Committee for Regional Development

Wednesday 6 March 2002

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

Railway Safety Bill:
Committee Stage
(NIA 3/01)

Mr A Maginness (Chairperson)
Mr Bradley
Mr R Hutchinson
Mr McNamee
Mr M Robinson
Mr Savage

Mr J Glendinning: ) Railway Preservation
) Society of Ireland

Mr Glendinning, welcome to our meeting about the Railway Safety Bill. We are interested in hearing your views about the position of heritage societies in Northern Ireland.

We have outlined some concerns to the Department. One of them is the cost involved. We have to produce a full safety case for operations, and we are not quite sure what it will contain. Obviously, we will have to employ a consultant to vet our safety case and present it, and consultants are not generally cheap.

Another concern is whether we will be able to continue to operate heritage trains. I hope that we will. We have co-operated well with Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) in the past, which has always been a good friend to us, so I hope that we can negotiate with it again. We also operate short train rides at Whitehead, and they would have to be included in our safety case.

At present, we are writing a safety case for our Southern operation. We hope that we will only need to write one safety case. If we have to write two, there must be something wrong. That is our immediate concern, but we are starting to write it.

Are you writing the safety case for Córas Iompair Éireann (CIE) or Iarnród Éireann?

We are doing the groundwork for both jurisdictions at present.

One would assume that both cases would be the same. Mr Hesketh said that the safety cases would be the same for both jurisdictions.

You are concerned about the cost of implementing the safety cases. I am afraid that the Committee cannot reassure you on that. The Department and NIR must deal with that. However, the Committee can note your concerns, because an excessive financial burden on the Railway Preservation Society will make the operation of heritage railways impossible.

You are concerned also about how far your safety case would need to go to satisfy NIR. You seem to be hoping for some sort of exemption or to be able to make a more limited safety case, is that correct?

When we first read the consultation document we noted the word "heritage" and the exemption clause, so we asked where our organisation stands. Is it a heritage operator with a case for an exemption, or must we write a full safety case or just a risk assessment? We suspected that we knew the answer to that, but we needed clarification. We must produce a full safety case because we operate on the main line, as I understand it. However, that case must dovetail with NIR's and Irish Rail's safety cases. The case that we are writing for the South dovetails very well with Irish Rail's safety case. We have not met with NIR yet to discuss its safety case. There is an interface between where NIR ends and the Railway Preservation Society begins, but there is a grey area in the middle, which is dangerous.

Right, but there will be no exemption for the Railway Preservation Society?

No. We cannot see that happening.

I would have assumed that risk assessment was part of the safety case, is it not?

Yes, it is.

With the best will in the world, Mr Glendinning, no one can argue for safety exemption, because safety is of paramount concern to us all. However, I was very encouraged by NIR. You may have heard me challenge Mr Hesketh twice. NIR is willing to meet you and be helpful, so surely you can meet in the middle and come up with some sort of package, albeit limited, that will fit the railways. In England, most of the heritage lines are not main rail lines, so perhaps that is why they can get away with more than your society can. I was very encouraged by what Mr Hesketh said.

I was encouraged too. The only thing that I would take up with him is that he said that steam railways are limited. There are many main-line steam operations in GB, but they work differently. In GB, the rail system is split up into different groups: the train operators and Railtrack. The steam-train or heritage railway operators who operate on the main lines use one or two particular train operators to run their trains. In a sense, we are negotiating with both the rail operator and the train operator, because NIR does both. The Railway Preservation Society would not be where it is today without the goodwill of NIR, and I have no reason to believe that that is not still there.

And you will work on that?

Yes.

How many trains does the society have?

We have nine steam locomotives and 33 carriages.

How far can they travel?

They can travel on any gauges of 5ft 3in, if there are no restrictions where the line has been regauged to a different size. I do not mean the gauge between the rails; I mean the gauge of bridges or platforms that have been modernised in some way that means that we can no longer operate on the line. So far, we have been able to. The speed of other trains is the only problem.

Have you estimated the cost of preparing and implementing a safety case?

We have not progressed that far yet, and we do not know exactly how much it will cost, because we must find a consultant. We are hoping that the Heritage Railway Association, which is an umbrella group for railway preservation societies, will be able to provide us with expertise, and we are hoping that it will not be as expensive as it might be otherwise. If it cannot provide us with that expertise, we will have to go shopping for it elsewhere in the UK. It is the same in the South, and the legislation is slightly different there. Private railways must produce a full-blown safety case, and they are in the same boat as we are. Consultants exist, but I do not have the costs.

We all agree that there can be no concessions on safety. However, with regard to the risk assessment, we could take a leaf out of the book of those who do risk assessments for vintage and classic cars. Insurance companies, for example, treat them with a degree of tolerance, and they do not give away money. I do not know how the case was made for vintage and classic cars, or what governing bodies made the case, but surely the same type of rules would apply. Any risk would be less, although there can be no concession on safety.

The insurance premium would obviously not be as high. Compared to NIR, we operate only 20 or 30 trains a year, so our insurance is lower. However, a risk is a risk, and it is the same whether you have one train or 2,000, so to minimise that risk you must address it.

Thank you very much. It has been helpful, and if in the course of your investigations you get any further information that you wish to convey to the Committee, we will be happy to receive it.

I wish you well in your endeavours. Keep up the good work.

6 March 2002 / Menu / 20 March 2002