Network Rail Briefing for Outdoors Access Forum

Brief­ing: Ben Alder level Cross­ing OFFICIAL

Back­ground to the decision

On 28 July 2021 the rail­way access gates at Ben Alder level cross­ing were closed by Net­work Rail to pre­vent pub­lic use of the cross­ing. This action was the res­ult of a decision by our Dir­ect­or of Health, Safety and Envir­on­ment and level cross­ing staff, to ensure the cross­ing can only be used by the author­ised user and emer­gency services.

This is a private level cross­ing and there are no pub­lic rights at this level cross­ing. It is not a pub­lic right of way as has been sug­ges­ted. The core path in the vicin­ity does not extend over the crossing.

As a private cross­ing there is no require­ment on Net­work Rail to replace the cross­ing. The Office of Rail and Road (The ORR), our reg­u­lat­or, states that risk con­trol at level cross­ings should, where prac­tic­able, be achieved through the elim­in­a­tion of level cross­ings in favour of bridges, under­passes, or diver­sions. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment have also provided clear guid­ance and fund­ing to sup­port Net­work Rail, work­ing with the industry and stake­hold­ers, to close level cross­ings where appropriate.

Safety con­cerns

To help explain the safety con­cerns, this cross­ing has a min­im­um sight­ing dis­tance of 55m and whistle boards at the max­im­um dis­tance of 400m, which provides a 12.7 second warn­ing for those using the cross­ing. The recom­men­ded cross­ing time is 8 seconds for a typ­ic­al user how­ever this cross­ing was iden­ti­fied as hav­ing vul­ner­able users, so the warn­ing time was exten­ded by 50% in accord­ance with Net­work Rail stand­ards. This means that the cross­ing time is only safe for ped­es­tri­ans who cross with­in 12 seconds.

On a routine vis­it to Ben Alder our level cross­ing man­ager observed a mem­ber of the pub­lic who took 30 seconds to cross, sig­ni­fic­antly more than the max­im­um 12 seconds. Hav­ing observed this, we needed to recon­sider use of this cross­ing and any pos­sible mitigation.

Dis­cus­sions were imme­di­ately under­taken between the level cross­ing man­ager, route level cross­ing man­ager and head of oper­a­tion­al safety, and a num­ber of short, medi­um and long-term actions were identified.

How­ever, on 14^th July the route level cross­ing man­ager was advised that the short-term actions required were unable to be pro­gressed and giv­en the con­cerns at the cross­ing, this was escal­ated to OFFICIAL

the oper­a­tions man­ager and Dir­ect­or of Safety, Health and Envir­on­ment. The decision was taken to ensure that the cross­ing was used as inten­ded — by the author­ised user and emer­gency ser­vices only by install­a­tion of a pad­lock and mem­bers of the pub­lic diver­ted via the nearby under­bridge and a core path. The author­ised user was briefed to tele­phone for every use of the crossing.

Not­with­stand­ing the fact this is a private level cross­ing and Net­work Rail has no oblig­a­tion to sup­port pub­lic use, we do appre­ci­ate many people use it and we did con­sider wheth­er it was pos­sible to man­age this but giv­en the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of vul­ner­able users and hav­ing con­sidered the options avail­able, we con­cluded the most appro­pri­ate response was to ensure the cross­ing was only used by the author­ised user and emer­gency services.

We appre­ci­ate this has caused upset and we regret this. We should have com­mu­nic­ated more with the loc­al com­munity and stake­hold­ers and wish to address this going for­ward. How­ever, this would not have changed our decisions, as this was driv­en by the safety issues we observed and our view on mit­ig­a­tions to man­age this risk. Hav­ing made this decision our focus is now to work with affected parties to under­stand their con­cerns and to ensure people are aware of how to cross the rail­way safely and have this is com­mu­nic­ated widely.

Com­mu­nic­a­tion with the loc­al community

As the cross­ing is private, there is no require­ment for us to inform any­one except the author­ised user. It had always been our plan to inform loc­al res­id­ents and take steps to raise aware­ness for mem­bers of the pub­lic who had inten­ded to use the cross­ing, by pla­cing sig­nage on the cross­ing gate.

Hav­ing reviewed events, we could have improved this. I am very sorry that the com­munity did not hear from us in a timely fash­ion and, as we have com­mu­nic­ated to the com­munity coun­cil, we are keen to work with the com­munity coun­cil and oth­er stake­hold­ers to explore ways of improv­ing sig­nage at the sta­tion and on the altern­at­ive route so that people seek­ing access are aware of the appro­pri­ate walk­ing route to use.

Car park

We are aware, giv­en the prox­im­ity of the car park to the private user cross­ing and that it is ref­er­enced in guide­books and walk­ing web­sites, that vis­it­ors, out­door enthu­si­asts and hill­walk­ers may plan to use it. Sig­nage is cur­rently in place to dir­ect mem­bers of the pub­lic to a safe cross­ing at the under­bridge. We are keen to work with the com­munity and stake­hold­ers to improve loc­al and pub­lic know­ledge of the restric­tion of the cross­ing and to com­mu­nic­ate the access arrange­ments. OFFICIAL

Altern­at­ives pro­posed by the community

Net­work Rail’s decision to ensure that only the author­ised user and emer­gency ser­vices access Ben Alder level cross­ing was taken for safety reas­ons. This is a private cross­ing and there is no require­ment on us to replace the crossing.

We are aware that the com­munity has pro­posed some altern­at­ive options and we are look­ing at these to assess a pos­sible way forward.

How­ever, it is import­ant to note that these options require land assembly and con­sents, would take time and fund­ing would need to be iden­ti­fied – and Net­work Rail is not fun­ded to deliv­er such schemes.

Next steps

We recog­nise that the loc­al com­munity and stake­hold­ers are keen to engage with us on Ben Alder level cross­ing and it is our inten­tion to arrange a joint ses­sion with the loc­al com­munity coun­cil, loc­al author­ity, Ben Alder estate, Cairngorms Nation­al Park author­ity, Scot­Ways, BTP and the ORR, hope­fully in the com­ing weeks.

In the mean­time, if you have any ques­tions fol­low­ing the ses­sion this even­ing or would like to share any thoughts or com­ments fur­ther to your dis­cus­sion, we would be delighted to hear these.