Paper 3 Dalwhinnie Crossing Update

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FOR­UM PAPER 3

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

Title: Update on Dal­whin­nie Rail­way Cross­ing: Clos­ure by Network

    Rail

Pre­pared by: Adam Streeter-Smith, Out­door Access Officer Pur­pose: I. To update mem­bers on pro­gress to facil­it­ate pub­lic access.

![Private cross­ing author­ised users only sign]

Back­ground

1. Net­work Rail con­vened a stake­hold­er meet­ing on Tues­day 21 Septem­ber to update all on why the cross­ing was closed and to explore poten­tial solu­tions with stake­hold­ers (see annex 1).

2. Net­work Rail high­lighted that after identi­fy­ing a haz­ard at the cross­ing they had con­sidered options includ­ing a ​“mini­ature stop light” (MSL) sys­tem as an upgrade. Com­plex­it­ies due to the prox­im­ity to Dal­whin­nie sta­tion meant at the time this was not pos­sible because:

   • A MSL cross­ing needs a pro­tect­ing sig­nal, one of which would be situ­ated between the cross­ing and the sta­tion, mean­ing trains depart­ing the sta­tion would be accel­er­at­ing towards a (poten­tially) red sig­nal – this is a hazard
   • Addi­tion­ally, the lights at the cross­ing must show red for a spe­cified amount of time before the train can arrive. When there is a sta­tion in the vicin­ity, con­trols have to be added to account for trains that stop at the sta­tion and will be mov­ing slowly and trains that go through at full line speed. There are a range of ways this can be achieved, how­ever none of the options work at Ben Alder.

3. Hav­ing con­sidered engin­eer options and dis­coun­ted them this led Net­work Rail to the pos­i­tion that the cross­ing had to be closed.

4. Net­work Rail con­firmed that Trans­port Scot­land had asked Net­work Rail to review altern­at­ive cross­ing options, includ­ing paths adja­cent to the rail­way to altern­at­ive cross­ing points at the nearby under­bridge and to Dal­whin­nie station.

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1. A num­ber of attendees sug­ges­ted the cur­rent situ­ation was more dan­ger­ous than before with poten­tial for users to con­tin­ue to use the cross­ing that had been ​‘open’ for dec­ades but they would now have to nego­ti­ate two locked gates slow­ing down their cross­ing. Scot­ways con­sider that the cross­ing may be a right of way regard­less of Net­work Rails asser­tion that it was not a right of way.

2. While it was not estab­lished at the meet­ing that the cross­ing could be reopened Net­work Rail have com­mit­ted to fur­ther engage­ment with stake­hold­ers to con­tin­ue to study all pos­sible options for the crossing.

3. CNPA offered to con­tin­ue to work with Net­work Rail to find a safe solution.

4. The Dal­whin­nie cross­ing was also dis­cussed at Nation­al Access For­um on 22^nd Septem­ber 2021 with Net­work Rail present­ing their reas­on­ing for clos­ure. Mem­bers reit­er­ated to Net­work Rail that the route was used by walk­ers, cyc­lists and canoeists (the lat­ter access­ing the loch); with those cross­ing with bikes or canoes adding to the risk.

Pro­posed next steps

• CNPA to con­tin­ue to press Net­work Rail to invest­ig­ate fur­ther options and con­firm when they will meet with stakeholders.
• Fur­ther dis­cus­sion with LOAF once fur­ther inform­a­tion becomes available

Novem­ber 2021

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Annex I

OFFI­CIAL

Note of meet­ing with stake­hold­ers regard­ing Ben Alder private level cross­ing, Dalwhinnie

Tues­day 21 Septem­ber 2021, 1200 – 1400

Microsoft Teams

Attendees: Adam Streeter-Smith, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Brendan Paddy, Ram­blers Scotland

Helen Brown, office of Kate For­bes MSP

Gav­in Mus­grove, Strath­spey and Badenoch Herald

Jen Dickin­son, Dal­whin­nie Com­munity Council

Inspect­or Bry­an O’Neill, Brit­ish Trans­port Police

Mark Tate, Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership

Dave Mor­ris, Dal­whin­nie Com­munity Council

Stew­art East­haugh, The High­land Council

Tim Atkin­son, Ben Alder Estate

Richard Bar­ron, Scotways

Niamh Hegarty, Net­work Rail

Innis Keith, Net­work Rail

Linda Bowers, Net­work Rail

Heath­er Noller, Net­work Rail

Apo­lo­gies:

Janet Ault, Net­work Rail

Laura Mitchell, Net­work Rail

Note of meeting

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1.1 Niamh Hegarty thanked every­one for attend­ing and gave an over­view of why the meet­ing had been called, reit­er­at­ing that Net­work Rail wanted to listen to stake­hold­ers about the pos­sible options for the future of Ben Alder level crossing.

1.2 Linda Bowers gave a present­a­tion of an over­view of the safety meas­ures at the level cross­ing, pre­vi­ous upgrade options that had been con­sidered and an explan­a­tion as to why these options couldn’t be installed at that time:

A user worked cross­ing has only one upgrade option – mini­ature stop lights (MSL). Design engin­eers con­sidered this option for Ben Alder level cross­ing, but com­plex­it­ies due to the prox­im­ity to Dal­whin­nie sta­tion meant this was not possible:

• A MSL cross­ing needs a pro­tect­ing sig­nal, one of which would be situ­ated between the cross­ing and the sta­tion, mean­ing trains depart­ing the sta­tion would be accel­er­at­ing towards a (poten­tially) red sig­nal – this is a hazard
• Addi­tion­ally, the lights at the cross­ing must show red for a spe­cified amount of time before the train can arrive. When there is a sta­tion in the vicin­ity, con­trols have to be added to account for trains that stop at the sta­tion and will be mov­ing slowly and trains that go through at full line speed. There are a range of ways this can be achieved, how­ever none of the options work at Ben Alder.
• When the engin­eer­ing upgrade solu­tion was dis­coun­ted this took us back to clos­ure and diversion.

Linda con­firmed that Trans­port Scot­land had asked Net­work Rail to review altern­at­ive cross­ing options, includ­ing paths adja­cent to the rail­way to altern­at­ive cross­ing points at the nearby under­bridge and to Dal­whin­nie sta­tion. She also explained the safety con­cerns in detail and that Net­work Rail have a duty to ensure the cross­ing is fit for pur­pose. It was also explained to the group that the cross­ing is private and provided for use of the author­ised user only.

1.3 Niamh invited input from meet­ing attendees.

2.1 Jen Dickin­son said that Dal­whin­nie Com­munity Coun­cil did not believe any of the altern­at­ive options to be explored to be viable, and reit­er­ated the desire to unlock the cross­ing gates for pub­lic use, and to improve safety by installing Mini­ature Stop Lights (MSLs), with auto­mat­ic­ally lock­ing gates. Not­ing that a cross­ing attend­ant had pre­vi­ously been in place for the pas­sage of the daily LNER Azuma Inverness-Kings Cross ser­vice, Jen stated that in the Com­munity Council’s opin­ion a cross­ing attend­ant could con­tin­ue to be in place or that this ser­vice should pass the cross­ing site under cau­tion. The Com­munity Coun­cil fur­ther noted that longer term the Azuma trains could call at Dal­whin­nie sta­tion so that their approach to the cross­ing will be slower, which would be a pos­it­ive PR move for LNER, NR and Dal­whin­nie. Sig­nage on the level cross­ing gates should also be updated to encour­age cau­tion and use of the cross­ing tele­phone for ped­es­tri­an users. Jen also stated that loc­al busi­nesses have seen a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion of over 50% in passing trade due to the lock­ing of the gates, and that the iden­ti­fied vul­ner­able user of the level cross­ing is more than will­ing to tele­phone the sig­naller for per­mis­sion to cross.

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In the last 25 years, the pur­chase of land and work com­pleted by Ben Alder Estate to put a road in under the under­pass to con­nect with the his­tor­ic route between Dal­whin­nie and Loch Rannoch.

2.2 Jen said that mem­bers of the com­munity can­not recall any incid­ent at the Ben Alder cross­ing in the last 67 years, that The Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 secured access rights to land on either side of the cross­ing and the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code places an oblig­a­tion on Net­work Rail, as the own­er of land which is con­tigu­ous to land where access rights apply, to facil­it­ate access. The Code requires Net­work Rail ​“to respect any rights of way or cus­tom­ary access across your land or water” (para.4.25). The his­tor­ic use of this route since before the rail­way was built con­firms this oblig­a­tion on Net­work Rail. The Com­munity Coun­cil feel that Net­work Rail are demon­strat­ing a total dis­reg­ard for the 2003 Act and Code and are look­ing for a prag­mat­ic solu­tion to unlock the gates and restore access for all loc­als and vis­it­ors. Vis­it­ors are stunned at the locked gates and will con­tin­ue to climb over the gates to con­nect the long­stand­ing path they have used for many years. Cir­cu­lar walks and all Dal­whin­nie trails are now impossible with the locked gates and signs loc­ally, online and in guide­books are still point­ing to this her­it­age path that has been used since the 1700’s. Cyc­lists, walk­ers and adven­ture goers will all con­tin­ue to use the cross­ing, climb­ing gates or fences at will.

2.3 Dave Mor­ris indic­ated that he was par­ti­cip­at­ing in the meet­ing as an adviser to DCC and endorsed the points which Jen had made and said that mem­bers of the pub­lic who con­tin­ued to use the cross­ing would not be com­mit­ting a tres­pass offence as there is ​‘implied con­sent’ to use it. Dave also noted that there are no pro­ced­ures in place in Scot­land (unlike Eng­land and Wales) which require Net­work Rail to con­sult with any­one before lock­ing gates or clos­ing private level cross­ings. This had been a con­tro­ver­sial issue for nearly 20 years, since the estab­lish­ment of Net­work Rail, and would con­tin­ue to be so unless legis­la­tion is passed by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment to com­pel Net­work Rail to con­sult in advance of any pro­posed clos­ure. Dave also noted that the south­bound Azuma trains should con­tin­ue be cau­tioned over the cross­ing, and dur­ing the upcom­ing winter months with less day­light this should be exten­ded to include the north­bound Azuma which comes through Dal­whin­nie at around 7pm. He indic­ated that he would shortly make these points to the Office of Rail and Road in addi­tion to the form­al com­plaint that he made to the ORR in August.

2.4 Brendan Paddy said that he also believed the cross­ing was now less safe as ped­es­tri­ans were climb­ing over the locked gates, not­ing that there had been over 9,000 sig­na­tures on the Ram­blers’ Asso­ci­ation Scot­land online peti­tion to unlock the cross­ing gates, and this has been the biggest response they have received to any peti­tion with 90% of sig­nat­or­ies not Ram­blers, show­ing the strength of feel­ing from the loc­al com­munity, many aspects of the out­door com­munity and access groups regard­ing access to the wild­est and most spec­tac­u­lar hills, moun­tains and land­scapes. Brendan sug­ges­ted that the install­a­tion of MSLs should be revis­ited and that deter­ring the use of the cross­ing was not appro­pri­ate due to its fre­quent use by hill­walk­ers, cyc­lists, and out­door goers. He stated that a private level cross­ing is a leg­al fic­tion under Scots Law and that Net­work Rail should look back at their own recom­mend­a­tions as they appear to be look­ing for a reas­on to close the cross­ing, and there is some com­mon ground amongst stake­hold­ers and Net­work Rail so we should work towards a solu­tion using the MSLs.

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2.5 Richard Bar­ron agreed with pre­vi­ous points made and said that there is evid­ence that a Right of Way exists over the cross­ing, and that the diver­sion­ary signs put in place fol­low­ing the lock­ing of the gates were not appro­pri­ate par­tic­u­larly on the west (down line) side for those approach­ing from open moor­land who may have timed their jour­ney to board a train at Dal­whin­nie. Richard stated that what has been done increases the health and safety risk and is not con­vinced that the health and safety risk of lock­ing the gates has been taken into account fully. He also noted that some level cross­ings are oper­ated by train drivers and asked if this was a poten­tial solu­tion: MSLs seen work­ing at Kirknew­ton where driver presses a but­ton and oper­ates the level cross­ing – would require human input but it works and there are high speed trains on that line too.

2.6 Stew­art East­haugh con­firmed that the High­land Coun­cil were sup­port­ive of the com­munity ask­ing to reopen the cross­ing gates and said that pub­lic access should be per­mit­ted, as the cross­ing is an asser­ted pub­lic right of way, there­fore Net­work Rail should have gone through appro­pri­ate pro­cesses to divert or stop a pub­lic right of way. This is not Net­work Rail’s pos­i­tion as the leg­al advice received does not con­sider there to be a pub­lic right of way over the cross­ing. Stew­art stated that the diver­sion should have been con­sul­ted on. He asked that a copy of the ori­gin­al legis­la­tion quoted by Linda in her present­a­tion that informed of the status of the cross­ing to be provided, along­side the present­a­tion giv­en by Linda explain­ing why urgent action was required to improve safety at the cross­ing. He also asked what were the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures, and what oth­er resources need to be con­sidered in order to unlock the level crossing.

2.7 Mark Tate sup­por­ted the com­ments made by oth­ers in the meet­ing, stat­ing imme­di­ately the impact on loc­al busi­nesses has been com­men­ted on and will only increase, and not­ing that cov­id taught us we can­not man­age vis­it­or beha­viour, not­ing that vis­it­ors to the area (climb­ing the gates) could not be con­trolled and that NR need to recog­nise this. Mark fur­ther noted that the reas­ons for not pro­gress­ing with an upgrade of the cross­ing to MSL- con­trolled was not compelling.

2.8 Adam Streeter-Smith said the cross­ing is more unsafe now, that he sup­por­ted the state­ments made by Dal­whin­nie Com­munity Coun­cil and said the cross­ing risk assess­ment should be revis­ited based on the cur­rent actions of level cross­ing users, and reit­er­ated that a quick solu­tion needed to be found recog­nising the his­tor­ic nature of this route for the loc­al vil­lage, estate and visitors.

2.9 Tim Atkin­son thanked Niamh for the cla­ri­fic­a­tion by email on oth­er blue signed/​private cross­ings includ­ing those over Drumochter, spe­cific­ally Dal­nas­pid­al, not being reviewed for clos­ure. Tim noted that the Ben Alder Estate’s use of the Dal­whin­nie cross­ing had prac­tic­ally stopped in recent years, but the cross­ing was still needed for lar­ger vehicles, as the tun­nel is not suit­able for large vehicles and the forestry track on the west side is not suit­able for many vehicles. Tim was saddened he no longer sees any loc­als passing his offices which pre­vi­ously was a daily occur­rence. Loc­al people are not walk­ing through the estate and down the loch because of the restric­tions at the level cross­ing. He noted that the qual­ity of their lives will have deteri­or­ated. The vis­it­or prob­lem will not go away and the threat of pro­sec­u­tion will not deter people to cross the cross­ing, fur­ther not­ing that soon people climb­ing the gates with winter equip­ment such as skis as well as bikes would poten­tially take longer to cross. He called for NR to come up with a prag­mat­ic solution

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and as part of the loc­al com­munity Ben Alder Estate were in full sup­port of com­munity calls and oth­er stake­hold­ers to unlock the gates and reopen the cross­ing to the public.

3.1 Niamh thanked every­one for their input and invited Innis Keith and Linda Bowers to respond to the points made.

3.2 Innis noted that he would respond to a few of the key com­ments raised, and advised that the leg­al opin­ions over wheth­er the cross­ing was a Right of Way could not be dis­cussed com­pet­ently in this meet­ing, stat­ing that the leg­al advice received by Net­work Rail was that there is no pub­lic access, or ​‘implied con­sent’ for access, over the cross­ing. Innis said that the issue with the Azuma trains was a well-known issue but is not a factor in the decision to lock the cross­ing gates and is being dealt with sep­ar­ately. The pre­vi­ous decision to not install MSLs at the cross­ing, and the recent decision to appoint a spon­sor to exam­ine fur­ther options, shows a will­ing­ness to find a solu­tion, and Innis reit­er­ated that Trans­port Scot­land has asked Net­work Rail to exam­ine wheth­er an altern­at­ive is pos­sible. NR want to work with the loc­al com­munity and stake­hold­ers for a solu­tion, com­mit­ting to pass on the points made about sig­nage and time­tabling of the LNER ser­vice to the pro­ject sponsor.

3.3 Dave Mor­ris asked why the LNER ser­vice could not pro­ceed under cau­tion and fur­ther asked wheth­er the known issue with the Azuma horns had promp­ted the clos­ure of the cross­ing. In rela­tion to MSLs and sup­posed dif­fi­culties close to sta­tions he asked why a south­bound train that has stopped at Dal­whin­nie can­not leave the sta­tion slowly until it reaches the cross­ing. He had observed this recently at New­ton­more sta­tion where the south­bound Azuma stops there on the Sunday ser­vice. He was stood at the cross­ing about 100 metres south of the plat­form as the Azuma accel­er­ated quite slowly from the plat­form. If it works at New­ton­more why can­not the same arrange­ment be applied to Dal­whin­nie for any south­bound train that has to stop at the sta­tion? Dave fur­ther noted that vehicle use across the Dal­whin­nie cross­ing had reduced sig­ni­fic­antly over the past twenty years, partly because the new road link described by Tim had greatly reduced estate use but also because the pub­lic were no longer allowed to drive over the Dal­whin­nie level cross­ing, so in his opin­ion the levels of risk had decreased sig­ni­fic­antly at this cross­ing in recent years primar­ily because of the elim­in­a­tion of private vehicu­lar use and reduc­tion in estate vehicu­lar use. And he was not aware of any sub­stan­tial changes in non motor­ised use, either through changes in vis­it­or or loc­al pat­terns of use, includ­ing no great increase in the res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion of Dal­whin­nie. He was also con­cerned that a large part of the Net­work Rail case for lock­ing the gates was based on the obser­va­tion of one vul­ner­able user, and con­sidered the obvi­ous solu­tion, rather than lock­ing the gates, was surely for NR to reach an agree­ment with the vul­ner­able per­son to the effect that when they wanted to cross the line they would ring the sig­nal box from the track­side phone to check when the next train was due. If such an agree­ment was not pos­sible then Net­work Rail, as a last resort, could seek an inter­dict to pre­vent the vul­ner­able user from using the crossing.

3.4 Innis agreed that the risk pro­file of the cross­ing had changed, as could be the case between assess­ments, but stated that the risk assess­ment car­ried out in Feb­ru­ary 2020 had also iden­ti­fied changes in use, and the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of the vul­ner­able user had fur­ther spot­lighted the unsafe use of the cross­ing, not­ing that the stat­utory duty to pro­tect the

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pub­lic and the know­ledge of sim­il­ar risks in oth­er regions of the UK had promp­ted the need for urgent action.

3.5 Brendan Paddy said it was good to hear that a wide range of options were under con­sid­er­a­tion, sug­gest­ing the MSL solu­tion was the pre­ferred one and that any MSL solu­tion that is viable should be con­sidered with the pro­ject spon­sor being assigned to this. Innis Keith reit­er­ated that all options would be examined, as the cur­rent situ­ation could mean that pri­or reas­ons for not upgrad­ing the cross­ing needed to be re-examined. Niamh Hegarty stated that NR would be enga­ging with stake­hold­ers to dis­cuss the options.

3.6 Tim Atkin­son said that the risk assess­ment should be car­ried out again as people who climbed the fence rather than the gate would be cross­ing track and bal­last, rather than the level sur­face of the cross­ing. Innis con­firmed that the risk assess­ment would be revis­ited, and that enhanced fen­cing was in con­sid­er­a­tion to dis­cour­age climb­ing the gates and fence. Tim reit­er­ated people will move along fences to the point where they can be eas­ily climbed and have been doing this already. He didn’t think the sug­ges­tion for paths to be cre­ated along to the under­pass, etc is pos­sible as there are oth­er parties with leg­al interests in the land. Tim noted that there was fun­da­ment­al dis­agree­ment between Net­work Rail and the com­munity on the status of the cross­ing as a Right of Way, not­ing that if no res­ol­u­tion was pos­sible then it would need to be resolved through leg­al means.

3.7 Jen Dickin­son said that the options for path­ways adja­cent to the rail line were dif­fi­cult to pro­gress due to the respect­ive landown­ers hav­ing already agree­ments with ser­vice pro­viders that stopped a plan­ning applic­a­tion in 2020, with the second landown­er not viable at all due to ongo­ing plans. On the west side, adja­cent to the sta­tion, the landown­er although accept­ing use cur­rently, will not agree to a foot­path long term. Innis said that the role of the pro­ject spon­sor was to speak with all stake­hold­ers, includ­ing the landown­ers, and estab­lish the facts and pos­sib­il­it­ies to pro­gress the options, and an update from the pro­ject spon­sor will be provided once there is suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to report back on; how­ever it was men­tioned by NR on more than one occa­sion that there are no funds for such developments.

3.8 Helen Brown said that Kate For­bes MSP was in full sup­port of the com­munity pos­i­tion and asked if the cross­ing would remain closed, and for times­cales for the risk assess­ment and options review to be car­ried out. Innis said that this was not cur­rently known but that fol­low- up inform­a­tion would be provided. Innis said it would remain closed until the options were fully researched.

3.9 Dave Mor­ris said that the Net­work Rail and ORR on going policy to reduce risk by clos­ing as many level cross­ings as pos­sible was in con­flict with the UK Government’s form­al response in 2018 to the Law Commission/​Scottish Law Com­mis­sion joint report on level cross­ings pub­lished in 2013.The UK Gov­ern­ment (Min­is­ter of Trans­port, Jo John­son MP, to Nich­olas Paines QC, Law Com­mis­sion, 25 May 2018) stated: ​“Net­work Rail expects to focus less on clos­ures in the future and is look­ing instead at mak­ing increas­ing use of tech­no­lo­gies such as road­side enforce­ment cam­er­as and over­lay warn­ing sys­tems where these are appro­pri­ate. These tech­no­lo­gic­al devel­op­ments offer scope for a step-change improve­ment in safety at level cross­ings as they become sim­pler and cheap­er to install, enabling Net­work Rail to cov­er a high­er pro­por­tion of the of level cross­ings on the UK main­line rail net­work than has been pos­sible in the past. They should also help to reduce the oper­a­tion­al impacts of the cross­ings on rail ser­vices. This is, in turn, expected

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to reduce the need for clos­ures and major improve­ment works, which can often be dis­rupt­ive to loc­al com­munit­ies as well as being bur­eau­crat­ic and costly to administer.”

3.10 Dave fur­ther noted that by adjust­ing the cri­ter­ia used for risk assess­ments NR could move level cross­ings into the ​“high risk” cat­egory, enabling them to con­tin­ue clos­ing level cross­ings which had pre­vi­ously been below the high-risk bar, so the situ­ation at Dal­whin­nie could then be repeated at oth­er level cross­ings as revised cri­ter­ia enabled more cross­ings to be clas­si­fied as high risk even though pub­lic use pat­terns at the cross­ing had not changed.

3.11 Innis said that there is no safe way to cross the rail­way fol­low­ing the lock­ing of the gates and that the nearby under­bridge was the only safe access­ible route, and fur­ther reit­er­ated a com­mit­ment to look at improv­ing sig­nage. Dave dis­agreed, indic­at­ing that most hill users in Scot­land were well used to climb­ing over locked gates and high fences, espe­cially deer fences, and this was fully com­pli­ant with the SOAC, and that many would have no dif­fi­culty in over­com­ing any new gates or fences that NR might chose to install at Dal­whin­nie. From obser­va­tions at Dal­whin­nie after the gates were locked it appeared to him that 90% of those climb­ing over the gates were doing it safely, at no great­er risk than before lock­ing, and he had a series of pho­tos which showed two cyc­lists lift­ing their bikes over the locked gates and quickly cross­ing the line. He con­sidered that around 10% were at great­er risk, either because they were climb­ing the fences rather than the gates, were fam­ily parties with young chil­dren, or were car­ry­ing large ruck­sacks or oth­er equip­ment that impaired their mobil­ity. He also felt that the sig­nage at the gates was inad­equate and sug­ges­ted that when the gates are unlocked there should be sig­nage improve­ments, as there was a need to emphas­ise that fast, quiet trains are in oper­a­tion on the line and adverse weath­er con­di­tions, espe­cially low mist, high winds and heavy rain or snowstorm, can restrict the abil­ity to see or hear trains. He also said that the instruc­tions for use of the track­side phone were not fit for pur­pose as they lay undue emphas­is on the use of the phone for per­sons with large vehicles or anim­als, and that this needed to be changed so that any­one who had any doubts about cross­ing due to their own mobil­ity con­straints, dark­ness or adverse weath­er, would have no hes­it­a­tion in using the phone to check wheth­er it was safe to cross at that time. He sug­ges­ted that the Dal­whin­nie cross­ing might be a good loc­a­tion to erect new sig­nage on an exper­i­ment­al basis, and the feed­back from loc­al people and out­door recre­ation enthu­si­asts would help NR decide if such improved sig­nage should be used more widely on the Scot­tish net­work. Innis agreed on the need to look at improv­ing sig­nage in the Dal­whin­nie situ­ation as a whole.

3.12 Jen Dickin­son observed that a cross­ing census had been taken from 22^nd July 0545 – 2230 until mid­day 28^th July, in the week before the clos­ure, after the decision to lock gates was already made. Jen fur­ther noted that she had observed the gate to the down line side being left unlocked by con­tract­ors, and repor­ted this to the sig­naller; she also observed that a cross­ing attend­ant had been present again recently for the pas­sage of the LNER ser­vice only, and when that super­vi­sion was not pos­sible the Azuma/​LNER ser­vice had trav­elled under cau­tion, ask­ing why a per­man­ent cau­tion could not be put in place to enable reopen­ing of the cross­ing. She asked if Azuma trains are not your con­cern why are these pro­vi­sions in place only for the one train for 30minutes each day? Train horns are louder on all oth­er trains. Jen also high­lighted foot­age on BBC Alba show­ing people using the cross­ing by climb­ing the gate. She reit­er­ated points made about the impact of the cross­ing clos­ure on loc­al busi­nesses, res­id­ents and vis­it­ors, and that loc­al landown­ers would not make land avail­able for the

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FOR­UM PAPER 3

con­struc­tion of altern­at­ive path­ways adja­cent to the rail­way, and she added her per­son­al exper­i­ence fol­low­ing a hip oper­a­tion. Because loc­al paths were com­pletely iced up in winter rehab­il­it­a­tion through exer­cise was only pos­sible by the use of the cross­ing and key to her abil­ity to return to work fully in the outdoors.

3.13 Richard Bar­ron asked about the risk assess­ment pro­cess. Innis Keith said that there is a reg­u­lar risk assess­ment for each indi­vidu­al level cross­ing, every 1.5 to 2.5 years, but they can be done at oth­er times, and that algorithmic sys­tems were used to mon­it­or cross­ings and gen­er­ate the risk assess­ment pro­cess, along­side obser­va­tions from oper­a­tion­al staff.

3.14 Inspect­or Bry­an O’Neill was invited to com­ment on behalf of the Brit­ish Trans­port Police; he con­firmed that it is very dif­fi­cult to pre­vent pub­lic access across rail lines in the High­lands and any solu­tion at Dal­whin­nie needs to take this into account. BTP were aware of issues at the cross­ing they were not able to mon­it­or con­tinu­ously, and observed that police pres­ence at the cross­ing would deter tres­pass at that exact time but not at oth­er times. Safety is of para­mount import­ance and must be a key con­sid­er­a­tion in any solu­tion. Bry­an also con­firmed that climb­ing the gates or fence and cross­ing the rail­way is an offence of tres­pass and would be pur­sued if evid­enced. He is aware that people will con­tin­ue to climb the gate or fence as they do else­where in the High­lands, but safety is key so we need to find a solution.

4.1 Innis Keith thanked all attendees for their con­tri­bu­tions and prom­ised that a fol­low-up ses­sion with the pro­ject spon­sor and Dir­ect­or of Health and Safety would take place in the near future.

4.2 Action points

• Pro­ject Spon­sor to con­tin­ue study into all pos­sible options for the level cross­ing, as required by Trans­port Scot­land, and to com­mence engage­ment with stake­hold­ers before any fur­ther works are car­ried out by net­work rail at the cross­ing Laura Mitchell (Spon­sor, Net­work Rail) — ongo­ing
• Fur­ther engage­ment to be under­taken on cur­rent cross­ing sig­nage advising the diver­sion­ary route and improved sig­nage at the cross­ing– Linda Bowers/​Innis Keith/​Laura Mitchell — ongo­ing

• Fur­ther risk assess­ment of level cross­ing — ongo­ing

• Send ori­gin­al legis­la­tion quoted by Linda as hav­ing informed the status of the cross­ing to Stew­art East­haugh, High­land Coun­cil. Com­pleted

• Con­tact details of meet­ing attendees to be provided to Pro­ject Spon­sor for fur­ther engage­ment – Niamh Hegarty/​Laura Mitchell Com­pleted

• Inform­a­tion on the author­ising legis­la­tion to close the cross­ing to pub­lic use to be provided to the High­land Coun­cil – Roddy McDou­gall (Leg­al Coun­sel, Net­work Rail) Com­pleted

• Pro­ject Spon­sor and Dir­ect­or of Health and Safety to attend a meet­ing with stake­hold­ers as soon as prac­tic­able – Laura Mitchell/​Innis Keith/​Linda Bowers/​Heather Noller – to be con­vened ASAP