not suitably equipped to carry passengers because there were no reasonably practical alternatives that would enable the work to be undertaken efficiently and minimise the walking time.
• There was a failure to provide in the plan for adequate and appropriate transport facilities for staff working within long worksites.
• There was a failure to ensure that all staff on the worksite checked in and out at the designated signing on point so that site access briefings could be given.
• A decision of the planning process that adopted a more difficult and less practical engineering plan for the relaying work that resulted in the plant access point being a long distance from the actual site of work.

Recommendations

The report makes recommendations for improvements in a number of key areas and these are summarised as follows:

• Infrastructure controllers and infrastructure contractors using rail plant should determine suitable arrangements during the possession planning process that will minimise the length of worksites and in particular define plant access points that are close to the actual site of work on which the plant is to be used.
• Infrastructure controllers and infrastructure contractors using rail plant should make provision when planning the work for suitable arrangements for the conveyance of staff required to accompany machines over long distances.
• Infrastructure controllers should require the maximum speed of rail plant to be clearly marked and prominently displayed on all rail plant.
• Infrastructure controllers should approve the content of all training courses used to train machine controllers and satisfy itself that matters concerning the prohibition of riding on rail plant not equipped to carry passengers, compliance with the maximum permissible speed of plant, and the care to be taken when transporting out of gauge loads are all adequately covered in the course.
• Infrastructure controllers and RSSB should review the process used to communicate the lessons to be learned from accidents and incidents.

RSSB has issued a full copy of the report to each member of the Railway Group and the other organisations involved in the accident. All recipients of the report need to review the findings and recommendations and take actions where appropriate to address identified deficiencies within their own systems. RSSB will track the industry's response to this report.