Severn Valley Railway (SVR) has been fined £40,000 after pleading guilty to offences under the Work at Height Regulations 2005, which followed an investigation and prosecution by industry regulator, Office of Rail and Road (ORR).
The incident involving the full-time locomotive and carriage painter, happened on 22 February 2021 at Severn Valley Railway’s Bridgnorth Locomotive Works where a repaint of a Mark 1 carriage was being undertaken.
At the time of the incident, the carriage painter was carrying out the work alone and not wearing a safety harness, when he fell from approximately 13 feet, hitting a metal storage cabinet before landing on a concrete floor. He suffered six broken bones in their lower back and also suffered neck injuries.
ORR’s investigation found that Severn Valley Railway had failed to put in place recognised standards of protection when working at height, while safe systems of work and appropriate instruction, planning, and supervision were not present when the repainting was carried out.
District Judge Strongman said the defendant “fell woefully below the standards expected”.
Richard Hines, HM Chief Inspector of Railways, said: “This is yet another avoidable working at height incident at a heritage railway which resulted in very serious injuries. My thoughts are with the individual concerned.
“Our inspectors have recently met with heritage operators across the sector to reinforce expectations of them around the proportionate safety arrangements that must be followed in order to carry out such maintenance tasks, because, sadly, these types of incidents remain too common. Poor standards are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
SVR admitted that failures in its safety management system three-and-a-half years ago contributed to the employee falling from the roof of the carriage on which he was working.
The SVR’s managing director, Jonathan ‘Gus’ Dunster, said: “Now proceedings have been completed, we have the first opportunity to express publicly to the person affected and their family how sorry we are that this accident happened. We accepted the findings of the judge outlined in court.
“The Severn Valley Railway fully acknowledges that shortcomings in our safety management system existed when the accident happened in February 2021.
“In the three-and-a-half years since the incident happened, we have put in place a raft of measures to try and prevent anything like this happening again. An established health and safety department is now driving safety improvements across the railway and there has been a universal step change in safety culture at the SVR, transforming the way our paid staff and volunteers work.
“As part of our continual improvement process, we regularly review our internal policies and procedures, and are providing a significantly greater level of training and supervision for our paid staff and volunteers.
“Although the SVR is seen primarily by many people as a heritage attraction, we are first and foremost an operational railway, and must abide by the same regulations and safety standards as the main line railway.
“We were encouraged that the District Judge acknowledged the important role played by heritage railways in general, and the SVR in particular, to education, the community and the regional economy. He stressed that he wanted the fine to be appropriate in relation to the incident but not to damage our ability to continue our work and our ongoing recovery.”
Image credit: ORR
