How remembering railway accidents from 100 years ago can make the industry safer today

According to a recent report^[1], the UK rail industry is a relatively safe environment for both passengers and workers. The findings, from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch^[2], came from data on railway accidents for 2024.

But it also showed that there remain areas of concern in the industry. Specifically, it found examples of “not learning” from accidents and incidents. And alarmingly, there has also been a “lack or loss” of learning from historic tragedies.

So how and where can the sector recover that experience and insight in order to learn the lessons? The report findings imply the knowledge exists, but has been forgotten. It may be that, rather than looking back over the previous 12 months, the industry should cast its gaze back 100 or 150 years.

For the rail workforce, a major new historical dataset is being released that might offer some answers. The Railway Work, Life & Death^[3] project has added nearly 70,000 cases of worker accidents in England and Wales to its database of staff accidents from before 1939.

Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter^[4] to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences. Until now the records have been available only in hard copy. But digital access via the project website will mean insights from accidents – some dating to the 1850s – can be used to improve rail workforce safety in the present day. Examples from the project include the case of North Eastern Railway office cleaner Mary Ramsey. She was run over by a train in 1859 at South Shields while taking out the ashes from the station fireplaces. Ivor Richards, who worked for the Rhymney Railway in Cardiff, was just 14 when he was killed crossing the lines in 1916. These, and the tens of thousands of other historic cases, can be used to explore issues that resonate today. The online dataset offers a platform for people to access knowledge freely and learn from the past. No living person or current organisation is singled out. This means people in the rail industry now can use the records to draw parallels between past and present, and use it as a way into frank discussions about safety today. The utility of this approach and the value of the data is recognised by the industry. From within the rail sector, accident investigators, health and safety managers and trade union officers will be attending the dataset launch on June 5, at The National Archives of the UK, at Kew, London. Though the industry has changed radically over the last 200 years, some issues still exist that would have been equally recognisable to workers more than 100 years ago. From working at height, through slips, trips and falls, to working on and around railway lines, the essence of some railway work – and the dangers – remain consistent. Last year the Railway Work, Life & Death project collaborated with independent research body the Rail Safety and Standards Board^[5] and the Infrastructure Safety Leadership Group^[6] to produce a workshop for safety leaders and a track worker safety digest^[7]. Both used historic examples to address contemporary issues – demonstrating the value of a “useable past” and the potential for this new dataset. The examples of Mary Ramsey and Ivor Richards might be used to discuss things like safe walking routes, or safety training and certification for going on or near working railway lines. They can start conversations about the mitigations that might have been put in place to prevent an accident, or “safe systems of work”^[8]. Even though concepts like safety certification and safe walking routes are anachronistic, they allow a space in which discussion can borrow from the past to focus on the present.

The records come from The National Archives^[9] of the UK, where a team of volunteers has spent seven years transcribing them to make them more easily accessible. They were then added into the Railway Work, Life & Death project, a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth^[10], National Railway Museum^[11] and the Modern Records Centre^[12] at the University of Warwick, working with the RMT union^[13].

The dataset also has benefits for people beyond the rail industry. This year is being marked as Railway 200^[14] – 200 years since the Stockton and Darlington Railway was launched. This is seen as the birth of the modern system. For historians, we can use the dataset to see the people who kept the railway system running.

There’s a risk that the version of the past that is portrayed is a straightforward one, and railways (particularly steam railways) are seen through rose-tinted spectacles. That view obscures how hard, dirty and dangerous working on the railways was for many people.

Narratives about the railways’ past should challenge people – and acknowledge the difficult bits. This newly released dataset can do exactly that. It documents working conditions, wages, practices and, of course, dangers from working on the railways. It allows anyone to find out more about the past, making research easier and more accessible.

And the dataset lets people tell more diverse stories about who was included in the rail industry.

For example, we can see how disability as a result of a workplace accident was experienced and managed. William Parry was employed as a signalman in south Wales following a 1907 accident on the railways that cost him his leg.

Giving more prominence to under-represented groups – while showing their long-standing presence in the rail industry – has significant social value. It can help support those currently in the industry, as well as show those contemplating a railway career that the workplace is for them. It meshes with the work of groups like Women in Rail^[15] and Ethnicity and Race in Rail^[16] to encourage greater representation in the industry.

Having spent nearly ten years co-leading the Railway Work, Life & Death project, I sometimes ask myself why I do it – not least given the inherent sadness in many of the cases. But then I see the people behind the statistics, their wider lives, their families and communities, and the window the records gives into life on the railways. That personal connection drives me – alongside the conviction that it can make a difference to today’s industry.

Railway workers from the past and the accidents they often suffered have been largely forgotten, precisely because the industry is now relatively safe. Employee accidents are nowhere near as commonplace or visible as they once were. But there is room for improvement. Remembering the people of the early railway era and learning from their experiences is once again possible through the Railway Work, Life & Death project.

References

1. ^{^} recent report (www.gov.uk)
2. ^{^} Rail Accident Investigation Branch (www.gov.uk)
3. ^{^} Railway Work, Life & Death (www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk)
4. ^{^} Sign up to our daily newsletter (theconversation.com)
5. ^{^} Rail Safety and Standards Board (www.rssb.co.uk)
6. ^{^} Infrastructure Safety Leadership Group (www.rssb.co.uk)
7. ^{^} track worker safety digest (www.rssb.co.uk)
8. ^{^} “safe systems of work” (www.hsdept.co.uk)
9. ^{^} The National Archives (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk)
10. ^{^} University of Portsmouth (www.port.ac.uk)
11. ^{^} National Railway Museum (www.railwaymuseum.org.uk)
12. ^{^} Modern Records Centre (warwick.ac.uk)
13. ^{^} RMT union (www.rmt.org.uk)
14. ^{^} Railway 200 (railway200.co.uk)
15. ^{^} Women in Rail (womeninrail.org)
16. ^{^} Ethnicity and Race in Rail (ethnicityandraceinrail.co.uk)