Network Rail should improve existing processes for managing safety at passive level crossings. No small ask, given that such crossings account for more than half of all 6,000 level crossings in the country. But nevertheless, that is the recommendation of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch RAIB) report into the accident at Tibberton No 8 footpath crossing in Worcestershire in February this year when a CrossCountry train travelling at 100mph struck and fatally injured a pedestrian on a ‘passive’ level crossing in foggy conditions. Such crossings provide no ‘active’ warning of the approach of a train and rely for safe use on the user looking and listening for trains.
However, RAIB has concluded that the foggy weather had rendered the crossing unsafe to use because in these conditions, users could not see or hear approaching trains early enough to be able to cross safely. This, it says, was because the risks associated with using the crossing had not been adequately identified and mitigated. Network Rail does not currently actively manage the effects of fog on the safety of passive crossings, and had not therefore carried out an assessment at national level of the additional risks introduced by fog.…
