Family of railway worker sue Network Rail

Network Rail have been heavily criticised by the family of a railway worker who as killed when he was struck by a train on the tracks near Port Talbot.  Both Gareth Delbridge and Michael Lewis died in July 2019 and claims have been made that Network Rail were negligent.

 

Wearing ear defenders the "whistle and flag" warning system operated by the company has been described as being unfit for the 21st century.

 

Network Rail found that a further lookout had not deployed to warn of approaching trains and that wearing ear defenders meant the pair were unaware of the approaching danger.

 

Adrian Grant, Mr Delbridge's son-in-law, said, "We want to do everything in our power to make sure no other families go through what we have been through.The fact that people are being put out on the rails to wave flags and blow whistles when there are trains moving, in the 21st century, that needs to be reviewed."

 

Network Rail's safety director, Martin Frobisher, commented, "The whole railway family shares the loss of Gareth Delbridge and Michael Lewis. Nothing will lessen the pain but understanding what went wrong and learning from that will, I hope, go some way to reassure all those affected that we will do all we can to stop it happening again."

 

The company confirmed it would spend £70 million over two years to improve track worker safety by "designing and developing new protection and warning systems using digital technology to warn workers of approaching trains".

 

By return Mr Grant said, "it was too little, too late".