NETWORK RAIL STATEMENT ON THE HEALTH AND SAFETY EXECUTIVE’S ANNUAL REPORT ON RAILWAY SAFETY

Tuesday 21 Sep 2004

NETWORK RAIL STATEMENT ON THE HEALTH AND SAFETY EXECUTIVE’S ANNUAL REPORT ON RAILWAY SAFETY

Region & Route:: National

A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We welcome the report and its recognition of the continued improvements in safety on Britain’s railways. “There has been a continued downward trend in all the main safety indicators: · There were no train incident fatalities in 2003/04. · Collisions down 15% to 59. · Derailments decreased by 8% from 67 to 62. · Fifth successive year in reduction of broken rails – now at lowest ever level. · Signals passed at danger (SPAD) were down by 6% - the risk caused by SPAD reduced by 52% since the introduction of TPWS (Train Protection Warning System). “But Network Rail will never be complacent in our attempts to make the railways safer.”

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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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