The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has released an update after a near-miss occurred last month involving a train in South Wales.
A passenger train was involved in a near miss with a track worker between Letterston and Fishguard at around 09:46 on the 4th January 2024.
The track worker was in fact the Person In Charger, or PIC, and controller of site safety for a small team that was working to clear vegetation near the railway.
The safety system place mandated that workers kept back from the railway line by at least 2 metres.
However, the RAIB has found that as the train approached the tight curve at 53mph, the driver noticed the Person In Charge on the line ahead.
The driver applied the emergency brake and sounded the horn, and thankfully, the PIC got clear of the line just 2 seconds before the train passed by.
Having undertaken a preliminary examination, the RAIB says that a safety digest will be published, which will be available in the near future.
Anyone that needs to undertake work on any line that are open to traffic should have a speed restriction this would prevent any incidents of staff working .But sadly because every company claims delays which is a nice little earner for them like wise the access provider also has the same agreements having something like this in place sadly will never be put in place so near-miss or staff being hit will always occure another aspect would be make all track workers ride with drivers which was in place but again costs put paid to that
Obviously you don’t know the passenger customer charter for refunds for late running trains. Exististing railway infrastructure is dilapidated. Far more important things to spend taxpayers money on like HS2, while the rest of the network goes to pot.
It’s not that simple unfortunately. ESR’s (emergency speed restrictions) need physical equipment to be installed which is labour intensive to install as its quite a few pieces of hardware spread out over a mile or there abouts , depending on linespeed. It also delays trains for which network rail are charged. Staff just need to abide by the rule book.
Another fine example of the money making racket thar is PTS training
Really? 🙄
It is a hazardous environment and distractions are not always so readily avoided .. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had a ‘near miss’ when working on the Railway despite all intentions to stay safe .. Lookoutmen, Friends and Colleagues are vital to protect each other from tragedy.
He got careless. In truth the on site lookout man should have blown his whistle once he came out from safe zone.he should also have told the track chargeman to have words with him. I did 17 years on p.way and lost 3 of my 9 lives through similar carelessness. John