The Rail Safety and Standards Board Podcast

If you’ve spent any amount of time in the rail industry, you’ll know it’s passenger services that most often grab the headlines. Meanwhile, rail freight takes the role of the ‘unsung hero’, quietly moving billions of pounds worth of goods across the country, contributing significantly to our economy and helping to ease congestion on our roads. But for all its importance, the rail freight sector faces a unique set of challenges—challenges that need to balance the imperative of safe ope...

With us for this episode is Rachael Everard, our Director of Sustainable Development at RSSB. We explore some of the sustainability challenges the industry is up against and how we’re planning to help overcome those. We also revisit the Sustainable Rail Blueprint, showcasing some positive member stories from its implementation. Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/sustainability/

In this episode, we're joined once again by Johnny Schute, RSSB's Chief Operating Officer. Together, we'll explore what rail needs to be thinking about in terms of driving cost reduction, some of the complexities around investing today for benefits tomorrow, and how we at RSSB are committed to supporting industry in this challenge. Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/our-business-plan

In this episode, we're joined by Andrea Rossi. Andrea is the CEO of DB Cargo UK and a non-executive director on the RSSB Board. Together, we'll explore the current rail freight landscape, what the future might hold for the sector, and how RSSB fosters collaboration and innovation to ensure continued safety and growth in this area. Find out more at: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/freight-safety

Welcome to our first podcast of 2025! With us today is Stacey Head, our Sustainability Manager. She’ll be speaking with us about some of the initiatives the Sustainable Rail Blueprint has prompted in its first year, how RSSB supports members to embed the Blueprint, and what the future holds for it. Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/sustainability

This is the third and final episode in our Rail Industry Road Safety Week miniseries. This episode, we're joined by Rik Wenham, an investigator in the Commercial Vehicle Unit of the Metropolitan Police. Rik discusses the important processes of responding to and investigating road traffic accidents, covers how the police work with the parties involved, and shares advice on how best to manage occupational road risk. Content warning: This episode contains mentions of mental ill-health, su...

This is the first episode in our 2024 Rail Industry Road Safety Week miniseries. In this episode, we're joined by Dave Whelan, a train manager at GB Railfreight and someone who experienced a work-related road traffic accident. Dave speaks with our host, RSSB's Principal Health and Wellbeing Specialist Joana Faustino, about what led to the accident, his life in the aftermath, and what GBRf has done since. Find out more here: https://www.rssb.co.uk/managing-occupational-road-risk

This month we're joined by Vaibhav Puri, RSSB's Director of Sector Strategy and Transformation, to speak about the value of industry-wide collaboration for the rail sector. As well as the benefits, Vaibhav touches on how RSSB facilitates this collaboration, what 'good' looks like, and some challenges and misconceptions. He also discusses the role that collaboration will play in innovation and creating a strong future for rail. Find out more at https://www.rssb.co.uk/

This month we're joined by Marcus Dacre, RSSB’s Head of Risk and Safety Intelligence. He talks with us about the importance of having good quality health and safety data in the rail industry. Marcus also covers the work that got us to this point, what the future holds, and the improvements we're making to SMIS to aid better data capture. He finishes up with a discussion of some standout stats from our 2024 Annual Health and Safety Report. Find out more at rssb.co.uk/risk-and-safety-intelli...

Welcome to another episode of the RSSB podcast! This month we're joined by Tracy Orlandi, who is Head of Wellbeing and Occupational Health at East Midlands Railway. She talks about the progress being made in rail employee health and wellbeing, areas where gaps remain, and what it'll take to elevate health to the same level as safety in the rail industry. Correction at 01.23: The RSSB mental health survey was conducted in 2021. For more information on the health workshops Tracy mentioned, co...

Welcome to another episode of the RSSB podcast! Today, join four members of our Executive Committee — Johnny Schute (Chief Operating Officer), Keith Hanlon-Smith (Chief People Officer), Hannah Kingsley (Chief Finance Officer), and Paul McLaughlin (Chief Commercial Officer) — as they outline industry's current challenges, discuss RSSB's priorities in addressing those, and introduce our new 'strategic multipliers'. You can find out more about our 2024–2025 Annual Business Plan at: https://www....

Rail has been the most environmentally-friendly form of long distance transport for many years, and now needs to reduce its carbon emissions even further. George Davies, director of sustainability at RSSB, and Martin Watt, counsel at global law firm Dentons, discuss the challenges and opportunities of net zero carbon for rail.

Are you getting the best value from your assets? Could your asset management approach be improved? In this episode we look at ISO 55001 as a possible framework for better asset management. 00:53 Asset management in today’s economic context 01:59 What to include in an asset management approach 02:15 Which framework to use for asset management 03:23 What’s in ISO 55001 04:25 The what to do, not how to do it 04:48 Understanding the context of your own organis...