Responding to ORR’s Class 800 safety report

Since then, Hitachi has been working closely with the train operators, ROSCOs, DfT, ORR and RSSB to address the problem, with safety always at the heart of the debate. Operators have been able to maximise the trains’ availability for service, while still ensuring reasonable and appropriate levels of safety and reliability.

The regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), has published its safety report on the actions industry has taken, and findings to date. This builds on the interim report ORR released in September.

Our rolling stock standards team has supported Hitachi’s technical review, participating in relevant workshops and routine review meetings to manage progress. 

Our human factors team has organised workshops to consider the risks and the approach to returning trains to service, and provided their own expertise into the process too.

ORR has made some recommendations to industry. This includes a specific call on RSSB to work with industry to look at the effect of higher levels of fatigue loading experienced by trains, and evaluate whether relevant standards take this into account.

We will now focus on how we can play our part in responding to these points.  

Mark Oakley, our Professional Head of Rolling Stock, said:

“We’re pleased to have been able to offer our support to Hitachi and the wider industry in addressing this challenge. It has been a genuine cross-industry effort and credit should go to Hitachi for reaching out to all parties to be involved in the discussions and technical reviews. Our human factors and rolling stock experts have been able to see how improvements have been made, and provide useful input and checks from an independent perspective. We will now look at the recommendations made by ORR and consider how best to respond to them.”