Introduction to the Office of Rail and Road(ORR) 24 March 2022
Introduction to the Office of Rail and Road(ORR)
Speaker: Tom Wake
Date: 24 March 2022
You may be a little unsure of what the office of Rail and Road actually do, and why they were formed in 2004, soon after British Railways were privatised. Have you recently made a complaint to a Train Operating company about poor service on the railway (eg the nonappearance of booked station passenger assistance, or being tipped onto a cold platform, out of a passenger train without apology or adequate explanation being given? ORR may themselves investigate such incidents by sending you a questionnaire for completion, to check whether your complaint was properly dealt with to your satisfaction.
Do you belong to a heritage preserved railway which hopes to extend its public passenger service onto the National rail system, as the Swanage Railway presently intends? Application must be made to ORR who will consider in detail the merits and business case of such an application. Other current concerns of the ORR are a lengthy investigation and report into the “cracks” appearing in the bogies of Class 800 trains; ORR are starting court prosecutions against several members of staff following the Croydon Tramways tragic Sandilands fatal accident some years ago; and a lengthy investigation into the reasonableness and adequacy of the National rail ticket refund system is underway. All these matters are in their various differing ways the concern of the ORR as Tom Wake, presently head of Network Rail route teams of inspectors responsible for five regions of Network rail, explained in a comprehensive lecture. ORR is the Government body responsible for regulation of health and safety and economic regulation of railways.
In its capacity as economic regulator, ORR aims to protect the public and the taxpayer and to ensure that the customer gets value for money; further it aims to ensure that Network Rail (NR) doesn’t abuse its monopoly and that, so far as possible, fair access is available to the national rail system. The ORR holds NR to account for its performance in its day to day running and it tries to ensure that full information to the public is available, gives a better understanding of how the railway operates, strives to develop better practices, reliable services, to keep the rail market competitive and to generally encourage the use of the railways by the public.
It is also the task of the ORR to ensure that best use is made of the capacity of the system, and to allow passenger and freight operators to have fair access to the network. So, if a train operator wants to run new services on the network, permission to do so has first to be sought. The ORR have to consider whether the necessary “space” is available for the requested service to be accommodated. If a new freight service is proposed, are the necessary paths available? If new passenger services, are there already adequate services provided? (Remember Wrexham and Shropshire a few years ago?) If new stations are proposed, are the designs and plans acceptable in principle?
The ORR is funded by the rail industry through licence fees and safety levies and holds Network Rail to account and has power to launch an investigation if it considers the terms of NR’s licence to have been breached. It has power to fine Network Rail in some cases. The ORR also carries out periodic reviews every five years into what funding NR should get, which in turn depends upon what is agreed NR should deliver over that next 5 year period and what incentives should be used to ensure good performance. NR have to provide a strategic business plan showing how they plan to deliver their proposed objectives for the coming period.
Safety, too! RCTS members won’t need reminding that railways are potentially very dangerous places! A pity that Jo Public isn’t quite so sensible. You will have seen pictures of local residents trespassing on a main line, standing in the “four foot” and “cess” with their cameras, oblivious of the terrible risks, while they wait to photograph an approaching Flying Scotsman special. And did you know that currently there is a craze for taking “selfie” photos beside operating level crossings? Safety on the railway is always a paramount consideration, and a never ending task of ORR inspectors is to look into the reason for such mishaps as recurrent derailments, or overhead catenary power line failures; is there a pattern becoming apparent to explain a reason for such failures? A small army of inspectors pore over spreadsheets, sifting evidence; The ORR cooperates closely with the RAIB the well-known, but completely separate, accident investigation body in the quest to eliminate potential hazards to make a safer railway.
The ORR continues the tradition of the Railway Inspectorate, first formed in the 1840s, in those days of early railway operation, following that early horrible death of Major Huskisson on the opening day of the Liverpool and Manchester railway in 1830. Back then there was only the most primitive “time interval” signalling system (Incredible that there were not even more fearful accidents). Members of the inspectorate were drawn from the Royal Engineers, (leading to such fitting names as Major John Poyntz of recent years!) Over very many years the railways have become safer as a result of learning from a litany of many terrible accidents (eg. Quintinshill, Harrow and Wealdstone, details of which RCTS members won’t need reminding). The current Head of ORR, Ian Prosser OBE has infact complied a study of all railway accidents going back to 1840.
A big change in railway safety in recent times has been brought about by legislation, aimed at driving continuous improvement in safety systems. ORR is empowered to carry out inspections by exercising power of entry to premises, service of improvement or prohibition notices, issuing cautions and starting legal proceedings. Under recent Health and Safety at Work legislation, the ORR is guided by the consideration of what is “reasonable and practicable” to be done (by an employer). In their aim to achieve a Zero incidents safety strategy, the ORR’s inspectors of railways maintain a constant watch, seeing with their eyes what is done on the system, talking to working staff, and if they are concerned by practices adopted of which they disapprove, “having a friendly word” before proceeding to enforce their objectives by legal action if necessary. With their remit extending to 33 Train Operating Companies, seven freight operators, four metro systems and 220(!) heritage railways and tramways, there’s a lot of watching and counselling to be done.