Are trains safe?

NO - Stan Herschel, regional organiser of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union.

There is no such thing as absolute safety - people die sitting in their armchairs. Any form of movement increases the risk and many are killed by falls down stairs at home, or even walking along the street. News of road accidents appears every few days in the papers and on local TV and radio, so the infrequent ones on the railways consequently stand out disproportionately.

Local coroners investigate road fatalities but any railway accident causing the death of a passenger is also subjected to a technical inquiry by the Railway Inspectorate (part of the Health & Safety Executive) which reports on what is needed to prevent a repeat.

However, its reports may be held up if there is any parallel police investigation.

During the 83 years up to 1998, the average annual total of passenger fatalities from train accidents was 18, whereas there were 3,421 fatalities on this country's roads in 1998 alone.

There have been several recent years when no passengers were killed in train accidents.

Railways are thus the safest and often the fastest way of travelling between most cities in Britain, and they are also the only way of carrying the commuter crowds.

From early days, railway practices have been based on 'fail safe' principles.

This year I experienced a train being stopped out in the countryside by the suspected overheating of an axlebox waiting for engineers to examine any possible danger on a 'better safe than sorry' basis.

On many occasions in Britain I have travelled on special trains at much higher speeds than those normally permitted, demonstrating the built-in safety margins.

The only country to have an accident- free high-speed railway system is Japan, whose Bullet Trains have now run for 36 years without a passenger fatality.

These trains only run on custom-built lines, built with every possible safety device designed into them, but they were so expensive to build that a World Bank loan was needed which was not repaid for 18 years.

The population served is far more concentrated than anywhere in Europe, and the extremely fast trains have become very popular. The rising use of trains in Britain might, one day, enable us to invest in comparable new lines but in the meanwhile our trains are still the safest form of land transport.

I've had a belly-landing in an aircraft, and been in a car accident which sent two fellow-passengers to hospital, whereas, in the course of travelling far more miles by train than car, the worst railway incident I have ever experienced has been a broken window!

I never have the slightest worry about travelling by any high-speed train, and I frequently use the East Coast Main Line - 'Britain's Fastest Railway'.

THE travelling public should be able to have confidence in a safe rail network. The question is do they lack confidence, and is that lack of confidence justified? In the light of the Hatfield incident, and on the basis of my experience of dealing with infrastructure companies, I believe lack of confidence is justified.

It all comes back to the privatisation of the rail network. It is now driven purely for profit and not to provide a public service. This striving for profit is leading to the shortcomings within the system.

There is a lack of investment and there is cut-throat competition between the sub-contracting infrastructure companies who maintain the railways to obtain contracts from Railtrack.

Railtrack are invariably playing off one company against another, driving the price down all the time to get more profit. The profit they are making of over £1 million a day is obscene,

Then the knock-on effect comes when companies have obtained contracts. They have got to satisfy their shareholders as well. They start to look at how they can make the job more cost-effective. For a lot of these companies, the biggest costs are invariably employment costs. So we see downsizing of the workforce and the use of contract labour as opposed to a highly skilled and highly motivated direct labour force. Before privatisation the workforce was dedicated and skilful. Job security means a highly-motivated workforce. There is a situation now where the workforce is just treated as a commodity and we're seeing contractors coming in for whom a contract is just a quick buck.

So standards will slip. We're seeing this beginning to happen. Over the years, the frequency of track inspections has reduced. I've got members who are working under continual pressure and because of this corners are being cut. I'm really concerned as to where we are going.

We always hope that out of something terrible, something good will happen. We said the same about Southall, and about Paddington. Now we've got this incident where tragically four people have been killed. But will it just be news for a week?

On the day of this tragedy, one of my lads was giving evidence to the Cullen inquiry (into the Paddington disaster). Yesterday, he was going to an internal inquiry into the death of one of my members killed by a train at Bradford. The whole network is being run by consultants and accountants, for profit and for the shareholders.

The solution is political. The Government's ten-year plan for transport involves £65 billion of public investment. Why not take some of that money and buy back Railtrack? Then investment would not be cut, they would not be feeding greedy shareholders, there would be no fat cat salaries. The railways would be publicly owned and publicly accountable again.

What do you think?

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