Rail maintenance falling short?

There was a good programme on BBC Radio 4 this week investigating Network Rail's track maintenance and inspection procedures

After the Grayrigg derailment in February last year, NetworkRail's own investigation highlighted problems with track inspection teams missing some defects and finding others, only for nothing to happen when they reported them. Network Rail insisted these failings were local to Grayrigg.

But the BBC has got hold of an unpublished report by the Railway Inspectorate which carried out its own investigation into track inspection and maintenance across the UK after the derailment.

The report talks about "the resource of track gangs" being stretched further and further by limited resources, which meant that inexperienced staff end up patrolling track, and that there's a risk of defects going undetected. The inspectorate issued a formal notice to Network Rail to improve track patrolling system by end of March this year.

Network Rail's chief exec denies there is a general problem with the patrolling system resting on the fact that HMRI's report says the "indicative" of systemic failings rather than an stating it as absolute certainty.

His argument isn't supported by reports by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch into three derailments in late 2006 near Waterloo and Epsom (which weren't widely reported because they were at low speed and no-one was injured), which also highlight as causes inadequate inspection procedures and fatigue among overworked track patrollers.

The programme suggests that if the problem is national rather than local, it may be down to Network Rail's maintenance budget cuts which are running at 8% a year under the direction of the Office of Rail Regulation, which is economic regulator for the industry but also took over responsibility for rail safety from the HSE in 2006.

It's worth a listen and will be available on the BBC Radio website till 12 January
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml - go to File on 4. The material on track safety starts about 15 mins in, and handily the Radio 4 player has a "Fwd 15 mins" button.