Welcome to our safety pages. For 1st time readers please read all this page before clicking on the links. -----------------------------------------------------
Pro-active This is looking at potential risks and hazards and how they can be reduced or avoided. In simple terms - look at what could go wrong on your railway and end up injuring people or causing damage and take action to avoid it happening. One of the ways you can do this on your railway is to carry out risk assessments. Click on RISK ASSESSMENT to go to an example. Examples of being proactive include -
Ride on Railways
also produces product safety notes to help in using our products
safely. Please ask should you require copies.
Re-active Accidents do happen. Reactive is looking into an incident after it has happened, learning from it and taking the appropriate measure to try and avoid it happening again. An incident doesn't have to have involved injury but could include near misses or dangerous occurances. We have a REPORTS page where we have recorded incidents and possible measures which will help in trying to avoid them happening again. Similarly if you have had an incident that you would like to share and you think others could learn from please send me details - Paul
External Links Safe operation of miniature railways. Health and Safety Excecutive Guide lines. Worth reading for private railways -essential reading for clubs.
Where does safety come in the run of things?
You needed to think about this!! (worrying)
1st
Q. Why bother? A. You have a legal duty under common law called "Duty of Care". Injuring people on your railway could easily be considered as a breach of this duty leaving the flood gates open to being sued. You are probably already carrying out safety procedures but without thinking about and more imporantly without being able to prove it. Q. Won't house insurance cover me A. Ask, but probably not. Seperate insurances are available but this is not a safety issue. It is there should the worst happen. What it won't do is stop an accident happening. That said the policies come with terms and conditions which will layout certain rules, especially when it comes to supervising children. Ignore these at you peril. Q. Are you scare mongering? A. Yes and No - YES because the potential backlash from an accidents is enourmous and NO I am just trying to help reduce the chance of accidents. If one accident was avoided due to someone reading this and starting to think then surely it is worth it. Q. So how do I go about safety? A.
One way to carry out the above is to carry out a RISK ASSESSMENT
Q. Are there rules I should follow? A. No and yes NO - you are in your garden - do what you like, when it doesn't affect others. YES - If there is anyone who will be affected by your actions. Carry out a risk asessment - From the risk assessment you will see that by carrying out driver inductions and introducing track rules a lot of safety issues will be addressed. Q. How can I learn from other peoples experience A. I am hoping to start listing a reports page. With a brief description we can read about an incident and what was learnt.
NOTES All pages on safety are personal notes and are ment as guidence. They are not legal guidelines or procedures which will guarentee safe working.
I have deliberately steered away from live steam. Boiler certificates are a minefield - legal, moral or personal requirement? Paul, April 03
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