Warning over road-rail excavator safety

Network Rail is calling on plant manufacturers and converters to re-think the design of road rail excavators to reduce accidents.

Steve Yianni, Network Rail's director of mechanical and electrical engineering, said analysis of 1,900 RIDOR plant-related incidents over the last 10 years showed more than 70% occurred with road rail machines compared with more dedicated track machinery. On-track machines were also involved in 13 of the 15 plant-related fatalities.

While praising road rail excavators as very flexible, Steve Yianni said they do more lifting than digging and a converted excavator may not be the best solution to Network Rail's needs. The mis-match of machine and task could be the cause of some of the problems, he said. He sees more of a need for a road rail crane than a road rail excavator: "We don't necessarily need speed of digging, breakout and dig depth. We need more lifting capacity, accuracy and precision."

By the end of the year, Network Rail will specify the tasks that need to be done and wants manufacturers and converters to come up with machines to perform these functions. There is no pre-conceived idea of an ideal machine and Yianni said it would not be sensible to approve only one supplier. although he wants a commonality of controls to aid operator familiarisation.

There are around 1,000 pieces of road rail equipment - a high proportion of which are excavators - and once new designs are agreed, Yianni said Network Rail will work with its contractors on a reasonable transition period: "We don't want to penalise contractors that have invested in equipment or put anybody out of business, but we do want to reduce accidents," he said.