THE Rail Accident Investigation Branch was set up as an independent organisation just over two years ago on the recommendation of Lord Cullen. It followed the public inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove disaster in which 31 people died when two trains collided.
In those two years the RAIB has established itself as a frontline team of inspectors, trusted to make rail travel safer for passengers and rail staff.
Paul Whiting and Malcolm Parsons report


IN the two years since the Rail Accident Investigation Branch went fully operational its inspectors have investigated 108 incidents and accidents on the national rail network and made nearly 500 recommendations to improve safety on the railway.

Carolyn Grifffiths, the chief inspector, who heads a team of nearly 50 principal inspectors, inspectors, admin support and technical people, is confident that the work of the RAIB is making the railway safer.

“So far, from the feedback we are getting, we are confident that we are delivering improved safety. We are perceived as being able to deliver added value to the industry,” says the RAIB chief.

“We are now over two years old and I believe we are making a difference. The adoption of our recommendations is encouraging, and is because we have a lot of dialogue with the industry. By no means have all of them been easy.

“The feedback is good to hear for all the team. We have a great team of inspectors and support staff and work very well together.”

Amongst Carolyn’s first tasks when she became chief inspector in 2005 was the setting up of training schemes for inspectors, establishing two operational centres in Woking and Derby, buying equipment and liaising with police and safety authorities.

Inspectors are trained in investigation techniques that include evidence handling, causal analysis and dealing with people who have been involved in the incident, some of whom might have been injured.

She says: “We take our work with witnesses very seriously. People need to trust us and I would like to think that we are able to show that we are a professional organisation doing a difficult job. They need to be able to feel confident that we can establish why accidents happen and make effective recommendations to prevent re-occurrence.

“People want to know the purpose of the investigation and they want to know the progress of it. We can’t just hit people who might have been traumatised with a cold report. That would not be right.

“There was a huge amount of leg work in the early days and the work rate is still pretty heavy.”

RAIB inspectors come from a variety of railway backgrounds – signalling, track, rolling stock engineering and operations, as well as other rail industry disciplines.

“Our work is very varied, covering accidents on the main line, metros, heritage railways, light rail and the Channel Tunnel, so inspectors need to have a variety of skills,” says Carolyn.

The RAIB’s sole purpose is to improve the safety of the railways and prevent further accidents. “We are not here to apportion blame or to prosecute. That is for other organisations. We want to know what has caused an incident and what can be done to fix it,” she says.

By law the RAIB must investigate rail incidents where at least one person has been killed, where there is serious injury to five or more people, or where there are extenuating circumstances that could have the same consequences and an investigation might lead to improvements in rail safety.

RAIB leads all rail accident investigations unless there is evidence of a serious criminal act. For example, if it is thought an accident is the result of terrorism or vandalism it becomes a criminal investigation, and will be led by the police or the Railway Inspectorate for mainland UK. Even so, the RAIB has to agree that the police investigation should take precedence.

Inspectors work on a roster, usually in twos, and when alerted about an accident by a duty co-ordinator – who hears from a railway control centre – can be on the road within 30 minutes, carrying equipment for collecting, measuring and recording evidence at the site.

They will travel to the site of an accident by the quickest means – sometimes by air – often followed by an RAIB vehicle carrying further tools and equipment.

In some cases ‘accredited agents’ will attend the site until RAIB inspectors arrive.

These agents are people who work for Network Rail, Lon-don Underground and light rail organisations, and have been put through an approvals process by RAIB.

They have been trained to record perishable evidence without touching or removing it and to ensure that vital evidence is protected. They will then give an RAIB duty co-ordinator a situation brief.

After any necessary search and rescue by the emergency services and an overview of the situation, the investigation work by the RAIB starts immediately.

It has two operational laboratories for analysis of evidence and in the event of a major crash, such as the Grayrigg derailment in Cumbria last year, a communications vehicle will be deployed, enabling staff at Derby or Woking to be in constant contact over developments.

But the Branch does not work in isolation. “If something is found and needs to be communicated to the rail industry immediately we will issue an ‘urgent safety advice’ notice,” says Carolyn.

“And throughout an investigation we will have team reviews within the RAIB and also keep up a dialogue with the industry.”

Follow-up recommendations are not binding and responses from parties who ‘own’ the risk – Network Rail, train or freight companies, or industry contractors – can agree with them, agree but decide to mitigate a risk in another way, or fail to agree or to do anything. 

It is the responsibility of the safety authorities such as HMRI to ensure that the rail industry has properly considered the RAIB’s recommendations and to adjudge whether the response is correct.

“We don’t have any re-course if our recommendations are rejected but we will publish any concerns we have if we do not believe a risk has been addressed.
“It is basically a statement of dissatisfaction.”

The RAIB looks for repeated ‘themes’ in incidents, so instead of looking at each accident in isolation they will sometimes take a broader approach. At the beginning of their operations the RAIB undertook an investigation into adhesion problems on the railway, initiated by the several serious Spads (signals passed at danger). The recommendations that they made have been broadly adopted by the industry. 

RAIB also investigated wagon derailments caused in part by ‘frame twist’, which can change the loading dynamics of a vehicle – as seen at the derailment of wagons on a bridge at Ely last year and another on the King Edward Bridge, Newcastle.

It has now recommended periodic checks on all wagons along with enhanced use of a wheel check system for real-time monitoring of wagon condition.

Meanwhile, an investigation into three incidents involving track staff – one of whom was killed and another seriously injured – has led to a recommendation to Network Rail to review the reduction of red zone working for work at crossovers.

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