Safety of private sidings

Private sidings are tracks owned by industrial plants, ports and municipalities that connect to the state-owned railway network. There are approximately 120 managers of private sidings in Finland. The length of private sidings varies from spur tracks of less than a hundred metres to networks of dozens of track kilometres. In practice, traffic on private sidings is always shunting.

Only a small proportion of the safety occurrences on private sidings are reported, and the reported number does not correspond to the actual number of occurrences. However, the reported occurrences and the safety reports produced by private siding managers do give a good picture about the types of occurrences seen on private sidings.

The most common accident type reported on private sidings is derailment. Derailments are often caused by the accumulation of snow, ice or litter on grooved rails (lifting the railway vehicle off the rails) and stop blocks left on the track.

Level crossing incidents and accidents are the second most common occurrence type reported on private sidings. They are typically caused by vehicle drivers, but the contributing causal factors often include challenging conditions at level crossings on private sidings. On private sidings, the track often crosses a road at multiple points. Visibility at level crossings on private sidings is also sometimes poor. In recent years, investments in level crossing safety have been made on many private sidings, for example by installing warning systems.

The third most common incident type reported on private sidings is collision with an obstacle. Typical obstacles include buffer stops and the gates of factory areas. In a typical case, the collision is caused by a human factor associated with shunting work, such as keeping insufficient lookout or excessive speed.

In addition to occurrence reports, private siding managers also report to Traficom on safety development in their annual safety reports. A safety report for 2021 was submitted to Traficom by 83 managers of private sidings. Nearly a half (37) of the private siding managers that submitted a safety report noted that no accidents or incidents occurred on their rail network in 2021. Some managers described their observations in more detail, reporting dozens of observations involving usually only a few occurrences. Some managers only reported serious occurrences to Traficom. Based on the safety reports, the most common occurrences on private sidings are level crossing incidents and derailments.

According a majority of the reports by private siding managers, no significant changes had taken place in the safety situation during the reporting year. A number of operators reported that improved safety management had increased safety at private sidings by leading to a clearer division of responsibilities and higher awareness of risks, among other things.

The safety targets of private sidings are often associated with the number of accidents and incidents. Zero rail accidents is a common target. The targets are often also linked to indicators measuring an industrial plant’s occupational safety occurrences, for example. Other common targets include issues related to railway network maintenance and development, such as track renovations or improving level crossing safety.