DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE RISK?
It’s no exaggeration to say that when it became public knowledge that the Office of Road & Rail (ORR) made a suggestion that droplights – otherwise known as opening windows – might be sealed up if there was deemed to be a safety risk, many reacted with fury. However, sometimes information can be misunderstood.
On the back of that and a host of other matters which had cropped up in conversation with fellow heritage line volunteers in recent months, I thought the best way to ‘clear the air’ was to hear it first-hand from the heritage railway sector’s most senior safety regulator, Ian Skinner.
It’s Monday, September 9 and I’m at the ORR’s office just off the Strand in central London. After greeting me with a smile and a handshake, eye contact is not in short supply – something that would continue throughout our one-and-a-half hour discussion. It’s immediately apparent that he’s very much a ‘captain safety’ sort, but he is down to earth and is easy to talk to. Our conversation flows naturally and I can tell that, like me, he’s passionate about his work. In what is always a sign of someone who makes visitors welcome in my experience, coffee and water are to hand.
To make my Face to Face feature topical and to be useful to our many readers who are involved at the coalface of our heritage lines, prior to the interview I spoke to individuals in key roles at a selection of railways large and small and invited them to suggest topics and questions I could raise. Perhaps reassuringly, there were common themes. As a neutral third party, I could air their concerns anonymously without fear of potential repercussions.
Career
■ Heritage Railway (HR): Tell us about your professional background.
■ Ian Skinner (IS): I’m a railwayman. I’ve been a railwayman for 30 years. I started off with British Rail. I’m a civil engineer and I spent the bulk of my career on the main line.
Most of my regulatory career has been spent dealing with main line too, principally infrastructure. It’s featured some successes but also involved spending time investigating Potters Bar and Grayrigg – two of the main line derailments in the 21st century.
About 18 months ago I was asked to take over what is now heritage, trams and light rail safety by design – so for ORR, the stuff that isn’t main line and isn’t Transport for London. I’m clear in my mind that my account includes what I would term ‘proper heritage’ – the stuff which doesn’t operate on the main line.
If it’s main line heritage charter stock, it’s dealt with by colleagues elsewhere in this building. There’s a reason for that – risk profile. If you operate main line charters with heritage rolling stock, you are playing with the ‘big boys’, running at main line speeds of 50-90mph. That’s a very different beast to running at 25mph on a heritage line, which in essence is a vertically integrated infrastructure manager train operating company.
I deal with up to 25mph and I’m clear that when I speak to the industry, if it’s on the main line, I deal with it in the main line way, and if it’s non-main line heritage, I will help them assess how they can operate their railway
