Dave Thompson MSP

Following his survey of attitudes towards the safety of open level crossings among his constituents, Highlands and Islands MSP Dave Thompson has taken his campaign to improve public safety on the area's 21 open level crossings to the next level by launching an examination of how much such upgrades would cost.

Initially Mr Thompson had asked Network Rail, the body which maintains and runs the country's rail infrastructure, how much it would cost to upgrade a single level crossing.

Although the estimate of £1 million per crossing he was given seemed rather high, the SNP politician took this figure at face value as he carried out his consultation.

However now that this exercise has been concluded, revealing that 86 per cent of the thousands who responded want to see barriers introduced on open level crossings, where traffic flow is controlled only by lights, Mr Thompson has turned his attention to the cost of upgrading Network Rail's 23 crossings of this type in Scotland, 21 of which lie within his Highlands and Islands constituency.

Research into this aspect of the upgrade has thrown doubt upon the £1 million average cost cited by Network Rail. Evidence from rail infrastructure experts in Australia and other European nations has suggested the cost in other countries for such an upgrade ranges from £100,000 for a basic rural road crossing a single-track rail line (similar to most open crossings found in the Highlands) to a figure approaching three-quarters of a million pounds for more complicated junctions between major urban roads crossing busy three or four-track lines. Both these estimates include the cost of installing signalling, lights and barriers.

Following a meeting with Ron MacAulay, chief executive of Network Rail in Scotland, this week, Mr Thompson said: "We have been looking into the costs involved in upgrading this most dangerous type of junction and the evidence we have seen so far implies that the figure of £1 million to install barriers seems excessive.

"Similar work carried out in Australia and Europe has been achieved for far less and that will have a bearing on how affordable it will be for Network Rail to carry out this essential work to protect the lives of their passengers, staff and the road-using public.

"Of course I am 100 per cent behind the efforts of the authorities to educate the public on the need to obey signals warning of the approach of an oncoming train but I am told such signals are not always visible to drivers, particularly in the low sunlight often seen in the north of Scotland, where most of these open crossings are to be found."

Figures revealed that Network Rail's annual budget for maintaining and upgrading the country's rail lines currently stands at about £4 billion, representing a share for Scotland of £400 million.

Even at the initial estimate of a £1 million cost to upgrade a single crossing, this work would represent just 1.25% of the Scottish budget, at £5 million a year for five years, to address a problem with a rare type of crossing which makes up just two per cent of Network Rail's Scottish crossings but account for more than 30 per cent of all accidents.

During Tuesday's meeting at Holyrood, Mr MacAulay again stated that each crossing upgrade would cost about £1 million and that Network Rail was already upgrading lights at crossings to a type less likely to be affected by sunlight.

Asked whether the lower level of road traffic seen around Highland junctions was a major factor in decisions, the Network Rail executive denied this, saying many factors were taken into account and that the major problem was misuse of the crossings.

However Mr Thompson was unimpressed by this, noting: "I am disappointed that Network Rail seem to insist that everything but barriers is the answer and I will continue to investigate the reasons behind this apparent disparity between the cost of protecting lives in Scotland by upgrading open level crossings and the cost of similar work in other countries, sometimes by the same contractors."

Note:

Among other research provided to Mr Thompson was this study into the costs of installing barriers at level crossings in various countries carried out for the Rail Standards and Safety Board.